A month ago, my husband revealed to me that he had been unfaithful. He wasn’t actively seeking to find another woman or on Tinder or a secret website like Ashley Madison. He was just going about his daily life when a work project with a new co-worker turned everything upside down. They had an instant connection. From how my husband described it, it sounds like they had butterflies. That young love feeling where nothing else in the world matters. He was entranced by her in a way that gave him tunnel vision, where he couldn’t see (or didn’t care at the time) about the ripple effect of his actions. The euphoric feeling of being with her was greater than MY feelings.
In therapy, we have come to discover that he was feeling a lack of connection with me. He never told me this…he was not one to talk about feelings very much. But due to that lack of connection with me, he wasn’t able to turn away when this woman presented herself in the way she did. They bonded quickly.
She was separated from her spouse and started telling my husband about some of their marital issues. This then caused my husband to draw parallels to our relationship. It feels like she was poking holes in our marriage. It feels like she was stirring the pot. Maybe he did feel connected to me, but then maybe she convinced him he wasn’t. Maybe everything was fine between us, but she convinced him it wasn’t. I wasn’t there, and there is no paper trail, so I can’t say exactly how this all went down.
All I know is that I was in a seemingly happy marriage until one day, he told me that he hadn’t felt connected to me in a while.
The spark was gone. He still loves me, but the love feels different now. Hearing this was painful. Excruciatingly painful. I still wonder if those are truly his thoughts or her thoughts. Was she manipulating him? Making him believe he was unhappy?
At first, I blamed myself for his infidelity. I told myself, “Happy people don’t cheat,” so I must not have made him happy. After therapy sessions and support from friends and family, I am working to reframe my thoughts. I did not make him cheat. If he was unhappy, he should have spoken up. If he was unhappy, he should have sought out help from a professional, NOT another woman. His actions are HIS actions. Even though I know I am not at fault, I can’t shake the part of me that feels regretful for how the past few years have gone. I keep thinking—if we didn’t have kids, would this have happened? Was this inevitable? Or the result of a marriage not being prioritized in this season of life?
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE MY KIDS. But they have rocked my world in ways I never expected. They have impacted my marriage in ways I never expected. IT HAS BEEN HARDER THAN I EVER EXPECTED. Before kids, we were so carefree. We had time for each other, we were well-rested, and we had very little stress. Our day-to-day responsibilities were minimal. We may not have appreciated it then, but life was EASY (relative to how it is now).
When we had kids, everything changed. I dove in headfirst. I poured myself into motherhood and got lost there. The days were long, tiring, and overstimulating. At the end of the day, I was beat. All I wanted to do was lie down and zone out to a show. Breastfeeding and snuggling all day, although wonderful, left me feeling tapped out. This, in turn, impacted our intimacy. We began to shift into the “roommate phase” and perhaps stayed there too long. Our conversations started to focus solely on logistics and tasks – did the baby need a diaper change? What’s for dinner? Did you pay the water bill? When will you be home from work? We need more wipes. The doctor’s appointment is tomorrow.
We let our children consume us, and our relationship got lost along the way.
As the kids got older, I thought our relationship was getting better, but surely, it wasn’t back to the way it used to be. But how could it be? Life is different now. We aren’t well-rested anymore; we are now tired AF. We aren’t carefree anymore; we are now responsible for two other humans. With a lot more stress and less time together. This means relaxing during our time together is much more difficult.
Before the cheating, we should have been working to find the us after kids, because the us before kids was long gone. We needed to grow together and redefine ourselves as a couple. But we didn’t do that. We didn’t prioritize each other, and we didn’t communicate effectively. Oddly enough, as the new year was starting, I had set goals to be more intentional with our marriage—more date nights were at the top of my list. I had the mindset that THIS WAS OUR YEAR! We were going to be husband and wife again, not just mom and dad.
But sadly, I ran out of time. I was too late.
