It’s fitting that I am writing this as I take the train home.  Going home, is by the best of accounts, returning to a place warm and comfortable, feeling joy.

The experts say that it takes at least two years to recover form an affair, so I was not surprised when July saw me hit bottom.  I sat there for a while and figured out that the affair was not all about what just happened to me.  It was about him, depressed, feeling stupid and ashamed, wondering what the **** was wrong with him that he responded to the OW.

I had been very angry at the OW for seizing on Husband’s naïve Facebook invitation, telling him they should have gotten married and then recounting the intimacy of their past before calling him and telling him she wanted to come to our city, stay for a few days and make herself available to him.

He was stunned and asked her if she was kidding.  Guess what?  She wasn’t and she even made babysitting arrangements AND was going to inform her husband, as I recall.  That sure sounds like a marriage made in ****, but in any case, Husband declined.  I do believe, however, that the door to propriety was blown off the hinges that day.

After their meeting, he was agog over his weakness and told himself, “I’m never doing that, again.”  According to the cell bill, there were many calls to his extra number.  She began to insist that their future was together and made plans to leave her husband, even though mine had been frank and told her he would never leave me.  She had a number of scenarios worked out; one involved leaving the child she’d waited years to adopt with her husband and running off to be with mine.  Red flag, much?  She then began to deride me to my Husband, who shut her down and reminded her he was not leaving me for her.

Why did he tolerate her at this point?  The bloom was wilting on the rose, but this affair did serve as an ego-stroke, he says.  Once she admitted that she was wrong to do what she did to him when they were young, I think, is when it began to wrap-up for him.  Compound this with the fact that her husband found out, which was probably not an accident.  She was unconcerned that I may find out about the affair, even though Husband told her it would devastate me and he was afraid of losing me because if it.  I believe she saw this as a strategy.  She still maneuvered a meeting, though the level of their intimacy was not again repeated.

I had reached a point where I didn’t believe he would ever have an affair, things were that solid, or so I thought.  He was devoted to me, romantic and solicitous, and after our nest emptied, right after their encounter, things even improved.  Lovemaking had always been more than fulfilling, but reached an all-time high.

Her husband discovered, or was led to the affair and began to contact my husband and threaten him.  He had left messages on our answering machine, which Husband promptly deleted.  I thought nothing of it.  I picked up the phone, one day, when he called and Husband asked for the phone.  There was a determined conversation where H. denied any impropriety.  Afterwards, he told me that the caller was a deranged guy who accused H. of having an affair with his wife by way of their Facebook connection.  I totally believed him.

Vacations came and went, 3 of them, to be precise and I found myself travelling back and forth to another state, where my mother-in-law was hospitalized, following surgery.  Another meeting was suggested, even though H had repeatedly told her it was over and she continued to contact him, though it had turned to only email.

Mom worsened and after 5 weeks in the hospital, most of it in CICU, she lost her battle with a hospital bacterial infection and went to God.

A few days later, her memorial service was held at the church Mom and Dad had belonged to for almost 70 years.  This means that this was also H’s church growing, up, where he met the OW, who had the audacity to travel from her city to attend the funeral.

My husband introduced us.  Her name struck a note of recognition, but I was busy with nieces and in-laws.  She stood very near me for some time, in what I now understand was a time of appraisal, where she was evaluating me.  I felt her eyes and so, I looked at her, repeated her name and asked, “Where do I know your name from?”

She almost fell, backing up and I thought it was odd that she seemed startled before she turned and rushed away.  I asked someone if that was H’s old girlfriend because she ran away from me.  Little did I know.

A few days later, Thanksgiving came and went.  A few more days came and went a few times, over.  Things were subdued.  We were still in shock, since Mom’s surgery had been a success, but she died from bacteria in a hospital.  Ironic with what a wholesome, clean, pure life she lived, but there it is.

The OW’s husband’s Christmas card came, as recounted in my first post, “A Week Into Knowing.”  H. sent OW the email he’d sent many times before, telling her there would be no more contact from him and that he wanted her to stop pursuing him, essentially.  This time, he emphasized that I knew everything.  He blocked her from his email account, but his Blackberry let her response come through, which he deleted, unread.

We considered that her husband may not be aware that I actually received his card and due to his efforts, now knew about the affair.  I decided to write him an email.

To be continued...