Damn this thread. I have been trying to avoid it since its inception and it keeps rearing its ugly head. I have a tale to tell.
I'm guessing that by now most of you know that I am married and we have been together for 30 years.
Since the birth of my daughter we had gotten into a deep rut and had been drifting slowly apart for years. I found myself lying to my wife about irrelevant things for no apparent reason. It became a habit.
About 3 years ago I met someone and we flirted. I didn't take it seriously at all, I've always flirted with women but it never really occurred to me that she actually found me attractive. Frankly - it didn't really occur to me that anyone could.
Anyway one thing led to another and we ended up having an extremely passionate affair.
This lasted a couple of months. Lying reached new heights and I was good at it - although my stress levels were climbing.
Looking back on it now I was leaving clues for my wife to find. I think I was actually disappointed that she wasn't finding them. Eventually she did and she confronted me.
I could have lied. It would have been so easy. My wife didn't want to believe what she suspected and she would have accepted an explanation, one I had already formed in my mind. Suddenly, in that moment I had perfect clarity. It was as if I could see all the possible permutations of how this would play out and I made an instant decision.
I told the truth, not just about the affair but about the lying, the drifting apart and the simple fact that I didn't think she loved me any-more. I went as far as to say "You think you are upset but you're not - your pride is wounded, nothing more."
I realise now that I was angry with her, furious, in fact and she got that too. Obviously she was equally upset and angry with me but for reasons not quite clear to me she took equal responsibility for what had happened.
That weekend we shipped my daughter off to my mother-in-laws, no questions asked, and spent the most intense 48 hours of my life thrashing everything out. There was a lot of crying from both of us but no yelling, no name calling and nothing thrown. There were periods of introspection too, in the pauses.
I remember a rather clichéd long look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Looking back at me was a liar and a cheat - I didn't like him very much and I took a silent oath, never again.
The net result of those 2 days was that we talked like we hadn't done for years, maybe ever and by Sunday we both realized that we actually loved each other more than anything else in the world.
Really it was more than that. We're not just husband and wife, nor merely lovers. We are best friends and that if we got this right we could use the affair as a springboard for the rest of our lives together.
That is what we did. We are as in love now as we have ever been. The affair has never been mentioned again and I haven't lied to my wife to this day.
Now, as I look at it I realize many things. The most important was that we got what we really needed at the time - a lightening bolt of a shock that awoke us both from the "taking each other entirely for granted" disease.
We blew the walls of the rut to the four winds. It was dramatic and traumatic, possibly the scariest thing I ever faced - the very real possibility of a divorce - which would have been quite justified on the basis of the life we were living prior to the affair, let alone the affair itself.
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger I guess.
Is this advice? Hell no. This is just my chance to write down something I'm not sure I wanted to share but I guess I needed to. Maybe someone can get something out of it.
Bit long - sorry.
I'm guessing that by now most of you know that I am married and we have been together for 30 years.
Since the birth of my daughter we had gotten into a deep rut and had been drifting slowly apart for years. I found myself lying to my wife about irrelevant things for no apparent reason. It became a habit.
About 3 years ago I met someone and we flirted. I didn't take it seriously at all, I've always flirted with women but it never really occurred to me that she actually found me attractive. Frankly - it didn't really occur to me that anyone could.
Anyway one thing led to another and we ended up having an extremely passionate affair.
This lasted a couple of months. Lying reached new heights and I was good at it - although my stress levels were climbing.
Looking back on it now I was leaving clues for my wife to find. I think I was actually disappointed that she wasn't finding them. Eventually she did and she confronted me.
I could have lied. It would have been so easy. My wife didn't want to believe what she suspected and she would have accepted an explanation, one I had already formed in my mind. Suddenly, in that moment I had perfect clarity. It was as if I could see all the possible permutations of how this would play out and I made an instant decision.
I told the truth, not just about the affair but about the lying, the drifting apart and the simple fact that I didn't think she loved me any-more. I went as far as to say "You think you are upset but you're not - your pride is wounded, nothing more."
I realise now that I was angry with her, furious, in fact and she got that too. Obviously she was equally upset and angry with me but for reasons not quite clear to me she took equal responsibility for what had happened.
That weekend we shipped my daughter off to my mother-in-laws, no questions asked, and spent the most intense 48 hours of my life thrashing everything out. There was a lot of crying from both of us but no yelling, no name calling and nothing thrown. There were periods of introspection too, in the pauses.
I remember a rather clichéd long look at myself in the bathroom mirror. Looking back at me was a liar and a cheat - I didn't like him very much and I took a silent oath, never again.
The net result of those 2 days was that we talked like we hadn't done for years, maybe ever and by Sunday we both realized that we actually loved each other more than anything else in the world.
Really it was more than that. We're not just husband and wife, nor merely lovers. We are best friends and that if we got this right we could use the affair as a springboard for the rest of our lives together.
That is what we did. We are as in love now as we have ever been. The affair has never been mentioned again and I haven't lied to my wife to this day.
Now, as I look at it I realize many things. The most important was that we got what we really needed at the time - a lightening bolt of a shock that awoke us both from the "taking each other entirely for granted" disease.
We blew the walls of the rut to the four winds. It was dramatic and traumatic, possibly the scariest thing I ever faced - the very real possibility of a divorce - which would have been quite justified on the basis of the life we were living prior to the affair, let alone the affair itself.
Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger I guess.
Is this advice? Hell no. This is just my chance to write down something I'm not sure I wanted to share but I guess I needed to. Maybe someone can get something out of it.
Bit long - sorry.
