L'Étranger

Every blog post I’ve written, up until this one, has been something I needed to write. Now, I feel like I’m forcing myself. I feel like I should write something, but I’m not sure what to say.

Things are improving, more or less. As much as they can, I suppose, just a few days after something like this. Therapy was difficult, but I’m very glad we did it. My therapist is good at cutting to the heart of the issue when it’s necessary. He got James to really confront some of his thoughts and feelings. And I was able to say a lot of things I might have had trouble saying to James’ face. 

I keep expressing disbelief that he could even be debating the value of a few-months-old friendship vs. a marriage of five years. (And that’s not even counting the time we were together before that.) I’m starting to feel like a broken record. But I just don’t know what else to say, and I feel like it’s not really getting through. He acknowledges that it’s insane, but can’t see through the fog enough to really understand where I am coming from.

His remorse is obvious now. He is horribly depressed, apologizing over and over again, barely able to function. He won’t eat unless I put a plate of food in front of him. There’s no color in his face. Most of the time he’s just curled up on the sofa, under a blanket, staring at the wall with glassy eyes. He agreed to cut off contact with her until our next meeting with my therapist, but he’s not that out of it - he knows that in all reality, cutting off contact with her permanently is the next logical step. And he doesn’t feel ready to do that.

In spite of his remorse, when I try to express how much it hurts me that he can’t make this seemingly easy decision, it never ends well. Last time, he told me “she’s hurting too!” And yes, he understands that everyone is hurting because of what they did, what he allowed to happen. They might both technically be adults, but he’s something like 7 years older than she is, not to mention the one who’s married. The responsibility was with him to stop things before they spiraled out of control. 

Yesterday, he said “do you really want to go on like this? Do you really want to be with someone like me?” I’ve gotten similar reactions from other people. It’s not unreasonable to wonder if I’m only staying because I can’t handle the logistics of splitting up a marriage. Because I’m afraid. Because I believe I’ll never find someone else. 

But I know the real reason I want to say is because I still love him. I know that this doesn’t change who he is. He is confused and lost in the heady swirl of a brand new “relationship” and has lost sight of some things that he used to know, but he’s not a lost cause. Not by a long shot. My gut never steers me wrong - it tried to warn me about this many times - and now, my gut tells me to stay. There was never any question in my mind about that.

Glimmers of the man I used to know are coming through the clouds. “You didn’t do anything wrong here. I did,” he tells me. He understands he is being ridiculous. And I don’t expect him to fall out of love with Delilah overnight. I realize this is going to be a process, but it’s one I’m willing to go through.

My therapist asked him if he’s always had trouble making choices. He said he has. But he made the choice to be with me in the first place, and it couldn’t have been easy. He had to ask me to take a MAJOR risk in leaving my entire life behind, to be with him. Now, it was a terrible life and I didn’t want to keep it. But from his perspective, as he’s expressed many times, I left behind a lot of possibilities and he feels like he “ruined my life,” even before the affair. Never mind that I’m a successful business owner now, having accomplished something that relatively few in my industry can ever hope to, and in less than two years of work. I’m doing something now that utilizes all my talents and makes me a boatload of money. Who knows how much of that I could have done without him? Yet he persists in this delusion that he did something horrible to me. 

I guess the choice was a difficult one, after all.

My thoughts are still scattered, but I’m at least able to get back to work a bit. He’s still managing to do some of his usual household chores. Overall, even though our world is crumbling down, we’re still able to keep some things from falling apart.

Let’s hope it stays that way.