Question
My husband and I are in our late '50's with three college-going children, all living at home. We married in our twenties. I was an emotionally needy girl from a harsh background looking for love and I married my husband on the rebound from a failed relationship. I had loved and lost someone I felt was a soul-mate.
During our marriage we have had lots of stresses, strains and disappointments and I had to make many sacrifices. We never communicated very well. Nor were we as close as I would have liked, although I tried many times to talk to my husband about making our marriage better. There were many times when things were reasonably good but also long periods when they were not. My husband is very involved with his business and works long hours. It comes first in his life.
Recently I discovered that my husband has been having affairs for a number of years. I was and am devastated by this. I cannot accept his behaviour, yet I find the thought of being separated and facing life on my own extremely daunting to say the least. I feel I may be facing a lonely old age. My husband has apologised for his affairs and says they won't happen again. He wants us to remain together, but I feel his reasons are similar to my own. He fears being alone and lonely.
Our relationship has deteriorated greatly in the past few years as my husband seemed to find it restrictive and wanted freedom from domestic responsibility. I didn't understand why at the time, but do now. The future seems bleak whichever way I look at it. We have tried counselling, but affection seems dead. I cannot imagine ever trusting my husband again, nor can I imagine being sexually intimate with him again. Despite all this, I am finding it difficult to make decisions about the future. The only thing I am sure of is that I don't want to go on as we are.
I am also concerned for my children who would be greatly affected if we separated, particularly our son. Despite our own private difficulties as a couple, we were very much a family, did things together, and worked hard at having a happy atmosphere in the home.
My husband says his affairs were not just for sex, but happened because he felt lonely and unloved. Although he is contrite and accepts his behaviour was wrong, he isn't making any effort to improve our relationship apart from taking an increased share of domestic responsibility. For my part I feel unwilling to work on our relationship as I always did so in the past, trying to organise romantic nights out and breaks away together to keep our sex life alive. I feel my efforts were not valued, but rejected, and I seem to have lost the impetus to go on trying.
I feel I can't forgive my husband's betrayal. Yet there are moments when I feel bound to him by all the memories we share, our whole history together, our children, the life we share, and I cannot imagine leaving him. At the same time our relationship seems quite empty. I am really confused, have tried counselling, just on my own, but am still very indecisive. I feel I'm dependent on my husband and on being a wife.
I realise that as a wife I have been perfectionist, critical and demanding and thus contributed my share to our difficulties. I just wish my husband had told me how he felt instead of having affairs. The entire experience has been humiliating as well as painful and I feel very exposed and vulnerable at the moment.
Answer
Thank you for painting such a clear and comprehensive picture. It took courage and emotional honesty. It's not easy to be fair when you're hurt and angry. You did really well.
To solve a problem, we need to strip it down to its core, or narrow our focus. Put differently, having heard the whole story, we need to ditch the side issues. So let's start at the beginning. I don't think it matters that you married on the rebound, or that you came to your husband needy, having had a harsh upbringing. Except, perhaps, to explain that what you were looking for was a soul-mate. And instead you got a busy, work-absorbed husband. What I mean is that at this stage you've put your all into your marriage, no matter how it started off. So, for that matter, has your husband.
I don't think the children's feelings matter too much either. Yes, I know that's a bald statement. And of course it's over- the-top. I just want you to pay attention to the fact that their feelings are not a core issue here. Certainly they represent much of what you and your husband got right. They are a central part of the good bond between you. They are a huge plus on the weighing scales of your marriage. That's their relevance here. Do you understand? This is about how you feel, not about the kids' feelings.
Feeling bound by a thousand ties isn't weakness. Nor is it dependency. It's the courage to see the truth. Recognising the rich tapestry of a life together, and appreciating it, isn't a coward's cop-out. Nor is it a 'wrong' reason for wanting to hold onto a marriage. Both you and your husband are simply recognising the fact that there is an enormous well of goodwill in your marriage, great tracts of life's work done well, huge effort, endeavour, striving and self-restraint put in by two people who cared deeply and did their very best.
The tragedy, of course, is the fact that you were both so lonely, despite all that endeavour. Your loneliness, if I can read between the lines correctly, got channelled into efficiency and precision and maybe even domestic perfection. Your husband had affairs. No, I am not for one minute trying to equate the two, morally or otherwise. All I'm saying is that you were both lonely.
The hard part about forgiveness is that we so often feel like a fool. There seems to be such a narrow divide between doormat and dignity. Your husband has had affairs. He has broken faith with you. And while he's said he's sorry, and no doubt he is, he's not doing penance. Or at least he doesn't look like he is to you. It's just so hard to rise above the self-doubt, the anger, the anguish, the frustration, the sense that ultimately it's you who has to give, getting, at best, some measured return.
It takes an act of true heroism to rise above the awfulness. Such heroism is made possible only by kindness, and pity for the human condition. Two good people have been lonely for a long time. Can you step back and look at them, feel sorrow and sympathy at the sight of their struggle, and in the process rekindle affection? Can you forgive your husband, not because you feel responsible for his behaviour, but because you understand the nature of loneliness and where it might lead us?
As a therapist, of course, I'm a strong believer in counselling. I also understand that there's something more fundamental at stake. Great generosity of spirit is required to heal a fractured marriage. At best, all counselling can do is clear some pathways. The actual act of soaring above painful detail to capture something greater is always down to the individual. And sometimes it's the wrong thing for them to do, so they don't do it.
I'm not writing a prescription here. I'm simply responding to all you have said. Don't feel you have to find a quick or simple solution. Take the time to ease that awful sense of exposure and vulnerability. And maybe when the anger has eased, you might ask your husband to talk to you, to comfort you by sharing his loneliness, letting you hear what he has missed, what he wanted from you, not as angry demands, but as failed communications.
