Lost and Found: Finding Hope in the Detours of Life (15 page)

Makenzie was not the only new girl in Robert’s life. I found out about the other one a week after giving birth. Robert had an off day and was allowed to come home and stay the night. In the middle of feeding Makenzie, I flipped through our phone bill. I saw the same number over and over. It looked like he’d called me each night and then immediately called this other number.

While he was sleeping I called this number, blocking my own. A woman answered, her voice hoarse from sleep. I immediately hung up. Makenzie was finally sleeping, but there was no way I could. The
emotional tide of my fresh maternity wounds swept over me and tears poured from my eyes.

Then I learned they had been texting each other throughout the time I was in labor as well. I remembered how Robert had prayed over me when the doctor prepped me for my cesarean. New tears burned my face. I could contain myself no longer.

“Who is she?” I ripped the blankets away from his peaceful slumber.

“What?” he said and sat up, immediately clued in to my distress. “Who? What are you talking about?”

I shoved the phone records in his face. “Who is she?” I repeated, trying to regain control of myself.

“Just calm down, baby. She’s just a promoter,” he said. “We were strategizing how to make the fans more aware of my presence on the team.”

I eyed him suspiciously. Was I overreacting?

“It’s strictly work related,” he said. “Just ask her.”

Frantically, I began to compose text after text, hitting send each time. Minutes passed and no response. I was going to have to believe him again, at least until she responded.

“You think I would pray over you and then text my mistress?” he asked.

I let it go. My body couldn’t handle the stress of fighting, and I didn’t want the baby to wake up. Maybe my emotions were being jacked up by all the hormones in my body. Maybe I really was out of line to accuse him.

The woman didn’t text me back, and I didn’t bring it up again. Two weeks later, Robert was informed he’d made the team. I was happy for him and depressed for me. Nothing had really changed for us. And now we had a daughter to raise.

Over the course of that football season, there would be four more women he hid from me. He saved their numbers in his phone under
teammates’ names, and even got another cell phone so that it was no longer on our shared bill. When I asked him about it, he lied and told me all the rookies had a special phone in case the veterans needed something.

The next day I asked Simone if this were true. She looked at me with compassion in her eyes and didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to say anything. Her silence was louder than her words.

———

When football season ended, I told Robert I wanted to go back to Dallas. So we packed our bags and moved back to my parents’ home. Perhaps being around family would help us find our way again. Of all the girls that had come and gone in the short time we were in Virginia, the “promoter” was the most consistent.

One evening when the voices in my head were too loud to ignore, I tried to text her again. I told her that I knew she probably wouldn’t reply, but I had a family and a heart and I needed to know the truth.

My phone rang immediately and my heart jumped into my throat.

“Thank you,” I said softly, answering the phone. “Tell me the truth.”

She told me everything. She’d been in our home when I had gone back to visit family. Robert often came to her house. They’d had sex more times than she wanted to share. She told me that I wouldn’t believe the things he said about me. I asked her for something specific, and all she could say was, “It’s not good.”

As if God knew that the pain was going to wash over me, my mother came in and saw the tears streaming down my face and immediately grabbed the phone from my hand. I had been working for her since returning from Virginia; after an employee left the ministry unexpectedly, she asked if I would help her. I didn’t know if she had come over to talk about work or if she was just checking on us, but the timing was divine.

She spoke something into the phone and then left the room. I couldn’t hear what was being said over my own tears, but before I knew it, Robert was sitting in front of me admitting that he’d had an affair.

The next morning I got in my car and headed to work. I was numb. My mother and I had not talked yet. I still hadn’t uttered a word about the previous night to anyone. Turning on music to drown the thoughts in my head, I found a song that I knew would say the words I couldn’t.

Comparing love to a hurricane, Jazmine Sullivan crooned my heartbreak and I cried fresh tears. I cried for the girl who knew all along that this day was coming. I cried for the walls I’d built that didn’t protect me from this searing pain. I cried for pieces of myself I had buried in the name of love. I lost my joy, my peace, my hope, and my belief in a love that wasn’t worth fighting for.

This war was almost over, but I wasn’t sure if I was winning or losing.

Or both.

———

I cried every day. I played the song until the words ripped off the bandage and made me bleed again. I let the pain wash over me. I gave in.

I called my friend Stacia, and all I could do was cry more. I heard her sniffle in my ear, and together we held a memorial for the parts of me I missed. No matter how many tears fell, I knew that when my eyes were dry the pain would still be there.

I didn’t say anything to Robert. I didn’t have the words. I didn’t want to hear his apology or even his excuses. One of the Redskins veteran wives called to tell me about a conference for professional athletes, and they wanted to sponsor Robert and me. The conference just happened to be taking place in Dallas. Robert must’ve pleaded
with God for it to be there, because there was no way I would be going away with him.

We went to the conference and wept as a couple. Surrounded by men who struggled and overcame the same issues, Robert committed to trying to make us work. We attended church and counseling in Dallas until off-season training began that spring. Per the suggestion of our counselor, Robert would return to Virginia alone. During that time he was to find and attend counseling. It was the only way I would go back, the only way I could even consider trying to forgive him yet again.

He did his part, so I returned to our home in Virginia that summer of 2010. I wasn’t hopeful, but I didn’t have the strength to end our marriage—or to save it. We attended counseling together for a while, but the conversations reached dead ends.

Nonetheless, Robert attempted to rebuild our connection. He wasn’t staying out all night. He helped with the kids and seemed committed to fixing the broken bond between us. Before we knew it, training camp was starting again and he would once again be competing for a spot on the roster. The coaching staff had experienced some changes, so Robert would have to step up and prove himself all over again.

In the August preseason games, the more experienced players often start before the coaches let the ones trying to prove themselves finish the second half. That’s when the guys who are right on the bubble get a chance to show what they have. Robert was having a tremendous preseason and had all but solidified his spot on the team. He was one of the leaders in preseason tackles, and the sports columnists speculated he’d be a great backup to their seasoned veteran.

As part of our honor system, I continued to check our phone bill and was yet to find anything suspicious since the last bombshell. Then one day Robert told me that one of his teammates had used
Robert’s phone to call his girlfriend; I should ignore any new numbers I spotted. He erased the number out of his call log to respect his friend’s privacy. I knew where this was headed.

Sure enough, whenever I walked into the room, he would rush to end his calls. At night he just happened to fall asleep with his phone in his pillowcase. Then we received a welcome letter in the mail from a cell phone carrier other than our own. I asked him, he denied it. The letter came by accident, he explained.

“You should trust me by now,” he said. “We can’t get better if you don’t believe I’m telling you the truth.”

———

Two days before the last preseason game—an away game—Robert came home to have dinner and grab some things for his trip. He came in through the front door instead of the garage, which I thought was strange. He immediately ran upstairs to gather his things. We weren’t talking much since the recent suspicions I carried.

Looking out the window, I saw the taillights of his car about a block down our street. I knew as I opened the front door and took the steps toward the car that it wasn’t going to be good.

And there she was. . . .

In the passenger seat of his car, waiting on him to come back so they could leave, sat a young woman. When she looked up and saw me, she just grinned. She didn’t ask me who I was or seem surprised to see me standing in front of her.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH MY HUSBAND?” I yelled. A fresh supply of rage fueled my question. I didn’t care who heard me, what would happen, or how she responded. The last straw had already tipped the scales, and yet Robert continued to heap on a stack of last straws.

“WE KICKIN’ IT!” she said defiantly, clearly annoyed by my question.

Before I could show her what happens to people who kick it with other people’s husbands, Robert came running out of the house.

“I’m just taking her home—she’s my homeboy’s friend,” he tried to explain.

I looked at him, wondering just how foolish he thought I really was.

“There’s nothing going on,” he continued. “I don’t even know her.”

I didn’t say a word but turned back to the house. He trailed behind me pleading his case. I grabbed my keys and headed to the basement, where I could access the garage. He grabbed me. I was unable to move. I hit him as hard as I could in his stomach, but still he was stronger than me. I kept fighting. Fighting to be free from him, from this, from our poisonous love. I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to live like this anymore. I was tired of tasting the salt of my tears. I was tired of building this white picket fence that he was intent on burning down.

He held me until my blows were too hard and he had no choice but to let me go. I said everything I ever wanted to say to him. I addressed his poor parenting, his lack of integrity, and his immorality. Calling him a boy would’ve been a compliment; he was less than that to me. I used every curse word I could find, and when those ran out I made up new ones.

Then I grabbed my keys, hopped into my car, and backed out of the garage. I pulled up behind his car and started ramming it over and over again while his latest conquest finally realized she should be scared.

Now in his car, Robert sped down the road of our residential neighborhood. I followed behind them, before quickly realizing that I would have to go back home. My children were sleeping, oblivious to the hurricane taking place both outside and within their home. Then we both stopped. I saw him grab his phone. I grabbed mine and took pictures of the two of them in the car, then turned to go home.

It was too late, though; he had called the police on me.

The officer met me outside our house. When the officer finally approached me, he asked what was going on.

“My husband brought his girlfriend to our house. I had a problem with that.”

I heard the words but didn’t recognize the voice.

So this was what it felt like to be driven crazy, literally. To lose it so fast you didn’t even know who you were anymore. The officer let me go with a warning and told Robert, who had just come up behind us, to leave for the night. The policeman clearly felt sorry for me, and I could see it in his eyes. I couldn’t bear to see his pity any longer. I took his papers, promised to visit with Child Protective Services and a social worker, and went inside.

Two nights later I watched the away game with the other wives, each of us holding in our own secrets. Robert was having an incredible game. He was heading into the double digits for tackles when a defensive lineman landed on his knee. Robert didn’t get up; he couldn’t move. The cameras followed him wobbling off the field and onto the sideline. The announcers speculated on the injury and replayed the video over and over. The other wives attempted to console me, but I assured them I was fine.

The game had been over for an hour when I heard the buzz of the other wives’ phones. Their husbands were checking in, but Robert didn’t bother to call. It was during the post-game show that I learned he’d torn his meniscus.

There wouldn’t be any more football for him.

There wouldn’t be any more injuries for me.

The games had finally ended.

IT’S EASY
TO
blame my heartbreak on him, but no one was more responsible than I was.

I had been disappointed when I got pregnant at thirteen and gave birth at fourteen. I was upset when I dropped out of college. I tried so long not to be a statistic, but the expectations were too much and I quit. I didn’t want to be a disappointment to myself again, a quitter, someone who couldn’t keep fighting for her marriage. I didn’t want to risk failing again, so I stayed with someone who expected nothing from me while I expected everything from him. I thought that by exceeding his nonexistent expectations I would inspire him to attempt to meet at least some of mine.

It was as if I was intent on speaking Italian when all he could understand was Spanish. My language never reached his ears because he didn’t want to learn the vocabulary required to understand the message
of my love. I had foolishly assumed that with love came loyalty and respect. But those three are so distinct that it’s a disservice to bundle them all together within four little letters. I had never accepted love that didn’t come with loyalty. I couldn’t understand it and this upset me. I was mad at him for not speaking the language of love that he’d never bothered to learn. I hadn’t experienced enough to understand that sometimes too much is lost in translation. Both people have to want to communicate to create their conversation.

Perhaps this explains why love will always be one of the hardest words to define. Its meaning is so relative. My grandmother once told my father, “When falling in love, never go first,” warning that the one who falls first assumes all the risk. However, based on my experience, I would update her advice to say, “When falling in love, never go alone.”

I had fallen head over heals into earth-shattering love. I just didn’t realize how low it was going to take me. I found myself beyond the dirt where the seeds of our love should’ve made the world more fruitful. No, our love dragged us down to the hottest layer of the earth, to the molten core where nothing survives without being charred. Our love made tears that served no purpose. We had burned through years of our lives with passion, anger, and pain.

I wanted my marriage to be my safe place, my refuge. Yet with each incident of another woman, lie, and betrayal it became the inferno from which I could never escape. The girl in me who liked to chew ice had melted away, leaving nothing but a puddle of who I once was.

———

Finally, I was ready to transform my pain into wisdom, my tears into fuel for change. I had learned so much the hard way. Allow me
to tell you what I said to myself during those days when I was trying to find the strength to get on my feet and walk out the door.

You want to believe that love conquers all. It’s what they tell us. That if we love someone enough, nothing else will matter. The truth is love isn’t enough if it makes you worse. Love is far too sweet to have left you so bitter.

You’re strong enough to want more. You’re better than this moment. And believe it or not, even if, like me, you wasted into nothing, know that your mess is a beautiful blank canvas for Him.

You must be willing to admit that you have lost your way and can’t escape the pain. Open your mouth and ask for help. Be willing to admit that you were wrong. That you’re broken and you’re afraid of doing it on your own. Each time you give your fear a voice, it can no longer whisper into your destiny. The Enemy is counting on us to give in. He wants us to lose our way.

Don’t let him win.

So no matter what rumors they may tell, or worse, what truth may spread, it’s not worth your being this person you don’t recognize. It’s not worth missing out on your purpose. The more you can be distracted by things and people, the less time you have to search and find what God has placed inside of you.

We say we have no talent. We tell them we don’t fit. We talk ourselves out of a tomorrow because we are afraid to let go of today. Give yourself the permission to heal, to be restored, and to be redeemed. You don’t have to be punished anymore. You don’t have to be that person crying, screaming, hurting, doubting, writhing in agony because someone else won’t love you the way you want them to.

I could not change Robert. I could not love him enough to change. Only Robert could ever love himself enough to change.

I thought of his children we saw maybe twice a year, usually at my suggestion. I thought of his sister, who challenged him not to forget where he came from. I thought of his mother, who always said she wished he’d come home more often. I think Ms. Samantha eventually realized that I was not the one keeping him from visiting her.

When Robert finally called me the morning after his injury, the first thing he said was, “Guess this is what I deserve, huh?” I didn’t even take the opportunity to gloat. What difference would it make? It didn’t change that we were two people killing each other little by little. I asked him what the plan was for his knee. He didn’t know that my bags were packed and the kids and I were going back to Texas. He was going to have surgery the next day.

“I know you’re not going to want to take care of me, but I don’t have anyone else.” He wanted to see if we could convince his mother to fly in. When I talked to Ms. Samantha, she was adamantly against it at first, since she’d never flown before. Then she relented and said she’d come when she could. I agreed to postpone my trip and at least get him through surgery.

———

The recovery process wasn’t easy. To top it off, Robert was still sneaking around with the same girl he had brought to the house. I’m ashamed to say it, but I finally managed to get her number out
of his phone. I texted her the lies he was telling me. She told me that she knew what was real. I asked her to come over and take care of him so I could leave. She told me that Robert wasn’t lying to me and that the two of them really weren’t together. I told her that she wasn’t the first one. I listed over a dozen names and sent them to her. She laughed at me. I tried to upset her, thinking she would then tell me the truth.

As much as I didn’t want to change my definition of love, marriage, and relationships, what we create is what we’re responsible for, not what we wanted. We say we want to lose weight, but then we eat the worst possible things. We say we want to save money, but then we buy the TV on sale at Target. We say we want to be better, but we stay in situations that make us worse. If nothing changes, then nothing changes. I continued to repeat the same vicious cycle of love, but I was dying for more.

What are you willing to sacrifice on the quest for God’s will? Are you willing to give up on what you want, how you want it, and when you want it? Or are you so obsessed with having everything right now that He stops fighting with you? God let me have my way. He gave me everything I asked for, and it all tore me apart. I had a successful husband, a beautiful home, amazing children, and a wonderful family. It just didn’t seem as pretty anymore once I finally got it.

I thought that God was breaking Robert, teaching him that if he treated me the way he did, he’d no longer be able to live his dream:
“Until you take care of what I’ve given
you, I won’t add to it.”
I was believing in God for him, but who was believing in Him for me? My parents could have guessed, but they didn’t know how badly I was breaking. They didn’t know how much I was hurting.

Now I know that Robert’s knee was just a reflection of my walk with God. I took on the weight of something too big for me to
handle and tore under the pressure. Even after the surgery, his behavior didn’t stop. The Redskins placed him on the injured reserve list, so his workdays were much shorter. He couldn’t even be on the sidelines during practice or games. He was watching his dream from the outside looking in because he was too hurt to play.

We both were.

I watched the other wives, who seemed to have it all together. Their eyes had so much more life in them than mine. Occasionally, there would be that one wife whose face was a reflection of my own. We locked eyes, nodded our heads, and smiled to the rest of the team, but we knew. We knew we were living a lie.

———

There’s this misconception that once you make it to a certain place in life, you escape all problems and trouble. We were young, well-known, and financially secure, but we were also exhausted, angry, and emotionally bankrupt. I stopped calling home. I couldn’t fake any sign of joy. I stopped caring whether the dishes were done or dinner was cooked when Robert got home. I stopped giving him love he didn’t deserve. And I know that that pushed him further to
her
, but I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t pretend like this was okay. We were roommates.

I remember when Robert got released to drive; I knew we would have problems. At some point during his recovery, I finally found the spare phone that he was hiding from me. When I picked it up, even with his knee still freshly wounded, he chased me down the hall. I put the phone in the washing machine and turned it on. He wasn’t even upset that the phone was ruined, as long as I couldn’t see what was on it. In the heat of one of our arguments about him, her, the affair/not affair, he tried to make me feel like I was crazy. I told Robert I was going home. He told me he’d have her things in my closet before my plane took off.

We have these times when we’re tired of being the bigger person. Eventually, we decide to treat people the way they treat us. I felt the anger turning my heart black, felt the misery surround me, and I accepted it. They wanted to make me feel crazy, I’d be crazy. I had nothing to lose. They weren’t going to stop playing with me. She insisted time after time that they were friends. He promised me they would stop talking, then got an app to hide her number.

I hated her because she was so much like me.

She wouldn’t quit no matter how hard I tried. He had more trust with his mistress than he did with his wife. She sent me anonymous emails about their being together. I learned how to track IP addresses, and it all led back to her. Still she denied it. I Facebooked her sister, thinking I’d expose their trysts. Her sister told me that I needed to let go and get over the fact that he didn’t want me.

What I couldn’t accept was that he was playing with my mind. I was losing it over him, and it was one big joke to everyone involved.

You can’t ask for directions from people who are lost themselves. Long ago I asked God to order Robert’s steps, and now his knee was torn. I didn’t blame God, though. I didn’t have time to feel His conviction. I wanted
them
to feel my wrath.

We can’t avoid God, no matter how hard we try. Even when we think we’re getting away, He’s still there pulling us. I wasn’t going to church. I wasn’t watching online. I stopped praying, because I felt my prayers weren’t being answered. I still had love for God, but I think a part of me knew I had moved so far out of His will.

I knew I was lost and could no longer find my own way. I just hoped it wasn’t too late to be found.

———

After months of back-and-forth with Robert and his latest conquest, I was planning to go home. He wasn’t playing football due to his injury. Once he completed his rehab, there was no other
reason for me to be there. After a trip to Miami, he would come to Texas, too. While he was in Miami, I checked her Facebook page and saw she was there, too. I left for home the same day.

He swore up and down she was stalking him. When he came to Texas, he told my dad he needed an attorney to help get his “stalker” off of him. I rolled my eyes in disbelief. He was willing to do whatever to save face. After a long meeting with my parents about the state of our lives and marriage, we went to bed. The next day I found him playing a video game and texting. I leaned over and looked at his phone. She was six weeks pregnant.

I had never felt more relieved in my entire life.

After months of trying to make me feel certifiably crazy, my husband’s mistress was pregnant! What a long pregnancy it would be.

Once I knew she was pregnant, I think she thought he would leave me, that maybe he just hadn’t known how to tell me. But within minutes he was cussing her out, calling her crazy, jealous, a stalker, a groupie, and worse. He turned on her just as quickly as he turned on me. I just sat back and watched it all unfold. I was home and never returning to Virginia again. I didn’t care if he stayed or left. I was safe again. I had found a new template for moving forward, the ice trays that would transform my melted self into someone solid again.

So I started the journey of working on me, and me alone. I would decide what to do about Robert later. I went to marital counseling, but for the most part I felt like the other woman’s pregnancy had very little to do with me. She had already made it clear that she didn’t want me in her child’s life, which was fair, because I didn’t want her
to have a child by my husband. I was doing okay until the sonogram pictures started rolling in. They thought she may be having a girl.

“I don’t make anything but girls,” he joked with her, finally admitting he might be the father.

I rolled my eyes and thought about the two sons he had lied to me about. When he got upset that she didn’t want the baby to have his last name, I enjoyed his strange disappointment. Since they weren’t married, her family didn’t think it was wise for her to give her child a married man’s last name. I knew my parents would’ve probably felt the same way. Robert was furious. I was, too, for other reasons.

———

I called Dr. Nicole, our marriage counselor, while sitting in my car. “I’m sorry, but I want them to suffer some consequences,” I told her. “I feel like I’m the only one losing here. They’ve lied, cheated, and tricked around on me for months. She’s pregnant and mad at me! He’s crying at baby pictures. Where is God in all this?”

Dr. Nicole chastised me for giving Robert and this woman so much power to determine my own well-being. She challenged me to take responsibility for moving forward regardless of what they might be doing, feeling, or baiting me with. She counseled me to express myself to God, trusting Him with my pain, anger, and overwhelming sense of injustice.