in Affair recovery, Cheating Husband, Infidelity 627 Words

Early Days of New Marriage History

Those first days…so painful, so instinctual, so desperate, so surreal. I vacillated between sadness and anger, between commitment and fleeing, between love and hate, between blame and self-blame. I read voraciously, printed out pages and pages of articles, spent hours and hours talking. I spent much time in my room, in my bed, but eventually HUSBAND made me get up, get dressed, get out. I felt like I was an actor in a play – nothing was real.

HUSBAND and I had an appointment scheduled together with our counselor the day after D-Day. On the way there, I asked him not to tell. Not to tell our counselor that he had LIED to him and to me and was a cheater. I was just too raw, too blown away at that point to let anyone else in. I’m not sure how we got through that hour and 1/2, but I guess we are both good liars.

I did reach out to one person. My dearest friend, the one who knows me to the point that she sees through me at hello. She was amazing. Steady. Careful. Pained but not judgemental. I’m grateful for her heart, her response, her support. The first time she saw HUSBAND after she knew, I said, “Ok…just so we all know that we all know…” And she said, “I love you, both of you, and I’m fighting for you.” She also made it very clear that she would support me in whatever decision I made in and for the future – a decision I was not ready to make. I could only see the next moment in front of me.

Over the next days, I asked so many questions. I was desperate to understand the HOW IT COULD HAPPEN. This woman, the OTHER WOMAN, the Slut-Whore/SW…she was invited to our wedding twenty seven years prior. I had written her an invitation to my WEDDING, and she attended. I searched out my wedding book and found the gift she had given and destroyed it.

I investigated every aspect I could of her life, was appalled at so much, sick at some others and in shock at her audacity and intrusion. She was a bit older than me, HUSBAND’s age, had never married, no children. How DARE SHE invade the life of a family…four children…a marriage…and try to make what I had built, what we had built, and make it her own. THIEF.

HUSBAND answered my questions about the trip to the nearby town with her – told me they’d walked on the beach together. I had a desire to walk on the beach. Walk on the beach with my husband and establish that we belong there together. Not SW on the beach, holding HUSBAND‘s hands and kissing his face. ME. It is MY PLACE. We planned to drive out to the beach to do just that…but it rained. Instead, we went to a tiny wine bar and talked. Talked about our lives past, our lives future. What we want. A vision. We talked about sex. He told me things he’d never told me before. And that night, we had an intimate night and SW was nowhere in the room. She was not on his body, or his ears, or his feet, or his penis. She was gone. I was there. It was love, faith, covenant, commitment. It was experimentation and soft touches and mutuality and love. Oh, so special. All through the night – all night – there were touches, and responses. And morning came, and we both knew a certain level of healing had taken place.

I would come to find out that this was a fleeting sense. We, I, had a long way to go.

6 thoughts on “Early Days of New Marriage History”

  1. “My barn having burned down,, I can now see the moon.” Mizuta Masahide (17th century Japanese poet and samurai) First, the barn burns to the ground. And then, something comes into view and the world is changed and you can see that beautiful moon. A marriage breaks up the morning someone burns the toast. But in no way is the charred bread the cause. Walk with gentleness, friendliness, kindness, curiosity and nowness during these tumultuous times. What couples do to each other after the affair is often much more damaging than the affair itself. Words that cause pain to hear I know, but a reminder that gentleness is the key to healing. Allow him to heal you. Discovering intimacy for the first time perhaps….that story I am familiar with. I came out of all of this with a deeper awareness of who I am and what it is that I hold dear. How I want to live in the world. What I do and what I bring and what I believe in. What I am responsible for and what I am not. I came to see my strengths and became aware that I can do things I didn’t believe I could do. I have been where you are…devastated on the ground with knees and palms slamming into the gravel….living in heart decay. This is a toast to you and your husband that difficult is difficult, but not impossible. To quote Yentl, “Nothing is impossible.” Let him climb that rope that you are somehow providing him. See the moon, even if for only that glimpse, for that is how true joy really presents itself….in those fleeting moments when we are truly in the now, connecting, intimate…you have to be fully awake to see it. You are awake, you are a brave warrior….carry on!

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  2. I relate to your story, probably, most of us do, especially those that want to stay in the marriage. Beautifully told. I, too, experienced an amazing intimate night right after DDay. It was foretelling – our intimate commitment spoke volumes that we didn’t want to walk away from the marriage. Yet, it was not easy. The barn metaphor was well said, Nevernot!

    Question for those here – were you shocked at your husband’s emotional depth with the OW? and then his response post DDay? I never saw any correspondence between my husband and EB. I only saw the hundreds and hundreds of texts and phone calls on our cellphone bill.

    I believe many of us think we know our husbands, but I was shocked at his emotional depth and his anger and everything else. Anyway, just something I was curious about.

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