Following are questions pertaining to the events leading up to and including how you learned that you were being lied to. The questions are designed to allow you to trace back to the beginning when you discovered the behaviors. Often a place to start is the day you learned something that irreparably altered what you had previously believed or thought. Usually this is considered the crisis event—a day like no other, for it was the catalytic moment that prompted you to face your partner’s behaviors in a way you never had before. For some, this event extends over a few days or weeks.
EXAMPLES
While driving home from a work trip, I got a call from my husband, but he wasn’t calling to talk. He had inadvertently phoned me, and as I listened, I heard him talking to another woman. Then I heard them going to a hotel room and eventually I listened to them having sex. Although before this time I feared he might have had an affair, it was this phone call that changed everything between us. It’s been two years and I still can’t stop thinking about what I heard that day.
It was a week before our tenth anniversary. It’s a date I will never forget. I don’t know what to call the day—an anniversary?
Right after Thanksgiving 2006, I noticed my husband was taking the dog for walks every evening, something he never did before. He would take his cell phone with him. So when he was asleep one night I checked his call log and called the number that he’d called while walking the dog. A woman answered and I hung up. I decided not to do anything until after the holidays. In January, I hired a detective to follow him on a trip to Washington and found he was having an affair with an escort. I confronted him with the facts and told him I had gone to see an attorney who recommended that I see a therapist.
EXAMPLES
I was visiting a friend who lived two hours from my home and I checked my email to find one from a woman telling me she was having an affair with my husband. I sat there in disbelief. I was stunned and then I got into his email account and found hundreds of emails from this woman and several others. I didn’t know what to do. My friend’s kids were eating breakfast and I couldn’t tell my friend what I just learned. I called my husband and told him I needed to see him at home and the tone of my voice must have scared him because he said he’d meet me there in two hours. I drove home and it was the longest drive of my life! To this day, I still have no idea how I got home. I was shaking and crying and nearly drove off the road.
My husband and I had been in couples’ therapy and I suspected my husband was having an affair. He denied it repeatedly. One day I signed in to check my email and he had left his email account open. I found emails from three different women. I printed out those emails. I now had facts to back up my suspicions.
EXAMPLE
I remember confronting my husband and telling him he had to leave. It was evening. I was alone, and I sat at the kitchen table and cried and cried. I was so scared, but I knew he couldn’t stay in the house after what he’d done. It was the first time I was ever alone since being a child.
When you think of that day there may have been signs or prior circumstances that had you questioning your partner’s actions. Describe prior circumstances and/or events where you had suspicions and his or her behavior was called into question.
EXAMPLES
Ten years ago I found a list of phone numbers in my husband’s wallet. It made no sense so I called a few and found out that these were women and/or men, who, when I asked who they were, hung up.
From the time we started dating, I knew my husband was looking at porn. I thought all men did this so I didn’t mind. But last year I came across a website where he had been chatting with other women and then learned he met a woman from another part of the country. He had been lying to me and cheating with other women.
As you recall the memories of that day it may bring up prior events that had you second guessing and suspecting your partner’s behavior and you now realize you were probably right. That too is a part of your story. As you are flooded with memories of the past, you often gain greater clarity about the present, even though it may raise additional questions and cause you painful, scary, and uncertain feelings. You have been denied the truth—truth you had a right to know. Writing your part of the story helps you claim your experience.
Now you will focus on identifying those sexual behaviors, situations, or attitudes that represent your partner’s acting out. In this exercise you identify those times where warning signs, suspicions, or triggers were known to you and the ways you did or did not respond. This helps you examine how you were betrayed and deceived—often by half-truths, blatant lies, or avoidant responses thereby hampering your ability to react appropriately at the time. You will also come to recognize how you became unknowingly complicit in the acting out. By understanding these patterns, both of the addict and yourself in ignoring, denying, or overreacting to a suspicion, you will learn new ways to handle suspicions and come to trust yourself. Recognizing how suspicions were ignored often provides you with some understanding as to the development of the addictive behavior. It also empowers you to move forward with your healing.