Teh One Who Knocks
08-14-2012, 05:55 PM
Dear Cary,
I don’t know what to do. I am happily married and pregnant with our first child. It’s been an easy pregnancy, and my husband is overjoyed, involved, and supportive. But there’s something between us that I just can’t shake and that time doesn’t seem to be healing.
Two days after I found out I was pregnant, he left for a long “bachelor’s weekend” (whatever happened to a simple party?) in Mexico. I wasn’t happy about it at all, as the groom and his friends are all douchey fratboy types, and I knew that their idea of “fun” might include activities that I was uncomfortable with.
But I also knew that it would have been unreasonable for him not to go – he had already paid for everything and one of our dear mutual friends, who is both gay and decidedly not a douche, would be there with him. I also trusted him because I knew how thrilled he was about becoming a father, and so I just quietly hoped that the weekend would consist largely of sitting around on the beach and drinking.
Well, I wouldn’t be writing you if that’s what had happened.
Though he called me every day to check in and reassured me that “nothing too crazy” was going on, I later found out that instead of sitting on the beach drinking, they had been going to parties so that the single members of the group could meet women, and on one occasion they went to a strip club. I get that in some cultures that’s a normal thing to do, but in my book, it’s stupid and offensive. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude. I’m fine with porn and I get that female bodies are nice to look at.
But if you’re in a committed relationship (married, say, or about to become so), then paying for real live women to take their clothes off and pretend to be sexually interested in you is tantamount to cheating. I just can’t imagine a reverse situation in which a man would feel fine with his woman being touched and sexually titillated by a bunch of nude men.
Not to mention the fact that a strip club in Mexico, a nation recently overrun with criminal organizations that do a healthy trade in human trafficking, is more than likely exploiting some or all of its female employees. Though my husband insists all he did was sit at the bar with a gay [male] friend and drink his minimum, I’m disgusted that he even supported the place with his cover fee.
My personal politics aside, though, it just hurts me to know that hours after we spoke on the phone, me leaving my second doctor’s visit feeling kind of sad and overwhelmed, him on the beach with a beer, he went to this place knowing full well how I would feel about it.
Maybe he was drunk at the time and didn’t really stop to consider how I would feel about it if I knew. But he certainly learned when he returned home and I coaxed the details out of him. I screamed, I cried. I may have even hit him when he tried to touch me. My rage was no doubt buoyed somewhat by new pregnancy hormones, but the pain was very real. After a while we spoke calmly, and he explained how awkward it would have been for him to sit in the parking lot while the rest of the group went inside, and how harmless sitting at the bar was, and how he doesn’t even like strip clubs to begin with.
It was perfectly rational. I might have done the same thing in his position, and I should have let it go there. But I couldn’t. Though outwardly I forgave him, I couldn’t look at him the same way for weeks. Every time I remembered hanging up with him that day, not knowing what he was about to go do (though he knew exactly what his plans for the evening were), I literally winced in pain. I was injured and I didn’t know how to heal.
Over time, I willed myself to not think about it. Unfortunately, there are reminders everywhere: specifically, his friends. They maintain a group text from their trip in which they exchange bawdy jokes and the occasional reference to the stripper who performed a lap dance for the groom. I have to see them socially from time to time and pretend not to hate and disrespect them.
God or Cary help me, I just can’t stop feeling horrible. It’s been six months, and while I’m not dwelling on it constantly anymore, I become ill for hours (if not days) every time it comes up.
About two hours ago, out of the blue, the scene popped into my head again. I tried to think of something else, but instead I felt anger and sadness overwhelm me physically and my mind began to race. (Incidentally, if you ever want to feel really bad about feeling bad, try doing it when you have a child growing inside of you.) I’m still trapped by this feeling and these thoughts, and I’m so sick of it.
I love my husband dearly — that’s probably why I felt so betrayed. And I can’t stand that, at random, I will lose a few hours of my life to hating him over this one mistake. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter, right? He didn’t cheat on me, he wasn’t the ringleader of this band of morons, and he called me twice every day to check in on me while he was away.
I’ve Googled “letting go of anger” and tried to apply what I’ve read. Nothing seems to be working. Please don’t tell me it’s just hormonal. I’ve had a few silly emotional moments, but for the most part I’m sane.
At least, I think I am. Why can’t I truly forgive him and move past this? Please help. It feels so horrible to have this Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic governing my love.
Carrying More Than a Baby
:nuts:
I don’t know what to do. I am happily married and pregnant with our first child. It’s been an easy pregnancy, and my husband is overjoyed, involved, and supportive. But there’s something between us that I just can’t shake and that time doesn’t seem to be healing.
Two days after I found out I was pregnant, he left for a long “bachelor’s weekend” (whatever happened to a simple party?) in Mexico. I wasn’t happy about it at all, as the groom and his friends are all douchey fratboy types, and I knew that their idea of “fun” might include activities that I was uncomfortable with.
But I also knew that it would have been unreasonable for him not to go – he had already paid for everything and one of our dear mutual friends, who is both gay and decidedly not a douche, would be there with him. I also trusted him because I knew how thrilled he was about becoming a father, and so I just quietly hoped that the weekend would consist largely of sitting around on the beach and drinking.
Well, I wouldn’t be writing you if that’s what had happened.
Though he called me every day to check in and reassured me that “nothing too crazy” was going on, I later found out that instead of sitting on the beach drinking, they had been going to parties so that the single members of the group could meet women, and on one occasion they went to a strip club. I get that in some cultures that’s a normal thing to do, but in my book, it’s stupid and offensive. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a prude. I’m fine with porn and I get that female bodies are nice to look at.
But if you’re in a committed relationship (married, say, or about to become so), then paying for real live women to take their clothes off and pretend to be sexually interested in you is tantamount to cheating. I just can’t imagine a reverse situation in which a man would feel fine with his woman being touched and sexually titillated by a bunch of nude men.
Not to mention the fact that a strip club in Mexico, a nation recently overrun with criminal organizations that do a healthy trade in human trafficking, is more than likely exploiting some or all of its female employees. Though my husband insists all he did was sit at the bar with a gay [male] friend and drink his minimum, I’m disgusted that he even supported the place with his cover fee.
My personal politics aside, though, it just hurts me to know that hours after we spoke on the phone, me leaving my second doctor’s visit feeling kind of sad and overwhelmed, him on the beach with a beer, he went to this place knowing full well how I would feel about it.
Maybe he was drunk at the time and didn’t really stop to consider how I would feel about it if I knew. But he certainly learned when he returned home and I coaxed the details out of him. I screamed, I cried. I may have even hit him when he tried to touch me. My rage was no doubt buoyed somewhat by new pregnancy hormones, but the pain was very real. After a while we spoke calmly, and he explained how awkward it would have been for him to sit in the parking lot while the rest of the group went inside, and how harmless sitting at the bar was, and how he doesn’t even like strip clubs to begin with.
It was perfectly rational. I might have done the same thing in his position, and I should have let it go there. But I couldn’t. Though outwardly I forgave him, I couldn’t look at him the same way for weeks. Every time I remembered hanging up with him that day, not knowing what he was about to go do (though he knew exactly what his plans for the evening were), I literally winced in pain. I was injured and I didn’t know how to heal.
Over time, I willed myself to not think about it. Unfortunately, there are reminders everywhere: specifically, his friends. They maintain a group text from their trip in which they exchange bawdy jokes and the occasional reference to the stripper who performed a lap dance for the groom. I have to see them socially from time to time and pretend not to hate and disrespect them.
God or Cary help me, I just can’t stop feeling horrible. It’s been six months, and while I’m not dwelling on it constantly anymore, I become ill for hours (if not days) every time it comes up.
About two hours ago, out of the blue, the scene popped into my head again. I tried to think of something else, but instead I felt anger and sadness overwhelm me physically and my mind began to race. (Incidentally, if you ever want to feel really bad about feeling bad, try doing it when you have a child growing inside of you.) I’m still trapped by this feeling and these thoughts, and I’m so sick of it.
I love my husband dearly — that’s probably why I felt so betrayed. And I can’t stand that, at random, I will lose a few hours of my life to hating him over this one mistake. In the scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter, right? He didn’t cheat on me, he wasn’t the ringleader of this band of morons, and he called me twice every day to check in on me while he was away.
I’ve Googled “letting go of anger” and tried to apply what I’ve read. Nothing seems to be working. Please don’t tell me it’s just hormonal. I’ve had a few silly emotional moments, but for the most part I’m sane.
At least, I think I am. Why can’t I truly forgive him and move past this? Please help. It feels so horrible to have this Jekyll-and-Hyde dynamic governing my love.
Carrying More Than a Baby
:nuts: