Why Try to Save Your Marriage?

This is where I was Sept 18th 2007. The perfect storm had come upon me.
I found out that my wife of 10 years and two children:
1.) had cheated on me, spending an entire weekend with another man
2.) she was in love with the 'other' and
3.) didn't love me and in fact had never loved me (in THAT way).

I had NO idea what to do. My world was swirling around me and one minute I hated her and the next wanted her back. I remember a very vivid dream that first night of the discovery. I dreamt that we were dancing in circles; beautiful music was filling the air. Then I woke. I slowly came about to the realization of what happened the day before and I started sobbing and weeping in the middle of the night.

I had to decide something. I had no idea what to do. So the first thing I did was to not make any decision for 30 days. I even gave my wife my wedding ring. My thought was that the time could be used to make the best possible decision for everyone.

Then I decided to go with my wife to a counselor. And after that meeting, I told my wife that I was choosing her. I told her that I was going to try it for real. And that trying, that standing up and making the right decision changed my life.

If I had decided to do everything I "felt" like doing, I would be in jail right now, having gone through my very vivid feelings of wanting to shoot the 'other'. Had it all planned out actually, in my head. Of course I had feelings of hatred, but I choose to go with my feelings of love instead, and that had made all the difference. The right choice is not always easy.

I am sure that there are some marriages beyond saving, but as human beings we have the ability to change and be renewed by life and our experiences.

So why not use this to get back what you had? Better yet, why not start a new relationship based on truth and not holding anything back.

Affairs are so exciting and filled with love, because you are able to give yourself (and your heart) to the 'other' person. I saw that happen with my wife and then through the affair I saw her finally give her heart to me. I saw her, for the very first time ever, give herself to me and I fell in love with her and her giving of her heart.

So give yourself fully to your spouse. Give your heart away, even though society tells us to guard it. We have all been hurt by people in our lives but don't let those get in the way of love and the freeing love that can only be found in a free heart.

So, I know that every situation is not the same, but I know from experience that if you can pull through this, your marriage will be the best thing in the world.

Chicken Fried Thoughts

A friend asked me today how do I deal with the thoughts of my wife and the Other. Hmm.. it had been a while since I have had those thoughts but here's a stab at it.

First I have to say that I thought about it every.single.day for 4 to 6 months. Those first few months I would obsess over all kinds of details. Images that I either read about or that my wife told me about would play like broken tapes over and over. There were days that all I could do was to hold out till the car ride home just to stop from crying all day at work. Then there were nights were I cried all night long. Most of the crying was triggered or all about those thoughts.

But I had a wonderful sage, in our therapist. He definitely helped me through most of the big nagging thoughts that I was having a hard time with. His advice was that most of my issues were in the form of those obsessive thoughts but had a lie under them.

For instance, the fact that my wife and the other had constant contact with each other really bothered me. I knew that they emailed, IMed, texted, and talked many many times all day long. I went back to one month of her cell phone bill and found that she had text messaged him over 550 times in one month. I would obsess over that. I would text my wife and then check my cell phone every minute until she would text back. Of course, immediately I would think of all the contacts that my wife and the other had and want to cry. Then my mind would only go in a downward spiral from there.

'Why doesn't she text me as much as she did to him? Was their relationship stronger/better/bigger than ours? Was he better at communicating than me? Did he do a better job of loving her? Maybe he really was better than me, better at most things and better at loving my wife than I could?

So, I tried at first to just fight those thoughts. I tried very hard not to think about them. In order to distract myself I would think of other things totally unrelated. This is very hard to do 2 months out from D-day (discovery day). And it doesn't work. Believe me when I tell you that I tried. It really only helped me to put off the eventual breakdown of crying, sobbing, and wailing that came when the downward spiral had run its course inside my head.

My sage had the only real technique that really worked. Behind most of these nagging type thoughts, was a lie. And that was always the case with me. If you go back to my inner thoughts above you can almost see the progression that leads to the lie. My insecurity was screaming out 'Am I really a good, lovable, person, better than the other? The lie that my flesh was wresting with was that if I was a 'good' person than the affair would not have happened. But that's not true. I certainly had culpability in the affair, but ultimately it was my wife's choice and not mine. And the amount of text messages that I got or didn't get from my wife after the affair was not an indication of our relationship. (for her the reverse is actually true, as she found herself rid of the obsessive thoughts of her other, she was able to focus on life and work and not being trapped in a sick world lived inside her head)

The other thing that helped me was journaling. In my case I used poetry instead of a true journal, but the same principal applies. I had so many thoughts/feelings/emotions/junk in my head it really did help to take out a notebook and jot some thoughts down. In the first three months after D-day I wrote over 50 poems. Not all good or even made sense, but they all helped in some way to get out a thought or feeling.

In hindsight, I still do have some thoughts. But the 'some' I have is like a trickle of rain for a few moments compared to the day long hurricane that came shortly after the discovery. Since I know that there is a lie behind them all (and have the emotional stability to boot) I can take the time to weed through each one, knowing that just because there is a random thought there, doesn't mean anything at all. I deal with the lie, fry it up in a poem, and move on.

How to Stop an Affair

How does one stop an affair, this is a question I've been wondering about. Many people would just say simply-you just stop. But it doesn't seem to be that simple. The affair and whatever you get from it is intoxicating and addictive and like many addictions, it is very hard to give up a habit on your own.

In my opinion, it seems like the only way to really truly end the affair is to be discovered. Sure, you might stop at some point on your own or because it was stopped by your "Other", but if it is not discovered and just ended by you, I think the baggage sticks with you. You still have everything still locked away inside you, this thing you did, this thing you had. Perhaps you are truly sorry and repentant, but its difficult to find forgiveness for something that is still kept secret.

And on the topic of secrets, secrets are poison. They change you and who you are a lot of times. How many people stop an affair and then spend their days trying to make it up to their unknowing spouse. Racked with guilt. That person becomes "the Spouse who had an affair" and I argue it changes the real you and it turns you into a ghost in your relationship.

A friend of mine recently found out her husband cheated on her many years ago and never told her. I was able to have a long conversation with him and he was telling me even though the affair stopped, the thought processes, the secrets and all that junk that goes with it was still in the head.

My response to him was to say that neither he nor his wife really knew who he was in their relationship. That the husband he was, was a husband that was keeping secrets and coping with baggage, not a free human be to live and grow and love.

This comes to a question I have. Do you tell someone about an affair, even if its over. Before I had committed my own adultery I would have said telling your spouse was selfish and only a tool to try to rid you of your guilt. Better to suffer in silence and not cause pain to your spouse.

I completely reversed my opinion on that after my own incident. I see now that keeping secrets and living in a marriage based on a huge lie is no way to live. Your marriage is a shadow of what it could be. I know if I had never told my husband and worked hard with him on coming to terms with why it happened and trying to forgive myself, I would have lived in our marriage as a ghost. And a marriage based on a lie has a sinkhole as its foundation. (Oddly, I always said if my spouse committed adultery, I wouldn't want to know. I didn't think I could forgive him. I sort of suck that way. lol!)

Of course I'm open to opposing opinions, but I'd like to hear mainly from people who are no longer in the affair. I think, for the most part, if you are still in the midst of your affair, that your judgement on these matters is off. But that is just based on my own experience. So if you had an affair in the past, did you tell the truth and if it was discovered, did you come clean with total transparency? (and when I say transparency, I don't mean all the nasty details, I mean disclosing all lies to your spouse).

Being Deliberate in Your Marriage

After the discovery of my affair, and the subsequent salvation of my marriage, I found myself having to be very deliberate in my communication and interactions with my husband.

Self awareness is very important during these times, knowing what is going on in your head and why and then sharing it is integral in the healing process. How often do we act out, react to something in anger when deep down we know there is something at the root of us that makes us act this way? Some undiscovered hurt? I know I've been guilty of it.

For instance if your partner says something to you that hurts you, instead of reacting with anger and accusations which would escalate the issues, why not peel back that layer of the onion and see whats there. Tell your partner what hurt you and why. As we tell our children, "Use your words".

Communications is often the first thing that breaks down in a marriage. Communication is like the oil in the car, as it runs low you aren't necessarily aware. But then strange things start happening, other things start breaking... then the car can't run. And pretty soon you killed the engine. But I don't know enough about cars to make a good car analogy.

But I think I can do walls.

Walls

We as people build little walls around ourselves, we use them to hide, to keep us safe from arrows and protect our secrets. Its a pretty little wall and we've become so used to it that we don't even notice it anymore, it becomes part of our natural landscape.

Then one day we're patrolling our wall and we see someone, we think we know them-it may look like our significant other, but we're not sure. In the light it sort of looks like the punk kid who wrote profanity on the wall a year ago. So we think, 'better safe than sorry' and just shoot random, poorly aimed arrows before they have a chance to hurt the wall.

And maybe they're just loitering. They are standing there, minding their own business. But they look like they could be up to something. So you go for the hot oil and pour it down the wall. Before they know it, they're burning with hot oil and they have no idea why.

But you do. You know that you're just afraid they are going to break down your wall, find you and hurt you.

What you should do instead of pouring that oil or throwing rocks, is lower the drawbridge and let them in. Show them the raw core of you. You may be surprised.

In times when you find yourself ready to fire off the verbal arrow-stop. Spend a moment dissecting it, figure out what is at the root of your reaction and then put it out there simply and honestly. It saves time and heartache and it hurts a hell of a lot less than hot oil.

What I'm really saying is to cut the bullshit and get to the point about your feelings. Don't mask them or transfer them or act out because of them. Own them, then throw them out there and move on with your life.

Family & Friends and Your Wall

Sometimes its not your spouse outside your wall, its your family friends or even just society. They're out there shaking their pitchforks and waving their torches and yelling at you to keep guarding the wall and not to dare let down that drawbridge.

You sit up there knowing you want nothing more than to let someone in, but you're afraid you'll look weak. You wonder what the mob would think, who cares what they'd say. But you know what, who cares? Let me ask you, who do you live your life for? And who should you live your life for? Think about that. If you were true to the core of yourself, what would you do?

In a relationship that has suffered adultery, when the victim decides to stay with their cheating spouse, they are met with confusion and skepticism from their friends and family. How many times have you heard "once a cheater, always a cheater"? Do a Google search, you'll get a gazillion responses with people making this statement.

Your friends and family are often not supportive of rescuing the marriage. They have righteous anger for the wrong you suffered. They don't understand that although they can be angry and hurt for you, they also need to be supportive and understanding of your need to try to save your marriage.

During those initial days after the discovery its so important for you to be strong in what you want, and not let them sway you. You probably are having those same thoughts and feelings on your own, moving up and down in the storm of your emotions. But at the heart of you, you want to fight for your marriage. And so you should, because it is better to have tried to save your marriage than to lose because you didn't bother to fight.

That is primarily what this blog has become. I started to try to process and come to terms with what I did. But now we just want it to be a place people can go to get hope and encouragement as they work on their marriage.

The Discovery: 36 Hours of Hell

I've been needing to write this post, to get it out here so I don't have to dread it anymore. The discovery of my dead and the aftermath is the most painful part for me to remember, but to get it out here will hopefully take it out of me.

The Other and I had known each other for 6 months by the time Husband started to get a clue something was wrong. During those 6 months the Other and I would cut off all contact, have nothing to do with each other, but we always fell back to each other. I have never been addicted to anything, but I can only guess that this was like an addiction. It certainly felt that way.

With addiction, when you have your high, it feels great but its an unstable high-one that comes with a price and never sits easy. And when you aren't high all you do is think about when you can get your next hit. I felt like a druggie slumped against a wall with a needle buried in my vein. My life was uncomfortable, or rather, my spirit was uncomfortable in my body. I felt constantly like I was living a hundred miles from myself and it was painful to live that way. Joy did not exist for me.

One night Husband saw me behaving strangely and asked me about it. I denied anything was wrong, tried to put him at ease. Tried to be honest since the Other and I had just gone to "lets only be friends" again. But he knew better. So the next day, while I was at work, he logged into my email and found all sorts of awful things.

I was not around for this part, but I think this is the thing that I find hardest to live with. Knowing how he must have felt when he found the truth of what was happening. He was home alone with the kids and he just broke down and started weeping. He took the kids to daycare, just dropped them off and said sorry, and came to my work. When I saw him I knew something was wrong. He told me to tell my boss I might not be back for the rest of the day and then took me out to the rocks to talk.

He asked me about the Other, I tried to deny, to cover. He read to me excerpts from my emails- things I had said to the Other about my feelings for him. I just looked at him numbly. I really didn't feel anything. I think I was in shock. I kept staring down into the rocks and thinking 'if I could just jump, I could wedge myself under one and let myself die. Just go'. My arms hurt so badly they felt like they could fall off. I am certain it was adrenaline flooding my system. I think I could have lifted a car if I needed to.

We left the rocks to drive home, I got my car from work and called my Best Friend who was aware of what was going on. She didn't answer. I texted her EMERGENCY! and she called me right back. I was so scared. She told me she loved me, she told me to tell him everything. So I went home and I told him I had met the Other and spent time with him. I told him everything. And that was when he broke the chairs. Splinters flew around the room and I just sat there. Names and curses were hurled at me and I just sat there. I felt like I deserved every bad thing he said to me. I agreed with him.

He kept talking about the perfect storm. How I had unleashed it on him. Not only did I have an emotional affair, not only had I met the Other, but I also did not love him ever. He could have handled any of the two, but not all three. It was blowing him over, I was his world and it was collapsing around him.

I knew my stony exterior was making things worse. My lack of emotion. But I couldn't help it, I didn't know what to do. I wanted so badly to be with the Other, I thought, if Husband and I could just live in a peaceable friendship and co-parent, we'd be ok. He could find someone who loves him like he deserved and we can be really good friends. Husband even said he thought he could let me go and be with the Other. That I should be with him if I loved him. ...He almost gave me away.

That night, after hours more of talking, it was time for bed. I wanted to sleep on the couch but he insisted that he sleep there. So I went to bed and felt broken suddenly. I managed a little sleep but it felt alien to be so far from him, I crawled into the living room and lay beside his feet and rocked back and forth crying and singing the song Father Abraham.

I don't know why I sang, but I think I was trying to wrap myself up in something that was about God. Trying to get some comfort there. Husband ended up making me a bed and allowing me to lay beside him, even though he didn't want to be near me. He was kind even in his torment.

The next day was just as awful. I took the kids to daycare, called in sick to work, and we sat looking at each other. He forced me to eat, and I cried while I chewed because no part of me wanted food in my body.

Then I got a call from a friend who told me we needed to go see a Therapist she knew, she wanted me to call him (I had texted her the day before about what was happening). Husband, who had been having the odd feeling like he very much needed to get counsel from this same friend, agreed reluctantly to see this Therapist. But only because the friend told us to. Not for me.

I called, hovering on a breakdown and asked for an emergency appointment. Thank God he had one. We went there at 2:30 and met him, he looked at us, concern playing all across his face, and asked what was going on. I told him that I had committed adultery and began shaking and crying.

He talked for a little over an hour. Husband was calmer than I had seen him since he came for me at my office the day before. He said later that something in that man, Therapist, was able to ease the storm inside him.

I wish I could remember everything from that session. I think I wrote it somewhere, but important happened when he asked us what we wanted. Husband said he wanted to give it a month and then decide, because he didn't want to decide when he was so emotional. Then came my turn. In my head I thought that I just wanted to be free to love the Other and have Husband fall in love with another and live happily ever after. No one hurting.

But that wasn't the right answer, and I knew it. So I said, with shaking voice, "in a perfect world I would fall in love with my husband."

I don't know what happened in that moment, but I had a major click, something did happen. It was like everything was gone- the Other, the memories of my dead love, all the past barriers to me loving husband seemed to be gone in that instant. I suddenly loved him!

Our session was over, we made one for the following week and we left to go debrief. As we drove I was full of fear. Would he want me still, could he ever touch me again, would he ever love me again?

We walked up to a bluff near a park by our home and sat down to talk. As we ascended, Husband took my hand and I looked up at him hopefully. He sat down, he took my hands and he said he was going to fight for me. And inside me I felt this love for him, a love I had never felt. And fear about the love because I wanted badly to tell him but I was so afraid he wouldn't believe me. But I said it anyway. I told him I loved him. And he could see in me that this was different. The sun shined down on us and we looked into each others eyes, and we fell in love.

He had always loved me, but had never had me. Now that our love was for each other, it was greater than anything we'd experienced. He came to realize he loved me before, but not in this whole and beautiful way.

He took me as I was, a broken thing, and he loved me in spite of my betrayal.

Meanwhile, during all of this the Other was freaking out. I had suddenly disappeared and he was afraid something was wrong with me. In hindsight, I should have had Husband tell him I was dead. I think that would have been better for everyone, I'll explain how I almost became a cheesy life-time televison movie in another post.

Instead, I sent him an email explaining what happened. Then I shut down everything I had that had a connection with him. Every single account, number-everything. I disappeared. I had to.

At first I was afraid the new love for Husband was a trick, and that I'd find myself longing for the Other. But I am glad to say that wasn't the case. The Other seems to be totally gone from me, and my dead love as well. I am beholden to no one but Husband, God and myself.

When I think about how badly my life could have gone, during those 36 hours of hell, and how wonderfully it became, I am breathless. Who am I to have such a beautiful gift come from an awful sin? But who am I not to? We all deserve love, deserve to find the love of our life and deserve to be loved. We yearn to love and be loved desperately. And finally that is true for me.

Now that I'm done with the discovery, I can stop being afraid of it. I can smile and be done with it. Because, as awful as it all was, it was the way a beautiful story began.

Adultery

There, I said it. I committed adultery. I was unfaithful. If you haven't figured this out yet, that is what the Scarlet A is for.

For much of this time after the mark was discovered I have kept my wall up around myself so I don't have to acknowledge my sin. I don't know how to understand it. It was so unlike me. So opposite of who I am. I had never so much as broken a heart, and suddenly I'm nearly destroying whole lives, potentially destroyed one for certain, though not mine nor my husband's.

I am so sorry for the thing I did. Sorry to everyone. I will probably go into "the Other" and how he came into my life at some point. But not now. But he does play a role in my inability to let go because I feel such tremendous guilt and responsibility for causing the harm. Harm that cannot be fixed. This is hard on Husband, who I'm sure thinks it is unfair since he is the true victim in all of this. But I feel they were both victims of my treachery and that I was the villain in all of this.

In regards to the "Other", I feel like I led a starving soul into a place unnatural to him with a crumb of bread and a promise for something he was desperately hungry for. Evil. I was like the White Witch with the Turkish Delights. Husband had no idea about what was going on and I tried my best to pretend there was nothing going on. That I lived two different lives. But I felt like I was living outside my body, and that I went through daily life forcefully-only by willing myself to exist in my life.

It was hard for me. I loved my children, but I did not live here anymore. I lived in my head and I wanted so much to be "in love", to fulfill love. To finally live and be with someone I loved.

I guess I should point out that I married my husband out of mutual interest and companionship. That I never fell in love with him (although I am blessed enough to be able to say that I am finally in love with him). There was a person I loved, someone who left me-died. After his death I just gave up, I would never love again. But I wanted a family and I wanted to be with my dearest friend, so we got married. It seems terribly unfair, doesn't it? He sort of ambushed me, asked me to marry him very early in our dating relationship and I didn't know what to say. Couldn't say no. Maybe didn't want to.

Of course I never did tell him this. He never had any idea about this until he discovered the mark upon me. Then it all spilled out in great heaving gasps of unwanted and unsuspected truth. Truth I had never meant for him to know.

When I think to that moment, I feel such sadness for the pain I caused him in those revelations. I count my blessing he has remained with me and loves me even more than before. Just last night he danced with me and said "I love you, and you are forgiven." He says this to me with a loving smile on his lips. He knows I haven't forgiven, yet he has, and he wants me to move past this. I am a blessed woman. I don't deserve it. But my therepist would say that is what Grace is all about. And the longer I hold this, the longer I give it power over us.

This is all for tonight.