Maybe you should be risking for something better.
The blowing-up-your-life level comes with real hazards. Enter the water and you might become shark bait. See above.
Though, perhaps, you are gaining.
What, you ask? What could be worth the risk?
The freedom. That’s what.
FREEDOM. No more looking over your shoulder. No more hiding. No more tactical level second life’ing. No more pretending to be happy at home.
You come clean.
Everyone’s nuclear blast is different. You might feel clenching in your chest as you drive into the garage at your house. “He’s home, ugh.” Or, “Why does she always have to be here?”
You may dread the family get-togethers with the inane conversation. “How are you guys doing?” And never telling the truth. “We are awful together. We never touch. We barely look at each other.” Instead, you say, “Oh, we’re fine. Same old.”
It is the same old. And you are TIRED of it.
It could be never touching at hello or goodbye. I can’t believe she left again without a kiss. Doesn’t he even care?
Or it could be a cuddle that gets rejected at bedtime. That wide back view, I’ve written about. It’s like sleeping next to the Great Wall of China. And it’s just as forbidding. Your bed is as cold as the arctic circle.
“I desire to have a life that does not have a hidden part of it. A life where I can freely admit who I am and not hide certain parts of me. I also desire a marriage where I’m happy (actually happy) and so is my spouse.”
How to do that you ask?
- Leave it all behind. Divorce. Start over.
- Come clean about cheating and start fresh with your spouse.
The fallout is nuclear. That’s the clincher in the #1.
“The kids will hate me.”
“My family will never understand.”
“I’ll be paying for this for forever.”
“Everyone will turn their back on me.”
“I’ll be left with nothing.”
“I’m too tired to start over.”
You’ll be left a pariah. Like a modern day Hester Prynne. Or an episode of Dateline. “Cheating wife killed!” is the stark headline.
That would never happen if you admitted your cheating and stayed with your spouse. They’d hold it over your head for an eternity. #2 in a nutshell.
“I can’t believe you slept with that whore.”
“How could you!”
“I was so good to you and look what you did!”
“You are a selfish toxic monster!”
“Why is sex so important to you?”
“I can forgive but I’ll never forget.”
Yet the starting-over part with your affair partner seems tantalizing.
I can be with someone who wants me?!
Have sex and intimacy whenever we both want to?
Be vulnerable and express my deepest needs and desires without shame?
I could be happy for once?
Wow.
Maybe I should risk it all for something better, after all.
—
This post was previously published MEDIUM.COM.
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From The Good Men Project on Medium
What Does Being in Love and Loving Someone Really Mean? | My 9-Year-Old Accidentally Explained Why His Mom Divorced Me | The One Thing Men Want More Than Sex | The Internal Struggle Men Battle in Silence |
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