“I quit on myself way before he quit on me”, she said…
…I recently had a conversation with a friend.
Her girlfriend jus had a stroke and lost over 50 pounds of pure stress in just a month!
Crazy!
[Warning: Stress is a Non-Sustainable Diet and Can Kill You]
She’s pushing fifty and just found out that her husband found someone else.
Someone younger, more fun, happier, vivacious and full of fresh energy…
…Someone, who is a 15 years younger version of herself.
Needless to say, it devastated her and nearly killed her!
Literally.
Fortunately, she’s recovered and surprisingly is determined to not just go on,
but fight for her marriage.
Makes you stop and think, doesn’t it?
It forced me to think about a few things.
First, it happens too often to ignore, the scenario of a younger version (10-15 years) of the wife.
So what happens to the relationship to get to that point?
I am not talking about bad matches where you know it’ll eventually happen for a slew or reasons.
I am talking about good marriages between people, who genuinely were in love and build a life together.
Why he stopped recognizing a woman, he fell in love with, in her and decided to look for her somewhere else,
quitting on his wife? On something they had built in 30 years, something irreplaceable.
It must be more than a middle age crisis!
It must be more than a seductress stealing an object-of-a-husband!
So, when my friend, after five hours of talking, listening and letting her girlfriend vent, decided to dig
deep and ask the painful questions only a good friend can ask, it all became clear.
“I quit on myself way before he quit on me”, she said.
“I let myself go. I became this hen-of-a-woman who helicoptered over everyone, like a mom.
I mothered him too.
And although men love moms, admire moms, but they don’t want to have sex with one.
There are exceptions, which we are not talking about here.
I rarely initiated sex and he is still very much into it and I am attracted to him very much.
I am just not that attracted to myself anymore and I am too lazy to fix it.
I wouldn’t do things in bed that we both used to do, new things we should try just for fun or for laughs either.
I aged, and I’m not talking physically, but I let that fun girl within myself age.
I became boring, so I decided that I deserve a boring life, boring sex, boring relationship.
Well, can I blame him for disagreeing with me?
He’s just 53. He’s attractive and very healthy, thus sexually active.
Why would he alter his passion to my sedentary routine, when he knows it can be different because it was.
Of course, I got angry, I’m human and was scorned.
Of course, I unraveled and showed my ugly side.
Then, I let it get to me and it really got to me, really messed me up to the point my heart couldn’t take anymore me beating myself up.
It cracked at its seams and woke me up.
So, when I was in the hospital I had nothing else to do but think.
Surprisingly, all I could think of is how much I loved him. Not in a sick way, where he’s walking over me and I seek more of it,
but in a big unconditional way.
A part of me wanted to argue with it, but I couldn’t help but think about me setting it all perfectly up for a failure, unintentionally.
So, I pled for another chance and let him think about it, understanding perfectly that the other woman will try to pull him in and potentially win. After all, she’s fluent in passion and practicing it with him right now.
And I forgot what it feels like.
Giving him a freedom of choice after declaring everything I stand for,
what I keep myself responsible for in our marriage and a tremendous desire to try to save it and do it with no hold backs,
no grudge, full of self-pity, against him, no weapons, no leverage against him for later…
I just want HIM and no one else to share my life with, because he is the one for me. And now, I want to see if he
And now, I want to see if he still sees the one in me. I quit on us before and I can’t bare knowing that I quit on us again.
Sometimes, to gain big you need to gamble big.
It’s my turn to fight for us now, as he fought for us all these years until I came to this realization.”
Wow.
Naturally, it led me to the second thought.
“Would I forgive?” Would YOU?
I am not sure I would, but then again, we haven’t been 30 years together.
It goes beyond the obvious needs, it goes where you strip your ego layers to make him do the same for you.
There’s no deeper connection than in a complete vulnerability.
I hope it’ll never happen to me and if it does, I hope I the strength to fight and wisdom to forgive.
But for now, the mere thought about it pisses me off.
The third thought, that I couldn’t shake off, was the amount of judgment we have in us ready to label people,
crucify them for something that you disagree with and paths they choose for themselves that terrify you.
I know so many women who followed a similar scenario and lost.
I also know couples who faced worse and won.
So many of us act according to what is acceptable in our societal frames and afraid to choose what’s good and natural to our soul just because it’ll be disapproved by our family, friends, society.
I say, screw it!
If you want to forgive your husband’s infidelity, do it.
If you want to leave him because he’s not the one, although he’s perfect on paper…
…well, he’s not married to the paper.
Nobody is going to live your life, live your marriage and be happy for you.
You are the only one who is responsible for your own balance, happiness, honest and fulfilling lifestyle, healthy body, sexual satisfaction, and open communication.
Yes, I know, it takes two to tango;
BUT as women, we are powerful in so many ways, including communicating our needs, listening, feeling and using our wired at birth intuition.
All we need is to use it, cultivate it and attend to ourselves in the most self-less, yet, unapologetic way.
Happy wife – happy life.
Happy mother – happy children.
Happy woman – a better world.
~ NK
