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Dear Lonely and Confused,
I'm really
glad you wrote. It shows that you have not given up hope in
your marriage and that's a good sign for a promising future
together. If that is what you want in your heart of hearts,
there is every reason to believe you can and will achieve
it. A renewed love between the two of you can be yours if
that's what you both want it. It sure sounds like that's what
you want.
Your marital record so far looks
good, after all. You write that you were together as a couple
for eight years before you married. Those years must have
taught you a lot about one another and knowing what you did
about each other you wanted to spend the rest of your lives
together as a married couple. You've come to a temporary slump
in your marriage now. You are right to want to get back on
track immediately and proceed to reap the benefits of a happily
married couple in sync with one another again. In the end,
your relationship will have been strengthened because of the
crisis the two of you faced and overcame together.
Let me address the details of
your letter. When you call your husband "obsessed",
do you mean like a hopeless gambler that is ready to throw
away his life's savings for the sake of his addiction or do
you mean like someone who is mad about a passing fancy? If
the latter, do you think this is a temporary fascination that
will wear off when he realizes how seriously threatening his
flirtations are becoming to your marriage? If the former,
don't you think you'd better seek some professional counseling
right now before it's too late!
Cyber romance is surely alluring,
mystical, bewitching and seductive. You are right to be alarmed.
You write that you wanted the same things for your marriage
at the start. Did that mean monogamy, faithfulness and fidelity?
If not, you need to review that initial understanding between
you and reevaluate the meaning of your marriage. If so, you
both need to recommit to that original reason you are together:
your love of one another! That your intimacy has been compromised
because of this extramarital distraction reinforces the seriousness
of the matter and cries out to you both to "get it together"
again and soon.
The good news is, of course,
that your husband tells you he loves you. But what does he
mean by these precious words? Loosing trust in one another
is a sure sign that the fortress of your love is being bombarded
and besieged. Take care to nurture the love between you with
tenderness and good will, compromise, acceptance, and an unconditional
kind of love that will see you through every crisis and challenge,
disagreement and misunderstanding.
Here's a concrete suggestion
for approaching your husband initially: Write him a letter,
a love letter. In it, tell him exactly what you told me, that
is, "I love you with my whole heart and soul and don't
want to ever be without you. You are my whole life. I have
tried to leave but I can't. It is too hard.
Tell him vividly, in as many
emotional terms as you can muster, what it is that you are
feeling about his obsession with the chat room and with this
woman in particular. Dig deep inside to try to express your
pain, your fear, your anxiety. But don't forget to emphasize
your love for him and how you really want to make this marriage
work. Lastly, after you have looked over what you have written,
tell him what you feel about having written this letter.
Affirm your hope that he will
accept this as an invitation to write back, his love letter
to you, telling you exactly what he is feeling. Reassure him
that you will not judge his feelings, for feelings are neither
right nor wrong. All you want is for the two of you to renew
that decision to love you made to one another 13 years ago
when you met and again five years ago when you married. With
such a sincere and passionate effort, you can't help but touch
your husband's heart in a way that is bound to get him to
stop and consider what a gift he has in you and in your shared
life together!
Good luck!
Michael Klein-Katz
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