After an affair, your life doesn't belong to you anymore. For over a year, I couldn't control my own thoughts.
The turmoil in my head was viciously repetitive but savagely random. With this blog, I began to exorcise the demons holding my head hostage.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Emotional Cutting

Fresh pain.  New torment.  An ache so deep it felt alive in my gut.  I'd worked hard for it.  I'd asked for it.  I'd begged for it.  Was I getting what I deserved?  The emails were validation of my pain.  I had not considered how hard it would be to read the words Richard wrote to Jaymie.
I only wanted answers to the unending questions.  If I found answers in the lustful, fanciful, adoring words, the convulsions in my heart would be worth it.

Jaymie had been right.  Son of a Bitch.  I had to face it.  Richard loved her.  Maybe he still did.  He could sugar coat it, call it something less than love, say he was out of control, tell me it was just a fantasy, he was seeking his lost youth through hers.  Put it all in a pretty box and wrap it up with bows.  No matter how he told his side, his story was a lie!  ANOTHER LIE!  Son of a bitch!  I had a dozen emails that told the truth!  All Richard had done since DDay was spin the story of his betrayal to keep the carnage to a minimum.

The level of love he wrote to her about was beyond anything I could ever have imagined he felt for me.  I think I'm gonna start crying any second now.  I'll never forget how much reading the emails ripped out my heart.  Revisiting the emails has been more difficult than I expected.  I have not read them in months except to pull one or two for the blog.  Back then, it was an all encompassing obsession.  I read them for hours.  I memorized them all.  Jaymie brought out a side of Richard I never knew, not in 30 years.  Their affirmations of love for one another would have been truly beautiful had they been shared between two people that were not hiding from reality. Unique expressions of intense passion and their devotion to one another. The words were quite poetic.

When the emails spoke of particular days and locations, I gained vivid mental pictures that played over and over in my skull like a sickening, X-rated horror flick.  The images were absolutely relentless.  I saw them together regardless of what I was doing in my present reality.  Load the dish washer while watching Richard rushing across a street to embrace Jaymie in Lemon Grove by the Big Lemon sign.  Simultaneously fill up my car with gas and see Richard with his head between Jaymie's legs at Barona Casino Hotel.  Even when I went to work, there was always, ALWAYS a section of my mind that harbored the constant reenactment of Richard Loves Jaymie.

It was 5 weeks post DDay when I started using my new drug of choice.  I spent time with my stash daily.  A lot of time.  Richard called it "Emotional Cutting".   That rang true.  Reading the emails over and over did nothing for me but feed my addiction.  I needed to feel the pain.  I had to have validation for my torment.  The emails owned me.  I didn't know what else to do with myself.  I thought if I dissected the emails thoroughly, I'd finally understand how my husband could do this to me, how he could love someone else.  WHY did he need to love someone else?  Those questions don't really have answers, but once again, I didn't know that yet.  Emotional Cutting felt as necessary as air.  Keep cutting and the whole nightmare will reveal itself.
Wrong again!

I was barely present with my kids at home.  At work, my partner held up our business.  I was indisposed.  I wallowed in my misery and nurtured my fury.  If I let it go, even for an hour, I might start to forgive Richard and that was not gonna happen.  He was in for a world of hurt!  My stay in Sorrow Town was about take a turn into Rage City.

13 comments:

Scabs said...

I don't know but i kinda think this is part of the process of finding out we've been betrayed. I wanted to know all the details too. For months I dug and asked questions and needed detailed answers and pictures. I can't imagine love letters! Those words would stick with me forever...like you said trying to find the WHY? but it never does.

Anonymous said...

Hi Shawn:
Wow....all i can say is wow right now. I know this was from a year ago....how do you feel differently now?
Love , there is all different types.
The love they had was like a roller coaster lust ride which was confused as love. Although if it is they way they saw it , welI guess i have no right to say otherwise.....
I do not know if I say this to make myself feel better or not but it is something I toss around in my head.... it seems they way my husband is (how his mind works when he rationalizes things ) that he promoted what happened to love as he was going through the affair to almost legitimize it in his eyes,,,,that is was not lust but true, honest to goodness love and that they were soul mates and destined to be together and wasn't God great that he threw them together and that they were destined to meet....goodness it was meant to be that my husband who was 43 at the time (overweight and having a mid-life crisis) would meet a 27 year old bikini model from Poland with immigration issues...that he would pay her bills , a lawyer ,and they would travel together +++......gosh, he had to believe love because the other option would be that she was using him (that is what he has since found out)....and i do feel a little sorry for him because that one is a very hard bit of information to swallow. It was not about him...if he were working at a menial job (nothing wrong with that but it proves my point) she would have never looked at him. Instead she saw a man with a 500sel Mercedes and a $10,000.00 Rolex watch ( since then we have lost all our money and I do believe that is when he saw her for who she was and he came home for good,,,,although in the FOG for much longer then I had hoped or deserved)
He still does not want to believe that she used him.
I still don't know all of their story , and honestly I would like to. Although I do agree with you that some of that lovey-dovey stuff I do not need to see.

~~ S

Anonymous said...

....to add...the alternative was something he could not / would not see ( many of us wouldn't)....so it was easier to rationalize those strong feelings that come with affairs and the adrenaline rush it sadly has.... He turned all that in to 'I am strong, desirable, wealthy, in control, and I am in love and I deserve this.'
Even through those feelings of entitlement he had....he had moments of tenderness , sadly not just to me but to her too. There is a lot of my husband that is lovable and he can be very sweet. But he also has an ego (obviously) and some arrogance (that helped him in business) but those traits were also his downfall....sadly he brought me and his kids (and our families) down with him.
His behavior throughout the affair was downright irrational....and that comes up affairs right there....completely irrational

~~ S

shawnthewife said...

~~S: How do I feel now? Good question. Depends on the day, but mostly...hopeful. Revisiting the emails has been more challenging than I want to admit. I actually had a talk with Richard a couple of nights ago. My head was starting to spin again. We talked about his love for Jaymie.
My rational brain says it wasn't real love. It was an illusion, an infatuation, a fantasy for a man going through a wicked midlife crisis.
But, when the fog is deep, it sure looks real. To him it was a love of passion and excitment and overwhelming emotion.
What I'm saying is....even if I can rationaize the love Richard had for Jaymie as nothing more than his desperate search for his youth, it doesn't matter what I think. He thinks he loved her. I'm almost sure of it. He only affirmed his feelings for her once, the night I found the emails on his computer. Since then, it's been more, "I don't know what I really felt or I can't be sure".
So..how am I now? Stronger. Focused on me not them. Still purging poison on this blog. Thankful that I gave Richard a shot at redemption. Even if he did love her, he doesn't anymore.
Hope & Hugs,
Shawn

shawnthewife said...

Hey, April! Thanks for reading and checking in. We know your pain and it sucks hard! When was your DDay? Don't know where you are in the healing process, but join us. We all hope to be heading up the road to happy together soon!
Hope & Hugs,
Shawn

shawnthewife said...

Xena: I hear ya! What's real? What's not?
Faith. I used to have blind faith in Richard. I'm trying hard to keep the faith and lose the blind! I've always been a black & white girl. I'm learning to live in a multitude of gray area. Freaks me out.
Richard has really done all he can to redeem himself. Now, it's my turn to commit my heart even though it scares the ever-loving crap outta me!
There's an old saying: Leap and the net will appear.
I'm counting on it!
Hope & Hugs,
Shawn

Bubbles said...

I understand blind faith!! What's sad is i don't think we can ever get that back, in other words, trust, if those two are the same thing

shawnthewife said...

Bubbles: I try never to say never, but if I was gonna go with that kind of absolute, this is where I'd say it. I'll NEVER have blind faith in anyone ever again!
That's not easy for me to admit because I was so proud of the trust and faith I had in Richard. So damn proud. I wore my trust for him like a medal.
Oh, well.
The Bible tells us what goes before a fall. Yep...that wicked old pride.
I'm wanna try to learn to trust but verify. At some point, we have to trust someone. I just know when I do, my eyes are gonna be WIDE open!
I'm glad you've joined our little group. I don't think we can ever have enough support on this journey.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Susan Rubinsky said...

What about your kids? I'd love to hear more about how your kids handled all this at some point. (Maybe I didn't get to it yet, since I decided to read your blog chronologically)

I ask because my son, who had been a scholarship winning straight A student, just plummeted. And now what I'm concentrating a lot of time on is working with him to get back on track. I'm having him repeat his sophomore year of high school to give him more time to get his GPA back. He and I go to therapy and we talk almost every day now.

But, ultimately, I was absent for over a year -- more like a year and a half. And now I've got to help him get back on track. It's not his fault all this happened.

In my case there is an OC that was a result of the affair and my son feels he was rejected so that my BF -- we weren't married but had a long-term live in relationship -- could "go start another family."

Susan Rubinsky said...

Oh yeah, on the emails -- since your post is about emails. I never asked to read the emails (I feared exactly what you're talking about -- I just didn't want to bear the pain) but the OW has been harassing me for over a year and she forwarded a bunch of emails to me this week on July 4. They were very painful to read and exposed many, many lies. Even recent lies.

shawnthewife said...

Susan: My kids rode the tidal wave rather well. After I made Richard tell them on DDay, we never (well, maybe not NEVER. They witnessed a few choice meltdowns) argued in front of them. We both spoke with them separately on a few occasions to give them an opportunity to ask questions about the situation and to get a feel of how they were doing. They really never missed a step. We were so very lucky in that regard.

Your situation is far more difficult. When there is another child, a new family, your son must feel a lot like we feel...betrayed, replaced. Does he still have a good relationship with his dad? They should both be in family counseling together.

About the OW harassing you?? WTF??? File a restraining order on the BW tomorrow! Is your WH with her or back with you? Either way...she needs to take her nasty self and get out of your life!!

MAN! That little piece of info sure got my dander up!! My calming thought for the day...
Any OW that has the freaking gall to contact the wife will be reincarnated as a naked mole rat in a field over run by extremely hungry birds of prey.

Serenity now....Hope & Hugs,
Shawn

Anonymous said...

I kept a huge bag filled with writings, my journals, emails I had sent to him at work, letters I wrote to him when I hurt and ached and wanted to fix our marriage, pictures of her, and pictures him or him at work from 8 years, pictures of the party I threw for them together when they left the company, and my journaling of how it felt to hear coworkers talk of how their last day that he had to walk out because he couldn't look at them and her without crying, I journaled everything, and found out that I HAD ALL THE KNOWLEDGE AND EVIDENCE anyone would ever need to prove his unloyalty and betrayal, but I believed that I just needed to be a better wife and that he was just being cold to me, cold? He was downright murderous in his complete disregard for me. His fog was born of pain and he rolled in it. but I still carry the blame of having all that written down (and now, newly highlighted in yellow) and being so damn stupid. I obsessed much, and I still can. That huge bag of evidence, writing, emails, pictures, (CD's she'd given him, etc) was locked up away from kids prying eyes, and in the last 8 years, it's been reduced each year, there's not a whole lot left, but I refuse to give up my hard bound journals, because it's proof to me that I can trust myself, and I should never trust anyone above my own heart, head and guts, I knew, and I blew myself off and put his character above my own intuition. Ugh.
Formerly, Brokenonce

Anonymous said...

The bulk of my husband's affair was carried out through text. He knew how badly I wanted to see the texts and told me he deleted them. I told him we could recover them, big mistake (though in hindsight, maybe not) because he went to extraordinary lengths to erase them. I raged. He said he didn't want me to see all the disgusting and ridiculous things he had said to her. So, I became obsessed with reviewing our texting history. Analyzing all those days he said he was going to be late, wondering if I was going to the shore with the kids, if we had anything going on, all days he could meet her. It was my form of cutting. Hours and hours. Now, I'm addicted to affair blogs. Reading other people's experiences, hoping for a silver lining. Obsessing is putting it mildly.