My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (24 page)

After my evening with the girls, I lay down to sleep once again with the man that I loved. “Anne, you know I was thinking of another major difference between you and Helen,” he said.

“What’s that, Handsome?” I called him Handsome often. It was my special expression of affection for him, and it felt good to say it again.

“Helen is a very shallow person,” he said. “You have great depth.”

Apparently he had phoned Helen because he was concerned about how she was coping with Richard’s assault.

“Anne, all she could talk about was the physical things. She wouldn’t talk about what really matters, the emotional things,” he said. “The emotional wounds are far deeper. They can take a lifetime to heal. I know that if you would have been in her shoes you would barely have mentioned the physical soreness. You would have been busy talking about your feelings on the inside. It’s becoming evident to me how you have so much depth in your character, which stands in stark contrast to Helen’s shallowness.”

These words brought healing salve deep into my heart, and my trust for him grew.

Brian also acknowledged what I’d been through by saying that there was a lot of work ahead of us. While I was still numb, emotionally, and hadn’t even begun to experience the inevitable anger over the affair, he had a sense of what lay ahead.

“You won’t be able to just get over it, Anne,” he told me. He was aware that the upcoming months would not be easy for him or for me. He was fully aware of the cost, yet he was man enough to face the consequences and pay the price.

I was soothed by his insight and his fine words of praise for me, comforted that I was outshining Helen now in his eyes. I was also comforted that he was telling me about all these conversations with Helen. But there was a problem. A very big problem indeed: he was still talking to Helen.

In essence, he still had a friendship with her. I knew I could not live with this, but wondered how I could effectively tell him to break off his relationship with her.

“Brian?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not really sure it’s such a good idea for you to remain friends with Helen under the circumstances,” I said, afraid that I’d push him away with my words. “I can understand your genuine concern for her, but I am not comfortable with you continuing your friendship with her. I think somebody else needs to be her friend right now, not you. I think you need to break off your relationship with her completely, and not speak with her anymore.”

“Stop telling me what to do,” he snapped. “Helen’s my friend and I care about her. I’m not about to stop being her friend. I’ll be her friend if I want to be and you can’t tell me what to do!”

“Okay,” I responded lamely. But it was not okay, not okay at all. I knew I could not stay married to him while he maintained a friendship with a woman he had cheated on me with, a woman who was bound and determined to break up my marriage so she could marry him.

As the early days of our healing continued, I inwardly blamed myself for Brian’s affair. I became obsessed with being a flawless spouse.

Unfortunately I had the false idea that affairs happen because the third party is in some way better than the original spouse, probably sexier. So if the original spouse had just been a good spouse (and a sexy enough spouse), this wouldn’t have happened.

I believed it was up to me to perform to keep my marriage together. Subconsciously, I thought it all depended on me. Without realizing it, I gave up my freedom to just be myself. This was not healthy, attractive or necessary. If I had understood more about affairs and why they happen, I would not have suffered as much as I did.

During my long days when Brian was at work, I took some time to connect with my children and talk to them about their feelings about the affair.

This openness helped the younger two children to continue on with their normal lives and to heal quite quickly. I was honest with them and didn’t give them false hope for the future, but I did not discuss my insecurities with them. When they saw my confidence, they felt confident too, so that’s what I tried to show them. I told them that their father was a good man and that we were both working on our marriage.

Danielle was another story. She became infuriated whenever her father was brought up in a conversation, and she put a lot of effort into avoiding him. She disrespected him and refused to listen to him.

In spite of my brave face for the children, I had no confidence that Brian or I could heal our marriage without outside help. After all, I had been completely clueless that anything was wrong in my marriage, while the affair was going on. Who was I to think I could heal the future?

I recalled a quote from Albert Einstein:
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Obviously something needed to change in our marriage, but what? What had gone wrong? My present belief system was a paradox. On the one hand I blamed myself for Brian’s affair; on the other hand I viewed myself as the
good
person who had not had an affair.

I concluded that Brian and I needed the help of a counselor if our marriage was going to be repaired.

Brian was outraged when I suggested it. “I’m not going,” he told me.

I was incredulous.
I forgave him his unfaithfulness and he isn’t even willing to cooperate with my plans to save the marriage.

“What do you mean you’re not going?” I questioned.

“I’m not going. I don’t need it,” he said. “All our marriage you’ve been telling me what to do. You’ve been bossing me around. Well, I’m not going to be bossed around by you anymore.”

I didn’t think I was controlling at all. On the contrary. All these years, I viewed myself as the one who supported his dreams.

Clearly we needed help. I had to learn to identify problems in our marriage, I had to learn to forgive Brian, and I also needed to be able to trust him again. For these reasons I wanted to see a counselor, but in the end I respected Brian’s wishes.

He didn’t think counseling was the answer for our marriage, and I decided that he was entitled to choose his own way. However, I knew that if healing was not achieved, I would be forced to leave. I had no intentions of remaining in an unhappy marriage.

In order for our marriage to work, I knew I would have to be able to truly forgive. I knew I wasn’t good at forgiving. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do it. I knew I would have to be able to come to a place where I didn’t bring up the affair anymore, at least not in an argument or in a hurtful way, where I was holding it over him like a never-ending debt he could never repay. If I could not reach this forgiveness, it would be unloving of me to continue in this relationship with him.

On a Saturday afternoon, I had to take Tamara to her volleyball team’s end-of-season party in a sprawling home of a posh suburb. Parents were encouraged to stay and visit and enjoy the breathtaking views.

This should have been a simple task, but I struggled with too many dark thoughts to keep on a happy face.

On this day, I was a devastated and broken woman. I felt humiliated and shamed. I felt not good enough for this world and not good enough for these people. I was convinced that I was going through the worst experience a person could, and that my situation was worse than anyone else’s. I thought affairs happened to people with problems in their marriages, but I had had a good marriage. I

was confused and upset. Brian was still stubborn about continuing his friendship with Helen and that wasn’t going to work for me. I was having a very bad day, wrestling with unceasing negative thoughts.

When Tamara and I arrived at the party, I was imagining my life as a single parent, feeling bitter after all of my work to be a good wife.
If only I can make it through these cordial greetings without crying. If only I can look and act normal for just a few minutes,
I thought to myself.

I managed my way through polite greetings and got away with my lie that I had another commitment. My real commitment involved a secluded place and a stream of tears. I could barely hold them back.

My steps continued to gain momentum as I walked down the driveway. I walked faster and faster. It was over. I had done it. I had made it out of there without bursting into tears. I walked on, my mind racing, and the tears began to stream.

My heart was beating faster and faster as I continued, as if I was pumping adrenaline from an emergency situation.

My mind raced with my heart. I thought of the good things in my marriage. I thought of the bad things in my marriage. I thought of my Christian values, what I had been taught in my eighteen years in the church. I questioned those things. I was mad at the church. I continued to walk.

Then suddenly I stopped and wondered,
Where am I?
I couldn’t remember. Some fancy residential neighborhood, which was unfamiliar.
Why was I here?
I couldn’t remember that either.
Why am I

walking around in this neighborhood? Where am I going? Where am I supposed to be? What am I doing?
I was lost, blanked out.

It took a lot of concentration to remember. Yes. I was supposed to be in a car, not walking! I was so excited to make it through the drop-off that I had forgotten my car. Now, I was blocks away.

I laughed at myself between my tears.
How can you forget your car?
I thought.
It’s such a large item!
I turned around and made my way back, hoping no one would see me. I got into my car and found my way home safely.

No, I was definitely not in good shape, but there was no escape from the road which lay ahead of me. Whether my marriage stayed together or I ended up single, the journey was going to be difficult.

With the help of a book I had been reading
³
, I decided it was time for me to grow up and face reality. It helped me see that up until this point I had been fighting with everything within me to save my marriage.

Now it was beginning to sink in that it was not
all
up to me. I could not control my husband’s choices, only my own.

Maybe Brian would not be willing to give up his relationship with Helen, and it was my choice not to share my husband with another woman. I realized now Brian would have to choose: Helen or me. Period. No other way. If he wouldn’t break ties with her, I would file for divorce.

I decided to deliver this ultimatum in the form of a letter. I brought it to him on a Sunday afternoon after enjoying a nice lunch together in our backyard.

June 25, 2000

Dear Brian,

I’ve been through some very tough moments since you told me of your affair with Helen and, to my horror, that you actually weren’t sure who you wanted to spend the rest of your life with. Now you say that you have decided to stay with me, however I feel that there are some things that I need to say to you, and have decided that the best way for me to say them is through this letter.

My love for you is so profound, that my initial reaction was not only to forgive, but to do whatever I could to win back your affection. I couldn’t believe how willing you were not only to hurt yourself, but to hurt me and your dear children as well. I could barely face the possibility of it all. To

a person like me, who expected to marry only once and to remain committed for the rest of my life, it was a severe shock to see our relationship almost come to an end just like that.

Now it seems that you choose to stay with me, however, I have done some very deep thinking and soul searching and I realize that there are some things in our present relationship that I am not prepared to live with. Brian, you are putting our relationship under a severe strain.

You say that you will remain a friend to Helen and that you think of her only as a sister now. However, you also say that your whole affair with Helen is not based on sex, but rather on friendship. That tells me if the friendship continues the affair is also continuing. Whether it leads to sex or not is not the issue. The friendship is.

As a woman I also know that whatever you may think of her, Helen will not be able to think of you as just a brother. Every time you talk to her you are nurturing your friendship and thus the affair, and increasing the hurt she will feel if you one day break off your relationship completely.

So if you want to stay with me you will have to put an end to this “friendship” completely. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. It’s your choice.

We dedicated ourselves to one another exclusively when we got married, and if our relationship is to continue it must continue to be that way. If you can’t be faithful to me for life, then I’d rather separate now. I will not share the affections of the man I love with another woman. For me it must be all or nothing. If you choose to leave me I will be severely hurt, because my love for you is very deep.

I have reflected on how we met and were married in such a special way. I’m reminded of the fact that you married me of your own free choice. I did not blackmail you, twist your arm or offer you a bribe. It was your own decision. Suddenly it seems you have questioned that decision.