My wife and I have been together (dating included) for 20 years, there was never a doubt in my mind about trust. Then in September 07 she went to a school in another state to take a 5 month course she needed for a job she was trying to get. She had to live in a dorm at the school because the school is 1300 miles away.

Our 11 year old son and I would talk to her several times a day, but as time went on she would be in more of a rush to get off the phone saying she needed to study, which seemed logical to me. As more time passed the calls from her stopped, but I would still call her. Then the day before Thanksgiving I could not get her on her cell phone and she would not answer the phone when I had her paged at the dorm. I finally got her on the phone at 9pm Thanksgiving day; she was very nasty to me, cursed at me and hung up. I couldn't get her on the phone again until Saturday and again she was very rude and told me her cell phone wasn't working. I new something was wrong because she never acted like this toward me before; we were always respectful to each other. So I called her cell phone and checked her messages. It was painfully enlightening.

So then I checked credit card bills, cell phone records, etc. and found out she was doing a lot more than studying. To shorten up this long winded tale, she flunked out of the course in early December and it took til January to get her to admit what she had done. The reason she finally came out and said the words was all the proof I had compiled.

My heart is shattered, but all the details are not here and I know I still love her.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

Dear Reil64,

Welcome. I am so sorry that you find yourself here, through no cause of your own. Your confusion is very understandable. We have all stood in your shoes and have known the heartbreaking, gutwrenching agony of betrayal. Many of us have the experience of an historically good marriage prior to the shock of infidelity. It makes one question if we truly ever knew our spouse at all. Was the past a lie? Did I do something wrong? What happened and when do I get my old life back?

The specifics of your story are, of course, unique. But I know others here whose spouses were away for extended periods of time, during which, an affair or affairs happened. My H began traveling more and more for business. I creditted that with the promotions he was getting - - not that he had a relationship with someone else that he was fostering. It took me scrounging through bank accounts, cell phone records and credit card statements to really delve into the depths of the hell my H had chosen. Like you, despite everything in black and white, I still loved him. We've been dealing with our own recovery and reconciliation for the past 19 months and are healing. I can look at him today and say I love him...despite the skeletons (and monsters and demons) I know he had in the closet, but its a tough road.

You're a few months into all this ..."crap". What's happened since the news broke? I'm wondering if your wife is remorseful? Is she back home? Have you or she gotten any individual counseling or joint counseling? Has she been able to give you any reasons why she did this?

Whether you are still together or not, the first year is about survival. So, I'm hoping that you've been able to find a way to still eat, sleep and take care of yourself and your son. Emotional trauma can be devestating, and just as with a physical impact to your body, you will need time to heal. But you will come out on the other side of this.

There is a lot to learn. There are some excellent resources listed in the "Helpful Links" section of this website. I know my personal survival had a lot to do with the support and advice I received from the community here at Healing Hearts. I want to commend you on being brave and posting. It took me a long time to garner the strength to do that. I'd take it as a positive sign that you've taken this first step of posting here.

Again, welcome. You are in a safe place with people who truly "get it". BlueIris



"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

I am still in love with my H who cheated on me. He started adding travel to his agenda for work and I became suspicious because he had worked very hard to set himself up not to travel for work. I tracked down enough information and asked enough questions to force him to confess. It has been 11 months since I found out.

I had hoped to be resolved with the issue within 3 months but I see that it will still haunt me for at least another year if not more.

It is heart shattering, but the heart is amazingly resilient. Your wife will also have a long hard road and battle ahead of her. At times, if you both choose the road of recovery, you will find that you will have to support her, though it was she that betrayed you. It's a difficult place to be, but it builds character by the tons.

One thing you should know is that this may be an exit affair and she may conclude her relationship with you. She may be confused and not sure what she wants to do. You may be confused and unsure about what you want to do. It can be very frustrating to be ahead of your wayward spouse on this curve. You may decide to forgive her and work on recovery and she may sit on the fence. And, that will hurt too, the waiting when you are ready to forgive such a horrible betrayal.

There are many people here with many different experiences that can offer advice, an ear when you need to vent, an e-shoulder to cry on.

If you need to know that there is hope for recovery, there is.

Welcome. So sorry you have found yourself but glad that you have found us.
There seems to be something about travelling/being away from home that allows A's to happen...think it just adds to the fantasy of a different life.
My H's A started on a business trip with someone that worked for him and then continued when he came home.
It is possible to recover from this life-shattering experience. We are well on our way and yes, our M is better than before but the price was huge.
You should read everything you can about A's - books, websites and hopefully, your W will to.
And, I strongly recommend IC for both of you. It has helped us and many here enormously. You have been through a trauma and probably need help to deal with it.
How are you?

Thank you all.

So far, this has been the emotional roller coaster ride from hell.

I was wounded years ago while I was in the Army and just had shoulder surgery in October, but no physical pain I have experienced in my life compares to this.

After I confronted my wife with all the evidence, she agreed to see a counselor. We go individually and sometimes together. She was drinking and taking medication while she was away, so she is constantly saying she doesn’t remember when she is asked a difficult question. She acts like I should just get over it and yesterday when I was waiting for her at the therapists, he asked me to come in the office and said, why are you still talking about this, when you have strong emotions you need to act as if everything is fine. Fake it til you make it. That seemed strange to me, but I have never been though anything like this before and I don't know anyone who has.

This is like a bad dream.

"why are you still talking about this, when you have strong emotions you need to act as if everything is fine"

This therapist obviously does not have any experience with affairs. You need to run, not walk to another therapist. I tried 3 different therapists, the third was the charm. An affair is something that needs to be brought out into the light. It should not be swept under the carpet. If not dealt with history is doomed to repeat itself.

I wish you and your wife all the best in your recovery. But PLEASE get another counselor.

Lisa

I am SHOCKED by what the therapist said. Maybe you should bring him a few books about adultery or send him to a few websites. What he said seems like the exact opposite of what therapy should be - it's a place to deal with issues not bury them. I agree with the others -find someone else.

I can relate to WS having drinking issues. My H is an alcoholic though it has been 3 years since he has had a drink (since one week post D Day). He also said that he can't remember a lot and knowing what I now know about alcoholism, I can understand that many details are lost. He does, however, remember a lot and it has been critical to our recovery that he shared what he could. My H was often a blackout drinker and then, nothing is remembered, even the next day.

For his recovery, my H went to a specialized addictions counselor. One of the other important things that I have learned is that alcoholics are often overcome by shame and rubbing their face in more shame is not going to help them get sober. So, it was a bit of a fine line between talking about it and helping my H regain his dignity. Over time, however, as he conquered his addiction, he was able to share more.

But NEVER did anyone suggest that I stuff my feelings. In MC, I was encouraged to express them in a constructive way and even in meetings with H's addiction counselor, my pain was acknowledged. He did, however, help me understand my H's sickness and tried to steer me away from further punishing my H. That was very, very difficult for me. Maybe that is what your IC was trying to say, though it was expressed in a very destructive way.

Reli:

Welcome to the site. I hope you find it helpful.

I can't tell you what your wife knows or doesn't know, but I can tell you about my experience. My wife often said the didn't remember details about the affair. Sometimes that was hard to accept because my wife has a very good memory for certain things, but even though she has a good memory, she doesn't usually remember the details of a conversation very accurately. So, when she'd tell me she didn't remember I often felt that she didn't want to remember, but I decided that she probably didn't remember when I'd think about how her memory works. In addtion, she'd tell me "it's too hard", or "I can't do this" if the questions were too probing. She'd also cry.

Since my wife communicated with the OM using email, I had copies of a lot of their emails, but they were not in order and because they were just text copies, I couldn't use the email program to re-order them. I had done anything about getting them in order because I felt that my wife would tell me everything that they contained anyway. After a couple of years of dealing with my wife's deflections I finally put them in order. When they showed a different picture of the affair than the one she'd been painting, things started changing. First of all, my wife admitted that she had lied or minimized the truth in certain critcal places of her account of the affair. She also told me that she had got to the point where the lies had become the truth, although she was aware that the whole truth had not been told.

Bottom line, is that I believe most peole would use whatever means they can to avoid being totally honest about something like an affair. They do it not only to control the damage to their marriages, but I think they also do it to avoid facing the truth about themselves. That would include using third parties who attempt to convince the betrayed party to ask fewer questions.

It's possible that your wife is using similar techniques.

That said, I can attest that the more you know, the more you will have that can trigger you and that you will knowingly need to forgive. In my case, I thought that was better than having to forgive unknown things, and to have everything trigger me as a potential shared experience between my wife and her OM. Either way, I believe you have a right to choose how much to know, and that your wife, in a spirit of healing and desire to reconcile the marriage, should be willing to give you any answers you seek.

There are counselors who believe differently. I believe a list of counselors who support full disclosure can be found at www.dearpeggy.com

TomJ

From the emails I read and phone conversations I heard, I know she was more involvled than she claims and remembers more than she is saying. I'm sure this is hard for her to talk about, but I need to know why this happened.

Thank you all for your support!

Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side.

"...your wife, in a spirit of healing and desire to reconcile the marriage, should be willing to give you any answers you seek."

Tom, this is a beautiful phrase about what true remorse looks like. It can take a while for a WS to come to that place of accepting responsibility for what they've done and truly desiring within themselves to move heaven and earth to heal the marriage, but I believe its crucial to the process. Many WS say they want the marriage to work, but then make up tons of excuses why they aren't willing to do this or that, or they complain about how hard it is, or they don't want to shoulder 100% of the recovery process. I can't remember who said it or where I read it, but Marriage isn't a 50/50 proposition; its a 100/100. That notion makes a lot of sense to me. If I only gave enough effort to get by on any project, how could I look at that project as "successful"?

BlueIris


"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

((((((((((((((((((((((Reil))))))))))))))))))

Your last sentence in the most recent post brought tears to my eyes. I vividly remember wanting physically to run out of my body to get away from the pain. The memory of that feeling is as clear today as it was when it was happening.

The pain is very raw right now, and there's still so much unknown that looms like storm clouds, so I don't know if what I'm going to say will make sense. What worked for me was to hold the pain. Don't try to run from it. I know it sounds kind of artsy-fartsy, but I needed to embrace myself and my pain the same way I would embrace my son if he were in agony. Though the process takes a long time, I think this helped me validate my pain and accept it. Its a logical feeling considering all an infidelity survivor goes through. There were times that pain had to be expressed out loud to my H. There were times it was just mine.

In the meantime, the other things you can do to help yourself have to do with taking care of yourself: vitamins, exercise (just walk around the block if you can), eating right (just eating if you can!). If you're having trouble sleeping, that should be addressed because your body and mind need the rest.

I'll ponder this some more and see if I can recall anything else that helped. I'm sure others will have suggestions about what worked for them, i.e., IC, journaling, reading books on recovery and infidelity, posting here. I wish there was more I could offer from cyberspace. BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Reil,

Welcome to HH. I'm sure you never thought about needing cyberspace therapy, but I will tell you, for me, it's been a godsend.

As Blue Iris referred to your line, "Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side," so will I. I hurt inside just reading your words and remembering that sharp pain that nothing can ease...that pain that is by your side day and night - awake or asleep. The pain intensifies with daily triggers that you can't escape. It's as if everyone can see the gaping hole in your heart.

Reil, you will not be able to run from it. Ever. My advice, quit even trying. Flood yourself with pain, memories, with every pore in your being. Don't fight it. Eventually, you must accept it, no matter what happens with your marriage. You still must accept the events, and the pain they bring.

But there is hope. Lots of it. So many of us here once cried, and melted, and felt like you do now. We can still feel the pain but it comes less often with time. Now you are on the roller-coaster ride of a BS - at its lowest point on the ride. But it will go back up. You will look at the blue sky, hear the birds sing, and watch the sunset without pain again.

While you recognize that you are in the worst pain ever, you must take care of yourself. Can you laugh? Can you cry? Feel all the emotions and let them emerge. Then you'll know you're still sane in one damnable awful point in your life. And not because anything you did...but for someone you love. You said this betrayal hurts worse than your shoulder - oh, yes. And as your shoulder healed, so will you. Give it time, Reil. You can't rush it.




Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ

Wow, I was afraid to start talking here, but there are so many kind and helpful people here.

This has brought back so many trust issues I have had in my life, from abusive parents to two different girls who where inappropriate with me when they babysat me when I was young. My wife was the one person in my life that I thought I could count on no matter what was happening. There was never a fraction of a doubt.


Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side.

First, let me say, I am so sorry to hear about the pain of your past. It seems to be a common experience for so many of us.

I understand what you mean, Reil. My father was emotionally abusive and I wound up in a number of abusive relationships. When I met my H, I felt like I had finally found that rock, that safe harbor, the person who would never hurt me. This situation really put me in a tailspin. I suppose the "good news" is that in being forced to work through the trauma of my marriage, I've had to also work through the trauma of my childhood. In other words, the pain I had originally pushed under the carpet and ran from in my life is currently in the process of being dealt with. H is having to do the same thing with our M and with his childhood. In the end, we will be two healthier adults more able to have a truly health marriage. Its a heckuva lot of work, but both of us are feeling a wholeness that we never really knew existed.

(Still have MAJOR concerns about safety and trust with my H - - so much so I can't in good conscience list him in our Trust as someone I'd want to make medical decisions for me if I became incapacitated: Very horrible feeling for both of us.)

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Do you need to chat?

Chris

“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”

Hello reil64

So sorry for your pain. If your wife left in September and was gone for five months, you must still be in the first stages of discovering the details of the A. Even after 14 months from D-Day for me, the pain, anger, and wondering of "why" are still very much there. You are on a rollercoaster and these feelings are still very fresh.

I think you need to find another IC. What kind of IC would tell you to act like everything is fine!! Everything is not fine -- that's why you are there. You should ask the IC how many cases of infidelity he/she has dealt with. I also think you need to find another IC. This one does not sound too competent to me.

It will take time for things to calm down for you but things will get better whether you stay with your wife or not. Keep yourself healthy and take one breath at a time. You will get through this and we at HH are here to support you.

Thoughts with you,
Nycolette

BlueIris,

Thank you for all of your messages, you are very kind.

That is something I never thought of, I don't like to think that my wife would do me any physical harm, but I guess I don't know as much about her as I thought.

I hope you and your husband will get to a place where your relationship is so strong that no one can damage it again.

Chris,

Thank you, sorry I didn't see your message last night.

Nycolette,

I think you and the others that have said that are right, my independent counselor didn’t say that, it was the one my wife sees by herself and we see together sometimes. To me it was not the right thing to say and you all have confirmed that.

I am starting to eat again and I walk a lot, I’m sure I will start sleeping normally again at some point.

Reil

Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side.

Reil,

Just want to add my welcome to Healing Hearts.

I was happy to read that you are eating and exercising...that helps so much with the endorphins in your brain...the natural feel better drug.

I also agree that the IC your wife uses is not a good IC..

Keep posting we are all here for you..

Take care,

Pat

"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

Thank you all,

Your words are very helpful to me. I took my son camping with his Boy Scout Troop yesterday and we went on a long hike this morning, so I was able to fill my mind with teaching the boys camping skills and get rid of the bad thoughts, atleast for a while.

Reil

Where do I take this pain of mine, I run but it stays right by my side.

This sucks!

It would be less painful to get hit by a truck.

Where do I take this pain of mine.

Last Sunday was d-day 3 for me...so sorry to be late in welcoming you. I agree...You need a new therapist. I am so sorry for your pain...and yep...it does SUCK!

~ CAL
"You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection" ~ Buddha