Part IV: Trust

The weeks after learning about my husband’s secret life, I spent a lot of time wondering what to do. I conferred with the one and only friend I knew wouldn’t judge him or me. She and I spent hours talking about it. At times, the conversations held a tone of disbelief and wonder. Other times, the tone was anger and outrage. I battled over whether I could believe his promise of not using or if I should convert to a state of mistrust.

As silly and naive as it sounds, I trusted that he'd stopped using. Essentially, I felt he came clean to me on his own accord. I didn't catch him. He chose to tell me the truth. Okay, so his admission may have been brought on by a state of paranoia, but ya know feelings and stuff. I just knew he wasn't the typical addict. Weeks turned into months.

In hindsight, I realize these thoughts were fueled by my inability to accept the truth. I was so angry with his deception more than his drug use. Yet, it's the drug use that should have driven my anger.

I learned of my dear husband’s drug use in May 2012. Not one time did I monitor his cell phone activity. There was not a moment I questioned his behavior. I did not concern myself with his use of money. We were going to marriage counseling and it seemed things were moving forward. It wasn’t until November of 2012 that I began to suspect he was using.

We were on our way to a family camping trip. It was a beautiful start to a long weekend and the sun was setting. As we drove to our camping destination, we made a wrong turn. The husband went to turn around and our trailer got stuck in the soft sand. To say it was frustrating would be an understatement.

My phone wasn’t receiving a signal so calling for help from my beloved $20 phone was out of the question. Thankfully, his phone was receiving a signal. He handed me his phone to call friends to pull us out of the sand. I called and then decided to scroll through his text messages. I’m not sure why I made this decision, but I did. Instinct.

I noticed a text to someone named Chris. I didn’t know anyone named Chris and what was even more sketchy was the contents of the text.

“Hey, I have the money I owe you. Want to meet up?”

Curiosity sparked, I scrolled further. The cryptic nature of the texts led to me believe it was drugs. I asked. He scoffed.

Seriously, that was it. I was still trying to play nice. Still making an attempt to put my trust in him. Stupid fucking girl. That’s who I was in that moment and the subsequent moments that led to today. I felt completely lost. How do you know where to go when there is no fucking map?

That shit is real. It’s as though you have this compass leading you in the right direction yet you choose to ignore it because maybe, possibly it’s just wrong. That can’t be the right direction because this map I’m holding tells me to change direction. The thing is the map was drawn by a fucking gorilla. He doesn’t care where you want to go. He just wants to draw shit.

Rather, he just wants to do drugs, leading me astray from the path I should be taking. How dare you ask if he is still using! Pshh, really? Why would I do that to this family? I’m too busy to even think about doing that. And farther of the path you go, hoping you finally stumble upon a sign leading you in the right direction.

The signs are there. You just can’t see them.