Ma, I'm Home!: And so it goes...

Hi!

I'm very apprehensive about your latest news. Please send the email to
this address as I'm no longer using my old one.

Hope you are well. Miss you.

Emyn

Hi.

I am so sorry that I have taken so long to get back to you.

Here is what I can tell you right now about how I am doing and what is going on. Last Friday, I brought up the subject of my wife and my relationship with her, because - as you know - I was seeing that she wasn't acting consistent with the discussion we had in April about moving to a platonic relationship. Then she asked me if I was having an affair with you and I said yes, thinking that she shouldn't/wouldn't really be very surprised given our conversations. She made it real clear that she had intended that to be an option we would explore over the next year, but that it was not our relationship now.

Well, essentially, Emyn, I completely blew up my life. The depth of betrayal my wife experienced was too profound for words. We are separating nearly immediately. I will probably be left to sell the house myself. Further, we had to explain this all to my two daughters who were badly and very, very badly affected respectively.

Close friends got involved, because my wife and I both needed a lot of help and because they knew something was very wrong.

Emyn, I have lost the respect and trust of my family and my closest friends. They love me, but see me as deeply flawed.

Here is the thing that I have come to realize: they are right. I realized this because I suddenly could see, as if through their eyes, how completely deluded I was about the compatibility of my two lives (Philippines/you and home). The fact that I could not see this and that I had so completely rationalized - constructed my own reality - was not at all like me in any way that any of these dear people had
ever seen in me before.

It was as if a veil was being lifted in successive layers as I came to grips in my horror and dismay with just how badly I hurt everyone. And, I have also had to come to grips with what would drive me to create such a rationalization.

Here is what I think happened on the surface: deprived of intimacy with my wife, I decided that I needed another outlet and that this was ok to keep secret because it was only superficial thing and wasn't really worth forcing a marriage crisis by bringing my needs out into the open with my wife.

Having bifurcated myself this far, it was easy to go further: because our relationship opened my eyes to the fact that I could show up in a more genuine way with a woman than I understood before, I had to accept that a lot of the intimacy problems in my marriage were actually my fault. I couldn't meet my wife's needs, therefore she had trouble with intimacy, therefore I was deprived of it, etc.

Still unable to look the dissolution of my marriage and family happiness square on I went further: I can get my wife to agree to live more as my sister or cousin than wife and carry on to the outside world as if nothing changed; I can have you in my life as a sexual partner and lover too. The fact that this was unrealistic never really occurred to me. I had disassociated my head from my gut in order to continue with this safe fantasy.

Only, I let my fantasy collide with my reality and sealed my fate. I have had to deal with the dissolution of all that I held dear. Only I have deeply hurt everyone I love and myself as well.

What have I learned? That I can bifurcate and create a believable reality when it comes to intimate relationship. That this reality is profoundly abusive to those I weave into it because they are not dealing with the real me but the one I want to or need to believe I am. That I have a core belief that will not tolerate making a choice in my relationships based on what I want, but only upon what I define as good (when there should be room for both)

Now what? I am entering therapy tomorrow. My wife is moving to the west coast ahead of me. My daughters are suspending judgment but have been very badly uncentered by this and don't trust me, so I have a lot of repair work to do. I need to get to the bottom of how and why I could be so bifurcated. I need to show up in newly authentic way with everyone, you included. There will be lots of processing of this for me, privately and with others as needed. You and I must have a very serious heart to heart conversation - I don't trust myself in the ones we have already had - about what we mean to each other, what reality we are constructing and what we really want and don't want. I feel that when I say "we" in this last sentence, it is mostly about "I" and that I need to be sure that I am not wrapping you up in any further delusions. I don't know where our relationship will go from here. Nothing is forbidden, but nothing is certain.

I hope you understand what I have been going through and how I have been forcefed through a passage of intense personal encounter (I wouldn't use the phrase growth, because I can't give myself that much credit yet). I hope this doesn't make you more apprehensive. It is actually good news because I truly think the way I have operated up till now is dangerous to those who love me. Now it will get better.

Be well, be centered, breath and know that I care about you very much,

CDS

I am so sorry about what has happened. I wish I could say that I am sorry for the time we spent together. I am not. I just want you to remember that what you had in your marriage was not "normal," since you seem to be considering your reaction to it as abnormal.

You talk about ruining the trust you had with your family and seem to have forgotten about what brought you into my life in the first place. Note that when we first met, you weren't "in my life" as yet. It was when we started our foray into a serious relationship that you entered into it.

What I can understand so far is that you seem to be blaming yourself for what has happened in the past few days as if the whole thing was never rooted in anything in the past, that it was all your fault. the fat that your wife refused to have sexual relations, at least on the level of what everyday people have, with you and she is surprised -- and hurt -- that you should look for it somewhere else and, most of all, keep things secret, is -- well, what can I say.

It's not making sense at the moment. I feel very aggravated and scared. I don't want to deal with this at the moment. Let's not discuss things any further. You should not think about me for the meantime. It's very apparent that the shock of it all, your family's reaction to the whole thing, has dislodged you from your center. Although we both knew that things could not be easy, this was certainly very disturbing for you.

The whole world does not revolve around you, you know. You don't determine the "fate" of those you love and those you touch. We make our own decisions on how to act and what to do. It's our decisions that determine the course of the events in our life, not you. Your family's pains and sorrows are not of your exclusive making. Your wife had a hand in it as well.

And I'll be damned if your collective convoluted thinking will cause me pain and frustation.

I'd much rather we talk face to face. I don't want to exchange emails for the time being. I'll be working on the interviews and will finish in time for mid-August.

Emyn

Well said, Emyn. I am uncentered enough that I don't capture everything I feel in any one communication and so I may have given some misimpressions. But all your points are well taken, especially the part about convoluted thinking and me not being the center of everyone's universe.

One thing I do know is that bear no responsibility for my situation and have also been hurt by it. I am sorry for my part and I very much want to talk in person about it.

Would you be open to a phone call?

Thanks for continuing on with the project; it means a lot to me that you are doing that.

As an additional thought, please know that I will not embroil you further in my family stuff. I want us to deal with our stuff, whatever it is, and in whatever way works for you as much as I can. I know I am a bit of a mess right now and I am not sure I am making complete sense and in a way that is kind to you.

Please know I am sorry for causing you pain and that I prize what we experience together.

Be well,

CDS

Yes, please call, but not now. I think you should give yourself some time before we talk. Let's give ourselves a month.

And I should not have sent that email, especially since things have just started to -- unravel? That would be unkind. No, things are just started to show up after all these years. I believe that you were right when you said that it will be better now. And I shouldn't say things when I'm angry. I'm very, very sorry.

I am very angry that you are hurt and that your family is hurt. I'm not angry at any one person in particular. I do love one person in particular and that's you.

Whatever it is that you decide you want in your life, I'm very happy that you and I got to spend some time together.

For whatever it's worth, you've taught me so much about many things, including myself, and for that, I will always be grateful. You started a new chapter in my life, a very significant one. You touched my life in a very meaningful way. How many people can lay claim to that?

I'll be thinking about you and loving you always.

Emyn

Thank you so much. A month it is then. Then we will talk.

And, you have taught me much and given much too, you know.

Love,

CDS