I am not sure I can get over his A.

I used to be a sunny type of person. I thought I had a wonderful marriage. I know at times I did if you discount the dishonesty and betrayal that he gave himself permission to smear our marriage with. We always had really great sex and plenty of it. We worked together, laughed a lot and had (I thought) a great deal of mutual respect. We always remarked how special we thought we were to work well together and still be so intensely attracted to each other. How we were true partners in everything. How lucky we were to really like each other and get to sleep together too. All of our friends always pick ours as really the greatest marriage. Well, Surprise!

He says he was stressed – yes he was. He says it was an unbelievably hard time for him. Yes it was. He says it was a mistake. I say bull****. Mistakes are accidents. This was a conscious decision. He could have said no at any time. It was 10000 bad decisions – every kiss, every touch, every special smile, every seductive action and every lie to me. He made a choice to lie to me for the rest of his life so he could be with her for a few months. He chose this over staying true to me and keeping our marriage whole and protecting me from THIS. He did this when I needed him most. I was alone for most of my pregnancy. I was always sad about it, but he was selling his company and was in charge of a lot and I realized he needed to be absent. I just didn’t know on how many levels he had abandoned me.


It’s been 3.5 months since d-day and 15 years since the A ended. We were having a blast. Travel, nice restaurants, great hotels, money, love and sex. We were in our 8th year together and I was in my 5th month of pregnancy when he broke his promises and our vows. He liked her. She was nice. Beautiful. Impressed with him. The sex, he claims (yuck) was nice most of the time. It was “nice.” I’d punch someone if they said sex with me was “nice.” He continued the A for 3 months, ending it a month before I gave birth to our only child. He kept it secret for 15 years. He says he re-committed to our marriage at that point and has never had another A. He says he has remorse and regret and can’t believe he betrayed me that way. He doesn’t remember many details. He blames himself and his problem with commitment and says he had a lot of trouble with having sex with me when I was pregnant. He is very ashamed and regards it as the biggest mistake of his life. He is committed now, he says, to making our marriage more like the one I thought I had, before I learned 3/4 of it was a lie. He says he loves me completely and he had been confident, but especially now, after witnessing my pain and anger, that he will never do it again. He says he always loved me. It scared him sometimes to realize how much. He was married twice before and cheated on both. So – SURPRISE! I just thought after 2 failed marriages and 5 years of therapy and 8 years in a committed loving and fun sexual relationship, SOMETHING inside him (all that “love”??) would have screamed NO –STOP – DON”T DO IT! But no – he kept going back to her and lying to me. He always knew it was a terrible mistake but now he claims to see his patterns lining up with his father’s terrible attitudes. He never wanted to be anything like his dad and now he feels he has been discounting me in many ways for many years. He is doing personal work to make himself a better person for me and for him. He is hoping that after a time, I will see that he loves me completely and truly is a better man and that I will trust him again.

Me- I am just plain upset – Basket case sometimes. I am awful to him at times. So angry. And the triggers are everywhere. Can't even look at a pregnant woman. Some days are worse than others. It is difficult for me to realize I was in a relationship like this. When I brought up behavior that I thought was bad in terms of me and our marriage over the years, he really always fought back – very defensive. If I had pushed him, maybe counseling might have helped cut some of this behavior off. I am sickened that he had sex with this person and lied to me for 15 years. Other people knew about his A and this is devastating to me. I told him that this makes me feel publicly sexually humiliated. They knew he was risking me and our marriage for a PA with this sweet young adoring office babe. There’s love for you. I didn’t get to know the truth about my marriage for another 15 years. I was at home growing his child and he was in Florida having hotel sex with the tight blond young assistant. When I am out and about in my busy life and I think of him, instead of feeling safe and warm in the thought of our wonderful life together, I am bleeding and in shock that he chose to do this cruel and dishonest thing in the middle of my marriage. I feel like he gave it and me the finger. He says he never wanted me to know. Guess what buddy – I DO know and you risked that when you make your choice and now I am crushed and my life has changed and I have to do all the work to make us whole again. He tell me “I love you and I always have” and I think Bull****. You hurt me and had fun doing it.

Why can’t I concentrate on the good guy that I love, who was faithful all those years (except those 3 months), the great dad, the man who’s working hard to win me back. Is it evil of me to be so hurt and upset after 15 years and all his love since? After all, many of you are reeling from ongoing E&PAs that you’re dealing with in the present. I have a husband who loves me and wants to do whatever it takes to bring me back to trusting and loving him. He says he wants to be my “safe place” again. He feels terrible and ashamed. All the right stuff. We go to counseling and he is open and honest and tries to help me.

Now that I know he made these choices, I am wounded and completely off balance. I feel manipulated and foolish and discounted and betrayed. I know he loves me yet I don’t feel loved.

I don’t know how to forgive him.
.

Hopefully my response doesn't get me blasted, but I would give just about anything right now to be in your position! I am less than a week away from being divorced, if my STBXH signs the papers.

I don't discount your hurt! But if you've been married for 20 years to a man who, for all intents and purposes, sounds like he's been a pretty great guy, my opinion is that you MUST find a way to get past this. Look at what you'd be losing...all for something that is long since over and done with.

No, it wasn't at all right. And there's a part of me who isn't always 100% with the program when it comes to disclosing affairs LONG after they happened. I'm not sure it doesn't cause more harm than good. But whats out is out and now you must deal with it in one way or another.

Can you see a counselor together? Do you attend a church? If so, can you talk with your pastor?

If you have other posts on here about why you found out now, I apologize for not having read them. But whatever the reason that the news was broken so late to you, just please weigh very carefully what you have to lose by not working through this vs. what you have to gain by staying.

LL

Hi {{{Lilybelle}}},

I can really understand how upset you are.Even though the A was over and done with 15 years ago,YOUR Dday was only 3.5 MONTHS ago.This is all fresh and painful for YOU because your FWH kept it his dark,dirty little secret all this time.

But you know what,based on what you mentioned,I think in time things won't be so intense and painful.Why? Because it sounds like your FWH is truly sorry for what he did,he ended it long ago and is trying hard to be supportive or at least,understanding of what you are now experiencing.

I don't know if you've already been to the Recovery board but that may be the best place right now to deal with this.There are too many people here at GQ that are all over the map.You need to hang out with those going through these stages that you are.

Good Luck to you.

O

<small>[ November 12, 2004, 06:10 PM: Message edited by: Octobergirl ]</small>

Lilybelle -

Of course you are upset. Your perfect marriage turned out not to be as perfect as you thought. There will be a blotch on your memory forever.

I think you need to grieve your loss. It is a loss of the life you thought you had. I hope you will take the time to go through this sadness.

I also hope that you will realize that people do make mistakes - that is not an excuse, but the reality.

Thanks for everyone who took the (considerable) time to read this. It helps. I found out when a disgruntled former business associate threatened to reveal it. H told me before I heard it from this other evil man. We don't know if he would actually revealed it in the end, but my H didn't want to take that chance. He never wanted me to know. I have mixed feelings about it now. I want to know all about my life. I am angry that my H controlled that for selfish purposes. I can't imagine how I would have felt finding out a differrent way, like after his death. He hated telling me. He watched me get physically sick for days after d-day. He still has to watch my pain.

I am hopeful that I can get past this. It just shocks fresh me every morning that this has happened. I may be a wimp and not counting my blessings - but I was really blindsided. And it makes you wonder - what's real? If he lied about this, maybe tere are other As other things? How do I get the trust back? Time will tell.

Sweetie -

Your feelings are absolutely, completely normal. We all go through the same thing. When we find out that our partner has lied and cheated, our whole world turns upside down.

Our marriage as we knew it no longer exists. Then we start wondering what else happened that we didn't know about. Our whole reality comes under scrutiny. What was true, and what was not? Did our partner care or not? Who is our partner?

Stick with us, and keep posting and reading about these things. You WILL get better.

How do I get the trust back? Time will tell.

That's it--time. It will take time.

My STBXH had an affair 12 years ago (won't go into detail--nothing like your situation--very in my face).

My point here--I didn't know if I could ever trust him again after he did that.

But we got back together, and over time, the trust did come back. So much so, that I was completely blindsided when it happened again.

Don't worry--my marriage doesn't sound like it was ever what you have. I loved (still do) my STBXH, but we had lots of issues from day one.

I really think you have an excellent chance of having a great marriage. But be patient with yourself as you work through the pain. It will get better day by day.

LL