Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Preemptive Phone Call AKA Cheaters Do Not Disturb Sign

The phone call you make to someone in order to prevent a phone call later when you don't want to be disturbed or found out.
In retrospect my husband used to make these phone calls to me quite frequently. It wasn't until later that I realized their purpose. To satisfy me and keep me out of his hair.
Some years ago he was working in Kentucky for 45 days. Each evening when he got off of his 12 hour shift he would call me for a quick 5 minutes or so and then that was it. On other jobs he had been prone to call me as frequently as possible.
At the time it struck me as odd but later as I received more of those preemptive phone calls I realized that he had something going on there and called to assuage me and then be on his way for the evening.

After all of this time why am I dwelling on this now? Because 4 months after he has moved out I received one of these phone calls. He called to let me know that he was turning his phone off because he was going into a VA appointment. He's been to many VA appointments in these 4 months and we've never exchanged a word about them.  Weeks go by without us talking to each other and other than one phone call in these 4 months I haven't called him.

So why would he feel the need to call me to let me know he will be unavailable? You got it. My friend said I should have found a reason to call him, but why bother, he may make the mistake and think I care.

And, the next question to ask is why would he bother, why does he care to keep me on the hook or in dry storage!!!

This is the next question that so many people don't ask. The answer is in Chump Lady's post and reconciliation and entitlement.  If you haven't read it I suggest you do.

The only thing that this brings up for me is I always find myself wondering how much I missed in clues about his cheating ways before I really woke up.

Until next time
Jane