I told my parents almost by accident. 

I'd already had a very bad experience with trying to tell my mother I was leaving Ex about five years earlier; one detail I'd repressed until the other day is that she told me that if I was determined to leave him, she would stop praying for me to be happy. (You see, I clearly wasn't interested in happiness if I wanted to get divorced.)

But this time I wouldn't be talked out of it. I knew what I had to do; it was just a matter of getting through the summer holiday without any of the family finding out. Or at least that was the plan. I was hopeful that we could find a way to continue to live together for Son's sake and to keep the family from losing their minds. 

I was iChatting with my parents as usual one Sunday about a month before our planned trip to camp. I don't remember how the topic came up, but for some reason my mother asked if I thought I would be with Husband in ten years. 

This was an odd question, and I knew the answer. I wouldn't be with him in ten months. Ten weeks, if I could manage it. But I do not lie; honesty is a core value for me. To avoid lying, I changed the subject.

My mother noticed. She pounced. She demanded an answer. I asked why she was asking. She asked why I wouldn't answer. 

I shook my head. I told them I was leaving him.

She asked if there was someone else. I said yes.

They both deflated, sitting crumpled before the camera. 

The conversation didn't last much longer. I was perhaps overly optimistic after telling my brother and sister-in-law; my parents were not nearly as understanding. They would love him, I said. But nothing in my descriptions seemed to encourage them. The detail I remember most was "He's a musician!" (My dad is, too. I thought this might help. I was wrong.) They reacted horribly to this. I backpedaled. Not like John Lennon, I said. Like our friend the Anglican priest.

This did not help.

I later found out my mother had assumed that, like a silly teenager, I'd fallen for a long-haired older dude with a guitar. Which I suppose is true, but not in that way at all.

That's what she had done at 15. I suppose we all project our own experiences onto others.

But I think what upset them the most was that I was determined to leave Husband and wouldn't listen to their helpful suggestions about working things out. 

Dad called a few hours later as I was heading out for a walk. He said they'd both been sitting and weeping for hours about how this could be possible. Husband was a good man, he said. My friend was not -- how could he be? I said they were both good men, and I did not love Husband. He was unmoved. He wanted to pray with me. Praying that someone will stay in an unhealthy and unhappy marriage does not seem particularly charitable, but he meant well. I let him pray. 

They told me later they had never had any indication that anything was wrong -- "well, there was that one time" when I'd gotten the courage to tell Mom what was going on and she had helpfully supported us to stay together because everyone has a rough patch and then we were fine! 

I'm sure there is some way to tell "rough patch" from "finally, briefly, honest about a lifetime of fundamental and unfixable problems", but you probably need special training or something. 

And when I saw them a few weeks later at our family camp, there was no question about who they supported. Husband was willing to work on whatever problems existed. I was the one turning my back on my family. The bad person is the one who leaves, you'll recall. 

They felt very sorry for Husband, and poured drinks for him even though he was becoming horribly emotionally abusive and became more so when he was drinking. They understood how he felt. He was hurt. He wanted to keep our marriage together. And I wasn't listening to anyone who would talk sense into me. If I would just try to work things out, I might see how wrong I was. Didn't I know that lots of couples go through rough times and don't just give up? Didn't I know that a new relationship might seem exciting but be ultimately unfulfilling? Pardon the language, but who the hell cared whether I loved him, when I'd made a promise? (My parents are both conservatively religious and religiously conservative.) Maybe I should just leave and go home. There was very little they could do to help, because I was not Christian enough to know what love is. And there were marriage vows involved. And clearly Husband was doing what was right for Son.

I am personable, not personal. The problem with that is that people think they know me. I carefully maintained a fiction for many years, but I wasn't punished until I decided to stop telling the lie.