Having found my old diary, I am now going to bore you with the details about the immediate days after finding out about my husband’s affair. I’m not sure if it will be in any way helpful to anybody out there, but I hope so. Also in the moments I used to have when I questioned how our marriage could have gone so wrong, it’s very useful to be able to read about how I felt then. Because you forget – which is maybe a good thing. On reading my words, the divide between the two of us seemed huge, even then:-
“Our 14th Anniversary. I have now known about his affair for three days and I feel like I’m living in somebody else’s life. Like I am hovering above myself in a strangely otherworldly way. I actually almost feel as if I can’t breath. I can’t tell anyone. I have to pretend that everything is OK. this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I just want to lie down in a crumpled heap and never get up. We had planned to spend the day together but it didn’t work out that way. I went in to London to meet him for lunch and then he couldn’t get away to meet me because of work. I felt utterly miserable. My friend called and I cried. She though I was upset because he hadn’t been able to join me. If only she knew. The truth is so so so much worse than that.
We went to see “Love Actually” tonight, as planned in my previous life as of three days ago. It was almost unbearable. Emma Thompson plays a mother whose husband has an affair at work. Her line “you’ve made a mockery of my life” made me cry. We went for a drink afterwards and I told him that I wasn’t going to blame him for the affair “that I’m sure I’ve driven you to it, but don’t expect our relationship to survive it – I will never trust you again and I don’t want you around desperately trying to make it work whilst I resent you and everything around me for ever more”. I reminded him that I’d always said an affair would be unacceptable within our marriage. I also told him that he HAD to tell me who it was or I would always be wondering if it was somebody I knew. He didn’t want to tell me because “I could destroy her”. What? But he understood that I needed to know. I do know her. I met her when I was heavily pregnant with our third child. She’s older than me. Divorced. Attractive. I want to kill her.
Then I went to the loo and I had this overwhelming feeling that we would be able to get through this. That I wasn’t going to let her ruin our marriage. That I could forgive him and that we could be stronger. I told him that it was strange that finally he was able to look me in the eye after all this time and suddenly I no longer wanted to look at him. I wondered if that was simply to do with him feeling the guilt abate now he’s told me.
Why has he told me?
The though of him with another woman makes me feel physically sick.
Why when I’ve waited all those months for him to be tender and concerned, can he do it now. When I don’t want it anymore.
I’ve thought about all the lies. All the times he was with her and then came home to me. My heart hurts.
Vegemitevix
January 20, 2010I understand these words, I cried at Love Actually too. Look how far you’ve come and how strong you’ve been. How brave too, to open the old diary. xx
Family Affairs
January 20, 2010Yes, and slightly stupid because it really does bring everything flooding back as if it was yesterday. Which maybe is a bad thing….rather than a healing thing. I don’t know. Lx
stigmum
January 20, 2010I can relate to alot of this, even though I wasn’t with the Foca for anywhere near that long. What’s curious (for me!) is that the other day I was reading a 2006 diary and the rant on those pages are no different to the rants I blog now. Meanwhile I have moved on! I have! We know we are better off without these men. Years ago a mother said to me: “He’s the father of your child. For that reason there will always be a part of you that will continue to love him or resent him.” Oh joy. You didn’t bore me by the way. I hope Love Actually no longer makes you cry. Good luck with the upcoming wedding rah rah rah xxx
Mad
January 20, 2010My husband and I drifted away and our divorce arguments were miserable, but mainly about practical issues.
I met someone else and fell in love again. He was a lying sh1t and literally disappeared from my life. I could not believe that I would recover, ever. I was so desperate that a good friend sat with me all night. After I had finished talking to the Samaritans.
The scars are visible and I can’t bring myself to want another relationship. Reviving memories is like turning the heat on the gas to full. A certain piece of music and I’m lost in tears again. Everything spills over.
But I’ve learnt to get by and enjoy the small pleasures in life and not poke at the wound. Sometimes I’m surprised to find that I’m still breathing but mainly I can maintain an equilibrium.
You didn’t bore at all. Made me cry a bit, again, I must admit.
Take care.
Mad x
Family Affairs
January 20, 2010Thanks Mad, That is so sad. Sorry. I know. Musn’t pick the wounds. I’m not actually now. Just remembering and feeling pleased that i know longer have to feel like that Lx
Pippa
January 20, 2010I just want to come and find you and hug you and tell you that it wasn’t your fault. Some people are just…. you know. I hope that this is good for you, be careful opening old wounds as they will always hurt.
stigmum
January 20, 2010L, you made me think of a great song, No More The Fool by Elkie Brooks. Have a listen and take care x
Helen P
January 21, 2010Everything you write feels so familiar. I still can hardly bear to watch Emma Thompson in Love Actually. The bit that makes me dissolve into a quivering heap is when she is in floods of tears and then wipes them all away and pretends to her children that everything is fine… oh how very many times have I done that?!
And what you wrote about just wanting to lie in a crumpled heap and not get up – I felt just exactly like that, but still had to carry on, mothering, doing stuff just as I’d always done only with a head that felt like it was going to spin off with the pressure of everything I’d learned.
Shanon Kesselring
May 15, 2010Hi! I recently read your posting and We liked it. I was wondering if you are going to publish additional posts to go together with this one?
Family Affairs
May 15, 2010Yes, I should – will update soon – thanks for the reminder Lx