Wife of 9 years Cheated for last three years

[aliveagain]

I too have to ask, were you the other man in her last marriage?

[drifter777]

The dilemma is that if I move away then I will have to live with loosing the girl I loved so so very much.....If I try to reconcile then I have to live with the thoughts and nightmares every day...

Look, this is something early ever betrayed husband (BH) has to face. This fear goes beyond simply afraid to leave HER - it's being afraid to lose the life you have built with her and the end of everything about your marriage & family. It can be terrifying and I understand how you feel completely.

 

From my personal experience I'm telling you that you have come to an important fork-in-the-road. The path you choose will affect your life much more than you realize. Now, one path is very familiar and by far the most tempting. In your bewildered state of shock right now, your mind will fill you with denial - you just want your old life back and are willing to believe that time will heal this wound and all this will be forgotten. The other path is fraught with the unknown. "Who will love me if I leave? What will happen to my son - how would a divorce affect his life? How long will I be alone for?" I hope you can see that all of these questions are based in fear. The question you face right now is will you really be able to live with a cheating wife who brought her affair partner into your home and screwed him in your bed. Your bed. This is something you have to think about realistically and you really can't do this right now while you are still in this stunned, vulnerable emotional state.

 

I strongly recommend that you pack a bag and leave for the time it takes you to think about all of this. Many of the answers to all of your questions will become much more clear within a couple of weeks. Find a counselor for yourself and start seeing him/her ASAP. Read about infidelity and how painful it is and, most importantly, how long it will take. It could be years this drama filled with painful mind-movies of him & her in your bed. There are also lots of other "truths" about this that will come leaking out as you press her for details that you need to hear. As sure as you are reading this, she is still lying to you about everything. Take an inventory and you'll see that she's only admitted to the things she thinks that you already know either from your own investigation or her FB's wife. This is simply how it works. The WW will almost never tell you anything that you can't prove. And she will withhold things from you - read lie to you - about some particularly nasty things in order to "protect you".

 

The bottom line here is you must stop being a victim to even begin regaining your self-respect. You need to call the shots on how things are going to work from here on and walking out the door is a great first step. You need time for you.

 

Don't know how long it takes to overcome the hurt and to forget and forgive...

[harrybrown]

I hope you wake up and file for D.

 

She does not respect you. She has not stopped having contact with the OM.

 

Have her prove to you that she has gone NC with the OM.

 

Have you had her tested for stds?

 

Start respecting yourself. She does not respect you that there are no consequences for cheating for 3 years. She loves him and does not love you.

 

Go see your attorney and file for D. Will she sign an agreement that if you D, she pays you alimony and child support?

 

You should file and have her go to her POSOM.

 

She does not respect or love you. You need to see a counselor, your attorney or make contact with affair recovery online.

 

Good luck to you. She is walking all over you.

[Clay]

I know you feel like your loosing. Your wrong about this. You already lost. It happened three years ago your just learning of it now and experiencing the negative effects of it. If you walked away today you could hold your head up high knowing you were not the one that ended the marriage. Its on her. If you stay you will suffer for at least the next five years of your life not to mention wondering if she will ever do it again.

 

There is no way I would do it. I would divorce her as fast as I possibly could.

[Try]

I cant understand how anyone can love two people at the same time.

 

 

She still praises him for his intelligence and support as a friend but is saying that she wants to forget all he past three years and focus on her thriving career as she is also doing well in her career.

 

 

They had discussed in details that they would leave their respective partners and would live together. Not so easy as families are involved and she cant fathom telling her son.

She is admits that she is in love with him, she still praises him, and was discussing in detail with him how she was going to leave you for him. The main thing that stopped it was she could not "fathom telling her son". Add to this the fact that she is not remorseful and expects you to let her rug sweep it as she forgets "all the past three years and focus on her thriving career", and you have someone that does not really care about you. Notice she did not even say that she wants to forget about the affair to focus on your your marriage, but instead she wants for focus on her career? Because in her mind it is still all about her as you do really not matter. She married you because her son needed a father, not because she is attracted to you. You do not have a real husband and wife love story going on there. There is no loving reality in her feelings toward you. You are not in love with her as she really is. You are in love with the idea of her as you would like her to be. When her son moves out of the home, so will she.

 

Do not suffer with dealing with the affair for the next few years only to suffer again when she eventually leaves you when she no longer needs you to help her raise her son. There is a women out there that would wake up everyday thanking God that she has you in her life. That woman is not your wife. The sooner that you dump your cheating wife, the sooner that you can go find out what it is like to be married to someone that really loves you.

Edited September 16, 2016 by Try

[Cephalopod]

Hi I would like to thanks you all for taking time to write and share your wisdom.

 

 

I would also like to share some clarifications.

 

 

They changed jobs two years ago but still continued to meet and even travel outstation on pretext of work related travel and stayed in same hotel room. He took up a job in far south but my wife had to travel to the same city and met up with him.

 

Has she ever put this much time, effort and money into doing special things for you or being the kind of wife you hoped she would be? How much more of her time and money did she spend on him than you? Ask her that.

 

 

My W has been sharing details and answering questions that I come up with but goes all fuzzy for any other detail.

 

Stonewalling, sandbagging, trickle-truthing....call it what you will. It is all a form of lying.

 

 

She had been very caring and loving wife and mother even through the A and I cant understand how anyone can love two people at the same time.

 

It is called compartmentalization. Cheaters are masters at it. Very common trait.

 

You are there to supply money, friendship, child-care, babysitting, auto-repair, house repair, jar opening and to yell at when things don't go her way.

 

The OM is her lover, confidante, ****toy and fantasy man.

 

She still praises him for his intelligence and support as a friend but is saying that she wants to forget all he past three years and focus on her thriving career as she is also doing well in her career.

Yeah...he's such a wonderful guy. He picks a married woman to cheat with, destroys a marriage, messes with her son's stability, defiles another man's home...why do we need to tell you this? You know this and you should be shooting her down every time she brings this up.

 

 

They had discussed in details that they would leave their respective partners and would live together. Not so easy as families are involved and she cant fathom telling her son.

 

Oh...and NOW she want's to stay with you and be yours forever? Yeah...right...

 

 

She is consistently saying that she wants to work on our relationship and marriage and making it work better.

 

 

Why wasn't she saying that BEFORE she started cheating? She doesn't care about the marriage.

 

 

We had worked very hard during the last 9 years to re build our lives after our previous divorces and it can all fall apart.

 

No, YOU worked hard. She rode your wave and has reaped the financial benefits of screwing you over. This woman has defrauded you for the last three years.

 

The dilemma is that if I move away then I will have to live with loosing the girl I loved so so very much.....If I try to reconcile then I have to live with the thoughts and nightmares every day...Don't know how long it takes to overcome the hurt and to forget and forgive...

Yeah, except she does not love you. Oh she probably likes you as a friend and tolerates you sexually. But she really only loves the lifestyle and childcare you provide. Face it mate...you got hosed.

 

 

 

OP, you need to drop this woman. I mean...there is no marriage here to be saved. Your life for the last three years has been a lie.

[harrybrown]

Has she written you a timeline of the A?

 

is she paying for a lie detector test?

 

has she signed a post nupt agreement in your favor?

 

Has she told you why and how she could disrespect you so badly and so much?

 

She did not confess even when confronted. How many more A's had she had behind your back? did she do things for him that she never did for you?

Probably had a threesome and other acts.

 

Hope you have your running shoes on. Or put them on her and tell her to go to her lover.

[Friskyone4u]

Aus,

 

The fact that she is still praising him means this affair is NOT over. It appears she is still going to travel to where he is and so far she has basically told you that if it was not for the kids she would leave you for him.

 

If she is travelling and he is too without a polygraph test you are never going to feel safe.

 

Stop tryin g to figure out how she did this to you. Understand, she did it because she wanted to, it was fun, and she never thought she would Getty caught. Until you accept that, you will not heal chasing some bull **** as to why she did it.

 

The fact that her career is going great would indicate to you she will not stop travelling which means you stay in limbo wondering for years. So unless you want to be in CIA mode and wonder everytime she packs a suitcase, you need to divorce her. There is NOTHING you have written that shows she wants to do anything T but lull you to sleep and maintain some sort of contact with him.

 

And understand this, some women can compartmentalize an affair and lead the two lives, which you wife obviously could. Others are so guilty they find all sorts of fault with their husbands in order to justify what they did. Your wife's type is the hardest to detect.

 

The absolute worst thing you can do is tell her what you have told us and that is how badly you want to "fix" this. You are looking at years, not months, and that is with two people busting their asses towards the same goal.

 

You have a wife that right now is sorry for ONE thing, and ONE thing only, and that is that she got caught.

 

If you are not very careful you will get whacked again.

[BettyDraper]

Hi I would like to thanks you all for taking time to write and share your wisdom.

 

 

I would also like to share some clarifications.

 

 

They changed jobs two years ago but still continued to meet and even travel outstation on pretext of work related travel and stayed in same hotel room. He took up a job in far south but my wife had to travel to the same city and met up with him.

 

 

My W has been sharing details and answering questions that I come up with but goes all fuzzy for any other detail.

 

 

She had been very caring and loving wife and mother even through the A and I cant understand how anyone can love two people at the same time.

 

 

She still praises him for his intelligence and support as a friend but is saying that she wants to forget all he past three years and focus on her thriving career as she is also doing well in her career.

 

 

They had discussed in details that they would leave their respective partners and would live together. Not so easy as families are involved and she cant fathom telling her son.

 

 

She is consistently saying that she wants to work on our relationship and marriage and making it work better.

 

 

We had worked very hard during the last 9 years to re build our lives after our previous divorces and it can all fall apart.

 

 

The dilemma is that if I move away then I will have to live with loosing the girl I loved so so very much.....If I try to reconcile then I have to live with the thoughts and nightmares every day...Don't know how long it takes to overcome the hurt and to forget and forgive...

 

Say whaaaaaaat?!

 

Your wife has been sleeping with another man for 3 years and she still praises him to your face?! She doesn't have any respect for you. At best, you are her safety net while she plans a new life with another man. You are too nice and accommodating. Women walk all over men who put up with ridiculous levels of disrespect.

 

You are in denial because you don't want to accept that your marriage is over. Caring wives do not have sex with other men....especially in the marital bed! Time to wake up and face facts, my dear. You lost "girl you love so much" the minute she decided to take up with another man right under your nose.

 

Seek individual counseling and go see a lawyer.

[bubbaganoosh]

 

She still praises him for his intelligence and support as a friend but is saying that she wants to forget all he past three years and focus on her thriving career as she is also doing well in her career.

 

 

The dilemma is that if I move away then I will have to live with loosing the girl I loved so so very much.....If I try to reconcile then I have to live with the thoughts and nightmares every day...Don't know how long it takes to overcome the hurt and to forget and forgive...

 

What you have here is a woman who wants her cake and eat it too. If she wants to repair the marriage then praising this bum in front of you isn't helping by twisting the knife in your back.

 

As far a your dilemma, it comes down to this. Loving a woman who cheated through half the marriage and would have continued if for not getting caught only tell me that your giving a lot more then your getting. She's getting your love and support and your getting the shaft.

 

One other thing. If you want to stay, are you prepared to live out your days always looking over your shoulder wondering? If she where she says she is? Doing what she says she's doing? With who she says she's with and you taking her word that it's true.

 

To me that's the ingredients for a heart attack or a stroke. You can live without her and find another woman. It's been done before.

[WomenWubber]

I hope you get tested regularly if you take her back...

[aus_avi2000]

I too have to ask, were you the other man in her last marriage?

 

 

 

No I met her after few years of her divorce in first marriage

[aus_avi2000]

OM moving to a new location makes me ask does he still work for the same company or this a new employer?

 

Different companies.

[ShatteredLady]

I've said a few times that my H turned into Mr Alien when he was being unfaithful. He had to kick me into the gutter to justify doing what he knew was so wrong. Some call it rewriting marital history, cognitive dissonance, whatever!!

 

It's an indication of a feeling of guilt! BS say that they knew that something was really 'off' in their marriage while the affair was going on. Their H/W became very different people towards them.

 

After D-day 'humaine' spouses walk on broken glass to sooth their BS. Reality is crashing in on them. They DO NOT praise the OM/OW straight to the soul broken, devastated, lost & betrayed!!

 

I don't get her in anyway. It's all so cold.

[italianjob]

 

She still praises him for his intelligence and support as a friend but is saying that she wants to forget all he past three years and focus on her thriving career as she is also doing well in her career..

 

She has ZERO respect for you and she's in love with the other man. Do you have any self esteem left? By the way she's acting you shouldn't even be thinking about staying with her...

I bet she's trying to convince you that she should keep him as a friend, since he's such a fine man, so she can restart banging him as soon as you're not watching

 

 

We had worked very hard during the last 9 years to re build our lives after our previous divorces and it can all fall apart..

 

No, you've been working very hard at that for 9 years, at the very least in the last three years she wasn't. she was working at making it fall apart.

 

if I move away then I will have to live with loosing the girl I loved so so very much.....

If you were not watching... The news is the girl you loved so very much was either just an illusion in the first place or has been long gone (at least three years gone...)

 

if I try to reconcile then I have to live with the thoughts and nightmares every day...

Don't know how long it takes to overcome the hurt and to forget and forgive...

 

From the coldness and matter of fact attitude she has about this, I think it will take more or less forever... And I also think she will add a few brand new nightmares in the next few years.

 

Do yourself a favor, and get out of this "marriage"...

[Oberfeldwebel]

Affairs are like fungus they grow best in the shadows, but when they are exposed to the light of day, they can wither and die. I believe that most relationships can be fixed, it both parties work to work hard on the problems. In your case you want to forgive her and the relationship go back to normal. The problem is that the relationship was a lie, as she was having an affair and would have left you, if he had played his cards right.

 

Forgiveness is based on the premise that the offending party is contrite and does the work to fix the relationship. The way you describe her, she still has feelings for this person, there doesn't seem to be true remorse. She is probably sorry that she has hurt you, she may understand that he was just in it for the sex, but that is not true remorse for her actions.

 

I believe that this needs to be exposed to select friends and family. This should just be facts and not as a vindictive act. Counseling needs to address the affair as well as other issues in the marriage. The affair can be dealt with over time, counseling and commitment, but the question is will it happen again when the next Mr Exciting comes along. I have concerns about her commitment, given her comments about the other man. She needs to hand over all media and passwords for verification. Go slow and keep your eyes open.

[road]

Different companies.

 

 

Do those companies interact?

[road]

So what actions are you taking?

 

 

What is your goal, save marriage or divorce?

 

 

It is important that you get advice whatever you choose.

[MidnightBlue1980]

I've said a few times that my H turned into Mr Alien when he was being unfaithful. He had to kick me into the gutter to justify doing what he knew was so wrong. Some call it rewriting marital history, cognitive dissonance, whatever!!

 

It's an indication of a feeling of guilt! BS say that they knew that something was really 'off' in their marriage while the affair was going on. Their H/W became very different people towards them.

 

After D-day 'humaine' spouses walk on broken glass to sooth their BS. Reality is crashing in on them. They DO NOT praise the OM/OW straight to the soul broken, devastated, lost & betrayed!!

 

I don't get her in anyway. It's all so cold.

 

Not necessarily. The WS is still in the fog - this is more typical of a woman, who would fall in love with her AP, but sometimes men fall too. My H created a false identity for the OW to protect her from me and he praised her to me, as better than me.

 

But I agree that there is a difference between a "mid-life crisis A" like my H and myself each had, where it lasts under 6 months and crashes and burns, and a LTA where you are basically living two lives. I cannot imagine rebuilding under those circumstances because the WS would be so attached to the AP, it would take years and years to emotionally break free. The BS would never know if the WS was truly over them and honestly, they probably never would be. If you look at the other board, people are hung up for years on an A which ended long ago.

 

I also agree that to have the AP in your house and bed is pretty horrible. That is your private space. It is a sign of total disrespect.

[Bufo]

Not thread jack, but this is a prime example of why telling the other BS is a good thing to do. OP wouldn't have known but for OBS telling him.

[road]

Not thread jack, but this is a prime example of why telling the other BS is a good thing to do. OP wouldn't have known but for OBS telling him.

 

The truth is always the best. Without the truth this BH would not be able to take action to stop his WW and the OM abusing him.

[drifter777]

The comments regarding your wife & OM still working together - separate companies or not - have to do with trying to make contact between the two of them more difficult. Of course if they want to hook up there is nothing you can do about it, but if one or both of them is really trying to end their relationship than seeing each other in the course of business is a huge temptation. They have crossed a taboo boundary for years - years - so jumping back into your bed is not a huge leap. They were able to carry on these past two years even though he lived in the "far south". Keeping them from any contact at all is the only way they will detach from each other. I mean ZERO contact. Do it or be prepared to catch them again.

 

Every betrayed husband on here sees this through eyes that have been colored by our personal experiences. No one is trying to do anything but offer you comments and advice that they wish someone would have given them or the things we wish we would have done. We want to give you some tools that we believe would have helped us back during the post d-day period. The big one for me is physically getting away from her for a few weeks. I've said this before but I think it's important enough to mention again. Being on your own gives you time to consider all of this without her constant manipulation. Her tears are manipulation. Her sexing you up is manipulation. The things she is doing come natural to her and there is no way she can turn it off. She sees it as trying to "make things up to you" but it's way, way too early for this kind of thinking. The fact is she wants you thinking about nookie instead of her affair. This is a page straight from the cheaters handbook. She will do just about anything to distract you from this subject and doesn't want to answer questions or have you digging in to her answers. She doesn't want you to bring up anything about her OM and ground rules on her lifestyle going forward. She figures the sooner you drop all of this and move on the sooner she can get back to normal life. Whatever that is to her.

 

You busted her because the other man's wife busted him and was good enough to share the ugly story with you. Your wife's rationalization for not telling you will always be that she wanted to protect you from the pain you are now going through. It's very likely she is still lying about everything that you or OM's wife can't prove or don't already know. Again, to protect you. There is absolutely no reason for her to change her strategy about this because, clearly, it is working. She figures the hot sex and tears and assuring you how badly she wants to repair the marriage will save her marriage with you. You are her backup plan because you give her what she needs for the family life she wants. This OM gave her what she wanted in the sack. This truth - that you are her plan B - will never change and will eat away at your soul as long as you remain married to her. If you divorce her you are standing up and telling the world, and yourself, that you will NOT be anyone's plan B. You will not be the homemaker and family man for a woman who needs her sexual needs met by another man. This is really the only way to reclaim your manhood and repair your self-esteem and I urge you to get moving in this direction now rather than later. Pack and leave today. See how much better you feel after the first week. You will begin to detach from her and see things more realistically when you are away from her continual manipulation of your fragile emotional state.

 

Leave today.

Edited September 17, 2016 by drifter777

[Just a Guy]

Hi Aus, I have read through your entire thread and I cannot for the life of me imagine how you can still utter words to the effect that you will lose forever , the girl you love so dearly. Have you reflected at all on what you are saying? Do you really mean to say you love a woman who has been having sex with another man in YOUR home in YOUR bed for three years, all the while throwing dust in your eyes and giving you to understand that she loves you. While she was having her trysts with her lover you can bet your bottom dollar, she was running you down and laughing with her lover at the way the two of them were making a cuckold of you.

 

Now that her bubble has burst she wants to come back to you because she knows that you truly love her. However you do not love the woman she has become but an image of her which is not real but a fantasy. You have put her on a pedestal but the pedestal is broken and she has fallen off it. what you are seeing is just a dream. When you wake up, the pain hits you like a sledgehammer and you go dizzy. The fact is that the dream will soon evaporate forever and you will be left with the slimy reality of her enormous deception of you and the massive betrayak of trust. Without this trust you you will be building your house in the sand if you decide to reconcile with her and sooner rather than later your house will be washed away in a fresh episode of infidelity on her part. The choice is yours and the consequences will also be yours. Heed what Aliveagain has had to say. Sterling advice in my opinion. Warm wishes.

[Friskyone4u]

Aus,

 

In case you have not figured it out yet, a group of total strangers who all have gone through what you are experiencing have basically in different words agreed on a few things

(1) you wife either does not love you or does not want a monogamous relationship with you

(2) your wife has no problem lying to your face and betraying for you in the most disrespectful ways. Both in your home and on the road for three years

(3) with them both travelling there is NO WAY without a monthly polygraph that you have any chance to stop this, which her admiration for him indicates will not happen.

(4) you are wasting your time searching for answers that will take years to find out if ever. And she is not going to co operate.

 

Your choices

(1) divorce her

(2) accept an open marriage and eat the poop sandwich.

 

I see no in between here.

[aliveagain]

Here is what I know, your are strongest at the time of discovery/confrontation, they will agree to more to "save the marriage" then they might be inclined to do later when they have had time to think about it. Tell her in writing what you require from her in order to stay in the marriage. Examples:

 

.No contact ever with her affair partner(written and approved by you and sent to other man).

.Independent counselling to find out why she allowed this to happen.

Complete transparency, no hidden email/text accounts, all passwords.

.She get testing for all STD's(humiliation factor acts as a deterrent against future infidelities).

.Polygraph test to be done without notice anytime you deem suitable now or sometime in the future.

.She agree to a post nuptial agreement since vows don't mean much to her a financial consequence might(some will argue that they are hard to inforce but let her spend the huge money required to find out, it's a deterrent).

.Whatever else you need to feel safe.

 

She may not agree to some of your requirements but it is better to find out now then waste years in false reconciliation. The sooner you know where she really stands the sooner your recovery will start because she will ether agree with your terms or you will end your marriage now, no misunderstandings. The affair was probably longer and more intense then she is letting on and she clearly was the aggressor. She has to be really emotionally committed to him to defile your bed and your home. The fact that she still speaks fondly of him is disturbing, she just had the breaks imposed on her three plus year relationship with the married man she is in love with. It will take her a lot of time to get over him, just read in the Other Man/Other Woman Forum and you will see what I mean.

 

I still think a lot of your neighbours knew she was having an affair, his car would have been seen at your home regularly. Staying in a relationship with you because she doesn't want her son to find out is the wrong reason for staying. Read up on the "180" see if some of those behaviours will help you distance yourself while you decide your path. I just don't see the love here, just my opinion. Please talk to a lawyer. Having sex with her(assuming you can even touch her) may be viewed by some courts as a form of forgiveness.