Kelly:

You shared that you are a married woman, grateful for your marriage to a man who gives you emotional stability. And yet, 3 years ago (if not earlier)  you were looking for a fling and proceeded to have a 3 year affair with another man. You ended that affair because your lover was disrespectful to you. Most recently, you asked him if the two of you can be friends and he said that he wasn’t sure. His answer “hurt so bad”. You asked: “Why on earth can’t I let go?”.

I am assuming you asked why you can’t let go of your lover. I figure it is difficult for you to let go of your lover of 3 years because you formed an emotional attachment to  him.

If you are married to a decent man who is faithful to you, and who trusts you to be faithful to him, and for three years you terribly disrespected your husband, then I imagine that you have a reason to betray his trust so terribly, to have sex with another man, then clean up and go home to your decent, faithful, trusting husband. I don’t know what it is: anger at your husband perhaps, or just a cold-hearted disregard..?

anita

Dear Kelly:

You are welcome. I am glad to read that you booked an appointment with a therapist. I hope you get the insight that you  need, that you will resolve issues that need to be resolved, that you will no longer betray your husband (with any person, cruel or kind), and that you protect your husband and your children from information they don’t need to know.  Post again you if you want more of my input.

anita

Dear Kelly:

You shared that your husband provided you with emotional stability (“my husband’s emotional stability”), and your lover provided you with great instability (“this emotional rollercoaster”).

You shared that your husband has been a “loyal, loving and decent man”, and your lover  was disrespectful and emotionally cruel to you (“ongoing disrespectful behavior such as cutting contact for weeks at a time…silence has always been his weapon of choice…   somebody who was emotionally cruel”).

You shared that your husband has been your best friend (“my best friend, my husband”), and your lover didn’t want to be your friend (“I asked him if he wanted to keep  in touch. He said he wasn’t sure. This hurt so bad. I don’t know why we can’t be friends, and why he has cut contact so coldly”)

If this is all true, then seems to me that it is possible that you’ve been trying to resolve, through this extramarital 3 year long affair, an old unresolved childhood issue having to do perhaps with a parent who cut contact with you so coldly (emotionally, if not physically); a parent whom you reached out to again and again lovingly and desperately, but he or she rejected you coldly, with deafening silence, treating you disrespectfully and cruelly.

anita

Dear Kelly:

The affair ” was with a university lover that broke my heart 30 years ago.. the one who got away”, you wrote- he rejected you 30 years ago, similar to your mother having rejected you before that. and your father leaving, activating the same desire you had as a child, an intense desire to win your mother back. There is no stronger desire than a child’s desire to make her parent/s love her again.

anita

You are welcome, Kelly.

anita