#38 Wife is attracted to wrong husband / What will it cost me to tell the truth?
DEAR ABBY: My husband and I have been friends with “Joyce and Dave” for many years. Our children are the same ages and go to school together. We have always enjoyed each other’s company.
I find myself increasingly attracted to Dave, and I think the feeling is mutual. I have great strength of character, as I believe Dave does, but spending time with him is becoming difficult.
Dave and I do not speak to each other in any way other than with respect and humor—but there’s an underlying sexual tension I can’t ignore.
I don’t want to spoil our families’ shared times together but I feel I am playing with fire. What should I do? CARLA IN PHOENIX
DEAR CARLA: People who play with fire usually get burned. It’s a time to take an honest look at your marriage and figure out what’s missing. It’s also time to enlarge your circle of friends and cut back on the time you have available for Joyce and Dave. Please don’t put it off. ABBY
Gabby's Reply:
Hi Carla: Let’s go back to the very first moment (day, date, time, location) during which you looked at Dave experientially, in a sexual way. I know you know what I mean. You were going along looking at him as a married man and as a person and then, oops, you looked at him and something stirred within. This is normal and healthy, it happens when one opts to allow themselves to experience another—when one stops interacting with their mind and takes what comes up. This is also tricky because to open oneself to another through a series of mutually satisfying communications, love "happens." Love is a function of communication. Love can happen like this, through genuine intercourse, but it can’t be sustained, especially using the communication model that you all use. To create, sustain, and expand upon the experience of love in all relationships requires impeccable integrity.
At the beginning is when an honest person would have told her husband. And because he understands that thoughts suppressed are sometimes acted upon he would have known that you were clearing your mind of the day's thoughts. It would have created space for him to share his withholds. I assure you he has many.
We don’t know at this moment what your intentions are. You say you want advice that will stop the thoughts, which have taken over your mind, however, your letter could also be an unconscious ruse created by your clever mind, merely another step in your drama, one towards divorce, breaking up his marriage and marrying him. We’ll know in 25 years what you’re up to today by looking at the results. You might ask, why can’t we trust your mind to know what it wants and to be telling the truth now? It’s because you have yet to commit to communicating openly and honestly and spontaneously—zero thoughts withheld, with your husband. That is to say you can’t yet be trusted to tell him the truth. The mind that would deceive one’s spouse would deceive itself.
You are virtually back at day-one with your fiancé. You must decide what communication model the two of you will be using. If you are afraid he would run away from you if you insisted upon “…—zero thoughts withheld,” or, if you have/had skeletons that you would not have wanted to share with him back then, then you will eventually destroy this relationship. That is to say, you can’t raise your children to be open and honest if you withhold thoughts from your husband and close friends.
The fear you are confronting is the same fear that you suppressed and denied back then. To have life and relationships be the way you say you want, you must be willing to not have your relationships, with your husband, and your friends. There is no other way to restore your integrity other than to come clean with everyone and in so doing model for your children how to opt for integrity by cleaning up messes. To tell the truth might just cost you your present relationships.
So the advice is in two parts. 1) Formulate the intention to be supported in communicating openly, honestly, and spontaneously—zero thoughts withheld from your spouse, and, 2) Find yourself a communication-skills coach who will guide you through the conversations it will take to restore your integrity. You can also continue operating from your decision to withhold, trying to make life work using the mind that created this mess, in which case it will begin to cost you your aliveness, possibly your health, and, you’ll begin noticing your children mirroring your deceptiveness. My sense is that they have already started withholding their thoughts of choice from you and your husband. Great letter, thanks, Gabby