Chapter 8: Really, Maya… How Did You Not Know?

Hey, Janey-Jane!

What’s up? You asked about how I met Marc, and the very obvious question of how did I not know.
Ouch! Honestly, that one always hurts. You’re not the first to ask it, and won’t be the last. I don’t think the pain of hearing that question will ever go away. Sooooo… Here you go, chicka!

Marc and I met many moons prior to our romance beginning.

After about the mid-1980’s we really didn’t talk at all. Then, God bless Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook was created. In the late 2000s, post-divorce for both of us, we reconnected. We dated about two years before moving in together. We purchased a home together, and created a life where we blended families and worked hard to create an environment where our children felt safe. Janey, it really was a great life.

Sure, there were issues with blending families. We faced issues with former spouses, and in jobs where we both traveled. I thought our life was a dream. Friends commented that we were the “best couple ever.” I had 6 scrapbooks filled with tickets and pictures and diaries written by me and by Marc, detailing what we were feeling and doing in our life for every month, from the time we started dating until the time I left. (Well, I did have them. After I left him, Marc tore up every picture, through the center of my face, and trashed the scrapbooks. I found them all destroyed in the trash when I went to the house to get more of my belongings; it was at this moment, I knew he would be determined to kill me.)

Through it all we had fabulous adventures and lots of sex and lots of love.

I am a girl who loves sex. Loves it! I would have gladly experienced our sex every day. The smells, tastes, sound and scent of him thrilled me. Pretty nice slice of heaven for me. I thought our life was a dream. Every night when I was home and not traveling (Not exaggerating. Every.), we would fall asleep entwined like tired wrestlers. In the middle of the night, he’d reach for me and fall back asleep holding my hand or wrapping his feet over mine. Beautiful. I was the luckiest girl in the world!

We had planned on getting married. We were to elope. All was planned, booked, ring given, set to go. How did I not know about his secret life? He worked really, really hard to keep it secret. And, I loved him desperately. I wouldn’t have any reason to think he wasn’t completely devoted to me.

Yeah, so no wedding. All canceled. Marc and I did not get married.

One evening, I was made aware that Marc had cheated on me the entire time of our relationship with very few moments of monogamy in the years we were together. That night, after a wine tasting, home to get naked, climb in bed, and make love, Marc casually said to me, “Baby, don’t get mad at me. I think you’re going to be mad at me. I’ve done something bad. Really bad.” Casually.

His casual reference to his actions, gave way to pretty significant actions, that included several days of email exchanges with another couple on Craigslist. It wasn’t about selling our car, which I was trying to get rid of for a few thousand dollars. No haggling of price for our family car. Nope. Nothing like that at all.

This email conversation was about inviting them to have sex with us. Hmmmmm… What?!?!? So, you think I might be mad over you inviting another couple into our bed? I demanded to see the email exchange.

Whoa! Marc had provided our picture. What I did for a living. Where we lived. My name. “No, love, I’m not mad. I’m LIVID and you can get out of my house,” was what I screamed through my instant tears.

His response was, “Great! See, I knew you’d be mad. Now I guess we’ll have to stay up all night talking about how mad you are.”

I can’t explain the calm that came over me, at that very moment. I remember it so clearly. It was as if there was a big and otherworldly whisper, “Shhhhhhh. Be quiet. Be still.” I remember turning around as if someone had actually whispered those five words in my right ear.

It was pure fear. Fear that I knew nothing about the man I had just been intimate with; intimacy that was still wet on my skin. (Had he really, not five minutes earlier, told me that touching me and making love to me was an intensity and love that could never be duplicated? I could still smell his scent and sweat in my hair.)

In fact, I didn’t know anything about the man I had been monogamous with for a decade. I tried not to shake as I climbed back in bed. I told him that we could discuss everything in the morning, and when I rolled onto my right side, he spooned me and quickly fell asleep. I remember silently crying and hoping my pillow didn’t get so wet, he would notice. I prayed to my Grandma, and any deceased friend, to please keep me awake until he fell asleep. And, when he did fall asleep and stayed soundly on my side of the bed, I quietly untangled myself and grabbed his still open computer off the nightstand.

Now I am not good with a Mac. I don’t use a Mac and my hands were shaking as it was, plus I kept having to run to the bathroom to vomit. Plus, I’m afraid he would wake up. Plus, I forgot to grab my bathrobe, and am too afraid to wake him by going back into our bedroom. So, I am trying to figure out the Mac, and hoping no kids come out at 2 am to find me naked and sobbing over an open computer.

What did I discover? I have lengthy email evidence of Marc having sex with random strangers whom he met from over seven different “cheating” sites. According to what I’ve read, and Marc’s own admissions, Marc even invited other people into our home, exposing the safe place I created. Marc created risk not only physically, but safety wise as well. These were people he had never met before. The majority of the women (I would find out months later, that his indiscretions included men ) were from Craigslist. CRAIGSLIST!!!! Where people get shot and killed trying to buy a car or property or objects, because they aren’t who they say they are.

Where several serial killers used Craigslist to track and kill certain types of people based on their pictures. SUPER DANGEROUS!!!!!!! It’s filled with prostitutes and drug dealers. These are complete and total strangers that Marc admits to conversing with daily on Craigslist, inviting them to our home, in my absence, to have sex.

Sick. I’m pretty open sexually from the standpoint of what others do is their business, if everyone consents. Go for it! But, Craigslist is a level of disgust that is pretty pathetic. I never knew. If you go on Craigslist personals under casual encounters. (Heck, check out any city, and you’ll get a glimpse of Marc’s (admitted to) daily life.

Scares the heck out of me.

And, really, if you’re going to post a nudie, can you at least wash the grease from your hands? Or take your miss-matched socks off? Or maybe, just maybe, not have your cat on the bed with you and dirty laundry.

Now it took a good 6 weeks of denial and blame from Marc; regardless of the black and white evidence that came from his computer. It seems the good man was intent on blaming our neighbors, the FBI, my former husband, his former wife, everyone in the whole wide world who was jealous of us, and most definitely even the CEO of his company, for setting him up to ruin our true and beautiful love.

He never could explain why he invited people into our bedroom for sex. He knows I would never have agreed to that. How in the world was he going to make that happen?!??!?

The recorded conversations, email and text messages would be comical to read and listen to now, if not for the sadness and tragic mania in his voice and words. Ultimately, Marc admitted to me DAILY and multiple postings to Craigslist. He has exposed us all to danger. He holds a high level position within his company and is very involved with multiple tenants of the business and industry. He knows better.

There are news stories over people being shot by buying a car on Craig’s List where we live. A car!! And he arranged to have sex with people from this site?!?!? He gave out his work cell phone number to all these people and the number can be traced back to his work! All the Craigslist postings were done on his work computer. He gave out his picture easily and often- thus exposing himself and consequently all my family.

And. His. Employer.

His work cell phone that he gave to people? Took me less than 60 seconds to do a reverse Google (Who makes Google? God bless them, too.) look up and BOOM! The cell phone is issued to HIS COMPANY. Anyone can look up HIS COMPANY on LinkedIn, and search for Marc because he gave out his picture to these folks……BOOM! Wow – I’m having casual and unprotected sex with the big-wig of a major company.

Or, the jealous and enraged partner who discovers the indiscretion, now knows exactly who their partner engages with. Take another two minutes and via the white pages.com site, everyone knows where exactly Marc lives. What if they came back when I was there? What if I was by myself? What if the kids were there by themselves? What if they brought family members or jealous husbands, wives, partners, etc to harm us?

This is a perfect example of people not connecting the dots. As I referenced above, people do not take the next steps of what exactly those kinds of actions could mean to everyone who lives in the same house, with an adulterer who uses the internet to secure his next partner.

WHAT IF THESE PEOPLE WEREN’T EVEN WHO THEY CLAIMED TO BE?

Marc admits to me he would also meet in homes or hotels when he traveled. The events match to when I was out of town for work or personal, or he traveled.

Now we were having sex 4-5 times a week and he exposed me to such disease. I will find out this afternoon about my six month check-up. But think about THESE dots to connect.

Marc knows he has sexually transmitted diseases. He admitted. He knows!

With Craigslist, or Adult Friend Finders, or Ashley Maddison all the user has to do is change their location, and up pops a host of people in any city across the country, ready and willing to “play” or “host” (two words that take on an entirely different meaning in my world now, and trigger panic attacks).

Again, maybe because I am a first born or a glutton for punishment, but I’ve gone back through over ten years of the good man’s work travels. I counted about 36 cities where he traveled by himself. Remember – he has admitted to daily postings and every time he traveled. 36 cities. Lots of people he could have met, exposed to STDs, who went back home and exposed their unsuspecting partners to STDs, too. It is staggering to think about the destruction one man has extended across the country to people and the implosion of their lives, and impact on their children.

Now multiply his actions by the potential of another 449 million users. Sometimes connecting those dots is a little too much for me to comprehend. I break out in huge welts and hives if I sit in that place too long.

I love you lady,
Maya

Hey, reader! Don’t forget! One more quick mention: This is my story, and I am a white (I never tan, only turn bright red in the sun, and then back to white again), English-speaking female. I also know men, people of color, people who identify in the LGBTQ+ community, immigrants and people who have English as a second language. Check out the Safe In Harm’s Way microsite called TheLastImSorry.com. It is designed for EVERY person to have solutions unique to THEM. So we cover men, women, people of color, the LGBTQIA+ community, immigrants, English as a second language, and medically compromised people. YOU can find unique help for your immediate needs.