I don’t know all the correct terminology but I found out my wife has been reading my journal. I feel betrayed and heartbroken. I want to find a way to move past this.
So… I’ve had my share of struggles. Especially over the last few years I’ve been battling depression off and on. I’m not going to go into the whole thing with trying different medications or talk at length about therapy but one thing my current therapist encouraged me to do was journal. It was really weird for me at first. I’m 44. I have terrible handwriting. It didn’t feel natural at first. But.. I started doing it when I had strong emotions that I had trouble wrapping my mind around. A lot of those emotions have to do with my marriage. I treated my journal like I was just talking out loud. No filter at all and no thought about how what I was saying might affect someone else because it was just my thoughts. My emotions on paper. When I read what I write it has helped me process. When I go back and read what I’ve written, often times I know it’s not reality and it’s helped me improve the way I communicate with my wife.
On Friday night we had a great dinner out together at an old restaurant we used to frequent in our old town. We had good conversation at dinner and then at home. She started asking specific questions about some of the struggles I’d shared with her. It’s not unusual for her to do a “check in” on me so I didn’t think anything of it at first. But she used a few words and phrases that I’d written in the journal that just seemed like too big of a coincidence. She’s not that person that snoops through my stuff so I thought I just had to be crazy. She’d never ever read my journal, or so I thought.
I usually get up earlier than her. Yesterday, I got up, spent some time reading, then wrote in my journal. The thought from Friday just kept sticking in my head so on the next blank page I wrote “I know you read my journal. I saw you.” As soft hearted as she is I knew she’d confess if she was reading it but expected nothing to happen. I put it back in the stack of books then went on a walk. While walking I listen to podcasts or audio books. My headphones will automatically read messages or notifications. It said “you have received a long message” from my wife. She never sends anything long so I pulled out my phone to see what she text wondering why she wouldn’t just call. She said she was coming clean, that she’d read it a while back before realizing what it was. And that she’d been coming back to it not to read anything new, but to count pages and see if I had still been writing. She said she was leaving to give me space because it was obvious I wasn’t happy and she’d never made me happy. I called over and over and she finally answered. I wanted to be angry but I was just terrified of losing her forever. I begged over and over for her to come home. I initially felt terrible for what she’d read. My raw unprocessed emotions were hard for me to read and the parts about her I know stung. She said she’d think about it and hung up. She did come home. We both cried. I apologized. She apologized.
I feel terrible but also betrayed. I’m mad at myself for not being able to be mad at her. The thought of her leaving overwhelmed anything else I was feeling.
How do I move past this?