~Penelope in The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
How many of us believe that in the wake of betrayal? I did. My mistake, I figured, was trusting this man. My mistake was opening my heart to him. How could I have been so stupid!
If only I'd kept my mouth shut and my heart locked. Right?
Spoiler: Didn't work for Penelope. Didn't work for me.
But that doesn't stop a lot of us from thinking it's a viable response to betrayal. We'll stay with him for the time being for a whole bunch of reasons: we can't afford to leave, we have children, our entire lives would be disrupted, we love this man. But if he thinks we're ever going to trust him with our hearts again, well, then, he's kidding himself.
Never.
My heart will remain locked. My mouth will remain shut to my deepest secrets. My ears will refuse to listen to his pain.
And it works at first. It numbs us somewhat. We play the role of wife, smiling when appropriate, crying privately. We're there...except we're not. Our hearts are locked away. Our souls are hidden.
I expected to live the rest of my life that way. I stayed for my children, mostly. More than anything, I wanted to spare them the chaos of my own childhood. I wanted them to have stability, predictability, safety.
So, to spare myself any further heartbreak, I shut my mouth (mostly) and kept my heart locked (mostly).
I'm not so good at it, it turns out. My heart refused to stay locked. It felt heavy with pain.
So I focused on finding slivers of joy where I could: my children, my pets. The lake and the woods. My home into which I'd put so much of my heart.
And I kept showing up to therapy, where I felt safe to let my heart free, to open my mouth.
That's where I learned that bottling up pain also meant bottling up pleasure. You don't get to choose which feelings you experience, my therapist explained. If you numb yourself to the bad, you numb yourself to the good. Which perfectly explained why I felt as though I was living life wrapped in gauze. I felt...nothing. At first, it was a relief. But, with time, I resented it. I watched other people living their lives. I was alive. But I wasn't living.
With time, I learned how to keep myself safe by establishing clear boundaries. (I'm a work in progress but I've come a long way!)
I learned that I was strong enough to handle the pain. Storms make better sailors, says Shakespeare and I discovered that was true.
I learned that the tears eventually do stop, that they could baptize me into new life.
Penelope says those words knowing they aren't true. She believed them at one time but, at the end of her life, she'd experienced more heartbreak than many.
She speaks for all of us broken-hearted, who think the solution is to lock our hearts away, to protect them from being shattered.
But what we discover is that hearts can heal. That breaks, as Leonard Cohen says, are how the light gets in.
But we have to look for it. We have to reach for it.
We have to choose living over just being alive.
I could have written this entire post. This was a major hangup for me. I spent a good chunk of my time in therapy focused on this one aspect of it all. I felt exactly as you did. And I felt like I am good I have this locked down. My therapist was awesome and gradually showed me this was not going to work or be a long term solution. And exactly as you said there is no joy and I was not really living. Of course my therapist said there was a legitimate reason to feel this way. We even talked about how it was healthy for a period of time. My therapist almost described it as a reset for my own gut. But once things were on track for a decent amount of time we talked about gradually opening up and being more vulnerable. It really was a slow gradual process. I remember my therapist said to give my husband some rope. It was time to see what he does with it. Still with boundaries and expectations in place but less guarded. It has been slow. I still acknowledge I am guarded and pull back. I think being open with my husband has helped. He is super understanding. It helps he knows and understands that way we can talk about it vs him jumping to conclusions if I am not more open. This is something I want to work on. He is 100% transparent and authentic with me. I would not say that I am not those things but I am more cautious than he is.
ReplyDeleteThis is a work in process. It get's closer all the time. Only a fool would move forward with a cheating spouse without a Plan B. Maybe this is just me but given my experience with my spouse, I'd be an idiot to NOT have a plan B. I'm loving my life because I'm much happier with me. If things went south with my spouse and I have no reason to suspect they will, I'll be fine. Even as I open my heart, I know 100% with eyes open that I have options.
ReplyDeleteSo, it all makes sense but reality is never just deciding one day to open your heart and live again. I know it’s a choice. My Dday is 4 years next week. Superbowl Sunday. I feel I am farther away from deciding if I want to leave or stay than I was 2 years ago.
ReplyDeleteMy question though, is in reference to listening to his “pain”. I never thought he had any reason to have “pain”. I thought this might be a question I ask him when next we have a deep conversation. What kind of answers or responses might I expect?
Wives Matter, We are almost on the exact same timeline. My dday was March four years ago. I would say the biggest surprise to me is how strong I have been in the face of all of this. The second biggest surprise is my husband's level of pain and how long it has taken him to work through it. I honestly never thought this would be part of the recovery process. I thought he made these decisions so he was 100% aware and not caught off guard like I was. And he kept making these decisions to cheat over and over for 10 years with two different women. To me in my mind that sounds like someone who knew what he was doing. And on top of it my husband broke it off with both ow 15 months before dday. So to me it seemed like I was the one that needed to heal and he needed to change his ways in every aspect of his life. But I would say at about a year once I started to feel better it started to come out how he was feeling. And the height of his pain was in the 2-3 year time frame. Since year three things have improved a lot for him. Granted he has had some major points of reflection that have surprised me. Many times it comes without me prompting at all and just listening to him. He has told me in the past year he has stopped hating himself and actually likes himself at times. He also said he is finally starting to be the person he had thought he would be when he was growing up as a husband and father. He has told me he confused himself. Both his affairs were sporadic. He would go over a year without any communication with the ow. So he would start to act more like himself then I guess slip up when he would cheat again. So I had made a comment that I thought that is why our marriage and especially him was confusing through the years. He said he was confused by himself too since he hated it. I could go on and on. I am sure not everyone will agree but I am at the point where I look at him and it makes me sad he did what he did and less to do with me and our marriage but the fact he betrayed himself first. He let himself down and then it all fell apart from there.
DeleteAnd I can related to the comment about staying or leaving. For me it comes from my comfort with myself and all of the work I have done. And part of seeing his pain for what it is (not really having anything to do with me) makes me more confident.
For us these conversations have brought us together. When we get to this level of who we are it is transformative.
Wives Matter,
DeleteLove your name!!
Hopeful30's story is something like mine in that I had no idea my husband had any pain at all, except with the death of his father. It was only post D-Day that I learned of all sorts of stuff he'd never shared with me and had really hidden from himself. People who don't process their pain then to act it out in various ways -- addiction, abuse, self-harm and, yes, infidelity.
I would, as best you can, just brace yourself to listen. It's really hard not to get defensive (at least, it's hard for ME). I had a hard time empathizing because I WAS THE VICTIM. But, when I was also to just listen to him, to try and empathize with how his own stuff (feelings of inadequacy, loneliness, disappointment, etc.) drove him to behaviour that was unhealthy for him, it felt like a big step in our healing together. It's not a contest. His pain doesn't matter more than yours and vice versa. It's about two people trying to show up for each other and acknowledge that we each carry old messages and sometimes those messages drive hurtful behaviour.
It might help to have one of the conversations in the presence of a therapist, in case you're worried you might hear things you don't want to --you might want the support in place for you.
I think I love you, Elle. You have such a way with words. And your timing? It's often almost personally freaky for me. And then there are times when I read your words and am even more awe-stricken because they are things I've already contemplated on my journey. Seeing them written on your blog is so incredibly validating. In the last year, I have realized that my husband has been waiting to die for a really long time....since way before I ever met him. (Most of his pain stems from losing his beloved brother in a car accident caused by a drunk driver.) As he has waited, he has tried his best to take care of #1--himself--and has numbed and disconnected in quite a variety of seemingly selfish ways leading up to infidelity. I am through the pain of wishing I was dead. He has not chosen recovery and my thoughts have been that he would prefer me also to just exist along and wait beside him to die. I thought I could do that. I think I can IF I choose. (But, I certainly will not do it in a way that causes pain and destruction to those around me that I love.) I have learned that I am strong enough to handle the pain. I might be strong enough to look for the light.
ReplyDeleteJust Me,
DeleteThat is heartbreaking for everyone involved. And yes, I don't doubt that you could just exist alongside him but I hope you'll choose differently. There's a big amazing and sometimes painful world out there that's worth engaging with. Who knows? Your husband might see you rise from the ashes and decide to do the same. But either way, you deserve to soar.
From Hopeful 30's post: "...it makes me sad he did what he did and less to do with me and our marriage but the fact he betrayed himself first. He let himself down and then it all fell apart from there. "
ReplyDeleteYES!!! I think I've made the same type of journey- from focusing on "look what you did to me" to "look what you did to yourself...and I'm so sorry you did that." I've often thought that his pain could well be worse than mine- he betrayed himself...and how does one recover from that, especially in your 70's? We stayed together- and if I stop and think about him...it takes great courage to stay and face the person you hurt day after day. I'm not sure I could have done that if I had been the one to screw up our marriage and cause him trauma. I know he has great guilt and shame over what he did for 10 years which spills out into our everyday interactions- sometimes I think he blames himself for it raining! RME.
Anonymous 55
Anon 55, Yes Yes Yes!!! I totally agree with it all. It is eye opening and liberating.
DeleteAnon55 and Hopeful 30, on my good days I see this clearly and on my less than stellar days I strive to remember this. My husband has a lifetime of poor choices to reflect on including how he damn near blew up his life, our marriage and our extended family's lives. He has told me that he thinks about that every single day and never wants to go anywhere near that again. He is grateful for this second chance and is doing everything in his power to give me as much time as I need to watch him live an authentic life.
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