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 After the Affair: The Mess -
MZET
After an eleven year relationship, nine and a half
married and with four beautiful children, my wife fell in
love with somebody else and , she says, does not love me
any more, despite my willingness to forgive the affair
and begin to rebuild our marriage.
Sorry this is so long, but I’ve had to summarize
six months of searching:
The friendship with the lover started innocently in
July/August 1996. The emotional attachment grew stronger
and stronger every month, however. We talked about her
attraction to him several times, but we both felt she
could control it and that it was not necessary for her to
stop seeing the guy. Sometime in November 96, I think,
she explicitly communicated her infatuation to the lover
and that’s when the deception, lies and deceit on
her part started. By the time I realized how really deep
her attachment was, in late December 1996, I confronted
her. She tried for a while, but it was too late, she just
could not let go of the lover (nice guy, by the way; I
guess I would have done the same thing if I would have
been in his shoes).
I was devastated in mid January 97 when she confessed
she just was not able to let go. She said she had kissed
the lover but that she wanted to "fulfill" her
affair, i.e., have sex with him. We decided to go to
therapy (and still do) and try to work on our marriage
(and still do). At first things got better, though she
never really stopped communicating with the lover, but
two weeks later our relationship was hell: I started to
spy on her, read her email and journal on a regular
basis, and the level of anger, mistrust, power struggles,
lack of communication and sexual and emotional intimacy
on both of our parts was such that it was shocking to
both of us. That was not us.. We both thought, even in
January 97, that we had the perfect marriage (and maybe
we did, or do, or will, we don’t know).
Ash Wednesday, mid February 97, she decides to give up
the lover for a second time, but then, a week later, what
a Lent sacrifice!, she has sex with him. I was devastated
once again, this time, I felt, totally. The pain was
unbearable. "How could she? After all I have done
for her?" I thought. I decided to run away overseas
with the children but didn’t. I told her that I had
read her journal (where she said she had been having sex
with the lover) and that had I decided to divorce her. I
Met with my attorneys that morning also.
I had been an atheist until that day, but I think it
must have been God’s love, because all I had was
rage and hatred, who pulled me aside late that morning,
somehow, and quietly invited me to tell her that I would
not initiate the divorce and that ending her affair was
not a condition to my staying committed to our marriage.
This is not a contract; it’s a covenant of love
without an escape clause. Suddently Jesus made sense: the
parable of the prodigal son, to give the other cheek, to
not throw the first stone, to take up the cross, etc.
She continued to see the lover until late March, when
she decided to break up with him, I hope she hopes, for
the last time.
She’s got to work on her problems and I have to
give her space, despite the risk. She does not want sex
with me (I’m sure she desires her lover very much!),
not even kissing, nothing since January (after twelve
years of sex several times a week, that is a bummer!).
She does not share her feelings except when I ask (she
says she does not want to hurt me with them). Until a
week ago we didn’t even touch much and she only once
initiated an attempt to hold my hands once or twice. She
had totally withdrawn from me, continues to say she does
not love me and that she cares for the lover. We do make
attempts to go out as a family all the time and go out by
ourselves at least once a week, even if we don’t
feel like it. She is sad, lonely and hurt. She misses the
exhilarating feeling of being with her lover. She is
confussed about her prfessional vocation, confussed about
the terms of our relationship, resentful of my control,
etc. I have tried to support her in this, but she does
not want my comforting words or gestures. She has made
some tough decisions on her own, though, and some have
really hurt me. But after all these weeks, I think I have
learned to love her, unconditionally, without expecting
anything in return. Love like this is tough and painful.
I have to work on my problems, too. Despite the daily
rage I feel about her affair, I find myself having to
forgive her every time, every day. Forgiveness is an
ongoing and almost inhuman task. I am not doing it,
somehow God is doing it through me, I think. I do my best
most of the time, I hope, but recognize that I
haven’t been a saint: at times I have been too
controlling in my words and in my actions. I have to let
her go. I also have to work on not seeking another
relationship to experience the love I don’t get from
her or to "get even", because the temptation is
there, every day. And I have to somehow dig deep inside
and find that my happiness cannot depend, at least not as
totally as it had until now, on her loving me back. I
have got to get my life back together. That love of hers
will be a beautiful gift, the icing on the cake, but it
cannot be the cake itself.
Yesterday we decided that as long as we continue to
work at mending the mess left after the affair, that we
should not call it quits and should not even think of a
dead line. How long do you wait for a miracle, remember?
Forever? Maybe forever.
How difficult it is to let go (of her)! How difficult
it is to hang on (to the marriage)!
Paradox: So one has to hang on by letting go!
 From: Tess
What a tremendous amount of pain! I'm not so great at
giving advice, but I can tell you this... My experience
of living through an affair has been a profound spiritual
experience. I can tell there is a God simply because when
I feel that venom pumping through my veins, in a critical
moment, He steps in and lifts me above it. He has also
shown me my own weakness (my insecurities, my jealousy,
my temper tantrums) and given me the strength to overcome
them so that I can truly forgive. Please know that we
feel for your heartache. God bless.
From: barry
hang in there MZET's...
at least you are trying to work on things!... the fact
that you can forgive your wife is a major plus... but it
sounds like you've got a lot of shit to work thru
together? my wife refuses any sort of
reconciliation/counselling at all since she discovered my
cyber affair back in december... we seperated back in
november after i rpointed out that i felt the physical
side of our relationship (12 years, married for 5 with a
9mth old baby boy) was 'dead'.... ever since we got
married our sex life took a downturn... whilst my wife
had a number of gynocological probs... these didn't
account for her declining interest... i'm still coming to
terms with things but a close friend (m) who moved in
with us for 6 months, who spent a lot of time with my
wife may or may not have been a contributing factor... he
is like you mentioned in your post... a 'nice' guy...
he's overseas at the moment and i know for a fact that
they are communicating by mail...postcards etc... whereas
we aren't talking (well sparingly anyway)... last weekend
as i was helping her move some things out of our place
she told me ... "all i ever wanted was a 'nice'
man... that's all!"... all i can do it seems is give
her the space she needs as trying to 'fix' things hasn't
worked... she may never want to work things out either
with our marriage or with her own probs but it's her
choice and i have to respect that as hard as it is? i
feel that if you seek out a local support group for men
in your area...and you need to ask around and find one
that you feel comfortable with, then you may find some
solace... read what you can and continue what your
doing.... count your blessings! you have a lot more going
for your marriage than some of us? *grin*
keep focusing on your probs and remember..."all
men are wonderful!" lots of hugs
From: Bernd
Hi Mzet,
What you are going thru, and went thru, mirrors what I
went thru in soooo many ways. We were married 13 years,
with 3 children. Her affair began as an “innocent
friendship”, and she “fell deeply in love”
as it progressed, and - no matter how many times she
tried to break off the affair - she kept resuming it,
again and again. It was hell, for both of us.
You mention she “couldn’t let go” of
her attachment to her lover. The truth is more likely
“wouldn’t”, even if her choices sprung
from a whirlpool of conflicting emotions inside. Feelings
aren’t choices, and ultimately, each one of us is
responsible for each choice we make.
I did a whole bunch of spying stuff - including
listening in on phone conversations, hanging (secretly)
around her work place, checking her car, her closets, her
purse, rummaging thru the house for hiding places where
she might have keepsakes or letters of his stashed. I hid
near HIS house when I thought she might be going out
there to see him. My life was consumed by amateur
detective stuff, because I wanted to KNOW, one way or the
other, so I’d have justification for throwing it in
her face, and ending the marriage. Purgatory was hell.
Lynda ended, and then resumed her affair more times
than I can remember, each time saying (believably) that
“it was over”. She finally left and moved in
with him for a while, only to return and say again it was
over. But it still wasn’t. The on-again, off-again
roller coaster lasted 2 years for both of us.
To me, you insight “ending her affair was not a
condition to my staying committed to our marriage”
is a profound one, and very liberating one. It took me a
lonnnnng time before I reached that point myself. On the
surface, that approach looks like it gives her a blank
cheque to do what she wants, or that we’re okay with
whatever our wives do, no matter how unacceptable. But in
reality, I found it brought me back to some very
fundamental truths about love: 1/it isn’t good for
OUR emotional and spiritual well-being - or theirs - to
try to control another person’s choices; 2/if we
base our commitment on how committed another person is,
then it really isn’t commitment - it’s an
auction. We only become willing to put in as much as our
partner is willing to put in, and the relationship
becomes a setting of emotional horse-trading. In love,
when one person loses, both lose.
You mentioned “She’s got to work on her
problems and I have to give her space, despite the
risk”. I would say that the risk is far greater if
you DON’T give her the space. “She is sad,
lonely and hurt”. This, to me, hits the nail right
on the head. Her sadness, loneliness, and pain comes form
a place deep inside that was there long before you met
her, and that her marriage to you had helped her bury for
a while. But it kept leaking out, and in desperation, she
tried to find another person to help her keep that shut
down. Her affair is a valium, and until she finds
healthier ways of actually beginning to heal it,
it’s VERY important that she be given the space to
discover that her continued attempts to drown it out with
“luv” don’t work. In respecting and
supporting her freedom and right to make her own choices,
you stop distracting her from the growing awareness that
is creeping up inside her that the affair really
isn’t going to do the trick either. Remember the
adage “be careful what you wish for, you might just
get it”? The longer she spends with her
“prince”, the closer she comes to discovering
THAT castle has dirt floors and cold stone walls too.
You mentioned “I think I have learned to love
her, unconditionally, without expecting anything in
return. Love like this is tough and painful.” I
think you have begun that process, and understand its
importance. But give yourself time to learn how to love
in more healthy ways. It’s taken you many years to
develop the values and beliefs you brought into the
marriage. Change doesn’t come overnight. I know how
much I WANTED to love better, to give more genuine
healthy love. But I’ve also found that it’s
very tempting and easy for me to delude myself into
thinking I’ve embraced a new outlook, when what has
really happened is I’ve accepted it in my head, but
haven’t given it the time it needs to make its way
fully into my heart and soul. When it does make its way
there fully, I find it becomes easy - like breathing. The
pain and the struggle cease, and it’s almost like a
rainbow that appears after the end of a long and bitter
thunderstorm.
Now, about the rage. Forgiveness is something that
automatically happens when we go thru the stages we need
to. One of the most important of these - for me - is
learning to accept and actually use and feel my anger and
rage. God didn’t give us anger to cause us problems;
it’s a very healthy emotion, if we use it in
constructive ways. For me, it clears away fog and
confusion inside better than anything I know. It helps me
fully grieve and cry. It gives me the energy I need to
make it through a difficult time. If I use my anger to
help me, and not hurt anyone else of myself, it helps me
tremendously. When I try to bury it, reason it away, and
not full feel it, it gets pushed down - and like a
volcano, it erupts unpredictably sooner or later, often
destructively.
I got in touch with my anger in a healthy way for the
first time when I took a canvas bag filled with bottles
down to a secluded beach area, and smashed the bottles
(while they were inside the bag) to smithereens with a
baseball bat, screaming and cursing at the top of lungs.
I didn’t hold ANYTHING back. Nothing. When I found
my energy drained, I sat down and sobbed like a baby.
Then, and incredible thing happened. I found myself
unable to stop laughing - a good, hearty, genuine
laughter. I felt like dancing! It was a magical release
I’d never experienced before, and that 1-2-3 process
happens each time I ever do the “anger thing”
now. It’s wonderful!
If you are going to work on the “mess”,
leave her part of it to her, and focus on the mess you
feel inside of you. You can’t fix a car by working
on the whole car at one time; each part that’s
causing problems has to be looked at individually. You
have half the car, she has the other half. When your half
is running perfectly, then it will be time to look at
hers. Joint counseling can give you some valuable clues
about the rust and the lumpy tires on your side. Bad
comparison maybe?:)
The “miracles” happen when we are ready for
it, not before. I had to learn that patience and faith
were 2 of the things I had a lot of struggle with. God
didn’t let the miracles start coming my way until I
was ready enough in both those areas, because without
enough faith and patience, it would have been very easy
for me to throw away each miracle in trying to grab hold
of solutions “I” thought would work better. I
also discovered miracles are a lot like grains of sand in
an hourglass; wanting one big miracle was like wanting a
rock to pass through an hourglass - it won’t ever
happen. But when I let each tiny grain of sand pass
through, they begin to add up, and fill the hourglass in
a way “one big grain” would never have been
able to.
If you want to pray for miracles, pray for the wisdom
and courage to see each small miracle as it comes your
way. You won’t be disappointed.
Hope this helps a bit.
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