How I Came To Realise My Marriage Was All Over

For sure you’re wondering what the burning question was. And in truth, the significance of the question was lost on me at the time. It took me by complete surprise and put me on my back foot. It was only later when I was calmer, that I understood what the question meant.

At the time we had been married for nineteen years and had three lovely young children. The last five years had been difficult due to the upheaval caused by an economic recession. I lost my job and my career and had to retrain to do something else. We also had to move down the property ladder, from a beautiful detached house on an acre of land to a suburban semi with a postage stamp size garden. Then, she decided that it would be good for me to work from home, allowing her to go out to work. In effect, I had become a house-husband cum work-at-home Dad, and I was fine with that arrangement.

Over the following years, a calmness had descended upon us, indicating that we had weathered the stormy upheaval. How little did I know that the storm of the century was brewing on the far horizon. I was simply too engrossed in looking after three very demanding kids and a part-time job to see what was coming.

My wife was going out to work five days a week, 9–5 and seemed settled in her new career. I never once noticed anything to suggest that she was up to something other than going to work and then returning home like a dutiful mother to kiss her children goodnight before they crept upstairs to bed. One evening my wife blurted out that burning question.

“Have you met somebody else?” she asked.

I have to say that was one hell of a curveball I never saw coming. I told her “No,” of course, it was the truth. However, it set me wondering what on earth I had done to give her that idea. Later on, when the truth came out, I realised I should have been asking who had given her the idea.

What was at play here was what I later learned was called ‘Projection.’ It is when somebody accuses you of the very thing that they are up to. In this case, she was hoping I would fess up and ease her conscience about having an extra-marital affair with her boss at work. I do not doubt that she would also have loved to discover that I was cheating on her so that she could tell everybody I had done it to her first. So justification was also what she sought.

Once I got myself clued up about how projection worked, I learned a great deal about what was going on behind my back. She once accused me of listening in to her phone calls and stalking her. I later discovered that was exactly what she had been up to with me. All I had to do was listen to her as a projector to discover everything she was up to.

I have to say that the events I speak of happened thirty years ago. However, they were so impactful that they are indelibly imprinted on my heart and soul. This was not the least of all since I did start to listen in to her calls to her lover and heard all manner of lies and insults about me, as well as what appeared to be a burning desire to see me off.

In the end, we parted company on very bad terms, and a couple of years later I re-married. That was yet another unmitigated disaster, a relationship on the rebound which ended even worse.

The only prevailing sadness is for the loss of contact with my four children, three with my first ex-wife and one with the second. They idolise their respective mothers and have been brainwashed into believing that I am the Devil incarnate. I can do nothing about that, it is what it is.

To compensate for the losses I have incurred, I am at long last very happily married and have been for almost ten years. We have no children and very little desire for any. What we do have is a genuinely loving relationship based on a healthy dose of love, honesty and commitment. You cannot ask for more than that.

Tim