In the wake of breaking his wife’s heart, John Taylor questions what it means to be a man.
“The best way I had to show love, complete truth and honesty, was also causing the worst pain I ever could. That’s what it feels like to be the guy to bring the heavens crashing down.”
I told my wife that even if I thought she was only giving 50% then it should have been my job to give 150%. Instead, I gave her absolutely nothing. I am indeed, as the following day’s text from an unknown number suggested, “a giant bag of sh*t.” Indeed sir or maddame, you are correct. Thanks for the reminder. Nothing ever makes it okay to cheat your partners love like that. You don’t have to tell me how that is.
I can’t hear anything, see anything, touch, taste, or feel, without hurting. But I am not hurting for me. It goes like this: The best way I had to show love, complete truth and honesty, was also causing the worst pain I ever could. That’s what it feels like to be the guy to bring the heavens crashing down. And what am I supposed to do with that?
For the rest of my life, I will carry the weight of those heavens. I chose a lifetime of pain, the moment I stopped giving to my marriage. I chose my wife’s tears, I chose my son’s behavior because he is so confused and sad because he doesn’t understand. I chose the snide remarks, the burning stares, and the physical hurt. Is that being a man? Or would a real man never have allowed those choices to be made?
I guess that is really a moot question at this point. I can’t go and change it now. If I could swallow all of the far-reaching pain, I would do so without a single drop to drink. Because I would deserve to choke on every crumb that fell through my throat. My mind is numb. My heart aches and bleeds, and at anytime, it is sure to explode. My muscles ache, they twitch, they constrict.
It hurts.
I have nobody to point to except myself. My wrongdoing makes the pain of so many others my pain to carry. I can’t be mad about it. I don’t have the right to be. All I can do is just take it more and more and more. Why? There is a wife that told me she loved me this morning. There is a wonderful, beautiful, angelic woman, who told me this morning that she knows that I love her.
Man up. What does it really mean? In a time where I have never felt more pain, more sorrow, more _______ which is that feeling I can’t even explain—I think I have found its meaning.
It means having the ears to hear the remarks. It means having the eyes to see the hurt in hers. It means showing my son that a real man is weak as well as strong; showing him that real manhood is learning from weakness to become stronger. It means enduring the physical pain it causes, and still having the strength to carry that weight forever.
It means spending every last damn breath I take, trying once again to take hers away. God knows we are worth it. I will spend the rest of my life showing that I want to be hers. It means having the courage to not close my eyes when hers are overflowing. It means knowing, always knowing, and always accepting, that I will never again be seen through the same eyes that I first gazed into at that Winston-Salem bus station.
Piece by piece. Ash by ash. I will be clearing the rubble for all time. The act of being a man now only consists of one realization: That I never was one before, and that may be the most unfortunate realization that came one lifetime too late.
Photo of young man courtesy of Shutterstock.
About John Taylor
As a person, you have the right to pursue happiness. Sometimes our partner will not provide a source or an opportunity for happiness, that is a part of life. I hope you do not live the life of misery you foresee for yourself, no man need endure self-recrimination on that scale.
My happiness returned the first time my wife told me she loved me after the fact. I mean, what more could I really ask for after destroying her world?
I see it like this: With not even 2.5 seconds in between, I realized the greatest of things, then had to turn around and risk throwing it all away, because it only would have been right. My wife will never be able to look at me the same. She will never completely get past it.
It won’t be misery to me if I have to feel the pain I caused her. Because of it all, I have the renewed sense of what it really means to try, to give, so show, to touch, to feel, to express. I know it all now in the most unfortunate of ways.
I will spend my entire life trying to get back all of her I can, and give all of me she will take. As long as she is still saying “I love you” or “I want you” or “You are my only one”, then there is no misery in that.
I speak as someone who did the same thing, has gone through the same situation, and has had those same feelings. Your feelings are perfectly understandable, and your desire to make amends is very commendable. You are doing the right thing now by looking at your own actions and the effects they had on others.
At the same time, while you are healing your relationship and taking responsibility for your actions, it’s important to rebuild the relationship on healthy terms. Ultimately, if your main relationship role is to spend the rest of your life making up for your wrongdoing, that is not a sustainable relationship either. Spending the rest of your life attempting to redress your earlier behavior puts you in a permanent one-down position, not in a peer-to-peer relationship.
I bet you’re not there yet, because it sounds like there’s a lot more couple-work to do, but in order for your new relationship to work, at some point you will need to be “the man who had an affair” without that being the defining thing about you, or the defining thing about your new family situation. I’m not talking about getting off the hook or getting away with something, just that there is an uncomfortable but necessary middle ground between totally excusing yourself and punishing yourself for eternity.
Right now things are very raw for you. Those feelings of guilt and remorse and shame will probably never go away. There is probably a part of you that doesn’t want to let go of those feelings. And, there are no doubt many people out there who hope you feel bad for the rest of your life. But, at the risk of sounding trite, it will get better. You will not and should not torture yourself until you die. That’s not a good basis for a long-term relationship, and not good for your family either. Don’t get permanently stuck in this emotional extreme.
That is a discussion my wife and I have been having. The fact that at some point, I have my own feelings, my own hurt, guilt, shame, what have you, to have to face, deal with, and overcome. My first step towards that was setting up a counseling appointment tomorrow. A different subject I shall be writing on soon here and my personal blog.
There have been mental health issues have been a part of my life for the better part of 12 years plus. I know that facing these things will have to happen. And I also know how weak I have been in the past about how I deal with it. It will help me to face my shit alone, and understand it all. Then, I know I will be better prepared to talk to my wife about it whenever it comes time that she is ready to do so.
I know that right now, my feelings are the least of her concerns, and I guess that is valid. She cares. She knows. But that’s not a priority to her right now. I have good friends who have made it their point to be here in a nonjudgmental capacity when I need them.
I’m sure I won’t revel in misery forever. I know I can be bigger than that if I can be bigger than what I did. I just accept the time it will take to heal to be one hell of a long journey.
Thanks for your input and words of advice.