It is hard to express in words the rollercoaster of emotions that came from your time with my husband. I know that the blame does not rest squarely on your shoulders and at some level we are all to blame. Him, for his choices in not owning up to his emotions. In not letting me know that he was unhappy. You for betraying your husband and so called moral high ground. Not least of all I, for not listening to my instincts. For choosing to believe in the fantasy rather than face the reality of what my life had become. I can’t say that everything that stems from your actions is bad. I could sit here and pity myself or see myself as the victim but I choose not to. I refuse to become less than I am. I decided that I need to thank you for presenting me with the biggest obstacle I have ever faced and allowing me the chance to become a better person.
I had concerns from the beginning. The way my husband talked about you the way he acted in your presence. There was no doubt in my mind that he was attracted to you and for me it was a cause for concern. I’ve always held to the belief that none of us are beyond reproach. I’ve always thought you should maintain a certain distance with those of the opposite sex, friends or otherwise. I expressed my concerns from the very beginning and was told “Yes I think she’s cute and funny, but I would never do anything to risk my family.” If only he’d known then how far he had to fall and the torment he would suffer under your reign. I could call myself the victim, but in the end I think we both know that the two of you suffered more for your sins.
As the mother of four children and after three pregnancies my body had certainly changed over the years. I was not the young women I had once been, I was a middle aged mother of four. I found myself in what I thought at the time to be a mythical competition with a women over ten years my junior. I didn’t realize at the time, as it did not happen all at once, the distance that had come between my husband and I. We rarely held hands anymore and he rarely made eye contact. I was drowning in loneliness only to be exacerbated by the boundaries I had set for myself. I felt that if I could make myself better more attractive, that maybe he would love me or at least look at me again. So I set a course for myself that would push me to my limits and bring me out of the fog of his affair with at least some semblance of self-respect.
I mentioned before that I am the mother of four children, this of course you already knew even before your affair began. At the time you two started sleeping together my oldest was eight, I had six year old twins and my baby just under two years old. I don’t honestly know what your life is like, but now you too have children and maybe you can understand the time and dedication it takes to raise them. However, as you have much more family involvement in the raising of your children maybe your experience is not the same. Our lives have changed drastically since my husband finally came “clean” (or as close to it as I’ll ever get) about the affair and he is currently much more involved in raising our children. However, at the time that the affair started and throughout its duration he was not. He left the house before the kids even got up in the morning and the responsibility rested solely on my shoulders to get things done. I started running five miles every day without fail. I now know I must have known at some level what was going on, but it honestly never hit me at a conscious level. Sure there were times I would reiterate my doubt but who wants to belief the truth, over the lie that you are so important to someone they would never risk losing you. So I kept running. I got up every morning and ran five miles before I got my kids up to get ready for school. It is how I maintained my sanity. My body has certainly changed over the past four years and all for the better. I know a strength of character that can only be found within, for as we all find out at some point or other, in the end you only have yourself to depend on. I am not a religious person but I do believe in right and wrong. I believe in karma and what goes around comes around. So maybe this was my punishment for that one person that I had wronged. Or maybe this is the powers that be testing my integrity. I hope that you can find peace in your life as I will seek peace in my own. No one who is at peace engages in the types of behavior that you have chosen to engage in. The only question that lingers in my mind is the question of your children. You have told me that you believe that they are his rather than your husbands. I wonder if you really believed this to be true. I can’t imagine the amount of suffering you must have endured if this is the case. They look like your husband rather than mine, and we now know for sure they are not my husbands. Does fear really make us that blinded to the truth or did you intentionally seek to cause me and my family further harm? I guess I may never know the truth. You however do know and will have to live with all the choices you have made and any repercussions that karma may send your way. I can’t believe that someone could knowingly subject their babies to having their cheeks swabbed for DNA when it was totally unnecessary. My husband claims you are capable of all sorts of games and deceptions. I being a student of psychology believe that at some point you were no different from anyone else. An open slate for the world to encourage or to crush. I wish to share with you the one thing I have learned from this experience. We do not gain our self-worth from the people we are able to conquer. We gain our self-worth from holding up our heads when people try to conquer us.
Sincerely,
His Wife
