in Affairs, Marriage, Uncategorized 595 Words

Reflecting on Deception

I am awake in the wee hours thinking about a large community event tonight. It is the third year my non-profit is hosting this event…the third year that we have the privilege of engaging with an amazing group of young talent to spread our message…the third year that I will be on stage to thank the leadership and to encourage thousands of youth to choose health & opportunity & freedom.

YOUTHcrowds

Through the years, HUSBAND and my children have always played an important part in events like this, assisting my small staff through volunteering to set up, shoot video & photos and any other way they can help. Three years ago, HUSBAND was fully engaged at this event despite the reality that he was also fully engaged with SW and contemplating ending our marriage and going off into the sunset with her.

That’s what woke me…thinking about the reality that he had so easily deceived me by remaining my helpful partner and doing anything he could to help us pull off a-really-big-event with a really-small-staff. He never showed me a crack in the façade, never let me see that he wished to be anywhere but there with me, doing anything else but helping me, wishing he could be with someone else besides me. He played the role so smoothly of supportive and proud HUSBAND, interacting with friends new and old, acting as if he was excited about the work my non-profit was doing, and honored to be by my side. All an act…all a deception.

I was thinking about him taking pictures that night…being on his phone to post some things to our instagram and then to send some chats to SW. That while I assumed his phone time was all about us it was really a lot about him-about them-when there was a them that wasn’t us.

SecretTexts

It is painful, and hard to remember. It just crops up inside my soul and travels up to my brain sometimes…triggers…thoughts…memories. Memories that looked one way then, but look very different now.

I remember HUSBAND telling me that during his affair with SW, he had attended another event and taken a picture of me while I was speaking. He sent it to her, and she replied back DID YOU JUST SEND ME A PICTURE OF YOUR WIFE? HUSBAND discovered then that the little whore was sensitive – she put him on silence for a few days – to punish him? Nipping at the bubble of the fantasy world she had created in which I didn’t exist appears to have really pissed her off.

This is one of the most wearying parts of affairs and recovery…and I imagine it is hard for the betrayed whether they reconcile or don’t. These moments of remembering the lies, the deception that we were so blissfully unaware of at the time, that now distort the beauty of memories…kind of like a photo that has gotten burned and the image is still there, but the edges are curled up, and a dingy layer covers it all dimming the colors and distorting the original image. That is what memories are like for me from during HUSBAND’s affairs. I want to unfurl the photo…to wipe away the tarnish…but I can’t. It remains ragged and damaged.

So tonight, I will press on. I will press on with my taped-together-heart and my very-sorry-HUSBAND and we will work on making memories that don’t need any revising. One step…forward.

OneStep10

30 thoughts on “Reflecting on Deception”

  2. Loved that description of the burnt photos / memories. I so feel that same way with my own once beautiful memories. Now they are all twisted and colors changes to weird combinations….
    *sighs*
    Here’s to better, new and real honest memories!
    Break a leg! 😉 (not literally)

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  3. Eventually, that part of deception goes away. It takes awhile, but one day you look back & it’s just not there. But the memories fight to stay alive because it’s human nature to remember the bad, so we learn from it. Hope you enjoy it tonite

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  5. This is a great site. Thanks for sharing your journey. I someday hope to be able to share a journey of healing of my own…(different incidents but,all the same).
    I think too many people throw away families, without even trying to repair the damage. And, I say that, if your husband is TRULY willing and ready to go through whatever it takes to atone AND to help you heal, then I have nothing but respect for you…for having the strength of character to have such mercy and compassion for another human-being’s human-ness, and for being willing to have the courage to heal yourself…It isn’t always so easy.

    Most of all, I wanted to share…that I believe, truly, with all my heart, that your heart isn’t broken…or somehow damaged and in need of taping together (and that’s not me denying that there is immearsurable pain…I know, personally, how betrayal carries unbearable weight)…instead, I read your story- and I see a woman whose heart was broken-open….and is capable of so much more love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, bravery, strength, faith and hope, than it had before the breaking…..

    But, that’s just my opinion, of course 🙂
    Good luck to you and your family. Oh- and by the way- are you and your husband, by any chance, using the “Matthew 18 Approach”?

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    1. Thank you for your support and encouragement. I do, however, want to say that each of us has our own journey…and I do not believe a betrayed must stay in his/her marriage. The reality is there is enormous pain whichever path we each take, and if HUSBAND had continued to engage in his sex addiction and not fully…FULLY turn away and show me every day through his words and actions that he is fighting to be the man he pretended to be, and wants to be, I’d be gone in a FLASH. But your thought of broken-open…wow. Yes. That’s it. I think I’ll write on that concept. Thank you for pointing that out. I’ve not heard of the Matthew 18 Approach…what is it?

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  7. I choose to think he sent her your picture to show her how awesome his wife is……can think of no other reason a man would send mistress a pic of his wife. Hope you’re event raises tons of money.

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  8. Your words again connect. I so admire your strength. Today driving home I had one of those ” Oh my God how can this be my life” moments. For me the affair was less than a year ago so I still have the “this time last year” memories to add to the devastation. Nothing seems real and nothing seems right. How much can a person take?

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    1. Those moments…and that first year…they just wash over you like a tidal wave, don’t they? I’m sorry that you are part of the frasority of pain, but every moment, every day that you press in toward your own healing is a victory for YOU. Keep writing…keep breathing…keep stepping. HUGS.

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  9. That is very scary but men compartmentalize better than women. I don’t know why but they do. But I can see how it will take that much longer to rebuild trust. I hope you are able to make new memories and not have any triggers. You deserve some happiness n joy!

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  11. I have so many, many years of memories that are tainted and defiled. I will never know which ones were real and which were just for cover. I have thrown them all in a big fire pit in the desert in Arizona. The memories I make now are only going to be the ones that I choose to keep. You are so strong girl..you got this and you are fabulous!

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