Whether it is me traveling or my FWS, solo overnight trips still cause me a lot of anxiety. A few months after our D-Day I had to fly across the country on a business trip, leaving my wife at home alone for a week with our youngest child (high school age). The OM knows where we live, but has no way of knowing when I am away because we are absolutely NC with him. Nevertheless, it was difficult leaving my wife alone for a week just a few months after D-Day. I also worried that my brain would start dwelling in bad places without daily conversation to remind me that there is much more to my wife, and our relationship, than her long ago (but only recently revealed) affair. So I took along about a dozen readings and poems on love and marriage from a variety of sources. Then I e-mailed one to her each night from the hotel room along with some brief comments. She would read them and send comments back to me that night or the next morning. It helped keep me in a positive frame of mind and we both enjoyed the subject matter.
We both found one of the readings to be especially timely. I have pasted it below because I think it may resonate with many of you as well. Note that Anne Morrow Lindbergh was the wife of Charles Lindbergh, and an impressive lady in her own right. Unfortunately, she and Charles had their own marital difficulties, to include affairs on both sides. You can probably sense some of that in these words.
Best of luck and happiness to you all,
W1
EXCERPT FROM "THE GIFT FROM THE SEA"
~ By Anne Morrow Lindbergh ~
"When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom, in the sense that the dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same pattern.
The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides."
I have been following your posts both here and on Open. I have wanted to write to you but have been too busy. I am choosing Readings for a family members forth coming wedding.
THAT is the reading I have just chosen!!! I was going to post it here too because it so describes Healing lessons!!!
Some of what I have wanted to say to you is WELCOME, it saddens me when a new member arrives, but it also gives me hope. Hope that we can continue to learn from one another and grow in healing.
I have been here for 10 years...and because of my much loved friends here have learned about love and healing. I want to tell you I have also learned from your writings. I find you very wise and a welcome addition to our family.
My husband was my best friend and the love of my life. He felt the same way about me. To quickly sum up our history, he had four affairs over a 30 year period. All for sex, all because he thought I would never find out. To say I thought I would die would be an understatement. I never thougth I would stay with him and I never thought he would betray me. Today I am proud to say my husband has worked harder than ever in his life to learn WHY he did what he did and how to do all can to make our marraige better and stronger.
The answer was it was something missing in him. It had NOTHING to do with us or me. According to our wonderful therapist he would have done this no matter who he had married. It took me years of reading every book possible, writing here for 10 years and endless questioning of my husband. I have learned in all my years here that when ever a former betrayer writes here to help us learn the problem is as Dr. Shirley Glass wrote in "Not Just Friends' it is NOT because they were not getting enough, it was because they were not GIVING enough". The betrayer is missing something. They chose to find that missing piece by having an affair. This is not the fault of the loving mate, but the unbelievable choice of the betrayer. The betrayed did nothing wrong but love. The betrayer needs to learn the WHY, and this takes lots of hard work and self introspection. Then the betrayed has choices to make. All this hard work takes a long long time.
I just want to (quickly?) say that you fit so well into our healing family and I look forward to our reading many of your posts and sharing healing together. This is a wonderful place where loving life time friendships are made. As I took a break from my readings, I came here to see this post, and had to say WELCOME you have truly touched my heart.
Note: I initially fouled up and unintentionally submitted this as a new post. Since it doesn't make sense out of context, I am resubmitting it where it belongs, in the original thread.
EL and Lynda:
Thanks much for the kind words. The wonderful people who dwell in this forum have already done a great deal to help me along in the healing process.
My FWS and I just had another great weekend together exploring swimming holes in a nearby river. Maybe that is what caused me to think of Anne's Gift from the Sea passage. After the joys of our highs, I tend to "resist in terror" the ebbs.
Today I find myself dwelling on some things my wife said Friday night when our conversation somehow turned to her missing the outdoors when she strayed so many years ago. (The OM is into hunting and fishing.) Details of the conversation are already a bit fuzzy. But I believe she said something about wanting to put more of the outdoors and nature back in her life back then. It wasn't so much the idea of her missing nature that caught my ear. (I felt the same way back then. We were far from home.) What bugged me was the idea of her thinking that a clandestine meeting for a couple of days with an old boyfriend could put anything back in her life. I asked her, as non-threateningly as I could, how she thought such a meeting could possibly fill that gap if she never intended to launch into a prolonged affair, let alone abandon her family. I think she instantly regretted her words and started showing the all too familiar signs of an anxiety attack. She also once again explained that she has a very difficult time remembering, let alone understanding, her thought processes so long ago. So we changed the subject and went on with our weekend.
I know from long experience that my wife's memory can indeed be spotty. But I am coming to believe that memory lapses are only part of the reason for her inability to answer some of my questions in any detail. She has trouble explaining her actions back then (over a decade ago) for the same reason teenagers so often cannot explain why they did something wrong. She really did not reason her way through her actions or their possible consequences. She knew what she wanted to do in the near term, but did not think much about where she wanted or expected her near term actions to lead (or where things might lead if she lost control of the situation). I think she is also reluctant to answer some questions because she fears the answers will hurt me, and because it is humiliating now to admit what motivated her actions back then.
Fortunately, over the past few months my wife has offered enough information for me to understand the things she is so reluctant to talk about. Although I prefer to think of what happened as a clandestine meeting with a former boyfriend that got out of hand, the truth is that my wife allowed herself to be drawn into an emotional affair with her ex-fiancé from high school. She most regrets the emotional affair. And I find her residual feelings for an ex-fiance easier to accept than her willingness to get naked with him (and then spend two days together once the barriers had fallen). We all view things through our own filters.
In any case, the conversation last Friday did not drag me back into a deep dark place. Nor has my processing of it yesterday and today. Instead, it just got me thinking of Anne's words and the hard-earned wisdom behind them.
Your further explanation is very illuminating. I have been struggling with my husband's "memory lapses." I felt like he was intentionally lying, but you have put it into perspective:
"She has trouble explaining her actions back then (over a decade ago) for the same reason teenagers so often cannot explain why they did something wrong. She really did not reason her way through her actions or their possible consequences. She knew what she wanted to do in the near term, but did not think much about where she wanted or expected her near term actions to lead (or where things might lead if she lost control of the situation). I think she is also reluctant to answer some questions because she fears the answers will hurt me, and because it is humiliating now to admit what motivated her actions back then. "
I never thought of it that way, so thanks! It's helpful.
Adolescent-like reasoning may be even truer of your husband than of my wife. I think males are on average a bit better at rationalizing and compartmentalizing their thinking. But it would probably be difficult for anyone, or female, to recount the kind of twisted logic (or suspension of thinking) needed to justify such despicable acts years (or even days) later.
In my case, it has been helpful to know that my wife really hates lying for any reason. (She always felt guilty for letting our children believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny.) She says she had long ago resolved to confess if I ever asked her about affairs or infidelity. (Of course, I never would have asked her because it was inconceivable to me that she ever would stray.) Since d-day she has answered all of my direct questions and even volunteered key facts (such as the fact that she had reluctantly consented to impromptu sex with her ex-lover twice many years prior to the incident revealed on d-day). Because some of these revelations might not otherwise have come to light, and because some of the answers were very aggravating to me (such as the fact that they had sex more than once after that barrier had fallen), I am confident that I now know all the most important facts.
However, I dont believe Ill ever know everything that was in her heart and mind when she decided to meet with the OM so many years ago. I know she still loved me and our kids. I know she had no intention of leaving us. And I know from her words and actions (such as checking into a hostel without private rooms) that she did not plan on the encounter turning sexual. But I dont know if she intended that long ago encounter to be the first of many. She says she cant recall thinking beyond that first meeting. She may be telling the truth. Or she may believe the answer is too painful for me, and too damaging to our relationship, to be worth revealing. At this point, it doesnt much matter to me. The important part is that she came to her senses, left earlier than she had to, and came home determined to do everything necessary to find happiness in her own marriage and family.
Of course, my inner doubts still sometimes compel me to probe for any remaining bombshells. And I pay a little more attention than necessary to her phone calls, e-mails, and whereabouts. But I offer no apology for that, and she expects none. We both know that too shall pass.
