Ask Andrew – 267
Hi Andrew,
I just bought your book HCIETYA, and am half way through it. I had been with my huxband for 17 years, married for 9 of them and we have 2 children, aged 16 and 9. He was my first love, first everything!! I havent always been happy in our marriage, but am a believer in holding it together, you married for better or worse.
However, a couple of years ago, i developed a freindship with a guy who was working for my father. He was friends with everyone, but he and i started texting, and i found myself being able to talk to him about things that were affecting me in my marriage, and lately i have started to describe our friendship as inappropriate, and on reading your book this is a term you have used. He made me feel like a million dollars with his compliments, i did not fancy him at all just loved the way he made me feel, and in turn resulted in my husband and i having the greatest sex ever. When my husband found out he went crazy obviously, and things were tense with us for a while, and he tried to do things to make things up to me, but needless to say it didnt last. I changed jobs and had a new found confidence, which he didn’t like, as he was used to me hiding behind him. I again struck a friendship with a guy in work, had many freindships with guys in work, but this one was similar in that I could talk to him and felt comfortable with him, only this time I was attracted to him. I told him this when I was drunk one night and he told me he thought I was an amazing woman, bla bla bla, but that he was not in a position to have a relationship, as he had been betrayed by his wife, and they are apart.
We continued with our friendship and agreed to be friends, but I kept it a secret from my husband. My husband was always putting me down and criticising my new job and the hours etc and if some of the guys from work text me he started refering to them as my boyfriends. He was making life unbareable for the kids when I wasnt there and i only realised this when i had some time off and saw what was going on for myself. I asked him to leave to give us some space, as i felt and always did feel he never appreciated us. I was the breadwinner in the house he lived like a teenager, worked when it suited him, did his own thing never provided, so i resented him criticising me for working so much as i would not have done it had he taken some responsibility. Anyway, when he left, i went out one night and ended up back in my “inappropriate friends” house, very drunk, but nothing happened. I cried and talked and he listened. 2 days later my husband confronted me about it. It transpired that he had bugged my house and fitted cameras to spy on me. We had confrontation, i told him nothing happened he didnt believe me, we continued living in the same house for months, though the tension was awful, he tried to control me with sex, i just kept putting up with it all as i didnt want to hurt him.
Eventually one night he snapped, he was being horrible to me and i got up to sleep on the sofa, and he followed down the stairs and physically assaulted me. My kids witnessed it, it was awful. He was arrested and put in prison and i felt so awful, i did everything to help him.Then i went through a period of hating him, 6 months to be exact. Since the case is over and things had settled i really felt that we had acted in such terrible ways, but that if we really wanted to we could fix it and be better for it. When i asked him if we could try he said he was so shocked, and that he needed tim. He had been so nice and i was trying to be more positive to him trying to lift his spirits. Then he just told me he could never trust me again, and that it had gone too far, hence the reason i was drawn to your book. He is telling me its over, am i being stupid not accepting it, because i still feel like its not over. Its been a year since he found out about my friendship, and 8 months since the attack. On reading your book i dont think he will accept the theory you have. It all makes sense to me. Do you think i should just accept its over? Has it been too long? Your book is helping me understand things from his perspective and mine, how do i convince him or is it too late?
Andrew writes:
I am concerned that you are minimising what happened. If you husband attacked you and ended up in prison as a result – it must have been a terrible assault. I’m especially concerned that your children witnessed everything too. So my question is not how you can help him trust you again (about the inappropriate relationships) but how you can trust him not to be violent again. Every time he raises his voice, you will be wondering if it is this time that he’ll snap. My guess is that this is not first time that he has been violent but you’ve decided to forgive and forget those incidents – but it does make a pattern and unfortunately a very worrying one.
So before you can even think of returning to this relationship, I think you should get help – probably from RELATE. Talk over what happened and whether it is SAFE to go back into the relationship. If you decide to move forward, your counsellor will invite your husband to undergo an assessment process to check not only that he understands what he did was wrong (however provoked he might feel it is not acceptable to hit someone) and that he is prepared to make the necessary changes and learn to communicate better. This a tough road, you’re considering and one that it is only possible with your eyes firmly open.
