Tuesday, January 26, 2021

What if he never changes? What then?

How can you find peace in this even if he never changes?

Those were the words of a wise friend of mine, one who's overcome infidelity (mostly) which coincided with the death of her mother, creating a complicated grief, not unlike my own. We were talking about our husbands who, though they were born to different mothers on different continents, might has well be twins. 

We love our husbands. They are kind and funny, smart and caring. They are also highly anxious (though each denies this), somewhat controlling (though each denies this) and able to compartmentalize much of their childhood pain (though each used to deny this).

Consequently, we frequently share the same frustrations. "Why do they have to have opinions about everything?" we wonder. "Why do they get so wound up?" "Why do they stress so much about money?" And on and on.

My husband and I are in the process of building a new house long-distance (thanks COVID). This is setting off every single stressor in my husband's brain. And though I'm trying to not let my husband's anxiety become my anxiety, it's hard. A lifetime of trying to manage others' feelings is hard to shake. 

And so I said all this to my friend, including lamenting that, when we were in couples counselling (another thing that has had to bite the dust thanks to COVID), my husband was learning how to better manage his feelings. Now, it seems he's backsliding. "I just wish he was seeing someone who could help him manage this," I said.

To which my friend responded, "How can you find peace in this even if he never changes?"

I almost gasped. She continued, "This is what I kept saying to myself when we were first working through his infidelity." His affair had been emotional. He'd confessed to his therapist before it went further. But still, as we all know, cheating is cheating.

So while my friend was working through her own pain and trying to determine whether to stay or go, that was her guiding thought: "....even if he never changes." She wasn't referring to the behaviour, of course. She wasn't prepared to stay if he continued to cheat. Rather she was figuring out that, even if he never addressed his childhood pain, even if he never learned to managed his anxiety, even if he remained the tightly wound, often stressed and money-focussed guy he was (all things she could overlook when she believed him fiercely loyal to her), could she find peace enough to stay. 

It's a question that's as unique as each of us and our marriages. It's a question only we can answer. But it's a question that we must answer if we are to find that peace.

How can you find peace in this even if he never changes?

Perhaps you can't. Perhaps that's what will propel you out the door and into the office of a divorce lawyer. You can still love your husband and know that you cannot live with him if he can't or won't change.

But maybe you can find that peace. Maybe, like my friend, you can accept who he is and still find him worthy of your love and attention. Maybe, like me, you can stop hoping for some elusive day when he will have become what you want him to be and instead begin creating peace for yourself with him exactly as he is.

Isn't that what we all want? Not to be someone's improvement project but rather to be loved as we are? Aren't we more likely to create positive change for ourselves when we feel accepted as is?

How can you find peace even if he never changes?

It's a question worth asking.

15 comments:

  1. This is such a good post and it is also a very difficult thing to come to grips with. I believe with all my heart that my husband is the same man who cheated on me our whole marriage even if he tells me he is different now. Growing up in a family of addicts I know that it doesn't take much to slip up. He doesn't understand why I can't "see" the difference in him when I "see" him every day and he looks the same. Oh, yes, he does act differently than he did once upon a time and he has told me when I ask that he is different because now he is "aware" all the time of his surroundings. When I ask him what that means he says, "Before, when I saw links that I knew would lead to porn or things that excited me I would immediately begin my fantasy thoughts. Now, I see them or anything else like the AMP along the streets and I tell my brain, you don't need that and I just turn off that switch. I don't even open that compartment anymore." So yes he has changed internally and has learned to manage those "thoughts" that lead to actions but he still looks the same to me. I have had to work really hard when we are walking somewhere or in the car and drive by hookers or AMP or see billboards to breathe deeply and let that go instead of listening to my monkey brain that wants me to go back to the mind movies and negative thoughts about his actions. We both have to live with the consequences of his past behaviors and do the best we can. I really hate that I occasionally have this same struggle but at 5.5 years post D-day, those days are few and far between.I am much happier living in the here and now instead of the past. What if? is not a good way to live life. What if I waste what precious time I have left in my life worried about what he might do? I deserve so much better than that. This is how I find my peace.

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    1. It is difficult to come to terms with. I think that's why, when my friend said it, it stopped me cold. I had to really think about it.

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  2. First time posting but have been reading for what seems like forever. 10 months from DDay and I'm ok today. Short story is failing marriage after 20 years and 3 kids, husband has been having hook ups and one longer term arrangement for 2.5 yrs before DDay. All about sex, he went from us being each others first and only to having racked up 13 other women for physical sex and many more for online, phone sexting. What a crap year 2020 was in more ways than one. My state went into lock down, we both lost our jobs and a nuclear explosion ended our marriage, all within 3 days. We are attempting to build marriage number 2. Peace is still an elusive dream, but moving forward in the chaos of my heart each day I am claiming 'today I am safe'. No, he's no longer cheating and doesn't ever want to be in that place again but not cheating is not enough for the cost of rebuilding. I have higher expectations of my worth and my needs and yet it will never be enough. How do you find that peace and still call for the change you need in all areas of life. I am enough, he is enough and yet I want more?

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    1. Enough,
      I want to clarify: "Enough" is about fullness, about feeling satisfied. It is NOT about settling. So you are right to want more. What you have right now is a crumbling old marriage on which you're building a new marriage. That will take time. And you're doing it with also dealing with job loss, the loss of social circles, the loss of normalcy. All of which is to say, be gentle with yourselves. This has been a helluva year, even for those NOT dealing with betrayal.
      Ten months feels like an eternity, I know. But it only the beginning. Keep building. Keep your eyes focused on what you know you can be. Peace will come.

      Delete
  3. Two scenarios
    1) My girlfriend's husband is a cheater. He travels for work. She knows her life would drastically change if they were to divorce. For the time being, she's willing to not deal with it for her financial security.

    2) Then there's mine - divorced.
    I so get my friend. You get to a certain age of being a stay at home mum, and to get back into the workforce is hard - made even harder because of covid. Financially security is paramount.
    My ex. He never wanted to change. I too was prepared to live with him (as long as he stopped cheating). He wouldn't do anything to fix our marriage as in agree to my boundaries, go to counselling etc so I was just living on auto not wanting to be on my own financially, so I was prepared to just live as parents bringing up children until the kids were old enough for us to finish. I tried everything possible to save my marriage, to get him to see my worth, our worth as a family, to go to counselling - everything.
    He wasn't interested. The lure of younger women with no children, porn, paid sex was all the more appealing than being a responsible husband and father and paying the bills. He stopped doing all of the family things.
    He continued to lie. Oh my god. The lies!
    How would I have coped living with this "man?"
    I really could have just switched off as he had been a complete ass for many years, I was really already on off mode around him.
    So he wouldn't change, didn't want to deal with the uncomfortableness of being wrong and seeing how much of a rotten person he was - so easy way out - he left for another affair partner. They've been having a "friendship" that overstepped the boundaries of marriage for years, and the year we separated, went full blown. The skank he's with now. He was with one of her best friends before! Sick. They're all messed up.

    Beach Girl, I too am 5 years post disclosure, just a few months short of you.
    I don't miss him at all, and the kids have told me - he hasn't changed.
    Yes I still hate him (he's being an ass over money), yes I will always hate him for breaking up our family - but he's so far removed from my values and my beliefs that I really don't like him. I'm glad he's now gone.
    Life is extremely tiring as I juggle 2 jobs, long hours, getting older, but, I am so much happier without him. I'm doing so many wonderful things.
    Even one of my kids said just the other day, "I'm so glad dad's not around anymore".
    I never thought I would make it on my own. (My ex earns like 10 x more than me!!) but as tiring as it is, I am so much happier and I am doing it!
    One step at a time - One day at a time.
    Hugs
    Gabby xo

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    1. Gabby,
      We each get to make our own choices but I think you made the right one for you. You are making it on your own, you have found happiness, your kids even recognize that things are better. Kudos to you, Gabby!!

      Delete
  4. Beach girl, wow .... I have come to feel much the same. What if I waste the precious time I have left in life plagued and distracted by “what if?” The “what was” in my marriage has taken enough already. If I return to a place of essentially waiting to see if “what if” comes to pass, I will be unable to re-begin this new generation in my own life. And yet, at the same time, “what if” is always there in so many ways ... I have finally learned that I not only can but must coexist with all of the imagined and still unknowable “what if’s”. When my sister was suddenly and very unexpectedly diagnosed with a terminal illness a few years ago, I was able to see true grace in how she chose to live the precious time she had left. It was not that she decided to ignore what she knew was a deadly disease growing inside her. Rather that she did not let the illness lead her, despite that it increasingly limited her in almost every imaginable way. Even when she could no longer walk, her spirit was so beautiful and strong - she was literally lit up with a gentle palpable gracefulness - that it was humbling to be in her presence. The sacredness with which she approached life was a great lesson for me during a time of heartbreaking loss when she died far too young. And so no, the what if’s need not and will not dominate or define me, except and unless they have the potential to make space for more life. What if I embrace this day for all of its glorious possibilities? What if I imagine myself as agile and light as the dragonfly, growing from the water and taking off into the sky, transforming and adapting all along the way. What if I harness my own energy to become incandescent and shine? What if I live as if there are no unsacred moments? While I know I will not be able to avoid heartbreak and loss, I will be open enough to feel love and hope and joy. And don’t we all deserve that? Mimi

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    1. Wow Mimi. Thanks for sharing the story of your sister and for your own incredible life philosophy. We cannot avoid heartbreak and loss but we can do our best to keep our hearts open and soft.

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  5. I think I found my peace when my whole thought process changed after experiencing something so heartbreaking in my marriage. Trust me, I still have my petty moments or days where I just want to be stuck in my negative mind set, but it is not as often as before. My thought process changed. I started telling myself "ill be okay". if my husband decides to step outside our marriage again guess what? "ill be okay". If my husband decides to not take our marriage and vows seriously guess what? "ill be okay". If my husband reverts to old ways and bad habits guess what? "Ill be okay". I cannot control my husband's every move and every thought that goes through his head. I finally learned to let go of things that were out of my control. I have set my boundaries and have higher expectations now and if he decides that neither is something he can take on, then at the end of it all I WILL BE OKAY. it has only been 4 months for me since DDay and i feel great empowerment on how i have gone through my healing process. Everyone's journey is different and i have come to the realization that this one is mine and its important for me to ride all the waves.

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  6. Wait wait wait. If he's having trouble managing his feelings, he can go get help. He's an ADULT, that's what we do -- what he needs to do if he's been in therapy and following his plan. If he's having trouble dealing with his past and since the past affects our present, it is a nonstarter if he doesn't want to address the childhood pain.
    If he doesn't truly do the deep work, even he stops the behavior, it'll go to something else. My ex, when he was trying, went from sexual betrayal, to video game obsession, to Netflix binging to the extreme, to online shopping, and...then back to sex with others.
    So if they don't do the meaningful work i don't see how you can "make peace" in a relationship with him. That is like trying to hold on to a squirming toddler.

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    1. In the case of my conversation with my friend, it was about recognizing that each of us are married to men with anxiety. And while they have both taken steps to address it, they remain men with anxiety and that plays itself out in many ways, including ways that drive each of us nuts. And so we ask ourselves, if they don't change, can we accept this?
      In my husband's case, he struggles to accept that he has anxiety. And as he grows older, I find that it comes out in different ways than when he was younger. He doesn't drink or party or socialize (or cheat, for that matter), all of which were ways of kinda blowing off steam. So he's had to find new ways. Anyways...just a bit of background for the post.

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  7. This was so hard for me to read. My husband cheated on me with the same woman for over 5 years. During that time, he had 5 surgeries, some of which were for life threatening conditions the the doctors couldn't figure out. During that same time, I had to have emergency surgery to save my eyesight and then 4 procedures after that. I also had polyps in my uterus and my biopsy came back wierd and I had to have hormone therapy to prevent cancer. I also lost my brother unexpectantly and my Dad a year to the day later. My job got super stressful as well and many of my coworkers quit or cried every day. We were separated twice, went through two counselors that didn't help. Because of the affair, I had to quit my job because of all the stress I was managing. That same week, my husband lost his job because of the affair. So 85% of our income was gone in a week. I finally called it quits and just gave up because he wouldn't let this woman go. Then through a lot of prayer and what I believe to be divine intervention, my husband ended the affair and swore to me that he was going to serve God and love me. You can imagine the triggers I have. It's only been 8 months since I believe that he ended the affair and cut off all communication but oh, the triggers. I was at the park closest to my husbands work on Tuesday and she showed up. She saw me and took off. I noticed that she had been there that morning too. Both times were times when my husband had a break. I went into overdrive! I'm thinking of putting a tracker on my truck just to make sure that he is telling me the truth because other than his renewed interest in God, his schedule is the same, the job that allowed him so much free time is still the same, and he has lied to my face so many times that I can't trust anything that he says or does, which makes it hard. He will not go to a counselor because he said that all the rehashing is what made him run back to her in the first place. (The first counselor was rather brutal.) I just feel stuck, like I can't move forward in life because at any moment, it might all come crashing down and I'll be left to start over. I'm retirement age and I'm afraid to spend any of the money I've saved for recreational purposes just in case I need to live off it while I try to find a job. Any suggestions? He understands that if I find out that he has had any contact with her and didn't tell me about it, I'm done. If he lies to me about ANYTHING (the weather, if dinner was good, what time his dentist apt is), I am done. I realize that leaves no room for error but I've been hurting for too long. The only reason I'm staying is because I really believe that God orchestrated it so that I would but we are needing a miracle and any helpful suggestions that you might have. I am giving this one more try, just one. It would be easy in so many ways for me to walk away but after almost 40 years of what I thought was happy marriage, and knowing what kind of person he can be, I feel that it's worth it to see if he can get himself straightened around. Maybe he never was what I thought. Maybe he was, I don't know. I guess time will tell.

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    1. Anonymous, I am SO sorry for everything you've gone through. It's a miracle that you are still standing. And I'm very glad you've set such clear boundaries around what you will and will not tolerate in your marriage. I hope you have good support around you. A good therapist, or good friends, where you can share your pain. Please know, too, that you can continue to post here. The women here are incredible.

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  8. Today is Week#8 after finding out about the betrayal
    Still hurts like crazy
    States he’s not in contact with her anymore yet I cant even check his phone nor have any password of his social
    media accounts
    I’m so over it .
    He will never change

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