Heartbreak

Posted By Anonymous.


As a person who writes as a form of personal therapy, it has been painful to NOT be able to write about the one thing that is devastating my life right now.

My husband had an affair. Not a physical affair, but in some ways this is worse. He had an emotional affair with an old girlfriend from his college days by email and phone. He alluded to something going on when he mentioned that he had been in contact with an old friend by phone, but when I checked our cell log I realized that they had spoken ever day for two weeks. Sometimes four times a day. For hours. He admitted that he had fallen back in love with her, and even worse, that the love he had for her (in their former relationship) was deeper than the feelings he had ever had for me. But he also realized that the past was past. That this was a fantasy with zero chance of being reality (she is also married with a son), and he ended the relationship completely and says he wants to repair our marriage. He also said that he has been depressed and unhappy in our marriage for some time.

I cannot begin to express in words the pain that this has caused me. I never, not once, realized that there was anything wrong. I honestly believed, to the bottom of my heart, that we were soulmates. That we had the perfect relationship. The very foundation of my world has been shattered.

My husband is a good man, a great father, and he seems genuinely remorseful that things progressed this far. But I desperately want, need, to hear that he thinks that we can move past this, repair our marriage, and be happy with each other. I do not want to lose him, even now. I love him as madly as I did the day we met. But he seems so uncertain himself, so depressed that he can't give me the reassurances I need to hear.

We have a two-year-old son whom we both love with all our being. And we both want him to grow up in a relationship that is happy and secure. I truly want to believe that we can give this to him together. I am willing to do whatever it takes to fix our marriage. My husband sounds so uncertain now that it breaks my heart. He tells me that he is still here. That he wants to try. That he still loves me. But he is unsure that we will be able to recreate something that will bring happiness. I don't know if he is speaking through the lenses of his depression, or from the freshness of having to end his affair, but it is his uncertainty, his ambivalence, that hurts far, far worse than the betrayal itself. It is the fact that he never told me there was something wrong that brings the most pain. I feel I have lost before I have even had the chance to try. I feel like the emotional rollercoaster, the fear and the pain that I am going through right now, will drive him away before we can heal. These are the darkest days of my life.

He has agreed to start counseling, and we are still together, but I could use some hope right now and some help getting through my days.