He shattered my dream

I celebrated our 50th birthdays (2004) by setting out things that we’d always wanted to do to celebrate the wonderful gift of all those years. But sadly, L had started an affair with a woman ten years younger, devaluing everything. It was not just a s*x thing, although there was a lot of that; he told me he cared for her, had to look after her. A highly manipulative 40-year-old lecturer, she has a husband who adores her and looks after their three-year-old daughter — but claimed that she “needed” my husband to help her have orga*m, as she’d never had one with a man(!).

There was nothing he didn’t do to betray my son and me: invited this woman to our home when I was away working — sat her at our table, in my place, with our son, knowing how much family meals mean to me. He had s*x with her on the sitting-room floor with our son upstairs asleep, he bathed with her in our en suite. He gave her money from our school fees account to clear her overdraft, criticised me to her, planned and colluded to carry on his affair.

He did everything to demonstrate to our son and me that we were worthless, unwanted; that nothing we had shared or built meant anything. We were all too expendable in pursuit of another “want”. Both of them asked me to have “nobility and compassion” so that they could continue their liaison.

At first he had denied it. I pleaded for the truth, but for six awful months L continued to lie about his betrayal. I told him once, calmly, that he had no right to conceal whether he’d had s*x because of the risk of him passing a STD to me. Those two years I was driven mad by the lies. Eventually, after a series of breakdowns, I obtained 100 co-proxamol from the internet. Only then did L tell the truth. The only thing that stopped me taking the tablets was the thought of leaving my lovely son. My doctor said that I must start antidepressants, so I began a long haul out to calmer waters.

We’ve been for counselling. The first time, L lied, saying it was “an inappropriate friendship”, not an affair. The second time we dug deeper and I had been right, in that L had ceased to want me and was offended by my inevitable ageing. He said all he could see “were the bulges and wrinkles” — I’d reached a size 12, whereas his mistress was “ten years younger, lithe and supple, slender like a model”. I accept that I was weighed down with household chores and holding down a full-time job, but overall I feel that it was a good marriage. L is a stereotypical man; I did everything. Such are the frustrations of two imperfect people. I accept that I was resentful sometimes but I felt that life was better with him than without.

Now he says he’s sorry, has ended his affair, wants us to stay together. He says he truly loves me but how could he do all the things I’ve described? Over the past year we’ve had to move from the house he and his lover polluted — downsized with fewer financial responsibilities, more time for walks and talks. Superficially, L and I still get on well and enjoy doing the same things; on a day-to-day level we function. He pays more attention to me, wants to kiss me more and tries around the house. Since the affair I have stuck it out only for the sake of giving our son a stable home in his last year of A levels. I then wish to separate. I am only too aware of the hurt inflicted on children when parents split. Our son has lost respect for his father and gets angry sometimes, punching doors. But there is an enormous pull to stay together until he leaves home. I know I no longer love, trust or respect L as I did, or find contentment sharing life with him. Shocked by the poor choices he’s made and deeply hurt by the abandonment of our marriage, I was struck by your comment of June 14: “Nobody should expect to deserve joy, although a little contentment would not come amiss. A reasonably happy life in your fifties . . . could be worked towards.” I don’t know what would achieve it.

Because I believe so wholeheartedly in the family unit, I always imagined we’d be there until we died, caring deeply, making a safe place for our son to leave from — the unchanging nest to which he could return for nourishment and nurturing, as I did. With the shared meals, order, cleanliness, warmth, a sunny garden, a place to bring friends, a solid front door against the world, the dog ecstatic in greeting, somewhere you’re always welcome. But all is now tainted. I’ve read counselling books that talk of a deeper understanding reached between a couple after an affair. I’ve really tried to get there, but without success. One half of me says I should just accept that he didn’t leave us, and be content. The other says that I cannot share the rest of my life with someone I no longer love, respect or trust, and can’t even truly look at: that our marriage was over when he embarked on his affair. Or is there another way of seeing this mess?

D

Dear D, I want to start, strange as it may seem, by asking you to imagine yourself as a blue cellophane disc on a white ground, a light shining down on it. As designers know, blue is the world’s most popular colour — that of the sea and the sky, promoting harmony, peace, trust, loyalty, faith, truth, cleanliness. In heraldry, it means piety and sincerity. Hold that thought (it will become clearer later) — and know that the world has no problem offering you sympathy. You have suffered through the actions of somebody you loved very much, and who’s the first to admit that you haven’t deserved it. Yet that truth doesn’t advance us. When a crisis occurs it isn’t enough to cry out, “Who is that person? How could he do this to me?” All those in a similar situation also need to ask this: “Who am I? How did I become the person to whom this was done?”

From your letter (three times as long as this edit), I see a woman who has been in pursuit of the ideal since her idolised father taught her his values. You love poetry, music: order in art and in life. I don’t know what your job is, but guess that you always stretch yourself; everything you touch has to be done well — no, perfectly.

There is something deeply touching about the importance you attach to Home: the idea of family, the meals, the dog, the “solid front door”. Yet believe me, no door is so solid that it can withstand forces coming from inside as well as from without. “Why?” shouldn’t always be the victim’s cry; we do have a hand in our own fates, too.

So I see also a woman unable to cope with complicated realities. “Family” isn’t an ideal, it’s people. The robin is pretty but he can’t talk back, and music and poetry can be more than merely moving — they should sometimes disturb, even shatter, too. Do you realise what your strange asterisks scream out about your distaste for the imperfect, rough, messy, irrational aspects of humanity — which find the most obvious expression in sex? Why are you unable to write the words sex and orgasm when they appear everywhere? It suggests that there were serious problems within your marriage which you denied — until the day your husband shattered your illusions. I’ll come back to those in a while.

THE HUSBAND’S STORY: I so want her to stay

Dear Bel, It must be rare to be offered both sides of the same sad story. D suggested that I add a paragraph to her letter, but it’s not enough. Most people would suggest that she turn her back on this undeserving wretch, her husband. But a committed and remorseful man is part of the picture. I would share D’s assessment of our former life: a lovely son, common profession, sense of humour, interest in the environment, similar outlooks and good memories. We never had serious disagreements, but we realise we never dealt with a lot of issues.

I had an affair in 2004 but struggled to admit to myself and D that this is what it amounted to. I lied to save her pain, and the impact of her anger: that was cowardly and a bad mistake. Up to that point, I had prided myself on being an honest person. D pursued the truth with forensic tenacity: she wanted to find out who I was and the depths to which I had been able to sink. All that emerged hurt her deeply, and she interpreted my betrayal in terms of being uncaring about her and our son.

Sleepless, she became deeply depressed. D and I share a desire to understand what happened, but our approach has differed. I still attend counselling. I desperately want to explore truthfully what I was searching for, how I could hurt my family so much. The explanations I have given have not resulted in understanding or acceptance, but contempt and anger. When you have been hurt so much and seen your child suffer, nothing seems a good enough reason.

After our abortive visit to a Relate counsellor we had very productive sessions with someone else. We stopped a year ago when we felt we had the tools to communicate without acrimony. Things seemed positive; there was a way forward. Unfortunately, there followed more sleeplessness. D became emotionally and physically drained and was placed on antidepressants. These helped, but D needed to make some order out of this chaos and resolved that we should be together only until our son finishes his A levels in a year.

I have never wanted to hurt D or to walk out on my family. I was torn during the affair but never said I’d leave. I had started taking her for granted and failing to make her feel valued, but have learnt that there are many ways in which we express love and like to receive it. For D, actions seem to matter most, and everything she did for me was an expression of love. I, on the other hand, found that being told I was making a difference to my ex-lover made me feel special. D says that the prospects of her telling me I am special are now very slim indeed, and how will I cope without statements of adoration? But I don’t seek to be adored, only to be valued: what we all seek in a relationship. I asked when had been the last time D had thrown her arms around me, or I her? We both craved more intimacy; both yearned to be touched and wanted, but it was not happening.

When the affair was revealed, and the prospect of losing my wife became a reality, I desperately started to want to hold on to her and the family. I felt her pain and tried to comfort her through many long, tear-filled nights. She dismissed all this on the ground that only a short time before I’d been saying all this to someone else, so it just demonstrated my shallowness.

There’s been no hiding place for 18 months. I have taken responsibility for my actions and laid myself bare to my family, friends and counsellors — wept with remorse in front of them all and felt utterly stupid. Every day I look at my beautiful wife and wonder how I could have got myself in this position. My confidence is destroyed and I feel powerless to influence her thoughts and feelings. I feel completely rejected when she speaks of her resolution to separate. It is very tough to hear the bitter and angry things that have been said to me by those I love. We have all been changed by this appalling experience and D’s world ripped from under her. However, I continue to believe that she and I could have a long and happy future together. I have only one clear and simple strategy, which is to show that I am someone worth recommitting to within the time that she says we have left together.

There is now an intimacy between us that has been missing for a while and no issues are off limits. We have done some lovely things together and I have found real happiness between the storms and misery. It should not have been necessary for me to destroy what I had before realising its value, but this is what has happened. I feel changed and totally committed.

D’s question to you seems to be, is it OK to put up with such an imperfect marriage? Is it reasonable to live with such a flawed man in order to provide a refuge for our son? Neither of us wants to be in a loveless marriage, but I believe there is the potential for a better relationship. It will take time but I have proved that I have the resilience to do what it takes to make it work. I would like us to return to counselling, but D has resisted this so far.

This has been hell, but today is better than this time last year and next year could be better still. I look for every sign that D might extend the time beyond next summer. Despite the evidence of hurt and bitterness in her letter, I see the hint of a possibility that we could still get through to a future of acceptance and perhaps understanding.

It must be evident that “good judgment” is important to D, and my failure to exercise it stands in the way of more positive feelings towards me. She has high standards of integrity and behaviour and I can see that she is looking for endorsement from you — that it might be OK to continue to live with the person she believes me to be. So I sum up: my affair did not mean that I did not care about my family; my switching attention back to my wife is common and need not be short-term; feelings really do change over time and for a sustainable marriage we need to re-engage as a couple and to start to see the value in each other, flawed as we each may be. How can we extract ourselves from this mire?

L

Dear L, Your personal, private disc of transparent plastic is yellow — and what a restless colour that is: lighthearted, childish, sunny, unstable and spontaneous, it attracts attention as you like to do. The downside is that it’s always been associated with cowardice and deceit.

And even in writing to me you are not being entirely honest, or brave — although you think you are. A great deal of your (much longer) letter was expressed in what is perhaps unfairly called “psychobabble”: as if the fact of having continued with counselling bestows brownie points that cancel out the terrible harm you have done. It isn’t so easy. Saying “I’m sorry” is rarely an end. It is the beginning of a much longer, harder process of understanding and you are living in as much of a dream world as your poor wife once did if you believe that your carefully studied “explanations” will miraculously reward you with “understanding or acceptance”. The damage is too profound. Things can never be the same again.

I assume that you know that. Still, to show what I mean, take that phrase, “When the affair was revealed” as a good example of your evasiveness. For it wasn’t “revealed” like some gospel from on high. The truth was torn out of you very slowly, torturing your wife, who was all but driven mad in the process. And then in what vivid detail! It is more than hostile to have sex with your mistress on the floor of your home followed by a splash in the private sanctum — it’s positively violent. I wonder how much you’ve truly taken that on board. When you finally confessed all these cruel details to your wife (most men wouldn’t under torture — they’d blurt the fact but hide the excesses) what was revealed was an urgent need to smash the edifice — at least as it was. I know plenty of men (and women) who’d have an affair, and even lend the lover money — but supper with the son and sex on the carpet? Those were pretty profound statements about the lovingly prepared shared meals; the whole edifice called “home”. Maybe you didn’t want the dinner on the table the minute you got home — but couldn’t you have said: “Hey, let’s have a gin and tonic first?” Maybe it all made you want to scream.

For all the vaunted shared interests, you don’t sound like a couple who grew together at all. But since you each ask if there is any way through, it’s time to reply to you together.