Truth & Consequences

In my own selfish view of the world, I could not understand that by trying to lie to you, I continued to hurt you and our marriage. I grasped at any straw to try to conceal my betrayal. When I look back and realize that you knew I was lying to your face, I am ashamed of the pain that I must have caused you.

When you confronted me with all the evidence of my lies and betrayal, I was in shock. You had never let me know about your suspicions. Deep down, I thought that I would be able to avoid the consequences for my actions. I made myself believe that my despair was because I was sorry for what I had done to you. I have come to understand, however, that the real reason for the despair was because I had been caught and now had to face the consequences. My concern was over what would happen to me, not over what I did to us.

When you told me that you wanted to try to save our marriage, I jumped at the chance. I would have agreed to anything that you wanted. But, even then, I did not do it for us. I did it for me. I wanted to find a way to salvage our marriage so I could avoid the consequences. I wanted to get back to where I was happy. I decided that if I couldn't have a loving marriage, I would accept pretence of a marriage. I was convinced that if we were together, I would be able to get you to love me again. I didn't think about how I hurt you. I told myself that I could live without your love, respect or trust. I was wrong.

I expected that living with you would be hard at first. I knew that you were still deeply angry with me. I told myself that it would change over time and that at some point your hurt would fade to the point where we could deal with it. It wasn't perfect, but I hoped that, over time, I would be able to change your feelings for me. But, this is not happening. I am afraid that our remaining together is a mistake because it is not leaving you the opportunity you need to heal.

I thought that having sex with you would help you to forgive me so I tried to entice you in every way that I could. I wore sexy clothes around the house and tried to seduce you whenever possible. I hoped that the intimacy might help you get over the pain. But I was wrong. Yes we did have sex frequently. But we never once made love. To put it simply, you used me. I was a toy. A plaything to be brought out whenever you felt a need for physical release. Yes, you treated me politely and kindly and were considerate enough to bring me to orgasm as well, but you never once gave me any indication that you were beginning to love or trust me.

After a while, your attitude towards me began to affect me. You never hurt me and were civil to me in most respects, but your attitude never changed. You remained aloof and hid your emotions from me. You continued to shut me out. You told me that you weren't ready to face the mess that I had made of our marriage.

It was your eyes that gave you away. Every time we were together, I looked into your eyes to see if I could find any feeling for me there. But, your eyes were cold. There was no love or warmth for me. I was an object. A whore bought for your pleasure. I meant nothing to you.

It was when things didn't change that I began to despair and that despair turned into hopelessness. For a time, I became convinced that I deserved whatever you did to me. I totally lost any shred of self-respect that I may have had. I know that you saw the hell that I was going through and I began to believe that you were taking pleasure in my suffering.

It was at that point that my attitude began to change. I started to climb out of the hole that I had dug for myself. I started to really examine what I had done to us. Every day I examined and reexamined our lives to find out what had gone wrong. I held my motives up to mirror and I was very ashamed of what I had done. But, I also took a look at your actions and didn't like what I saw.

You see I finally started to question your actions in all of this. I realized that your actions didn't match up with your statements that you loved me. I began to realize that maybe I wasn't alone in taking our love for granted. I became convinced that your actions were a conscious effort to punish me. You didn't need to hold the affair over my head. I did it for you.

Phil, in this letter, I have tried to finally answer why I had my affair. But, I have questions for you as well.

Why didn't you fight for me you bastard?

When you confronted me with the evidence of my affair, you told me that you had suspected me from the first night of the affair. You told me that you had called my hotel room a number of times that night and that you knew I didn't get back to the room until very late. You knew that I was lying to you when I told you that I had come back to my room right after dinner. Why didn't you confront me with my lies and demand that I tell you where I had been? You documented my lies to you over the week of the first convention, but you never once confronted me with my lies.

I am not trying to blame my behavior on you, but you need to examine your actions as well. To be brutally honest, I cannot tell you whether I would have confessed to you if you had confronted me with my lies that first night. I would like to think that I would have confessed, but any statement like that is self-serving. But, I do know that your confronting me would have prevented me from taking the affair any further. You're confronting me would have shown me that my actions when I am away do affect you. If nothing else, I would have been scared away from getting together with Jeff again.

Similarly, you knew of the emails between Jeff and I the whole time. You knew that Jeff was pursuing me and you made no efforts to stop it. You read my emails, you knew that I was reluctant to get back together with Jeff and tried to tell him that it was a bad idea. But you just sat there and let him wear me down, never giving me any sign that anything was wrong or any support to my struggle to resist Jeff.

During the six months I was corresponding with Jeff, I did feel guilty. I watched your behavior very carefully for any sign that you suspected me. You totally hid your suspicions from me. You treated me in the same loving manner and never once let me suspect that you knew what was going on.

Finally, why did you refuse to go to the October convention with me? You knew that Jeff was planning on seeing me there. I begged you to go with me because I was afraid of what would happen if you were not there. But you blew me off. You deliberately set me up to find out if I would cheat on you again.

You could see that I was weak when it came to refusing Jeff. Why didn't you help me? I needed your help to stop me from making an ass of myself and you were too bust gathering evidence. I thought I was your best friend. Doesn't that mean you give me help when I need it. Did our marriage mean so little to you that gathering evidence was more important that trying to save it? If you love me as much as you say you do, why did you stand aside and let me throw our love away?

You need to know that by your actions, I have lost my trust in you as well.

Phil, until you examine your motives in this whole mess, I don't know if it is possible to save our marriage. You tell me that you love me and want to save the marriage, but I don't see it from your actions. Not only did your failure to confront me contribute to the scope of the problem; your refusal to deal with the issue after the fact has hurt me more than you can know. I know you have been hurt, but damn it, I hurt too! I am not playing your game anymore. You need to make a decision on what you want. I hurt you during my affair, but you must make an effort to understand how much you have hurt me as well.

I have done a lot of soul searching and I have told you how I feel about my affair. Examining my behavior has not been easy for me because I can see where I acted terribly. But, you need to make that same effort.

If it makes you feel any better, know that I will deeply regret my actions for the rest of my life. I had everything that I could ever want and threw it away for a few hours guilty pleasure. I know that I hurt you more than I can ever understand and I will always regret that.

But, if we are to continue our marriage, we need to move forward. I cannot and will not live my life in a loveless marriage while you bottle up your feelings. I cannot accept living like this any more. The only way our marriage will survive is if we are both willing to work hard to get past the events of the past year.

I know that my affair was the event that precipitated this crisis in our marriage. But, I have come to believe that my affair was only a symptom of a much deeper problem with our marriage. I admit that I had lost sight of what was important to our marriage. I think you lost sight of what was important too.

We both have become selfish over the past few years and have placed working on our marriage beneath other priorities. Neither of us has acted like best friends. I don't just want to get back to where our marriage was before my affair. I want us to get back to where we were when we first got married. I miss having you as my best friend as much as I miss having you as my husband and lover.

Saving our marriage needs action from both of us. I cannot do it alone. We need to start the process of forgiving and healing. I need to know that you have the ability to accept my apology and forgive me for the pain I caused you. You also need to explain your actions to me and I need to discover if I can forgive you.

When you confronted me, you told me that we had a great marriage. We both need to decide whether that marriage is worth fighting for. For I have learned that this is not a battle that either of us can fight alone.

I want you to know one thing. The past year has given me a lesson that I will never forget. I have learned the high cost of cheating and I will never make that mistake again.

If you do not want to try to save our marriage, I will understand. I know that I may have hurt you beyond your ability to forgive. If that is the case, I will not contest a divorce and will walk out of your life. It is the least I can do for you for all of the trouble that I have caused you. I will always regret the destruction of our love and regret what might have been. I can only hope that it will make me a better partner in any future relationship I may find.

But, I hope that you still love me enough to work to save this marriage. If this is what you want, we need to get help to work through our problems. We need to see a counselor that can help us rebuild our trust and love. I know it won't be easy, but if we love each other enough, we can rebuild what we once had.

I hope that I am not leaving you for good. But, we both need time alone to think. Please take this time to consider the last year as thoroughly as I have. I need you to make a final decision one way or the other on whether you are ready to make an effort to save our marriage. I would like to tell you to take all of the time you need, but I cannot wait forever and neither can you. You can call me at my office once you have made your decision. But, until you make a decision, I ask that you not contact me or try to see me.

Know that whatever happens, I will always remember our love and wish that this had never happened.

Janet