Buried Truths

 Direct Answers
from Wayne & Tamara

Buried Truths
Q My wife and I married in the early 1980s. I was her first. Sixteen months into our marriage, she took me to a party and made out with another man on the floor in front of me and our friends.    It was intentional. She later said she was trying to make me mad and get a reaction out of me. I saw it as a public emasculation. I grew up in an alcoholic household and was emotionally undeveloped as a result of my childhood. I was mad but I shut down.
     A year later she had an emotional affair. There was a public emasculation involved with that as well. We went into counseling and I thought we had resolved the issue. Several months later, she moved to another city to further her education. I stayed home and worked. When I went to visit eight months later, she told me she had been sleeping with three other men and they were “friendships that got out of hand.” That was another public emasculation. Hours before she told me about the affairs, she took me to a party. I shook hands and chatted with two of the men she had been sleeping with.  We went back into counseling where the goal of the counselor was to keep the marriage together. At the end, I was told it was my fault because I was “emotionally unavailable” to my wife. In my opinion, a lot of that “emotional unavailability” started when boyfriends started.
     We did counseling for months. I couldn’t accept what happened. Something snapped, I suppose. I “decided” to pretend that it never happened. I buried it.    My wife’s affairs stopped, but I soon started drinking and became a closet alcoholic for a decade. I sobered up 22 years ago. We were very successful in our careers. I retired two years ago. My head cleared from my extremely busy job, and a year ago I decided to go back in my mind and see if something needed to be addressed. I realized that for the last 30 years, I never thought about the affairs. I knew they happened but never thought about them. I found that odd.
   That’s when the panic attack started. Just like in your book Cheating in a Nutshell, disgust, anger, and trauma hit me like a brick. It’s as if I opened an old door and found everything I left back in the 80s. I brought it up to my wife. She said she wanted to talk about the affairs but I had always blown it off when it came up (which is true). We went into marriage counseling again, and I went into individual counseling.
     These feelings won’t leave me alone. I quickly realized that I should have divorced my wife 35 years ago. I told her this. I also learned more details about the last three affairs. They were worse than I thought.
Our conversations over the last year have deepened our relationship. We both realize now there had been a wall between us for 34 years, and it was my unconscious reaction to the affairs. Our sex life over the last year has also been better than ever. Still, a powerful voice in me demands retribution. It is furious. It is livid. It is disgusted. It demands divorce. I’m having trouble sleeping. I have mind movies. I get sudden flashes of other men’s hands on my wife’s body. It’s the same voice I killed in the 1980s.  The rest of me knows leaving now would be ridiculous, if for no other reason than it would wreck our retirement. She has been an excellent wife for three decades, and we are very close. But the battle in my mind remains. It is constant and sometimes I wonder which side will win. An old wound reopened and a realization that it never healed. I stayed with the source of my trauma. Phil
A Phil, let’s start at the beginning.  You weren’t too “emotionally unavailable” for your wife to marry, but you were so emotionally unavailable it excused her affairs and deliberate emasculations. To block those memories, you turned into a closet drinker, buried yourself in work, and she suddenly became faithful.  We don’t find that story plausible. How did that fix her excuse—your “emotional unavailability”? Even more, as a heavy drinker who buried himself in work, how could you know whether her affairs ended?  The counselor who wanted to “save the marriage” hurt you grievously. PTSD was officially recognized in 1980, and discussions of serious trauma were all over the popular press. Yet this individual was incapable of recognizing your trauma, right before his or her own eyes.  Your wife got herself a defense attorney and you were without representation. You were not a couple having tiffs over childcare responsibilities or the family budget. You were the victim of your wife’s affairs and public humiliations. This needed one session. “These two don’t belong married. She is repeatedly unfaithful.” Done. So instead of one session, the counselor got months and months of pay. Then, with botched counseling behind you, you found ways to mask the problem. When you retired, you did not “decide” to go back and reexamine what happened in the 1980s. Those memories disinterred themselves. In your heart you know, if you had divorced your wife 35 years ago, you could have had all those years with the woman who was the love of your life. That’s what your wife took from you. Why are things better than ever? Most probably she senses something from you, and she fears you will make her pay for her actions.
Your mind, your body, and your soul will continue to plague you because disgust, anger, and the traumatic response are baked into us as human beings. You can’t say you have a good marriage and say your soul is crying out for justice. You don’t get to ride the fence like that. A well-lived life cannot be lived straddling the fence. Fence-straddling neuters you. Wayne & Tamara  
write:  Directanswers@WayneAndTamara.com