Notes from Dr. Psych Mom: This is a very well-written and emotionally open post about a situation that generally leads to strong opinions: the idea of staying with a partner who cheated.
Here we see this situation from the perspective of someone who has lived it, and there are many twists and turns in this story that most people can empathize with. Intimate relationships are never cut-and-dry situations, as we can see from this post.
To learn more about how to recover from infidelity, a good book to read is After the Affair.
I have strong opinions, a strong voice, and a strong presence. The first volunteer, the leader, the public speaker, and the defender.
I am my father’s daughter; outspoken and unafraid of anything.
Passionate and vibrant can also translate to easily heated, defensive, caustic, and rude. In so many words: I don’t too easily take crap from people.
I am the last person you would expect to take back a cheating partner.
After three weeks of dating my husband “Brian,” I knew I loved him.
He was confident, stable, experienced, kind, blue-eyed, tall and so granola. He grew up in a small town in Colorado.
I immediately placed him on a pedestal. He was going to teach me to be a better person. He would be the sensei to find my calm, my patience, and my balance.
Today, we are two years married and seven years together. We have not been without our struggles. It may come as a surprise, but he wasn’t perfect!
In one of our first conversations, I admitted my mother was an addict.
Her suicide resulted in my self-awareness of doing anything to excess.
In response, he admitted he was an addict.
I suppose I really didn’t acknowledge how it would trickle into our relationship (oh, love). Brian had a job, and two daughters (for whom he had 50% custody) and he drove a mini-van! What could go wrong?
It took six months for all the signs to come to fruition.
Hiding alcohol, emotional roller coasting, and general disappearances to name a few.
One of those heated arguments resulted in Brian walking out the door because I tried to talk about the alcohol.
He never came that home that night and I was left crying. I never asked where he went because I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer.
After a year of amassing all the drama I could endure, I packed up my things and left.
I was heartbroken and his complacency was salt in the wound.
The thought of leaving not just him, but his children I had formed a relationship with, was incredibly hurtful — but no, I was better off and I was going to stay strong and do what was best for me.
I moved back in after a month.
Lather, rinse, and repeat only this time it’s three years into the relationship.
I left once more. During the second (and much longer) separation, I was more liberated. I was going to be free of Brian once and for all and I was going to move on.
I focused on work and friends. One night after work, having been separated from him for over a month, I was feeling bold and (very much available).
I approached a “charming enough” co-worker and we spent the night at his place.
I have always been confident and I have never opposed consenting adults seeking casual sex, but this was not quite normal behavior for me. I was trying to temporarily heal a very broken heart by following impulses, not instincts.
Despite the wise use of contraception, I got pregnant.
There was no question about how this might have happened. Brian had a vasectomy before I met him.
I would have to come clean about these new developments to Brian eventually. I arranged to meet him at the apartment where we could talk.
In the two months I had been gone, he was persistently pursuing me to reconcile. I had stayed far away up until this point.
When I told him the news, he was angry and hurt.
He called me some terrible things and threw other things. Even though I knew I owed him no explanation or apology, I did regardless. He wouldn’t take it. I agreed to come by the following day and get the rest of my things.
Before I left with the final box the next day, I noticed an open journal sitting on the couch. Without shame, I picked it up and read:
“She just told me…. I feel really horrible. Mostly because I also slept with someone while we were apart and cheated on her twice early in our relationship.”
The betrayal! The nerve! I was done. I was leaving for good and we were O-V-E-R!
The following few weeks were confusing yet surreal.
The “charming enough” co-worker also turned out to be not-so-honorable.
He informed me he was not interested in being a father or with me and I was fine with that.
Brian no longer wanted forgiveness. He wanted a chance to begin again.
He wanted to be with me despite the pregnancy, and he wanted to earn my trust.
He wanted to show me he was capable of giving me the unconditional love I had given him.
I miscarried at six weeks.
Brian was heartbroken, more so than I had ever seen him before. He envisioned our life together with his daughters and this child.
It was at this moment I was indefinitely his.
It was never decided that infidelity was acceptable.
Why did I stay? The only explanation I can give is this: We both decided that even if “us” wasn’t going to be easy, it was possible.
We both had to put in the effort to express ourselves graciously, provide one another with empathy, communicate our needs respectfully, and take equal responsibility for everything: past, present, and future.
When I learned how to ask for what I needed (especially when I was feeling vulnerable), he learned how to provide it.
When I was breaking down from my paranoia, we allowed ourselves to fight about it because the past does not go away. We forever carry it with us but we don’t let it define us.
We chose to learn from the past and move forward without allowing those acts of betrayal to take us over.
We learned a lot about ourselves during that time and we’ve seen one another in our darkest moments; yet we continue to choose each other and grow as, not just a couple but as individuals.
More so, I’ve learned I’m his equal and he is mine. Pedestals make it harder to see one another for who we truly are.
Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten, aka Dr. Psych Mom, is a clinical psychologist in private practice and the founder of DrPsychMom. She works with adults and couples in her group practice Best Life Behavioral Health.
This article was originally published at Dr. Psych Mom. Reprinted with permission from the author.
