After a long marriage, Jeanette found out that her husband had a second wife in his life. Now he makes no move to choose one of them. How is she supposed to deal with that?
Dear Ms Peirano,
my husband and I have been married for 27 years, have a grown-up son and actually make a good team (few arguments, many common interests). He is very generous and mostly also caring and kind.
In 2018, during a lengthy stay abroad, he met a Filipina named Mary who was ten years his junior and who works in a beauty salon. In 2019 he was in Mexico City on business. I was busy taking care of my seriously ill father and helping my son, who was difficult at the time, to prepare for his secondary school diploma. That’s why I couldn’t visit him at that time.
He then had Mary come to Mexico for four weeks to vacation with her. He hasn’t seen her in person since May 2019, but he often calls her when I’m not at home.
Since January 2020 we have both been living and working for the same company in another European country. While waiting for the house of a colleague who was going back to Germany, we stayed in a small apartment. My husband wanted separate bedrooms. I soon understood why. He spoke to her on the phone twice a night and also had virtual sex with her.
So I only found out in March 2020 that he has a mistress. Now we live in the house and mostly sleep in one bed. We talked about infidelity and he said I should be tolerant, he needed his freedom and would visit her two weeks a year from 2022 when she was back home.
When he retires in a few years, he would like to spend three months a year there. Apparently he loves us both. He financed a grocery store with a café and a house for her there. I don’t want to lose him, but a love triangle isn’t for me.
Many greetings
Jeanette G
Dear Jeanette G,
When I read your description, I missed one thing: You didn’t say a syllable about how you felt in the individual phases and how you feel now, having a second wife put in front of you, so to speak. Your story sounds about as matter-of-fact and unemotional to me as buying a new vacuum cleaner, for example.
Are you aware that you are not bringing your feelings into contact? Why is that? Has your story taught you that it doesn’t matter what you feel? Or that you feel vulnerable (and will if you show feelings)? My urgent question is whether you are holding back the same way with your husband when it comes to your feelings.
Your husband has met another woman behind your back, has been seeing her for years, has virtual and probably also “personal” sex with you and cannot be dissuaded from ending this affair. I would just assume that this hurts, confuses, touches and makes you sad. That it attacks your self-esteem, shocks you, makes you afraid of loss and the future, makes you jealous and probably much more. I could imagine that you are also suffering on a physical level from the stress and anxiety. For example, you can’t sleep, you’re nervous, you can’t relax well, you’re perhaps more sensitive to pain – or you have completely different symptoms.
How about you write that down. What thoughts do you have (e.g. I’m not enough for him, our relationship is threatened, how can he do that to me…), what feelings do you have (fear, jealousy, sadness..), what body sensations and physical symptoms do you have ( tachycardia, insomnia, nervousness…). And how do you behave?
What have you already done to clarify the situation – and what has worked and what hasn’t?
What are your personal strategies and patterns of behavior for dealing with crises and threatening life situations? Endure? Battle? push it away? Get very rational and explain the situation?
I certainly don’t want to give the impression that you are responsible for what your husband does! But it is very important to remain in emotional contact with each other even in a long-term relationship and to reflect on uncomfortable sides if possible.
For example, I can’t reconcile your husband’s description of being “caring, kind, and a good teammate” at all with his current behavior toward a second wife. I would describe a man who secretly begins an affair while his wife is handling stressful family matters, and openly pursues and intends to continue that affair, as ruthless, selfish, and dishonest. How does that fit together for you?
Or have you had arrangements in your partnership that you haven’t told me, eg agreed an open relationship, or have you had one or more affairs yourself, so that it is unspokenly legitimate?
I think it would be important for you to get in touch with yourself and your feelings first, for example in therapy, counseling or coaching. And once you’ve figured out how you’re feeling and are honest with yourself, the next step would be to mirror your feelings and hurts to your man. Without experiencing your feelings, he will not understand what he is doing to you.
I’ve often seen people who, because of their history (and to protect themselves from hurt), deal with hurt in a very matter-of-fact way, are ignored and misunderstood. It takes an appropriate emotional response for the other person to understand what is going on.
My cat is exemplary: if another cat wants to come into our house, it stands by the door, hunches, hisses and growls. She makes it absolutely clear where her limits are and that she will not accept those limits being crossed. Can you do that too? Obviously you haven’t reached your husband (like me) emotionally. My recommendation is to catch up. And in such a way that the message gets across. With tears, open words and everything that goes with it.
Perhaps the very loss of emotional contact is at the root of the problem. Either you function more easily due to learned patterns and do not show your feelings – and as a result contact with your husband has been lost. Or you have learned in your marriage that it is not possible to reach your husband emotionally and have become somewhat “emotionally blind” about it. It would be very important to find out!
Best regards
Juliet Peirano