2nd November, 2008
Question
I am divorced ten years. Like all brides, I dreamed of the day when my father would walk me up the aisle to marry my true love, whom I would love and cherish for the 'rest of our lives'. It didn't happen. My ex-husband and I fell out of love about four years into our marriage.
Everything changed after I had my first baby. I felt I was left to do it all, working full-time, keeping the house, minding the baby. Our relationship got lost, the reasons we had married in the first place disappearing so fast it was frightening. Stupidly I thought that having another baby might bring us close again. I got pregnant, left my career, and became a full-time home-maker.
Weirdly, all luxuries like going on holidays or out for a night as a couple then just disappeared. He still had his hobbies, drinks on a Saturday night with his friends, but we went nowhere together. I tried to persuade my husband to go for counselling, attempted to tell him how I felt, but he could not, or would not, see where I was coming from. I felt so used, so taken for granted, that we eventually separated.
A year later I started a relationship with someone. We had known each other for a long time, but unfortunately he was married. Stupidly, I fell madly in love. We adored each other's company and continued the relationship for five years. I feel we both found strength in the relationship. Of course it was a secret affair.
Over time I found out that I was not the first. He wasn't happy in his marriage, but, as usual, said he had a lot to lose if he were to separate. I know now that it was himself he was thinking about. It meant he'd have to move out of his home, lose his standing in the community, and have less disposable income. I also feel that he liked the buzz and excitement of an illicit relationship.
Then, very suddenly, I noticed things changing. It turned out he had found someone much younger. He then quickly left his wife and children, no longer caring what anybody thought anymore. That was four years ago. Yet the pain I felt on finding out that another man had rejected me was so harrowing that it literally broke my heart. I had actually thought that he loved me all those years. I got very ill, and am only now recovering.
I still feel so hurt inside and am finding it harder to move on than I did after my marriage broke up. I'm sorry I didn't have the maturity to avoid an affair. I chose wrongly. If a man is being dishonest and disloyal to a woman he's married to, and with whom he has children, why the hell would any woman think he'd ever be honest with her? It's the excitement they are after, not love. When the buzz fades, they move on. Certainly I would never trust another man. And I don't know how to shake off the hurt.
Answer
I don't think this is about trusting men. I don't think it helps to throw your two experiences together either. The two men treated you differently. There was, of course, one common denominator, namely you.
You stayed in a secret love affair for five years. Forget about your lover. Why did you hang in there for so long? I'm not preaching morals here. I'm talking about personal dignity, proper self-concern, due regard for yourself and your needs. In the cold light of day, did the relationship really give you strength? And strength for what, exactly? No, I'm not being nasty. I'm asking you to take a critical look at your emotions.
Rebound relationships do exist. In such a scenario, two things happen. We feel bad about the first breakdown, which in your case was your marriage. We also put enormous effort into making the second one work. The result is painful. We take terrible emotional punishment.
Look at what happened to you. You left your marriage because your husband neglected you, was emotionally unavailable, couldn't or wouldn't see where you were coming from. You felt used. And where did you end up? In a secret affair with a man who had no intention of leaving his marriage, well not to be with you anyway. How unavailable can someone be? Yet you battled it out, took the disappointment on the chin, and effectively thought only well of your lover. Don't you see? You tried to succeed where you felt you had earlier failed. And in the process put up with so much.
Grief, a sense of guilt, and a determination to do it differently all spur us on to a rebound relationship. Blind to the true nature of our involvement, we fall in love. And then strive to undo what we unconsciously see as our past mistakes, and become emotional doormats in the process.
Your lover isn't worth a second thought. He never was. None of your pain is really about him anyway. It's about yourself. It's about your personal disappointment in how your life turned out. It's about the blame game going on just beneath the surface. Stop it.
You did your best in your marriage. Maybe you'd do some things differently now. But that's just the benefit of hindsight. Don't beat yourself up with it. Don't deflect your distress by blaming men either. See the past as part of the learning curve of life. Delight in the fact that you can profit from it. Make peace with yourself. And then move on. There's a whole world out there waiting for you. Join it.
