Infidelity causes intense emotional pain--anger, disbelief, fear, guilt and shame. But an affair doesn't have to mean the end of your marriage.A Reader’s View of Her Husband’s Marital Affair
Quite coincidentally, we received an email yesterday from one of our readers who had some words to share regarding marital infidelity as an addiction. After getting her permission, we thought it would be an interesting and thought provoking piece to post.
Compared to many people that have shared their opinions on affairs, she has somewhat of a unique stance regarding the way that she feels that she should have dealt with her husband’s marital affair (addiction).
Here is her post:
“My main reason for emailing, is to ponder something pretty controversial with you. I feel that I am further along in the healing business than many of your other correspondents so I am a bit shy to post what I am about to write. I am not sure how it will go down with some of the others – there is so much sadness, anger and bitterness out there (which I fully recognize – I went through it too, for about 2-3 years) and I think what I am writing today may provoke a pretty negative response so I’ll leave it to you whether you wish to use it on the site or not. I won’t mind if not, but I would be interested in your opinions.
I do think of my husband’s emotional affair as an addiction he found hard to fight.
With any other addiction I would have tried to be there for him. Who else should he have turned to than his wife, for help, support, encouragement, love, to help him through? To help him kick his destructive habit? With something like infidelity, naturally, it was perhaps understandable that I couldn’t do that, and shouldn’t be expected to…and yet, should I have done so?
All addictions destroy relationships, careers, lives; all addictions involve danger, lies, betrayal – is this really that different? His lies, his wanton deception in order to “feed his habit,” his irrational behavior, some of the crazy things he said – now these things all point to a struggle against addiction. And where was I during this time? Hitting out at him. Screaming. Crying. Sinking into deep depression. In my own struggle against recreational alcohol and caffeine. Even suicidal fantasies. All perfectly understandable from a wife in my position…but constructive and helpful? Where do you draw the line in what is expected or appropriate of a life-partner?
Somewhat humbling, this morning while thinking about this question I remembered that, just a few years ago, my husband put aside his own prejudices and disapproval to help and counsel a younger member of the family who got himself involved in drugs. This was a difficult situation to face – hurtful and disappointing to my husband that the boy should have chosen this course. That he should have “weakened” to something that gave him such a kick, and yet was so damaging at so many levels. And yet, without asking questions or judging this youngster, my husband was unfailing in his support for him, who was able to deal successfully with his addiction, and with the reasons he was tempted down that route, and it has never been a problem again.
My husband’s example was one which, when faced with a similar situation, I couldn’t follow. I couldn’t at that time muster the strength or wisdom.
Well, that’s how I now see it and thinking of it this way is helping me at the stage I am now…but, even if I had had the wisdom to see this at the time it was going on, I don’t suppose I would have reacted any differently to the way I did!
And of course, I still believe that although many common themes have emerged from the responses on your site, all affairs are not the same and that this may not, in any case, apply to everyone else – it just seems to work for me.
I close by saying how much your site has helped me. I had stalled in the healing progress until I discovered you and we have made such progress since…”
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Doug-
I will need to get another cup of coffee and think through what the woman has said. It is a powerful account. It captures the desperation that goes on. Everyone is hurting and in pain. It captures how the addiction leaves the spouse feel like they are the one going crazy. No two affairs are the same. That means that skeleton key answers and painting all cheaters and their spouses with the same brush are mistakes. Ya’ll are doing a good work and helping many people through your own wounding. I find it encouraging. Keep up the good work.
Thanks Jeff. Back at ya!
I have found through my research that some experts believe you should treat an affair as an addiction. In order to help the betrayer through this situation you need to incorporate tough love, then do what you can to help them through the withdraw phase. This means that you need to put your feelings and emotions to the side, I don’t think many of us could do that. It would almost appear that you are dismissing and justifying their behavior.
I don’t know if there is a good way to deal with the spouse that is addicted and will not leave their lover. There are so many different ways to approach this situation, I don’t know if any of them produce the results we want. It many ways it seems we lose no matter what happens.– Linda
Well said Linda. It seems that the betrayed spouse has to step up to the plate and handle the situation with no regards to our own feelings. This is complete bullshit. If my H had an addiction to other women then so be it, he can deal with it on his own, just like I have to deal with triggers, raging emotions, and depression all on my own. I’m sick and tired of hearing about this addiction crap. Where not putting any responsibility on the betrayer at all. Where blaming the addiction. Where not blaming them for allowing themselves to be in that situation, as if some forced them to have an affair. It’s not their fault, yeah right! I will not ever believe that my H was an addict, but just and idiot with no regards for me or his family, a selfish selfish individual.
Both my wife and her AP (when I confronted him) described feeling an addiction to one another. I know my wife broke it off many times and yet missed the emails and contact so much that she had to call or email him only “to see how he was doing.” Of course this started it all up again. My wife is a pleaser and can’t deal with feeling like the bad guy – so her addiction was fueled by three things, affirmation, obligation, and guilt for his feeling rejected (never mind my feelings.)
My wife was one of those who wasn’t consciously looking for an affair. Even when the guy pursued her she was taken aback at how attracted she became. Once she took that hit (and suffered no repercussions) it became easier and easier.
After a while she needed to get the email, the call, the meet-up. She said she was depressed if she didn’t hear from him.
I get what Broken was saying before that this is merely the beginnings of a normal relationship. But I feel it’s different in that there is secrecy – between only the two of them – which heightens everything they experience, both pain and pleasure.
I’ve found strength in treating her like an addict. It’s helped to cope with her irrational moments, or her attacking me when I deny her the drug, or her depression over the withdrawal. I believe it is an addiction – a mental addiction.
I actually am glad this isn’t something worse, but rather something we can work to understand and control.
I don’t think the analogy drawn between the family member’s drug addiction and her husband’s reaction to it and her reaction to her husband’s affair is at all a good or plausible comparison. The family member did not pledge faithfulness and fidelity to her husband nor did they pledge never to engage in drug use; her husband did, so it is a much
different relationship with much more painful consequences to the betrayed spouse. I’m glad that view is helping her heal, but I think that the grieving, tough love, and eventual forgiveness and recreating the marriage, if possible, that we are all learning here at this site and others is the proper course. And I still don’t buy into the addiction
theory (even after reading Jeffrey’s blog) in most of our affair stories – I prefer the terms “selfish decision” and “affair fog” that I’ve learned on this site to explain my husband’s decision.
Oh, and I forgot to include working on and taking care of ourselves as the betrayed spouses – a very necessary component to my healing-in-progress.
As one who was in an EA for two months, I would have to say that the initiation of it was a definite lack of boundries. I thought I could ‘manage it’. It took all my energy over the next two months to do this managing. It still started to pick up steam and progress at the end, before exposure (thank God for exposing it when He did). Near the end, and also during the remnant ‘fog’ it did feel like an addiction. The rush of that time was hard to live without. It gave me energy for EVERYTHING. All things seemed so clear, so possible. But the pit in my stomach was a constant reminder of why that feeling was there. It scares me now how I was in that time. It also scares me to think of where it could (and probably would) have gone.
I think any guilt from not responding as the writer felt she should have is misplaced. When one is the victim, it is very hard, and maybe impossible to empathize and be objective to that situation. In an ideal world, it seems logical. But, an EA is ANYTHING BUT logical. There was no logic, no reason, no common sense. It was all fog and emotion and selfishness.
Ceejay: Can I ask you a question as a betrayed spouse? I too believe that a lack of boundaries is what helped my husband engage in his EA, and I struggle with how to help him recognize, respect, follow, adhere to, etc. healthy marriage/relationship boundaries going forward with the opposite sex. Any suggestions??? Are you doing anything yourself to avoid another boundary crossover in the future?
So appreciate your response.
Mine started by the OW coming in under the radar, so to speak. I had boundaries in place to not go to lunch with, go on a business trip, sit and talk with, any woman at work. This has been in place for 20 years!
Yet, this started ever so slowly by working on common projects, work emails, phone meetings, etc. The whole team-building mentality in the workplace is a crock. I hate it personally. I want to go to work, and go home. No hangin’ with my co-workers. Especially now.
the OW latched onto one great interest I have, and either really liked it too, or became a quick study to get more time with me. We then started sitting for a bit at work and talking after work. No problem I thought. I knew my wife would not like the idea, but I really did not see the potential or the breach of trust that was already taking place.
To answer your questions:
Boundaries -
Recognizing: Anything that you do that you can not tell your spouse about, or would feel uncomfortable if they suddenly appeared at work, etc. One big sign for me was that nagging little half nauseating / half exciting pit in my stomach.
Respecting: Honesty, plain and simple. If there is any situation that does not seem quite as black and white. Tell your spouse and talk it through! You both are one. One completes the other. This culture seems more and more to treat marriage as two islands in close proximity, rather than one island with borders.
Follow / Adhere To: A choice to be made each and every day, because you have made a commitment and you love this one who completes you, right?
As for now and the future… I am cautious almost to a fault now with any contact whatsoever. I am very conscious of my wife’s fears and hurt. The crossover could not occur again without the signs I spelled out earlier. I would have to make a choice to cross that line again. I know that I HAVE to COMMUNICATE with my wife at a much greater level than I ever have. There is no more auto-pilot in our marriage. We fly manual control now, always watching and always cautious.
Ceejay- do you still work with the OW? And how did your wife found out?
Ceejay: Thanks so much – such great advice!! Your wife is a blessed woman, and I’m sure she’s wonderful also!!!
I do still work at the same company as the OW, but in a different area. The only contact I have is infrequent group meetings (not one-on-one) and an occasional email. Every time communication is made, I let me wife know. She also looks at my email whenever she desires. The OW has also respected NC, and it is D day + 6 months. No contact is ever been made that is not completely work related. And it actually has been less and less contact over time. I still am on-guard though, always.
As far as BW finding out, I was struggling with wanting to end it, as it was progressing in the last week or so much more rapidly than I was prepared for, but it was still an EA. The OW was saying things that were really confusing and hit me emotionally much harder than I thought. Things that started to really draw me away from my wife. I went out of town on a business trip and ended up chatting on FB with OW. My wife saw this conversation and confronted me. It was an awful, shameful experience I pray to NEVER repeat in my life. Coming home and facing her, my kids, and some friends that now knew was THE hardest thing I had ever had to do. I felt like a stranger in my own house. NC letter was delivered to OW before I came back too. The damage I was doing during the EA and the resulting fallout was much more than I ever could have imagined. My selfishness and actions during that time towards my BW and the OW were beyond what I can even believe now, looking back. I think to myself, honestly, “what was I thinking?”. Do you know how scary that is, to not even understand fully why you did what you did? I really do understand now when in the Bible Paul said (paraphrasing), “I do what I do not want to do, and I do not do what I should!”
Two perspective changes I think I have also had:
1. I really cannot have the attitude anymore of, “I wouldn’t / couldn’t do THAT!”. That scares me now, and shows me that I am not beyond doing anything of depravity if my heart is not right and the opportunity is there. Depressing, but true.
2. Anyone else that says to me, “I wouldn’t / couldn’t / promise I will not…” is not being honest with themselves. It is a daily choice as to what you will or will not do. My world view has changed somewhat to be that we are mostly bad, not mostly good. We all battle our own demons, so to speak.
I am just thankful I serve a God that loved me enough to deliver me out of the situation I was in at the perfect time, in spite of myself. This wife God has given me deserves far better than I can give her, but He saw fit to give us another chance to modify our 20+ year marriage and make it better than it ever was.
Well, now I feel like I am babbling on. I will leave it there. Hope it all makes sense.
Ceejay, thank you so much for your insight, your thoughts really help us (the betrayed) understand what was happening during an affair. Most of us have developed a story of the affair that we think is accurate but will never know for sure. It really helps us to hear about the thought process, what you were thinking so we can understand why our spouses acted the way they did. It takes a lot of courage to discuss and share something that has caused so much pain for everyone. Thank you. Linda
Ceejay – Ditto Linda’s post – you are helping us betrayed so much by having the courage to post on this site. I wasn’t even considering that the fog lingered so heavily after
D-day until your post …. duh on my part. Can you pinpoint any specific thing(s) besides “time” after D-day and the NC letter that helped you clear up the fog and start thinking rationally? Did your wonderful wife show you tough love, etc.? Did your kids do anything? Was your friend’s counseling helpful? Or something else?
I tried many different ways to have the fog clear, prayer, talking at length with my wife, counseling. It was almost literally like a hot coal that had to die down with time. It was almost a steady decline. I must say that when the meetings and such with OW diminished as our projects changed, that did help. The longer I did not even have to think about communicating with her on any level, the better. One thing that also helped now that I think about it was when my wife took all the details of the EA about what the OW said to me, how she approached things, etc. and then told me what it all meant from a woman’s perspective, my jaw dropped as I saw her true intentions. I now see the conversations as feeding my need. I now see that the availability she always had for our ‘talk time’ was to pull me to her. Her failure to discuss much about her children or past (that would just complicate it for me). Ugliness all around. I thought she was just being ‘a friend’. I now see the ulterior motives, and the disregard for me, my wife and even her own self respect. One thing still confuses me though.
The OW’s XH had an EA, then a PA with a co-worker a few years ago. He left her high and dry with two children for his OW. She sought help on Marriage Builders for a long time, tried plan A, B, then got a D. Why did she ever want to be an OW? It was one reason that I actually thought the friendship was ’safe’, because she knew the dangers. Confusing still.
All that to say that there is no pull back to her at all anymore. I know now that I only saw a sliver of who she really is. It was a fantasy world of our making. She really is a stranger to me, always was. Unfortunately our paths crossed at a very bad time, and I did not hold my boundaries.