@SunsetSkylane I’m going to tell you the truth because I’m in your corner, I truly am. It’s because trying to dress this up as anything else than what I am about to tell you, is lying to yourself and ultimately very damaging to you. You end up learning to excuse yourself and it’s a slippery slope to giving yourself permission to do things that later on you’ll not like about yourself and regret later.
Here it is:
anything you can’t tell the truth about to your husband, about a friendship with another man, is cheating, ‘sleight of hand’ is lying and deception.
Is that really you, SunsetSkylane? I don’t think it is.
You cave in and see him. What then? A message about how great it was to catch up over lunch? Another lunch? More obsessing?
All the energy you are spending on this other man is taking energy away from your relationship with your husband. If you truly don’t want to end your marriage, have a talk with your husband and start investing the energy in what you really want.
You can’t have both and be truly happy and if he guesses what could be about to happen or has happened, you may no longer have a choice. Imagine for a second that he’s just told you he knows what you’ve written here and what you are considering. What would you feel? Relief or horror? What would you say? Not asking these questions allows you to not have to choose, to not have to do anything which might be difficult about making yourself happy.
Here’s where lying to ourselves, no matter how small it starts, leads ultimately to disaster:
My husband had a full blown affair and just as he was getting pressure from OW to leave me, I found out. Even he thought he was going to leave, but the more she questioned why he hadn’t left yet as promised, he found himself making up excuses rather than actually planning it or doing it. He didn’t know why, as he kept telling himself he was going to leave. If he was going to leave, how come each time it came to it, he didn’t want to? Confusion reigned. When he was with her he thought he wanted to leave me. At home with me he was happy and didn’t want to. As the two compartments got closer he realised both couldn’t be true. As this penny was starting to drop and starting to muddy the affair waters, the unthinkable happened. I knew.
The reality of me knowing woke him up and he was horrified. No more luxury of not having to make a decision.
He said “I was astonished at how quickly it just turned to shit.” He’d been like you, infatuated and obsessing and mooning about her for a year. The obsessing and excitement and fun vanished overnight. It shocked him because in his parallel universe he thought it was real. It confused him because he thought he knew his own mind, His own mind was trying to tell him the truth but that got in the way of the affair fun, so to shut it up he lied to himself. When I found out, he couldn’t lie to himself about himself any more. He had to face what a shit husband and father he was being and that he was using one woman to prop up his ego and another to give him a stable and happy home life.
He was quite deservedly disgusted. To say that cheats merrily get off scot-free if they are allowed to stay is not true. It hurts massively to face what you did and who you are. It hurts massively to see the hurt you have inflicted that you can’t undo. It hurts massively to also know there is nobody to blame for this but yourself. This truth nearly killed him, not that MN, or me, for that matter, would have any sympathy.
All this pain starting from a few tiny lies: when he took her number: “I’m in a new job in a new city. I don’t know anyone so it’s ok to have a new friend. It’s only lunch with a mate.” Each line he crossed he brushed away with a lie, until ‘just making a new friend in my new job’ became ‘Actually Wookie is indifferent/ cold etc so of course I’d get closer to somebody else/ actually I’m having sex with her because my marriage is awful/ actually my marriage is dead…. ‘ Etc etc. The ‘no harm in this I’m not doing anything wrong” lie became the “actually my marriage is shit” lie! None of it true, but he needed permission from his conscience so he rewrote reality and used it to give permission to himself to do wrong guilt free.
We all lie to ourselves when it’s easier than facing the tough stuff. All of us. But it can get worse and it never serves us in the long run, the truth sits waiting for us to finally dare to see it ourselves or for circumstances to shove it brutally in our faces. My favourite quote about this is from, of all people, Elvis Presley : “The truth is like the sun. You can’t always see it, but you know it’s there.”
Find out your reality about your marriage, if you don’t want to leave your husband ask yourself why. If it’s only for practical reasons then leave him and find your happiness. If it’s not, if you want to stay, then why are investing your emotions into someone else? Your husband has to step up and invest in you, too, but hanging on to him whilst doing this isn’t and won’t make you or him happy.
I think perhaps staying in this limbo gives you reasons not to have to do something you are possibly afraid of. It’s painful staying in limbo, but more comfortable than making big decisions or tackling issues that need tackling.
Decide what you want your future to look like and invest in that, whatever it is. But cheating is never the answer or a good choice, it takes choices away from you in a heartbeat once your partner and reality get a look at it. Even if he decided to forgive you, you would never be the same SunsetSkylane that he thinks you are now and you’d never be able to change that.
Get out of limbo, whatever that looks like for you, give yourself a chance of real authentic happiness. This man’s ‘friendship’ is a pit you are about to fall into if you pursue it, not the answer to your future.