Overwhelm! Questions! Should I Date?

In this audio session you will learn:

• the underlying powerful needs for Marcie 4 months after day of discovery

Here’s Marcie’s summary of her situation:

My age: 43

Husband: 42

Married: 17 years last October

Children: 3 boys — 14, 11 and 5.

My husband and I have been friends since 1983 when we met in college marching band. We started dating in 1988 and married in 1989. We’ve always had a good connection and many, many commonalities — too many to list here. Divorce was never, ever a remote possibility.

So after 16½ years of marriage of course we were not like newlyweds, but things were by no means horrible either…. just kind of in a lull. I was getting discouraged by the gradual decrease in affection and sexual intimacy over the years, but I wasn’t too concerned because I knew that we had kids to raise and do their things but we’d have plenty of time in the rest of our lives together to reconnect. Then my world started to crumble. On August 12, 2006 he revealed (after MUCH pulling), that he wasn’t happy but didn’t know why. He said that he’d felt that way for a couple of years! He went to a Dr. for a check-up. The doctor’s opinion was that it was stress related and told him to try exercising more regularly.

About the same time (beginning of August) he started going out with work friends to commiserate about the supervisor that they all disliked (one of his stress points). That turned into a weekly outing and that is when I think the affair started. It was with a married woman that he worked with. I was so very trusting and all the while I gave him my blessing for these outings because I knew he needed to get out. Ordinarily he’s quite a homebody. By the time September began I pulled out of him that he just wasn’t as attracted to me as he once was and also that he LOVES me but doesn’t feel IN LOVE with me anymore. He also added that he didn’t know if was too late for us but assured me that there WAS hope.

I discovered an article online about Mid-Life Crisis and started to put into practice what it suggested. I gave him space and time and my love and support. I also had him read the article and told him what I planned to do to help and that when he got through this and all the dust settled, I hoped he’d find his way back to us. He was very appreciative of this and I thought we’d be OK.

I found out later that all the space and time I was giving him by being a good wife was just paving the way for his affair. He’d go for walks or a drive or get on his bike and ride or go to the store for me. Now I know that he was using all of those excuses to meet her. I also whole-heartedly wished him well on a couple of ‘alone’ weekends that he requested. Those too I found out later that he had taken her along on to see, as he put it “if they were compatible.”

Through the course of September through December I had asked him a total of 3 times if there was somebody else, and every time he said ‘no’. He’d NEVER given me a reason before to not trust him, so I let it go. I believed he was in a depression and did get him to go to therapy alone. They even put him on an antidepressant.  The medication hardly got a chance to start working because I discovered the affair on Christmas night. I checked his cell phone and discovered calls to a woman he works with. When I asked him why he was calling her his reply was, “because I’m in love with her.” After much screaming, yelling and crying he handed me a letter he’d composed a  month earlier telling me that he wanted a divorce because no amount of counseling or couples therapy was going to change how he felt ‘in here’ (his heart). He also said that he thought that she was his “best shot” at happiness.

All I know of her is that she will be 40 this year, of average looks and size. She’s been married and divorced twice. She has no children. It is my understanding that she was crying on his shoulder about her unhappy 2 nd marriage during an after work get-together and that is how they came together… that and alcohol. She filed for divorce from her 2 nd husband about a month after my husband and her relationship became sexual. I’m getting the feeling that she’s kind of a control freak and dominating from some of the things he’s told me about her. I actually think he’s liking that right now because I don’t really even think it was me/marriage so much that he wanted away from as it was the WHOLE husband/father/provider role, and now that he’s moved in with her (since 12/26/06) she’s been taking care of him. From everything I know of her, they have very little in common, but he says “she gives me all I need.” They are still living together in what I refer to as their little “Fantasy land”.

For about the first month or so I tried to get him to see the mistake he was making. It wasn’t through begging by any means, but I did try to get him to see everything that he was throwing away. He’d actually listen to me, but it didn’t seem to make a difference. He’d restate that he still loved me but needed to go be where he was happy and that he couldn’t be happy here (home) anymore. He’s not once (that I know of) had any second thoughts or regrets about this. He’s left and never looked back. He filed for divorce in mid-March. I don’t understand what the rush was when we’ve been married for so long. I don’t know why he felt the need to be so hasty. I DO know that he’s got plenty of shame and guilt though. The divorce isn’t going very well. He’s bucking me at every turn. For someone that wants to be free of me so bad he sure is making this hard on himself. I just think it must be a control thing for him. Part of me wants to be free of him as well because I don’t even LIKE this man, much less love him. He is a stranger to me and everyone that thought they knew him including his children. Then the other part of me is looking back on our history and what we had, and how good we were together, and that part rips me right open again. I love and miss that man.

My questions are:

• What is your opinion of the type of affair he’s in? By the way he says, “It’s NOT an affair! It’s MORE than that. It’s special! We have a connection!” (Initially I thought “I’m In Love and Just LOVE Being in Love”, but now I also can see it could be “My Marriage Made Me Do it” even thought he asserts that he wasn’t out looking for anything. I believe that, but now that it’s happened, I can truly see him using that excuse so he’s not to blame.)
• How do I stop thinking of him/them together? I’ve tried several different distractions, including trying to focus on myself, yet I can’t get them out of my mind. It torments me.
• If a couple still loves each other but is no longer IN love, is the marriage doomed?
• What is the best strategy to use? Force him to live in reality by taking responsibility for his kids and spending time with them, OR let him totally be free from ALL obligations so he can really feel the emptiness of losing his family and the sense what he’s throwing away?

Dr. Huizenga’s (partial) review of the Laser Coaching Session:

1. As you listen to the recording pick up on the sense of overwhelm and confusion. Marcie was marching in different directions. Here are some of the issues she raised, all within the first 10 minutes:

• Do I move on and give up on the marriage?
• I think about him and her together and I can’t seem to shake it.
• I’m racking my brain trying to understand why he did this.
• I think of all the good memories of the two of us and of our family.
• Is there hope for the marriage?
• If he wanted to come back, would I take him back?
• What do I do with my powerful need for affection and touch?
• Should I date?
• I’m feeling sad, frustrated, scared and excited.
• What about the children. What will we do with them?
• How do I deal with his reactivity?

2. Marcie seems to border on overwhelm. The thoughts keep coming, keep flooding, first one, then the next, then the next, then the next. Thoughts and feelings in one area lead to thoughts and feelings in another.

This is typical.

The remainder of the review and the audio tape are included in the audio series: 19 Live Infidelity Coaching Sessions with Dr. Robert Huizenga, The Infidelity Coach.

19 Live Infidelity Coaching Sessions
with Dr. Huizenga – The Infidelity coach

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