Husband left for OW and now wants to come home!

[cosmic_muffin]

My husband and I have been married for almost 8 yrs, we have been together for nearly 11 (since we were 16) He's had some "questionable" encounters in the past and I usually blew them off as him being just a flirt. He is in the military and we have two small sons. We moved back to our hometown and he was stationed at the local military base. We bought a home and I thought we were settling down. I admit that he was a bit absent, most of the time he was either on the computer or playing guitar in the garage, but he was at least home with us. Then he started going to hang out with friends, a girl was mentioned a couple times and then it was a mention of seeing her here and there. I went into the hospital for about a week due to illness and our infant son was in due to a bad bump on the head. When I came home from the hospital I found out that the woman had been at my house several of the days my son and I were in the hospital. He said he needed a break and wanted to go stay in the barracks for a couple days to clear his head.

 

Basically he just shacked up with the girl in the barracks. He came home once, crying that he wanted to come back, I asked him to spend the night at his parents and we'd take it slow because I didn't trust him. He went to lunch with the girl the *NEXT* day and acted like I had no reason to be upset. Then when I was, he said it was over and moved into an apartment with her. His parents helped pay for the apartment, they said they weren't taking sides "just helping their son". So four months go by and he gets deployed to Afganistan. He spends the holidays and every last minute with her up until his unit deploys. During this time I beg and plead with him up until he is just so ugly to me that I finally back off. He tells me to go on with my life and leave him and her alone, that I am just angry that he is happy with someone else and that I need to get over it.

 

My dear friend from HighSchool, whom I have kept in touch with over all these years really came through for me during this tme. I have known for years that he had more feelings for me than friendship. He spent a lot of time sitting with me while I cried and carried on. Now 4 months later, I think I could really have a future with him. But I love my husband.

 

Hubby is stuck in a holding area waiting to actually be shipped over. So while up there he calls and says he has ended it with the girl. He wants to come home! I am not sure what to make of it. I love him so much. He is all I have ever really known and I wish it could be some picture perfect relationship, but I just don't think I can trust him again. He of course wants me to break it off completely with my friend and never speak to him. I don't want to do that, even if he and I aren't a couple, he's my friend.

 

Then tonight Hubby calls to let me know that the girl is coming up to where he is. She took a months vacation and is "coming to see a friend who lives in the area" He claims he won't see her. But obviously he's talking to her, he knew she was coming. (he claims he answered his cell phone without looking to see who it was calling and that he has otherwise been avoiding her calls) I just don't believe him!

 

He is very upset that I won't give him the word that he can come home as soon as his deployment is over and I feel awful sending him off to war without being "there" for him. I am so torn up over it. I love him, I do, I always will. But I think he is just a cheater and always will be. He is dishonest and selfish and I can't forgive it all. He now throws my friend in my face to say I am doing the same thing and shouldn't hold it against him!

 

ANY ADVICE!? I can't ask anyone around here since neutral folks are hard to come by, all my family has one opinion, my friends were all both our friends or they take the "leave the bum" approach! I don't know what to do, my friend wants a commitment now and my husband wants me to come back.

[Arabess]

I work on a miltary base Cosmic.....and hate to make excuses...but these guys screw around due to peer pressure....much like a 12 year old steals gum at the store.

 

It's a LAME excuse.....but you HAVE to know how those guys are! You are around them...daily! They are Hero's for sure....but a little short on 'personal relationship skills' .

 

I CAN say, and this is for absolute sure, many of them have affairs but it means nothing against their committment to their family or wife. I don't know why they seem to do this often, but they do.

 

Sweetie, if you can find it in your heart to forgive him because you love him and he loves you......please do so!! Nothing else matters but the present. He may not even be here for you tomorrow. You KNOW what I'm saying is true! ANYTHING could happen tomorrow and his job and mission will could take over his life. For his sake, understand, that it's HARD to be reasonable and accountable when your life could end tomorrow.

 

Love him thru it.......it may be the only chance you have.

[SoleMate]

Good thing Arabess was here to stick up for him. I sure couldn't have. And I don't think this sounds like a quickie fling, even the stupid kind. Again and again he has chosen this certain lady over his wife.

 

Muffin, some occupations do have hazards of the marital kind. Perhaps your husband is in one of those occupations. And perhaps you can selflessly serve your country by being the loyal wife of a man who can't be true to you because he stares death in the nose on a regular basis. And perhaps for every tear shed by a soldier in an Iraqi camp, for the fear for his own life and the grief for a lost friend, there will be a tear shed stateside by the women who love those soldiers. The women's tears will flow because their men may not be coming home. They might come back in a bag...or they might spend their leave shacked up with some hoochie. It's kind of a poetic idea. It might even have an element of truth.

 

I sure couldn't live that kind of life, though. Bless you, my dear, whichever path you choose to walk.

[FreeMe]

Originally posted by cosmic_muffin

He spends the holidays and every last minute with her up until his unit deploys. During this time I beg and plead with him up until he is just so ugly to me that I finally back off. He tells me to go on with my life and leave him and her alone, that I am just angry that he is happy with someone else and that I need to get over it.

 

Not only did he cheat and lie about it repeatedly but he was also cold and mean to you (and probably wasn't being the model father either). Now just because something changed his mind - and I don't even believe that he'll stop seeing her but perhaps something changed his mind about actually living with her - now he's expecting you to welcome him back. Perhaps you should tell him that you took his advice and that you got over IT and HIM. I wouldn't be able to take a cheater back, but his treatment of you and his lack of guilt and unconcern about your feelings would drive the last nail in the coffin for me.

 

I wish you the best and hope you can be happy with whatever decision you make. Keep us posted.

[Velveteel]

The "dear friend" who wants a commitment after four months, when you are still married, needs to back way off and let you make decisions from a stronger place.

 

Yes, I think you should give this marriage one more try. But just one. Your husband sounds impulsive and immature. Don't do this without some therapy together.

 

Good luck.

[morrigan]

He seems to swing like a pendulum between being involved with this OW and playing part time husband to you. If you choose to stay with him, that's what you're going to have to deal with full time.

 

You can love him and be concerned for his safety when he is overseas, it's hard to get past feelings for someone even when they have been cruel to you. However, there's a difference between being absent from a wife and two sons because of military duty, and deliberately staying away from a family to pursue a sexual relationship. But I wish you the best of luck, whatever you decide.

[cosmic_muffin]

Well, an update. She did *not* go up there to see him. He told her no, she called me to boo-hoo about it all and so I know she didn't go. He shipped to Afganistan and since he's been there it's all love and "please take me back" in the emails and phone calls. I do love him, I just think now that the affair was a symptom of all that was wrong in our marriage, not the sole cause of the break up. We had been distant with each other for a while. He was always "tired" from work and made no time for me or the children. Looking back I don't think I was happy the last bit of our marriage.

 

I have enrolled in school full time, my boys seem to be adjusting and I'm managing to keep my head above the water. Hubby says he's proud of me and that all of this has made him see that I wasn't the "lazy fat slob" he said I was and he wants to come home and give it another try. But I don't know if I want to!

 

The friend is still here. Basically I let him move in with me, I kept saying "it's too soon" but he'd become upset and I'd cave in and slowly more and more of his stuff ended up here. Now he's just here. He is WONDERFUL with my sons, more than their father ever was. My oldest son (6) was always whiney and timid with his father. Hubby never was approving or affectionate with him. The friend is all that and more, he builds my son's confidence and around him my son feels more at ease, I can tell because he's not whiney and he seeks affection (hugs, "help me with this", "come play with me") from my friend. My two year old runs to my friend to be held and wants him to play and snuggle. He changes diapers, cleans, pitches in 100% and does everything I could ever want from him. He is supportive of me, a good lover, a wonderful provider (he's helping pay bills since all I get is school funds and child support) and in a perfect world he's all I'd ever want in a man. But he's angry and hurt with me now. Tonight he called to say he's moving out.

 

I have always talked in my sleep. Always. Apparently I've called out to my husband a couple times or said his name in my sleep. I accept his phone calls and emails and I tell him that "I am not sure what the future holds for us, but we need to work on just being friends first" and that makes the "live in friend" very jealous and very insecure. He comes from a bad situation, growing up in foster homes and such and I know how much he wants a family and security. I feel awful for catching him in the middle of this. I don't know what to do. I do love him, but I love my husband to. I could tear up the seperation agreement tonight and hubby would be mine (for what it's worth) but I can't because of the friend and how I feel about him. WHAT A MESS!

 

I don't want to loose the friend, but I can't promise I won't see hubby when he gets home from Afganistan. My parents say hubby is no longer welcome in their homes because of how nasty and mean he was to me during the affair. And he was NASTY and MEAN. He said a lot of stuff that it's hard for me to deal with, but I know him, and in his defense, he's impulsive and inmature. (lol) I don't know if I could be happy with hubby again. I know that the friend could make me happy if I just turned loose of my hubby!

 

HELP!? I need some advice.

[Arabess]

You need to do what YOU need to do. If there is still a love and hope in the relationship....give it a chance. I understand that the friends and family involved feel like he's been an A$$ to you....and they are correct. However, consider the situation he has been in. Cut him some slack. Maybe it took ALL THAT for him to comprehend and appreciate how valuable his family and love for you really was for him.

 

I RARELY make excuses for a cheater....but this is such a different situation. In the face of death....YOU were the one he wanted. Give him a chance to declare and prove his love.

 

That's just my opinion though.

[Fandango]

Muffin ~ Wow, and I thought I was messed up. You know what I think you need? Time alone, to figure out what it is you want. Your hubby sounds like he has a nasty streak, with little respect for the mother of his children. And the new live in, seems rather pushy, hrmm.....

 

Here's my advice, take it or leave it. Let the new one leave, help him pack, if he can't deal with subconscious thoughts you have about your husband, then how cranky will he be when hubby returns home? *poof* Gone!

 

As far as hubby goes, hrmm...I was married to a military man, lived on base, they are ALL pigs! every last freaking one of them..but I'd keep things smooth while he is overseas, and deal with it when he returns, who knows, he may have a life changing event happen to him over there. It's not uncommon.

 

Are you kids confused as to why this man is now living in the house with you? I'd take the little farts into consideration too.

 

Ok, I'm off my soapbox.

[cosmic_muffin]

I do take the "little farts" into consideration. The two year old isn't old enough to think much about anyone living anywhere, he's just a happy little fellow who likes the attention. My house has always been a "crash pad" for friends and we've always had folks stay with us when they were moving, out of a house, going through something in their own lives or whatever reason. So my boys are used to folks being here off and on. I don't think they assume anything more than that he is staying with us like friends have done in the past. I don't show affection in front of them. I'm not big into public displays of affection anyways. So it's not like my sons are witness to my sexual life. They go to bed at 8pm and the 6yr old is on the bus by 7am. My friend's schedule is that he works from 2pm until 2am in the morning mon-thur so it's not like he's always here to have the boys questioning what "mommy is up to". The biggest change in his moving in is that he brought a cat. Aside from that during the week my boys don't see him and on the weekends they spend Saturday with their grandparents and Sundays is a school night so they are down by 8.

 

I *DO* take into consideration what my son's see and feel. Both my boys have known this person since they were born. He came to see both of them as infants and has been around ever since. He's not a stranger, he's stayed weekends with us, taken trips with us and been around the boys before my husband ever left. He's been my friend for over 12 years now, I wouldn't bring some strange man I picked up out at a club home and subject my boys to that. They are comfortable with him and I don't think they think much more about it than that daddy left and Mr. James is spending more time hanging out with Mommy.

[Rightlymia]

Military men can be scumbags.I've dated a couple of them and not only did they cheat but they would tell me about how all their military buddies would cheat all the time.ugh

[Fandango]

Rightly~ You would not believe some of the stories my ex told me, downright wrong is what they are, and yes, most of his (if not all) buddies were cheating on their wives. EEWwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

[catspajamas]

I can almost understand screwing around, doin' the sex stuff with other people, it's not right but I can understand. But this guy is doing all the emotional stuff too. He didn't just scew her he left you for her. I don't see how this issue will stop hurting you if you take him back. You will always be suspicious. You deserve better. I am not saying go date your close friend right now. He should respect the sanctity of the marriage that you are still in and let you decide, with out his influence, to take your husband back or not.