An interesting notion, not listening or not hearing. I'm with Marshy on this. My x never told me he was unhappy directly and if he was trying to communicate that message subtly, it went largly unnoticed by me until the night he told me he was having an affair. I can now see that my 'unawareness' was out of a false sense of security (although if you don't feel secure in your own marriage, with the person you love and trust the most, and who you believe feels the same, well...??) and complacency on my part. Of course I was comfortable. We'd been together 23 years. Why wouldn't I have been? I'm not saying that's right, and I'm certainly not saying I had no responsibility in the breakdown of our relationship, because obviously, people who are happy (with themselves, in their relationship, etc.) don't have affairs.
But I do believe it's either a wake up call for a marriage that has gotten rather complacent or the cheating partner's rather cowardly way of not facing up to a problem. What I mean is, I'm willing to take responsibility for my own comfortableness and complacency. But hand on heart, I can definitely say I didn't 'not listen'. We had always had good communication and genuinely liked each other as well as (I thought) loved each other unreservedly.
And I would have forgiven the infidelity and used it as a way to strengthen our relationship, had I been given the opportunity to do so. My belief was that we had so much 'meat and bones' and so many things that were of value (and I don't mean 'stuff') that it was worth making the effort. Sitting down and really, really being honest with each other and seeing where that led was what I wanted more than anything. He was so smitten that he was unwilling to even consider it, rather unfortunately.
\"Trying to tell someone your feelings have changed\" is one thing and having an affair as a means or justification to get out of the marriage is quite another. If my x had been honest with me when he began to feel less connected with me, whenever that was (I will never know) things today would be a lot different. Yes, perhaps we would have parted, who knows? It happens. We also might have stayed together and made more of an effort for each other. Who knows? But I would have liked to have had the opportunity to discuss it and face whatever issues there were to be faced, rather than be traded in for another model. After all, this was my life too!
I'm a natural communicator, and I'm a very direct person. That has never changed, and x knew me well enough after 23 years to know that I'd rather face a problem then pretend it wasn't there. So his betrayal to that sense of honesty is indefensible.
I think my emotional radar is pretty good. And yes, in hindsight, (and this penny dropped rather immediately when he told me about OW) I can see that in that last month we were together there was a marked change in his behaviour (working late, away more often, nose in the laptop for hours, etc.) But I can also see that up until the night he told me he was cheating, he was affectionate and caring and loving. On the way to dinner that night he held my hand for crissake. We were a very tactile, cuddly couple and that hadn't changed. So there was no underlying tension between us, but there was a 'sense of distance' that I couldn't put my finger on and at the time, I thought this was down to stress at work, houseguests, lodgers who had been with us for the better part of a year and other residual pressures of life. In fact, we were due to go on holiday in a couple weeks' time and (I thought) we were very much looking forward to that time to reconnect and relax together. (he ended up taking OW, paid for out of joint funds, I might add). So in that month, I didn't feel too much of a need to question that sense of 'distance'. After all, this is someone I trusted and who I believed loved me. Nevertheless, there was a point at which I felt an invisible tapping on my shoulder, that he was being distant all of a sudden and so, being the direct person that I am, asked him about it, never DREAMING he was having an affair. His response was that yes, it was the pressure at work so I took him at his word because I knew he was working on a large project and was under a lot of pressure.
Well, that night he told me he was having an affair, and the only reason he told me was because he thought I had found out. I had no idea!!!
So yea, I was more than shocked.
The point is, if someone is that desperately unhappy with their marriage or with themselves, they owe it to their partner to be honest about it, no matter how painful that is. Running into someone else's arms is cowardly, and selfish in the extreme, and I'm sorry, but as far as I'm concerned, nothing and no one can be worth causing this much pain to so many people.
If someone is unhappy and 'tries' to tell their partner and their partner 'isn't hearing them' doesn't it make more sense to spell it out rather bluntly and just file for divorce? At least that way, whatever issues there are have to be faced by both. Waiting until they have the 'get out clause' of OW/OM is indefensible. Being unhappy and making the decision to cheat are, let's face it, two very different things.
Here's a link to a great 'asked and answered' that articulates this far better than I can in terms of 'constructively' ending a marriage:
women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_sty...y/article5390553.ece
I think 'Aunt Sally's advice is spot on, and wish to god my x would have had enough self awareness, not to mention respect for me as a human being, to do what she suggests. Sadly, he didn't, and our family has been ripped to shreds because of it.
At the end of the day, I do, and always will, feel that cheating is just wrong - End Of.