the shout

[dobler33]

there are all these ways in which i have to be quiet. do you know? all these ways in which my internal noise and discord must be orchestrated and tuned, decibels reduced, jagged edges smoothed out, the nastiness edited up pretty. there are all kinds of yelling and grief rocketing around in me, in us all, and the slimmest sliver of acceptable space in which to let it sound. it grinds me down. i am in general a nice person, a nice girl, a nice lady. i almost never resort to shouting, even when i am being shouted at - i am the one who de-escalates situations and finds compassionate solutions to volatile conflicts. i am the container. i am contained. i contain myself and carefully choose my words for best possible outcome. jesus. it grinds me right the hell down.

 

i'll tell you that i am a fledgling psychotherapist, though i won't tell you much else because as a therapist i have to keep a lot quiet. these strange new frontiers of information leakage are far beyond what freud ever conceived of when he described the blank screen of the analyst. in that world all you could do was go into the next room and decompensate, or drink, or have an affair with your wife's sister (http://www.nytimes.com/1981/11/22/us/historian-links-freud-and-wife-s-sister-as-lovers.html?&pagewanted=all). now we have all these seductive and specious new ways of failing to keep ourselves private, of flirting with the steamy edges of exposure. i have often looked with envy upon my friends and acquaintances who can let it all bleed on the public stage, those who write songs about heartbreak and trauma or flimsily disguised novellas about their most intimate interactions. i am jealous of people who call in to public radio shows and rant about their political opinions, particularly when i disagree with them and want to rant back. i have a lot to say. i want in. i am sick of silence.

 

i have recently experienced the worst heartbreak of my adult life, an industrial-strength devastation that outstrips any loss i have ever known. i don't know what to do with it. i keep thinking that someone somewhere must have the answer or some way to make it not be happening - i who hold peoples' hands and walk them through the stages of grief, point them gently but firmly toward acceptance. i am not buying it. i do not want to accept this. it is ****ing unacceptable. the nature of my work and the nature of this heartbreak dictate that i spend a lot of time wrestling it in and down and out of the light, so that it doesn't hurt people. i have never wanted to hurt people. a lot of hurt is inflicted by people who don't want to hurt people. i hurt myself to keep back the words that might hurt people - i dig my fingernails into the flesh of my thigh or scratch bloody furrows into my wrists, or chainsmoke, or drink myself into a squashy infancy so that i can sleep beside my husband without waking up from dreams of someone else, sobbing. yeah, like that.

 

i'm not going to relate the whole story. it's too painful and incindiary to throw up on this public page. the someone else was a difficult someone else in terms of his location within the social circle, and he and i fell in love like nothing we'd ever known. grown adults, both married, he with kids; it made no sense. everyone thinks they've been in love - i thought i'd been in love. i was naive. this thing grew out of both of our loneliness, the pain of our spouses pushing us away and shutting us out for years. it started there and became the biggest, most intense, most complete connection either of us had ever made. it gets into hyperbole at this point and i'm too hurting and broken to explain. everyone thinks they've been in love. not many people get to really feel what it is to be loved back.

 

it must by now be obvious that it ended. he decided to stay with his family because he wanted to be a good man, because he wanted to do the right thing, and though he knew that he loved me more deeply and completely than he loved his wife he wanted to give her a chance and he could not reconcile being happy with me with being good and right. i have my own opinions about this. they do not matter. nothing i said could change his mind. there is no helplessness like the helplessness of watching the love of your life walk away, knowing that even if you opened your veins to show how bad it hurt he would only keep walking. there is no loneliness like the loneliness of finally, after a lifetime of inuring yourself to loneliness, not being lonely, only to lose the one who could be in your head with you. i have never been so lonely in my life.

 

i started writing this because i cannot write to him, because i used to be able to tell him every word and thought and muddy, unflattering emotion that passed through me and now i can't, and it is like having my vocal chords unexpectedly ripped out. all my words spiral out into a blank silence, like shouting into a gale force wind. i have used up the patient ears of my friends; they are tired of it. in my home i muscle it back into a corner so that it does not destroy my husband, who knows that i have loved someone else and has forgiven me on the grounds that i never speak of it again. in my work i take care of people who cannot take care of themselves and there is no room in that for my pain. so this hurt, this hopelessness, this anger, this loneliness is curling in on itself in sickly eddies in my heart and in my belly, vaporous and weighty and corrosive, and i cannot speak it. it is turning into a shout, a scream like a dying thing, and i cannot speak it. it sucks at me and draws my eye to sharp things, to bottles of pills, to ways of killing off the places in me that he touched and loved, places to which i had never granted access before, exposed now for a hand that has gone away, and i cannot speak it. the shock of this story would reverberate through an entire interwoven community of friends and family and reputations would be dashed, so i cannot speak it. i have spent many hours trying to shut it down out of respect for him and his decision, because i know that he is hurting just as badly and struggling to stay true to the image of himself he needs to follow. i have wanted to call him a thousand, a million times, have wanted to do crazy stalker things because i cannot get it through my stupid, stupid heart that i will never hear his voice again. it makes no sense. it makes no sense. and i cannot speak it.

 

http://theshoutoutloud.blogspot.com

[Gamine]

Some love isn't meant to live as long as the age old turtle, yet it is sustained as a memory that can fill the heart with a gentle embrace. What is the saying? To have loved and lost is better than to have not loved at all? Well, right now that does not seem possible does it? However, as strange as it seems... it is in fact the truth of it.

 

Yes, your guts have been ripped out of you. Your arms and legs cut off and your flesh eaten away. The walking dead in excruciating pain.

 

Yet you lived and had something that most people may never know. If your relationship had progressed with a formal commitment and you went about living your life together you might have found that it wasn't as real as you expected. In other words, you might have lost it if you took it to the next level. I remember the movie Bridges of Madison County (okay, I am a romanticist) well, there was a scene where she debated on leaving her life for her one true love... and she said by leaving and going with him she risks losing what they had. She wanted to end it there so that she could at least keep it perfect. Keep it that way. By not taking it to the next level it stays perfect and alive. And was there for her helping her secretly get through all of those horrid moments in silence... like a quiet soothing friend.

 

This is like a death. So go on and let yourself grieve in whatever way you need. One day you will be able to look upon this and find it beautiful and perfect for what it was. Two people coming together for a time. Not everything needs to play out as permanent. Sometimes seasons are short but it does not make them any less beautiful or essential. We are tied to thinking that things must go on. But perhaps they are not always meant to be.

 

You know all of the common sense stuff. Such as "if you can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen" and "if you stick your hand into an open flame don't complain when you get burned".

 

I read in an article that 10% of MM leave their wives and of that number several return to them even after they may have divorced.

 

Some things aren't meant to be. Wrong time. Wrong place.

 

I wish you love and peace. I hope that this pain will transform into a beautiful part of your life as a memory. Now, can you turn to your husband and focus all of this emptiness ... bear your heart... open your hands to him?

[Chinook]

What you write is admirable and evokes how painful it is for you.... and I'm really sorry for your loss. But I think that you're missing a dash of reality.

 

Things ended because they had to. This image you talk of that he had of himself, does not sit well with the image of a man who cheats on his family - that's not who he is, so he had to stop. He didn't sacrifice his love for you to stay with his family. He stayed with his family because that's who he is. He didn't leave, simply because he didn't want to do so. You were the last in the considerations.

 

You're a therapist. You should know that people are inherently selfish, they will do things to make themselves feel better. Even those who make altruistic gestures, do so in order to receive the reward of feeling good. People will rarely put themselves last. He didn't really put his wife and family first - he put himself first and he did what was best for him. If that happened to be the right thing and sat with his image of himself of being a good family man, then that happens to be good too. That reinforces that he made the right decision.

 

You need to see his decision for what it is. Yes, it is painful and it no way detracts from what he felt for you, but the fact remains that a conscious decision was made and he made it in his best interests, not yours.

[dobler33]

chinook and gamine, thanks for your considered and thoughtful replies. this was written a few weeks ago, when the bleeding had not yet been staunched. i have a little perspective now. i see that i was a textbook midlife crisis for the man i fell in love with. i was a miata, a yacht, a new wine cellar, goddamn hair implants. i was a blank slate onto which could be written the redemption of all his mistakes, the fresh start that would save him from the emptiness of what he had already built. i do not doubt his love for me. i think he loved me with a passion he thought he had lost years before, wanted to crawl inside me and put his hands on everything that made me different from the rest of his life. when we were together he would touch my forehead with the tips of his fingers, press his palm to my belly and say, "i want to be in there." i have lived so long in the absence of that kind of hunger that i unlocked everything he asked me to, without hesitation, without fear, without question. and to his credit he too unlocked it all, pulled open all his sheltered places for me to see. at the time this felt like sacrifice, like an oath of allegiance. i see now that it was a strange kind of emotional exhibitionism, no different from the man who exposes himself to the pretty girl in an empty train car. he lived a hidden, unseen life within himself and wanted desperately to be seen. his wife would not or could not see him, and i was willing to look. i listen to people and make them feel seen. it is perhaps an occupational hazard.

 

at some point i started to get angry - the day before he ended it he was telling me that when he left his wife he wanted us to start trying to get pregnant right away, that he wanted us to move in together right away - this kind of stuff. promises that he probably thought he'd be able to keep but when it came down to it discovered that he couldn't. i don't think he was a bad man or a habitual cheater. he'd never done anything like this before. i know this because the part i haven't published is that he was my husband's best friend of 25 years. truly the most effed up situation i have ever found myself in. and the part that makes me the most angry is that he pursued me, opened his heart to me and asked me to open mine, started a freight train that he hopped off of at the last minute and left me sitting on, speeding toward a cliff. i have some more context and meaning for it now, but it doesn't hurt any less.

 

i was home sick yesterday and watched "Man of La Mancha" with Peter O'Toole and Sophia Loren. neither of them can really sing but it's goofy and full of pathos and i thought it would be a safe bet, wouldn't remind me of anything painful. i'd forgotten about Aldonza's final song of rage, after she's been kidnapped by hooligans, after she's been gang raped and left by the side of the road. she sings her fury at being lifted out of the misery she was accustomed to and shown something better, only to be brutally knocked back down to the dung heap.

"you have shown me the sky but what good is the sky

to a creature who'll never do better than crawl?

of all the cruel bastards who've badgered and battered me,

you are the cruelest of all.

can't you see what your gentle insanities do to me?

rob me of anger and give me despair

blows and abuse i can take and give back again

tenderness i cannot bear."

this is the fury that pulled me out of the grief of a couple of weeks ago. he shattered all my comfortable complacency and promised something so intimate, so magical. every time i got scared and wanted to pull back he would tell me no, don't build a wall, don't walk away. he made me promise i would never walk away. and then he did.

 

my husband and i are trying, but it's pretty rough. he is, has always been, very closed and shut down emotionally, which is why the other man was so seductive to me. the one thing we have in common right now is that we are both grieving him - my husband has lost his best friend and i have lost the love of my life. it's tangled and painful, and my husband is usually unwilling to talk about it or think about it. but he has recently agreed to go into therapy, which is something i've been begging him to do for years. some days feel ok and some feel utterly hopeless. we're doing our best.

 

it's still hard, still painful, every day. i can go for an hour or two feeling ok and then something will blindside me - commercials with happy families, a song, the knowledge that when i check my phone there will be no word from him. i'm breathing through it. i have good friends who know what's been going on and as a therapist i have access to a lot of strong support. i hope you're right, gamine, that eventually i'll be able to appreciate the beauty and amazingness of the time we were together, because it truly was the most beautiful and amazing connection of my life and i'd hate to think that opening myself like that to someone is something i should never do again. but damn. at the moment i still wish it had never happened.

[Chinook]

Dobler, in all our wondrousness and our great heights that we reach, sometimes we come across something or someone which brings us back to the human base level. That's where you are right now. The time for looking back is not now. That time will come when your mind and your heart are ready to see it. Patience padawan

[sugarmomma]

I thought I had it bad for the guy I fell for that was in a R. First of all let me say I'm sorry that you had to experience being lied to in the worst way.

 

In most cases, affairs happen as a result of having a huge need for external validation. People who are secure within themselves are not as susceptible to affairs.

 

I firmly believe that cheaters are simply egomaniacs with low self esteem (present party included). I have been guilty of it and this is simply what I attribute it to. Whenever I think about cheating on a partner nowadays, I take a deeper look at what I need that I am not giving myself.

 

I consider myself to be a christian however, by no means a bible thumper. But reading your post took me to Proverbs 4:23 that says "Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life". As a result of not guarding your heart, this is your course in life.

 

People (men and women) are usually out for themselves and I have to remember that at all times (especially if they are in r and cheating). Like the previous poster said he wasn't putting his family first, he was putting himself first.

 

I got involved with a man that was in a relationship and he tried to sell me some dreams about what he "wanted" in the future.

 

I had an epiphany that said "let him figure that out without me" and was able to end the relationship (before I got crushed) but he had the nerve to get angry at me for taking care of me (its called setting boundaries).

 

Just seems like we want to believe in the good part of people when all of our instincts tell us that we are being sold a dream.

 

I wish you the best and hopefully you can move forward and have a satisfying life, with or without your husband.

 

Some people are out to steal and destroy, be on guard the next time one shows up.

[Kamikaze]

D33,

 

As hard as it may be you must learn to look at the connection you had with him as a growth opportunity. There is always a higher reason for everything that happens in our lives. You might not see the higher reason right now - today - but, give it some time and hindsight will show you.

 

If you really love and care about this MM how can you not want his happiness? It is vital that you realize that you are not saying goodbye to the love you feel, you are merely saying goodbye to the old circumstances. You know this.

 

Relationships that are deep come into our lives for specific reasons. Normally these reasons have to do with growth issues. There is a part of you that needs to grow and prehaps he has similar needs.

 

You cannot live in the past and you cannot think about a future with him because he has a future with someone else. So, you must live in the NOW. Take each day - hour by hour. If a past memory comes up allow it to. What is it telling you? How does it make you feel? You must come into your own truth. Focus on what you can experience in the now moment. Trying to bring back the past is like trying to bring back a cool breeze that tossed your hair.

 

There will always be a new breeze so do not waste time looking for the past.

 

Spend time reflecting inward on what growth issues you may have. What have you learned from this experience? What will you do different next time? Live in the now. When the time is right you will be ready to move into the future and you will be better prepared to do so.

 

Kami

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

I'm jealous, I wish I could write like that. I've always had a difficult time putting my thoughts and feelings into words, both written and spoken. English classes always frustrated me.

 

Take the time to grieve, I can see that writing here is helping you to cope, but also your H needs to grieve, both the loss of his friend and the betrayal.

 

But is he blind? Can he not see you are hurting, not only from the affair ending but the reasons for the affair itself? Can he not see that by being closed off to you emotionally he has played a part in the problems in your marriage that led to the affair? Can he only see the affair in his pain?

 

I am trying to find the strength to end things with my MM, if anything to not jeopardize a future if he leaves his W. But then I start thinking, maybe this is not meant to be taken to the next level, to stay alive and happy as per Gamine's comment. Maybe I am there to help him through his transition, and then only to remain a friend/co-worker.

[Gamine]

Life is beautiful. It gives us a rainbow after a storm, a daffodil after a long winter, and a love when we have forgotten how alive we really are.

 

Let this part of you awaken again and reach for your husband. I get the feeling this guy really loves you and while he may not say the right things or evoke the emotion that this other man did... he's there to hold your hand when you cry and to wipe the rain off your brow.

 

Sometimes the emotionally 'unavailable' guys are actually, giving more and more deeply than those who say the right things and are able to be more theatrical about it.

 

Sometimes they're clumsy and have no idea what to say. But there is something to be said for the fella who delivers on his promises. If only we could see that as beguiling as the one the the smooth talk.

[dobler33]

ugh! i just wrote this long response to all the points brought up in the last two posts, and somehow accidentally erased it. bugger. i'll recap:

 

gamine, you are right that my husband loves me deeply and completely, but his emotional unavailability, which has been increasing as the years go by, is not ok with me anymore. the only good thing that came out of my affair was the knowledge that i am worth more than what i'm getting. he's trying, and i'm willing to see where this goes. but he's made and broken plenty of promises of his own and broken promises are something i've become psychologically allergic to after what i've been through recently.

 

LBA40, i think my husband does know what his part was in creating the conditions that caused the affair. although i in no way suggest that it was his fault - i take full responsibility for my actions. when i told him about it i said about the same: "i make no excuses for myself and assume all responsibility, but you have to know that this started because i was lonely. lonely for you, not anybody else. somebody else gave me access to the kind of intimacy i've been begging for from you for years. if you chose to forgive me and work through this trauma, you're going to have to own that and change it."

 

and also to LBA40, as you help your MM with his transition, be sure you are taking good care of yourself. i must confess a certain amount of experiential bias here - a month ago i thought i was a MM with a transition and the next thing i knew i was standing in my bathroom with a bottle of pills in my hand. it's possible to mortgage your soul before you even know you're in jeopardy. protect and value your beautiful self. we are worth so much more.

 

ok, let's hope i don't erase this bad boy again.

[LakesideDream]

D33, Your posts are touching. I believe you, every word. There is something you may need to hear.. and I'll be the doomsayer. It may be forever D33. What you are feeling you may never stop feeling.

 

Of course, time helps. Time has helped me by teaching me how to deal with the feelings. Time has allowed me to build defenses against the pain. At this moment I could allow those feelings to fill me and I'd be back exactly where you are now. And, to be absolutely truthful, sometimes, usually at night, laying in bed in the minutes before sleep I open the gate, and it rushes back.

 

Why? Because any feeling is better than no feelings... sometimes.

[dobler33]

oh, lakeside, i do so very much hope you are wrong. i can tell you that the last time i experienced anything close to this magnitude of grief i was 18 years old, and it took me nearly 6 years to be fully healed of it. i am terrified of that. during those years i was empty and numb, became anorexic, started cutting, got into an abusive relationship, all sort of desperately pained and pathological behaviors. i'm an atheist, but if i believed in anything i'd be praying to it that this doesn't happen again. of course i'm a big girl now, with a lot of resources and growth under my belt. i have to trust that this will shorten the healing process. i can't face another 6 years of grief. that's why i'm here on this site, that's why i'm writing, that's why i'm reaching out to every possible well of strength i can find. it's all i can do. wish me luck. ;-)

[Lyssa]

I have never been one to read a long thread as I have no patience at times and for most of the time, I am always in a hurry when I am online!

 

But I read every line of this thread and D33, I am so sorry that you had to go through all this. The wise ones have spoken and I don't have much to add. Just want you to know it may not seem like it but you are one strong individual and you will get through this. Given time, this will go away.

[dobler33]

thank you so much lyssa. usually i'm a hell of a lot more wordy, but i'm just really grateful to be heard and validated. there is nothing more empowering as when a shout in the dark is received and echoed. i'm so happy to have found this site. thanks again to everyone who's listened.

[Lyssa]

thank you so much lyssa. usually i'm a hell of a lot more wordy, but i'm just really grateful to be heard and validated. there is nothing more empowering as when a shout in the dark is received and echoed. i'm so happy to have found this site. thanks again to everyone who's listened.

 

Lol - don't worry about being wordy. I have a blog myself and it can be pretty long at times! I will check yours out soon - I love reading blogs of any kind!

 

Don't stop posting here as it helps reading others' replies.

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

As I said, I think I said, I can't remember, and can't read clearly on the last glass of the bottle of wine I opened 3 hrs ago, but I think I said I have alot to keep me happy and occupied without the MM. I have my children, the gym, my home and yard work. I am happy. Summer is slower than my winter but I get by.

 

He is the one going through hell. He's at the lake right now with his W and I wish I was there instead of her but he has been texting me. Yeah I know, we're breaking ALL the rules. I just dread he'll have sex with her but I know he won't, not this wknd.

 

I won't see him until Tues at work. It's going to be hard. But this isn't about me, I meant to say that I DO take care of myself. I am much older than him (11 yrs) and I'm smart. haha well maybe not tonight.

 

Dobler, tell us some more about that past? Sounds like you've had a rough go, and yet you have such a successful career helping others. You are truly blessed.

[littleflowerpot]

thank you so much lyssa. usually i'm a hell of a lot more wordy, but i'm just really grateful to be heard and validated. there is nothing more empowering as when a shout in the dark is received and echoed. i'm so happy to have found this site. thanks again to everyone who's listened.

 

Thank you for sharing. You write beautifully and much of what you've written has touched my heart and my heart recognizes so much of what you've shared.

 

Thank you.

[dobler33]

you crack me up, LBA40! i can hear that bottle of wine sloshing around. how does it feel this morning? i'm so glad you're taking care of yourself. i cringed a little when i read about his family vacation, but only for myself - about 2 weeks before the end my MM went to mexico w/ the family and texted me every moment he could. she busted him at it, which was the beginning of the end. ouch ouch ouch.

 

my past is kind of stereotypical for therapists: abusive family upbringing, early adulthood filled with self-abuse that mirrored the original abuse. that's why most of us enter into this work, to heal our own wounds by learning how to heal the wounds of others. we try desperately to find meaning in our own trauma by understanding the nature of trauma itself, and in the process we raise our ghosts and learn to live with them, side by side.

 

that being said, i was knocked on my arse, totally blindsided by this recent experience. moral of the story: no matter how emotionally grounded and self-aware you think you are, love will still rip the rug right out from under you.

 

and let me say that i woke up this morning sad, that indispellable ache right in the center of my gut, tangled in some memory as i climbed out of sleep. i grabbed the laptop and signed on here, and just the simple knowledge that i'm not alone in this pulled me past the hazard zone. thanks again, y'all.

 

ok, let's hear some of your stories, folks. i'm assuming you're all other women/men? and probably wouldn't be on here if it had been just a roll in the hay without any kind of emotional entanglement? i'm interested to hear your experiences.

[wildsoul]

my past is kind of stereotypical for therapists: abusive family upbringing, early adulthood filled with self-abuse that mirrored the original abuse. that's why most of us enter into this work, to heal our own wounds by learning how to heal the wounds of others. we try desperately to find meaning in our own trauma by understanding the nature of trauma itself, and in the process we raise our ghosts and learn to live with them, side by side.

 

that being said, i was knocked on my arse, totally blindsided by this recent experience. moral of the story: no matter how emotionally grounded and self-aware you think you are, love will still rip the rug right out from under you.

Same here on both paragraphs. I'll add that if you need to be brought to your knees again, to get to the core of your pain and feelings of unloveability, abuse, abandonment, codependence, and love addiction--an affair is the fast-track way of getting there!

[sugarmomma]

Feel free to read my original post. The OW for 3 months and found the strength to end it.

 

I have only had a chance to read WildSoul entire history of her affair and it was heartwrenching, you may want to check it out.

[GreenEyedLady]

I know this is hard to hear guys, but if he's going on family vacations still, he's staying where he is...

[dobler33]

jeez, GreenEyedLady, where the heck were you 6 weeks ago?

[MWC_LifeBeginsAt40]

I felt okay when I got up this morning, but I think I was still loaded, then I got a headache, took some drugs and went to church

 

Spent the day in the sun, several texts back and forth with my MM Mostly how much we love and miss each other. He said his W is more like a friend, and he cant show her affection and prob doesn't want kids with her. I do feel sorry for her pain, and we are trying to hold back on our own affection, but its not something either of us wants to do.

 

We talk alot about being patient. She only figured out the A in the last few weeks after a friend of hers saw us together. So we backed off, they are talking, MM is going for IC to help figure all this out.

 

I want him, I want a life with him, but he's not leaving her just to be with me. We still need to lay low because of work, and hang out, talk and have fun and see where it goes.

 

That's my latest story. Unless you want my life story (read all my old posts, and see how whacked up I really am).

[LadyDi]

Can you fill in a few holes? Perhaps you mentioned them and I missed it. How did he end it? Kindly? Cold turkey? Do you live in the same town? Is there the chance you'll run into him around town or functions? How did your H find out? Did you tell him or did the OM's wife tell him? Just curious....

 

...you'll find that a majority of the MM come back at some point, how will you deal with that?

[GreenEyedLady]

jeez, GreenEyedLady, where the heck were you 6 weeks ago?

 

Sorry, it's been busy. I try to check in when I can.