On Saturday, B told me he wanted to go out and buy me a gift for our anniversary. It would have been our 18th anniversary today.

I asked him not to. Last year, our anniversary was only a couple of weeks after I found out he had a girlfriend. Just over a week before our anniversary, he asked me to keep the girlfriend. He continued to talk to her for a week. Each night, he deleted the app, so I couldn’t see what was going on. Each day, he redownloaded the app to continue his relationship with her. By the end of the week, she had broken up with him (or at least that’s what he told me. I won’t know ever because he hid it all from me).

The day of our anniversary, we were leaving to Japan to meet my brother. There was no mention of our 17th anniversary by him at all. I had given him his gift I spent months working on on the days he was out with his girlfriend(that was fun to find out). I gave it to him the night I caught him as I left the flat because he refused to leave. There was no gift or mention or anything from him. I don’t know why I wanted it. I guess I shouldn’t have.

We spent a week in Japan travelling around with my brother and our kids. He spent much of the time depressed missing his girlfriend. I was still trying to keep him at that point. He continued to push me away. The whole time, I had the one person I wanted to talk to about it right there in front of me, my brother. But I couldn’t. The kids didn’t know what was going on. Neither of our families knew. I was afraid to make B angry, so I kept my mouth shut.

The whole thing was traumatic for me. I was a mess.

When he wanted to celebrate our anniversary this year, I was dumbfounded. Why? Why would you want to? We didn’t make it to 18 years. We didn’t make it to 17 years. We barely made it past 16 years because he was with his girlfriend only a few months after our 16th anniversary. So why?

When I asked him not to do anything, he became depressed by that. He stopped talking to me for a while and when we did talk, he was really upset. He says he feels hopeless. I don’t know what to tell him for that.

He had started trying to win me back after we returned from Christmas holidays. Before that, it was all very “yeah, I want to stay with you, but you need to take responsibility for my affair”. Now, it isn’t.

He’s backed off that attitude though.

On the morning of our anniversary, he did make me breakfast and coffee. That was really nice. I appreciated it.

I don’t know what he wants from me. Well, that’s a lie. I do know what he wants from me. He wants to come back and be together again. Right now, we are as together as I am willing to be. I like to spend time with him. I enjoy his company. I will not trust him or put myself out there for him ever again.

He knows this.

I can’t wait for this virus thing to be over. I can’t wait to start living my life again.