September 8, 2013 is the day that changed my life. I suppose, looking back, that wasn’t the exact day that my marriage fell apart, but it was the day I found out my marriage was in big trouble. In telling this story I don’t want to sound like a scorned wife or a victim.  I don’t want to make my ex-husband out to be the “bad guy” because that seems petty and I hope I’m past that…but I do have to be honest, so therefore, he isn’t going to come off looking so great. But you can’t change the past, so it is what it is.

People always ask me if there were signs leading up to this day.  The short answer is, yes, but I didn’t really see them as signs at the time. For a few months leading up to this day my ex-husband had started drinking much more than usual and way more often. He would stay out late at bars.  We weren’t spending as much quality time together and had stopped talking about our plans for the future. Yes, this concerned me, but our first year of marriage had gone so smoothly I naively thought this was just a rough patch.

I don’t know how important the details are to the telling of the story.  I remember it was a Sunday.  I remember going to church alone, which by this time was the norm.  I remember going to TJ Maxx with my friend, Cheyenne and discussing the concerns I had about my ex-husband’s current behavior. I remember calling my father. I remember it was beginning to feel like fall in New York.  Then I remember the waiting. He had gone downtown to watch Football with friends. I wasn’t invited to go, which was odd because that was something we would usually do together. He wasn’t answering the texts I sent him and I began to worry.

He came home late and drunk. Very drunk. This was also beginning to be the norm. I made him a frozen pizza and had him drink lots of water before I tried to put him to bed. He was very concerned about his phone. I plugged it in for him, and he kept getting out of bed to check on it and text someone. Odd, right? Finally I was able to get him to sleep…and then this nagging voice inside me told me to check his phone.  Let me be clear, in the 6 years we had dated and one and a half years that we had been married I had NEVER checked his phone.  NEVER. But the voice wouldn’t leave me alone, so I checked it. I saw the text messages and it hit me like a ton of bricks.  My husband was having an affair.  My world, as I knew it, ended right then and there. And this is where my story begins.

Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”