Dear Mrs. Bluth,
Three years ago I made a terrible mistake in the heat of am argument with my wife and for three years I was able to keep it from her. Just recently, what I thought was a clandestine one-night stand that would remain a secret since I made sure of being very discrete picking a place far from home and after the fact, never repeated because of all the guilt I suffered from, I was sure I succeeded. But I was wrong! Let me start at the beginning.
I work at a large firm in a large city and live with my wife and five children in a nice frum community where I am a gabbai in our shul and am deeply involved with community organizations. My children attend fine yeshivos and my wife is involved in the Ladies Auxiliaries and is hostess to many tzedakah functions. We have been married now for twenty-two years without any incidents. However, about three years ago my wife seemed to be going through some anxiety and we often did not see eye to eye on many things and the arguments that ensued behind closed doors became riddled with verbal insults and terribly hurtful. It came to a point where I would go to Hashkama Shachris and left to work early just so I could avoid any confrontation with her in front of the kids.
At work I found peace and comradery with my co-workers and soon found pleasure in the company of one of the executive secretaries. I felt like so much more of a man in her presence after all the insults from my wife, that I looked to take lunch the same time that Rita did. In my heart I knew this was wrong but Rita made all the pain from home disappear and it was only a lunch break after all! This went on for three months in which our relationship grew beyond platonic into an urge for intimacy. During those three months I had not had any intimacy with my wife and we rarely spoke to each other at all. So when Rita suggested we meet at a hotel in another town for a night, I agreed, locking any guilt that threatened to disrupt this meeting and what it promised deep down and away.
Leaving my wife a note that I had to go out of town for a night to see a client, I packed an overnight bag and drove off. I couldn’t wait for the work day to end to meet up with Rita who had a day off and was already at the hotel. But something began to eat away at my conscience and as much as I tried to suppress it, it began to invade my mind. So I kept pushing it away and soon found myself in the hotel parking lot. I also found myself having great difficulty with my conscience, knowing what this could do to my marriage, my life and my family. so on leaden legs, I checked in and went up to room 613. Was this an omen? A reality check on what I stood to give up, to lose my soul for what? I knew at that moment that I couldn’t go through with it.
I turned around, rode the elevator to the lobby and called Rita and told her I would pay for her room but I couldn’t go through with it. I slept in my car that night, found a minyan in the morning and drove back to work.
What I didn’t know was that after my call to Rita, she was so angry, she went and called my wife and told her all that was going on between us those past three months and that was how I came home that night to an empty house. My wife and children had gone to stay with her parents until this could be resolved. I was completely devastated. I drove to my in-laws’ home and begged my wife to forgive me but she wouldn’t even look at me. I went out into my cold car and wept, when my mother-in-law tapped on the window and asked if she could sit with me a while. She asked what had happened and I told her everything because I had nothing left to lose. I explained about the distance that had grown between my wife and myself and how we hurt each other with fighting words until we stopped speaking to each other altogether. And then I told her about Rita and what almost happened but didn’t. I asked her to speak to my wife, to tell her that I loved her above all else and that I would never, ever again put myself in such a position. That I would work my fingers to the bone to prove to her that she could learn to trust me on this. My mother-in-law said she would try her best to speak on my behalf, but it was my job to convince since trust, once broken, is a very hard thing to re-instate.
So this is why I write to you. Can you help me formulate the right way to ask for forgiveness and a second chance, when I meet with my wife at a therapist’s office tomorrow? Do you think there is even a chance that she will hear me out? I cannot believe I allowed myself to fall so low, to betray the woman I truly love above all others and that I brought this on myself! Is there any chance she will take me back?
Dear Friend,
Mmmmm, you really stepped into the quicksand thinking it was just a puddle? You’re lucky you didn’t follow through and that the Heavens were watching. Nothing good ever comes of decisions made in lust or for lack of love and communication. Your marriage hit a hole in the road and instead of asking your wife what is bothering her, is she feeling okay? Or what is making her so stand-offish and upset? You just boomeranged it back to her by ignoring the problem and making her the bully to your victim. Your solution to this problem is sadly more common than not.
I must commend your mother-in-law she is a rare breed who looks to make peace instead of causing a war, and with her help and the good choice of dealing with this in a professional setting of a therapist’s office will keep things truthful, safe and secure. Trust, once broken is almost impossible to repair. Almost but on rare occasions not impossible. You will have to work very hard to do penance and try to redeem yourself in her eyes and even if you are successful, there will always remain a kernel of doubt that will remind her of what you intended to do but didn’t. Good luck tomorrow at the therapist’s office, I suggest you listen more than you speak and when you do speak, remember what you almost lost. You sound like a nice guy who made an awful mistake so I wish you the best of luck and success in this trying time.
