It has been a horrific week. Hubby's mobile phone. I think you know what I found. After initially trying to deny the evidence that I was holding in my hand, he admitted that he had been unfaithful to me. The woman had been with my husband once, evidently, and was anxious to try it again. They were planning an assignation for this past weekend. He had not gotten as far as deciding how he was going to be allowed to be away from home overnight.
I am pretty sure he would have just given her some excuse and cancelled, because he could be fairly certain that I would not have allowed that. But of course, he had to project to her that he was his own man who could do whatever he wanted. In reality, he knew and she knew that he was following her orders. She had it all planned out, and he was to execute the plans for them to spend a romantic weekend together in a hotel. Paid for, of course out of OUR family funds.
So besides the intense horror and anger and sorrow I have been dealing with, the thought of him planning to use our resources on another woman has made me crazy. I have literally been beside myself. The betrayal of our promises to one another and the disregard for my feelings, my health and family all pale beside the enormity of the loss of the trust between us. I am so horrified that he would risk losing everything good in his life in order to get a little pussy from another woman. I have asked him over and over what he was thinking and how he could think he would not get caught. All he can say is that he was not thinking at all. She spread her legs and told him to partake. And he did.
She is moving out of town soon, and this weekend was supposed, in his mind, to be one last fling before she disappeared from our lives. That is obviously not what she was thinking. She was already proposing that he travel to where she would be...sending him pictures of her new house, talking about setting up their love nest, and so on. He has this habit, you see, of ignoring bad things and hoping they will just sort themselves out and go away, instead of facing them and doing something about them. He is great at taking on positive things and making them happen, but bad things make him run away. And after their sexual encounter, she was a bad thing.
In her mind, he was now her boyfriend, and she set about separating him from his wife. For his part, he made her happy by doing what she told him, saying what she wanted to hear, promising things he was never intending to deliver. It is so much easier for him (always has been) to just go with the flow, do what women tell him to do.
The thing is. I love this man. I have loved him for 33 years. I know him and I know his heart. We have lost a child and raised our children together. We have built a family and a life together. I thought I could place all my trust in him. His betrayal of that trust breaks my heart. I won't give up on him. I care about his happiness, and I still want him to be the best man he can be. So, the work begins.
The first thing I did was supervised a break up between them. I had him text her that it ends now, and that they would never contact one another again. I had him delete all her contact information (I explained to him that from this day forward, she was dead to him) I had him remove all social network connections between the two of them. I had him cancel their hotel reservations. I reminded him that if she tries to contact him and he responds and doesn't let me know, he still risks losing everything.
Hubby is in lockdown until I notify him otherwise. He now has to get permission from me to spend money. Any work activities out of town or after 5 p.m. must be authorized by me. His travel is severely curtailed. Saturday, for the first time, he told his boss he could not work on a project that afternoon because his wife had other plans for him. (We actually had another crying and communicating session, which leaves us both emotionally drained). His phone, computer, email accounts, are all controlled by me. His days of autonomy and privacy no longer exist. He knows that if I find anything that concerns me there will be hell to pay.
Things are much better. He is focusing on me much better now...doing more around the house....BEING at the house with me....considering me when he schedules work activities. He is less fearful (I think he was afraid that if he rejected this woman she would confront me) and less standoffish (A red flag that I missed. He was avoiding me because of his guilt.). We are back to doing things together like we used to do, including just sitting beside one another reading. He is relaxed and happy to do whatever he is told. He needs to work on remembering which woman he takes orders from.
This, though, has resulted in more work for me. For the submissive, he has no more worries. Being completely open, having nothing to hide, having no one else to account to besides his wife, knowing what his duties are and doing them, leaves him with much more of the kind of freedom he craves. For me, I have to be firmer, less lackadaisical, keep track of calendars, money, and all the other management duties I thought I could trust him to do without. I was not giving him the leadership and guidance he needed.
I have a better idea now about how to provide my husband what he needs, and he has a better idea about what I need (I need him HOME and to put me first). Our work continues. Because in spite of everything, I love that man.
