How a Predator Hunts

When I still worked in my civil service job, I knew a woman named Ellen. She worked in the same office as the registrar. She was funny and outgoing, all the things I am not. She would say the most personal and outrageous things and I really liked her.

The Air Force had always blocked Facebook from their servers. Active duty and employees were not allowed to go to social networking sites but in 2009 they unblocked access. Ellen loved Facebook, I did not have a profile. She often told me to make a profile. 

Her cubicle was behind mine and one day she loudly exclaimed, "Tell your husband to quit contacting me!" Huh, I asked. What are you talking about? He's instant messaging me! Why is he doing that?

I jumped on my email and sent him a message to knock it off. Not only is Ellen a very sexual woman she cannot keep her mouth shut. Her comments brought up my insecurities. We talked about it at home. Please, I asked. It's not really appropriate to be messaging her. Why, he asked. She  invited me to be friends and I was just messaging her. Don't ask why, I told him. She is just so loud and she sees sexual advances in everything a man does. Please just stop. I'm asking you to do this for me. It's embarrassing at work for her to announce to the entire office that you have contacted her. It doesn't matter if it's innocent, it sounds guilty when she says it. He promised he would stop.

One day in late 2009 Ellen came to my cubicle and in a loud voice said, "Is your husband a freak, or what???" I froze. I turned to her and said, well, we've been married for almost 20 years, I'm pretty sure he's a freak, why do you ask?.

"Why does he keep contacting me? He's on my Facebook and he said he hadn't seen me for a week and wants to know what I'm doing? What's that all about? Why does he know how long it's been since he's seen me? Why does he care what I'm doing?" 

I felt so angry and humiliated. I wanted to yell at her to shut up. I wanted to throttle her for being so public. I couldn't say a thing. I turned back to my computer and told her she should ask him those questions. She hovered for a while and then left. I typed an email to my husband. I asked you not to contact Ellen again. What is wrong with you? Why can't you leave women alone? Why can't you leave her alone? I've just been humiliated in my own office so thanks for that.

A few minutes later he showed up outside my office. I went outside to talk to him. He said he was just being friendly and he didn't understand what he did wrong. I told him of course he didn't understand. He never understands why his interactions with women are so inappropriate. I said, you promised me you wouldn't contact her again but you did. Now I'm embarrassed, my whole office heard what she said. Why did you have to do that?

He apologized. He said he didn't understand the big deal. He never meant it sexually. I tried to have a conversation with him about how married men interact with women. How things can be misinterpreted because of people's experiences and that part of being married is self-censorship. He rolled his eyes and promised he would never contact her again.

I could not bring myself to speak to Ellen again. I wanted to tell her how she might act a bit more civilized but I knew my husband's problems were not hers. I wanted to suggest to her that she could have pulled me aside and told me quietly about her suspicions, but what was the point. I wanted to tell her that she stirred up so many emotions, but how was she to know? I wanted to tell her to mind her own bloody business but I suspect she was accurate in her feelings. My husband is a predator. He cannot help himself.

He has no idea what appropriate relationships between men and women are much less appropriate relationships between a married man and women. I'm not sure he was even aware that he was hunting. He was sniffing the wind, trying to find out her vulnerabilities. He was always sniffing the wind. She knew it and so did I. 

The Worst Thing that Happened

In the weeks that follow betrayal, life becomes something different. I felt I wasn't present. I felt the ground shift under me constantly. I couldn't balance my emotions or my life. What did I know? What didn't I know? What was my fault? What was his fault?

I had to go to work. I tried to distract myself. I felt physically weak and mentally groggy. I sleep walked. And one day, I realized I didn't know anything. I thought about the stories I had loved to tell about our life together. How I traveled for 24 hours to Korea. How I didn't want to go and how I cried the entire way there. How the four hour bus ride to my base left me exhausted and enthralled by that beautiful country. How confused I was when I stepped off the bus.

My entire shop was there to greet me. All 10 or 12 of them. I was the first woman in my career field to ever be stationed in Korea. They all came out to see me. And as I stepped off the bus I saw the disappointment in their eyes. I wasn't hot. I wasn't fun. I wasn't even pretty. They melted away without even saying hi. My supervisor dripped sweat as he told me there was no private NCO room for me so I would have to share with an airman. He literally ran away. My husband stayed. He looked at me and asked me if he could buy me a beer. I nearly cried in gratitude.

We sat and talked. He took me to billeting because I refused to settle for a room less than what my male counterparts had. I wanted him to stay. I thought it was the jet lag, the stress. I wanted him to stay but I didn't ask. Later he told me he wanted to stay.

What a fairy tale. He had me at, "Can I buy you a beer?".

Now I saw with clarity what happened. He was a sexual predator. I was a vulnerable woman. It didn't matter to him what I looked like or who I was, he wanted a piece of ass.

A mutual friend told me years later that my husband said he was going to marry me even before he met me. After December 15th I emailed the friend and told him I knew the truth. My husband had said he was going to fuck me. My friend said I knew my husband too well. Sadly, I didn't know my husband well enough.

Everything I knew about my life was false. All my cherished stories were lies. My past disappeared in that instant. 20 years of relationship faded away. I could never tell how we met again because it wasn't love, it was lust and addiction. 19 years of marriage and I might as well forget every single day of it because every single day of it was a fabrication.

This was the worst thing that happened. I lost my past. 20 years became a gaping black hole and I found I could not even recall a single day without being laid low by the pain. Never go back, I told myself. There was a new narrative. My husband lied to me every single day of our marriage. He lived two lives and I let him. My real husband was a combination of the man I thought I knew and the man he really is. Remembering the past would serve no purpose, only pushing forward and integrating these two men into one would be productive. As I type I cannot remember a single day of our past before December 15, 2010.

I know there was one. I remember where we were stationed, where we lived, our pets, and our jobs. I don't recall how we acted. I remember we took vacations but I don't remember whether they were fun or not. I remember visits with family but not what they were like. I am erasing that past because that past never existed.

And worst of all terrible things we both destroyed our past. He did by marrying me and not being honest. I did it by marrying him and not being honest with myself. Strange, isn't it? How two people who are willing to live a life of lies and deceit can find each other halfway across the world. I suspect we would have found each other anyway.

The Worst Thing that Happened

She had a son. A grown son. Of course I didn't know this. I didn't even know about her or about anything.

We had to watch American Ninja Warrior. We had enjoyed Ninja Warrior but my husband told me the son of a woman who worked down the hall from him was entered in the American trials. He was going to win and kick ass at the Japanese event.

We watched and I rooted for American Patrick whose mom worked down the hall from my husband. He did well. My husband held me on the couch while we watched. We cooked dinner together while we watched. Yay, Patrick! Go!

Weeks later, just as I was beginning to breath again, I looked at the leader board for American Ninja Warrior.

Patrick Cusic. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.....

Humiliation. My husband was in the kitchen. What's the last name of the guy you were rooting for? The one whose mother works down the hall from you? He didn't look up. I don't remember, he said.

Could it possibly be Cusic?

I don't remember.

Lair. Cheater. Liar.

He is the son of the woman you are screwing.

Oh Lord, won't this ever end? You cheat on me. You surf porn. You engage in Internet sex. You cruised Craig's List. Now this. This.

Jesus Christ.

The Worst Thing that Happened

What hurts the worst.

In the weeks afterwards I tracked my husband across the Internet. Why didn't it occur to me before?

He had a profile on every on-line dating or affair site. He used my beautiful dog's name as his password. The dog we both loved and had to euthanize. The dog we cried over. He used his name as his password to cheat on me.

Fucker.

Pain Pays the Income of Each Precious Thing

I have examined my emotions so often that they are almost disconnected from me now. A quick look at the emails I saved bring them right back into focus.

What hurts the worst about this betrayal?

The morning after December 15th I screamed at my husband. I screamed at him about how disgusting he is. I screamed at him about how vile his is. I screamed insults at the diseased and filthy woman who used him and who hurt me. I called her names and wished her a slow death. He said, "Stop calling her those names."

Why? Does it bother you when I call her names?

Yes.

Why?

Because she's a human being.

My heart shattered. My chest was hollow. My world ended. My reality shredded.

I howled at him. She's a human being? SHE'S a human being? That fucking whore?

I went downstairs. I sat at the table. The pain was unbearable. The pain was more intense than any pain I had ever experienced in my life.

The pain welled up in me and overflowed and tore its way out of me. I made sounds I had never heard before. Surely God heard me.

She's a human being. What am I? I can't insult her because she's a human being but I am just someone to be hurt. She's a human being. This woman whose own unfulfilled and empty life intersected with mine was a human being entitled to respect, and I was....what was I?

When my husband told Terri Cusic about how I neglected him did he ever think, "My wife is a human being not deserving of this betrayal?" When he had coffee or lunch with her did it ever cross his mind that I was a human being? When he fucked her did he think, "My wife's a human being who will be hurt?"

Why was she entitled to defense but I wasn't? Why?

I knew then I wasn't a human being. I was a thing who annoyed my husband. When did I cease to be a human being? Was it always this way? I was a lump of pure pain. I was less than human. I was an animal. A hindrance. A thing.

I screamed until I was hoarse. My husband held me as I rocked and screamed. Later he said he didn't remember this.

In My Shoes

Good Lord. Unless you've been there you cannot imagine how quickly things unfold. How traumatic events are. How unconnected you feel. Randomness becomes the norm.

How could you do this to me while my dog was dying?
Right before Christmas.
You used my beautiful dog's name as  your password, you whore.
Right upstairs from me. Right in my home. You brought this into my home.
My life has been a lie.
My memories are a lie.
Nothing existed before I knew this about you.
Why, why, why.

What Happened After

A nightmare happened after. That's what happened. The nightmare I had been avoiding for 20 years. How do I describe all the emotions that flooded through me? Anger, betrayal, hatred, violence, fear, loathing, loss, you name it.

How could this be happening? How long had my husband been seeing someone else? And not just her. There were emails to prostitutes. A dominatrix. A man who placed an ad on Craig's List. Oh my God, oh my God. So much more than I ever imagined. Not just phone sex. Not just web chats. Women all over the country. Men too.

Fear. AIDS.

I wanted to die. I wanted him to die. I wanted to disappear.

She adored him. MY WORDS. I adored him! I adored him! He is MY husband. She didn't have a right to adore him. There were chatty emails and jokes. Just like they meant something to each other. As if I didn't exist.

She called him and slapped him back to reality. He took advice from her that he would not take from me! I was sick to my stomach. I emailed her and called her a whore. I posted on his Facebook page about how he was fucking a whore named Terri Beuerlein Cusic.

He called her Terri Beuerlein in his emails. That was classic. Use her maiden name to alienate the husband. That way neither of them felt so guilty. I forwarded the emails to my account to save them.

I can't even remember what happened that night. I don't really want to remember. The emotions are enough. Even now I can feel the panic of that evening. I wanted him to feel my pain. I wanted him to FEEL my pain. I hit him. I slapped him. I threatened to kill him. I screamed and screamed and screamed. I screamed my pain.

He started telling me the truth at the point of a gun. He had been sleeping with her. He had slept with other the woman early in our marriage. 19 years of lying. He had lied to me for 19 years. I had been right all along. I was right about everything. I lied to myself more than he lied to me. I was disgusted with him and me.

He had seen the dominatrix several times. He never met the man from Craig's List. It was a nightmare that even I had never imagined. He told me to kill him and then cringed when I said I would. I screamed until I was exhausted. He tried to hold me and I slapped him. Get away from me you filthy, lying, cheating, male whore. You are nothing but a whore. A lying diseased whore and you sleep with lying diseased whores. You made me into a whore.

Finally exhausted. Beyond all words and accusations. Beyond misery. I made him sleep in the same bed with me. I didn't want to be alone.