He Gave Me Permission to Cheat

No he didn’t give me a “hall pass” for the weekend.  He also never verbally gave me permission, but the signals were there.  There was no other way to see it.

We’d been married for just two years.  The journey of a newly wed can be tough and confusing. When people say communication is key to a successful marriage, they mean it.  Without clear consistent communication, things can be left up to interpretation.  This was my interpretation of my husbands actions towards me and our marriage.

My husband is loyal to a cause.  If you ask him to support an event or community effort, he will willingly over commit himself. The only person he consistently tells no, is me.  Because of this, I’ve spent several evenings and weekends.  Eventually, loneliness started to set-in.

There were times, I found myself crying because my pleas for my husband to stay home or be available fell on deaf ears.  Instead of sacrificing his activity to dedicate his time to his family, he would try to find people and activities to push us (his child too) toward. After running through my head the number of evenings I spent alone, I was fed up.  Let me be clear, my husband wasn’t always doing community work, he also had a very active social life that he would not put on the back burner.  I even recall a birthday that I spent alone, but he made an effort to make to his friend’s birthday celebrations.  His reasoning, was he wanted to celebrate their lives.  What about celebrating mine?  What about your wife, and mother of your children?

To no avail, I could not change this in my husband. Even though I pleaded with him, and he said he understood, he made no efforts to change.  So where did that leave me?  Lonely, frustrated and free time on my hand.  I had free evenings and weekends with plenty of alone time to fill a void in my life.  When there is darkness over your marriage, intimacy with your mate becomes a struggle.  My role as a wife had become diminished.  Because of this, I no longer felt obligated to fulfill my duties as a wife.  No I didn’t let the house or myself go.  I cherished myself, if no one else would. I no longer desired that private space with my husband.  He became my roommate, and not my help mate/meet.  Kisses and sex began to fill forced. 

I yearned for fulfillment, and yearned to have someone reciprocate my feelings.  I wanted to be desired, not just sexually, but emotionally.  I yearned to be needed, and for my company to be wanted.  There’s always someone out there to fulfill this. It’s not hard to find, but it is hard to resist.  Even harder to resist when your husband is encouraging you to meet new people and get out of the house more.  Recklessly driving you to the very thing he’s yet to become in your life. His actions, and his lack of commitment to the “family” cause, told me to cheat.  I have his permission.

You may not agree with me, but this happens every day in marriages. There is always a need that is going unfulfilled that push people to seek shelter outside of their marriage.  There is always a clueless spouse who doesn’t reflect long enough on their actions to see how it may affect their spouse. Unfortunately, things will likely go completely wrong before someone steps forward to try to make it completely right.  Sometimes people will never try.  Both parties are likely to be guilty of some sort of neglect or action that pushes their spouse away and towards someone else.  However, it takes a strong person to not let anything or anyone come between your commitment and vow to your spouse.

Even with “permission” from my husband to cheat, I have not cheated.  I actually live for the hope of my family and my marriage. However, I do want my husband to see the error of his ways.  So I will leave him with this thought and scenario to see how that makes him feel. I will be sure to let you know how that works.

 
To Be Continued…