Well, I was up yesterday morning at 5:45 after only 3 hours sleep and sitting here typing a very long post. H came down and I panicked and erased everything. I was not able to get back here as we basically talked for 9 hours straight yesterday. We're both exhausted!!
Vacation went well, all in all. We did have some OR talks along the way -- some got a little sticky -- but all in all everything was pretty good.
So, I think I'll just get down to it. If I repeat anything I posted before leaving, please forgive me. At this point everything seems like a blurr.
Basically, H has spilled his guts to me about this EA. She is someone he's known (really just known of) since he was a teenager. Her parents are/were friends of his parents. They only saw each other a few times in their entire lives. He had a crush on her. She never reciprocated his feelings. Now, she tells him she's loved him for the last 30 years!!
He told me yesterday that he's thought of her on and off over the years. Sometimes he dream of her and wake up feeling "messed up" for a couple of days. She started contacting him at some point while he was still in the PA and thinking that he was "in-love" with that OW. He said he feels one reason he gave up the PA was because he wanted to concentrate on this old flame from his past. Ouch. That hurt. He'd give up the PA for her, but not for me. Well, he did say that was not entirely true. He knew he didn't want the PA anymore anyway and that the EA helped him out of that. Still -- ouch!!
So much has happened in the past 2 weeks. We have had some incredibly soul-bearing talks. We really, both of us, dumped the trash -- so to speak -- of all the hurts and resentments that were held back in our marriage. It was very painful; very eye-opening.
Lily, I read your recent posts. My H cried during our talk yesterday, also. He cried at two different times. That was a huge breakthrough. Many years ago my H told me he'd never cry in front of me again. Apparently, I'd hurt him so much at a point where he was bearing his soul to me (to the point of tears), that he swore he'd never cry in front of me again.
I am so ashamed of myself. How could I have made the man I love feel so lost and lonely? How could I have been so cold to him that he finally just shut down emotionally and would not open up to me again -- until yesterday. I guess the answer is that I was so caught up in myself and my own feelings of resentment and loneliness that I couldn't see what I was doing to him.
So, I feel that he finally feels free enough and maybe safe enough with me to let himself cry in front of me and let out all the pain and hurt he's felt all these years. I said that he was letting himself be emotionally vulnerable with me again. He said that maybe he just didn't care anymore (ouch). He immediately grabbed my hand and said, no, that wasn't the case. I hope not.
He says he still has feelings for the EA. He said they don't just go away overnight, but he was certain that they would. He wants them to go away. In fact, he says they are already deminishing.
He is questioning everything at this point about that EA. He himself does not know how he could think his feelings are/were love. He realizes there is no basis for love. He does not know her. He has not seen her in 30 years. He realizes that everything she has told him could be a lie -- he does not want to believe that, but he knows it could be true. Especially since only 45 minutes after I called her two weeks ago, she was trying to contact him to tell him they needed to "leave it where it was. This was a sign from God." He really questions how it could be so easily ended on her part if she had "been in love" with him for the past 30 years.
This woman was a drug addict 20 years ago!! She had an affair with her drug pusher. Her H rescued her from some scenario where this drug pusher apparently held a gun to her head!! They moved from Florida to Ohio to get away from all that. Now, she cultivated an EA with my H while being in counselling with her's because of their problems. Who knows what else she's done over the years.
I asked my H how he could love a person like that. He doesn't know. I asked what is it that you love about her? His reply, "Because of who she is." Huh? That doesn't make sense. He doesn't know the real her, and with her sorid background doesn't sound like such a great person.
He is really confused and wants help -- finally. He really wants to deal with his guilt and he wants to find out why he's been so self-destructive. He wants me to know why he's done the things he's done. He's very afraid that if he doesn't figure out why he's done the things he's done that he will continue his self-destructive ways in the future. I was a bit alarmed -- asked if that meant he felt he could have another A -- either kind. He said, no, not that, but maybe something even worse. Scared me.
It is so hard for me to hear him say he has feelings for this person. But rationally, I KNOW that it is all a fantasy. I believe that he probably thought about/dreamed about this person in the past because he felt unloved and unwanted by me. He desparately wants to be loved. So then while he was already "messed up" by his involvement with the PA (who he thought at one point he loved because she said she loved him), in walks the old crush. She works herself into his life and tells him she's been in love with him for 30 years. That's all he needed to decided he was in love with her.
Guys, is that messed up or what? The man really, really needs help -- not only from a counsellor, but from me. I need to put aside my hurt feelings, resentments, jealousy and really be here for him. He knows now that I love him -- without a doubt. I believe that is why the "feelings" he has for the EA are starting to deminish already. Plus, like he said, since the feelings aren't being fed by contact with her they are and will continue to die. He sees that I've been loving him all through this mess. He's astounded that I can -- me, too.
He says he has made his decision to be 110% committed to me and OM. I questioned him incessantly about how he can tell me now that he loves me when just 2 months ago he said he didn't and wasn't committed to me. He says what happened 2 weeks ago (me finding about about the EA and him having to face our kids), shocked him back to reality. And, friends, I know he was in shock. He slept downstairs that night and when he came up to our room the next morning he was shaking like a leaf. I had to give him some medication to calm him down.
I have much more I'd like to write, but I'm drained. A little bit at a time is probably better anyway.
I need your help and guidence in keeping myself in check and not doing or saying something really stupid to him. I need to let him work out his feelings about the EA. I need to not be threatened by them. That's a tall order.
I told him yesterday that what I needed above anything else was his honesty -- no matter how brutal, no matter if it hurts me or not. That is the only way to get through this and move on to a happy healthy marriage. He agreed with me. He said it will be hard because he's afraid I'll run if he's too honest. I pointed out that I haven't run so far with all the crap he's told me -- and I've had plenty of reason to. I asked him to trust me -- trust that I love him enough to make it through this. He doesn't understand how I would even want to, but right now he's just grateful that I'm standing by him.
He promised me he'd have no contact with the EA, and that if she contacted him he'd inform me. He said he has no desire right now to contact her. I asked him to let me know if he does have a desire to contact her. He said he would. I don't know that I trust that, but in the spirit of full disclosure and honesty I think he will let me know.
Of course I wonder what is happening while he's at work -- is he calling her or e-mailing her? Is she calling him or e-mailing him? Before he left this morning he simply said, "Don't worry about anything." I took that to mean he was trying to reassure me that he wasn't going to contact her. I liked the fact that I didn't have to ask him. I don't want to ask him. I need to let him start rebuilding his self-respect and integrity by honoring his promises to me without me constantly reminding him to do so.
I need to go now my friends. I have much to do today. Please continue to pray for us. God is at work here.
