The Lover I Left My Marriage For Left Me: A Conversation With Dr. Joe Beam
It was so powerful that you gave up your marriage for it…
This feeling you have for the person who became the love of your life. Even that phrase…love of your life…doesn’t come close to describing what you experienced. How do you find the words?
Love?
Ecstasy?
Heaven on earth?
In a way.
It’s so difficult to describe because the words seem too trite, too common.
Yes, it’s a feeling of love, but so much more than that.
When you talked, hours flew by. You read each other’s minds…saw into the intricacies of each other’s hearts. When you were in each other’s arms, time disappeared. You were transported into a different dimension. A different world.
Passion?
Yes. But more than that…it felt as if your very essences intertwined…your minds, hearts, and bodies responding immediately to each nuance of touch…or even a look.
You were two people losing themselves in each other. Just a thought about your lover did something to your mind, your body…your very soul.
You repeatedly found yourself anticipating your future…a dream that you were convinced would come into existence in real life when the two of you could be together forever.
You couldn’t imagine ever having that emotional oneness with anyone else. Spending the remainder of your life with your lover was the one jewel worth trading everything else in life for.
So, you did.
You had no doubt that you had found the person who completes you…fulfills you. You decided that you would pay whatever price…change whatever relationship…end whatever commitment…so that you could have a life with your lover.
You ended your marriage…or maybe are in the process of doing so. You didn’t enjoy hurting your husband or your wife…maybe for a while you even tried stopping this new love so that you could somehow rescue your marriage. But, eventually, you accepted that your happiness would come only by sharing your future with your lover.
You figured how to make things work out, at least to some degree, with those who wanted you to stay in your marriage. But you gave up friends who disapproved. You ceased doing things or going places where you felt you’d be judged. If you have kids, you probably decided that your happiness would make you a better parent and that they’d get over their hurt.
Everything was shaping up…not perfectly, you had some pains along the way…but you were moving toward where you wanted to be.
With your lover.
No matter what else, you’d be with your lover.
I know…I’m hurting you with my description. I’m sorry for causing you pain you by describing what you had but lost. If you’re watching this video because of the title, your lover has left you. I know that hurt. I lived it as well.
Hi, I’m Dr. Joe Beam. For me, it’s been years, but as I prepared for this video, I allowed myself to once again feel a bit of what I felt then.
I divorced my wife, told my children that I’d see them every other weekend and would always be a good father to them, and focused on one thing and one thing only. To be with her. The woman that had come into my life and opened my heart to all the emotions I’ve been describing.
It was euphoric. Like being on an astonishing high. I didn’t need anything to experience that incredible high other than to BE with her…or THINK about her…or DREAM about our future.
And, just as you have, I experienced a roller coaster of emotions along the way. Sometimes excitement and ecstasy. Sometimes fear, anxiety, and…occasionally…even panic.
When she demonstrated the same longing for me that I had for her, I was beyond the clouds with happiness and fulfillment. Whatever sense I had of my own meaning and purpose revolved around her.
When she in any way, even the slightest, seemed to pull away from me…or to my mind appeared not to be as overwhelmingly in love with me as I was with her, I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. Without her I didn’t know if I could survive emotionally…without her I had no joy…no peace.
Do you know what I mean?
I can’t describe it eloquently enough if you haven’t experienced it. If you have, you can put words to it beyond what I’m doing here.
As you may have guessed from the title of this video, my relationship with my lover ended.
Not immediately.
Our immersion into each other had gone the way that this kind of love almost always goes.
At first, we were friends. Gradually that intensified. We talked. We understood each other.
I was married; she was not. We didn’t set out to violate my marriage, but slowly and relentlessly we developed a deep bond that was beyond anything either of us had ever experienced or could even imagine.
When we crossed boundaries, we kept it secret. We found ways to meet, to be with each other…to do what we thought we never would have done.
When my relationship with her came to light…when people found out…my marriage ended.
That was okay with me. I was ready to be with my lover and the largest barrier to our sharing the future was now going away. Divorce broke my wife’s heart, but it set me free. I savored the intensities of my deep passions with my lover.
As I mentioned a moment ago, there is a path this kind of love follows. A predictable path.
In the intervening years since those things happened in my life, I earned a PhD from a prestigious university in Australia. I earned my doctorate studying and researching the causes and correlations between marital satisfaction and sexual satisfaction.
I know the science now. The social science. The psychology. I understand the route that kind of intense, overwhelming love follows, including the biological and anthropological reasons that create that pathway and why the path plays out in the way that it does.
I didn’t know any of that then.
All I knew was that I hurt…terribly…because that incredible relationship came to an end. It didn’t happen in a day. It was slow enough that I saw it coming and did all I could do to stop it from happening. However, the more that I did to try to keep her with me, the more things fell apart.
Until…finally…I found myself alone.
What about you? Are you there yet? Alone?
If so, I know your pain. I hurt for you. I’m so very sorry that you are going through this. I remember the despair, the searching for some way to put things back as they were…the anxiety, the fear, the longing…the desperation.
You feel that you can’t function…ALL you can think about is your lover and your desire to recapture what you had.
Your dream is now a nightmare. You gave up everything you needed to give up to acquire this one rare jewel and now the jewel has moved beyond your grasp. You feel out of control. Lost. Miserable.
Am I close to describing what you feel?
If you’re ready…or at least, ready enough…to start thinking of life beyond this, please allow me to ask you a question. It’s one that you should be asking yourself, but I can understand if you’ve been avoiding it.
Ask yourself this: What are you going to do now?
You could try to find another lover…but you don’t want another. You know that no one can take your lover’s place. Yet you so desperately want to feel those emotions again…feel them in the depth of your heart…to the root of your soul. You could try to recreate that by starting a new relationship and pretending that it has within it what you just lost.
But it won’t.
You know it won’t.
You could try sleeping with as many people as possible, thinking that somehow in some way that will alleviate your pain…but you would find those short-term replacements a poor substitute. It won’t be the same. You’d find yourself dreaming of your lover as you shared someone else’s body. THAT will NOT satisfy you…won’t make you happy…can’t heal your hurt.
What do you do?
Of course, it’s your choice, but may I make a few suggestions?
First, to find peace and inner healing, accept that your lover is never coming back.
Yes, I know you know it’s over…but there is a difference between knowing it’s over and ACCEPTING that it’s over.
I know that sometimes the signals from your former lover can be confusing. One day it appears to be over and the next it looks like maybe your lover will come back. You’ll want to believe that means the relationship isn’t over, especially if your lover actually does come back into your life, even for a brief period of time.
But IF that happens, it isn’t because they truly want to reestablish what you had.
Your lover, too, is a little lost.
They may briefly come back into your life…or even into you bed…but as all of us who have already been through this can tell you, they’re not there to reconnect. They’re stumbling…trying to figure out what they want…who they are…what their future might be.
There’s a reason that they left you…their weaving in and out of your life isn’t going to change that reason. I’ve witnessed this with so many people that I’ve worked with over the last 25 years. If your former lover appears to be coming back, they’ll be there just long enough to rekindle your hope…re-excite your dream…then they’ll leave again for the same reason they left the first time.
They may do this once.
They may do it a few times.
The end is always the same. The relationship will never again be what it was. Your ex-lover will move on with their life.
The very fact that they don’t feel for you what they once felt is proof. That kind of love doesn’t come back once it’s gone.
How do I know?
I could cite you the research that explains the why’s, how’s, even the when’s of the type of relationship that you experienced…there’s even a name for it in the social sciences…but you aren’t interested in hearing that research right now. Sadly, life will show you that I’m right. This relationship you had will with your ex-lover will never be again.
Until you accept that, you’ll continue to live in pain. Oh, it’ll subside some…won’t feel so severe on some days…but it will be there. The pain lives on because you hold to a hopeless hope. Only in accepting things as they are can you move from pain to healing. From sorrow to peace.
When you ACCEPT that it’s over, you no longer try to put it back together again. You move on with your live, even if you wish you didn’t have to.
If you accept it’s over, please consider my second suggestion.
It may sound strange or perhaps even impossible. But, although you may not believe it now, it’s the best path to your future happiness.
What is it?
Putting your marriage back together.
Oh, I know, you may have convinced yourself that your former spouse is the worst person on the planet. Maybe you concentrated on anything your mate had ever done wrong. Possibly you said such harsh…or even mean…things about him or her that you convinced yourself that you shouldn’t have anything to do with them again.
May I suggest that it’s time to do the opposites to those things?
Forget about concentrating on the bad times…
The bad things that happened or the bad person you feel your spouse was on occasion. Instead, remember the good times…the good things about your ex. They’re there. You just moved them out of easily accessible memory because your mind needed to justify leaving.
You have history together.
Allow yourself to remember the good history.
And think about this: Did you spouse still love you when you left? Think that maybe your spouse still loves you now? If you have children, do they still want to be with you?
I can’t tell you how to have with your spouse the intensity of emotions that thrilled you with your lover…BUT…I CAN show you how to be in love with your spouse again. A deep, fulfilling, life-sustaining love…even if you cannot imagine how that could happen.
I can show you how to develop things in your marriage that either you didn’t discover the first time or that somehow, over time, you misplaced and eventually forgot.
Will you consider that possibility? That different path to a future that’s better than what your life was before?
At one time in your life you loved this person that you were once married to…even if in your affair you convinced yourself that you never did. Even if you think it impossible, you CAN love again. And you can have a far better marriage now than you had the first time. Couples who make it through a major crisis, such as an affair, typically find their marriage stronger and more fulfilling.
If you’re thinking that you don’t deserve to have your family back, that your husband or wife either can’t ever forgive you for what you’ve done…or that they shouldn’t forgive you…please don’t buy that lie.
That’s right, a lie.
Thinking that because of what you’ve done to your family, you don’t deserve to have happiness with your family again IS a lie. A major lie.
Here’s the bottom line, my friend.
You left your family for a lover that you believed with all your heart was the person with whom you would spend the rest of your life in an amazing relationship.
It didn’t turn out that way.
Now, if your former mate is still single, will you allow me and the wonderful team of people I work with help you put your family back together? Yes, help you do that even if your spouse is saying there’s no way they’d ever take you back.
It will take work. It will require dealing with what happened.
But, it can be done whether either of you think that it can or not.
If in this video I’ve described what you feel…if you believe that I understand what you’ve experienced and where you are now…then trust me that I also understand what now can be done to reconcile your life…and your family. I’m so very thankful that I was able to put my family back together and couldn’t be happier.
Will you let us do the same for you?
Call us at 866-903-0990 and we will begin the process of helping you develop peace, happiness, and life-long love.
Don’t live in pain any longer. Start the road to healing. To love with a love that will fulfill you the rest of your life.
Call us now.
Dr. Joe Beam reconciled his marriage, so here at Marriage Helper, we know what it takes. We have a wonderful team of people who will help you put your marriage and your family back together. We’ll help you enter a process to develop peace, healing, happiness, and life-long love. We can help. Get This Free Guide!
Not sure if you should pursue your affair partner or save your marriage? Check out the Affair Toolkit here.