FROM ONE MAN TO ANOTHER

My husband wrote the letter below for anyone who would like to share it with their husband. From One Man To Another, please share this letter with your spouse if you would like. I think my husband did a very good job explaining what he has and is going through.
Please let me know what you think of his letter.

God Bless:
Kate


From One Man to Another

I want to put in writing, my character defects, defects I refused to believe I had, defects that were killing my spirit, my soul, as well as the spirit and soul of those I professed to love and never once stopped to look at what I was doing.



At 54 years old I was horrified to learn the kind of the man I truly was. It took losing everything, I am not talking about the material things of this life, I am talking about my dignity, my integrity, my self respect and the respect of others. Where I blamed others for my life, I found I was truly the one to blame. I started the hard, at times excruciating look into my own life, the deepest part of my core soul and what I saw was horrifying. My soul was black, I was not the man I believed I was, I pretended to be, instead I found myself to be the man I would not want my daughters, granddaughters, nieces, sisters or any woman to call husband, father, uncle, grandpa or brother. I always believed “that if you really knew me, you wouldn’t love me”, because of that inner belief, I created that exact man. “Who could love a man, who has done the things I have, especially to those I said I loved.” I realized it was me that needed to change and I began the hard, at times painful work of looking in the mirror of myself, truly, honestly facing who I had allowed myself to become and began the process of change.


When asked about my choices and decisions, as I look back, they are all one way. Selfish, self centered, egotistical, needy, totally uncaring about others or what I was doing to them. I had this belief that all men were just like me, they all viewed pornography, they all masturbated, they all had affairs, they didn’t talk about their weaknesses, all men had jobs, went to work and financially supported their families and that was all they needed to do, what man needs to come home after working hard all day to hear about problems with the kids, or his wife complaining about her hard day, worse yet, want to talk about your marriage and your wife’s unhappiness. I use to tell my wife, “I brought home a paycheck, what more do you want from me.” She should have been happy with that. Never did I stop to notice all the work my wife was doing, her job, the house, the kids, the bills, taking most of the responsibilities for fixing problems or issues that arose, helping friends and family, most of all she took all of the responsibility for our marriage, trying everything to get me to engage, now I see she carried 80% of the load, never once did I stop to appreciate what she sacrificed of her own wants, needs and desires, never once did I stop to listen to her struggles as she carried all this weight of responsibility, never once did I give her credit for being a woman a husband should be proud of, never once did I thank her for her unselfish acts. All I ever did was feel sorry for myself, poor me, my needs aren’t being met, poor me, she won’t have sex with me when ever or where ever I want it, poor me, I don’t get the praise I so deserve, Poor me became the motto I lived by, and it became the very demise of my true manhood.


Let me tell you what I lost.
The innocence I had as a trusted, Husband, Father, Grandfather, son of God.
Freedom of choice.
Respect from my family, my friends.
My self integrity, dignity, self worth, self respect.
I lost the purity, the innocence my wife and I should have shared.
It cost me my legacy. What others will remember of me and who I was.
The example of what a true husband, father, friend, man, should be.
My behavior cost me years of hidden pain and destruction.
It cost my wife memories of our past, where she can no longer go and feel
happy or safe, the price is mine to carry.
I degraded myself and my family, by not loving them fully or protecting
them honestly as I promised to do, I lost the value of my word.
My selfish choices cost me so much, the pain is so deep, the self hate at
times so profound, at times I feel so hopeless, hopeless that I can truly
change, hopeless that I can repair all the damage I have caused my wife, my
family, myself. I know I am the one who created this devastation, so the
Hope of a better tomorrow is mine to inspire. There is Hope.

I wish I had stopped the Train Wreck of my life many year’s ago and focused instead on my personal behavior and how I affected those that loved me, my Wife most of all, my family, my friends, my peers at work, people that looked up to me.

18 years ago I got married for the second time and immediately, within 6 months of giving my promise to Love, Honor and Cherish, started behaving badly. I now had conquered my wife, she was a caught, other men wanted her, but I got her, yet my ego, that empty black hole in myself, wasn’t satisfied and I began to chase other women. It made me feel powerful, in control, a mans, man. I felt like a hero to all these other women. I had myself convinced that the way these other women made me feel was worth any price. Even the price of my wife’s life, my family’s life, as well as my very own life. When I married my wife, she was innocent, pure, she had kept herself for the man she would call her husband. She had told me on our first date that to her, her body was a gift, a gift she would only give to the man she loved and married. I admired that about her, that was one of the things that captivated me to her, yet four years into our marriage, I brought her home an STD, I had a doctor friend of mine convince her that her first husband could have given it to her and it just laid dormant in her body. I saw the pain in her, the humiliation and yet it didn’t stop my behavior. I knew the truth, I knew that the weekend before I had gone out and had a one night stand with a woman I had met at a bar, I knew it was me that gave my wife a disease that would be a life time sentence, yet the shame I felt still didn’t make me stop and look at myself, instead I blamed her, if she would just do her wifely duty and give me sex on demand I wouldn’t have to do what I was doing. My wife believed in making love, enjoying each other physically in a loving, caring way, all I wanted was raw, nasty sex, which always left me feeling lonely and empty in the end. I can’t imagine how lonely and empty my wife must have felt after being with me. She use to tell me how it made her feel lonely, empty and used after wards, but I didn’t care how it made her feel, I got what I wanted.
After awhile, my wife didn’t want to make love to me anymore, hugs and kisses became almost non existent. When she would hug me, kiss me or want to cuddle, I immediately started groping her, grabbing at her body parts in a very unloving manner. She would beg me to go to counseling with her, sex therapy anything to get us, our marriage help, but I always refused, I didn’t need help. I was after all, just a normal man. I can’t tell you how many times my wife wrote me letters, played me songs, begged with tears in her eyes telling me that the way I was behaving was not normal, it all feel on deaf ears, there was nothing wrong with me, it was all her. If she would only stop nagging me, stop pushing me, start appreciating the things I did, start giving me the credit I deserved for just putting up with her, if she would just give me sex, when and how I wanted all would be fine.

I was so selfish and self centered I did not have the ability to ask my wife,
What can I do to help you today.
What can I do to be your soft place to fall.
How can I make your life better.
What do you need from me, how can I bring joy into your life.
How can I lighten your load, lift your troubles away.
What dreams of yours can I help make happen.

My wife has the ability to put others needs before her own, why do I not have that as well. If my wife did not love me, she would not have cared enough to nag, beg, and plead for me to get help for myself or to better our marriage. If she hadn’t of loved me, she would of cared less what I was doing or not doing, she would have turned her back and walked away. My affair partners never cared about me enough to try and help me be a better person, they didn’t care enough to make me face the facts about my character, like lying, cheating or being an emotionally abusive person. In my distorted view, they accepted me for who I was and my wife demanded I be better. Now when I look back, I see that my wife wanted to help enhance my life, my affair partners were about enhancing their own lives, by using me to fill the holes they had in themselves, lying to me to feed my ego, while I was lying to them to feel like a hero. My wife paid the price for all of our issues. My wife, a beautiful, loving, compassionate, loyal, strong woman. This is the woman I asked to marry me, carry my last name, who vowed to love, honor and cherish me, keeping herself faithful to me and I gave her the same vows/promise and than turned my back on her. She kept her vows, why didn’t I? I married her and than threw away the person who should have been the most precious one to me. All for what?

I refused to look at my own defects, me, a Professional Project Manager, I could so manage your stuff, I could give you advice on how to live your life, what you were doing wrong, but I always refused to look at my own. Important stuff I left buried. Things from my childhood, my first marriage, I never dealt with it. I just buried it deep inside and pretended it didn’t exist, not loving myself, my wife, my family, enough to protect us all from the evils of me.

I was not the man I wanted my daughters to marry, I was not the man I wanted my sisters to marry, I was not the man I wanted my granddaughters to marry, yet this is the man I was to my wife. My wife, the greatest gift from God.

What causes a man to be so abusive to his loved ones? I look at my wife, my children and think I would likely Kill someone that harmed them and yet here I was Harming my wife, my children, my Grandchildren in unimaginable ways. What was I thinking, what will I say to God when I meet Him in Heaven and He asks how did I treat his Daughter, his special gift to me, how did I treat his other children, my children, his grandchildren, my grandchildren. I will be so ashamed; I could have done better, been better, way better. I know He will still Love me as I still love my children, grandchildren when they misbehave, I could have done better, I should have been better. I am ashamed for all the pain, unnecessary pain, I have caused to those I love and so many others.

I had a gift of a second chance given to me 2 years ago. My wife and family learned of my 9 year secret affair, as well as many other affairs, my character defects, my lack of morality, my no barriers in place mentality. I would not work on my inner defects at all, I only used my addictions to carry my burdens and excuse my behavior. I would not turn towards my wife, my special gift God gave to me to help me with my troubles, to hold me accountable to my behavior and to keep me an honorable man. Turned away from my family, those that matter the very most, I allowed myself to sink into the black hole of despair, refusing to ask for help. Instead I was abusing, using, blaming and hurting the very person that would have saved me.

I have been working hard on my character defects, trying to repair the monster holes I created in my Life. I am trying to become the man that God hoped I might be. I came from the innocence of childhood and acquired defects that affected all those around me. I had to work on me. I had to learn to turn back towards my wife, my family, God, getting my life whole, making amends for the wrongs I had done to all those I loved. The pain I have caused is deep and my shame is overwhelming. This is not the man I saw myself as being, but this is the man I am/was. My wife asked me when she found out about my pornography use, “What was the age of the youngest woman I had been with?” My wife knows that pornography is usually made using young girls who are lost and hurting, when I told her the youngest was 22 years old, she cried, “How could you use a child?” “Would you want your daughters used by a man in his 40’s or 50’s?” “22 years old, she is still a child.” I was horrified at myself, because I had never stopped to think about the age of my affair partners or the damage I created in their lives. My own daughters are older than my youngest affair partner. My wife was right, I would kill a man who harmed my daughters the way I harmed someone else’s daughter. My Shame is deep.

If I could let one man know, if I could spare his family the pain, devastation and shame I created in my own family, in my own life, I would yell, a heart felt scream, Stop, don’t do this, don’t hurt your precious wife, family or others. Don’t degrade yourself, don’t give up your integrity, your dignity, your self worth for something that will never fill that empty hole inside of you. Instead, turn towards your wife, trust in her, if she didn’t care about you or love you, she wouldn’t care what kind of man, person, human being you are, she is there because she loves you and she wants you to be the best man, person, human being you can be. Remember what it felt like to have your wife lay her head on your shoulder, how special it made you feel. When you fell down in life and she was there to help pick you up, loving you through it all. Where you are a safe place for her to share her feelings, her thoughts, her dreams and the pride you feel when you look in the mirror and see the man you know you are and want to be, a good, faithful, loving husband and father. I have learned through my own selfishness, the hardest lesson in life, A TRUE MAN IS DEFINED, NOT BY HIS JOB, NOT BY MATERIAL POSSESSIONS, BUT BY HOW HE TREATS HIS FAMILY, THE GREATEST GIFTS WE HAVE IS OUR WIFE AND CHILDREN, by the legacy we leave behind, that lives on through them.
I remember the feeling I got when my children crawled up into my lap and I wanted to protect them from everything that would harm them, protect them from anything evil, yet I was the most evil of all.

Addictions, now there is a word. Shame on us, any of us, to use the excuse of an addiction to harm someone else, shame on the purveyors of Addictions, Tobacco, Drugs, Alcohol, Sex and other’s. Shame on us for allowing other people, things, any foothold on our weaknesses, taking away our valuable time, our attention, diverting us, using us for their own ends. I wish I could have had the strength to have turned towards my wife, my life, setting the bar higher, not allowing another person, an obsession, an addiction to take my time and energy.

Please Men, Listen to what I have learned. Before you take that step, before you make a decision that will destroy your good name, your imprint on you and your family’s life, treat them the way you yourself would want to be treated.

Now that I have discovered my own character defects, I began doing the very things my wife had been begging me to do for years. I started going to counseling, my Pastor told me that some men spend their youth and most of their adult life turning away from their wives, while our wives have been reaching out to us for years, trying to bring us, their husbands, into a better, stronger, more loving relationship. After years of being turned away, we Men sometimes finally wake up to see what we have been missing, sometimes by than it is to late, our wives have grown tired of begging to know us, to be close to us and they begin to turn away, we have left them lonely and empty for so long they know longer trust or even want a relationship with us, now who is to blame for this, us men. Now that we have decided we want our family, our family has gotten use to us not being there and they don’t need or maybe want us anymore. And we wonder why?

I sought out my affair partner’s over my 18 year marriage to make me feel good about myself, using them and not caring one thing about their needs, only using them for my own ends, abusing daughters of God.

My behavior was affecting my wife in an emotional way and also erupted into a physical way as well. We all know what day to day stress can do to a person in just an everyday way, I can only imagine what my horrible attitude and behavior must have had on my wife, her well being. She started withdrawing, hurting inside, hurting outside, full of pain, despair, loneliness. I wish I could do it all over again. I would do it different. We all say that after the consequences of our actions bite us in the butt. Affairs never work out, statistics even back that up, and they are just wrong. There is nothing that anybody could use as an excuse to say that an affair is OK. There is nothing that our spouse could say or do that would make us have an affair, having an affair is strictly a character defect. There are just too many other things that can be done before you have an affair, like talking to your spouse about how you are feeling, go to counseling, get help, or end your marriage. Having an affair steals time away from you and your spouse, time that can never be replaced. As my wife says, “I get one chance at life and you just took 18 years of it away from me, Why?, if you didn’t love me, why didn’t you set me free to find someone who would?” She is right, but honestly, I didn’t want to set her free, because she filled other needs of mine, again selfish, self centered me. I can not change the past, but I can change my future. I have turned back towards my wife. I thank God everyday for her Grace in allowing me the opportunity to really learn what unconditional love is truly all about.
I want you to know how I was encouraged to change my future, accepted the depression of losing my behavior, opening my mind to accepting the love from my wife even though I did not accept her love at times. I am learning, slowly at times, what true love really is by my wife’s actions. Love is a choice not a physical feeling or moment by moment feeling. Love is an action, an everyday action, putting my wife first and foremost, over my needs, my employers’ needs, and worldly needs. Putting God above all else, loving me, my wife, and my family. Accepting my weaknesses, allowing myself to feel loved by being completely, open and honest about who I truly am.

I have learned that loving my wife, loving God, respecting my wife’s boundaries and that holding me accountable is an act of love. I have accepted that I was wrong. I was 120% responsible for my actions, my choices, my decisions. I have tried to be understanding and accept my wife’s soul anger, her words, she has paid the price of my choices way too long. I have tried to not be defensive as I have no defense. I have no Moral Template that would stand up under scrutiny, under observation. There is no accepting my behavior, nothing should have allowed me to abuse my wife this way, taking away her freedom, stealing her love and not giving back anything in return.

To remain in my wives life, she has set many boundaries, but the most important is that I get and remain healthy. I attend counseling twice monthly, I go to group twice weekly, my words and behavior must stand side by side. I must be honest and open with everything in my life. I must be accountable to my time and whereabouts. My wife loves me and wants me to be the best I can be and that is true love. One thing I know, my wife will set me free to be anyone I want to be, if my old behavior is what I want to define me, she will open the door and wish me well, but to remain in her life, in the life of my children, I will have to bring positive, good qualities into their life’s. Truthfully, she is asking so little of me, “BE A GOOD MAN, A MAN OF HONOR,” which is what I should have always been. In return for being the man she requires, I receive the greatest gift, blessing of all, a great life, a wonderful wife and a loving family. It has been right in front of me the whole time, everything I always wanted and needed, I just didn’t know how to appreciate and accept it.

I never saw myself as changing or even needing to change. Working on myself, my character was something I never thought I would do. Now, I wish I would have worked on my life, my entire life. I never believed in God, my wife has always had God in her life, I use to laugh at her belief but now I embrace it. I know there is truly a God and that He has forgiven me for all the bad things I have done. Its forgiving myself that I have the hardest time with. How can I ever forgive myself for all the pain and heartache I caused my wife and family? How can I ever forgive myself for the damage I have done to so many others. My wife says that forgiving ourselves for our failures is a life time journey, I believe she is right.

I am one of the lucky ones. I have a wife that is giving me a chance for reform, to become a better man. This is a true act of Unconditional Love. As long as I stay on the path I am on today she will stand beside me and support me, she encourages me everyday to be the man I want to be, the man I wish I would have always been. Yes, she still gets angry once in a while, how can I really blame her, I would be very angry to, if it were reversed. In fact, I believe I would not be as strong as my wife, I don’t know if my wife would have done and said the things I did, that I could forgive and love her through it. She is truly an amazing woman. Don’t get me wrong, I know if my wife even suspects I have gone back to my old ways, she will leave me, this is not a threat from her, it is a promise and my wife is a woman of her word. The price of what I would lose for a momentary ego boost is to high a price. I only wish someone would have told me what I am telling you. TURN TOWARDS YOUR WIFE, LOVE HER UNCONDITIONALLY, MAKE HER PRIORITY IN YOUR LIFE AND EVERY NEED, EVERY DESIRE YOU HAVE WILL BE MET, I PROMISE YOU THIS. DON’T LIVE IN DECEIT AND DARKNESS, LIVE YOUR BEST AND FULLEST LIFE, IN HONESTY, BE TRUE TO WHO YOU ARE. DEFINE YOUR LIFE BY LOVING YOUR WIFE AND FAMILY. BE THE MAN THAT GOD INTENDED YOU TO BE, THE MAN I KNOW YOU WANT TO BE.

I feel so much better now that I am walking free of my lies and secrets. I feel this weight gone from my shoulders, the black ooze lifted away, working on my marriage is empowering, uplifting, wholesome. I am so encouraged to work on my life, my marriage.

My marriage was truly the last thing I wanted to work on, in my mind I had made my wife my enemy, my roommate, believing that if she ever discovered my behavior I would end our marriage, I had myself convinced that I had never loved her, she was a mistake, that I had married the wrong woman, she wasn’t the woman I thought her to be. I was wrong, it was me, I wasn’t the man I thought I was, I had married the right woman and I created the barriers between us and now I have to remove them. She was not my enemy, but I certainly was hers. It has been two years now since my wife discovered who the man was she really married. It has been a very long hard journey the past two years, at times so hard I even thought of giving up but when I look at my wife now, I am overcome by the love and admiration I have for her. What a gift God gave me, my beautiful wife.

TO BE TRULY LOVED, YOU MUST BE TRULY KNOWN

God Bless You and I hope you realize that I think the hard work is worth it, because I think I am worth it, my wife and my family is worth it. My brother, you are worth it. LOVE THE GREATEST GIFT YOU WILL EVER RECEIVE HERE ON EARTH, YOUR WIFE AND FAMILY.



Wayne