After the affairs and betrayal of my wife it’s starting to dawn on me that I’m am healing.   Slowly, but surely, the pain and memories of what happened is fading.   But this process is by no means over.   While I no longer feel the acute pain of infidelity nearly as much, I’m seeing that it may not be possible to repair the damage that was done to our marriage.

Sure, I’m doing my thing on the side now.  It has helped me, at least regain some esteem and a bit of power.  My sexuality is no longer a string she can pull to bring me back in as that part is taken care of….at least for now.    Intimacy is also being looked after and so I don’t know if it’s time, someone else, or a combination of both that’s helping me get grounded again.

Make no mistake about it, my other situation is very likely just a fling and if things end, hopefully we will both be ok with it.   The thing is that i’ve been feeling hypocritical lately in that I am finally getting what I wanted….which is the ability to give up.    In a sense, I wasn’t fighting because I chose to, I did because i was compelled to.   I didn’t want to hurt my son, I didn’t want to give up on marriage.   I felt as if I still owed God to keep pushing as he never gave up on me.  But in retrospect, I was fighting mostly because I couldn’t let go.  I felt like vows were to be taken seriously and I had to have hope.     It was like holding on to an electric fence.  It felt like I literally couldn’t let go even though it was cooking me on the inside.

It’s a shitty thing to cheat on someone and then leave them for the person you cheat with.   All the lies, unfair comparisons, broken hopes and dreams, collateral damage to those close, disrespect,  and seemingly sudden betrayal and abandonment of the one you loved the most is enough to make you crazy.  Let alone the fact that I’m a cancer sign.  I was loyal to a fault.    I was losing it.   I always thought I had the ability to let things go, but apparently, I didn’t.  Perhaps this is the lesson in all of this.  I was too attached.  On a side note,  I wonder if all that emotional trauma does cause one hold on more tightly in a weird ‘Stockholm syndrome’ kind of way.   Maybe I also have some sort of martyr complex going on too.   Shit, I should probably talk to a psychologist or something.

They say that there is fault on both sides when a person cheats.   I disagree, to a certain extent.   I still don’t know what I did so wrong to deserve that.  I honestly don’t know what I could have done differently to not be given a chance to address or fix whatever her ‘deal breakers’ were.   I still don’t and that’s part of the problem with even considering trying to fix this.  She says I did nothing wrong, but there has to be something.  I don’t want to make the same mistake again.   This is probably one of my biggest regrets, but perhaps hindsight will come in time.

As of now, I passed a test of sorts by sleeping in the same bed with her the other night and not trying to come on to her.   We held each other and while sex did cross my mind, I figured that I would have been dishonest to my friend as we promised we would tell the other if we had sex with someone else.   As of now, I have a lot of subconscious animosity against my wife.  No point in adding that to my psyche.

I made good on that promise once with a fling and it pretty much doomed whatever we had.   I didn’t care (i didn’t know she would be that hurt either though) and with this one I do care (if i’m honest with myself), but we both know the reality.   It could end any day.   Here I go being too honest with women again.   I could just lie or lie by omission.   She would probably lie to me and tbh, i somewhat expect it.  As fucked up as it sounds, I really am trying to be as honest with her as possible.    My wife doesn’t know….I don’t think.  She doesn’t ask.

I’m unsure if telling her would have the effect of making her jealous and waking her up that she possibly could lose me or if she’ll see it as justification that she is actually right in doing what she is doing.   I really don’t know if she’d be hurt or if she’d actually feel a sense of relief.   Most likely her ego would be hurt, but it wouldn’t hurt her nearly as much she hurt me.  Perhaps it would be her out.

This is just too complicated.  I’m probably just overthinking it as usual.    I wish i could just find the one for me and not worry about it.    But perhaps all relationships come with some complications.  Those other complications can’t be as complex as this though.   Who knows?

By nature, I’m not a cheater.   For now, I cannot count myself as a righteous person as I am in a full blown affair.  I do however feel justified, I mean we are separated after all.   I did tell her that I didn’t want her seeing anyone else even though she told me that she just didn’t want to know if I did.   I can’t be honest and say that those were terms we officially agreed to, but we did both at least say what we wanted.   If she isn’t ‘talking to” anyone right now, how ironic is that?  Maybe I’m not really cheating after all.

I sometimes wonder if the wife actually decided to act ‘right’ instead of ignoring my needs (sexual and intimate) if I would let the fling go.   IDC what people say, alienation of affection is emotional abuse.  Had she not betrayed me so deeply with her affairs, I wonder if I would have remained faithful through the lack of sex for this long.     If I had done the same thing she did, I shouldn’t be surprised if she got it from somewhere else.

She tells me that her so called ‘best friend’ doesn’t call her as much now.   She claims he has a girlfriend now and i shouldn’t worry about him because she doesn’t want to be anyones’ “side chick”.   Am I the only one who sees something wrong with that?

It seems that she’s saying that the only reason she stopped talking to him as much isn’t because their past infidelity makes things unfair to me to have to accept him as her friend, nor that she loves us enough to let that go, nor that she’s sorry for putting me in that situation where I was disrespected.   She won’t admit it was an emotional affair, even though she claims she only slept with him that one time.  It’s because he has a girlfriend now and she feels rejected in a sense.  I guess I’m the possible consolation prize once again.

She won’t admit that it was wrong to lie about him going on the ‘girls’ trip and uses the fact the we were ‘beefing at the time’ as justification.   She wants me to believe they didn’t sleep together in the two days they were down there alone before the girls showed up.    With full knowledge that she just had an affair with someone else so obviously the trust is gone….

Maybe things are ok the way that they are.   Our kid doesn’t know how bad things are and if he has an idea, at least it sort of softens the blow for him should we not work.  Then again,  If I don’t chase the wife and give her affection, then she’ll probably find it somewhere else and that will just ensure that the cycle repeats.

But with her being so aloof about everything, me chasing her will push her away.  She still won’t really talk about things that much.   Conversations looks like me telling her how her actions are basically fucked up and then mostly silence as she doesn’t offer much into insight or how she feels.   I get it, I’d probably be the same way.     She never makes any declarations about wanting to fix things though.   I’m pretty sure that me waiting around on her to make a decision keeps her in limbo.

The best thing at this point is to no longer talk about it with her.   I feel resentment because even though she hears me, I feel like I’m not being acknowledged.  Maybe I should just enjoy the freedom of separation as a single black straight man in Atlanta for now until she decides.   I don’t want to end it, but it does give a license to do whatever as long as I don’t get any babies.

Right now,  I just don’t have it in me to chase her after being betrayed and rejected so many times .    I can’t emotionally invest without some sign of commitment from her.   Because it feels like she just doesn’t get it, she might do it again.   I suffered too much to get out of that hell hole of being hopelessly in love with someone who doesn’t reciprocate.

In the end, perhaps she doesn’t love me.  Or maybe that’s just how she’d “love” anyone.    Even if she does ‘love’ me like she ‘says’ she does, it really isn’t enough if I can’t trust her.  With neither trust nor communication, then how can this ever work.   Between that and the infidelity on both sides at this point, then it certain looks as if this marriage is over.   I can’t say that I still desire her as a wife anymore, but I do feel as if I could if we could somehow work through all of this.

How can I get her to talk to me without her shutting down?   Is this tactical manipulation on her behalf or does she really have a problem with addressing real issues?  Am I really ready to pull the plug on this?

Another layer of limbo…..who knew?