Me too - 11/16/03 03:35 PM
So I've been very, well, hesitant about posting here, because it seemed like my situation was so minor compared to the issues of so many others. But I need help. I can't make the thoughts go away. I can't stop thinking about it. I can't stop playing the pictures in my head. I can't stop remembering the words that I've read.
So here's a rough timeline of events.
1) We've been married for 4 years, together for 7 years, friends for 10 years. We have no kids from our marriage, but she did bring two daughters from previous relationships.
2) For a while now, I've had issues with trusting my wife. I was never really willing or able to admit it, as they'd be fleeting thoughts. But now, I can remember clearly several times in our past where I had flashes of suspicion about whether she was really "going to work early", "working late", or "working on the weekend. But, I'd call, or drive by, and her car was there, and she'd have the overtime on her paycheck. Anyway, it had gotten a lot worse recently.
3) For the past 3.5 years, we've both been part of an online gaming community. We've tried out most of those MMORPG's (games like Everquest, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, and so on). This has been the primary recreational activity that we've shared together. As a result of the time spent, we've also met a lot of people, several of which we have gone to meet in real life, most on more than one occasion, with my wife even being a Bridesmaid for one couple we met through this activity. So there have been lots of good friends, good people, and close relationships developed there over the years.
4) In late August, I decided to quit those games, to devote more time to our everyday lives. I felt as though we were both neglecting more important things, like cooking and cleaning and, most especially, the kids. I suppose that my hope at the time was that, as a result of me quitting completely, she'd reduce her time as well, because I wasn't there. Well, not only did that not happen, her time on the computer increased, dramatically.
She went from a common schedule of being on the computer for maybe 2-3 hours 2 times Monday-Thursday, 4-5 hours Friday, and maybe a total of 6 hours on Saturday and Sunday combined (maybe 20 hours in a week), to 6pm-11pm (or later) Monday-Thursday (every night), 6pm-3am Friday, all day and night Saturday until as late as 4am again, and most of the day Sunday, depending on if the kids were with us or not that weekend (as much as 50+ hours a week). So, this got under my skin, made me jealous, made me suspicious.
5) Eventually, on or about October 16th (two days after our 4th anniversary), I snooped into her computer activities, and found some things that didn't make sense. Visits to websites like Victoria's Secret, Frederick's of Hollywood, and another that sold not only the same type of clothing, but other "adult toys". Also, I found a few pictures of one of the guys from this game that we'd never actually met in real life, a new friend from the most recent game, someone that she would have met no earlier than July. Also, I found a collage of pictures of her with suggestive comments added (pictures of her in a baby doll shirt with a comment about making it much shorter, her tatoo on the small of her back with hands wandering across her butt, her belly-button piercing with lips and a comment about exploring even more), and pictures of her sexiest lingerie items layed out on the bed (which I had never seen before, and couldn't understand why she'd have them at all, let alone have them stored in her computer. Well, I flipped. I confronted her right away, and she explained it all away as harmless, silliness, or surprises for me.
6) Well, I didn't buy it, and I kept on snooping. I had also mentioned a visit to an internet email site that I'd never known her to go to, as though she might have some secret e-mail account, but she denied that, and as it turns out, it was our oldest daughter going there. However, that very night, after she came home, she went to a different place and DID create a new "secret" email account, with only on address in it, and a message sent saying "This is just for you sweetie, so don't lose the address." Additionally, while she was working on Saturday (10/18), I found a chat log of private conversaion with this same guy from the pictures that was VERY suggestive, and refrenced a time in November when these things could happen (she was planning a trip out of town in November with a female co-worker, which had been in planning since the very beginning of the time that she would have even met this guy). Well, I flipped again! I told her that I wanted her to send him an email saying that their friendship was over, and to send me a copy of it when she did. She said she would, but didn't. She came home and said she wanted me to watch her send it, but never got around to it. Sunday morning, I told her that I wanted her to go into that chat room and tell him it was over while I watched, but she said she didn't want to put him on the spot, it's not his fault, she made the mistake, its not fair to him. So I told her to send the email, but she never did that either. Sunday night, I told her that it felt like she was just trying to stall so that she could warn him of some upcoming message that she didn't mean, and wanted to wait to make sure he'd be ok, but of course, that was way off base.
7) Monday (10/20), I found a copy of some email she had sent to him on Sunday! Sunday morning, a message warning him that she was going to have to tell him that they would cool things off, and talk about how she had hurt me, blah, blah, blah. Followed by his thanks for letting him know. Followed by her saying "Oh, and the trip is still on, as long as I don't make any major mistakes between now and then." Well, that was it. That was D-Day. I confronted her, she admitted to what I had discovered, said it had gone too far, said that she was ending it, said that it was just something that had developed when there were a lot of problems at home (my jealousy and the usual stresses with kids) plus problems at work, and she had just turned to this friend for emotional comfort, and it had just gotten out of hand.
8) Since then, we've talked a lot. She's never used the voice chat that she was always on with him. She hardly ever even turned her computer on, and when she has, she's told me ahead of time when, why, what, and for how long. Of course, that guy was often present in whatever she was doing in the chat room or games. But I accepted that as having been an activity that she's enjoyed for a lot longer than she's known this guy, where she has a lot of other good friends that she hasn't had these types of conversations with, and maybe that was a mistake, but what's done is done. Besides, she has email and internet at work, so if she wanted to stay in touch without me knowing, I couldn't stop her by demanding she never use her compuetr at home. So I felt it better to be open, and honest, and aware of what's happening, to allow her the opportunity to show me that she's not doing anything wrong now, instead of making her feel trapped.
9) So we fast-forward to this weekend. This is the weekend of her planned trip, and she's gone. Maybe she was telling me the truth that she no longer has any plans or intentions of meeting him there. Maybe she's telling me the truth that, even if he did show up, she would absolutely, positively, under any circumstances, NOT be interested in allowing anything physical to happen. But me being so mired in frustration and mistrust and bad feelings of every sort? I decided I need to do just a bit more last-minute snooping. I didn't find anything new. No evidence that anything had happened since D-Day.
However, what I did find freaked me out just the same. I found an old log of messages shared between the two of them of VERY explicit "description", from all the way back in AUGUST! 2 MONTHS before this "one time thing" happened. So, I confronted her with this just hours before she was set to leave, which may have been my dumbest move yet. I told her that, in my eyes, it equated to cybersex, that it was horribly inappropriate, and that, yet again, for the third time, she had told me "You know everything now, so there's no reason for me to lie", and for third time, I found out more that she had never told me. She said it was "just a story" and she basically didn't think there was anything wrong. I responded that, even if it was "just a story", I don't thin it's right for my wife to be collaborating on porn movie with another man (believe me...it was VERY explicit and VERY descriptive).
10) And we move forward to today. It's been almost 3 days since she left, and I haven't heard one word from her. She never bothered to call to tell me that they'd arrived safely. Her cell phone has been off the entire time. And after I finally left her a message yesterday afternoon that I'd like to hear from her to know that she's ok and how things are going (in those words exactly), well, I still haven't heard from her, and her phone is still off.
To make matters worse, this other man, hasn't been seen in the chat rooms or games or message boards since Friday morning, and he's somebody who'd be there every single day, multiple times a day, without fail, unless he had no access to a compueter, for example, if he happened to be out of town during the very same time that my wife is gone.
So I'm a wreck. I can't get through these feelings. I can't get these images out of my head. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't do anything productive. And it's taken every ounce of strength in my body just to keep myself from calling her every 5 minutes and leaving increasingly nasty messages.
How do I get through this? Gawd how?!?!
<small>[ November 16, 2003, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Uncomfortably Numb ]</small>
So here's a rough timeline of events.
1) We've been married for 4 years, together for 7 years, friends for 10 years. We have no kids from our marriage, but she did bring two daughters from previous relationships.
2) For a while now, I've had issues with trusting my wife. I was never really willing or able to admit it, as they'd be fleeting thoughts. But now, I can remember clearly several times in our past where I had flashes of suspicion about whether she was really "going to work early", "working late", or "working on the weekend. But, I'd call, or drive by, and her car was there, and she'd have the overtime on her paycheck. Anyway, it had gotten a lot worse recently.
3) For the past 3.5 years, we've both been part of an online gaming community. We've tried out most of those MMORPG's (games like Everquest, Asheron's Call, Star Wars Galaxies, and so on). This has been the primary recreational activity that we've shared together. As a result of the time spent, we've also met a lot of people, several of which we have gone to meet in real life, most on more than one occasion, with my wife even being a Bridesmaid for one couple we met through this activity. So there have been lots of good friends, good people, and close relationships developed there over the years.
4) In late August, I decided to quit those games, to devote more time to our everyday lives. I felt as though we were both neglecting more important things, like cooking and cleaning and, most especially, the kids. I suppose that my hope at the time was that, as a result of me quitting completely, she'd reduce her time as well, because I wasn't there. Well, not only did that not happen, her time on the computer increased, dramatically.
She went from a common schedule of being on the computer for maybe 2-3 hours 2 times Monday-Thursday, 4-5 hours Friday, and maybe a total of 6 hours on Saturday and Sunday combined (maybe 20 hours in a week), to 6pm-11pm (or later) Monday-Thursday (every night), 6pm-3am Friday, all day and night Saturday until as late as 4am again, and most of the day Sunday, depending on if the kids were with us or not that weekend (as much as 50+ hours a week). So, this got under my skin, made me jealous, made me suspicious.
5) Eventually, on or about October 16th (two days after our 4th anniversary), I snooped into her computer activities, and found some things that didn't make sense. Visits to websites like Victoria's Secret, Frederick's of Hollywood, and another that sold not only the same type of clothing, but other "adult toys". Also, I found a few pictures of one of the guys from this game that we'd never actually met in real life, a new friend from the most recent game, someone that she would have met no earlier than July. Also, I found a collage of pictures of her with suggestive comments added (pictures of her in a baby doll shirt with a comment about making it much shorter, her tatoo on the small of her back with hands wandering across her butt, her belly-button piercing with lips and a comment about exploring even more), and pictures of her sexiest lingerie items layed out on the bed (which I had never seen before, and couldn't understand why she'd have them at all, let alone have them stored in her computer. Well, I flipped. I confronted her right away, and she explained it all away as harmless, silliness, or surprises for me.
6) Well, I didn't buy it, and I kept on snooping. I had also mentioned a visit to an internet email site that I'd never known her to go to, as though she might have some secret e-mail account, but she denied that, and as it turns out, it was our oldest daughter going there. However, that very night, after she came home, she went to a different place and DID create a new "secret" email account, with only on address in it, and a message sent saying "This is just for you sweetie, so don't lose the address." Additionally, while she was working on Saturday (10/18), I found a chat log of private conversaion with this same guy from the pictures that was VERY suggestive, and refrenced a time in November when these things could happen (she was planning a trip out of town in November with a female co-worker, which had been in planning since the very beginning of the time that she would have even met this guy). Well, I flipped again! I told her that I wanted her to send him an email saying that their friendship was over, and to send me a copy of it when she did. She said she would, but didn't. She came home and said she wanted me to watch her send it, but never got around to it. Sunday morning, I told her that I wanted her to go into that chat room and tell him it was over while I watched, but she said she didn't want to put him on the spot, it's not his fault, she made the mistake, its not fair to him. So I told her to send the email, but she never did that either. Sunday night, I told her that it felt like she was just trying to stall so that she could warn him of some upcoming message that she didn't mean, and wanted to wait to make sure he'd be ok, but of course, that was way off base.
7) Monday (10/20), I found a copy of some email she had sent to him on Sunday! Sunday morning, a message warning him that she was going to have to tell him that they would cool things off, and talk about how she had hurt me, blah, blah, blah. Followed by his thanks for letting him know. Followed by her saying "Oh, and the trip is still on, as long as I don't make any major mistakes between now and then." Well, that was it. That was D-Day. I confronted her, she admitted to what I had discovered, said it had gone too far, said that she was ending it, said that it was just something that had developed when there were a lot of problems at home (my jealousy and the usual stresses with kids) plus problems at work, and she had just turned to this friend for emotional comfort, and it had just gotten out of hand.
8) Since then, we've talked a lot. She's never used the voice chat that she was always on with him. She hardly ever even turned her computer on, and when she has, she's told me ahead of time when, why, what, and for how long. Of course, that guy was often present in whatever she was doing in the chat room or games. But I accepted that as having been an activity that she's enjoyed for a lot longer than she's known this guy, where she has a lot of other good friends that she hasn't had these types of conversations with, and maybe that was a mistake, but what's done is done. Besides, she has email and internet at work, so if she wanted to stay in touch without me knowing, I couldn't stop her by demanding she never use her compuetr at home. So I felt it better to be open, and honest, and aware of what's happening, to allow her the opportunity to show me that she's not doing anything wrong now, instead of making her feel trapped.
9) So we fast-forward to this weekend. This is the weekend of her planned trip, and she's gone. Maybe she was telling me the truth that she no longer has any plans or intentions of meeting him there. Maybe she's telling me the truth that, even if he did show up, she would absolutely, positively, under any circumstances, NOT be interested in allowing anything physical to happen. But me being so mired in frustration and mistrust and bad feelings of every sort? I decided I need to do just a bit more last-minute snooping. I didn't find anything new. No evidence that anything had happened since D-Day.
However, what I did find freaked me out just the same. I found an old log of messages shared between the two of them of VERY explicit "description", from all the way back in AUGUST! 2 MONTHS before this "one time thing" happened. So, I confronted her with this just hours before she was set to leave, which may have been my dumbest move yet. I told her that, in my eyes, it equated to cybersex, that it was horribly inappropriate, and that, yet again, for the third time, she had told me "You know everything now, so there's no reason for me to lie", and for third time, I found out more that she had never told me. She said it was "just a story" and she basically didn't think there was anything wrong. I responded that, even if it was "just a story", I don't thin it's right for my wife to be collaborating on porn movie with another man (believe me...it was VERY explicit and VERY descriptive).
10) And we move forward to today. It's been almost 3 days since she left, and I haven't heard one word from her. She never bothered to call to tell me that they'd arrived safely. Her cell phone has been off the entire time. And after I finally left her a message yesterday afternoon that I'd like to hear from her to know that she's ok and how things are going (in those words exactly), well, I still haven't heard from her, and her phone is still off.
To make matters worse, this other man, hasn't been seen in the chat rooms or games or message boards since Friday morning, and he's somebody who'd be there every single day, multiple times a day, without fail, unless he had no access to a compueter, for example, if he happened to be out of town during the very same time that my wife is gone.
So I'm a wreck. I can't get through these feelings. I can't get these images out of my head. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I can't do anything productive. And it's taken every ounce of strength in my body just to keep myself from calling her every 5 minutes and leaving increasingly nasty messages.
How do I get through this? Gawd how?!?!
<small>[ November 16, 2003, 09:40 AM: Message edited by: Uncomfortably Numb ]</small>