#84 SHOCKING SECRETS REVEALED: RETURNING TO MINNESOTA: MY SOLO ROAD TRIP FROM FLORIDA TO KENTUCKY TO MINNESOTA TO WISCONSIN
Why didn’t I just stay put? What was I even doing? Was my whole marriage built on a lie?
Hi, everyone, and even more new subscribers. 27% of my subscribers have now come from the Substack app, so somehow people are finding my writing and subscribing. Thank you!
I’m Elaine (or Lainey). I’m writing about my ex/first husband, AKA the fourth person I met at Starbucks, Benoit, a Lebanese-American former engineer turned US Army officer turned back again into an engineering project manager for a company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where we’d moved from Germany after meeting in Columbus, Georgia.
Long story short, whilst I visited my family in Florida, he ended our marriage via text. See Chapter 82 for a bit longer journey recap and that story here.
I hope all of my American/US-based readers have had a pleasant Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Who doesn’t love a Bank Holiday, eh? I hope you all actually had the day off and did something nice.
After the whole hospital/food poisoning/I thought I was dying moment, one of the internships I’d applied for in publishing for Mpls.St.Paul Magazine in Minnesota wanted an interview.
I’d explained I was in Florida and they said I could wait to interview in Minneapolis in person (the smart choice) but wanting to get my “new life” started as fast as possible thought that it would be a great idea to interview over the phone despite the fact it had been several days since I’d successfully kept food down – and probably water for that matter.
Let’s just say that I remember my brain firing on exactly zero cylinders during the interview. Trying to retrieve thoughts was like finding them in molasses and my brain felt garbled and confused. It was quite an alien feeling. And then I did an editing test.
The next month, they’d told me I had not made the next round and invited me to apply the next year.
Apparently, Benoit and I had already established I’d be back in Minnesota from the 28th of March onward. I think he was due to fly back from Lebanon to Kentucky and instead of coming to Tallahassee to drive up with me, I’d meet him in Kentucky and we’d drive from there to Minneapolis together.
Since I hadn’t seen my husband (or estranged husband? What do you call someone who effectively thinks you’re no longer married) since he’d ended our marriage via text?
I was nervous to see him again. I didn’t want the marriage to end but how best to play it? Aloof and okay? I knew sobbing and begging wouldn’t work with him.
At this point, I really thought he was having a midlife crisis and that once his brain cleared, he’d regret leaving me. I felt sorry for him.
When I arrived in Kentucky, only Benoit and my brother-in-law were there. I made Easter baskets for the nephews (obvs not the wisest choice with my precarious finances) who were also in Lebanon with my sister-in-law. I’m not sure they ever got them.
As those who have been divorced know, that part of the heartbreak isn’t just losing one person but many, the extra family you’ve gained and loved and I adored my new nephews. I was sad I never got to see them again. It was like the death of lots of people at once.
Benoit and I slept in bed together, back to back, in the guest room on the first floor (second storey for American readers) of the house, a room we’d never stayed in before. The house had three bedrooms on the main floor, a guest suite upstairs (where we were staying), and three bedrooms in the basement with a bathroom. The basement (not dark and dingy as we sometimes associate basements) was dug out from the side of a hill so it had glass doors on the back that led to a patio. It was where there was a big more casual “family den,” the boys’ toys, and some exercise equipment.
I was always impressed that despite the fact that my brother and sister-in-law were very wealthy (Benoit’s sister’s husband was a surgeon, his speciality was something like oesophagal medicine and taught at the University of Louisville), the boys were encouraged to use their imaginations. They rarely had screen time and they didn’t even have all that many toys.
They had to donate toys when they got too many new ones but they weren’t showered with presents the way children seem to be today. Of course, they were highly intelligent, accomplished children, and all went to a posh local Montessori school. They were truly wonderful boys, all three of them.
The fate of Benoit’s father
I still had hopes we’d reconcile. One night as we lay in the dark, I held his hand and he held mine back. I remember him getting the dreaded phone call that his father had died. He sat on the stairs down to the main floor of the house and I held him from behind.
Of course, he didn’t want comfort from me; he was already lost to me. He berated himself for flying back too soon, for not being there for his father, but especially his mother.
I can’t recall why he had now. I suppose he was conscious of how much time he could take from work.
Unsurprisingly, he didn’t want me to go with him to the funeral. I’d wanted to go, to pay my respects to his mother, and see his family one last time, but he said no.
Benoit and my brother-in-law were flying to Lebanon and I was driving to icy Minnesota by myself.
I remember awkwardly hugging my brother-in-law for far too long. He’d always been exceptionally kind to me and I’d been in awe of his intelligence. He had an extraordinary sense of humour – which had a sadder side too such as when he told me he’d been sent to England for boarding school by his wealthy parents. As a Lebanese boy amongst many white toffs, he was often bullied for being weedy and foreign. He recalls missing telephone calls – when phones were attached to the wall and had spiral chords – from his parents and sobbing holding the phone. When I visited Lebanon, we all had an amazing dinner at his parents’ house in Beirut and I sat by Benoit’s father that day.
My brother-in-law often spoke of interesting topics, besides telling me I drank too much water and that was not healthy for me. He and my sister-in-law threw lots of parties and before moving to Germany we’d been to several parties given by them and some even given by their neighbours. They were all warm people and I loved being part of their circle for that small bit of time. And now it was all gone.
The hotels
Benoit had booked the hotels for me but I don’t remember the logistics now. Louisville to Minneapolis was roughly an 11 hour drive (700ish miles). The drive from Madison, Florida to Louisville, Kentucky had also been close to an 11 hour drive (another 700ish miles).
My Google photos says I stopped in two places: Tennessee and Illinois. I suppose Kentucky was the in-between place.
One of the hotels was in a Marriott in Chattanooga, Tennessee – six hours from my mother’s house. I had visited Chattanooga years before with HSS’s family on some holiday when we were hiking in the North Carolina mountains.
The final destination (thankfully, no log trucks) was the Holiday Inn at Rockford, Illinois (king-sized bed this time).
The Mariot came with two queen-sized beds and seemed okay but the Holiday Inn was a little grim.
I love and miss America for that – the giant hotel rooms that is. Not too much else besides my family and Chick-fil-A and tacos (Thanks,
, for reminding me about the tacos via your recent post).
The dreaded voice note
Before I packed for Florida, in an effort to make the house look presentable – and this was even before I’d been told I was a slovenly unambitious waste of space – I must have popped my dirty pyjamas on top of the walk-in closet shelf. The only trouble was that I’d forgotten I did this.
In a voice note to Benoit that wasn’t really about the PJs at all, I had a meltdown at him about how he’d tried to remove all trace of me from the house (or something along these lines – no point digging up the exact thing now) and shoved these dirty pyjamas on top of the closet when he could have put them in a wash basket or some other such very embarrassing nonsense.
The thing is is that I am very rarely shouty and not often angry. But for Benoit, this was perfect fodder. He delighted in telling me A) he had no idea what I was talking about and B) his whole family had heard the voice note.
It was only hours later (or days – who knows time stood still in that Minnesota prison) that it dawned on me that I had done this. Benoit hadn’t at all done that. Sigh.
Moving bedrooms: will he miss me?
This was a very confusing time because I thought if I move bedrooms into the guest room then he will realise what it’s like not to have a wife and he will be so sad without me.
Reader, he did not even care.
Instead, I decided I couldn’t sleep without him in bed so I slept beside him.
Only for him to ask me questions like “who is [so and so] that you’ve been texting?” He had the pin to my phone and had been, presumably, reading what I’d been saying to other people. Instead of being all creeped out and affronted by this batshit behaviour, I told him they were people from my past (definitely some written about in these Why We Met chapters) that I had been forbidden to speak to before whilst married to Benoit.
Charles (the CFO) was one as his wife has just left him for an even stranger reason and Theo (the guy who works for a famous tech brand), whom I’d always considered a friend first and foremost.
It felt good to have a little flirting, even if I was miserable and felt hopeless about life.
I fantasised – and this could be a trigger warning and I’d never had this kind of ideation before – about Benoit coming home to find me strung up from the upper floor balcony, how he’d be sorry then, and miss me – when I was dead and gone.
But A) I couldn't do that to my family and B) there was always some part of me that knew there’d be life after this heartbreak. I wasn’t quite sure what that life entailed and I truly did think everything was quite over and I’d never find someone as amazing as him ever again (I really thought that – sigh) but there was an ever so slight flicker of home, a small match lit at the end of a long tunnel.
I spent a lot of time crying in the shower, fully wailing. That sort of crying where you’re in panic attack mode and can barely breathe. Heartbreak truly feels painful. There’s pain everywhere, despondency. The inability to eat or sleep.
My friend Landon’s debut novel
I arrived back in Minnesota at the end of March 2016.
On 16 March that year, Grammy had turned 80 in England. As one of my favourite people in the whole world, I’d meant to order one of those photo books for her of photos throughout her life and especially photos of us, explaining how much she meant to me.
I did that quite often for people. I was always the sort of person who’d make personalised gifts. I had zero headspace for it. I think I sent her some flowers, if anything at all that year.
I can’t actually promote Landon’s book because that would reveal this person’s real name but my friend Landon (written about where I said about sleeping with my crush’s best friend here) had written and published his debut novel with a small press.
I was thrilled for him and his pre-ordered book arrived at my door. I wrote on a post: “After a long drive from Florida to Minnesota, I came home to this exciting package. I cannot wait to begin reading. I'm so excited my friend is a published novelist as well as poet.”
I started the book and the opening was about heartbreak. It felt so visceral to my experience that I couldn’t read on.
Thankfully, I did finish the book years later and his other three books since.
Facebook unofficial
I was heartbroken one day to find that Benoit just removed our marriage on Facebook without even notifying me. That felt like a huge blow.
I know that sounds absolutely silly. But it felt like I was married one day and the next, every trace of that from his social media at least was gone.
I hadn’t even had the chance to screenshot that I’d actually been married once! That was a thing I did, screenshotting those ‘on this day’ memories on FB. Don’t even ask!
I’d been a little nuts in relationships (a la this bit on Bramwell) but never the sort to destroy property or check someone’s messages.
I still didn’t turn into destroying property like injecting milk into his doors or painting the rental house walls red or something but I did check his messages once and I felt so guilty about it. Benoit, however, had no such similar qualms, obviously.
I signed into his computer – he had this one generic password for everything – and opened my email in an Incognito window and then copied certain messages from his Facebook as fast as I could into my email and sent that email to myself. I wanted to be quick so no one would see the ‘green’ online appear on his Facebook and think he was online and then be like, “Oh, hey, are you online” and later he would be like, “Um, no definitely wasn’t online what was going on?”
Obviously, I over-thought it but I’m not going to be a super-secret-spy any time soon.
I read the emailed messages later with a pounding heart.
These messages were from 25 February. He’d ended our marriage six days before…
I didn’t find these messages until April.
I found out that his ex-girlfriend had added him back on Facebook and she was married with a baby now. She had a PhD taught nursing at a university in Pennsylvania where they’d lived together when he was in graduate school and had all sorts of impressive papers published in journals.
Thursday, 25 February 2016
Benoit’s ex: How is your dad doing?
Benoit: Not good.
Benoit’s ex: Any changes? How’s the wife?
Benoit: Nope, just getting worse. What wife?
WTAF? What wife?
Benoit’s ex: The one named Elaine. The one in your Facebook profile picture.
Benoit: Oh year. She is at her mom’s and we are not talking.
Benoit’s ex: Why now?
Benoit: I told her we are done.
So emotional.
Benoit’s ex: When was that?
Benoit: 3 or 4 days ago. Not sure.
Benoit’s ex: Sounds like that would have been an interesting conversation to overhear.
Benoit: Not really, and don't’ tell anyone, please, especially [Karen]
Benoit’s ex: [Karen] and I don’t really talk. She hasn’t tried to contact me in months. I invited her over a few times. She came once and the last time she said she had just eaten so she didn’t want to meet for lunch.
Benoit: Ah okay.
Karen was toxic AF so I’m not surprised…
Benoit’s ex: Sounds like this will be a rough few months for you but in the end it will be okay.
I guess she was being sympathetic and fishing.
Benoit told me very little about his ex except that I “won out” (not his direct words but the sentiment) because I was social and she was not but otherwise she was more what he wanted.
Benoit: I will manage. We will see where this goes and what she wants to do. And whether divorce is going to be amicable or courts and crap.
I was so heartbroken that no, I didn’t involve anything complicated. I just went, willingly, and pretty ‘screwed over,’ according to my family but hey ho.
Benoit’s ex: Or if you will even divorce? Why don’t you try therapy?
Benoit: We have too many fundamental differences for this to work anymore and I don’t believe in therapy, you know that.
Yes, he didn’t believe in learning anything was wrong with him and trying to heal from it.
Benoit’s ex: Okay. At least you are not left wondering if one day your husband will walk in the door and tell you he is leaving. At least you know what will happen.
Benoit: Is that what you are thinking?
Benoit’s ex: Most days. And don't say you don’t believe in therapy because I have also heard you say you don’t believe in divorce. At all.
Benoit: Yeah, I guess you are right about that. Are you guys not happy either?
I thought his messages were incredibly cold and heartless.
Benoit’s ex: Some days we are and others we aren’t. I think for us it has to do more with appreciation. We each feel like the other doesn’t appreciate and recognize what we give and do on a daily basis. Our house is a huge area of contention from both sides. If we didn’t have that issue, it would be much better. Anyway, I’m husband-less tonight because he is out of town for work. If you need to vent, just call.
Benoit: Funny as we are talking it seems like my wife is still thinking of coming back to Minneapolis since she is applying for internships in publishing here and talking about it on Facebook.
He said I should go back to Minnesota…and he’s making out as if it was my idea. My original messages to him said I should just stay in Florida and he encouraged me to come back…SMH!
Benoit’s ex: Easier for you to support her if she’s close. She must be telling people you split.
Benoit: Why?
Benoit’s ex: Because it seems via Facebook that she left to her friends but is still coming back? Or maybe I read that wrong? It sounded like people knew she left but was coming back again?
No idea what this means. I only told a few small close family members and some friends because I was mortified and embarrassed, and I hoped things would work out.
Benoit: Yeah probably. Otherwise she would have changed it on Facebook. She thinks of Facbeook as the fucking Bible.
Thank goodness Facebook is no longer cool.
That was the end of that for the day…but then they talked again.
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Benoit’s ex: [Karen] tells me you are heading home Friday for your father. Sorry to hear about everything happening. You have a lot on your plate. Did you tell her about Elaine?
Benoit: Yes, I did.
Benoit’s ex: How did that go?
Benoit: It was okay. I am so frustrated that she keeps blaming me for not telling her that I got married in the first place. I just don’t want to deal with much now other than what is going on with my dad. The last act that caused the breakup between Elaine and I is the fact that she couldn’t lay off my back with the attention-seeking she needs.
Way harsh.
Benoit never realised he’d created this dynamic. He made me needy and dependent on him, infantilising our relationship, then hated me for it, complaining I wasn’t a life partner. Also, he and his ex were older than me and as I’ve said before, that makes a difference in life experience and processing.
Benoit’s ex: Oh. Well [Karen] keeps blaming the marriage issue on you and I’m getting the blame for currently excluding her from our lives even though I don’t think she understands how busy life is with an infant whilst working full time and renovating a house. We don’t do much of anything other than work and house project. Oh well. How long will you be in Lebanon?
I don’t even remember his ex’s surname to current Facebook stalk her and see if her marriage even worked out.
Benoit: Until the 20th. She can come visit you if she wants to see you. That’s my opinion.
Benoit’s ex: That’s what I just told her. It’s a two-way street. If she wants to stop by all she has to do is ask but I’m not going to keep inviting her every time. Last time she told me no anyway. Is Elaine still in Florida?
Benoit: Yes, she won’t be coming back until after Lebanon.
Benoit’s ex: Was there a significant change with your dad?
Benoit: Yes, he is dying and there is nothing we can do.
Benoit’s ex: Sorry. Nothing anyone wants to hear. Are your sisters going too or are they already there?
Benoit: They were there before me and [redacted sister’s name] goes again on the 26th.
Benoit’s ex: Not sure what or how but if I can do anything, let me know.
Benoit: Thanks but I don’t think anyone can do anything at this point.
Benoit’s ex: What’s meant to be will be. I don’t know if we are both better off apart or not but my mind sometimes wonders what it would have been like to be with you. During the happy fun times travelling Europe together, the scary times of you being away, and the challenging times like now. It’s always interesting where life takes us.
Oh oh getting in there with a little ‘are you thinking about me’ and ‘what if’ moment. Girl, I don’t blame you. We have all been there, right?
Benoit: Yeah, no kidding. The small things that you used to do all the times that I never thought would make a difference are some of the major reasons Elaine and I are done.
Oh, yes, how boring. Back to how I fail at being a good wife. LOLs.
Benoit’s ex: That’s ironic. I don’t even know what they would have been. I definitely didn’t do anything extraordinary.
Subtext: hashtag #humblebrag. Oh teehee. Thanks for saying I’m so great.
Benoit: Like the stuff around the apartment and the cooking and keeping the place tidy and looking nice and not spreading crap all over the place. Waking up early, being efficient, actually caring about a job. Funny right, the simple things in life?
Benoit’s ex: Ummm those are pretty simple. Not anything but being ordinary… If you decide to date again and find a ‘normal’ girl you won’t know what to do.
Bitch!
Benoit: Well, I have to be in the mindset to date again.
Benoit’s ex: True. It’s amazing what reminds me of you or of the experiences we have had together.
I won’t bore you with much of the rest…there is more but obvs it drones on and meanders as conversations do.
Monday, 14 March 2016
Benoit’s ex: You know it’s officially over when you both change your Facebook profile pics to not include one another…How is your time in Lebanon with the family?
She’s really into this season two drama isn’t she? Really trying to dig into the bones of this marriage. She could just come across these chapters and then she’d know it all!
Benoit: Time in Lebanon sucks. It is good to be here for my mother.
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
Benoit’s ex: Are you back in the States? How is everything going?
Benoit: Yes, I am. It is going.
Sunday, 27 March 2016
Benoit: My dad passed away this morning. I am on a flight to Lebanon. If I don’t answer, that’s because I had to turn off my phone.
Benoit’s ex: I am so sorry to hear that. Praying for you and your family!
So, either he was really great in their relationship or her marriage was just incredibly shit by contrast. I mean she wasn’t particularly nice about me but hopefully things turned out okay for her.
Thanks to the email I saved where I found these messages, I had the university where she taught and typed in her first name and voila! She’s still married to the same man and now has three boys with him. I guess things worked out…I don’t know if these are skills or if I have a very big problem.
Sadly, none of Michael’s ex-flings were stalkable, which is probably best for my mental health anyway.
Well done Benoit’s ex for teaching, juggling three children, a husband, and keeping everything spotless. Love that for her. Spoiler: if she and Benoit ever get back together they can almost recreate Cheaper by the Dozen (exaggerating a little but more on this later).
Confusing times
When we were back in the swing of our weird final three months together, I went with the tactic of instead of begging him showing him I could be the perfect wife.
I had dinner on the table each night, I did all the cleaning, I did all the laundry, I tried to show that if I’d only known what was wrong – had things reasonably communicated – I could be a good girl for him and wag my puppy tail.
We even had more sex during that time than we had before (obvs that was not difficult to beat our old numbers of being lucky if we had it four times per month). I guess he didn’t have a mistress in Minnesota yet so I was available. (I kid about this but I only suspect that was his jam back in Germany and Prague or wherever as I found later that he not only had suspicious friends from Prague – sexy women – on his FB list but also he talked about how he was some single man on a Couchsurfing website which was made after we were married.)
I wanted to seduce him and show him what he’d miss, so I remember a particularly steamy scene that involved a staircase, a corset, and some stockings. I guess I’d gotten close to the figure back that he wanted and now I was actually fuckable again (screaming inside).
I tried to seduce him with photos (these are the safe ones).
I seemed at least to be getting dressed because I met him most days for lunch at this semi-chain place called Cafe Zupas that served chocolate covered strawberries on the side. Plus I took a bunch of photos of my outfits, probably examining myself and wondering why I was so unlovable and what I’d done so wrong in life to end up here, on the cusp of divorce.
These lunches were confusing because we were almost friends during them, except one time he got angry at me for crying when I had a sudden mental breakdown and asked him why he was leaving me. He told me not to make a scene and I remember a man at another table looking at me with concern, or maybe he was just embarrassed I was crying in public.
Driving to Illinois to see Theo
The chocolate strawberries made me remark one day that I’d never tried one of those edible arrangements so he bought one for me when I was on the way to see Theo (written about in this chapter if you scroll down) who was attending a wedding in Wisconsin.
I said I could get a room and hang out between best man duties. Plus, I was making use of the final miles on my Audi.
I think Benoit had always been a bit jealous of Theo but Theo was one of those people I’d been told not to talk to but we’d started chatting again and he invited me to Wisconsin where he was seeing a friend of ours from uni get married. I think he was the best man.
I opted not to wedding crash because I got distinct vibes from the bride when we were all doing shots in the groom’s room that she thought I was a totalfuckingbitch (seriously, I was getting daggers). No one wants that one rando in your wedding photos, right, so I was being kind. I was just too heartbroken anyway.
To be fair, there were lots of photos of her future husband and me on the old Facebook from our partying younger days, but the most we’d ever done was make out. Sheesh! And he full-on dated my old housemate. I was not coming to the wedding to husband hunt. I had enough problems as it was!
In hindsight, I should have spent as much time as possible having glorious sex with Theo like the old times but thinking there might be a chance Benoit would get back with me but he wouldn't if I had “cheated” then I didn’t. Sigh! Total missed opportunity.
Theo was always a sweetheart and I slept in Theo’s room one night – and we spent time chatting and drinking in his room’s hot tub – and Benoit got me a room the second night (he didn’t want to pay for two nights). It was comforting to be held by my friend, to pour my heart out, to have someone empathise and listen.
I didn’t understand why this was happening to me and hoped I could convince Benoit to try again.
More messages: the biggest bombshell of all…
I guess I only felt the need to email myself the messages from Karen and his ex. I don’t even think I’d have the technological capabilities to do this now.
Obviously, now there’s all the two-factor authentication and codes texted to phones so it would be a no go anyway, but I somehow managed to select entire sections of Facebook chat conversation and paste them into an email to myself and send them.
Here’s the lovely conversation he had with Karen.
31 February 2016
Karen: Yesterday, I finished reading a book by Joel Rosenberg called The Third Target.
This was an author Benoit loved and my Uncle Tim’s wife Brooke actually knows him! But I never got to meet him or anything but I couldn’t because I’ve not read any of his books. Benoit loved a military spy thriller of sorts. Although the Google says he’s an “American-Israeli Christian evangelical Fundamentalist Calvinist” who has written sixteen novels “about terrorism and Bible prophecy.” I don’t think I’ll be reading any of his books any time soon…
Karen (continued): It is part of a series that I shared interest in with [Bob]. Every time a book in the series came out, we would both have read it and talked about it. Well, the book is done, and he would have enjoyed it. Just saw this in my memories. Brought a tear to my eye. I can remember the two of you talking about these books. He loved them.
Benoit didn’t reply.
27 March 2016
Karen: What the hell did I ever do to you except love you? I haven't heard from you and you lied to me again. I don't care what you decide to do with your life or who you want to spend it with. Just don't lie to me. [Bob] would be so disappointed in you for your lying. [Benny,] I love you so much and I don't know why you are doing this to me.
You and [Benoit’s ex] are cut from the same cloth!
Two of the people beside [some name? Maybe her son?] are gone from my life and I don't know why. I love you. Just wish I understood why.
Benoit: I did not lie to you at all. I just have a lot going on in my life with my dad and all. What did I lie to you about?
I’m sure he did lie, but whatevs. He told her we weren't married when we were and keeping the marriage a secret was batshit in the first place.
Benoit (continued) I love you too and I don't know what you need to understand. Before you keep going, me and Elaine split up.
Karen: You lied! You got married before [Bob] died. You never told him or us. You told [Karen’s daughter-in-law] when you were here for [Bob’s] funeral that you would never marry her.
I’m sorry, what? He would never marry me when we’d been married to me for a full year at this point and together for close to two years. Was my marriage fucked from the get-go. I mean obviously yes, but who was I married to?
Karen: Then you told me that you were done when you came home.
Um, is this referring to the November before the February he ended our marriage? If so, it was very planned. What a complete and utter twat.
Karen: [Benny,] I don't care what you do, I love you. Please just don't lie to me. If you would have done this to [Bob] he would have never spoken to you again. I love you and I don't understand you.
Benoit: Me and Elaine are done and I can't change the past. I have too much to deal with these days. Yes. It is. Not changed on Facebook because I don't want to deal with the drama of all the questions.
Yes, because drama and questions are just too much. To be fair, when my Dad was dying I’m sure I felt much the same.
Benoit (continued): My father is dying and that's what matters now. I leave for Lebanon on Friday for 10 days. I have a new phone number [number].
Karen went from venom to honey.
Karen: Why didn’t you tell me any of this! I am so sorry about your Father, may God be with him. Maybe he and [Bob] will meet. [Benny,] you have to be honest with me. I love you so much. You became a part of our family, and [daughter-in-law] especially is so hurt. We talk about you all of the time. You have a family here if you would only let us in. I pray for you Father and your Family. I love you. I am leaving for Delaware in the morning to watch [grandson]. Why don't you call me tomorrow night or Wednesday.
We really need to talk. I don't want to lose you! Safe travels! My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family.
Um, so reading that was interesting. Of course, I forwarded these messages to my mother to discuss but I have no idea how she reacted but she was always supportive and on my side so I’m sure she was very sympathetic.
Even more drama
Oh and also he’d sent messages to my friend – one of my Germany ladies – whose husband was often gone so we hung out with her and her super adorable, precocious daughter often. The daughter once told Benoit she wished he was her dad which made for an awkward moment in the restaurant for the three ‘adults.’ He was good with her and I adored both the mum and the daughter. We’d all been friends.
Of course, Benoit was always allowed to have female friends. I got upset once when he’d revealed how he’d gone to lunch several times with a woman who was divorcing her husband, consoling her, and how he went running with another young female soldier often and many on the base considered her ‘hot.’
I suppose, in hindsight, Benoit was incredibly secretive and if there had been anything happening, he certainly wouldn’t have told me about them. But there were many instances like this and I don’t know if his game was to keep me on my toes, insecure, and jealous – or demonstrate again how I failed to be all he wanted. I’ll never know.
Back to my friend with the daughter, I found a message where he told her she looked hot in her military ball gown. She did look hot in it but because I didn’t have her figure (one of those slim, hourglass ones and very perky fake breasts and the dress was plunging) I felt pretty distraught and had all sorts of imaginings.
Here’s the bonus material of my email to him where I confronted him about two of the ladies and he actually replied.
Did they secretly have an affair? Is that why we never (rarely) had sex in our marriage?
I didn’t talk to her for years. I later told her that I’d appreciate her friendship and I’d been immensely jealous and it hadn’t been anything to do with her. She’d even come to that lovely leaving party Victoria had thrown for me. I thought we’d been close.
In her messages, she wasn’t actively encouraging the flirting or flirting back or anything but my jealousy and confusion got the better of me.
Far too many revelations came at once for my brain to process.
Limboland
I kept looking for signs that I hadn’t been totally mad, that I hadn’t spent almost four years of my life – nothing in the grand scheme of things, a blip but a huge percentage when given the fact I was only twenty-eight – with a man who was a stranger. I’d say if adulthood is aged 18, then I’d spent 14% of my actual life with him but 40% of my adult life, so it felt significant. Was everything I’d lived a total lie? DId he ever love me? Did he plan the split and make it seem like it had reached boiling point?
Coming up next, how I spent my twenty-ninth birthday alone and what I planned for my future.
New here or haven’t followed from the beginning, why don’t you catch up on the other eighty-three chapters I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing these chapters in the first place – with the odd “present day snippet” of what is happening in my world lately. (Spoiler: things are much, much better.)
Were you ever borderline nuts and/or stalkerish to an ex? A family member of Michael’s (won’t reveal who) has a classic story about the time she snuck into the boot of her husband’s car to discover him cheating. I guess that’s the “old school” way of doing it. And a lot more dramatic.
Need to catch up on the Benoit saga? Check out some past chapters:
"I was heartbroken one day to find that Benoit just removed our marriage on Facebook without even notifying me. That felt like a huge blow." - wooooow, what a piece of work this guy is. Sounds like you had a lucky escape