Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 38168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 191(@200wpm)___ 153(@250wpm)___ 127(@300wpm)
I can’t imagine not seeing my kids grow up, not spending every precious moment with Callie that I have. It’s like a nightmare, which I’ve had more than my fair share over the years, where I wake up in a panic until I see her face on the pillow next to mine.
In the shower, I grinned like a fool at my luck. It had only taken me damn near twenty years, but I finally had my woman back. Not that she wasn’t right there by my side this whole time, but for me, that piece of paper, as she likes to call it, means a lot.
There are days like today when I wonder what the hell was going on with me during that time; the time of the great disaster is what I call it in my mind. I’m not gonna lie; the sex was great the first couple of times with Daisy, but once the guilt started to set in, it was no longer fun.
I tried ending things more than once in the beginning, but I was always afraid that things would get out somehow, that I’d be caught and lose my wife and kids. It might sound silly now that I look back on it, but that fear, more than anything, is what kept me going back to her. The fear that if I called things off, she’s retaliate and tell my wife.
I thought I needed something; what that something was, I’m not sure, but it definitely wasn’t what I got in the affair. I’ve read other people’s accounts of their divorce and can’t find myself in any of them.
Callie wasn’t a bad wife or mother; she did her best in everything, but I was too selfish back then to realize. The long and short of it, is I needed to grow the hell up. But I didn’t know that then. Didn’t realize that I was putting everything on her because I was the breadwinner. I thought that was all that was required of me, so I neglected my wife and kids because society had pretty much taught me that that was the way to go.
I won’t say I justified the affair, but I sure talked myself into believing that it was fair and that I deserved some happiness of my own when all my wife seemed to care about were the kids. I was such an ass that I didn’t realize that she had grown up, grown into being a mother, something she had to learn on the fly because no one can teach you that; all the while, I was stuck in my college days mindset.
I wanted us to do the same things we always did together, but whereas she had already realized that we weren’t the same people, I didn’t get the memo. It’s hard looking back at that time and seeing myself and the person I had become.
Once Callie served me with the divorce papers and everything was out in the open, it was like someone stripped the skin off my bones. Not only that, but a light switch went off in my head, and I realized what I stood to lose, something I was always aware of but wished would never happen.
I think what scared me most was her attitude; it was as if she didn’t care like she was done with me when I was finally coming to see what she and the kids meant to me. It was then I realized that I didn’t want another woman, I wanted my wife, but so much about our lives had changed that I hadn’t been ready for.
I thought it would be easy; Mom had made it look so easy. But even she explained that, of course, to a child, it looked easy because I didn’t have any of the responsibility that she, as a parent, had. She seemed to sympathize more with my wife because she herself had had to fight for her place in her marriage once I came along.
There were changes to be made, and she and Dad were better at making those changes than I was. I could blame it on generational differences, but the truth is I was a shit husband and an absentee father.
I didn’t see the strain my demands made on my wife or how tired she was. I thought only I had the right to be tired since I was the one going out to work all day to give her the life she deserved.
It was only after the divorce that my eyes were opened, but by then, it was too late. I never knew how much trouble it was to take care of three kids on my own until I had to, and I was amazed at all she had done. Our kids were well-behaved and smart even at that age, and I had her to thank for that.