Journey Through Adultery - 6-20-11
Been a while since I've posted anything. The good reason for that is things have been going fairly well, better than expected. The last two weeks since writing the letter mentioned in the previous post have been even happy. My wife has felt more and more divorced from the mindset she was in that allowed the A to happen.
She's even made some good progress, in that she says the last few days she's not thought as much about him as before, and more about me. She has literally fallen in love with me all over again, like we were dating. And I have to agree. I want to spend all my time with her, just like when we were dating. Even going to pick up my son from a band outing ends us both going together, whereas previously it would have been just one of us, with the other getting stuff done we felt was important.
But she has been praying a lot, and when the OM pops into her head, she reminds herself that God will take care of him, that she has to leave him in God's hands, her focus has to be on our marriage.
It's been two weeks now since the OM made contact with my wife at one of her client's house that resides in his neighborhood. Today she returns to clean that house. She's driving my car so it won't be obvious that she's there if he drives by, and less chance he'll be tempted to leave a note or do something like that.
But so far he has kept his word. He hasn't tried to contact her again. I think that, and the act of making it final with that email I sent which she participated in, has allowed her to make the progress she has. She's even told me that the feelings she had for him are not as strong now as they were before.
Of course, who knows what will happen first time they bump into each other somewhere. And maybe she isn't as "over it" as she thinks she is. And I do have a fear that while she is telling me she is being totally open and honest, and that she only wants me and never wants to do anything like that again, etc., that a few months down the road I'll run into something like this again.
Human nature I suppose when one has been hit with something like this. It isn't that I don't trust her, but the feeling of trust, the security that I had before simply hasn't returned, and may not for some time. Only after months of honesty and transparency and verifying that she is that.
But I think today was a step in the right direction, in that I felt for the first time, a sense of her deep love for me. I knew it in the brain before. I hesitated I suppose for fear of being hurt again. But today, I simply felt that she was telling me the truth, that I could trust her again, that for the first time since that first man flipped her switch on last October, I have the wife back that I knew then.
And yes, I know this could all prove temporary. I'm sure there will be times the hurt will creep up, the "Why" will be asked again and again. The "how could you risk so much for so little?" I know the logical answers for that, but my emotional logic simply shakes its head in disbelief. Those things that can never be fully answered by me or her will pop up occasionally. And for all I know, she might get tempted and get sucked back into the frame of mind that allowed all this to happen. But I think both of us are wiser and know what to look for, and what to run screaming from, than we were the first time. And we both know what we need to do to prevent any reoccurrence as well, and that's to make sure we stay passionately in love with each other, through meeting each other's emotional needs to feel loved. I know what she needs from me now, and she knows what I need. And we've made a commitment to each other if one of us says "I really need this," we will do it.
But, despite what we've lost through this, there is something we've gained, and maybe it simply took something this strong to shake us up enough to do it. And that is a more loving and fulfilling relationship with each other. I would have rather done it by another method, but we were both ignorant of what the other needed, feeling like each other's emotional needs were insignificant. Which is what often happens because men and women tend to have different needs to feel loved than the other. So what I think is important, I'll try to meet those needs for her, but that need isn't so important on her list, and so I miss the mark. Likewise, what she feels is important for her to feel loved I think of as something unimportant.
So years of each of us crying out to have these needs met, but not meeting them, and growing apart because of it, becoming selfish in focusing only on "my" needs, my projects, what I thought was important wasn't so important at all when held up to nearly losing my wife.
I honestly felt we had a great marriage. And in many ways, we most certainly did. Despite years of not getting my needs met on the sex front, I had accepted that as a way of life and was happy with where we were at. But it certainly didn't met what I felt I really needed from her to feel loved by her. I'd grown used to not getting that, and learned to live with it. I was happy because she met my biggest needs in other areas, though respect suffered at times.
And if you'd asked her, she would say we had a great marriage. We were best friends. At least we said as much. But now, looking back, I see we said it, but didn't quite live it.
One post I made last year at the 4th of July made me realize how stupid I had been. My wife and kids were going to go watch the fireworks. I really didn't want to go. I had no desire to find a parking spot, sit in a park waiting for it to get dark, and then watch a 15 minute firework display that I'd seen hundreds of times before, then fight my way back home through the traffic. Plus, I had writing I wanted to get done.
Yes, I had gone to see the fireworks before. Even have the pictures to prove it. But many times I didn't go. Last year, knowing how I felt about it from previous years where she put up a much bigger fuss, she didn't argue with me much when I said I didn't want to go. So she went as in times past without me.
In the post I wrote how I hated it, because I don't like going to watch the fireworks. I felt I was damned if I do and damned if I don't. Because if I went, I would be grumpy and act frustrated, probably ruining their experience because I didn't really want to be there. Or if I stayed home, I felt guilty for not going, knowing my wife really wanted me there and thought I was a loser of a dad for not spending time with the family when I could have.
What I saw in that post was it was all about me. What I wanted. How I would feel. Not one spark of realization that she had a need for me to spend time with her. The activity itself wasn't so important, but that I felt she was important enough to spend time with. I knew we were not as close as we should be, but it never dawned on me that the solution was right before me all the time. Simply go do whatever she wanted me to do with her, no matter whether I cared for the activity or not. I didn't think of that as important, because I didn't need it. Therefore she couldn't need it that much. That couldn't be what would make her feel loved, because that wasn't what would make me feel that way.
What I had communicated to her so many times is that she wasn't as important to me as {fill in the blank} that I really wanted to do. I look back on that now and wonder how I could have missed the obvious for so long, how I was making her feel just as unloved as I felt earlier in our marriage when she would hardly give me sex at all.
Now I see. It's as if the blinders have fallen from my eyes and I see what I had been doing for so long. And the horrible things is I should have known better. I've read up on marriage counseling. Nothing deep, but I know logically that you spend the time on what you feel is important, and a good hunk of that had better be devoted to your spouse or the message you're sending is, "I don't really love you, that much."
I'm not saying that one incident caused her to have the affair. Rather, that years of growing apart, which we sort of knew, but didn't really know how deep it had grown, brought her to a place where she was more vulnerable to the temptation she faced. She confessed that in Sept. and Oct. of last year, she felt I was annoying, and she actually didn't really want to be around me much, and she felt the most distant from me as any time in our marriage.
So when someone came along that took interest in her, acted like they wanted her, it fed a need I'd starved her on. And despite her attempts to resist, she found herself wanting to lap that up like a dog deprived of water for a day.
Note, I'm not saying this excuses her. But it does make clear that I could have done more myself to make sure she felt loved. I could have easily spent time with her, made her more important than my writing. But it took nearly losing her to make me wake up to the fact that I had been depriving her of something she so desperately needed all these years. And if I had provided that, she may have been much more emotionally stable when that man came along and flirted with her, that she wouldn't have give him the time of day because she would already be passionately in love with me. It would be like the moon trying to outshine the sun.
Because I know that now, and she knows what I need to also feel loved by her, today for the first time since DDay, feel that this is really healing, that she really loves me so richly and deeply that I can taste it. And my fear of the future turning into another big revelation and eventual divorce as a result has diminished greatly. I believe her love for me is real, and her commitment to love only me is true.
Now I simply want to do all I can to make sure she can keep that promise, by giving her what she needs to know that I love her so fully as well.
I read a lot of sad stories on this board. And in all honesty, as most of you feel, I'd rather I wasn't here. But she did cheat on me. I am here. I have gone through what I have. And while I know there will be more ahead, I can honestly say that if we needed this to happen now in order to shake us up well enough to make us realize what is important, then perhaps it was for the best. Time will tell, but I can tell our marriage is already stronger. And getting stronger each day.
She's even made some good progress, in that she says the last few days she's not thought as much about him as before, and more about me. She has literally fallen in love with me all over again, like we were dating. And I have to agree. I want to spend all my time with her, just like when we were dating. Even going to pick up my son from a band outing ends us both going together, whereas previously it would have been just one of us, with the other getting stuff done we felt was important.
But she has been praying a lot, and when the OM pops into her head, she reminds herself that God will take care of him, that she has to leave him in God's hands, her focus has to be on our marriage.
It's been two weeks now since the OM made contact with my wife at one of her client's house that resides in his neighborhood. Today she returns to clean that house. She's driving my car so it won't be obvious that she's there if he drives by, and less chance he'll be tempted to leave a note or do something like that.
But so far he has kept his word. He hasn't tried to contact her again. I think that, and the act of making it final with that email I sent which she participated in, has allowed her to make the progress she has. She's even told me that the feelings she had for him are not as strong now as they were before.
Of course, who knows what will happen first time they bump into each other somewhere. And maybe she isn't as "over it" as she thinks she is. And I do have a fear that while she is telling me she is being totally open and honest, and that she only wants me and never wants to do anything like that again, etc., that a few months down the road I'll run into something like this again.
Human nature I suppose when one has been hit with something like this. It isn't that I don't trust her, but the feeling of trust, the security that I had before simply hasn't returned, and may not for some time. Only after months of honesty and transparency and verifying that she is that.
But I think today was a step in the right direction, in that I felt for the first time, a sense of her deep love for me. I knew it in the brain before. I hesitated I suppose for fear of being hurt again. But today, I simply felt that she was telling me the truth, that I could trust her again, that for the first time since that first man flipped her switch on last October, I have the wife back that I knew then.
And yes, I know this could all prove temporary. I'm sure there will be times the hurt will creep up, the "Why" will be asked again and again. The "how could you risk so much for so little?" I know the logical answers for that, but my emotional logic simply shakes its head in disbelief. Those things that can never be fully answered by me or her will pop up occasionally. And for all I know, she might get tempted and get sucked back into the frame of mind that allowed all this to happen. But I think both of us are wiser and know what to look for, and what to run screaming from, than we were the first time. And we both know what we need to do to prevent any reoccurrence as well, and that's to make sure we stay passionately in love with each other, through meeting each other's emotional needs to feel loved. I know what she needs from me now, and she knows what I need. And we've made a commitment to each other if one of us says "I really need this," we will do it.
But, despite what we've lost through this, there is something we've gained, and maybe it simply took something this strong to shake us up enough to do it. And that is a more loving and fulfilling relationship with each other. I would have rather done it by another method, but we were both ignorant of what the other needed, feeling like each other's emotional needs were insignificant. Which is what often happens because men and women tend to have different needs to feel loved than the other. So what I think is important, I'll try to meet those needs for her, but that need isn't so important on her list, and so I miss the mark. Likewise, what she feels is important for her to feel loved I think of as something unimportant.
So years of each of us crying out to have these needs met, but not meeting them, and growing apart because of it, becoming selfish in focusing only on "my" needs, my projects, what I thought was important wasn't so important at all when held up to nearly losing my wife.
I honestly felt we had a great marriage. And in many ways, we most certainly did. Despite years of not getting my needs met on the sex front, I had accepted that as a way of life and was happy with where we were at. But it certainly didn't met what I felt I really needed from her to feel loved by her. I'd grown used to not getting that, and learned to live with it. I was happy because she met my biggest needs in other areas, though respect suffered at times.
And if you'd asked her, she would say we had a great marriage. We were best friends. At least we said as much. But now, looking back, I see we said it, but didn't quite live it.
One post I made last year at the 4th of July made me realize how stupid I had been. My wife and kids were going to go watch the fireworks. I really didn't want to go. I had no desire to find a parking spot, sit in a park waiting for it to get dark, and then watch a 15 minute firework display that I'd seen hundreds of times before, then fight my way back home through the traffic. Plus, I had writing I wanted to get done.
Yes, I had gone to see the fireworks before. Even have the pictures to prove it. But many times I didn't go. Last year, knowing how I felt about it from previous years where she put up a much bigger fuss, she didn't argue with me much when I said I didn't want to go. So she went as in times past without me.
In the post I wrote how I hated it, because I don't like going to watch the fireworks. I felt I was damned if I do and damned if I don't. Because if I went, I would be grumpy and act frustrated, probably ruining their experience because I didn't really want to be there. Or if I stayed home, I felt guilty for not going, knowing my wife really wanted me there and thought I was a loser of a dad for not spending time with the family when I could have.
What I saw in that post was it was all about me. What I wanted. How I would feel. Not one spark of realization that she had a need for me to spend time with her. The activity itself wasn't so important, but that I felt she was important enough to spend time with. I knew we were not as close as we should be, but it never dawned on me that the solution was right before me all the time. Simply go do whatever she wanted me to do with her, no matter whether I cared for the activity or not. I didn't think of that as important, because I didn't need it. Therefore she couldn't need it that much. That couldn't be what would make her feel loved, because that wasn't what would make me feel that way.
What I had communicated to her so many times is that she wasn't as important to me as {fill in the blank} that I really wanted to do. I look back on that now and wonder how I could have missed the obvious for so long, how I was making her feel just as unloved as I felt earlier in our marriage when she would hardly give me sex at all.
Now I see. It's as if the blinders have fallen from my eyes and I see what I had been doing for so long. And the horrible things is I should have known better. I've read up on marriage counseling. Nothing deep, but I know logically that you spend the time on what you feel is important, and a good hunk of that had better be devoted to your spouse or the message you're sending is, "I don't really love you, that much."
I'm not saying that one incident caused her to have the affair. Rather, that years of growing apart, which we sort of knew, but didn't really know how deep it had grown, brought her to a place where she was more vulnerable to the temptation she faced. She confessed that in Sept. and Oct. of last year, she felt I was annoying, and she actually didn't really want to be around me much, and she felt the most distant from me as any time in our marriage.
So when someone came along that took interest in her, acted like they wanted her, it fed a need I'd starved her on. And despite her attempts to resist, she found herself wanting to lap that up like a dog deprived of water for a day.
Note, I'm not saying this excuses her. But it does make clear that I could have done more myself to make sure she felt loved. I could have easily spent time with her, made her more important than my writing. But it took nearly losing her to make me wake up to the fact that I had been depriving her of something she so desperately needed all these years. And if I had provided that, she may have been much more emotionally stable when that man came along and flirted with her, that she wouldn't have give him the time of day because she would already be passionately in love with me. It would be like the moon trying to outshine the sun.
Because I know that now, and she knows what I need to also feel loved by her, today for the first time since DDay, feel that this is really healing, that she really loves me so richly and deeply that I can taste it. And my fear of the future turning into another big revelation and eventual divorce as a result has diminished greatly. I believe her love for me is real, and her commitment to love only me is true.
Now I simply want to do all I can to make sure she can keep that promise, by giving her what she needs to know that I love her so fully as well.
I read a lot of sad stories on this board. And in all honesty, as most of you feel, I'd rather I wasn't here. But she did cheat on me. I am here. I have gone through what I have. And while I know there will be more ahead, I can honestly say that if we needed this to happen now in order to shake us up well enough to make us realize what is important, then perhaps it was for the best. Time will tell, but I can tell our marriage is already stronger. And getting stronger each day.
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