Just found out… but the story begins 3 years ago. And it's a very long one.
I need to write it and try to organize my mind.
We are married for 12 years and have 2 kids, 6 and 8. I am 35 and he is 33.
We always had a good relationship the kind we were both very proud of, not only because we loved each other so much but because we were doing our sexual achievements, we both have sex high drives and the trust on each other to satisfy each other fantasies were our big thing.
3 years ago, my husband went on a business trip for one month and slept with a woman attending a seminar he had on the first week.
Of course he never told me.
After he arrived I found a picture of her on our home computer and asked him about it, he said it was just from a professional he met during his trip I then asked him to open his mail box with me so I can just feel more secure, there's no message from her or send to her, knowing he never deletes any mail I find it suspicious.
He keeps swearing she's just a professional acquaintance so I just tell him that receiving pictures just doesn't sound quite correct for a profissional relation and that I want him to cut it, he claims it's an important business contact, he we will quit if I insist… and I ask him, if he is telling the truth to let me see her next mail and don't delete before I see it (his mail is web based). He leaves to the office to work.
Later on that same day I decide to check the mail and there's the “proof”, a mail he send her as soon as he got to the office, that said something like: - Don't contact me personaly any more, my wife found out about the seminar and I told her I met you but I havent give her any further details about what happened between us-
When I read this I was devastated as to me it was the confirmation of what I suspected. It was even more has I never expected him to have sex with another woman.
I went to all the pain of a betrayed spouse, during all those days my husband was very caring with me, we talked a lot and he just kept denying, denying, denying, I told him a thousand times that if he had done it, he should tell me because I felt that he did and worst then everything else what was hurting me more were the lies and that he was leading me to live in doubt, because his e-mail was more then a proof. He just kept denying.
We talked everynight for so long, and the conclusions where always the same. I end up at a point that against all the “evidence” maybe he was telling the truth, I mean after all I begged for the truth I believed I reached a point where I even questioned myself as being after all just an insecure and very jeaoulous woman.
He had never done anything before, he was truly a wonderfull husband and father… why would he do something on the first time he had been so far away from us for so long? And if after so much pain he was still holding his position maybe the only explanation would be as simple as he actually havent done nothing wrong.
At the same time, he was living under so much pressure from work when he returned that maybe he's changes were just from the stress.
We moved on. We agreed on the truth and always the truth. I though he had understood what I tried to explain to him about the worst being living in doubt.
Guess he just believed that as long as he would always denied I had no chance of finding the truth. So I had no choice but believing him.
The last 3 years wore not the best years of our life. He had several problems at his job that started right after that long business trip, we were living under lots of pressure, our elder kid had a disasterous beginning on primary, we still at it actually, and just last week we found out that probably she's dyslexic.
We had to deal with the betrayal of my sister and her husband. Her husband took my husband's position at the company, after we got them here to work (we live abroad) so they could have a better life, plain and simple they took his position (director) and then his job (they had to kick him out of the company, last August). Only now (started last November) my husband started a better and promissing job.
During all this time we've been surviving… He's very dependent and I help him a lot with his job and decisions, we always been like that anyway, we always decided everything togheter. What we went tru because of his job problems I wish to no one.
When that business tip took place I was keepint two jobs. One from 9 to 6 and the other one from 10 to 3 am. After kids a sleep. The evening part-time at his company. When our elder got into P1 I had to quit evening job. I was devastated as you can imagine I've been one year at it. Took me at least another year to recover from all the lack of sleep.
During all this time, I have always felt inside me that he did it. But I also gave him the benefit of doubt because I though there was still place for it and I had no visible proof anyway.
I now know that the feeling of doubt just led me to close myself and, slowly, get away from him and our sexual life -(We never stopped having sex, we postponed some 'fantasies”due to our permanent stressed situation)-, this togheter with depressions never solved or treated, his stress, his job problems, the kids problems, the frustrations.
I now realise, looking back, I lived the past trhee years, between feellings of betrayed pain at the same time with feelings of self pusnishments for not believing him, or just plain self betrayed feelings of knowing but pretend not to know it just to keep the marriage. My last years just led me to a stage of not knowing myself anymore, not trusting my instinct anymore and not being abble to evaluate any situation anymore. I ended up not even able to develop my creative work anymore. Part of me died 3 years ago and since then I have been lost, as time went by I just realised I had lost all my self esteem and I couldn't find myself. But I had to be there, some times better sometimes worst, I had to be there for them. I had my children to take care off, I had to give my husband support (he is a very stressed person) and all this agony from his company (he/we were backstabed, as even we felt we were being trapped the “boss” always assured him). I had no more interest on anything and not even in xmas I could feel the warm and happiness of the occasion. I realised I just couldn't recognize myself, I had lost interest on everything and everything was falling apart, my profession, my job, my kids, my marriage and I was responsible for everything, I was just a looser.
During this time, unless I would find something suspicious, like it happened last April, I woulnt go and check for his e-mail, I would eventually logged in when he needed me to, but seldom to check on him, but it happened.
Anyway, last April he met a profissional girl, he told me about her, and when I realised he was mailing and messaging her several times a day. Most messages or mails I got to read (he was deleting them) were about her, personal and about her boyfriends or telling him about the guys she had slept or would never sleep, things were getting too close when I found out and immediately talked to him.
To this day he says nothing happened because she was just young and lost and the kind of girl sleeping with every guy to reach a better position and gather information. He said he was sorry for her and the he though she probably was so open to him because he was the honoredand kind married guy with children (his reputation on our small community) He said he had no sex desire for her what so ever. But since I was upset and since the he had hidden from me the situation he would immediately stop talking to her.
This was another stroke on me because things were not fully explained and there was still space for both option, he might have done it or not.
Did I believed him? I gave him again the benefit of doutb… and just felt like.. it doesn't matter, after all I am just that kind of women that pretends nothing happened to keep the marriage afraid of being lonely or because of the children, I mean I felt I was just weak and a failure, or eventually a paranoic jealous wife.
At this time he was like, don't be afraid I love you, you're the one I return home to everynight. This messaging thing means nothing.
He promises me to show me and tell me about any mail he receives from any of these womans, the current situation and the other one from the seminar that he never cut contact because of work.
There I go again in agony and doubt.
Every tim this happened I felt like… losing interest on him and in life and of course in sex. We always had sex… but it just wasn't the same.
The other women a few weeks later and while he was away on another business trip, re-starts sending him mails that were some what incriminatory like - Hi writing to you but it's professional. Or your “president visiting my country, I wish you were coming hiden in the plane just for me- and she even sended some pictures of the view of the hotel they stayed at in that seminar. (This was very recent and what prove could I get more?, from this day I had one more confirmation… but I couldn't bring this subject on him again…. So I just went on with looser and weak woman I was now )
When I asked him why is she frasing the professional intent if she had naver had any other according to what you say? He just said… well I don't know what goes in a brazilian mind. But there's no reason for her to say that I assure you.
PRESENT DAY - I JUST FIND OUT
Three weeks ago he attented a marriage of a professional acquaintance, from another town that had the marriage cerimony at our town. I didn't attended because I was feeling down, and we he forgotten about it and I had no time for the dressing and all that stuff and I didn't wanted him to look bad with me with all the VIP's attending the cerimony.
The dinner started 7pm. After dinner he called me saying he was bored. He just wanted to came home so we could be togheter specially because kids were sleeping over some friends. He called me around midnight telling me it was almost over and that he would call me back max in one hour, so I would pick him up, but it was so cold that he could even get a taxi and go home faster that way, without me having to go out in the cold.
AND I WAITED TILL 5AM IN THE MORNING. I called him every 10 minutes between 1am and 4 am and no answer. I went to the Hotel and they told me the wedding was over around midnight.
He got home 5am, not drunk, and I was really upset. I asked him where he had been, he said he had been at the wedding party, I told him that the wedding party had finished midnight he then said he went out with some people from the wedding to the casino and that he then returned with them to the Hotel just for company (since he was a local) out of courtesy.
He said he didn't listen to the phone ringing. And he didn't call because he tough I'd be a sleep…. (when I was waiting for him)
I shout that something like -(just like you did with the brazilian? (3year ago seminar one) and he was like mad and went to sleep on the sofa.
In that evening our youngest got very sick they brouth her home early in the morning.
We havent talked about it because the very next day I spended it on the Hospital.
Monday he went to another town for an interview while I was waiting for some results to know if the kid needed or not small surgery. No surgery but that week was a mess with the kid home sick and me with an important project to finish at work. He was also very busy and working late. So we shared time at home.
And finally last week, on the 18, I got a call from a friend telling me that she saw my husband on the middle of the night, Monday 9, on a 5 star Hotel in the other town with another woman.
Can there be more proof then this?
I talked to him that evening, and while waiting, in agony, for him to came back from the office, I checked his mail… and a new mail arrived, immediately opened by him and it was a picture of the woman he was now in chat with, (by the message on the mail) and most certainely the one he had met at the wedding and the one he spend the night in that Hotel.
I called him immediately and told him, please stop the chat and come home we need to talk. He said he really needed to finish his work and came home one hour later.
I told him I wanted but the truth once and for all, and since I had a third party proof I wanted him to be the one to tell me the whole truth without me telling him what I had.
He told me he stayed late in the evening of the wedding talking to a woman he met there, from another country, who just came for the wed and that he had never spoken to her again.
He just admited he had sex with her after I told him the name of the Hotel.
He said he slept with her on that Monday, in that town, but not when kid was at risk, he came home and went to meet her after me and kids at home, and that he went back to that town again just to meet her when he said he would be working at the office.
He said he was in touch with her by msn, and only when I told him that I knew he was chatting daily to her he admited.
He also finally admited he had sex with that other woman 3 years ago. That had been a stupid drinking mistake.
He didn't told me because he didn't wanted to hurt me.
He says those were the only two times it happened and that he doesn't know why.
He said he was sorry he did it right after he did it.
He said it was a mistake and that it wasn't that good. As in cant be compared with us because there's no intimacy envolved.
He said he kept this “chat relation because it made him feel better about it and to forget it, he believed that if he developed some kind of relation with her he wont feel like it was just a ”one night stand “.
And that this was nothing meaning nothing to him or tho her. That she didn't expect nothing from him, she knew he was married.
He sended her an email asking her not to contact him only when I told him that should be the first thing to do.
Two days after, he finally blocked her MSN contact in my presence but was reluctant in connecting because he was sure she would message him. (even after the e-mail, since she must have realised he was sending it because of being caught by his wife)
He says he loves me and that he doesn't want to loose the relationship and the marriage of 12 years, and the kids and that we are too dependent on each other and that he believes he will never find anyone who love's him as much as I do and that can stand him (he's a very stressed person and hard to live with). He's waiting my decision as he's the one who had done wrong. He
asked me to consider one mistake against 12 years of marriage.
We talked deeply last Saturday. We agreed that the best thing to do would be to rebuilt our marriage. To start all over.
I am lost then ever.
I am not crying I am not sad, and I don't feel half hurt, disapointed and betrayed, of how I felt 3 years ago.
I feel empty and unable to think. I feel I have a heart of stone and a filter in my mind to stop me from thinking.
I feel like I am blocking all my emotions but I don't know if I am just runing from reality or if I am just runing from pain.
We havent been able to talk again since then.
We still have our demanding jobs and kids.
I feel away and I really dont see a future.
I don't know him anymore. Now I am just sure he lied and how good he is at it.
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The goal or the extreme for him as in terms of our sexual life maximum achievement for him it would be to have an open relationship, that we reached such a level of confidence that we could be open enough to have, eventually, sex with another person and just get home and talk about it with the other. He said he was obviously willing to accept the fact that we could never reach that stage, or that I could never accept something like that.
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Do we have issues we need to adress in our relationship? Now I see we have them, they were created by him after the first time and during the past 3 years.
I cant say I still love him, I am empty I don't know nothing I have no feelings.
I don't know what I want.
I don't know when he's telling the truth anymore. And maybe I am just afraid of the truth of what he wants.
The same way he strongly believed that denying till the end because I had no way of finding the truth -(and what I don't know doesn't hurt, and it was just sex, and most of his colegues are divorced or have affairs or go to ******, (too many in Asia, where we live now) and it's part of the job)- might be the same way he is convinced that having sex in that kind of situations is harmeless to our relationship because in the end I am the one he love's, the mother of his children and the one he returns home for every evening.
Last Saturday I told him he needed to be sure that he was sure about what he wanted in our relationship, before we move on, because there's no more space for anykind of sign he might be having anykind of suspicious relationship with any one. And that he needed to be sure this is the kind of marriage he wants, without any sex outside. And that we can only move based on total honesty.
He said yes.
But why is it that I don't feel it?
Why is it that inside I believe he's just going to be more carefull?
Why is it that inside I believe he's just willing to take the risk? What does he has to loose? If he gets caught again we'll divorce then or I'll just take him again right?
During the last 3 years and due to his job problems he's not even that close to kids anymore. And well, most marriage nowadays end up in divorce right?
Why does he wants to keep this marriage now then???
Because he needs me, he's too dependent.
Because were broken due to his job problems.
Because he needs to keep his reputation to achieve his place in term of profession.
Because he truly believes that a 12 years relationship is worth keeping.
Because he ownes me so much.
Because of the kids.
Does he really love's me? I don't know.
Am I the one person I was before? No. I slowly died during the last 3 years.
I am no longer the exemplar professional I was.
I am not the perfect mother I was, kids have problems.
I am no longer the wife or the lover I was, I lost the motivation, the desire.
Why am I not divorcing now?
Because were broken. Because I am afraid of staying alone? Because of the girls? Because I feel so empty and so out of strengh to fight alone? To raised them alone? Because I am just an insecure woman. Because I still love him? Because I am just a stupid believer of good will? Because I don't want to loose/ quit my dream of staying married forever and get old togheter raising the kids on the family I naver had?
Because I don't have the strengh for nothing. Because I feel empty.
How can I now be totally open and honest to him and talk to him about everything?
I am honest and open by nature and I find myself verifying that maybe that's what's wrong with me. I never played games, I never lied to him I've always disscussed everything with him.
I feel like I already told him too much, that I have already been too honest when we spoke last Saturday.
I cant trust him. I can eventually believe hes trying to be honest. That he eventually, is right now, seing me hurt,… but is he being really honest even to himself?
I feel just like quiting.
I am sorry for being such a lousy writer. And thank you in advance for reading or trying to.
