If you are reading this, it is quite likely you have recently become aware of your partner’s infidelity. You have my heartfelt sympathy and my understanding. I know all too well what it feels like because I’ve been there. I’m not sure if hearing my story will help you or not. I know I was desperate to talk with someone who had come through what I experienced so I’m writing this to, in some small way, let you know you are not alone and, despite how devastated you feel, that there is hope.

Saturday, February 14, 2009 will be a day I remember forever. I learned that my husband of 36 years had had a three month affair. The other woman’s name was Nicol. She was a housekeeper in a hotel in which my husband stayed while he conducted business in a distant community. For whatever reason, her needs (she is also married with two small children) drove her to come-on to a man old enough to be her father. He submitted to her come-on and the affair continued for his next few business trips. Nicol ended the affair when her husband inadvertently discovered one of my husband’s emails to her. Her husband called me and asked why my husband was sending his wife emails. I confronted my husband and he admitted to the affair. He tells me this is the only time he has ever strayed and I believe him.

​

I knew I was not going to get through the devastation I felt without help. We had no idea how to find a marriage counsellor other than looking in the Yellow Pages. We believed the chances of finding a counsellor on a Saturday (and Valentine’s Day) were little to none. My husband called the number of a counsellor who specialized in Couples Therapy, expecting to get voicemail. She doesn’t normally work on Saturdays and even less frequently answers her phone when she is in on a weekend. This day she was there and she answered. Bless her, she sensed our desperation and agreed to see us that afternoon for two hours. We cancelled our Valentine’s Dinner reservation and, instead, entered couples counselling for infidelity.

​

To say that I was blind sided by this affair is an understatement. We were, I thought, still very much in love, still held hands when out walking, still celebrated Valentine’s Day. While no marriage is without its problems, we always wondered why people said marriage was such hard work. To us, it was easy. We’d raised two well adjusted kids and were now enjoying them as adults. We were loving being grandparents to our five grandkids. My career had ended two years previous to the affair when I retired from my profession. He was enjoying the last two years of his career, in business for himself. Granted, he had ramped up his work schedule to maximize his earnings so his scheduled retirement date of his sixtieth birthday could be kept. But, he was working with people he liked, doing work that he excelled at. So why did this happen now?

​

I’ve long held an assumption similar, I think, to that held by many people. That is, if someone is having an affair, they are getting something in the affair they are not getting at home. Sounds reasonable. So, of course when I learned of his infidelity, I immediately blamed myself. What was he seeking from her that he wasn’t getting from me?? Indeed, when I sought out assistance for my anxiety and sleeplessness from my physician, he recommended that I purchase Dr. Laura’s book on the Care and Feeding of Husbands to try and answer that question. I later told him he had given me bad advice and that his suggesting I was somehow at fault had not been at all helpful and, in fact, undid some of the work our counsellor was doing with me.

​

I agonized over all the things I had done or not done that caused him to cheat. I asked myself if I should consider getting plastic surgery. Like most 57-year old women, gravity takes its toll and maybe he hated my wrinkles (I know that I didn’t like them but had accepted them gracefully until this happened). Of course I wondered if I was too fat. We’d both recently dropped our extra pounds that had accumulated over the years. I was feeling great about myself and had just bought the first two-piece bathing suit I’d worn in 25 years! Maybe it was the sex? I was through menopause but still had a healthy sexual appetite. I had suggested that we might like to spice things up a bit in the bedroom and we’d gone off to the local romance shop. Lubrication works wonders and I was enjoying buying sexy new underwear for my trimmer body. We had started to do things to add more romance to our lives. Where on earth had I gone wrong? What more did he need from me? News of the affair and the endless self questioning caused my self esteem to plummet.

I don’t remember too much about our initial session with our counsellor that day other than how it ended. She offered us a book to read called “After the Affair” by Janis Abrahms Spring. I started to cry and clearly remember it was only at that point I was truly absorbing the reality of the fact that my husband had had an affair, he had actually cheated on me, he had violated his marriage vows.

Over the next few months, our counselling continued, we read Spring’s book and many more. We did our counselling homework and talked, talked, talked. We realized we hadn’t been truly talking in recent years but had led parallel lives – comfortable but not truly “connected”. With our counsellor’s help, we started to learn about ourselves. We explored our families of origin and the family rules we’d been taught. We learned that both of us had not dealt well with our feelings. He, the constant critic and cynic, had hidden his lack of self worth with a confident veneer, not ever admitting he had feelings even to himself. We learned from our counsellor that unfelt feelings have a way of coming out sideways, in his case, the affair. He continues in individual therapy, dealing with his issues.

Me, well, I had feelings but didn’t think I could express them because “expressing feelings just demonstrates weakness”. So, those feelings got pushed down. I rarely cried and judged those who did. I certainly didn’t share my feelings with him because I thought I’d be judged or didn’t believe he could handle them. All of these things that we kept to ourselves were, in essence, secrets by omission. How could we have a true marriage if we didn’t share these parts of ourselves with each other? One of the ways he was able to continue the affair was in believing that what I didn’t know wouldn’t hurt me. Secrecy can be insidious – if you practise it in one area, it is so much easier to practise it in another.

I have also worked with the counsellor on what she called my “taking the affair personally”. Man, the first time she asked why I was taking the affair personally, was I ticked! Of course, it’s personal! My husband had sex with another woman. My husband lied to me. What isn’t personal about that?? Essentially, though, she was asking why I thought it was about me? I was not there when he made the decision. I was not asked what my opinion was when he made the decision. In fact, I was purposely left out of the decision. By keeping the affair secret, my husband stole my right to have a part in the decision. I was not given the opportunity to fix something that needed fixing. Yes, I was partly responsible for those things in our marriage that could use improvement but he and he alone, made the decision to be unfaithful. The decision was all about him and his needs. The truth is, when it comes right down to it, we are all responsible for meeting our own needs. If he chose to have an affair to validate his sense of self worth rather than sharing his insecurities with me, that was his issue. How could that be my fault? Sure, I had every right to feel hurt and angry. I also needed to question if this was the person I wished to be married to but I absolutely needed to get past my thinking it was my fault. And, no, I never did read Dr. Laura’s book on care and feeding of husbands.

I’m not going to be glib. It wasn’t like a light went on and I instantly believed that I had nothing to do with the affair. I’ve spent a lifetime thinking the actions and reactions of other people were related to something I’ve done or not done. I am unlearning this thinking one day at a time. I am also learning to identify my feelings and letting myself feel them. I cry often and let the tears flow. Even if I think that sharing my feelings might add to my husband’s guilt, hurt, anger or remorse, I hear a little voice that sounds a lot like our counsellor’s, saying, “You are not responsible for the reactions of others.” So, after a period of hesitation that is getting shorter and shorter, I do share my feelings, good or bad. He is trying very hard to do the same. It’s not always easy, often it is very uncomfortable. But, what we are both finding is when we do this, we process what is causing the feelings and we continue our healing.

​

As another Valentine’s Day has come and gone, I reflect over this past year. I didn’t like the experience and wouldn’t want to go through it again. I don’t like the hurt but it is lessening. I do like who we are becoming as individuals and as a couple. I know that I want to be married forever to him. I love him with all my heart but I actually like him a lot more now than I did a year ago. Heck, I even like me more than I did.

​

In reading my story, I hope you can take a lesson from what I have learned - do not assume that a cheated-on spouse is to blame for an affair. The unfaithful partner always has the choices offered by free will. But also understand that an affair, although painful, can lead to huge personal growth and much greater intimacy in a marriage. Later this year we will be recommitting to our marriage vows. You may be asking why I think he will remain faithful this time. I’d like to be able to say his fidelity doesn’t matter to me but it does. However, we are both different people now and are choosing monogamy as a commitment to ourselves not to each other. It’s pretty difficult to cheat on yourself.

​

Family and friends who have supported us during this difficult time are planning to be at our recommitment ceremony. I hope you will send positive thoughts in our direction on that date as we really need all the help we can get. We now believe that an intimate marriage is very hard work!

 

 

 

 

On the day before Valentine’s Day my wife confronted me about my affair. A week earlier, she had learned of this when the other woman’s husband discovered our e-mails and phoned our home. When he called, my wife was not feeling well and passed the phone to me. I said it was a crank call and hoped that would be the end of it. However, over the next few days I decided that, if confronted, I would tell the truth and face the consequences.

​

When I confessed, my wife was absolutely devastated and hurt beyond what I could have imagined. That she still hurts now, 14 months later, tells me the depth of the pain that I caused her.

​

It was never my intention to hurt my wife. She is wonderful, in every important respect I can name. I didn’t know at the time why I entered into an extramarital affair (I do, now) but it certainly wasn’t to hurt, or to punish her. I loved her then and do so now, even more.

My wife told me on Valentine’s Day, a Saturday, that there was no way she would be able to get through the hurt without help. Like many guys, I thought we could just get over it by ourselves. I hadn’t even considered counselling as a possibility, as I never thought that exploring my inner self was something I would want to do.

​

Where does one look for this kind of help? The Yellow Pages listed a number of counsellors, only one of whom described her practice in a way that appealed to us. Although it was a Saturday morning, I picked up the phone and dialled.

​

She normally isn’t in her office on Saturdays and normally doesn’t answer phone calls when she is in on weekends, but when Virginia, the counsellor, answered all I could say was, “I have had an affair and we need help.” She agreed to see us that day, for two hours.

That was the beginning of a journey that my wife and I started together and will continue forever. But it wasn’t easy for the first months. I had betrayed her and she was angry and hurt. There were times when she cried with unbelievable sorrow. In turn, I felt guilty and ashamed.

​

To say that this was hard on my self respect is an understatement. I never did have a solid sense of self worth, and the consequences of the affair only brought on further self judgment. At times I hated myself as much as she did. She wrote down the thoughts she had that caused her pain, and I will list her words here:

• The knowledge that the man I thought you were, wasn’t. You were willing to lie to me and betray me to get your own needs (known or understood, or not) met.

• The knowledge that when I was kissing you goodbye as you left for business trips, you weren’t sad at leaving me (as I was at you leaving) but that you were happily anticipating being with her again.

• You knowingly risked our marriage. You said to the other woman that you didn’t want to ruin your marriage but you went ahead anyway.

• The knowledge that when I commented one time after sex, “You’ve been practising!” you were lying there knowing that statement to be true.

• The knowledge that you told another woman you loved her. Even though you say now this was said to her because she wanted to hear it, I always thought I would be the only woman you’d ever say that to.

• Knowing that you were communicating with the other woman from our home and from our vacation home in Hawaii. Knowing that you communicated, “I miss you, I want you” to her.

• Knowing that you felt more virile and stud-like with another woman because she was multi-orgasmic and feeling threatened because I cannot “be” this for you.

• Knowing that you continued the affair even though you knew it was wrong.

• Knowing that you rejected me when you told me to not come with you on a business trip because I would come between you and the other woman.

• Knowing that when I was at a family birthday, you were with her every morning, getting your sick needs met.

• Knowing that on the trip during which you had to stay over the weekend, I was worried and concerned about your loneliness and you were not at all lonely but having sex with her every day and because it was the weekend, she could afford more time with you.

• Not knowing for certain if what we are working toward will be enough to replace what I feel I have lost.

• You knowingly exposed me to a sexually-transmitted disease, potentially life threatening.

• Knowing that I trusted you with my heart and you broke it without a second thought. You had the chance to resist and you didn’t.

 

It never would have occurred to me that any of this was very important. Again, like most guys, I was good at compartmentalizing my life and the events that occurred during my affair. I thought it was just a matter of me having had sex with another woman.

I was embarrassed that I never considered the possibility that I would contract a sexually-transmitted disease from the other woman. My wife insisted I be tested – a four month process as testing for HIV must wait for three months and results aren’t available for a month after that. I had to hide my embarrassment as blood tests were taken and the lab tech looked over the doctor’s requisition for testing for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhoea and the human papilloma virus (HPV) that can result in cervical cancer. It hurts me now to know that I did endanger my wife’s health and, potentially, her life.

​

Our conversations were often verbal sparring matches as she called me a lot of names and described the many ways the aspects of my affair hurt her and I tried to fend off the verbal attacks. Most often, I would take the hits, knowing I deserved everything she said. The hurt and anger were a regular occurrence and, after a while, I would say to myself, “Here we go again. Better just buck up and prepare yourself.”

​

With Virginia’s help, insights, and sometimes tough probing, for the first time in my life I learned about feelings and what was driving me to behave the way I did, with respect to my marriage, my affair and other areas of my life. I examined my experiences growing up; the lessons I learned from my parents and how these shape me, even 40 years later. Virginia lent us books to read (we ended up buying copies for ourselves and have read and re-read them) that described our situation with eerie accuracy and offered starting points for the work we had in front of us, individually and as a couple.

​

And work we did. Beginning from our first session on Valentine’s Day, I knew that counselling was what was needed and that it would be helpful. I knew that if I wanted to save my marriage and my self respect I would have to work like I have never done before and learn to understand my feelings (I first had to understand that I had feelings! Given the tears I had shed since, I guess I do.) The hardest part was confronting who I was and how I have behaved throughout my life. This was a new skill for me and lead to the awareness I needed to change who I was, to be a better person and husband, someone who I could respect and my wife would commit to.

At one point early on, I wanted my wife to commit to our relationship. I didn’t want to be working hard if she wasn’t committed. In fact she was working through her own feelings of uncertainty at the time and wondering if she could work hard without knowing if it would even be worthwhile. An e-mail exchange with Virginia helped us to both realize that life has risks and that sometimes we just have to work toward an uncertain future.

​

We learned a lot about how couples interact, why we take positions with each other. We learned that some conflicts are inevitable, but we learned how to go through conflict and to grow closer as a result. We don’t fear conflicts any longer.

Next month, my wife and I are holding a marriage recommitment ceremony. I asked her to marry me again, and she agreed. From where I am now, 14 months later, I know that my learning and growth will be life long. I know who I can become and what I must do to get there. I know why I got into the affair and what I must do to avoid this in the future. I know why I love my wife and why I need to love myself, too.

​

If you are reading this, it is likely that you have had an affair or are considering marital counselling. My advice? Do it with an open mind about yourself. Be willing to find out who you really are and how this plays out in a relationship. Be prepared for some really tough encounters as you confront your actions, motives and feelings. Be prepared to shed tears when you find the answers to some of the questions you will be asked or will ask of yourself.