My Two Worlds

It's been almost two years since D-Day, or the day I discovered that much of my marriage had been a lie. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon, and I had just come home from a run. I opened my computer to pay a bill before going to the grocery and found that my husband forgot to log out of his email.

Thinking that it was my email account, I was surprised. What's with all the spam? I thought. Until I saw my husband's name, and I saw that these were his emails. They weren't spam. They went back years. To before we even met. They were filled with evidence of infidelity. My hands started to shake, and I couldn't speak. Stunned by what I was seeing but still unable to grasp the severity of the situation, I could only get out the words, What is this?

Still hoping that somehow there was an explanation for this that was anything other than my husband was a compulsive cheater and liar, I waited for his response.

I don't know. He said.

There is no training for the type of situation in which I found myself. So I did the only thing that seemed rational and called my sister to tell her that my son and I needed to stay with her for a while. My husband suggested that he leave instead, and I suddenly remembered that these were the types of actions for which wives kick husbands out of the house.

So he left, and I stood in the living room, motionless. Unable to cry.