You know all too well the pain that happens when the cheater hides their affair from you. One hurt that often gets ignored is the hurt that you carry in having to hide your hurt.
What I mean by this is that many times as a hurting spouse you have to hide the pain you carry along with your search for answers. You find yourself hiding your visits to websites and pages dealing with affairs.
You don’t want the cheater or others to find out that you are struggling with an affair. When you have to hide your suffering from an affair, it is a double-whammy.
The secret of the affair + the hiding or seeking answers. You may know about the affair, but not feel allowed to talk about the burden of knowing.
You may be in a position where you can not let others know that you are struggling through overcoming an affair. You have to be ‘on guard’ about others finding out about you looking for answers.
When you’re going through this, it’s a special kind of hell. You’re isolated in a secret world that you can’t let other people find out about. You want answers, but can’t let others know that you’re seeking answers.
This is also the situation of spouses that are trapped in a marriage where they’re hurting and don’t have the freedom of openly seeking help. When the cheater monitors the pages you visit and who you send emails to, you become a prisoner on multiple levels.
At that point you have a physical bondage along with a mental and emotional bondage. There may even be a psychological and spiritual bondage as well, which adds more levels of bondage to your already hurting situation.
It may even be a forced marriage that has an affair, which multiplies the hurt into another dimension, along with the need to hide the hurt along with hiding your seeking out help.
You are not alone in having to hide the search for answers. You may even want to buy books and resources, but are afraid that your spouse may find out by tracing your purchases. There are anonymous buyer sites that can purchase materials for you.
You can also download e-books to your cell phone so that no computer record exists of the purchase or download. There’s also the local library, where you can surf and read material that you may not have the freedom of doing at home.
You have to think creatively. Your emotional healing is well worth the risk. Keeping the pain inside along with the resulting health effects from stuffing your pain is never worth it.
In the download ‘Affair Recovery Workshop‘, you can have the help you need in the comfort of your own home. You can start working on yourself and your marriage even WITHOUT your spouse.
One person can start making changes. Find out what you can do in the workshop.
Best Regards,
Jeff
One Response
This is so true…I did not have any problem with being able to seek information but I still must keep this situation pretty close to home….for many reasons …not the least of them is to make it more viable for my husband when he comes to his senses and decides to LIVE a real life!
One thing I found myself doing in bookstores when I had a stack of books dealing with betrayal, infidelity and related subjects …was to say ‘I’m getting my PHD ‘ …[HA! an understatement if I ever heard one! That’s for sure …Piled Higher and Deeper’! ….heeeheee…I laugh but it is somewhat what happens….no need to draw the clerk into my private hell now is there!]
Like anything , knowledge alone does not ‘do the trick” in all the ways we need to heal …but it helps …with such as offer here …because when the earthquake is over we wonder …Is what I am feeling ‘normal’ and ‘ok’ and HOW do others deal with this ..aside from some kind of violent lashing out…I wanted to examine myself and not react out of my anger and pain …not always easy but being one who desires to obey the Lord and not knowing HOW that should be I went on a research tangent ..from HOW to talk with my spouse ..when he was willing …to ,,,what to do about the OW …
Since they had two children in their ‘deal’ they made …it has definitely complicated every aspect of the already monsterous situation….Not recovered even at seven years and counting …as you know ..The OC really have ‘replaced’ as the OP in our lives…and the financial drain has been devastating as well …
My husband and I both grieve and would loved to have gained some equalibrium and healing in OUR relationship but the weight of the ‘responsiblities’ to the OC has taken away most of that opporunity.
As anyone who parents children with a good deal of involvement knows …tending to your own primary family can take a lot of time and energy away from a marriage relationship ..hence many sites that remind marrieds to TAKE time to each other.
I think that the lengthy involvement with the OW being ‘excused’ as time needed to keep the income flowing …has left my DH without a clue of what it takes to raise a child ..and now it has become his ‘go to’ reason why he must not see me or our children often …MAYBE once a week for a few hours with them and only a few minutes for me .
It may be years before he realizes that his efforts to be ‘in the lives” of the OC on the very sporadic schedule that he is endeavoring to keep has …’spotty effects’ at best .
I give him “a’ for effort but ‘f’ when it comes to being clear about the proper priorities in the most primary of his responsibilities and that will not be erased with time but only compounded as he continues to do what HE believes he ‘must’ …but has decided he does not have any responsibilities to live up to his vows.
All the ways that my life is continuing to be effected by loss of his strength physically around here …and continued leaning upon our daughters to do the heavy lifting alone is one of the things he does not seem to see as anything ….
Other ways are I have to sleep alone …I have to stay home or go alone . I do not feel good about going out at night alone at this point in life…I do not feel free to nurture male friendships because I am MARRIED and honor that vow and I don’t want any man developing feelings or thoughts that violate him…
So it goes on ..losses to the betrayed whose spouse does not accept their ongoing damage to their spouse even if they have ‘given up ‘ the OP …there is a “long way to go until we sleep’ in this case….no real resolutions but only ongoing demands for compromising what is right and the moral way to deal within marriage.
Keeping my husband’ s adultery from his family has been my effort for HIS sake that he might see a way back to living rightly ….but I do realize that in protecting him from feeling that he has no future with them ..I too will be accused of being complicit with his life choices….before D Day they probably thought we were ‘snobs’ for not interacting …but it was not ME but his cheating that made our interactions with them fewer and fewer and further between .
But now …I may be painted with the same brush since I told him I would allow HIM to reveal it to those in his family that he has deceived…so far he hasn’t …either way …if I am the one to reveal it ..I am going to be the ‘bad guy’ ….it is a no win situation sometimes for the betrayed spouse trying to do what is good for the marriage FIRST despite the pain and difficulties that come with this …ugh.