All Secrets Revealed by Date

My Dear John Letter

Dear John

The First Premonition

The profound grieving that a man endures when he first realizes that the woman he loves, who he trusts with his heart and shares his life, has broken that trust at the most fundamental level by engaging in sex with another man, can hit with the force of a lead shot-put to the gut. The shock is magnified many fold if the affair had been on going, since that required planning, forethought and constant deception. The emotional implications of that extended and deliberate act of profound disrespect foreclose the prospects for re-establishing the bond of trust that is the foundation for marriage.

Female infidelity, especially prolonged affairs, is such a life-changing trauma for a man that he will never be the same again. Some men are better equipped by social experience and personal resilience to weather the trauma than others. All the assumptions of our personal emotional security and our special role in the life of our beloved are now open questions with no answer. The signposts of our emotional life are blown down in a hard, cold rain and snow. We don’t know who to trust or where we stand. Powerful hormones run our emotions to the breaking point and nervous collapse follows.

My young adult self died of a metaphorical heart attack the day I learned of the affair. He’ll never come back, but I am learning to weep for him, so that I don’t stay so bitter as an old man. He’s gone but I have to carry on so that I take care of the needs of my current wife.

I could not talk to anyone about my personal tragedy, because it was so shameful to me. If I had a good female friend at the time, I might have been able to share my pain with her. I have never discussed my secret shame with another man, because I would rather suffer alone than admit to such a profound failure in the most intimate chamber of my life. That would reduce me in their eyes in a way that was simply not acceptable to my pride as a man.

I have started a process of healing from this deep psychic wound through writing out my memoir from that troubled time, recalling the details and the feel of the world at that moment. Because I lacked any outlet to express my sorrow at that time, I turned in on myself, had a series of nervous breakdowns, got addicted to cocaine and speed, and nearly died over the next couple of years after the divorce.

The relationship literature says that alpha males want to kill the other guy, while beta males want to kill themselves. Sadly, I was in the latter category. Fortunately, I did not have guns around, or I definitely would have killed myself if there were a gun handy. I went straight to the bottom in a frenzy of excessive drink and use of hard drugs to ease my pain. I eventually ended up homeless and penniless, wandering the streets like a hungry ghost and sleeping in bushes at the edge of Santa Cruz, California. I fled to get away from anyone in my home town who might have heard of my public humiliation at the hands of another man. I’m older and wiser now, but I paid a high price for not dealing with my problem in a more mature manner. I have definitely cut years off my life span, for sure.

The first premonition that something was amiss in my marriage occurred at an event at my home. I was a full-time student at the local university, where I went back to complete my degree so that I could make more money and get better jobs. My wife worked at a bank, and she developed an interest in journalism and began writing feature stories for newspapers and magazines. She had a talent for writing and I encouraged her to pursue this career path. I was very proud of her success as a writer and pleased that she had found a way to make her own mark on the world.

She joined a writer’s group, which met regularly at different member’s homes. One month it was my wife’s turn to host the writer’s group, so I volunteered to take care of serving the guests. I spent most of the evening in the kitchen, being a good househusband, making drinks and serving food to the guests, so that she could attend to the meeting. Like much of what happened over the next few months, I have very limited memory of that time. I only recently recovered this memory, which I had blocked from my consciousness to dim the pain.

I was standing in the doorway from the kitchen, listening to the meeting, ready to serve drinks to anyone who requested it. I went back into the kitchen, and came back out to hear a woman from the group say something to my wife about “your boyfriend”. I didn’t hear the beginning of the commentary, so I wasn’t sure what she was referring to. As I came around the corner out of the kitchen, my wife leapt up and turned on a very noisy old swamp cooler that drowned the woman out. I was perplexed, and several writers objected to the loud noise. I turned off the cooler, at the request of the group. In this pregnant pause, the whole room stopped, and all eyes were on me. Time stood still, and I had the uncomfortable sensation that everyone there knew something that I didn’t know. The room full of faces reflected bemusement, contempt and pity.

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach and felt like I needed air. I walked out the back door and walked along the arroyo in back of the house for hours. They could make their own damn drinks. I had to get out of the house. I eventually rationalized to myself that I was misconstruing a random remark, but I couldn’t get over the long look I got from this group of sophisticates. My gut told me that something was wrong, but I overruled it with my mind.

As it turned out, “her boyfriend” was one of the key members of the writers group. He had wisely stayed away from this particular meeting, thank God. From that night forward, I began to suffer from bouts of inexplicable anxiety and prolonged periods of deep and almost debilitating depression.

I went to a psychiatrist at the university health services, who prescribed medication that just left me affectless and drained of life and really didn’t help at all. Zombified by bad anti-depressant drugs, I lacked the vitality to pay better attention to what was happening right under my roof. In retrospect, that was the first premonition that my wife was having an affair.

Wasted my life with a compulsive liar

40 Plus Years with a Liar: My husband lies about everything. He canbe trusted at all. He has even lied about results of surgery etc., making up stories about the information the doctor gave him to pass on to me when I came out of anesthesia. Now I have one of my children accompany me to any medical testing or surgery. How sad. He becomes extremely angry if confronted, so I just listen and donbelieve. I never repeat things he has told me as they are almost always lies. I would love to leave him, but he is terminally ill and would no doubt tell everyone I left him because of his illness. Also, I donwant to alienate our children. It is really sad to look forward to someone’s death, but he does everything to make me look bad to divert attention from his behavior. Like many sociopaths, he is very charming and believable until you realize that he is lying about everything. He manages to fool just about everyone. If you are a liar, please believe that you are crushing any feelings of love or affection and especially any feelings of trust. Your lies will be discovered; there is no way to cover them up forever. Please remember that lies are soul destroying to those you lie to. However, I know that the liar is telling these lies to build his own ego—taking pleasure if "pulling something over" on others and in manipulation. Again, so sad. Run; donwalk, the other way if you find someone is lying to you!!

Behind my husband’s back

I was unfaithful behind my spouse’s back with our friend, who was also unfaith with his spouse! It was only once and the regret is killing me!

My experience with a married man

I feel bad. I was with an ex boyfriend who is married a few days ago. While we were together she called a few times. Each time, he answered the phone while I stayed quiet in the background. I noticed he was very nonchalant and composed. The last time she called, she used Facetime. He got nervous and threw on some clothes and ran outside. The reason why he ran outside was because we were in a location very close to his job. So once he was outside, he called her back on Facetime and it looked like he was at work like she thought. What she didnknow is that he took the night off. Ugh. I feel terrible. I always had feelings for him after our breakup (which is another long regrettable story in itself). We kept communicating over the years and occasionally saw each other. I didnrealize until recently that he even had children with her. All the time we were communicating, he never mentioned she was pregnant or when the two were born. I donlike her very much but I feel terrible for what I’ve done behind her back. I do not want her to ever find out and so I will no longer communicate with him nor see him. This entire situation has helped put things into perspective for me about the type of person that he is and the type of person I do not want to ever be again. I hope I can forgive myself for this because I feel pretty bad about it. In fact, I am finding that I feel disgusted for having feelings for him at all. I guess I was surprised at the level of deception that he is capable of and it really bothered me. It made me wonder if everything I have been told over the last few months is a complete lie. He said he was unhappy and staying for the children. He said he loved me and was no longer in love with her or sleeping in the same bed with her. After listening to him speak to her, I realized what an idiot I’ve been. Why I couldnI see that if he is capable of lying to someone he sees every single day and night that he wouldnthink twice about lying to me?? After all, I am not the mother of his children nor his wife. I am the lucky one that got away. Now, I will STAY away!!!

Playing games with my love life

An ex that I stopped communicating with almost a year ago called me three months ago. My girlfriend was with me when I got the call and was angered by my emotional reaction. I told her that I wasngoing to call her back... I called her back the same day and we have communicated every day for the past three months. I would tell my girlfriend that I never called her back. My ex and I recently stopped talking. I never told my girlfriend. And I only did this behind her back because I believe she has done the same thing, if not a worse situation, behind my back.