Ahell Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 After finding out about my husband's emotional affair, meeting his soulmate and talking to her I finally found the courage 10 months later to tell her husband about it after finding a passionate e-mail. He listened calmly to me and reassured me that this inappropriate behavior would end immediately, called me the next day to confirm that once more and told me that he has seen the e-mail and confronted her. It took him 3 days to fix his marriage...I wish I could do that too. He told me that if his wife knew I told him she would be grateful I had saved their marriage. My husband found out and he is really mad at me. He is still at home though and we sleep in the same bed hugged every night. He said to me to stop telling people about it and stop acting like I do and feeling jealous because it makes him want to leave. How can this all end? I want to restore our marriage not destroy it but I have a feeling we are 3 in this. Why can't they just be friends and avoid all these silly expressions of affection? Please help ...Iam panicking... I KNOW I can leave without him but I don;t want my kids to through this. We were such a happy family
PegNosePete Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 He has no right to be mad at you. You should be mad at HIM! It sounds like your H is not willing to stop the affair. If you want to reconcile, this has to stop immediately. He cannot be friends with the OW, he must initiate NC with her straight away. Tell him to call her up while you are present and end it, otherwise you will kick him out, and follow through with it if he refuses. If he is not prepared to give you 100% support and understanding, and allow you full access to all of his texts, phone records and emails, then he is not 100% committed to you and you should end it. He should not be allowed to keep any secrets since he has destroyed your trust. If he complains that you are invading his privacy then remind him that he invaded your privacy by having an affair, and that he has no right to privacy any more. Again if he is not willing to accept this then he is not 100% committed to you and you should kick him out.
jj33 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 (edited) My husband found out and he is really mad at me. He is still at home though and we sleep in the same bed hugged every night. He said to me to stop telling people about it and stop acting like I do and feeling jealous because it makes him want to leave. Hes threatening you because you have found that the A is still ongoing? I can understand that you want to keep your family intact but it sounds like he is still lying to you. 10 months after it allegedly ended there is a passionate email? You have every right to be upset. And his privacy? Its not HIS privacy you are invading. As PegNose said he brought a 3rd party into your marriage you have every right to try to stop the invasion. I would question whether the other M was "fixed" in 3 days. You thought it was fixed 10 months ago. This H THINKS its fixed his W told him it was fixed but history has shown the words are not sufficient. This may seem impulsive but tell your H if he wants to leave to leave. Im no marriage counsellor but I think this is the time to draw a line in the sand as to what you will and will not accept in a marriage. You dont want to be married to someone who has so little respect for your feelings that he would betray your trust 2x (before and now 10 months later) and then threaten you because you have taken action to stem the damage? He needs to honor your emotoins and make amends. Is he such a "prize" that you are going to let him off the hook for his continuing trespasses, coddling him at all cost so that he will stay in the house? That is what he is asking you to do, to treat him as "the prize" who is worth any emotoinal sacrifice you have to make to keep him. If you give in to this emotional blackmail you are setting the scene for further transgressions. Your H is taking NO responsibility for the impact of his actions. Hes not being accountable. Hes not trying. He seems to think "showing up" is enough. Thats what you have to ask yourself. Is him being there and hugging you in bed enough? Hes essentially asking you to turn a blind eye. So sorry you are going through this. Edited August 25, 2010 by jj33
Gfkr2 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 Are you absolutely sure it was just an EA? I would not be surprised the an intense EA that has gone on for 10 months has turned into a PA. Your H owes you FULL disclosure and a commitment to NC with the other woman. Be tough, don't let him blame you for discovering the A. I recconend you read "Not Just Friends" writen by Dr. Shirley Glass. It provides you much more detail on the mindset of APs, types of A and the vulnerabilites in your M that caused H to cheat. More importantly, the book guides you in how to recover your M. Only a fool thinks he recovered his M in 3 days. It takes months and a commitment by both MPs to fully restore trust again. Your H being madvis a sign he is not ready for recovery. You were wise to post seeking comments from those of us who lived the nightmare of infidelity. Good luck.
angie44 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 I empathise with your situation, and I agree with what others have said before me. From my experience with my current soon to be ex husband, the poster who said he has no respect for you, and he is not taking any responsibility is very true. Do you want to live within a web of lies and deceit and torment? You thought it was over...and it's not. You have to gain some confidence and self respect and tell him to leave that his behaviour is totally unacceptable to you, you will not be second best to anyone. Now thats easy for people to say because its not their emotions tangled up in it all. It's up to you to decide what you want from your life, do you want a life of being unsettled, no peace of mind because you don't know where he is, or what he is doing with this other woman? Its mental cruelty and emotional abuse, he is mad at you because you found him out, so now he is trying to make you feel guilty when its him who should be! Honestly, I have been through some sh** in my life and most of it just recently. I found out my husband was having an affair, she is pregnant and he wants to marry her...lol..how did i find out, I went through his fone and his fone records to see how far back her number was there. He went loopy about this...said i was breaking the law..invading his privacy...hahaha! TOO RIGHT I was, or how else would I have got to know the truth! Cos it wasnt going to come out of his lying lips, and i even rang his girlfriend too to tell her what a lying cheat he was being to her. I lost alot of self respect during my marriage to him, and my oldest children pointed that out to me. Kids can be affected worse from living with it than they would be living apart from it. Think of yourself and your children cos your husband certainly isn't.
Gfkr2 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 I got confused on the 10 months AFTER the A...sorry. My comments still stand. Read. Learn. Act. Take control of your M.
Author Ahell Posted August 25, 2010 Author Posted August 25, 2010 I found out in October. He said they were just friends She said they were just friends Friends don't say I love you, I totally love you , I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOU in e-mails So I TOLD HER H She apparently has stopped behaving caring towards my H so he is mad at me for putting her marriage at risk.
KikiW Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 Tell him "her marriage is not my concern. MY marriage is." It's going to be a while before he realizes HE was at fault, it seems. Good luck.
PegNosePete Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 he is mad at me for putting her marriage at risk. This is total crap. She put her own marriage at risk, and your H put your marriage at risk, by behaving as they did. He has no right to be mad at you. You have every right to be mad at him. It sounds like he is getting overly defensive, this kind of behaviour is just throwing fuel onto the fire and making him look worse and worse. As Gfkr said it's quite possible a PA happened as well, and his attitude does seem very fishy. It's like he's trying to distract you from the real issue, which is his infidelity and your shattered trust.
jj33 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 He's gaslighting you. An EA is no better than a PA. Whether or not they were physically intimate is not the point. Maybe she has stopped expressing her feelings towards your H. But that doesnt mean your emotions are invalid. Have you considered MC? Is your H willing to go?
PegNosePete Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 It's not really clear what you're saying he is adamant about? Not going to MC? Tell him that he will do everything you ask, else he will be packing his bags. And STICK to it!!
Dexter Morgan Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 He listened calmly to me and reassured me that this inappropriate behavior would end immediately, called me the next day to confirm that once more and told me that he has seen the e-mail and confronted her. It took him 3 days to fix his marriage wrong, I can assure you it isn't fixed yet. he now knows his wife is a cheater and I also assure you it is in the back of his mind. She isn't off the hook unless he is some sort of cuckolded lapdog. I wish I could do that too. He told me that if his wife knew I told him she would be grateful I had saved their marriage. My husband found out and he is really mad at me. Tell your husband that if he is mad, then its obvious he is concerned about his OW and not his marriage and that he can be mad in a hotel. He is still at home though and we sleep in the same bed hugged every night. He said to me to stop telling people about it and stop acting like I do tell him to eff off. you act the way you do because of his betrayal. is he stupid or something? tell him you ought to go out and mess around with another man and reserve the right to come home and tell him to get over it. [quot]eand feeling jealous because it makes him want to leave. you know what, after reading this, I think you ought to tell him to leave. I mean this is just beautiful....he cheats, yet you aren't suppose to be jealous or hurt? Your husband is an *********. How can this all end? I want to restore our marriage not destroy it you aren't responsible if it is destroyed, his cheating and attitude after the fact will be. don't let him gaslight you into thinking that the marriage will fail because you are hurt by his actions. he is a jerk for telling you those things. Why can't they just be friends and avoid all these silly expressions of affection? they can't even be friends now. that is out of the question unless you want to simply put up with it. There should be absolutely NO contact between them at all. Not even a "hi and bye" when they see each other on the street. Please help ...Iam panicking... I KNOW I can leave without him but I don;t want my kids to through this. We were such a happy family but your husband is a jerk. so question is, you willing to spend the rest of your life with a gaslighting jerk?
bentnotbroken Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 Offer him a choice. MC or lawyer. Good luck Ditto. And tell whoever the hell you want. If it were okay he wouldn't have a problem with it.
Darth Vader Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 I found out in October. He said they were just friends She said they were just friends Friends don't say I love you, I totally love you , I ABSOLUTELY LOVE YOU in e-mails So I TOLD HER H She apparently has stopped behaving caring towards my H so he is mad at me for putting her marriage at risk. Oh yeah girl, they had sex, most likely anyway! Drop his ass! Make sure that her husband knows they most likely screwed each other!
jj33 Posted August 25, 2010 Posted August 25, 2010 Ahell it sounds like you dont feel like you hold equal power in your marriage. Like your H calls the shots. Do you have a separate bank account? If you told him its over if you dont do xyz are you able to suppot yourself if he played games while you were divorcing? If you cant answer yes to these questions (and from the tone of your posts it doesnt sound like you can) I would have a discreet visit with a divorce lawyer to plan your strategy. Dont let him beat you down on this. You deserve better.
Author Ahell Posted August 26, 2010 Author Posted August 26, 2010 Well it is difficult to leave someone you still love after 20 years and kids still young enough to need both of us at home
PegNosePete Posted August 26, 2010 Posted August 26, 2010 Quite right. Nobody said it was easy. But you owe it to yourself to be happy, and if you stay with your husband, you never will be. That is no environment for kids to grow up in. Better to be a happy single mother than a miserable, beaten down wife. The kids will grow up much happier.
Angel1111 Posted August 26, 2010 Posted August 26, 2010 Well it is difficult to leave someone you still love after 20 years and kids still young enough to need both of us at home It's the old 'but I love him' scenario. God, this stuff never ends, does it? Sorry, but from where I'm standing, you sound weak and, unfortunately, this is exactly why your husband has no respect for you. I say stay with him and don't say another word about the affair because you have no intentions of doing anything about it, so it's just nagging and whining at this point and you're making yourself look even more pathetic. You will not fix your marriage in this way, and you won't get results by nagging him because he knows your words are empty. If the intact family scenario is what's the most important to you, then stay at all costs. But don't kid yourself into thinking that staying under these conditions is not as 'costly' to you and your kids as divorce would be.
xpaperxcutx Posted August 26, 2010 Posted August 26, 2010 It's the old 'but I love him' scenario. God, this stuff never ends, does it? Sorry, but from where I'm standing, you sound weak and, unfortunately, this is exactly why your husband has no respect for you. I say stay with him and don't say another word about the affair because you have no intentions of doing anything about it, so it's just nagging and whining at this point and you're making yourself look even more pathetic. You will not fix your marriage in this way, and you won't get results by nagging him because he knows your words are empty. If the intact family scenario is what's the most important to you, then stay at all costs. But don't kid yourself into thinking that staying under these conditions is not as 'costly' to you and your kids as divorce would be. This. A woman who can't stand up for herself in this kind of situation screams for others to take advantage of her. OP, you have the evidence, you told the OW's husband, and now you have to confront your husband. Don't let him turn the tables on you when he's the one in the wrong. You have a right to say what's on your mind and if he's not willing to comply, you kick his ass out of the house.
jj33 Posted August 26, 2010 Posted August 26, 2010 Ahell in your first post you said you could live without him but you dont want your kids to go through this. You must be in shock right now and not want to believe its true. You probably also want to believe that he will see reason and not want to break up the family either. The thing is hes using what the other posters were so direct with - he sees that he has the power to do as he chooses because he doesnt think there will be any consequences for him. As Angel said you have to take a deep breath and think about this. But I would see a divorce lawyer first. Discreetly. Talking to someone doesnt mean you have to take action. It means that you know where you stand under the laws of your state. Im sure your H loves you but it sounds like he loves himself more or he wouldnt be acting this way. Do you have family or close friends you can discuss this with? Signing up for a life of looking the other way is not pleasant. It eats away at your self esteem.
Recommended Posts