Totally destroyed by wife's affair with our neighbor

[Leftoverz]

Hello everyone. Brand new to the forum.

 

I can’t believe I’m writing this, and I apologize in advance for the long post, but there is a lot to tell. Married 10.5 years, two kids (ages 9 and 6). I’m 40, my wife is 42. We are both lawyers, although she took 8 years away from her career to be at home with the kids, she is back working now.

 

I have an extremely demanding international practice and travel about 250,000 miles a year – I am gone a lot, typically at least three days out of every week, and at least four or five trips per year where I’m gone for a week or ten days. My wife understood my ambitions when we met (we both worked at the same law firm, so what it took to succeed there is of absolutely no surprise to her, although, as the years have gone by, my job has gotten more and more demanding).

 

I love my wife dearly, and she says she loves me, and I actually think she means it. But we have had a bunch of unhappy years. We’ve never had a fantastic sex life. My wife is very attractive and athletic, and I have tremendous desire for her. But she does not show much interest in sex (she rarely initiates, and she rejects a lot of advances from me). To compensate, I look at pornography and take care of myself on a very regular basis. Over time, this developed into a very bad pattern for us. Add to that the general tiredness and craziness of life with young kids, as well as my travel schedule, and we just don’t have sex all that often. In ten years of marriage, we’ve probably had sex less than 100 times – I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

My wife has always been bothered by my use of pornography (although she does not see it – we’re talking about stuff I look at when I’m on the road). We’ve never been that good at talking about what we need from each other, but I’ve always expressed a desire for her and continued to make overtures, but with limited success. I know it’s gotten into her head because for years she’s said things like "I don’t have big breasts like those women you like to look at" – and I assure her that none of that has anything to do with my attraction to her (and it doesn’t, she’s hot). But I really don’t think she has ever understood men and their need for pretty regular release of sexual tension. She takes it personally, like a statement that I don’t desire her.

 

About five years ago (summer 2008) I did something really stupid. I exchanged emails with a woman on Craigslist. I never met her, I never did anything with her or anyone else. But I felt so alone and sexually deprived, I just caved in to curiosity and had this exchange one night about some kinky sex stuff. Long story short, my wife found those emails and that became a massive issue in our marriage. We started going to therapy on a weekly basis around that time and have continued therapy ever since. I’ve been apologetic, contrite, begged forgiveness, but she has never really gotten past it. I have never cheated on her. I travel all over the world, stay in great hotels, and I’m a decent looking and very successful guy. I’m sure if I had interest in cheating it would be easy to do. But I don’t, and I never have. But my wife became convinced that I was a disloyal guy. We went round and round about this in therapy and we never seemed to get anywhere (we each have our own therapists, and every other week we meet jointly, with both therapists – talk about expensive!).

 

For the last couple of years my wife and I have become very demoralized. We love being with each other, but so much noise has built up around sexual issues that we virtually stopped having sex altogether. My therapist was confounded by this. He expressed to me on many occasions that he found my wife’s continual return to the Craigslist exchange and the use of pornography to be strange. He said it’s just unusual for someone to hang onto issues like that for as long as she has. But my wife and I kept showing up to therapy and trying to work on it. We both became frustrated, but I really believed we could work through this.

 

Well, in October 2010, a guy moved in across the street from us . . . I know you all see where this is headed, but cut me a little slack here and bear with me.

 

The guy, Greg, had recently been divorced (his wife had cheated on him) and had two kids of similar age to ours. He was out of work, so he was home all the time (but only had his kids half the time). He was our age, and was a decent guy. I liked him and my wife did too, and he quickly became a friend of ours. Our kids played together outside, we would have dinners together, cocktails on the back deck. I went to his reading group and started to get to know all of his friends. I mean, he was a friend of ours. Of course, I was aware that he and my wife talked when I was out of town. I knew they had a good friendship, but never in a million years would it have occurred to me that they would have an affair. I feel like a complete fool now, but I know you’ve all heard that story before.

 

Fast forward to three weeks ago. We’re still in therapy, still trying to work things out, still spinning our wheels and making no progress. Sex has died away to almost nothing. My wife comes to me in our home office and sits down and says that even after all these years since the Craigslist exchange she still does not trust me. She then says that she knows we’re never going to make any progress unless we’re completely open an honest with each other. She said she figures that our marriage isn’t going to survive if we don’t do something radical so she says she’s decided she has to come clean to me in the hope that I will do the same with her. She then says the words that have echoed through my head since: "You need to know that two summers ago, I slept with someone."

 

I felt an actual physical shock go through my body. I asked who and she said Greg. I asked when and she said the summer of 2011. I pressed for more details and she said, "spring and summer 2011". To make a long, painful story short, she eventually revealed to me that she started sleeping with him in February 2011 and it lasted until sometime that fall. She said she broke it off with him because she felt terrible and knew we were never going to fix our marriage if she continued down that path. She swore that was the end of it and they had been just friends since.

 

Over the past few weeks I’ve continued to seek lots of detail and asked her some hard questions and she has continued to answer them and reveal more details. She said that she felt terrible about it and knew it was wrong the entire time, but that it started to feel like a drug addiction. He paid constant attention to her and was always available to listen to whatever she wanted to talk about. She said she hadn’t realized how lonely she was with me being gone all the time and that the affair developed into this weird escape for her that was so easy because the guy was home all the time, lived right across the street, and I was often out of town. She also admitted to me that after she broke it off with him in the fall of 2011, there had been two relapses. She slept with him once in December 2012 (when I was on a really long three week travel nightmare) and again in late March of this year.

 

She swears they didn’t have sex all the time, probably once a week on average. They did it at his house and ours. I figure they probably had sex at least thirty times (which, is probably a third of the number of times I’ve had sex with her during our entire marriage), but it could well have been more. To say I am completely devastated is a vast understatement. I can’t concentrate. I can’t think of anything but this. I picture them having sex constantly. It’s driving me insane. And, to her apparent shock, I had nothing to confess back to her.

 

She has been extremely contrite. She has acknowledged that it was completely wrong and inexcusable. She’s been very comforting. And, weirdly, we’ve started having what, for us, is a lot of sex.

 

I told her she needed to cut off all contact with Greg (somewhat hard to do because he lives across the street), which she agreed to do. I drafted a letter for her to send to him, she edited it to put it into her voice and made additional changes I suggested, and sent it to him in a long text message. He wrote back and was actually very apologetic. He said that he felt terrible about it, that the whole thing was all his fault, and that he, of all people should have known they shouldn’t do that because his ex-wife had cheated on him and he understood the pain and turmoil it could cause. He said he hoped that one day I could forgive him but understood if I never wanted to lay eyes on him again. He agreed to have no further contact with my wife.

 

So here I am. It’s easy to just knee-jerk respond by saying to hell with this I deserve better, I’m out of here. But the truth of the matter is that I actually understand how bad our sex life was, how much I’m gone, and how lonely she felt because I feel the same way. Not that any of that excuses what she did. That was 100% her choice and it’s all on her. But I actually do love her and I believe she really does love me. I just don’t know what to do now. My entire world has collapsed. I mean, I can recall 100 things we did with Greg and now all I can think about is how I can’t believe they were f*****g each other right in front of me. I mean, I’d come home from work and we’d all barbecue in the back yard and they’d probably done it on our couch only a few hours before. How do you ever get that level of deceit and betrayal out of your head?

 

 

I’ve seen some of their old text exchanges from early 2012 (allegedly after the sex stopped) and they are truly stunning. I was able to restore them from an old backup, and I only have about a month’s worth, but they were texting 30-50 times a day (this was after Greg went back to work). In fairness to my wife’s version of events, she does brush off his overture to come over at night when I’m out of town, but otherwise the exchanges are totally inappropriate for a married woman who says she’s working on her marriage. Texting little hearts back and forth. Him asking if he can sneak across the street tonight and her saying she’s too tired "but just knowing that he wants to makes her heart smile :)" I mean, it’s tough to read.

So it’s clear to me that he was madly in love with her. She was certainly enjoying the attention and wasn’t telling him to stop. She says she never loved him, and acknowledged that she strung him along too long because she didn’t want to cause problems. But my real belief is that she was still into him. She’d stopped having sex, but not the emotional attachment. And, of course, she did sleep with him again in late-2012 and again this past spring, which tells me loud and clear that she really wasn’t over him.

 

When I asked her about those incidents, she said she hated herself when she slept with him last December because it had been more than a year since they’d been together. The incident in March of this year she explained as born out of depression. Her grandfather had just died and she and I had had a fight right before I went on a business trip. She said that was nothing more than her feeling extremely sad and using Greg for comfort, which she said makes her feel terrible (as it should, on many levels).

 

I know everyone is going to tell me I’m insane for even thinking of trying to work this out with her and stay in this relationship. Frankly, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but that’s what I want to try to do. I’m only 3 weeks in (she told me on Friday the 13th, appropriately enough) so I know nothing I’m thinking is probably rational.

 

I actually don’t believe my wife is a serial cheater or someone who would do this again. It took a lot of courage for her to tell me because, frankly, I never would have guessed. Crazy, but true. But then, I was so blind and naive about this that I know nothing I believe rests on a solid foundation. I get so angry at all the years of therapy and work I’ve put in and all of the sexual denial I’ve gone through only to find out that she went out and did this in the middle of it all. I feel about a thousand different things all at once and I don’t know what to do with it all.

[AlwaysGrowing]

I am so sorry that you are here.

 

 

If you want to know why your wife restarted the affair in Dec 2012 and this past spring, is because her poor coping skills worked for her. She got to have the affair, without disclosing, no consequences, lied in therapy...so it worked. When she had stress in her life again, she went with what worked.

 

I honestly don't know how you go forward. IC was already in place for both of you, as well as MC. If one party goes in lying, there is no point to any therapy.

 

 

I think it is time to shield yourself from this relationship until you have had the time to process all of this. Turn your resources inward.

 

Sometimes we have to let go, to start feeling like we have control in our lives again.

[ChooseTruth]

I'm for keeping the family together if possible since you have kids and a long history together. She came clean and that's a good sign. Hopefully she can really believe your story. I tend to believe since you are posting here anonymously.

 

Unfortunately one of the big requirements for reconciliation is no contact (NC) with the affair partner (AP) and this is going to be really hard as you said with a neighbor. It's huge thing, but I would think about moving somewhere else.

 

Also 3 weeks is nothing in the grand scheme of things. Give yourself time to process and figure out how you are affected.

 

I'm sorry you're going through this, it's a terrible experience and you will get tons of responses from people who have been in the same boat. Take care of yourself and keep posting.

[2sunny]

What would your W need to do to regain your trust and rebuild the M?

[Steen719]

Hello everyone. Brand new to the forum.

 

I can’t believe I’m writing this, and I apologize in advance for the long post, but there is a lot to tell. Married 10.5 years, two kids (ages 9 and 6). I’m 40, my wife is 42. We are both lawyers, although she took 8 years away from her career to be at home with the kids, she is back working now.

 

I have an extremely demanding international practice and travel about 250,000 miles a year – I am gone a lot, typically at least three days out of every week, and at least four or five trips per year where I’m gone for a week or ten days. My wife understood my ambitions when we met (we both worked at the same law firm, so what it took to succeed there is of absolutely no surprise to her, although, as the years have gone by, my job has gotten more and more demanding).

 

I love my wife dearly, and she says she loves me, and I actually think she means it. But we have had a bunch of unhappy years. We’ve never had a fantastic sex life. My wife is very attractive and athletic, and I have tremendous desire for her. But she does not show much interest in sex (she rarely initiates, and she rejects a lot of advances from me). To compensate, I look at pornography and take care of myself on a very regular basis. Over time, this developed into a very bad pattern for us. Add to that the general tiredness and craziness of life with young kids, as well as my travel schedule, and we just don’t have sex all that often. In ten years of marriage, we’ve probably had sex less than 100 times – I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

My wife has always been bothered by my use of pornography (although she does not see it – we’re talking about stuff I look at when I’m on the road). We’ve never been that good at talking about what we need from each other, but I’ve always expressed a desire for her and continued to make overtures, but with limited success. I know it’s gotten into her head because for years she’s said things like "I don’t have big breasts like those women you like to look at" – and I assure her that none of that has anything to do with my attraction to her (and it doesn’t, she’s hot). But I really don’t think she has ever understood men and their need for pretty regular release of sexual tension. She takes it personally, like a statement that I don’t desire her.

 

About five years ago (summer 2008) I did something really stupid. I exchanged emails with a woman on Craigslist. I never met her, I never did anything with her or anyone else. But I felt so alone and sexually deprived, I just caved in to curiosity and had this exchange one night about some kinky sex stuff. Long story short, my wife found those emails and that became a massive issue in our marriage. We started going to therapy on a weekly basis around that time and have continued therapy ever since. I’ve been apologetic, contrite, begged forgiveness, but she has never really gotten past it. I have never cheated on her. I travel all over the world, stay in great hotels, and I’m a decent looking and very successful guy. I’m sure if I had interest in cheating it would be easy to do. But I don’t, and I never have. But my wife became convinced that I was a disloyal guy. We went round and round about this in therapy and we never seemed to get anywhere (we each have our own therapists, and every other week we meet jointly, with both therapists – talk about expensive!).

 

For the last couple of years my wife and I have become very demoralized. We love being with each other, but so much noise has built up around sexual issues that we virtually stopped having sex altogether. My therapist was confounded by this. He expressed to me on many occasions that he found my wife’s continual return to the Craigslist exchange and the use of pornography to be strange. He said it’s just unusual for someone to hang onto issues like that for as long as she has. But my wife and I kept showing up to therapy and trying to work on it. We both became frustrated, but I really believed we could work through this.

 

Well, in October 2010, a guy moved in across the street from us . . . I know you all see where this is headed, but cut me a little slack here and bear with me.

 

The guy, Greg, had recently been divorced (his wife had cheated on him) and had two kids of similar age to ours. He was out of work, so he was home all the time (but only had his kids half the time). He was our age, and was a decent guy. I liked him and my wife did too, and he quickly became a friend of ours. Our kids played together outside, we would have dinners together, cocktails on the back deck. I went to his reading group and started to get to know all of his friends. I mean, he was a friend of ours. Of course, I was aware that he and my wife talked when I was out of town. I knew they had a good friendship, but never in a million years would it have occurred to me that they would have an affair. I feel like a complete fool now, but I know you’ve all heard that story before.

 

Fast forward to three weeks ago. We’re still in therapy, still trying to work things out, still spinning our wheels and making no progress. Sex has died away to almost nothing. My wife comes to me in our home office and sits down and says that even after all these years since the Craigslist exchange she still does not trust me. She then says that she knows we’re never going to make any progress unless we’re completely open an honest with each other. She said she figures that our marriage isn’t going to survive if we don’t do something radical so she says she’s decided she has to come clean to me in the hope that I will do the same with her. She then says the words that have echoed through my head since: "You need to know that two summers ago, I slept with someone."

 

I felt an actual physical shock go through my body. I asked who and she said Greg. I asked when and she said the summer of 2011. I pressed for more details and she said, "spring and summer 2011". To make a long, painful story short, she eventually revealed to me that she started sleeping with him in February 2011 and it lasted until sometime that fall. She said she broke it off with him because she felt terrible and knew we were never going to fix our marriage if she continued down that path. She swore that was the end of it and they had been just friends since.

 

Over the past few weeks I’ve continued to seek lots of detail and asked her some hard questions and she has continued to answer them and reveal more details. She said that she felt terrible about it and knew it was wrong the entire time, but that it started to feel like a drug addiction. He paid constant attention to her and was always available to listen to whatever she wanted to talk about. She said she hadn’t realized how lonely she was with me being gone all the time and that the affair developed into this weird escape for her that was so easy because the guy was home all the time, lived right across the street, and I was often out of town. She also admitted to me that after she broke it off with him in the fall of 2011, there had been two relapses. She slept with him once in December 2012 (when I was on a really long three week travel nightmare) and again in late March of this year.

 

She swears they didn’t have sex all the time, probably once a week on average. They did it at his house and ours. I figure they probably had sex at least thirty times (which, is probably a third of the number of times I’ve had sex with her during our entire marriage), but it could well have been more. To say I am completely devastated is a vast understatement. I can’t concentrate. I can’t think of anything but this. I picture them having sex constantly. It’s driving me insane. And, to her apparent shock, I had nothing to confess back to her.

 

She has been extremely contrite. She has acknowledged that it was completely wrong and inexcusable. She’s been very comforting. And, weirdly, we’ve started having what, for us, is a lot of sex.

 

I told her she needed to cut off all contact with Greg (somewhat hard to do because he lives across the street), which she agreed to do. I drafted a letter for her to send to him, she edited it to put it into her voice and made additional changes I suggested, and sent it to him in a long text message. He wrote back and was actually very apologetic. He said that he felt terrible about it, that the whole thing was all his fault, and that he, of all people should have known they shouldn’t do that because his ex-wife had cheated on him and he understood the pain and turmoil it could cause. He said he hoped that one day I could forgive him but understood if I never wanted to lay eyes on him again. He agreed to have no further contact with my wife.

 

So here I am. It’s easy to just knee-jerk respond by saying to hell with this I deserve better, I’m out of here. But the truth of the matter is that I actually understand how bad our sex life was, how much I’m gone, and how lonely she felt because I feel the same way. Not that any of that excuses what she did. That was 100% her choice and it’s all on her. But I actually do love her and I believe she really does love me. I just don’t know what to do now. My entire world has collapsed. I mean, I can recall 100 things we did with Greg and now all I can think about is how I can’t believe they were f*****g each other right in front of me. I mean, I’d come home from work and we’d all barbecue in the back yard and they’d probably done it on our couch only a few hours before. How do you ever get that level of deceit and betrayal out of your head?

 

 

I’ve seen some of their old text exchanges from early 2012 (allegedly after the sex stopped) and they are truly stunning. I was able to restore them from an old backup, and I only have about a month’s worth, but they were texting 30-50 times a day (this was after Greg went back to work). In fairness to my wife’s version of events, she does brush off his overture to come over at night when I’m out of town, but otherwise the exchanges are totally inappropriate for a married woman who says she’s working on her marriage. Texting little hearts back and forth. Him asking if he can sneak across the street tonight and her saying she’s too tired "but just knowing that he wants to makes her heart smile :)" I mean, it’s tough to read.

So it’s clear to me that he was madly in love with her. She was certainly enjoying the attention and wasn’t telling him to stop. She says she never loved him, and acknowledged that she strung him along too long because she didn’t want to cause problems. But my real belief is that she was still into him. She’d stopped having sex, but not the emotional attachment. And, of course, she did sleep with him again in late-2012 and again this past spring, which tells me loud and clear that she really wasn’t over him.

 

When I asked her about those incidents, she said she hated herself when she slept with him last December because it had been more than a year since they’d been together. The incident in March of this year she explained as born out of depression. Her grandfather had just died and she and I had had a fight right before I went on a business trip. She said that was nothing more than her feeling extremely sad and using Greg for comfort, which she said makes her feel terrible (as it should, on many levels).

 

I know everyone is going to tell me I’m insane for even thinking of trying to work this out with her and stay in this relationship. Frankly, I don’t know what the hell is wrong with me, but that’s what I want to try to do. I’m only 3 weeks in (she told me on Friday the 13th, appropriately enough) so I know nothing I’m thinking is probably rational.

 

I actually don’t believe my wife is a serial cheater or someone who would do this again. It took a lot of courage for her to tell me because, frankly, I never would have guessed. Crazy, but true. But then, I was so blind and naive about this that I know nothing I believe rests on a solid foundation. I get so angry at all the years of therapy and work I’ve put in and all of the sexual denial I’ve gone through only to find out that she went out and did this in the middle of it all. I feel about a thousand different things all at once and I don’t know what to do with it all.

 

I think sometimes it is important to decide what makes a person think it is acceptable to cheat? I mean, is it OK because you are lonely, or stressed or someone died or you put in whatever you want here. The more I read these stories, the longer I live, I just believe that some find a way to make it OK in their minds and some don't. My x cheated twice and the second time, I had cared for him for quite a while through his illness and transplant and I do mean cared for him. I also did everything around the house, worked almost constantly (as I was the only one working) and tried to help my son in college financially. While my XH was hospitalized and near death, my brother died of a heart attack. I never thought about another man and when he was impotent, I said it is just your illness - not I need something here. The stupid SOB cheated on me after all of this and what did he say? "You were working all of the time and ignoring me" - you are kidding, right?

 

Honestly, I think you either do or you don't, are or you aren't and I fully understand that there are people who will disagree and that is fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. This is mine, for whatever it is worth.

[2sunny]

Have you moved yet? If not, why not?

 

Moving far away from the OM should be a basic requirement. I don't care if it's been her dream home - she's ruined the beauty of the home by what she's done!

[Bryanp]

Your wife for 2 years slept with your neighbor putting your health at risk for STD's in your HOUSE and in your BED! What more really needs to be said? If the roles were reversed your ass would been out the door immediately. This is absolutely the worst possible type of sexual affair. There is something so symbolic that your wife had no problem having sex in your home while your were working and out of town. She absolutely symbolically defacated on your marriage. She has shown that she has absolutely no respect for you or your marriage whatsoever. If you do not respect yourself then who will?

 

You are in deep deep denial what she has done to you and you are probably very scared. You deserve better and she deserves nothing.

[velvette]

Seems like your wifes go to answer for every problem in her life is now cheating.

 

What do all of your counselor's have to say about all this?

[2sunny]

There's something very telling about the fact that this OMM has had sex with your W in a 2 year period more than you've had with her in 10 years.

 

Heck - when I was M at the 20 year mark we still has sex more than 30 times in ONE month!

 

You aren't your wife's priority! What does SHE plan to do to change that?

[SincereOnlineGuy]

you are here.

 

 

Oh my god... as I read, and measured the OP and his words, and prepared to reply, the only thing I knew I wanted to write was a reminder both to the OP and to those who might critique his seeming efforts/foolishness, and that was going to be in the form of the simple words you see on a map near the entry to a new-to-you shopping mall.

 

Those words, of course, are "You Are Here".

 

 

The second-guessing of the past, the OP can do at another time. The measuring in hindsight the many potential mistakes which were made along the path, others can do at another time, or not at all.

 

 

Very clearly and understandably the OP must consider in every way his present position and outlook before acting from that point.

 

 

So, and as if this were your financial position you were considering: you want to realize the full potential of your investment and that, needless to say, suggests doing all you can to let what is presently the biggest investment in your life to date continue to grow and reward you.

 

 

A family with two lawyers may have the option of moving, even if fairly nearby, (a huge psychological assist, to all sides).

 

Your travel schedule really IS painful/detrimental/unfair to the rest of your family, regardless of whether the wife knew it or not going in.

 

And I'm quite sure the kids didn't know in advance that you'd be traveling and away so much.

 

 

I'm sure you're gonna say that you are already way too committed to that hectic schedule with so much time away from home, but if there are any corners at all you can cut (to be home more - and to witness your kids growing up), it would sure help a great deal. I think your instincts are telling you that indeed your unavailable nature has been a contributory factor.

 

 

I guess, in addition, you need to convince yourself for sure that your wife is truly in-it for the long haul as well. Honesty without hesitation would make for a good sign in that regard.

 

And maybe, if you play this ideally, you really can gain some understanding from the wife's affair... in the way of learning how much sex she can actually enjoy, in terms of frequency.

 

This isn't a case of merely getting into a 'routine of f***ing', as would be the case were you trying for a baby, or something. This is going to take some serious effort and changes.

 

But I do think you can do it!!

 

 

But it really involves you placing yourself IN THE HOME ENVIRONMENT much more than you have described, about the past. Not only being there physically, but really applying yourself in the way of, say, going to ball games as a family, going roller skating as a family, finding other activities you can all share together, and really being IN your wife's life for what in ways could be the first time ever.

 

And it will be from that, where you find yourselves eventually turning the corner and evolving toward a positive direction/outcome.

 

 

Finally, I know that she is the bad guy, still, but I think it is clear that you single-handedly inspired a psychological environment which left your spouse alone even when she wasn't alone.

 

Liken it to the way young servicemen make such effort to have (often pregnant) new wives at home perpetually waiting for their return.

 

The serviceman can return and say that he was defending our country while your edge is that you were much more likely to return home at some point. It still places the women at home and waiting in environments which are psychological hell. You shouldn't quite know the volatility known to couples where the male returns to psychological hell and from psychological hell at the same time.

 

It just isn't going to be easy... (but you can do it)

[jimmytwowheels]

yes it's awful. all the cheating stories are.

 

BUT she DID tell you on her own. She clearly has remorse, and she realized that she didn't completely want the marriage to end.

 

Figure out what you need from her. She has to give you all of it.

 

I hope that you can work things out. It is even possible that in a whacked out way, this may end up with you two closer then ever. Give the marriage a fair shot, but protect yourself and make your expectations very very clear.

 

NC is unbreakable. And like some said, you may need to move if you feel the marriage is worth it.

 

Best of luck

[Mickey_Fitzpatrick]

The amount of travel you do is killing your marriage. That's even before the cheating.

 

You will never have a happy marriage going forward if you travel and continue to live across the street from other man.

 

Find a job where you don't have to travel so much, and move across town or better yet to a different town.

 

Throw out the beds and couches. Burn them in the yard if it makes you feel better.

 

I don't think you're crazy for trying to reconcile, but you have to recognize your limitations. Don't believe for a second that you can continue to travel as much as you do and be able to fix this thing.

[2sure]

There are so many plusses here, should you decide to try to reconcile.

And you know that, so I'm not going to reiterate them.

 

What you've asked is will you be able to move forward happily with this. Not just reconcile but be happy.

 

I'll tell you something, moving forward and being happy after having lived through this is , in large part, the same process whether you reconcile or divorce. There is no going around it.

 

I did divorce, but I still had to get comfortable with the fact that infidelity affected my life. I had to get used to person I now was, changed from having lived through it. I had to learn to acknowledge the memories of what I couldn't erase, but not let them drive the car. I've learned to trust my own judgement again.

 

You and your wife have a real opportunity to create change here. Actually, you have to create big changes to have a new marriage. I would consider new therapists, possibly recommended by your current. You might move, you might have to earn less money. You might learn to enjoy sex with each other.

 

Finally, if ever there were a couple that could reconcile, you sound like it.

[Try]

In ten years of marriage, we’ve probably had sex less than 100 times – I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.

For the last couple of years my wife and I have become very demoralized. We love being with each other, but so much noise has built up around sexual issues that we virtually stopped having sex altogether.

Well, in October 2010, a guy moved in across the street from us .

she started sleeping with him in February 2011 and it lasted until sometime that fall.

She also admitted to me that after she broke it off with him in the fall of 2011, there had been two relapses. She slept with him once in December 2012 (when I was on a really long three week travel nightmare) and again in late March of this year.

She swears they didn’t have sex all the time, probably once a week on average.

I figure they probably had sex at least thirty times (which, is probably a third of the number of times I’ve had sex with her during our entire marriage), but it could well have been more.

The line that gets me the most is that she “swears they didn’t have sex all the time, probably once a week on average”. With you only having sex with her only 100 times over 10 years, you never in the entire marriage had sex with her as often as once a week on average. More disturbing, is that she “virtually stopped having sex” with you once she started having sex with the other man (OM). Worse yet, everything that I said above is best case and assumes that she has told you everything, which is highly unlikely. The truth be told, her timeline has already been shifting to include more and more. Add some months, increase the frequency a little, and her lifetime total of sex with him may be greater than your 100.

 

I’ve seen some of their old text exchanges from early 2012 (allegedly after the sex stopped) and they are truly stunning. I was able to restore them from an old backup, and I only have about a month’s worth, but they were texting 30-50 times a day (this was after Greg went back to work). In fairness to my wife’s version of events, she does brush off his overture to come over at night when I’m out of town, but otherwise the exchanges are totally inappropriate for a married woman who says she’s working on her marriage. Texting little hearts back and forth. Him asking if he can sneak across the street tonight and her saying she’s too tired "but just knowing that he wants to makes her heart smile " I mean, it’s tough to read.

 

 

She’d stopped having sex, but not the emotional attachment. And, of course, she did sleep with him again in late-2012 and again this past spring, which tells me loud and clear that she really wasn’t over him.

Taking your wife at her word, your wife is in an emotional affair (EA) that is sporadically being reinforced with a physical affair (PA). It is proven that during the first few years of a relationship, that very enjoyable brain drugs are emitted that stop being emitted as the relationship matures. These newness factor brain drugs are why people have emotional affairs, and why so many cheaters say that affair sex is the best sex they ever had in their life. As a long term spouse, emotionally and sexually you cannot compete with the newness brain drugs of an affair. Once the other man came into her life, you never had a chance at a good marriage.

 

While you work hard, travel and give her the lifestyle that she has, the less successful other man got to live with your wife in a fantasy world where him being unemployed was seen as good thing by your wife as it allowed him to focus his time on her; since he does not pay her bills, their relationship never experienced the normal negative financial pressures of his unemployment. In the real world, financial pressure is the number one reason for divorce. I am sorry to say, but she has never loved you the way that she thinks that she loves the other man, and she never will because she lives in the real world with you, and in a newness brain drug enhanced fantasy world with him.

[lindsay1990]

I've never been married but here's my 0.02 cents.

 

The bad news is this wasn't just a sex thing, clearly. It's one thing to scour the internet one night for sex talk or actual sex. But what she did is living a double life.

 

The good news is she confessed which could maybe she maybe really wanted to not fall into her shi*ty coping mechanisms again and wants you to help her/keep her from doing it. I think she has had plenty of time to consider if she in fact wanted this man, she did not come to tell you she was leaving you or that she was confused about what to do with this OM.

 

If she has feelings for him or *is* confused, I think it's also good news that she isn't saying because to me this just points to her wanting to face this with you, as a team. At this point you have a right to DEMAND everything you need of her. And yes, you need to move.

 

I think that despite the obvious, this could be much much worse and I agree that there is a chance at a fulfilling relationship after reconciliation. Your wife went to another man and came back to you, man. To insist, she confessed but not to be clear and leave you, but it seems that she confessed because she wants to make it right. And still wants you.

 

 

Good luck!

[harrybrown]

So your wife sent a NC letter.

 

Did she do things with the neighbor that she did not do with you, besides a lot of sex?

 

Have your wife write you a timeline and diary of the affair. Have you told your wife's family and your family? Your friends?

 

You have to move. Your wife must resent you to have sex in your home.

 

Did they use your bed?

 

I think you need to make a list of things you need for your wife to do for you to help you heal.

[2sunny]

You still with us Leftoverz? I hope you are ok.

[Artie Lang]

i might've missed it, but does this man know that you know?

[ForeverTainted]

Hello, I am the cheating wife in my situation but I wanted to say few things.

 

I think your wife believes you were cheating on her. And she used this to justify her affair and then the affair became her drug of choice. Forbidden relationships really are addicting. I've been there. MY affair partner and I both would "end things" only to fool around again.

 

I have read enough online, here included, to know that cheaters always minimize and lie. Deny, deny, deny they call it on the cheater support sites. So your wife believed if you made a CL ad and did that then you must be doing more. You being away and all over the place would make cheating easy.

 

None of this makes what she did right. Not at all. And I feel your pain because you didn't carry through and cheat.

 

I do think your marriage can be saved but it will take a lot of hard work from both of you.

 

And you need help with your sex life.

 

But if this is it and it is just to broken to fix try, for your kids sakes, to treat each other with respect and divorce cleanly.

[Leftoverz]

Thanks for the replies everyone. A lot of good points here. We are definitely planning to move. We've already spent a day with an agent looking at houses, but the moving process will take some time. My wife is very engaged in wanting to move.

 

As for the OM, yes, he knows I know. That was clear from the no contact letter that was sent. My wife specifically told him that she told me about the affair in the hope that we could save our marriage and eventually move forward.

 

I've asked repeatedly and she swears they never had sex in our bed. They did it on the floor in our rec room and in one of our spare bedrooms. Se also claims he did nothing with him that she hasn't done with me and in fact less than we have done. I tend to believe her. There is no hesitancy or other indicia of dishonesty when she says these things.

 

She is truly remorseful. And as others have pointed out, she came to me and revealed it specifically so we could try to deal with it and move forward. I do take comfort in that. I'm not a pushover or softie by any means, but I am a human being and I do have compassion for the situation she was in because I was in a similar situation. She and I made different choices, and she acknowledges that what she did is inexcusable, but I do understand how she got where she got.

 

I have told her point blank that she needs to figure out if she can get past my bad behavior so long ago because I cannot go through the long, painful reconciliation process only to have her still focused in a few emails and pornography. I mean, her concern with that stuff seems so petty compared to why she has done. I know it doesn't work that way (what you did was worse so what I did doesn't matter), but still.

 

I still find myself wanton more details about exactly what they did. She claims to not recall a lot of specificity (in part because it was mostly a couple years ago, and in part racist they did so much that I think a lot of it runs together in her memory). How much detail is too much? The movies in my head are diving me crazy, but the details I don't know are driving me even crazier.

[2sunny]

I think it looks like you two are off to a good start/chance of repairing the damage she has caused.

 

I don't see these as equal cheating - at all!

 

Your email may have had intent to provide you ego strokes - but it pales in comparison to her being emotionally connect, physically connected and bold faced lying to you for years.

 

At least she confessed. That helps to some degree.

 

You've neglected to nurture your W and your M. What do you plan to change about that part that you CAN change? How do you plan to reconnect with your W?

 

 

Your W owes you ALL the details! Every little thing you may ask - IF she intends to rebuild the trust she's ruined. She remembers - believe me! I'm old - and I remember details of men I had sex with when I was single - 30 years ago! We don't forget, believe me! If she says she doesn't remember - tell her to move out immediately - because it would indicate she's still a common liar and doesn't intend to earn your trust back!

 

I hope she will get honest - and that you can make changes that show that the M is a priority, not an afterthought.

 

Quit traveling so much! ;-)

 

Keep posting - there's some awesome long time posters here that can chime in with help.

[OJ loved Nicole]

I still find myself wanton more details about exactly what they did. She claims to not recall a lot of specificity (in part because it was mostly a couple years ago, and in part racist they did so much that I think a lot of it runs together in her memory). How much detail is too much? The movies in my head are diving me crazy, but the details I don't know are driving me even crazier.

 

You think knowing the exact details of their sexual endevors will make you feel better? It won't, it will drive you mad. Only details you need are: "she slept with him". That's it!! The more details you get, the more details you will try to seek, and with each new detail, more and more questions will arise.

 

-"Did he touch you there? Did you like it, how did he do it, did he do it each time, did he do it better than me, etc."

 

-"Did you do that to him? How did you do it, did you do it it him like you do it to me, did you like doing it to him, etc."

 

It will be never ending. It will destroy anything you're trying to hold on to. With each detail you're resent her even more. Over time each question (I'm sure you've asked the same questions over and over and over again) will begin to drain on her. You have all the details you need : "she cheated, she slept with him". Now you decide if you want to work on it or move on.

[Leftoverz]

I don't accept it and I've never been happy about it. With young kids and a busy career, we're both exhausted all the time. I guess I always figured the jokes about no sex after marriage were true. It sucked, but I always thought that's just the way it is. Obviously, I was misinformed.

 

As for what I can change to prioritize the marriage and her, I've been asking myself that a lot. It's tough. It's not as simple as just getting another job. I'm a partner in a major American law firm and what I do is highly specialized. Any other job in my field will look exactly like this one. And a total career change just isn't realistic. I do have a lot of flexibility though, so I'm going to try to work from home a lot more when I'm not on the road. I'll look for ways to reduce travel, but that will be tough.

 

I think the single most important thing I can do is just check back into the marriage generally. We have allowed the lack of intimacy to dig us into deep ruts where our lives are almost on autopilot. I don't think we truly see each other anymore. Which is a shame, because the woman I fell in love with is brilliant, insightful, interesting, and clever. Her mind was always as much of a turn on as her body and I think we've just disengaged and forgotten why we ended up together in the first place.

[2sunny]

I don't accept it and I've never been happy about it. With young kids and a busy career, we're both exhausted all the time. I guess I always figured the jokes about no sex after marriage were true. It sucked, but I always thought that's just the way it is. Obviously, I was misinformed.

 

As for what I can change to prioritize the marriage and her, I've been asking myself that a lot. It's tough. It's not as simple as just getting another job. I'm a partner in a major American law firm and what I do is highly specialized. Any other job in my field will look exactly like this one. And a total career change just isn't realistic. I do have a lot of flexibility though, so I'm going to try to work from home a lot more when I'm not on the road. I'll look for ways to reduce travel, but that will be tough.

 

I think the single most important thing I can do is just check back into the marriage generally. We have allowed the lack of intimacy to dig us into deep ruts where our lives are almost on autopilot. I don't think we truly see each other anymore. Which is a shame, because the woman I fell in love with is brilliant, insightful, interesting, and clever. Her mind was always as much of a turn on as her body and I think we've just disengaged and forgotten why we ended up together in the first place.

 

That's a start from your end.

 

But remember - it's your wife that blatantly cheated and she needs to do all the heavy lifting to repair the damage she caused! What is her plan? Is she in counseling? What does she plan to change?

[Mint Sauce]

two observations already made by previous posters, but put more clearly:

 

- why are you not mad as hell? Where's your self esteem? Her hypocrisy is mind-boggling.

 

- it appears she never truly desired you. Not the way you desire(d) her. If it was never there, how can it return?

 

Is she trying to reconcile because she fears losing you, or the lifestyle/family?

 

I think you need an honest answer from her regarding her actual reasons to marry you.