It doesn’t matter who we are, there are going to be some secrets in our lives. Some of those secrets don’t have an impact on anyone else but us but others could impact the ones we love the most.
These secrets can sometimes include things that we hold in but occasionally let out when we are talking with a trusted friend. When we do so, we may say things that are in our hearts and we might even take things further.
The problem with this is that there may be times when the wrong person overhears what is being said. That is the case in the following story, and it led to some serious consequences.
My wife thought I had already left to pick up my son from Air-soft practice. She was in our room talking with a friend, and what I overheard was informative. I finally know how she truly feels about me.
I am disabled. I have a severe degenerative disease that attacks my spine, hips, hands, etc. It’s very hard for me to walk more than 20 feet at a time. I can’t bend over, hold things very well anymore, pick up anything over a few pounds, and quite a few other fun things.
I’ve been battling this for almost 10 years now. I fight my absolute hardest to keep as mobile and independent as possible. My wife has always been there for me, and has always gone above and beyond. I always make sure to tell her how much I appreciate it, and if it’s ever too much to please talk to me about it.
Back to yesterday…. I was sitting in the hallway on my walker trying to get my shoes on. My wife for some reason thought I had already left. I heard her telling her best friend how she’s tired of playing babysitter to a grown man. She’s tired of helping me do things like put a sock on my left foot, because my hip no longer works. How she is tired of me dropping things, wincing in pain all of the time, tired of me not being able to help with chores, other than very basic things like dusting and wiping counters. This continued for a few minutes. One thing after another, on and on. Finally she said “I’d give anything to be able to have sex with a real man again”…that it’s taken all of her self control to not find someone else to be with…how she can never leave because she’ll be the one who abandoned her sick husband. This gutted me. It actually made my head swim. A “real” man? What does that make me? I always suspected she was bitter, angry, frustrated at the least. I don’t blame her. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been on her. But I never knew she saw me as a lesser person.
I didn’t want to hear anymore. I don’t want to know what else was said. I went into the kitchen and purposely dropped my water tumbler so she’d hear the tin clank off of the tile. When she walked in the kitchen I told her I had just walked back in, because I’d forgotten my water bottle.
I’ve lost everything in these last 10 years. A career, house, cars, money, pride, mobility, my life. It’s all been replaced with pain, hospitals, surgeries, pills, needles, canes, wheelchairs, sadness, loneliness, hopelessness. I guess the one thing I never thought I’d lose has now been lost….Love.
I plan on making it easy on her. I don’t want people to look at her and think “She left her sick husband all alone”, and other things that could be thought and said. So how do I keep that from happening?…..I’m going to make myself the villain. I plan on telling her I have been having an affair, and that I think I’m in love with this other woman. I’m going to give her everything I can give her. I don’t need anything. I want her to be happy again. I want her to find what she is longing for. She’ll be angry and hurt. She will probably hate me for a long time, possibly forever. But she’ll be free from rumors and crass looks. She’ll be free from guilt…..She will be free…from me
