Life After Infidelity And Widowhood
An interview with author Julie Metz about losing her husband then discovering his infidelity.
In 2003, after nearly 14 years of marriage, Julie Metz learned that her husband Henry had been cheating on her with multiple women. Shattering to any wife, news of his infidelity hit Metz particularly hard—Henry had passed away six months prior. The revelation of his rampant adultery—including a three-year affair with a close family friend—dealt Metz a second, equally wounding blow. In her memoir, Perfection: A Memoir of Betrayal and Renewal, Metz recounts the aftermath of this revelation and chronicles her path to self-renewal and rediscovery of both love and trust.
Along the way, she confronts her husband's mistresses, including the ostensible family friend, Cathy. Metz also takes on the project her husband left unfinished: a book on the subject of umami, a Japanese word used to describe perfect flavor in a food dish, and discovers her own definition of perfection falls far outside the manic relationship she'd had with Henry.
We spoke with Metz about her experiences and solicited her advice for coping with loss of a partner—whether to death or deception—and how to rediscover trust and love.Read An Excerpt: Losing My Husband, Then Learning Of His Infidelity
YourTango: It was such a unique experience for you to first lose your husband and then have to overcome his infidelity. Looking back, was one harder to move past?
Julie Metz: When my husband died, I felt like life as I had known it was over, but I felt more socially supported then. Dealing with a new identity as the topic of social scandal was very difficult because, at that time, I had been a very private person.
Six months after his death, I went on this trip with my daughter. When I returned is when I found out about the infidelity and that hit me like a ton of bricks. That was just emotionally devastating in a very different kind of way. I really felt reduced then to nothing, again. I felt like what I had gained in the last six months suddenly evaporated. Suddenly people were looking at me as this kind of pitiable person. Essentially my life had become that of a tabloid. It was right there in my own town, and they all knew all the people involved, so it was intensely humiliating for awhile.
What hurts more: the emotional or the physical betrayal?
Discussion
I don't know what I would have done if my husband had died before I found out about his infidelities...we had the chance to work out our problems and really understand where we kept going wrong. Without that I think I would have been lost.
I agree whole heartedly that the author handled her problems with grace and dignity, I could only pray that I would have been able to do the same for the sake of my kids.
I also agree with Ms. Metz that love and life are not always scintillating and wild sometimes its the times you look up while reading a book and realize that your loved ones are doing whatever they are doing and that everything is calm and somehow right. Living like new fund love all the time would be like living with all your nerves exposed all the time....just painful!
