He took his ring off.....

Sometime around the middle of August my husband got invited to a party by several of his non-member gay friends. It was a Saturday night. He asked if it would be ok to go. Knowing how important his friends are, I knew if my response was anything other than “yes” he would pout for the rest of the week-end and tell me how much I control his life, and he does not get any “me” time. So I said yes, knowing there would be drinking and there would probably be pornography involved. He said ‘oh I will only be a hour.” Translation I will be 3-4 hours.

He has a habit of underestimating both time and money to me. Anytime he gives me a number that relates to either time or money I automatically triple the amount. Clearly he does this because he does not want to face the truth about either his time or his money. Additionally he believes that if he underestimates either one of those to me it’s better than telling the truth because I might say “no” and currently he does not want to hear “no” from anyone in his life. Plus in his mind a half truth is not a lie. I wonder how much of this relates to his hiding his homosexuality all his life? If you have been lying to yourself all your life, trying to suppress how you really feel does it color you perception of reality to the point that you detach yourself about the reality of life, including how you spend both your time and money, two valuable resources we are given?

Alright back to the party. He left early in the evening, and sent me text messages throughout the party, about what a good time he was having. He had a little to drink to he stayed until about 11:00p.m. in order to sober up before coming home. When he arrived home I was on the computer and he came into the office to talk to me about the party. As we were talking I happened to notice his hand and his wedding ring was not on his hand. I was shocked. He NEVER takes his ring off, he sleeps with it on, he showers, he works out, it never comes off. That night it did. I elected at the time not to say anything and just file it away and ponder this newly acquired information. I guess my face did not hide it well because later he told me he realized I had noticed.

It was about six weeks later in a discussion we were having about our relationship that I brought up the issue of his coming home from the party without his ring on. He then told me when he realized I saw he was not wearing his ring he thought to himself “oh shit” because he knew it would upset me. During our discussion I asked him why he took his ring off. He told me that he did not want to have to explain to anyone at the party that he was married. It was a conscious choice and he was unapologetic about it.

In many ways the ring incident was the nail in the coffin for me. I knew things were headed in a direction that it seemed impossible our marriage would survive, but once he took his ring off and had no remorse about it, I knew we were growing too far apart. I could not stay, watch him go out with his friends, knowing he was on the “prowl” just waiting for him to come home one day and tell me he met someone and was leaving me. I was not a wife anymore, I was the maid, I was the cook, I was the accountant, I was the babysitter, I was the laundress. I wanted more, I deserved more, I wanted to be a wife.