Journey Through Adultery - Part 4
I was glad things worked out so that I wasn't waiting until we arrived at the B&B we were going to go to for our 29th anniversary before I dropped the bomb that I knew. The two hour drive there would have been horrible on me, assuming I had made it that long to begin with. As it was, the anniversary became a time of starting to heal instead of starting to reveal.
On the way up there, we read from a book that I'd downloaded, which looked good, dealing with sexual addictions and infidelity. It had some good points, and applied to our situation to a degree, but also contained a lot that we didn't feel pertained to us. The book is called "Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction," by Mark Laaser. As it turns out, the therapist we have has shied away from calling this an addiction to her, and has suggested we get the book, "His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair Proof Marriage" by Willard F. Jr. Harley, which takes a different tact. We've just started reading it, so can't comment too much on how effective it is, but so far, so good.
The weekend was a good time spent starting on healing. We were able to spend concentrated time together, talking about all this. Crying, and sometimes even smiling, and played around as well. But it did seem nearly every conversation, every minute was spent discussing this situation. Even now it is hard not to think about it most of the time. I've done nothing on my writing work, and getting things done at work is like pulling teeth, because I find it hard to focus my mind enough on work to get things done. This last Friday was probably the best at getting back to work focus as I've done so far.
And that was something I feared as we packed up and headed home for the weekend. With the distractionless environment, it was easy to trust, to hope. But faced with going back to the daily grind, I had a fear that it was far from over. And as it turns out, this past week after coming home had its own horrors.
The biggest problem for me was my wife felt sorry for her OM, and wanted to help him. Fine, send him a final text, tell him you can't talk any longer, but that you'll be praying for him, etc. She decided to let the OM know that all emails and text he sent her she was giving to me to read. He wrote her back, "Okay."
We'd hoped that would have put a stop to it, but instead, I think he took it as permission as long as his text remained "clean." And Wednesday morning, as she was leaving for work and I lay in bed, she told me how she feels she needs to keep in contact with him, that he needs her help. She was the one that did this to him, and she felt responsible.
I tried to tell her that continued communication would only prolong his an her's pain, and if she really cared for him, she'd cut if off. To not cut it totally off, completely, was to leave the door open for him, to lead him on in thinking there was a chance they could get started back up once the heat died down. However, that for whatever reason didn't make sense to her. She still felt like she needed to keep contact with him, to make sure he was going to be alright.
She left that morning and what I saw in her eyes was a pull to keep the door open for him, and hope inside of her, even if she didn't realize this is what she was doing, that the inner desire that liked the affair was trying to keep its foot in the door so it could wedge its way back in at a later date.
This made things worse for my fears. If she maintained this approach, I was sure as rain that it would lead to another affair with this man. And then as I was driving to work, the thought hit me. What if she has had further contact with the OM and was now trying to justify it with me?
That really sent me into an emotional roller coaster. I sat at my desk and stared at the screen, going over the issue in my mind. The horizon felt bleaker and bleaker, as the only result of what I could see is that they were or were going to talk and I wouldn't know about it, and she would end up getting pulled back into an affair. I couldn't trust her to avoid it, but she didn't seem to take the threat serious enough to totally cut him off.
After one hour at work, I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. I had told my boss that Monday that my wife and I were going through some marital difficulties, mainly to explain my behavior the previous week, and why I might be distracted and such. She seemed to understand and didn't pry into the full story, but she probably guessed it on some level.
It was a good thing too, because I simply had to leave work for the day. I was sick in the brain, so I took the rest of the day off. I went home and started scanning her cell phone's text and voice call logs to see if there had been any contact via those methods. There hadn't other than the brief three text message the day before when she told him I would be reading all her text, that she was hiding nothing from me. Nor were there any phone calls. I did tag his number in the list, so I could say I would be aware of anytime he called or she called him. Of course, if they wanted to get around that, they could by one of them calling the other from a different number, but it would be a lot more inconvenient. But at least I would be aware of any contact, and I've been checking it daily since then.
My wife came home that afternoon, and we discussed it out more. My fears were quenched. They hadn't been communicating, but she did still have the feeling she needed to keep some line of communication going with him. Despite my best efforts to explain to her why she couldn't keep any form of contact with him, it had to be a total cut off, she couldn't grasp why. So while I knew they'd not been in contact, the fear that she wasn't willing to make a total break with him worried me greatly. That said, by the end of Wednesday, I felt more like I could trust her. At least on this one thing, she'd proved open and honest.
Thursday came, and while I didn't feel all that great, it was better than the previous day. I got up, went to work, and stayed there all day. But during the day, my wife called and said she'd received a text from the OM and had a conversation with him. She described what he'd written and what she'd written back. But she didn't show me her text.
We again had the conversation about how she needed to totally break with him. She was reluctantly agreeing at this point, but could tell her heart wasn't in it. But she wrote an email to him with my approval telling him she couldn't communicate with him anymore, but would be praying for him. She went to bed, and I stayed up thinking and wondering what I should do. It appeared she wasn't going to stop this herself, and I feared now it might go underground, behind my back.
I also was a little suspicious that she showed me the OM's text messages, but only described hers to me, instead of letting me read them. I went to bed frustrated, and fearful. So after she was asleep, I opened her phone and read her text messages to him. Most of it was fairly benign stuff, but then she said something to the effect, "One small way you can let me know you're there is when you see my car in a parking lot somewhere, turn one of my signs upside down (she has magnetic signs on her car for her business) and I'll know you were there."
This floored me, because she'd been trying to be honest with me about everything, showing me emails she didn't have to show me, only here to find out that she was hiding a form of communication, little as it was, from me. Keeping that little toe in the door, propping it open. This convinced me it wasn't over, and I would need to take additional measures to prevent its reoccurrence.
Friday arrived. She came home for lunch, and I happened to be home on my lunch break, and her face was excited. She came toward me and said, "I get it! I get it!"
"Get what?" I said.
"Why I can't have any contact with him." She told me she'd been praying and trying to understand why she couldn't keep any contact with him. And this thought finally hit her that made sense to her.
She'd created a bond with another man, a bond that should only be given to me. She'd stolen what was mind and given it to another man. As long as she kept that bond alive, however seemingly innocent, she would continue that theft. Only be completely severing that bond could it more fully return to me, and cease its violation.
She genuinely seemed excited that she understood, and I was happy as well. Then she also asked if I'd read her text messages, and I said yes. And immediately she knew what I had read and what I had attempted to give her a chance to confess earlier that morning.
And he didn't text her that day. Either the message finally got through to him, or other interest in his life took center stage. Whether that's the last we've heard from him or not, I don't know. But as I type this Sunday night (early Monday morning), there have been no signs of his number popping up in the text logs, and my wife hasn't indicated that she's received any other communications from him.
So with her appearing to finally "get it" and no longer having a desire to contact him, and he appearing to have given up continuing to contact her, I've felt we've made some good progress.
On my front, I've had to deal with letting go. The old dream has died. I've grieved over it, and probably still will some more. I've gotten angry, and said I don't understand how this could have happened. It makes no logical sense, and true, it is all based on emotions gone out of control. It isn't logical. There's no logic why a woman or man would risk their life-long marriage, the welfare of the kids, and the shame and guilt such a revelation would have among her peers, all to satisfy an emotional need that was lacking in her, and had been generated in part by a man who fired up in her the possibility that she was missing out on life by only have sex with one man all her life, and caused her to crave that experience.
But the fact is those dreams are dead, dead, dead, dead, dead! Gone. Will never return. And I simply have to come to the place of accepting that so I can move on with what comes next. So I feel I'm coming to a point of acceptance of the reality of the affair. Our "perfect" marriage is no longer a reality, but become another statistic, another example of why that kind of life is mostly a fantasy for most people. We lasted until I was fifty years old, and our marriage was twenty-nine years old, only to fall so late in the game. I know even that is quite a feat by today's standards. Most people have sex by the time they're 16 or so, and most have had sex with more than one person. We didn't.
But, as I realized from a thread on Rebuilding, this doesn't mean all is lost. While we've lost some things, we can use this opportunity to gain some other things, like more quality time together, more intimacy in other ways. And a stronger marriage. And seeing what is happening, I think the later holds out the most hope. Sure, it could all fall apart when temptation comes knocking. And it no doubt will. The question is will she, will I be prepared for it, and be able to deal with it in a constructive manner. I think to that end we are working.
Tomorrow is our first couples time with the therapist. I'll try and check in and let you know how it's going. But now that I'm caught up on our story, the post should be shorter. I'm hoping for a smoother week. At least it seems we've resolved a major issue, and it allows us to move forward.
On the way up there, we read from a book that I'd downloaded, which looked good, dealing with sexual addictions and infidelity. It had some good points, and applied to our situation to a degree, but also contained a lot that we didn't feel pertained to us. The book is called "Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction," by Mark Laaser. As it turns out, the therapist we have has shied away from calling this an addiction to her, and has suggested we get the book, "His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair Proof Marriage" by Willard F. Jr. Harley, which takes a different tact. We've just started reading it, so can't comment too much on how effective it is, but so far, so good.
The weekend was a good time spent starting on healing. We were able to spend concentrated time together, talking about all this. Crying, and sometimes even smiling, and played around as well. But it did seem nearly every conversation, every minute was spent discussing this situation. Even now it is hard not to think about it most of the time. I've done nothing on my writing work, and getting things done at work is like pulling teeth, because I find it hard to focus my mind enough on work to get things done. This last Friday was probably the best at getting back to work focus as I've done so far.
And that was something I feared as we packed up and headed home for the weekend. With the distractionless environment, it was easy to trust, to hope. But faced with going back to the daily grind, I had a fear that it was far from over. And as it turns out, this past week after coming home had its own horrors.
The biggest problem for me was my wife felt sorry for her OM, and wanted to help him. Fine, send him a final text, tell him you can't talk any longer, but that you'll be praying for him, etc. She decided to let the OM know that all emails and text he sent her she was giving to me to read. He wrote her back, "Okay."
We'd hoped that would have put a stop to it, but instead, I think he took it as permission as long as his text remained "clean." And Wednesday morning, as she was leaving for work and I lay in bed, she told me how she feels she needs to keep in contact with him, that he needs her help. She was the one that did this to him, and she felt responsible.
I tried to tell her that continued communication would only prolong his an her's pain, and if she really cared for him, she'd cut if off. To not cut it totally off, completely, was to leave the door open for him, to lead him on in thinking there was a chance they could get started back up once the heat died down. However, that for whatever reason didn't make sense to her. She still felt like she needed to keep contact with him, to make sure he was going to be alright.
She left that morning and what I saw in her eyes was a pull to keep the door open for him, and hope inside of her, even if she didn't realize this is what she was doing, that the inner desire that liked the affair was trying to keep its foot in the door so it could wedge its way back in at a later date.
This made things worse for my fears. If she maintained this approach, I was sure as rain that it would lead to another affair with this man. And then as I was driving to work, the thought hit me. What if she has had further contact with the OM and was now trying to justify it with me?
That really sent me into an emotional roller coaster. I sat at my desk and stared at the screen, going over the issue in my mind. The horizon felt bleaker and bleaker, as the only result of what I could see is that they were or were going to talk and I wouldn't know about it, and she would end up getting pulled back into an affair. I couldn't trust her to avoid it, but she didn't seem to take the threat serious enough to totally cut him off.
After one hour at work, I was on the verge of an emotional breakdown. I had told my boss that Monday that my wife and I were going through some marital difficulties, mainly to explain my behavior the previous week, and why I might be distracted and such. She seemed to understand and didn't pry into the full story, but she probably guessed it on some level.
It was a good thing too, because I simply had to leave work for the day. I was sick in the brain, so I took the rest of the day off. I went home and started scanning her cell phone's text and voice call logs to see if there had been any contact via those methods. There hadn't other than the brief three text message the day before when she told him I would be reading all her text, that she was hiding nothing from me. Nor were there any phone calls. I did tag his number in the list, so I could say I would be aware of anytime he called or she called him. Of course, if they wanted to get around that, they could by one of them calling the other from a different number, but it would be a lot more inconvenient. But at least I would be aware of any contact, and I've been checking it daily since then.
My wife came home that afternoon, and we discussed it out more. My fears were quenched. They hadn't been communicating, but she did still have the feeling she needed to keep some line of communication going with him. Despite my best efforts to explain to her why she couldn't keep any form of contact with him, it had to be a total cut off, she couldn't grasp why. So while I knew they'd not been in contact, the fear that she wasn't willing to make a total break with him worried me greatly. That said, by the end of Wednesday, I felt more like I could trust her. At least on this one thing, she'd proved open and honest.
Thursday came, and while I didn't feel all that great, it was better than the previous day. I got up, went to work, and stayed there all day. But during the day, my wife called and said she'd received a text from the OM and had a conversation with him. She described what he'd written and what she'd written back. But she didn't show me her text.
We again had the conversation about how she needed to totally break with him. She was reluctantly agreeing at this point, but could tell her heart wasn't in it. But she wrote an email to him with my approval telling him she couldn't communicate with him anymore, but would be praying for him. She went to bed, and I stayed up thinking and wondering what I should do. It appeared she wasn't going to stop this herself, and I feared now it might go underground, behind my back.
I also was a little suspicious that she showed me the OM's text messages, but only described hers to me, instead of letting me read them. I went to bed frustrated, and fearful. So after she was asleep, I opened her phone and read her text messages to him. Most of it was fairly benign stuff, but then she said something to the effect, "One small way you can let me know you're there is when you see my car in a parking lot somewhere, turn one of my signs upside down (she has magnetic signs on her car for her business) and I'll know you were there."
This floored me, because she'd been trying to be honest with me about everything, showing me emails she didn't have to show me, only here to find out that she was hiding a form of communication, little as it was, from me. Keeping that little toe in the door, propping it open. This convinced me it wasn't over, and I would need to take additional measures to prevent its reoccurrence.
Friday arrived. She came home for lunch, and I happened to be home on my lunch break, and her face was excited. She came toward me and said, "I get it! I get it!"
"Get what?" I said.
"Why I can't have any contact with him." She told me she'd been praying and trying to understand why she couldn't keep any contact with him. And this thought finally hit her that made sense to her.
She'd created a bond with another man, a bond that should only be given to me. She'd stolen what was mind and given it to another man. As long as she kept that bond alive, however seemingly innocent, she would continue that theft. Only be completely severing that bond could it more fully return to me, and cease its violation.
She genuinely seemed excited that she understood, and I was happy as well. Then she also asked if I'd read her text messages, and I said yes. And immediately she knew what I had read and what I had attempted to give her a chance to confess earlier that morning.
And he didn't text her that day. Either the message finally got through to him, or other interest in his life took center stage. Whether that's the last we've heard from him or not, I don't know. But as I type this Sunday night (early Monday morning), there have been no signs of his number popping up in the text logs, and my wife hasn't indicated that she's received any other communications from him.
So with her appearing to finally "get it" and no longer having a desire to contact him, and he appearing to have given up continuing to contact her, I've felt we've made some good progress.
On my front, I've had to deal with letting go. The old dream has died. I've grieved over it, and probably still will some more. I've gotten angry, and said I don't understand how this could have happened. It makes no logical sense, and true, it is all based on emotions gone out of control. It isn't logical. There's no logic why a woman or man would risk their life-long marriage, the welfare of the kids, and the shame and guilt such a revelation would have among her peers, all to satisfy an emotional need that was lacking in her, and had been generated in part by a man who fired up in her the possibility that she was missing out on life by only have sex with one man all her life, and caused her to crave that experience.
But the fact is those dreams are dead, dead, dead, dead, dead! Gone. Will never return. And I simply have to come to the place of accepting that so I can move on with what comes next. So I feel I'm coming to a point of acceptance of the reality of the affair. Our "perfect" marriage is no longer a reality, but become another statistic, another example of why that kind of life is mostly a fantasy for most people. We lasted until I was fifty years old, and our marriage was twenty-nine years old, only to fall so late in the game. I know even that is quite a feat by today's standards. Most people have sex by the time they're 16 or so, and most have had sex with more than one person. We didn't.
But, as I realized from a thread on Rebuilding, this doesn't mean all is lost. While we've lost some things, we can use this opportunity to gain some other things, like more quality time together, more intimacy in other ways. And a stronger marriage. And seeing what is happening, I think the later holds out the most hope. Sure, it could all fall apart when temptation comes knocking. And it no doubt will. The question is will she, will I be prepared for it, and be able to deal with it in a constructive manner. I think to that end we are working.
Tomorrow is our first couples time with the therapist. I'll try and check in and let you know how it's going. But now that I'm caught up on our story, the post should be shorter. I'm hoping for a smoother week. At least it seems we've resolved a major issue, and it allows us to move forward.
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