If you’ve watched The Bridges of Madison County, you either sympathized with Meryl Streep’s character or you hated her. You saw how neglected, invisible and shut off she was from herself and her passions or you thought she was selfish and reckless to even consider a moment with Clint Eastwood.
A bored housewife who did something abhorrent, or two soulmates who found each other too late?
My heart is racing as I type this. I think half of you will hate me and the other half will at least be open minded to what I’m about to say, I hope.
My life, my situation, my pain… it’s not black and white, cut and dry. And I think the Universe/God made things happen because the timing was way too suspect, way too choreographed.
So, here it goes…
Early 2019, my best friend died suddenly. My husband didn’t want to go to the funeral because it was too early in the morning. I excused him. I let him out of it. He wasn’t good with emotions, anyway. So, I went to the wake and funeral on my own. My husband didn’t even try to comfort me or ask me how it was. He just checked out. I gave him grace as I always did. And I had sex with him after the funeral because that’s how he showed me support. Lucky me.
The same month, the husband of my best friend who died threatened me. I was concerned for my safety. I told my husband I was worried about going to work and I begged my own husband to leave his phone on in case something happened.
Well, my husband didn’t leave his phone on, I called 17 times over 2 hours and got voicemail. I was hurt, crushed and red hot angry.
I got home, expecting at least an apology and instead he said “I don’t have to answer my phone for anyone, not even YOU!”
I had seen my best friend dead in an open box, the husband had threatened me and now my fucking coward of a husband stood in our kitchen telling me he didn’t care about me, he didn’t care about my feelings, my safety, my fucking grief. ME. He didn’t care about me.
This wasn’t the first time it had gone down like this, but this was the most extreme and the most jarring. I fully checked out. I fully snapped. All hope that my 23 year relationship/16 year marriage would change just died. Abruptly. And my body said “no more access”, while my mind said “stop doing things for him”.
All he cared about that entire year was getting me back in bed “check your hormones, get a doctor’s appointment”.
I was still swimming in grief. This death was one of the hardest I’ve ever dealt with. I was still in shock. I had no idea how to handle this man trying to get on top of me while I was having a major, major existential crisis. I needed love, support and just softness. Instead I was met with “what about ME” from a man who I was starting to despise. I was revolted by him and my body said NO MORE.
I didn’t know what to do. I froze. I drank. I checked out. I disassociated. I was frozen with grief and fear. I should have gotten into therapy and called an attorney, instead, I numbed out to ignore the pain.
Then one night after Christmas, I drank an entire bottle of wine, had half a box of See’s Candy and passed out on the couch. He went to bed.
I was sick for 3 days, very high fever, didn’t move from that couch. Didn’t eat. Barely drank. He ignored me.
I had some sort of spiritual awakening at this time. My body was SCREAMING to be heard, screaming for me to change, move, get out, do something. Part of me died and was replaced by a woman who was getting ready to FIGHT. I felt close to God in a way I can’t describe. It felt like divine intervention. It was my awakening.
At the exact same time, a voice from my past had sent me a note sitting in my Facebook Messenger inbox. I had ignored that note for 2 months.
My high school sweetheart was asking how I was doing. I hadn’t heard from him since 1995. Let’s call him Jim.
We chatted all night one night on messenger. It was just going down memory lane, taking about everything. It was very innocent.
Then, it wasn’t.
He remembered vivid details. My outfits, my perfume. He talked about my family, how he thought he was going to marry me. That he had always felt a pull and connection to me.
And I felt the same way. We hadn’t been able to stay together in the 1990’s because we lived far away from each other. No car, no money, huge phone bills… my mother told me to cut it off. And I did. But he was always the one I missed. The one who respected me, the ONE who didn’t pressure me for sex, the one who felt like home to me.
He got married very young, at 21. Moved around, had two kids and he’d been divorced for a year or two when he reached out. He lived over 1,000 miles from me.
We continued chatting. My husband knew about it. Again, even with the subtle flirting, it felt innocent to me. I wasn’t into sex anymore (according to my husband) and I was an obese, 40-something year old woman that nobody wanted.
Then, Jim said…”I have to see you. I know it’s not really right. But I have to see you. What if I just showed up in your town, was available and you can decide if you want to see me.”
It didn’t occur to me that there would be any interest in me at all. I was nervous about the idea, but this other part of me was like… I’m fat, I’m ugly… let him come see it. Let him waste his time.
So, he showed up. I went to his hotel room. I didn’t shave my legs, that’s how sure I was that nothing was going to happen.
I knocked on his room, he opened… and the moment he hugged me, I could feel the electricity shooting through my body. “I’m fucked” I whispered to myself.
He had spontaneously showed up and hadn’t slept in like 22 hours, so I left to let him sleep. I had to work that day. Nothing had happened… but I was pretty sure something was going to happen. I had a decision to make.
And this is so stupid, so dramatic. I thought of Bridges of Madison County. I can have a moment with my Clint Eastwood. I can just have this secret. I can just do this and take it to the grave. That’s how I justified it.
Little did I know what was to come…
He held me and I cried. He felt like home again. He felt like I had pulled someone who had died back from heaven and I was going to have one night with this person. The emotions were completely overwhelming. All the love I had for him when I was 15 came pouring back in. I felt SO safe, so seen, so feminine with him. And on top of these feelings, I was still in the middle of my spiritual awakening so I felt like I was going to explode with joy, love and pure source energy. I felt like I was emitting pure, white light. It was the most intense moment of my life, frankly.
We were holding each other, both of us crying, both of us holding each others’ face and saying that we didn’t believe we were here. I can’t explain how intense it was. Pure love. It felt like love that was pure.
Then I asked him to make love to me. He hesitated and asked me three times if that’s what I wanted. I thought of Bridges again, and I said yes.
The first thing Jim said to me was “open your eyes, be here with me”. I was disassociating like I always did. But he wouldn’t let me. He brought me back to him. And in that moment, I became aware of emotional intimacy. That emotionally-driven desire existed (not just manual stimulation and maybe some porn watching to get things going). That sexual connection, emotional connection and true intimacy actually did exist. I could actually connect with a man like this. This moment changed me forever.
It wasn’t the best sex, physically (because I was used to performative sex). But emotionally and spiritually, it changed my life. It changed me in a way that I can’t describe. Frankly, we could have refrained from sex and it would have probably felt just as intimate or more intimate than the sex I had encountered in my life. Some days, I wish I wouldn’t have taken it that far. I was craving emotional connection and I bet I could have had that without sex.
We spent the next morning taking a long shower, looking at each other. Kissing slowly and crying. Then we got coffee and he left. And I bawled all the way home from the airport.
This experience will be etched into my soul forever.
And I thought that it would be my Bridges moment and I would take it to the grave.
But the guilt ate me up inside and I thought if I had a chance to be with Jim, I should take it.
So, I told my husband about it immediately. He was angry. He was fixated on the sex. “I thought you were having hormonal issues??” I did, too. “You were WITHHOLDING and PUNISHING ME!”
But, and let me make this clear, my body was detached from sex, it had no desire for sex. I had made it VERY CLEAR to my husband for the better part of a year (but I had mentioned it 5 years prior) that I wanted emotionally-driven, soft, connected sex. Not the porn-watching, lube it up performative shit we’d been doing for decades. My husband laughed at me when I said this. “Sex isn’t emotional! It’s a physical release!”
So, the sex with Jim was purely emotional, purely from my heart. The desire was emotionally driven and reciprocated in a way that made me feel safe, seen and I felt GOOD being vulnerable. A first in my life. Soft, slow and zero performance, just presence.
And I said, I did this. I think we should end this. Clearly the marriage is over. And he told me, no, you are stuck. You cannot leave. I told him I wanted marriage counseling. He said no.
So, I signed a lease on an apartment. (Looking back we were awful at communicating and actions were the only way I could reach him).
And we signed up for marriage counseling the next day.
My husband actually took accountability for how he treated me, he was voicing his disgust with himself and he EVEN SAID “I’m glad the affair happened, it shook me awake.”
I was so hopeful for about 6 weeks. I thought maybe we can save this marriage.
But all of that didn’t last long.
Ironically, his best friend died and my husband encountered a mourning he had never experienced before. I helped him through it, I was there for him. I also loved his friend, I was also in mourning. I showed up for my husband in the way he never showed up for me and he never even acknowledged it.
I wanted to leave but the timing was bad. So I stayed.
And the old him emerged in full force. Demanding sex, trying all different ways to manipulate me back into his bed.
I held my ground. If things don’t change, I can’t be intimate. I can’t do it. He went on antidepressants, blaming me for it. Sulking, not really going to therapy. Just tried to manipulate me and he was sad and angry all the time. Following me from room to room trying to get me to hear why I should sleep with him again.
Things never changed and he finally asked me to leave. I stayed WAY too long because I thought he needed the support and I cared about him. I was worried about him. But me staying there and not putting out made him ANGRIER and even more depressed and I had no idea. I should have left SO much sooner. It was getting SO toxic and I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have the right support.
He used the affair to not pay me alimony, to be the victim, to paint me as the bad guy. Maybe I deserved it.
23 years of him abusing me vs. the affair. Society only sees one as being truly bad.
The affair isn’t WHY our marriage failed, it was a symptom. I was drowning, being burned alive by my shitty marriage and Jim sent me a lifeline. I do believe the affair saved me. I’m not proud of it, but I feel that it’s the truth.
My conditioning, my lack of listening to my instincts, my inability to make decisions and my disassociation from my own soul… I wasn’t thinking. I was drowning. I was making terrible decisions because I needed to escape and I didn’t know how. And Jim was the escape hatch.
Would I do it again? Not that way, no way. I would have left first. Clean break. With everyone’s dignity intact. But I wasn’t thinking rationally. I was in pure fight/flight mode. But I would have wanted to see Jim again, absolutely. He showed me love for the first time in my life.
Where is Jim now? It’s complicated. I’ll update in another post. He’s not in my life now and that’s ok.
I waited to reveal this because this one thing I did is the turd in the punch bowl that is all the hard work I’ve done. For the abuse I’ve endured. For the years I suffered and did what I was told like a good little daughter and wife. The severe CPTSD that I’m currently navigating. Most people will read about the affair and throw away all the other stuff I’ve done. That’s a hard pill to swallow. But I had to make this known. I’m not ashamed of it anymore. I need people to know the raw truth behind being treated like shit for decades and what can happen, what will likely happen. It’s not cut and dry, black and white. These things are messy and don’t make a lot of sense.
And what can happen is a nice boy from your youth shows up as an older man, he can see your humanity, tell you he wants you to be happy, appreciates your accomplishments and makes you feel safe AND he smells like soap… and you’ll do anything to feel safe and loved. I gave up everything by telling the truth. I gave up everything because I was desperate for love. Desperate for someone to hold me and make me feel safe. I was desperate. And I needed the courage to leave.
p.s.. I have my suspicions that my ex husband did something with someone else, too. He was on travel and a mysterious set of socks ended up in his luggage. “Whose are these?” He said he didn’t know and blamed the TSA and we never spoke of it again. My ex was so much better at hiding things than I was, so… I wouldn’t put it past him. Especially because he was so adamant that sex was a NEED and, and I quote “it doesn’t matter where you get it because it’s about a release, not connecting to someone”.
But truly, in the end, I HATED myself for what I did because I was so desperate to be loved. It’s absolutely pathetic.
ETA: I wrote this yesterday and had nightmares all night about it. I absolutely feel guilty, I absolutely feel deep shame… but, and this is SO hard to explain… I got to experience love. In my horrible decision making, I finally got to feel what love is supposed to feel like. I know how selfish this is. I know how terrible of a person I am because of this. Two therapists have told me that I didn’t have the language to leave my ex husband, that I was frozen and stuck and that this pull to Jim was the only thing that would have ended it. And if I would have stayed, I probably would have died early. That would be poetic, I think… the people pleaser, programmed since birth to give, gives until it kills her and still, nobody would have seen her as more than an extension of themselves, a utility, a resource.
This doesn’t excuse my actions… not at all. But I had been abused for so long… it was a trauma bond, surviving him was proof of my love, it was a survival trap. And I got a glimpse of what safety felt like with Jim. And my awakening showed me that I was worth more than ENDURING a person who probably hated me the whole time, but continued using me.
I know I’m going to get hateful comments on this post someday. But I’ll ask you to answer this in your comment before the vitriol spewing… if you had a chance at true love, even for a moment… would you take it? Not sex, not pleasure, not the hottest person in the room… love.
