My Husband Cheated On Me—And I Stayed With Him

After the bombshell, everything was a blur, and I knew I couldn't sit in that restaurant and eat gnocchi like everything was okay. We got our coats and headed home in silence. I couldn't look at him, and my eyes were filled with tears. For the next few days, I just felt shellshocked. I cried, in great heaving sobs, when I could get away from the kids and Damien. I told my sister, who was as blindsided as I was. But I didn't want to tell anyone else until I decided what to do. I felt incredibly confused: full of rage and completely shocked, but still aware of how much I loved my husband and how good I felt our marriage was—or had been. Sure, we had our arguments and our frustrations, but we'd always had fun together. We'd always felt like a team. If this had been an affair where he'd become emotionally involved with another woman, I knew I wouldn't be able to stay in the same house with him for a minute. This hurt, but not as much as the thought of that did. Even so, everything felt dark. Still feeling lost a week later, I decided to take Damien up on his suggestion to go into couples therapy. He wanted to work through it, he said, and do whatever it took to repair our marriage. 

I wasn't so sure. In those bleak first weeks, I thought we'd never get past it. I became obsessed with this other woman, and I couldn't help but ask Damien whether she was blonde or brunette, had bigger br****s than me, was better in bed... all my insecurities, essentially. Every time, he'd asked me if I really wanted to know. I didn't. I realized that knowing any kind of detail would drive me insane—and it was irrelevant.