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agonyaunt2022-10-19 11:41 am
minoanmiss) wrote in agonyaunt2022-10-19 11:41 am
Entry tags:
How to Do it: Soap Opera Plotting IRL
Actual Title: I Suspect My Husband Has Concocted an Elaborate Scheme to Expose My Lies
Dear How to Do It,
I’m a married woman. I had a three-month affair with an old boyfriend, “Jim,” that ended abruptly two weeks ago when I got an email from a friend saying “Check this out!” with a link to CNN. I clicked and a page with a video player showing a picture of the guest bedroom in my house opened. Huh? I later noticed my friend’s email name had an 8 changed to a 3, and the CNN link was actually a hypertext link to IPaddress/myname. I clicked play and a message popped up: “I know you’re watching.” I had a full-blown panic attack as I watched a 53-minute hi-res clear sound video featuring Jim and me. No one besides “Will,” my husband, could have been in the house. There’s an alarm system. He’s also a computer engineer. He’d know exactly how to do all of it. I gave Jim the link. He’s married and panicked too.
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I couldn’t find a trace of the camera and was physically sick with anxiety by the time Will got home from work. He said nothing about the video, just asked me what was wrong so I said, “I’ve got a bug, not COVID I hope.” The next day the site disappeared. For the past two weeks, the video hasn’t been mentioned, and nothing’s changed. Will has stopped saying “I love you,” and the only time he touches or kisses me is when we’re having sex. That started about six weeks ago, and now I know why. I thought maybe it was too much self-quarantined time together.
I don’t know what Will’s game is. He’s torturing me by making me live in constant fear of an angry confrontation and/or our marriage crashing and burning. Is he waiting for COVID to end before divorcing since it would be hard to date someone now, we’re companionable, and he gets sex whenever he wants because I feel guilty and hope it will somehow atone for my transgressions? He’s planning to shame me with the video or threaten to in the future? The thought of him making me watch it with him makes me cringe. Is he waiting for me to come clean? Sometimes I think I should end the charade, admit to a huge mistake, and beg for forgiveness. I’d agree to a hall pass or whatever he wants, but I’m afraid of what will happen. I don’t know what to do. At this point, I don’t even know why I had an affair, things were good between us—maybe COVID boredom. Help.
—Surveilled
Is Michael Haneke directing your life? Your situation reminds me of his 2005 film Caché, in which a couple is tormented by a surreptitious cinematographer’s surveillance of their domestic life, and though you are confident that you have identified the video’s source, the psychological terror remains. At the very least, your and Will’s mutual passivity and willingness to squirm through the most awkward of silences suggests something about your compatibility. You’re both harboring such massive elephants in the room that you should look into opening a rescue.
People mess up and relationships recover from infidelity. I understand your guilt, but Will is no saint. Secretly filming someone privately is not only unethical, it’s illegal in many states. Being cheated on doesn’t give someone carte blanche for retaliation, let alone a full-on digital fear campaign. It was shitty that you cheated, but now he’s doing something that’s its own warped kind of shitty—that is, if your explanation as to what happened is as ironclad as you present it.
I don’t know how you can go through something like this and not discuss it. You won’t make any progress until you do. If actually addressing this issue verbally is as big of a roadblock as you portray it to be, you have to start figuring out why—the limbo to which your silence has relegated you seems like a more sustained torture than a direct conversation. You asked several questions regarding your husband’s motivation that I’m in no position to answer. I think you should ask yourself whether you actually do want these answers, and, if not, why. (Are you afraid of Will now? You don’t mention a concern for your safety, only the future.) You could always open the conversation in a letter to start, if you can’t say the words. Be calm, be direct. The clearest thing about your situation is that you’re going to have to do some work to achieve actual clarity. Get to it.
Dear How to Do It,
I’m a married woman. I had a three-month affair with an old boyfriend, “Jim,” that ended abruptly two weeks ago when I got an email from a friend saying “Check this out!” with a link to CNN. I clicked and a page with a video player showing a picture of the guest bedroom in my house opened. Huh? I later noticed my friend’s email name had an 8 changed to a 3, and the CNN link was actually a hypertext link to IPaddress/myname. I clicked play and a message popped up: “I know you’re watching.” I had a full-blown panic attack as I watched a 53-minute hi-res clear sound video featuring Jim and me. No one besides “Will,” my husband, could have been in the house. There’s an alarm system. He’s also a computer engineer. He’d know exactly how to do all of it. I gave Jim the link. He’s married and panicked too.
ADVERTISEMENT
I couldn’t find a trace of the camera and was physically sick with anxiety by the time Will got home from work. He said nothing about the video, just asked me what was wrong so I said, “I’ve got a bug, not COVID I hope.” The next day the site disappeared. For the past two weeks, the video hasn’t been mentioned, and nothing’s changed. Will has stopped saying “I love you,” and the only time he touches or kisses me is when we’re having sex. That started about six weeks ago, and now I know why. I thought maybe it was too much self-quarantined time together.
I don’t know what Will’s game is. He’s torturing me by making me live in constant fear of an angry confrontation and/or our marriage crashing and burning. Is he waiting for COVID to end before divorcing since it would be hard to date someone now, we’re companionable, and he gets sex whenever he wants because I feel guilty and hope it will somehow atone for my transgressions? He’s planning to shame me with the video or threaten to in the future? The thought of him making me watch it with him makes me cringe. Is he waiting for me to come clean? Sometimes I think I should end the charade, admit to a huge mistake, and beg for forgiveness. I’d agree to a hall pass or whatever he wants, but I’m afraid of what will happen. I don’t know what to do. At this point, I don’t even know why I had an affair, things were good between us—maybe COVID boredom. Help.
—Surveilled
Is Michael Haneke directing your life? Your situation reminds me of his 2005 film Caché, in which a couple is tormented by a surreptitious cinematographer’s surveillance of their domestic life, and though you are confident that you have identified the video’s source, the psychological terror remains. At the very least, your and Will’s mutual passivity and willingness to squirm through the most awkward of silences suggests something about your compatibility. You’re both harboring such massive elephants in the room that you should look into opening a rescue.
People mess up and relationships recover from infidelity. I understand your guilt, but Will is no saint. Secretly filming someone privately is not only unethical, it’s illegal in many states. Being cheated on doesn’t give someone carte blanche for retaliation, let alone a full-on digital fear campaign. It was shitty that you cheated, but now he’s doing something that’s its own warped kind of shitty—that is, if your explanation as to what happened is as ironclad as you present it.
I don’t know how you can go through something like this and not discuss it. You won’t make any progress until you do. If actually addressing this issue verbally is as big of a roadblock as you portray it to be, you have to start figuring out why—the limbo to which your silence has relegated you seems like a more sustained torture than a direct conversation. You asked several questions regarding your husband’s motivation that I’m in no position to answer. I think you should ask yourself whether you actually do want these answers, and, if not, why. (Are you afraid of Will now? You don’t mention a concern for your safety, only the future.) You could always open the conversation in a letter to start, if you can’t say the words. Be calm, be direct. The clearest thing about your situation is that you’re going to have to do some work to achieve actual clarity. Get to it.
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Both of you, neutral corners, and find a divorce lawyer, stat.
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(But, if this letter is real, it's probably Will and that's a really bad thing to do to another person. LW needs to just get out.)
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This is the plot of a scam I get as spam all the time.
MY DEARESTI HAVE ON THE WEBCAM TO SEE AND YOU TOUCHING YOURSELF WITH THE NEIGHBORPAY ME 37 BITCOIN AT THIS ADDRESS OR I WILL BE EMAILING YOUR DARLING HUSBANDno subject
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If you really want to stay married to this guy, you don't have to tell him what was on the video, you can say you got a creepy email showing video of you when there shouldn't have been anyone else in the house and you were too scared to know what to do.
But I don't know why you're still married to this guy. Divorce him.
*Also if it wasn't him, the #1 suspect is Jim, and that's even creepier and more dangerous than if it was him.
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