Can our marriage survive my husband’s lying?
DEAR BEL I HAVE been married for nearly two years, and recently found out that my husband has been lying to me over the five years we have been together.
He told me two years ago that he had given up watching pornography and promised that he wouldn’t lie to me any more — and I believed him. After being found out, he now admits to viewing it occasionally.
I have also found out that he has lied about money. We had a lavish wedding and honeymoon, and a new car, which he said he could afford, but he now owes the bank nearly €30k. I don’t know how we will repay this. But it is not just the money; I feel betrayed and deceived. He promises to get help and change, and needs my support. It scares me to thinking of being on my own, but it also scares me to remain — not being able to fully trust him.
If I knew he wouldn’t hurt me again, I could go t hrough t he process of forgiveness. But am I being a doormat if I try to forgive him again?
JOANNE
CAN you be too forgiving? I have been asking myself this for the past 13 years, si nce t he end of my first marriage, and (especially) since starting to write an advice column in 2005.
My confusion began when I was criticised (by more than one person) for being ‘too forgiving’. At the time I bridled, yet years later I can see what they meant. Sometimes you can rush to forgiveness with as much eagerness as others rush to judgment — harming your own dignity in the process.
Now, over ten years of problem letters have left me less convinced about forgiveness being better for the wronged person and so on.
When unsure, I visit the inspiring website of The Forgiveness Project — for reminders of what compassion and forgiveness can achieve. Uplifted, I might counsel the ‘olive branch’. But is it always right? Should we doormats shake off the mud and chorus: ‘You’re not welcome any more’?
You give details (not printed) which lead me to guess that you were well into your 40s when you wed: old enough to be far more sensible about the expenditure, yet also of an age to be over-excited about a Big Day. Is that fair comment? It was his second wedding, but was it your first? I’m astonished that a mature woman should collude in such extravagance, taking assurances of wealth at face value. In the modern world couples should start a life of mutual commitment with full disclosure. You did not.
I think you should think about this and have a frank conversation, perhaps accepting a small portion of the blame and asking him why he felt the need to impress everybody.
Does an innate feeling of crippling inadequacy lie beneath his lies? Perhaps his weakness has roots in childhood. You say (omitted here) that your husband has had counselling for his porn addiction, but perhaps he needs to look more widely and more deeply. I suspect a compulsion to watch porn is only part of the problem. Your love and respect for your husband have been knocked sideways, but that does not have to end your marriage. On the contrary, I believe that relationships can be enriched once dreams of perfection are jettisoned in the bleak light of day (see today’s top quotation). To go forward, your husband would have to see his GP and make an urgent request for counselling.
With such debts, I don’t see how you could afford it unless he can persuade his doctor that there could be serious consequences (the end of his marriage and subsequent depression) if he does not obtain help. This is urgent. Then you need to sit down together and plan seriously for repayment of the borrowed money. Angry, disappointed and afraid, you do not actually wish this marriage to be over; therefore you have no choice but to believe it can be mended. You are now in charge.
Perhaps you should consider this your penance for being so seduced by the fancy wedding and honeymoon and for believing him when he said the porn addiction was over. None of that was actually your ‘fault’, yet we all share responsibility for our home lives.
Can you forgive him? Possibly, with great difficulty. Can you go on living with him, knowing he’s a plonker? Yes. Is it possible to come through a horrendously bad time and be happy again? Yes.