My husband has struggled the last couple of days, I can feel it, and it’s been hard to be around him.
Funny when I’m the one struggling I don’t think of how hard it is for him to watch me walk around sad (I do think of him, but it’s an after thought as I deal with my demons). I’d honestly rather be the one who is sad. I know how to fix that, how to deal with it, but him being sad is hard. I have asked him about it, and I have let it go because he hasn’t wanted to talk about it, then me being me, I brought it up again.
I have issues letting things go, with wanting to fix things, to make people happy. Sometimes I think it’s why this last year has been especially hard on me, I don’t do sad, or conflict, I thrive in happy and peaceful. Don’t laugh at me and ask “Well don’t all people Kelly?” Have you not been reading my blog? No some people like the dark, the sadness, it’s where they thrive, they find their next victim…my husband isn’t one of those people, the dark place he lived in for two years nearly destroyed him, at least every part of him I knew. The man who lived there I didn’t know, and the brief times I’ve seen “that man”? I don’t want to know him, let alone be married to him and raise my kids with him. If he was the man who was left, I would have taken my kids and ran…Ran far, far away…I don’t like him.
I have found my husband there in the dark though, and have at times carried him out, I refused to leave him there a year ago, even when he tried to force me to, I’m kind of stubborn. He is a better man today, but he doesn’t see it most days when he looks in the mirror. It honestly breaks my heart, even when I hate him.
He turned 40 this last week too, he has a birthday 3 days before mine, and it has made him sad. He isn’t sad because he is afraid of aging or because he is afraid of me not loving him (well maybe a little)…I think he is sad because he feels like all he accomplished the last 40 years is nullified because of how bad he screwed up his life the two years of the affair. I know he is sad because he wants a “do over”.
I wish I could laugh at the irony of him wanting more than anything to go back and change what he has done, and here I sit the one who he broke, and I wouldn’t go back if he begged me to. He freely made his choices and he regrets them, I was the “victim” (yes it kills me to write that word) and I wish my kids hadn’t been hurt, but I love the man, the husband, who stands beside me now. I have made peace with my new life, and wouldn’t go back even on my sad days.
He wants the girl back he fell in love with 20 years ago, the one who sang in the mornings as she was getting ready, and giggled till she got the hiccups…then complained about the hiccups, then would start giggling again…she would ask random questions like a little kid…”What’s that box on the back of the semi for? Why is the dirt red? (I had never seen red dirt till moving to Oklahoma), Why do they kill the coyotes? (I get it now, still don’t like it) Why do you break the ice on the pond? Why does your Dad kill all the wildflowers in his fields? (I still wish he’d leave me a little patch of weeds)…I had a million questions through the last 20 years, he wants her back. The sad part is, I don’t know if she will ever fully come back, for a while I thought all parts of her were gone.
He misses her…kind of like the old song lyrics “Don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone”? He lives with the regret of not knowing what he had till he lost it, and then when he found it again? It was broken into a million pieces…he sits alone in the dark quietly a lot, with a glue gun, and a box full of pieces, trying to fit them back together…I don’t know if I would have the patience to try, I hate puzzles, but there he sits, sometimes burning his fingers, always covered in glue, trying…day after day…to make her whole.
I was thrown a surprise party Saturday for my birthday, I have these people in my life who stinking love me beyond any reason I might have given them, and they refused to let the day go by without acknowledging it…the people in my life are kind of stubborn too. He helped them plan it, and made sure I got there on time, but sat across the room by his parents while I was surrounded by a crowd of people. I watched him through the night, I’m not stupid I know sitting among people who love me has to be hard for him, they know he hurt me…Hell almost destroyed me…and it can’t be easy to sit among them. My family and friends still love him, but they hate his actions, the choices he made. They don’t judge him, otherwise they wouldn’t still be in my life…have I mentioned somehow I was blessed to be surrounded by amazing people? I think being around them made him see the hurt of the last year again…every laugh, every hug, every picture I took with my family and friends…was a reminder to him of the woman he almost lost.
He told me Saturday as we sat at my kitchen counter, him trying to talk me into going out, and me refusing to go sit down somewhere to celebrate my birthday
“I’m sorry you know,” he said softly taking my hand, “for everything I’ve put you through. For the last year, and all the pain I caused you.”
“I know and that’s what makes it so stinking sad,” I squeezed his hand, ” I wish you weren’t sorry, I wish you had done it because you loved her, and you were at least happy, then I’d understand. I could take the pain if at least you were happy.” I made him cry and it wasn’t what I wanted, but by this time I was crying too.
“I love you Kelly”
He does you know…and I love him and that’s what makes it all so sad. He’s worth saving, not all men are, not all people who have affairs are worth the hurt of saving your marriage, but I’m glad I didn’t leave him there in the dark, and I hope I can help him embrace the present and stop reliving the mistakes of his past. A person who feels the guilt and struggles with his conscious should get a second chance at happiness. I know in my heart if he ever finishes putting all the pieces back together, he will never take me for granted again.
Yesterday I giggled at a random thing (can’t even remember what was funny) but I remember how he looked over at me and smiled…”What?” I asked…
”
Nothing…I just like hearing you laugh” was his reply.
“Come just as you are to me
Don’t need apologies
Know that you are worthy
I’ll take your bad days with your good
Walk through the storm I would
I do it all because I love you, I love you
Unconditional, unconditionally
I will love you unconditionally
There is no fear now
Let go and just be free”
-Katy Perry-
Happiness used to live here...surviving an affair 
Sounds like my husband, but I know I will never be the same person I was before his affair, sometimes you are just too broken!!! I m not a man, so how do you have an affair if you truly love your wife, like you keep proclaiming, WHY? the question not even the cheater seems to know the answer to. I thought about suicide so often after it happened & now 16 months later I think what am I waiting for, more shitty days & longer shitty nights. My kids are all grown & let’s face it, they just want dear old mom to forgive dear old cheating dad so their on the surface happy family can go on with as little embarrassment to them as possible. This has even driven a wedge between me & my daughter. Oh well shit happens & right now I’m drowning in it. Thanks to anyone who bothers to read my pathetic crap.
Hugs to you 😦 I promise I read every single comment on here, and they all matter. You my sweet friend matter, and someday we will both stop finding life so stinking shitty. I’m sorry your kids don’t understand, that they don’t stand tall beside you or even behind you propping you up, I’d tell them “Don’t you dare judge your mom, you don’t know the Hell your dad put her in, or what she struggles with every single day!!” On here, on my blog? You aren’t judged, it’s actually a sin in my world, on my island. I hope you know you aren’t alone, it’s a shitty club we belong to but you and I? We have a bond and I get it, the bad days, the wanting the pain to end, the thoughts of giving up…but here we are still fighting to heal, to make sense of it, to get better…hang in there.
Hugs Joan. Hang in there friend, if he is truly repentant and trying, it DOES get better. I am about two years past d-day and things are much better than they have been even in the past six months.
Our kids are always our kids. Even when they are grown. They have their own lives, they likely haven’t experienced this level of betrayal personally, and they are totally torn between two parents they love dearly. Likely you are and always have been, the motor that makes the family run. If you are doubting, if you are out of commission, it becomes a very scary thing for them. BUT. You have to focus on healing YOU. That’s really where it starts, and it is hard. I have spent most of my life putting my husband and kids FIRST. Now it’s time to focus on me and what I need to heal. It feels selfish and awkward but I know in the end it is worth it. My kids were all at home during the affair and had a front row seat. It has really damaged their relationship with their dad, and now that the oldest is off to college, it is ME that she texts and calls. He feels hurt and left out. The sowing was easy but the reaping SUCKS. Glad I wasn’t the one that cheated!!
Thanks to boosmom4ever2 & exercisegrace for your support, after this happened it seems I have received more support from my on line friends than some members of my family! I know it scared my kids after this happened, the way I acted they worried what I would do, they just wanted me to move on as quickly as possible, easier said than done, as you know! Yes cheating may be an easy choice, but my husband is finding out living with the consequences of that choice is not going to be easy. Hugs to both of you, Joan