Dear U KNOW WHO U R,
I thought I would write you this letter mainly for the reason to see if I could make any sense of the last year’s events and find some answers to my endless line of questions. Having found out a couple of days before Christmas that I have been living a lie for over a year I feel the need to blame someone, and I choose you. By writing this this open letter I want to liberate myself from you. There is also something very comforting in knowing that your pain is shared.
What was it? What did you try to do? Was it to relive your youth, experience a bit of excitement on the side? Was your life boring? Grown up children leaving the nest, perhaps no sex with your wedded half? I bet you didn’t include him in the aftermath, just went back to your comfortable life, leaving my husband in turmoil. At least you had a life to go back to. Ours is wrecked and it’s still not clear yet if it survives. I was told that you wanted to write to me when I caught you out. Saying what, I wonder? Expressing your condolences, saying that what you had was real or maybe unreal, apologise perhaps, take the blame, try to explain, defend yourself? I have no idea and not that it matters now.
Why did you search for him and contact him after almost 30 years? Was it to raise your self-esteem, feel loved and desired once again in your middle age years? To prove to yourself that you are not over the hill yet? You might not have known that he was married, but I am pretty sure you found that out from his first reply. So, you found the Sensitive Soul, walked in on him when he was at his lowest point, hammered by life, ‘on his knees’ and offered a shoulder to cry on, comfort him, took on a role of his therapist. It was easy to do I guess and It was really easy for him to fall for it. You living in another country, no mutual friends you were both in contact with, no telephone calls or texts exchanged, just emailing occasionally at first, to become a habit of doing so almost on the daily basis. It was easy as well for him to justify his actions and pretend he was doing nothing wrong, just communicating with an old flame and nothing physical of course, until...
He has always bottled things up, trying to be strong for others. I went along with it, I was ‘behind a stone wall’. It was convenient, especially in the last couple of years when the business collapsed and things became tight financially which inevitably reflected on our home life. As far as I was aware we were still happy maybe going through a bit of a bumpy patch but without realising I started to shut myself away. Rarely would he show his emotions or share his troubles with me either, partly for my sake, not to upset me. But at the end of the day everyone needs a release. So you became his. He used to say that every person is able to withstand temptation and he was convinced that he always could for the simple reason that he loved me, and I believed him. However, he was not as strong as he thought, no one ever is. I guess at that moment in time he needed his ego boosted to feel better about himself; he allowed himself to be weak for a change and selfish for once.
I am not blaming everything on you, it takes two to tango but you used his vulnerability. Do you actually love anyone? Your lover, your husband, your children? Were you in love with my husband so much that you would have been prepared to leave your lifestyle behind, risk everyone’s condemnation, risk your children not speaking to you again, hurting people who love you most. I don’t think so, so what was it then? I have read somewhere that “Having an affair is just like walking into the circle of family and friends and blowing up a suicide vest”. And that was exactly what you did to the person you were declaring your undying love for. You put a suicide belt on him!
Are you still thinking of him, missing him, imagining what could have been if your ways didn’t part all those years ago, reliving the moments of tenderness, passion encountered then and recently? Rereading his emails, his declarations of love for you or did you just put it in the back of your mind for now, so you can rekindle it again sometime in the future when you feel like it or when you’re bored again; or you are suffering remorse and guilt being senselessly scared of being found out and the repercussions, or maybe you just don’t care.
Another question. What is worse emotional or physical infidelity? They are equal to me, both unacceptable. Well, I got the double whammy! You really have no idea what you have done. I am not proud of it, but how I wish sometimes you would experience the same pain you caused me. Pain you caused my family and not yours! I can actually do it to you should I wish. I know who your husband is, where he works, how to contact him, after all we live in the wonderful time of social media but as much as I would like to it is not your husband’s fault or your children’s and I do not wish anyone even my worst enemy to experience what I am going through.
You should know as well that since then, in a period of one month your ex-lover suffered two major personal losses in his life and is at a breaking point right now, at the same time he is still unable to forgive himself for what he did to us, for betraying his principles and values. So thanks a million! One man broken, one woman shattered, family at a point of destruction. He doesn’t want you by the way. He says he hoped to get found out in order to end the web of lies he found himself being dragged in deeper and deeper. He calls you a MISTAKE, his midlife crisis, a way of escapism, a fantasy, a nightmare he wants to forget. He says he can’t imagine his life without me. He tells me that I am his true and only love.
To finish on a positive, in a way I am grateful to you for pinpointing what was going wrong with us, enabling us to open up to each other. Who knows where our marriage was heading? It is still very early days and even though trust and respect might have been shaken, LOVE remains. I know that the grief and the pain will fade away with time; I also sincerely believe that something beautiful can and will blossom from the ashes of our adversity.
You have a long and happy life, but please stay away from ours.
ID NOT REQUIRED
