Befuddlement

Bad affairs, boys who won't commit, long-distance love and -- threesomes.

By Cary Tennis

Jan 22, 2002 | Dear Cary,

I am very worried about my state of mind the last couple of years. I am married with a young son and have a decent job. I am also in school part-time, attempting to get my graduate degree. This past year, I got involved with another man. I am not exactly sure why; I have been to therapy the last few months and believe that being with this man made me feel excitement, and that's something I don't feel very often.

I feel horrible about risking so much because the man turned out to be a real jerk. He instigated and pursued the relationship knowing that I was in a vulnerable state. We saw each other for about six or seven months before he met another woman and dumped me in a very humiliating and cruel way.

I honestly believed we had this deep connection and really cared about each other. Above all, I believed we were friends, and I knew that eventually he would want a normal relationship, but I thought he would handle things differently and we would remain friends. He told me over and over again, up until a week before he started dating this other woman, that he was not ready for a relationship. I realize now I was being very naive and that he was just trying to keep me sleeping with him until he found someone else. I was free, easy sex for him, nothing more.

After he ended our relationship he stopped talking to me. He never apologized or checked to see if I was OK, knowing full well I was going through this alone. I couldn't talk to anyone. Who would understand?

I have been living in torment the last three or four months trying to forgive myself for risking my family for so much pain and humiliation and trying to figure out what is wrong with me.(I get to hear about his life because we have mutual friends who are not aware of our relationship.)

I probably deserve the hell I am living in and have been trying so hard to move on and focus on my family. I love my husband and son. But I find myself hoping something bad happens to this man I was involved with, that he loses his girlfriend and his life falls apart, because I feel it is so unfair that he was just as responsible for our relationship and yet hasn't had to suffer or hurt for all the pain he caused me.

I am worried that I am suffering from depression. Any advice besides "You totally deserve every bit of pain you've experienced"?

Very Sad in Ohio

Dear Very Sad,

If you could forgive yourself, would that help? Would it help if you could hit him in the head with a shovel? Or even forgive him, which would be much harder because it sounds like he acted like a royal dirtbag. I don't blame you for wanting to hurt this guy. What he did was really mean and awful. But when you can stop dreaming of committing mayhem on his person as well as stop torturing yourself with guilt long enough to understand that you are not the terrible person in all this -- that you were just trying, albeit somewhat recklessly -- to get something you needed, the hurt will begin to pass. And years from now, when you're driving down the road with a good friend, you'll tell her all about it and she'll whoop in surprise and knit her brow in consternation and shake her head in disbelief and you'll both laugh so hard you almost run off the road.

And then she'll tell you a secret of her own.

But right now, I sense that you are terribly alone there in Ohio of Academe, hurrying to class, to your child, to your husband, to whom you snuggle up guiltily. How would he react if he knew? Would he crumple in a heap like old pajamas? Would he place you under surveillance? Is it his coldness that drove you to find some excitement? Or is your own spirit too slow to ignite, requiring ever-greater stimulation, and if so, how are you going to keep warm the rest of your days? Perhaps you'd better start collecting things you can count on in the days ahead to warm you up: painting that makes you catch your breath, poetry that rings in your head like a bell, music that sorts out the universe, dance that blooms in your body, buildings that seem to fly, long walks, crispy autumn leaves, chocolate, good beer.

You say you don't know why you had this affair. Maybe you were just hungry. What you ate was bad for you, but how were you to know?

There's so much more to say: A man who has an affair with you is not like a friendly neighbor helping you start your car. He might pretend to help you with your problems, but he has problems of his own from which he is trying to disappear into a few blissful moments where there is no mortgage in default, no high-interest short-term notes coming due, no faculty review approaching, no rejection slips in the mail, no divorce proceedings, no process servers, no leaking head gasket, no foundation crumbling, no braces for children scarcely his own, no gambling debts, just you in your simple peignoir stepping out of a hotel bathroom, fixing your hair, looking down at him hungrily as if there had never been another man in the world.

If your therapist isn't leading you out of this, find somebody in whose presence you can howl, weep and rend your garments, someone at whose feet you can throw your burden. Maybe not a therapist even but a clergyman or a Buddha or a rock star, a strong, wise and powerful fixer of things painful and corrupt. Because to be walking around Ohio, balancing carefully your battered virtue while vengeance roils up inside you and this gross deceiver drives by merrily with the top down ... that's gotta hurt.

Some people who cannot live happily with their murderous wishes actually pray for those they resent, asking God to give those wretched souls everything they desire. It's a preposterous thing to do, of course, but it contains a kernel of wisdom: Vengeance is not yours.

Know that it will pass. It will not pass like a trifle. It will pass like a cancer: slowly, painfully, with work and difficulty. But it will pass.

Next Page: This person you are dealing with is probably a woman

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