Ask Andrew – 314
Dear Andrew,
I have read How Can I Ever Trust You Again after my husband had what I guess you would call an ‘inappropriate friendship’ which stopped just short or adultery. We have been married for 25 years and he met someone in April 2008 and told me in October 2008 that he was leaving me, he said he’d been unhappy for some time and just couldn’t see a future for us. He said there was no-one else involved. He changed his mind 12 hours later, said he was making a huge mistake and wanted to stay. I was so elated that he wanted to stay I just accepted his explanation of a mid-life crisis.
Just before Christmas I found some photos on our computer of him and another woman with the caption ‘US’. I asked him about them and he said it was just a friend and he was not in touch with her any more. I accepted his explanation and life seemed normal. We celebrated our 25th anniversary in October 2009. Just after Christmas 2009 I found some presents my husband has hidden in his wardrobe. He had a business trip to London the first week of January 2010 and the presents disappeared. When he came home I found 2 envelopes addressed to him at an address in London I’d never heard of. I asked him about the presents and the address in London and he said they were for a friend – a female friend. I asked him if it was the woman in the photos and he said, Yes.
It took several weeks and months for the truth to come out and only after reading the book – How Can I Ever Trust you Again.
It appears he met this woman on a train in April 2008 and things started to get serious leading him to say he was leaving me in the October (just after we’d celebrated our 24th anniversary in Paris). He found he just could’t leave me and cause such hurt to me and our 3 children – whom he’d gone ahead and told without telling me he was going to do that. He’d told this woman that he couldn’t leave me and she told him to ‘just forget it then’ but she contacted him after Christmas and the ‘friendship’ continued throughout 2009. He would say he had business in London but he was going up to be with her. I knew nothing about her until the middle of January 2010. He has cut contact with her but I just can’t come to terms with all the deceit and lying. Every time he kisses me or touches me I just think – he did that with her.
He wants very much to stay with me but I am so shocked by the betrayal and I don’t know how to get over it. We have been to Relate and I am waiting to have some further counselling with another organisation. I don’t know what to do, I love him but I hate and loathe what he’s done – our children know nothing of his ‘affair’. I’m on medication to stop depression and panic attacks. I feel our situation differs from anything highlighted in your book as he ended the original affair and then picked it up again for a year before I knew anything was really wrong. I feel humiliated, stupid, old – she was 10 years younger than me, depressed, betrayed, worthless.
Any advice would be welcome.
Andrew writes:
On one hand, every affair is different. On the other hand, every affair follows the same pattern. So although, there is no case history in my book that exactly matches your husband’s behaviour, there are lots of similarities: problems swept under the carpet, promises that things will get better, lies, deceit, yo yoing back and forth, the deceived partner closing his or her eyes and hoping for the best.
So I’d like you re-read HCIETYA and look for all the similarities rather than the differences – because from where I’m standing this sounds like a straight forward middle age crisis, sparks marriage crisis story. (It’s as old as the hills, but I think understanding that you’re not unique will hopefully be comforting and provide the energy to actually do something) Of course, you will feel angry and upset but if you want to move forward you need to ask a few questions: Why your husband was unhappy, why he couldn’t tell you, what happened in the affair, how serious was it, has it really ended? Until you know what you’re dealing with, you don’t know if you want to save this relationship or not. Without reaching decision time. you can’t reach hope.
Reading my response back, it sounds rather tough but I really want to shake you and get you to access that anger, get some answers and use the energy to power you onto the next stage of the recovery process. Whatever happens, it is better than sitting around feeling worthless.
