Ugly on the Inside

Well I guess there is no final bow for this blogger….

I thought that I would never need to blog about my affair ever again except maybe in a reporting back kind of way; you know – everything is getting better, we’re happier, things are moving in the right direction now….. All that “kid yourself bullshit!” and yeah it is bullshit too.  Affairs ruin your life – simple! Now another one has reared its ugly head to blight our lives, that’s right you heard me another one.  Karma really has delivered the final low blow to the ol’ ugster.  So what has happened then?  Well I guess by now you will have deduced that Mrs UOTI has finally fully retaliated in the face of my affair by fucking a complete stranger she met online.

Ok maybe you might not have deduced all the detail but certainly the act.  Yes she has crossed the line and become one of us, the “A” brand has been burned across her forehead and she is now one of the damned.  She’d been caught up in an EA earlier on in our “recovery” when a predator crashed a betrayed spouse forum she had been visiting, but I thought that had been dealt with and we were moving on – duh!  Instead she had merely hidden it better and then plunged fully across the line.  I’m not going into any details of her acts and yes it is more than one; that is for her to tell and for us to work through.

So here I am braced for the flood of “you deserve it” and “tit for tat” comments and all of that.  Yes I put my hands up, this particular ball was set in motion by my own hand so to a degree I do have to reap what I have sown, but still the pain is very raw and I would hope that even (or especially) the betrayed spouses out there would not wish this nightmare upon anybody else.

I’ll probably not respond to any comments for a while (if ever – sorry) as I’m drawing my head back into my shell for a bit.  I just needed to get this out there as another reminder to those who are still engaged in an affair that you may be having a whale of a time being dick deep in your AP (or t’other way round for my female readers – if I have any left….) you may be thinking that you love your AP with all your heart and that your wife/husband is just another obstacle to your happiness; but just think about this – what if your roles were reversed?  I know I have touched on this subject in an earlier post way back in August ’10 but it’s worth stating again for obvious reasons.  What if it’s your spouse that is doing what you’re doing? Feeling what you’re feeling?  Would you still be so happy with what you’re doing? Would you really?  I know I wouldn’t have thought that when I was doing the deed and now I have experienced both sides of a very shitty coin I can fully endorse that statement – I would definitely not be happy with what I was doing!  Hypocritical I know but in essence that is the human condition isn’t it, what is good for the goose is definitely not good for the gander!!

So that’s truly it now folks, no happier ever after for this boy.  Just as life looked a little less bleak I’m back amongst the dung heap.  If we’re not quite at square one we’re surely down in the low digits.  I’m gonna keep cracking on because essentially I love my wife and she still loves me – that has not changed despite the damage that we have inflicted on each other.  We will pick ourselves up from this latest bump in an already bumpy road, but it sure is looking a little longer now…..

So here it is I guess.  All affair blogs have a limited lifespan.  The point where you just cannot either face another post about your pain or you have moved to a better place in your recovery or …. Well I guess there are other reasons for stopping but basically all these types of blogs have an end date, this is mine. 

 I’ve just re-read the TV Explorer’s last post (dated last year can you believe!) about the “New You after the affair” and it’s got me thinking about what lies ahead for me and mine now that a lot of the dust has settled.  My wife and I are still together and we still love each other.  The pain has not magically disappeared and no our relationship is not stronger than it was pre-affair (what bullshit that is!!) but we will NEVER take each  other for granted EVER again, we now know the fragility of relationships and will work harder to strengthen ours.  This has changed us, it’s broken something in me and in my wife and that something will take a long time to recover from, certainly far longer than the affair lasted itself.  But we will work on it and we will get stronger than we were 2 years ago and stronger than we are right now, that I do promise.

 I will say all of this was preventable, all of it.  The pain to me, to my XAP (yes I acknowledge that she will have been and will be going through some pain too, minus the dday of course….) and most of all to my wife who had no choice but to be pulled into this mess (unlike XAP and me).  It was all totally avoidable if I had just exercised my right to say NO.  I did not, I dived right in and all the subsequent shit that followed stems from that awful decision.  I’ve tried to draw conclusions from all of this before and failed, I’ve tried to think about why it all happened and how I could have allowed it to happen in the first place.  Could it be that because of my cold, emotionally unavailable mother or learned behaviour from my cheating father that I took the first steps down a dark path?  Or was it because I was having a bit of a personal crisis period of time in my life and wasn’t handling that in any competent way?  Maybe it was because of the relaxed attitude in today’s society and the media toward infidelity and the inherent interest in illicit relationships? It could be that my xAP was (or so I thought) my friend and we had just drawn close?  Or that I’d had only limited sexual activity before my wife and I got together back when we were both in school and curiosity got the better of me? It could be all these things (which are all true) and more that contributed, but if they did it was only in a small way really.  To me these all just sound like excuses – trite psycho-babble spouted by MM/MW who have been busted and cannot face the truth or need to reach for easy, maybe even forgivable reasons to explain the unexplainable.  The real crux of it I think is just that we wanted to, for whatever reason, we just wanted to.  No one forced us to, no one made us or frogmarched us to our doom.  The miserable thing of it all is that I had the power to prevent this and I didn’t use it…….

 Has the blog worked? Has it exorcised my demons or drawn the poison?  Am I still Ugly on the Inside?  Well that remains to be seen.  I rarely feel the overwhelming urge to blog about stuff anymore so I guess it has served a purpose and I’m glad to have spoken to so many people who have walked the walk and suffered the same or similar ups and downs as myself.  The loneliness is less overwhelming when you know that there are people out there who know what it’s like, know the rollercoaster ride, who know that there is more to it than what is portrayed by the media and the perception of those who have never been there.  I don’t think I will be deleting the blog, certainly not just yet anyway.  Maybe I will leave it up as a precautionary tale, a tough one to swallow but true and a harrowing one to boot (it was no fucking picnic living it that’s for sure) Yeah well if I do leave it up I better say something pithy or profound to finish off on then.

 So I’ll leave you this final thought in true Jerry Springer style……

 If you are thinking of having an affair – DON’T!! It WILL fuck you over in more ways than you intend it to….

 If you are currently involved in an affair – get out, be kind and respectful but be firm and back away.  If you truly love each other then back away and sort out your own houses before finding each other….

 If you have just had a dday or have just come out of an affair for whatever reason – may God have mercy on you now…..

 Take good care

UOTI

I’ve fallen into a bit of a deep funk…. 

Generally things in my marriage are going well or at least as well as can be expected.  The rollercoaster is not throwing up such big hills and the twists and turns are not quite as sharp as they have been over the previous couple of years.  The screaming and the shouting has, in general been reduced to the normal screaming and shouting that occurs in a healthy relationship.  I’m hoping I’m off suicide watch now with my wife. 

 Now before karma comes along and kicks me in the balls again I will say that the sadness is still there, it’s the background to everything that we do.  Even when we are at our happiness there is still that lurking in the shadows ready to jump out at us at any given time. 

So why the funk? You may ask. Well obviously there is the sadness, it just layers over everything and drags at you.  But I don’t think it’s just the sadness.  I still have huge guilt issues that are pulling at my soul and I’m not sure how to deal with those.  I still question my morality (what morality says the voice from the back) and knowing that I crossed a very deeply ingrained moral line has caused such self-doubt as to nigh on cripple my happy muscles.  I chafe at the self imposed shackles that surround me and cannot see how I can break them.  I want so desperately for my wife to trust me again and I can’t see how I can get through to her that I will never ever take for granted such a precious gift again.  So despite the levelling off of the rollercoaster there are still bumps to clear.  My job is challenging, especially in these dark, uncertain times and that is causing stress.  I’m about to lose a very stabilising and constant presence in my life to the ultimate fate of us all and that is just about ready to finish me off….

Sorry about the ramble but these dark spots are hard to navigate through and concentration is difficult to come by at the moment….

This week has been the week from HELL and believe me I know a little bit about hellish weeks!! I’ve been stung for a vast quantity of money and nearly lost my house.  I’ve been physically threatened and attempts have been made to intimidate me out of losing even more money.  Thankfully this week is drawing to an end and I hope against all hope that the weekend will bring some respite.  Also thankfully my wife and I have not been dragged apart by the incidents and in fact have drawn comfort from each other and long may that continue…..

Stress!!!! Yes there is a whole lot of stress floating around the ol’ Uggos household at the moment.  Things are real tight financially and it’s causing a bit of a meltdown….  Thanks to the crashing economy and other factors our solvency is in doubt and we face some very uncertain times at the moment.  Not uncommon these days I know but it’s certainly putting a strain on a marriage already reeling from a lot of other shit.

Once again there is a huge guilt overload because not only did I introduce the “other shit” into the marriage but also the financial strain is partly a consequence of the affair too!  Yep bills have to be paid for counselling sessions, the cost of moving house, legal fees etc and they have bled me dry. 

When there have been problems before we have just dealt with them together and that has been that (bar one obvious exception) but now I feel I have to take this burden, I brought this poison into our lives now I need to deal with it. Not healthy I know and yes I do talk to my wife about it.  But I still bear the brunt of all the dealings and negotiations and frankly I don’t know what strength I have left to keep on going.  The stress is literally pulling my body apart.

Fair warning to all you newbies out there, affairs should come with a bloody great warning label, something like –

WARNING!! AFFAIRS CAUSE RUINATION – Physically, mentally, emotionally and financially.  Having an illicit relationship will result in the destruction of your life as you know it.

You have been warned…..

Yes plans! Never in my life have I been so glad to be making plans.  Always before I’ve been bored making plans, thinking of the future, being sensible – look where that shit got me…..  Now we’re making plans and I’m loving it.  Why? Simply because it means that she sees a future.  For a long time now she hasn’t been able to see even a few months into the future, before that she could be barely see a few days ahead… now we have some middle distance plans again, tentative maybe but there are some signs that she sees us being together for longer than the immediate.  I’m not tempting fate/karma with some grand statement of together foreverness (so not a word I know 🙂 ) but I really hope that we have made a step forward here.  Lord please don’t take this little step forward away!!

Yep I dodged THE bullet! I’m still at home and I still have the love of my wife – thank God. Valentines Day (Vday) is a trigger for my wife as one would expect, this is compounded by the atrocious Vday we had while I was deep in the fog of the affair (which I simply do not have the strength or the will to recount).  Last Vday we barely survived, all sorts of issues surrounded us and we were in a terrible state, the pain, the anger was so fresh, so raw that it seemed impossible to see a future.  Fast forward a year and we seem to be in a better position, believe me I take absolutely nothing for granted anymore and wouldn’t dare throw down the gauntlet to karma by saying that we definitely are, but we certainly seem to be.  Even if we definitely are in a better position now I still won’t let up and will continue to work hard for us, to press to better myself as a husband, father and human being. 

Valentines Day for us was a lot calmer this year, we didn’t fight, we didn’t sit in awkward silence with the fear roiling through our bellies.  I think that’s an improvement and again I thank God for the chance to experience it.

I hope that my fellow bloggers and any readers I have left (sorry for not posting more….) had a less stressful and more intimate and relaxing Vday with their wives/husbands. Remember Vdays are better than Ddays!!!

My office building is located right on the top of a hill, not far from the coast and has such an excellent view from the top floors.  Look through the windows on one side and you see beautiful seascapes – the raw power and awesome beauty of mother nature, look through the other side and you see the whole of our small town spread out beneath you, a lovely collection of Victorian buildings and older styles as well as more modern efforts; the product of hundreds of years of civilisation in this area (the oldest building was built in the 12th century!).

My whole world viewpoint has shifted though and all I see is tainted.  I looked out among that motley collection of buildings and wondered about the lives that were busy being led in and around them.  What dramas were being played out behind the closed doors? What comfy, cosy, idyllic lives were others perusing and who else was about to have that comfy, cosy, idyllic rug pulled out from underneath them by actions outside of their direct control.  Whose life was about to brought into disarray because of the thoughtlessness/selfishness/incompetence of others?  Whose house was going to be repossessed because they have been laid off because there is no more work or the boss was on the take or the economy has been shattered because greedy banker and politicians couldn’t lift their snouts from the trough long enough to consider that there actions may impact on anyone else.  Whose life is in a tailspin because someone was too busy to wait at the lights when it was changing to amber only to mow down an innocent pedestrian or picked up the car keys after having “just” one drink with the boys and took out a young family in the small hatchback that they had scrimped and scraped for.  Whose security has been stripped away because their partner decided that they needed/wanted something else, someone else outside of their marriage and pursued that or allowed it to happen, flourish even?

Forgive me; I’m in a dark one today.  No real reason other than I’m letting the pain wash over me and suffocating me instead of through me and away.  Some days I see the light and beauty when I look out of those windows and other days…. Well other days I just can’t.

Phew what a bloody emotion that is! For the last couple of years it has pretty much been a feature of my life.  At the beginning of the affair I was consumed by guilt.  What was I doing? Why was I putting my family at risk? You would think that if I felt so guilty I would stop – one of the reasons why my wife questions whether I felt guilt at all…  Yet somehow it didn’t stop me from carrying on.  Why didn’t it?  I can give you a few reasons of course now that I’m out of the fog I can see just how slender those reasons were – I was angry, felt taken for granted…blah, blah, blah …. all of the reasons I thought I had seemed to override the guilt, they softened the effect that it had on me.  Soon the guilt began to lessen as the reasons were constantly running through my head and there was that familiarity with them.  But that guilt returned in full force when dday crashed down around our ears and the entire extent of my betrayal blew me off my feet.  No more litanies to circulate in the grey matter and mask the big G, now I have to face it and boy does that suck.

Guilt is now a major factor in my life and no before anyone pipes up it’s not guilt that keeps me with my wife! That one fact I most definitely am sure of.  But it does affect a lot of decisions that I make now.  Yes I take in a lot of other factors, pros and cons etc, but if the decision is hanging in the balance then guilt usually means that I cave in to the demands of my family even if I normally wouldn’t want to – not very honest huh! Yeah you don’t have to tell me I know it.  I’m not saying that I don’t want to be a part of the family and not participate in family activity; I don’t mean those kinds of demands.  But I do tend to be led by my guilt more than I would like.

Just recently I’ve really been reading the blogs of betrayed spouses. That’s not to say I haven’t in the past since my dday, I have but I’ve always felt so guilty that I didn’t read them from start to finish. Yes guilt is a funny thing, of course I didn’t betray any of these women (or men) but it felt like I shouldn’t intrude, that I had no right to comment because I was, you know, one of them…. a betrayer…. an Adulterer (yes I meant to capitalize the word!). What it means though is that I have missed out on some insights into my wife’s mind. This has certainly not helped us. I need to understand her more not let my guilt override our attempts to reconcile. Trouble is it hurts, it hurts really badly. To see all of these women (and men) hurt and damaged by thoughtlessness or selfishness or whatever the reason that one spouse has to betray the other, it kills. My soul shrivels with guilt, my heart burns with the shame and I shy away. But I think it’s high time to see the flip side, be brave and face the music. It’s too easy to sit here in blog land and whine on about how I need to heal and my trauma when I’m the one who broke the compact, the vows that we both swore to uphold. Now I’ve got some of the horrific story of what followed my dday out in the open and have started to process it all I can start to try and gain an insight and a foothold into the flip side of this crappy coin.

More about this later, I’ve got some reading to do…….