I just kind of found this group as I am looking for some help. Let me give you a little background. I have been married 8 years to a wonderful, thoughtful, beautiful woman. She is the love of my life. We both are working professionals and are blessed with two boys (4,7). I have always supported my wife in all that she does and have given her leeway to pursue a career in which she travels at least 6 times a year to sales meeting, sales shows, training, etc. I recently found out that she was ahving an affair with one of her subordinate managers. She is in external sales so is in the car a lot and has become accustomed to talking with her other managers a lot on the phone. When seh got a promotion about a year ago, her two female manager friends were not as close as they once were. She hired this male manager about 1.5 years ago and their relationship became one of friends, then more. About 9 months ago they started talking more ane more. This friendship grew into flirting and then to a physical relationship.
About three weeks ago my wife lost her car keys so I loaned here my car while I tried to locate her keys. In my search I found condoms (I am fixed so we don't need them) in her overnight bag. There were 9 of one brand and 2 of another. I went to here company email account and found hundreds of inappropriate emails between the OM and her. They have been inappropriate since early December. Some with xoxo and some planning on getting together at company trips, etc. They would email back and forth at night from their home offices sometimes 20-30 a night.
Anyway, I was devastated, I had no idea and there is not a person in this world who would ever guess, let alone believe, she would have an affair. I asked her about it and we had a long day. She admitted to having sex twice at the last two company gatherings in February. She says the emails prior were just flirting, although they hinted at much more. She also says that they decided to end it after the first time because they both have loving families that they would never want to hurt. Anyway, the flirtatious emails continued and they hooked up again for a nooner at their next opportunity to see each other out of town.
She was as devastated as I when I found out. She is "super mom" and has never failed at anything. We are church going and it is just out of character. We have talked fairly openly; however, I feel she is holding out on some of the information to protect me. She said they had agreed to call it quits after the second time, but eight days later they were planning another visit at the next meeting on email. She says it was flirting and that nothing would have happened. It went like this: W: I will get you a room , do you have a preference on your roommate at the meeting. OM: You know who I'd like it to be. W: DONE OM: you have a long day that day, are you sure you are up to it? W: I'm game.
That seems more than flirting, am I just crazy or is she with holding on me? I am now a complete compulsive. I get on her computer, check her cell phone. After two weeks I finally called the OM and had a discussion with him. They both agree it was stupid, that they were just wanting to feel wanted. I have always loved my wife, I travel the world with her, tell her every day that she is the best thing that ever happened to me, etc.
She has made every attempt to make this easier on me, she supports me, and wants to be one with me and transparent. I'm just not sure she has told me the whole story. I know they saw each other at least one other time between the two times they admitted to, but she says nothing happened. She also cannot explain why there were two brands of condoms, she says he bought one box only that first night. There are just a lot of things that don't make sense. If the emails were discussing things like "know what pleases you" in early December, then I feel something happened at their week long meeting in early December, or duing a trip for them to work together in late October.
I read "Joseph's Letter" and feel the same way. I feel that I want to know exactly what happened, when, and why. It is painful for her and she doesn't want to discuss it again, or further. We both want it behind us and to move on, but I feel like I can't move on until all the facts line up.
I also read the thread on compulsive behavior. I love this woman, the mother of my children and the light of my life. I trust her but feel compulsive to verify my trust since she cheated. I wish I did not feel this way 50% of my waking hours.
I'm open to suggestions, good books, etc.
One item that will make this difficult, is they both still work together. They must communicate daily by email and usually daily by cell phone. He has a wife and two young children, and they both agree to not be friends, never discuss things other than work, etc. Can this work? She has a great job as VP, but she has offered to quit if need be.
So sorry you are here, but you could find some really serious insights from people on these forums that you may not find elsewhere. Many of us have been through years of this recovery process. I just passed the 7th year anniversary of finding out.
"We both want it behind us and to move on, but I feel like I can't move on until all the facts line up."
I understand. Unfortunately, it is common behavior for the wayward spouse not to line up their facts. Because we are so desperate for this to go away, we often make the assumption that when we finally do gather all this sordid information, things will improve. Not necessarily.
A world of damage can occur after an affair is discovered, when a wayward spouse continues lies and deception. In fact, this alone can take a marriage apart more effectively than the affair itself. Your wife did something very destructive to your marriage. She can add to this ("There are just a lot of things that don't make sense."), or work very hard to rebuild.
"I'm open to suggestions, good books, etc."
Look through our RESOURCES link (top of pages). I would read 'After the Affair by Janis Abram Spring, and 'The Monogamy Myth' by Peggy Vaughan for starters.
"they both still work together"
This is unfortunate.
"she has offered to quit if need be"
Most marriage recovery advice strongly suggests---NO CONTACT.
You wrote above that you trust your wife but feel complusive to check up on her. It's not your fault that you feel compulsive. I certainly did too. Do you feel that you must verify your trust in her or that she must verify her trustworthiness?
Just thoughts to ponder.
"Help, I wish it would go away, but can't let it."
No, you can't. It won't go away. It will, however, change. The change takes a lot of time and a lot of work.
I'm sure you'll get several more responses on this thread to look over.
I'm so sorry for what has happened. This is a devastating, painful time for you, so you need to keep a clear head. The way you write indicates that you are being rational, and that you still want to make it work with your wife. Those are very good things, and difficult for most people to realize at this stage. It's going to be difficult to focus on anything else for many weeks, but it will eventually start to subside, depending upon how well you communicate with each other through this process, and how honest your wife is with you.
If you can get her to read Steve's post in the Open Forum ("Cheated on my wife, I need help"), she will see that the number one piece of advice everyone can give a betraying/wayward spouse (WS) is 100% honesty. Right now, she may be holding back details because she thinks she's protecting your feelings, or she's so ashamed of herself that she just can't tell you the whole truth. The reality is, she's doing just the opposite of protecting you, and keeping a secret for whatever reason will just create a wider distance between you for as long as it goes on. If she's committed to you now/again, there can be absolutely no secrets EVER again.
Just prepare yourself for the reality that there is likely more to learn. I doubt that anyone on this forum were given the whole truth early-on in Discovery. That may not be consolation for you, but it is a reality in many cases. Get into counseling, both Marriage Counseling (MC) and both of you should probably get Individual Counseling (IC). She is going to have to work extremely hard to figure out why she would make such a horrible mistake - and she may never find out or even really want to...but if she can at least realize it was a mistake, half the battle will be fought for her recovery, and it will go a long way for your recovery as well.
The other thing you need to be careful of is your own health, mental and physical. I lost 30 pounds (that I didn't really need to lose) and looked like I had AIDS, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep, couldn't work for probably two months after my discovery. You have to try and take care of yourself, because dealing with this pain and the recovery of your relationship is going to be difficult enough to deal with. If you make yourself sick or mentally incapacitated due to lack of sleep, it will only make matters worse. At the very least, if you have trouble eating, take vitamin supplements every day to help keep your system in balance. That worked for me, at least I never got sick. Counseling will help ease your mind so you can sleep a little better.
As far as advice regarding your wife. I personally would ask her to quit her job. Does the other man's wife know of this affair? Here's the deal...she could ask him to quit, but since he's a subordinate, she could be in danger of a Sexual Harassment suit...especially if she uses the affair as leverage to ask him to quit. If you know him and have talked to him, you could always tell him he needs to go away, but there will still likely be liability on your wife's part. You might want to pay a hundred bucks or so and go consult for an hour with a Lawyer, just to be on the safe side.
Regardless, she needs to get as far away from him as possible - IF you can afford to do that financially. If her source of income hinges on your family's financial stability, that makes it a LOT tougher. But the reality is, she made this decision...this mistake, and mistakes have consequences, whether they're fair or not. It will eat away at you even more if you know they have daily contact, and that will make it even tougher for you to recover your relationship. MUCH tougher.
To give you an example, my wife's affair was with our next door neighbor - my closest male friend - while I was away for a year on business. We moved as quickly as we could after I found out (no, she didn't tell me either...I found out by "accident"). She promised she didn't want anything to do with him and swore no contact, but when things got REALLY tough between us, she still contacted him again. He was so shocked that he wrote her a letter telling her a bunch of things she wasn't ready to hear, which shocked her back to reality, and I believe her now when she tells me she doesn't even want to think of him. But the reality is, I still think about it - because she was SO sincere when she told me she would never, ever contact him again, not only for my sake but for her own dignity - and that lingering little doubt in my mind still makes me feel insecure, inadequate, rejected, frightened, sad. If she were working with him on a daily basis, I honestly don't think I could handle it and would have filed divorce papers LONG before I actually did (we're not divorced...we found a program that helped us at the last possible moment, but we were THIS close).
You have a long, rocky road to recovery, but you sound sincere in that you still love your wife. There will be times when you hate her...maybe a hundred times a day...but you do still love her and can make this work. Proper communication is the key. 100% honesty is the bridge. No contact is the rule.
Keep telling yourself that you love her, and acknowledge her and thank her when she shows you she is trying to make things better. Communicate, communicate, communicate...but do it properly and don't let any bad day devolve into verbally abusive arguments. Walk away if it gets to that point, because words can cut like a knife and linger in the memory for a LONG time.
Good luck and keep posting. There are some very wise people on this forum who will help you. They were my lifeline, because I had nobody to talk to about it. My thoughts are with you. Take care.
I am sorry for your pain. You have gotten words from two posters who have wonderful insight.
I call this the club of others choosing. Sorry you have been nominated.
This will prove to be the most challenging and difficult time of your life. Only the people in the club can wrap our minds around how tough this actually is. I would try not to talk to friends or family about this, unless you know for a fact that they have experienced what you have.
The shock to your system is so great that your physiology will only let youu accept it by degrees, so this will be a process that will last a good while.
Your wife will be ready to let it go, and move on long before you will, so move on your own schedule. Resist pressure. The pain will ebb and flow, as if it has a mind of its own, and will be triggered by all different types of stimuli.
If you see a MC, ask if she has significant experience with recovery from infidelity, ask what percentage of her practice deals with it. If you have any discomfort, do not feel safety, RUN. Find another one. (You may want to check out my discovery post and threads).
Feel free to post your thoughts here. It is a safe haven. People care, and have been where you are now.
It is your wife's job now to fill in the blanks and supply total truth. This time in your relationship is crucial, and you need the truth.
She should be willing to do what she can to help you at this point.
I found a product at Whole Foods called NightRest. It has trace amounts of Melatonin, and the rest are herbs. It got me through the night until 4:00 AM most nights.
You will question some of your most fundamental beliefs about marriage, your life, God and many other things. Remember, this was not your fault, your responsibility or about you.
Believe it or not, if you remain true to yourself, make choices based on keeping your dignity, and look for your strength every day, you will emerge both stronger and victimless.
Do not make major decisions yet. Your reality and belief systems have changed. Let it all sink in and play out awhile.
I'm sorry you had to find us Wes. You've received three excellent posts from R.W., Bob and Jay. I don't have much to add . We hear you. It hurts. It's one of those things until you've been through it you will never understand the pain and confusion that surrounds everything. You find yourself questioning every part of your marriage. Trying to put pieces together so your mind has some logical understanding of the events leading up to the ultimate betrayal.
There's a quote in this community..."trust but verify". Do NOT feel guilty. You need to do this. If you didn't...well... you wouldn't. Your W should welcome it(she might not at the beginning) not as a form of punishment but as a way to earn your trust back.
Give yourself time to digest what happened. Give yourself time to come to terms with the fact your W had an A. You deserve some honest answers...if nothing more than out of respect for you as a person. Not what you did wrong or the marriage was bad(hell it didn't get bad without your knowledge. Maybe it did but she tell you?)...or even playing the symphathy card i.e "I'm a ( insert adjective). If you are big enough to do it then you are big enough to own it.
Something in your W's mind gave her permission to go ahead with this. She needs to figure out what that was and you will need to know ...maybe not now but you will in the future.
We call it the "rollercaoster ride from hell". Because that's what it is. Be careful. Give yourself time to process what happened. Don't throw words like forgiveness around especially when you are emotional and just want her back . That word spoken too early will kick you both in the ass. You thought(because you had a good week) it's over and well...she heard it... she will think why is this being brought up again. It will set you both back when the reality sets in and the triggers begin and they will come out of nowhere.
You might even go through a stage known as "hysterical bonding". Reclaiming what is "yours". Reconnecting. Enjoy it. The best most intense sex you've ever had. That too is very common.
If you have questions ask them. If she needs to talk..listen. I mean really listen...both of you. Get an understanding of why...an honest account. Not what YOU did wrong...otherwise we'd all be having affairs. Communication Wes. It starts with that bro. And foremost...she needs to be honest.
Best of luck bro and keep posting.
Regards,
Tex
This message has been edited by TexMac64 on Mar 31, 2006 10:10 AM This message has been edited by TexMac64 on Mar 30, 2006 9:27 PM This message has been edited by TexMac64 on Mar 30, 2006 8:13 PM
One thing I find remarkable is the calm in your voice. You are obviously a stong man. There is no way around the compulsion. Anytime a piece of your life turns out to not be what you thought it was, the only thing you can do is try to make sense of the puzzle that has become your reality. It has been five months since I discovered my wife's affair and I still can't stand to look at pictures of anything or anyone (my kids included)from the time period of the affair. As far as the future goes, the one thing you must do to help ease the strain of not knowing about what she's doing at work is to tell the OM's wife. If she found out what he was doing, more eyes will be watching thier behavior.
Wes,
I just went through my second d-day. The first was 6 1/2 years ago and was "physical, but not sexual" as my h puts it. The second, I just found out about in February. It was an EA and I found out before it turned physical. H swears it never would have. Your story tells me that it probably would have if I hadn't found out. They didn't use email, they used text messages on their phones-460 in 73 days. Also there were 170 some phone calls between them. My h calls it "dirty flirting" which sounds like what your wife was doing at first.
It is all still cheating and it all still hurts terribly.
A book that helped me a lot was by Dr. Shirley Glass and is called, "Not Just Friends. (Protect your relationship from infidelity and heal the trauma of betrayal)"
Here is an excerpt from the book, it is hit home for me and I think it sounds very much like what happened to your wife:
"Good people in good marriages are having affairs. More times than I can count, I have sat in my office and felt torn apart by the grief, rage, and remorse of the people I counsel as they try to cope with the repercussions of their infidelity or their partner’s betrayal. In two-thirds of the couples I’ve treated in my clinical practice over the past twenty years, either the husband, the wife, or both were unfaithful. Broken promises and shattered expectations have become part of our cultural landscape, and more people who need help in dealing with them appear in my office every day.
Surprisingly, the infidelity that I’m seeing these days is of a new sort. It’s not between people who are intentionally seeking thrills, as is commonly believed. The new infidelity is between people who unwittingly form deep, passionate connections before realizing that they’ve crossed the line from platonic friendship into romantic love. Eighty-two percent of the unfaithful partners I’ve treated have had an affair with someone who was, at first, “just a friend.” Well-intentioned people who had not planned to stray are not only betraying their partners but also their own beliefs and moral values, provoking inner crises as well as marital ones.
This is the essence of the new crisis of infidelity: friendships, work relationships, and Internet liaisons have become the latest threat to marriages. As these opportunities for intimate relationships increase, the boundaries between platonic and romantic feelings blur and become easier to cross.
Today’s workplace has become the new danger zone of romantic attraction and opportunity. More women are having affairs than ever before. Today’s woman is more sexually experienced and more likely to be working in what used to be male-dominated occupations. Many of their affairs begin at work. From 1982 to 1990, 38 percent of unfaithful wives in my clinical practice were involved with someone from work. From 1991 to 2000, the number of women’s work affairs increased to 50 percent. Men also are having most of their affairs with people from their workplace. Among the 350 couples I have treated, approximately 62 percent of unfaithful men met their affair partners at work.
The significant news about these new affairs--and what is different from the affairs of previous generations--is that they originate as peer relationships. People who truly are initially just friends or just friendly colleagues slowly move onto the slippery slope of infidelity. In the new infidelity, secret emotional intimacy is the first warning sign of impending betrayal. Yet, most people don’t recognize it as such or see what they’ve gotten themselves into until they’ve become physically intimate."
I hope this helped.
aanisah
Love isn't in the falling----it's in the staying there.
I wanted to email you all back and thank you for the kind words. Life is tough, but we will be OK. Some of the comments really hit home, it is almost like you are a fly on my wall.
Anyway, we are working through it: taking it day by day. It has been three weeks and my W is very supportive but seems to be starting to get upset when I ask the same questions again and again. For me, when I ask the questions, I get reassurance of her love and that what she did was a horrible mistake (we can't come up with a better word).
She really did it out of a feeling of lack of affection at home; coupled with stress from trying to do everything (career, home, kids, etc.). She did not see things the same as me and got swept up in the attention she was getting elsewhere. It started as friendship, then attention, then flirting, then after too much alcohol, to sex. They both admitted it was wrong and that they had happy good marriages, but the OM pushed againg, and my W said she did not know how to get out of it: lame line I think.
Anyway, keep the support and suggestions coming, they are worth gold.
One thing that has helped me during the past six months has been to force myself and keep fighting to turn off the little voice in my head; the voice that constantly tells us there is more to be learned than what we have been lead to believe. The voice that does nothing but drive you crazy, destroy you mentally, and enable you to create your own reality of what you believe happened. I had to come to terms with the reality that I will ever know the whole story. The two reasons are:
ONE, my wife (or anyone's WS who truly holds remorse in their heart and seeks forgiveness) can not, I believe, recall the whole story due to the fact that the memory of what they have done, who they were at the time, and the pain they are causing the BS, is so devastating to them that to think about and try to recall the past becomes self destructive for the WS. I liken it to some kind of post-traumatic stress syndrome. Don't take this the wrong way, you can truly tell the difference from someone who is casually withholding the truth at their leisure versus what I have described above. There was, in the initial couple of weeks, a time when my wife was witholding facts "to protect me", but after she learned that protecting me was no longer an option due to the fact that she failed to protect our marriage vows, it all spilled out. Now we are to the point where even the slightest mention or reminder to her produces a profound physiological change within her, I mean the deepest disgust and hatred for herself that it makes her sick, literally. I do believe there is more for me to know, but at the same time there is little more that she could tell me on her own, i.e. she could respond to something I might further discover on my own.
TWO, I don't want to know the whole story. I try to concentrate on the role I played in her emotional withdrawal from me and our marriage and what I can do to prevent this ever being an issue for me again. I'm sure that if I knew every little detail, this would not be possible for me. The details ultimately do not change the situation or severity of the betrayal. This is my opinion. There is nothing more for me to know that could hurt me any worse than I have already been hurt. My wife and I were actively involved (or so I was led to believe) in marriage counseling during the last half of her emotional affair. I sat there with my pseudo-wife and listened to her tell me that I was meeting her emotional needs and that I was doing things right and making the necessary changes to better our relationship. All this, while she causally perpetuated her emotional affair with another man. This to me is the worst deception and the deepest betrayal. My pain is not created by what my wife DID during her emotional affair, it pounds within me because of what she DID NOT DO. My wife failed me and devastated our relationship because she never stopped her emotional affair, she never seized the opportunity to end it eventhough she knew it was getting too deep, she never gave me a chance to emotionally connect with her and meet her needs because she had nothing left for me at the end of the day. There is only so much emotional energy to go around and living a double life takes a lot of effort.
My advice, kill the little voice if you want to save your marriage. I know it is hard, but it is the only thing that has begun to help me. I'm not telling you to forget it and move-on, this is impossible. All I'm saying is, if you want to stay with your spouse and he or she fits the description of a truly remorseful spouse I gave above, then if your going to review the past, try to do it with a constructive attitude. None of us wants to accept responsibility for our spouses actions and we shouldn't, but in someway there were neglected emotional needs for both the betrayer and the betrayed. And both, the BS & WS have to accept responsibilty for the role they played in creating an environment in the marriage that could lead one to stray away. To truly move forward you need to learn form your WS about your own failures and teach the WS about their failures (aside form the affair) and make the choice to shit or get off the pot.
<<There was, in the initial couple of weeks, a time when my wife was witholding facts "to protect me", but after she learned that protecting me was no longer an option due to the fact that she failed to protect our marriage vows, it all spilled out....>>
From what I've learned on these boards through the years, this ability to kill that voice has a direct correlation with how long after D-Day it takes for the WS to come clean with the whole story. I'm not talking every bit of detail, but just the story of what happened.
For those that got the truth immediately, or within a few weeks after D-Day, it's a much easier task to silence that voice.
For those that have to wait much longer for the truth, it's much tougher, as every day that the truth is witheld is another day of further stomping on the initial trust that was broken. The intention on the part of the WS may be good in their mind (protecting their spouse), but the end result can be more devastation.
In my case, it was 8 months post D-Day before I got the truth, after many different variations and "edits on the fly" by my W. Because of this, it took a VERY long time to re-establish that trust. I know of other people who waited much longer than that, and because of this, their little voice wasn't so easily stilled.
To sum it up, this is why it's so important for the WS to come clean as soon as possible after D-Day. The sooner the full truth comes out, the sooner healing can begin... And that holds true, whether you stay with your spouse or not.
Cory
Some things in life are problems. Most are inconveniences. Knowing the difference is wisdom.
Current Topic - My first time here... suggestions?
The best most intense sex you've ever had. That too is very common.