relationships Archives

Becky Whetstone July 28, 2023

Who Had an Affair or Who Files For Divorce Reveals Nothing.

Blaming people in divorce is a fool’s game. No one knows what really happened but the couple themselves.

Placing fault in marriage and divorce is a fool’s game.

Years ago, I became friends with a woman who was divorcing a famous movie star. Her divorce was covered in the local paper gossip column, and the question came up as to why she would ever leave such a successful and wealthy man, someone she had two children with and had been married to a long time. Finally, her dad, also a prominent man in our town, shut down the talk by telling the gossip columnist:

“Just because someone files for divorce doesn’t mean they want a divorce.”

That got my attention. It was the first time I had ever thought of that …

Meanwhile, my new friend was so livid about what she was going through that she found perverse enjoyment in telling anyone who would listen about the icon’s bedroom foibles, the fact that her best friend became his lover, and how she found them in bed together in their weekend home. Indeed, hearing her story firsthand, it wasn’t my friend who wanted the divorce, but she was the one who filed.

Since then, I have become a marriage & family therapist and marriage crisis specialist, and work with couples on the verge of divorce all the time, and the assumption that the person who files for divorce is the one who wants out, or the one who had an affair is always the villain, simply is not true.

People making assumptions about what is going on in any marital home is playing a fool’s game. The couples I admired when young are all divorced now. Even if you had two blabber-mouth spouses who told every detail of their lives together you would still have to question the accuracy of what you’ve heard, as hearsay has proven to be inaccurate in study after study. When one person tells me a blistering account of how their former spouse conducted themselves during their marriage, it’s a good practice to be sympathetic, but keep in mind that I just heard the prosecution’s case, and the defense will never be presented.

I have worked with many individuals who have had hundreds of indicators that they are not married to someone who takes marriage vows seriously. On a regular basis they catch their spouse sending inappropriate text messages, having emotional affairs, hiding booze bottles, lying about where they were and who they were with, making important decisions without discussing them first, running up debt, and/or having an extramarital affair. In all my days as a therapist, I have seen numerous people like that suddenly claim to have had an epiphany and declare that now things will be different, but never have I seen any succeed. It takes months and years of intentional work to achieve that kind of change. I wish it wasn’t so, but sometimes divorce is appropriate and in the best interests of all. But getting a downtrodden spouse to be the one to file papers is often a line they refuse to cross. “If he wants a divorce, he can go get himself one,” they’ll say. To them, if they file, it means they want the divorce, and people with strong views about marriage being a lifelong proposition often will not file divorce papers. The result is unhappy marriage limbo, when going their separate ways would have been in the best interest of all involved. One of the questions I like to ask when this happens is, “What is it he’d have to do for you to finally pull the plug?”

Perhaps if more people realized that which spouse files divorce papers tells you nothing, more people would do it when it’s the only healthy option left. Unfortunately, an astonishing number of people live their lives paralyzed in fear of what people will think, say, or do should they be the one to file. To them I say, fear is not your friend. In all the years I’ve worked with people who went through a divorce, five years later, the bottom line feeling was that who initiated the divorce proceedings eventually became a forgotten issue, and although the divorce process was a terrible experience they wouldn’t wish on anyone, they’ll tell you it was probably for the best. Often, what seems like the biggest deal in the moment won’t be the biggest deal later.

Affairs

Affairs usually happen for one of two reasons. One cheating partner has a sexual addiction and feels a compulsion to pursue others sexually, or they became so miserable and hopeless in their marriage that they become vulnerable to having an affair. There’s something about being thirsty for kindness and affection that causes these love drought-victims, who normally would never cheat, to become a magnet for a tall glass of cool water. As I tell couples in my office, there’s no excuse or justification for having an affair, but I understand why you did it. The problem also is, if it isn’t commonly known among family and friends that you needed a drink, and the people who know you have a perception that all was well in your marriage and suddenly you lost it and had an affair, you will most likely be cast as a villain and will receive harsh judgment. Had you dropped hints along the way that there was trouble in paradise, the judgment is often less harsh. Human beings are prone to pigeon-holing people, while making meanings from worn out stereotypes. Almost nothing is more rage-provoking than being cast as someone or something that you are not. That’s one reason people love therapists — we are trained not to do that. Jumping to conclusions and making up meanings is verboten in our profession. We must approach each situation as not-knowing. To me, the only way to process that someone filed for divorce or had an affair is, “I have no idea what these actions tell me or what they mean.”

It is true that a good person may become a cheating spouse. All we can know about any person who had an extra-marital affair is that they had sexual intercourse outside their marriage. The only people who will ever know all the reasons is the couple themselves. We all know there are people out there who are angels in public, and demons behind closed doors. When someone cheats, I like to think that it’s a sign and symptom, and not an indictment of character. In couple’s therapy we will figure out the reasons it happened, and whether a couple recovers from it often depends on if the betrayed spouse can view their partner as the flawed, struggling human being they’d become in the troubled marriage, rather than the evil-wrong-doer from a horror film. We really need the faithful spouse, in this instance, to widen their perspective and understand the context of how and why it happened, and not just finger point and try to extract a pound of flesh. It’d be nice if outside observers could do the same.

Don’t get me wrong, some people who cheat are self-focused and should probably never be married. I still shudder thinking about the time a husband told his wife in a session that he cheated because, “You deserved it.” With one cold-hearted sentence he left no doubt that he felt no compassion for his deeply injured wife, who was, by my perspective, a good, caring woman. Sure, she had dropped the ball in being attentive in the marriage, but his comment was, to me, like giving someone a death penalty for a speeding ticket infraction. He meant to cruelly wound and showed he had no regret for his actions and wasn’t about to give his wife what she needed to heal. Knowing the outcome of such words wasn’t going to lead to a positive outcome, I’m pretty sure I was stunned into speechlessness. If they got divorced, who would be the villain here? The woman who was busy with kids, a lucrative career, and neglected her marriage, or the man who bitterly resented her and sought comfort elsewhere? It’s complicated, certainly he was in anger overdrive and was unnecessarily vicious, which is never acceptable, but it is just impossible to hang the letter A of shame on someone without all the details of the backstory.

Repeated affairs.

Someone who cheats repeatedly has a problem, but you and I don’t know what it is. As Dr. Phil used to say, “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.” That’s all there is to say about that.

Flipping the tables.

Years ago, I had a client who had been cheated on repeatedly and had to endure her husband’s alcoholism and false promises to get better. She contacted me to muster up the courage to leave. They had young children, and she was wanting to leave in a way that caused the least amount of damage to them. In almost any divorce story, she had good reason to throw in the towel, and would be the sympathetic character in this story — the long-suffering wife with the bad-boy husband. Ugh. Then, she cheated with a close friend. It is quite common for a person who plans to divorce their spouse to have an affair as a steppingstone out of the marriage. The friend, who was also married with young children, was a shoulder to cry on, and you know the rest. I told her, if you end the affair and go through the divorce without it ever becoming known, you stand a chance at not being raked over the coals and being burned on a stake. If you continue, and it becomes known, the tables will flip, you will lose all sympathy except with your closest friends and family, and you will be shunned and become Cruella de Vil to those that aren’t so loyal. Her entire life had been upstanding — great career, friends, and beloved by her in-laws. One terrible error in judgment, and it would all be thrown away and disregarded. Unfortunately, that’s how humans are, and that is what happened. Divorce is hell on everyone, but this time a truly decent person made one ugly choice and lost most of her previous life in return. Her errant husband became the sympathetic person in their split, and their friends ran to support him in droves. Her in-laws, who she cherished, never spoke to her again. Divorce is complicated and don’t forget it. The ones who process these situations with love, generosity, and compassion probably realize almost everyone makes huge mistakes in their lives, and “There but for the Grace of God go I.”

Nothing means anything.

I once spent a weekend in an intense self-help workshop. We shared, went through exercises, and were forced to face ourselves, fears, emotional wounds, and decisions, but the bottom-line message of all of it was, nothing means anything. This had a huge impact on me. Therapy training reiterated this. Human beings are meaning making animals, but the problem is we make up meanings that often are inaccurate, not true, and sometimes make huge life decisions based on what we conclude. If someone says or does something, we, as the listener or observer can only guess what they really meant. Our conjecture and assumptions are meaningless. If my husband says X and I don’t clearly understand it, I need to ask for clarity so I can. Who had an affair or who filed for divorce tells us next to nothing about the marriage or circumstances of the divorce. Anything we make up about it is just that, made up. It’d be a better world if people were aware of this, and just went with the idea of not knowing. I tell people all the time, “I do not know.” Ask me why your aunt left you out of her will, “I do not know, only she knows.” The best way to find out what something means is to ask the person you’re wondering about. If they choose to tell you, then you might have valuable information. If it involves a married couple and you only hear from one person, then you have one perspective. I promise you there is another.

We can be of support to our fellow human beings by refusing to judge, and to just be present for them when going through a marital upheaval, no matter who left who, no matter who filed the divorce case, who had an affair, or what gossips say. I have been judged harshly in divorce, so this subject hits home especially hard. My spouse was a powerful politician and had carefully managed his reputation in town, another case of wonderful in public, not so nice behind closed doors. When he told everyone he could think of that he was divorcing me because I and my two children were crazy, they believed him. My friends ran for the hills and everyone I can think of sided with him. I had a crisis of, “Who can I count on in this world? Who is the real deal? Why don’t people process what he is saying with a grain of salt?” Of course, as time passed, we learned the real reason my husband left, he had found a new partner, a secret girlfriend he’d been having an affair with during our marriage, who was readily accepted into our group. I still recall the emotional pain when I found out. His real reason for divorce was replacement, but he created a story that made him look sympathetic. That’s what people who divorce do. We tell our 45 second divorce story, but the bottom line is, in that story, we are the hero, our ex is the villain.

It’s why to this day I don’t just accept anyone’s version of why they left their partner as the Absolute Truth, and when any friend is separating or divorcing, no matter what the story is, I reach out and offer caring support.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D. is a licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in Arkansas and Texas*, and is known as America’s Marriage Crisis Manager® . She has worked with thousands of couples to save their marriages. She is also co-host of the Call Your Mother relationship show on You Tube, and has a private practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, and as a life coach via teletherapy. To contact her check out www.DoctorBecky.com and www.MarriageCrisisManager.com. Don’t forget to follow her on Medium so you don’t miss a thing!

*For licensure verification find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

Filed Under: Affairs, Betrayal, marriage advice, relationships Tagged: betrayal, divorce, infidelity, marriage, marriage crisis

Becky Whetstone July 19, 2023

Your Marriage Won’t Survive Betrayal Without Therapy.

Thirteen excuses why people won’t seek help, and how to over come them.

Whether this heart stays broken or can be repaired is in your hands. The choices and decisions you make once betrayal is uncovered are the key.

by Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC, SEC

Life situations can be like getting hit by a car, so emotionally and physically painful that you might like to be put into a medically induced coma. Death of a loved one comes to mind, and divorce. As a Marriage and Family Therapist, though, the thing I see that is equally as painful is a partner’s betrayal in a long-term relationship. Sometimes couples come in before an extramarital affair is uncovered, and other times they come in just after, but witnessing such deep pain is not my favorite way to spend an afternoon. The betrayed partner usually feels and acts like someone who has just been in a wreck — in shock, wanting to run but don’t know where to run to. Feeling crazy, even though they aren’t, and entering a state of obsession, fury, injury, and feeling like a fool. Even crazier, the person who they desire comfort and reassurance from is the person who just skewered their heart. They don’t know what to do, but they know to come to marriage therapy.

It is there that hope for a healed marriage and reconciliation can begin. It’s not a short process, but when handled intelligently and finesse by someone who has experience and knows what they’re doing, we know that 75 percent of marriages survive and hopefully go on to a better marriage than they had before. You can’t hope to survive betrayal of trust without getting to the roots of the problems that caused one partner to stray in the first place. Knowing what I know, every marriage in crisis needs a therapist to manage the terrible experience, from start to finish.

Imagine being in that state and not going to a professional counselor. Plenty of people choose that route, and this article is for you. These do-it-yourselfers instead go an Internet search about what to do or rely on close friends or family to counsel them. Imagine going to your friends and family to also guide you through your serious health issues in life, like cancer, chronic illness, or broken bones. I would imagine that taking that route might make your health worse, and potentially life-ending. That’s how I view what’s likely to happen to couples who don’t get professional help during one of the most painful experiences of your life. I tell people who are thinking of managing it themselves that they might as well be having a cat driving them in a car going down a windy road near a cliff, it’s going to come to an ugly end.

Here are some of the reasons I hear from couples about why they didn’t go to a marriage counselor when they hit rock bottom in a marriage crisis:

My husband doesn’t believe in marriage counselors. Does he also not believe in the sun and the moon? Seriously, what does this mean? A note for the naysayers on our behalf … Most of us spent three to five years post-college studying relationship dynamics and mental and emotional health, then taking exams and thousands of hours practicing as interns before we were allowed to put our shingles out as a licensed therapist. God knows how many books and peer-reviewed research articles we’ve read on the subject. We also get close to 30 hours of continuing education every two years. If you studied anything for that much time, do you think you might be helpful in that area? I hope so.
Therapists are for white people. Yes, I have been told this, and I understand that people who have endured disenfranchisement and negative bias from Anglos have every reason to be skeptical. After all, the profession of psychology and mental health counseling was started by white men and was only available to wealthy people for many years. But today we have a lot of diversity in the counseling profession, insurance covers some or all of it, and more and more diversity is showing up in our client base. It’s becoming more accepted in the mainstream and at last losing some of the only crazy people go to counseling aspect. What I can tell you is to ask your friends who have tried counseling for their marriage what it was like. See if you can find a therapist you are comfortable with, whatever that means to you. There is no shame in asking for help, and I would rather you try marriage therapy before deciding it isn’t an option for your family.
It’s so expensive. If I told you that you could likely save your crumbling marriage for $3,000 to $5,000 (or less), would you do it? Have you checked the cost of divorce?
My mother majored in psychology so she’ll help us. Ladies and gentlemen, no one knows less about counseling, relationships, or marriage dynamics than a person with a bachelor’s in psychology. They also know little or nothing about psychology. Psychology has nothing to do with mental health counseling. If you think it does, you really do need a qualified marriage therapist to help you.
We think we can handle it on our own. Could you also do everything else that requires training, without training? I will say if you two can maintain a calm state and have a civil and calm conversation alone, and show compassion and empathy to one another continually, handle the extreme ups and downs, give each other the time and space to move through the process, not talk to anyone else about your problems unless both of you are there, and for the betrayer, be able to patiently answer 10,000 questions asked several times each over two or more years, maintain complete honesty, and have each answer cross-checked dozens of times, know how to handle the children, then maybe you could. Oh, do you know the questions which should never be answered? Do you know if you should be transparent with your phone records, emails, text messages, and physical location? And, just saying, if my husband or I cheated, I’d make sure we had a marriage crisis therapist to see us through it, even though I am one myself.
My spouse wants a Christian counselor. I see a lot of clients who have long become disillusioned with religion. If that’s not you, you may want to visit with your pastor, priest, rabbi or whomever is the leadership in your religion, or a Christian-based counselor. In my experience, when one spouse demands a Christian counselor, it is because they are afraid their partner will leave, and they want someone to read the scripture to shame them into staying. There are better ways to save a marriage, ones that work. Also, before risking your future with religious-based counseling, ask your pastor or Christian counselor what their training is in marriage crisis. Time and again, couples take this option first, then end up coming to see me.
She says it was an emotional affair and they never met in person. Do you have blind faith that everything your spouse tells you is true? Does the other person (OP) live within 100 miles of you? Do they work together? Does your spouse ever travel alone? Do you know a lie when you hear one? One thing a marriage therapist can tell you is, cheaters lie. This is another great thing about having a couples therapist trained in marriage crisis, they can smell lies and will work to get to the truth.
We’re going to read a book. It would be rare to find a book that would hit every aspect of what couples need to know and do to manage the revelation and pain of infidelity, how to handle the initial phase, how to know when separation is a good idea, how to conduct a separation so you avoid marriage crisis limbo, how to handle money, kids, family, and friends. I have written one recently, but it’s not published yet. Until then, you need to call someone like me to help you through. For Michelle Weiner-Davis fans, * I respect her greatly, but she is an idealist and never saw a marriage that couldn’t be saved. I don’t think that’s realistic. Your family’s future is on the line, belly up to the bar and get the individualized marriage help you need.
I’ll research what to do on the Internet. The information on the Internet is highly questionable. If the person is not a marriage-crisis trained therapist, take what they say with a grain of salt. In our world, the only research worth mentioning is peer-reviewed. That means, an academic did legitimate, ethical, research, wrote the article, and other academics approved it. That’s as legit as it gets. Articles by someone who got their spouse back, life coach gurus, psychics will lead you to divorce court. Relationships and cheating situations are complicated, and no couple is the same. The best course of action is, you know, an experienced marriage therapist.
My spouse says it’s over and they’ve had an epiphany. They want me to just let it go. And I have a beach house in Malibu I’ll sell you for $50,000. Don’t be conned by a person who may well believe the lies they tell you, but underneath the lies are just trying to avoid the painful work and recovery process that is necessary to create the new marriage you should both desire. Affair recovery counseling is tough, but if you did the crime, you need to do the time if you want your family to recover and be healthy. Face your demons, drop your pride and ego, and do what your injured partner needs to heal. Children want to avoid dealing with the hurt of affairs and breach of trust, adults will deal with it, even though they may have preferred not to.
My spouse says it’s my fault they had an affair, so I need to fix myself, then it won’t happen again. Oh my. Nice try at flipping the tables, but you will have a difficult time getting anywhere if your unfaithful spouse wants to start with the subject of how you drove them to it. A therapist will point out that humility, mortification with self and regret, a sincere desire to repair and do what it takes to meet the emotional needs of their betrayed spouse for as long as it takes are good predictors of whether your marriage can be saved. When I encounter finger-pointing cheaters I work with them to come down off their high-horse and change their perspective. It can and must be done.
We think a separation may be the answer. It might be, but also might be the worst thing you could do. I cringe when I see couples separate without a rhyme, reason, or plan, and without also working on themselves during their marital break. You may think you just need a cooling off period, but what you need is to cool off and commence an individual and relationship overhaul. Without the work to repair what got you in this situation in the first place, the odds are stacked high against your marriage working out.
We tried marriage therapy once and it didn’t work. Right. When I hear this one, I think to myself, “You tried marriage therapy, and YOU didn’t do the work.” Also, not all marriage therapists will be a fit for you. Don’t give up because of one therapist, you may have to visit a few to find one that’s a match. I’ve had couples that thought I was the worst therapist in the world, and others that think I can do no wrong. Neither is true, but you get the idea. Also, if you are expecting the therapist to carry you through the marathon recovery process of a post-affair, think again. We will be your tour guide, but you must do the walking. Marriage therapists lament that only about 5 percent of their clients take the suggestions and advice we offer seriously, but it’s true. Whether a couple is unwilling to put in the effort or aren’t aware of how much work a good marriage takes, and how much more work it takes to recover from an extramarital affair, a lot just drop out and go off into the ether to manage their dysfunctions themselves, usually disastrously. We can lead a horse to water …

There are so many reasons that a couple should seek professional help when in an unhappy relationship or marriage crisis, that I could talk about it all day. I will tell you that 30 years ago I ended up divorced from the father of my two children because in the 1990s, our counselor knew nothing about marriage crisis and sent us away to deal with it ourselves. I went into this work because of the horror I feel about it to this day. We all suffered, especially our young children. It lit a fire in my belly to understand it, and I spent years going to graduate school and researching the subject. Peer-reviewed research. I now see where we went wrong, and what we could have done. If we had had the proper help, I believe we would still be married today. I am not the only person who regrets how my marriage crisis played out. Millions of other have their regrets, too. Don’t be one of us.

Marriage crisis is one of life’s most traumatic events. The good thing is we know a lot about it now, and unhappy marriages can be turned around. Marriages can heal from a partner’s betrayal, and although the trust may never be totally the same as before, it can grow over time and become something that is rarely thought about. Another reason I didn’t mention above that you really need a professional counselor to help you through is, some marriage can’t and should not be saved. Some affairs are more damaging than others, for example. A long-term love affair is often more devastating that a one-night stand with a stranger, for example. Also, people have serious mental disorders known as personality disorders like narcissism, borderline personality disorder and more. These are chronic problems that don’t improve, and partners like this can be hopelessly abusive, and, dangerous. Addictions are a whole other huge topic that needs to be taken into consideration.

When a married couple goes through a terrible experience like infidelity, the important thing to remember is there is excellent help that can make a significant impact on whether you move on together or apart in a positive direction. Even when marriages don’t work out, we like to believe that it is an opportunity to for a person to grow, evolve, and travel new frontiers in personal well-being. Manage your marriage crisis so that you can say you did all you could do to repair and save the marriage, whether you were successful or not, knowing we did that gives us peace of mind.

Michelle Weiner-Davis has written books about saving marriages and is considered a solutions-focused Marriage and Family Therapist. To learn more about her and her work visit her Divorce Busting® web site.

*For licensure verification find Becky Whetstone Cheairs.

Filed Under: Affairs, Betrayal, Blog, marriage advice, relationships Tagged: affairs, betrayal, infidelity, marriage, marriage therapy

Becky Whetstone July 26, 2020

What my Four Marriages Have Taught Me — by a Marriage Therapist.

Link to the article on Medium: How on earth could a Marriage Therapist be married four times? Here’s how, and the lessons learned. Please share. https://lnkd.in/eFtmHgF #mentalhealth #relationships #marriage

Becky with her 4th husband, John.

I learned the hard way to have the relationship I desired all along.

One might think that a marriage therapist who has four marriages under her belt would hide her head in shame, but the most important lesson I’ve learned is to not do that. Instead, I look back on each relationship, three of which ended in divorce, to see how they helped me come to know myself. I’ve learned a lot from those experiences and more from my education and working with the thousands of people seen as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Maybe I’m trying to atone for bad decision-making, but whatever it is, I’ve gained a lot of wisdom that may help others.

Marriage One. “This is the best I can do.” Lesson: Don’t settle.

Raised by depression-era parents from the south, at 24 I felt pressure to not become an “old maid,” which is someone who can’t attract a husband and spends her life ashamed and alone. Ridiculous? Yes, but that was the culture I was brought up in. In addition, my dad told me that men were meal tickets, just “Look good, be smart and college educated, and you’ll attract the top of the heap,” he said, so that was my plan, though I shudder thinking of it now. Even though I got a college degree, I never even thought seriously of a career or of supporting myself. My family conditioned us well: They would applaud when the four daughters brought home men who were prominent with great financial potential, and condemned anyone who wasn’t, so I understood what the mission was.

From the moment I married Husband Number One, I knew I was a future divorced woman. I had pleaded with a family member the night before the wedding to help me cancel the wedding, but she said it was too embarrassing, so I should just go through with it and divorce him later — that was terrible advice!

I had loved him at one time. He introduced me to a new world … he was the only grown up I had dated — wining and dining versus going Dutch at Roy Rogers restaurants. I loved the change and being with someone who had a nice car, who had finished his education and was well into his career. His personality was a little weird, he made wise cracks constantly that didn’t sit well with me and he was obsessed with my weight, but I was already under his spell and overlooked it. Then he began to cheat, usually running back to his former girlfriend. We’d break up, and he’d find me and beg to make up. For two years there was drama, tears, and turmoil, and by the last time we broke up I had lost all feelings for him. He must have sensed he was losing me for good, because to get me back one last time he stalked me at my health club, waited to catch me in my apartment parking lot, begged me to meet him for dinner, and when I did, he proposed, and I accepted. Why? Insert self-defeating thinking: I figured I was not good enough to attract a better mate than this, that I could get my feelings back for him if I tried, and that he would never hurt me again. I was wrong on all accounts. We divorced after 16 months of marriage, when he ran off with the receptionist from his job and moved out-of-state.

Take away: Don’t ignore red flags or sell yourself short or shoot too low in the type of mate you can attract — ones who cheat repeatedly will likely always cheat, despite what they say, and the same goes for those who flake out of relationships, then beg to come back later. Don’t choose a mate to please your family, and when a person shows you who they are, believe them the first time. And, if your self-esteem is on the floor you may be willing to accept the dregs of human behavior, a form of self-sabotage.

Marriage Two: Make sure you know who you’re marrying. Lesson: Spend time getting to know someone, at least three years, as people can and will hide their dysfunctional behavior during the dating process.

Oh, how attracted and in love I was — ahh butterflies. I couldn’t imagine my heart could ever change toward Number Two, but it did, and looking back I feel he did everything he could do to change my heart. He was seductive in the beginning, very loving, enthusiastic and affectionate, and then one day about two months into our marriage and nine months into our relationship, I cozied up to him and he turned me away, beginning a trend of rejection that went on for eight years — in an instant he went from my dream man to an icy, mean, shut-down man. He was a surgeon with an ego and had to be the boss. He looked down on anyone who didn’t work as hard as he did, and began to criticize me, my choices, told me my life was a waste, and did everything he could to avoid emotional and physical connection. He was a workaholic beyond anything I have ever seen, always adding more to his plate. We had two children, who truly were miracle babies, and I did all I could to hang on. I begged and pleaded with him to get help, to find out what was wrong. He said he would, but never did, and so I became a single mom at age 35. Needless to say, after the divorce he was an angry co-parent who was exceedingly difficult to deal with.

Take away: Date someone for at least three years so you can see the patterns of their personality. Anyone can show only their best self for a year or so. Our romance was brief, and it was long distance. He was finishing his medical residency at the time and was extremely busy, so we had not spent nearly enough time together to make a marriage decision. The truth of who a person really is will show up, so give it time, marriage is a huge decision, and divorce is so awful and painful, it’s worth it to take the time to set yourself up for success.

Marriage Three. The Most Painful Lesson. Lesson: Kill your ego or die.

This was a crash course in all I still hadn’t learned in the other two relationships. When I met this man, he was a district judge. He was hilarious and beloved in the community, poised and appropriate, but it was all a public persona. My initial concern was that he seemed to pine for old girlfriends and lost relationship opportunities, somewhat like a teenage girl. I’d never heard a man talk about relationships so much, so feeling weirded out, we started off as friends. He admitted to cheating on every woman he had ever been with, and as my feelings began to turn romantic, I told myself “Our love will be different, he will be faithful to me.” Although my self-esteem was still truly horrible, my ego was pretty healthy, and it told me the lie that I was quite exceptional and a man would behave differently in a relationship with me than he had any other time.

While dating I began to experience his tumultuous moods. Everything I did reflected on him. I wrote a column in the local newspaper and if I wrote something he didn’t like, or that his many friends commented to him about, he would throw a tantrum and tell me I couldn’t do that. This was unnerving.

The judge’s father had been a US Congressman in the San Antonio area for 38 years. He was a legend and an icon; his own man. I never would have married the moody judge, but when he told me that his father was going to retire and he was going to run for his seat, my ego had to jump on the train to Washington. It was egomania catnip for me and my family, marriage to a United States Congressman. Number Three had been single for years and had always dated women 20+ years younger. I was more age appropriate and had two young children — a ready-made family to cure his reputation as a playboy, a great political move, “Surely he wouldn’t want to blow it” I said to myself.

I calculated that once he was elected Congressman he would have to behave. We married, and when we did, his attitude toward me and my kids worsened. Everything we did was a direct reflection on him, so we had to be controlled. He pitted me against the children, one of the three of us was always in his doghouse and he would refuse to be around whomever that was. If I dared to side with one my children, there would be hell to pay.

Like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he could go from charming and romantic to Satan himself, all in a nanosecond, always behind closed doors, and what triggered him could not be predicted. He would yell at me, accuse me of ridiculous things that never happened, have expectations of me that had never been communicated, like how I had not drawn a hot bath for him when he came home from Washington, though he never told me he wanted one. When angry he would not speak to me for a week or two at a time, sometimes moving in with his female cousin. And then there were other types of abuse, a time or two he shoved me on the floor as I approached to try and calm him down. One memorable evening he was hugging me when suddenly his mood turned dark and he dug his nails in my back so hard I had marks for weeks. The fact that he was now a US Congressman had not made him a better man; he was worse than he ever had been.

My children later told me they would hear him yelling at me in our bedroom and me crying. They were so scared of him and his protests when interrupted that they when we he and I were in the bedroom they would speak to us through the air conditioning vent. This breaks my heart; I should never have exposed them to such ugliness. But I literally sold my soul to the devil to have the Washington D.C. political experience, one of my greatest regrets.

From the time we married he began to talk about the fact that divorce was inevitable, and he would say this in front of friends when we were out to dinner. I didn’t want a third divorce, but I knew it was inevitable. He told all of his friends that my children and I were crazy, he hated our dogs and cats, and once beat my Chihuahua, Belle, after assuming she had defecated in his briefcase. It had been the cat. I told him it was Karma and he lunged for me, I dived into the bed and hid within the covers, holding poor Belle under me so he couldn’t hurt her again. Emotionally worn down, I searched for the courage to leave, but in the end, didn’t need it.

He left me for another woman after just over two years. After we separated, almost every dear friend I had turned their back on me and chose to remain friends with the powerful Congressman. All the prominence and rubbing elbows with the powerful, all the things my ego had worked for, was gone. My health plummeted, but things eventually improved as I started graduate school to become a Marriage and Family Therapist. Knowing I could not survive another devastating relationship, I promised myself that I would spend time in a counselor’s office and the university library figuring out the me that had allowed all of this to happen. As I began to learn about mental health, personalities, and studied what healthy relationships consist of, I came to understand that my own misguided ego had been my guide in major life decisions, keeping me from a peaceful and loving life. This brutally honest recognition of what I had done brought to the conscious level all my ego had been driven to achieve. Recognizing it and taking ownership of it killed it’s influence on me once and for all.

Take away. My shallow misery-seeking ego had to die. My ego was dedicated to upping her station by marrying high profile, successful men, all to impress herself and her egomaniac family. I had loved the men I married, but none of them were capable of a healthy adult relationships. I got into each mess by ignoring the red flags that had waved all around me when during our initial romance, being wholly ignorant of how healthy people behave. If I was to love again, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to, it had to be with someone who was commitment-oriented and emotionally mature. I was ready to accept a simple life, out of the public eye; to just learn, grow, work and support myself and my children, to be still and let life unfold.

Epilogue.

In the years after Number Three, I learned to be happy alone. This was an important and necessary step. I learned about trauma and emotional maturity and consciously grew myself up. I lived the simple life, became a licensed counselor, and after about five years started to date again. This time I didn’t miss or ignore the red flags that waved in my face when a man showed me who he was, and there were a lot of red flags, probably in 98 percent of the men I met. I never had a boyfriend or significant other for almost 10 years, instead I concentrated on schooling and getting licensed, and being as emotionally healthy as I could.

Then I met someone. He had all the things I knew had to be there — he was kind, solid and consistent. He had been married for 25 years, and his wife had opted out of the marriage. There was no temper, flakiness, workaholism, and he had nothing to prove as far as his ego was concerned. He was solid in every way, and he adored and accepted me exactly as I was.

Marriage Four. True, mature love is gentle, comfortable, consistent.

Now I was able to apply all of my growth and relationship knowledge and skills I’d learned to have the type of loving relationship I had always wanted. When we fell in love it was calm and comfortable, like a foot slipping into the most comfortable shoe. My other relationships had been like fireworks shows that quickly burned out. Could this calm and certain feeling be real love? I came to understand that it is, that mature love is not intoxicating, but a solid attachment and connection that lasts the long term. It’s a feeling of being there for one another, two independent individuals with lives of their own, coming together to make each other’s life better together. Having been through Relationship Hell, I will never take him for granted.

I spend my days working with people who are making the many mistakes I used to make. If I can save one individual or family from relational misery or divorce, and guide them from dysfunctional to functional behavior, my many mistakes and lessons will have been worthwhile. It’s my fondest desire that no one else has to learn the hard way.

Becky Whetstone, Ph.D., LMFT, LPC is a Marriage & Family Therapist and Licensed Professional Counselor in private practice in Little Rock, Arkansas, and an LMFT in Texas.* She is a marriage crisis and relationship specialist. Visit her web site at www.doctorbecky.com. Contact her at becky@doctorbecky.com.

*To search for her license, look for her legal name, Becky Whetstone Cheairs.