Something to come to terms with

I was re-reading the letter I gave to Husband as part of disclosure. While I've grown and changed a lot, so much of what I expressed is still relevant.

This morning I asked Husband if he ever re-reads that letter, and he said that though he hasn't in a while, he does go back to it. I was feeling very emotional as I have been over the past couple of days, but it was not the time or place to initiate conversation about big things. We were getting ready for work and Son was in the next room. So I remained silent.

Husband asked what I was thinking about. "Just that I still need your reassurance," I said. "Reassurance that I love you?" he asked. I didn’t think I could speak without bursting into tears, so I just nodded. He came over and kissed me on the cheek and said, "Well, I love you."

Then he said, "I need that, too." I couldn't understand what he meant. Did he mean that he needed to tell me he loves me, too? That telling me he loves me was as important to him as it feels to me? "I need reassurance that you love me, too," he said.

I immediately felt resentful. In my mind, Husband has to be the one to go the extra mile right now. If I'm taking the risk of staying with him and trying to rebuild trust in the face of his monumental betrayal, he needs to give me the extra support and attention I need whether or not he gets any reassurance of my love. He needs to be willing to risk jumping into loving and supporting me with no net, just as I feel I'm doing. It doesn't sound fair, but that's my thinking. In short, I guess I really think he owes me.

That thinking doesn't feel entirely healthy to me, so I'm going to talk about it in therapy. But it brings me to what I've realized again that I will need to come to terms with in order to move forward: Husband will probably never fully understand the depth of the pain he's caused me. He's going through his own stuff to be sure, but he did not have the discontinuity of betrayal to deal with the way I have. His understanding of reality has had at least a thread of continuity, while mine was completely severed by his betrayal. Though now that I'm writing this, I suppose that discontinuity was also brought about in part by my idealization of him. But no, on second thought, I don't think it was deluded of me to expect honesty and trustworthiness. Those are pretty basic elements to a respectful relationship.

But the fact is, whether or not Husband is ever able to fully grasp how devastating his betrayal was for me, in order to move forward for myself and my own recovery, I must disconnect those things in my mind. If Husband must grasp something in order for me to heal, I may never be able to heal. And I don't want to base my healing on someone else's response or actions. I want to empower myself to give myself everything I need to heal. So to have what I want I must let go of my attachment to that outcome. Husband will grasp it or he won’t. Can I love and trust him anyway? That is the question that remains to be answered.