Yesterday I had a crappy day. I was in a cruddy mood from the start and it never really improved from there. My sour mood had nothing to do with all of this (the affair) but somehow by the end of the day it was all I could focus on. I stood in my kitchen waiting for the teakettle water to boil and all I could focus on was this lingering feeling of needing something I’ll never get. Or maybe something I’ll never get back.
Last night, I was mulling over this thought that has floated through my brain on more than one occasion. I have this fantasy that someone who knows me would say that they would never cheat on me; that someone could just tell me that to them I worth more than any affair. I just want to believe I am worth more to someone. I know how I feel doesn’t make sense but none of what has happened is based on rational thought. There’s a part of me that wants this impossible validation. Add this to the list of things lost in the affair.
I was listening to this song, Scott & Zelda by Tiny Victories, in my car yesterday while picking up my son from school. The lyrics seemed to hit the nail on the head for me. The song is about F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda. At the beginning of their relationship they were young, beautiful, and full of life. Their relationship and life started out with dreams and aspirations to build a better life through art. They began their lives, but then Scott’s fame and fortune started to destroy and screw with their lives. Zelda ended up going crazy and dying in a fire in an insane asylum. Scott drank himself to death. Tiny Victories said in an interview this song is about whether you can escape your fate.
Well we were flying down the road
and you were telling me about your past life
You were Zelda I was Scott
And all we ever did was drink champagne and fight
You said that’s how it goes
I guess it’s alright
That we just waste the best years of our lives
I said well I don’t know
Yeah, maybe you’re right
But if the good years
the bad bad years are out of sight
And I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
Well I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
And later on we went up to the roof
And drank some jack and coke without the coke
Tangled up in some old story
Lost the plot and ended up in the same old joke
That’s how it goes
I guess it’s alright
You have something and you lose it for the rest of your life
Yeah, I don’t know
I guess that’s right
Cuz if you lose yourself enough
then being lost will feel alright
And I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
No I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
Come on and let me down
One last time
One last time
Come on and let me down
One last time
Well I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
No I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Get a little colder every year
Get a little colder every year
No I don’t know myself anymore
No I don’t know myself anymore
Healing After My Husband's Affair 
Love this post! I know exactly what you mean and how that feels!!!! My heart aches for all of us who have and are going thru this!!!!
I totally “get” what you’re saying and feeling… I have the same thoughts often.
You described it exactly. Ever sense the affair, I have this need to feel important, to be the priory in my husband’s life. Thank you as always for your posts.
you hit the nail on the head, again.
I frequently have this same struggle. I know what I want. My husband and our marriage yet I wish to be worth everything to someone and wonder if I will ever feel that way with him again.
Such powerful F Scott Fitzgerald quotes. Thinking of you. SWxo
I feel the same way :(. That has been taken away from me.
So true. It makes me so sad that I wasn’t worth more to him . And whatever he says and however he feels now – our future will always be tainted by that a period of time when I wasn’t enough.
Yes, you nailed it! I have these fantasies, if you will, about a marriage where my “husband” (obviously, not my current one) tells me and everyone else that our marriage is the most important thing in the world to him. Then I feel guilty for the “fantasy”. But I have this longing to feel important in my husband’s life – at least more important than “the other woman.” And yes, every time some little problem comes up unrelated to the affair, I somehow spin it back to the affair. It’s been 2 1/2 years since I found out and I’m still confused and still broken-hearted.
We are at the same measure in days from our D-days, so it’s good to hear that I am not alone here. It’s good to know that these feelings, or insecurities, or fantasies, and fears are not just felt by me. Most the time I feel as though I moved so far forward that none of it really matters, but then, just like you said, a problem will come up and make me question everything all over again.
I haven’t lost anything.
The relationship was not what I thought I was pouring my heart and soul into.
He was not capable of valuing it.
The affair was a huge catalyst for change.
Now he grows up and takes control of what is valuable in his life; then I have something to look forward to and make this shock and heartbreak worth enduring. It is a future to cherish.
The loss is so tragic and the grief unending, why don’t they realize the fragile trust will never be what it was. Lives forever changed, time forever lost that could have been wonderful. What would our lives look like without this to deal with daily?
Sometimes I wonder if these pages of my life are shadowing what’s truly important. But then I realize that during my teenage years I was focused on all sorts of struggles, real or not, that molded me into the woman I am now. So I don’t want to shut down how I feel, or what I believe I need because I want to believe that somewhere deep inside of me is a voice that is guiding me exactly where I need to be.
Yes, I know I can never ever look back on my life with my husband when we’re old and say that I was the only love if his life, that I was the only one, the one worth keeping and fighting for forever……because of his betrayal, I cannot even say that about him either (even though I’ve never cheated in my life). That is what I am mourning I lost. I lost my future, not just my past. I do understand, my husband does not.
Therapists will tell you that an affair is not necessarily about what WE, as wives, were lacking….it’s about what our HUSBANDs were lacking. Yet, we view the affair as an indication of OUR failure, our lack of worth, our lack of significance….our lack of ‘something’ almost indefinable. And we grieve for lost trust, lost love, lost dreams.
When I am tempted to succumb to grief and worthlessness, I remember that he is still with me. He could’ve decided to leave me and start a new life with the other woman. I HATE THAT HE HAD AN AFFAIR — but it made him realize he valued our relationship, our marriage and, yes — in spite of my self-doubt — HE DID VALUE ME. What he didn’t value or trust was himself.
For months, I’d think “When we are healed….when we get there….when we are whole again…” I felt like something was missing. Like you said in a prior post, it was that last 10%… I was needing something just out of reach to make me whole again.
And then one day, I realized I was wasting the value of ‘here’ and ‘right now.’ And I understood, finally, what that last 10% was.
The last 10% was ME. My fear, my insecurities, my pride were holding me back. If I gave 100%, that meant I had to forget the pain, the agony, the devastation. I’d have to trust my flawed husband with the heart he once cast aside. How could I possibly do that?
But — if I didn’t give 100% and trust him with my heart again, I would be destined to be a nomad, lost in the desert….searching for an oasis of absolute certainty that doesn’t exist.
With a renewed sense of purpose, I shed the man who cheated on me. He was weak of character and I was ashamed of him. I could not love him.
In doing so, I made room in my heart for the real man who stands beside me and does his very human best to be the husband he was meant to be.
And so, I committed 100% to a journey guaranteed to be filled with twists and turns, good times and bad. He’s still not perfect, and neither am I, but through our faith, we are still together.
I realize I will be chastised and hated for this….but hear me out.
To be brief, we are all human. No one is righteous. No one is perfect and before you run down the road of qualifying what human trait is more worthy than another, keep in mind like the human body, it takes everything inside to function correctly for the long term. I am sorry, but there is no sin greater than another in God’s eyes. Regardless if you are 2 feet or 50 feet over the edge of the Grand Canyon, it brings the same result…death!
With that in mind, before you judge, take an inventory of your life as a spouse. There is none who is righteous, not even you. Yes he/she might done the wrong thing 1 or 20 times, but in some way you have too. If you rebuke this statement, I would love to see you at the gates of heaven as you try to convince St Peter to let you in on your perfect life. We are human. Hello people, We fail. Each and every one of us, every single day in thousands of ways. Yes they each have different consequences and results. But remember it is not the fall that matters but how you get up.
I read this the other day as well, it hit me hard. “Living in the past is a waste of time. It is crippling your present and robbing you of your future.” For us to sit there and waste our energy on what might have been is completely insane. Or to say we were robbed of a certainty of faithfulness and harbor on that loss is equally ludicrous.
You have NO idea what the future holds…in the future YOU could have been the one who cheated or perhaps your mate could have been killed in a car wreck or …name your dream changing moment_______. Don’t you get it? Every freaking day is a gift from GOD. Every breath you take is stolen from the Almighty Himself.
IF your spouse is repentant, contrite and changed, rejoice and be glad like the father in the Prodigal son parable in the Bible. Most people who read it think is the story of the son, But it is actually the story of the father. A father who loved his son enough to forgive him and be glad that his wayward son has come back! In fact, it goes on to say there is MORE joy in heaven for such than for those who think they are righteous!
Please for your own sake, refuse to allow the pain of the past to limit your purpose in the present and hope for the future. If they have changed and come back repentant, the ball is in your court. If you remain bitter and unforgiving, you are only hurting yourself and those around you. And I would not be surprised if they do it again.
Of course, if they have not repented, then wait til they have. I know grieving takes time. It takes time to heal.
God bless….
I was just having this same line of thinking recently. What if I was with someone who would never have hurt me this way? What if I were alone, then I could guarantee that I would NEVER get hurt this way? I’ve thought about asking him to leave just for that very reason. Our relationship has been changed FOREVER, and right now I don’t see a “new normal” or how this is going to make it better for us (barely 4 months out from D day).
I hope you will talk with him now since it’s all new, get it out in the open. I didn’t do this and now I have to keep it bottled inside (been 3 yrs) and for him it’s over. He just doesn’t get that it isn’t over for me nor do I think it will ever go away. It eats at me and think it would even if we split. Keep going, keep trying, keep hoping, and I’ll keep hoping for you on the days you don’t think its possible.
It sounds like you are teetering on the brink of a decision on what direction you want/need/should go. I believe this is my new normal. When I was 4 months from D-day I wouldn’t have said that because the pain was too raw then. The affair is in the past but there’s remnants that still throw me off-course some days.
I hope you find the answers you need to move on, heal, and find your normal.
Thanks, I am teetering. I didn’t want to make a hasty decision back when I found out b/c we have small children. As a child of divorce I know how much this has an impact. I still love him, I just continue to have ok days and then bad days. I know we NEED a new normal, I just can’t define it, or picture it yet. Thank you for the encouragement.
Such a good quote and I am thankful for your post. The only good thing to come from this affair was that my husband was diagnosed manic bipolar and is on a medication that works to control it and goes to counseling for it. However in the effort to get there, I was dragged through this affair with a woman that he still works with. She is a self absorbed human being, still and just terrible. And he opened up to having one other physical affair and 6 emotional affairs during our 15 years of marriage and dating relationship! I still grapple with how did I miss everything?! I have to remind myself that he was a master manipulator, he even fooled marriage counselors in the past. He feels terrible, ashamed, and is working for my forgiveness. I forgive him, but I don’t trust him. I don’t think I would trust anyone with my heart now. It has been 21months and I still struggle with how did I miss the signs that he was cheating on me so many times for so many years?! Would I ever know that anyone is cheating on me until it is so in my face that I can’t deny it? I mourn that the ability to trust those closest to me has been broken. I mourn that I can’t buy a proper card in the store for him on his birthday because so many are ‘to my husband the love of my life’…. I mourn that I will always have a fear that his meds might not work fully and this will happen again….It almost killed me this time and hurt our children as well….
Thank you, ladies, for posting on here. It is so nice to know I am not alone and I’m not crazy.
Thank you.