How did that happen?!

Hello,

Three years ago my life was pretty routine.  A nice home in Oak Park, a nice suburb of Chicago with big homes with big front porches where you know your neighbors and people look out for one another.  I sold real estate in a booming market and my husband of almost 30 years (an electrician) and I were happy . . . or so I thought.  Granted there were many bumps in the road and a few cracks in the armour, but all marriages have snags and once the kids left home we could concentrate on one another and life would be good.  I was looking forward to his retirement in a few years and moving up to Wisconsin to our beach home.  That was my view of the marriage.  It was soon to come crashing down.

This blog is not about the gory details, though I will probably touch on them from time to time.  This is about healing.  How does a woman in her 60's find a job, become financially secure, and figure out her life direction that has suddenly changed.  It's like being on a roller coaster.  Your screaming down the hill, scared as hell, but it's okay because you know you will end up safe at the end.  Now picture roaring down that same hill only to find that the track is missing up ahead and suddenly you are thrown into the dark and don't have a clue where you are or how you will land and if you'll be alive to tell about it. 

Fall of 2007 my husband takes a job that calls for long hours and weekends.  Being a union man, that meant overtime pay that we needed.  Everything seemed okay.  Like I said, our marriage had hit a rough patch; we didn't talk all that much, didn't have sex all that much but I didn't notice anything.  The annual neighborhood Halloween party coming up, Bob mentioned that there was a woman he worked with who lived in town and could he invite her.  Sure, no problem (or so I thought).  At the party I served her drinks, and appetizers. I even washed her serving plate that she brought snacks on. I tried to talk to her, what it was like being a female electrician in such a male dominated profession.  Little did I know I was talking to the woman who was calculating and planning the demise of my marriage, the destruction of my family and the ruin of my sons and their father's relationship.