Dear Gabby: #14 How to leave impotent husband?

#14 How to leave impotent husband? / Deceptor not safe space for truth to be told

Dear Ann Landers: I have been married (in name only) for five years. I was a lonely divorcee (age 47) and John was a well-to-do widower (60) when we were married.

The first night we were married I found out he was impotent. I know it's not his fault, but he should have told me. (He later said he was afraid he'd lose me.)

We had everything a happily married couple could want, a lovely home, friends, trips. I can't say I wasn't living the good life, although I missed the physical side of marriage some.

Now I have met a wonderful man. He is my age (52), and it was skyrockets and Roman candles the first time we were alone together. We're in love and want to get married, but I hate to hurt John.

Would it be wrong to leave John and grab what little happiness is left in life? IN LOVE

Dear In Love: If you want to justify leaving John, the fact that he failed to tell you about his impotence is sufficient. (That's probably grounds for an annulment.)

Trying to keep an affair a secret will be like trying to smuggle dawn past a rooster. You'd better tell John before he tells you. —ANN LANDERS

Gabby's Response:

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Gabby’s Response:

Hi In Love: If you buy something and it's not what the merchant presented it to be, if it doesn't perform as expected, and if you don't tell the merchant immediately, and if you don't return the product, then keeping and using any part of it, is tantamount to acknowledging the purchase agreement. It's up to the discretion of a merchant to offer to change the agreement or even release you from it. In your situation everyone would agree that John should release you, however this is because they might not be able see your cause of the deceit, of how you started and enabled it—of how John perfectly mirrors your integrity.

If you use your present leadership-communication model, the one that inspires deceit and sabotage, it's unlikely that you would be able to have John support your new relationship. Why? Because you'd find yourself still blaming John.*

I'm getting something other than "wonderful." —that 52 conspires with you in deceiving John brings to mind other adjectives. Yes?

If it's happiness you want then focus on your integrity. Neither you nor 52 can respect each other, not while the foundation of your relationship is deceit. There can be no sustained ever-expanding experience of love in the space of lies and withholds.

You ask if it would be wrong . . .. the far greater wrong I see is for you to marry anyone, at least not until you are the space for men to tell the truth and to be honorable around you.

When you put in (restore) your integrity you can begin to work on the leadership-communications skills it takes to inspire honesty, and, in having John support your relationship with 52. Also, 52 will have to acknowledge his deceit to John, not as a dump such as, "Sorry, I'm taking your wife," but as a genuine request, "May I . . . ?" —the answer to which, especially if it's No, must be honored, else it's an ultimatum.

BTW: One problem with deceit, as with John not telling you upfront about his impotency, is that one can't be absolutely certain that any undesirable consequence (such as his health problem) is not a consequence of one or more out-integrities. There's a possibility, however remote, that his "impotency" problem is a consequence of one or more unacknowledged deceits (perpetrations) way before he met you. Our integrity is such that we won't let ourselves get away with unethical behaviors. His deceit with you was merely one more in a lifetime of deceits and withholds.

To enter into the communication mastery curriculum one must first commit to cleaning up life's perpetrations (deceits, thefts, lies, cheatings, and abuses), in so doing one eliminates the possibility of integrity as a barrier to producing one's stated intentions. Until one cleans up life's perpetrations, all communication breakdowns, to include deceits and broken agreements, are somewhat influenced by one's integrity. Once one's integrity has been restored then a broken agreement is solely a leadership-communication problem, not a communication and/or an integrity problem. To restore your integrity do The Clearing Process —it's free, it works amazingly well.

One reason you couldn't experience that John was withholding something, some thought, from you, was that you too were withholding a thought from him. When two are in communication it's virtually impossible for either to withhold thoughts, to do so creates a condition of out-integrity which can be immediately experienced. Thoughts withheld serve as barriers to the experience of intercourse. That you didn't engage John upfront in conversations about each other's health and about agreements, and truth-telling, reveals that you had been stuck doing your imitation of communication. Now you're blaming John for not telling you what you should have talked about. You'll drag this pattern of blaming into any new relationship.

I'm concerned that you didn't mention what happened with your first marriage; communicating responsibly about it, telling the truth, will create space for success. Thank you, —Gabby

* Re: ". . . but he should have told me." This is called a blame statement. Communicated responsibly it would go something like; "I wasn't in communication with him. I had so many incompletes I couldn't experience that he was withholding something, just as I was withholding certain thoughts from him. I didn't ask him if there were any health problems I should know about. I see now that I was not a safe space for him to tell the truth."

Check back occasionally for minor edits (last edited 6/8/11)

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