Sue's attitude toward Jon would not have given him much hope for their marital reconciliation. But Sue had not told Jon how she felt about him - and how much she loved Greg. Instead, she told Jon that the affair was over and she wanted to be reconciled to him.
I met with Jon for the first time soon after he discovered Sue and Greg in bed with each other. He was devastated and could barely talk to me through his tears.
I found my wife having sex with another man, in our house, in our bed, with our children asleep. After all the crying and all the whys, we had a long talk. She told me how sorry she was for hurting me and how she wanted to be with me for the rest of her life. Some of the reasons she gave me I understood and I was at fault, l can admit my mistakes. These mistakes or errors that l have committed will be addressed and fixed. I do love her with all my heart. In fact sometimes l feel I love her too much.
This hurt, though, is hard to handle. I can forgive her and I think I do forgive her, but my problem is not the forgiving; it's the forgetting. I keep seeing her in bed with the other man. lt just pops into my head all the time - there are so many things that make me think about it.
Sue wanted to go away for the weekend, just the two of us. At first I was so excited by the thought of spending the weekend with her. And then I remembered what she looked like in bed with another man I made up an excuse why we couldn't go.
Last night she wanted to have a dinner at a very romantic restaurant. There was soft music and candlelight. I was enjoying myself for most of the evening; then the vision of her in bed with the other man popped into my head again. I told her I wasn't feeling well and we left. In the car she asked me what was wrong. I couldn't talk about it because I was ready to cry again. I know that I will eventualty get through this but I've never been so sad in all my life.
For the betrayed spouse an affair is, without a doubt, one of life's most painful experiences. Jon reacted the way most people react when they discover that their husband or wife has had an affair. The pain seems unbearable. The person you trusted the most hurts you in the worst way possible.
Jon was devastated by what Sue had done. But if he had known Sue's true feelings, he would have been even more upset. Sue was lying to Jon, trying to convince him that things would soon be back to normal again. But in reality, the worst was yet to come.
In the week following the discovery of her affair, Sue did everything she could to convince Jon that their marriage was on track again. In a way, she did want her marriage to work. But Jon's lukewarm response to her efforts, combined with her love for Greg, gave her little hope for recovery, and she became very depressed. To make matters worse, Jon announced that he would be gone for two days on an emergency business trip. He apologized for the timing but claimed he had no control over the decision. Sue felt that she was back to square one, married to a man whose career came first and who would never be able to meet her emotional needs.
The first night that Sue was left alone, she was filled with an overwhelming sense of emptiness, fearing that she was destined to live her life without her soul mate. The more she thought about her hopeless future, the more desperate she became. Finally, she could no longer take it. So she did what she had promised Jon she wouldn't do - she called Greg.
As soon as Greg answered the telephone and she heard his voice, Sue's depression was completely lifted. She felt energized and alive again and knew at once that she could not live without him. Greg had missed her too but told her he didn't want to interfere with her marriage and that their future was up to her. Before the conversation ended, they made plans to see each other again, but this time they had to be more careful.
A Secret Second Life Enables an Affair to Grow
For an affair to continue, it must be kept secret from the unsuspecting spouse. So a secret second life must be created to nurture an affair. When married couples tend to lead independent lives and do not pay much attention to each other, that secret second life is easy to create. But when a husband and wife live a more integrated life, it requires much more deception.
Jon and Sue had quite innocently developed independent lives. Since Jon worked so many hours, Sue had interests, activities, and friends that Jon knew nothing about. She hadn't tried to keep them from him - she often tried to tell him about her day, but he didn't show much interest in her activities. She eventually stopped trying to tell him about them. Then, when her relationship with Greg started to develop, she deliberately left information about him out of her conversations with Jon. She even started to lie about where she was and what she was doing so that Jon would not get suspicious.
Sue actually began lying to Jon about the time she spent with Greg long before the relationship had turned into an affair. Deep down she knew that their friendship was getting out of control but she did not want it to end. When Jon asked about what she had done on a given day, she lied occasionally to avoid telling him that she had been with Greg.
After Jon knew about their affair, Sue and Greg conspired together to deceive him. Sue would park her car at a shopping mall, and Greg would pick her up so that if Jon went looking for her, he wouldn't find her car near Greg's house. Sue made telephone calls to Greg from pay phones, just in case Jon was tapping her home telephone. She called Jon at work just before getting together with Greg to give Jon the impression that she was home alone. Whenever she was with Greg, she created a believable story for Jon.
Often wayward spouses, like Sue, do not have a history of lying, but their affair turns them into masters of deception. Once in a while the fog will lift, and they see how dishonest they have become. When that happens, they usually panic and recognize the affair for the mistake it is. But eventually the fog comes back, clouding their reason, and they go back to their lifestyle of cheating and lying.
Throughout their marriage, Sue and Jon had allowed free access to each other's personal information, and that understanding made Sue's effort to deceive Jon very stressful for her. She felt obligated to answer his questions about her whereabouts whenever he asked, and that meant she always had to prepare a lie to explain each time she was with Greg.
Since Jon and Sue had a history of being honest and open with each other, it was not easy for Sue to maintain her secret second life. So she tried to change the way she and Jon related to each other. She no longer wanted to be open with Jon and asked him to respect her privacy. You can read the rest of the story at the next post. At mean time, you can check out How Do Affairs End.
