Rupture and Repair: A Kintsugi Marriage
I am mourning the loss of my marriage and simultaneously celebrating its reincarnation.
On May 30 my partner of 17 years walked into our bedroom, where I had been sleeping after relegating him to the couch. At a friend’s house the night before, while having an incredible evening playing board games and eating decadent European cheeses, salty charcuterie, and drinking juicy natural wines, I discovered explicit text messages on his phone. My heart rate spiked, body temperature dropped, breath shortened, my vision tunneled. I abruptly orchestrated our exit, thanking our hosts and chalking up my awkwardness to it being so late at night.
Upon arrival to our home, I angrily and aggressively confronted him. He repeatedly denied knowing what it was, claiming he must have been hacked; he was too intoxicated to try to explain himself and my emotions were on overdrive, so we tabled the discussion for the morning. I honestly have no idea how I slept at all, but I do remember consoling myself by resorting to trusting he spoke honestly, something that perpetuated my being gaslit.
In the morning, one of our cats engaged in his routine of snuggling up onto my shoulder and pillow; it was profoundly comforting, and I so desperately wanted to fall back asleep and wake up to this simply having been a nightmare. Moments later I was jolted back into reality when my husband came into our bedroom and asked “Do you want to talk now?” As I began to respond he quickly interrupted, “I did send those texts.” I lunged at him, crying wildly, then crumpled onto the cold pine floor, attempting to sob/speak quietly so as not to wake our downstairs neighbors. I kept thinking, “This can’t be happening, how is this real.” Our marriage had burst sharply and quickly like a blown light bulb.
Hell hath no fury like a Shelby scorned. With blind rage and a bruised ego, I combed through his phone — all of his social media, email, and bank accounts. Sitting tall but disheveled in our grey IKEA desk chair, he flatly admitted to me with indifference that he had been on a dating website for about a month and a half engaging in virtual sexual conversations with several different women. He said it helped make him feel better because he had been stressed with work, I’d been distant, and he was afraid of me leaving him for a woman. We had been having frequent, lengthy, and honest conversations about attraction and consensual non-monogamy, as my own sexual identity had begun to blossom in 2017 and I had expressed my desire to explore it; he had been unwavering in his support and validation, and shared his conviction to remain monogamous himself. The entire present scenario seemed completely incongruent to the person I had loved for nearly two decades. I demanded answers to the myriad questions swirling in my brain and he presented his responses with zero emotion, his eyes empty and lips tight. It was disturbing, but I was also enraged and feeling utterly eviscerated; all I could think was, “how did this happen? How could he do this to us? How did I not know?”
He would tell me almost two months later that in those moments on May 30th he was emotionless because he wanted to die, and going on this website was his last resort to finally push himself to end his life.
When our life cracked open after the discovery and disclosure, my husband spent several days at home with his family at my initial request for space and processing. I have never felt so lost and alone. That first day I was able to schedule an urgent phone session with my therapist. I remember pacing up and down our hallway in my pajamas and robe, telling her the circumstances and hearing her shock and disbelief as she exclaimed, “what?!” I don’t know if she realized how comforting it was to know she too was just as taken aback at it all. Thankfully I was able to talk with her three times that week — I would almost count down the hours until I spoke with her next. We discussed ways I could console myself, acknowledging it was for temporary relief; she reminded me of my resilience and strength. We processed each exchange my partner and I had thereafter, where she consistently maintained a nonjudgmental and objective view, counter to my incredibly subjective one.
The day after I asked my husband to leave our home, we had hours-long phone conversations where the only private space he had was his parents’ cramped downstairs bathroom. I imagined him curled up on the cold tile, alone, devastated, plowing through soft squares of toilet paper to blot his eyes and runny nose. I gripped the phone, eagerly seeking signs of life from him even in those brief moments of pause, feeling the weight of his absence in our bed and the reality of nearly losing him. Both of us crying, sniffling, intently listening to the other breathe in the silences. In these conversations, he opened up to me in ways he never had before, which I found simultaneously overwhelming and exhilarating — finally, the vulnerability I’d been craving and desperately needing from him. He shared with me the depth of his depression, his anxiety, the severity of the imposter syndrome he felt as a designer, the intrusive thoughts, and the disturbing mental images and ongoing voice that said “kill yourself” whenever he felt shame, guilt, disappointment, embarrassment, or overwhelmed.
With everything flushed out in the open, he thankfully came to the conclusion that he wanted to seek help to live and do what was necessary to repair our partnership. I remember lying on our bed, dozens of crinkled used tissues scattered around me, focusing my gaze on our textured bedroom ceiling and suddenly saying, “kintsugi.” I explained to him that this moment in our marriage was kintsugi in motion — we were beginning to glue the broken pieces of our marriage back together, just as in the Japanese pottery technique.
For years I had presumed that he was battling some form of depression, and he would deny it; nevertheless, I’d model how beneficial my own therapy sessions were, suggest he consider trying therapy or medication when he’d mentioned how stressed he felt or when he had trouble getting out of bed some mornings. As a licensed mental health counselor, I know that you can’t force someone into therapy; they must make the decision for themselves — otherwise, therapy won’t work. I repeatedly defaulted to trusting the autonomy of the person I loved most in the universe.
I have witnessed and studied the intricacies of mental illness from working in the field for over thirteen years. I understand quite clearly the complexities of depression and the seriousness of suicidality. In the passing time since this incident, the frequency has decreased but I often berate myself with the question, “how did I not see this?”; over and over I remind myself it wasn’t possible. As skilled as I may be, no therapist is trained to treat a loved one, friend, or family member — it’s unethical; we may also be blind to things given the foundation of trust with these particular close people in our lives. People contemplating suicide most often don’t share those thoughts given the amount of shame they induce, or their intent on following through with the act. Add in major depression, anxiety, social anxiety, and growing up in a family that avoids emotions, and you’ve got the perfect mix for shame to flourish. In the case of my partner, he continued to secretly engage in habits seeking relief but finding again and again they only perpetuated his deep shame: excessive drinking, overeating, overspending, hiding things, lying, and when those didn’t work and the suicidal thoughts got too loud, he sought out a push to end his life and thus engaged in sex outside of his marriage.
Infidelity is a complex, multi-faceted subject that differs from person to person. Such matters in life are not binary and are incredibly personal. When everything first came out, I was in pieces. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t think straight, I desperately needed comfort that I found only in my beloved. I intentionally chose three close friends to whom I disclosed what had happened, one of whom (a fellow therapist) pondered if my partner was experiencing sex addiction. I sought out literature and a podcast by Esther Perel hoping that her worldly qualitative research on love and infidelity would support me and clarify all that I could not comprehend. Instead, it increased my anxiety because the situations she shared did not align with what I was experiencing with my partner. The more insight my partner shared, the less my friends’ ponder about sex addition fit our experience. I had no roadmap to follow and I felt beyond isolated in my experience.
Through conversations between my partner and me, his openness to explore his thoughts, feelings, and actions in therapy, and my work with my own therapist, we concluded that the infidelity was a symptom of his depression and suicidal thoughts; a means to an end. I do not see his actions as what one would categorize as “cheating”, but instead I firmly believe it was a by-product of his internal emotional experience. Again, conceptualizing infidelity is personal. No one knows the truth of the experience but those directly involved. And holy sh*t will people have opinions and misjudge the situation, those closest included. Bottom line, my focus is on our core values and what is most important in our partnership; front and center is the health and well-being of my partner and myself. Other people can presume whatever they want — and I must hold space for the disappointment and hurt we feel when our word isn’t enough or believable.
That first week everything went down, he found a therapist on his own and obtained an initial appointment in less than two weeks — a legit miracle, if you ask me, because every provider I know is full right now. He found a prescriber and was able to schedule a medication consultation in less than a week. I repeatedly praise my beloved’s openness, honesty, and willingness to do the work to be here. I am so thankful for his strength, that also carries me at times. Every day I am astounded by his insight and ability to speak so vulnerably about his feelings and needs. It’s truly been like meeting him for the first time; he is finally letting me see all parts of him. He is even more handsome than I’ve ever known.
This is a period of rebirth after the death of our first marriage to one another. We continue to mourn the missed opportunities of the past, and we also celebrate our new life and future opportunities.
To get to this beautiful, communicative, deeply connected, and equitable partnership, we endured an excruciating and complicated fracture and shift, and my partner had to begin to face decades-old traumas he suppressed for most of his life. It hasn’t been easy, and the discomfort is temporary. The moments that are good are infinitely more special than the good moments of the past. Life will continue to have impending challenges; our marriage will be tested, we will experience loss and grief, and we will also celebrate and laugh and experience joy. The humxn experience is not designed to be consistently positive, it’s humxn; it will have imperfections that we may wallow in and succumb to, or we may choose the path of learning, healing, and growing. Furthermore, we can hold space for both by accepting our reality, honoring our feelings and values, and using compassion to move through.
Rupture and repair.
I choose kintsugi — to see the bowl of our life as beautiful and whole, with all its repaired, golden lacquer-filled cracks.
