Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 142664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142664 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
There was no one I could tell my troubles to those first four years after the divorce, and I had to put on a face each time I left the house. The times I was forced to go anywhere with Helen and her kid were hell, but I couldn’t let on because things would’ve only gotten worse.
I was dying to see Gigi, just one look, but she avoided me back then to the point that I didn’t even hear her voice on the phone for four years. That was for the best, though, because Helen always lost her shit where Gigi was concerned.
Once Trey went off to college, I did my best to shield Alyssa from Helen, but I knew the damage was already done; I saw it every time I looked at my kid. That only made my hate stronger, but I was stuck in a cycle because this was of my own doing.
I saw it as penance for fucking up the way I did just to get laid. The funny thing is that sex is about the last damn thing on my mind, or it was until lately, and that was even before the pills.
I was so traumatized after the divorce that I couldn’t even get it up if I wanted to. I became a shell of myself after losing my family. The only good thing that came out of it was that I pushed myself harder at work and rose up the ranks until I reached the highest position I could in the last couple of years.
I doubt Helen got what she wanted either, except for the status of having my name. Four years after the divorce is when I really started living again because that was when my wife let me see her for the first time. I’ll never forget that day; I can still remember it like it was yesterday.
It felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me, and I was seeing her for the first time, the way I had when we first fell in love. We talked for the first time then, and I poured my heart out with all the shame I had been carrying around since the day I broke her heart.
Imagine my surprise when she, instead of being bitter, had admitted her part in the whole ordeal. That, too, was hard for me to accept. I felt that I should’ve known that something was wrong, but men hardly ever know that these things exist. They sure as shit didn’t teach it in school.
It hurt that she felt she was in any way responsible when I was the one who had done the most damage. By then, the fact that we hadn’t been intimate in the last eight years of our marriage was no longer the big deal I had made it out to be in my mind. I would’ve taken that rejection over what my life had become any day.
But she forced me to listen and to see. She was not willing to shirk her responsibility or her part in what had become of us, and though she still hated that my answer was to cheat, she understood why. I still hate myself for that, and I hate even more that we were no longer each other’s one and only.
When I told her that Helen and I were never intimate at any time during the last four years, she found it hard to believe, but once I convinced her that my guilt and the love I still felt for her was the reason, I think that’s when she first saw hope for us.
She knew about the threats and what they meant, but we both knew we wanted to find our way back to each other. It wasn’t long before we came up with her crazy idea of living a double life.
She wasn’t quite ready to forgive me for the betrayal, and I was still pretty much in the dark about what had brought it about, her rejection, I mean. It took years of therapy and talks for me to understand that it was never about me, but that only made me feel worse.
I had neglected her and left her when she needed me most, and I couldn’t forgive myself for that. So, that took even more therapy, that and the fact that she still wasn’t whole. Because sex was the thing that broke us, I was fine going without while she worked her way toward forgiving me.
The pills helped as well because they killed any need I had for release, but my heart was right back in the game, not that it had ever left. I found a new love for my wife, a more mature one this time. There was no selfishness, and I found myself looking forward to being with her the way I did when we were young and carefree.