Letter From a Betrayed Spouse

Jul 09

By Jay Slupesky

Shattered Rick,

I didn’t begin this letter with “Dear Rick” because you aren’t dear to me right now. Far from it. So for now “Rick” will have to do. It’s hard for me to even think about your name, let alone say it out loud.

There is no way that you will ever comprehend the magnitude of what you have done to me. The devastation is total. Everything that I married you for, hoped for in you, believed about you, KNEW about you is gone. All of it. There is nothing left. Where do I go from here, Rick? What do you expect me to do?

So even though I don’t believe that you will ever really get how I feel, I’m going to try to explain it anyway. My therapist says it will be cathartic for me to write this letter.

Remember the night you asked me to marry you? I do. I thought it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I’ve always been a dreamer. When I was a little girl I dreamt about the day a man would propose to me. I imagined what it would be like. And then it actually happened. I was the happiest girl in the world. I started to dream about our perfect wedding.

Remember when we talked about what name I would use after we were married? You told me that I should keep my maiden name because it’s my dad’s name and I am so proud of him. You were right. I am so proud of him. But I was marrying YOU and I decided to take your name so that it could be one more thing that we would share. I wanted us to share everything. Rick, I didn’t want to have my world and you have your world. I just wanted us to have OUR world. You could say that I left my family behind and invested my whole life and future in you. EVERYTHING. In YOU, Rick.

Then we had the perfect wedding and started our life together. I was still a dreamer, only now my dreams turned to us having kids, buying our first house, even growing old together.

Those dreams are shattered now. My whole life and future have been ripped away from me over the last few days.

How could you do this, Rick? I put my WHOLE LIFE into this. Everything I did, every thought I had, was about US. I thought you were doing the same for me and that you felt the same way about us. And all the time you were deceiving me. I feel so stupid now for falling for your lies. I cannot believe that you had a secret life that I wasn’t a part of. It’s hard for me to see how I could ever get back to how I used to feel about you or to ever trust you again.

Here’s the part that I don’t understand: I still love you. And that really puts me in such an awful place. I love a man who has treated me like dirt. Where do we go from here, Rick?

This is the hardest letter I’ve ever had to write.

Becky

Note: this is not really a letter from a betrayed spouse. I would never violate a client’s confidentiality. This letter is merely the product of my imagination.

Tags: affair, cheating, lying

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 9th, 2008 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Marriage Dynamics.

3 Responses to “Letter From a Betrayed Spouse”

Steven Says:
April 29th, 2011 at 10:59 am
Just came across this- since it’s fictional I guess I shouldn’t devote too much time to thinking about it, but it sounds like this woman had a pretty unhealthy attachment to this guy. Maybe this letter is in order:

“Rick,

Maybe making my entire life about us was a bad idea, maybe I would have been better served had I made some of my life about me, so that my happiness wasn’t entirely dependent on someone else. Now I’m an adult with no sense of purpose and no idea how to make myself happy without you. Since you turned out to be a lying scum-bag, this is an unpleasant spot to be in. I blame you for being a scum-bag. I blame myself for not being responsible for my own happiness and for not having dreams and goals for myself as an individual.”
Kat Says:
May 13th, 2011 at 8:57 am
Touche Steven,

Why do betrayed spouses never take half the responsibility for what happens in the marriage? The Affair is a symptom of much bigger problems in the marriage.

As in the fictional letter. Maybe “Rick” felt suffocated and no longer wanted to be responsible for her happiness.

Perhaps “she” is a raging alcoholic and he is only there to protect his children from her influences. Maybe he is not in a position to leave, quite yet, as he needs to make sure the children are safe.

Perhaps Rick was tired to listening to her raging until 5am and was looking for a kind and loving ear.

Maybe he has had enough and deserves better… so… he found it.

There is always another side to these things.
Lyka Ricks Says:
August 12th, 2011 at 10:38 pm
All trust involves vulnerability and risk, and nothing would count as trust if there were no possibility of betrayal. ~ Robert C. Solomon.

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