The Flame. Recently my world seems to revolve around the Flame. (read about her here: https://betrayedwife.net/2018/02/05/dday-deceit-as-a-lifestyle-choice/ ) I thought that I was done with her in 2012, only to find out that after Handsome bought his burner phone – allegedly in the Spring of 2015 – he immediately looked her up and reconnected with her. Again. They talked “often,” texted, met in person for lunch and, based on 2012, likely commiserated with one another about their spouses. Handsome admitted this during DDay #2. Like gum on my shoe, she just keeps sticking around. A problematic annoyance and disrupter in our marriage.
Handsome acted out with (at least) three other women since 2015, but each of those individuals was/ is deeply broken and unsavory. They are the dregs of society. They are not women he normally would give the time of day to, and he cast them off without a second thought once his actions and deceit were brought to light.
The Flame, however, is a different story. Knowing what I know now, I believe that Handsome was about a decade into his addiction at the time he met her in roughly 1988. He was a 27 year old divorcee, she was a 17 year old high school student. Evidently neither of them had any guidance from a responsible adult, and there was no one to put a foot down and say “no” to such an inappropriate relationship. I am sure that she was the very embodiment of an addictive hit for him. Young, tall, not entirely unattractive, and – most importantly – willing and available. He loved her. She may have loved him as well, but ultimately she dumped him.
Fast forward to 2012. Handsome reaches out to her and rekindles their contact. It starts platonically enough, until it turned flirty and I called them out on it. Contact ceases, but not before Handsome calls her to apologize for my behavior (for “over-reacting” to the emotional affair); a fact that eats at me for years.
When he disclosed that she was back, yet again and this time in touch with him for years in total secrecy, the pain was searing. Unlike the other three acting out partners, this one is different. She matters to him. I’m well aware that affair recovery cannot occur if the affair continues (even if it is just emotional). I cannot move on with the marriage, and Handsome cannot address his addiction, if this woman is waiting in the wings to reappear in a later act. No way. I told him very plainly that one of the things I need him to do to advance our recovery is to decisively and unequivocally end things with the Flame. Seeing her in person or speaking to her by phone are not viable options. I asked that he write her a letter, which I will mail, ending it once and for all. He agreed.
Today is his regular therapy day which is always fraught with anxiety for me. Having lied to his therapist for months, and disclosing things to the therapist long before he told me, I’m gun shy. I want therapy to work, but I’m not convinced that Handsome isn’t aping what an obedient addict would tell his doctor. He occasionally asks me what I think they should talk about in the session. Today I asked him how the letter was coming and suggested that perhaps the therapist could offer some guidance with that. Handsome proceeded to tell me that he hadn’t worked through the “amends” portion of the letter yet. Wait, what???? My reaction -after an initial in-person blow up – was captured in a text message later in the morning:
Let me add, if the intent of the apology was to say something like “I am sorry that I misused my authority as an adult all those years ago to take advantage of you when you were just 17,” or some such thing, that would be understandable. But no, that wasn’t it. He was going to apologize to her for their mutual, multiple year affair. What is it about this woman? He didn’t say anything about apologizing to her husband or to her kids, the innocent bystanders and collateral damage to the affairs. Why is she somehow blameless and deserving of an apology for carrying on a lengthy emotional affair with him?
Perhaps I am wrong to think this way, but I do believe that she is different than the other three women. The others were sold a story of an unhappy marriage and an unloving wife and, as wrong as they were to do so, I’m sure they justified their actions on the basis of the lies they were told. This woman, however, knew differently. She knew he had a loving wife and a great family and a full and rich life, and she knew – because I told her so myself – that she jeopardized all of that for him before. She didn’t care. What about that is worthy of an apology?
And how did the task – to write her a letter breaking it off and ending all contact – shift to an apology in the first place? How are the two remotely related? He just started SA two weeks ago. He isn’t on Step 9… he hasn’t even found a sponsor yet. He’s barely on Step 1!
Trying to explain my anger and frustration to Handsome was akin to explaining it to a toddler. He wasn’t getting it. I drew upon an imperfect analogy: I asked him if she shot me with a gun to get me out of the picture, would he still apologize to her for the affair? His response was an immediate and adamant “No, of course not.” But, I explained, she knowingly and actively participated in the reduction of my marriage to ruins and emotionally destroyed me. She harmed me knowing full well what she was doing and what the result would be. A small, night-light-sized light bulb went off in Handsome’s selfish head. “Oh. I didn’t think of it that way. I didn’t think of your side of it.”
Therein lies the problem. All too often he still doesn’t think of me at all.