Ask Andrew – Is my marriage over?
We have been married for 35 years. 15 years ago while we were abroad my husband had an affair with his secretary. I left him, his secretary quit her job and I went back to him. At the time he refused to go to counselling and told me he never wanted to be reminded of his affair. I never again brought it up.
I have contracted a life-threatening illness and now find that my husband’s contact to his secretary never stopped. I found photos of her with her husband and children on his computer (she married 10 years ago). My husband says that I missed out on nothing in the past 15 years, again refuses to go to counselling and says he he loves me although I may not think so.
Is this relationship over?
Andrew writes:
Firstly, can I give you my sympathy. It must be horrible to be dealing with so much pain on so many fronts. But, let’s start with your question: Is your marriage over? It’s completely up to you.
If you want to fight for this marriage, learn to communicate better (rather than let problems and issues be swept under the carpet) and be prepared to learn a lot about yourself, I see no reason why your marriage shouldn’t recover and – what’s more – achieve a greater degree of intimacy. However, if you decide: he’s a habitual liar, the marriage wasn’t that great and I’ve got more important issues to confront – like my health – you might decide it’s best to separate.
Before you make your decision, I think you need to step back and have a good long think. What has been the degree of contact over the past fifteen years? Have they continued to have sex together? Has he continued to pour his heart out to this woman – to the point that he hasn’t been emotionally available to you? Has he systematically lied about where he was or just ‘omitted’ to tell you stuff? Alternatively, he might just sent the occasional email and been updated on news, like one might do with an old work colleague? I’ve afraid from your email, I have no sense of the degree of betrayal. Also, I don’t know what the deal was when you took him back and how explicit you were about what was acceptable and what was not acceptable contact? Did you just assume, he knew that cosy catch-ups were not allowed and therefore he was able to make his own mind up because it was not spelt out (and he could lie to himself ‘my wife will not be hurt by this and therefore it’s sort of OK’).
From your email, I have a picture that you think there is a point where behaviour crosses a definite threshold and therefore can’t be forgiven. However, I don’t think there is a universal standard. It’s up to each individual to decide – depending on what happened, what mitigating circumstances and how he or she CHOOSES to interpret matters. I’ve put CHOOSES into capital letters because we think there is a straight connection between an event and our feelings (and therefore our feelings are set and can’t be changed) but actually the relationship is more complex:
Event………. Interpretation……..Feeling
For example, if event is ‘keeping in contact’ and interpretation is ‘congenital liar’ the feeling will be ‘fury’ or ‘despair’ or ‘hopelessness’. If the interpretation was ‘weak willed’ (he wanted to end but she kept contacting him), the feeling might be ‘anger’ but ‘sympathy’ (because we’ll all weak sometimes) and ‘understanding’ and possibly ‘forgiving’. I don’t know. It’s down to you, your personality, your standards and your interpretation. Personally, I prefer to look for the best in people (but that might not be possible here.)
So although ‘How can I ever trust you again’ does not directly address discovery of long-term continued contact, look at the book again with the perspective: We got stuck in attempted normality. Accept your part in it…. agreeing it would ‘never be discussed again’ rather than sorting out what caused the affair and improving your relationship. Next, remembering that relationships break down – more from poor communication rather than pure wickedness – I would read ‘Resolve your differences’ so you can learn how to be assertive (rather than keeping quiet and hoping for the best) and ‘Help your partner say yes’ (to improve communication.)
Certainly it helps if your husband is prepared to go for counselling. But many men fear it will be just their partner AND a therapist telling them they are a disappointment or in the wrong (and they already know that). However, it does not stop you from going on your own and getting emotional support (something I think you need at the moment). In addition, learn to change the way that you communicate – ie: directly rather than with dark looks, sighs or people pleasing – because it will make your husband change the way he responds. It could encourage him to be forthcoming, it might break your marriage. Either way, you will have the answer to your question.
I hope this has been helpful.
