six fucking months, Dr. Colson. Six months since that stupid night with Amber. I regret ever going to that fucking conference in Jersey, and I definitely regret bringing her along. I regret hiring her at all, but that's not good enough. Not to Demi. With her, I just can't do anything right. It doesn't matter what I say, or how many times I apologize, she fucking hates me. Everything I say gets twisted up into some bullshit, and I just feel defeated. I’m ready to give up. Demi is giving up, and I’m ready to let it be over. Trying to save us only pisses her off more.”
“Is that a fact?” I say as I jot down Eli’s last few words before tossing my notepad onto the wooden table between us. It lands next to the box of tissues with a thwack. “You're ready to give up? Ready to throw the last four years of marriage away just like that?”
“What do you mean just like that?” Eli snips, still staring at the ceiling. “I've been fighting this entire time, okay? Even before the shit with Amber, I was fighting.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean when Demi started working these insane hours for her dumb company, spending all of her time doing inspections at people’s houses, checking on kids at all hours of the night. When her job—the job she doesn't need to have at all, by the way—started forcing us to spend so much time apart, I was the one who kept fighting for us. She was just too busy to notice. She didn't seem to give a shit about our time apart until I made my mistake with Amber. I’m not condoning what I did, I’m just saying maybe it was a cry for help. Maybe I was upset because I wanted to tell Demi to quit her job so we can spend time together. Hell, I wanted Demi to accompany me on that trip to Jersey, but she had work crap going on and couldn't come, as usual. How am I the asshole, when I asked her to come with me?”
Eli pauses, as if he's waiting for me to answer, but I don't have anything good to say at this point, so I don't respond, which always makes patients keep talking.
“I gave it one last hurrah this week, Dr. Colson,” Eli continues, his eyes still staring off into space. “I sat Demi down, and I told her I was sorry for the trillionth time. I tried to explain myself, told her exactly what I knew she needed to hear, and it all still got twisted and used against me.”
“What exactly did you say to her?”
Eli releases another huff. “I started off by saying I was sorry again, and then I told her I was in the wrong and that I recognized how much my mistake was affecting her. I told her there was no excuse for what I did, no matter how much I hated her working all those hours when she didn't have to. I put all the blame on myself, and she still twisted it on me.”
“Hold on,” I say, stabbing the air with my finger. “You mentioned how you hated how often she had to work?”
“Yeah, because I did hate it,” Eli answers. “I wanted her to know I was sorry, but I also wanted her to know the reason why I did it. I wasn't trying to justify it, just tell her why I did it, but she used it against me and stormed off once again.”
“Eli, is it Demi’s fault you cheated?” I ask, choosing my words very carefully, because Eli’s response is crucial.
“What? No, it was my fault.”
“But?” I add, because I can tell Eli has more to say.
“But it was something that built up over time, because we hardly ever got to spend time together. It never would've come to that if Demi wasn't at work all the time,” Eli says, and my shoulders drop.
I let out my own huff of air now and shake my head. No wonder Demi didn't want to come today. I don't know if Eli knows this, but he basically blamed his wife for his mistake. I’ve seen this too many times to count, and if I had to put a number on it, I’d say this is the number two reason why couples can't recover from an affair—the cheater deflects blame. The number one reason, of course, is because the person who was cheated on refuses