Thanks for your question. Six years is a long time to be living with this kind of uncertainty! And not only is this situation more common than you might realize, but the concept of certainty, or security, is often at the heart of this existential dilemma—which is something all of us want and need, though it often proves elusive.
When we begin an affair with someone who is unavailable (via marriage or otherwise), there is certainty in the fact we definitely want him or her but can’t. This creates a very specific kind of focus around the question, “Will he or she leave or not?” If the answer is “yes,” very often it seems to be “evidence” of our worthiness: that we and not the other woman (or man) is the winner. We may start to feel resentful of our lover’s spouse, thinking he or she doesn’t deserve the one we love. There may be guilt, too, or most likely a mixture of conflicting feelings and desires.
Then one day it happens, and he or she is ours—except the imagined happy life we’d been yearning for isn’t exactly all that; it may even be more complicated, our feelings difficult to untangle. It’s common that, rather than wanting the partner to choose us, we find ourselves preoccupied with “proof” that the past will not repeat itself, that our beloved will not leave us for someone else.
The reasons for this are varied, and some or none or all of what I’m about to say will apply to your situation. Take what you like and ignore the rest. But just know that this kind of thing happens more often than is discussed (for obvious reasons).
There is a safety (i.e., certainty) in becoming involved with someone who is unavailable; we can love while focusing on the wanting, rather than the vulnerability that comes with actual availability. I don’t think we’re to blame entirely; this arrangement usually fits a template of our early experiences where caregivers were sporadically or consistently unavailable. It is absolutely thrilling to be chosen over an “outside” person, in a reversal of what we experienced earlier, where caregivers appeared more interested in things besides us (another child or family, for instance), which of course is a terribly painful abandonment that follows us into adulthood in the form of insecurities, needs, hopes, etc. To be chosen over another appears to be a reversal of abandonment that lands us on solid relational ground at last. We can then finally create or co-create the well-founded home we have dreamed about.
But how solid is it? After all, we might then ask, “Well, if he or she left his/her spouse before, who’s to say he/she won’t do it again?” Behind or beneath this question are a slew of factors that I think may be worth some serious reflection, either alone, with a trusted friend, or with a counselor. I would suggest doing this before going to your husband to verbalize any concerns.
It can be disconcerting that certain fears never go away. We learn to live with them, tolerate them, but they can never be banished, especially if we experienced relational traumas early on, such as abandonment, neglect, or abuse. We may have felt unabandoned when he or she chose us, but the underlying fear—because it is rooted in our own histories and psyches—hasn’t been banished, leaving us to wonder if we may, in fact, be abandoned yet again. The “proof” we were seeking is not, it turns out, as iron-clad as we hoped; there are no guarantees he or she won’t leave us for someone else. (There is never such a guarantee, actually.)
The traumatized, wounded part of ourselves needs to be heard, and this is, in part, a way of announcing itself. The critical voice within may attack us (or our partner) for the “wrongness” of what happened (“how could you be so selfish or reckless,” etc); there may be guilt about how this relationship has come to be, but most often this, too, is connected to the terror of abandonment (i.e., a repetition of actual past abandonment), and our yearnings for connectedness are suddenly subject to self-doubt, and questions arise about whether we’re worthy of happiness. (“You’re not all that; you’re a cheater, too,” and so on.) Of course, certain qualities or behaviors of our partner may stoke these fears, but if we truly, at the core, did not trust this person, we would never have pursued him or her. These fears are spurred for the most part by the historical trauma I’m discussing herein. We may zoom in like a laser on possible “signs” of such abandonment happening and interpret them as such, stoking our anxieties, but the cause of it is usually a terror of yet another experience of being left behind.
It’s something of a cliché in our pop culture to believe that (as Sting once sang), “if you love someone, set them free.” But the existential truth, I believe, is that we really do have to give our partners the dignity of their choices, and your partner has chosen to be with you now. That same respect is due us, since I believe that the majority of us are not malevolent and are, in the main, doing the best we can. Why not give the relationship a chance? It probably has a better chance if you take the risk of trusting him; otherwise, it could become a self-fulfilling prophecy where fear and anxiety suffocate any chance you might have. We can’t always help who we love; the point is to understand our choices rather than simply give them the thumbs-up or -down. I think the more important question is why we choose who we choose, rather than it being “right or wrong” (which only obscures the deeper issues).
Of course, once you have a clear sense of what those underlying motives are—once you understand what “your side of the street” looks like in terms of facing your inevitable psychological demons—then you might be able to reveal your vulnerabilities to your partner and verbalize what does and doesn’t help you in your personal quest for healing. (For example, “Do you mind telling me where you’re going for the time being? I appreciate you indulging me in this as I work on myself.” As opposed to, “Where are you going? Who are you seeing? What are you up to?”) Our partners can greatly support but cannot replace that healing process. In a way, we need these types of things to show us where the healing needs to occur. The danger is in expecting that a relationship can supplant past injuries. Vulnerability is inevitable.
Paradoxically, making peace with the worst of the past seems tied to a more secure future. Thanks again for writing.
Best wishes,
Darren
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org.