Chapter I: When Life Gives you Dickheads

Okay, let us revisit the Dickhead, er husband topic. If you are reading this, thank you for getting this far. I am about to embark in a long ramblefest and I don't know who might care to read but I do hope it might speak to some of you out there. 


Almost exactly.....actually a very close estimate to 3223 days, 22 hours, 42 minutes and 0 seconds ago, I married a man. This man was someone I loved with all my heart and soul. Even though (if you'd asked me then) I would have been ashamed to tell you I had doubts about our relationship. I went ahead and married. This man was owned by the United States Air Force and thus I married(blindly) the military life and all the came with it. Very, very soon after, we moved to across the globe to Germany and began our married life. Looking back now, I see myself as a newlywed, in a new country, isolated. I had never lived this far from friends and family. I had no car to go anywhere, I was in a German village, alone all day(except for my amazing dog) until my husband returned.

I, a freshly graduated art student with the world at my bidding, partially saw this living abroad as an opportunity. Even though I was depressed and missed my family horribly, I tried, and did make the best of my given living situation. I would walk around the old German village with my dog, taking in all the houses, sounds, plants, bricked sidewalks with the moss in between the cracks. I have a big imagination so on a regular day a walk outside was the biggest part of my day. Trust me, to this day I know that little village like the back of my hand. I remember walking to the tiny bakery in my village one day and having the courage to ask(I had been using Rosetta Stone to learn German)for a schokobrötchen( a roll that had chocolate chips, and super delicious might I add).

Ah, Germany, you changed my life so much. 

Lets shorten some things here quickly and later I can get into more detail. Not even a year into our marriage and my husband began an affair. Not physical, mind you but still all the other stuff. One year and 2 months later I would find out about it. After I left the country to visit family because I was so homesick and my husband told me to go. Even though I knew we were fighting and I just wanted to leave anyways, I went, I left. And while I was gone the physical happened.

I returned to no hug, no kiss at the airport. I slumped into our car and pretended to sleep on the ride home. I never even wanted to come back. But I did. Why was I so unhappy? I really couldn't put my finger on it. I returned to a house, haunted from Germany's past. I returned to my loving, devoted beautiful doggies. I returned to a white painted stairway, which revealed the long dark strands of her hair. I returned to yelling, lies and deceit. I cowered back into depression and despair, the same as before I had left. This time I knew it was not homesickness. The doctor's results revealed the truth. There is no amount of homesickness that will give you an STD.

"Men will be men" my German neighbor had said after I told her I assumed an affair was happening. And then she told me about the loud "sex noises" she had heard and how she wasn't going to complain. I was in the States during those noises. 

I confront him. I had photos, her DNA, his military career could be over. He told me everything, mostly. He apologized once. I took him back. We went to marriage counseling and I thought that was enough. Even though I had this voice telling me to get out. But I stayed. Things were so good, you know? He didn't talk bad to me, he hadn't said "shut the fuck up"to me in a long time. He hadn't lashed out. He agreed(begrudgingly) to move to sell the beds he had sex on with her, to move to a new house in a new village. To leave all the heavy, haunted past...at leas I thought that was what was needed to break free.

Our new house, found by me, I looked every single hour of the day, fretted over it. I made sure we found a new house in Germany. I did not care that we had to move every single thing ourselves. I could not live there with her lingering. Even though I felt bad about making him move, I made sure it was done.

Things were good. Until those times. When he would say something that just cut me. I hated saying it hurt me. Well not the first time but after the first few times, I hated bringing anything up. It was me, he said. I was too sensitive. Or he was just joking....he was being sarcastic. Why couldn't I just take a joke? I had no sense of humor. I would say something about how I felt and be met with anger. My feelings truly did not matter. I needed to get over it. Nothing was resolved. I remember lying awake in bed, trying to figure out what happened, staring at the ceiling, crying, feeling lost and alone, feeling this sick feeling in between the middle of my stomach, right below my sternum. But wait. My husband provided for me, he really loved me, right? It was just silly or useless to go on about this. Tomorrow was a new day and I should just forgive him...even if he didn't say sorry.