OK. A big reason for adding different tabs to my blog was so that I could do a bit more with the divorced aspect of my life without boring the pants off my happily married/single/living together friends. It is not easy being divorced. Far from it. But. Perhaps for those of us who are separated or divorced we could have a little forum here to share our experiences or write about what’s happened. I’m thinking about doing a weekly challenge…maybe eventually finding a weekly winner for the top why did you get divorced story…..
In my case, I divorced my husband because I found out he was having an affair. I found out he was having an affair because I asked him. I asked him because during our oldest son’s birthday party for 20 he was upstairs doing sit-ups and it finally dawned on me that he was no longer very focused on our family life and something had gone horribly wrong.
Somebody I know divorced his wife when he found two sets of footprints on his car windscreen and she admitted to having an affair with their tiler.
So my first question to anyone who wants to answer it is “how did you find out your partner was having an affair?”
November 15th, 2009 at 5:02 pm
First husband, I moved the wardrobe. No they weren’t hiding behind it. But a stash of photos of them together all nicely presented in a glass picture frame was.
I didn’t go looking for it, I was just rearranging the furniture, but was glad I found it in a bucket of cold water followed by spasming guts sort of way. Saved a lot of time, lies and future heartbreak.
I waved goodbye to him and to Thailand in one fell swoop and really that is when I feel my adult life began. The one that was defined by me rather than the carcrash that was us.
November 15th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
SARAH. Thank you SO much. What an extraordinary story and a brilliantly written paragraph and I couldn’t have asked for a more relevant response to what is indeed a nightmare “cold water, guts in trauma” story. Even better is that you believe it created the person you are now and it became a positive thing. Thank you Lx
November 17th, 2009 at 9:17 am
He threw a glass of bacardi and coke in my face and told me. He had only been involved with her for 6 weeks, and he was part way through remodelling our flat. He left me sitting in a pile of builders rubble looking through my tears at the inside of the roof tiles through the hole in the ceiling. He left her 5 years later.
14 years on, I still wake up sweating and heart pounding from nightmares in which I go berserk and batter him. I think I may still be angry!
November 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
OH NO. Di that’s awful. What a horrible memory to have. Typical that he’s no longer with her. Are you on speaking terms anymore? Lx
November 19th, 2009 at 4:58 pm
He told me. His affair only lasted 10 days and he regretted it bitterly and confessed to me exactly one week before Christmas last year. I hadn’t suspected a thing, though our marriage had been in a pretty dire state. I was determined to forgive him and work everything out; we started counselling but other things went wrong (my dad died quite suddenly and my grief complicated stuff), and when he started saying that he might have another affair, and that he wasn’t really sorry, I started thinking for the first time ever that we might actually be better off apart.
Before he moved out he had already started a relationship with someone else (not the original affair woman).
November 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Holy shit – very similar situation – my ex’s affair was “only” 3 months he said (which I doubled and he didn’t really ever deny) but he wanted to get back with me (ish) we did counselling etc but his heart was so not in it and he kept saying he was confused and “numb” and expected me to do all the running and I was SO destroyed I just couldn’t….and it all, all , all went wrong over a period of a year. Sad. He is not with his original woman either Lx
November 25th, 2009 at 1:47 pm
oh god. i hope you can help me. i just found out my husband had an affair. 10 years, we have a 3 year old son. We are in counselling and he swears blind he left her (before i found out) and wants to make us work. we are talking more than we ever have in our lives but i am still so scared of losing him. Do you think marriage can ever survive infidelity? xxx
November 25th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
I genuinely believe that if you love him enough and he is sorry enough and loves you too and really wants to make it work then you are in with a chance…if you believe you have a lot to save then talk and talk and try to understand what happened and how you can make amends. In many ways it is a reason to assess your relationship and move on to a much better place. You have to be prepared to forgive him and to accept that without him life will be very different. Good luck Lx
November 25th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Jay,
Many, many people do rebuild and come out stronger on the other side (not that I recommend thanking him once you are home and dry)
It has to be both parties wanting to rebuild and prepared to do the work, both parties have to be prepared to stop picking and leave some scabs to heal once they have stopped bleeding, both parties have to remember from this point on, in the short term at least, either direction they take will be hard. Both parties have to remember that if they are rebilding it can only happen if they are on the same team.
I suggest you check out the forums for spouses rebuilding after an affair there were some on the American village but there might also be UK based ones. I’ll go Google and see what I can find. Even better if he can find something similar too for himself. I really realy do think mediation as a couple is a very good idea too.
Big fat hug love, I don’t have to imagine how you feel right now, for every time somebody tells you to be strong just remeber that I am telling you that you are allowed to be human, you are not some superhero with big knickers on over your tights, you are allowed to cry, be angry, hurt, jealous, untrusting, the whole caboodle, just make sure you rule the emotions, not the other way around, as much as possible.
There is a very good chance that everything will come out in the wash and every day that passes is a day that will hurt less than the ones before.
I’ve found one link I’ll go look for some more, your story won’t be the same or have the same outcome as somebody else’s, so don’t get freaked out by any less wonderful outcomes, take heart that you are not alone and there are people that will implicitly understand how you are feeling, this is a well worn path walked by many millions of women and men and there are signposts, there is streetlighting left by the ones who already traveled it before you, there is company from others on the road with you right now, you are not as alone and in the dark as you might feel.
http://messageboards.ivillage.com/iv-rladultery SCROLL DOWN to the Rebuilding Rollercoaster. and click on that
And this bit you won’t like but it is the most important thing you need to do. Go see a solicitor.
Not to be starting anything, not to be considering anything, not to be putting divorce on the table as an immediate or future option, this is just a “marital audit”, you can do the whole conversation based on the hypothetical.
So if things do go bent you don’t have to deal with any nasty surprises or mistaken assumptions as well as everything else you are having to deal with. It might go against the grain but this bit can’t be about how you feel, it has to be about making sure your son doesn’t find himself, alongside you, between a rock and a hard place should the worst happen.
Big fat hug sweetheart, hold tight and know one way or another, you will survive this. You really, really will.
November 25th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Holy shit – you’ve made my response look pathetic. Lets hope Jay pops back to read everything you’ve said. All very very good and this is EXACTLY what I wanted my divorce section of the new blog to be – a support group. Brilliant – thanks Lx
Anybody else reading….just jump in. You never know – you might just find the answers you need. Lx
November 25th, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Jay
I’ll add more as I find them but here’s a couple where I think you will find enough shoulders and ears for the short terms at least
http://www.netmums.com/coffeehouse/advice-support-40/serious-stuff-43/
and
http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/relationships
Not affair specific, dive in start a thread, people feel freer on the net to reach out where in RL they would pull back because of the complications that go hand in hand with real world relationaships, pleanty will have been where you are now.
Thinking of you love.
Sarah
November 25th, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Thank you SO much Sarah – what a brilliant reply and such a help….Lx
November 26th, 2009 at 8:59 am
It’s just practise. The men in my family of origin and those im my husband’s (bar him, so far, touch wood) seem determined to hurt the women they love.
November 26th, 2009 at 9:02 am
That’s a bit depressing. Lx
November 26th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Guys thank you so much. My heart is so battered at the moment and reading stuff like this really helps. I am trying not to be sucked into the negative outcomes but I know I have to be realistic. I believe, truly believe, he does want to make this work and he is sorry. But then I truly believed he would be faithful. Every day is a constant question and this whole issue is so, so complex. I have realised – and hopefully not too late – that I love him with my heart and soul. But I am scared counselling will show him why he ‘left’ this marriage in the first place. But I know for my sake and for my future relationships – with him or with anyone else and especially with my son – I have to walk this path with its every pothole so that I come out the other end still whole but different. And on the other end of the spectrum I am finding what he did strangely attractive – isn’t THAT complex??? Gosh, it is actually quite sad that I am not alone in this and yet, I am glad too.
November 26th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Phew. You came back to get the fab advice that Sarah gave – yes, I remember that fleeting moment of finding him more attractive because another woman wanted him – but it didn’t last long for me. Then I found it revolting – but I genuinely think that was because he didn’t know what he wanted and couldn’t convince me that he wanted me. He thought he might want her and he was confused and “numb”. It’s a long road, but if you’ve got the right mindset and know that your partner wants it all to work too then you’re halfway there already – can you get away just the two of you for a weekend or a night? Always helps to get out of your routine….Lx
November 26th, 2009 at 1:34 pm
Hi. He has assured me time and again that it is me that he wants. He left her before I found out but he never had any intention of ever telling me. I do wonder what the outcome would’ve been if she had blown his er, socks off. It’s like losing a competition that you had no idea you were in! And maybe he is here because there is nobody else (yet). But we are talking more than we have in years and I do feel close to him. Close enough to believe he wants to work on it but that door has been opened and that is hard to accept. Every time I intimate that I may end up leaving him, he gets really down and depressed. But I have told him I have to feel what I feel and am not going to protect him!!!
November 26th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
good for you. You need to stay strong Lx
November 26th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Jay
Hedid what he did, but it isn’t what it isn’t. He didn’t leave the marriage, sounds more like unsuccessfully resisted temptation, apples and oranges.
I teach a lot of men, one on one, either I have “one of those faces” or I smell funny or something but by the sixth lesson it is cheap talk therapy from their perspective.
A lot of them confess to cheating (without me asking, s’not like I want this, I’d much rather be focusing on the present perfect simple or the third conditional TYVM), rarely is their marriage or their wife or a loss of desire to be in or with either or a lack of love at home proffered as a reason for their fling.
For most of them it’s about willies, and stupidly letting willy+ego be the brain of the operation for a while. They do it because it feels good, not because “at home” feels bad, or not as good in comparison. At that moment they wanted both.
Therapy will not show a lack on your part that made him do this, a lack on your part or a problem in the relationship is a reason to talk to you and set things straight. Not go looking elsewhere. Worst case scenario there is an issue that allowed him to make or invent excuses for himself about being allowed an affair cos it “wasn’t really his fault if he did”.
You two probably have the same issues that most people have, time/money crunch, rut and routine, too many roles to play in one day, too many balls to juggle, demanding kids/in-law/extended family/bosses and the pair of you having your relationship take a backseat just so you can deal with everything else that is going on.
That’s all fixable as long as it is on the understanding that life is life, not a movie with Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in it (like to see those 2 try to share lots of baths and do rude things to each other every ten seconds with a three year old busting in all the time, demanding glasses water and the services of mummy the monster killer ………the same 3yo who has spent the whole day in a quest to squeeze every atom of energy out of its mum).
It’s a bit of myth the old “he wouldn’t have been having an affair if everything was ok at home, there must be a PROBLEM”. If you think about it nobody has everything ok at home all of the time (and if they do their partner is probably miserable spending their whole life keeping the other half happy). Rough and smooth is what most marriage are made of, not just the crap ones, the good ones have highs and lows too and you don’t get to have a “compensation affair” during the rough bits and plonk the blame on your partner or the relationship.
While people do have “exit affairs”, stage managed to produce the fall out that makes it easier to leave/destroy a relationship they don’t want to be in anymore, because they lack the integrity and honesty to end the relationship WITHOUT pouring half a tonne of salt in the wound, they look different to the “willy was my brain” type upon discovery, the people that have the exit affairs –
Are quick smart at moving out as soon as the other half mentions it as a possibility
Act all non-committal about the future of the relationship, particularly with regards to repeat performances of infidelity
Talk about “needing their space to think about what they want” rather than asking for counseling
Are less than enthusiastic about the prospects of rebuilding.
Trust is hard at the moment, and will be for a while. Operate on “earned trust”. So far he has earned your trust to be able to believe he wants to make this work by showing that he does. Only take that trust off the table if he plays hot and cold. Put a time ring fence around that “earned trust” so you don’t have to worry about trusting and being caught out next week, next month, next year…trust him to want to rebuild for the next 24 hours. After that has past give him another 24 hour block of trust based on that last 24 not having kicked you in the guts by surprise. Worry about other kind of trust when the “believe you want to rebuild” trust is established.
One day at a time. Baby steps.
Rebuilding can look like you have to eat a whole elephant, it is too big, there is so much of it and you think you might puke just thinking about how much you have to eat. So just one bite at a time. Put one bite on your plate and just work on that one and don’t even look at the rest of the elephant till that bit is gone. Then only glance up to take the next bite. If the taste gets venomous and you can’t go on there is no reason to bearate yourself for what you have eaten so far. You were learning so much about yourself and what you need and how to find that while you were at the table, that self-knowledge will be norishment for your personal rebuilding of your sense of self and self-esteem both in the present and in the future.
One day, sooner than you think but not as soon as you’d like, you’ll look up to find a pile of bones, a couple of tusks and few toenails. Hopefully both of you will be be standing side by side, hand in hand. If not,you will be upright again, on your own, but not afraid to be who you are and ready to start walking forward again wherever that may take you.
with love
Sarah
November 26th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
“But I have told him I have to feel what I feel and am not going to protect him!!!”
____________________________________________
I wouldn’t advise dishonesty or tip toeing around somebody like you were living on eggshells.
However….it’s worth rigorously ensuring that you tell him the truth, that he needs to hear, when it is is about having a truth being heard, that MUST be heard.
Right now you are in shock, as time goes on you are understandably going to get really, really angry, it can sneak up behind you when you least expect it, especially if he is very contrite and you start to feel the power balance shift back a little in your favour. Make sure that “hearing the truth” doesn’t slip into extracting that feeling of shifting power back to you, to offset the pain and fury at being powerless in that competition you didn’t know about.
If all he sees are the broken pieces to the point where he can’t see the glue you want to share with him, he might still wish he could put it all back together, but lose hope that it can be done, and run rather than spend another day looking at the debris of the destruction he caused. Rare is the human that can stand to be surrounded by the evidence of how stupid they have been without the hope of resolution and redemption to sustain them.
The compassion and empathy that both of you show to each other DESPITE who did what to whom and when, will be the fuel for rebuilding. Fuel as ever is a scarce resource, it costs a lot and you sweat it getting out of its nooks and crannies, buried awkwardly beneath the pain and anger. If you find yourself (understandably) using words as a weapon, remember you need to be using your tools to find the fuel, not bosh your rebuild teammate on the head.
Although there is nothing wrong with the odd, letting off steam, gratuitous tongue lashing ….or you will go mad. Aim for “good enough”, not perfection personified.
Don’t worry that he will think that all this self control means that infidelity is quickly bounced back from, cost free and “worth it”. In therapy he will have to talk about his feelings, confront his own failings and take good long hard look at what he did to you. Most men would rather be lashed with barbed wire and then rolled in broken glass than do that. It sure as hell won’t look “cheap at the price” from his perspective.
Then there are the moments he is watching you, when you are busy doing your daily stuff oblivious to his gaze, when your head bows, tears fill your eyes, pain flashes across your face or you are left without breath.
And he’ll know that he did that.
So his guts wrench, his heart constricts and the internal self flagellation will crank straight back into action.
If he is worth the rebuild, he’ll leave himself unprotected from the awfulness of seeing the pain he caused and the damage he wrought, far more effectively than you ever could.
If I give advice it is on the understanding that is obligation free, you take what makes sense and leave the rest without ever risking feeling unable able to ask for support or advice later on. Only you will know what is right or useful for the unique position you are sitting in and I won’t ever run off with my ball cos you want to play the game differently.
Thinking of you on this side of the Alps
xxxx
S
November 27th, 2009 at 7:16 am
Wow Sarah. thanks so much. some of that was hard to hear – like even if there was a problem at home, it’s no excuse. you are right and i am not ready to hear it. I live in South Africa by the way… isn’t the internet an amazing thing? I hope you don’t mind if i come back often for advice and support. Glad I found you guys.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:19 pm
No prob at all Jay – come back whenever you like – where about’s in SA? Was in Cape Town this summer Lx
December 3rd, 2009 at 12:02 pm
So – i am in joburg by the way. Wish I could move to Cape Town. I finally found a picture of the OW. Man, it cuts deep. She is really gorgeous. How did everyone else feel? There are so many more downs than ups in this process and I still don’t know if I can live with this heartache.
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:21 pm
It’s that awful realisation that you want to know all the details and you don’t want to know any and yes, of course you want to know what she looks like, but now you do it just makes you want to kill her even more….the woman my husband had an affair with was older – I’d met her and I was horrified that she was prepared to get involved with a married man – how innocent was I? It’s not uncommon obviously. Just know that it is a journey you have to make. If you can forgive him eventually that would be great. You have to look into the future and work out if you can see him there – because a future without him isn’t going to be any easier – just different. Take one day at a time, try not to think too hard – I did WAY too much thinking and talking and not enough listening to my heart and my gut instincts.
December 5th, 2009 at 8:25 am
I found a messsage on the computer – while he was actually with her – I am sure though that I already ‘knew’ – he had left me at our son’s sixth birthday party with his parents (who only visited once a year so they too thought it was odd) – the fact I had found make up that wasn’t mine in our car should also have had the alarm bells ringing (boy can I be dense at times!!) – anyway, 8 years later I now find myself happily married to the man I truely want to spend my life with – I couldn’t be happier
December 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Kathryn, that is very reassuring – it is amazing though during the affair how much your mind refuses to really ‘see’ and once you know, so much that you weren’t prepared to face falls in to place Lx
April 4th, 2010 at 1:52 am
How often do you write your blogs? I enjoy them a lot 4 9 8
July 13th, 2010 at 7:51 am
I truly appreciate this post. Cool.
May 11th, 2011 at 1:25 am
Facebook. He got engaged to her before we even separated…Second affair. I divorced him.
May 11th, 2011 at 7:22 am
Blloody hell! Lx