Junior Member


Reged: 09/19/05
Posts: 4
I Can't Believe This Has Happened to Me
#2815714 - 09/19/05 09:49 AM Edit Reply Quote Quick Reply



This is my first post on the site, somewhere that I have only found the need for in the last 7 days. Over the last 2 months I have gradually found out that my beloved wife of 18 years has been having a torrid affair with a former work colleague. This has gone on for over 2 years despite both the parties having spouses and children and the fact that she had not worked with him since 1990! She contacted him through the Friends Re-United website here in the UK. Her Mother had died 8 months before the initial contact and she tells me that she was only e-mailing him for the first 5 months. The first meeting was at his insistence, and was secret.

The affair went into high gear and became physical soon after. At the same time my relationship with my wife started to deteriorate. Sex went from occasional but adventurous to very infrequent and cold. Arguments festered and there was almost no communication. I was deluding myself that the reason for all these problems was the university course that she was taking. I now see that it was a symptom of the undermining of my marriage. The endgame began, as do so many, with the sight of a text message from the OM. This was the thread that I pulled relentlessly to unravel the full, bitter truth. The final confirmation last week was the most bitter and personal blow that a man could suffer.

Since then I feel like I have been following a script devised by this web site. The devastation has been total and unbearable, the tears have fallen like rain and i have lost track of the number fo times that I have cried out in agony, trying to take away the pain that will not go. I have started to come to terms with this total upheaval of all I have ever known and believed on an intellectual level. It happened, these things do. But on an emotional level I am finding it so difficult to reconcile the person I thought I knew with the person who has done this to me. The betrayal and deception have left me emotionally flayed raw.

One of the few crumbs of comfort ( and they are few) is the reference I made to a script. My wife appears to be following one as well. If I accept that the affair really ended when I contacted his spouse then we are only 3 weeks into the post affair period. She has expressed her devastation at the end of the relationship (very difficult to listen to) and has moved on to examine the reasons for the affair. True to the experience of others she has started to re-write our history to help her justify our actions.

Apparently the 16 years before the affair were not too great, and anyway we got engaged under a cloud, too young and on the rebound. Apparently "the kids will be fine" because they are resilient - a piece of self deception that leaves me breathless. She could never discover with me the love that she and the OP had, and he could never feel as strongly for his wife as he felt for mine!! Overlaying all these comments is the constant assertion that they were truly in love and that they would be together if only it were not for the inconvenient fact that they are married to other people with whom they have a family.

So, in the light of the above, is she going through the post affair withdrawl symptoms, or am I the one in denial? I don't want to sound flippant, but I have seen other posters refer to their WS as "having their brains scrambled" in much the same way a drug addict does. Can this be true and is there anything I acn do to speed up the detox. process?

All caring comments gratefully received