Obsessed with the Other Woman

I recently received a question from a BWC member noting that she's feeling "obsessed" with the Other Woman, despite her husband's commitment to her and the marriage, and desire to rebuild their relationship. She writes:

I am on the crazy train and I can't get off! I constantly want and dream of getting revenge on the OW! I constantly sabatoge myself: I might be having a decent day and I look up the tramp on FB and I am in a rage! My husband is truly doing ANYTHING and EVERYTHING he can to try to make our marriage better and stronger. I get angry at him basically for the fact that the OW exists. I am scared I will push my husband away with my comets and total insanity. I know I need to let "it" go. Intellectually I know that I am allowing her way too much power over my life and I know that I am only hurting myself. Please help me! I found out -full details- of the affair 5 months ago (from the OW  – she was only to happy to tell me). I am destroyed. I am angry, scared, and feel as if I will never feel normal again. I will never feel sane again. Please  – any advice on how to get past obsessing over the OW will be welcome. I just see her going on with her happy little life as if she didn't destroy a whole family and it infuriates me.

This experience is, sadly, not uncommon. And many betrayed wives act out their revenge, not something I recommend.
It's good that you recognize that this is only hurting you and your marriage. But recognizing it and stopping it are two different beasts.
I'll get to the stopping in a bit. Let me start by looking more closely at why you're doing this.
The feelings we experience in the wake of discovering a spouse's affair are primal. Abandonment. Rejection. Terror. Existential angst. So many of us have spent a lifetime avoiding those feelings. Trying to keep everything under control so that we don't have to feel those scary feelings. D-Day blows the lid off that.
By keeping your focus on the OW, you're avoiding those scary feelings. You're replacing them with cruddy feelings too – anger, for a start. But anger is hurt and fear in a mask, and my guess is you're feeling both those things in spades. I sure as hell was.
And, like you, I indulged in revenge fantasies at the start. I used some behaviour modification strategies (see below) because, like you, I knew it wasn't helping me heal at all. But feeling anger was far more preferable to pulling back the curtain and seeing my terrified self behind it. On some level, it felt as if my entire survival was at stake. It felt that primal. So I came out swinging, at least figuratively.
Over time though (and with a whole lotta therapy), I was able to see that the affair wasn't about her at all. She was convenient, nothing more. And I was able to examine my pain and my fear and recognize how deep they went and how they had lain dormant until the affair forced me to look at them and acknowledge them and work through them. I'll never say the affair was "good" for me...but I will say it forced me to face some demons that needed vanquishing.
I suspect your obsession with the OW might be similar. Outrage is understandable and, at the start, can be a healthy response to emotional injury. Obsession though is not.
So...what are you going to do about it?
There are behaviour modification techniques you can try. They sound silly but are surprisingly effective. An elastic band around your wrist that you snap each time you start thinking about the OW. A huge picture of a stop sign on your computer reminding you to NOT check out her FB page. A said-out-loud "NO!" or "STOP!" each time you think/do something related to her. The idea is to put a bit of distance between the temptation to obsess and the act. In that brief space, you want to remember that this is hurting you. You could even write a list with two columns: "What I Gain From Focussing on OW" on one side and "What I Lose..." on the other, and then keep it somewhere you can't ignore.
The other thing you could do (and this is something that worked for me, along with picturing a big STOP sign when my mind starting going down that well-worn path) is give yourself a time allowance to indulge in the fantasies. Say five minutes or so (even set a timer with an annoying beep) and then imagine the WORST possible scenario for her. Feed her to her starving cat. Run over her – repeatedly – in your car. Allow her to contract leprosy. But when that five minutes is up, immediately stop and get back to your real life. The idea is that by making something forbidden you're making it more desirable. Anyone on a diet can explain this. But allowing yourself a taste of it can keep it at bay. But this only works if you absolutely stick to a brief time limit. Once you're down that rabbit hole, it's hard to pull back out. (A weird thing happened to me when I allowed myself to indulge in my darkest revenge fantasies. I ended up feeling sorry for her. I was badass!! She seemed so pathetic and at my mercy. I felt powerful for those few minutes....and I decided ultimately to use my power for good (get my life back on track) than evil. Besides most OW are quite talented at screwing up their own lives. They don't need us to do it for them.)
If you're so inclined and your husband can stomach it, enlist his help in imagining some revenge fantasies. (Not all guys can handle this – in part because they're conflicted about her but also because recognizing that your sweet wife fantasizes about putting the OW's hand in a meat grinder can be a bit unsettling). If he can handle it though, it might be something you two can giggle about and feel like you're on the same team. But, and I'm saying this before my lawyer calls me in a panic: DON'T EVER ACT ON THESE VILE FANTASIES. There...that's the fine print.
However you proceed, whether by delving deeper into feelings behind your anger or behaviour modification or, better, both, this is a problem that's within your control. You can't change what happened but you can control how you respond to what happened. Don't give this woman any more real estate in your head. She's not worth it. Your husband figured that out. Now it's time for you to figure it out as well.

Elle

Guest Post: Telling Everyone

I recently connected with Laura S., a San Francisco-based writer who created a confidential phone-counselling network for women dealing with infidelity. Like I with my site here, Laura is determined to use her painful experience to help others going through the same thing. Here's her first post.

Telling Everyone
by Laura S.

The week after my husband told me he thought he was in love with someone else, I e-mailed a group of close girlfriends with the news. The very next evening they stopped their busy-kids-husbands-making-dinner-supervising-homework-lives and I met them at a local café where we sat and drank tea and I wept and wept and wept. And they listened.

After that night, I decided that I simply had to tell people. Everyone. Anyone. My friends, my family, his family, a few co-workers, the woman in front of me at the supermarket, the moms of my daughter’s friends. I remember thinking that if I tell enough people, it won’t hurt so much. If I tell enough people, no one will blame me. If I tell enough people, they will nod knowingly when we get divorced (or when I kick him out, which I inevitably did, in my rage. He came back though. That’s for another blog post).

Soon after hearing the news, friends and family reacted in ways that told me more about them than about me and this infidelity experience. My closest girlfriends (all married) phoned to tell me they loved me, they were here for me. An invisible army out beyond the house where I couldn’t see them, rows and rows of people who supported me unconditionally, waiting there to hold me in their arms if I needed holding or walk with me to happiness when I was ready to walk. 

My mom, in an atypical expression of outward emotion, told me she would be there for whether we got divorced or stayed married. A few friends, both male and female, told me they’d happily get in line to kill, maim or strangle my husband (one of them sounded uncomfortably serious). A couple of girlfriends admitted they were so angry with him that they didn’t know how they were going to work through that (they are still struggling, I think, because their manner is different around him now). One friend never mentioned it, not for the entire five months of the affair nor the following two years of recovery; to this date she does not bring it up or ask me how I am.

I know that my story – and telling everyone so openly and forcefully – was terrifying to many of our friends.  If this could happen to her, could it happen to me? went the unstated refrain. Would my husband do this? Is he capable of such a choice? No one ever spoke those words but I knew they were there. My experience was a threat, something “other” that loomed on the edge of our nice middle-class world.

There was more. While this support was so beautiful, so unwavering, and so key to my eventual survival, there was something missing. No one said, “Hey I’ve been there.” No one ventured, “My sister has been through this.” I felt as if I was the only human on earth whose husband had betrayed her. Of course I’d heard about infidelity – in movies and books, with celebrities and politicians – but I did not know anyone else like me who had been through it. Anyone else like me: educated semi-suburban wife and mom, married 20+ years, seemingly happy (though the marriage bore cracks) and basically successful. Feeling so uniquely marked in this way was like a scarlet “I” (for infidelity) worn invisibly on my forehead for an entire year. It was only later, once we began to rebuild our relationship and I started sharing with people too about that effort, that three girlfriends came to me with their own infidelity stories. Finally I was not alone.

Laura S. is founder and director of the Infidelity Counseling Network. Find it at www.infidelitycounselingnetwork.org or call the counselling line at (650) 521-5867 x 101 to speak with a trained counsellor. The service is free and all counsellors have experienced infidelity.

The Only Thing You Need to Know to Heal from Your Husband's Affair

In the minute that we find out about our husband's affairs, so many of us create an imaginary scorecard in which we're on one side and the other woman (or women) are on the other.
We go down this mental list ruthlessly, assigning scores. Is my body better or worse? Am I older or younger? Prettier or uglier? Fatter or skinnier? Smarter or dumber? Kinder or meaner? More successful or less?
We demand details from our husbands about the entire affair. It's not that we're total masochists. It's part of our score-keeping. Did he give her gifts and were they thoughtful or thoughtless? Take her to nicer restaurants? Was the sex better? Was she more sexually adventurous?
The thing is, once we've compiled our scorecards (and exhausted our husbands), we're often baffled. The results often just don't add up.
And it's then, with the agonizing details of our husband's affair nagging at our tired brains and the lash marks still fresh from our self-flagellation, that we finally understand the most surprising and misunderstood thing about most affairs: They have nothing to do with us.
Well, that's not entirely true. Of course they have something to do with us. We're, after all, the ones at home putting the kids to bed, or paying the bills, or making sure dinner includes all four food groups. Without a wife, a husband isn't cheating, he's dating.
But it doesn't have anything to do with us specifically.
Here are the reasons we believe our husbands cheated:
•We're old and our boobs sag.
•We wear ratty pajamas to bed instead of silky negligee.
•We've let ourselves "go".
•He's seen us give birth.
•He's seen us at our worst.
•We haven't given him a blow job since the first Bush administration.
•Our hair has gone grey.
•Our idea of a big night is watching back-to-back episodes of Downton Abby.

Here are the real reasons he cheated:
•He thinks he's old and his boobs sag.
•His boss makes him feel like an idiot.
•He's let himself go.
•Watching you give birth has made him realize he's responsible for a vulnerable little soul.
•You've seen him at his worst.
•He misses blow jobs.
•His hair has gone grey.
•He lies awake at night worrying about growing old. About dying. About "missing out."
•He's never really examined his pain at his parent's divorce. His father's absence. His mother's criticism. His unrealized dreams.

Of course, I'm simplifying for sake of universality. But the point is...his affair wasn't about you. The wife, to put it bluntly, is just collateral damage.
It boggles the mind. I once asked my husband what he was thinking about me when he was driving to the OW's apartment for an early-morning romp. His response? "I wasn't." At first I was furious. How could he NOT be thinking about me. How could he NOT be feeling guilty that I was at home, trying to cram toddlers into snowsuits, persuade a preschooler to brush her teeth, clean up from breakfast even though I'd been up four times in the night to soothe restless tots. Surely, I imagined, he was telling himself something about me. Nope, he wasn't. Nothing. Nada. I had faded into the background and he was looking firmly ahead.
His response is surprisingly common among men who've had affairs. They really weren't thinking about us. They really didn't cheat because our boobs sag. In fact, they hadn't noticed that our boobs sagged. They were too busy distracting themselves from their own failings by being flattered that someone seemed interested in them. They were remembering that they could feel sexy. Interesting. Smart.
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Affairs are about the reflection seen in the eyes of the affair partner. They're about fantasy. They're about ego. They're not necessarily about upgrading to a newer  sexier model.
This is, shockingly, good news.
You don't have to be beautiful, smart, charming, warm-hearted, etc. to keep your husband from cheating. In fact, even if you are all those things (and you are! You are!), it won't make a whit of difference if your husband is looking outside of himself to heal things inside himself.
Good news because even though you might want to give your marriage a makeover in the wake of an affair, you don't need to give yourself a makeover.
Because, again, this had nothing to do with you. And everything to do with him.

Enough is Enough

BWC member Liz recently commented on a blog post about her husband's affair, which went hand-in-hand with drug use and out-of-the-park sex acts. How, she wondered, could she ever know that she was "enough", especially since she felt uncomfortable engaging in some of the things her husband was doing?
It's a question that just about all of us struggle with at some point in our lives. Whether it's a boyfriend who rejects us, a school we don't gain admission to, a job we lose out on, a team we don't make...the question we're left with is, far too often, why weren't we "_______enough"? (Feel free to fill in the adjective you most often insert: pretty, sexy, thin, smart, funny, outgoing, athletic, talented...)
I can't say it's never worth asking. Sometimes it is. Sometimes we can learn from life's painful lessons to be more of what we want to be and less of what we don't. We can take classes, for example, to learn how to better market ourselves or network. We can train harder to improve our chances of making that sports team or performing better. We can read books to learn how to better communicate with our teens or our spouses.
But sometimes, indeed quite often, the question isn't about constructively learning how to be a better us, it's about beating ourselves up for being who we are.
And that's the category where Liz's question falls. She's wondering what her husband's choices say about her. And she's wondering whether what they're saying is that she's "boring" or not sexy enough.
We've all been there. Especially after learning of a spouse's affair.
It's almost like we're reading from the same script. "What does she have that I don't have?" we wail, desperate to understand just what we're missing that made our husbands stray.
But, as I said to Liz, I think we're asking the wrong question. We shining the spotlight on ourselves when it's our husbands who need to answer for their transgression.
The morning after learning that my husband had been engaging in sex with a wide variety of partners, I was on the phone with his sex addiction counsellor. "What do they have that I don't?" I asked him, desperate to figure it out.
His response? "What those people have, you don't want." He was referring, of course, to their lack of self-esteem. Their addictions. Their lack of boundaries. Their willingness to be used by a virtual stranger for sex. Their fear of intimacy. Their lack of trust. Their inability to handle negative emotions such as anxiety, loneliness, fear, without desperately seeking a distraction. All of which my husband also had.
People don't generally have affairs because of what their spouse doesn't have, they have affairs because of what THEY don't have. They have affairs because it's so much easier than doing the hard work of figuring out what they need to give themselves. They have affairs because it's easier than facing the truth that life hasn't exactly turned out the way they expected: Hard work isn't always rewarded. Kids aren't always born healthy. Elderly parents are demanding. Money is tight. Wives can't read our minds.
And, when we're able to be honest with ourselves, we realize that we're not always our best selves for our families. Life's about compromise. It's about balancing our needs and wants with others' needs and wants and coming up with something that approximates happiness for the largest number of people we care about.
And that's where affairs wreak their havoc. Affairs are selfish. They're about ignoring others' needs and wants in favor of the high that comes with the reflection of ourselves we see in another's eyes – someone who doesn't wash our dirty underwear, know that we fart in our sleep and hate our nasty critical mother.
So to Liz and everyone else who's ever wondered if she's "enough" to keep her straying husband happy, I say you're asking the wrong question. Ask instead what he can do that's "enough" to deserve your forgiveness for causing such pain. Ask yourself whether his plans for reparation are "enough" to allow you to open your heart again to him.
And, if it seems wise and kind to yourself, examine how you both might learn from this to rebuild a marriage that fills you both.

Sifting Through the Lies

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.   ~Fyodor Dostoevsky

It has been interesting to read the responses to Lance Armstrong's love overdue "confession" during his interview with Oprah Winfrey. The overwhelming response seems to be "uh...what took you so long."
I'm compulsively honest. The weight of a lie is a burden that I can hardly manage. Even "little white lies" – "That haircut looks great!" – leave me feeling...unclean. Which is why I could barely fathom the level of deception that my husband was capable of during his cheating. And, from the comments I get on this blog, it's a common refrain of betrayed wives. "How could he lie to me?" they ask, incredulous.
Honestly? I don't know.
But Lance Armstrong and Dostoevsky's quote give us a clue.
For starters, lies conveniently allow us to do what we want while avoiding negative consequences. And though I called myself compulsively honest, in the wake of my husband's deception I took a long hard look at my own relationship to the truth. And there are many ways to lie, including lies by omission, or only owning up to part of the truth. It's all dishonest.
But outright look-me-in-the-eyes-and-lie deception? That's beyond my ability.
My husband, however, is a master.
It's a skill he developed over years of growing up in a highly judgmental home. His parents disapproved of many things – his friends, his course selection, his music, premarital sex. Far easier than living with their disapproval or fighting for what mattered to him was lying. His teen years were almost like a double life. He was a "good" kid at home where his parents could see him but he was someone different away from home. I should have been tipped off when, early in our marriage, my husband advised me on the best way to deal with his mother. "Just tell her what she wants to hear, then do what you want," he said simply. I laughed. Turned out he wasn't joking. That was exactly how he "handled" me too.
It sounds psychopathic. And in some ways lying is exactly that. It's manipulative. It's hurtful. It's disrespectful. But for many people, it's survival. The idea of owning up to who they really are is terrifying. If they're not these "good" people who follow the rules, then who are they?
But life isn't black or white. All of us, even someone like me who calls herself compulsively honest, has thoughts that I keep hidden. I don't tell my friend, for example, that I think her 18-year-old son is sexy as hell. I know I wouldn't act on my thoughts. But I feel perverted...and a bit ashamed. He's a child, for god's sake. So I "lie" by omission. But I'm being honest with myself that I'm a 48-year-old woman attracted to a young man. That doesn't make me "bad". It makes me human. And it's healthier than telling myself that I'm not like that. Than lying to myself.
As Dostoevsky points out, too much lying blurs the truth within ourselves. We start to believe our own lies. In a marriage vulnerable to infidelity it can take the form of "my wife always nags me", "no-one appreciates me" or "she doesn't like sex the way I do." None of which may be true, or they may be partly true. But they become the complete truth, and offer some sort of implicit permission to step outside the marriage.
I remember watching Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith tell an interviewer once that they share their attraction to other people with each other. At the time it seemed almost cruel. Now though I can see that by sharing that part of themselves – which goes against our idea of a perfect marriage meaning we'll never be attracted to anyone but our spouse – it puts both husband and wife on the same team. By pulling those shameful parts of ourself into the light of day, we can deal with them and defeat them. Or accept them as part of the whole.
So many of us, in the wake of discovering our spouse's affair, are stunned by the lies. But by taking a "how could he!" stand – shocked and disapproving – we prevent any opportunity to really explore exactly what lies were being told about the relationship. And not just by the cheater.
I had to admit that, although I wailed about the loss of my "perfect" marriage, I hadn't been all that happy for quite a while. My marriage wasn't perfect at all. It was good. And it was worth saving. But I had been ignoring my own malcontent in favor of peace.
My husband, once he was able to talk to me candidly and without fear of repercussion, owned up to years of lies. The result of a lifetime of feeling shame about who he was. He was tired of the mask. He was sick of the lies.
And, if I'm to be completely honest, I saw the signs and lied to myself. It was easier than facing the truth.
Which is why, after sifting through my husband's lies, I began to examine my own. The lie I lived to the world about my "perfect marriage". The lie I lived for a decade when my mother was in and out of psychiatric hospitals that I was "fine".
Striving toward a life lived with authenticity keeps us clear about when we might veer into a lie, including one we're telling ourself. By allowing others that same freedom to be honest with us, even when it might hurt, we're far more likely to prevent a more painful deception.
It's hard to allow ourselves and others to fully be themselves. To reveal things that are ugly and wrong. But by pulling our ugly selves out from the shadows and acknowledging they exist, we strip them of their power over us.
What's more, we gain an ability to recognize lies. We learn to trust that part of ourself that nudges us when something doesn't seem quite right. And that ability to trust ourselves is more likely to keep us safe than anything anyone else can ever tell us.

Guest Post: Finding Joy Moment-by-Moment

This was posted by Lucy, one of our club members, as  a comment to another post. It offers such hope and wisdom to everyone here that I asked if I could reprint it as a blog post. Here it is. Drink it in and savour its grace. And be reminded that it's the seemingly tiny moments that can restore our faith and give us strength to trust in a better future. ~Elle

Elle and other wives-sisters, 
I hope you can all find joy and love in this festive season despite the pain and hurt thrust upon us. As I have discovered, joy and love come from the simplest and yet, most precious, things. A cold, clear winter morning where the sun and beauty of nature can almost make you forget, the first smile of the morning from a beautiful 4 month old daughter, the excitement on my four-year-old's face when Santa brought everything on the list! As D-Day was only just under four months ago I still feel incredibly hurt, betrayed, sad, unsure of the future and am in fact in mourning for a man I was so so sure of and a marriage I had so much hope for. My little newborn was merely three weeks old when I discovered the affair and of course the following weeks I can scarcely remember as they were a mixture of intense hurt and motherly resilience. I knew also that I didn't want to risk that special bond between a newborn and mom so I did all the "right" things...immediately booked into MC, made sure the children were fed, washed and loved as much as possible or as much as their heartbroken parents could manage. 

They were dark days. Coming up to Christmas I had decided I could sink into depression – not a hard thing to do, or I could spend a fortune on yummy party food and spend time with family – to cocoon. I chose the latter. Does it make me cured? No. Am I now magically healed of all the pain? No. But I think that if you get good days, go with them. Share them with your husband, children and family.

I can say that it has been a very emotionally fraught week. My husband was working over the holidays and my children were very ill. I think these factors made me simmer away to myself: How COULD he do that to me? To us? To our child and unborn baby? Why is he taking so long at the store – has he re-established contact with HER? Emotional cutting. If I could have checked his phone yesterday I know I wouldn't have found anything. Would I have been disappointed? Sounds strange but sometimes this road seems so damn hard that a text from HER would be just the validation to say "I've had enough, you caused this, I've tried". Sometimes it's so hard to see a way forward. Sometimes the dark thoughts envelop me: we wouldn't be trying to save our marriage if we didn't have kids; if I get sick I'm gonna make sure SHE knows it's HER fault; do we even love each other anymore?...

I'm very aware it's early days and this blog has been of invaluable help to me and for that I'm so grateful. I wish you all a Happy New Year. The first day of January always seemed to me like a wonderful blank canvas, just waiting for colour. I don't know how I will feel this New Year but it's all a process and a journey. Love to you all.

Lucy

On Pajamas and Other Dilemmas

I'd always been a horrible gift-getter. For starters, my expectations were sky-high. Not for something expensive but for something thoughtful. A gift, for me, meant you "get" me, that you truly see me for who I am (or who I want you to think I am). A gift, for me, has generally been a recipe for disappointment.
One of the last gifts my mother gave me was a piece of sea glass (or lake glass, in our case) that was set in sterling silver and hung on a chain. I don't know what it was about this that prompted me to behave like a spoiled child. But I told her I didn't like it, that it represented all the garbage that washes up on our beloved beach, and would she please return it. She did. She was disappointed though she'd become a master at disguising it. I, however, knew her well.
My mother died unexpectedly a month later.
What I wouldn't give to have the piece of glass – a gift she was sure I would love – hanging from my neck. Of course, what I really want is my mother back. But I'd settle for the necklace because I can now see the love it represented. I couldn't, however, see it then.
One of our club members, Liz, just posted a comment on this post asking for help getting through this holiday season. I directed her to what I just posted...but her reference to the gift her husband gave her (pajamas, despite an agreement to not give each other gifts) got me thinking about giving and receiving...especially in the wake of betrayal.
We attach so many stories to gifts that we render the act of giving/receiving something of a Shakespearean play. There's love and betrayal, treachery and longing, life and death. All to a pair of pajamas. Or a necklace. Or...in my husband's case once...an office chair (needless to say, THAT one went back too). We look behind the gift for what it all means. And we search our own hearts for what our receiving of the gift signifies. ("If he thinks this means he's forgiven, he's WRONG!").
What if, for this holiday, we detach ourselves from all those stories? What if we simply look at the gift for what it is? As if it was something we found along the road. ("Oh look, a pair of pajamas. And in my size!") Think how much less drama there would be around the Christmas tree or fireplace or coffee table if we gave our poor aching hearts a break from trying to figure out what this all means and should I stay? and what if he does it again? and is he really texting the office right now or HER? and on and on.
Tell yourself you can take up the fight again the next day, or the next week. Tell yourself that it's just for today that you won't feed into the stories that are compounding your suffering. That you won't compare this holiday to last. That you'll try your very very hardest (snap an elastic on your wrist each time you mentally go down this road) to not try and figure out exactly-down-to-the-second what you were doing when he was with HER.
Give yourself the gift of peace-on-hearth (okay, that was a stretch, but you know what I mean). Give yourself the breathing space to take a step back from the maelstrom in your head and heart, and accept the pajamas.
My mom hadn't betrayed me for a long time when she gave me that necklace. But I certainly had viewed her alcoholism when I was a child as a betrayal. And I'm not sure I'd completely forgiven her. Certainly my husband's betrayal, which I discovered only months before my mom gave me the necklace, dredged up a whole lot of buried pain in which I was, once again, terrified that I was going to be abandoned.
And so I rejected her gift. A gift that simply showed that she loved me, however flawed that love had been over the years.
Pajamas you say? In the words of my cherished Cheryl Strayed, just say "thank-you."