A Marriage Betrayed - A life changed forever

The day my life changed

Scenario: A man, 25 years old finds a woman and proceeds to date her in the 'regular' precived 'normal' fashion. After a year of dating, he proposes and they get married. She is madly in love with he and he appears to be the same.

They build a new home, both are working, productive members of the community. They are Christians and attend church on a regular basis. Both are active in their church in regards to teaching, volunteering and singing in the choir.

Both come from well-balanced homes with married parents.

After four years of marriage all is well and they have added two children to their household.

The wife notices that their sex life has slowed down, but is not alarmed at all by this. She is happy and very much in love. After all, sex is only one part of marriage. The husband says he is tired, and of course he is, after all, he works hard and keeps up the yard and does other household chores.

Then it happens. The unexpected wife gets a real shock. As a matter of fact, it will change her forever, not just her life....but her.

It's the middle of the day and the husband, who we will call Joe, calls the wife, who we will call Jane. He tells her he has been fired from his job and accused of something terrible. He sounds very upset. Jane calms him down and tells him it will be 'okay'. They agree he will go home and they will discuss it once she gets home. Jane goes back to work at the bank, mulling this over in her mind, wondering what in the world he could have done to get fired. He was an excellent postal worker, and everyone liked him. Well, she would get to the bottom of this right away.

She arrived at their beautiful four bedroom, double-car garage, suburban home to find her husband had not only picked up their two little girls from daycare, ages 3 and 1, but had began to prepare their evening meal too.

I (Jane) went right into Joe and gave him a kiss, along with a little rub on his back letting him know that it would be okay. I lean forward and whisper in his ear that we will talk about it after we put the kids to bed. Our sweet little Cindy was only three but very smart and I didn't want her to hear us if we got upset during our discussion.

It was bedtime for the girls, so after we both tucked them in, we went into the living room and sat beside each other on the sofa. Joe took my hand. He was very nervous. His hand was trembling and sweaty. Honey, he said, my boss has accused me of sexual harassment. Oh my gosh! I couldn't believe it. What? How could this be? His boss was a very nice man, and how on earth could he make up something like this???? After the initial shock, I assured him we would not let his boss get away with this. It wasn't fair and we'd get an attorney and sue them for wrongful termination. Joe, although he appeared clearly to be angry, quickly said how he really hated to make a big deal of it and that maybe he'd just find another job and let this alone. After, it wasn't the Christian way to seek revenge. I was angry. How could he just dismiss something so horrible. How could he let someone ruin his reputation like this. What was he afraid of?? I had a terrible knot come up in my stomach. I sunk to the floor beside him. I took his hand, looked him straight in the eye, and asked him to be honest with me. I asked him if any part of the accusation was true. He looked me right in the eye, and swore on his life, that it was a lie. He was innocent. He had done nothing wrong.

The accusation was that he approached a co-worker in the bathroom and asked if he'd like to 'get it on'. This was to have taken place with Joe exposing his genitals to the co-worker. You can imagine how angry I was at such a ridiculous statement.

Okay. I believed him. I had no reason not to believe him. We had a very open and honest relationship. He assured me his love for me was undying and he would never do anything like what he was accused of doing.

The following day, I went to work and he would go to the Employment office, file his paperwork for benefits and see if there were any job openings.

It was about noon when Joe called me at work. He wanted to know if I was too busy, or if I could come down to the police office. He had been arrested. His co-worker had filed charges against him for sexual assault. Oh, I was so mad. Of course I left work and went to the station. I was sat in a room at some officer's desk for several minutes. I asked when I could see my husband and that I had called our attorney to come down. They informed me they weren't done questioning him and that he was also in a line-up. What? A Line-up? Why? For Pete's sake, if the man who was saying these things worked with him, why on earth would he have to identify him in a line up? And, why didn't they wait for our attorney? Why was Joe being treated like a criminal based on just what someone said about him? They had no proof! Nothing! Oh boy, I was not a woman of anger, but I was angry and loud. I demanded to see him and to stop everything until our attorney arrived.

Finally I was taken to another room where Joe was pacing the floor. I was upset and asked him why he was talking to them without our attorney. He tried to calm me down and said it was all going to be okay. Then his parents show up from the next room. He had called them before me, and his dad was coaching him on whether to talk to the police or wait for the attorney. Boy, I was outraged. Anyway, things came to a halt when our attorney arrived and we were let go to return home. We would meet with our attorney the next day to discuss our plan of action.

That night we rehashed the whole ordeal again. I was angry now with Joe as he seemed to try and just brush everything off as being a big mistake and not to worry because it was going to be all right. His attitude was the same the next day at the attorney's office. Our attorney asked him to tell his side of the story. Joe told a simple story of using the rest room the same time a co-worker was there with no significant events taking place. Our attorney said everything sounded fine, and of course, after we gave him a check for $3000, he said it would all be okay. He was sure he could get the case thrown out of court. And, as a matter of fact he did. After that happened I wanted revenge. I wanted to sue this other man for wrongful arrest and for defamation of character....but, again, Joe said no. He just was glad to have it all over and wanted it to be put behind us.

It was only a little time that passed, and one evening while we were at the dinner table, two police cars pulled up in our driveway. The officers came to the door. I looked at Joe and he looked at me. His hands began to shake, and his skin was flushed. He looked like he had seen a ghost. They had come with a complaint of indecent exposure by Joe to a 19 year old young man. Oh my lord, have mercy....it was happening all over again. Joe asked the officer's if they would wait a minute while he changed clothes and he would go to the station with them. I'd have to drop the kids off at his parents then go down also to bring him back home.

We went into the bedroom. As Joe began to dress, he paused and turned to me. He took my hand and with tears in his eyes, told me it was true. And, that the prior incident with the co-worker was also true.

Can you feel it. Can you feel the nothingness I felt. The numbness. That lasted only for a few minutes before the hurt and anger came in. I was no doubt in shock. I sat on the side of the bed fighting tears and wondering what was happening in my life. My marriage was over, I thought. Why had he lied to me? Why had he done these terrible things? He quickly began his defense telling me he didn't know why he did these things and that he needed help. Wanting to believe it was true, I regained my composure and told him to say nothing to the police and let me contact the attorney and a doctor to help.

This was the day my life changed forever.

Read my other Hub on my husbands desire for men.