The Loss of My Husband to Betrayal

by Heather

Warning: My words come from deep-seated pain and despair. My story is unpleasant and nothing as clearly-defined as the loss of a loved one to death.

My story is complicated; my reason for grieving does not seem to fit into any specific category. I am grieving the loss of my husband, of my dreams, and of the last six years, which have lost much of their meaning and value.

My pain began 39 days ago when my husband shot himself in the head. I did not see it coming, I did not know what he was planning, and my heart stopped when the police came to my door. Despite all odds, he was found and taken to the hospital where angels disguised as doctors saved his life. For the next week, I lived at the hospital and waited to see whether the man I loved still existed. What I did not know yet was that the man I loved had been dead inside long before he shot himself.

I lived and breathed his recovery. His tiny growths were my joys, his struggles my fears. He eventually woke up, stood, walked, talked. He made miraculous growth and let hope flow through me like poison.

I soon learned that he had been making plans to do terrible things, to hurt other people. My gentle husband, who bought me flowers when I was sad, who held me when I cried over trivial things and who smoothed my hair at night as I fell asleep. I had been living a lie and I did not know it until my world was torn from me. His doctors said he is delusional, a sociopath that slips in and out of reality so easily that he did not even know he was doing it. Neither did I.

He lied to me. He deceived me. He took everything from me.

The hope in me wilted the day the authorities came to my house with a warrant. The day they listed my daughter and I as victims and started investigating the sickness in my husband's head. The things they found out...the pain he was planning...the disgusting, awful things he had intended to do...he shot himself to prevent it all. Perhaps there was still something honorable within him somewhere, or more likely it was entirely a selfish act.

My husband died the night he hurt himself, for me at least. He is alive physically, but there is little left of the person I knew. Now all I see is an act - one very large lie conceived to hide a malicious aspect to his personality. He did love me, for a time, and it was intimate and true. I do not know when he stopped, or if he even has. Perhaps he still loves me somewhere inside his bitter, hateful heart.

It doesn't matter.

I have lost my life partner, my dreams and my strength. I suppose I will eventually find new purpose and new dreams, but right now all I see is black.

To quote my husband's last words, "This was his greatest betrayal."