Infidelity Discovery: Death Without Dying – Part 5

June 7, 2008 by 1 Comment

In this, part 5, my friend continues to describe his feelings and thoughts upon discovery of his wife’s betrayal.

He says…

Happiness seems such a distant goal. That celebration of gaining something valued. Can it come again? Will it ever warm this house again?That facing of the future full of hope, and aspirations and dreams. Something I valued is gone. Two remain. And steadfast, we must rebuild and redefine.

My sadness seems terminal. Acute. A desperate ache. Care in the face of loss. I’ve lost something I value. And sometimes it feels like everything I valued. I lost so much of me. I’m Paul and Claude´ and have been for over three decades. It’s the second question everyone asks of me. A question I was comfortable answering. And now I don’t know. So much that I don’t know. So much that I don’t understand. So much waiting, wanting.
Someone else, please take the question. Please! So grief is appropriate. Necessary. But I’m way too good at grieving. The river flows in torrents and scares me. When does the inner peace return? Can a past that big ever be closed? Can a wound this deep ever heal?
My God, I loved her. And I didn’t ever have a clue of just how much. Honor my love for what I lost even though it feels unjustly torn away from me. Even though it seems and feels like a grave injustice has been committed and my value, my soul was ripped from my chest. Just this bag of sand sitting where my heart once beat. I want this part over. I want a future. I want who I am to be and become. Give me a timeline. Blessed are they who mourn – Bullshit! Oh, for they shall be comforted – OK, I’ve found a true friend and have some family. This funeral has no body, however, and the acquaintances and their requisite comfort is forgone. Let’s move on. How long must this grieving go on? Will it, can it, ever end? What needs to happen for me to feel at peace?

I want enthusiasm and juice back in my life, a beating heart back in my chest. An idea and ideals that urge me on and excite me. I want to attain wholeness again. And I want to direct and star in the journey there.

“I’ve met somebody. I’m leaving you.” So many possible negative outcomes. A family divided and split. The past forever lost. The connections to the future frayed, wild and coiled and recoiled. A life of work and the physical rewards of that work squandered, split, shared, lost and given to those who divide it like spoils of war. So much fear.Fear of the known.Fear of the unknown. Fear of another bomb shell. Prepare, protect and mitigate risk – another balancing act to avoid scarcity mentality, to avoid bridges burned and forever losing things we value more than things.

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Surviving Infidelity: Death without Dying Part 4

June 1, 2008 by 1 Comment

More reflections from a friend of mine who came home after a long trip, greeted by his wife at the door who without feeling said, “I’ve met someone else. I’m leaving.”

Space. It’s not mine to give her and she’s taking it, having it. I cannot rein or reign her behaviors, her choices, her judgments. My emotions also cannot be reined in and where the healthy line is for me to reign over them is a source of confusion. To be healthy, I probably need to give them a large pasture to run through, unbridled. Breathe.

Judgment. These bleeding edge, raw emotions are mine. Like hunger or weariness, they are mine and have no morality attached to them. They’re okay. They’re mine. But I’m judging some other’s behaviors as wrong. Just plain wrong. Moralistically wrong. Cosmically wrong. And I struggle, fight, and fear the dichotomy of my judgment of the behavior that has causes so many deaths and my need to remain the nonjudgmental witness to my own flood of emotions, thoughts and memories. I fear their ability and my surrender to control by them or being plucked up by them like a raging current into a spiral of self-destructive choices. What blend of respect and curiosity can master them and discharge them if not constructively, at minimum appropriately. I’m suddenly a child. Six years old. And must treat myself as kindly as I would that display of raw, unbridled and at times inappropriate emotion.

“I’ve met somebody. I’m leaving you.?? God damn. God Damn! You’re not supposed to meet somebody! You’re married to me. You can look. You can even stray. But leave?
Fuck! Just like that? I feel tossed aside. Like the history means nothing. How could I miss that? When did requited become unrequited? We’ve always been far from perfect. But pretty damn good. God, this hurts so fuckin’ bad. It feels like a wound that will never close, always ooze, never die. Death without dying.

How, how, just how the fuck am I supposed to free the emotions and control the behaviors? Not that I have any impulses yet. I’m not even eating and alcohol and drugs scare the hell out of me right now. And even this fear of losing control scares the hell out of me right now. Damn. Maybe it’s just all fear. Fear of the dark? I’m certainly in a place with no light. Pitch. Black. Heavy. A bag on my chest. Breathe.

Transcend! What an idea! For someone without this weight anchored to the murky, muddy depths. Andy says, “Happy, Healthy, Whole.?? Normally, those would seem easy enough goals. Today, I’m not so sure. Steph and I had some laughs last night. But we’re not happy. I’m not drinking. But I’m not eating either. Somehow, playing observer and tackling this ogre seems like the healthiest thing that I’m capable of right now. Whole? I feel as whole as an amputee just released from the hospital.

My value remains. My values shaken. I could have worked more on my marriage. But the family, the team, the four of us, the unit. That was / is my everything. And I will be strong, I will defend, protect and do what ever I can to close these gaping wounds and restore us. To do so. And to resist impulse requires such a careful observation of this disoriented, dismembered soul. Such self-centeredness this, this thing.Judgment-free emotions, tightly reined impulses. How can one not implode, if they do not explode? Or vise versa?
Can I behave with integrity and allow my emotions to be my advisors but not my masters?

“I’ve met somebody. I’m leaving you.?? The continuous loop tape plays over and over in my mind. When my father died, the image of his body on the floor of his apartment, two paramedics and a cop working it, the dark stain of piss down his pants and across the chair where he breathed and wet his last seared forever in my memory. Will those two sentences stated so matter-of-factly at the kitchen island, her facing the window, me facing the fridge, will they remain frozen in my ears? Will they ever go away? Will the coldness of them ever thaw?

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Infidelity and Common Fears

May 17, 2008 by 1 Comment

I did a survey last year on the fears that most of us face when confronted with the discovery of infidelity.

I had some great comments and heartfelt responses. I want to share just a few of those with you below. I hope you see yourself in some of these, and in doing so, feel a measure of relief, knowing you are not alone.

Here they are:

fear is that this may be the end of my marriage and i don’t want that to happen. my fear is formed as a result of his past affair. I don’t know how to transform or propel into the life i really want to have.

fear that ending this relationship will only propel me into a different set of problems that may be greater than my present situation. Fear that I haven’t done everything possible to change myself and therefore the relationship. Fear of the unknown.

My fear is based on the unknown, if I trust her and move on am I simply steeing myself up for further heart ache down the road. If I confront her with all I know, will she change or simply go deeper underground??? I think we can use our fear to keep on our toes and not let things get as out of hand as they did. I know I am much smarter than I was, but it saddens me that I will probably never trust anyone so blindly ever again.

Fear that there is something missing or lacking in us, that we need to improve upon which will also help to make the relationship stronger than before.

that we will be hurt or lose the relationship. It motivates us to look at what we are doing or not doing to meet our partners needs as well as our own.

I get scared when I think that there’s something missing in my relationship which drives my husband to have relationships and I don’t even know what that is I also get scared when I think that my husband may have a deep rooted psychological problem which makes him want to sabotage the good life that we have together.

Fear of loss, unsettling of family, discontinued development and growth of understanding and intimacy. A deeper sense of connection.

My fear is that my partner does not want to commit to me and becuase of that it has caused us both to resent each other and both of us have been unfaithful.

What does the future hold, fear is an instinct, our gut feeling, this should be our guidance, fears form out of past experiences, should they guide us to change and if so how do you change without making it difficult for the spouse to accept.

My fear is that I won’t be successful by myself, the fear of struggling. I also don’t want to be alone.

I believe the fear of the unknown , the fear of change are what are behind our fears. They are pointing to a trust that was broken, a trust in our own selves that we no longer have the control that we thought we had. I think you msut seek help and understanding. The best thing for me was to hear others stories and to read as much as I could and to see that most everyone felt just like me, and that the answers to my questions and what I needed to do was the same across the board. You must get to a point of acceptance. You must be willing to make changes within yourself and not seek to change your spouse without looking at yourself first.

behind fear is possibility of further rejection, of not getting any response, of causing further gap or rift in the relationship. Points to realizing ones vulnerability,weakness which can propel you to change and take charge, or drive you to despair

My fear is of failure. My wife fell in-love with another man and I have failed to maintain our relationship and her needs so she went elsewhere. We are working on us, it is naturally difficult but I am trying to remain positive.

Rejection and/or failure, these are the two emotions that cause fear. They point to a lack of self confidence. They are formed from past personal experience and from watching others and their success or failure. I don’t think they propel us, I think they hold us back form living our lives to the fullest and experiencing real joy in all of life and relationships. The real question is, how do you get past the fear? How do you get past the fear which is based on a past hurt or failure? How do you find self confidence when you have been other wise rejected by an affair? You tell me.

Feelings of inadequacy..That I will not be able to satisfy her in the same manner as he did..Why did she not respond to me in the same manner as to him? Not being able to get past the “visual image” of them together not knowing that when I touch her however I touch her, does she visualize him or me or when I touch her does it bring back the feelings that he was able to draw from her and the ultimate response to those feelings. Going forward….accept me for me….make our intimacy more real that he could ever have. The question is do I confront or just passivly move on?

I do not want to be alone. I want a man in my life to cherish me.

Fear is a form of adversity, we experience the most growth during adversity. We become less complacent and more in tune with details of our relationships during turmoil. Ultimately more mature insight comes from these time periods. That being said, these times can be incapacitating, especially in terms of an affair for both the offended and the offender. Stability is rocked and the fear of moving out of the comfort zone can be paralyzing and wondering if it can even be done is also at question. Do we have it in us to make adjustments or significant changes? The adverse times make us better students and researchers of how we most desire it to be and make us more aware of the fact that we control where we end up, albeit uncertain of the exact outcome details, we determine how we respond to the circumstances and adjust to other peoples choices and behaviors. We end up more satisfied, if we accept responsibility for just the choices we make and not rely on others to make the decisions for us.

Filed Under: Infidelity Fears Tagged With: , , , ,
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