Dear Gary:

You are welcome. I will repeat your share and follow with my thoughts:

When you were 21 you met an 18 year old woman you married and immediately had two children. You got very busy with full time work and other activities and didn’t spend much time with your young wife. She shared with you that she was bored or lonely and you suggested that she “gets a job to break up her daily boredom”.

While the children were 2 and 4, your then 22 year old wife did get a job and worked night shift. Instead of returning home around 8 am, she returned around noon day after day for several weeks. She lied to you and told you that she worked overtime. You hardy saw her and felt neglected and lonely. Next, you had an affair with another woman.

At about that time, your four year old daughter directed you to Rob’s boat, your wife’s lover. Your four year old got in the car with you and directed you to arrive at Rob’s boat (“she directed me to a house. I shut off the car and gathered the kid…”). There you witnessed your wife “riding piggyback” with Rob. Following punching Rob in the face, once with your wife again, you told her about your affair, hoping the two of you will put an end to your respective affairs.

You ended your affair but she continued hers. You then called an attorney to seek immediate custody of the children and was granted that. Following a few months separation from your wife you discovered she was living with Rob. You then filed for divorce and she counter filed. You rethought the divorce, feeling love for her,  and withdrew your divorce papers. But she didn’t and divorce was granted.

Two weeks after the divorce was granted she showed up at your door and told you: “You were the best friend I ever had”. You asked her to leave. She went back to Rob, eventually marrying him. Her marriage to Rob lasted 2.5 years and he left her for another woman. She then called you but you were remarried at that point and you “cut her off of communication”. She then married again and that (third) marriage lasted five years. Her third husband died and widowed, she now lives in the general area where you live.

You got remarried at 28 to a young woman who accepted you and your two young children. Now married for 35 years, your two children are about forty years old.

You are struggling with the following: you don’t remember your ex wife ever telling you that she loved you and you are not sure she ever loved you. She never apologized to you for hurting you by having the affair with Rob. You now “need absolute closure” and would “like to talk to her to answer these questions” but you don’t want to hurt your wife of 35 years by talking to your ex wife of long ago.

My thoughts: Let’s say you met your ex wife and asked her: did you ever love me? If she said Yes (or No), would that be the closure, will that be all it takes to achieve that closure? If you asked her: why didn’t you ever apologize to me about your affair? And she would then apologize, almost forty years after that affair, will the be your closure?

If your answers are affirmative, that is all it would take to close that hole in your soul, then it is a good idea to talk with her. But if the answer is that it might not suffice to provide you relief from that  pain you are experiencing, I think it is way better that instead of talking to your ex wife of so long ago, that you talk to a good psychotherapist. In therapy you can examine the nature of that hole in the soul, the nature of the closure you are seeking. There you are likely to discover that the closure you are seeking cannot happen in one conversation with… anyone.

anita