My Husband's Affair Became the Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me (34 page)

6. Conservative estimates are that 60 percent of men and 40 percent of women will have an extramarital affair. If even half of the women having affairs (or 20 percent) are married to men not included in the 60 percent having affairs, then at least one partner will have an affair in approximately 80 percent of all marriages.
The Monogamy Myth,
Vaughan, Page 7.

CHAPTER 21
9-1-1 

NOVEMBER, 2 00 0

Love is a double-edged sword. It brings the greatest joys and the greatest pains people can know. It wants to hold and nurture, to rescue and protect. This is its nature. But the moments of growth and steps toward maturity will often be taken against the pull of those we love. Don’t let this fool you: Love is not the enemy. Give thanks for those who care for you and seek to guard your way. See them not as obstacles, but as opportunities to grow and love in a different way.

FROM
HUGS FOR GRADS
JEFF WALLING

The fighting and the emotional roller coaster continued. One day it seemed as if there was hope. The next day all seemed lost, but I continued to fight my personal war to recover from the affair, unsure of whether my marriage would make it.

Journal entry, November 7, 2000:

I’m really frightened. I don’t know what to do. The past week has been crappy. Brian seems to be losing it. I can’t fix it for him. I’m afraid that I’m doing the wrong thing by staying with Brian. It seems that there are signs telling me to leave and at the same time there are signs telling me to stay.

I had tea with Danielle today, and we had a good talk. She told me about a recent visit she had with Brian’s mother and that it seemed to Danielle history was repeating itself. The things that Brian is doing are just like the things his father did, and his father never got better. He only got worse and worse.

Danielle says that Brian and I sound like her grandmother and grandfather. It’s so much the same that it is totally scary. I find myself falling into the same trap as Brian’s mother, trying to please, working so hard to keep the house cleaner, cook better, be prettier, be totally available for Brian’s needs every moment of every day. I find myself giving up things that are important to me in my effort to try and please him. I’m losing my own sense of self. I don’t know if I can change, stop being “nice” when I should be taking a stand. Danielle tells me I am losing some of my sweetness. That really scares me. I never want to be a bitter person. I wish I knew what to do. Maybe a separation is the only answer.

I was making personal progress with the aid of my counseling. I was beginning to understand myself and the unhealthy buried roots from my past that were wreaking havoc in my life. Even though I was living in a present-day reality full of ups and downs, I was growing as a person at a tremendous speed. Most importantly I was recognizing codependent behaviors in myself and I was consciously replacing them with healthy patterns.

My change forced Brian to also change. We were permanently rewriting patterns in the way we related to one another, and that wasn’t easy. We were changing the dance in our relationship.

One evening, we sat having coffee and talking together privately in our bedroom. It started as a good time, with us communicating honestly and enjoying each other’s company. Once again Brian was willingly answering questions about the affair, and I was struggling to understand what weaknesses in our marriage led to infidelity.

I told Brian that I did not feel I could be myself in our relationship, I didn’t feel loved for the person I was. I felt he was expecting me to become something I wasn’t. This hurt Brian. He said it wasn’t

fair, that I didn’t realize how much he was doing to show me he loved me. He was agitated, but I didn’t back off. Then he told me I never listen to him. I disagreed. Next he said I didn’t respect him, because if I did I would be asking him “why” questions.
How dare he tell me whether I respected him or not ?
I thought. He could tell me that he didn’t
feel
respected, but he had no right to accuse me of not respecting him because it simply wasn’t true.

‘You don’t understand what I’m saying,” he said with rising volume.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I do and don’t understand,” I yelled back.

Then he stood up and continued yelling. He refused to sit down.

“I’m not remaining seated. I’m sick and tired of you bossing me around,” he said. “I can never talk with you because we always have to spend forever discussing how to talk instead ofjust getting right to the point.”

“When you stand up and start raising your voice at me, I feel intimidated,” I said. “I can’t even hear what you’re saying any longer. My mind just shuts off. This conversation is going nowhere right now, so I’m leaving.”

I only meant I was leaving briefly, to regain my composure, but I was so worked up that I didn’t even think to make my intentions clear to Brian.

I brushed past him heading towards the door. He grabbed me and restrained me, keeping me from leaving our bedroom. He had something to tell me and he was determined to tell me right then and there. To him it couldn’t wait.

I was determined to prove that he could not force me against my will. I had learned that I didn’t have to put up with behavior that I deemed inappropriate, that I always had a choice whether to stay and take it or not.

“Anne, I just need you to listen to me right now.”

“No, I’m not listening. You can’t make me listen,” I yelled. And I wasn’t listening at all. I was frightened by the intensity of the moment. I was determined to show that I could not be forced or manipulated. I deserved to be treated with respect.

He held my wrists as I struggled and squirmed to move past him. I began to kick him. I was now fighting with all my might. As we squirmed together, we spun around and I fell over on our bed.

He fell down on top of me and held me down by the wrists. I tried to bite him, now desperate for my freedom. Finally I got one arm free and rolled to my side, reached over to the telephone on our nightstand and dialed 9-1-1 before he had a chance to stop me. He quickly hung up the phone.

At this point, I realized that he was too strong for me and I would not be able to physically free myself.

“Anne, just listen to me,” he said. “Ijust need you to listen to me.”

We continued yelling at each other. The phone rang. He wouldn’t let me go. The phone rang one more time and stopped. It had been answered elsewhere in the home.

I continued to fight for my freedom but I was still pinned, against my will, to our bed. Brian continued to fight to be heard. Eventually I submitted myself helplessly to his control. I stopped fighting.

“That’s it,” he said. “I never want to be treated with such disrespect again.”

“I don’t think our relationship is going to work out,” I told him. “You better pack your bags and get out of here.”

That drove him over the edge and he grabbed his duffel bag and once again began packing, almost like the night he had left now nearly six months prior. He threw in a few basics. Then he headed out the door. Having him gone I began to regain my composure.
Where would he go?
I worried.
What should I do? Maybe I overreacted.
I was so confused.

Grabbing the phone I dialed his cell phone number. When he answered, I told him that I may have overreacted, and if he wanted to come home and sleep on the couch that would be all right. I wasn’t really sure how we had gone from a pleasant constructive evening to something so out of control in such a short time period. We hung up with barely a cordial good-bye. Within a few minutes, Brian was back home. I didn’t want to talk to him.

Minutes after Brian returned, our doorbell rang. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. I was disheveled and broken. My eyes were red with tears. I heard Brian answer the door.

“Hi. Someone from this address called 9-1-1 this evening,” a man said in an authoritative tone. Obviously it was a police officer. “I’m here to see if everything is alright.”

“Everything is fine,” Brian said.

“Who dialed 9-1-1?” the officer questioned.

“My wife did,” Brian answered honestly.

“Was there a domestic dispute?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” Brian answered. “My wife and I were fighting, but everything is fine now.”

The officer continued his line of questioning, and I realized that he wouldn’t leave until he saw with his own eyes that I was physically okay. I couldn’t hide any longer.

I came out to face the officer’s questions. No, Brian didn’t hurt me. Yes, he held me against my will. No, I don’t know who answered the phone when the operator called back. It must have been Danielle.

My heart sank when I remembered the phone ringing. Danielle was trying to protect us, told them everything was fine.

“Did your husband hurt you?” the officer asked me again.

“No,” I said. “After the fighting I told him to leave, but later I changed my mind and told him he could stay as long as he stayed

away from me and spent the night on the couch.”

“And you agree to spend the night on the couch, sir?” the officer asked.

“Yes,” Brian replied, humiliated beyond description.

Finally the officer left. The evening had somehow become a disaster. I could hardly believe that once again the law had to intervene in our once happy home.

The next day, I avoided Brian before he left for work. I didn’t know what to think of the night before, and I wasn’t ready to face him yet.

Brian: How does one complete a marathon? One step at a time. I was on my own marathon of a different kind. One that would determine the future of our marriage, yet one I was not solely responsible for. No matter what the outcome was to be, I was determined to do whatever it took to win back Anne’s love, trust and respect. To me she was worth it. I believed we could overcome this terrible deed I had committed.

From the very beginning, I knew this would take a lot of time and effort, and that Anne would not “just get over it.”

I realized Anne had many questions, and I would have to answer each and every one of them, and answer them more than just once or twice or three times! I was taking her out for coffee as often as I could in order create an atmosphere for discussion. Much of the talking had to do with the “whys” and “How could yous?”

It was painful to look into the eyes of the woman I truly loved and see the pain I caused her. It was not easy to revisit the why and how come questions, yet discussion was the only way for her to get the answers she needed. My openness was helping her to slowly regain trust in me. Many times though it felt like we were not making any progress forward, and this painful night was one of them.

Instead of going to counseling with Anne, I was reading books that were helping me to understand myself and how I could have done

something that I was morally and intellectually opposed to. This helped me to avoid defensiveness about my actions, when Anne asked questions that made me look bad or selfish. I needed to recognize my own weaknesses and overcome them to ensure I would never have another affair.

I was trying to treat Anne like a princess. I wanted to make it up to her for what I had done. I took her out shopping for new clothes, to fancy restaurants and on other special dates. I wanted to show Anne that in spite of what I had done or how she was feeling about me, I really, really loved her and was willing to prove it to her by my words and my actions.

Yet no matter how much we talked, how many times I answered her questions, how many coffees we shared, or how much money I spent on her, it felt like we were not moving ahead! Yet, I wasn’t prepared to give up, because I loved her.

So I wrote this letter to her during my lunch hour at work, in hopes that she would understand me. I gave it to her when I got home.

Dear Anne,

These are the things that went wrong last night from my perspective.

It appears to me that you cannot understand what I am saying. I think you think I’m asking you to change the person you are and I am not. I love you just the way you are.

I could not communicate to you the idea that if I make every effort to control my anger so that we can communicate properly, and yet I still blow it, I do not want to be punished over and over again for that mistake by needing to talk about “Why did you get mad Brian?” We never seem to be able to discuss the issue that made me mad in the first place. We only discuss the fact that I got mad.

I have to give an account for my behavior. My aggressiveness was inappropriate. What seems to be missing is you taking responsibility for your behavior which triggered my aggressive response.

It seems to me, and I might be wrong, that certain things I do (like yelling) trigger a response in you (like shutting down and tuning out). I have to deal with my behavior properly (ask for forgiveness, change), but there is no indication that you feel you had any part to play in causing my behavior. You do not have to deal with what you did (over exaggerating), but I have to deal with what I did!