Truth or Consequences
I just found out that one of my old friends -- a guy with whom I toiled in the trenches -- quit his job in the face of an indictment accusing him of some pretty nasty white collar mischief. Even though he was just a bit player, he couldn't bring himself to rat out the good old boys and save his own hide. G. Gordon Liddy would be proud, but the rest of us are scratching our heads, wondering how one of the good guys could have gotten it so wrong. Knowing my friend, however, I bet that, up until the day the first indictments were handed down, he never believed they did anything wrong because (wink, wink, nod, nod) that's the way we do business around here.
We probably all suffer from a touch of the same hubris responsible for my friend's downfall, but my husband seems to be world class at justifying anything in his own mind... as long as he doesn't get caught. The only way I've been able to make any sense of his relationship with The Other Woman is to assume that he has created a separate compartment in his brain where she sits, and his perception is that everything that happens in that compartment doesn't touch anything else his life. Except that it does.
His rationalization of The Other Woman started almost as soon as we met. From the start, it was NOT okay for me to have male friends -- especially the couple ex-boyfriends I cared to keep up with -- but it was perfectly fine for him to "hang out" with The Other Woman. He kept telling me, "It's not the same thing." And at the time, I was willing to take him at his word. I have many friends of the opposite sex with whom I've never been intimate, so it made perfect sense that -- despite his insistence that it wasn't possible -- he had one too.
He was so adamant that their relationship had never been physical -- "I mean, c'mon, look at her. She's so NOT my type" -- that I was almost as stunned to find out that they'd had sex while he was going through his divorce as I was to find out about their affair while we were together. Still, if he hadn't decided it was okay to start sleeping with her again after our engagement, his hypocrisy would have made me mad, but it wouldn't have been enough to shake my faith in the foundations of our relationship.
How awful to find that my solid rock was really just a pile of rubble, carefully pieced together but not cemented in place. It looked good from a distance, but it tumbled to pieces at the first tremor of distress. I'm trying to rebuild my faith in us, but I'm afraid if I don't sift through all that rubble, I'll never find the bedrock underneath.
The Wife Who Knows
posted by The Wife Who Knows @ 10:44 AM
7 Comments:
I feel like a voyeur reading this. That's what it's all about though, isn't it? From a male perspective, I think you're making too much out of it unless you think he's still with her. Maybe he just had second thoughts about the engagement, or maybe he needed to prove something to himself. It sounds like you both might have deeper issues and therapy may be in order.
If I were making a big deal of my husband's infidelity, I would have left him the moment I found out about his affair. I didn't. Even so, I still feel like Dorothy when she discovered that the Wizard was just a little man who knew how to create a really pretty illusion.
But as the Good Witch said, I've got the answer inside myself. This blog is sort of like my ruby slippers -- it won't take me there by itself, but it's a tool to help me find my way home.
ick. this sounds familiar. I guess maybe you should try to read the signs that are there now, right? the dinners and efforts he's making? It doesn't seem fair for you to hold on to her if he's forgotten her. You just want to be sure he isn't open to ever ending up in a similar situation - with her or anyone else. Is that something you're afraid of?
That's what keeps me up at night.
If I had caught him in the act, I would have left at that moment and never looked back. But I didn't find out that he was cheating until his affair had been over for almost a year. I've said before that I'm almost more dismayed at myself for missing the flashing neon signs than I am about the underlying deception and infidelity. Like you, I think too much.
It's my issue, not his.
And it's why I write.
The hurt and ongoing suspicion is understandable. I agree that you should give the guy a break. You may never know why he did it. He may not even know why. But it looks like he did exactly the right thing by breaking it off before you were married. You write so well I find myself wanting the details to be diceier.
Wow. It's like reading about my ex(insert cheating bastard here). He had this wierd logic, if he did something others would consider wrong he would change it in his mind, minimize it and no one could tell him he was wrong. If he could blame me for it, (I was not the wife I was the scapegoat)he would not have to feel guilty.
I waited until I caught him "in the act". I don't know which was worse, waisting so many years, or the final betrayal. This is in no way advice or opinion, just thinking aloud.
It is your marriage, your husband, only you know him. We can also make the arguement that everyone makes mistakes, and none of us would want to be judged or labeled by it.
Anon: We all have deeper issues, especially when you throw hurt and deception into it. Writing about it is therapy.
I once discovered that my then husband had been sleeping with other women. When confronted about it he begged me not to leave him and explained that he thought everyone compartmentalized their life. He seemed quite stunned to learn that I had no such secrets of my own tucked away.
I think he really thought his cheating had nothing to do with us.
Compartmentalized secrets = a foul ooze.
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