What was I thinking

Below is an actual text conversation I had with my ex last night. I try not to communicate with him at all but when I have to I keep my end as brief as possible because his propensity for acting as though there should be no animosity for him on my part brings me right to the edge of frustrated insanity.

From me to Al: Do you want anything from the basement?

From Al to me: Yes I will schedule some time to get up there and grab my tools and my grandmothers rocking chair. I appreciate your patience.

From me to Al: K

From Al to me: I will be home on June 2nd. I will schedule something as soon as possible after that.

From me to Al: K

From Al to me: Thanks Babe

From me to Al: Please don’t call me babe anymore. I don’t call you honey.

From Al to me: Sorry. Even if you’re not mine you’re still a beautiful babe. Just a bad habit. I will try to stop.

I stewed over that for a good quarter of an hour trying to convince myself it was worse than useless to respond, but I admit eventually my pig headedness won out over reason and I sent the following.

From Me to Al: Well yes Al I am beautiful and smart, lots of fun and great in bed, but you lost the privilege of calling me pet names when you started using them with; Margery from Canada, Blushing Bella, Shy Baby, Michelle, Tova, Keren, my personal favorite Stephanie and whoever I forgot. For you to assume that level of intimacy with me at this point is both rude and disrespectful.

From Al to me: Understood. And all true. Especially beautiful and amazing in bed.

Me to myself: Arrggg you blockhead. You tried to explain the desert to a fish again.

Beth

The following is a conversation between my ex-husband and a woman who has been friends with his older sister since they were in high school.
The Christmas before this conversation the woman we will call Beth for purposes of anonymity, attended my husbands families Christmas eve party. All during the evening Beth a divorced, alcoholic, drug addicted mother of two took advantage of any opportunity to get my husband alone, often physically blocking me out of a conversation and attempting to pull him off into deserted corners. When on the ride home I mentioned how humiliated and angry her behavior had made me feel, Al’s response had been, “Don’t worry about her princess she’s a desperate loser, she can’t hold a candle to you. I don’t even find her attractive.” given that I let his words placate me I am sure you can imagine how mortifying it was to read the conversation below.

Al: LOL you always ad that don’t fuck with me attitude little lady

Beth: Still do

Al: I have no doubts LMAO

Beth: To bad you are a married man

Al: What different days could have been princess. Who knows what the future holds. I might even have good dreams tonight…lol they could even include a massage parlor how fitting.

Beth: no parlor

Al: might be for the night
lol
your not allowed to modify my dreams

Beth: I can do my best

Al: Promises promises
what have you been up to beautiful?

Beth: nothing…. living the single life

Al: Ahhhh….. enjoying it for now?

Beth: Yes
I am

Al: good for you then… I have been quite enjoying my alone time here as well believe it or not

when ya coming to visit… we can dodge rockets together

Beth: Really…. u still must miss being home?

Al: I miss being home, but for differing reasons I suppose
All we got to do is get you a plane ticket…. I have an extra room in my apartment you can use

That’s were I ran out of time to print things off, but I am sure you get the gist.

Michelle

Michelle is the last in the long list of woman Al romanced during our marriage. It shames me to admit it but even after finding all that undeniable evidence in his secret email account for a few days I still tried to find a way to justify saving the relationship. I told myself it had been a while since the last inappropriate email and that I would confront him and give him a chance to defend himself when he came home (again); then one Thursday when I was on my way to run some all day errands a little voice whispered in my ear check his account before you go. They exchanges below where what I found.

Tuesday June 18, 2013 8:39 am
From Michelle:
To Al:
Subject: My picture
The body of the email is a Picture of a beautiful woman with Pacific island feature

Tuesday June 18, 2013 8:43 am
From Al:
To Michelle:

Absolutely beautiful….Good god I would make love to you for a week straight ….. send many more…..many many more and prepare your body for the first time we meet.

Wednesday, June 19,2013
From Michelle:
To Al:
Subject: Lets talk soon:

I know I’ve been trying to get your attention by texting you , but only got a few responses. Can we somehow communicate with each other? Through text or calling even? I really don’t want to lose touch with you.
Please get back to me.
Michelle

After seeing these I hired a lawyer and sent him an email explaining what I had found and that I realized he was never going to stop and that I couldn’t handle the pain any more.
To which he responded that it was only one little slip and all he had done was ask for some pictures he couldn’t understand what I was getting so upset about.

Tova

From the IMs I read but was unable to print there was some over lap between Tova and Margery (sorry Margery), From what I gather Margery was starting to push for a real and committed relationship so Al began causally chatting with a few other girls making sure to get them hooked before simply breaking off correspondence with Margery. The last IM I read from her was “I can’t believe you haven’t tried to communicate with me in over a week. I am hurt and confused” Welcome to the club Marg.

If it is any consolation, when our daughters and I went to visit at his overseas location I found text messages on his “local” cell phone between himself and a young woman named Keren, they were at least as explicit as the ones between the two of you and apparently she had amazing eyes as well. Someday I will sit down and recreate them as best I can and you can finally have an explanation as to why he suddenly and without explanation ended the relationship.

Obviously there was plenty going on between these two before the earliest email but here’s what I can document. Does it constitute cheating? If for you the answer would be yes please don’t forget to go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Box-Laura-Ryan-Fedelia/dp/1458208117/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1399465945&sr=1-1&keywords=laura+ryan+fedelia and show your support.

January 22, 2012
From Tova:
To Al:

There is a picture I can not post along with the message,
“Well,,,, this is me Tova

January 22, 2012

From Al:
To Tova:

Another picture is sent that I cannot post under the subject Al’s best friend from Al to Tova, but let me just say that it is GREATLY photo-shopped with the message,
“Hope you like as much as I did yours’

January 24, 2012

From Al:
To Tova:

Good day cutie,
Been thing a lot about our conversation the other night and can’t stop picturing your beautiful eyes and magical smile. Hope school is treating you well and you are serious about our meeting once I am back home. I am very excited about the opportunity and know that I will be able to always keep you smiling.
Getting ready for bed here so sorry for the short note, but know I will be thing of you in my slumber as you are the most perfect princess I think I have ever met.

Al

March 3, 2012

From Al:
To Tova:

Was thinking of you and your beautiful eyes recently and went to the western wall to get you answers. Woman are in fact allowed to post messages on their own and do not require a man’s help…. hope you will fly here and post a message sometime.

Al

My story

Dear Readers,

For the last eight years or so of my marriage I was the wife of a serial cheater. As anyone with a chronically unfaithful mate will tell you it’s hardly ever a straight road from catching them to ending the relationship especially when, as with my case there are children involved. Habitual cheaters are masters at alternating between giving their partners just enough time and attention to keep us thinking the relationship is worth saving and playing on our insecurities when we begin to think it’s not. And we the betrayed have a tendency to vacillate from feelings of delusional desire to focus on the good parts of the relationship and the equally delusional belief that if we can just give them whatever it is they looking for outside of the relationship then the cheating will stop.
I personally fell hook line and sinker for that sort of hooey, I tried everything I could think of, from giving him space to lowering my own sexual boundaries in a near constant battle to give him what he needed. It never worked for long but I didn’t know what else to do and it humbles me to admit it but I was afraid. Afraid to lose my three wonderful daughters, afraid of financial instability and afraid yes that no one would ever love me again. So I stayed. Now I see that the only way I could truly lose my daughters would be if I failed to give them a role model worthy of respect, that financial security does not authorize emotional abandonment and that if I can’t love myself enough to leave an unhealthy relationship then how do I expect anyone else to.
The final straw came for me when, while looking for a teachers e-mail address on his computer I stumbled on his hidden account. In the hundreds of e-mails and I.M messages between him and several woman one thread stood out from the rest. It was a thread of communication that went on for more than three years; I couldn’t help myself I simply had to read them. Reading through the sexually explicit things they said to each other was hard but far more painful was seeing that he had given her his mailing address while on an extended overseas assignment, realizing that hers was the anomalous name in my husbands’ 1-800- flowers account, reading about how he put time aside special to have a first webcam date overseas with her. Worst of all was reading how he contacted her one night simply to go through alphabetically each attribute of her beauty, explaining in excruciating detail the difference between beautiful and cute, cute is his favorite compliment for me. She had the husband I wanted the one I married the one I missed.
At the time I thought that was as bad as it could get, as it turns out there were flavors of the pain of betrayal I had yet to taste. Now that the initial shock and awe of being discovered is past as well as the necessity of placating me, my ex husband seems to have made a game out of defaming my character, maligning my name and turning himself into the victim whenever possible; telling our friends, his family and even our children that he in fact never cheated at all, that because I am paranoid and crazy I blew things way out of proportion when I discovered he had a few platonic online female friends.

Although I am way past the point where I expect him to act with anything like integrity, it rankles to know that I am both impotent to stop his slander and trapped by his financial dominance as the girls and I rely heavily on his child support. As a matter of fact my dearest wish since I started down this road was that I could start a new life for me and my daughters powered by my own steam, fueled by assets and talents that belong to me.

To that end I ask that if you like me believe that the examples provided constitute cheating that you go to

and purchase a copy of my book The Box in support of my mission to be the sole support and a strong role model for my girls. Please understand I am not looking for a hand out only a hand up. I like to tell people that in a nutshell The Box is about karma, witchcraft and what was really in Pandora’s box and while all of that is true what it is really about for me personally is Hope and it is in that spirit that I send this message in a bottle adrift in the cyber sea.

Blessed be

Condensed transcript of an affair

Below is a brief over view of my ex husbands relationship with a woman named Margery from Canada. I can not of course post the graphic pictures they sent to each other nor do I feel it is necessarily germane to include the conversation between them that are obviously based on self gratification while viewing said pictures. That being said what follows is the progression of there relationship over the years from the first email I was able to get to the last. There are literally tons of communication that I was unable to collect.
From Al:
To Margery:

MISSING YOU. Hope work is going well and that your students are not causing you undo stress… if they are, I will rub your shoulders for the next time we can chat. Will you be on this weekend? Hope I can see you.
A

From Margery:
To Al:
Very nice to get your e-mail. I miss you too and I know it seems like forever and a day since we have talked but we will have our time again. I think of you often and wish we could spend more time online together. Life is so busy, seems all I do is work and taxi my children around. I love doing things with them but after working all day it’s just so tiring to have to keep going.
I have some students this year who are just plain rotten and so I feel a little stressed about that but I say “kill them with kindness” Some of these kids only know drugs and fighting, it’s a shame. I am looking forward to the next time we connect. I am heading to Halifax tomorrow for a conference but will be back Sunday. I’ll try to be online in the afternoon. Maybe we will be so lucky and catch each other. I’ll talk to you soon. Margery.
PS I hope you are feeling better from your cold.

From Al:
To Margery:

Do you have an AOL instant messenger account. I hope you do because then I can chat with you from work when you get home from school. Your smile will get you through the year with a couple of bad apples. I know your heart is pure and will endure to get through to the rest of the students that really need and want you. I know I would. Although it has been so long since we were able to chat… my heart will never forget you… and will be there for you when we can finally connect again.

From Margery:
To Al:

I just got your email, well I got it yesterday. I did have an aol account but my husband keeps deleting the program from the computer. I only ever used a few times so I didn’t see the need to have it either. I will download it again but chances are he will wonder why it is back on the pc and delete, he thinks perhaps its the kids downloading stuff unnecessarily. I’ll do what I can. I started my huge research paper and just got my topic approved last night at class. it’s pretty bad and I must be a nerd but I am so excited about what I came up and the professor loves it too. people say I am the teachers pet. LOL (I don’t mind so long as I get a good mark!!)

Thank you for your words of encouragement with those students who were giving me trouble, it felt like they were kicking my feet from under me. But you are right, there are far too many kids who love and need me and who I can touch in a positive way, so thank you!! I needed that.

I hope all is well with you and your family. Please let me know what you have been up to. And I’ll work on getting AOL back up and running without suspicion. Take care, I am thinking about you. Margery.

From Al:
To Margery:

How do I become the teacher’s pet, and what fringe benefits do I get????????

Thinking of you daily, and can’t wait to chat again. So glad that you are doing well in school. What is your paper titled? if it’s fun, can I be your test subject or practice dummy? LOL!!! I hope to catch up with you this weekend since I have missed you so much. I can picture and feel your warm body as we lay close. My dreams are so vivid like you are actually there.
C U soon!
Al

From Margery:
To Al:

Ok here are a few, no dirty ones, some pics in return would be appreciated!!!!!M

March 21, 2008:

From Al:
To Margery:

I miss you… went to the Bahamas alone just to clear my mind and think. Was wishing you were there the entire time. Your always on my mind angel. Wish I could see you sometime soon.
Always thinking of you,
Al

( At the time in question we had in fact just come back from a week long vacation in the Bahamas for our tenth anniversary. I had thought we had reconnected and came home full of high hopes that our marriage could be saved, but apparently he was thinking of Margery the whole time.)

August 16 2009
From Al:
To Margery:

My god you have the most amazing smile and eyes I have ever seen.

September 1, 2009
From Al:
To Margery:

I can’t believe I keep missing you. It pains me when I get a message that I should have been on line to see. Your smile always brightens my day and gives me amazing thoughts for weeks. I wish things could be so much easier to al least meet you… hold you … and hopefully feel your very soft lips on mine as we hug for hours. I have never met a woman as special as you and probably never will. My dreams will live on as long as possible in hopes of holding you tightly just once in my life…. like a fairy tale ending of a dream come true. Please keep in touch princess.

( It was around this time in our lives he started calling me and his daughters Princess all the time. YUCK)

December 21, 2009
From Margery:
To Al:

Hi there! I sent you an email a few days ago but I didn’t hear back. Did you receive it? anyways, hope all is well.
Take care Margery

December 22, 2009

To Margery:
From Al:

Princess,
Once again you have made me smile as I stared at your amazing eyes. I have figured out how to take pix with my webcam so I will get some good ( clean) ones for you as soon as possible and send them. While you wait for the better ones I thought it only fair to at least send you something so here it is…. as bad as it is… I will work on much better for you. I miss you greatly and wish we could connect to chat once again soon.

August 26, 2010
From Margery:
To Al:

HI….. Awhile ago you gave me your cell number so we could text…. would you be willing to give it to me again? Hope all is well Al! Margery.

From Al:
To Margery:

Princess…. I would give you my heart and my last breath of air….. of course I will give you my cell number again …….XXX_XXX_XXXX
Sorry I am so slow to reply usually, I don’t often get onto this account….. in fact, I only come here lately to see if you are here.

Al

September 30, 2010
From Margery:
To Al:

HI! Thanks for your cell number! It’s my turn to apologize for not getting back to you sooner. Like you, I don’t often check this account but was glad to find your email! I talk about you a lot to my friend Michelle and she thinks I should stop being a chicken shit and just arrange to meet you. LOL My husband and I had a trial separation this summer and to tell you the truth, I was very happy but he wants to make a go of it. I think what’s holding me back from you is that when I meet you there is a good chance I will want to continue the relationship and if that happens I would like to be “strings free” if that makes any sense. Anyways I feel like I am rambling and all I want is to be open and honest with you. I am catholic and sometimes I carry around more guilt than I have to lol…. I added some pictures to my account … can you see them? I will add more if you can see them.
Take care Al. I am thinking of you! Margery.

October 2, 2010
From Al:
To Margery:

Princess….. not only can I see your pix but they make me fall in love with you all over again each time. I wish I knew when you were signed in so we can shat and stop playing tag. I think of you ALWAYS and dream of a day I can see your eyes for the first time. I wish I could hold you close and make every care and concern float away as I softly kiss your neck while we hug in the most enduring embrace. If you have any sort of schedule when you actually come on… please let me know so I can catch my angel just one more time. I miss you so much and your smile always melts my heart.
Al

October 21, 2011

From Al:
To Margery:

COMPLETELY UNFAIR.

How can you be so beautiful and expect me to be able to function properly.
How can you send me such amazing pictures and expect me to be able to walk easily.
How can your eyes look so perfect and I am not supposed to need you in my arms.
How can your smile be so amazing that my heart pounds out of my chest just to see you .
How can you tease me endlessly but not let me hold you close and slide slowly inside you for hours as we kiss and hug and make love from sunset to sunrise.
GOD I MISS YOU LIKE I MISS EXYGEN TO BREATH.