Radar710 Posted April 16, 2012 Posted April 16, 2012 So a few months ago while i was at military drill, an old friend of mine from high school contacted me. we text messaged each other, then things took a real turn, she sent me some pictures of her naked i kind of just laughed about it and said whatever. well the pictures kept coming. her and i had talked about a relationship a long time ago, we never did anything, she moved away and life went on, she got married and so did i. my feelings i had for this girl were very brief and happened 6 years ago. nothing had ever happened between the two of us. i told her that although i am flattered that she still has feelings for me and that she felt comfortable enough to send me those pictures that they had to stop. we did continue to speak just catching up on things that had happened in our lives since we parted ways. she said that she respected the fact that i love my wife and that i am loving having a new family. our conversation had stayed as friends only to me. a week after she had sent me those pictures i had to run to my work real quick came back and my wife was pissed at me yelling about how we are over. i was shocked kinda like wtf. well my phone had recieved a text message while i was gone and my wife looked at it. she went through my phone which was a smart phone, now i had never deleted those pictures i just kinda shrugged them off and never looked at them just forgot all about them. now my wife belives that i am cheating on her with this girl while i am at drill weekends. this girl lives in another state. i told my wife when this other girl contacted me, i told her we caught up on some of the things that have happened in our lives since she moved to the other side of the country. when my wife found the pictures i offered to show her all the text mesages instead she broke my phone. things are still rocky at our house but are getting a little better. Here is my question, how do i show her that i do love her, that nothing had or never will happen. how do i regain her trust for some thing that never happened. My wife does have some room to be concerned. I deployed over to Iraq and Afghanistan in the past past three years, i was wounded in Afghanistan. she told me that since i left that i am not the same person. I am in desperate need of some advice. any help please!!!!!!!
turnera Posted April 16, 2012 Posted April 16, 2012 First, are you getting therapy for your issues with deployment? That will help a lot. And thank you for serving, by the way. Second, you can make a renewed effort to improve your marriage. Get the book His Needs Her Needs by Harley, and see if she'll read it with you. It has some amazing insights into making a great marriage. Third, listen to her. Men usually have trouble with just listening to women, but that's usually one of women's top Emotional Needs; just listening, not trying to fix their problems. Ask her to tell you everything, that you want to understand how she felt finding those pictures, stuff like that.
frozensprouts Posted April 16, 2012 Posted April 16, 2012 (please forgive me if I am making suggestions that include things you have already done ) (1) i know a lot of guys/women who went over come back "changed"...I've seen it myself, and many don't even realize they have. Do you feel you may have some issues with PTSD? If so, please get help. To quote what a friend of mine told her husband " you have PTSD...anyone having been through what you did would be ...you aren't "broken", you are human" (2) put yourself in your wife's place. deployments can be really hard for a spouse, even one who handles it well and who has lot of "rear party" support...is it possible she has any unresolved issues from your deployment? many spouses feel resentful, then they feel extreme guilt for feeling that resentment. This can come out later as anger. (3) Your spouse found naked pictures of a "real" person on your phone.If I were in her place, i think I'd be angry too. This doesn't mean you did anything wrong, in fact, it sounds like you did the right thing, and told this other woman that you aren't interested in her in that way. But from your wife's point of view, any contact with you this other woman is unacceptable. look at it this way...if your wife got naked pictures sent to her form some guy, would you be okay with it, with her continuing to "just be friends " with him? ( again, i'm not saying you have done anything wrong, but from your wife's point of view, this friendship is probably not okay.) (4) I would highly suggest ( if you haven't already done so) going away with your wife on a vacation somewhere, just the two of you, if you can. It would be a great chance to reconnect and make up for lost time. (5) it's okay to talk with your wife about the things you saw and did while you were deployed. Even the bad stuff. I know a lot of guys coming back don't talk to anyone about it, and it's never a good thing to keep it all inside where it eats away at you. (6) there are online resources available to help you. the ones i know are mostly Canadian, but the thought behind the information is true no matter which country you served with ( maybe you were in Afghanistan when my husband was...he was with the IASF based out of KAF and was tasked to many different FOBs ( canadian and others) while he was there). If you are interested, use MFRC or CFPSA as your search term...there's lots of information and links that can help you hope you guys are able to work this out, and I wish you lots of luck
heartinlove Posted April 16, 2012 Posted April 16, 2012 If your smartphone is broken all the data can still be retrieved. Just go to your phones provider and ask to transfer the data to your computer. That way you can show her all the exchanges. 2
Radu Posted April 16, 2012 Posted April 16, 2012 If the memory is not destroyed you can do that too if you find someone who knows his way around one. However, there will always be some lingering doubt in her mind, and you need to understand that when you said 'stop' it was not a full stop or a real stop. You just (foolishly) continued to exchange mails with this girl. I mean seriously ... she sends you nude pictures and you consider her a friend ? You need to find out why did you enjoy the attention, you certainly are not completely innocent in all of this. 2
Ninja'sHusband Posted April 17, 2012 Posted April 17, 2012 Yeah I kinda agree with Radu. You should have told you W about those pictures immediately. It would have been scary, but it could have prevented the disaster somewhat. Maybe apologize for not coming to her immediately? I also think getting some kinda data recovery might be good. If you can get what you need of undamaged disks, that's the cheapest way. It'll be hard to convince your W that you aren't lying =\
turnera Posted April 18, 2012 Posted April 18, 2012 I said they should both read it together. So they can understand what a good marriage SHOULD look like. Rread the other book too, but if people don't know what they should be striving for, they'll never achieve it.
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