Once it stops defining you, you're getting better.

by Jo
(UK)

Anger is something I know about. Anger and betrayal.

A few years ago, I received a call from my husband in the middle of the day saying he had just been asked to leave his desk and was being suspended from duty.
I was bewildered. What was it about? He said he didn't know.

Over the following weeks, stories began to appear in the paper about a suspected fraud in this particular company. My husband continued to deny any knowledge.

Two months later, the family (my husband, myself and our two teenage children) was subjected to a 7am visit by Police executing a search warrant.

It was not enough that they marched up the drive wearing flak jackets with foot high lettering on their backs identifying their agency, but they then swarmed through the house rather theatrically shouting 'CLEAR!' in the lounge room and kitchen and waking and watching the rest of the family get up and dressed in the bedrooms, before escorting them to where I was, shellshocked, in the dining room. That day, my husband was arrested and charged.

From there it was two and a half years of uncertainty, doubt, fear, distrust and anxiety before it got to court. We stayed together so that I could support the family and his income (he was working casually as a driver) could all go towards his legal defence. He continued to deny any wrongdoing. I continued to support him, largely because whatever I thought might actually have happened, he was entitled to defend himself.

You will be aware of Dr. Kubler-Ross and her 5 stages of grief; anger, denial, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I have identified the four stages of outrage: Shock, shame, rage (this goes for a really long time), acceptance.

He had his day in court and was found guilty. He was sentenced to several years and is serving them in a minimum security prison in the country. I visited him twice there, then decided I didn't need to put myself through that and walked away. Six months later, I divorced him. The divorce was finalised 4 months after our 25th wedding anniversary.

The real turning point for me was when I realised I wasn't walking around with this episode branded on my forehead. There were more people in the world that didn't know about it than did. It didn't have to define me or the rest of my life. That's when the healing really started. I still think about it every day. I still think about him everyday. But I cannot come to any sort of understanding of what he did or why he did it and have decided to leave it alone as a mystery of nature. It has nothing more to do with me. And I feel a lot better about things now that I have arrived at that conclusion.