Things finally blew up with Joel. One evening after the kids were in bed I decided we couldn’t go on like this anymore. We hadn’t spoken more than pleasantries for ages and when I tried to pin him down he would get up and leave saying, “just get better” as he walked away.
I followed him around spraying him with questions, trying to force him to talk to me.
“Are you really happy?”
“What are we going to do?”
“We can’t go on this way.”
And finally, the real clincher, “This isn’t really a marriage. We don’t really love each other.”
That is when he blew.
“Who the hell do you think you are? I loved you always. Through everything. Through your bizarre behaviour, your depression, your rejection of the kids, your suspicious absences, your whims and crying jags. I never said a word. I even loved you through your desperate insecurities and need to prove your worth to those stupid women at The Club. Your obsessive exercise, your designer clothes and jewelry, your spa weekends away. I did whatever I thought would help you feel better. And I was ALWAYS there. I was committed to you and to this marriage. I still am.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to constantly keep my head held high? To turn the other cheek? To be the strong one? To hear the judgment and the gossip and just turn away? If this ‘isn’t a marriage’ as you say, that is because of YOU. That is all on YOU.”
I was frozen. To him it seemed so simple. In many ways I knew he was right, there was no question, but I also sensed that I was being manipulated. In fact, I had been feeling this for a while, a deep suspicion that my weakness and insecurity was Joel’s ticket to the “Perfect Wife”. I was easily influenced. I felt constant guilt and inadequacy and would do anything to please. A passing comment or suggestion from Joel became my newest obsession.
But I didn’t know that he even noticed it. He had never said a thing. During that whole time I didn’t even think he saw me at all, my attempts to please. I worked so hard to be this woman that I wasn’t all because I knew that is what Joel wanted, no needed, from me. And now he was twisting and turning it and using it against me when, in fact, all of these things had been his dream in the first place. But Joel was used to getting what he wanted. And he was used to being right. And he was not used to me challenging him. Ever.
I hope you are well Lyla.
Candace I love your last comment. I agree with you that Lyla is not focusing on the real issues here. I believe she is not taking responsibility for her lack of good judgment. I need to hear Lyla stand up and take responsibility for her actions, whether it be her affair or the lack of happiness in her life before that. Even if it is accepting her mental illness and what goes along with it. Stop blaming everybody else for your life and take control. Nobody is judging what her final decision is. Marriages end all the time, but come on man…..either move forward and get help with your depression so you can make sane decisions about your life with joel or your life with lover boy….but most of all get healthy for your kids!!!!
It is amazing to me that after what Joel said to her, she dwelled on the fact that Joel realized she was insecure all along. Then she decided she was being manipulated by a man used to getting his own way.
Do you know what words I would have dwelled on if my husband said Joe’s words to me? “…your rejection of the kids.” That would have torn a whole through my heart…but it didn’t even register as a blip for Lyla. The “pleaser” has no urge to please him and re-double her efforts as a mom or anything. This is what makes me think she’s just rationalizing her affair to herself…
We all judge…we just judge from our different perspectives. With your note, you are judging people you feel are unfairly judging Lyla.
I can empathize with Lyla’s deep-seated insecurities, and her need to live up to some projected ideal of perfection. I don’t think it is uncommon in this society…there are all sorts of images that women can feel compelled to try to live up to.
What I cannot identify with is her projections that Joel is someone to blame for those things. I see no sign of emotional abuse or overt manipulation here. Laying out her clothes that one day and scheduling a hair appointment could be seen as over-stepping (and could be stopped with a simple “I can choose my own clothes and do my own hair, thanks”), but we know of only one incident like this, and she had been “away” because she was stressed and needed a weekend away (to cheat). He knew this, so you could easily view that as him trying to pamper her some more. Don’t forget, he also greeted Lyla happily at the door with the kids, and snuggled in to tell her they missed her, and that he hoped she enjoyed her alone time. She was suffocating with the guilt of that lovely welcome when she knew she just consummated her affair, and she needed to find fault with Joel quickly to alleviate that guilt and rationalize her actions to herself.
Remember, he also asked her to please take a course, so she could enjoy some time to herself and explore her own interests. There was no benefit to him to take the kids while she did that…he was clearly interested only for her benefit.
And while I said med school instead of business school, my point was that they were once a team working together to achieve things. And back then, she was far from the “perfect” person she tries to be now, by her own description…and yet he fell in love with her just the way she was. Perhaps he got her a nanny and cleaners later to try to thank her for putting him through school, to let her know he owed her and appreciated it. To surmise these things were part of controlling her just seems like a stretch to me. Don’t forget, we, like Jackson, only hear Lyla’s side of the story here…not many people who cheat say they have a perfect mate but they just wanted to cheat (just like everyone in jail is innocent).
Lyla is definitely not someone that can be fronted as the perfect wife in their circles (or any other) ever again, so Joel cannot be staying with her for that reason. She essentially cheated with the pool boy…and everyone in their circles is laughing at them (and him), and Joel feels it. Kicking her out and getting a divorce and a new trophy wife would be easier, if he cared about image
And the way he referred to the woman at the club as “those stupid women” and wondered why she tried to impress them suggests he may feel as bored and caged-in by the circles they move in, sometimes, as she does.
It is natural that Joel wants to blame her. She had an affair. Most psychologists will tell you that a marriage cannot move past an affair until the person who cheated takes that blame and apologizes for the pain to the other person and tells them, unconditionally, they they will do what it takes to earn back that person’s trust. They can work on their other issues, too, but the person has to shoulder the blame for the affair. It’s a long hard road back, and can usually only be successful with complete commitment on both partners parts. But Joel does not even know Lyla is still cheating…
Unlike you, I do not believe that Lyla has stayed in her marriage for everyone else’s sake but her own. If that were true, she would have been mothering her kids, who she and Joel both recognize she essentially ignores…
I do not know is she should stay or leave, either. Only she can decide that. If she can’t love Joel again, she should go. I just hope she decides quickly so she stops making her family’s life a lie. And if she gives up her family, I hope she will become an active part of her kid’s lives, to help them through it. Because if she immerses herself in the affair and ignores them and hurts them, they will eventually strike back and refuse to see her. And I can’t help but think Lyla will really regret that. (And judgemental as you think I am…I do not want that for her.)
Wow – I cannot believe how judgmental some of you are. Lyla is sharing her story – would it be any different that instead of having an affair, she turned to an eating disorder or attempting suicide? She was unhappy in her marriage for a long time but stuck it out for everyone’s sake but her own. I don’t know if Joel actually loves her – she was friends with his sister so they have always been around each other. She said their families were so pleased when they started dating. He also did not go to med school … he went to business school and works in the family business. Lyla put her school plans on hold to become Joel’s wife – to support him. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t approve of affairs but I really don’t like to judge someone unless I have been in their shoes. Maybe she should have stood firm in the beginning … but she didn’t. I agree with Kath – I think Joel is manipulative and wants to put the blame all on Lyla. I think the only thing he is trying to salvage is his image of the perfect marriage. I don’t think his ego will allow the marriage to fail. I think Lyla is the other end of the spectrum … she reminds me of the woman who stays with an abusive husband because she thinks that is where she belongs, that she doesn’t deserve better. Before you jump all over me, I am not saying Lyla is abused but that she has the same mindset. She is trying to be too much of a pleaser at the expense of herself. Joel himself has fed into that, giving her a nanny at the very beginning (remember his nanny, Sonia – he brought her in), telling her what to wear, reminding her to get her hair done, etc. I don’t think he ever let her decide herself…she would obsess if he criticized something, no matter how lightly he said it. To me, that is controlling and manipulative on his part. I think Joel likes or loves the way he is fronting the perfect wife, the perfect family and the perfect life. He can’t understand that Lyla is unhappy. I honestly don’t know what she should do – only Lyla can figure that out. But if she was my friend, I would stick by whatever decision she makes. If it seems she doesn’t know what she wants, it’s because she has put her wants on the back burner for so long now. If she can address her needs and wants, then she can come back to being complete. Only then can she decide what she needs to do, either stay and work on her marriage or leave.
@Candace: **applause**
Lyla, are you sure you actually really want to talk to Joel and work it out? Or are you trying to push Joel to be the one to make the hard decision and end things?
Because the way you pushed the issue wasn’t exactly a plea to talk this through and create a safe haven for your feelings with each other, as partners. “Are you happy?” (You know the answer to that is no.) “We can’t go on this way. This is not a real marriage. We don’t really love each other.” Talk about leading with the negative. Not only have you let him know YOU don’t really love HIM…you’ve tried to make yourself feel better for it, at the same time, by saying he does not love you, either. Talk about passive aggressive and manipulative. I agree with Heather (& Julie and Leslie).
And then when he did open up/blow up to you with what he’s feeling, you froze again and did not share how you were feeling with him, good and bad.
Newsflash: the guy DOES love you. And he’s angry and worried sick and feeling betrayed and utterly humiliated, and probably wondering where the hell the woman he married went. You remember, the one who was his team-mate and worked with him while he went to med school and probably was not at all a trophy wife? You refer to working so hard to become the “perfect wife”…someone that you are not. But he married who you were…NOT who you keep trying to be.
Did it ever occur to you as you were re-inventing yourself into a trophy wife that YOU set the expectations in your marriage, and that Joel has been working harder and harder to measure up and be the “perfect husband” (ie-moneymaker) and keep you in the style you seem to demand so you can live the fairly tale life he thinks you want? Because I’ve read your blog from the beginning and I see a man desperate to keep his wife happy. He just doesn’t know what you want (because, as Nan astutely says, you don’t know what you want).
Frankly, if all he wants is a trophy wife, I think you’d be out the door by now, because you’re pretty tarnished at this point. And yet he’s still with imperfect you. And now you tell him he does not love you and that his marriage isn’t “real?” Who the hell do you think you are, indeed.
OK. I have to chime in here again on depression and how it can completely change a person, and sometimes the marriage cannot adjust. Absolutely everyone goes through changes in life and sometimes the partners CANNOT adjust to the changes in each other. I have sympathy for Lyla, because I have lived through a similar situation with a depressed husband. I adjusted to the changes in him, and it changed me, completely changed the dynamic of the relationship. Reading this, I think Joel believes that he did everything to support Lyla, but that doesn’t guarantee that the marriage will last or that the support he provided was actually helping her. This behaviour is also not the way to repair the damage at this point in the relationship. It sounds like they need counselling to figure out what comes next. If Lyla is finally ready to reach out and talk, they need to be open with each other, not shut the other down. There are hard truths here, but it sounds like she’s making progress in figuring out what she needs. How can you get what you need from your partner if you don’t know what it is that you need? They are dealing with the fallout now from the affair, from the way they’ve been living and there are no simple solutions.
Do you love him? Do you want to stay with him? Do you want to rebuild your family?
This is not rocket science. Make a decision. Oh but if you decide to leave do not do it for photography guy…..he already has one foot out the door…..
I agree with Heather. You are passing the buck here. Take reponsibility for your own actions instead of always playing the poor trophy wife role.
YOU had the affair. YOU have abandonned your children.
Woman up and quit whiniing.
I agree with Joel. Completely.
If you were never honest with yourself, let alone your husband, then you have no one to blame but yourself for the state of your marriage. How do you know what he wanted or needed if you never really talked to him honestly? Perhaps he loves you with all your shortcomings and thought that he was supporting who you were – rather than someone who was being incredibly dishonest.
Do you truly not see that you are the one who is manipulating the situation so that yet again you don’t have to take any responsibility for yourself, your actions or your shortcomings?
The thing is – your life will be no different with any other man until you grow up, take responsibility for yourself and stop looking for excuses for your appalling behaviour.
Wow. That’s powerful, Lyla. Nothing is ever totally simple or straightforward in a relationship, is it? And least of all when there’s conflict and both parties are so deeply unhappy.
In my own experience, I can tell you that not leaving is not, NOT, NOT the same as being there. Not leaving, but not saying anything, not opening doors, not taking part in dialogue, not asking questions…that is not something to be thrown back in the other person’s face. It’s kinda like when I was in university and I lived with a bunch of other girls. It drove me crazy that nobody ever cleaned the kitchen or bathroom – just because I was the first one to “crack” meant I was the one who did all the cleaning. But it didn’t make me wrong, either. It was our duty as housemates to communicate with each other and meet halfway.
So on this one, I’m going to side with you. Whether he sees it or not, Joel is manipulating you. What he did isn’t love or commitment or devotion or support. It’s called taking the easy way out, and he’s every bit as responsible for the problems in your relationship as you are. He saw the warning signs, he knew how unhappy you were, and he ignored it all. I call that cowardice not heroism.
You BOTH need to step up to the plate and take accountability for the problems in your marriage and work them out — one way or the other — together.