"Listen to your gut feeling" is an underrated wisdom nugget. We should all trust our instincts a lot more than we actually do.
If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. Sometimes you can explain it and sometimes you cannot. For over a year, I was accused by my unfaithful husband of being overjealous and negligent about feeling satisfied with what I had.
Suspecting the affair and confronting the spouse
Our challenges in entering middle age had eroded our relationship and he decided to find comfort in an affair. I felt the secrecy, the very subtle changes in behaviour, the change of phone password, the disconnection. I just couldn't label the latter. It was the disconnection between us that was created by him replacing me with another woman that I couldn't pinpoint. It was a compartmentalised disconnection. There were moments during which he was totally present in our home and then he would withdraw again. It was very difficult to "prove" that he was having an affair even when every cell of my body could feel the betrayal. The few times that I confronted him, he brought up the dedication and the compensation actions he was taking to make me feel loved. Shortly before I got the definite proof about his affair, I remember saying to him: "I don't know how to explain it, I just feel that there is someone else between us".
Acting upon the suspicion
I assumed the possibility that my gut feeling was correct and decided to act upon it. For as much as I was afraid of being wrong and being discovered by him and labelled paranoid, I put a recording device in his car one morning and heard, later that same day, his lover in ecstasy while he guided her over the phone while driving to work. It couldn't have been more red-handed. There could be no more denial or accusations towards me. I had proof I was being cheated on sexually and intellectually. No wonder I felt the disconnection. Only then did I realise how right my gut feeling was.
Discovery day
The relief that came with the discovery was larger than the pain of the betrayal per se. I was not the first one nor will I be the last spouse to be stabbed by infidelity. I knew that and I felt more aggravated by the denial and the confusion my spouse was inflicting in my mind. I thought I was losing my sanity. And my eldest son too!
I completely understand what you are referring to. The indescribable pain that comes with being a betrayed partner pales in comparison to the feeling of being completely and utterly lost within yourself when you feel "crazy" and unable to trust your own mind and instincts. All because the guilty party wanted to protect themselves so they gaslight you, deny everything, and turn it back on you like you're the one who did something wrong. How dare we even accuse them of such a thing. The mental anguish can make you feel more alone than you ever even knew possible. So alone that in the middle of the night when you wake up, unable to rest, you dont even have the comfort of your own internal self. You question everything you thought you knew including knowing yourself. How much easier it would have been to have been the one to have the "fun" of the betrayal with the guilt that follows rather than try and rebuild an adult human being from the ground up.
ReplyDeleteDear Sara,
DeleteThank you so much for taking the time to comment and for sharing your experience. It always helps so much to know that others have experienced what we have. And after Dday we are left with the hypersensitive danger browser in the brain. I hope you are feeling better. Cheers to healing.