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25 years of marriage (on paper)


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I'll try to make this short without going full boar into my back round. I found out in October of 2013 that my wife had an affair from 1999 to 2002. Needless to say, I was devastated (and probably still am) but decided to work on my marriage and reconcile. A year and a half later, I deal with HER affair every day in my own way. I do not forget it. It comes to mind numerous times a day. I get very sad and still very angry over the betrayal. There is no worse feeling in the world than being lie to and used by the person you trust (or trusted) the most.

To my point....We will be having our 25th wedding anniversary in a couple of months. She wants to take a trip or throw a party. I want to just let it be another day. I do not see it as 25 years. I see it as two years of working on a marriage that almost failed because of her selfishness. I do not plan to do anything extravagant this day.

Am I out of line? I would not mind going out for dinner and drinks and keeping it on the down low but a party or trip seems fake to me.

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Rainbowlove
I do not see it as 25 years. I see it as two years of working on a marriage that almost failed because of her selfishness.

 

I'm really sorry for your pain.

 

I think your feelings are more than understandable. Have you been honest with your wife about how you feel regarding your deep hurt and what has her response been?

 

I think, given how you feel presently, it's possible your marriage didn't almost fail - it's probable it still might fail.

 

If you don't want a fancy celebration, tell her that. She should respect how you feel and compromise.

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Maybe what you do is redo your vows to each other on your 25th with new wedding bands because the ones you have now no longer hold the meaning they were meant to represent. Maybe than you could go on a small trip like a honeymoon. To me your old marriage never made it so why reward her, you never made it 25 years.

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VeryBrokenMan

Our old anniversary date is dead to me and I'll never celebrate it again. I've told my wife that IF we survive that we will have a new ring made and I'll re-propose and renew our vows.

 

That's a long way off in my view. Two years does not seem like enough to me.

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Have you been honest with your wife about how you feel regarding your deep hurt and what has her response been?

 

Agreed, hard to give relevant advice without knowing what your WS has done to help your marriage recover.

 

If she's worked her ass off for the last two years, you might consider celebrating in some of the low-key ways others have suggested.

 

If she's done little or nothing, why would you still be around on the anniversary date?

 

Mr. Lucky

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flowergirl14

I wish all betrayed spouses understood upfront that you never forget and affair. Its always there somewhere. There is no magic day or year when poof its back to normal. Affairs are like a vase thats been shattered. You might be able to put it back together but it will NEVER look the same.

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OP, I think your recovery has stalled because your WW refuses to answer your questions about the affair.

 

 

You need to schedule a polygraph test for her. Then tell her when the appointment is. I bet this will jog her memory.

 

 

Why did WW confess about the affair.

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What I would say to her is this

 

"Congratulations, you have been faithful to me these past 13 years.

 

If you can remain faithful for another 12 I will gladly celebrate that 25th anniversary.

 

The only toast I will make this year is congratulating me, that I gave you a 2nd chance"

 

Dont do it in a hurtful way but send her a message.

 

HM

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My first anniversary post Dday was just a month after Dday. I was still in such shock I carried on like it was a happy day to celebrate the continuing of something I almost lost forever.

 

The next year I was thinking more along the lines of ... What's to celebrate, what great thing did I still have? Not so glad I ever met this person much less married. Still, I did acknowledge the day.

 

This past anniversary, I just ignored it. Completely. It felt right. It's just a reminder to me of what I lost. A mockery of me, for being so stupid as to trust and marry this person. I'd rather not think about it at all. WS was not happy about that but left me alone about it once I explained.

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10thengineerharrison
Our old anniversary date is dead to me and I'll never celebrate it again. I've told my wife that IF we survive that we will have a new ring made and I'll re-propose and renew our vows.

 

That's a long way off in my view. Two years does not seem like enough to me.

 

I'm not sure this is a good plan. My wife suggested something like this after d-day. She said we should wait and see how we're doing and maybe renew our vows for our 30th anniversary. d-day was about 3 weeks after our 27th.

 

by the time our 29th anniversary had passed, we were doing well enough that the "plan" for the 30th was starting to loom on the horizon. I can't quite convey how I felt at the time, other than to say that I love my wife (not some high school crush love), but I felt that renewing our vows would be meaningless. Because the truth is, that if I were faced with a choice to renew vows for a marriage that she didn't hold in the same regard that I do, I'd rather not. I still feel that way, and we celebrated or 39th anniversary last december.

 

In the OP's case, I think you should tell her about how you feel and why. Don't do it to punish her, but do it to help her understand how serious it was, what she did.

 

And I will say, after having recovered my marriage to my satisfaction, that even now, 13 years after d-day, I still think about the affair from time to time. It doesn't hurt anymore, thankfully.

 

-10th Engineer Harrison

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I'll try to make this short without going full boar into my back round. I found out in October of 2013 that my wife had an affair from 1999 to 2002. Needless to say, I was devastated (and probably still am) but decided to work on my marriage and reconcile. A year and a half later, I deal with HER affair every day in my own way. I do not forget it. It comes to mind numerous times a day. I get very sad and still very angry over the betrayal. There is no worse feeling in the world than being lie to and used by the person you trust (or trusted) the most.

To my point....We will be having our 25th wedding anniversary in a couple of months. She wants to take a trip or throw a party. I want to just let it be another day. I do not see it as 25 years. I see it as two years of working on a marriage that almost failed because of her selfishness. I do not plan to do anything extravagant this day.

Am I out of line? I would not mind going out for dinner and drinks and keeping it on the down low but a party or trip seems fake to me.

 

 

I do not think you are out of line at all. For you it has only been two years and you are still processing. To your wife it has been 13 years. I think you are well within your rights to keep it low key while you process. To many BS's the marriage is divided into before and after so anniversaries lose their meaning. Maybe eventually, you will be able to see it as one continuous marriage again. Best of luck with how you handle your anniversary and go with your gut, it is probably right.

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10thengineerharrison
OP, I think your recovery has stalled because your WW refuses to answer your questions about the affair.

 

 

You need to schedule a polygraph test for her. Then tell her when the appointment is. I bet this will jog her memory.

 

 

Why did WW confess about the affair.

 

 

You know? I could never do this, I could never insist on "transparency" (easily faked), I could never go through "programs" to recover from infidelity. I tried for many years to do those things, but it always felt so bloody artificial to me.

 

One thing I did realize that I had done in the first year after d-day, however, was to become much more trusting of my own hunches, and much more able to read between the lines of what people say and read their body language. I didn't have to learn to trust my wife all over again, I knew I could trust my own judgement.

 

And after years of hoping for specific signs from her that I was taught to insist on or expect to see to convince me that she wouldn't cheat again, I realized I didn't need this marriage to be a whole person. I told her "I won't go through that again for anybody, especially you." She knew I meant it, and life has been pretty darn good since.

 

-10th Engineer Harrison.

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I posted this on one of your thread's six months ago:

 

You need to understand that you never processed her betrayal last year. Your decision to stay and fix the marriage was just your desperate attempt to stop the pain and put this whole terrible, disgusting mess behind you. You were in denial in that you refused to really look at how her cheating affected you and your marriage. You hoped that time would heal - but time has done nothing but allow the pain to fester in your heart. Now its time to do something about all this. You need to start working on your own, personal recovery from her betrayal. And you need to start now because time isn't going to stop and wait for you to process all of this. You can't hide from it anymore.

 

This advice is even more relevant now then it was then because you have suffered for six months longer. You know all of this is true. When are you going to start doing something for yourself with regards to healing your hurt?

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by the time our 29th anniversary had passed, we were doing well enough that the "plan" for the 30th was starting to loom on the horizon. I can't quite convey how I felt at the time, other than to say that I love my wife (not some high school crush love), but I felt that renewing our vows would be meaningless. Because the truth is, that if I were faced with a choice to renew vows for a marriage that she didn't hold in the same regard that I do, I'd rather not. I still feel that way, and we celebrated or 39th anniversary last december.

 

I don't understand. You did not renew vows? You did not bc your wife does not hold your marriage in high regard? But you are still together.

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the_artist_1970
I'll try to make this short without going full boar into my back round. I found out in October of 2013 that my wife had an affair from 1999 to 2002. Needless to say, I was devastated (and probably still am) but decided to work on my marriage and reconcile. A year and a half later, I deal with HER affair every day in my own way. I do not forget it. It comes to mind numerous times a day. I get very sad and still very angry over the betrayal. There is no worse feeling in the world than being lie to and used by the person you trust (or trusted) the most.

To my point....We will be having our 25th wedding anniversary in a couple of months. She wants to take a trip or throw a party. I want to just let it be another day. I do not see it as 25 years. I see it as two years of working on a marriage that almost failed because of her selfishness. I do not plan to do anything extravagant this day.

Am I out of line? I would not mind going out for dinner and drinks and keeping it on the down low but a party or trip seems fake to me.

 

If you don't want to work on the M, then why stay M to her? I truly understand the anger, disgust and rage you are feeling. I felt it for about two years and every day I though about what my DH had done. It's very hard. Are you and your W in MC? A good MC can help you through this awful process. I think you should be totally honest with your W about how you are feeling and the two of you can decide how you will work through it. Staying M and staying angry/bitter and not working on creating a better M will lead one or both of you into another A. It can be a vicious cycle.

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