A Story of the Affairs

Confidence in the Present
Cerebral Spouse

[...]

I was working to build a story of the affair in my mind that went beyond dates and events. If I was going to be confident that she was truly committed to the marriage, I needed to understand how she reached that point after being so far away from it. I needed to be able trace a path from our marriage slowly deteriorating, to her developing feelings for the other guy, and finally to her working through those feelings and recommitting herself to me.

My confidence in that story would be based on how well it matched with her behavior and the details about the affair that I had been able to confirm. I knew my information was imperfect with plenty of loose ends, but it at least had to make logical sense so I could be reasonably confident that I had the truth. The challenge was that we were still discussing the affair and uncovering new details. If new information didn’t fit into my story, then it must mean that my understanding of events wasn’t correct.

Multiple times we followed a similar pattern. We would have a conversation where some new piece of information would come out, and I would spend two or three days analyzing it. It could be a completely casual conversation where we only touched for a brief moment on the affair, and the new information could be a seemingly innocuous detail. Even a minor detail though could contradict something significant, which could ultimately destroy my entire story. It was as if every time I learned something new, the story of the affair became tentative until I could verify that new piece of information logically fit.

[...]

Each time a new detail fit, it gave me an additional bit of confidence that I wasn’t going to eventually find a significant contradiction. Each time she shared something new, it was another step closer to complete and open honesty. I chose to focus on our positive progress as opposed to dwell on suspicions. If she revealed something now that she had previously held back, for example, I focused on her current honesty as opposed to her past obfuscation.

While my confidence in the present is dependent on my understanding of the past, I know my story of the affair will never be entirely complete. I’ve reached the point though where I’ve lost interested in filling in any remaining details. At some point you need to let the doubts go and focus on moving forward with your marriage. It took time and a hell of a lot of work, but I think we’re finally there. 

The Truth Was Awful, The Lies Were Worse

Sex and Relationship Infidelity: A Betrayed Partner's Need to Know the Truth
Robert Weiss

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[I]t is the betrayal of relationship trust caused by consistent lying, rather than any specific sexual act, that both defines infidelity and causes the deepest pain to the betrayed partner. The emotional violation and trauma experienced by a spouse who is forced to live with ongoing secrets, lies, and the resulting denial of his or her own reality by a cheating partner is indeed deep. The sudden discovery or unraveling awareness that a long-term intimate partner has been living a secret life filled with sexual infidelity—whether that infidelity has been carried out in-vivo (affairs, prostitutes, anonymous sexual partners, etc.) or online (porn, webcams, social media, dating/hookup sites, etc.)—evokes feelings that lead the betrayed partner to question literally everything about his or her relationship.

It is frequently the case when working with a betrayed spouse or life-partner (much as it is with abused children) that the victim will begin to question his or her own behavior, often experiencing guilt, shame, self-doubt, and remorse when reviewing the past. Attempting to establish some sort of emotional control over their grief, betrayed partners will turn on themselves as a source of the problem. It’s all too common for these individuals to think, “If I’d just been nicer, or better in bed, or thinner, or more emotionally supportive then he wouldn’t have turned to all those other women,” or, “If I made more money, was better endowed, had more hair, or drove a nicer car then she wouldn’t be meeting up with those old boyfriends she discovered on Facebook.” Betrayed spouses also find themselves examining feelings and misgivings they previously pushed aside when believing the lies they were told; oftentimes they wonder why they chose to ignore their self-protective instincts. Even worse, they may begin to question if they’ll ever be able to regain the trust they need to stay in this or any other relationship.

This negative self-appraisal is both normal and an understandable part of the grief process—especially when the source of that grief is the loss of what one thought his or her primary relationship to be. In cases involving repetitive patterns of cheating, betrayal, and lies, a wide range of powerful emotions are likely to be unleashed and to stick around for quite some time. Some more common responses to learning about a loved one’s infidelity include:

• Shock/Despair/Depression – The betrayed spouse is oftentimes numb and somewhat unable to function. Other people may be livid and screaming that they should take action (separation, divorce, etc.), but early on the betrayed spouse is more often seeking insight, validation for his or her feelings, and emotional stability as opposed to drastic action.
• Self-Doubt/Remorse/Shame – As stated above, many betrayed spouses blame themselves for not having seen the patterns of lying and deceit, and for not acting sooner. Some will tell no one about what they are going through due to shame and fear of judgment. Sadly, this leaves them isolated in their fear and hurt.
• Honeymooning – Some betrayed spouses move full-force into romance/seduction mode, thinking that if they provide enough sex, their partner won’t “need” to stray.
• Blaming Third-Parties – Betrayed spouses often direct the brunt of their anger onto the person (or people) with whom their partner cheated, viewing their spouse as an “innocent victim” of someone else’s unscrupulous behavior. Cheating partners are supportive of this, as it takes the heat off them.
• Detective work – Betrayed spouses often go through cell phone and credit card bills, wallets, and pockets, and ask endless questions, all in an attempt to understand the entirety of what has occurred.
• PTSD Symptoms Such as Rage, Mood Swings, Withdrawal, and Hyper-Vigilance – Betrayed spouses will display love and then become rageful for no overtly obvious reason. For example: inadvertently seeing a sexualized image in a magazine ad or watching a romantic movie scene can trigger feelings of hurt, insecurity, and anger.
• Poor Boundaries – Lacking others who will understand and wanting to lash out, a rage-filled spouse may act in ways he or she later regrets. This behavior may include co-opting children by telling them “what daddy or mommy did to me,” and telling bosses, mothers, and others about the infidelity. Some spouses will resort to verbal and even physical abuse toward the unfaithful partner.

[...]

He kept swearing to me, “This time I’m telling you everything.” Or sometimes he would get angry, saying, “Why do you keep bugging me? I’ve told you the truth.” But then a few days or a week later there would be another revelation or I’d find something new on his cell phone or computer. Eventually, my faith in him and his willingness to tell me the truth was so thoroughly destroyed that I started to feel like Humpty Dumpty. He had knocked me over and shattered me over and over, and I just wasn’t sure that he or I or anyone else could put me back together again. Throughout this process I felt like my life-foundation was crumbling beneath me. The truth was awful, the lies were worse. I quickly turned into someone I barely recognized, shouting and raging at him one moment, eating and spending his money as fast I could to feel better (extract revenge) the next. Within a few weeks I couldn’t concentrate at home or at work, and I nearly lost my job. If I hadn’t worked there for so long, I probably would have.

Why Disclose Past Infidelity?

Betrayed partners [...] often ask for complete disclosure. Reasons for this include:

• To validate their suspicions about what was happening in the relationship—suspicions their spouse dismissed and/or denied at the time
• To know if they’re at risk for sexually transmitted diseases, financial disaster, public humiliation, etc.
• To determine if and to what degree the cheating partner values their relationship
• To gain a sense of control over an out-of-control situation
• To help them determine how to proceed (or not proceed) with the relationship
• To see what else their spouse has lied about, as trust isn’t partial and betrayed spouses lose faith in everything about the relationship, not just things related to sex

For couples wishing to remain together, full disclosure all at once protects betrayed spouses from the continued emotional body blows produced by partial truths revealed over time. It also increases the odds that trust can be rebuilt. An unfaithful spouse who tells the full truth and then continues to be honest about his or her behavior has a much better chance of eventually regaining the respect of the betrayed partner.

I cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for disclosure to be carefully planned, organized, and carried out in a clinical setting. This process should not be undertaken without the supervision and involvement of licensed clinician(s) who have worked with both parties to prepare them for the process and potential outcomes of disclosure—as the sharing of this history, even in a safe, controlled, therapeutic setting, is unavoidably a traumatic event.

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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.

No Solid Narrative Ground

Great Betrayals

Anna Fels

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This predicament, a sudden revelation of new, pivotal information about one’s life, is the subject of many memoirs. . . . But what if you’re not a writer and don’t have the option of metabolizing this kind of toxic experience through the process of writing? Most of us can’t seize control of the narrative by publishing our side of the story or get the sweet revenge of going public with the other’s misdeeds.

[...]

Discoveries of such secrets typically bring on tumultuous crises. Ironically, however, in my clinical experience, it is often the person who lied or cheated who has the easier time. People who transgressed might feel self-loathing, regret or shame. But they have the possibility of change going forward, and their sense of their own narrative, problematic though it may be, is intact. They knew all along what they were doing and made their own decisions. They may have made bad choices, but at least those were their own and under their control. Now they can make new, better choices.

[...]

But for the people who have been lied to, something more pervasive and disturbing occurs. They castigate themselves about why they didn’t suspect what was going on. The emotions they feel, while seemingly more benign than those of the perpetrator, may in the long run be more corrosive: humiliation, embarrassment, a sense of having been naïve or blind, alienation from those who knew the truth all along and, worst of all, bitterness.

Insidiously, the new information disrupts their sense of their own past, undermining the veracity of their personal history. Like a computer file corrupted by a virus, their life narrative has been invaded. Memories are now suspect: what was really going on that day? Why did the spouse suddenly buy a second phone “for work” several years ago? Did a friend know the truth even as they vacationed together? Compulsively going over past events in light of their recently acquired (and unwelcome) knowledge, such patients struggle to integrate the new version of reality. For many people, this discrediting of their experience is hard to accept. It’s as if they are constantly reviewing their past lives on a dual screen: the life they experienced on one side and the new “true” version on the other. But putting a story together about this kind of disjunctive past can be arduous.

Understandably, some feel cynical if not downright paranoid. How can they know what is real going forward? How can they integrate these new “facts” about family, origin, religion, race or fidelity? Do they have to be suspicious if they form a new relationship? As my friend said in despair, “I’m just not a snoop; it’s not in my genes."

[...]

FREQUENTLY, a year or even less after the discovery of a longstanding lie, the victims are counseled to move on, to put it all behind them and stay focused on the future. But it’s not so easy to move on when there’s no solid narrative ground to stand on. Perhaps this is why many patients conclude in their therapy that it’s not the actions or betrayal that they most resent, it’s the lies.

[...]

[I]t’s often a painstaking process to reconstruct a coherent personal history piece by piece — one that acknowledges the deception while reaffirming the actual life experience. Yet it’s work that needs to be done. Moving forward in life is hard or even, at times, impossible, without owning a narrative of one’s past. Isak Dinesen has been quoted as saying “all sorrows can be borne if you put them in a story or tell a story about them.” Perhaps robbing someone of his or her story is the greatest betrayal of all.