(NOTE: This blog was written and published before The Blindsided Wives of America Club was changed to the Blindsided Wives Club. The blog posted on April 23, 2010 will explain why the name was changed.)
Sandra Bullock, Elin Woods and Garcelle Beauvais, it is with great sadness that the Blindsided Wives of America Club welcomes you.
A little about how I was blindsided. After being married to my physician husband for twenty years I was completely blindsided by him when I found out that he had a secret life. He left me and our son for a nurse who he decided he wanted to start a whole new life with. Not an original story, I’m afraid – but a story that is played out in marriages everyday when a wife finds out that that she has been blindsided by her husband.
I’m a writer and I have another blog called A Bad Marriage Is Fattening. (www.abadmarriageisfattening.com) On March 22, 2010 I posted an entry called Sandra Bullock Blindsided By Jesse James.
I thought people would know that I was only kidding when I welcomed Sandra Bullock into the Blindsided Wives of America Club, but apparently some people thought there really was such a club, because the top search on my website was the Blindsided Wives of America Club.
Then shortly after that actress Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon let the world know that her husband Mike Nilon, an agent at Creative Artists Agency (CAA), was no different than Tiger Woods or Jesse James. According to the New York Post column Page Six, the former “NYPD Blue” 43-year-old star sent e-mails to other agents at her husband’s agency. The subject line read, “Tiger Woods/Jesse James/Mike Nilon,” and Garcelle went on to write, “What do they have in common. . .I found out today that MY husband of almost 9 yrs has been having an affair for 5 yrs with some slut in Chicago. I am devastated!!! And I have been duped!! Our boys don’t deserve this!” Garcelle and her husband have twin boys who are 2 years old.
And then there was another blindsided split. Former Giants NFL superstar Tiki Barber, who now works for the “Today” show as a correspondent, had left his wife Ginny, who is eight months pregnant with twins, for 23-year-old Traci Lynn Johnson. Tiki and Ginny were married for eleven years. According to the New York Post, “Ginny who is expecting twins, found out about the relationship late last year, after the run-around running back moved out of their Upper East Side home.”
Can you imagine what it must be like emotionally to have your husband leave you for another woman when you’re pregnant with twins?
With all these women being blindsided by their husbands it got me thinking, “Maybe there really is a need for a Blindsided Wives of America Club.” That’s how the Blindsided Wives of America Club came to be. It started out as a post on A Bad Marriage Is Fattening and received so much attention that it gave me the idea to start this website.
The Blindsided Wives of America Club is going to be a supportive blog where women who have been blindsided by their husbands or significant other can leave comments sharing their own thoughts and experiences. Hopefully some insightful dialogue will ensue among the comments. Guest bloggers who want to write about their own experience of being blindsided or have advice that they would like to offer will be welcomed to write a guest post. If anyone wants to write a guest post they can e-mail: blindsidedwivesclub@gmail.com. Guest posts will be published upon approval.
So let’s get the comments and dialogue going. What is it with all these unfaithful husbands who think it’s okay to cheat on their wives?
Who would have thought that when I was blindsided by my ex-husband that I would end up having a website on being blindsided? My late writing professor at UCLA Film School Larry Thor, who thought I was going to have this huge career as a screenwriter, must be turning over in his grave and saying, “For this we gave her a Master’s Degree in Screenwriting so she could end up writing a blog about a bad marriage being fattening and another blog about women being blindsided?”
Hi, I’m hoping this is where I email this.
Both of my first 2 husbands cheated on me, but it wasn’t till after I left the first one that everyone who knew me told me about it. Thanks family and friends.
I guess that’s why he was obsessed with thinking I was cheating on him. He would come home everyday at different times to check the house, then leave when he was convinced no one was there. If I stared off into space, he would say, “Who are you looking at?” At the grocery store when the checker would say, “How are you?” he would demand to know how I knew him and why was he so friendly to me. If I looked out the window he thought I was looking at guys, so I ended up having the curtains closed all the time. If he had male friends over he would accuse us of being too friendly and they stopped coming over. He asked my kids to spy on me and tell him if I talked to anyone when we went out or went shopping. Then came some physical and a lot of emotional abuse.
I eventually ended up thinking I was a horrible person, I gained about 50 lbs. and I was afraid to leave my house. This lasted for a couple of years till we had to move in with my parents because he had lost his job. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. Eventually my eyes were opened to what he was doing and I got smart and asked him to leave.
Then I met my second husband who seemed so wonderful. He was a little controlling, but I was in love…we lived together for 6 years, I was head over heals in love, so it didn’t matter what he did, I forgave him.
At first it was subtle, he would “punish” me if I did something he didn’t like by not talking to me for a couple of days, even if what I did was before I even met him. He didn’t like kids and I had 2, so the mood of the house was like walking on eggshells. Things calmed down when they went to stay with their dad, which he pushed me to let them do. Unfortunately I never got them back, which was also his fault.
Then he started drinking and things went from bad to worse. That’s when his inner self came out. It’s also when he started becoming physically abusive. I was slightly overweight, but he acted like I was terribly fat. He used to always tell me how pretty I was, from the neck up. He put me on one starvation diet after another till my metabolism didn’t know up from down. One time he put me on a liquid diet for 35 days and told me if I ate he would leave me. And I still didn’t have a clue. He also started gambling, mostly with my money, and the drinking and abuse just got worse. I would tell my family that the bruises were from something I did, even though they didn’t believe me (especially after my first marriage).
We had gotten burned in an accident, and he was scarred over most of his body. Did I forget to mention that he used to be a professional body builder? His body meant more to him than anything or anyone in the world. After the accident he was never the same, and when we didn’t get much from the lawsuit, he decided he would finally marry me, he had hit rock bottom. I finally talked him to moving out of my parents house, then I got a job right away. He mostly worked out, and drank and gambled my money away. The last fight we had he pulled a gun on me. That’s when the lights finally turned on and I called the cops and had him removed from my house. 2 weeks later he came back thinking I was “dying for him” and he was in for a surprise when I told him to leave and never come back. That’s the last I ever saw of him.
Thanks for letting me get some of this off my chest.