21st September, 2008
Question
I am married 35 years and for the first time I feel there is a gaping hole in my marriage.
My husband has always been insanely jealous. I was terrified to talk to other men because I would be immediately accused of having an affaire. I lived in fear of my husband and was the 'good girl' in order to achieve peace and harmony in our home while raising our four children. I also worked very hard to earn the extra money we needed.
Around a year ago I started to wake up to the fact that my husband had a lot of contact with a girl in her late 20's. He's 60 and a grandfather. I found text messages and phone calls on his mobile. When I confronted him, he said it was a friendship through sport - and sport is his business as well as a lifetime passion. I believe him, up to a point. But if it is an innocent as he says, how come he never mentioned her? What I've realised is that he loves and very much enjoys the attention he gets from this girl.
I am very very angry. In fact I'm raging and hugely hurt. I also feel extremely lonely. And I feel totally betrayed by this man, whom I don't seem to know any more. This is the man who accused me of having affairs if I was even just polite to a neighbour. I have gone through all of my married life blindfolded by fear of my husband. He took advantage of my vulnerable side. And in the meantime, it would now appear, he was enjoying the company and attention of his female friends. Now I understand why he kept me in a corner. I feel I wasted the best years of my life with someone who is now a stranger. I suppressed the real me all through our marriage. Because I know I'm the kind of person people are drawn to, men and women.
The only reason I haven't ended our marriage is because of our children and grandchildren. I am not scared of my husband any more. We had a huge bust-up when I found out about the girl, but it still took over six months to get him to listen to what I had to say. And while he finally did listen, he hasn't changed his behaviour. Although he doesn't realise that I know, he's still in contact with this girl. And so my rage continues.
Answer
You allowed yourself to be bullied by your husband all your married life. And now that you're not afraid anymore, you see the situation for what it is. You have lived a false life out of fear. That's a hard one.
Your husband always did what he wanted to do. He continues to do so. He controlled you because of low self-esteem. He squashed you in terms of other men in order to feel psychologically safer himself. It had nothing to do with the men involved. Nor had it anything to do with you. It had everything to do with him, and how he felt about himself. Jealousy is all about self-absorption.
I know your rage is particularly keen because in his jealousy, your husband occupied the moral high ground. He pretended it was about some principle. And now he's abandoned that position. That's because this was never about logic, as we understand it. It was always about emotional self=defence. So it's easy for him to change tack. The attention of this girl flatters his ego. It feeds his self-esteem. And once again, he's squashing you - this time by failing to listen to you, or heed your anger, or change his ways to please you.
All that is true, and needed to be said. It's also decidedly beside the point. Focussing on your husband won't help you ease your rage. On the contrary, it will only intensify it. The real issue is that you allowed yourself to be bullied. You went into that marriage, programmed by life experiences to be a victim. Yes, I understand that there may have been real and present danger in the days of your husband's jealousy. Maybe the marriage wasn't a safe place to be, physically, if you didn't obey. And no, I am most definitely not criticising you. I'm saying that for good emotional, social and practical reasons, in other words to feel safe, you chose to stay married to a bully.
The world, however, hasn't ended. You do have a choice. You can stay stuck in rage. You can remain a victim, responding to your husband rather than steering your own course. Or you can live the rest of your life as the real you. By shifting the focus away from him, and onto yourself, you can 'come out' as the person who is joyful, friendly, liked by others, sociable, out-going - and perhaps a little flirty too, if only you got the chance?
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have written on your gravestone - metaphorically speaking of course - that here lies a woman who defeated victim status and died a winner? Even better, wouldn't it be wonderful to live every day as a winner? After all, a life well lived is a life spent seeking enlightenment. You've seen the truth. Take courage and grab it.
