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.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Richard is Dead

Richard loves Jaymie, the Movie, consumed my thoughts first thing each morning as soon as I opened my eyes.   Most of my days started with tears seeping into my pillow.  Anticipation of struggling through another day of mental mayhem was so damn daunting.
Jaymie loves Richard, the Sequel, played in my head for hours when I would try to rest at night.  I'd say try to sleep, but that was never what I hoped for when I crawled, emotionally spent, into my bed.  If I was able to rest my body, my mind, my spirit for a few hours each night, I was so grateful.  Even with the mixture of sedatives and booze that I retreated to much too frequently, my thoughts of him with her had no intermission.

Broken.  I saw my marriage as broken.  Not just damaged or fractured, but shattered and beyond repair.  Richard swore it wasn't.  He never stopped loving me, but that was inconceivable.  The love he proclaimed to her was too massive, too all encompassing.  How could he have any left for me?  If he did love me, I believed it was a love of comfort, not passion.  I am mother to his children.  He has slept next to me for 30 years.  Through tough times and the happiest of days, we have shared it all.  His love for me was almost an obligation.  He desired her.  He wanted her.  The love he felt for her consumed him.

I had zero interest in sharing my husband affections with a 24 year old needy, bird brained bimbo.

Richard was no longer the man I married, not even close.  I kept telling him, "My husband is dead."  You might say that's a bit over the top, a tad too dramatic.  I beg to differ.  My life had done the proverbial 180.   My husband, the strong, dependable, levelheaded partner I could always count on had vanished.  Richard was dead.  The man that I saw through my swollen, blood-shot eyes was a stranger.

This stranger was a very determined son-of -a-bitch, completely resolved in his story that he never stopped loving me.  Come on!  How feasible is that??  I'd have to be as half-witted as Jaymie to buy that bullshit.

OK...enough.  You get it.  I wasn't buying the crap he was selling.  My theory was ever so much more plausible, logical and credible.  He loved her utterly.  He was just scared of giving up his safe life for what he ultimately yearned for.

Scheming, planning.... time to take the control of my life back.  My management skills and my take charge personality dictated my next questionable move.  I offered my deceased husband up to the female vulture.  A love that was as pure and beyond doubt as the emails testified, would not expire in 6 short weeks.  She could have her "perfect" man back.  I barely knew this bastard.

I sent this to Richard & Jaymie.  I thought I was being oh so rational!  At the time, it felt so liberating to just let my marriage go.  He had already gambled it all, I was just throwing the dice one more time.


As I have now had the opportunity to read some of the emails you two shared, I realize how important the written word is to you both.  I am hoping by opening this line of communication, we all can find some measure of hope or closure.  

Jaymie:  You may have already moved on.  Richard thinks that is the case.  If so, please accept my apology for intruding.  But, I believe very strongly that you can't love someone that much, that fast and just shut it off.  I read the letters.  I heard some of the voice mails.  I heard your voice when you told me that what you two shared was undeniable regardless of the limitations and that you never thought you would have to defend the love you shared.  I also read the email after I found out about you telling Richard that you were breaking up with him.  It said you were doing that MOSTLY because I was willing to work through all this and fight for our marriage.  That may no longer be true.  
This email gives my husband permission to explore what he might still be able to have with you in his life.  

Richard:  I know you're not happy about me sending this email, but because you love me and you want me to heal, you will try to understand why I'm writing it.  You finally admitted to me that you did indeed love Jaymie.  No more, it was never love.  No more, I was just searching for something or I was crazy.  You found it in your heart to admit the truth and I can not tell you how much that means to me.  Even though I always knew that you really did love her, because I know you so well, it felt liberating to hear you say it. You say you want nothing more than a small amount of hope that we can salvage what is left of our marriage, that I can find a way to forgive you.  I say I need you to leave so I can begin my new life.  Here in lies the rub.......
I can't be with you if there is ANY chance that you are still in love with Jaymie.  I deserve so much better than that.  I need you to be SURE that you are done with what you had with Jaymie, then I may be able to give you hope.  If, as the discussion evolves, you find your love for one another is still alive, then I want closure to give me resolve to deal with the end of our lives together.  

By sending this email to you both, my hope is that we can discuss our possible options, our happiest futures.  

If we are all honest with each other, maybe we can find the paths that will eventually lead us all to a better, happier place.  We may find hope that Richard & I will stay married, that we will be better than before and we will grow old together.  But, we may also discover that Richard desires a new path.   One that fills him up with joy in ways I could not.  This is where you come in, Jaymie.  You can shut down this open line by ignoring it or you can help me find my way.

Please, help me.
Shawn

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy Moly Shawn!!!!!! Keep writing!
I wish I could respond a little more but my husband is eyeing me....we are in Vegas for a couple days and it has been difficult for me (triggers) because he had been here with his young mistress....ugh!
Thinking of all of you....my sisters in arms...all part of the "Betrayed Wives Club"
Bless you all
`` s

Xena said...

Wow! I think it was very brave!! I didn't know how to describe what I think is happening in my relationship - but your phrase - "Love out of obligation" really hits it on the head. Thats the problem :-(

You had balls of steel to write that letter regardless of whether or not, in hindsight you would do so again. Sometimes something like this is needed to create an opportunity for moving forward.

HUGS

shawnthewife said...

There is much I would do very differently if I knew then what I know now. Never would've sent that letter. Never would have given Jaymie (AKA BW: Bitch Whore) an ounce of my energy. I needed what little I could muster just to drag my grieving ass outta bed!

I let the words of BW, a husband stealing, dip-shit of a girl, suck me dry.
Ladies of the club: Hear this, if you listen to nothing else I try to share on this blog...
THE OW/BW IS NOT IMPORTANT!
The longer you let the BW suck the life outta you, the harder your road to healing will be. You do not need to make this road any harder. It's a horrendous monster of a struggle without adding an additional burden. (Most of you are probably thinking...No shit, Shawn!)
Took me over a year to figure out that little nugget of wisdom. Hope you are all MUCH smarter than me!
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Elle said...

THE OW/BW IS NOT IMPORTANT!

Truer words were never spoken...though it's so, SO hard to believe that when we first find out. I'm so sorry for all the pain you've gone through, Shawn. Glad you're coming out the other side.

Elle

shawnthewife said...

Hey, Elle: So right! The first year I was all about payback. When BW stopped being the pawn in my plan to torture WH, she became my target. So much easier to be furious with her. Laying all the blame at WH's feet was much too close to home.
I'm not done being pissed yet. I don't think I'll ever be done being sad. But, I am done with OW/BW.
This whole thing was SOOOO not about her!
Thanks for your encouragement.
Hope & Hugs, Shawn

Anonymous said...

Hi Shawn:

No , it never was about her....and yet don't you wonder where she was in her life , her belief system that would tell her it was ok to date a married man?
I just got home from Vegas. My husband had been there with OW at one time. I knew sooner or later I would have to go there. It was not horribly hard but it was not easy for me either. Mind would wonder as to picturing them walking around and such.
She will be a part of me forever though
because I have a lovely STD I get to remind me of my husbands affair. It is herpes but type 1. I get a beautiful huge , painful cold sore on my lip about every 3-4 months ( although the first attack was everywhere , genitals and more. Apparently herpes type 1 is mutating to include the genitals). I had it in Vegas and still have it now.
People look at it and it makes me sad. IT makes my husband very sad ( very well should)
I still find myself occasionally googling her name....trying to keep track of her.
I don't do it as much as in the past though.
Some days are easier then others....just wish I did not have this constant reminder on my face. :-(


~~ S

Cracker Scraps said...

Thanks Shawn. You, HH, IC have all helped me so much not to waste my precious energy on OW/BW...she is a parasitic oportunist...insane and insecure. She has rheumatoid arthritis that has flared up. She takes meds simmilar to chemotherapy that make her ill. I have yet to find any compassion for her. Ironicly I diagnosed my WS with shingles during the affair, before I knew about it. Kinda makes me wish I had let him suffer a full blown case of virus filled carbuncles.

Oh ~~S. So sad about your face showing the constant reminder of the STD you got through none of your own wrong doing. My face shows 20 years of age now with deep frown furrows between my eyebrows. All of us of the "Betrayed Wives Club" carry a deep bleeding inner wound of the soul. I don't know how this wound will heal or what the residual will be. How long will I feel it? How much will it show forever?

M said...

It's been more than a year since H and I reconciled after his last PA. We were separated for almost 2 years, and when I was finally ready move on with my own life, he reaches out to reconcile.

Some days are better than others, but I've been having a streak of bad days lately. Pure rage and disgust at H. Mind you, he has been very open and honest with me now, not hiding anything, letting me read and reply to his text messages, etc. (he would never let me do this during his affairs). But whenever I tell him I'm still not completely healed, he wants nothing of it and one night he even blew up. And so the bile just keeps bubbling up inside me.

Remembering the lies, the deception, the nonsensical garbage he would feed me just to run off and be with the OW/BW--this just gets my blood boiling nonstop that I am exhausted at the end of each day.

When we were first reconciling, there was anger on my part but I still felt so in love with him. Now, not so. It's like it's too much to get over. It wasn't one PA. It was three (that I know of), the first one with his ex. He was too trusting and prone to becoming enamored with all kinds of women. It makes me want to throw up just seeing myself type that.

Most times I'm so sure I want to leave and that too much has happened for me to be ever truly happy with him again, and the few other times I just cry because I feel like I still love him. We've been together for almost 8 years and have 3 kids together ages 5, 2, and 1.

shawnthewife said...

(((M))) What a long struggle you've survived, but you're still not done. So sorry. I hope you and your WH are in marriage counseling. If he doesn't let you share your pain with him, he is not helping you heal.
He is still being very selfish in that regard.
He's on the right track with the cell phone. Transparency is crucial. That's a start.
Sometimes it's very hard for betrayers to listen when we need to ask questions about the affair or just talk about our agony, because then they have to face the damage THEY caused. Hearing the raw truth ain't easy, but too damn bad. To heal a marriage, communication and honesty are a strict requirement.
Maybe find a therapist just for you. To help you figure out the path you want. Just focus on you for a while. Take time to decide what will make YOU happy.
Please stick around and "talk" to us. We get it. We will always listen.
Hope & Hugs,
Shawn

M said...

Thank you so much, Shawn. I actually contacted a counselor I was seeing in 2010 when we were still separated. I am fixing my schedule to set an appointment with her again.

Another thing, I became pregnant with our third child on the fourth month of our separation. Imagine the torture I went through, pregnant, my WH gallivanting with the OW/BW, oblivious to the damage he was causing the family. He even had the nerve to question if the baby was his. For this, I almost slapped him (wonder why I didn't, really).

During the months leading to our reconciling, he said, "You were in pain the whole time we were separated? Really? I thought I'd made it clear that we weren't going to work out. I thought we were ok, that you were fully moving on." The affair fog had cleared by then, but I think he had moved on to a denial fog. WSs minimize the hurt they cause, and sometimes even feel like you somehow deserve it.

How are others coping with life a year after the affair, I wonder? Any other women out there with days as bad as mine? By the way, S, I too got herpes (genital) from my H very early on in our relationship. Wasn't from his PAs but from one of those women he had sex with before we were together. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

My husband insisted that he never loved her, he just thought he did, because he loved the reflection of himself he saw in her. She adored him, he liked himself and felt very disrespected and demeaned at home (we had four kids, two teens and the oldest was giving us a lot of problems, finances were a mess, I dealt with things by pills or going on girls night out and drinking with my friends, he was miserable, I had some responsibility there, but.....) I say if you thought you loved her, love is a state of mind, and so you did love her and I can't deal with that. He said love is a choice! Boy did that piss me off... but he's right. I hate to say it, he's right. Every relationship will get to the point of smelling the bad breath in the morning and washing the dirty underwear, but that's when we "choose" to keep loving our partner through the mundane or trying times, and that's where true love, Agape Love, grows from. Keeping the "choice" to love up front and high priority when it doesn't feel warm and fuzzy and foggy like an A~ At that time, it angered me to no end for him to say love is a choice and he only "thought" he loved her. Still angers me a bit that he was right again. How can he be so right about almost everything he's ever said and or done, but have an affair for four years and almost break me to the point that he did??? How do I reconcile that?
Formerly, Brokenonce

Winona said...

My husband told me he loved me and only wanted me in the days after DDay, but kept his trip plans with friends AND his then unknown to me plans to meet her while there. I found out a month later, gave him the chance to tell me the truth, he chose to lie. I told him I had just read a 4 month long messgae thread, every. single. word. and photo. I described fmor of the photos, and recited a few choice passages. He winced and dropped his defenseive "you snooped my FB" YOU left it open, fool. That the only reason I know he went to meet her was this thread, because he hadn't told me the whole truth, and the only reason his shit was not outside on fire was that she was angry there was no sex. I asked him why he didn't say anything to her other than "She knows about us". He said he had to be sure. Sure of what?! I asked increduously. The expression he gave me was so tortured: He had to be sure of her. Not me or us, HER. Days after he proclaimed love for me, that he always loved me, that it was me he wanted, he went to meet her to be sure of her?!

Yeah, he became a broekn man that spring, and your description of your husband being dead, being a stragner was exactly what I was feeling. I didn't know this man. The man I knew died. Just like a part of me died, my trust died. This is all so brutal.