http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/joseph.asp
"The Healing Library
Joseph's Letter
This is a post by Joseph, a member of the now defunct BAN
Message Board. He wrote to this letter to his wife to explain why he asked for
details of her affair.
To Whomever,
I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you
wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even
believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally
much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering
little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that
happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No
one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly.
No one wants to be forced to 'look' at the thing that caused all their pain
over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing
this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is
over, that he/she doesn’t mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I
can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and
thinking, doesn’t he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can
feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this
letter I’m going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.
You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a
puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able
to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You
know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect
your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the
pieces, the tools, and the knowledge.
You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you
have any doubts, then at least you’re carrying all the information in your mind
and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question.
You carry all the 'STUFF' to figure out OUR reality. There isn’t really any
information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don’t have.
Now let’s enter my reality. Let’s both agree that this affects our lives
equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and
our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So,
why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as
much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like
you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendos
of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to
understand what nearly brought our relationship down.
To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is
unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well
ever 'feel' complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and
400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the
benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to
discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you.
You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are.
When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell
me don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I ask whether there were any
animals in my puzzle you say don’t worry about it, it’s not important. When I
ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what’s the
difference, it’s not important.
Then later when I’m expected to understand the picture in my puzzle you fail
to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same
way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express
this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not
seeing it the way you see it.
You wonder why I can’t just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about
the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.
So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and
I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything
that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake
and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me
so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don’t you understand that I
want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in
your mind and heart.
I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and
slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were
easier.
So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That
is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you
to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of
dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world
together.
It doesn’t come from jealousy, it doesn’t come from spitefulness, and it
doesn’t come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I
love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn’t it be easier for me
to walk away? Wouldn’t it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake
in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can’t
and the reason I can’t is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all
the difference in the world."
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