Dear Lisa,

I have followed your posts occasionally, and have some small understanding about the enormous amount of pain and confusion you are facing.

I do not post often. However, if you are willing, I will offer my own perspective and advice, and you can see if any of it would be helpful.

Most of your posts have focused on the difficulties you are having with your husband. If you would like me to write, I will focus instead on questions about yourself, and offer you my own guesses about what your husband might be feeling. However, I do not know if this is the right time for such questions, since you have so many other things to focus on.

If you are interested, I wil try my best to help.

I wish you well,

StillTrying

Hello Still Trying

I'm sorry I missed this post. I presume you have seen the latest saga from the weekend?

I would willingly take advice from anyone about my situation, and would be grateful for any help you think you can offer me.

Given that I think you have seen what happened at the weekend, perhaps I could do a quick re-cap of what I feel, and what I think H feels:

Lisa feels:

Angry - very, very angry, because H deliberately put me through hell and I was worried sick about his safety, because he had been extremely depressed for the previous 2 weeks.

Betrayed - not to the depths that I betrayed him, but that he could be fairly intimate with someone else and not even think about me (although I of course did this to him)

Worried - I do love H, but can't see how we can overcome some of the more intimate difficulties that we have had on an ongoing basis. I don't "fancy" him, I don't find him attractive in a physical way.

Sad - All of it makes me incredibly sad

Guilt - say no more, don't like myself terribly, did a really really bad thing.

Unsure - that I really love H enough to have a future with him.

I think H feels:

Angry - with me, OM, himself. OM's not around to take it out on, so he does me, and then turns it inward on himself, because he feels that he has "failed"

Hurt - Crushed, beyond belief that I could have done this to him - I abandoned him.

Detached - he has definitely detached himself emotionally from me, his girls, his family, friends etc.

Inadequate - in the sense of not being a proper man (all my words here). Our sex life has been poor, and then I have reconnected with someone else.

Messed up - emotionally he is completely messed up and wrecked, which coupled with everything else led to his indiscretion at the weekend.

Still Trying, I read here so much, I listen to other people, I have tried to give H what he needs, but still he is distancing from me. I would be very grateful to hear from you.

Thank you for your concern.

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

Hi. I don't know if I can help you, but I will share my own thoughts and questions , and maybe a fresh perspective will catalyze some new insights. From your letters you seem extremely articulate and thoughtful. However, I won't dwell on current events, upsetting as they has been for you, since I sense something deeper underneath it all.

My wife had an affair more than three years ago. You can search for my old posts if you are curious about my background. It probably will color my thoughts, and some of those thoughts might not be relevant to your own situation.

At any rate, it took me a very long time to heal from the affair, and it also took my wife a long time. There were so many things to deal with, and you describe many similar issues in your own situaion.

More than two years after the affair I went into a very deep depression, probably the worse I had experienced. But in working through it, I was finally able to articulate things that had bothered me all along.

One of the key questions I asked my wife seems to be an issue that lies at the center of your impasse with your husband, at least from my own, rather distant perspective.

My wife had told me that she was able to have the affair because she was good at compartmentalizing things. I think that most people in affairs do this (unless they are sadistic), because it is too painful to think of their spouses and of the pain they are inflicting while they are involved with the other person.

I remember, shortly after the affair was over, feeling that I was a large empty space in the room, a place my wife wouldn't even look. I felt so insignificant, as if I had been put in a box and the lid closed.

And as I thought about this over the intervening years, I realized that I continued to feel shut out. It took a long time for my wife to stop viewing aspects of her affair in a warm and positive light.

So I asked her how she could continue to regard her partner in a loving way, while at the same time rebuilding her relationship with me, IF all of the positive experiences she had had with her partner were experiences shared directly at my expense.

(In my rather dramatic way, I think I asked if she could continue to love someone who had always treated her in a loving way, but had abused her children constantly. I personally believe it is impossible to maintain such a love without dangerous compartmentalization).

I think this problem was the key for me. She had told me about the affair with great honesty following my discovery of it, and about her feelings. It was clear to both of us at that time how intense her feelings for him were.

However, I slowly came to believe that our feelings are based not on the events that happen to us, but on our interpretations of those events. (I could discuss this idea at great length, if you like, but perhaps you already agree, or feel that it doesn't apply in your situation).

And so I thought that her own feelings about the other man must change if she changed the way that she interpretted what they had done. I wanted her to think of me and of his wife in association with each positive memory she had of him, to picture us right there, in their presence, being hurt, rather than off at a distance, compartmentalized, in some box. I believed that she could not continue to have any positive memories of their time together if she refused to compartmentalize their relationship and our own.

---------

So why am I bringing this all up? From your posts, I sense (perhaps wrongly), that one of the major issues that lies between you and your husband is that you feel terribly guilty about your betrayal of him, but still very attracted by the pleasures of your affair relationship. And that this dichotomy is enormously stressful and confusing for you. Am I reading this correctly?

If I were to put words in my wife's mouth, I think she might have said, once, that her affair was morally wrong (which tormented her) but emotionally right. And I don't think I felt safe with her until that emotional component was gone.

------

What are your most pleasureable memories of the affair?

How do you feel about those memories , if you picture his wife and your husband in conjunction with those events, if you imagine where they were and what they were doing at the time, and how they would have felt if they had seen you two?

I don't know if questions like this will lead you in the right direction, but I sense that you need to confront what the affair meant for you. That you need to face some extremely painful internal questions.

My own impression is that most people involved in affairs want to believe that there was something inherently good in the affair, despite the lies and betrayal, and that most betrayed spouses will deny that with all their soul.

Is this an issue for you? Do you sometimes worry that there must have been something positive in the affair to help you think about having done it?

I hope I am not uselessly asking painful questions. Your letters have struck a chord with me, and I respect you and wish you well.

Sincerely,

StillTrying.

PS - Three books by Harriet Lerner were very helpful as I tried to confront my own issues in the wake of the affair. They were The Dance of Anger , The Dance of Deception , and The Dance of Intimacy .

Hi ST

I have been out for most of today and have not been able to post. H is due home shortly and I do not have much time.

Firstly, thank you for your thoughts. Several parts leapt off the screen and thumped me smack between the eyes - there were definitely things to relate to.

I would like to reply properly tomorrow when I have more time, but please don't think I have just ignored this. Your words need some more time and thought to address than I have right now.

Thank you for your thoughts so far - I think there may be some things there that are very useful.

Lisa

Hello ST

I am really struggling today (you can catch up on my main thread), but wanted to at least think about your post and what it might mean to me.

I think I used the phrase "compartmentalise" from someone else (Kily), but it did strike home. When I was with OM, I didn't even think about H nor him about his W. Most times I was with him, I would need to speak to H (as he worked away), but it was like I could switch on and off. I've heard that men are good at this, but I think you are right, people who have A's aren't evil, just incredibly stupid.

Two things you said - H has actually used the expression about being in the "box". It really struck me when you said that was how you felt. The second thing was about your W feeling it was morally wrong, but emotionally right. I have tried to picture as you say times and places, and put H there, but find it quite difficult to imagine. I don't know if that is because I still do feel strongly about OM, and I don't feel that good about wanting to think about him that much! Maybe, I just can't face it.....

"I don't know if questions like this will lead you in the right direction, but I sense that you need to confront what the affair meant for you. That you need to face some extremely painful internal questions." When I first starting posting here, I agonised about what I had done and why I had done it. Even H said that he couldn't believe it was me - it was so not me! It was too easy to say that my ENs weren't being met, H was in Germany and it was easy, I was vulnerable. So what, all that could apply to H. Why did I do it???? Whilst I used to really beat myself up about it, I feel that I have learnt to live with it a little better, although I still look for those answers.

I don't know so much if I felt there was something good about the A per se, but almost that it was meant to be - that sounds even worse! Do you know what I mean, or am I talking twaddle? I truly believe that it was pretty out of character for OM too, but something happened between us. You have probably seen my post whereby H said that he felt OM and I had a "oneness" that perhaps we had never had, and I HATE to say it, but it did feel like that. But I know it was wrong, bad, shouldn't have happened, has caused all this pain.... Confused ramblings or what?

ST, you are definitely hitting on something here, and I would appreciate your continued advice. My other posts do tend to focus on H, but my own constant battle is the "why on earth did I do it?" one. If the questions are too painful to answer (given that I feel emotionally wrecked with everything going on), I may just take a little longer to answer.

Thank you for thinking of me, I appreciate it.

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

I read your reply, and also your recent letters on this forum. You have a very difficult time ahead.

I feel unsure offering my thoughts and advice. I don't really know you, and I know nothing about your husband except what you have described. All I can offer is my own perspective, shaped by my own life. And I don't know if that can help you with yours.

Also, I have very little time right now. I will confine myself to a few brief thoughts.

----------------------------------------

It seems to me that the situation you have described is very closely linked to your husband separating from you. (Of course, I don't know him, so this is very speculative. See if it fits what you know).

My wife ended her affair almost immediately upon my discovery of it. I think this is much like your situation. Am I right?

But, like you, she treasured the memories of the affair for a long time, and refused to draw close to me. At that time, I told myself that she couldn't allow herself to become intimate with me again, because

- it was too painful for her to deal with me intimately, after having betrayed me, and

- if she was able to restore an intimate and loving relationship with me, that very event would destroy her only justification for the affair. (Since she would be sharing with me the pleasures she thought she could only have with the other man).

I don't know if my ideas were right, but I still believe in them. I have not discussed this topic in depth with her, because at first she was very defensive, and later I found she responded much better to a discussion of the present, rather than a focus on the past. So I could be wrong here about what actually was going on.

But I do sense a similar justification in your own letters. You are still reacting to the high of the affair, at least in my opinion.

And that leaves your husband in a terrible situation. Being betrayed is in itself one of the most painful experiences I know of.

But in addition, you are asking him to live with you, while showing him every day, through your actions, that you would rather be with someone else. You are forgoing that other person to do what is right, but from what you have written, it sounds clear that your husband knows you feel this is a sacrifice.

That level of rejection, from the one person he had felt safe with, is probably suffocating him. I am not surprised he has been looking elsewhere to find affirmation that he is attractive and desirable. He has been crushed, and might not be strong enough to heal himself, or to wait until you have healed enough to help him.

I found that experience almost unendurable. So utterly the worst experience of my life that nothing else can even be compared to it. We had several children, and for their sakes I stayed the course, but I am not sure I would do it again, delighted as I am at our own, happy outcome. It was too painful. I might instead have left and let my wife work out her own problems, hoping that she would come begging me for love, rather than the reverse.

I really don't know. But you hurt your husband very deeply, and maybe he can't handle trying to rebuild your marriage, while you are still ambivalent and unattracted to him.

And that ambivalency and unattraction are probably direct outcomes of your affair.

----------------

Several months after my wife ended her affair, she still felt nauseous just sitting close to me. We had had an active sex life, and great intimacy in the past, and we have them again, but in the wake of the affair I was repellent to her for many months.

The more I think about that, the more I think that the primary problem lay not with me and my need to woo her back through a "plan A", though I tried to be as loving and supportive as I could. I think the problems had been created within her and could only be eliminated within her. And perhaps my greatest contribution was to survive long enough to give her time to heal, and to avoid flinging back at her the pain she was causing me then, and thereby making it all worse.

-------------

I spent years trying to figure this out. One of the most painful issues was that "oneness" you wrote about. It crushed me. To imagine that your wife is "one" with another man is not possible, unless you are utterly insecure and masochistic. Would you want to be married to a man who accepted that you preferred another?

At any rate, after reading volumes of letters, and many books, I decided that the key to that feeling so many describe in affairs is the affair itself, not the people involved. Otherwise, I couldn't understand how so many acheived this transcendent emotional bonding, nor why it seemed to occur only in affairs, not why it almost always ended badly. If you search for my old posts (using my member number) you will find one on the nature of love. I think it summarizes my experience well. Please let me know what you think of it.

I hope things go better for you, and that you can find within yourself truth, and the courage to face it, and the wisdom you need to navigate a difficult course.

Sincerely,

StillTrying

<small>[ November 28, 2002, 09:57 PM: Message edited by: StillTrying ]</small>

Hello Still Trying

Again, I have not had much time today, but wanted to thank you for your response. I feel that you have again hit the nail on the head with a number of things and would like to come back and address them when I can, later tonight or tomorrow.

I do appreciate your thoughts - I know you don't know me or my H, but sometimes what people say on these boards just strike a chord. I have found that with some of the posts, and I know that I have learnt so much here from people like yourself who, even though they don't know me, truly seem to have my best interests at heart. It's a strange old world isn't it?

Thank you again.

Lisa

P.S. I did read your post about definitions of love before you mentioned it, when I was looking for your story, but I couldn't find that. Do you know how to add a link in here, because I would be interested to read your story?

Dear Lisa,

I have never posted my 'story' in one place. It is very had to reduce years of life and the life of my family and friends to a story.

In outline form, my wife of many years had an affair with a good friend of ours, she got pregnant and bore his child, pretending it was mine. I found out a few months after the birth. The affair ended at that point, but recovery took a very long time. This child is, and has been, my own in all important ways, and the other man has long since disappeared from the picture. Our family and our own relationship are both thriving right now.

You can probably get the best sense of what I experienced by reading my old posts on the "In Recovery" board.

I hope things are going a little better for you this weekend.

StillTrying

Dear ST

Firstly, sorry about the comment about your "story", on reflection it sounded glib. It wasn't meant to be, but I was interested to know a little more about some of the issues that you thought were similar between your W and I. That you are still together now and happy with your child, is an inspiration to me. I will look over on the recovery board for some more information.

I am sure you can catch up with most of the current things on my main thread, but I wanted to go back to your last post.

"But I do sense a similar justification in your own letters. You are still reacting to the high of the affair, at least in my opinion."

Huum, tricky this, but I have never justified what I did - whilst I think that perhaps both H and I took the path that led to my personal crossroads, only I took the wrong path from there on. He didn't force me down it, only I did what I did, and I can't justify that. It is now some 6 months since I saw OM, and I don't believe I feel any sense of high anymore about that situation. There has been soooo much pain and misery since then, that I can barely remember "good" times with OM.

"But in addition, you are asking him to live with you, while showing him every day, through your actions, that you would rather be with someone else. You are forgoing that other person to do what is right, but from what you have written, it sounds clear that your husband knows you feel this is a sacrifice."

How am I showing him that I would rather be with anyone else? I am not being defensive, but interested to know why you think this. I have shown little or no feelings about OM at all, although the first month or so after H came back from Germany was terrible. That was partly as well because we had to live together after not living together for two years, but yes at that time, I didn't know if I was coming or going. But more recently I have tried so hard to work on things with H. Technically I am not forgoing another person, because he too is working on his M and it was a decision we both made, and I do not know what would have happened there, but I think you are right that H feels I have made some sort of "sacrifice".

"I really don't know. But you hurt your husband very deeply, and maybe he can't handle trying to rebuild your marriage, while you are still ambivalent and unattracted to him."

Honestly, I was ambivalent to him, truly now, I have tried not to be. One thing I will not do though is lie to him anymore, I will not say "Everything will work out fine, and we'll be great", because I don't know if it will. But, I am trying to work things out to see if they can be fine and great - does that make sense? Whether that is a direct result of the A, I am not sure. H may argue differently. He has always said I have an "opt out" card, and "hold back about 20%". Is that ambivalence? Unfortunately, the attraction issue has been one for a number of years, and is not as a direct result of the A - this is fact, and is of course one of those deeply troubling things for H.

"I think the problems had been created within her and could only be eliminated within her."

I think this is oh so true, and you know ST, I struggle daily with those problems.

ST, your last couple of paras, I don't think need answering, but need some deep reflection - but I appreciate your thoughts.

Still Trying, thank you for your help, and anything I have said in this post is only about questioning myself and understanding where I have come from. As I said, nothing is written defensively, but just to try and help get some answers.

I wish you well, and thank you again for your support.

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

You sound very depressed now. I am glad you have a counselor to work with. My wife and I both worked with individual counselors for a long time, in the wake of the affair, and I think that it is essential. (So long as you trust and respect the counselor; it can be hard to find a good one).

I don't have much too say that will be helpful. Just a couple of ideas.

----------

If both you and your husband are ambivalent about healing your marriage, it will be very hard to make any progress right now.

And I don't know if your husband can face the risk of opening up to you, only to have you say, a year from now, that you tried it and it just didn't work. He might be afraid of precisely that, given your ambivalence.

Sometimes I think that the most difficult thing of all is to find the will to do something. Actions and emotions follow, but that inner drive to begin and to carry through difficult times is elusive.

Why do you want to reconnect with your husband? Can you list the reasons? Do you really believe in those reasons? What are the happiest things you remember about your marriage? Why did you marry him in the first place? What do you admire about him? What would you like your relationship to look like in two years?

--------

I somehow carried on while my wife was ambivalent. Finally, I couldn't put up any longer with statements like "I will try" or "I will see what we can do" (which slowly went away), or "I can't promise how I will act." I insisted on more, on a firm commitment from her about our future. And she responded well.

I believe it was her own desire to be scrupulously honest that kept my wife on the borderline, ambivalent, unwilling to make long-term promises. She was still shocked about how she had lied to and betrayed me, and did not want to make promises again, lest she break them again.

But she couldn't live her life like that. For me to trust her, she had to be willing to trust herself. And she was inside a terrific, strong person, with a deep sense of integrity. She had to accept that about herself.

But she didn't make any commitments until I found enough strength in myself and in my own self-worth to insist on them, to insist that I deserved them. That took me a year and a half.

Perhaps you will have to take the lead with your husband. Perhaps he is too wounded right now to know himself, and to know what you are capable of, and to hold you to it.

--------

The other thought I had concerns emotions. You started this conversaiton out describing, with great acuity, your own emotional state, and that of your husband. And I suspect that the central block to healing your marriage is the emotional states you and your husband are both in right now.

But while healing from my wife's affair, I finally concluded that our emotions are created by two things

(1) The events that happen to us, and

(2) The way we interpret and remember those events.

We can control our emotions, but not in a simple, direct way, like we control our muscles.

And we have to be very careful not to base our decisions on emotion alone, since emotions are changeable and sometimes misleading.

My son refuses to use one of our bathrooms, because he is afraid of spiders. He is no more likely to meet a spider there than anywhere else in our house, but the emotion of fear is so strong it controls his actions. Why? Because he remembers and focuses on one frightening experience in the past, but neglects to think about the many safe times he had there. His emotions mislead him on this issue.

But he can't just stop being afraid by force of will.

If we want to change our emotions, we need to understand the underlying events and ideas that fuel them.

The whole strengthof the Harley approach to marriage, in my opinion, is that he recognizes that most of us want to marry for love, and suggests approaches we can take to change our own emotional responses, to deepen our love for our spouses, and their love for us.

Sometimes, one person acting alone can use this approach to revitalize a marriage. But usually it takes the cooperation of both. The "fog" so many people speak of here is really just an elaborate way of viewing events to preserve love for an affair partner. All negative traits of that person are ignored. And the tiniest bad traits of a spouse are grossly magnified.

With such a filter in place, nothing can be done to revitalize a marriage, until the spouse opens up to a different way of viewing events.

And perhaps your husband has his own filter now, created by the pain you have caused him, and he can't look at you in a more favorable light yet.

But with your counselor you can focus on understanding the causes and ideas that shape your own emotional responses, and changing them so that you yourself are happier and more confident.

-------

I believe that affairs are designed, by their very nature, to create strong feelings of love and understanding and 'oneness'. But most of us feel that these emotions are due to the right fit between the people in the affair. I don't deny that common interests and attributes contribute to a romantic relationship. But I think that the intensity of the emotions is mostly due to the nature of the relationship, to the types of interactions an affair involves, and to the way we are trained to interpret those actions.

That is why affairs are so enticing, and so dangerous.
The intensity of the emotions provides a motivation to lie, betray, and trample on all of our guiding values.

But the payoff doesn't really exist. If two people in an affair end up marrying, the affair is over, and the relationship changes. The internet is littered with letters by people who married their "soulmates", their one true love (met in an affair), and who are now in crisis because their new relationship has fallen apart, or because they are themselves now the victim of an affair.

The 'oneness' you and your husband have such a hard time facing was (at least from my perspective, which might be very biased), a very attractive illusion. And you are, perhaps, ambivalent about your marriage because you don't know how to find that oneness, and your husband might be feeling terrified and inadequate because he is humiliated that, in all the years he has known you, he was not the one to give you that oneness, and has given up.

But 'oneness' is an illusion. A real emotion based on an unstable and deceitful situation.

Can you envision how you would like to feel in a permanent, stable relationship? What emotions do you want? Are they realistic? What actions of yours and of your spouse would you need to nurture those feelings?

I have written rather too much here, and perhaps very little of it has any relevance to your own, rather difficutl situation.

I wish you well,

StillTrying

Dear Still Trying

Thank you for your latest message. I actually printed it out to read it properly and make sense of the things you said.

You are right that if both of us are ambivalent it will be difficult to heal, although as I say, more recently I think I have been open and trying hard to show H I care. I guess my ambivalence still lies in the fact that I really don't know if it will all work out well, and like your W, because of the need to be scrupulously honest, I tell H that, which in turn holds him back for the fear of giving his all and then a year or whatever down the line we split up and the hurt cycle begins again. However, if neither one of us is ready to do more how can we get there? You say that finally you told your W that a firm commitment was essential to your M. H does not even know if he wants or loves me, so does it work in reverse, do I tell him?

Your paragraph about why I want to reconnect with my H certainly set me thinking. I think this is quite a personal exercise and one which I will do. In time, when H perhaps feels more secure this is something I can share with him. Maybe too it would be useful for me to look at how I did feel say 6 months ago to see how far I've come. I do actually see so many good and positive qualities in H. What is key though, is "do I really believe in those reasons". If I don't perhaps I should do us both a favour and walk away. It may be far too early to suggest that, but also, there has to be an honesty about what I want from M and whether or not H can or is willing to fulfil that.

Your story about your son and his fear of spiders and how you believe our emotions are created really struck a chord with me. It is quite simple but true that emotions are created by events and how we interpret and remember those events. I think this has definitely coloured my perception of our M, irrespective of the A. Our M has always been volatile with many highs and lows, but when things get tough, it is easy to remember the lows and forget the highs. Yes, H's "failings" in our M were heightened during the A period. I agree that H has a "filter" in place, but I guess doing a Plan A helps you (whether a BS or WS) to open up to a different way of viewing events. Whilst the A and time spent with OM is still something in itself that I don't view negatively, what I have begun to do is view H and our M more positively. Does that make sense?

"But with your counselor you can focus on understanding the causes and ideas that shape your own emotional responses, and changing them so that you yourself are happier and more confident."

ST, can you elaborate on this? I find this a very interesting thought, but am not sure how I could use it, or that I fully understand it...

I hear everything you are saying about "oneness". Of course it makes sense, but why do people having an A think they are so different?!?!? I never talked about OM being my "soulmate", but the level of intimacy we had was very different. Do I think it could have survived the real world? Unfortunately and I hate to say it, yes sometimes I do, and again I hate myself for that.

Still Trying I do so value your input and everything you have said to me, it gives me a lot to think about and challenge myself with.

Lisa

Dear Lisa,

I think you can definitely do this process in reverse. You can definitely tell your husband that you want him, and see how he responds.

But you have to be honest when you do so, that is the catch.

And I think that you have to confront what the other man means to you. Why doesn't it matter to you that the other man lied to his wife all the time about your relationship, if it is so important for you to be honest? Why doesn't it matter to you that he wanted you to lie about your relationship? (I am guessing about this one, but I would be surprised if I am wrong). Why doesn't it matter that he wasn't willing to forgo everything else to be with you? Why do you still hold such a high opinion of his relationship with you, of the level of intimacy that you felt that you shared?

One night, before things healed between us, I absolutely infuriated my wife by commenting on her relationship. I said that all that she had had was a cheap affair, something that was not worth the loyalty she ws then showing to its memory. That comment hurt her deeply.

So I ask you, why are you so loyal to the memory of your own affair? You condemn it bitterly, and yet treasure it, despite the fact that your relationship was built daily upon a mountain of lies and disloyalty. Why?

I must confess that I, personally, don't see any distinctions among affairs. As with murders, I don't feel that there are good affairs and bad ones. And it seems to me that people cause the most damage to themselves when they try to convince themselves that their own affair was different. It is those justifications and excuses that destroy lives.

(Sorry about the preaching. This is obviously a sensitive subject with me. But I do believe what I am asserting here, and have thought about it and read about it over many years).

I would guess that, if you could look your husband in the eyes, and tell him honestly, that if all the men in the world were lined up before you, including your other man, and you were offered your choice of a spouse, you would choose your husband, that it would move him deeply.

For a long time my wife told me that she wouldn't choose the other man because he was not available. That did nothing but pour salt into my emotional wounds. It was not until she told me that she wanted a life with me, and did not phrase it in terms of the other man's unavailability, that I began to feel hope for us.

Could you do that, honestly?

If not, why do you hold your deepest hopes for someone who has lied with you, and encouraged you to lie, and has betrayed you?

StillTrying

<small>[ December 04, 2002, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: StillTrying ]</small>

Hello ST

I agree with everything you have said - there is little more that I can add. But that person you talk about in OM is me too, and for that I hate myself. I am a liar, cheat, and my moral values were poor.

I can't say much else at the moment, excpet you are right, and I must question these things.

Lisa

<small>[ December 06, 2002, 08:02 AM: Message edited by: Lisa in London ]</small>

Dear Lisa,

I am sorry that I have taken so long to respond. I was out of contact for several days.

When I read what you wrote, I hurt from remembering. Sometimes I worry that my wife will never heal, not completely, from this pain, and I don't know how to help. But I think that mostly it is gone now.

----------------------------

You wrote, "I am a liar, cheat, and my moral values were poor."

I don't believe that. Nor do I believe that those things are true of the other man.

Let me try to express myself more clearly, and see what you think.

You lied, many times during your affair. You cheated, many times.

But you have also told the truth many times as well, you have been honest, you have, in most situations, been faihtful. You have probably done many good and wonderful things in your life, and also other things that you regret.

What moments of your life did you help someone else, or share something with someone else, in a way that you will always feel proud of? What moments can you hold up to your inner eye when you need some courage to face the fact that you, like all of us, also have the capacity to do evil?

-----------------------------

So I do not believe that one should label other people, though I am comfortable with labeling actions. I cannot find a position from which I can view my wife's betrayal of me as anything but cruel and deceitful. But I do not believe that makes my wife either of those things.

We are such complex creatures, the sum of so many warring parts. I know that I have in me similar desires and abilities, and that I might also have had an affair. Although I have not done so, I don't believe in labeling people (even the 'other man') as evil in and of themselves.

From your letters, I guess that you find it very painful to face your own capacity for evil. I still sense a cycle in your words. Sometimes you magnify your actions until they consume everything, and at other times you minimize them so that they cause you less pain.

Perhaps peace will come when you can accept your actions for what they were without either justification or self-flagellation. And in accepting that you did these things in the past, focus instead on what you will do in the future.

--------------------

A great rabbi once wrote,

Watch your thoughts, for they become your words.
Watch your words, for they become your actions,
Watch your actions, for they become your habits,
Watch your habits, for they become your nature.
Watch your nature, for it becomes your destiny."

I am writing this from memory, and so might have messed it up slightly, but I think the picture is clear, and to me has the ring of a siimple, but great truth.

One of the worst parts of an affair is what it does to the people involved - one lie leads to another, and one cruelty to another, and each to their own justifications, and the cycle can spin terribly out of control.

But we can each nurture goodness within ourselves the same way, by slowly changing our habits.

----------------------------------

So why did I bring up the lies that the other man told? Not to condemn him as utterly worthless, as an evil creature. Or to imply, secondhand, that you were a liar.

Rather, from my own perspective, it seems that the problem is that your relationship with him was, fundamentally, based on lies. And that when you remember that relationship fondly, you are still denying the reality of what you lived. I don't think you can move on until first you accept what you did.

Although I think of this primarily in a moral sense, it seems to me to be true in a very mundane way as well. During my wife's affair, the other man told her many times that he would always be there for her. And those statements must have helped, in part, to kindle the deep, romantic attachment she had for him. But as soon as his own wife learned the truth, he tried to place the entire blame on mine, and dropped her immediately.

For a long time still, though, she maintained the sense of romantic attachment to him that had been engended by statements like the one I told you, statements that were fundamentally lies. Words that had been said because they sounded good. Not because they were true.

At least from the outside, I see all interactions in an affair as inseperable from the lies and cruelties of the affair.

And my guess (as someone looking at this from the outside) is that you will only be able to move on emotionally when your emotions have caught up to the truth of what happened between you and the other man, and between you and your husband.

StillTrying

<small>[ December 12, 2002, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: Lisa in London ]</small>

<small>[ December 12, 2002, 04:20 PM: Message edited by: Lisa in London ]</small>

Hello Still Trying

I thought you'd given up on me, because I just couldn't face some of the things you said! I missed your post too.

I don't have much time now, and my PC is incredibly slow, but I have read what you said which again is making sense to me - you seem to know a lot about people, emotions, feelings, and I can certainly relate to alot of what you say. Also, I need to think more about your words.

I will come back tomorrow morning before going to visit my Mum.

I really do appreciate the time you are taking to try and help me through this crisis and find peace within myself - without that peace it will be hard to heal my M.

Lisa

<small>[ December 16, 2002, 09:12 AM: Message edited by: Lisa in London ]</small>

Dear Still Trying

I didn't make it back before I went to my mother's, but have been think a lot about what you said.

"Perhaps peace will come when you can accept your actions for what they were without either justification or self-flagellation. And in accepting that you did these things in the past, focus instead on what you will do in the future."

I so wish that I could be at that place. That is exactly where I would like to be. I know you asked about thinking about positive and good things, and my Mum's friend said to her this weekend "Tell Lisa, she's a saint", because I drove a round trip of 350 miles and spent 8 hours in my car, collecting her cat and going to help her in her new home. I don't like to think of the A as an evil thing - to me evil is baby killers and people who mug old ladies. Bad, mis-judged, thoughtless, cruel, all those things, but yes, I know I have had and still do, the capacity for better. Why can't I come to that place of peace??????

"And my guess (as someone looking at this from the outside) is that you will only be able to move on emotionally when your emotions have caught up to the truth of what happened between you and the other man, and between you and your husband."

This makes alot of sense to me, I feel I need to put the A somewhere else, but I struggle with what my emotions are saying. Why do I still feel about OM the way I do. Of course, if he lied to his W he could easily lie to me. Of course, words are easy to say. Whilst on one level, I can understand and completely accept what you say, on another level, I think of the intimacy, the care he showed me, making me laugh etc. etc. and then I dislike myself again. I question whether he is thinking of me in the same way, and inevitably the answer is a resounding "NO". I'm not stupid, so why can't I just move past this? Is it because if I renounce the A, it will make me feel even worse and more worthless? I don't know the answer to that one, but I wonder if I just can't put it to one side and leave it be. Does everyone who successfully rebuilds their M have to put the A down to infatuation, not worthy etc?

ST, I know this probably sounds like waffle, but on Friday night I lay in bed crying and crying. Crying because I thought about what you said, your kindness in trying to help me, the fact that you say decent things about me and don't condemn me (like all the other MBers), and I thought, H doesn't even care. There are people out there whose names I don't even know and my own H can't say anything nice to me, or begin to look at working with me. Why am I putting myself through the emotionally wringer day after day, searching, trying etc. and he just doesn't seem to give a damn about trying to rebuilt our M?

Perhaps this is the pity party, but it is so hard and painful at times I just want to give up.

Thank you again for your thoughts and words. It does mean a lot to me.

Lisa

P.S. Sorry about all the other posts, that was the PC problem.

Dear Lisa,

I am sorry that things are so hard for you now. The dynamics of my own recovery were terrible too. My wife had the affair, and then she rejected me and was often angry or cruel towards me for much of the first nine months that followed. I sometimes wonder if I made things worse by staying in the relationship then, when it seemed that all she wanted to do was hide from me. (But we had young children, so separating wasn't so easy).

And it sounds to me, from what little I know, as if your husband is acting very similarly. I think he is so cruel because he can't face himself when he faces you. He is very afraid of many things, and most of them he must eventually face and solve on his own.

There are only two things I would guess would help if they came from you:

(1) patience and distance, so that he can work his internal conflicts out,

(2) a sense that he is attractive and desirable. If your husband is at all like me, that was completely destroyed by your affair, and he would probably give anything in the world right now (including your marriage) to feel desirable again. It is hard to live without that feeling. I imagine that your own desire for that feeling is why you had the affair, and is also why you still treasure some memories of it.

I do think that you are still sorting through the affair, and in some ways providing excuses for it. From my own perspective, an affair is as easy for the perpetrator to commit as shoplifting, perhaps easier, and as damaging to the betrayed as prolonged physical abuse or rape. As someone who was betrayed, I don't think you have found true empathy for your husband's position until you cannot romanticize a single instant of the affair in your memory.

Perhaps that is why affairs destroy marriages so easily. Before an affair, we are often in rather similar situations to our spouses, and can easily empathize with them. But the affair changes the dynamics of the experience so radically that healing the marriage requires complete renunciation of everything tied to the affair.

I sense a story line in the media, that one can have a beautiful affair, and then 'go back' to one's marriage with fond and loving memories of it. To me, this is a lie. Fond memories of the affair mean that the marriage has no chance of healing. And a healed marriage means that you cannot have fond memories of the affair. Because if you heal your marriage, the one person you will care about most is your husband, and remembering your affair fondly would be like fondly remembering him being raped or tortured.

But perhaps it will also take you time to sort through things, just as your husband is clearly in need of time. I doubt the helps much, but three years after my wife's affair I still had bouts of extremely deep depression. I only felt truely healed a few months after that last crisis. This is not a little thing for either of you.

I wish you good luck, and some joy in your holidays.

StillTrying

<small>[ December 19, 2002, 10:15 PM: Message edited by: StillTrying ]</small>