I’ve read column after column now for over four years trying to deal with my wife’s affair with a co-worker. I bought book after book and tried to understand and deal with what has happen.

However it seen to me that most of the columns out their have fail to cover one of the most painful things a person in a marriage has to deal with in an affair sexual rejections that were shown with in a marriage from day one. First I thought I had a perfect marriage in every manor except for the lack of sexual desire on or willingness on my wife’s part. I’ve always been a very sexual and open person. When I first met my wife she was anything but cold and prude “Very Sexual”.

But just months after saying “I do”, she turned a 360 on me sexually. I tried for many years to over come it and to talk to her about the void she was leaving in my life and our marriage 99.9 % of the time she’d stonewall me and it would rip me apart inside. I think that every fight we ever had was because of the lack of sex and sexual experimentation. She basically told me with in the first year of our marriage sex was something she could do with out.

In fact the first time and only time I ever left her, was because she had refused me sexually and this hurt me very badly. I attempt to deal with it. I was determined to make my marriage work and I loved her in every other way she was the perfect woman in my eyes. She was smart, beautiful and respectful of me in everything other than my sexual desire for her. During those years of dealing with the sexual rejection I question my ability to please her however, un-like her limited sexual encounters at the time I had been with more women than I honestly want to admit.

I even when as far as calling a few of them and asking in all honesty how did you rate me as a lover four out of the 5 I called stated all jokes aside best they could remember I was the best they had ever been with two of the 5 stated today I was the only one to ever give them a true orgasm. So once that quest for information was filled I felt it had to be something that my wife had experienced in a past relationship that had turned her this way towards sex in a relationship or marriage. I even when as far as to question her about it and she stated no she just didn’t care for sex that offend and it’s something she could do with out.

One of her prime excuses all during the marriage was that she couldn’t stand her self or body because of her weight. I never seen an issue with her weight because she is one of the best build women I have ever known but this was her number one excuse. She was also obsessed with weight loss and exercise in an attempt to keep her weight down. But I loved her and never seen the weight as a issue she was more attractive to me than any other women I had ever known and this excuse also caused me much pain and hurt over the years. She also noted that my sex drive was totally unreasonable. I’d never seen my sex drive 3 or 4 times a week as unreasonable, nor had I ever had any other women in my past relationships complain about my sex drive.

Over the years I never gave up on our marriage or her in my mind she’d hit her sexual peak and everything would work it’s self out over time. One of the things that tore me the most was her dislike for receiving oral sex it’s something I’ve always enjoyed with great passion. I had always been one that enjoyed bring my partners to orgasm equally as much as achieving and orgasm myself.

Well here’s where the pain really picks up in the first quarter of 1999 she began adding more and more on her plate work, school, diet and the gym and now even had less time for m or the kids. We began fighting about it and the sexual issues I even suspected she was having an affair but cleared that from my mind because of her lack of sexuality in the marriage. I did ask her and she flat denied it where do you think I have the time she stated. As the months when on she created more and more distance between us and I was dying a day at a time begging and pleading with her to talk to me.

Later in the year we talked about maybe the bills and so on being our distancing factor so we agreed to buy a place that cost less monthly and try to pay off bills with the reduction in living expenses. Soon after we did so and they she told me she wanted a devoice again I felt she was having and affair, but based on all her morals and so on comment since dictated that it couldn’t be so she was the last woman on earth do something like that. I tried and tried to figure out what was going on and time and time again it lead me to belief she was having an affair but when where and who and more so why.

The fact is she was and had been for 4 months before I confirmed it. Yes my perfect woman who disliked and didn’t need sex or any man was knee deep in a very and unbelievably nasty affair. She had been going to work and sneaking off at lunch for those quickies and taking time off using her vacation and sick time all which I had or would had been refused and deemed crazy or irresponsible for asking for such attention all our years of marriage. She was using her vacation time and sick leave to give to sneak off and give oral sex and receiving it. She was even doing anal sex. She even bought him a card on my birthday and when to see him while I worked at our home with my son on my birthday.

All things I had been refused all things she stated she dislikes and did need. She was even having sex in public park restrooms, back roads, and driving 60 miles round trips to his house to do them with her co-worker. Twice even she started fights with me and left the home late at night to driving to a hotel down from his home. So that he’d come to the hotel to have sex while my child slept in the bed next the bed they were screwing in.

The more I dug the more I died inside you see many times over the years I had asked her to lunch and she didn’t have time and she couldn’t take a chance of being late getting back to work, plus the drive was to far I was only 10 miles away not the 60 plus mile round trips she was making to go and suck & screw him. Not only that she’d go in early to work or stay late to have sex in her place of work with him this was even after I had found out. She tell me she had doctors appointments and other employee’s at her office had to know because they were covering for her while she’d go to his home by parking her car at a local park and ride to his house for sex. Once I had caught wind of the things taking place she’d swear to GOD it wasn’t happening and that she didn’t need a man for any thing especially sex.. Where and how can I hurt from all this it’s simple everything she was doing is what she had deprived me and our marriage of for years.
Time, attention, passion, compassion and sex let along the verity of sex which was a sin in her eyes. I came close to kill him not once but many time I confronted him and he denied it time and time again just like her. We’re just friends I’m a Christian I’d never do that with another mans wife she even used that same line. Later even he told me they had plan to get married and that she had say yes to him and that they were intending to get married just as soon as I gave her the devoice. Funny how she had me buy this new home close to her place of work so she could use it as her personal whore house for him on there lunch breaks and then offer to let me have the house in the devoice some where I would have never chosen to live with out her in the first place. God she started and planned every step of the affair and used me like a fine tooth comb in her little game of destruction.

I read some of the letters she had wrote him my whole life died worse even was when I asked question she mad sure to hurt me with the answers and details. Even after her admission I still could not comprehend what she was telling me the woman I married was not this woman the woman I loved would never have lowered her self to these acts of disrespect. I believed that and I believed in her and now I pay a price no man or woman should have to play for loving another human being. I would have rather her have shot me in the head than to have to live past this destruction and pain.

I did finally total lose it and now he’s no longer got his paid for home or his secure job I gave him one last chances to move out of town. I was at a point in my life I would have killed him regardless of the out come. She did find another job and finally broke it off with him but it took two attempts once she admitted the affair she came home and swore she was sorry and didn’t know how she could do something like this and that she loved me only to sneak around with him a few more months.

I was going crazy even after she admitted it she forced me to have to suffer with him and her in the same office up until, she quite to go to her new job just a few miles from where he was a 15 minute ride.

Finally after her being in the affair 8 months things started to get better however my anger grew with the knowledge of the acts and the time and attention that was stolen from our marriage. Still today 4 years later I feel the rejection, yes there are something’s she now does that I enjoy and that she once wouldn’t do with me for anything one includes swallowing during oral sex but every time she does I no she did it with him the first three months they where together and it took this destruction and 8 plus years of marriage for me to get that intimacy for the first time.

I feel second to every thing she does with me. I no longer have the passion I once had with her in my heart even though I try to find it and this is one of the most empty and hurtful feeling of all I have to live with.. She started the affair, she planned the actions, places and times of their meetings and for me even today she doesn’t plan to be together by ourselves. It’s only after the kids are asleep and after all her task are completed and done that I get a few minutes of her attention.

I feel empty, dead and more rejected than I ever have in my life. I love her but I don’t feel she’s the woman I fell in love with nor will she ever be again. I long in my heart for what was minus the affair and hurtfulness this has place on me and now the even deep seeded sexual issues her affair has caused. I asked her why she did these things why she started the affair and she says it just happened. I asked her how she could do those things with him and she told me she wanted to please him. How is it she never wanted to please me her husband of eight years, the farther of our plan child. One of the most pain things of all is in 8 months she gave willing more of her self to him than she had given to me in 8 years.

Was it because she was in love she swears she wasn’t she swears she loves me. How does any man chose to stay in a marriage that has been turn in to a love hate marriage by the woman he worshipped for years. I asked if he was better at sex she swears no I asked her if she enjoyed her self she said no however based on the fact she when back time and time again week after week for something she said she didn’t enjoy the sex .What would you say the truth is? If sex was something she didn’t enjoy and it was truly better at home why did she go back repeatedly to do what she said she didn’t like or enjoy. Why did she return on her own will time and time again? Why did she not seek the adventure at home in the safety of her home and with her husband the man that has suffered years to retain her love and whole his family together.

How do I find love for her again how do I really ever put this all behind me like she thinks is so easy to do? I miss my ability to love her unconditionally a love that came so naturally for me now seems totally out of my reach to give any more.


I remember a time I could just look at her and get a hard on and think how lucky I was to have her. Now even being sexual by her choice I find it hard to get a hard on with her. I question my love for her; I question her love for me and for her family. I question how I could have ever fallen for the monster she became or the monster she had hidden inside of her I worry when the monster will resurface again. By her own admission of choice she controlled the affair and when after him. Worse I find myself longing for what she gave another but not wanting it from her. One day I’m love the next I hate her how do I, turn it off with out shutting down my compassion and love and trust for every one around me. How do I get her to see the pain I’m in she seems to think because its over for now that every thing was like it was does she not see to void in my love does she not see the love and trust she has lost. Will she ever understand what I’m having and had to live through to stay here?

Or does a woman like her some one a man has never left or broken up with not understand the pain of betrayal and heart break and will she ever see what she’s done to our family let alone understand the impact on me and my son. He also was pushed into this all and seen them together even spending the night at the mans house and this man coming to his mothers hotel room after daddy and mama had fought and his mother leaving home later at night and running to another man. He was forced to be pulled away from me and he knows the pain she caused even though she thinks he doesn’t. he was also neglected, she always said she wished she had more time between work and school to spend with him well she did but she chose to spend it with another man between her legs instead with her son not with her husband.

How do I deal and get past this pain? How do I ever except what she has done to me and my family let alone the rejections I dealt with for the first 7 years of marriage based on her lies & excuses. Her weight didn’t seem to be a problem to her in the affair she was having sex in the day light, in cars, parks and screwing anywhere and everywhere she could find a second or two for him. I don’t think in the first seven years I had a week go by I did cry myself asleep because of her turning her back to me with rejection towards my advance because of her excuses of not liking me to see her naked because of her weight and not liking sex..

I love her but I hate her too. I need what she has, never been a friend and a lover when all she has to offer me is the title of a wife minus the other roles that should have been natural to a real wife. I’m totally empty, I feel like all I’m good for is raising my son and proving her a partner in a family business venture. She even stated that I was a great provider I guess that’s all I’m good at or for to her. How do I stop the hurt with out becoming what she became an un-caring monster?

The sad thing is I and my family, have everything a family or man can want in life other than the love and trust of a caring and loving wife. Something I feel I’ll never have and the one thing I’d trade every thing else it my life in to have and feel again the woman I fell in love with I guess my mistake was marrying her before that she was a best friend, lover and a wife.

I question taking her back I feel I’m just a provider and that’s all I’ll ever be seeing that he only made about 40% of what I bring home a year. I feel I should have never taken her back and started my live fresh with a new woman whom might have be able to say she was a faithful and a loving wife honestly to God and the world on the day of my passing at old age. Now I’ll take this pain with me to the grave thanks to my so called loving wife.

Could she have live through this if the shoe had been on the other foot? I think not I think hate is all she would have ever given to me if I had pulled this on her. I would have gotten the fast devoice in history if I had done this and this is a fact I know and have to live with.

Signed
A dying man in need of answers….I am emotionally dead when does the hurt stop and life start back?

Gosh, your post broke my heart. I have been in your shoes, but I divorced. 3 months past D-day, I could not live with what my XH did to me.

For you, I would highly recommend counseling. No doubt about it. You are miserable and need to take care of YOURSELF. A very good therapist will help you deal with what was done to you, and help you discover what you should do.

I wish I could offer you more, but I can't.

Just know someone knows how badly your heart is hurt, and wishes they could make it all go away.

Sunshine

I see your pain from the 8 month affair and raise you 22 more months.

I raise your bid of empty years to 17 years.

Dead why the poker analogy?

Because I have held the same cards that life dealt me that it dealt you:

Our Story: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=31;t=009539

Let me give you some very serious things to consider.

Sexual avoidance often is a sign of some serious sex abuse and even rape issues. They maybe known by the avoider or they may be suppressed in their memory or a some combination of both.

It seems like a contradiction that she was rather sexual while courting but withdrew almost instantly once married.

You see in reality it makes a tremendous amoount of sense. While dating she was in control...how? She could go home she could not go out she could even say no while dating.

IF she was abused as I suspect then control is what was taken from her by her abuser. And she gained much of that back while dating you.

But once married she could not go home. She could not see you on a given day. And she felt pressured to comply to her wifely sexual obligations.

My wife said she felt "trapped" once we married even though she knew I would never hurt her.

I asked her what she thought she would gain by having an affair and she said she thought she could be in control. She could say no I won't meet you. She could go home rather than have to rely on her high school sweetheart for a ride home the very person who had just abused her.

My therapist and most books on abuse say sooner or later a rape/abuse victim will act out in some capacity to try and take back the control stolen from them in their earlier years.

As to sex with the OM. If indeed abused then I say there is a 50/50 chance it was worst with him. Do not assume that going back says other wise.

Understand an abused woman has been conditioned to associate sex with abuse. Indeed if the abuse is long enough and extensive enough then abuse and sex blur into one and the same. For an abused woman the associate sex with
1) Secrecy
2) Shame
3) Sense of danger
4) Guilt
5) Sense of low self worth
6) Forbidden

There are more but see how common those feelings would also be for a woman having an affair.

This is going to hurt but if your wife was abused then she actually NEEDED those ingredients in order to be sexual.

You were safe. You did not represent any of the above.

My wife said she self pleasured for years not wanting to associate me with being abused.

My therapist said her rejections were actually the highest compliment someone tortured as her could give a man.

If for some odd reason your wife did actually enjoy the sex its because of her distorted sense of what sexuality should be. She needed to feel all those negatives feelings in order to have sex.

Odds are she went back as you put not for the sex but much like an battered woman goes back to the one that beat them.....the battered woman does not "enjoy" being beaten but it is familar and since she is so broken familar is better than the unknown.

I see two things that suggest just your wife has strong issues for avoiding a close healthy intimate sexual relationship.

1) The obvious in that she avoids sex with the one she says she loves.

2) Her weight issues. They don't have to be real she simply has to believe it is an issue. Lots of overweight women use being overweight as a means to avoid dealing with sex.

She could have numerous other childhood issues but for now I would strongly suggest you look into the possibility that she was sexually abused.

I would also be interested in knowing about the other man. Was he serial cheater? Was he controlling? So on. There are many male sexual predators who have an iniate ability to indentify sexual abused women. The see the signs of low self esteem then they go digging for more signs.

I am willing to be the OM pursued very aggressively after first playing to be a friend. And I am willing to be your wife disclosed the fact you two were struggling sexually to him before they actually slept together. And if she can remember in her mind I bet she will say he started going from friend to hitting on her shortly after she started talking to him extensively about your sexual problems.

My belief that the OM was a sexual predator is simple...most normal men would not pursue a sexual relationship with someone telling them they don't like sex and they are struggling with their husbands sexually.

But for a predator that is like a calling card.

Clinical studies on whether childhood abuse leads to murder or adultery has never been proven to be true. I believe that it is a neat way for therapists to help people rationalize their actions and not take responsibiity even if there is no connection between the childhood abuse and their future behaviour. The fact is that people commit adultery because it is exciting and enjoyable. Your wife, even if she doesn't want to admit it to you, enjoyed having sex with the OM. IMO unless you can get over what she did you should leave her. It makes no sense to feel to stay with a spouse you don't respect or truly love.