"What did you do today?"

My sister told me that last year when I called she wouldn't pick up the phone if she didn't have an answer to the question.  "What have you been doing?"  She didn't feel she could tell anyone the real answer to that question which was, "Oh, spending hours online on a forum for the wives of porn addicts."  So she wouldn't call me back until she had a non-porn related answer.

Last week I went to Europe with my husband on a work/vacation trip.  Now is not best time for us.  About a month ago my husband went through his inventory with me.  And I learned about a couple of new things he had not told me previously.  Then about a week later he told me more about an incident with his ex-girlfriend during our engagement.  He told me about something he had done with her that he has lied about for 22 years.  Something that he lied about directly to my face when I asked about it.  What I already knew about what happened has caused problems in our relationship because he refused to give up his relationship with her for years and shifted the blame for what happened to me for a couple of years.  And the crazy thing about hearing a lie for years is that you start to believe it even though the logical part of your brain says that what he says is ridiculous and it couldn't possibly be your fault.  The real damage was caused less by what they did then the aftermath.  The years of blame-shifting, lying, justifying, minimizing and refusing to give up the relationship.  We have only been able to really talk about our engagement and Jen during the last 3 months because he is less defensive and more humble.  But learning than he lied to my face repeatedly and that he was so strongly committed to keeping that relationship at the expense of ours for four or five years has made me feel a little dead inside.

I wasn't sure that I wanted to go with him to Europe.  Part of me wanted to enjoy him being gone.  But I had started making plans before he told me about Jen and I thought I would be ok.  And the trip was ok.  But the days he was working I just wanted to stay in the hotel room and not do anything.  But I felt I had to leave so the room could get cleaned less awkwardly and so I would have something to tell people at dinner when they asked me, "what did you do today?"  Because doing what I wanted to do - stay in bed all day and do nothing - isn't the kind of answer you can give without a porn related explanation.