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[I am writing this in a generic way so that even a person who has not read the threads of my story can benefit if they are looking for some guidance on how the healing process has worked for me.]
In the very beginning stages of this journey, from day one to day 30 after discovery, I would say the first 24 - 48 hours were the worst, for me. I can honestly say some of those hours were a blur in a way, a trance, an out of body experience if I were to describe it. For me the shock was so great that it was more than a physical/emotional sensation. It was like being drugged. I couldn't think straight, breathing seemed like an effort and I had to think about it in order to breathe in and out. Some moments I really think I was walking in a trance, not sure what to say, how to react, how to keep my composure. I would break out into sudden outburst of agonizing tears and sobs and the next moment I would stop and stare into thin air - confused...in a daze. I shook uncontrollably. Numb. Dead.
My husband comforted me, held me, cried with me, apologized over and over and over again. And then he'd cry some more...a deep, painful cry. He did not know what to do, not for himself or for me. In a weird way we were both in this together. Odd to me at the time, but it gave me some sense of not being alone. I was very confused about all of it. My husband's first words out of his mouth when I told him I knew about the affair were - it's not what you think...I love you and I'm so sorry. These are words I'll never forget. I know because some things I do know about my husband, that he was - sincere, hurt because he hurt me, and hurt because he hurt himself. He was scared to death of loosing me at that moment. I know this. He was ashamed, embarrassed, angry (at himself) and confused about what to do. Neither one of us had a clue how to handle this. All I knew was I couldn't stop crying, couldn't eat, couldn't stop thinking...my mind was on a racetrack - out of control with thoughts.
In the first 24-48 hours we did this. He right away said we need to get a counselor. Within the first 2 days we were at a book store buying books about infidelity, lying, self-discovery books....you name it, we bought them. We also bought a couple of Dr. Phil's books, Not Just Friends and some other book that I can't remember the name of (the last book didn't help - AT ALL). We talked for hours and hours and hours on end into the wee hours of the morning for days. I cried...he cried...we both cried. Sounds pretty stupid, but those days actually were our first steps to being closer to each other than we had been in years. Don't get me wrong, I did my share of screaming and name calling and swearing...yea...did that. But mostly I asked for every detail of the affairs. All of it! I needed to put some reality back into the life I thought I was living for 2 years while he was not present in our marriage, faithfully. He was, at that time, very cooperative in doing that.
What I did not know, however, was he was not giving me the whole truth. I thought it was...but it was not...until 1 month later (when I confronted the OW). THAT's when the crap hit the fan, again, and I left for 4 days.
Anyway, in the beginning he was very attentive and loving and compassionate to me. I had chosen to stay and work it out, but that was before I knew the WHOLE story.
In the beginning he cut ties with the OW (she was somewhat of a co-worker) and I knew pretty much where he was every second of his day by his choice. He told me he would do anything, anything at all, to help me get through this. We were in counseling from the first week after this all came out.
After the complete and total disclosure (after the OW confrontation) and I left, I had decided that I needed to get away from him and think, clearly, what I wanted to do. I loved him very much, but my doubt in his love for me and his love/feelings for the OW were very much in question for me. I knew that no matter how much I loved him, if his sincerity and honesty about his own feelings were not 100% unquestionable I was done with this whole mess. So I left.
He begged me on the phone, literally, begged over and over to please come home. He said he did not love her, never did, never could...because he always loved me and no one else. He admitted he had a problem within himself that he would do such a thing that is so against his core self and wanted to fix it. Talk is cheap. So, I decided to come home and give him the chance to put his money where his mouth was. I made him very aware that I did not have both feet in this relationship at that point and he knew that at any moment...one mess up...one inkling that he was not doing what needed to be done to recover from this, I was outta here. No second chances.
We went to counseling every week, faithfully. We talked, endlessly into the night to the point of exhaustion. I demanded that there was nothing he could hold back and anything I wanted to know he had to be an open book. I also made him aware that if I discovered anything he said to be untrue or held back it was over instantly, no matter how uncomfortable it was for him. To be honest I had no concern at that point for how he was feeling. I was swimming as fast as I could just to stay above water and I was not going to sink...even at his expense. These were my demands without exception. My rules. I took control of what I needed to stay with him. If he didn't want to play by my rules then he wasn't doing everything I needed to recover. Period. The way I figured it, if I he wanted a chance to make up for what he did and find a way to forgive him and move past this then it would be in my ballpark...not his. In fact, I do believe that I was actually pushing him past the point of tolerance. I admit that, but perhaps that was my way of seeing if he meant what he said. If he was committed to doing anything to repair the damage he caused then damn it, I wanted to see if he meant it. I gave him the opportunity to leave me, go with the OW, without repercussion of loosing contact with our granddaughter (which we both love to pieces) and go our separate ways. I told him I could go on without him, that I could live a peaceful and happy life on my own if he felt he really wanted to have a relationship with the OW. I meant it too. I believe that people should be happy and because I loved him enough I would gracefully bow out, take my marbles and play in another courtyard without him. I gave him a golden ticket to live his life with someone else knowing I'd be okay and I was completely prepared to do that.
I felt at that time that actions speak louder than words, and knowing what I do about my husband, I felt that he couldn't live with himself if he left me thinking I'd cease to exist in peace because of the damage he caused. So I assured him I would let him go and move on. Even with that free get out of jail card he was adamant that he did not want to leave me for someone else, not the OW or anyone for that matter. He was desperate to repair and maintain our marriage. So I stayed.
The process of healing has had many, many ups and downs. For the first 3/4 months I flopped from leaving to staying. Some days I would plot in my head how I would just up and book outta here, then on other days I couldn't have felt more love for him. I knew he was trying, really trying, but I sometimes was shoving it back in his face. Counseling was costing us a fortune out of pocket, but we went religiously every week. I would make him tell me the same stories over and over again, looking for a place that he may still be lying, deceiving, holding back. I could find nothing. He was consistent. There were times where he would remember something, seemingly insignificant to him, but he would tell me and some situations would change, but only because he would remember something he had forgotten. I was always testing and looking for signs that he was not, as he put it, being completely open and honest.
During the process I would hold on to ever word he said. It became an obsession, I admit. I would go over in my head a million times a day---what did he mean by that---I would question if what he said made sense. The problem with over analyzing is we tend to interpret things from our perspective and it's difficult to get into another persons head enough to understand the value words have to them that are different from our own interpretation. Because I bombarded him with so many things about the affairs, I was not really taking in the good things he was doing to prove to me he actually, in fact, did love me and that his statement that he never loved anyone else fell on deaf ears. This was due in part because I couldn't understand why he would do such a thing.
The actual, real healing didn't take place until the counselor got him to a place where he could look deep inside himself to understand the dynamics of what put him in a place to have done this. That was very hard for him to do, but he was putting his money where his mouth was. He was digging and chipping away at his unconscious insides to understand how his head works. He was doing the work on his issues to help himself, which in turn helped me, which in turn helped our marriage. It was tough work, really deep work, but regardless of whether or not our marriage was able to be saved, I could see that he was transforming into another person. A whole person. Not a person who was splitting inside because of issues he could not deal with in reality. He has changed. It was tough to trust this change for a while and I lived with knowing or atleast feeling that at any moment this new person he became was not real.
I can say that as time went on I found myself letting go of the need to know every tiny detail about the affairs. They became less and less important to me. They had less meaning to me. I was searching for clues that he was lying and testing his truths, but in the end they were pointless, because they proved nothing. What proof I was looking for, really, was did he love (REALLY LOVE) me. I have come to conclude that he did and does. I have come to conclude that he never loved the OW at all. What he was doing/feeling was directed toward how the OW made him feel about himself. His self-esteem was shot, she on the other hand feed that goodness in him. I was the face of reality to him, and the face of reality meant he had to face his own demons. He could not do that. So instead of dealing with his own demons, it was easier to create a virtual life. I was the monkey on his back saying - you are a failure - a reminder he ran away from. The OW fell in love with the good stuff. I know that, so did I, he really is a good guy, really. But he was able to create a person to present to her that wasn't real. It was the person he so desperately wanted to believe he was without the junk. That was a safe place to be in for him. Anybody on the face of the earth would love that kind of guy and he knew it. All he wanted was somebody to confirm that he, in fact, really was a good person and she was able to provide him with that without dealing with the part about himself that he wanted to run away from.
Yes, he did some despicable things. We both know that. He almost lost me completely, he knows that, and to a degree he has lost a piece of me. That will never, ever come back. Once that scar is there you can only learn to live with it, but it becomes less painful and eventually just an unpleasant memory. My husband wanted unconditional love to the umpteenth degree. I don't believe in that...there are always conditions...atleast for me there are. He now knows, without a doubt, that I will love him, be his support, his partner, his lover and his best friend and accept his weakness and downfalls under one condition. Honesty and faithfulness. Before all this he felt that I didn't love him because he wasn't good enough for me, that he was a failure and I could never love him because of that. Those were his insecurities, and though I may not agree with it, it was, in fact, his reality about unconditional love. He didn't love himself, therefore, how could I love him. He now knows what unconditional love is...I love him just the way he is...I don't like some stuff...but I love him and HE is beginning to love all parts of himself, the good, the bad and the ugly. He also knows that until I take the my last breath I would leave him in a heartbeat if ever I had a sniff that something was askew. That is a fact etched in stone. It is not a threat...it is a fact. I have come to trust in myself. I know I would be fine without him. I would survive. That gives me comfort. That gives me the strength to stretch myself in order to be in this marriage and take that risk.
With all that said, we are closer than we have ever been before because his mask has been taken down. It exists no more. When we talk and share now, he is showing a part of himself that has been hidden, and does it without fear that I will judge him. Instead of being a couple of 1 and a half...we are now a couple of a complete 2 people. He says and does things now that I have thought for 17 years he might be thinking, but was not able to share with me. Now he holds nothing back. Even if it would piss me off or cause a confrontation or an argument. Prior to this he would just keep the peace, say things just to uphold his good image and keep the peace. I am now getting to know the person I always felt was inside there someplace. I love him even more now because he has revealed his true person, all his bits and pieces are right out there for me to touch and hear and see and feel. There's a certain amount of safety in that for me. He is real. You can trust something when it is real.
So, it is very hard work. Work on a much deeper level than just affair stuff. In some ways at this point, the affair stuff has taken a back seat and become so much less important. The affairs were a symptom of something else. I have some medical background, so maybe that's why I take this approach and can see it differently. If you have a rash you can get some ointment and relieve the symptoms, but the underlying cause is always there. You can live with the rash and the ointment, but if you don't cure the cause your life will maintain status quo. When you address the cause the symptom becomes less important. That's where it is for us.
We are enjoying our life together. We both share, not just one side sharing and the other side going along for the ride. I learn from him...something he hasn't given me the opportunity to do in 17 years. He learns from me. Something he hasn't been able to do for 17 years because every time I tried to share something for his benefit, it was rejected because it was just a reminder that he was a failure. Now he takes it in with open arms as a gift and expression of loving.
When we were in Key West I got a tattoo on my shoulder. I love it and it says it all. It expresses everything I feel about this healing process and captures exactly what I feel now and will continue to foster and feed. My husband helped me design it because he realizes where we are headed in our relationship. It is a dove carrying two gold wedding bands and a banner that says FREE. Two purple butterflies are above it with tentacles entwined. The significance has many meanings for us both. It signifies we are both free from many pains in our lives and have become two new individuals with a new life ahead of us. A few weeks ago he got a tattoo on his forearm of a portrait of me as a surprise. I hate the picture by the way, but the sentiment is received just the same. (FOR THE LADIES: Can you just imagine having a picture that you don't like plastered on your partners forearm for the rest of their life. OMG!] But he loves the picture, and that's all that matters to me.
If you want to repair your relationship, be prepared for many ups and downs that will test your limits beyond what you ever imagined. But BOTH have to want the same commitment to the 100% limit. There is no 95/5, there is no 49/51, there is no 80/20....100% on both sides is the only way it will work. If you are giving even the slightest bit more than your partner you are doomed to fail. It will not result in a complete healing. As much as you may want to carry some of the load for your partner, they have to carry their own crap just as you have to carry your own pain. This I believe is the recipe to success in healing after an affair. I wish this freedom to everyone who has travelled this road. Much love, M
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