Firstly, counsellors for MIND definitely DO NOT give clients their mobile phone numbers; so last years texts, that I had assumed were to the councillor were in fact not to her - what a surprise and how naive was I?
Nobody talks about motorbikes at 11pm at night, in the street, locked in the car and even in front of their own children. Texting or talking to your Polyester clad shag in the presence of your children is particularly unclassy.
Spewing insults and blame after you are seeing somebody is not particularly honourable. Nor is telling others that your wife and you are splitting up after Christmas when you forgot to tell your wife. Admire my decision not to revisit the 101 ways not to leave you family' scenario (so yesterday).
It is not possible to go on a blind date when you are in back pain sufficient to render you almost immobile for those dates.
Depression is not purely the result of environmental factors and believing that, is digging a hole of denial that is almost too deep to ever climb out of. When it is clear to all that the lies have gone on for longer than you are prepared to be honest about, it is not the partner you are lying to that you damage - it is ultimately yourself, your reputation and your children's memory of you. Child hood is very short. Each contribution you make to it - goes towards the person that they become and you do not get second chances.
As Nigella once said (I could not think of anyone profound) when you become a parent, you become the frame and not the picture.
Becoming involved with a woman that would even consider getting entangled with a man pretending not to have a family - indicates a woman with skewed morals and deep psychological problems. I would assume that they will both now cling together on a life raft of emotional co-dependency. When you get into bed with someone that is incapable of seeing the consequences of their actions on others, you get into bed with someone lacking real moral fibre. Two such people make for few friends and pretty boring Christmas parties.
Which leads me onto another revelation. Having read my old diary and realised that I was saying the same things: I also realised that 'It' seriously did have many of the traits of Aspergers. Having always joked about his complete lack of empathy or understanding towards others - I did some reading about it last night. Even if you consider that we are all on that spectrum somewhere, 'It' is way ahead of most. It is ironic that both 'It' and I had concluded that his brother was in fact probably Aspergic and we all know about the apple falling from he tree.
I digress. The revelation............ was that after about 5 minutes of reading on Autism, I realised that I no longer need to do this. I don't care whether he has Autism, I no longer have to make up excuses to the children, they will make up their own minds, I no longer have to delude myself because he is no longer my problem.
Safely ensconced into the land of matching kettles and toaster and clean tarmac driveways -'It' really is no longer my problem. He is right that he no longer needs a counsellor. He has found someone as emotionally needy as he is and together they can convince themselves of their normality and thus avoid ever facing it. If you get invited to a party there - don't go. It will be dull and depressing unless you are dull and depressing yourself in which case, you may enjoy it.
The other realisation on reading my diaries was just how deeply I had loved him over the years but because he is so wrapped up in his own needs - he never understood that, never realised it and squandered it. His loss. Ten years of depression is all too easily blamed on everyone else. Real balls are when you face up to yourself and can do so with honesty and integrity.
On one diary insert at 18, I wrote
"It told me today that the only thing that he really loved was his car, since it was the only thing in his life that was reliable"
Sad that so much importance was placed on something that is in fact, a slab of metal, an inanimate object and that really, nothing really changed.
Anyhow - I am now on day 8 without a cigarette. I read the following this morning - 'tis uncanny.
Trouble Ahead:
The one choosing to leave has had time to think about, reflect upon and weigh the options and to emotionally detach themselves from the marriage. The other spouse, who is caught by surprise, is normally mistreated and left to feel abandoned. There is a huge imbalance of power with the one leaving being the one in control of most aspects of whether or not the marriage will continue.
Enter The Third Party:
When a third party enters a marriage, certain psychological things start to happen in the mind of the cheating spouse. Their thinking becomes skewed in order to justify their their behavior. Denial of any wrong doing means shifting the blame and usually it all gets dumped onto the faithful spouse.
Normally a spouse who falls prey to an affair is a decent person that is aware of their behavior and how it is frowned upon by society. Even though they are aware of the immorality of their actions, they continue with the relationship, which means dealing with feelings of guilt.
The Blame Game:
These feelings of guilt motivate them to demonize the faithful spouse in an attempt to justify their affair. They will accuse their spouse of many negative and unforgivable traits and behaviors. The faithful spouse is portrayed as an inadequate partner, which left the cheating spouse no choice but to find an adequate replacement.
Not only will the faithful spouse be demonized, history is rewritten to make it appear that he/she has been inadequate for the entire duration of the marriage. The cheating spouse will recreate the marriage and what happened during the marriage to make it appear that they have suffered much pain and unhappiness throughout the entire marriage.
They may say things such as, "I was forced into marrying you" or, "You've never loved me the way I needed to be loved" or, "I have lived in hell for 20 years." He/She will say anything as long as it will enable him/her to appear to have been the victim of the marriage and fully justified in abandoning their spouse.
You Pay for Their Bad Behavior:
The cheating spouse will tell their story often and to anyone who will listen, to the point that they will finally begin to truly believe that the left behind spouse deserves punishment. The faithful spouse is the offender and the persecutor and needs to be dealt with harshly.
Punishment will come in the way of financial withholding or worse, fighting over custody for any children of the marriage. They may begin to believe that the faithful, demonized spouse is not entitled to receive any future benefits from them, sometimes not even those allowed by law.
Shocked and Awed:
The faithful spouse will question their own sanity and replay their marriage in their mind trying to find some hint of all the unhappiness they are told of by the unfaithful spouse. They will question how their spouse, someone they have loved and trusted could betray them in such a way. First to have an affair and then to rewrite the history of their marriage in such a way as to try and lay blame at their feet.
The faithful spouse will wonder how their spouse could blame them for having to have an affair and how they could defame their character after many years of being given love, respect and trust. They will wonder how their spouse cannot see how their words and blaming does damage to the children by depicting their mother/father in a bad light.
The faithful spouse will question his/her own memory of what they thought was a happy marriage. He/She will wonder if the marriage was never anything but a sham and a figment of their imagination. They will wonder why the unfaithful spouse never complained if they were unhappy or why they never made a request for changes in the relationship.
Being punished for your spouse's cheating is an overwhelming state in which to find yourself. Recovery from the stress of such a profound emotional trauma is slow. If you have found yourself in such a situation, remember, with time comes healing and understanding. You will laugh again, love again and the sun will shine again. All you have to do is trust your memories, never forget that the insanity caused by an affair is not your fault.
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