July 2016.
It was three months since the Lemonade album dropped and three months since the last infidelity. I was still trying to get over that incident and make the effort to, again, move on. This July was a pretty busy month for us. His birthday was coming up, my friend was having a bridal shower, another friend was having a birthday gathering, and I was going to a conference for a few days with the health company I was involved with at the time, so it was an exciting month.
My husband had also been preparing me for a week long video shoot he was having and one of his musician friends was supposed to be coming in from out of town to work on scouting places with him. This was nothing unusual and I knew how the music scene went so I was fine with that. His friend was supposed to come the same week as my friend’s birthday and bridal shower, so he said he couldn’t make either event.
Friday July 8th, I offered to stay home with our daughter so he could have more time to work on his video shoot with his friend that just came into town. I was going to attempt to hang out that evening with my friend who’s birthday was also that weekend but I told her I would come out with her Saturday instead to watch our daughter while he was out. When that Saturday arrived, my husband kept texting me saying they couldn’t find certain places they wanted for the shoot, and they had to keep driving around to find a new spot. A new issue seemed to have kept occurring with whatever they were trying to do with the video stuff, so that prevented him from coming home so I could go out. I previously told him I wanted to leave the house by a certain time, and he said he would be home, but he just stayed out later and later until I missed my friend’s gathering and ended up just having to cancel with her.
I don’t even know if he came home that night because I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and he was on the couch still with his clothes on from the day before. He said he fell asleep on the couch and didn’t want to wake me. I didn’t think much of it because that wasn’t the first time that’s happened, but it still felt odd. Since He had to be at church early as the music director, he left before I did, and he and I both drove separately.
Church was a good service that day and I was excited because my friend’s shower was right after church. I told him I needed him to stay home with our daughter while I went to the shower and he agreed, but was pressed for me to get back at a certain time. I told him I would be home right after, I just wasn’t sure what time that would be. After church ended, It felt like he was trying to keep his distance from me which was weird. It’s like every time he saw me coming he would go mingle with someone else. Before I knew it, he was already in the car with our daughter before I could say goodbye. He forgot her baby bag, so I ran out to try and catch him and he was already in the car with her about to pull off. I put the bag in the backseat, kissed her goodbye, checked her seatbelt, and then walked over to the driver side door to give him a kiss goodbye. I kissed him, and when I pulled away, I noticed a big red mark on the left side of his neck.
My heart immediately dropped because I knew what it looked like, but I didn’t want to just accuse him without explanation. I gently grabbed his face and turned his head and asked, “What’s that?” He said he got cut at the barber shop earlier that week. “That don’t look like a cut or scratch, that looks like a hickey,” I replied. He said it wasn’t, but I could tell he was lying. I stared at him for a moment. I felt my adrenaline increase. It was the first flag I finally noticed where I started to think that where he said he was the whole week was a lie.
The bridal shower was beautiful. It started a little late, so while waiting for festivities to start, I felt my heart so heavy. I texted my husband to let him know it was running late to keep him posted on my time. During this text conversation, we ended up having a mini heart to heart about our relationship. I brought up what I knew to be the hickey on his neck, and he inserted apologies for all the mess he had put me through the last couple of months, and he promised that the saga with all these other women were over. At that moment he swore there were no other women, and that he only wanted to be with me.
During our talk, I ended up telling him that a week before, when he got back from a trip from LA, that I found a condom in his wallet and that I didn’t trust him. This was the first time I ever mentioned it to him. I didn’t know how long it had been there, but I wanted to see if over the course of the week he used it or not. He was embarrassed that I found it, and then proceeded to tell me about the struggles being in LA, and how he did meet a girl he was interested in and thought he may use it, and at least wanted to be protected. He said it never went down and that he cut it off and wasn’t talking to her anymore either. He again reiterated that there was no one else and that I could trust him if I give him another chance.
I remember that conversation so vividly because I remember in that moment, at this beautiful shower celebrating a soon to be marriage, my marriage was in shambles and I’m sitting here with a husband who has a hickey on this neck, who just told me he thought he was about to have sex with another girl, had cheated on me just three months prior, and is now telling me he’s done with all that.
I had to make a choice.
Should I just end it because I already don’t trust him, or should I choose to trust him again and move forward with things and try to give him a clean slate for sake of the marriage? At that moment, I told him that I will choose to trust him. The shower was finally starting in those few moments of texting, and we agreed to talk more when I got home. As soon as I got home I expected to have a sit down conversation and talk more about us and where we want to be in our relationship. But, as soon as I got home, he rushed out of the house as if he was late for something.
Little did we know, that was the last time he would ever have the opportunity to finish that conversation with me…
(To be continued….)
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