Wife sold our fairy tale for magic beans
Posted by true-love-traded-for-fun in Spouse on May 29th, 2010 | 29 commentsI can’t tell my wife what her affair really did to me.
When I met my wife, I found her beautiful. She was everything I wanted, physically and intellectually. She was a little messed up, but I understood her problems and she understood mine. We married. We have 2 kids. After the second kid, our sex life died. Completely. I was miserable. I spent years trying to fix it, trying to get you in the mood, trying to ignore you to get you to pursue me (which was great for you), EVERYTHING. After 4 years of trying, I gave up. I decided that I loved you so much that I’d just go celibate. I’d do that for you, even though it was the most important thing for me in a relationship. It’s how I know love, how I feel connected, how I feel close. I decided to give that up, just so I could spend time with you. I decided to focus on everything that was GOOD in my life, including you, and become a different – a better – person.
After 2 years of this, we started getting better. More than better, we were great. Sex came back, with passion, we were communicating, things were really taking off for us. I wrote you a letter to tell you how I felt about you. I told you how you were becoming more beautiful to me every year. When we met, you were young (22?), great skin, fantastic body, breath taking. After our first child you put on a few pounds, and it excited me. After the second, your body shape changed and you lost your tiny waist, even while maintaining near 6 pack abs. I was exhilarated. Every new wrinkle, every gray hair, every blemish was magic to me. That was part of my obsession with you during our dark times. You took my breath away, and every change I saw in you as we grew older made me want you MORE. Made me want to get closer to you, and know you better, and I hung on your every word (even when it seemed like I was ignoring you when I was trying to get you to chase me). I was madly, desperately, head over heels in love with you. My every thought was for you – I had women throwing themselves at me, and I laughed with you about them, sharing everything. They didn’t stand a chance. I had a goddess at home, a diamond, even with her flaws and past problems. I poured my heart out into that letter because we were finally connecting again and I wanted you to know that just sitting with you, watching a movie or reading a book, made my pulse quicken. When you looked at me, I sometimes had to hold my breath. Every physical flaw you’d acquired in our 13 years together was character that enhanced your beauty. I knew where every one of your flaws came from, and I loved them. My heart burst for you… I’m good at writing letters, and this letter was my crowing achievement. It explained how I felt about you without being ‘mushy’, or clingy, or … pathetic I guess. It was a confession about how madly, deeply, and completely still in love with you I was. And as you know, I’m not really the vocal type – I don’t share my emotions often. I’d hoped this letter would make you feel even a fraction of the emotion I felt for you. I took weeks to build up the courage to give it to you. And I almost did…
And then I found out that the reason WE were doing so much better in the bedroom, the reason you were so much happier and more energetic, was because of a man you worked with… were becoming involved with. I found a love letter you’d written. TO HIM. About how much you liked him, and respected him, and even loved him. About how you felt about him the way I feel about you. About how you were glad he was working on his own marriage, and sorry for “letting it go so far”.
Over the past year and half, we’ve been to counseling. We’ve worked out why you did it, we’re communicating, we’re honest with each other, we’ve worked past the affair and we’re doing better than ever. We’re back to the marriage we should have had. You didn’t fuck him, so that helps, and everything you’ve done to rebuild the trust has worked. I trust you again. You’re more loving to me than you’ve ever been… it’s everything I wanted. Before your affair.
The problem is, the problem that I can’t tell you about, is that you broke me. I no longer see you as ‘one IN a million’… I see you as ‘one OF a thousand’. I think you’re just like every other girl out there. I don’t think you’re any better (or worse) than any other girl I’ve ever dated. You’re… just another woman. When I see your flaws now, I see them for what they are. Flaws. You’re older now. You have wrinkles, and the firmness of youth is leaving you. Your ass has started to drop – it’s still a great ass, but it’s not the ass you had when we met, and it doesn’t hold the same fascination it did for me just 2 years ago. It’s not magical. Your insecurities about your *impressive* intellect isn’t as endearing to me as it used to be. Your insight into world affairs, relationships, the conversations we have… they’re still great conversations but they don’t grab me the way they used to. I see the flaws in your arguments and they’re no longer cute, or interesting, or unique. The pedestal I had you on has been destroyed. I try to see it again, I try to remember what it was about you that made me lightheaded, and I feel like a fool. I feel like a I was a lovesick boy who was crushed by his infatuation. I try to maintain in my mind and heart that you are my prize, my ‘trophy wife’ as I used to tease you, but you aren’t. Cheating on me, with him, turned you from the living statue of Venus in my heart to a cheap plaster knock off on a shelf. I’m embarrassed that I held you in such high regard when you so easily pushed me aside, for him.
I know why you did it. I know, and have always known that you are a little broken in matters of the heart. I know what your childhood did to you, and I know you didn’t mean it, didn’t mean to hurt me, and I totally understand how you let yourself get involved with him. And why. I KNOW how what I did hurt you even when I didn’t know I was hurting you. But it doesn’t change how I feel now.
I still love you. I still have a family with you, children I love (at least as much as I used to love you) and a house, and a life with you that I hope lasts for the rest of our lives. But I don’t think I will ever love you the way I did before you broke my heart so completely. Before you made me feel so… common to you. Maybe that’s a good thing – I don’t think you were ever comfortable with how much I loved you. But I think you miss it now, I think you can feel it. All I can tell you is that I know that I MISS IT. I miss being ‘that in love’ with you. I just don’t know if those feelings will ever come back. And I can’t tell you this because it would destroy you. You’d leave me to give me a chance to find “it” with someone else, even though I still don’t want “it” with anyone but you. You wouldn’t be able to live with *yourself* knowing what it is that you really broke in me. I know you feel guilty, and I know your ashamed of what you did… and I know you well enough to know that you’d throw “us” away to punish yourself, and you’d tell yourself that you were ‘doing it for me’, because you love me and want me to be ‘completely’ happy. You’d know that you probably won’t ever be able to make me ‘completely happy’ now, and you’d leave US to give me that chance. But that would punish me too. So this time, instead of doing what I would normally do and be honest with you… I’m keeping this secret, and my first letter, to myself. Hoping someday that a even a shadow of it will feel true again.
29 Responses to “ “Wife sold our fairy tale for magic beans”
Leave a Reply
Subscribe
…just beautiful.
I hope it gets better. I really do. x
My goodness, I’m setting here reading…sobbing. I’m sorry. You’ll do what you need to do for yourself and your family, it sounds like your a wonderful man. You deserve a women that loves you back the way you can love. There is someone is out there for you ! Believe me. Someone that takes your breath away …. she may still be the one. Take time, listen to your heart, trust God.
I sit here reading your letter amazed at how you were able to put into words the emotions and feelings that i myself have been trying to understand. A couple of months ago i discovered my husband was e-mailing and talking on the phone with his ex-fiance. They never met up and they didn’t have sex but I still felt horribly betrayed by him. I feel like an emotional relationship with his ex-fiance is worse than a one-night stand with a stranger. To me he was my angel, I relied on him to keep me safe and i never imagined that he was capable of hurting me. I have never thought of myself as a grudgeful person but eventhough I forgave him I cant help but think about him talking to her about how miserable he was with me, and that makes me hostile towards him, and he knows why but he and I dont talk about it in order to avoid yet another argument about the same thing. We have a 2 year old son and I want us to be a family together. Before I found out about his affair I was the same as you, completely and irrevocably in love with him. I never would have even fathomed the thought of cheating on him. I know that even now I would never cheat but not because of him but because i know how that would destroy me as a person. I feel like I still care,just not as much as I use to. I dont want to live without him but I am no longer afraid of loosing him. I dont understand how if you love someone, you can be with another person the same way. Do you ever feel like maybe your wrong and your just over reacting? I feel like that all the time especially when I see him trying really hard to make us work. Sometimes I feel like screaming and asking him why did he have to do this to us. Our marriage is hard to begin with because we got married when we were 19 and I was pregnant. I really hope we can get through this and raise our son together. I wish the same for you and your family. You honestly sound like a one-in-a million man and you deserve to be happy. Your wife and children are very lucky to have you.
Ilove, I don’t question my decision to stay anymore, but there are things you should know. First, it takes 2-5 years to fully recover. Second, it takes 8 months before you should even consider staying. And third, talk about it – don’t avoid the fights. If you don’t fight, you’ll stop talking at all eventually and it will fall apart. So fight. If you can get past the fighting, it’s worth staying. Couseling helps, as do books (read A LOT), but don’t try to bury this. And I’m sorry you know how I feel…
GET A FREAKING GRIP LOSER!!!! She will cheat on you time and again so you need to decide weather or not to drop her like a bad habit or be a cuckold for the rest of your life.
I suspect you like the fact that she is a *****.
That was really hard to read. And even though you’ve never actually put into words to your wife she probably knows. But neither of you will say it. I do hope you can find the happiness again. I’m still crying.
@bugbear – Epic reading FAIL! But thanks for the laugh – & I really did laugh. Out loud. At you.
She cheated on me once in 13 years, so predicting that she will do it again “time and again” is just …idiotic. So maths FAIL.
She didn’t sleep with the guy, she got emotionally involved with him. So that pretty much rules out her being a “whore”, unless your definition of a whore is anyone who develops a crush on another person. So comprehension FAIL (on so many levels!).
A cuckold enjoys it, and I clearly didn’t, so language FAIL.
And finally, you clearly missed *the entire point*. This is about what she destroyed in me, not what she did, will do, or what I should do. Again – total comprehension FAIL.
For someone to so completely fail in 3 sentences, while trolling? … EPIC FAIL. And LULZ.
Exactly! Good for you true-love-traded-for-fun!
Raised arms up, This point’s good!
traded-love-for-fun: I know exactly what you mean. I came into this relationship with him completely new I had never loved anyone before him and I had no prejudice feelings or fears about love or trust or anything. Now im a sarcastic bitch to him because I want to use words to hurt him the way that he hurt me. I question everything he says and I question his love for me. I am afraid I am the one that is not giving us a chance to get through this because I cant stop feeling hurt. Last night I was researching some stuff in our labtop when I came across a question that he had typed on the searcher. It said, “what does a broken condom look like?” I had sex with a stripper how can I get tested for STD?” We dont use condoms and I am no stripper. The day before, I had gone to my parents house to go visit them and stayed there so he called me to tell me he was going to his friends house to go hang out and play xbox or whatever. He called me to check in with me once the whole night and I decided not to call him because I didnt want to nag him or interrupt him. The next day, I swear I could hear something weird in his voice, like he was sad and frustrated about something. Sometimes it scares me that I can tell what he is feeling by hearing his voice and reading him. Its scary how much I know him maybe he is just predictable like that. So when I asked him and he said what are you talking about. Immediatly after those two words I put the way he said it, his facial expressions, body language, and the tone of his voice together and I knew that he was lying to me again. He denied it for like an hour and everytime he tried to tell me that he didnt do anything that he was asking that for a friend I was more and more convinced that he was lying. Finally he told me what happened. He says he was at his friends house drinking and playing xbox then his friend invited more people over. One of them was a girl who happened to be a stripper. The girl came on to him the whole night. then he went to lay down on a room because he was too drunk and wanted to rest and the girl walked in there with a condom and asked him to have sex. He put it on and he almost did it all the way like he was just about to put it in. Then he stopped himself because he kept thinking of me and my son. I dont know how I will ever get over this. It literally physically hurts to even think about him touching another girl lke that or him laying in bed with her. I dont know if this is TMI but I love having sex with him, when we fought we would have sex and I would automatically feel better. I love his hands because their big and I love it when he touches me. It hurts sooo bad to think that he was holding another person. He is supposed to be mine. I am the only person who is supposed to touch him and pleasure him. I will never feel the same way about that again. And that is a really scary and sad thought because i freaking loved it, if anything, other than our son, held us together it was that. I dont know what to do. I am physically exhausted of all this that has happened in this past year. He is really really sorry. He told me that he doesnt know why makes such stupid choices like that. He started to tell me that he feels like a failure because im graduating with my bachelors degree in less than a year and he hasnt done that yet. and that he feels like I dont love him the way that I used to. Its that I dont love him but their are jus so many layers that have been piled on top of that love that its hard to be true with it. It no longer feels natural to run up to him and hug him and kiss him like how I use to do all the time without even thinking about it. After I calmed down and listened to him, he told me that he wants to start fresh and be the people we were before and feel that honest true, bright red love towards each other. I want to do that so bad, you have no clue but it is not so easy to get over this that he has put on me. Im so sorry that I rant. But I think that this is the only place where I can talk about it and your the only person who can relate to me, even a little. Please tell me that it gets better and that it doesnt bother you anymore.
It gets better, but you have to realize that the relationship you had with him is dead and it’s never coming back. You’re starting over in a new relationship with a new man – and it’s not off to a very good start. Go to survivinginfidelity and infidelity.com for help. Great people and they can help you through it. And you’re seriously just getting started.
Also – if he “doesn’t know why he did it” and can’t figure that out… It WILL happen again. That’s why you go to counseling.
wow. i had never thought about it that way. starting a relationship with a new man. thanks i guess i have a long road ahead of me and it might or might not work out but i think its worth the try.
I’m really glad I read this, I feel guilty all the time because I think I kind of know how your wife was feeling, I fell in love with my friend while I was young and going through a lot of things (I was constantly being abused and raped and my older brother died because of my confession) but I fell in love with her. As we were both girls it was hard for me to express it but eventually we became a couple and I was truely happy. She was insecure about our relationship and hated all the secrets I felt I had to keep from her. So I confessed them and she still didn’t want me. After many MANY break and make ups I started talking to some guys from work, and they were all flattering.. I started to wonder if that was a better place for me. The main reason I was interested in them was simply because a NEW PERSON was telling me the same things my wonderful girlfriend told me. But I was too insecure to listen to only her because I knew she loved me and didn’t want to hurt my feelings. So when I heard it from a new person I felt like it was more honest (Realizing now I was SO wrong). I went to a party with them and did a few “substances” eventually having ym state taken advantage of and fooled around with the guys. I want to look for an excuse but I know my girlfriend deserves better. I simply wanted attention, especially attention that I thought was positive. I never intended to get together with them, but I became something of a tease to them and then felt obligated to continue. We worked it out and for a long time she didn’t really love or trust me. And it hurts when we were doing so well finally. But now we both love eachother and hold eachother up onto that pedastal. It takes a while, because people can make the worst mistakes. But if you become understanding, and trust her especially, That pedastal will slowly rise again. Don’t look too deeply into what she’s saying or doing, there’s no secret message. Love her again for what she is, because she’s sorry, and she just wants things back to normal. If it never happens, she’ll cry for no reason, and when you ask her what’s wrong, she truely wont know..
WOW, powerful stuff, that’s amazing, I hope you find happiness. 0_o
ilove, as a guy in his early 20′s, being single and not meeting (single) women with that ‘je nes se qoir’ you portray, and then reading up on your experience (esp. in the same breath as true-love’s), makes me never ever want to cheat.. Ever! I defo Am grateful you shared. Not only i, better understands the cost of infidelity, but many other lurkers here too.
And to think i browsed on here looking for naughtiness! Tisk!
mr true-love-…, would you clarify pls; did she cheat because you unkowingly did something to hurt her?
Ps- in retrospect, what could/ should you have done?
iListen:LOL. I dont think that coming in here looking for naughtiness is a good idea. :)
You mentioned that reading about my experience made you realize that you dont ever want to cheat on a girl. Have you ever cheated on your partner?
Also, i’m glad that you understand how much infidelity hurts. I never imagined ever going through this situation. I have always prided myself for not putting up with s**t from men. I have to be honest though, after I found out about his affairs, I felt free. Like I no longer had to worry about him getting mad at me for having friends that were guys. That would be hypocritical. I use to go to college and I wouldnt let myself become friends with the males of the class. Now, I dont care. I dont cheat, I never have, but a guy who I hadnt seen since I graduated high school was in 2 of my classes. He use to be a football star and I was a volleyball, basketball jock but we never became close friends then. We started to spend a lot of time together but when he started to get too close I began to seperate myself from him. I couldnt cheat even though I kind of wanted to but I knew that I would hate myself for it. Anyway good luck finding a good single girl.
Dragging him into my problems would be selfish. I didnt want him to fall for me because the probobilty was that I would not leave my husband for him. I will never ever be the one that destroys my family and my son’s chance of having a normal life with both of his parents together. Its no use hurting anyone else because hubby and i are having problems. Things get so complicated when somebody cheats especially when their is so much too loose no matter what choice you take. I can stay, but I have to give up my pride and try to piece together the pieces of my broken marriage or I can leave and start all over again from the beginning leaving my son in the middle. I would have to leave him every other sunday at his dads house. I would have to go into the dating world with a son. Its not easy to find a guy my age who wants to date someone with my bagagge. I would have to leave the love of my life behind and deal with him moving on with someone else and i think that would hurt so much.
Ilisten, I guess my last response got moderated (?!)
short version – I hurt her by ignoring her in an attempt to get her to chase me for once. The problem is, she grew up being ignored by her whole family and she only knew one way of dealing with that – by shutting down. But she cheated because she didn’t know how to deal with a man being sexually attracted her without validating his feelings.
To prevent it, know this: If you are talking to someone other than your spouse about things you’re NOT telling your spouse (talking about marital problems, talking about sex, anything), and there’s sexual tension between you and the other person, then you’re almost cheating. If there’s secrecy – you hide anything from your spouse (a phone call, a lunch, a conversation, for ANY reason)… You just started cheating. If my wife had understood that, she would have stopped it long before it became serious.
When it comes infidelity, for some they will not be able to see the impact it causes other than the sexual aspect, however it does far worste when it is not addressed correctly.
First off, I want to say.. Thank you for expressing your feeling so well when you chose the release it to the world.
Like many, I could feel every word.
I too had to deal with this painful descion my girlfreind made, and I would say this, for you get through a devistating and selfish choice, you have to forgive. This was the hardest things I had to come to grips with, becuase I felt as if, I had been sucker punched, and then swept under the rug, more less I felt as if I had know voice.
For the cheater, allot of times, they’d wish for the situation to merely go away as quickly as the discovery has been made. You, have remember that the choice was never about you, so don’t think, allow there actions to burden you down, because, until they see the action’s they’ve committed, you can’t expect them to grow. I learned this, I realized that you can only focus on yourself, even though your heart wish’s for closure, and healing. I can say, I have never cried as much for a person in my life than I have for my lady.
But, it wouldn’t be until I was ready to let my relationship to go, then I would see things start to change. With your higher power grace, and will of a humble heart, I can tell things have done a 360, We are now closer than we’ve ever been. Now, I will say this, I have forgotten, the pain has been replaced with focus, and true compassion.
I had to also change as well, I had to look at the factors, on why the descion was made to entertain such a negative choice, after I made the discovery I then started my person healing process.
Remember the choice cheater is ,and never will be about you, however they will try to convince you it was, this is only smoke and mirror’s to take the focus off them. Once the pain has subsided, you need to make time for yourself, it will hard to do at first but it will benefit you in the long run.
Find the things that brought a smile to your heart, back into focus. I believe God has the choice the repair, or move what is not ment for you, and he know what’s best.
As for my situtation, we are looking to get married next year. She understands that I choose to make the relationship work, and I am sincere about this decsion; However, she also realized I will not entertain this ever again. I explained anything worth value in one’s life is worth defending, I chose to fight for my relationship, and therefore made my voice, and action heard, in turn let God handle it all.
So far, everything seems to be on course, and as long as I know I’e done my best, I peace of mind.
wow, i only thought about cheating when i knew he was, and when he started ignoring me. now he is trying so hard to make it better but, im just so confused.
I was browsing the web trying to find any articles to help me get over what my husband did to me (while he was my fiance), and I came upon this page, and I am still sitting here crying as I type this because I know exactly how you feel. It is as if you took the pages of my journal and posted them here.
When I met my man, I had been hurt so many times and had my heart ripped out so many times before that I was at the point I did not even believe in love anymore. I was going around trying my hardest to fill in this void in my life and I was doing so many awful and shameful things. Then I met him, and he saw past my issues, past my pain, past my issues of having a mental disorder. He loved ME. He wanted ME. I could see the looks of adoration in his eyes, and as I got to know him more I fell in love with him even more. I told him everything, shared with him my deepest and darkest thoughts, my dreams and desires. He was my heart. He was my soul. He was my EVERYTHING. He made me believe in love again, and what’s more, he made me FEEL love again as I had never felt in my life. I trusted him completely and blindly and I now know I was foolish for doing so. I felt for him everything you stated above that you felt for your wife. All of his flaws were perfection in my eyes… every word golden.
We spent so much time together, never wanted to be apart. We hung out with our friends together, and I thought our life was amazing and I was so comfortable and I felt so safe. He was, afterall, my knight in shining armor. We went to his work’s Halloween party at this local club they rented out for the night. I was hanging out outside on the deck with his friend’s girlfriends, while he was inside hanging with his friends. We were both madly drunk, went home, and nothing was ever said about that night again.
A whole year and a half passed by, and this girl he works with that I was kind of friends with requests me as a friend on myspace, so I added her. A few days later I have a message from her telling me to go look at her album from the Halloween party because there were some pictures of me that she thought I might want to save.
Then my world came crashing down.
I found pictures of him with other women… but the one that got to me was him sitting there getting a lap dance from her, her bare ass in his face, and his hand on her ass.
And it hurts because this girl was “like a sister to him” he was “not attracted” to her at all and “didn’t see her like that”
But you know what hurt me the most? The look on his face.
He was looking at her with this look that I had never seen from him before. He has never once looked at me like that. It hurt and burned my heart completely. I felt horrible and betrayed.
I confronted him about it… and he even had the audacity to tell me that it never happened and the picture “must be photoshopped” because he would never do that to me.
Yes, because the high school drop out waitress with a bastard child and no money has so much financial freedom to afford photoshop, oh not to mention that the “little genius” wouldn’t even know how to run the program.
So I asked her about it… and the idiot didn’t even know what photoshop was!
I love him with all of my heart.
I can’t even picture my life without him… not even now. But the hurt is driven into my very soul. I can’t even look at him the same way. And it hurts worse to know that I wasn’t even worth the truth. Most people would probably not even get mad over this. But my whole life has been destroyed.
I have had self-consciousness issues all of my life, but this drove the nail in the board.
I HATE myself. I can’t even look in the mirror anymore.
I can’t look at him the same way I saw him. He is a stranger to me!
Now, I don’t even want to have sex with him anymore. I feel so emotionally disconnected from him. I only have sex with him because I know men “need” it, and only in the foolish hopes that if I continue then he wont look for it elsewhere. I hate having sex now. I feel disgusting. I’m not into it now, and all I want to do is cry.t
In fact, I spend the majority of my alone time in tears because I cannot move past this and I cannot stop hurting. I wake up every day to a person who I don’t even know anymore.
I feel our love is tarnished and ugly. I don’t feel safe anymore. I don’t feel beautiful. I don’t feel like the woman of his dreams anymore. I can’t get the image from my head. Everytime I see him, that picture flashes before my eyes and it is everything I can do to hold back my tears. I put on a smile and fake happiness only to not hurt him. And how funny it is that after all that has been said and done I still cannot hurt him because I could never do that to him. I could never destroy his feelings as he found it so easy to destroy my own feelings and throw them away.
(here is a part even more saddening, she still works with him, and I have to see her EVERY SINGLE DAY)
It hurts so much to know that all of our friends knew. They were all laughing about me behind my back. I am nothing but a joke now.
I lost all of my friends.
I lost my security.
I lost my faith in love.
I lost my future.
I lost my respect and reputation.
There is so much to say… and I can’t say it all.
I still love him with all of my heart.
My love has not changed, but my heart has.
My knight in shining armor turned out to be a vicious monster in disguise.
LeeLee_s… I have those kinds of pictures too, in costumes even.
Don’t hide your feelings from him. Don’t let him lie to you (photo shopped my ass). Don’t have sex with him if you don’t want to. Tell him how it makes you feel, and why. This is not your fault. And if he loves you (and I suspect he does) he needs to do what it takes to restore the trust.
There’s so much more I want to tell you about how to get to a better place (it is possible), but things tend to get moderated here. So search for infidelity websites and go there, read, and get help. You may not ever get your knight in shining armor back (obviously I didn’t with my wife, and don’t think I can), but you can ‘get over it’ and be happy again. With work, and a lot of it, you can trust him again – but that’s up to him.
i stumbled upon this while using my lurking skillz in the net and this has really gained my interest.
i get cheating but people who cheat should also get the word commitment first
i understand the OP’s feelings abt his wife now, though i also get how his wife may have resulted to cheating. it’s not entirely because of the husband’s fault, but most of the time it’s a personal struggle of whatever.
at least that’s what i have observed. all the more reasons why i have to avoid marriage and commitment.
You made a solid 36 year old man cry…. i thought you wrote what I could not say word for word…..
I wish you all the best
I fell in love with what you wrote. For some reason, what you wrote slightly broke my heart for you. I was moved near tears……
The sentiment you had of your wife prior to the affair was beautiful,any woman would love to be loved that hard.
But you put her on a pedestal and forgot she was human.You wanted her to be a flawless machine,and perhaps she decided that she was exhausted by living up to your standards.
It was bound to happen.If it wasn’t an affair that disillusioned you it would have been something else.Your wife is human.
You don’t really love her the way you wanted her to think you did,otherwise you wouldn’t have gone from complete obscession to devaluation after all she’s tried to do to make your marriage real..not plastic,not a goddess,but a flesh-and-blood woman who needs the comfort of you accepting that she will mess up and that you give her the freedom to.
… wait, what?
Note: you couldn’t be farther off about why she did it; we dealt with why in therapy, but it had nothing to do with being ‘exhausted living up to my standards’ (it had nothing to do with me at all). I think you’re projecting your own situation…
I went from ‘complete obsession to devaluation’ because she lied to me and cheated on me. I don’t think that’s really a stretch to figure out. But I really don’t get what you mean by “after all she’s tried to do to make [our] marriage real”. She cheated on me. How does that make our marriage “real”? That pretty much, by definition, makes it NOT a marriage. ??
Finally… are you really suggesting that I ‘give her the freedom’ to cheat on me? That I should accept her having relationships behind my back? That if I “really loved her” as much as I say I did, that I should, somehow, be OK with it?
Susie, I think you’re confused. And probably a little sick in the head.