There are few realities as diametrically opposed as Lust and Love.
Lust seeks self gratification, caring little for anything or anyone else.
Love gives joyfully and without expectation of return.
There is something strangely soothing about these realities. It puts into perspective how shallow the behaviors of lust were in my, and other’s, unfaithful partners. It casts a new light on the self absorbed, devoid of meaning place my unfaithful was as he pursued his drug of choice–lust. The negative impact of the suffocation of love is truly pitiful. Lust rots the very core of human growth and meaning, replacing it with toxic self centeredness. Lust requires the luster look for fault in his legitimate partner in order to enable emotional distance and fuel the justifications necessary to betray.
Lust consumes the mind of the luster, building in focus and desire until quenched. It cares not for anything other than the use of the other’s body as a selfish tool towards physical self gratification. The soul of the lust object is seldom considered, of interest or concern. What an empty pursuit, squelching all growth.
Love revels in the other with a passionate and considerate affection and care that expresses itself in the desire to give to and protect the beloved. Love longs to be with the beloved for the depth and beauty of the other’s soul – a never ending mystery to explore. Love honors, cherishes and protects the beloved with a deep concern mirrored equally only in care for self. Love thy beloved as thyself.
Lust delights in short lived conceited passion that burns hot and consumes the attention of the luster to the exclusion of all positive loving pursuits. Lust kills love. It smothers any spark or ember of thoughtful caring for the individual, leaving the luster focused on one thing—self gratification.
Love grows in the many paths of exploration into the complexities of the beloved. Love thirsts, not for momentary physical release, rather for deep connection.
Lust is centered in the physical, the corporeal.
Love adores the body and the soul.
It is only when I truly felt these deep truths that I could gain a new perspective.
I feel sorrow for the time and wasted energy my unfaithful spent in such a shallow destructive pursuit. Thing is, lust not only destroys love, it destroys the genuine self esteem and growth of the luster.
How sad is that.
I grieve not only for all the years lost that we might have had a genuine love, I grieve for a life wasted in such self consumption. I truly did not know the person I married. He hid himself from me and from himself. He betrayed his own life and growth before and during all the days, weeks, months and years of his acting out betrayals. His self destruction is greater than all the devastation wrought upon me. What a pitiable waste.
And still he fears to feel the weight of this reality. I can’t say I blame him. Who would want to face so much wasted life? And yet it is necessary for him to grieve the loss of his true self—to the black hole of lust. He must recognize and feel the truth of all the losses in order to grieve them and move on. I pray he will be able to accomplish this personally terrifying work so he might salvage the balance of his life to turn away from the meaningless, destructive shallowness of lust—and toward the light of love. The salvation of love. The blessings and growth and joy of genuine caring for others.
Before you cross that seemingly enticing and ‘glamourous’ line–and in doing so betray the one person you vowed to love, honor and cherish—know that that choice will not only shatter your sacred vows, it will forever rupture your partner’s dreams of their one and only special partner in life.
While they will one day move forward, your actions will freeze them in the knowledge that you chose fun, fast and easy over them. Over your promised ‘us’. Nothing you are telling yourself they are doing, or not doing justifies your decision to betray them. Integrity demands you speak about your struggles and any disappointments WITH them. You can work out any perceived ‘problems’. You can not through silence and acting out.
While they may one day learn to forgive, a process that is for their mental health, not yours– it will be a long painful process lasting years. And in that forgiveness will never come forgetting the mortal wound you choose to inflict on your relationship. Your marriage/committed relationship is dead—contract broken. You will be living in a lie. For as surely as you betrayed them, you ended that promised loving, exclusive and precious relationship with them. Their life, and yours, will never be the same.
Through their grace, you may one day build a new relationship, but it will never be the same, never allow them or you to say you chose love over your self centered desires. They, and you will always carry the burden of that fact.
If you want to end your marriage or committed relationship, choose to do it in a loving manner with integrity, truth and respect for your partner. If you do not wish to end that relationship–then don’t betray your vows. Because if you do cross that line, you are ending your marriage. You are abusing the one person you swore to love. Whether your partner knows it or not, they are no longer being protected, loved and cherished. They are being used, manipulated and duped. You are controlling their ability to have agency over their own life and decisions, fundamentally disrespecting their human rights.
You are playing God with their life….possibly their very life should you pass on an STD to them. When they find out, you are the cause of the greatest traumatic pain they are likely to ever experience.
Should you wish your ‘cake and eat it too’, know it comes at a very high price– not only to your partner, but to you; to truth, to intimacy, to transparency and to integrity.
You may claim to love your partner.
You do not.
You are telling yourself yet another lie enabling you to justify leaving your marriage unilaterally.
Infidelity is not a victimless crime.
Choose better.
Choose love.
_____________________________
Here is another perspective from ‘author unknown”
Before You Cheat On Her Know This
You will break her. Like the violent shattering of glass as it crashes to the ground.You will not just break her heart. You will break her trust. You will break her spirit. You will break her joy. You will break her belief in love. You will break her sense of self.
Before you cheat, know this: She will not sleep—not through the night, as she counts the cracks in the walls at 3 am, seeking answers from a God she didn’t think she believed in.She will not eat—not by choice, but because she can’t stomach her reality or the thoughts of texts and images that haunt the corners of her mind. She will not smile—not because there’s nothing to smile for, but because she doesn’t know what these things are anymore.
Before you cheat, know this:It will teach her to hear “You are beautiful,” as “but not beautiful enough.” It will teach her to hear “You are brilliant,” as “but not brilliant enough.” It will teach her to hear “You mean the world to me,” as “but one person is not enough.” It will teach her to hear “You are the love of my life,” as “but I don’t love you enough.”It will teach her to hear “You are enough,” as “but you are still not good enough to satisfy me.”
Before you cheat, know this:She will cry. She will sit at her desk until 7:30 pm too embarrassed by tears streaming silently down her face to get up and go. She will curl into a ball on her best friend’s living room floor, cheek pressed into the carpet—She will get a lump in her throat anytime she walks past places that used to be yours until she decides to avoid these places entirely. She will rage. She will snap at friends, family and colleagues for no apparent reason at all. When they are stung by her anger, her cheeks will burn red with shame. She will curse at her reflection as she’s brushing her teeth, and think if only she were prettier, funnier, smarter—if only she were more, it would have made a difference. She will throw a picture frame at the wall, and be too dumbfounded to clean the blood off her finger when she cuts it picking up the pieces. She will scream into the wind by the river, wondering what she did to deserve feeling this way, hoping her words will carry far enough to be heard by someone—anyone—who can tell her. She will not feel. She will be turned by shock into the same stone she uses to build walls to keep people out. She will be numbed in new ways that her hopeful heart had not known to be possible. And then she will feel everything at once. She will feel devalued, discarded, disassembled, disillusioned, distraught—she will feel bewildered and betrayed. She will feel foolish, frenetic, fraught and full of fear. She will feel hate—toward you, toward them, toward herself. She will choke on her own confusion as she tries to hold on, yet yearns to let go.
Before you cheat, know this: She believed in you. She believed in romance—and that a chivalrous manner meant chivalry in all manners of the heart. She believed in honesty—and that being honest with your partner first meant being honest with yourself. She believed in respect—and that a love respected meant not being gaslighted, nor played a fool. She believed in goodness—and that being good meant working on being good together, even when it was not easy to do. She believed you would protect her—and that being protected did not mean hiding the truth. She believed in you—and that believing in you, believing in each other, meant the mutual support of a two-person team through the ups, downs and everything in between.
Before you cheat, know this: These are all avoidable. You have a choice. You can choose to walk away. You can choose to let her leave, on her own accord. You can give her a choice.
But if you cheat, know this: You will break her, but she will grow back stronger.You will dim her light, but she will shine more brightly in the dark. You will lower her expectations, but she will raise her standards. You will cause her to hate, but she will find relief, release, and beauty in the breakdown. You will make her question her sanity, but she will learn to trust her own intuition better than before.You will crush her ideas of love, but she will never settle again. You will burn her world to the ground, but she will pour her heart into becoming the best person she can be—and this time, it won’t be for you; it will be for her.
Isiaisis the hurricane loved to blow wind and rain. He took great pleasure in watching the trees bend, the grass of the fields sway. Staying out over the ocean can become monotonous even if the waves, the sea are his life and family. Even though the sea supports his life, feeding and caring for him so he has the ability, the energy to visit the shore and all the thrills that await there.
“I can’t wait to caress the shore, dive deep inland and witness my power. It’s so much fun”.
Many have witnessed what happens when the hurricane comes ashore. If that hurricane could decide to come ashore, Isiaisis would be full of glee in anticipation. “Nothing bad will happen. The people onshore know how to take care of themselves. I provide them life giving rain for their plants and drinking. They will be fine on their own.”
Even though it is known far and wide by all the people the potential destruction of a hurricane, Isiaisis denied it would harm anyone or anything. And before the people’s ability to forecast such a storm, they were well and truly blindsided. No warning. No ability to prepare.
No matter how vital and strong the people, they can not protect themselves against most of the destructive power of the storm. They are witness to the dark clouds and rain, but before forecasting, had NO idea what was coming. Thye lived in the (approaching) rain, the inconvenience of the downpours.
But Isiaisis was hell bent on the shore and all the fun there. He knew he had the potential of destruction but he told himself nothing would come of it. His rain would indeed help. So he came ashore dashing one town and one state after another–leaving a path of destruction far and wide. Some of the people lost their roofs, some their homes, some their lives. The newspapers would talk about him for many days, weeks, months and even years to come. He would be the topic of much discussion. Human experts on how to prepare for a hurricane, how to limit damage would careful dissect the harm he caused. They would learn how to better recover and protect.
“Isiaisis” was on the tongue of the people. Recovery was not about Isiaisis, even though the storm was what caused the damage. Recovery of the people, their homes and their lives was not about the storm. It was about tender care, attention to all the details of healing. PRepart=ation and protection learned for the future.
Did anyone miss the storm Isiasis?
“Good riddance”
Did the people still desire the benefits of the rain? The soft caress of a warm summer storm?
YES.
They needed to attend to the damage of the rain and wind gone wild first. The storm’s name was used often. It was the topic. The damage had to be the focus.
And what became of Isiaisis? He blew up the cost, weakened, gained humility when he saw the havoc his ‘fun’ had caused upon the people and the land. And he turned around, regained water and power from the sea. He looked carefully at all the damage and learned what his ‘fun’ had cost. He wept over the pain his choices had caused. He returned to the land in warm summer rains, soft caresses and care for the land and the people. He brought healing and rebuilt trust over many many months with the land and the people because they saw through his loving, helping actions that the storm can protect and care and love.
The people will always be wary of the dark clouds and wind. They will need the loving reassurance and actions of the caring Isiasis who has changed his heart to never again lash the shore in ‘fun’. He would never again look upon such actions as ‘fun’. No pleasure would the memories bring. Deep regret and sadness, embarassment and grief now power Isiaisis to tend to all he had destroyed–and for the rest of his days when the people talked about him, he would know it was the fear, the trauma and the damage of which they spoke–not him– the rain and wind when he returned in love and repair.
The land and the people tended far and wide to the destruction his choices caused, but it was not about him, the rain and wind. It was about tending to the pain. The wind and the rain of Isiaisis needed to do their own reflection and change, for the people had zero power over his healing. Isiaisis knew he needed to keep his destructive power, even a whisper or hint of it, far away from the people while they healed. It was not about him and his pain of regret, his difficulty in learning how to rein in his power. It HAD to be about the damage, the loving tending to repair in soft, gentle, understanding reassuring actions of life poured down on all he’d destroyed.
It indeed was not about him. __________________________________
A man and his wife drove along winding roads toward a celebratory dinner for the beautiful new car the wife had bought for him. She’d spent many hours working to pay for the car, but wanted to give it to the husband because it was the model and make of his dreams. She’d lovingly sacrificed to make the car possible.
“Slow down,” the wife request as he sped along the curves. “We want to arrive in one piece.”
But (And) the man thought nothing would happen. He knew this road well. He thought his wife was too careful–a stick in the mud. So he didn’t listen to his wife’s pleas.
Well you know what happened. He drove that car with his wife off the road, down into a deep gorge, rolling over and over.
The man shook his head, took fast inventory of his body, pushed and crawled out the shattered window. A painful gash at his temple stung and his body ached with bruises.
He looked back at the wreckage of his beautiful fun dream.
“Oh shit,” he realized his wife was still inside the wreckage.
He wanted nothing but to run away. How could he ever face her again? He’d ruined what she’d so carefully worked to give him. He’d not listened to the danger he knew his careless driving might cause. He’d willfully and selfishly driven with the wind in his hair, laughing at the power and speed. Should he dare to look at his wife? He didn’t even want to know what his actions had caused. He sat on the side of the hill, aching head in his hands until the ambulance arrived. He watched as the EMT’s extracted the bloodied, broken body of his wife. One of the EMT’s checked him out. He rode in the ambulance with his wife as the EMT’s tended to her, their expression belying the seriousness of her condition. He waited for hours in the waiting room, his head bandaged and aching.
“Oh my poor head. It hurts. I was so stupid to drive so fast. Now I’ll never have that beautiful car. We’ll never enjoy that special celebratory meal at that expensive precious restaurant we’d always dreamed of enjoying together.” Nearly all his thoughts and energy grieved his losses, thought about his pain.
The doctors told him to go home because his wife would be in intensive care for a long time. The man used their suggestion to justify not visiting his wife. In truth he did not want to see her pain, her brokenness, the pain in her eyes he knew his poor choices had caused. He stayed away for month as his wife recovered in a recovery facility. The doctors told him of the process his wife was required to go through, the pain, the long hours of rehabilitation.
“Don’t you want to visit your wife?” a nurse asked.
“I have to go to my traumatic brain injury classes”, he said. “I’ll come see her in the evening while she is sleeping. I don’t want to cause her any more pain in seeing me, who caused this accident.” He made the accident all about him and his pain, his process.
He did visit a few times when his wife was asleep. He could barely look at her. He felt so ashamed and guilty. One time when she woke, she cried.
” I hurt so bad,” she said. “But(AND) I am working hard to recover. I am making progress.”
“That’s good,” he said, filled with self hatred. All he could think about was his shame. He touched his head and winced.. He thought about how he was driving his old clunker again and his beautiful fun new car was in the junkyard. He hated having to go to TBI classes and the headaches he still had. He was so focused on himself he could not really ‘see’ his wife’s pain, let alone tend to her pain.
He made the inevitable consequences of his ‘fun’ driving all about him and his painful consequences. “If she’d just not bugged me about my driving, I wouldn’t have had the accident. I could have kept driving and having speedy fun long after our celebration dinner. I would still be on the winding roads having fun.”
The wife came home. The man brought he meals as she healed more. He continued to go to his TBI classes, did his self care fun and exercises, watched tv–escaped from the reality of his recovering wife. Even when he heard her moan or cry at night, he turned over and went to sleep in his bed. He could no longer sleep next to her–it was too painful for her while her wounds healed.
He held it against her that he had to sleep in the extra room. He blamed her injuries, knew she needed to heal, but still felt deprived of his own bed and his beautiful fun new car.
She wanted to talk about the car, his driving, the accident. She wanted to understand how the accident happened even though she knew it was his carelessness that lent to it. She needed to know what curve, what blind spot, what speed, what mechanical factors if any had led to this horrible lifechanging crash. She felt she may never be comfortable driving with him again. Surely not unless and until he had dug deep to understand everything that led to the crash. Not until he learned and choose to tend to her, care for her and her recovery, be there for her in the years of painful recovery. The physical pain may never allow her to sleep in the same bed with him. The emotional pain and fear may never allow her to feel comfortable with him driving especially with her in the car. She may never be able to earn enough to buy another new car. He might not either. They’d have to do with the old clunker. Or someday get a better used car, but (and) never the shiny special one.
“Poor me. I’ll never have that fun new car. She will never be able to sleep next to me. She will have pain in her eyes and her body for years, maybe forever. It’s too hard to face her and the consequences of the crash. But (and) I don’t want people to judge me as a bad guy so I will do a little to look like I am helping. But (and) I will escape whenever I can from her and our reality.”
And he made it all about him, his pain, consequences and discomfort in seeing and living with his broken wife.
When she wanted to talk about the accident, to understand, to make sure it would never happen again by hearing his understanding of her pain and the reasons the accident happened–he stayed silent.
He made it all about him and his pain.
“How is this not about me?” He asked when his wife kept on and on about the crash. “I caused the crash.” Oh woah is me. You talk about me and my driving all the time. You talk about all the specifics of what led to the crash. It is all about me and my fuck up.”
“The topic is you and the consequences of your choices. The pain and life changes, yes. You and your choices are the topic”, she said. But (and) the reality is I need to heal, you need to heal and if we are ever going to get along, WE need to heal. That will take a long time and lots of dissection of the why’s the how’s the where’s, the what’s. We MUST understand so this will never happen again and so your driving and attitude will be changed through action. So I can see and experience your change of heart and actions for a LONG time.. So YES, you are the topic. HEALING and CHANGE through reparative action is the focus, the action.
You see this is not about you. It is about healing the pain, the consequences– and understanding, a change in behavior and heart. Repair to me, to you and to us. It is about the critically wounded who will take much longer to heal–ME. And the dead relationship that is traumatized. Your name will be the topic, your behavior will be the topic–the healing will be the focus, the recipient of the care and love and patience.”
Comment from a faithful wife posted on a recovery forum:
“I am in a phase that I hate when people talk in terms of their “happiness” in life. We all desire some happiness in life, but let me try to explain….. When my husband was cheating, he was telling himself that he “deserved to be happy” and he sometimes uses that excuse now when he is avoiding during the hard stuff. There was nothing wrong with the marriage or me, but he was dealing with work stress and the death of a parent and some other personal, unresolved childhood issues. I agree that he probably wasn’t feeling “happy” everyday. BUT…. The unfaithful often use happiness as an excuse and justification for their cheating. Happiness is a fleeting emotion – comes and goes. Nothing on this Earth guarantees “happiness” at all times, but the unfaithful seem to think it is the only thing to base a marriage and lifetime commitment on. They have the expectation that it is somehow their spouse’s job to make them happy. Happiness. No wonder so many marriages fail. Trust me- I am not “happy” right now (over 4 years past D-Day). I am not cheating in my marriage because I don’t feel happy right now. I am not staying in this marriage and holding our family together because I feel “happy” right now. If I was only committed to my husband or kids when I felt “happy’, I would have left multiple times and betrayed them (especially during my kids’ teenage years). Life can be hard, but you don’t run. My happiness is not why I have stayed and continue to fight for my marriage. It’s much more complicated than that. My happiness from moment-to-moment is not how I determine my love or commitment to the people that mean the most to me. Similarly, if I only went to work on the days my job made me feel “happy”, then I probably wouldn’t go most days. I go to work, even when I’m not having my best day.I have a commitment to it, a commitment to my colleagues and team, and I have a greater purpose because of my job. Think of the healthcare workers during this pandemic. They go to work in the crisis because of the need to be there for others and their duty to the cause- Not because they are loving their life right now. So, I have come to hate the term “happiness”. It feels like such a selfish word and not something that feels like commitment and love. I am not bashing the happy feeling. We all do deserve some level of happiness, but you can’t base your love and commitment on feeling “happy” at all times. If that is the case, what’s the point of commitment ? When happiness becomes consuming it’s selfishness.
For me, happiness is helping and giving to those I love. That makes me happy. It is unfortunate that my unfaithful had to go outside the marriage to try and find happiness.”
Investment in your relationship is like the “grass is greener” myth– NOT greener elsewhere
“When I use only the sprinkler system, it quickly becomes obvious where the sprinkler system is not watering. The grass which is not adequately watered quickly turns brown and dies. I become dissatisfied with the dry patches in my lawn, but I know they are only dry for lack of my attention and effort. The grass is simply greener where I’ve watered it.
The lesson my lawn teaches me every summer can be applied to relationships as well. Nowhere in our relationships does this little rule of nature seem to be more true than in marriages impacted by infidelity. Individuals involved in affairs frequently complain of their miserable lives, but close observation generally reveals a severe case of under-involvement. It is true, they are miserable; but their misery isn’t generally the result of working overly hard on the relationship. They may be putting effort into their children, but when it comes to their romantic relationships, they invest far more energy into their affair partner than they ever put into their marriage. They write cards to the affair partner, spend hours on the phone, and plan surprises for him or her. In addition to that, they spend hours dreaming of the next time they get to see their lover. In fact, it’s not unusual for them to spend up to 70% of their thought life focused on some aspect of their secret relationship. Given that sort of time investment, is it any surprise that they fail to feel any connection in their marriages? There tends to be little strength, interest, or time left to devote to the marriage. Considering their behavior, no wonder the grass doesn’t seem very green.
In the end, it’s not that the grass is truly greener elsewhere, it’s just greener where it’s watered. If you find that you’re dissatisfied with your marriage, you may be tempted to look for greener pastures. You may even think you’ve found them, if all your efforts and attention are aimed at your affair partner. But you’ll also find that your marriage will be greener if you make the same type of investment in your marriage. Think about it.”
A betrayed posted a question in a recovery forum asking if it was just her or was it wrong of her UH to insist on her to work on herself and all her deficits (before he has taken full responsibility for the infidelity, fully processed, grieved, amended and empathy expressed.)
Um..YES!! W-R-O-N-G!!!
It is tantamount to abuse to berate your betrayed spouse, yell at her and demand she fix herself. Not only is that exiting the unfaithful’s circle of control and impinging into the betrayed’s, it is cruel and abusive. How dare an unfaith have the gaul to even bring up anything his betrayed has or has not done in the marriage. This shows a complete lack of responsibility, care and understanding.
Marriage problems do NOT cause infidelity. Poor, selfish choices do.
Plenty of marriages, dare I say ALL, have issues. Because no person is perfect, neither is any marriage. As long as each of we humans are breathing, there is room for improvement. This has ZERO to do with betraying one’s spouse. This demonstrates gross rationalizing and blame sifting BIG TIME.
The cliche ‘put the cart before the horse” resonates. The priority, post-disclosure, is to heal individually. The UH, if he or she is to become a safe mature adult, must do their work of figuring out why they crossed the line. He/she owes his betrayed recompense. If one is ethical and humane, one does not hit and run. No matter how the unfaithful sees his spouse and their marriage, it is his/her responsibility to tend to the damage they have caused.
Whether or not the marriage begins anew is reliant on what the unfaithful does to heal themselves and the massive damage he/she has caused. And yes, it may also depend on how the betrayed heals. Will he/she ever be able to move past such an atrocity? Will the betrayed eventually be able to get to addressing any personal deficits within the former relationship, or are they so damaged they can not ever see themselves with their unfaithful?
There is NOTHING a spouse can do or not do to deserve having their spouse step outside the marriage. That would be called divorce. Legal and binding without lies, secrets, manipulation and abusive control of the betrayed’s life. If the unfaithful is so unhappy and so spineless as to give up on their spouse–then do it up front and legally. For better or for worse dictates otherwise–to work on the relationship and each partner on themself. Cheating and pretending there is still a marriage is cowardly, abusive and wrong.
My experience is that the UH wants the marriage and their sexual infidelity too. They want it all no matter who they are controlling and abusing to get what they want. They don’t want a divorce or they’d get one. They enjoy and benefit immensely from their faithful spouse’s fidelity, love and support. Selfish, self centered cake and eat it too.
And then the unfaithful have the gaul to complain? It makes my blood boil.
Speak up and work on your issues like an adult. Respect your spouse and uphold your vows.
I was trying to explain to my UH why I find it so offensive when he (still) brings up our low sex marriage before and during his affair as a resentment/reason he chose to leave the marriage. Yet he expected me to stay and be fully functional.
How do I explain? When a husband withdraws emotional intimacy from his wife, many of us struggle to feel sexual toward them. In my case, it felt like I was more like a physical entitlement to him than a loved and cherished spouse. He did not share with me his thoughts, feelings or struggles, even when I asked. He did not truly listen or validate mine, even though I never stopped sharing them. I did not withdraw emotionally. I kept making bids for his care.
As a woman, this woman, I need to feel emotionally connected and valued to feel sexual desire. At the time I chalked it up to young motherhood exhaustion and an eleven year marriage. Sure, we weren’t frisky as we had been before kids. Seemed natural not to be, even though I mourned it and expressed my loneliness within the relationship. In retrospect it seems pretty clear to me that I was not feeling valued and therefore not sexual. 20/20 hindsight. Tragedy is I felt somehow responsible. What was wrong with me? Seems nothing was in light of the truth.
As I have processed through my/our history I have gained compassion for the struggling young mother who tried to rectify her lower libido through research, doctor visits and duty sex (yuck–that is just wrong because it made me feel like an object) The woman then entering peri-menopause and all the challenges that placed squarely on my shoulders–without concern or empathy from my spouse. Only negative judgement kept to himself and outwardly, impatience.
For him to still be using my lower libido as a reason he abandoned our marriage is very hurtful to me. It feels like the height of hubris, narcissism and arrogance to retain any resentment or right to complain about lack of enough sex when it was his withdrawal emotionally that fueled my lower libido. I was in an emotional desert and he resented/resents me for not producing a full crop of sex.
I have also tried to convey that any sex we did have during those years was under false pretense/manipulation and lies. I would never have consented to sex had I known he was having sex with someone else. In essence, the sex we did have was stolen from me–was undertaken without my full consent. I was used as a wife prop–a vessel of masturbation because there was no truth in love. I was manipulated into thinking I was in a monogamous relationship.
And THAT is what I felt. I didn’t know why I felt it. But I felt it. I felt pressured, placed under demand, belittled for not being more sexual–never the empathy and concern that a healthy spouse might exhibit. No concern fo me the person–why was a healthy 36-46 year old woman suffering lower libido when she’d not had that issue before? He held me at fault and accountable but never lifted a finger to do anything but resent and betray me as a result. He blamed me for being a woman doing the best she could in an emotional desert, which was not good enough for him. HE judged I was withholding and rejecting him on purpose.
Why does he not validate this uncovered reality now? Great question. Where is the understanding and remorse for having placed me in that emotional desert and then abused me for the consequences? Where is the claiming of responsibility and the regret for having left me stranded in an emotional void? Where is the apology for using me as a sexual object to meet his needs he felt were owed to him even though he knew he was betraying me at the same time? What arrogance and entitlement. What lack of concern and love for the person you call ‘wife’. What a hypocrite then and still unrepentant, responsibility avoidant man now.
But it is my brokenness and intentional neglect in his addict mind that caused his betrayal.
And I am supposed to want to reconcile with a person like that? Strong boundaries are in place and shall remain. I work toward moving on and pray he will grow to understand the consequences of his actions. Maybe even regret robbing me of an authentic marriage.
“Next time a life situation starts to get the best of you, pause, take a deep breath, and then ask yourself:
–What is the story I’m telling myself about this situation? –Can I be absolutely certain the story is true? –How do I feel and behave when I tell myself the story? –If I stopped telling myself the story once and for all, what else might I see, hear, or experience?
Give yourself the space to think it through carefully. Mull it over consciously.”
My UH has multiple addictions, as many addicts do. One of them is to overeating. We sometimes refer to his propensity as the ‘see food’ diet. He sees food and he eats it. There is also a scarcity and well as an entitlement mentality.
Maybe it was his years at military boarding school, maybe competition with his three siblings. That would suggest the scarcity factor. Grab yours now lest someone else eat it. It is not scarcity as in not enough money in his family to feed everyone. There was the presence of enough food.
The entitlement factor is less obvious. But if you know his mindset as a child who felt abandoned and neglected by his family resultant of his time in boarding school, it is not a huge jump to understand how that could lead to his propensity to feel that the world owes him. It’s amazing how some people can look at a situation as opportunity and others look at it as punishment or neglect. It isn’t hard to imagine that an eight year old would feel the latter.
The only one of his three siblings to be sent away from home, my UH felt it as rejection.
Thus, he once again made a choice, whether consciously or subconsciously, to see the world as a cold, rejecting place that owed him better than what he got. This has manifest over as many years as I have known him as entitlement, in this case, when it comes to food. He will drive out of his way if free food is offered. He plans airport stop-overs so he can find the USO during lay overs for, you guessed it–free food.
Veteran’s Day with restaurants offering free thank you meals to vets?? Morning, noon and night attendance. Don’t get me started on buffets and pot lucks. Coffee and snacks offered for volunteers? He’ll take their coffee even if he has coffee in his own mug out in the car. Leftovers at restaurants?? Yup–either eat it there or get the doggie bag for his or anyone else’s remaining food.
You might think he was a child of the depression or severe poverty. No.
Second helpings, even before allowing time to feel full. Eat any portion leftover at home. Taste food while being prepared–check. Portion control? What is that?
And this is from a guy who earned Weight Watcher’s lifetime award by losing all his extra weight and maintain it. Darn, but he was a friggin Weight Watcher leader for a time.
This is a guy who is not morbidly obese. He has been blessed, up until the last few years, with a high metabolism. People would comment or exhibit drop jawed takes at him as he put away amazing amounts.
Ah but the years are adding up and his metabolism is slowing down. He can still eat more than most without morbid results, but he has an extra forty pounds around the middle now. As a heart patient with high cholesterol and a couple of stents –a brother who had triple bypass at 42 and another who just died at 61 or a heart attack, you might think he’d change his ways. Nope. D-E-N-I-A-L
But then we are talking about addiction–and entitlement.
Insanity? Yup.
That said, food addiction is perhaps the most difficult of the substance addictions (sex addiction being the most difficult of the process addictions) because we all have to eat. It is not something you can just swear off. In this sense it is even tougher than sex addiction. One can live a fulfilled life sans sex. Not so with food.
He now attends OA (Overeaters anonymous) with our son. An all male 12 step, they now bond over the subject of their favorite vice—overeating. I applaud the venture, not that my input is asked for or needed. My experience is that neither has yet managed to put portion control–the tool of most successful weight management programs, into practice. But hey–I’m not here to take their inventory or to meddle in their program.
“I didn’t cause it. I can’t control it and I can not cure it.” – The mantra of every successfully serene person associated with an addict.
One of the darkest forces in the world is isolation. That is one of the reasons it is used as the most severe form of punishment–solitary confinement. When a human being is set apart from his fellows his mind wanders, struggles to make sense of his situation, even begins to morph reality.
Such is the case in many people who suffer from addiction. Fear is at the root of so much self isolation. Childhood issues of abandonment or abuse. Well practiced thought life that has learned to justify, blame shift, minimize and generally distort reality in believed self protection. It is the same symptoms displayed by those put in solitary confinement.
We human beings do not see clearly when we rely on only ourselves. None of us has the experience, the information, the research to support anything close to perfect decision making. We are pack animal. We need each other to rely upon. We are built for attachment. First to our parents, then to a significant other(s).
One of two in a partnership forms a relationship. It is what we look for in a significant other, a partner or a spouse. Relationship. Can I rely on you? Will you be there for me when I need you? This reliance, this attachment is broken when one partner commits infidelity. Intimate betrayal definitely does not have the best interest of the other in mind or in reality. We abandon our spouse and shatter our vows, our attachment, our reliability, our values when we choose to be intimate with another, sharing that which has been promised to our spouse.
To justify such an action, the unfaithful must undergo some pretty in depth mental gymnastics. Contort reality to make betraying their unsuspecting spouse in the most intimate way. There is no reason under the sun to justify such a betrayal. It requires the keeping of secrets, which is the opposite of relationship. It is the distortion of reality. It is the choice to end the contract of marriage in favor of self.
That kind of mental work is done in isolation. Perhaps it is supported by a culture that glamorizes and minimizes the damage caused by infidelity. But at the end of the day, it is the choice of the unfaithful alone to betray–to abandon their vows and make a mockery of marriage.
And that my friends does not happen in the presence of loving, supportive, healthy friends, family and/or spouse. Given a chance, most betrayed spouses would choose transparency into the mind and heart of their potentially unfaithful spouse so that they could seek wise council. Barring that, divorce if the relationship is deemed unrepairable. The unfaithful, when they choose silence and hiding, steal the human dignity of choice from their spouse. It is indeed the work of the devil.
If you don’t believe in the little red guy with a pitchfork, or the presence of a force that competes with a loving higher power, most would admit that choosing to remain silent is choosing to severe relationship. Authentic relationship. What remains is a false manipulated, faux intimacy full of lies.
If that isn’t evil, I don’t know what is.
We all need to remain in contact with others who hold ourselves accountable to our values and to bounce ideas off of before acted upon. None of us has all the answers, all the wisdom, all the insight to make good choices at all times. We need each other.
Shun isolation. Welcome others–real or virtual. Research. self reflect and think long and hard before making decisions that have the potential of effecting another for the rest of their life. Include decisions that effect only self.
In his processing through our past, my UH tells me that he feels he put me first most of the time. That his actions demonstrated that.
As I try to process this, my knee jerk reactions tells me “no”, he did not. Even if his actions looked kind and loving, the reality was that he was living a double life, investing emotional energy in another woman, de facto depriving me and our family of that energy rightfully belonging to us. Even if he told himself his actions were kind and loving—even if to the observer those actions looked kind and loving, they were a method of image management that kept me in the dark about the reality–even if subconsciously.
Even if his conscious motivation was not to undertake kind and loving actions to manipulate me into thinking he was a faithful spouse–that is what the reality of his actions were doing. They were keeping me and all my investment in time, love and kindness going toward him. His kind and loving actions were keeping me in place, if you will.
So when he brought me a glass of wine before dinner, when he planned some of the details to enable us to take a vacation, when he changed the oil in our car, when he fixed a plugged up sink—he sees these actions as kind and loving toward me.
If he were not betraying me, controlling my reality and thus giving me no say into under what circumstances I wanted to live my life in a marriage that was open on his side, closed and faithful on mine–yes—these actions would be kind and loving.
My friends saw him as kind and loving. They would make comments about how he would wash the dishes or bring me a glass of water. He has admitted that he felt admired and reinforced to undertake such actions in my friends presence when they would praise him. He admits it fed into his bottomless need for praise and acknowledgement as a good guy.
So I ask you—were these actions actually kind and loving? Or were they manipulative to enhance his image and thus garner praise and maintain my belief that he was a kind, loving and faithful spouse?
Or were they somehow both? Is it really all a matter of intention?
Can a person live in delusion of being kind and loving when they are actually simultaneously manipulating their spouse into remaining in a one sided monogamy? Is this part and parcel of the delusional thinking that justifies?
Christine Renewed 