I met my husband in high school. A week before Christmas, he crashed his car and was paralyzed. My parents told me to leave him. I chose him instead \u2014 and they cut me off.<\/p>\n
I moved in with his family. Worked. Went to community college. Helped him relearn life from a wheelchair. We went to prom. Got married in his parents\u2019 backyard. Had a son. My parents never called.<\/p>\n
For 15 years, I believed we\u2019d survived the worst.<\/p>\n
Then I came home early one afternoon and heard my mother\u2019s voice in the kitchen \u2014 the first time in 15 years.<\/p>\n
She was holding papers. My husband was pale.<\/p>\n
The accident report listed an address that wasn\u2019t his grandparents\u2019 house.<\/p>\n
It was Jenna\u2019s.<\/p>\n
My best friend.<\/p>\n
The emails were printed.
\n\u201cDrive safe. Love you.\u201d
\n\u201cGot to get back before she suspects.\u201d<\/p>\n
He hadn\u2019t been driving to his grandparents that night.
\nHe\u2019d been leaving his mistress.<\/p>\n
He admitted it. Said he was young and selfish. Said he panicked and lied because he knew if I thought he was innocent, I\u2019d stay. And I did.<\/p>\n
I gave up my parents, my college fund, my future plans \u2014 all based on a lie.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was scared,\u201d he said. \u201cEvery year it got harder to tell you.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the hardest part wasn\u2019t the cheating.<\/p>\n
It was that he let me choose him without the truth.<\/p>\n
So I packed a suitcase \u2014 this time not as a scared 17-year-old, but as a woman who knew her worth. I took our son and left.<\/p>\n
My parents apologized. We\u2019re rebuilding slowly.
\nThe divorce was messy, but necessary.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t regret loving him.<\/p>\n
I regret that he didn\u2019t trust me enough to let me love him honestly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"