I jumped a little ahead of myself in this blog. Please allow me to back track a bit. I sent the email to Richard and Jaymie after I tried, very hard and in vain, to get Richard to understand where I was. We talked about our feelings ad nauseum. No matter how I strained to find the words, I couldn't articulate my emotional state. We talked at home, on dates, at Dr. K's and with the new therapy wizard in our life, Dr. N.
I sent the following email to Richard November 9th, 2010. Less than a month after Dday, before I discovered Richard was still lying to me. I hadn't even found the emails professing his forever love to Jaymie yet. That would knock the wind outta my sails less than a week after I sent him the note below in a pathetic effort to reveal what was in my heart.
As I reread the words I wrote 18 months ago, it feels like the most reliable source of my mindset.
Not sure who wrote the email. Couldn't have been Toughie Pants. She always took time off when I was alone. Not Debbie, not Royal Bitch and certainly not Lucy. It may have actually been me.
I'm gonna try and type what I feel. I think it might help you understand why I have been asking for space and hopefully it will help me get some of this clutter out of my head.
The strongest and most painful image I have in my head is of you that first night when you looked directly into my eyes and said you HAVE (not had) strong feelings for this girl. This isn't an image I have imagined from the details I've managed to tug and pull out of you. This is straight from your lips to my heart. When that moment absorbs my thoughts, which is only about 100 times a day, the agony I feel is immeasurable. I never thought I could be hurt so badly. I always thought I was so much tougher than this. As much as I want to, I'm starting to believe that I will never get over that. And, if I can't, then I will never be able to forgive you. That means I will always have anger. I will always have hurt, resentment and deep sorrow for the loss of the trust I always felt so blessed to have in you.
You say I'm wrong about the feelings you have/had for Jaymie. Perhaps, but I will never know for sure because the faith in your word that I cherished is now gone. Karen (Dr. K) says we need more time to heal. Perhaps, but I know myself pretty well. I think you can agree with that. I have always made up my mind fairly quickly, right? My mind and my heart say I am not going to be able to convince myself that you didn't love her. You shared things with her that you couldn't with me and I can't stand that. It hurts too damn much. 28 years and you couldn't find a way to come to me! That tells me she has something I can't give you. It might be the "young thing". That might be all it is, but I doubt it. You are not the kind of man that loves easily. You had to know the risks. You were more than willing to make the leap away from me...from us...to her.
I have heard you say how sorry you are. I believe you, but it brings me little solace. I hear you tell me how much you love me. Why couldn't you love me more than how much you wanted her? I hear you when you say you want us to be together forever. What kind of forever? The word you used this morning was perfect...joyless. That is no way to live. I hear you say it is over with her and it will never happen again. I was SURE that it would never happen even once. Now I know I can't be sure of anything.
Our children deserve my absolute best effort to keep our family together. I know that more than I know that I still love you. I have been trying so hard, but I am failing. If it keeps up, I will not be strong enough to be here for them. I feel like a shell of myself, kind of out of body, looking down on myself with pity and near disdain. I hate myself right now. I am weak. I am pathetic. Where is the strong Shawn?? Why can't I find her?? I need her back! If you are gone, she will have to resurface. If you are not here for me to cling to when I am falling, I will have to pick myself back up. The easy road would be for me to continue to cling to you regardless of how angry I am. Ignore the anger and reach out for comfort. Allow you to be my savior when you are also the reason I need so badly to be saved. I can not tell you how screwed up that sounds to me. I need to be capable of saving myself. I know I'm not right now, but I must be soon. Our kids will get me there.
I am willing to keep trying with you here until after the holidays. I don't know if I am saying that because of the kids or because I am too scared to have to tell my parents about us. Either way, it just makes me feel that I can't stand on my own. My decision is based on fear of hurting the kids or fear of disappointing my parents, maybe both. Whatever. It sure doesn't mean that I am making decisions for me.
We can try to set ground rules, but what good will that do? I don't know from one minute to the next what emotion I'll be trying to beat down. That is another classic element to this wacky ride. I can go from anger & despair to a deeper love than I thought possible in 30 seconds or less! Misery to elation with just a kiss or a touch. But I always end up back in the same place, convinced that you need more than I can give you, especially now when I am so much less than I was. If only you would have come to me before when I was whole. I wish for that everyday. I also wish I had been more aware. If only I had not ignored all the signs. There were so many. Anyway...a little off track. Ground rules seem pointless but I am willing to listen to any ideas you have. I will not be able to promise to follow them. My brain has a will of it's own right now and my self control is minimal.
Regardless of how I behave toward you in the next couple of months, please know this much to be totally true....I love you more today than I did yesterday and I will love you more tomorrow. I know this to be true because if it wasn't I would not be willing to deal with this much grief. I would not weep at the thought of you touching her. I would not obsess about all the hours you spent talking to her when it should have been me. I would not care about any of the things you shared with her at all. I could just let it all go. I could just let you go and start to heal. But, I won't give in that easily because I do love you. I do.
Don't know if any of this makes sense. Maybe it doesn't have to. It helped me.
Love you, husband.
OK..Maybe Lucy snuck in and wrote that last lovelorn paragraph. She required lots of attention.
I managed to keep a lid on the level of my unsound mind when I was forced to be around others. When I was able to be alone, which I wholeheartedly preferred, I set my frenetic, paranoid mind free from bondage. On a good day, I only sent thoughtful, heart-felt emails, like the one you just read, to Richard. Once I read the emails and texts he shared with her...all bets were off. Good days were exceedingly few and far between. Most days the collateral damage began to spread like a contagion.
3 comments:
Shawn,
I read this and the pain I feel from what you wrote seems like I can reach out and touch it. The agony, the dis-believe in what was done to you by the person you trusted the most in the world. It was gone in a second and their was so getting that undeniable trust back again. I can read, where you are truly speaking to your H from the depth of your soul, trying to explain the pain you feel and all because of him. The loss of the perfect love that you thought you both had for each other, but yet, he didn't come to you in the beginning to stop from doing what he did. I only wish that I had kept a journal, I could go back and remember some more than what I do, as so much is now a blur, due to the pain I felt also. I know it's painful for you to probably read this, but you have no idea how your writing your journal has brought back so much to you that is helpful. It's has helped me remember certain things, just like you were feeling when you wrote this in your journal to your husband.
Your suggestion to watch the Grey's Anatomy episode, I felt like I was in bed with her, with me cramped up in a fetal position from the pain in my stomach and the sadness in my heart. I want my H to see that episode with me, as he remember's nothing, which hurts me even more. Maybe that will refresh his memory.
Thank you for being you and doing what you do. Whatever you do, keep posting. You have no idea how many people you help, both here and on HH.
Blessings,
Songbird or Linda
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I remember so well being the same woman who wrote the above email. I emailed him at work too, and I couldn't understand why during the four year affair that was over for quite some time, and the years until he confessed, I felt like I could never do right by him, like nothing was good enough, like I lacked something because he was so cold to me, and then the truth comes out and he's head over heels for me, does everything right, takes my wrath, my pain, my sorrow, my mess and lets me be me and holds me and shares with me and tenderly holds me together. WHY NOW? I couldn't understand, I was a friggin train wreck, horribly thin after always being a little buxom and curvy... gaunt faced. sleep deprived, angry, crazy, irrational.... obsessive and needy... and I'm supposed to trust that he loved me now. ???? What sense did that make? And I was angry that he was offering me now, what I needed then... when I wasn't even sure I could look at him anymore. How Ironic!
Formerly, Brokenonce
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