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NoveNotturna
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Super long post ahead, apologies.
Dear Minnei,
My (name removed by moderator)ut is a couple of months belated, and I am praying that some positive change has occurred between then and now for you. My heart is breaking for you as I read through the progression of this thread. I recognized many traits of my own in your words and I feel an obligation to reach out and offer my comfort, my prayers, and my experience with you to help you, even in some small way, to avoid the mistakes I made and to spare yourself a world of pain over the terrible choices of your husband.
Minnei, I have lived that same situation for most of the 20 years of my marriage. I must say that my husband has always been a good and kind person, but a terrible husband. Somewhere along the first year of our marriage he began acting selfishly, resenting my presence, doing recreational activities that would purposefully exclude me, going out with friends without me, taking vacations alone with the excuse that he was only doing so because his business trips gave him the opportunity to travel, and that it was just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to come along, that we couldn’t afford it, etc.
It wasn’t long after that that the “special” friends made an appearance in our lives. I spent many a birthday, Valentine’s day, and wedding anniversary sitting at home, nursing a cold dinner and burnt out candles, waiting for my husband who had somehow “forgotten that was today!” And had instead chosen to spend several hours after work at happy hour with the so-called friend. And once I began to protest all this, the hostility began, and with it came the verbal and psychological abuse. I was told I was ugly, embarrassing, that I wasn’t fit to be presented as his wife to his co-workers and clients. If I wore something flattering, no matter how demure it was, he’d tell me I was dressed inappropriately, that I looked like a w#0r3… I became a mere object like a chair or a table, ignored and shoved aside when I was in the way, and only sought after when there were no other tables or chairs around.
I was very young when I married him, we both were. I have made excuses for him, told people it is because I wasn’t a good housewife, I’m a terrible cook, I’m very impatient, he’s right, I have no right to tell him who to be friends with, I’m too jealous like my mother, I’m not good enough… and on the inside I’ve been dying little by little.
I was even told flat out one day that if I ever have him an ultimatum to choose between me and one of his female work friends, that we would certainly divorce because he’d never give up his friends for me. He denied there was anything beyond platonic friendship between them, but how can one say that to a spouse who had been by your side for years over someone you’ve known a few months and had no romantic importance to you?
The problem repeated itself over and over as we moved all over the country to pursue his career, and it all culminated last year with a humiliating revelation that he’d been having a three-month-long full-blown affair with the so called choir director at our former parish. A woman so foul and despicable that it baffled everyone’s minds who found out about it. She is exactly the type of woman he had always disdained: a drunk, a smoker, a liar, and an adulteress to boot because she is also married and has a small daughter with her husband. The worst insult of all was that she was much, much heavier than I had ever been, and here he was cheating on me with the very kind of woman that he used to tell me embarrassed him to be seen with.
The discovery was a mess. He denied and denied their affair and even swore to God that I was wrong, that there had been nothing between them, that I was accusing an innocent woman of doing something horrible. And even when we ended up at the doctor’s office because I had caught an STD that she had given him, he still lied about it and made up a story about a one-night stand with a stranger to protect his real affair partner from my anger and retribution.
I suffered many losses as a result of all the mistakes I made in handling the situation. I went on the offensive very early on with scant proof to back up my accusations. I wish I had kept my cool better and managed to get something irrefutable to use as proof. I lost my head, I despaired, I left my house for a week, I did not seek any legal counsel which would have helped me a lot in getting the information that I needed through official channels. The worst thing was that I channeled 19 and a half years of frustration, humiliations, and pain into my reaction to this latest offence. I was very, very angry, and hurt and I didn’t control it well.
For weeks, he flaunted her in front of me, badmouthing me to our friends and family, defending her and his “right” to spend time with whomever he chose. He accused me of being manipulative, controlling, unloving, and unkind. He said I treated him like a child, that I tried to dominate him in every aspect of his life. The sheer hypocrisy of what he was saying was like a slap in the face to me. How could he accuse me when he was the one that had always done those exact things to me? He destroyed me with really cruel words and actions. I felt alone, abandoned without a single person to turn to, as even our priest I was hesitant to do anything to reprimand the choir director, and instead kept urging me to not go after her and destroy her marriage. Everyone rallied around my husband in his hour of need and not a single person thought to check on me, even after he told one of our mutual friends that he had indeed been unfaithful. I was left completely alone to deal with my broken heart.
(…)
Dear Minnei,
My (name removed by moderator)ut is a couple of months belated, and I am praying that some positive change has occurred between then and now for you. My heart is breaking for you as I read through the progression of this thread. I recognized many traits of my own in your words and I feel an obligation to reach out and offer my comfort, my prayers, and my experience with you to help you, even in some small way, to avoid the mistakes I made and to spare yourself a world of pain over the terrible choices of your husband.
Minnei, I have lived that same situation for most of the 20 years of my marriage. I must say that my husband has always been a good and kind person, but a terrible husband. Somewhere along the first year of our marriage he began acting selfishly, resenting my presence, doing recreational activities that would purposefully exclude me, going out with friends without me, taking vacations alone with the excuse that he was only doing so because his business trips gave him the opportunity to travel, and that it was just unfortunate that I wasn’t able to come along, that we couldn’t afford it, etc.
It wasn’t long after that that the “special” friends made an appearance in our lives. I spent many a birthday, Valentine’s day, and wedding anniversary sitting at home, nursing a cold dinner and burnt out candles, waiting for my husband who had somehow “forgotten that was today!” And had instead chosen to spend several hours after work at happy hour with the so-called friend. And once I began to protest all this, the hostility began, and with it came the verbal and psychological abuse. I was told I was ugly, embarrassing, that I wasn’t fit to be presented as his wife to his co-workers and clients. If I wore something flattering, no matter how demure it was, he’d tell me I was dressed inappropriately, that I looked like a w#0r3… I became a mere object like a chair or a table, ignored and shoved aside when I was in the way, and only sought after when there were no other tables or chairs around.
I was very young when I married him, we both were. I have made excuses for him, told people it is because I wasn’t a good housewife, I’m a terrible cook, I’m very impatient, he’s right, I have no right to tell him who to be friends with, I’m too jealous like my mother, I’m not good enough… and on the inside I’ve been dying little by little.
I was even told flat out one day that if I ever have him an ultimatum to choose between me and one of his female work friends, that we would certainly divorce because he’d never give up his friends for me. He denied there was anything beyond platonic friendship between them, but how can one say that to a spouse who had been by your side for years over someone you’ve known a few months and had no romantic importance to you?
The problem repeated itself over and over as we moved all over the country to pursue his career, and it all culminated last year with a humiliating revelation that he’d been having a three-month-long full-blown affair with the so called choir director at our former parish. A woman so foul and despicable that it baffled everyone’s minds who found out about it. She is exactly the type of woman he had always disdained: a drunk, a smoker, a liar, and an adulteress to boot because she is also married and has a small daughter with her husband. The worst insult of all was that she was much, much heavier than I had ever been, and here he was cheating on me with the very kind of woman that he used to tell me embarrassed him to be seen with.
The discovery was a mess. He denied and denied their affair and even swore to God that I was wrong, that there had been nothing between them, that I was accusing an innocent woman of doing something horrible. And even when we ended up at the doctor’s office because I had caught an STD that she had given him, he still lied about it and made up a story about a one-night stand with a stranger to protect his real affair partner from my anger and retribution.
I suffered many losses as a result of all the mistakes I made in handling the situation. I went on the offensive very early on with scant proof to back up my accusations. I wish I had kept my cool better and managed to get something irrefutable to use as proof. I lost my head, I despaired, I left my house for a week, I did not seek any legal counsel which would have helped me a lot in getting the information that I needed through official channels. The worst thing was that I channeled 19 and a half years of frustration, humiliations, and pain into my reaction to this latest offence. I was very, very angry, and hurt and I didn’t control it well.
For weeks, he flaunted her in front of me, badmouthing me to our friends and family, defending her and his “right” to spend time with whomever he chose. He accused me of being manipulative, controlling, unloving, and unkind. He said I treated him like a child, that I tried to dominate him in every aspect of his life. The sheer hypocrisy of what he was saying was like a slap in the face to me. How could he accuse me when he was the one that had always done those exact things to me? He destroyed me with really cruel words and actions. I felt alone, abandoned without a single person to turn to, as even our priest I was hesitant to do anything to reprimand the choir director, and instead kept urging me to not go after her and destroy her marriage. Everyone rallied around my husband in his hour of need and not a single person thought to check on me, even after he told one of our mutual friends that he had indeed been unfaithful. I was left completely alone to deal with my broken heart.
(…)
N
NoveNotturna
Guest
(PART 2)
Eventually, when I was at my lowest point, even to the point of being suicidal, I prayed to God for his assistance. I was at my wits’ end when I ran across this website:
affairrecovery.com
It has tons of articles on how to deal with finding out about one’s spouse’s betrayal, how to navigate the chain of discovery, how to decide the course for the marriage’s future, whether to try to recover it or to say goodbye. But the most important thing, was their willingness to help both sides to heal from this pain. It is run by a group of family and marriage counselors who have been personally affected by infidelity on both sides of the conflict. It is God centered teaching, although not Catholic. The message is still valuable, and it helped me to gain a better perspective on how to deal with the problem more constructively.
Even with this new resource, I still made too many mistakes in my desperation to save my marriage. I “forgave” him too easily and I neglected to care for myself, to seek help with the darkness that had taken hold of my heart. I completely lost myself in ensuring that they weren’t communicating anymore. And everything else I used to love and cherish completely disappeared from my mind. I had nothing positive to keep me centered, and I became even more of a doormat than I had been before. I humiliated myself, I begged for affection, and I was invariably left to deal with my moments of despair all alone. One thing I did which helped immensely was to buy and insist we read aloud to each other these two books:
Unfaithful: Hope and Healing After Infidelity
by Gary and Mona Shriver
Not “Just Friends”: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Dr. Shirley P. Glass
This is what it took to crack the doors open in his head and in his heart. The change in attitude and in behavior was almost immediate. He began to see me for what I am, his wife who had loved him in spite of everything I’d endured, a wife who was only doing the right thing in asking for the respect and love she should have always had in a marriage… a wife deeply wounded and exhausted by his selfishness and unkindness. It still took him 3 months from the date of last contact with her to admit the truth, though.
It has been 18 months since I found out, and though I am still very much affected by the depression, my husband has had a complete turnaround from the way that things used to be. I won’t say things are perfect or that he’s the model husband, because he still has much to make up for and much to learn. But he has proven himself sorrowful and remorseful for what he has done, all the damage he inflicted upon me over the span of our marriage, to our family, to himself and his relationship with God. But most importantly, he has come to the realization of his feelings for me, that his sincere love had somehow become buried underneath his own insecurities and selfishness.
He confessed that for a very long time he had felt really insecure, that he was convinced that I would soon leave him for someone else, someone better and more handsome. He let that insecurity harden his heart against me and because of it, he crushed me so is remain hidden from his potential rivals. He felt that it was the only way to prevent me cheating on him and leaving him because he was not good enough.
(…)
Eventually, when I was at my lowest point, even to the point of being suicidal, I prayed to God for his assistance. I was at my wits’ end when I ran across this website:
affairrecovery.com
It has tons of articles on how to deal with finding out about one’s spouse’s betrayal, how to navigate the chain of discovery, how to decide the course for the marriage’s future, whether to try to recover it or to say goodbye. But the most important thing, was their willingness to help both sides to heal from this pain. It is run by a group of family and marriage counselors who have been personally affected by infidelity on both sides of the conflict. It is God centered teaching, although not Catholic. The message is still valuable, and it helped me to gain a better perspective on how to deal with the problem more constructively.
Even with this new resource, I still made too many mistakes in my desperation to save my marriage. I “forgave” him too easily and I neglected to care for myself, to seek help with the darkness that had taken hold of my heart. I completely lost myself in ensuring that they weren’t communicating anymore. And everything else I used to love and cherish completely disappeared from my mind. I had nothing positive to keep me centered, and I became even more of a doormat than I had been before. I humiliated myself, I begged for affection, and I was invariably left to deal with my moments of despair all alone. One thing I did which helped immensely was to buy and insist we read aloud to each other these two books:
Unfaithful: Hope and Healing After Infidelity
by Gary and Mona Shriver
Not “Just Friends”: Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Dr. Shirley P. Glass
This is what it took to crack the doors open in his head and in his heart. The change in attitude and in behavior was almost immediate. He began to see me for what I am, his wife who had loved him in spite of everything I’d endured, a wife who was only doing the right thing in asking for the respect and love she should have always had in a marriage… a wife deeply wounded and exhausted by his selfishness and unkindness. It still took him 3 months from the date of last contact with her to admit the truth, though.
It has been 18 months since I found out, and though I am still very much affected by the depression, my husband has had a complete turnaround from the way that things used to be. I won’t say things are perfect or that he’s the model husband, because he still has much to make up for and much to learn. But he has proven himself sorrowful and remorseful for what he has done, all the damage he inflicted upon me over the span of our marriage, to our family, to himself and his relationship with God. But most importantly, he has come to the realization of his feelings for me, that his sincere love had somehow become buried underneath his own insecurities and selfishness.
He confessed that for a very long time he had felt really insecure, that he was convinced that I would soon leave him for someone else, someone better and more handsome. He let that insecurity harden his heart against me and because of it, he crushed me so is remain hidden from his potential rivals. He felt that it was the only way to prevent me cheating on him and leaving him because he was not good enough.
(…)
N
NoveNotturna
Guest
(FINAL PART)
The hardening of his heart, the doubts in his mind about me, this fear of having his heart broken made him so resentful and so jaded for no reason that he felt justified in his hateful behavior and neglect of me and treating me the way that he had in order to keep me with him.
And on top of it all, he was extremely immature and easily manipulated by his desire to fit in with his friends. The fact we both married so young, and became faced with the huge responsibilities of parenthood when many people at that age are just beginning to experience independence from their parents… It all combined to destroy us. There is no excuse at all for what he did. He wasn’t the only one giving up his youth to care for a family, I did too, but I didn’t act the way he did. It’s a very twisted and horribly flawed way of thinking, all it managed to do was destroy us both and create a good opportunity for sin to enter into our lives.
Love is a conscious choice we make every moment of every day, and love often asks of us very difficult sacrifices. Real love isn’t self-serving, and it especially isn’t hurtful to the person we claim to love. That is why affairs don’t normally end with a happily ever after.
Affairs aren’t real love, they’re limmerence, they’re based off false illusions, and are mostly fueled by the enamored euphoria of seeing ourselves through the flattering eyes of another who doesn’t see the worst in us, who only sees us on our best behavior, at our best grooming. Affairs are an escape from reality, they’re built on lies, thrive in lying and betrayal, not just of family and friends, but of the self, of the moral fiber of our hearts. It is a sin. Even atheists must allow that it is a moral evil, a disease of unethical behavior…
Dear sister, you have to keep this much in mind: you have done nothing to cause this. The problem lies in him and in the weakness of his character in the face of the pressures of life. This is a choice he had made with little regard for what is right and how his actions have hurt you. He is being selfish, weak, and cruel. You need to hold to this in your heart: bad marriages do not cause affairs, bad choices cause affairs.
Let me ask you what our marriage counselor asked me when I started to take on the blame my husband was happily heaping upon my shoulders for his affair: Your husband isn’t the only one in this marriage, there are two of you. If the marriage is bad as he claims it is…And if bad marriages lead to affairs, then tell me, why aren’t you also having an affair? It’s because no matter how bad things are, the right thing to do is to address the problem and seek help to FIX THE MARRIAGE! If the roof of my house is leaky, I’m not just going to abandon it and move into the inflatable castle across the street, no matter how bright and cute it seems from here, it isn’t a real home and it only offers false shelter. I’m going to FIX my roof and then I will be nice and dry and safe in my home, the place where I can be myself, a place of true shelter and protection from the perils outside.
Your husband is self-medicating by letting this outsider feed his ego. Your duty is to remind him that you are the one he needs to turn to when things are tough. You see him at his best and his worst and you still love him and accept every part of him, no matter what. If your counselor isn’t helping, dump him/her and get another! And if that one isn’t helpful either, you keep looking until you did the right one. If you want to fight for your marriage, fight, but do it smartly. Get the right help. I chose to give my husband another chance and we’re still working our way to recovery. That choice may not be what everyone can live with, but by all means, pray for guidance and let God speak to your heart and steer you in the right direction.
May our Lord accompany you through this horrific experience, fill your soul with strength, and soothe your pain with his merciful love.
The hardening of his heart, the doubts in his mind about me, this fear of having his heart broken made him so resentful and so jaded for no reason that he felt justified in his hateful behavior and neglect of me and treating me the way that he had in order to keep me with him.
And on top of it all, he was extremely immature and easily manipulated by his desire to fit in with his friends. The fact we both married so young, and became faced with the huge responsibilities of parenthood when many people at that age are just beginning to experience independence from their parents… It all combined to destroy us. There is no excuse at all for what he did. He wasn’t the only one giving up his youth to care for a family, I did too, but I didn’t act the way he did. It’s a very twisted and horribly flawed way of thinking, all it managed to do was destroy us both and create a good opportunity for sin to enter into our lives.
Love is a conscious choice we make every moment of every day, and love often asks of us very difficult sacrifices. Real love isn’t self-serving, and it especially isn’t hurtful to the person we claim to love. That is why affairs don’t normally end with a happily ever after.
Affairs aren’t real love, they’re limmerence, they’re based off false illusions, and are mostly fueled by the enamored euphoria of seeing ourselves through the flattering eyes of another who doesn’t see the worst in us, who only sees us on our best behavior, at our best grooming. Affairs are an escape from reality, they’re built on lies, thrive in lying and betrayal, not just of family and friends, but of the self, of the moral fiber of our hearts. It is a sin. Even atheists must allow that it is a moral evil, a disease of unethical behavior…
Dear sister, you have to keep this much in mind: you have done nothing to cause this. The problem lies in him and in the weakness of his character in the face of the pressures of life. This is a choice he had made with little regard for what is right and how his actions have hurt you. He is being selfish, weak, and cruel. You need to hold to this in your heart: bad marriages do not cause affairs, bad choices cause affairs.
Let me ask you what our marriage counselor asked me when I started to take on the blame my husband was happily heaping upon my shoulders for his affair: Your husband isn’t the only one in this marriage, there are two of you. If the marriage is bad as he claims it is…And if bad marriages lead to affairs, then tell me, why aren’t you also having an affair? It’s because no matter how bad things are, the right thing to do is to address the problem and seek help to FIX THE MARRIAGE! If the roof of my house is leaky, I’m not just going to abandon it and move into the inflatable castle across the street, no matter how bright and cute it seems from here, it isn’t a real home and it only offers false shelter. I’m going to FIX my roof and then I will be nice and dry and safe in my home, the place where I can be myself, a place of true shelter and protection from the perils outside.
Your husband is self-medicating by letting this outsider feed his ego. Your duty is to remind him that you are the one he needs to turn to when things are tough. You see him at his best and his worst and you still love him and accept every part of him, no matter what. If your counselor isn’t helping, dump him/her and get another! And if that one isn’t helpful either, you keep looking until you did the right one. If you want to fight for your marriage, fight, but do it smartly. Get the right help. I chose to give my husband another chance and we’re still working our way to recovery. That choice may not be what everyone can live with, but by all means, pray for guidance and let God speak to your heart and steer you in the right direction.
May our Lord accompany you through this horrific experience, fill your soul with strength, and soothe your pain with his merciful love.
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