I CAUGHT MY HUSBAND CHEATING ON ME FOR 8 MOS- I'M SO MESSED UP!!


My husband and I have been married for almost 8 yrs he is (or was I thought to be my soulmate) we were so in love when we got
married it all started about 2 yrs ago I was feeling the pressure of our finances and my husband has put at least 700 hours of
overtime in a yr he did that for 2 yrs in a row. We financially are getting worse our mortgage loan is at 10.5% its killing us it just
keep going up our payment is $1250.00 to live in a dinky house but it was his house before we got married he wants nothing to do with
selling it I try to tell him its just a house we can make a home anywhere. We should be paying about $800 to live here.
The last couple yrs we have had medical problems crop up I had surgery and lost alot of time at work so we have tons of medical bills
anyhow this has been bothering me alot the last couple yrs and I had lost all comprehension on what a good happy marriage should be like
and my husband wouldn't talk to me I would try to talk we would just argue.Well my husband was sent to Pennsylvannia for 2 weeks in (Sept 2007) to work
he had to train people his company bought out a company when he got home I noticed him talking on the phone alot and sending text messages to someone if
you know my husband he never uses his phone so I went into our cellphone bill online and found he was calling a number in Pennsylvannia early in the morning on his way
to work and at least 2 times during the day and on his way home and sometimes even when he was home with me this went on for awhile and then I started
checking his voicemails on his phone and heard some woman saying some intimate things to my husband so I confronted him about these calls and the voicemail I heard we even went to our church
and counseled with our pastor. I even called this woman she lied through her teeth to me she told me she was trying to leave a message for her daughter
she said she must have called my husband by mistake,and my husband he told me it was nothing just a nice older lady he got to know alittle at work he
said she was having troubles with her training she needed further help from my husband. I told her I didnt want her to talk to my husband again I told
her how much I loved him and I didnt appreciate her talking to my husband she send not to worry she would never talk to him again.
He swore to me he wouldn't talk to her anymore and he said he loved me and didn't realize how upset i would get over him talking to her, he said he was
sorry.So after that I set his phone up to have his voicemails sent to my computer. In this time he was so short tempered which he never used to be and
he still wouldn't talk to me about it.
Well his work sent him back to the same place in March 2008 for another 3 weeks I panicked because I didn't want him to go but since he hadnt been calling her
anymore I finally gave in to letting him go. He told me she was engaged to a guy in New Orleans and thats also where her daughter was living so he told me
that she was moving to there to be with her boyfriend so she wouldn't be there anyway.
So when he got home he had to go get his kids from his first marriage live 2 hours away so every other week he would have to go pick them up
for the weekend I always wanted to have good meals when his kids were here because there mother doesn't cook with our finances being as bad as they
were we always overdrawn at the bank majority of the time he would get gas to drive kids both ways we would end up paying extra $30.00 overdraft
charges for him to get kids and it costs alot to buy decent meals so we would argue that we really couldn't afford to get them I know it was bad
to put our finances before his kids but what do you do. Well it turns out over time my husband thought that he just didn't matter to me .
I now see how badly those arguements hurt him. He was so wrong he is my everything to me and so are his kids.
Time went on and I thought he gave up talking to her so I quit being suspicious I trusted him after awhile during June my daughter was home during the
day my husband was on vacation and she walked in our bedroom to say something to my husband and the computer monitor was on he was laying on the bed
watching a movie and a MSN (IM) popped up saying "YOU THERE HONEY, I'M HERE WAITING FOR YOU"and my daughter read it and saw who it was from she questioned
him he said it was his cousin how stupid does he think she is she is 22 yrs old she told me about it when I got home.
So I borrowed money from my best friend to purchase SPECTOR PRO detective program to monitor our computers when it came in the mail I got much more than
I bargained for I was watching my husband on webcam with this woman taking showers for her and her doing strip teases and I read all there chats just
made me sick. He was telling her that he loved her more than life and she was always on his mind.This all came about a day after we spent an awesome 4th of
July weekend camping with bunch of friends. The day after we got home he told her all the stuff we did over the weekend and he told her he wished she would
have been there with him doing all stuff that I did with him like we went tubing down the creek,motorcycle riding,dancing around the campfire.
You can't imagine how that hurt me.Turned out he was stopping at a public place using phone cards to call this B______ since Oct 2007 after I confronted him.
Felt like he shoved a knife in my heart.
I found he was sending her a bunch of love songs that he has always sang to me.
I also found he was into porn on the internet and found emails he had sent to a woman in Canada pictures of himself in the shower with a towel wrapped
around him. I wrote this woman pretending to be him and told her he couldn't talk to her anymore and she sent back all kinds of crap about him
jacking off to her over the webcam and pictures that he had sent her. I proceeded to send thoe emails on to his girlfriend in Pennsylvannia to show her
kind of man she had been messing around with.I also forwarded all this crap to our pastor to show him that he lied to both of us.
I stayed home from work for 3 days confronting him with all this crap that i had printed out for proof of his infidelity.
Let me tell you those were the absolute worst days of my life I just wanted to die.
But my problem is I still love him tell me how that is possible I still want a life with him.
He was so broken he bawled for days begging me to forgive him for what he has done he told me he truly thought that I didnt love him anymore he said
he thought I was getting to point i was going to leave him. He said he didn't think that he mattered to me anymore.
and he thanked me for loving him enough to stop him from what he was doing he said he didnt know how to get out of it.
We have finally through this learned to open up and communicate. We have been reading books on the subject most of them Christian books.
He also has been reading them .
In our discussions he has told me everything.
It turns out the last night he was Penn. on his first trip there this woman showed up at his hotel room she just wanted to say goodbye.
They had obviously gotten close they ate lunchs and breaks together at work he told me how from the beginning it started out innocently
she was from Columbia he was interested in her life there and how she got here, how she went through a bad marriage there and divorced and came here.
He told her about his kids and how he felt I didnt want him to be with them and how bad that hurt him.
Then one day during work the day before he was to fly home he dropped his cellphone from the top of a ladder and it bounced into a bucket of water so that
night she ran him all over trying to find a Cingular store to get a replacement he said they had to go to 3 different stores in the citys that alot of driving
after that he said he took her out for dinner it was late and they hadnt eaten. So the next night she stopped at his hotel room to say goodbye and he said she leaned into
him and started kissing him and thats all it took he fiqured he was leaving within a few hours and he would never see her again.
Thats when I told him he should have told me what happened I could have understood how it could have happened, seriously if I think about it and
after weeks of getting close to somebody and the guy was gorgeous and it happened the same way I can't say that I wouldn't have maybe given in and slipped.
I just don't know, I see how it could have happened but he should had repented when he got home.
I truly love him so much I have no desire to be with anyone else so don't take me wrong.
But he is a man.....???
Well then when they sent him out there again in March he said he called to see if she was still there and of course she was so they were together again the next 3 weeks
off and on 2 weekend she had to travel to see her kid so he was alone during them times.
Since then he had been calling her from payphones and seeing her on the internet.
He said after I told him not to talk to her anymore in Sept 2007 he says that there was a couple months that he hadn't talked to her.
There is no way to prove it though.
He is being honest now he has told me everything I ask with no anger just shame.
He thanks me for saving him.
He was brought up in a very strong christian home his parents are missionaries he called his parents and broke down crying and told them what he had done to
me he was asking them to pray for him. We went to his parents 3 times in 4 mos. to be with them that was another thing I wouldn't do before because we couldn't
afford to travel we never got to see any of his family they live 5 hours away.
He in no way has blamed me for this he knows he is the one that broke our vows but he has told me the things that have caused him to feel like i didn't care
for him anymore.
I have read at least 12 books on Infidelity and saving our marriage and I bought some cd's by Ellen Kreidman she is a very good marriage counselor.
We are both listening to them so he is trying to make us work.
And the anger is gone he is being so loving, considerate,patient with me I have put him through living hell this past 4 mos.our sex life has really exploded.
He has gone to the alter in church asking god to forgive him and to help him to resist temptation and to help us save our marriage.
He calls me on his way to work and on his way home.
I have told him how much I love him but I will not go through this again Ever next time I will be gone .
He has given up his computer I have access to all his emails and chat programs changed his passwords to ones he will never ever fiqure out even if he
wanted to I changed his phone no# and I asked this woman to unlist her home phone and her cellphone no#'s and she did it I call all the time to make sure
they are still disconnected and they are so unless he contacts her at work there really is no way to get ahold of her.I have his phone hacked so I get his voicemails.
The computers in the house are all bugged.
So somehow I have to learn to trust him again but he says he is willing to wait and rebuild our marriage to a much better one.
He says he has all the time in the world to wait for me to heal and he really is trying to help me.
I just need to let go and let God take over thats the only way we are going to make it.
We are also going to a Christian marriage counselor both of us.....



Found a great website (www.hopeandhealing.us) they have great podcasts,books,they will even let you call them at home to talk. they are a couple that went through this
13 yrs ago and have healed there marriage now they try to help other going through this awful pain.

(Familylife.com) they have great podcasts and books

(Focus on the family.com) (James Dobson) awesome podcasts on infidelty there too.

I hope you will check them out I have enjoyed them very much.....they have been there for me....

We are going away this weekend for a wonderful weekend at Wisc Dells indoor waterpark resort I know we can't afford it but I cant afford a divorce either.
So wish us luck to have a loving time together away from everyone.
My husband is now my first and only priority, after God and the Lord Jesus that is.....
Sorry this is so long hope I didnt bore you guys to death just had to vent.

Love Athena61

Athena:

Welcome to the site. I scanned your post and I can see that you've been through a lot. Your husband betrayed you not only in the initial affair, but also in the time after the first discovery.

I can see that you very much a recovery for your marriage, and want to reconcile with your husband. It sounds like he may have finally gotten it.

However, at the same time I want to caution you that you have no way of know for certain if he's found new ways to maintain the affair, or if the changes that you see are his real heart. In addition, since you have no control over his actions, you every reason to hesitate to trust him right now.

Unfortunately I've found that it's pointless to take most betrayers at their word... their word has proven worthless in the initial infidelity, but it also usually proves worthless in the time after discovery in one way or another.

One of the big complications that I found in myself was a strong desire to find 'excuses' for my wife in the name of understanding. I found that excuses were something I sought in order to avoid accepting the truth about my wife.... that she had systematically and intentionally engaged in lies and sexualy betrayal. It's a sad truth, but only when I was able to accept that truth did I start the process of truely forgiving her. In addition, not only was it necessary for me to accept that fact, it was even more important that my wife accepted it for herself, becuase just like most people she wanted to offer excuses for why she had betrayed our marriage, lied to me and had sex on multiple occations with the OM. She wanted to blame everyone & everything but herself... the OM, the situation, her upbringing, me, our kids... you get the picture.

I'm glad you found those sites, and even more importantly, I'm glad that you found peace and rest in your faith. I know that it helped me get through some of the darkest times. I can certainly testify that I experienced much care, comfort and mercy when things were at their darkest.

Hope that you have a great trip, and you both find it to be a step in the process of reconcilation. My wife and I did some similar things which I believed helped. They didn't always turn out as we wished, but each thing you do together to work toward true intimacy is a good step.

TomJ

Athena,

I am so sorry for your pain. I know it well and can relate to all that you are going through, please find some comfort in the fact that you are not alone. 7 years ago I learned of my husbands 9 month affair with a coworker. It took us 3 years but we have healed the great wound of infidelity to a point where we both are at peace. Separately, we both worked on ourselves with healing and personal growth. Also, though I follow no religion I grew in my own way spiritually. I personally believe that after a trauma, as great as this, all parties need to tape into all the areas to heal.

You spoke much about your husbands reasons for cheating as being about you and the marriage. Now I do not want you to feel guilty for the issues you have brought to the marriage, because it does sounds as if your husband had legitimate complaints. However, they are NOT the reason he cheated. They are simply the convenient excuse. People who cheat do so because of underlying issues within themselves not because of problems in the marriage or with the spouse. It does sound to me as if you blame yourself to a degree. Please work at letting that go.

I am concerned, your H shows a behavior pattern of infidelity. I think it very important that he get help outside of the marriage with this.

You seem to be on a very good path with all that you are doing. You have recommended some great programs, books, and healing paths. Also you might want to look into Retrouvaille. It is a program for married couples whose marriages are in serious trouble. My husband and I attended and found the things we learned there invaluable. Go to www.retrouvaille.org for more info.

And welcome

Ami