Embarrassing Behavior Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Coming this spring will mark the 7th anniversary of the ex's first affair. His first foray into infidelity involved a waitress/cook at a place called Jerry's Diner. Her name was Tonda and she phoned me one evening to tell me she was in love with my husband. He, of course, did a lot of fast talking, explaining away everything she had said. He painted a picture of a terribly unstable, misguided woman and while I came to find out she did have some psychological problems the whole story of a sexual relationship was true.

Now I ended up speaking to this woman on more than one occasion. The first time she called was the beginning of spring break and she continued to call constantly that whole week. She would call and hang up. She would call and tell me things about their relationship. She called in the morning, she called in the afternoon and she called at night. I finally called the phone company and had our number changed and unlisted. The calls stopped. About a month went by with no interference from this woman - I thought things were back on track... still believing what the ex was telling me in reference to this woman's delusional fantasies. Then one day, while I am at school, I get a message from the office I have a call. I go to answer it and... guess who? You got it... Tonda. I called the ex... told him this was going on ... and he finally fessed up... yes he had been having sex with this woman. She continued to call me at school that day .... call after call. I called the police. They contacted her and she feigned ignorance but the phone calls to the school office stopped.

Fast forward...

My son played football in high school. A pretty good little ball player if I do say so ... fall Friday nights were either spent at home games or traveling to (quite often far) away games. That was our ritual for four years - very pleasant memories. Being that this was MY son playing ball I was a very enthusiastic supporter of #45. I cheered, sometimes loudly... and this seemed to bother the ex. I suppose he felt I was a tad too enthusiastic but the way I looked at it I was the one who endured the 14 1/2 hours of labor to bring this child into the world... if I wanted to scream for him to RUN then I was well within my rights to do so.

One night after a game, a particularly good game for son, ex looked at me and said, "Do you have to be so embarrassing?" Ah, well, as the saying goes - if looks could kill.... I remember looking at him coldly and I quietly and simply said, "If you want to talk about embarrassing then lets talk about some psychotic BITCH calling me at school. Now THAT is embarrassing." And I got up and walked away. He later muttered some little half hearted apology but I look to that incident as a turning point in a way. For me it was a slap in the face for him to question my behavior when his had been so deplorable in so many ways. But in truth, all of the fallout, all of the backlash, all of the embarrassment for his behavior fell on me.

He was never the one to bear the brunt of it, feel the impact. It was interesting once - his mother used that word, the word embarrassed, to explain why her son was neglecting the kids. She said something like, "I think he just finds it difficult to see the children because he is so embarrassed." "Ahhh well," I said, "I know how that feels."