“I’m Sorry To Say So But, Sadly It’s True That Bang-Ups And Hang-Ups Can Happen To You…..But The Trick Is To Not Get Hung While Being Banged-Up.

Sunday when my wife came home from her trip she knew right away that I was not okay.  I had started drinking very early in the afternoon.  Six hours later I was still drinking.  It is not like I was pounding shots and I was not drunk but it definitely helped take the edge off.  She quickly figured out that I was angry, very angry.  Not at her, but at the OW and myself.  The anger is still there actually and it is bubbling today but I have to keep it under wraps for now.

So this post is written because my wife asked me to write it.  She told me I should write her a letter on here so I can try and see why I am so angry.  So I will try.

Dear OW,

I am not sure what to write to you.  I know that you were not alone in the decision to have a relationship with me but I can’t help but feel used and manipulated.  You had just came out of a 5 year marriage that was ended because you had an affair with someone you only knew for a few months.  You told me that in those few months you felt like you have never felt before.  You said you finally felt true love, something you said you never felt before.  All your relationships before him were only platonic and this was real and deep.  You loved many of them but only as much as you love a friend.  Even your first husband you say you really did not love.

But your husband found out about the two of you.  He said end it or leave.  You were scared and you had a young child, so you stayed.  You tried counseling and finally decided to end it when you could not promise him that you would not cheat on him again.  You moved out and then we met.  Your divorce was not yet final but still you were already searching for other men.  I guess that should have been a pretty big sign in and of itself but I missed it.

I don’t know if I really even know you. When we first met you were emotionally closed off.  You said you never wanted to be married again.  You told me that you would never feel like that again and how you had found true love but he would not leave his wife for you.  How he had to end it because your husband threatened to expose him and he would lose his job over it.  We talked and talked and learned things about each other.  Are those things true?  I really do not know.  I think we both painted the picture that we wanted the other person to see, maybe not intentionally but it happened none the less.

You were easy to talk to and because you really had no filter on your communication to me. I felt like you were being truly honest with me because you would say stuff that may offend most people but to me i just thought you were being honest. Maybe you were but I now do not share those same thoughts.  I really think that you told me what you thought I needed to hear to get me out of my marriage.  I told you from the beginning that I was 95% done with my marriage. I no longer felt needed or wanted by my wife, how I was hoping that maybe I could find something that could fill that but be able to still stay married.  You listened to my complaints when I had no one else to talk to, in fact you pushed me to think about my marriage and wife a certain way.  You have me advice based on the idea that you could get me to leave.  I know that a lot of the ideas and rationalization that occurred were guided by you and your experience.  I know I asked for you advice over and over because I had only ever had once relationship.  I had no experiences to draw from and you had an abundance and I trusted you.

I am not blaming you for my affair.  I did it willfully, however, for someone who had just been through an affair and a divorce and saw the devastation that it would cause I would have now thought you would have given better advice.  Instead, you gave the advice in which you could benefit.

You were in emotional and financial disarray when I met you.  You told me that the best type of relationship for you would be with a married man.  You did not want a commitment or the bounds of an exclusive relationship.  You wanted your need to be met but without the day to day hassles a long term relationship brings.  Yet you immediately started pushing for a long-term relationship and convincing me how much happier I would be alone.

I helped you understand your feeling for your kids from your first marriage even though you no longer had contact with two of them.  I helped you understand your second husband and his thoughts about what was going on.  I helped you organize your business and come up with a business model that would be successful.  I helped you in so many ways.  What did you do for me?

I know you misled me in a number of areas and I was a trusting fool.  You had me tell you intimate secrets about myself and my marriage.  You would tell me over and over how great we were as a couple.  How we were perfect.  How you never felt this way about anyone.  You told me that what you felt was true love.  I was your soul mate although you did not believe in them until you met me.  I developed feelings for you that I struggle to comprehend.  I don’t know what to make of them but they are strong, unbelievably strong.  I believed at the time that you had the same feelings for me, yet now I have a hard time believing that you did.  No, you must have seen a attention starved man who was hanging on by a thread and instead of giving me a hand you started to pry my fingers off the ledge.  You showed me pretty pictures of our possible life knowing the whole time it was just a fantasy.  You knew what I needed to hear and you fed it to me.

After all this, after Florida, after us, I am left with a shattered self-image a broken marriage and my life in utter disarray.  I have to wonder how much was real and how much was fiction.  I thought you were truly interested in me but you were not.  You were interested in you. Now I am left with, what?  An image of myself that is worse than when I started.  I am now a cheating husband as well.  While you did not make me do it you provided the opportunity knowing full well I was married.

So what do I have left?  I have questions, lots and lots of questions.  Does my wife really love me? Yes, but it is hard for me to grasp after years and years of hurt. And now I have to process that you never loved me and I was never as good as you made me believe.  I thought that I had crushed you by breaking off contact.  I know I was hurting in so many different and confusing ways.  Instead you had moved on well before we broke it off.  If moving on is even really possible if you were not truly committed from the beginning.  I remember our conversation about your new neighbors and how noisy they were.  Now he is your new victim.

At least you have given me experience.  You have broken down my small town faith in people and given me a world without trust.  Now I look at the family I almost lost and the hurt I have caused my wife.  For what, selfish desires to be wanted and desired by someone.  I am working to build that back with my wife. She is amazing in her ability to forgive and work out our/my issues.  You wanted to stay friends.  You wanted to still communicate and be there for each other.  Well, I am going to have to decline that request.  You are not good for me or for my wife and family.  I really wish you find whatever it is that you are looking for and that you are happy in the end.

With each passing day I hope you fade farther and farther away from my conscious thoughts.  That I can listen to music again without wanting to throw up or smash the radio to bits.  That I can drive past your town without panicking.  That I can do the thing I used to enjoy that I shared with you and now only bring me pain.  I would wish the same for you but it is clear I am far from your thoughts and you have no pain from our relationship.

Well, this is the last thing you will ever hear or see from me.  I am going to block all types of communication in hopes that it will help me heal.  I am going to move on.  I am going to try and piece my life back together but I know I will never have what I had.  It will be different, I am different, my wife is different but maybe just maybe we can be better.

~B

The letter stills feels so inadequate in expressing how I feel.  I want to go through every moment and find out which were real and which were just a farce.  I want to know really how she felt about me.  I want to understand….  I think that is what keeps me focused on this.  I just don’t understand.  I am the type of person who has to know how things work, I need to understand who, what, where, when and why.  I need to be able to explain it to myself and put it to rest.  As long as I don’t understand I will have a hard time letting it go.  It will be a puzzle that I will obsess about and need to find the answer.  Hopefully, I can find that answer within myself and that will be enough.

“I’m sorry to say so but, sadly it’s true that bang-ups and hang-ups can happen to you. – Dr. Seuss