I am not sure I have ever told my whole story. My W and I dated all through High School and College. We have now been married for 15 years. We have two kids and have a great marrage we do everything together are really best friends. We have had a long time friend who we did everything with who also worked with my wife. We had season football tickets together and did everything. I knew his marrage was not going very good at the time this all happened. They started doing stuff together all the time would usually ask me to come along but if I couldn't they just went without me. It just started not feeling right so one night I just asked her do you have a thing going with him. She said sort off I then asked if they had kissed and she told me they had three times. I made her pickup the phone and call him that second and tell him it was over or I was leaving. She did his wife found out and the whole thing blew up. They still work together but they do not speak, she says he only gives her dirty looks like he is mad at her for opening her mouth. My W chose the you just have to forgive me and trust that I would never do that again approach. Her excuse was that he had been telling her hot great she was looking and how much he loved her for about a year she told me about six months before this all happened he tried to kiss her while I went to the restroom but she pushed him away and told him no. She said the next day he begged her not to tell me and that it would never happen again that my friendship meant alot to him. Well she bought it. I am rambling this is not why I started this, we have gone through the fighting and everything is going pretty good. Last night she tells me she needs to go to this Natural Gas convention. For those who do not know these would be better called Spring Break for Adults who never grew up. I want to trust her and for the most part I do but this convention is going to kill me.
After this, SHE is the one who has to make sure to you that she is trustworthy again. Why in the world should you just trust her out of the blue again after she trespassed? She got the ball rolling, let her stop it...
She doesn't need to go to a convention to cheat on you again. I'm sorry to be the one to say this, but I don't think you going would do much good for either one of you. She already said he tried to kiss her once when you were in the restroom. You can't keep your eye on her all the time. She works with this guy, she doesn't need to go to a convention (around other people she works with) to be with him...
Don't let your life be consumed with the what ifs (if or when she will cheat on you again). It is an unanswerable questions that will drive you mad.. If she is going to cheat, she is going to cheat... There isn't a damn thing you can do to stop it.
I hope your W has seen the error in her ways and you don't ever have to go through the discovery of another A. I'm not saying be blind to her behavior and that you should trust her 100%. I'm just saying you are her husband, not her babysitter. If she is going to cheat and you go to the convention, you are not stopping anything, you would just be prolonging it....
Thank you, that is what I have been thinking, when everyone was telling me to go with her I was just thinking that would be pretty pathetic on my part. Sometimes when I am reading this board I am just thinking we all sound like a bunch of weak little babies. I read sometime and I think why would anyone want to stay with us, we lose all of our self confidence and we become these shells of people. It is so unfair the way this whole thing works we do the right thing and we are the ones who come out with no self confidence and a loss of faith in people. I have told my wife is she feel like she has to go to go right ahead and go, I don't really trust you but go ahead and go.
It is going to drive me crazy while she is there and I do think she has learned her lesson. It is just that this whole thing blind sided me. I don't want to be blind sided again.
You are right if we want our old life back we are going to have to stick our necks out there again.
<<<Sometimes when I am reading this board I am just thinking we all sound like a bunch of weak little babies. I read sometime and I think why would anyone want to stay with us, we lose all of our self confidence and we become these shells of people.>>>
OK. I may be over sensitive today since this is my d-day. It's been 1 year today. This is the first time I've compared what someone else was going through with what I'm going through. You've been married 15 years, your wife had an emotional affair and kissed another man 3 times. End of story from what I read. My H had an emotional affair going with one woman while he began a physical affair with another. That physical affair lasted about 10 months and when she started to get serious, even though she is married, he broke it off and began a physical affair with the married woman he'd been having the emotional affair with. That lasted another 4 months or so. I discovered the emotional affair on June 28th. I discovered the first physical affair on July 1st, three days before our 30th wedding anniversary. I discovered that the emotional affair was also a physical affair on July 25. I was sucker punched 3 times and was down for the count. I'm amazed at myself that I could even get up again. I trusted that man completely as did many of us before this happened to us. Yes, I lost all my self-confidence but am gradually getting it back. I don't feel like a weak little baby, however. I discovered that I am stronger than I ever imagined I could be. The fact that I am here trying my damndest to make something good out of the ruins of my old life I believe speaks to my character. Do I have bad days where I cry or vent? Hell, yes, but I don't think that makes me weak. Given the trauma I experienced I think that just makes me human.
My H was with OW once or twice a week for about 14 months. There are people on this board that are dealing with children from affairs also. I'd call them anything BUT weak. Their strength, compassion, and acceptance astounds me and also inspires me. I'm sure they have been through hell and back. I certainly don't hold that against them.
I really do not mean to diminish what you are going through but please do not diminish what the rest of us are going through. Going along with your wife to this convention may sound desperate to you, however, to people who have been through so much more than you have, it is a reasonable response and answer to your problem.
Again, I'm sorry if I am being overly sesitive today.
Super post Angela! We are all strong.We all manage to make it thru every day & keep on going.I am amazed that I haven't totally given up on my H yet.It requires alot of strength to heal whether you stay in the marriage or not.
I am sorry if I offended you I am only pointing out the frustration that I am dealing with when it comes to this whole self confidence thing. It really makes me mad when in your H case he is running around with different women and I am sure before you caught him his self confidence was going through the roof then we get bomb shelled and we lose ours. Again I think I should probably stick to reading on this board and keeping my thought to myself. I seem to offend someone whenever I post. Sorry about that.
Thank you for the apology and PLEASE do not stop posting because I was offended by something you said. You have every right to say what you feel and I was insensitive to that. I am very sorry. Sometimes we get caught up in our own situations and hurts and don't always see that others can be hurting just as much. I don't want you to stop reading and posting here because of something I said. Reading and writing here can help so much. There is a wide range of experiences represented here, but we all share one thing. We've all been betrayed by someone we love and are dealing with all the same kinds of emotions because of it. Take from them what you can or need, discard what you don't.
My H and I are trying to make our marriage work. We still love each other and we have a long history together that we can't just toss aside. I know it seems like that is what he tried to do but it wasn't quite that simple. Believe it or not my husband's self-esteem was not through the roof before he got caught, in fact it was just the opposite. He was recovering from a very serious illness, was already feeling his own mortality and then a friend his age died in front of him, he was on antidepressants, and was having a very difficult time at work because of these things. Eventually he lost his job, a profession he had been in for 29 years. His life had spiraled out of control and he sought escape from it all. It doesn't make what he did right, it doesn't make it hurt any less, but it helps us both to understand some of the whys.
Tomorrow, The 4th of July, we will celebrate our 31st anniversary. It's been quite a year. We've weathered many storms in our 31 years together, none as big as this one however. Tomorrow I hope to celebrate what we had, I will probably mourn a little for what we lost, but I also hope to celebrate that we are still together, getting stronger together, and getting better as a couple together.
Understand that your emotions will be all over the place for quite awhile. This is normal. I wish you strength in dealing with it all but I also wish for you Hope. Things may look bleak now but have hope. It CAN get better. You WILL feel better again.
I have to agree with those who say you should go with her. My wife had an affair with someone she works with who lives in another state. They had their affair at a meeting and again at an interview. I have been with her to every out of town meeting in which they both have to attend. We make a nice vacation out of it. I'm sure all three of us know why I am there, because I want to be near my wife, and that gives me peace of mind.
If I had to stay home, it would drive me crazy. I'd like to say, "not because I don't trust her", but I guess that is not totally true. After we are hurt and deceived, the deep down trust doesn't come back easilly. It is about 6 months since D-day, she gives me all the support and love I could ask for; but trust? I'm still not 100% there yet; don't know how we get there. She was another person in the affair (the fog??) and I don't want to give that person an opportunity to come back. If not enough time together had anything to do with it, then I'm killing two birds with one stone.
I don't accuse her of anything, I don't think anything will ever happen again, but I want some control over it at this time.
Good luck, and think about your own peace of mind, not what others will think of your actions.
