Day 22 – Tuesday 1st May 

After throwing ‘Her’ partner out I called Susan read part I here She had been with me through all of this: listening to my never ending tears and madness, whilst I had tried to make sense of what had happened to me. At the time she was over an hours drive away but she made the journey back home and arrived at my house a couple of hours before I was due to meet Danny; she came simply because she just wanted to give me moral support.

I knew that I had to look good: for me. I had now lost over two stone and was more toned than I had been in years thanks to the hours on the stepper. When Susan arrived she sat in my bedroom and we chatted: She said that she had always known that Danny would come back; because there were so many things that didn’t add up. She had seen his face at the dreaded BBQ, seen how he had looked at me, seen that he was devastated. Read here for Dday

After Susan left I wandered around the house trying to occupy my racing mind. I couldn’t have a drink to steady my nerves because I had to drive. My heart was back to beating its way out of my chest, feeling as if it was going to burst. I had nearly an hour to fill before I had to leave to meet Danny and I couldn’t stand it because I knew that if this meeting didn’t work then Danny and I were going to be lost forever.

When I got to the car park where we had arranged to meet Danny was already there. I was surprised to see that he had lost as much weight as I had. Danny asked me to get into his car but I refused: it was contaminated by ‘Her’ now; so I insisted that he got into my car. After a long silence I asked him what he wanted to tell me and he said he wanted to explain what had happened over the past few months: wanted me to know the truth about everything.

Danny explained it had started in the July of the previous year: when they had kissed at ‘Her’ party; the very party where I had pulled Danny away from ‘Her’ when ‘She’ had been pulling him towards the dance floor. I had left the party before Danny that night and after everyone had left and ‘Her’ partner had gone to bed ‘She’ and Danny had kissed in the kitchen.

Danny said that after that night he had looked for ‘Her’ phone number in my phone; supposedly so that he could text her to say that the kiss shouldn’t have happened, and that he wanted to forget it all. I didn’t think for one minute that was the reason Danny had contacted ‘Her’: By doing that ‘She’ had his number and Danny knew that ‘She’ would pursue him; and that is exactly what ‘She’ did: bombarding him with texts, calling him as he drove to work, and when he was driving home. I believe that is why Danny had sent her a text: because he wanted someone to idolise him; he wanted the ego boost.

But the next thing that Danny told me was the bombshell: he had met ‘Her’ in London at ‘Her’ sister’s house, in the October, whilst he was meant to have been working overtime on a night shift at work. Danny had clearly agreed to the overtime so that he could meet ‘Her’, and I wouldn’t have suspected. I felt sick as he told me that it was with the intention of having sex, but that he couldn’t perform and they only had a fumble. My brain started to put it all together now:  It was in the month leading up to the Halloween party: the party where I had found ‘Her’ sitting on Danny’s lap. No wonder! Danny had already fucked her! The fact that he couldn’t get it up was neither here nor there! Gaslighting

Danny told me that after that meeting he had stopped at a service station on the way home and thrown up: because he knew that if I ever found out he would lose me, forever. And that was it! ‘She’ had him trapped now because ‘She’ had something that could be used to blackmail him; and that is exactly what ‘She’ did: If ‘she’ sent him a text and he didn’t reply ‘She’ would make up an excuse to come over to our house; and then when they were alone ‘She’ would threaten that ‘She’ was going to tell me. Now this was unlikely because I would have fucking punched ‘Her’ in ‘Her’ goofy face, but Danny believed ‘her’.

The whole time Danny was telling me his story I was just sitting there looking out to sea, my eyes brimming with tears; I was struggling to understand how my life had changed. There we were sitting in a car park by the beach, with people walking past with their dogs, something that we used to do; and now we were sitting in a car like two strangers. It was a hot sunny evening: people were on the beach, sitting outside the pub just behind us, all of them happy and laughing, all of them doing the things we used to do; and there we were: surrounded by the debris of our lives and I was wondering what the fuck had happened to me!

Danny said that he had tried to stop things: that he had stopped sending ‘Her’ texts, stopped responding to ‘Her’ texts for months; but that it had started up again in the March just before Dday. I thought back to that month: I had been really ill with a chest infection, and Danny had come to the Doctors with me because he had said that he was worried about me; as I sat there, listening to him, I realised why I had become so ill: because I had been ignoring the very things that were under my nose. All I could think of was why? I couldn’t understand why Danny had gone back to responding to ‘Her’ texts in March if he had broken contact with her before. Why? For fuck’s sake why?

Danny said that in March it had escalated and they had started to meet up in the next town along the coast: a pretty small seaside town called Saint Georges. Danny said that they would both drive there separately and then sit in his car kissing.

I just sat there numb: Here was my husband telling me how he would meet someone else to kiss and caress ‘Her’. I couldn’t understand how Danny could meet her: I didn’t want to believe him. But when I asked him when and what times, he said that he would leave for work earlier than he had to, and tell me he was leaving work later than he actually was. I looked back and could remember noticing how ‘Her’ car would always be gone from its parking place not long after Danny had left for work.

I had been such a fucking idiot. It all seemed to make sense: the text that had been sent to our house in March, had been for Danny; in fact Danny had just barefaced lied to me when we had sat at our breakfast bar. He had gaslighted me when he had said ‘Do you really think that I would leave you for her?’  I thought back to all the times that ‘She’  would ‘just come over’ to see us because ‘She’ needed someone to speak to; I thought of the day that ‘She’ told me that one day I would hate ‘Her’.

I asked Danny what he wanted to do: did he want to come home? When he then said the he wasn’t sure he could to that to ‘her’, that he couldn’t leave ‘Her’ in such a mess, I freaked. I could have punched him in the mouth! I started to scream at him about how he had no worries about leaving Ethan and I in a fucking mess.

Danny jumped out of the car, and I followed him. All the people enjoying the sunny evening were looking at us now and I didn’t care. I was so fucking angry with Danny: he left Ethan and I without a second thought and now, after the conversation we had that morning on the phone: when he had said that he had never loved ‘Her’, had always loved me, now he was telling me that he was concerned for ‘Her’. I fell out of love

I lost it! I punched him so hard around the head, forgetting that I had the car keys in my hand. I punched him four or five times, with everyone watching; and I didn’t fucking care! Danny just stood there and let me.

I’d had enough; really, really, had enough: Enough of being in a soap opera with a bunch of skanks, Danny included! I walked back to my car and got in and just before I drove away I opened the window and said ‘if you’re not back home before midnight tonight don’t ever fucking contact me again!’ And with that I drove away.

I drove straight back to Susan’s house. She opened the wine and as I talked to her I realised that I was worth more than Danny: I thought of  all of the people who had told me that in the past three weeks, and of how they had been right: I was worth more than the treatment I had received; worth more than what Danny had put me through. I was no longer afraid to go home; it was my house now: and I was no longer seeing it as a home that had belonged to Danny and I.

When I got home I opened the wine and rang my sister. I told her what had happened and that I felt as if had never really known Did at all; that I could see  that he was beneath me, and that the counsellor and everyone else who had said it were right: I was too good for him.  I decided at that moment that I didn’t actually want Danny back: I thought I did but after our meeting he had shown himself to be so weak and I didn’t need that.

When I told my sister Louise she calmly asked me ‘So what will you do if he walks down the path later then? You have asked him to come back and to give up the house with ‘Her’ and I think you need to consider that; because although he didn’t consider you, that does not mean that you have to stoop to his level.’ She was a clever cow! Because she knew that I had prided myself on the fact that I had not engaged in any of the games that they had all played: in fact, I saw them all as beneath me: like characters from a daytime show where they all lie and attack each other. Louise knew by pointing that out to me that I would let Danny in if he came back. I decided that I would have to let him sleep in the spare room until he found somewhere else to live.

For the first time in a long time I just felt tired: physically tired, and I went to bed by ten. I wasn’t prepared to wait for Danny anymore or worry about if he would come back or not.

My life was moving on and for the first time in three weeks I fell asleep quickly and I didn’t wake up until my phone rang at ten past eleven and it was Danny. When I answered he explained that he had left ‘Her’ and was in the next road to our house and wanted to come home. I asked him why he was parked in the next road and he said that it was because he didn’t want to be seen; the games were continuing then!

I got up and waited for Danny to walk to our house. He had no key because of the locks being changed; and it was quite satisfying that when he arrived he had to ring the doorbell.

It seemed really weird when I opened the door, because although Danny was standing there on the doorstep, wanting to come back to me, I still felt that I was on my own. When he walked into the house it all seemed really strange because Danny looked so uncomfortable in what had been his home.

As we both sat on different sofas looking at each other it was as if we were strangers. I was in my pyjamas; I didn’t care how I looked, because I was getting to a place that I didn’t care about what Danny thought about me anymore; and I was fucking sure I wasn’t going to compete with ‘Her’!

Danny then suddenly asked me if I had an affair with my old boss James. I was incredulous: Where the hell did that come from? I answered with an immediate ‘No’ and asked him why the hell he had asked me. With that Danny started to cry and explained that ‘She’ had told him that I had told ‘Her’ that I had an affair with James. It was clear that Danny had started to realise that he had been lied to: that he may well have lost everything because he had listened to the lies ‘She’ had told him. Everything that he had done over the past three weeks had been because of his insecurities and ‘She’ had played him like a fiddle.

I asked Danny to be honest with me and tell me if it was him who had called my phone on the night he had left and he confirmed that it was. I asked him why he had called and he said that they had been in a crummy bed and breakfast place, with a payphone on the wall in the hall, and he had called me from there. He said that he hadn’t called from his mobile because ‘She’ had taken it. (‘She clearly trusted him!)

When I asked Danny why he had called and he said it was because he was worried about me: had found himself sitting in this awful place and just wanted to come home, nut when I didn’t answer he thought that he had lost me; thought that I didn’t care: and thought that ‘She’ had told him the truth when ‘she’ had said that I only wanted the house and had not wanted him.

I just didn’t know whether to believe him: If Danny had felt that way: wanted to come home, was worried about me, then why did he not just get in his car and come home? Why did he put me through three weeks of hell? Why did he let us get to this place we were in now? Why did he say he loved her? Why did he say he didn’t love me?  

None of it made any sense, none of it added up. I didn’t bother to ask him if he had sex with her, he had already told me he had in one of our conversations when he was being a cunt!

I asked Danny where he wanted to be, and he said with me. So I told him that there were two conditions: he had to step up to the plate and face his fears about whether he was good enough for me; and he had to change his phone, the number, everything. Danny handed me his mobile immediately and said that I could have it. He knew that ‘she’  would just keep sending him texts until he answered because that is what ‘She’ always did; and he wanted me to take control of the situation.

I took the phone off him, and I turned it off. I then told him that he had to sleep in the spare room; but in all honesty I was just getting to the point that I just wanted to get back to normal: I wanted him sleeping with me; I felt so exhausted, as if all the fight had gone out of me and I decided to just let him sleep in our bed.

I didn’t want his phone anywhere near us; so I put it in the spare room as far away from us as I could get it.

As we lay in bed we just talked and talked; suddenly Danny kissed me, not a full on kiss but a tentative kiss, as if he was waiting to see if I would smash him in the face. But it told me so much: That Danny had wanted to be where he was now for so long; had wanted to be with me, kiss me. It told me how much he had missed me; and it told me that he was afraid of me and what I could do. I kissed him back, because I was too exhausted to feel angry. We then started to kiss passionately and it was clear that Danny had an erection; but I just couldn’t do it, I couldn’t have sex with him. I had worked too hard to get myself respect back and I was not prepared to just throw it away again.I pushed Danny away and started to cry, and he lay there mortified that he had even tried; he understood.

For the first time in a long time we both slept!

Rosie

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect