The Beginning of Something Else

On June 1, 2007 I found out my husband and partner of almost two decades had been unfaithful to me since before our marriage, and had been having intercourse with prostitutes for 3 1/2 years. This is what happened next.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Talked last night

Talked with Husband a lot last night. Talked about my feelings, how happy I thought I was, how distracted I was from him. He really didn't feel important. He felt ignored, not attended to, unimportant, taken for granted. And I see now that I did take him for granted. Not becuase I didn't love him, but because I loved him so much, and assumed he was having the same experience I was. That his upset came out of the same context I was in - the context of being mostly blissful. I still got angry about stupid day to day stuff, still had upsets; but when I went to bed every night, there were no complaints worth hanging on to, no resentments. Deep love and connectedness, deep satisfaction were all present. I loved the good and bad parts of our relationship, because the good parts were so vast compared to any small problem. And our love felt so strong and sure - it could handle anything.

I'm still in so much pain this morning. Still raw. I told him last night that there was so much I wanted to say, but that the most important thing was that I'm thankful for the chance to show him how much I love him, to do what I didn't do before.

But I'm still angry, because I also feel that what he did to me is so much worse than anything I ever did to him. They lying - I never did that. I failed to make him feel loved enough, but that didn't break his world apart. My world is completely fucked up right now. I lived for so long inside a world that wasn't real - and he did that. He allowed that. I think he's responsible in large part for his experience of me, just as I'm largely responsible for my experience of him. And when I had problems I took care of them. And he didn't. He didn't do that for me. Instead he went off and fucked prostitutes and lied to me for most of our marriage. And all that time I loved him and trusted him and gave the most vulnerable parts of myself to him. Why couldn't he do something else to get back at me for failing him the way I did? Why this? Why this betrayal that feels so much like it invalidates my existence for all these years. I'm confused about what my life means now - if it wasn't real, what was it? I know a lot of it was real, but it was inside a context that was completely false. I was in a context where I could trust my husbands word without question, and that's what I did. I tried to honor him with my trust. And I failed him anyway. But why did he have to do this awful act? Why did he have to cut me to the core of my existence? It's not fair. He should have tried to do better.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been reading your blog lately. The way you write and express your thoughts is a gift that is probably helping others who are in the same type of situation. So, I mean no disrespect or cruelty by this question, but I'm wondering - have you ever thought that, given the extent of the betrayal, your marriage actually ended the day you found out all of this and you have just not fully accepted it?

woman.anonymous7 said...

What I had ended the day I found out about this betrayal. What is left is for me to look at what I want for my life, and what I can do to create that. For me there is no going back, only going forward. Which means moving through a lot of pain and difficulty. Right now, I think the result will be a stronger, more authentic relationship in which I am deeply happy, and Husband is equally happy. Husband and I have both been in denial in our relationship, and this is our chance to grow out of that. If we can. We are both willing. Are we both able? That is the question that remains to be answered over time.