Still confused,
I think maybe you are reading that as my husbands behaviors or actions had anything to do with my affair. My affair was 100 percent on me.
My depression had stemmed from working 18 hour days 6-7 days a week and not feeling like I was doing any one thing well. H was starting a new business that I was helping with, our youngest was a senior and there were a million activities to keep up with. I worked full time and took care of all the domestic stuff. It easily made three full time jobs.
I was burned out, feeling unhappy and unhealthy. And when I would go to my husband to say I am at the limit he said to push through it wouldn’t be like this forever.
That doesn’t deserve to be cheated on. But my mentality was loneliness, I was not liking how I was starting to look because I had been neglecting self care, and I felt like everyone was on me about my mistakes. It was because I wasn’t functioning well.
And I did keep pushing all that down below the surface and not addressing any of it. Not speaking up or taking control over my own life. My husband was largely in the dark about how I was feeling and honestly I didn’t take any time to self reflect either.
I started to fantasize about living alone and only being responsible for me. And when the ap came a long it was just a perfect storm where instead of taking any assessment of what was wrong with me or trying to take steps to fix it, I escaped into this world where I was a younger and more vibrant version of myself. I stopped doing all the things and largely ignored any further complaints about it. I started back to self care and was wildly unhealthy in a different way. I was addicted to the attention because of it wasn’t there to distract me then my world started closing in on me again.
I don’t feel this was my husbands fault and neither does he by the way. We were largely disconnected for a long period leading into my affair. He wasn’t as surprised I wanted out but he was blindsided that I had an affair instead of really putting my foot down and saying this is all not working for me. He felt I had more integrity than that. He felt if I had said the state I was reaching that he would have stepped in and tried to help me figure it out and he would have fought to get our marriage back on track. And I believe he probably would have.
So if anyone was taking anyone for granted it was certainly both of us. But I think he had confidence in how much I loved him and he thought we could get through it because he felt we were both devoted to each other.
And I am about 10 years younger than he is, we had been together since I was a very young woman. I felt like he was the authority in our marriage for all those years and I didn’t think I could have my power back because we had long established roles and how our marriage worked. I don’t think he was conscious that I felt that way because he never saw us that way. But I wanted autonomy. In fact, I never thought I would be with ap either, I didn’t see myself ever wanting to get married or live with a man again.
But my affair didn’t have to do with my husband not being attractive to me, him not being a good husband. Or being boring or any flaws about him. My affair was because I was sleepwalking through life and didn’t give a shit about anything in my life anymore but wasn’t a being very conscious about it or why it was.
Numbing bad feelings also numb good feelings, it’s not a selective sort of thing.
I wish I had reacted in any other way, but my recklessness was in relation to not valuing myself, and you can’t give what you don’t have.
My husband is the love of my life. I crave him in every sense. But until I could fix my relationship with myself, I was of no use to anyone.
So I think he has seen over the last 7 years how mindful I have become, how communicative, how I prioritize him (and myself too) and I think he sees that I learned not to be asleep at the wheel, to say hard truths, and to show my devotion towards him very single day. I think he sees And believes I am responsible for my own happiness and no longer harboring expectations over unstated needs.