| Statement: | To make a long story short, my wife of 25+ years recently revealed that over a decade ago she spent two nights in a hotel room with her high school boyfriend; the same person who dumped her shortly before we met. Naturally,I was devastated by this revelation. I considered my wife to be completely trustworthy and as close to an angel as a human could get. We have always been best friends as well as deeply in love. Our decades together seemed to me like an extended honeymoon (although too often interrupted by the demands of work and family). In short, I would have bet my life that my wife would never do such a thing. She says the contact with her old boyfriend started because he called her, not because of any crisis in our marriage. And she never intended for the encounter to turn physical. To her credit she says the guilt and anxiety made her miserable for most of that two day period in and around the hotel room, and that she left well before she really had to. She also says the experience finally cured her once and for all of any attraction for him. Before these revelations, we seemed to be in relationship heaven. But now I know that for all of our marriage she has been carrying incredible guilt and beating herself up for taking so long to get him out of her system. (At one point she secretly sought counseling in an attempt to exorcise the feelings.) After finally confessing, she worried it would forever tarnish my feelings for her, if not end the marriage entirely. But we have finally recovered enough that life is pretty much back to normal (though I am still insisting on lots of dates and still disinclined to leave her side). I now know that first-loves (especially if interrupted/unresolved) can leave powerful imprints on people; much like a chemical addiction. But it is still very hard to imagine my wife, a very intelligent and principled person, taking such chances with our relationship and family. |