Dear Prudence,
My husband Joe and I have been having problems in our marriage for a while, even though we’ve only been married for a few years. It came to a head when my Dad died and he wouldn’t come with me to the funeral… because his friend had a gig at a comedy festival that weekend. So I buried my Dad, got drunk in the family home alone (my mom and brother died in a car accident a few years ago so it’s just me left), and when one of the neighbors I grew up with came around to give his condolences … I cheated on Joe. I felt really bad about it once I sobered up, as it’s not something I’d ever expect of myself. I went home early, told Joe, and it’s been a lot ever since.
He wants to forgive me, but he gets angry and mistrustful a lot. There’s a lot of fighting. He doesn’t think he has anything to work on other than forgiving me. Any attempt to point out anything he has done that wasn’t great for our relationship is seen as an excuse. Maybe it is. We recently started therapy and our therapist said there would be a lot of anger, distrust, reassurances, and hard work for years to come. Is it really awful that I don’t want that? Maybe if we’d been great before, I could see it being worth it, but spending years grating myself raw against Joe’s anger just to climb back to the not that great relationship we had before seems masochistic. Worse, at least masochists get off.
I’m not enjoying this. I want to go home and move into my Dad’s old house instead of selling it. My job’s remote, so it wouldn’t be a problem. It just seems like Joe should get to be the one to dump me. Not the other way around. (And for the record, I’ve no desire to get back together with the guy I cheated with. I was not incapacitated, but I was pretty drunk and very sad and it seems gross for someone to leverage that into sex.)
—Isn’t It His Turn to Make the Call?