Found Another One, Part 1

Note:  This is my 100th entry!  I was going to do a separate post but I think this one is rather appropriate for this milestone.

“Do you think he’s done this before?”

That was a question my mom asked me when I told her about Zack and his affair with Harley.

My response at the time was I didn’t see how. He wasn’t a social person.  He wasn’t like some of the people you hear about who always had an excuse for why they weren’t home- golfing, drinks with the guys, boys only weekends, etc.  He went to work and came home.  He didn’t travel frequently for business- maybe once every two-four months, and usually only  a day or two. Usually it wasn’t even that much.  He had an annual business meeting that lasted for about 5 days but he always came back talking about everything that went on there. He was a homebody, holed up in the bedroom watching television and working on genealogy charts. Hell, he didn’t even like socializing with our friends.

I remember getting ready to leave for a friend’s 40th surprise birthday party.  Zack worked with the man, I was friends with his wife, and our daughters were friends as well.  At the last minute, after he had gotten ready, he began pouting.  “I don’t want to go to this.  I’m not even supposed to socialize with everyone there because I’m their boss and I could get fired for that!”  Fucking drama queen!  I had had enough at that point and I was going, dammit!  I told the pouting little princess he could sit his ass at home.  “Don’t go then!”  I went and when people asked me where Zack was I would reply, “He’s at home.”  “Oh.  What’s wrong with him?” would usually be the followup question.  “Ask him yourself on Monday,” was my response.  I had had it; I was done making excuses for his shitty, anti-social behavior.

Oh!  Sudden memory block removed.  That’s probably yet another reason he’s given for cheating on me.  I didn’t support him and offer up excuses for his shitty behavior.  Sorry.  Back to the scheduled entry.

Anyway, when my mom asked me that I, again, replied that I didn’t think he had cheated with anyone else.  Didn’t see when he could have found the time or opportunity.  No, he found real love with Harley.  She made him happy several years ago and by golly he was going to reclaim that happiness with his exit affair.

It’s funny how your mind works, though.  After my little dustup with him last week a memory popped into my head.  I cannot remember for the life of me when this happened but I do remember exactly where I was.  I was in our master bathroom, and we were both getting ready.  I’m fairly sure I was wearing a robe and he was either naked, or almost naked, getting ready to get in the shower.

I had received a friend request from a woman probably several weeks prior.  Upon checking out her profile I saw she was from the same area as one of my cousins so I figured she was a friend of hers.  I accepted the friend request.  Now, several weeks later I’m getting this strange message from her.  There were two of them.  I can’t remember exactly what she said and I’ve searched and searched my timeline history, messages history, Facebook folder on email, and archives but everything must have been deleted.  I do know the messages were slightly ominous.  Along the lines of, “Do you know what your husband is up to?” and “There are some things about your husband I think you should know.”

I’m going to take a minute right here to do a PSA.  I know there is a lot of debate on whether or not you tell a person about their cheating spouse.  I’m not going to offer up my thoughts right now on which way I think a person should go but I will say this.  If you do decide to tell don’t start it off with cryptic messages.  You go full monty on the person.  Your husband (or wife) is fucking Susie (or Joe) down at Hooter’s.  They regularly meet up on Tuesdays when your husband tells you he’s going bowling.  They have sex in the minivan.  Bob, Tom, and Charlie all know about this and cover for him regularly.  His last “business trip” wasn’t a business trip at all.  He took Susie to Aruba for a romantic weekend. I’m attaching a picture of the two of them together as proof. This was taken last week when he was “working late”.  He was actually celebrating his six month anniversary with Susie.  Let me know if you want further details.  That’s how you tell a person.  Otherwise, this can happen….

I asked Zack if he knew this person.  He admitted he did.  Said he had thought she was a customer.  Offered up that she had sent him a friend request on LinkedIn and because he believed she was a customer he accepted the request.  He asks me why and I blurt out the whole story; I even read him the strange messages.  That’s when he ups the ante.  He tells me he gave her some professional advice, trying to help her out, and she became inappropriate with him.  He may have even mentioned how she became stalker-like.  He had to unfriend her and block her and he advised me to do the same.  “She’s a kook.  Just block her and delete that stuff.”  So I did.

Not that it matters in the long run but I tend to think this happened after he supposedly called things off with Harley the first time.  I keep thinking I felt like we were in a good place, which is why I was so shocked to receive this.  It would also explain the quick confrontation.  It would make sense if I already had evidence that he would cheat.  It also explains why I was so quick to believe his nonsense.

The end to this long story is this:  The memory popped into my mind.  I couldn’t remember her name but I had an inkling (and I was correct as far as her first name went).  I checked my Facebook emails, my archives, my timeline, old messages…. everything I could think of.  I spent probably 18 hours tracking this person down. Yes, I am like a dog with a bone when I latch onto something.  I finally found her name and wouldn’t you know, there were seven or eight of them so then I had to go through all of their profiles. This one is from Idaho and this one is brunette and that one is from Hawaii and… oh, bingo!  Perhaps.  I thought I had found the correct one but I wanted to make sure.  It had been two or three years. I thought her job sounded familiar but I wasn’t 100% positive.  I recalled from the time we were “friends” that she had a very recognizable picture on her timeline.  I searched through her photos.  No similar picture. In fact, she didn’t appear to have a lot of pictures on her page.  Maybe this was a new page and I had the wrong person?  I started going through her entire timeline on her page.  Time intensive.  Tedious.  Worth it!  Eventually I found one of those, “Your life on Facebook” stories.  I couldn’t review the pictures; it kept taking me to a link where I could create my own life story.  But- there was a thumbnail with the link and there it was- the picture I remembered.  It was tiny because it was part of a collage but I recognized it.  It was her. I sent her a message, letting her know I was interested in hearing what she had to say and she responded.

I know you will all be surprised to find out she wasn’t a stalker at all and he did not help her professionally.  In fact, he didn’t even connect with her on LinkedIn.  Oh no!  Lying Romeo, unbeknownst to me, had a Kik account and a Thumb account.  That’s where he met her.  She was another sexting partner.  She also told me some rather disturbing things about him which I will keep private.  I will say, however, that those things have really made me question who the hell I was married to for the last twenty plus years.  I will also say she told me she thought he was an asshole and a pervert and that he said horrible things about me.  Surprise, surprise!  It’s good to see that some things never change.

So, it looks like Harley wasn’t the only one.  As a friend of mine put it, “Where there’s two there’s bound to be more.”  I’m now wondering if I need to go amend my “The Whole Sad Story” posts.  As you may recall, in the very beginning, when I found the drama queen sitting in the bathtub looking like he was having an anxiety attack  he told me had been texting other women.  He told me there were three of them; he went on to further elaborate that he didn’t “know” two of them but he did know the third.  Yeah, that was our little white trash ex-con Harley.  I always figured the other two must have been people he met playing online games on his phone.  After finding out he was telling people he was going to marry Harley I asked him if there were even other women or if he had made them up to protect her and keep me from realizing how serious their relationship had always been.  He admitted that the other two women were people he had met on public Internet forums. Everything was out in the open, he had given them advice, and nothing inappropriate had actually happened with them.  Harley was the only one with whom he was having any kind of an affair.  Perhaps he felt he had a chance to grab a “Get Out of Jail Free” card and could disavow any relationship with the other two.  Maybe he decided it was far better to admit to a serious relationship with Harley as opposed to letting me think he had numerous sexting buddies.  Whatever the case may be I am on unsure footing.  Was he lying then, when he said he made them up?  Or was he simply lying the entire time?  Were there three?  Were there more than three?  How long had he been doing this?  In some ways I’d like to know if he was sexting with this other person (I’ll call her Anne) the entire time he was sexting with Harley or if he began a relationship with her after he called it quits with Harley.  I know it doesn’t matter.  He’s a lying liar who lies and a cheating cheater who cheats.  That’s all I need to know.  For some reason I think it would make me feel better to know the entire time he’s telling people he’s going to marry his gold digging ex-con that he’s sexting other women.  A vindication perhaps.  See?  You’re nothing special, Harley.  He’s cheating on you just like he cheated on me.  You don’t make him any happier than I did.

Stay tuned.  I’ve got more to say on this topic.