The Pain Came Back

[Davey L]

Apologies if this is the wrong place to post this - the guidance implies that this place is for a current situation, whereas in my case the affair happened many years ago and it is just the ongoing pain that is current.

 

My wife had an affair. It happened 18 years ago and was with her boss. It was extremely painful, it was like the bottom had fallen out of my world when she told me about it. I thought I could cope with it but it has proved much more difficult than I thought. Circumstances happened (she was ill and needed hospitalisation) which meant that it was not discussed at the time - the last time it was mentioned was only one day after she told me. But we stayed together.

 

As time went by the pain didn't go away, although it subsided to a dull ache with occasional really difficult moments. Months turned into years and we continued together. Things were OK I supposed and there were children to consider (I'm not the father, they were from previous relationships of hers).

 

I myself then had an affair. This was about two years after hers. I had not intended to have an affair; I don't believe in having a revenge affair as it is not constructive if you want your marriage to work out. But I had become close to a woman through unavoidable circumstances and when the moment happened I think my wife's previous affair had lowered my resistance to it.

 

As years continued to pass we seemed to have an OK marriage and generally we were happy.

 

More recently however for some reason the whole business of her affair has come unbidden back into my head. I think maybe our sex life having reduced to almost nothing in the last two years has prompted these thoughts. Also I think a couple of chance thoughts sort of came together and I mentally, unintentionally, pieced together some pieces of the jigsaw that I had never connected all those years ago. It has made me realise that the affair was a much deeper betrayal than I had thought at the time, that there were probably at least two or three sequential affairs, and that the consequences of them are more far-reaching than I had realised. In particular, I now realise that it is highly likely that her hospitalisation and was the result of sex with another man, and that it is probably that which has meant that she has never conceived a child from me.

 

I am now finding it very difficult to stay with my wife as a result. Whenever I see her, I think of her secrets, her betrayal. My emotions are all mixed up - on the one hand my brain tells me our marriage has been fine for many years, that she is my wife and we love each other, and the history doesn't matter. It also tells me that my own affair (which i don't think she knows about) ought to mean we're even. If anything (because of who my affair partner was) mine was worse than hers. It also tells me it is ridiculous to seperate over something that happened so many years ago. Yet my heart tells me that all is not well.

 

I'm struggling with this, emotionally. I have never told anyone about her affair because I feel ashamed - it is like admitting I am less of a man because she felt the need to go elsewhere. I have never told anyone about my affair either, because I am sure she would certainly and unhesitatingly, walk away if she knew about it, given who it was with.

 

Is there anyone else here who has stayed with their wife for many years after an affair, who has ongoing issues with the affair and not sure how to handle it? I need some help here.

[BetrayedH]

Rugsweeping an affair never works. You can't go around it, over it, or under it. You must go through it. Instead of 2-5 years of hard work, you've wasted 18.

 

It's time you put your cards on the table and demand that she do the same. Then you both decide how you want to move forward. It won't be easy but at least your marriage won't be a sham. 18 years is enough. Does it really need to be a lifetime sentence?

 

ETA: you don't 'know' that she'll leave you. People are wrong about that one all the time. Did you know that over 90% of betrayed women make at least an initial attempt to reconcile? How you handle the reconciliation is a much more likely factor in your success - and that part is entirely up to you.

Edited April 23, 2014 by BetrayedH

[Davey L]

Thanks - I guess you're right. But it's a difficult thing to re-open an 18 year-old wound and I worry whether we will survive it - things will get said (by both of us) that we will probably regret. And I can NEVER tell my wife about my affair, which would make the whole thing a bit unfair and one-sided, don't you think?

 

I don't think I've completely wasted 18 years. There have been some good times, and I have my step-daughters. But there's always been something missing, a slight mis-trust, and an inability at least on my part to open up to her on things and feel I can completely rely on her. I doubt her love for me sometimes, and now that we don't have sex much anymore I keep wondering if it was because it was better with the others. Silly, I know, but there we are.

[BetrayedH]

As long as either one of you is keeping such monumental secrets from one another, you'll never have true intimacy. There will always be a wall between you and it limits the potential of the relationship. Personally, I don't want to be in a lifetime commitment without true intimacy.

 

But yeah, it's categorically ridiculous for you to think that you can sit her down and force her to be accountable for her affair(s) and keep hiding your own. I'm guessing that you missed my edit to my previous post.

 

My suggestion is that you both start living an honest and authentic life. Break down this wall.

[fellini]

Or you need to settle on monumental secrecy and the best you can get is what you put into it.

 

Since you are no saint yourself, and your affair has obviously been horrific, like it was her sister or something, then I don't know why you want to dig up the past. Are you trying to find something in her past to negate your own?

 

If you can do such a horrific thing in the very same marriage that she did to you, and if you want her to open up and reveal the whole story, but will die in the grave before you reveal yours, then I suggest your problem is not related to infidelity, it is related to your feelings as a person, and you sense of justice and entitlement.

 

If you want to stay with this woman, and continue harbouring secrets, then get professional help on how to work with that on a daily basis.

[Davey L]

The thing I didn't say, because I know so many people will be completely appalled by it, is who my affair was with. I am still reluctant to say, but here it is - it was her sister. I now feel I have to offer something, if not as a valid excuse, but as some small extenuation - circumstances meant that I had to stay with her a couple of times when I was abroad. We'd always been close, but living with her like that, in a one-room accommodation in a third-world county, sleeping in the same bed, well I guess I was naïve and foolish to think I could do that without something happening. I think I would still have resisted her advance that day, but knowing my wife had had an affair lowered the defence.

I don't think our marriage would survive that confession. Perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps I don't deserve to stay married. Perhaps I owe my wife the opportunity to know what sort of a husband she has.

Oh, and her sister died not long after our affair ended. So she can't defend herself and my wife's memory of her would be destroyed. It's awful.

I don't say this to excuse my behaviour, or to justify not telling my wife. But it's going to be dreadfully hard to tell her.

[Leegh]

I am not married, so I cannot give you advice from a spouse's perspective, but my advice would be not to tell your wife about your affair. It would open "a can of worms". Sometimes things are left being unsaid. Perhaps if you asked your wife more questions about her affair, that could give you some piece of mind, and maybe clear up some misunderstandings or miscommunications about the affair.

[jnel921]

Her A was 18 years ago. She told you, you chose to stay and should have worked it out during your years together. I agree you wasted a lot of time and then Made it worse by cheating on her with her sister. This is a dual betrayal and may be the dealbreakers here. It would be for me. Cheating does not justify cheating.

 

I am sure your BW would be devastated to hear this. But you owe her the respect of telling her. I think you need to get over your ego about her A. It wasn't about you or what you could or could not give her in bed. It oftentimes is about the relationship and things that need to improve like communication and passion.

 

 

She obviously was remorseful and wanted things to work with you 18 years ago. As we get older the sex isn't as frequent. If you want more then show some true love, respect , passion and desire for your wife. But you have to be honest with her.

 

If she has a close relationship with her sister expect that to be over too. There are just some boundaries that shouldn't be crossed and I beleive that is one of them.

 

Good luck to you.

[drifter777]

Did you and/or your wife know you would be sleeping in the same bed while you stayed with her sister? It seems insane that your wife would think this would be a good idea and you two would be able to keep you hands off each other under such conditions.

[fellini]

Im not going to touch this one further. We will see how you survice the BS's who are sure to enter here and have zero tolerance for non disclosure. It should prove an interesting debate to see if your case breaks the hegemony.

 

It seems to me you know you have done something horrendous and from her perspective, unforgiveable and with zero possibility of closure. You should seek personal therapy to understand why you are so obsessed with a 20 year old affair all the while holding this hurricane of a secret.

Edited April 23, 2014 by fellini

[BetrayedH]

The thing I didn't say, because I know so many people will be completely appalled by it, is who my affair was with. I am still reluctant to say, but here it is - it was her sister. I now feel I have to offer something, if not as a valid excuse, but as some small extenuation - circumstances meant that I had to stay with her a couple of times when I was abroad. We'd always been close, but living with her like that, in a one-room accommodation in a third-world county, sleeping in the same bed, well I guess I was naïve and foolish to think I could do that without something happening. I think I would still have resisted her advance that day, but knowing my wife had had an affair lowered the defence.

I don't think our marriage would survive that confession. Perhaps it shouldn't. Perhaps I don't deserve to stay married. Perhaps I owe my wife the opportunity to know what sort of a husband she has.

Oh, and her sister died not long after our affair ended. So she can't defend herself and my wife's memory of her would be destroyed. It's awful.

I don't say this to excuse my behaviour, or to justify not telling my wife. But it's going to be dreadfully hard to tell her.

 

I think you're right that your wife deserves to know what kind of husband she has. The thing is, she would have one that's being honest with her if you make a voluntary confession. For both of you, your mistakes were a long time ago - other than the dishonesty you've both maintained since then. I would want that monkey off my back.

 

Do I know if your marriage would survive? Of course not. But I can tell you that statistically, a voluntary confession makes a huge difference. It literally doubles your chances of reconciling (versus a discovery). Considering that her sister has passed away, I suspect you could take this secret to the grave as well. I just really question what kind of marriage it is when both spouses are harboring secrets about bringing a third person into the marriage. You can't exactly hold her feet to the fire if you're not willing to disclose your own affair. So then, you remain stuck in the place you are today, tortured with doubt about your wife's affairs because you can't summon the courage to own your own mistakes.

 

My advice remains the same. Get your cards on the table so that you're not tricking your wife into staying with you for life. She deserves the truth. You also deserve the truth. If you manage to stay together, you have a chance to find renewed love for one another, warts and all. If you don't stay together, at least you'll each be able to move on in hopes of finding someone you can have that kind of relationship with. I can't imagine wanting to keep the status quo indefinitely.

[badkarma2013]

i will post this again

All WSs and BSs should read this...this all is very true

it's the little triggers, little stabs that will be there even 5 years from now, or 10, or 20.

 

It's the disbelief BS feels and will always feel, never quite understanding how WS could have done that.

But WS did.

 

WS may have said over and over that they have told the full truth and BS might have decided to believe them. But BS always knows that WS has told them as much truth as WS thought was necessary, not the 100% truth that BS thought was necessary. WS will NEVER reveal what they were really thinking at the time. BS will be left with nagging doubts FOREVER, powerless to do anything about it because BS wasn't there or wasn't inside WS's head.

That is the hardest thing to live with.

 

EA or PA. A month or a year. Sex once or a hundred times. One lie or fifty. It doesn't matter. All the damage was done in the moment that WS took that step. It destroyed what was, and what will never be the same again no matter what WS does.

That time is gone.

 

BS thought WS was someone they could trust with their life, their best friend in the world, their confidant, someone who would always stand by them.

That's what BS thought, and BS was wrong, so wrong.

 

BS sometimes remembers what it was like when there wasn't that little cloud overhead.

And feels a pang as they think of when the sky was blue.

 

BS would have never chosen this for themselves. Yet somehow they found themselves in it.

 

Now it's Plan B. And it will always be Plan B.

 

R is the Plan B version of marriage.

 

It might be a strange thing to say, but so grievous is the wound of betrayal that had WS died, the pain would be easier. The sadness would be a different kind of sadness.

A more tolerable kind of sadness.

 

 

I could not nor would i EVER forget what my WW did.....i filed for D...I think had I stayed and tried to R ...I truly think this would have been my future!

[badkarma2013]

Now you both have to live with truth ...if it ever comes out

[badkarma2013]

FELLINI....for what its worth ...I AGREE with every post you have made.

[10thengineerharrison]

I am not married, so I cannot give you advice from a spouse's perspective,

 

I honestly hope that you never have 2 experience an affair. I mean that.

 

but my advice would be not to tell your wife about your affair. It would open "a can of worms". Sometimes things are left being unsaid.

 

This falls under the category of "what you don't know can't hurt you". Trouble is, what if the secret can't be kept indefinitely? Affairs tend to get discovered, or revealed by a third party. If the revelation happens decades later, the devastation is often worse.

 

Perhaps if you asked your wife more questions about her affair, that could give you some piece of mind, and maybe clear up some misunderstandings or miscommunications about the affair.

 

I'm trying to imagine how this approach would be beneficial in the long run.

 

-10th Engineer Harrison

[10thengineerharrison]

Im not going to touch this one further. We will see how you survice the BS's who are sure to enter here and have zero tolerance for non disclosure. It should prove an interesting debate to see if your case breaks the hegemony.

 

How strange.

 

-10th Engineer Harrison

[fellini]

FELLINI....for what its worth ...I AGREE with every post you have made.

 

Thank you for the respect Karma. I'd be content with just "I agree with your right to hold the opinions you post", given the amount of abuse I have received for not towing the BS line. That said, and here you might disagree with me .

 

I wish to leave the OP with two points.

 

The biggest problem with the TRUTH is that there is never just ONE. Truth, is, as we all know, but want not to recall in times of infidelity: relative, abstract, context and perspective based, multiple and contradictory, layered and leveled, emotional and logical, moral and concrete, and rooted in the moment.

 

Now add into that mixture the concept of love and surely, but surely, there isn't an adult who has been in love that can maintain that things are simple!

 

Do you love your wife? Yes, I truly do.

But you cheated on her? Yes, I truly did.

Again, do you love your wife? Yes, more than ever.

 

I remember sitting with my WS 8 months post DDay telling her what I want from her is a truth, not the truth, and not some truths. a truth so clearly profound that speaking it reveals itself as truth itself. To say it and say it so that I can see in her eyes that this is as good as the truth will get. The kind of truth we think we are getting when we say "I do". Not "the truth" that got together over coffee (it's true, they had coffee) or we only had sex 8 times... okay, it's true, only 8 times, but one that says, and here I am paraphrasing another poster, things like: "the truth is I didn't respect you enough to worry about how my affair was going to affect you. I was too interested in keeping it going."

 

It would be so much easier, if easier is what we are looking for, to say. I loved my wife, I cheated, therefore I no longer love my wife. Therefore I should divorce. (Which would be, of course, a lie, of sorts)

 

 

About telling. Mira Kirsenbaum (Author of When Good People have Affairs) - an oxymoron for some just in the title!

said this about telling, and I think her arguments have some merit. It's about owning your decision to tell or not for the following reasons. And Im sure the s--t is going to hit the fan for posting it, but I never got to where I am following the herd (My emphasis added):

 

TIME

: Should you confess if you feel guilty about it?

 

No. I've got to tell you that this is very, very important. I'

m

a person who is just an advocate of truth. I really will do anything to tell the truth,

so

it took me a long time to get to the point where I say, just don't tell. Because how does it make a person less guilty to inflict terrible pain on someone? Which is exactly what the confession does. It puts the other person in a permanent state of hurt and grief and loss of trust and an inability to feel safe, and it doesn't alleviate your guilt. Your relationship is dealt a potentially devastating blow.

Honesty is great, but it's an abstract moral principle.... The higher moral principle, I believe, is not hurting people

. And when you confess to having an affair, you are hurting someone more than you can ever imagine.

So

I tell people, if you care that much about honesty, figure out who you want to be with, commit to that relationship and devote the rest of your life to making it the most honest relationship you can.

But confessing your affair is the kind of honesty that is unnecessarily destructive

. There

are two huge exceptions

to not telling: if you're having an affair and you haven't practiced safe sex, even if it's only one time, you have to tell. Again, the moral principle is minimizing the hurt. But this time, the greatest risk of hurt comes from inflicting a sexually transmitted disease, and I've never seen a relationship recover from that. You also have to tell if discovery

is imminent or likely

. If you're going to be found out, then it's better for you to be the one to make the confession first.

Edited April 24, 2014 by fellini

[dichotomy]

My late father, who knew so much, used to have long phone calls with me about my desire to get the "truth" out of WW. He said it was futile, and all I could do was try to find the best version of what the truth was for me and accept that - because I would never find out the "truth"....the posts below remind me our discussions on truth. Even having read some of my wife's emails to OM I realized what I was reading may not have been 100% truth, because then I assume she was being 100% honest to him or herself in an email...hell during my spying time I read innocent and positive emails she wrote to a good friend that I know where not the truth about me/us - just what she thought or wanted in her mind to be truth.

 

Gosh to this day - I have this wish I could watch all that happened and said with OM and others - like an oracle or crystal ball. But would watching/listening conversation between WS and AP -or an event or act - really show me "the truth" of what was in WS head, heart, or what lingered afterwards in their head as what happened later. So many truths.

 

You ever read how "eye witness" reports of a crime vary so much and can be unreliable?

 

OP - 18 years later your NOT going to find what your looking for from your WW. You will not find "the truth". If you have put the pieces together of a long lost puzzle and it forms a picture of truth to you - then thats about what you should accept and move on one way or another.

 

I suspect but do know know, that the change to a sexless and passionless marriage - that loss and hurt - has triggered this quest. I would suggest to focus on seeing if there is anyway to fix the sex and passion part - without this attempt to get a full truth confession and all the details 18 years later.

 

 

 

 

 

WS may have said over and over that they have told the full truth and BS might have decided to believe them. But BS always knows that WS has told them as much truth as WS thought was necessary, not the 100% truth that BS thought was necessary. WS will NEVER reveal what they were really thinking at the time. BS will be left with nagging doubts FOREVER, powerless to do anything about it because BS wasn't there or wasn't inside WS's head. That is the hardest thing to live with.

 

 

 

The biggest problem with the TRUTH is that there is never just ONE. Truth, is, as we all know, but want not to recall in times of infidelity: relative, abstract, context and perspective based, multiple and contradictory, layered and leveled, emotional and logical, moral and concrete, and rooted in the moment.

 

Edited April 24, 2014 by dichotomy

[badkarma2013]

I can agree with ...well alot of what is being said...However...im my case...Are you having an affair with your boss?....dont be silly hes just a friend...LIE

 

Who paid for your gym membership at a country club....The company did...LIE

the OM did.

 

Who paid for 2500.00 in new clothes... company expense account...LIE OM did

 

i got her phone and there was no doubt....OMg at the sorrow and anguish THEN

but all lies before...

 

when i outed him to his BW....as i have stated before...the pics he showed me from his phone of her doing sexual acts that for years SHE said was disgusting and vile...and worse...And a 1000 other lies..

so i think we all all can see the there are certain variables re truth... BUT.MOST are absolute...YOU DID THOSE THINGS WITH THE OM OR YOU DIDNT...mine did and lied

 

I agree it almost impossiable to find the EMOTIONAL TRUTH as to what they were truly THINKIng at the time or really the WHY...BUT ONE DOES WHAT ONE DOES....you did it or you didnt.....and thats the truth.

[BHsigh]

Or you need to settle on monumental secrecy and the best you can get is what you put into it.

 

Since you are no saint yourself, and your affair has obviously been horrific, like it was her sister or something, then I don't know why you want to dig up the past. Are you trying to find something in her past to negate your own?

 

If you can do such a horrific thing in the very same marriage that she did to you, and if you want her to open up and reveal the whole story, but will die in the grave before you reveal yours, then I suggest your problem is not related to infidelity, it is related to your feelings as a person, and you sense of justice and entitlement.

 

If you want to stay with this woman, and continue harbouring secrets, then get professional help on how to work with that on a daily basis.

 

^^^ This is a great point OP

[harrybrown]

Have you gone to IC?

 

Have you told your wife about how you feel about the marriage right now?

You may not ever fix the past, but you can try to change the present.

 

Good luck with your situation.

[gettingstronger]

I think your triggers come from your guilt over your affair-you could not even mention it in your first post-it took you a while and thats understandable- I believe the stress of secrets has worn you down- you should probably seek some counseling on how to handle that but my guess is they will advise you to come clean-I believe that facing your demons is the only way to free yourself of them-

 

Good luck to you and your healing-

[fellini]

Yes. I have some ideas on lies too

 

But today is Dday year 1, and the most disgusting lie that is coming back today is my WS having hysterical bonding sex with me only two hours after returning from his bed. She told me on this day last year that it had been over a week. She didnt even have time for a shower.

 

I might take a day off LS, will see.

 

 

 

 

 

I can agree with ...well alot of what is being s3aid...However...im my case...Are you having an affair with your boss?....dont be silly hes just a friend...LIE

 

Who paid for your gym membership at a country club....The company did...LIE

the OM did.

 

Who paid for 2500.00 in new clothes... company expense account...LIE OM did

 

i got her phone and there was no doubt....OMg at the sorrow and anguish THEN

but all lies before...

 

when i outed him to his BW....as i have stated before...the pics he showed me from his phone of her doing sexual acts that for years SHE said was disgusting and vile...and worse...And a 1000 other lies..

so i think we all all can see the there are certain variables re truth... BUT.MOST are absolute...YOU DID THOSE THINGS WITH THE OM OR YOU DIDNT...mine did and lied

 

I agree it almost impossiable to find the EMOTIONAL TRUTH as to what they were truly THINKIng at the time or really the WHY...BUT ONE DOES WHAT ONE DOES....you did it or you didnt.....and thats the truth.

[BetrayedH]

But today is Dday year 1, and the most disgusting lie that is coming back today is my WS having hysterical bonding sex with me only two hours after returning from his bed. She told me on this day last year that it had been over a week. She didnt even have time for a shower.

 

I might take a day off LS, will see.

 

I have to say that I rarely agree with you (sorry) but I can certainly empathize. I don't know if my (ex)wife pulled this during HB but I'm sure she did it during her affair, and enjoyed the added insult. People can be real a*sholes.

[10thengineerharrison]

Okay, fellini. Here it comes!

 

Mira Kirsenbaum is an idiot. Telling or not telling about an affair doesn't case hurt, having an affair causes the hurt. Also, truth is an absolute, it's not relative. Individuals have their own perspectives of what's true, but perspective doesn't determine truth.

 

I can't remember the source of this quote:

 

The Difference Between Secret And Private

Private matters are those traits, truths, beliefs, and ideas about ourselves that we keep to ourselves. They might include our fantasies and daydreams, feelings about the way the world works, and spiritual beliefs. Private matters, when revealed either accidentally or purposefully, give another person some insight into the revealer.

Secrets, on the other hand, consist of information that has potentially negative impact on someone else-emotionally, physically, or financially. Secrets, when revealed either accidentally or purposefully, cause great chaos or harm to the secret-keeper and those around him or her.

Private: I believe in reincarnation.

Secret: I have a wife and a mistress and neither knows about the other.

Private: I got terrible grades in high school.

Secret: I forged my medical degree.

The Difference Between Truth and Honesty

Truth is empirical, demonstrable fact. Your bank balance, today’s date, whether or not you’re married.

Honesty is about feelings. If you’re honest, you are open and clear about how you feel. You can be truthful without being honest and you can be honest without being truthful (the latter a little more difficult). The best relationships, stating the painfully obvious, are both truthful and honest. Trust is built on both truth and honesty, tempered by the proof of predictability and reliability.

-10th Engineer Harrison