Day 32-- About my husband

Whenever I send my husband mail about the house, and he doesn't respond, I really have to fight the urge to call him. It makes me feel panicked, like he's mad at me. How stupid is that? What can he do? He's already gone. Nothing worse that can happen. So what if he's angry?

I'm more upset because yesterday I called his father to wish him happy birthday. I left a message on the answering machine. I was happy not to talk to anyone. At the same time, I confidently assumed someone-- his mother, someone-- would call me back. Nobody did. Nobody and nothing.

I caught a glimpse of myself on the train and I really looked old and tired. My lower face is showing my age. I looked like an old woman. But I don't feel that way.

Day 26-- sore muscles, assorted thoughts.

Sore today from the 30km race. I'm not fit enough, and I was dehydrated. I finished, but I'm not fit enough. Have some work to do before the marathon in April.

Dream last night about P. Dream he was a prince in the royal house of the country he is from. We were trying to be alone together, to make love, but there were people all around watching us. He explained to me all the different forms of marriage he could make, and there was one he felt ideal for me-- a form which let him marry a commoner, but would allow the children to be legitimate. I told him about the dream, but I didn't tell him about the last part of the dream.

In the last part of the dream, I was suddenly very sad because I realized all these forms of marriage were irrelevant for me, since I couldn't have children. I don't know if the Patte of the dream never knew or didn't remember. Or if he just wanted to make love.

Something in there about how I see him-- something above me? And also my own feelings about marriage-- in line with some of my thoughts. I have so many memories and small objects I've been carrying around with the hope of passing on to my children. But now that there won't be any children, I'm seeing it in a different way.

A friend wrote me to make an appointment, but accused me of not wanting the appointment since she is pregnant, and absolving me if this is the case. I was a little bit offended and astonished. It is true that I distanced myself in her first pregnancy, but that's because she whined the whole time about how she hated being pregnant. It wasn't the pregnancy which bothered me, it was the lack of consideration for my condition, my history. It was the cruelty and poor judgement of using me as a sounding board which made me push her away. I'm trying to decide how to respond. Something like: "I have trouble with small babies, not pregnant women, but thanks for asking."

Do I have friends worth having any more than I have lovers?

I had to write my husband an email today about some administration, and I found myself a little hurt he didn't write back. This is possibly because his father's birthday is coming up tomorrow, and I dread calling him. I dread it because I'm sure they don't want to speak to me any more than I want to speak to them. They want a fertile sweet wife, not me. But I am captured by the ghost of the right thing to do, so I guess I will call anyhow.

day 29-- race day

I'm going to try a long race today. 

I went yesterday to an Art Fair-- the same Art Fair I attended just last year after I found out about my husband's affair. I reflected how much I've changed. I can remember last year being on the way home and pounding the steering wheel and screaming with tears. I enjoyed it.

I somehow have this feeling that if I can be brave and force myself to go out by myself to events I like, this is the way I will meet a true love. Not P., not someone else like Jan.

I keep thinking about this idea of finding someone who is really into me. I had a dream last night about a guy I met during this last Christmas holiday. I liked him, but he just wasn't that into me.

In the dream, there was another woman who he obviously did like, and I could see the difference. He was rubbing her shoulder as he passed and he was just friendly to me. But then later in the dream she was somehow gone and then he was kissing me. 

And it occurred to me that this was always what it was like with Jan. He turned to me because other women (his ideal women) disappointed or rejected him. But I was never his ideal. I wonder if I have it in me to be someone's ideal. One thing is for certain, dream or not, I'm not willing to be anyone's second best again. Not for any reason.

P. may make me feel like his ideal, but as long as he's in the situation now, I can never be anything except second best. And that's not good enough.

Actually, my best and healthiest relationships involved me being first choice. But I always had a taste for trying to convince a guy who couldn't make up his mind. And that hasn't done me any good.

Day 25-- taking care of myself

I've been thinking about my dream all day. And I wanted to call P. to tell him about it. I also wanted to talk to him about my doubts about our relationship. I'm still conscious of the fact that he opened this conversation yesterday. And I don't know if it's a genuine breakthrough, or just more of the same.

I'm still not feeling well, still feeling low energy. I want to say that too.

But when P. called me today, I could hear how stressed he was with everything. All he really needed from me was a little love and attention. So this I gave him. I didn't say any of the other things. I didn't discuss my needs or my insecurities.

Partly I didn't do this because I could hear how crazy busy he is, and I know he's not so good at managing multiple problems at the same time.  It would most likely only annoy him and not get me the results I want.

Partly I didn't do this because I'm starting to be conscious that I somehow use my relationships to try to create these private islands. I did it in my marriage, and thought talking was a substitute for being in harmony. I don't write enough. I seem to feel like I don't think something if I don't have someone with whom I can share it.  And so I'm really trying to think about whether I can write my thoughts down here (or elsewhere) or if I really need a partner to share it with.

In the end, I called a few friends to make contact. 

None of this has anything to do with whether I should want to believe him or should be in contact with him or my doubts about what he said. It's just generally-- I want unconditional love with a partner to exist, and by that I seem to mean something like a perfect partner in crime.

And that doesn't exist. Does it?

Day 25-- More dreams.

Had a dream I told my boss about P. It was so real, I woke up thinking I did it.

Dream I was pregnant, and thought I was due soon, but I was worried, since I didn't feel so pregnant. Suddenly, my water broke, and a baby slipped out. I breastfed him. I called Jan to tell him he had a son, even if he didn't want to speak to me. I was worried the baby would die, since they always did. But I wanted to enjoy whatever time I had. The people I was with were trying to get me to the hospital.

P. called-- this was not a dream-- to ask me for time to straighten out his life a little bit before I made a final decision. He said he couldn't make me any promises because of his commitments to H. right now but that he realized he loved me and wanted a future with me. I wish I could believe he was really capable of making choices on his own. But I don't. Could I ever trust him?

J. is alternately mean and kind since I broke contact. I wonder why I didn't do it long ago. I had to call him last night since our shared cat was ill. He (the cat) is okay. I was stressed, however. 

Day 22-- Starting Over

It's getting more and more difficult to keep from contacting Jan. And it's strange, since it's not because I want to talk to him.

I went out last night with a friend whose divorce has followed a very similar path. As with us, her husband made his mind up long before he left, but waited until there was another woman available so he wouldn't feel too alone. 

Meanwhile, I reached out too much to P. today, and ended up annoyed with myself and disappointed.

I don't even think I love him. I think I just can't stand being by myself. I'm waiting for someone/anyone to fill the gap.

Think about that for a moment. To avoid being alone, I'd rather fight with my ex-husband who I don't really miss, or have contact with my married lover who I don't really love, except as a friend.

Who's the sad one in this relationship? Well? Well?

 

Day 21-- More Dreams

Last night I had a dream I was in France with Jan. It was a kind of vacation. We were getting along okay, and sitting together. But then we were also fighting. It was a group trip, and at a certain moment I was shouting at him in front of other people. I felt he deserved it, but he was angry. There was a bus, and drinks, and a balloon. I got the wrong balloon-- I got a children's balloon. 

I'm anxious and stressy because my new way of breaking off contact with P. actually seems to be working. For the first time in days I haven't heard a word from him. It's the right thing, but dreams are addictive too. I miss having his little messages to look forward to. I miss speaking to him about everything and nothing. I don't miss the stress of being angry because he wouldn't be in touch on the weekend, however. I don't miss that.

Day 20-- Conviction is not much consolation.

I'm still sick. It's Friday night, and I'm lonely.

I'm trying a different approach to cutting contact with Patte. Which is to say I don't contact him. If he contacts me, I'm brief and fond. But I don't reach out to him.

I've been thinking and thinking about it. And I really don't believe he intends to do anything to fix his marriage. It may well improve, especially if H. is determined to bring it back. But he's as incapable of action as a child. I won't see him, but that's for my own sake. Not his. Not an anonymous morality.

If I cut contact cold, it creates drama. Drama keeps me busy with the mess. And the fact is that if I don't feed it, it will shut down by itself. He hasn't got the mental or emotional wherewithal to stick with anything. I kept that relationship going. And if I don't feed it, he'll just drift away. And that's that. Maybe more difficult in some ways, but more honest in others.

This means that for the first time since my divorce, I have to cope-- really cope-- with being alone. Even though P. hasn't been there physically, he had organised my time. I could break my life into moments with him. I could either be preparing to or recovering from seeing him. The time with him always went so quickly, it was hardly worth mentioning.

And all the time I had hoped that the collapse of my marriage was somehow going to be a bad dream. Going to pass away. So I had two fantasies. And now I've just got myself. And nothing but time, and no idea what I can do with the time.

Being alone is bad enough. If  I had some energy then I could think forward to some kind of plan. I always have a plan. But now I'm sick and alone and I've been sick so many days I practically forget what it felt like to feel okay. And that makes the whole thing grind. And I can't run, which makes it all worse too.

Tomorrow I'm having a drink with one friend. Sunday I'm going for a walk with another.

How can I look at these days? My first impulse was to run off to dating sites, so maybe it's good I'm sick. Some down time is probably a most excellent idea.

Clean sheets. Music. Cleaning out the closet. Some kind of focus on the future. How do I do that?

Day 20-- Amazing how angry I still am

Dream last night that I was fighting with my husband. I was trying to talk him out of ending our marriage.

I woke up shaking, and angry.

The content of the dream isn't so special. After Jan left, we were having that kind of conversation nearly daily. I didn't understand how things could go from happy to hateful so quickly. I still have trouble with how much he seems to hate me, given that he left me.

I'm amazed, though, that my sleeping self is still spoiling for a fight. For the first time in months, I had to put myself back to sleep with a fantasy of him being found dead. When he first left, I was devastated. And now it seems all that's left is angry desperation.

Day 18-- Meanwhile back at the ranch

My husband called to tell me he wasn't taking the job he was offered. He rather sneeringly remarked he was sure I'd see it as a failure. His reason was he didn't think he could build a new life on his own. 

This isn't news to me. It's still astonishing that after so many years he sees me as someone who was obsessed with success. Why would I have been with him if I was? Sorry, but true.

I disengaged quickly, hung up the phone. And it's everything I can do to keep from calling him to argue. No point. He has to hate me to leave me. And if what he says about me now has no resemblance to who I was or who I've ever been, then so it goes.

Day 18-- Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over

I'm at Copenhagen airport. Patte has just left for Hong Kong. 

These whole days we managed not to discuss our relationship.

We had one brief conversation in a bar on Saturday. It went like this:

I told him I don't need a conventional relationship, but I do need honesty. I was tossing words away, because he doesn't have it in him to change. He is as closed as a mussel. Broken shut. I'm sorry for him, but no amount of truth will fix him.

Fix either of us?

I'm not sure I have it in me to have a normal relationship. I'm starting to wonder if by trying I'm just doing even less subtle damage to myself. When I think about my marriage, and what marriage is for and how profoundly I failed at having children, I can't say why being married would be good or right for me. Who would want it from me? And why?

And now it's done. And now my life starts. Again.

Day 17-- Strange life

I am in Copenhagen. I haven't been properly on my feet for almost four days.

I've been feverish, lying in bed and making love.

I came here to see if there was any future. I came here to tell P. goodbye. I don't see the first. It's still so difficult to do the second. He's a beautiful man, inside and out. But he's damaged. Even if he wasn't married, he'd be damaged. And I guess I should have learned from my marriage that trying to fix people is a bad business. 

I'm trying not to be angry. He's out right now with a friend, and I'm super conscious this is our second to last night together. But I also know he doesn't feel that, or believe it.

At the beginning of our days together, he was desperate and eager to please. But he's been fey and distant the last few days. And he's used to being alone. 

He and his wife suit each other. 

Last night, I cooked dinner (we've got an apartment here) and after dinner, I cleaned up while he watched television. Suddenly he announced he needed to do something on the visas. He stood up, went to the table and started to work on his computer. At first, I said nothing. Then, 40 minutes in, I asked how long he would be. 

"I have no idea," he replied.

I was flummoxed. "Hours?" I asked. "Minutes?"

"No idea." He ignored me and stared at the screen. 

I cleaned the apartment. I realized I was angry. I said so.

"If I say 20 minutes and it takes 25 you'll be pissy," he said. 

"Fuck you," I said.

Which is the worst thing you can say to him. I don't know why, exactly. He won't discuss it. He's a man of secret hurts, hidden traps. Sometimes I suspect he invents these points. Sometimes I know they're too consistent to be right.

After some talking, he said nobody ever asked him what he was doing or how long he would be. Ever. Or cared when he'd be done.

His childhood was alienation and silence. So's his marriage. H. takes care of him, so she's an improvement on that count. But she leaves him alone.

Isn't it funny? That phrase "leaves him alone" can mean so many things. Positive and negative. Positive in that he has freedom and independence. Negative in that he's the loneliest man alive. And that's the bargain. He's used to it, but he hates it. He doesn't want it, can't imagine differently. If Jan was obsessively controlling, P. is just as afraid of being controlled. Afraid of confrontation. Afraid of what?

Anyhow. Tonight I'm not reacting, and I'll go to bed. If I love him, and if I love him, then I know this is partly a test, and one I can only fail.

If I'm angry he leaves me alone, then I'm dishonest and desperate. I didn't want Jan to control me, and I shouldn't try to control him. And then too what's the point? What's one more night in a doomed relationship more or less?

We aren't going to be Johnny Cash and June Carter. We aren't Katherine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy. We're two middle aged people with similar maladies who share a long friendship and a short love affair. He's cheating on his marriage since trying to fix it is tantamount to leaving it. The deal requires not talking about it. The deal requires a lack of change. I'll never really understand it, but I don't need to understand it. It's not my business and even less my problem. 

Good practice for me too. No need to be controlling, and even less to be hysterical.

I just need to end this. And find someone else who doesn't come broken, and with a wife. 

Day 12-- I feel so stupid.

For the last days, I've been listening to Patte talk to me on the telephone. I called him back, ran up a huge telephone bill. I heard him tell me in great sobbing tones how much he loved me , and how he couldn't live without me. 

And yesterday, I realized what he wasn't saying. 

He wasn't saying he wanted to make any changes. He wasn't saying he saw any way for us to be together. He wasn't saying he chose me. He wasn't saying I was part of his family, that he would protect me too. He wasn't saying he didn't want to reconcile with his wife (although he did say he didn't enjoy sex with her very much). He didn't say he wasn't going to try to fix things with her.

What he said is he didn't want to lose me. And yeah, well duh. 

And for days I've been hoping and hoping and hearing the things he didn't say and believing this represented some movement. I imagined myself doing what the wise therapist in the book on affairs advised-- give him a reasonable time limit and I imagined he would do it. 

And he won't. He never will. He never ever will. I am not a member of his family. He will not protect my feelings. He will not look out for me. 

This morning I asked him directly the questions he's been avoiding. And at least I do him credit he did not lie. And that's that. 

I am not confident. I am so frightened of losing him. I am not okay. I love him inside and out. He's my best friend.

But. I. Do. Not. Want. This.

Day 11- Dazed and Confused

The last few days have been a real test of my resolve not to engage with my husband.

We made a principled agreement about when we would divorce, which is based on a number of practical issues. In the meantime, we are keeping a number of assets as they are. Or we were doing that.

Yesterday, he called me with great excitement. He has a job offer which caused him to want to change the agreement.

I'm a little bit proud of myself, since I started to get very angry with him. And instead, I sent him a short email outlining what would need to happen to make this work, and stressing that I see doing the heavy lifting to enable it as being his job. Friendly, distance.

But the truth is, it's so hard not to scream and shout. I'm stuck in this situation financially/legally for a variety of reasons. He has escape as an option. Always has. Every time.

Meanwhile, I'm really struggling to prepare with my therapist to see Patte this weekend. He's willing to do anything for me except end the impasse. And I don't see how this can go anywhere but back to no contact.

I am, however, convinced that coming to that decision together is the option I want to try to take.

If it fails, other story.

Day 10-- Anger Part 2

I realized that I tend mostly to have a difficult time not calling my husband when I am angry. When I miss him or when I'm sad, I can leave it out, but not when I'm angry.

When I'm angry, I want him to feel the same amount of pain I'm feeling because of our divorce.

I know it doesn't work. I know he doesn't feel badly, and that it only makes me look crazy to keep calling to shout at him. 

At first, since he said his reason was I didn't love him enough, I kept trying to tell him how much I loved him. This was even stupider than shouting at him.

Yesterday, my friend asked me if I wanted him to be miserable the rest of his life. My other friend said "of course not".

But I didn't answer.

Maybe, yes, I do. Maybe because I feel I'm going to be miserable the rest of my life. 

I'm reading all these books which talk about how to fix your relationship, and realize he didn't do one thing to try except expect me to be different. And I hate him so much, because I believed him so completely. 

Day 9-- About my lover's wife

Today I've been nearly floored with guilt.

I've been spending a lot of time looking at sites about infidelity, affairs, marriages-- and it never seems to add up to any answers. The statistics are poor in quality, and what statistics people believe often seem to reflect more what they want to believe than what is actually true. The best researchers seem to be therapists and counselors, and they're naturally biased towards the effectiveness of their own approach. The sample sizes are poor. Numbers get passed around without much criticism or querying.

I did pull out a couple of interesting (to me) observations.

• Men are more often angry at the woman involved (the WS or even their AP)
• Women are more often angry at the woman involved (this includes both Betrayed Spouses and Affair Partners)

Why is it that women are so quick to blame each other? Do we think so little of a man's ability to be a grown up?

Or are women just inclined to think more, and to try to motivate our actions-- more inclined to see our own responsibility and then evade it by pointing towards the other responsible parties?

I am struck by the hostility and bitterness Betrayed Women heap upon their rivals, while excusing their men.

I am equally struck how much Other Women seem to blame the wife in question, often without knowing more than one side of the story.

There's a web site out there which provides Forum Support for The Other Women, and they have a FAQ section which accumulates answers from these Other Women about common questions.
I thought I'd try putting in my own answers as regards my affair:

• How do you bear the weekends etc?

I don't have a problem with my weekends. They're full with friends, and I generally have many things to do. Sometimes over the past year I have gotten frustrated that my contact with my AP goes down on the weekends. Sometimes I understand that, and sometimes I don't. Certainly, the recognition that I wanted more from him even during his "home time" is part of what I believe is pushing him back towards his wife. Which is an indirect good thing, I suppose. I'm not a fantasy woman, just a woman. 

• Is the OW's telling the wife ever justifiable/advisable and why, and at what stage?

No. Not unless her husband's actions are putting the wife in danger. There's too much bias for the OW to make the decision if it's a good thing to do or not. Also, there seems to be no real agreement among the therapeutic community about whether telling is good for the marriage if it hasn't already been discovered. Essentially, not my call.

• Are OW's honest with their friends and family about the relationship?

No. Naturally not. There are some people who know there is a question of a relationship, and I came clean with my closest friends as part of breaking off the physical affair. But these things don't flourish in the open. Which says something by itself. 

• Do the Ox think the Mx would cheat on them given the fact they are doing that with their spouse?

Difficult question. People cheat for different reasons, and if you believe the literature I've read so far, then infidelity in a person's parents is a far greater indicator of the tendency to cheat than is the fact of having cheated once before. I would say it is clear that the partner in question sees it as a valid strategy, even if they say they don't, and as a long term partner you would need to take that into account.

• How do you deal with your Mx sleeping with their spouse?

This is tricky. I knew from him, and it was seemingly confirmed by her, that they had not been sexually intimate in years. I believe that, given that I know it from before the affair began. I have always been primarily his friend (as opposed to her friend), but I know her and she has several times said to me that she was uncomfortable with and uninterested in sexuality. I have no idea *why* this is-- she's in the middle of menopause, so I suppose this could be a factor. Anger at him could be a factor.

When they slept together this New Year's break, I broke the physical affair off immediately. Until that moment, I had felt far more guilty about the emotional side of the affair, since she had seemingly made it clear to both of us she was uninterested in sex with him. Once this changed, all bets-- from my point of view-- were off. 

• How much time, on average, do you spend with your lover?

Not much. He lives in a different country. Since the physical affair began, our contact became much more frequent. By the end, we talked several times a day-- skype/chat/text/etc. I'd guess we saw each other once a month? 

• Do the OW/M's feel any guilt about the affair?

Yes. Certainly. I will say I feel most guilt about the children, and the possible impact on their lives. I tend to think that grownups generally make their own beds, so to speak. I am also troubled by her lack of power in the situation. She chose (against his will, I will note) to give up her career entirely when her children were born, and has not worked since-- some small hobby jobs aside. She's completely dependent on him, and lives very far away from family or community.

• How much detail do married men share about their wives, their relationships, sex lives at home, problems, etc.

Some. Not very much. He's been very unhappy in his marriage, and I've known that since before the relationship began. There are several stories which have been very telling to me. But he does try to be respectful, and keep that window closed. Towards the time of his sexual reconciliation with his wife, he had been thinking more actively about leaving her. In some of those conversations, he shared quite a bit. Certainly more than she'd be comfortable with him sharing.

• How do OW feel about their MM's W? Why?

I like her/don't like her. In many ways we are very much alike. In others, completely different. She's very female in her interests and friendships. She likes charity events, cooking, housekeeping. I like hiking, marathon running, and work. But when we were both young, we would have been good friends. In fact, she reminds me very much of one of my female best friends. I find her a bit stupid, and I think she finds me a bit crazy. Oddly enough, I think she likes me. I'm pretty sure she's encouraged our relationship to develop because she knows her marriage is in trouble, but she generally trusts me to be decent. Which may be foolish, maybe not. I don't think I've been decent.

Before the affair began she asked me once what it was like to have good male friends. I told her that I never developed a kind of friendship like I had with Patte unless I knew he was a family man. Famous last words.

• Is it common for the Ox to go to the Mx's house?

I have been there once, very much against my will. He wanted me to sleep there, as we were taking a trip together the next day-- very early. I refused to even go into their bedroom. I slept on the couch. We did have sex in her house, which is one of the things I am most ashamed of doing. He doesn't seem to be troubled by it. Which troubles me about him and makes me wonder how much hostility is underneath.

• Why do so many of the w's seem to be in denial??If they know about the affair...how did they find out about it? Did the MM/W agree to stop seeing the OW/M?Have they?

I'm fairly sure she knows, at least at some level. I'm not sure she finds the impact it has entirely bad. One of the things I am most ashamed of is that I believe I to some degree kept the marriage going in a dishonest way. If I hadn't suddenly started giving P. what he needed and wanted, I believe he would have confronted her and they would have had the chance to either heal or break their relationship in a good and clean way. They're moving very far away shortly, and she quite recently tried to talk me into moving with them-- she's worried about what P. will do without me there. And she should be worried. I think he's the most lonely person I've ever known, and I think he's very likely able to lose his head with a real affair. (classic midlife crisis territory)

• An affair usually creates an atmosphere where the married party is forced to lie to his or her spouse. Does that person also lie to his or her lover?

Surely he does. I'm not stupid.

Day 8-- Pause

I'll come back to anger, part 2. But I'd just like to say that I took care of myself today.

I ran 17km. I had a facial. And now I'm making myself vegetarian soup. My husband hated that I was a vegetarian and he didn't approve of soup as a meal.

One of the things I can do now.

Day 8 -- Anger Part 1

The past few weeks, I haven't been angry. I've been reflective. I've been hurt, and I think I've been at least reasonably clear-headed. I think there have been moments of revelation and learning. All good.

Best of all, not being in contact with my husband has released me from a lot of the hugely corrosive anger I have been living with for the past year. But this morning, I am that angry. Again. And my anger brings me closer to contacting him than anything else.

Why am I angry?

I went out with some friends last night. I haven't seen them in a long while. That's partly me-- after my divorce, I went into my cave. I let this couple know by mail what had happened, and that I was needing a lot of alone time. I attended their wedding party, and we've been in touch through mail and letters this year. They were in my home city for the weekend, and I agreed to meet them for dinner.

I met one of the women in this couple more or less the year my husband and I moved in together. We'd been dating for a long time by that point, but had finally just made the jump to cohabitation. She also knows something very few do--

I made a stupid mistake as a very very young woman, and "married" a casual boyfriend on paper for immigration purposes. The whole thing went badly wrong since he took the paper marriage seriously (thought we were in the movie Green Card) and it left me with some financial and legal obligations which I had to care for in the years after I had the thing annulled. Which happened very very quickly. So she's one of the few who really remembers my "ex husband", since at the moment I met her I found out that I had some legal responsibility for a property which this man had bought while we were "married".

She also knew what it was and what it wasn't-- I don't think of it as a marriage. She knows that.

Anyhow, dinner last night was strained. I had no intention of banging on about my divorce, but it's very difficult for me to talk about the last year without talking about divorce. They've also been friends with Jan and I for a while, and are women with whom I have shared many things openly. But the conversation was extremely strained, very difficult. If I mentioned anything about the divorce, the partner who has been closest to me would change the conversation-- very obviously, very loudly.

Towards the end of the evening, things felt like they relaxed a bit. And I made some kind of joke about how I was working through my anger at my ex-husband. My friend looked at me nastily and said "which ex husband?" I looked to see if it was a joke, but I could see in her eyes it was meant to be nasty. I think I looked shocked. We speedily wrapped up the dinner, and I made my way home.

And I don't know, really, what it means. Whether she has some kind of comment on my marriage.Whether I have whitewashed my own past in a way which annoys her. Whether she feels somehow in sympathy with Jan (hard to imagine-- he always disliked her).

So I've also been thinking about how honest I was about that relationship at the time it happened. (Remember, this is more than 15 years ago now.). I had been dating the man, and I felt really awful that he thought about our paperwork as a "real" activity. My mother had just died, and  I let myself go along with it at a certain moment, since I was fond of him and had a hard time seeing what I really felt-- in too much pain to think. He told our friends and family we were "married". Though it started as a joke, it ended up serious for him. I coped badly.

A few sessions in therapy, however, convinced me to cut it off at once since I didn't feel married to him, would never have considered him husband material, and didn't want to even date him anymore. I had to have my therapist explain to him there was no point in "relationship therapy" since the relationship had existed mostly in his head.

Boy, there are many things I can honestly say in my life were not my fault, but I have huge amounts of guilt and shame about that little adventure. The man was sad, but that whole mess was my responsibility. And it taught me the hard way that charmingly rebellious was often a recipe for long-term regret.

The good thing I got was a clear roadmap how to do it when I got married for "real". Even though Jan and I felt married from the moment we moved in together, I told him I was not drifting into marriage ever again. It needed to be a deliberate step, taken together in front of God and witnesses and celebrated as a rite of passage. There needed to be no mistake about what we were doing. In the end, we were actually married when I was pregnant for the first time. We knew the pregnancy was in serious trouble, so we kept it small and private. We decided to celebrate publicly only after my health had recovered. Since I was repeatedly pregnant after that, we didn't celebrate until 4 years ago. We combined it with moving into the dream house we had designed together. (Dutch people often make their commitment to be together when they start to try to have children, but do not marry until after the children are born. So what we did was not at all unusual here.)

Anyhow, Anna's comparison of Jan and I to my mistake made me angry. It also made me furious at Jan. My friends could look at our marriage as being in the same category? I recognize it's probably unfair to see that as his fault...

Day 7-- Reflections on my first comment

I had my first comment! And it was critical! And I deserved it! (Seriously, I appreciate it very much.) 

One of the things the commenter said was that it was naturally much easier to cut off contact with my husband since I knew he betrayed me. The point she was making, and there's a way in which I think she's absolutely right, is I need to see Patte as betraying me in the same way to really cut off contact with him in a good way.

But I wondered whether it was really easy to cut off contact with Jan or not? In one way, it's been shockingly easy. It's also only been 7 days. But still. 

I called one of my good (female!) friends to ask her view. Part of my preparation work for cutting off contact with Patte has been about coming clean regarding the affair to some of my closest friends. 

She shared that for the last year she's been watching me nearly kill myself trying to communicate with my husband.  She said:

"While I respect why you are cutting off the affair with Patte, and I think it says a lot of good things about your ethics and common decency, I don't care so much about that. I am *desperate* for you to stop talking to Jan. For a year, you've been acting as though he was the same man you married and we've all been desperate to get you stop. Somehow." 

And that's true. It's only easy to cut off contact with Jan now because for so long it was impossible. 

I recently read a book about how we think; how we make decisions. What it basically said was that conscious decision making takes place in one part of our brain-- the seat of reason. However, habits don't live there anymore. Once you've built a habit-- and a habit consists of trigger, routine and reward-- it moves from your higher reason into your ganglia. Even if you suffer brain trauma. Even if you literally lose your short term memory, you're going to remember your habits. They're written in your bones, in a very real way. It's probably a survival adaptation, right? For good routines, you don't want to have to think too hard to engage them if one day you happen to find yourself running from a bear.

Jan is written in this part of my brain. We had what I thought was a great marriage. If I heard something funny, I called him. Whenever I travelled for work, I would buy him some small gift-- just to show I was thinking of him. We talked *constantly*, laughed all the time.

I only stopped buying him travel gifts a month ago, by the way. For the last 10 months, I've been buying him gifts as I always have done, and then throwing them away. How sad is that? I couldn't even sacrifice the routine. 

Within 6 months of my final decision to stop trying to get pregnant, he'd begun to cut himself off from me and had begun his affair. Within a year, he was gone. 

The affair was the LEAST of the pain he dealt me. I have no parents, no children. He was my only family. He never ONCE tried to fix what was broken once he had decided I could not provide him with the life he wanted.  He told me it was all my fault-- he never (not until quite recently) came right out and said it was because I couldn't have children, but he danced on the edge of that every single day. He told me I was unattractive as a woman. He told me I wasn't caring, wasn't nurturing. He told me I was career obsessed. He told me I was cold. You can add up all those comments into bad mother pretty easily, and you can be sure I did.

To put this in perspective-- most of our 15 years has been completely different. The bad period with each other lasted for one year. 

I don't blame Wendy the Wine Girl. I don't think much of her, but I don't blame her. I blame my husband, right between the eyes. The affair didn't cause the way he behaved. He had an affair because he didn't even consider it was worth breaking up with me in a clean way before he started a new relationship.  Even his mother said to me after DDay that "you should have known he can't be alone". And I do know that. I do. Wendy the Wine Girl isn't the fucking problem. She's nothing more than a particularly ugly symptom.

And in one sense, yes, not talking to him is easy. In another sense, it's been the hardest fought battle in my life. In the past year I've dragged myself to painful therapy sessions, talked all night with him, listen to him *scream* at me that I should respect Wendy the Wine Girl as a "real girlfriend". (Part of his fiction is that it wasn't an affair because we were really already broken up, and I knew it.) I did all that because it was the first thing we had ever encountered which we couldn't talk our way through. I thought-- i really believed!-- that if I just listened and engaged, we would somehow find our way through. It was so stupid, and so destructive. 

To stop talking to him, I had to let him hurt me enough times that the aversion to the pain he caused me overrode the writing in my bones. 

Is that really easy?

Day 6-- My husband

Called me. Did *not* take the call-- go, team me. Left voicemail criticizing me for a number of things. It's a lot easier to hear over voicemail, let me tell you.

Even I fail at no contact with Patte, it seems to be working with Jan.

day 5-- I don't know

Am I a terrible person? I miss Patte. I think about him all the time. But I find it too easy to be out of touch.

I have to be honest about something really distasteful. I really am hurt and very angry that he had sex with his wife. I can certainly see the point that it was a complicated relationship to begin with, and I knew that-- it's also certainly predictable that a sexless marriage is not a divorce or separation. But that's all rational.

I feel physically sick at the thought of ever touching him again. I obsess about images of what it looked like, how they did it. How it felt for him. But I also do not want to ask him. I just don't want to know. Perhaps affairs are doomed/destructive for just this reason. No matter what you think you understand, there's betrayal on every side.

I do my best to edit him out of my mind when he goes home to his family, because I can't stand the thought he might again be intimate with H. I do not wish to ask, I don't want to know. I just want him not to exist.
It was easier for me to talk to him when he was in his hotel room, since it felt to me as though a buffer for betrayal had been created.

I really do feel betrayed. Completely betrayed. And my reaction to that betrayal makes it easy to be cold.

Furthermore, I never felt like it was cheating as long as I had something she didn't want. But now that she wants it again, I feel the guilt very strongly. (And yes, I do understand this as rationalization.)

And now he's wounded and heartbroken, and desperate for connection, and I feel badly for him, but not that badly.

Day 5-- All about my husband

I managed to stay pretty firm with him today. He sent many small text messages and emails, and I only replied to the ones which required a factual answer about the house.

He really sees himself as being kind. And I can't let myself think he is kind.

Some contact with Patte may be better for him, but it pulls up all kinds of emotions in me which aren't very nice. That is all.

Day 4-- But at least

I resisted the temptation to call my husband. That's something, right?

Day 4-- That didn't take long.

I phoned Patte. I texted him and he told me to call, so I did. It was intended to be a short conversation, but we spoke for hours. 

Nothing changes. But we agreed to spend some time together the weekend he is here, just to let it sink a little bit, and to cut our relationship face to face.

I feel weak, but I also feel better. 

Is this addiction? 

He felt better, and he was angry because I had promised him I would not cut him off like that. Does that make it better? He was sobbing on the phone.

It doesn't make it better.

My logic-- at least the NC will be with both of our consent, and not by an email as though he had done something wrong. I'll lose a week and a half of progress, and some pride. And then he moves. 

Did I forget to mention that? He's moving. To an even more distant time zone. So at least the temptation to have a repeated sequence of last goodbyes will be avoided.

Or maybe he'll call back to change his mind. Or maybe I will.

For whatever it's worth, I told him I hadn't changed our mind about being able to be in contact in the long run. I also told him I was not willing to sleep with him. Do I think that makes a difference?

Day 4-- Choose Me

For my last two major relationships, I have chosen men who are unavailable, and worked to make them choose me.

Jan, when we met, was at the tail end of a live-in relationship with a woman he did not want to marry, but for whom he felt responsible. We were friends first. I wasn't very attracted to him initially. I was fat and unhappy, recovering from my mother's suicide and in a relationship I didn't want to be in-- a lover who was much more serious than I.

I used Jan as a way to pull myself together and get myself out of the relationship-- initially it seemed a safe way. I can remember I had to push myself into finding him attractive. I had to work to become enough of his type (slimming down, changing my wardrobe) so he would find me attractive.

I wasn't his type at all. His type is a tall, athletic, young brunette-- not terribly pretty or smart, but outgoing and fun. Not me. Not even a little bit. Our sexual relationship grew up *despite* that-- In all our years together, he never let me forget I wasn't his type. I was very very good at making him happy, to which he was vulnerable. (relationship with his mother, etc.) So he chose me.

Our whole marriage ran at a deficit. The whole time.

Once at our happiest moment, he announced I had become his type. I was overjoyed, but looking back, it seems to me it mostly shows that type was still on his mind. Reassuring himself as much as he was praising me.

No wonder he was so angry when I couldn't give him children. Our whole marriage was based on my ability to provide what he wanted in return for his willingness to overlook my "type" failings. When I failed to live up to my end of the bargain, he no longer felt bound by his. Worse, he felt cheated.

Naturally much more complicated than this, but something very close, I guess.

And then Patte-- I remember the moment I realized I was in love with him, or something close. I remember our first kiss. If I'm honest, that first kiss wasn't so amazing. Sex was enthusiastic and athletic, which appealed to me, but it took me months to be able to respond sexually with my own pleasure. It became wonderful once he got comfortable with his own body, but nothing instant.

I was his type, though-- so different than it was with Jan. But I did the same thing. Gave myself a makeover to appeal to him. I'm quite good at sensing cues.

I often come close to calling Patte by my husband's name. I tune him out quite a bit. We've had crises before, but I never stayed upset for long. Was that because I knew it wouldn't last? Am I more upset now because I really care about losing him, or because I feel this time he's chosen someone else over me? (his wife) The other times we nearly broke up it was because he wanted to choose his wife, not because he had done so. Did I panic because I'll miss him, or because I can't stand he might not choose me?

He's very very good looking. He's very good in bed. He's so masculine he doesn't find me unfeminine or threatening. 

On the other hand, he's faithless. He's got major emotional issues (I know-- pot/kettle/black). He's often pompous and silly. He is very very bright, but often chooses not to articulate his intelligence. His thinking is limited by his fear of emotions, which makes him distrust intuition. I would *never* accept how he prioritizes his time, which his wife accepts. (Perhaps why she rejected him sexually for so long? Anger?)

He's beautiful, and a lovely object. But am I really in love with him? Or is he just a good option? A simple prop-- Michael Stipe's "one I love"? 

Or is this sour grapes?

Am I in love with him, or am I in love with what he can and does provide? What he could have provided if we'd ended up together? I felt in love with him at some point, didn't I?

In both cases, these were partly available men who represented challenge. Even if you overlook their relationship status as a factor, they both presented large warning signals. Still, I chased both as though my life depended on it.

Have I always pursued unavailable men? If I look back at my romantic history, there has been some of this, but not (at least) in the same way.

This started after my mother's suicide, I think. Somehow I lost my ability to trust that a man could really be smitten by me. But if I remember my past, my three most important relationships of my youth were all with men who were available, interested, and pursued me as much as I pursued them. 

Did I just lose confidence? Did I start seeing too much value in "converting" men who would not otherwise love me? Is this a way of working out my mother's rejection? 

Do I think at my age I can find a man who will still react that way to me? 

When I was younger, I seriously distrusted men who were attracted to me. I always had trouble feeling they saw me for who I was as a person. Was chasing unavailable men a way of asserting control over a situation? If I made them love me, then they would love what I wanted them to love? What do I want them to love?

I was briefly involved once before with a married man, when I was quite young, was that part of the pattern? I'm not sure. He was in a position of great power over me, and I looked up to him and was quite naive about believing him. Was that the same thing? Or did this pattern really begin after my mother's suicide? And if it did, what does it say?

One thing's for sure, I have a long history of using one man to get over another, and there's generally an overlap. This will be the first time in many many years that I'm really on my own for any length of time. I wish I could feel that as good for me instead of terrifying. 

Did I ever love Patte? If I did, then why did parts of my emotional landscape feel so blank? If I didn't, then why was I so desperate for him at times? How bound up were my emotions for him in my painful divorce and the idea I had he might rescue me from that mess?

I love him now, but that's a choice. Part of how I'm put together is to look at love as a decision, and stick to it. But really? 

I assume time alone will let me more properly evaluate my emotions for a new person. Again, that doesn't make me as enthusiastic as I suppose it should do.

Enough. I need to try to go back to sleep.

Day 3-- It hurts.

Oh my God it hurts not to call.

Day 3-- I will be the pitiless censor of my own mixed intentions

I ran a quarter marathon today. Lifted some fog from my mind.

With clarity comes both forgiveness and treachery.

By 5 km I had convinced myself to call Patte. By 10km I had decided to call him today. Today. Right now.

I wanted to apologize, because I didn't consult him about the decision to go no contact, and he hasn't done anything wrong to me besides be confused.

I wish now I had talked to him more before I came to this. But I didn't. And I'm sitting here now realizing how much I love him, and that if I love him, I should let him go. It hurts me to see the sad and angry songs he's posting on Spotify. I've given up telling myself not to look.

I can't call him. I have nothing to offer. I know he's hurting. I know he's lonely. I know he misses me. The only way I can reach out is musically. I've put together a list of loving but firm goodbye songs. I can't do any more than that. If he finds it, he does. But if I love him, if I really love him, I'll leave him strictly alone.

During the early days of my divorce, he listened patiently to hours of ranting when I had nothing to say. I don't even remember what I said.

He flew in for my birthday. He has hairy earlobes. He looks into the distance when he things, his eyes moving  back and forth to his thoughts. He's rude to his boss and kind to the receptionist. I've never seen him be anything but lovely to anyone with less power than he has. He puts his arm around me when I ask. He lets me spoon with him at night even though he prefers his own cover. He always looks at me like a dog looks at a starving bone. Once, I passed him in the office, and he turned on a dime because I said his name. He does everything too much. He loved me without reserve. He knew how much I needed to hear he loved me and kept telling me even though he hated saying it.

I'd been making him increasingly miserable because he couldn't reconcile my need for a real relationship with his marriage. He loves me. But I'm not the one.

He's married. His wife's the one. And she should be. And if I pretend to love this man at all, then I will not contact him. I will not.

Day 2-- There Is No Difference

There is no difference between not being able to give me what I want and not being willing to give me what I want.

There is no difference. There is no difference. There is no difference.

Stop backsliding. Go on with your life. Jesus Christ, this should be easier.

On a positive note I:

got my hair cut-- something new

bought some new clothes

It's like there's an orange sitting in the curve of my rib cage. I'm always crying. A rubber band around my lungs. 

Day 2-- About my marriage

All the focus here has been about my ill-advised affair. But I guess I'll be over not contacting Patte in a few weeks. It's a loss, but it's not the big one. And then I'll be staring down the cliff of my failed marriage, failed childbearing, how it was I chose a partner who loved me so little right from the start.

Oh this is going to be such fun the next few months.

Day 2-- Some kinds of backsliding are not as obvious as a pie in the face.

I cut Patte off on Facebook. I cut him off on blackberry messenger. I unsubscribed from all of his spotify lists, except one.

There was one very old list of songs in his original language which he made for me. I didn't unsubscribe from that list.

Last night, for the first time in a long time he added several songs to the list. And made a new list, which had enough of "our" songs for me to conclude the list was for me.

So naturally I drank lots of whiskey and made my own list in the hope he would see it too.

And I went to bed drunk. A drunk middle aged woman posting love songs to a married man is such an attractive thing, isn't it?

I unpublished it this morning, although I'll keep it to remind myself of my own foolishness.

Letter to my stupid self:

Listen, if he really loved you and wanted to be with you, he would not be posting playlists in the middle of the night while his wife sleeps in the other room. If he really loved you and wanted to be with you, he would first try to work things out with his wife while being honest with her about their problems. He would come to you when he was free.

You want to read smoke signals into his music choices. You want to hope he's going to choose you. Isn't that selfish? Isn't that stupid? It was one thing to want that when his wife was resolutely pushing him away. But if she isn't doing that anymore, isn't it better for him, his children, his wife if he can work it out? Leave it the fuck alone.

 Besides, it should be blindingly obvious that even these smoke signals are ambivalent. He's *not* about to choose you. Grow up.

Things to do:

• Look at the picture of them together from Christmas on her Facebook
• Imagine how I'm going to feel when he puts his wedding ring back on, because that gesture will come shortly.
• Rinse/Repeat
• Stop drinking whiskey.

(If I was really clever I would cut off the one remaining playlist. But I'm not ready to do that yet.)

Day 1-- My Husband

I found out about my husband's affair one day after a long business trip.

After 13 years together, he was leaving for a woman he met in a bar and with whom he had been having an affair for nearly six months. Once I knew what I was looking for, I could easily find pictures of them together on Facebook.

He blames me for not being able to have a normal Dutch life. I am barren. Unable to carry to term. Childless. Infertile. A broken copy machine.

He says he might have been able to live with that, if I had compensated by showing more interest in having the kind of home life he wanted to have. He's never been able to define what that home life is-- he's only been able to say it wasn't any of the things I did.

The woman he met in a bar stopped sleeping with him ten weeks after he left me, so he came back and wanted to try therapy together. During our therapy try, he went to a dating site where he met and wooed Wendy the Wine Girl. I ended the therapy after I found out about her. I still have no idea why he bothered with the therapy.

Our marriage had been largely sexless for a year before he left-- his choice. He told me the stillbirth had ripped me up too much for him to take sexual pleasure from me anymore. He reminded me repeatedly I was never his type.

When I ended the therapy, the therapist sent me an apology letter for being part of the deception unknowingly. Jan complained bitterly I was setting unreasonable demands, and if I could show I could be the woman he wanted, then there would be no Wendy the Wine Girl.

He believes deeply that I deserve everything he's done. He has no pity or remorse.

Day 1-- Patte

Even before the affair, he & I were too close.

Some of you reading this may get angry, but I feel no real guilt for starting the affair.

(though I question how clever it was. different question.)

His marriage had been sexless for many years, with very little communication.  Her choice.

(I know the conventional wisdom is here, folks, but he had told me that over whiskey one night during a training course long before there was a question of love. We were sharing burdens about our faltering marriages, each by each. No reason to lie.)

I ended it because he was sexually intimate with H. again over the holidays.

Once I found out about it, everything after that point felt like cheating in a way nothing had before. Even emailing him was too much. That would make me guilty.

He never would have begun with me if he had a romantic relationship with his wife. He loves her. That's true.

She pushed him to the point where he very nearly stopped loving her. That's also true.

He loves me. I know this is true too.

But I know his first choice has always been his wife. If he can get his life back with her, I am overjoyed for him. True. He's a great man, and deserves his happiness. A life with me would never have been more than second choice.

And because he is in love with me, does love me deeply, there's no place at all for me in his life. None. For his sake, for my own dignity. I have to walk away completely. Now.

*****

My situation is different, so that naturally sucks. Sucks HARD.

But I'm kind of proud of myself I don't want his life to be a ruin just to make mine a little more bearable.

Wish that made it less painful too.

Alas.

Day 1-- Pain

What I intend to do is to write here whenever I wish I could talk to either of them. On Day 1-- today-- , this gives me the idea I will never leave off writing posts.

The first day in some years I have not woken to a small note from Patte. I've lost my best friend.

I miss the love from both of them, of course I do. But it is those missing small messages which are making my hands shake this morning.

I am shaking. My waist is sleepy and slow. There is hysteria coiled in the back of my throat like a golf ball. My breathing is tied in knots.

***

I wrote Patte yesterday to tell him I was going no contact, defriending him on Facebook and suggesting a story to tell his wife to explain our break. After several whiskeys, the email turned into a laundry list of all the the things I love about him and things I will miss.

A better living example of why there should be no contact has never been found than this email. So it goes.

I brought this on myself, of course I did. No pity required.

(There is no need to announce No Contact to my husband. His only reaction would be relief. Somewhere-- Wendy the Wine Girl spreads her velvet 30-something thighs.

And neither leg cares a fig for me. )

***

I need to care about me. Right? Right???