I think he was M for nine YEARS, unless I misread.

I have been with my wife for 8 � years and married just 9 months.

Sorry that this is long winded, but I need some help getting over this situation before it eats me up and ruins all that I have.
I have been with my wife for 8 � years and married just 9 months. We got together whilst I was divorcing and she was just out of a long term relationship. She was 23 at the time and I was 9 years her senior with two kids aged 10 & 7. Cutting a story short, I got custody of the children for just over half the time and after massive amounts of indecision (took me six months to commit to my now wife) we moved in together and she became step mum (fantastically) to my kids. We then had two of our own now aged 3 & 6 and are considering adding to our numbers.
For the vast majority of our time together I have battled depression combined with too much booze and in reality treated her like [censored]. She comes from a very broken home and wished for security, but even though we were engaged and lived together I never truly committed and used to end the relationship on a fairly regular basis and even though she is truly beautiful made her feel like dirt. We got over a close family suicide (my father) soon after we got together , births, step kids, moving several times and career changes. She was and always has been truly wonderful as a Mum and Step Mum as well as a loyal and forgiving partner. I have called her names beyond what anyone should tolerate and could not have made her feel more insecure if I tried. No joint bank account only my name on the house etc etc. On top of that I used to holiday alone a lot and spent a month in rehab did very little with her and the kids and rarely involved myself in her side of the family.
I appreciate that I sound like the worst human being ever, but I truly loved and still love her and know that it was my own insecurities that lead to the whole control issue. I was unbearably controlling and mistrusting and was pretty intolerable for a great deal of our time together. She stuck in there though and stayed quiet such was her love for me.
So at a family party last Christmas (which, as usual, I did not attend) I rang her to ask her not to stay the night but this time she said that she would like to have a drink and not get the kids out of bed and bring them home when they were comfortable where they were. She never or rarely drank alcohol and in very small quantity if she did. I did my usual and reacted angrily, sent her a text or two basically calling her names and finishing (again) the relationship telling her that her bags were packed. She got extremely drunk in the company of people more her age and at the end of the night, apparently completely drunk, kissed a man who had shown her kindness all night as she had been devastated by my texts and call. He, it appears got a little over excited as all she wanted was just a kiss to comfort her and make her feel �loved� as she put it. He whipped his clothes off and basically like an excited puppy tried his hardest to have sex with her. She said no and managed to keep her pyjamas on (they had all got changed earlier in the evening as it was a family home, nothing strange in that) for the majority of the time but after trying to resist he managed to force her pyjamas down enough to enter her. At this point se pushed him off, he came back for more but she didn�t want it and thought the only way out was to give him a BJ as she finds it non giving of herself and unemotional. Seems odd, but I know this to be true. They were disturbed by a dog barking within seconds of the BJ starting, she then made excuses and went to bed immediately. Because he was a member of her extended step family she stayed in contact in a very minor way to ensure that there was no ill feeling or that anyone would have found out as it would have caused major embarrasement.
When she came back the next day from the party I immediately picked up on something being wrong. She stated that she had had enough of the insecurity of our relationship and was leaving me. I persuaded her to stay and give me a chance and she agreed, but was unsure whether it would change her mind. At this point I had no idea of the events of the party, but kind of suspected that there was more to the whole thing and questioned her to death even stating that I had tapped the phones at one point. She eventually after a month of questioning admitted to kissing this guy but stated that no more had happened and that she wanted it left there and was committed to repairing us and did not want to admit this fact as we had done such good work on our relationship and she felt at the time, during and after that it was a terrible drunken mistake that she regretted with all of her being. I forgave her as I had in effect thrown her into that arms of another, but asked her to take a lie detector test so that I knew I could trust her and continue the good work we were putting in. She reluctantly agreed to do it but the night before confessed to the above and another 3 minute misdemeanour within the first 6 months of our relationship. The first one did not involve anything other than kissing and she stopped it after a couple of minutes as it all felt wrong but said that it was at a time when I was still making my mind up about being with her and a guy at work showed her much nicer attention that I did and she gave in to his persuasive nature. They worked together for the next 6 years and nothing even happened again.
She passed the lie detector stating that she didn�t want sex at the Christmas party or any sort of relationship and basically all had now been told about everything that had happened from an infidelity point of view.
I questioned the two guys involved and the first confirmed exactly to the letter what my wife stated and the Christmas party guy basically said that she didn�t want anything else but he got a bit carried away although she didn�t stop him trying. His story differed slightly but only I would imagine because he was drunk too and therefore their recollections and/or interpretations would bound to be slightly different. He though he was onto a good thing, she was trying to think of a way out, so she says.

So, one would think at this point that we could draw a line under all of this and get on with life as she had been an angel for all but 5-10 minutes of our relationship, confessed eventually and passed a lie detector test to show me that she wanted to be truthful and regain my trust. On top of that she was still committed to working on our relationship and asked me to finally marry her, which I did.

However, I can�t seem to let the whole thing lie. I still question her and try to exaggerate what happened. I still try to get her to confess to more and have asked her over and over again to relive the events of the night in question and her story has never wavered. Yet I still continue to ask. She married me, she stayed with me, she tells me every day that she adores me and that the whole thing when it is brought up makes her feel physically sick and she is truly ashamed and that I was and always will be the only one for her, she was just lonely and wanted some affection as I was not giving it to her.

My question really is why can I not make this stop. I adore her, she adores me, we have a great life together and much happiness and the work we have done on our relationship is terrific over the last year and in many respects I cant imagine a better marriage, but this still keeps cropping up a year later. Why can I not see it for what it was, take the hit and get on with things. It is so destructive. She says often during these moments that the butterfly that comes back is yours forever, but I still feel like it could happen again and check her every move. I understand and appreciate my part in all of this. I know that had I not been an idiot none of this would have ever happened because this is not in her nature normally.
Is there anyone out there with some advice before I ruin everything that we have built by this constant reminding of bad times. Why can I not trust her ?

We did massive amounts of work trying to make sure we were indeed right for each other and then got married.

no we weren't married and I had dumped her.

Saving this one for the wayward hall of shame.

Pepper, I agree. They were not applied at the time which is why it all went wrong.

What a great bit of information for the OW.

This guy kept his affair going for 8 years without having to marry the mistress. She even pops out a couple kids for him along the way and he still won't marry her. So...what's a enterprising desperate OW to do but get drunk and have sex with a psuedo-relative at a family christmas party, then immediately expose herself to her "married man" being sure to add some salty victim-like language to the encounter and hope he respond AS PLANNNED.

BAM...

3-5 months later she's finally got her married man at the altar.

Bingo's got himself a reel keeper. Turns out his snapper is really a cunning shark.

Mr. W

one way of thinking about it. Or could it just be that actually two people can meet at the wrong time, make huge mistakes along the way. Get married and be happy ?
Just a thought.
Why would she want to marry me (this is her first marriage) for any other reason that that she wanted to commit for life. That's certainly what it now means to me.

one way of thinking about it. Or could it just be that actually two people can meet at the wrong time, make huge mistakes along the way. Get married and be happy ?
Just a thought.
Why would she want to marry me (this is her first marriage) for any other reason that that she wanted to commit for life. That's certainly what it now means to me.