Invalidation

On vacation, I am not sure it was ever entirely normal. What really happened is I started begging for attention. In all the self help books you will ever read, they all tell you do not do this. I did it anyway. I was starved for attention. I was starved for him. I agonized for something. I was trying to feel him. Or to get him to feel me. I had glimpses of him in those moments, where I felt connected. I know it wasn’t all in my head. He felt it too. The problem is he was and is her puppet. He suddenly didn’t have a brain for himself. Once he knew I knew, something switched on his head. He forgot I was there first. He forgot I was his priority. His family. One of the five people who mattered most in his life.

An odd shift that has occurred after he informed me that he deserved to be happy; I’ve seen snippets of their conversations; it’s always him groveling for her affections. He’s begging for her attention, trying to find his self worth. In his doing so, he says phrasings to her he’s said to me before. It’s not even unique the things he says. He even calls her my pet name. It doesn’t feel so good to be crushed underneath the heel of someone’s boot, does it?

We went out on walks around the vacation property together; holding hands. We went and saw sunsets together. We looked for loons together, one of my favorite things to do. The meals were provided to us in a main area at set times. We shared our food like we always had. We were given brown bagged lunches so we could explore during the days. I shared my lunches with the fish. We never did figure out if that was allowed or not. He took great care to help me find places to share my leftover Fritos and tuna fish sandwiches off the kayaks with the abundant wildlife.

I knew nothing about the other woman expect she worked at the satelittle clinic she worked at. Part-time as a registrar. She was Romanian. She lived her ex boyfriend. (Remember this fact, it becomes increasingly relevant) I have been told she is very immature. She was about 15 years younger than him. I am 11 years younger than him, but we have kids the same age. I am also an old soul- not trying to make excuses and justify my relationship with him, but we are a well suited pair.

I clung to him in the darkness in bed. I whispered at night when he was asleep “I love you,” dozens of time while he slept. This continued the two months we continued to live together after I found out about the affair. I suppose I felt if I said it enough out loud I could make him feel it too.

I tried so hard to not beg for attention, but I couldn’t help myself. I still can’t at times. I am worth more than begging for his attention; and trying not to compete for the emptiness than lies within him. But within this broken heart of mine, it has become all I know. Something I know is, and what I had known throughout our relationship is, he is the only man I have ever loved. I have let every wall down. Every defense mechanism to protect myself. This is why I am so vulnerable, so exposed, so broke. Any issue I had, I let him know about. Can anything every be normal after an affair?

I’d like to think it could be. Couples do survive affairs. If he were to come up to me right now and say he messed up and he wanted to try again, I would let him. I would forgive him. Not because I am weak, but because I know how to love him. It would have to come with stipulations. I have made mistakes. He has made fatal errors. Fatal errors trump mistakes. Maybe trump is where I realize it’s not worth it.

Again, here we go. My poor, broken heart and soul. In agony of him. How do I go on without him? How do I make it better? With it without him? We are barely 2 weeks into my finding out about the affair. We haven’t even scratched the surface of the hell that my life has become.