Caught

On May 11th, 2010, I came home from work late. It was 9:38pm on a Tuesday night. I got into our apartment, and walked into the office room to give my husband a kiss. When I walked behind the computer desk to give him a kiss I saw that he was engaged in some sort of chat on yahoo with a woman, or, from her picture, a girl (maybe she was 20 or 21). "What are you doing?" I asked him. He looked at me sheepishly. I walked out of the room and headed into the kitchen. I was mostly confused. I didn't know what he'd been doing, and I wasn't even necessarily feeling angry. But something told me that I should pretend to be, because something was not right here. When I think about it now, 40 days later, I feel sickened, depressed, angry, enraged. That's why it's taken me this long to write it down. The first three weeks I was a raw, hot mess. I still feel that way. But, I digress. Husband followed me into the kitchen and began to apologize. I had no idea what he was apologizing for. But it seemed pretty bad, and he seemed pretty upset, so I kept my angry face on. "How long have you been doing this?" I asked him, "two months," he told me. "So, what you just like, get on yahoo chat and chat with people?"
"Yes," he told me, "that's what I do. But I'm going to stop, I'm going to erase my profiles."

You have a personals profile on yahoo?

"yes, but just so i can chat with people"

"You said profiles, you have more than one?"

"I have two."

"Where's the other one?"

"I'm not telling you."

"Why not? Is it on adult friend finder."

He nodded.

"Show me the profile."

"No, you're going to be mad."

"Show me the profile,"

"No, you're gonna be really, really mad."

"Why am I gonna be mad?"

"You're gonna be really really mad if I show it to you."

"Am I going to be mad because you say that you're looking to have sex with someone on purpose?"

"Yes," he told me.

I asked him for the password to the email address he set up to go with these profiles. Turns out it wasn't two months, it was two years that he'd been doing this. Two years. And there were four email addresses and hundreds of online profiles on adult dating sites and affair finder sites, and sex sites. Not to mention craigslist casual encounters. He both responded to ads and put up his own ads on that site.

I was pretty sure that I was dreaming and having a really bad nightmare and would wake up soon enough. "I wish this was a nightmare," husband told me, "but it's not. I really did this..."

I can't go into more detail right now because I'm feeling so raw and ripped apart just thinking about that night 5 1/2 weeks ago that I'm unable to tell more. But for now, this is a start.