August 6, 2024 • 49 mins
Hey, Fellow Travelers. After seven years of marriage, Elena recently discovered that her husband has been having affairs—plenty of them. They are in couples counseling and he has vowed to change, but this hasn't gone so well. We help her to explore her own reluctance to change, and encourage her to prioritize her own feelings, stop falling prey to manipulation, and take action that will move her forward.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Laurie Gottli. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic. And I'm Guy Wench.
I wrote Emotional First Aid and I write a Dear
Guy column for Ted. And this is Deo Therapists. This
week a woman copes with her husband's infidelity. It has
(00:23):
come out and therapy that the relations have been with men. However,
my husband is very close off. He kind of just
wanted to go away, listen in and maybe learn something
about yourself in the process. Deo Therapists is for informational
purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not
(00:46):
a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always
seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or
other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter, you are
agreeing to let Ihartmedia use it in partter and fall,
and we may edit it for length and for clarity.
(01:06):
Hey guy, Hi Laurie, So what do we have today? Well,
we have a really compelling letter, so let me get
right to it. Dear Therapists, I recently discovered that my
husband has been secretly meeting up with men for sex.
I discovered this about two months ago when I found
a secret email account that contained messages with multiple men
(01:27):
over the entire course of our seven year relationship. Before that,
I had slowly discovered pieces of this hidden life, starting
in August with messages to a woman. It sent me
into a frenzy looking through emails and trying to uncover
his unfaithfulness. I asked him about things I found, and
it was one line after another. I had already known
he had cheated and messaged women during our relationship, and
(01:49):
those who were still hurts not healed. But now men.
I am shocked. I tried to forgive and trust him,
but there is so much anger and tension between us.
He snaps at me if I ask where he's been,
if I ask about spam emails that are soliciting sex,
if he has been seeing anyone when he comes home late.
I don't trust him. Our fights have increased, and so
(02:09):
has our mutual dislike. I want to try to save
our marriage, but I don't know if that's possible given
how much hurt there is. He states that I'm out
of control, crazy, unreasonable. He has no empathy for what
I'm going through. When I get upset and cry about it,
he says I'm selfish and throw him a fit. I'm
at a loss for what to do. I need my husband,
(02:30):
but he isn't there. He's built so many walls he
won't let me in. Our relationship is also complicated by
the fact that we are military, living overseas and are
away from the support of family and friends. I can't
discuss it with anyone close to me or my husband
because I still care about his character and the image
he wants to display. The mental health support that is
(02:50):
available to us is limited. We just recently found a
therapist to speak to, but he isn't even honest with
her about his affairs with men, and I don't feel
it's my right to share that information, but I need
to talk to someone that is the only therapist available
to us. Here, I am left with all this baggage
and no until unload it too. I don't know. I
wonder if I'm out of control, if I'm crazy. I
(03:12):
have thought about leaving, but I don't want to leave
to be dramatic. If I leave the relationship, I will
be truly leaving for good. I'm so emotionally exhausted and defeated.
Please helpe Elena. Wow, that is quite a tough situation,
and I think what strikes me most about it is
(03:32):
that this woman isn't so much emotional pain and has
been for a while now. Yeah, it's so common for
people to wait when they feel the first sign of pain,
and they don't generally get into our offices until the
pain becomes unbearable. And it sounds like that's why she
wrote to us now, so let's talk about the situation
she's in, because this has been going on for the
(03:53):
entire length of the relationship. He doesn't sound like he's
interested in stopping the behavior. He's incredibly defensive about discussing it.
We see this all the time, where people come in
and somebody's had an affair, and I'm always looking to
see how willing the person who had the affair is
to talk about what happened. And what strikes me about
(04:16):
her letter is that her husband doesn't seem willing at
all to address what's going on, and in fact, he's
sort of gaslighting her. He's making her sound crazy for
having a big emotional reaction to something that is really traumatic,
and he's acting like she's the problem. And I think
so often people do that because they have so much
(04:38):
shame around what they've done, and so they have to
turn it around on somebody else. And she's in this
really difficult position because not only is he doing that
to her, but she's so isolated where they're overseas, they're
not near any family or friends, and so she's starting
to question her own reality. I think that's one of
the most unfortunate aspects of what's going on here. The
(05:00):
thing about affairs, we've both worked with many couples who've
repaired their relationship after an affair and truly gone on
to thrive. It's absolutely durban. One of the basic ingredients
you need for that is for the person who's been
doing the cheating to at least take responsibility, at least
be open minded and hearing the anger, the pain, whatever
(05:21):
they've caused emotionally to the other person, and to really
work to rebuild trust or reconnect to renegotiate. And there's
nothing here that indicates any kind of willingness like that
on her husband's part. I agree with that to the
point that she's colluding with his dishonesty with the therapist
(05:42):
that she doesn't feel comfortable telling the therapist about this
new piece of information that she discovered a few months
ago about his affairs with men, and I think she's
so trying to protect him. It's interesting too, that he's
not hiding his affairs with women from the therapist, or
(06:04):
at least it doesn't seem so, but he's hiding his
affairs from men. And people tend to keep things secret
from their therapists when they don't want to change, because
once they put that thing out there, they know they're
going to have to make some changes. And I would
guess that he's really struggling with what would happen if
(06:24):
he talked about his attraction to men. Sometimes when you
see somebody who's dealing with a lot of shame, what
they do is they compartmentalize. They put it in a
box and almost section it off from their daily lives.
They don't look at it themselves, they don't think about it.
And that's why he's not willing to look or think
about it with her, because he hasn't been able to
do that probably with himself either. So I'm actually eager
(06:47):
to speak with her. Yeah, let's go talk to her.
You're listening to Deal Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb and I'm Guy
Wench and this is the Therapists. Hi. Hi, Well, thank
(07:08):
you so much for sharing your story with us. What
a painful situation you're in. Could you give us a
little bit of a snapshot of where things on now? Yeah,
of course, So it has come out that the relations
have been with men. The therapists have tried to kind
of open up that subject and discuss it in further detail. However,
(07:33):
my husband is very closed off. He kind of just
wanted to go away. He doesn't want to discuss it
in detail. He acknowledges that it happened, that he doesn't
want to talk about it, and he just kind of
wants to forget about it. Helena, I'm wondering how you
guys got to therapy in the first place. Was that
your idea and he was open to it or was
(07:54):
he resistant to going to therapy. We've both had discussed therapy. However,
given our situation with being overseas, it was very difficult
to find help. I was the one to call. I
had told him, we need to go to counseling. You know,
what are you doing to help the relationship, What are
(08:15):
you doing to try He was never making the phone calls,
he was never trying to find help for us, And
that was all on my part. How did it come up,
this part about him having affairs with men, because it
sounded like that was a secret before, And I'm wondering
which of you brought that up in therapy. So we
see the therapist together, and then she suggested seeing us individually.
(08:39):
And so I was driving him to work one day
and he said, Hey, I know you have your therapy
session this morning. I think that it's important that you
mentioned that the affairs are with men. I was like,
very sure, that's not something that you want to tell.
And he's like, it doesn't really matter. I think it's
going to come out sooner or later, So you know,
(09:02):
if you want to say it now, it's fine. And
so that's how that came out. So he couldn't even
really face saying it to the therapist himself. He needed
you to do that for him. Yeah, even in my
therapy session. Then I was very held back and I
was still like, ah, should I say it? Should I
not say it? And I was like, you know what
(09:22):
this is really what's going on now? You know? And
I think And then when he went into his session
later then he knew that that had already been divulged,
and so maybe it was more comfortable talking about it.
You must have felt such relief having that out there. Yeah,
because I haven't talked with this about anyone, like literally,
(09:45):
I've not I've not spoke to my family about it,
my best friends, I mean, no one. To be able
to finally tell someone like this is what I found out.
I found these emails, I found the phone conversation, they
separate accounts like for seven years. Yeah, I was such
(10:06):
a relief, but also a lot to work through as well.
Has he expressed that he wants to stop having these
kinds of affairs with men and with women? Has he
expressed that intention very very clearly that I won't do
this or I'm going to try not to do this anymore?
What is he thinking the relationship needs to be able
(10:29):
to repair itself. That is a very tough question. I
don't know how to answer that because he views sex
and affairs in such a different light than I do.
And he's expressed in our conversations that I'm lady. To
(10:54):
go have sex with someone, then you know, good for me.
I'm enjoying myself. It's just sexual. So it's more or
less that I see it wrong. And so therefore because
I see it strong, then he's willing to change the behavior,
not necessarily that it's inappropriate or anything like that. Yeah,
(11:16):
so he has a different standard and ethic and value
about having sex than you do. I'm asking this question again.
He has said specifically, therefore, I will not have any
outside sex again. Correct, Yes, he stated that. Now since
(11:38):
this has all come out and we've been in therapy,
I've found messages again to other women, so not men
in this case, or not meeting up physically, but that
same messaging sextain seeking that validation through other means. It
sounds like this new information about what's been going on
(11:59):
for the last seven years was a surprise to you,
but that there were other affairs that also went on,
and I'm wondering how you guys talked about those. You
keep saying he just wants it all to go away,
and I wonder how you handled it in the past,
and also when you're in therapy. If he just wants
it to go away, then what does he think you're
doing in therapy? So you're trying to talk about this
(12:23):
big thing going on in your relationship, which is this
lack of trust, these different ideas about what the rules
are in the marriage. So what happened in that moment
when the two of you are there with a therapist?
So when it's just him and I, then there's a
wall built, that avoidancy of him not talking about it,
shutting down, refusing to discuss it, and eventually he'll leave
(12:48):
the home or the other side where he's angry and
super defensive and I'm asking you know, you came home late,
where were you? You didn't answer your phone and your
phone was shut off? On him becoming super defensive. The
other side of it is when we're in therapy, it's
like a switch. Like he'll talk about it and he'll
(13:08):
say he feels attacked, or he feels like he's disgusting,
or he feels that I find him disgusting. Kind of
working through how he feels and putting those feelings onto
how I see him, even though I don't see him
(13:28):
as disgusting or shameful, is just shocking. You say that
your fights have increased in so has your mutual dislike.
So I'm curious about what does work between the two
of you. What are the strengths of the relationship. What
are the things that are allowing you to have stayed
for as long as you have? Okay, Well, he's a
(13:52):
super fun person. You know, He's the type of person
that anyone can connect with. He's funny, he loves to
tell jokes, he's intelligent. Those are qualities about him. But
I'm wondering, what are the things that he offers to
you in the relationship other than the pleasure of his company,
other things that he offers to me. Yes, I mean,
(14:20):
I guess. I don't know if I'm just caught off
guard there or if I just can't really comment on it. Look,
one of the questions that we have, Elena, is what's
keeping you in the relationship? You know, I think it's
(14:42):
I mean, I don't know, honestly, what it is is
my love for him? I don't know. You know, we
all have that like we're going to fix him or
this brokenness, Like I'm just going to love him enough
that he sees what true love is. I feel like
maybe that's part of it, you know, like, if I
love him enough, then maybe hope realize that this is
(15:07):
a toxic behavior. It's very obviously unhealthy. Well, right, I
understand you feel well, if I just stick in there
and love the person enough, then they'll come around in
some kind of way. There's a lot of around that
needs to be happening here. It's a big arc what
we're talking about. As much as you're paying attention to
(15:28):
what's going on with him, are you paying attention to
what's going on with you? No, Like I think that
I have lost a huge part of myself. I remember
the first time that I found the first messages to
a girl, and I remember just bawling and being so
(15:49):
hurt and shocked and everything. And then now I find
something that's just like I'm numb to it, like, oh
I found something again, you know, and you start to
lose a part of yourself, and it starts to become oh,
it's not such big of a deal, it's just messaging,
whereas in the beginning, you know, like where your standard.
(16:13):
So absolutely I've lost a part of myself. I've lost
a huge amount of self worth of viewing myself as
being enough. I feel like I give so much to
the relationship that I'm left feeling empty and then like
asking for a hug or just reaching out for that
(16:34):
affection because I feel so neglected, and then hearing no,
like no, I don't want to give you a hug
right now, No, I don't want to give you affection.
Just feeling like completely alone in all of it. You
talked about losing yourself, and I think part of losing
yourself as you start to question, well, is he right?
(16:56):
Am I crazy? Am I overreacting? And so I wonder,
how do you think a sane person would respond to
what's going on. I try to be very logical and
reasonable in all of our discussions, even when I'm talking
to him and I'm raising my voice and he says,
look at you, you're out of control. Like you're raising
(17:17):
your voice. You're completely out of control and thinking. Any
sane person dealing with these issues would have a raised voice.
Any person who has feelings would have a raised voice.
I don't think that I'm out of control. He keeps
telling you that you're out of control, but his behavior
is so out of control, and so his presentation might
(17:39):
look different from yours, right, so you're reacting to these
big feelings that you're having as a result of what's
going on, and he's presenting himself as the sane one,
as the one who's contained, as the one who's in control.
But his behavior says something else, don't you think? Yeah,
(18:00):
I know, I absolutely agree. I think that often he's
kind of projecting, like, I know that this is absurd behavior,
but yeah, I'm going to project that upon you. And
I very much feel like he knows that it's absurd,
he knows it's unacceptable. I'm very glad to hear that
you are quite clear that even when your voice is
(18:23):
getting loud, given what's going on, you are entitled for
your voice to be getting loud. And I'm so glad
you see that. But in general, my concern is that
he and the relationship are somehow way atop your priority list,
and you and your emotional health, your feelings, your happiness
(18:43):
is way down on that list. Do you feel ready
to put yourself as a priority on that list. I've
struggled with that. Honestly, it wasn't until this discovery. And
so what happened is in the counselor side, where are
(19:05):
you at right now, and he said, I want to
work on a relationship. I'm ready to work on a relationship.
And then when he left, he gave me a big
hug and kisses and I felt better, but not hopeful.
And then literally twelve hours later, after we had left
our counseling session, I found messages yet again to another woman,
(19:28):
and I honestly think that that was the last straw.
And at what point is it going to be enough
for me to accept that I'm part of the pattern.
And in order to change the pattern, I need to
change my own behavior, and I'm trying to do that
right now. I'm trying to prioritize myself. I'm trying to
(19:49):
look in the future and see what do I want,
what are my goals? And is this something that I
want to continue for another seven years? Because it's really not.
You know, Elena, here's a similarity between you and your husband.
And I want to preface this by saying that change
is really hard, and you know that change is really
(20:11):
hard for your husband, but I also think change is
really hard for you, and you almost do to yourself
what your husband does to you. So he says, I'm
going to change, I'm going to do something about this.
I want things to be better. And then he doesn't change,
and you do that with yourself. When guy was asking you,
are you ready to prioritize yourself? They think part of
(20:35):
you wants to just like part of your husband wants
to change, but another part of you isn't really keeping
that promise. So I imagine that what you're doing is
you're saying to yourself, you know, I'm going to prioritize myself.
I'm going to show up and be present in this
relationship in a way where I'm a real part of
this and I'm not reacting to it, but I'm participating.
(20:59):
And I think you make promises to yourself and then
you don't keep them, so you're doing to yourself what
your husband is doing to you too, which is I'm
going to help myself, and then you let yourself down.
And what guys asking is are you ready to stop
letting yourself down? Are you ready to keep your promises
to yourself? I mean, yes, I want to keep promises
(21:20):
to myself. I feel like I'm so invested in a
relationship it's like to give up and to completely wash
my hands of it is such a hard thing for
me to say I want to believe the best in him.
I want to believe that he can change. I want
to believe that when he says i'm sorry, I'll stop,
(21:41):
that he really means it. This time. I'm less interested
in whether he's going to stop, because he hasn't shown
you that he's going to do that. But I just
wonder what you think is going to happen given the
path that you're on. If you keep going to couples
therapy and you both say you want to quote, work
(22:02):
on the relationship when you go to couple's therapy, that's
not a specific enough goal. When people come in and
they say I want to work on the relationship, that
means nothing to a couple's therapist. What we want to
hear as couple's therapists, we want to hear what is
each of you going to do to make the relationship better.
Not to get the other person to change, not to
(22:24):
get the other person to do something differently, but what
are you each going to do individually to make things better?
But if you have this vague goal of we want
to work on the relationship, and then you keep doing
the same things over and over, I don't see how
this is going to change, and I wonder how you do.
I don't feel like I know what to do to
(22:48):
change other than leaving the relationship. Is that the only outcome? Like,
I am open to suggestions, and I am open to
working all myself thoroughly exhausted, I'm exhausted, you know, from
joint through phone, all the worry and everything. I don't
(23:10):
know what else to do. Look, you have very good
reason to be exhausted, because you've been trying to fix
something that takes two people by yourself. It's like trying
to mount one of those giant TV screens with only
one person. It's going to be tricky, and that's what
you've been trying to do. And so it's exhausting because
(23:33):
you're doing the work of two people, trying to mind
read what you can do to maybe get him to change,
what you can do to allow yourself to tolerate things more.
When you said it's been seven years and I don't
want it to be another seven years, we're in the
same place. You are on the path of it being
another seven years and maybe another seventy. And because when
(23:56):
couples need to recover from an affair, multiple affairs when
they need to rebuild trust. It's absolutely possible to do,
except that it requires two people working hard to create change.
And you're exhausted, and your husband hasn't broken a sweat,
(24:17):
and he's showing no signs of breaking a sweat. Even
the admission that the affairs have been with men he
left up to you. So I'm not hearing anything that
would indicate to me that he is willing to roll
up his sleeves and do the significant amount of work
it would take to get the relationship back on track.
(24:40):
You cannot fix a relationship by yourself. Oh no, I
think you're dead on So let's think about this then.
Would you be open to an open relationship? No, so
you're clear on that. Yeah, I cannot. It's not something
that I want for myself. I know that's just not
(25:00):
who I am, So open a relationship is not an
option for me. So you're very clear that you don't
want to be in an open relationship, but you're less
clear about whether you want to be in a relationship
that is full of betrayal. I don't know if that's true.
I feel like i'm clear to tell him that I'm
(25:21):
not accepting of these behaviors that it hurts me, But
I don't know if he just doesn't care or if
it just doesn't click. I'm not sure. It doesn't really
matter whether he doesn't care or it doesn't click. What
matters is what you're left with. And when you say
I'm not accepting because it's so hurtful, you are accepting
(25:41):
because not accepting means I won't tolerate it or leave
if this continues. Accepting means I'll be really upset, but
I'll stay, and that's acceptance. I think part of why
this is the predicament that you're in is because you're
so isolated from any kind of social and emotional supports
(26:02):
that you haven't spoken about this to anyone. You have
been left alone, perhaps by his prompting or by your
own feelings about it. But it's very difficult to really
be clear about things when you don't have a sounding board.
It's very difficult to really stay true to the promises
(26:22):
you give yourself when there is no one to whom
you have to be accountable, and so who do you
have that theoretically could be a source of support for you.
I have a great family, and I'm particularly close with
my mom. And at one point in one conversation, I
was crying to her and she's like, you know, what
(26:45):
could it be? Even in that moment, I couldn't bring
myself my loyalty to my husband. Couldn't even bring myself
to tell my mother, whom I'm so close with, you're
calling that loyalty. Wonder if that's really what loyalty is? Yeah,
and here and I have no idea. Is it loyalty
(27:07):
When someone's harming you emotionally on a repeated basis, it's
not loyalty to allow them to keep doing it. Even today,
he said to me, I will never leave you. That's
more than you can say. Don't you feel left by
him already? I'm not sure how much he is showing
(27:28):
up at all in your marriage. Yeah, and you know
I've made excuses for it, like, oh, he suffers from
a bad childhood, he has these hurts and traumas. But
you know, in the end, it's like you when you
hurt someone, like you know you're hurting someone. He has
the bad childhood and the trauma. But how many blood
(27:50):
jobs does he have to give to get over that?
Apparently quite a few? And he's not done. Um, and
the issue there is that he keeps orienting you towards
what you're doing to him, what his needs are, what
his feelings are. Your discussions are constantly about him, and
if it's about you, then it's an accusatory way that well,
(28:12):
you know, you can't say that you would stay, or
you're being crazy, or you're out of control. He keeps
bringing it back to him and him and him and him,
And this is why you've gotten lost over seven years,
because he doesn't talk about you and your feelings. He
doesn't touch them other than to criticize you for having
them and for being hysterical about them, even though what
(28:34):
he's doing is so incredibly hurtful and provocative. He's telling
you that to be loyal to yourself, to be protective
of yourself, to prevent yourself from having further hurt, is
disloyal to him. And he's the one causing the hurt,
and that is manipulation on his part, and it's up
(28:55):
to you to not fall for it. Yeah, sure, haven't.
I think the easier said than done part is that
you're so focused on his trauma. There's something going on
with you two in the sense of feeling like you
will be validated. If you can be the one to
save him, you will feel special. You will feel like
(29:19):
the chosen one, the person who had the power to
save him from something that you weren't even around for.
You weren't around for his childhood. I don't know if
you've looked enough inside in your individual work with a
therapist about what is it about me that feels like
if I just give enough love, this person will change.
What is it about your history that makes you believe that.
(29:47):
I mean, yeah, that's probably a whole other issue that
requires a whole other call, right, But the point is
that you have some healing to do too, not just
from what happened here in the present in your marriage,
but maybe something that came before that. You know, there's
a saying that we marry our unfinished business, and I
(30:07):
think you both have married your unfinished business, but you're
not dealing with it, and all the focus is on
his unfinished business. But I want you to think about
making some room for yours, because whatever happens with this relationship,
or if you split up and you end up in
a different relationship, this history that you're carrying around is
(30:28):
going to come with you and You're not going to
want to get into a situation where you have this
belief that you can fundamentally change another person, because that
won't be a happy relationship for you. So, Elena, we
(30:52):
have some ideas for you, and it's in a couple
of parts. Guy, why don't you start? We see no
evidence that your husband is going to change his behavior.
The fact that he held out for twelve hours before
violating the promise he gave you is not impressive. When
someone is really willing to make a change and to
(31:14):
take accountability for their actions. It's a very profound moment,
and he's not in the ballpark, and we're more concerned
about the fact that you might not be ready to
change either. I think you're right. I think that I
am very much holding on to the hope of change
(31:35):
and I don't want it to end. But I think
if I've ever been close to leaving, I am the
closest now. We have some suggestions that might help you
to increase your readiness if that's what you decide to do,
(31:56):
and one of them is that it's easy to lose
track of what's really going on without having some kind
of accountability. We think you should choose somebody in your
life where the secret is out, meaning here's everything that
is going on on a day to day basis, because
(32:18):
I think that just as he can compartmentalize what's going on,
you've been compartmentalizing it too, and when things are better,
you kind of forget about the other stuff that's happening.
And so if you can find one person to whom
you tell everything, that person can help your perspective so
that you aren't just seeing things through your husband's eyes,
(32:41):
but that you have somebody who's seeing what is really
going on and can be a reminder to you. And
while you have that person, it's important that you have
the accountability to yourself too. And I wonder if you
can keep some kind of journal of everything that's going on,
so that whenever you have these moments of well, maybe
(33:01):
my love will save him or maybe it will change,
you can just open that journal and say, Okay, look
what happened in the last week, right, Look what happened
in the last two months after this promise was made
and that promise was made. And that way you really
have a record of what's going on that can serve
(33:22):
as a reality check for you. I've actually been keeping
a journal of arguments and things that have come up,
and he's used that against me, saying that I don't
want to move forward because I want to journal it
(33:42):
and reflect on the past and hold grudges. But here's
the thing, Lena, anything you do is father for him
to criticize. Unless you are completely happy to go along
with whatever, then he has a criticism of what you're doing.
Whenever you think of what you can do, you automatically
(34:06):
imagine what his response would be, even if he's not
had it yet. Well, he'll say this, he'll accuse me
of that. You need to start doing what's important for
you and anticipate that he'll have criticisms. He'll blame you,
and when the time comes, he'll blame you for the
marriage not working out, not himself, because he was willing
to stick it out as long as you can keep
doing what he's doing. So there's no way around that.
(34:28):
But when you're journaling, did you write down what happened
and how you felt about it, or just what happened?
I try to be honest with myself, or I try
to be unbiased. I try to write literally what happened.
Do you write down and when this happened, I felt blank.
(34:49):
When that happened, I felt blank blank. We would like
you to do that insert between every incident how it
made you feel in the moment thereafter. Your emotional reality
is is an important reality as the facts of what
actually happened, and that's being missed right now in the journaling. Now,
just one other things, we said that we want you
(35:12):
to be transparent with one person in your life, that
there's one person who cares about you that you don't
hide you're pain from. Who can that be? Probably my
best friend. I feel like she's very honest and open
with me. What have her thoughts been about what's going on.
(35:33):
She's whatever you decide, I'll be here for you. She
doesn't really judge me. I mean, she obviously doesn't agree
with the behaviors or the actions, but she knows that
eventually all come to my terms and make a decision
for myself. And I think you have to preface this
with her by asking if she will take on that
(35:55):
role with you, because you want to let her know.
There's a frame for this, which is that I'm really
struggling with this and I feel like sometimes I lose perspective.
Would you be willing to let me tell you everything
that's going on, so that when I do lose perspective,
(36:17):
there's somebody else who has been witnessed to this, even
by proxy, and she may say no. But if she
says yes, then she understands why you're telling her this.
You're not telling her this so that she can then
bash your husband, right, You're telling her this so that
she can remind you of some of your history and
(36:39):
some of the things that happened that you might be compartmentalizing.
Do you feel overloaded or do you think you can
take on one more task? No, I'm good, I can
seek it on. He would like you to write a
description on what life looks like in five years time
if you're in this marriage, and what life looks like
(37:03):
in five years time if you're not, And you should
write those at different times because they're different mindsets. Okay,
And when you when you write the one about what
it's like if I'm still in this marriage in five years,
we're basing that not on if something looks different from
how it is now, but how it is now and
(37:26):
how you feel about that still being in the marriage
five years from now. Okay, So if it doesn't change
and how I will feel in five years from now,
right if no miracles occur. Okay, I mean so with
me finding my husband having texted women just within hours
(37:49):
of being in counseling, I've kind of already alluded to
the fact that I'm done and I'm leaving, and you know,
he needs to basically be prepared for that. And that's
why I took the weekend away to really gather my
thoughts and what I want to do. And this interview
couldn't have came out a better time, honestly. So that's
(38:11):
really given me a lot of perspective because I don't
want to stay here for another five years, you know,
lookage for the phones, email, wondering where he's at, Like
I don't want to be there. So I feel like
I already have that foot out the door. It's a toe, Elena,
it's not a full foot. You have a toe out.
(38:32):
We'd like you to add some toes to that one toe. Okay.
I want to say one last thing. You're going to
try the things that we suggested and maybe it will
help you to come to a decision, and maybe it won't.
If you do come to a decision, we haven't given
advice on how you might separate if that is what
(38:54):
you decide to do, so right now, we're just asking
you to get a few more toes in there, try
these things, and then report back to us and let's
see how much clarity you have at that point. Thankay,
thank you, Thank you guys for all of your questions.
It's really how me kind of reevaluate in delgent So
(39:15):
I really appreciate your time that you've taken to listen
and hear me. So thank you, well, thank you, and
just know that we're cheering you on. Thank you. That
means a lot, honestly, thank you. So it's interesting because
she was very much on defense about it. She does
(39:37):
have a toe outside, I would say a toe now. Yes,
it's a sliver of something. I think for people in
these early stages of really solidifying a decision to leave,
it's very much a waffling back and forth. It's a
whole process. People imagine that change is something like you
make a decision and then you change, and so much
(39:57):
emotional preparation for these kinds of decisions goes into it.
So people are thinking about it, but they don't even
really know that they're thinking about it, and then they're
in this contemplation stage, and then they're in the preparation stage,
which is where she is right now, somewhere between contemplation
and preparation, and then there has to be the action phase,
and then there's the maintenance phase. Sometimes people will make
(40:19):
a decision like I'm going to stop having affairs or
I'm going to leave this person, but then the person
texts them at three in the morning, and the next
thing I know, they're back in that relationship. So that's
the maintenance part. And so I think she's very early on.
She's been thinking about this for a while, but I
think she's still very early on in the process. And
(40:40):
what I would hope for her is to learn more
about herself and why she feels like she can save
this person and why that's important to her, and why
she would give up herselfhood in the service of another
person and get nothing in return. I think those are
things that she's going to have to explore once she
gets out of the situation, because it's so clouded by
(41:01):
the drama and the anxiety of what's going to happen
next and where is he and why isn't he home.
You can't really think about yourself when all you can
think about is what's happening with him. And when you're
in a relationship with somebody who gaslights, there's a recovery
you have to go through because your perceptions have been distorted,
(41:22):
your sense of self has been diminished. And so it's
the recovery. It's the exploration of why she was prone
to be in this situation in the first place, what
happened in her life that set her up to be
in this kind of situation. There's a lot of work
she has to do on herself right. One of the
things that people realize when they're in a long term
(41:43):
relationship is that part of it is about what the
other person is doing, but part of it is about
the things that they haven't worked out for themselves too.
So when we talk to her next, what do you
think she's going to tell us. I think she's going
to say that it was helpful for her to have
something on paper and to talk to her friend, that
(42:05):
it will be a relief in some way. But I
also think there's something that is making her very afraid
of leaving Her entire world is him, And so if
he goes away. I don't think she knows who she
is outside of him. I think that's very true, and
I think that's very scary for her. I also think
that he has convinced her that her leaving is an
(42:27):
act of absolute betrayal. So I'm not expecting something drastic
to happen, but I expect that when it does happen
for her, it will happen quickly. She says, you know,
it was the last straw. Oh, She's got lots of
more straws coming. But when it will be the last straw,
I think then she'll be like, Okay, now there's no
turning back. I agree. I see so much in therapy
(42:48):
that the way people changes gradually and then suddenly, and
I think that will happen with her too. You're listening
to Dear Therapist from my Heart Radio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Guy Wench and I'm Laurie Gottlei,
(43:15):
and this is Dear Therapists. So, Laurie, we heard from
Elena and we gave her a lot to do. So
let's see how that went. So I took your instructions
and was documenting just things and how it made me
feel and then also I shared with a friend and
(43:36):
then basically explained to the counselor and my husband about
where my line in the sand was and what changes
needed to happen if the relationship were to continue. Obviously,
when you do something like that, then the person is
naturally going to feel like they're given an ultimatum, which
(43:59):
makes them very differfensive, and so there was a lot
of resistance with that. However, he's agreed, and so we
met with a specialist with I don't want to say
a sex addiction, but in that area, you know, and
that was really enlightening and eye opening, and after the
(44:21):
conversation is even more now open to finding help in
that area, like a sponsor mentor to help hold him accountable,
and also someone who's maybe walked in his shoes a
little bit better where he can maybe confide in. On
a meeting with this sex counselor, his question is is
(44:44):
it an addiction or is it a choice that I'm making?
Because it's something of who I am and what I
enjoy and they're walking us through this, that's like, okay.
If it is, then that's fine, but you need to
be honest with your wife and yourself and say that's
(45:06):
the choice you're making. And that's something that isn't always
easy to hear, because obviously you want people to choose you.
But at the end of the day, I love him
enough to not want him to be something that he's not.
That we were talking in our therapy session. You know,
you always knew that it was wrong. Why did you
(45:27):
keep doing it? And he's like, maybe she might find out,
but she wouldn't leave. And now that I know that
this is her tolerant now I know I have to
either do something different or if she will leave. So
that's kind of where we're at right now. Thank you
guys for your time and everything that you're young for me.
(45:50):
I appreciate it. So I was really proud of her.
I think that given where she was and then what
she accomplished in just a couple of weeks, that's pretty amazing.
What she's done is a huge step forward. She's not
fully there yet by any means, but she's tasted what
(46:11):
it's like to take the power back in the relationship
and in her life, and she didn't have that flavor
before and now she does. And so I'm hoping she
can do something with it, and there's this other piece
that I think they both have to do something with
that they aren't really talking about because they're focusing on
the addiction and the monogamy, which is he bisexual or
(46:34):
is he gay? And is he really exploring that because
it may be that what he's struggling with is this
Sophie's choice, that he really loves Elena and wants to
be with her, and he may also be feeling like
he has to push down this other part of his identity,
which has to do with his sexual orientation. And so
(46:55):
it's not just about are you going to stop the behavior,
but it's about what is actually going on here and
are you going to actively explore the roots of it now?
Because I am not okay with how things are going
well exactly, and I think that her not being okay
with how things are going has to continue in the
sense of the pressure that she puts on him to
(47:17):
continue or even perhaps begin that exploration, because now that
her eyes are open to what's going on, to what
the possibilities are, they also have to be open to
it's possible that that is going on with her husband,
and if he's not exploring that, she has to push
him to do that. Yeah, And I think that once
people experience that kind of eye opening, hey there's something
(47:42):
else out there, all of a sudden, I think they
build on that. And so we were saying, maybe she
had a toenail in the water or a toe in
the water. I think now she's got a couple of
toes in the water, and I think she's going to
have her foot in the water very soon. Hey, fellow travelers,
(48:02):
if you've used any of our advice from the podcast
in your own life, send us a quick voice memo
to Lori and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com and tell
us about it. We may include it in a future
show that brings us to the end of our show
for this week, Thank you so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate
and review it. You can follow us both online. I'm
(48:26):
at Lorigotlieb dot com and you can follow me on
Twitter at Lori Gottlieb I or on Instagram at Lori
Gottlieb Underscore Author. And I'm at Guywinch dot com. I'm
on Twitter and on Instagram at Guywinch. If you have
a dilemma, you'd like to discuss with us big or small?
Email us at Lorie and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
(48:47):
Our executive producers Christopher Hasiotis, were produced and edited by
Mike Johns. Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our
podcast Fairy Godmother Katie Kuruk. Next week, a man estranged
from his daughter for twenty five years wants a chance
to reconnect. She said, I changed my mind. I don't
want you to come to my wedding. And I just
(49:09):
asked her, why are you doing this? And she said
to me, you weren't there for my teenage years, the
last several years that I was growing up. You just
weren't in my life. I said, I wasn't in your
life because you kicked me out. Dear Therapists is a
production of iHeartRadio
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Laurie Gottli. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for The Atlantic. And I'm Guy Wench.
I wrote Emotional First Aid and I write a Dear
Guy column for Ted. And this is Deo Therapists. This
week a woman copes with her husband's infidelity. It has
(00:23):
come out and therapy that the relations have been with men. However,
my husband is very close off. He kind of just
wanted to go away, listen in and maybe learn something
about yourself in the process. Deo Therapists is for informational
purposes only, does not constitute medical advice, and is not
(00:46):
a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always
seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or
other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
regarding a medical condition. By submitting a letter, you are
agreeing to let Ihartmedia use it in partter and fall,
and we may edit it for length and for clarity.
(01:06):
Hey guy, Hi Laurie, So what do we have today? Well,
we have a really compelling letter, so let me get
right to it. Dear Therapists, I recently discovered that my
husband has been secretly meeting up with men for sex.
I discovered this about two months ago when I found
a secret email account that contained messages with multiple men
(01:27):
over the entire course of our seven year relationship. Before that,
I had slowly discovered pieces of this hidden life, starting
in August with messages to a woman. It sent me
into a frenzy looking through emails and trying to uncover
his unfaithfulness. I asked him about things I found, and
it was one line after another. I had already known
he had cheated and messaged women during our relationship, and
(01:49):
those who were still hurts not healed. But now men.
I am shocked. I tried to forgive and trust him,
but there is so much anger and tension between us.
He snaps at me if I ask where he's been,
if I ask about spam emails that are soliciting sex,
if he has been seeing anyone when he comes home late.
I don't trust him. Our fights have increased, and so
(02:09):
has our mutual dislike. I want to try to save
our marriage, but I don't know if that's possible given
how much hurt there is. He states that I'm out
of control, crazy, unreasonable. He has no empathy for what
I'm going through. When I get upset and cry about it,
he says I'm selfish and throw him a fit. I'm
at a loss for what to do. I need my husband,
(02:30):
but he isn't there. He's built so many walls he
won't let me in. Our relationship is also complicated by
the fact that we are military, living overseas and are
away from the support of family and friends. I can't
discuss it with anyone close to me or my husband
because I still care about his character and the image
he wants to display. The mental health support that is
(02:50):
available to us is limited. We just recently found a
therapist to speak to, but he isn't even honest with
her about his affairs with men, and I don't feel
it's my right to share that information, but I need
to talk to someone that is the only therapist available
to us. Here, I am left with all this baggage
and no until unload it too. I don't know. I
wonder if I'm out of control, if I'm crazy. I
(03:12):
have thought about leaving, but I don't want to leave
to be dramatic. If I leave the relationship, I will
be truly leaving for good. I'm so emotionally exhausted and defeated.
Please helpe Elena. Wow, that is quite a tough situation,
and I think what strikes me most about it is
(03:32):
that this woman isn't so much emotional pain and has
been for a while now. Yeah, it's so common for
people to wait when they feel the first sign of pain,
and they don't generally get into our offices until the
pain becomes unbearable. And it sounds like that's why she
wrote to us now, so let's talk about the situation
she's in, because this has been going on for the
(03:53):
entire length of the relationship. He doesn't sound like he's
interested in stopping the behavior. He's incredibly defensive about discussing it.
We see this all the time, where people come in
and somebody's had an affair, and I'm always looking to
see how willing the person who had the affair is
to talk about what happened. And what strikes me about
(04:16):
her letter is that her husband doesn't seem willing at
all to address what's going on, and in fact, he's
sort of gaslighting her. He's making her sound crazy for
having a big emotional reaction to something that is really traumatic,
and he's acting like she's the problem. And I think
so often people do that because they have so much
(04:38):
shame around what they've done, and so they have to
turn it around on somebody else. And she's in this
really difficult position because not only is he doing that
to her, but she's so isolated where they're overseas, they're
not near any family or friends, and so she's starting
to question her own reality. I think that's one of
the most unfortunate aspects of what's going on here. The
(05:00):
thing about affairs, we've both worked with many couples who've
repaired their relationship after an affair and truly gone on
to thrive. It's absolutely durban. One of the basic ingredients
you need for that is for the person who's been
doing the cheating to at least take responsibility, at least
be open minded and hearing the anger, the pain, whatever
(05:21):
they've caused emotionally to the other person, and to really
work to rebuild trust or reconnect to renegotiate. And there's
nothing here that indicates any kind of willingness like that
on her husband's part. I agree with that to the
point that she's colluding with his dishonesty with the therapist
(05:42):
that she doesn't feel comfortable telling the therapist about this
new piece of information that she discovered a few months
ago about his affairs with men, and I think she's
so trying to protect him. It's interesting too, that he's
not hiding his affairs with women from the therapist, or
(06:04):
at least it doesn't seem so, but he's hiding his
affairs from men. And people tend to keep things secret
from their therapists when they don't want to change, because
once they put that thing out there, they know they're
going to have to make some changes. And I would
guess that he's really struggling with what would happen if
(06:24):
he talked about his attraction to men. Sometimes when you
see somebody who's dealing with a lot of shame, what
they do is they compartmentalize. They put it in a
box and almost section it off from their daily lives.
They don't look at it themselves, they don't think about it.
And that's why he's not willing to look or think
about it with her, because he hasn't been able to
do that probably with himself either. So I'm actually eager
(06:47):
to speak with her. Yeah, let's go talk to her.
You're listening to Deal Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Laurie Gottlieb and I'm Guy
Wench and this is the Therapists. Hi. Hi, Well, thank
(07:08):
you so much for sharing your story with us. What
a painful situation you're in. Could you give us a
little bit of a snapshot of where things on now? Yeah,
of course, So it has come out that the relations
have been with men. The therapists have tried to kind
of open up that subject and discuss it in further detail. However,
(07:33):
my husband is very closed off. He kind of just
wanted to go away. He doesn't want to discuss it
in detail. He acknowledges that it happened, that he doesn't
want to talk about it, and he just kind of
wants to forget about it. Helena, I'm wondering how you
guys got to therapy in the first place. Was that
your idea and he was open to it or was
(07:54):
he resistant to going to therapy. We've both had discussed therapy. However,
given our situation with being overseas, it was very difficult
to find help. I was the one to call. I
had told him, we need to go to counseling. You know,
what are you doing to help the relationship, What are
(08:15):
you doing to try He was never making the phone calls,
he was never trying to find help for us, And
that was all on my part. How did it come up,
this part about him having affairs with men, because it
sounded like that was a secret before, And I'm wondering
which of you brought that up in therapy. So we
see the therapist together, and then she suggested seeing us individually.
(08:39):
And so I was driving him to work one day
and he said, Hey, I know you have your therapy
session this morning. I think that it's important that you
mentioned that the affairs are with men. I was like,
very sure, that's not something that you want to tell.
And he's like, it doesn't really matter. I think it's
going to come out sooner or later, So you know,
(09:02):
if you want to say it now, it's fine. And
so that's how that came out. So he couldn't even
really face saying it to the therapist himself. He needed
you to do that for him. Yeah, even in my
therapy session. Then I was very held back and I
was still like, ah, should I say it? Should I
not say it? And I was like, you know what
(09:22):
this is really what's going on now? You know? And
I think And then when he went into his session
later then he knew that that had already been divulged,
and so maybe it was more comfortable talking about it.
You must have felt such relief having that out there. Yeah,
because I haven't talked with this about anyone, like literally,
(09:45):
I've not I've not spoke to my family about it,
my best friends, I mean, no one. To be able
to finally tell someone like this is what I found out.
I found these emails, I found the phone conversation, they
separate accounts like for seven years. Yeah, I was such
(10:06):
a relief, but also a lot to work through as well.
Has he expressed that he wants to stop having these
kinds of affairs with men and with women? Has he
expressed that intention very very clearly that I won't do
this or I'm going to try not to do this anymore?
What is he thinking the relationship needs to be able
(10:29):
to repair itself. That is a very tough question. I
don't know how to answer that because he views sex
and affairs in such a different light than I do.
And he's expressed in our conversations that I'm lady. To
(10:54):
go have sex with someone, then you know, good for me.
I'm enjoying myself. It's just sexual. So it's more or
less that I see it wrong. And so therefore because
I see it strong, then he's willing to change the behavior,
not necessarily that it's inappropriate or anything like that. Yeah,
(11:16):
so he has a different standard and ethic and value
about having sex than you do. I'm asking this question again.
He has said specifically, therefore, I will not have any
outside sex again. Correct, Yes, he stated that. Now since
(11:38):
this has all come out and we've been in therapy,
I've found messages again to other women, so not men
in this case, or not meeting up physically, but that
same messaging sextain seeking that validation through other means. It
sounds like this new information about what's been going on
(11:59):
for the last seven years was a surprise to you,
but that there were other affairs that also went on,
and I'm wondering how you guys talked about those. You
keep saying he just wants it all to go away,
and I wonder how you handled it in the past,
and also when you're in therapy. If he just wants
it to go away, then what does he think you're
doing in therapy? So you're trying to talk about this
(12:23):
big thing going on in your relationship, which is this
lack of trust, these different ideas about what the rules
are in the marriage. So what happened in that moment
when the two of you are there with a therapist?
So when it's just him and I, then there's a
wall built, that avoidancy of him not talking about it,
shutting down, refusing to discuss it, and eventually he'll leave
(12:48):
the home or the other side where he's angry and
super defensive and I'm asking you know, you came home late,
where were you? You didn't answer your phone and your
phone was shut off? On him becoming super defensive. The
other side of it is when we're in therapy, it's
like a switch. Like he'll talk about it and he'll
(13:08):
say he feels attacked, or he feels like he's disgusting,
or he feels that I find him disgusting. Kind of
working through how he feels and putting those feelings onto
how I see him, even though I don't see him
(13:28):
as disgusting or shameful, is just shocking. You say that
your fights have increased in so has your mutual dislike.
So I'm curious about what does work between the two
of you. What are the strengths of the relationship. What
are the things that are allowing you to have stayed
for as long as you have? Okay, Well, he's a
(13:52):
super fun person. You know, He's the type of person
that anyone can connect with. He's funny, he loves to
tell jokes, he's intelligent. Those are qualities about him. But
I'm wondering, what are the things that he offers to
you in the relationship other than the pleasure of his company,
other things that he offers to me. Yes, I mean,
(14:20):
I guess. I don't know if I'm just caught off
guard there or if I just can't really comment on it. Look,
one of the questions that we have, Elena, is what's
keeping you in the relationship? You know, I think it's
(14:42):
I mean, I don't know, honestly, what it is is
my love for him? I don't know. You know, we
all have that like we're going to fix him or
this brokenness, Like I'm just going to love him enough
that he sees what true love is. I feel like
maybe that's part of it, you know, like, if I
love him enough, then maybe hope realize that this is
(15:07):
a toxic behavior. It's very obviously unhealthy. Well, right, I
understand you feel well, if I just stick in there
and love the person enough, then they'll come around in
some kind of way. There's a lot of around that
needs to be happening here. It's a big arc what
we're talking about. As much as you're paying attention to
(15:28):
what's going on with him, are you paying attention to
what's going on with you? No, Like I think that
I have lost a huge part of myself. I remember
the first time that I found the first messages to
a girl, and I remember just bawling and being so
(15:49):
hurt and shocked and everything. And then now I find
something that's just like I'm numb to it, like, oh
I found something again, you know, and you start to
lose a part of yourself, and it starts to become oh,
it's not such big of a deal, it's just messaging,
whereas in the beginning, you know, like where your standard.
(16:13):
So absolutely I've lost a part of myself. I've lost
a huge amount of self worth of viewing myself as
being enough. I feel like I give so much to
the relationship that I'm left feeling empty and then like
asking for a hug or just reaching out for that
(16:34):
affection because I feel so neglected, and then hearing no,
like no, I don't want to give you a hug
right now, No, I don't want to give you affection.
Just feeling like completely alone in all of it. You
talked about losing yourself, and I think part of losing
yourself as you start to question, well, is he right?
(16:56):
Am I crazy? Am I overreacting? And so I wonder,
how do you think a sane person would respond to
what's going on. I try to be very logical and
reasonable in all of our discussions, even when I'm talking
to him and I'm raising my voice and he says,
look at you, you're out of control. Like you're raising
(17:17):
your voice. You're completely out of control and thinking. Any
sane person dealing with these issues would have a raised voice.
Any person who has feelings would have a raised voice.
I don't think that I'm out of control. He keeps
telling you that you're out of control, but his behavior
is so out of control, and so his presentation might
(17:39):
look different from yours, right, so you're reacting to these
big feelings that you're having as a result of what's
going on, and he's presenting himself as the sane one,
as the one who's contained, as the one who's in control.
But his behavior says something else, don't you think? Yeah,
(18:00):
I know, I absolutely agree. I think that often he's
kind of projecting, like, I know that this is absurd behavior,
but yeah, I'm going to project that upon you. And
I very much feel like he knows that it's absurd,
he knows it's unacceptable. I'm very glad to hear that
you are quite clear that even when your voice is
(18:23):
getting loud, given what's going on, you are entitled for
your voice to be getting loud. And I'm so glad
you see that. But in general, my concern is that
he and the relationship are somehow way atop your priority list,
and you and your emotional health, your feelings, your happiness
(18:43):
is way down on that list. Do you feel ready
to put yourself as a priority on that list. I've
struggled with that. Honestly, it wasn't until this discovery. And
so what happened is in the counselor side, where are
(19:05):
you at right now, and he said, I want to
work on a relationship. I'm ready to work on a relationship.
And then when he left, he gave me a big
hug and kisses and I felt better, but not hopeful.
And then literally twelve hours later, after we had left
our counseling session, I found messages yet again to another woman,
(19:28):
and I honestly think that that was the last straw.
And at what point is it going to be enough
for me to accept that I'm part of the pattern.
And in order to change the pattern, I need to
change my own behavior, and I'm trying to do that
right now. I'm trying to prioritize myself. I'm trying to
(19:49):
look in the future and see what do I want,
what are my goals? And is this something that I
want to continue for another seven years? Because it's really not.
You know, Elena, here's a similarity between you and your husband.
And I want to preface this by saying that change
is really hard, and you know that change is really
(20:11):
hard for your husband, but I also think change is
really hard for you, and you almost do to yourself
what your husband does to you. So he says, I'm
going to change, I'm going to do something about this.
I want things to be better. And then he doesn't change,
and you do that with yourself. When guy was asking you,
are you ready to prioritize yourself? They think part of
(20:35):
you wants to just like part of your husband wants
to change, but another part of you isn't really keeping
that promise. So I imagine that what you're doing is
you're saying to yourself, you know, I'm going to prioritize myself.
I'm going to show up and be present in this
relationship in a way where I'm a real part of
this and I'm not reacting to it, but I'm participating.
(20:59):
And I think you make promises to yourself and then
you don't keep them, so you're doing to yourself what
your husband is doing to you too, which is I'm
going to help myself, and then you let yourself down.
And what guys asking is are you ready to stop
letting yourself down? Are you ready to keep your promises
to yourself? I mean, yes, I want to keep promises
(21:20):
to myself. I feel like I'm so invested in a
relationship it's like to give up and to completely wash
my hands of it is such a hard thing for
me to say I want to believe the best in him.
I want to believe that he can change. I want
to believe that when he says i'm sorry, I'll stop,
(21:41):
that he really means it. This time. I'm less interested
in whether he's going to stop, because he hasn't shown
you that he's going to do that. But I just
wonder what you think is going to happen given the
path that you're on. If you keep going to couples
therapy and you both say you want to quote, work
(22:02):
on the relationship when you go to couple's therapy, that's
not a specific enough goal. When people come in and
they say I want to work on the relationship, that
means nothing to a couple's therapist. What we want to
hear as couple's therapists, we want to hear what is
each of you going to do to make the relationship better.
Not to get the other person to change, not to
(22:24):
get the other person to do something differently, but what
are you each going to do individually to make things better?
But if you have this vague goal of we want
to work on the relationship, and then you keep doing
the same things over and over, I don't see how
this is going to change, and I wonder how you do.
I don't feel like I know what to do to
(22:48):
change other than leaving the relationship. Is that the only outcome? Like,
I am open to suggestions, and I am open to
working all myself thoroughly exhausted, I'm exhausted, you know, from
joint through phone, all the worry and everything. I don't
(23:10):
know what else to do. Look, you have very good
reason to be exhausted, because you've been trying to fix
something that takes two people by yourself. It's like trying
to mount one of those giant TV screens with only
one person. It's going to be tricky, and that's what
you've been trying to do. And so it's exhausting because
(23:33):
you're doing the work of two people, trying to mind
read what you can do to maybe get him to change,
what you can do to allow yourself to tolerate things more.
When you said it's been seven years and I don't
want it to be another seven years, we're in the
same place. You are on the path of it being
another seven years and maybe another seventy. And because when
(23:56):
couples need to recover from an affair, multiple affairs when
they need to rebuild trust. It's absolutely possible to do,
except that it requires two people working hard to create change.
And you're exhausted, and your husband hasn't broken a sweat,
(24:17):
and he's showing no signs of breaking a sweat. Even
the admission that the affairs have been with men he
left up to you. So I'm not hearing anything that
would indicate to me that he is willing to roll
up his sleeves and do the significant amount of work
it would take to get the relationship back on track.
(24:40):
You cannot fix a relationship by yourself. Oh no, I
think you're dead on So let's think about this then.
Would you be open to an open relationship? No, so
you're clear on that. Yeah, I cannot. It's not something
that I want for myself. I know that's just not
(25:00):
who I am, So open a relationship is not an
option for me. So you're very clear that you don't
want to be in an open relationship, but you're less
clear about whether you want to be in a relationship
that is full of betrayal. I don't know if that's true.
I feel like i'm clear to tell him that I'm
(25:21):
not accepting of these behaviors that it hurts me, But
I don't know if he just doesn't care or if
it just doesn't click. I'm not sure. It doesn't really
matter whether he doesn't care or it doesn't click. What
matters is what you're left with. And when you say
I'm not accepting because it's so hurtful, you are accepting
(25:41):
because not accepting means I won't tolerate it or leave
if this continues. Accepting means I'll be really upset, but
I'll stay, and that's acceptance. I think part of why
this is the predicament that you're in is because you're
so isolated from any kind of social and emotional supports
(26:02):
that you haven't spoken about this to anyone. You have
been left alone, perhaps by his prompting or by your
own feelings about it. But it's very difficult to really
be clear about things when you don't have a sounding board.
It's very difficult to really stay true to the promises
(26:22):
you give yourself when there is no one to whom
you have to be accountable, and so who do you
have that theoretically could be a source of support for you.
I have a great family, and I'm particularly close with
my mom. And at one point in one conversation, I
was crying to her and she's like, you know, what
(26:45):
could it be? Even in that moment, I couldn't bring
myself my loyalty to my husband. Couldn't even bring myself
to tell my mother, whom I'm so close with, you're
calling that loyalty. Wonder if that's really what loyalty is? Yeah,
and here and I have no idea. Is it loyalty
(27:07):
When someone's harming you emotionally on a repeated basis, it's
not loyalty to allow them to keep doing it. Even today,
he said to me, I will never leave you. That's
more than you can say. Don't you feel left by
him already? I'm not sure how much he is showing
(27:28):
up at all in your marriage. Yeah, and you know
I've made excuses for it, like, oh, he suffers from
a bad childhood, he has these hurts and traumas. But
you know, in the end, it's like you when you
hurt someone, like you know you're hurting someone. He has
the bad childhood and the trauma. But how many blood
(27:50):
jobs does he have to give to get over that?
Apparently quite a few? And he's not done. Um, and
the issue there is that he keeps orienting you towards
what you're doing to him, what his needs are, what
his feelings are. Your discussions are constantly about him, and
if it's about you, then it's an accusatory way that well,
(28:12):
you know, you can't say that you would stay, or
you're being crazy, or you're out of control. He keeps
bringing it back to him and him and him and him,
And this is why you've gotten lost over seven years,
because he doesn't talk about you and your feelings. He
doesn't touch them other than to criticize you for having
them and for being hysterical about them, even though what
(28:34):
he's doing is so incredibly hurtful and provocative. He's telling
you that to be loyal to yourself, to be protective
of yourself, to prevent yourself from having further hurt, is
disloyal to him. And he's the one causing the hurt,
and that is manipulation on his part, and it's up
(28:55):
to you to not fall for it. Yeah, sure, haven't.
I think the easier said than done part is that
you're so focused on his trauma. There's something going on
with you two in the sense of feeling like you
will be validated. If you can be the one to
save him, you will feel special. You will feel like
(29:19):
the chosen one, the person who had the power to
save him from something that you weren't even around for.
You weren't around for his childhood. I don't know if
you've looked enough inside in your individual work with a
therapist about what is it about me that feels like
if I just give enough love, this person will change.
What is it about your history that makes you believe that.
(29:47):
I mean, yeah, that's probably a whole other issue that
requires a whole other call, right, But the point is
that you have some healing to do too, not just
from what happened here in the present in your marriage,
but maybe something that came before that. You know, there's
a saying that we marry our unfinished business, and I
(30:07):
think you both have married your unfinished business, but you're
not dealing with it, and all the focus is on
his unfinished business. But I want you to think about
making some room for yours, because whatever happens with this relationship,
or if you split up and you end up in
a different relationship, this history that you're carrying around is
(30:28):
going to come with you and You're not going to
want to get into a situation where you have this
belief that you can fundamentally change another person, because that
won't be a happy relationship for you. So, Elena, we
(30:52):
have some ideas for you, and it's in a couple
of parts. Guy, why don't you start? We see no
evidence that your husband is going to change his behavior.
The fact that he held out for twelve hours before
violating the promise he gave you is not impressive. When
someone is really willing to make a change and to
(31:14):
take accountability for their actions. It's a very profound moment,
and he's not in the ballpark, and we're more concerned
about the fact that you might not be ready to
change either. I think you're right. I think that I
am very much holding on to the hope of change
(31:35):
and I don't want it to end. But I think
if I've ever been close to leaving, I am the
closest now. We have some suggestions that might help you
to increase your readiness if that's what you decide to do,
(31:56):
and one of them is that it's easy to lose
track of what's really going on without having some kind
of accountability. We think you should choose somebody in your
life where the secret is out, meaning here's everything that
is going on on a day to day basis, because
(32:18):
I think that just as he can compartmentalize what's going on,
you've been compartmentalizing it too, and when things are better,
you kind of forget about the other stuff that's happening.
And so if you can find one person to whom
you tell everything, that person can help your perspective so
that you aren't just seeing things through your husband's eyes,
(32:41):
but that you have somebody who's seeing what is really
going on and can be a reminder to you. And
while you have that person, it's important that you have
the accountability to yourself too. And I wonder if you
can keep some kind of journal of everything that's going on,
so that whenever you have these moments of well, maybe
(33:01):
my love will save him or maybe it will change,
you can just open that journal and say, Okay, look
what happened in the last week, right, Look what happened
in the last two months after this promise was made
and that promise was made. And that way you really
have a record of what's going on that can serve
(33:22):
as a reality check for you. I've actually been keeping
a journal of arguments and things that have come up,
and he's used that against me, saying that I don't
want to move forward because I want to journal it
(33:42):
and reflect on the past and hold grudges. But here's
the thing, Lena, anything you do is father for him
to criticize. Unless you are completely happy to go along
with whatever, then he has a criticism of what you're doing.
Whenever you think of what you can do, you automatically
(34:06):
imagine what his response would be, even if he's not
had it yet. Well, he'll say this, he'll accuse me
of that. You need to start doing what's important for
you and anticipate that he'll have criticisms. He'll blame you,
and when the time comes, he'll blame you for the
marriage not working out, not himself, because he was willing
to stick it out as long as you can keep
doing what he's doing. So there's no way around that.
(34:28):
But when you're journaling, did you write down what happened
and how you felt about it, or just what happened?
I try to be honest with myself, or I try
to be unbiased. I try to write literally what happened.
Do you write down and when this happened, I felt blank.
(34:49):
When that happened, I felt blank blank. We would like
you to do that insert between every incident how it
made you feel in the moment thereafter. Your emotional reality
is is an important reality as the facts of what
actually happened, and that's being missed right now in the journaling. Now,
just one other things, we said that we want you
(35:12):
to be transparent with one person in your life, that
there's one person who cares about you that you don't
hide you're pain from. Who can that be? Probably my
best friend. I feel like she's very honest and open
with me. What have her thoughts been about what's going on.
(35:33):
She's whatever you decide, I'll be here for you. She
doesn't really judge me. I mean, she obviously doesn't agree
with the behaviors or the actions, but she knows that
eventually all come to my terms and make a decision
for myself. And I think you have to preface this
with her by asking if she will take on that
(35:55):
role with you, because you want to let her know.
There's a frame for this, which is that I'm really
struggling with this and I feel like sometimes I lose perspective.
Would you be willing to let me tell you everything
that's going on, so that when I do lose perspective,
(36:17):
there's somebody else who has been witnessed to this, even
by proxy, and she may say no. But if she
says yes, then she understands why you're telling her this.
You're not telling her this so that she can then
bash your husband, right, You're telling her this so that
she can remind you of some of your history and
(36:39):
some of the things that happened that you might be compartmentalizing.
Do you feel overloaded or do you think you can
take on one more task? No, I'm good, I can
seek it on. He would like you to write a
description on what life looks like in five years time
if you're in this marriage, and what life looks like
(37:03):
in five years time if you're not, And you should
write those at different times because they're different mindsets. Okay,
And when you when you write the one about what
it's like if I'm still in this marriage in five years,
we're basing that not on if something looks different from
how it is now, but how it is now and
(37:26):
how you feel about that still being in the marriage
five years from now. Okay, So if it doesn't change
and how I will feel in five years from now,
right if no miracles occur. Okay, I mean so with
me finding my husband having texted women just within hours
(37:49):
of being in counseling, I've kind of already alluded to
the fact that I'm done and I'm leaving, and you know,
he needs to basically be prepared for that. And that's
why I took the weekend away to really gather my
thoughts and what I want to do. And this interview
couldn't have came out a better time, honestly. So that's
(38:11):
really given me a lot of perspective because I don't
want to stay here for another five years, you know,
lookage for the phones, email, wondering where he's at, Like
I don't want to be there. So I feel like
I already have that foot out the door. It's a toe, Elena,
it's not a full foot. You have a toe out.
(38:32):
We'd like you to add some toes to that one toe. Okay.
I want to say one last thing. You're going to
try the things that we suggested and maybe it will
help you to come to a decision, and maybe it won't.
If you do come to a decision, we haven't given
advice on how you might separate if that is what
(38:54):
you decide to do, so right now, we're just asking
you to get a few more toes in there, try
these things, and then report back to us and let's
see how much clarity you have at that point. Thankay,
thank you, Thank you guys for all of your questions.
It's really how me kind of reevaluate in delgent So
(39:15):
I really appreciate your time that you've taken to listen
and hear me. So thank you, well, thank you, and
just know that we're cheering you on. Thank you. That
means a lot, honestly, thank you. So it's interesting because
she was very much on defense about it. She does
(39:37):
have a toe outside, I would say a toe now. Yes,
it's a sliver of something. I think for people in
these early stages of really solidifying a decision to leave,
it's very much a waffling back and forth. It's a
whole process. People imagine that change is something like you
make a decision and then you change, and so much
(39:57):
emotional preparation for these kinds of decisions goes into it.
So people are thinking about it, but they don't even
really know that they're thinking about it, and then they're
in this contemplation stage, and then they're in the preparation stage,
which is where she is right now, somewhere between contemplation
and preparation, and then there has to be the action phase,
and then there's the maintenance phase. Sometimes people will make
(40:19):
a decision like I'm going to stop having affairs or
I'm going to leave this person, but then the person
texts them at three in the morning, and the next
thing I know, they're back in that relationship. So that's
the maintenance part. And so I think she's very early on.
She's been thinking about this for a while, but I
think she's still very early on in the process. And
(40:40):
what I would hope for her is to learn more
about herself and why she feels like she can save
this person and why that's important to her, and why
she would give up herselfhood in the service of another
person and get nothing in return. I think those are
things that she's going to have to explore once she
gets out of the situation, because it's so clouded by
(41:01):
the drama and the anxiety of what's going to happen
next and where is he and why isn't he home.
You can't really think about yourself when all you can
think about is what's happening with him. And when you're
in a relationship with somebody who gaslights, there's a recovery
you have to go through because your perceptions have been distorted,
(41:22):
your sense of self has been diminished. And so it's
the recovery. It's the exploration of why she was prone
to be in this situation in the first place, what
happened in her life that set her up to be
in this kind of situation. There's a lot of work
she has to do on herself right. One of the
things that people realize when they're in a long term
(41:43):
relationship is that part of it is about what the
other person is doing, but part of it is about
the things that they haven't worked out for themselves too.
So when we talk to her next, what do you
think she's going to tell us. I think she's going
to say that it was helpful for her to have
something on paper and to talk to her friend, that
(42:05):
it will be a relief in some way. But I
also think there's something that is making her very afraid
of leaving Her entire world is him, And so if
he goes away. I don't think she knows who she
is outside of him. I think that's very true, and
I think that's very scary for her. I also think
that he has convinced her that her leaving is an
(42:27):
act of absolute betrayal. So I'm not expecting something drastic
to happen, but I expect that when it does happen
for her, it will happen quickly. She says, you know,
it was the last straw. Oh, She's got lots of
more straws coming. But when it will be the last straw,
I think then she'll be like, Okay, now there's no
turning back. I agree. I see so much in therapy
(42:48):
that the way people changes gradually and then suddenly, and
I think that will happen with her too. You're listening
to Dear Therapist from my Heart Radio. We'll be back
after a quick break. I'm Guy Wench and I'm Laurie Gottlei,
(43:15):
and this is Dear Therapists. So, Laurie, we heard from
Elena and we gave her a lot to do. So
let's see how that went. So I took your instructions
and was documenting just things and how it made me
feel and then also I shared with a friend and
(43:36):
then basically explained to the counselor and my husband about
where my line in the sand was and what changes
needed to happen if the relationship were to continue. Obviously,
when you do something like that, then the person is
naturally going to feel like they're given an ultimatum, which
(43:59):
makes them very differfensive, and so there was a lot
of resistance with that. However, he's agreed, and so we
met with a specialist with I don't want to say
a sex addiction, but in that area, you know, and
that was really enlightening and eye opening, and after the
(44:21):
conversation is even more now open to finding help in
that area, like a sponsor mentor to help hold him accountable,
and also someone who's maybe walked in his shoes a
little bit better where he can maybe confide in. On
a meeting with this sex counselor, his question is is
(44:44):
it an addiction or is it a choice that I'm making?
Because it's something of who I am and what I
enjoy and they're walking us through this, that's like, okay.
If it is, then that's fine, but you need to
be honest with your wife and yourself and say that's
(45:06):
the choice you're making. And that's something that isn't always
easy to hear, because obviously you want people to choose you.
But at the end of the day, I love him
enough to not want him to be something that he's not.
That we were talking in our therapy session. You know,
you always knew that it was wrong. Why did you
(45:27):
keep doing it? And he's like, maybe she might find out,
but she wouldn't leave. And now that I know that
this is her tolerant now I know I have to
either do something different or if she will leave. So
that's kind of where we're at right now. Thank you
guys for your time and everything that you're young for me.
(45:50):
I appreciate it. So I was really proud of her.
I think that given where she was and then what
she accomplished in just a couple of weeks, that's pretty amazing.
What she's done is a huge step forward. She's not
fully there yet by any means, but she's tasted what
(46:11):
it's like to take the power back in the relationship
and in her life, and she didn't have that flavor
before and now she does. And so I'm hoping she
can do something with it, and there's this other piece
that I think they both have to do something with
that they aren't really talking about because they're focusing on
the addiction and the monogamy, which is he bisexual or
(46:34):
is he gay? And is he really exploring that because
it may be that what he's struggling with is this
Sophie's choice, that he really loves Elena and wants to
be with her, and he may also be feeling like
he has to push down this other part of his identity,
which has to do with his sexual orientation. And so
(46:55):
it's not just about are you going to stop the behavior,
but it's about what is actually going on here and
are you going to actively explore the roots of it now?
Because I am not okay with how things are going
well exactly, and I think that her not being okay
with how things are going has to continue in the
sense of the pressure that she puts on him to
(47:17):
continue or even perhaps begin that exploration, because now that
her eyes are open to what's going on, to what
the possibilities are, they also have to be open to
it's possible that that is going on with her husband,
and if he's not exploring that, she has to push
him to do that. Yeah, And I think that once
people experience that kind of eye opening, hey there's something
(47:42):
else out there, all of a sudden, I think they
build on that. And so we were saying, maybe she
had a toenail in the water or a toe in
the water. I think now she's got a couple of
toes in the water, and I think she's going to
have her foot in the water very soon. Hey, fellow travelers,
(48:02):
if you've used any of our advice from the podcast
in your own life, send us a quick voice memo
to Lori and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com and tell
us about it. We may include it in a future
show that brings us to the end of our show
for this week, Thank you so much for listening. If
you're enjoying the show, please take a moment to rate
and review it. You can follow us both online. I'm
(48:26):
at Lorigotlieb dot com and you can follow me on
Twitter at Lori Gottlieb I or on Instagram at Lori
Gottlieb Underscore Author. And I'm at Guywinch dot com. I'm
on Twitter and on Instagram at Guywinch. If you have
a dilemma, you'd like to discuss with us big or small?
Email us at Lorie and Guy at iHeartMedia dot com.
(48:47):
Our executive producers Christopher Hasiotis, were produced and edited by
Mike Johns. Special thanks to Samuel Benefield and to our
podcast Fairy Godmother Katie Kuruk. Next week, a man estranged
from his daughter for twenty five years wants a chance
to reconnect. She said, I changed my mind. I don't
want you to come to my wedding. And I just
(49:09):
asked her, why are you doing this? And she said
to me, you weren't there for my teenage years, the
last several years that I was growing up. You just
weren't in my life. I said, I wasn't in your
life because you kicked me out. Dear Therapists is a
production of iHeartRadio
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