Exit Strategy

A term we always hear when politicians or the media talk about the war in the Middle East.  Wiki defines it as a means of leaving one’s current situation, either after a predetermined objective has been achieved, or as a strategy to mitigate failure.  In warfare, an exit strategy is understood to minimize losses.

For the longest time, I just could not comprehend what my husband was doing with that Desperate Idiotic Woman during the early days after our reconciliation which lasted months after.  It may have looked like it was his way of Letting Go, but it sure as hell felt like being stabbed in the back over and over again.  If you think your husband have stopped any kind of communication or contact with the deplorable Other Woman after D-Day, think again.  In my case, that did not happen overnight.  They could be doing any of these below:

1.  His and Her Blogs.  There were endless blogs to each other.  Everyday, there were daily posts on each of their blogs and although some of them eventually turned into the general day to day, I could clearly see that they were written and meant for each other.  Even in the earlier days post reconciliation,  it clearly looked like my husband was giving her hope.  Sure, he still says that it was only hope that things will get better for her, but they can easily be misinterpreted as “Please hold on as this getting back together thing with the wife might not work out after all”, especially to an already depressed and crazy desperate woman.

2.  Breaking of the first No Contact only 2 weeks after we agreed to start rebuilding our marriage.  Apparently things were getting too awkward at work.  Well things were awkward because of that shameless woman.  Her personal life clearly was affecting the work environment and my husband, fearing of losing his job, had to do everything he could to minimize the fallout.  He then proceeded to tell me that they needed to be ‘cordial’ at work.  Fine.  I had no choice but to deal with it.

3.  Emailing each other during our family vacation.  WTF!!!  I just recently discovered this which caused extreme hurt and anger all over again.  It was just too much.  It knocked me off my healing path and took me three hundred steps back.  Last August, we spent some time with his family and during this week, he emailed her as soon as he closed his blog (another crying argument there).  Well obviously if his blog had to be shut down unexpectedly, how else would he communicate with Her?  Through work email of course!  To think that they were communicating with each other while we were spending time with family AND on the week of my birthday was such a big betrayal.  It felt like a slap on the face.  I told him to thank god or whomever else he believes now that I didn’t find out about this until now.  Because if I did then, I would have left him no questions asked.

4.  Meet ups.  Again, this is the latest thing that I just discovered recently too.  According to him, there have been only 2-3 meet ups (really?), mostly riding bicycles together and hanging out at a coffee shop.  In what I hope to be his last personal email to Her, it was sent on the day of our wedding anniversary.  Yes, our Anniversary.  I’ve told him that he must be scared to what She is capable of doing if he didn’t appease Her over and over again.  Likewise, if I only knew at the time, I wouldn’t have wanted to be with someone who could have done that to me, not to mention on our special day.  I remembered we had a fancy dinner that night but in his email to Her, he wrote that he was meeting up with a realtor (again, really?) and that the house was a mess.  Of course he forgot to mention to Her that it was our Anniversary.

5.  Another string of emails during his vacation time in London.  In September, he had spent 2 weeks vacationing alone in London.  Well, not truly alone as he had met up with his old college friend there.  His plan for this trip was originally for July but had to be postponed until September.  The reason for it didn’t change though; he needed some alone time and to think about things. Throughout the time he was away, they were on constant communication.  I was able to read those emails as he left a draft on Word on the laptop and it so happened that I needed to use the program.  Seriously!  Cheating assholes or recovering ones, don’t bother trying to hide these things as they will always resurface.  The truth will always come out.  You can bet on it!

I asked him, more like yelled, “So, after all of these, is it worth doing them?? Did things happen how you wanted them to be?  Don’t you think she would have quit her job if you didn’t do all these things??  What in the hell were you thinking?  What could she have possibly done if you didn’t appease her like this?”  I was crying and yelling, I was so angry.  All he could muster to say was that he really regretted everything that he had done last year; from the Affair itself to everything that I’ve mentioned above.  He said if he only knew that she would still be at work and that it would cause so much hurt to me yet again, he wouldn’t have done them.  Well, hindsight surely is 20/20.

Some of you might think that I should have known that this had been going on behind my back.  If things at home were not getting any better, and that we were constantly fighting or did not get along with each other, then I’d say Yes, I was a total fool yet again.  But it was the complete opposite.  We were having the best times in our marriage yet and were getting along better than we have ever been.  I did not suspect any of this.

It has now been about a year since the real No Contact began, which was soon after his return from London.  Thinking back,  this must have been his strategy to reduce the massive fallout of having an Affair with a very close co-worker. Instead of having to yank the bandage in one swift motion, he chose to peel it a millimeter at a time.  It seems that Affairs are very much like a war.  Nobody wins and in the end, everyone’s hurt; especially us the Betrayed Spouses.  Once bloodshed has started, the Betrayer can only try to minimize the situation whichever way they can.  My husband’s Exit Strategy, however he deemed it to be necessary, hurt like a son of a bitch.  And the unfortunate thing is, if I had known about some of them while it was happening, I know deep in my heart I would have left him.  As part of my survival mode then, I have told myself over and over again that I will never want to be made a fool ever again.

What about you, did your spouse have his/her own Exit Strategy?  I feel that many of you out there must be experiencing or have experienced this at one time or another in your Affair recovery.  As for me, even though we are now at a great point in our marriage, I can’t say I am glad he did this.

Thank you, Oprah.

One day, as I was taking a break from the baby, I came across Oprah’s Master Class show on OWN.  I have never really watched her regularly on network TV as I work full time but she has always seem interesting to me.  And for this particular Master Show episode, Oprah herself was the ‘Master’.  In the beginning, she talked about her past and how she got started in the Talk Show business, and for the most part the show was quite fascinating.  Then she started going on and on about the movie ‘The Color Purple’ and how she came about being on the movie, or in her case, her absolute desperate need to be part of the cast and the possibility that she might be overlooked for the role.  And then BAM!  She then said some words that resonated so much with what I am going through for months and months now.  I couldn’t believe how a segment of her show became an ‘aha’ moment for me.  Here’s a paragraph of Oprah’s conversation:

“… And I want to be in a space where I can thank you (God) for the opportunity but I can’t now, I CAN’T… It’s TOO HARD.  Please help me let it go.  HELP ME to let it go…  When  you’ve worked as hard and done as much, and strived, and tried, and given, and plead, and bargained, and hoped… Surrender.  When you have done all that you can do and there’s nothing left for you to do, Give It Up.  Give It Up to that thing that is greater than yourself and let it then become a part of the flow.  And I have never wanted anything as badly, as hard, as much, as the Color Purple.  And the wanting of it and then the surrendering of it is what taught me to live in a space of Letting Go…”

When I heard that, something in my mind clicked.  The ‘Oh My God’ moment became so clear in my mind.  I have done everything that I can to make us work.  Even on D-Day itself, I had blindly said the F word to my husband, the “I Forgive You” that is.  From that moment until now, I have done so much, turned myself inside out especially since our reconciliation.  I have cried, I have cared, I have ignored, I have bargained, I have plead, I have yelled (out loud and in my head), I have debated, I have loved as much as one can possibly love, I have forgiven, I have felt sorry for myself, I have feared for the worst.  I have even gave birth to our first child.  But one important thing that I haven’t done is to Surrender.  Not to give up, but Surrender to what Life has planned for me.  In my case, Surrender to our future together, any future; either a good one or a not so good one.  I fully realized that I need to have complete faith so I can now live my life with confidence and free of fear, that maybe the worst is now over.

She also talked about the moment when she had the realization in her, that as soon as she had let go and surrendered and be at peace, she immediately received a phone call from the movie saying that she had gotten the part.  I would have called BS if the same thing didn’t happen to me at one of the most difficult times of my life.  At the end of our separation, my husband and I met up for dinner as he was supposed to decide once and for all if he wanted to be back in the marriage or leave.  (More of what happened can be read here,  The Day That Ended It All and Our New Beginning)  He proceeded to tell me that he needed time on his own and that we were basically over.  I was crushed.  I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart yet again and thought that my life was over.  5 days later, I had the realization that we were indeed over and that I had to deal with whatever new life I would begin soon.  In my mind, I had already let him go and believed that we would never see each other again.  That day, I sent him an email saying everything that I was feeling and that I too had accepted his decision to end our 12 years of marriage.  I wished him much peace, happiness and luck with whatever he would do in his life next, without me.

Additionally, I wrote that I would need to stop by the house the next day to pick up mail and other things as I had been living at a friend’s place throughout the separation.  However, I couldn’t get home during lunchtime as I was busy at work so I was quite shocked to get a phone call from him.  He was asking when I’d be by the house as he was waiting to see me.  Huh? What just happened? I was quite speechless and just mumbled, “um, sometime soon…” or something.  When I finally was able to stop by the house, there he was waiting for me.  And he proceeded to tell me that he wanted to try this marriage again but he needed some more time to sort things out in his life.  He also showed me a list of things that were important to him to see if I would have problems with any of them.  They were quite trivial then but yes, I remembered I had so much issues with his interests when I was having issues with myself not too long ago.  The whole experience was quite surreal.  So yes, if this didn’t happen to me, I would have not believed that Oprah’s luck and life did a complete 180 as soon as she had Surrendered and Let it go.  I too had let him go and instantly things did turn around for the better (it actually did take months to be better but it was a start).

That show was an eye opening moment for me.  Deep down I have always known that I needed to let things go so we both can move on with our lives.  But yes, it is easier said than done.  However, that day was the beginning of actually knowing and wanting to really put things behind me and to Let It Go.  I am still struggling with this but I am now consciously making efforts to release all the bad memories and pain and to just Surrender…