Guest Posted July 11, 2006 Posted July 11, 2006 Hey all, stumbled upon this site and it seems many of us have th same thing incommon. 1 1/2 months ago my wife brokedown in tears and admitted to having a year long affair with another married man. She and I have been together 10 years 9 0f which we have been married. She was never the one to show affection and made me not even want to come home from work. She got caught having cyber sex in 2001 and sending an e-card to a man telling him he loved her. He lived some god awful distance away. I was patient and told her how i felt about this type of stuff and she seemed remorseful. As time went on, we stopped "talking" and wanting to spend time with each other. Probably me more so than her. When she started the affair we rarely did anything together and she was just starting college for nursing. I supported her nursing endeavors completely and would make sure i came home to keep the kids and make sure they were fed and so forth. This guy we both know began calling her at work and soon after she was goin off with him before work at lunch and after work. I noticed as time went on, after tehy had been together 4 months, she began to drink alot, claim to go to her friends house and would come in sloshed. Many of these nights she would go straight to bed. She began to get very ill and hateful acting towards me and the kids. Yes we still had sex 1 - 3 times a week but that got to where it was just an act. No emotion involved and soon she cut me off completely from providing her oral stimulation. A light went of and I knew something was bad wrong but could not put my finger on it. As time went on it all got worse. She was having trouble with all her co-workers and was always snappy and hateful to me. In return i started treating her with kindness. I began doin all the house work, taking care of the kids full time and trying to spend my spare time with her or talking to her. On the first weekend of May or the last weekend of April i found us a baby sitter and we went dancing. She never asked me to dance and while we were with 3 other girls, i took the opportunity to dance with them. Upon leaving the place she informed me that she wanted a divorce. I went off. We got back to the house and for 2 hours straight i vented about how she has treated her family, never there and did not ewnat to be apart of the family. She laid there curled up in a ball squalling the whole time. this is what sanpped her out of her affair. even though i did not know about it. On May 28 during my daughters 12th birthday party i found another cell phone in her pocket book. It is what she used to call him on. I had it in my possesion for about 3 mins when she realized it was gone and began frantically pacing the house and even stopped talking to the guest. After they were gone we both laid on the bed and she began to cry. I asked her how long have u been seeing him and she said about a year. I was crushed and so was some of the sheetrock in the bedroom. After asking her how could she do this to me and a few other questions, I never raised my voice and looked at her and told her i forgave her. We have talked more since then than we ever have, she is a completely different person. She is always affectionate now, she calls me 5 times a day and often we are both on a messenger service on our computers so we get to chit chat all day while we both work. She is home everynight, she drinks very little and seems to be the happiest I have ever seen her. Al of her relationships at work are much better. Now as we grew apart several years ago, i was home but always on the computer and did not offer her the emotional support and physical support she needed. No i am not taking blame for her decsion to be with someone else, but my inactions did push her away. I do accept that. She told me that she had seen a lot of changes in me over that time period she was with him. The guilt of the horrible thing she had done to me and her family is what she says made her end it with him. ( he left his wife 3 months before she told me about it). She says she honestly believed that i did not love her and that she would try to use anything she could to justify to herself that what she was doing was "ok". She has cried and cried over it, more so than me. she has told me over an dover that she would never ever hurt me like that again and she hates herself for the pain she has brought me. And tells me that they used each other, she doesnt and never did love him. And that brings me to my question that has been posed here before. In your honest opinion, do you think she would do it again ? Myself no I dont, but i have the pain to deal with for a long time. I am happier now with our relationship and our family than i think i ever have been and she seems a changed person. Will she stay changed ? I am changed, I helped contribute to the almost failing of my own marriage. I hope this post can help someone. Spend time with each other and truly talk and listen. If you stop that you are heading towards disaster. ( sorry for teh small book )
jmargel Posted July 12, 2006 Posted July 12, 2006 I really hope you create an account because you will get alot of responses. I believe you two need marriage counseling along with individual counseling for her. It could only help you two grow stronger together. As for her cheating yes it could happen, but will it? The chances of it happening again are alot slimmer if you goto MC. She hasn't dealt with "her" problems on why she truly did this. She has lied to you for a year and personally I believe you are forgiving her way too fast. Trust is earned and she needs to earn that again. By just giving her a slap on the wrist is an unspoken way that you have and possibliy will tolerate such awful behavior again. You need to set clear-defined boundaries with her. Even if it's obvious in your head that her cheating again would bring a divorice that's something you need to state VERY clearly to her. Continue enjoying each other & give what you can, however she needs to take a active role in fixing what she has damaged as well. MC is the first place to start.
DRB Posted July 12, 2006 Posted July 12, 2006 I agree with you completely. And it does look like a slap on the wrist. But she knows what will happen if I ever even susp[ect it again. I do agree that she does need to see a marriage counselor on an individual basis and both of us together. She is scared that us both going to a marriage counselor will bring back a lot of my anger and resentment. Maybe, but in the long run I agree it will help. As far as trust goes, she now either has her best friend with her, or one of the kids if not me if she goes anywhere. She goes straight to work and comes straight home. And she had said some time ago it was hard not talking to him because they did talk so much. But she cut it off clean and told him that she was telling me. But i guess that has nothing to do with future occurences. We did go to the marriage builders site and 2 others. A lot of that stuff was very insightful. Her biggest problem to date, is getting past the guilt and pain she has caused everyone. Hopefully the counseling will help her with that. for myself, i hope counseling can do something. I go in cycles like everyone else in this postion. One day angry about it, another day I'm happy. And as time goes on there are less angry days. But it doesnt mean that it does not stay on the top of my mind. I apologize for not registering and should have taken the 2 mins it takes to do so. thanks for any responses and insight.
MsPiggy Posted July 20, 2006 Posted July 20, 2006 I feel she can and has changed for the better permanently. She seems like she is sorry for what's she's done and has come clean which is hard enough, and made an effort to change. I don't see why she'd want to screw that up or go thru the experience again. I feel you did the right thing, whether it be a "slap on the wrist" or not. She's sorry and sees what she did was unacceptable and hurtful to herself and her family. I can definitely see this as being the turning point your relationship needed to head down a successful, happy path. The circumstances are unfortunate but that's life. This seems like this saying applies to your situation. In every bad, a good comes out. (something like that) Good luck on your new love/marriage!!!
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