I have been wondering if my H cheated on me before we got married. I have a feeling he did. On this last d-day I aksed him if he ever cheated on me before. His reply was "not since we have been married". Hmmm....that doesnt sound good does it? Should I ask him what he means by that and if he cheated before we got married?
We were together for 4 years before we got married. For two of those years we lived together but H would leave me at home alone while he went out with his friends. Had I known he cheated I can honestly say that I would not have married him.
I guess the real question is will it make a difference if I know now? I think it will because if he doesnt come clean it will be one more secret he is keeping from me and he basically lied by ommision when I asked the question. And yes, I have asked the question a few times and in a few different ways. Last time I asked it I said "are there any other secrets" and he said no. So if he lied again that's just one more lie to add to the list of lies ...totally unaccpetable! If he cant be honest, then reconciliation is not going to work is it? But I am aslo afraid to ask because what if he says yes. I dont know if I cna handle any more blows right now.
This message has been edited by pizzalady on Mar 5, 2007 4:37 PM
If you have a question, you should ask it. I believe people who are in the habit of lieing by any means (ommission or commission) don't immediately stop. They have to be retrained to tell the truth when they would have lied before.
When you ask your question, don't be vague in any way, yet don't feel that you must ask the exact correct question to get a truthful answer. Make it clear what you want to know and ask. He might lie again. Remind him that the truth always seems to find it's why out, and it's better to be honest now than to wait and be caught later. It might not make a difference, but it can't hurt to point this out.
If you are afraid to ask right now, it's OK to wait. I'd bet your curiosty will peak when the time is right.
I also fear that if he did cheat on me prior to the marriage perhaps he has even bigger issues than I think, and I am a bigger fool. And I have to really think of what I need in all of this. Do I want to stay married to someone who is a serial cheater. Maybe he can go for a long time without cheating, but what happens 10 years down the road? I know there are no guarantees no matter what, but after you have been cheated on your optimisn wares a little thin. How do I know he has really changed? All of this is much more complicated than it appears. Makes me think of the Chinese Farmer David posted about. Maybe he has, maybe he hasnt...too soon to tell. That's the scary part. How much time to do you spend before you have an answer that satisfies you? What if the question is never answered? What if you are wondering for the rest of your life? I guess that is all just a leap of faith on the BS's part in trying to work at reconciliation and healing. Keep moving forward and hope for the best.
Reading the books and hearing of successful reconciliations do help, but more often than not marriages fail after infidelity. It's all about the broken trust and trying to rebuild it. I still dont trust at all. He has made some changes and he is doing well, but the trust is still not there. I think having d-day #2 really wrecked any trust I had in him. Had he not continued to lie to me after d-day #1 for almost 2 more years, maybe we would have something to work with. I cant help but think he is still cheating and still having contact with her, or maybe still smoking pot and he has just gotten better at covering it all up. Since I was fooled before, why cant I be fooled again. I so wanted to believe he was telling me the truth last time. "Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me" comes to mind. I just feel like one BIG fool. I know I shouldnt feel that way but I do. And that is where I am having a hard time forgiving myself, for being fooled. I cannot forgive him or trust him at all until I forgive myself. I have vowed never to be fooled again, but I still feel like I am being fooled some how in some way. How am I going to get over that feeling? I am sure the answer is being strong and taking care of myself, but sometimes that is so hard to do. I just dont want to feel like a fool any longer.
Another fear, if he did cheat on me before we got married, I even wonder if it was with the same OW. I dont know exactly when she moved and got married. They could have been lovers before we tied the knot for all I know. What a blow that would be huhn? That is my worst thought. Then the whole marriage would have been such a waste and a lie...my curiosity is getting to me. But I am still afraid to ask
Take care .... Carol~
This message has been edited by pizzalady on Feb 16, 2007 12:54 PM
First I feel you should ask him directly about the specifics as Tom suggests.
Second the trust that you talk about is perhaps really a loss of belief in his true love.. This is how it feels for me.. I hear others call it trust but perhaps what it is really about is recognition that you are living with someone who is prepared to do this.. for whatever reason this is the outcome if you stay together. Some can do this and some cannot. That is the choice that is made after an A.. and we call it "trust" when really we mean getting over it or coming to terms with it - whatever words are used to describe what can be a truly remarkable event ie true forgiveness. And... I am not underestimating this wonderful act that some are able to achieve. I, for one, am finding it incredibly difficult and I even find it difficult to admit that fact here now.. I fear I may be influencing others by my inability to make it work. I feel as if I should stop posting in case I am doing others some harm in speaking openly about my situation. And.. just to make sure you see me clearly.. I am just as likely to be wrong as anyone else!
For me my main realisation that I am working with right now is that I feel our love together was simply not deep and passionate enough all along. I look back and find I did make all the right commitments.. but for me personally .. and us together (ie in her too), the deep binding "in love" depths may be were never entered into enough. I am now doubting my trust in even that. So.. for me the word trust is turning out to mean very much more than the A activity itself.
I dont want you to stop posting EVER! I love your posts. They are caring, insightful, and filled with compassion. I do empathize with your posts but they are not influencing me in any way regarding my feelings about my H or my M. My feelings come from the A and my H, and my own thoughts.
The thing here is, like I said in another post Jerry, I did have those deep feelings of love towards my H. I still feel love towards him. If I did not I would certainly leave. Is love worth fighting for? I believe it is, but it has to be recipricol love. I have always been the one to compromise and H has always wanted it is his way or the highway. The giver and the taker. Very selfish....but love is not selfish is it? We are all selfish to a point when need be, such as what we call "self preservation" but the selfishness one displays in a relationship is very telling of that persons ability to love someone else, and not just their selves. There are different types of self love is what I am trying to say. I am not sure my H has the ability to truly love someone else. First you must love yourself in a selfless but self preserving way (we call it taking care of YOU). While having the A he obviously did not love himself in that way. Therefore one would conclude he did not truly love me or OW either. His love of OW and her love for him were possibly recipricol because it was that same type of self serving love we call being selfish. They were both being selfish and therefore it was recipricol. Confusing, I know. But there are so many different types of love and different degrees of love.
So maybe what I am missing is what I thought was recipricol love (or true love as you put it). When I look back I see that it was not always reciprocol. There was short time when it was. From time we got married until H had the accident. I was very happy then and H seemed to be too. Of course there were problems here and there but nothing we could not overcome. But once your spouse starts holding in resentments, feels sorry for themsleves and refuses to talk and avoids painful issues, isolates themselves, becomes a workaholic, and addicted to drugs, and then cheats on you, the problems only get bigger. I see now that this is the way H deals with things...by not dealing and escaping. Has that pattern changed? I see some changes but not enough to make a decision on. Some progress...yes. But he still doesnt want to talk much...still gets angry, resentful, and feels sorry for himself. So is it just a matter of time before the rest follows and the pattern repeats...the isolation, the drugs, and the cheating? I just dont know.
Hi Carol - There are people at HH who want a lot of information, all the details, and others who don't. I'm in the latter group. I didn't ask many intimate, sexual issues. I did ask many questions about the relationship and about any other infidelities. I did have some questions, like the one you are wondering about, that were about some possibility in the past and I would wonder about whether I needed to dredge these things up too, but for me, I've realised that if I am wondering about it, then it's important to me for some reason, and its not going to go away. In the end I asked. I wonder sometimes if WS realise how difficult it is to ask. I know my H has sometimes been focused on why do I keep bringing things up. I have found it really really hard to ask some of these things - each time I know implicit in the question is my acknowledgement that I know he is capable, or rather was capable, of betrayal. Then it's also what you have said. It's possible that some answer will just be too much. Every time I've asked I've had to prepare. MM
Thanks Carol - yes you are wise and I worry too much. I am learning from you and appreciate your struggle very much. And you are right, it is about 2-way love. I totally gave myself into my marriage but she certainly did not.. not very equal. And as for that passionate carried away thing.. Oh well.. may be not in that "falling in love" sort of way that can happen early on. But for me there was total commitment.. total and complete.. And that is also not enough unless it is two way. I had allowed myself to believe love had grown at first.. and I believe it did.. There were wonderful deep moments of realising the depth of my feelings over the early years.. just think of the births of our children for example.. But .. looking back.. that got lost along the way and I can see how the gradual erosion of that loving feeling began and continued over the length of her A. An A is like a hole in the relationship.. things leak out from that hole.. It just does not work.. As Lady Diana said "There were 3 people in our marriage". We are not made that way.
May you be safe and well, contented and happy.. You are a strong and good woman Carol
This message has been edited by JerryBond on Feb 16, 2007 2:55 PM
Jerry, you wrote, "The Deep, binding, in love depths, maybe were never entered into enough".
I am just asking this question to myself, outloud. Maybe the deep, binding, in love depths...have something very much to with forgiveness, for what else is more divine? I think God, is LOVE, and in my definition of LOVE..real LOVE...there is forgiveness. And maybe, in that forgiveness (not blind or naive, and with a remorseful spouse of course)...there is something unhinged in the universe, in the heavenlies..that makes room for even more depth and deeper binding love???
Now having said all that, still am not sure if I can DO IT! lol.
Personally Hope, I dont think I can forgive my H until I am able to forgive myself. I am pretty hard on me. And I also feel that my H has to work towards frogiving himself as well. Perhaps then I will be able to forgive him, on some level, maybe not completely and maybe not for a very long time. Forgiving in my opinion means to let go of some of that pain, not forgetting it, just letting go of it. Maybe I can do that little by little, with his help.
