Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Digging for Answers, Diffusing Their Power

Rebuilding My Past
CerebralSpouse

Imagine that you woke up one day and realized that all of your memories from the past couple of years were false.  Everything that you understand in your current life is based on your memories of past events, of how you got to the moment that you’re in now.  How much confidence could you have in your present life and your current relationships if those memories suddenly became unreliable?  Your first reaction to such an experience would most likely be to dig for answers, to reconstruct your memories according to reality.  Whether or not those memories were more pleasant than the ones you previously held would be secondary to your obsession with discovering the truth, and you would most likely be willing to restructure your view of the present according to that newly discovered reality. 

This is how I felt upon discovering my wife’s affair.  I suddenly realized that my memories from the past two years were inaccurate, but I had no idea what reality was.  Before I could focus on any attempt at moving forward, I had to reconstruct my memories of the past.  I needed to know when the affair started and how I could have been so blind to it.  I needed to know significant dates when my wife was with the other guy instead of with our family.  I needed to hear the truth behind lies that I been told.  Most of this wouldn’t be pleasant for me to hear, but at least it would be real. 

The problem was that as I started to get those details, they tainted my existing memories.  A family event that I used to look back on fondly now just felt like a façade masking our turmoil.  An evening that I spent alone with our two kids now just represented my ignorance as I recalled the lie my wife used to get out of the house.

 [...] 

I found myself confronted with conflicting goals.  I needed sufficient details of the affair to reconstruct my past, yet those details consumed me and tainted my positive memories.  My initial reaction was to try to suppress the negative thoughts, to be content with the information I had and put the past behind me.  But that would mean that my wife and I would have to essentially pretend that those events never occurred and never discuss them.  How could we build a marriage based on mutual trust when such a significant event in our lives was off limits?  How could I have an honest relationship with my wife if I was forever left with lingering doubts that I had been given the full story? 

Rather than trying to suppress the details of the affair, we had countless conversations about it.  Those were thoughts that were going haunt me anyway, so there was no point in making a futile attempt to avoid them.  I learned all about the other guy, confirmed suspicions that I had regarding specific dates and events, even asked details about the sex.  While it was obviously painful, forcing myself to thoroughly confront that information addressed a variety of symptoms of the affair. 

Your pride takes an enormous hit when you learn that your spouse has been having an affair without your knowledge.  I felt stupid for believing lies she told me.  I felt foolish as I recalled smug comments I had made over the years about our great life and solid marriage.  I felt naïve that I never considered an affair the remotest of possibilities.  But uncovering the details of that affair helped to restore my pride.  I may have been stupid and naïve in the past, but at least I was being intelligent now.  While it may have taken some time, I did discover those secrets.  My wife and the other guy were now the ones who looked naïve for thinking that they could keep the affair a secret from me. 

Married couples are supposed to share exclusive information with one another.  They share special moments and have knowledge about one another that no one else has.  One of the most difficult things for me to deal with was the knowledge that my wife and the other guy shared those things while I was an outsider to their relationship.  As I learned more about affair, I took that exclusive information from them.  Just like my positive memories became tainted by my knowledge of the affair, her memories now had to include the pain and embarrassment of revealing them to me.  It was as if the affair could only survive as long as its details remained hidden, and I could dismantle it piece by piece as I slowly uncovered its secrets. 

[...] 

[B]y directly confronting the details of the affair, I diffused its power over me.  I don’t have to avoid those ugly thoughts anymore because they don’t have the visceral effect on me that they used to.  The affair has just become another chapter in our marriage, and we’re more likely to joke about it now than argue about it.  It’s difficult for something to have power over you when you’ve reduced it to a punch line.

I kept trying to cut this reading down - but it's all so right.

The need to ask, and ask, and ask hard questions, because even though the answers are painful, at least they might be true. And the weirdly reassuring thing about painful answers is that they are the ones more likely to be true.

Some people don’t need the details I needed. Some people (including Drew) would say that I asked for more details than I actually wanted, than was healthy. But, with some admitted exceptions, when Drew gave me complete answers to the questions I asked – no matter how gory the question or gory the answer – I would then be able to know, acknowledge, and process that detail. And then I could get over it. I could diffuse its power.

But still, those needed answers are accompanied by such varied types of pain. Which include, but are far from limited to, the types CerebralSpouse notes: the tainting, the humbling, the sense of exclusion.

The tainting of what were once wonderful memories. That ski trip I went on with a friend, and how I arranged childcare so Drew could have the weekend off too. That Easter I took our daughter to my family home because Drew had to work. That visit to my old college roommate, to meet her six-month-old. Yet more casualties of the betrayal, more losses.

The humbling. A few months before D-Day, a friend asked Drew and I what our secret was, how to have as amazing a marriage as we seemed to have. I held forth on the importance of trust, openness, respect, independence, and so on, while Drew nodded along. Moments from that conversation haunted me for weeks after D-Day – how proud I had been, how oblivious I actually was.

The harrowing sense of exclusion that comes with the knowledge that your partner has been sharing intimate emotional/physical/locational/symbolic spaces with others that were supposed to have been reserved for you alone.

On the other hand, there was a silver lining - like CerebralSpouse, I was proud of having found out information that Drew tried to hide. At first, Drew didn't take many precautions - he didn’t have to, in part because I was so invested in being a trusting spouse, in part because I couldn’t conceive of doing anything like what he did myself and so it didn’t occur to me that he would. But when I got a sense that all was not well, he went into full damage control mode – he cut off contact with all the women, deleted all the emails and chats, and so on. I, however, turned out to be a brilliant investigator - at least once I had a reason to be suspicious. I learned all kinds of places computers and Google store information. I uncovered all sorts of things – online calls, hangouts, search history, location history – that he either thought he had deleted or didn’t even know existed. Right now, to the extent there’s an information asymmetry, I’m the one who knows more – he had been minimizing what he did, even to himself, but thanks to these records, I know exactly what he did, when, where, with whom.

And there's another, even more important silver lining: the healing that accompanies reconstructing your narrative. Only after you know what happened can you acknowledge it; only after you acknowledge what happened can you process it; only after you process what happened can you move forward.

Which is not to say you need to know everything that happened to move on. At base, all one really needs to know happened was that there was a betrayal. Certainly some people in my position wouldn't want to know what I do. Others who do may not have the access I did to so much damning information, or a partner willing (at least eventually) to answer all questions as honestly as possible. But for me, knowing the details of Drew's infidelities helped me come to terms with the fact that these unbelievable events actually occurred. Which in turn allowed me to start healing.

Which, in turn, allows me to sometimes laugh about it all. The other day, I took something away from our infant daughter, and she didn’t cry, but she perfectly replicated the Greek tragedy mask – open, downturned mouth; pleading, tilted eyes. And I called Drew over, saying, “You’ve got to see this – she’s giving me the perfect look of utter betrayal!” To which he replied, without missing a beat, “That’s ok. I’m pretty familiar with that look now.” Instead of dissolving in tears, instead of scolding him for joking about something so raw, I just - laughed.

It takes a lot of work to reconstruct a narrative, both in terms of time and conversations and emotional energy. But without the hard questions, without the painful answers, without the sometimes-seemingly-never-ending work, I wouldn't be where I am today - not healed, not by a long shot, no, but so much better.

No comments:

Post a Comment