Sometimes I find myself having a moment with my husband…
You know the moments I’m talking about…Where you are watching your kids play. When you laugh together. A memory comes up between you. One of the million ‘moments’ which arise from being together for over 20 years. I used to think those moments proved we were soul mates, meant to be together forever. Now I know those moments don’t mean shit, honestly they mean nothing at all. I could share them with my friends, my kids, hell my fat corgi whom I’ve known for 14 years. The moments which rise up now make me raise my shield around my heart when I’m with him.
I don’t want to be tied to him like I once was, I don’t want the feelings anymore. At least my friends I trust (Okay most of them, sometimes I attract crazies who are…well crazy.). My kids? I know are going to be a part of my life forever, no matter if they like it or not, they are stuck with me. My fat 14-year-old corgi? She has never hurt me, and she’s smarter than most men. Those are people I don’t mind having a moment with,but my husband scares me.
“Let him in again Kelly and he will hurt you!!!” Is what the voices in my head scream.
“Please don’t love him completely again!!!” Is what the voice in my heart pleads.
It is so stinking hard to let down your guard and have a moment with someone you don’t trust. To let them back into your inner circle of people you allow to know you. I don’t open up to people easily…issues from childhood left me with adult issues. I felt like growing up if I wasn’t perfect I would be gotten rid of, I would be left, and it gave me issues. I spent my adult life feeling like I had to be the perfect mom and wife, I was driven with the issues I had left from a broken childhood. The irony is I had thought I had found the one person who would love me no matter what.
No matter if I was sad, or mad. If I was crazy or sane. If I was happy or depressed. If I was fat or skinny. If I was funny or mean. If I was talkative or quiet. No matter what, he was going to love me and never leave me…I could just be me. It was amazing to have someone love you like that, to make you feel like you were good enough. Then he started being demanding, and mean. If the kids were being jerks (which teenage boys can often be) it was because I wasn’t a good enough mom. The meals I made were never quite enough, he’d tell me I should add this or that, to make them better. The house was never clean enough, even if I spent a week preparing for him to come home and scrubbed the floors by hand. The animals were always okay, but if I’d do things his way they’d be better. If I mowed the whole yard, and put in a new walkway? He’d tell me I should have hired someone to put in the walkway because it wasn’t level…I spent two years being told I was lacking while the truth of the matter was…HE WAS LACKING. HE WAS N’T BEING A GOOD HUSBAND OR FATHER.
My worst childhood nightmare of being kicked to the curb if I wasn’t perfect? It came true…and it flipping hurt. I wish I had never been given the false hope of there being people out there who love you no matter what…because at least growing up I never let my guard down, I never believed I could just be ME…I knew I wasn’t good enough.
He gave me false hope by loving me once, by making me believe in forever.
The old saying “It’s better to have loved and to have lost than to never have loved at all”? It’s bullshit…I’d have rather never have loved than to be fed shit and lied to, to be made to feel like nothing, to be tossed aside as easily as a whore spreads her legs…
I don’t want to have moments with him, I don’t know if I can ever have them again without an ache in the pit of my stomach…
So tell me my sweet friends…How do you share a life with someone, who every time your eyes meet and you start to smile, a voice in your head reminds you “Don’t trust him!! Don’t let him in!!”?
Happiness used to live here...surviving an affair 
You my sweet friend certainly deserve an answer to that question & I wish I had an answer for you, here’s where you are probably thinking, then why the fuck did you reply! Just a hope that this little comment will give you a tiny smile, I know how precious that can be! Hugs from Joan
And I did smile 🙂
Me too!
I think those moments are natural during any traumatic event. Whether health crisis, relationship crisis, child behavior issues, etc. The “why” question always followed then by the “how” question.
I suppose for me, it’s a leap of faith. Honestly, I choose to try and build trust through faith in him, in me and in us.
It’s normal to ask, to doubt. But, if those questions and doubts hinder you from progress in whichever decision you make, then they win — they are there to challenge you. Rise to the challenge and through self reflection, you will find an answer.
I guess I’m in a hopeful mood today! I hope it rubs off onto those who need a lift 🙂
Now I’m the one smiling, I got two of my favorite bloggers to smile!😀 After all reading your blogs, has not only put a smile on my face, but made me laugh out loud, and as you know we don’t get many smile days anymore! So here’s to more smiling for all of us!😀 and maybe a laugh or two😂
Indeed Joan, indeed! Here’s to more laughter 😀 If I can’t laugh every now and again, I’d probably be crying and then I’d just look like shit!
The voice in my head doesn’t say “don’t trust him, don’t let him in”, instead it just says “He fucked a whore! Can you believe he fucked a whore?” to which I say “no I fucking can’t” and then I smile and push the whore to the back of my mind altho I’m really trying to push her into my bowels cos that’s where she belongs! She is gone, she is history and so is your nightmare whore! You need to try and find a new voice Kelly, one that reflects the work your husband is trying to do to repair your marriage.
I guess I concur with Tempted but she has a much better, cuss free, way of saying it 😀
I’m with pabloswife. I find myself enjoying something my kids do, and so is he, but I don’t want it to be “sharing it”. He doesn’t deserve that. Not even with all his remorse. And I still cannot quite believe it all happened, even after 3 flipping years?! How is that?? It’s not like I lack information.
I have those nice close moments sometimes. I really do. Often, would be mode accurate. And then I remember. And the moment is spoiled.
What’s the point if its only going to be spoiled when I remember? Might as well not have them? Or keep going and hope the bruising fades?
Nephila, three years for you! and I am 17 months out from D-day, I have felt the same way, during Xmas, even in a room filled with my whole family laughing & talking, I didn’t feel as though I was there with everyone during that moment, I thought what does any of this matter when I am sitting here pretending with a fake smile! One of the first blogs I ever read was from a woman whose husband had cheated 20 years ago, and she talked as though it had happened yesterday & she was on the verge of leaving after all that time, unbelievable, if I had read it as a wife not cheated on yes, but now reading it as a wife that has been cheated on, not so much, because from everything I’ve read this is never going away, stay or go, I guess you learn to live with it , one way or the other. So sorry for your pain, I know it all too well, Joan
as I have told you ladies I stayed 13 years trying to ‘recover’—-never did—I was in so much pain—it was never the same—-I have never been so unhappy as those 13 years—I have no idea to this day how I did not have a nervous breakdown or some other ajlment—yes I do know ,MY CHILDREN—-I wish you all a better outcome than mine—-but I do have to tell you it will never be like it used to be—-you died on D-day—the new you is in a mental anguish ‘jail’—-and who sent you there—yes that guy you are trying ‘to forgive’———UUUUHHHHMMM what is wrong with this picture——–I wish someone would have slapped me when I decided to ‘rebuild my marriage’—I would have saved 13 years of ‘hard labor’
Jules, am I to understand you stayed & tried to work on your marriage for 13 years after your husband cheated on you & after that length of time you finally decided to walk away! That is very scary & depressing! It all seems so hopeless, in Sept. It will be 2 years pass D-day & I have told my husband if I feel then what I feel now, I just don’t know if I can stay in this marriage.
yes dear lady I am the most stupid woman on the face of this earth—-I played the good devoted wife that wanted to ‘reconcile’ and save her marriage,because I loved him—makes me want to vomit—–all I can say ladies is if you have a doubt do not waste your youth and years suffering—-move on —-and look for happiness—life is short—it is too late for me,im much older now—I wasted all my life in a man that did not deserve me,i was too good for him but I came to realize that too late—-I have cried rivers
Well Jules, I have no youth left to waste, I am the woman whose husband cheated after 47 years of marriage! The only benefit I see to that is, I have less years to think about this, but that’s just me!
YOU MADE MY DAY_____IM STILL LAUGHING
Cheated on became the cheater. My husband’s first wife cheated on him with their youth pastor at the church attended. I found a “disposable cell phone with shit on it from the man who can barely send me a txt, with pix of him, a bunch of them and then there’s the FW, I’m sure you know what I mean. He has my name tattooed on one arm and our 14% chance of a live birth daughter’s on the other and still trid to deny it! I found out the day before my birthday that my husband who has erectile dysfunction only has it with women he loves, lucky freaking me! And yes, for the well informed, he has had abuse as child, I’ve learned that too and that’s not a good out excuse to do this hell to anyone!
I just found your blog. Thank your for the first time in exactly a month today I have read something that explains how I feel. I too feel like he died, we were perfect once the one man I NEVER thought would because it had happened to him, did, he “felt unappreciated”‘ after our baby was born…..Amen to Pablo’s wife, mine doesn’t deserve our sweet miracle either. I bought a book on infidelity and an Elmo DVD about potty training the other day, no one should have to need both at the same time. And had I been sitting on the bed when he did this, I would’ve seen less than I did In the pix..,she’s such an FW, she wanted “memories of the event” Thank you, thank you for your blog, it helped to read what I haven’t been able to express, I feel like it’s worse than death, haven’t made a decision yet because of our baby, she’s my baby! I think it is just starting to sink in and I’m already tired of being angry
You are not alone, and on here you can vent all you want, it helps to share. I’m so sorry you are here though. I think if you read back through you will find similarities in our stories, I get your anger, sixteen months later and I’m still angry. Pablo’s wife’s blog is a great read she is very good at expressing her anger lol (I love her). Hugs to you my new friend, hang in there.
Thank you
What an excellent post. I agree. I thought we had it all. That no matter what life threw at us, we would ALWAYS face it together. And of the shit storms I thought we would go through, infidelity was the LAST one I would have put on the list. Our therapist says that is why it takes two to five years to recover from an affair. Trust takes years to build and moments to shatter. She keeps reminding me that the only person I can trust is myself. I knew there was something off. I knew there was something not right in their “friendship”. I am not blaming myself at all, but I will never back down from my instincts again. I have finally, after all these years, learned that “I” am the dependable one. I will protect myself.
I just found your blog yesterday and had been reading non stop now. I too still go through the same feeling as you. I want him to feel close to me. But I don’t to feel so close to him. It makes me feel like a weakling in love with him, letting my guard down. I always want to keep him (mentally) a little distant and want to feel comfortable that way. But am I comfortable? No. I miss the nauseating feeling of love. When I am consumed with the thought “I am not going to feel loved ever again”, I break down. But at times, when I have little sanity left, I tell myself I really don’t want to go back to that “love”. It didn’t do me good. I realize that what hurts me most is not that he let me down, but that I let myself down. I gave up too much to be liked and loved by him and it hurts a lot now. I am now trying not to think about the love in my marriage (Thinking is the only thing I do nowadays a lot, and it does no good – I don’t come to any good conclusion anyway). I try to build friendships, think about kids, reading, cooking – anything which prevents me from “my thinking”. My husband has expressed a lot of regret, so I am just trying to rebuild. I try to remember one of my college friend’s saying – All men are pigs anyway. So I try to put up with the pig which I know the best, the one with who I have kids (only because he has shown regret). I think it is better than any other new pig. Am I happy? No. But am I going to find happiness with someone else? I don’t think so (Remember, good men cheat and bad men cheat – all men are pigs anyway!). I just want to switch off my “smart brain” from analyzing “why” and just accept the facts and live my life. But it is really really hard. Everyday is still a struggle after one and a half years.