My wife and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary in Dec 05. We have 2 girls and a baby boy. Last week she told me that she had a sexual encounter with a former boyfriend when she was 3 months pregnant with our first child. Compared to some of the other stories I have read here, I guess it is not so bad. They have had no contact in over 9 years now. But it is still really painful for me. I'm not sure how to deal with my emotions right now.

Welcome to marriagebuilders. Finding out your partner betrayed you is extremely hurtful, no matter when you find out, even 10 years later. You are going to have to go through the awful feelings that infidelity causes.

You also will have to wrestle with the fact that your wife has been lying to you for the last 9 years.

Do you know why she decided to tell you?

I am very sorry for you. The fact that she claims she would have sex with someone while she was pregnant seems unusual. I would consider having a paternity test done.

Of what use would a paternity test be at this point, Bryanp? Intention has been a father to this child for the last nine or so years. Would you suggest he abandon her/him NOW if the paternity test did not support him being the biological father??? I can only see that as adding evil to evil.

Intention, the greatest gift you can give your wife... your children... yourself... perhaps the world right now is forgiveness. For in as much as you have been forgiven, forgive.

MAzingrace

Intention has a right to have all of the information. I am not saying he should abandon the child if it is not his. For health reasons it is absolutely essential for the sake of the child that paternity be shown in case there is a health problem down the line. This seems so clearly obvious. In addition, I think it would be better for anyone if they have too much information rather than not enough.

Honesty is the key here. The thought that she would be having sex with another man while she is pregnant seems unusual and very disturbing. If she did get pregnant from the OM then she is still lying to her husband. I am wondering why she came forth now? Clearly she seemed not to have a problem lying to her husband for the past 9 years which makes me think something else is going on here. Why should the husband not have knowledge on whether or not he is the biologically father? Why would you deny him this information? I am sure he loves his child very much and will continue to do so. On the other hand, he may view his wife in a different light and he has the right to decide on how he may wish to proceed in the future regarding the marriage. I totally disagree with your attitutde that ignorance is bliss.

Bryanp,

Agree completely with your well written post.

Thanks for your replies everyone. It feels so good to have someone to communicate with. Fortunately paternity is not an issue since my wife got pregnant on our honeymoon. There are also additional factors that leave me with little doubt that I am the father. However I agree with the point that complete honesty is required.

My wife had originally decided to take this secret to her grave - believing that it was a one time error in judgement and there was no need to cause me pain with the knowledge of the event.

The reason she decided to tell me is because she has been studying the Bible and was counseled to be completely honest with me (and God). I think it was the right thing for her to do. I do believe in radical honesty. I think a weight has been lifted off her.

I have, will, must forgive her. I want our marriage to work. She has apologized and asked for forgiveness. I just have recurring waves of pain and anger when I think about what she did.

She cheated on you 3 months into your M??

Ouch!

That encounter happened three months after taking her vows, and most likely while you were both in the "honeymoon" period of your M. Has your W discussed *WHY* it happened? Saying it was a "one time lapse of judgment" doesn't answer that question.

BTW - Don't forget to show your appreciation to her for her honesty. This is something that you want to encourage.

Yes, three months... :-(

I have not really delved too deep into the why. She did say she was having a hard time with the reality of being pregnant so soon. We had lots of grand plans for just the two of us that came to a screeching halt. I was not meeting her emotional need for communication and intimacy. Something I still struggle with, being an introvert, not much of a conversationalist.

But I'm learning lots of good things on this site. I want to meet her needs so she doesn't need to have them met anywhere else.

Thanks for the tip about showing appreciation for her honesty. I will continue to encourage that.

I am hesitant to dig into the how and why of the event right now because I know how hard it was for her to come clean. But when the time is right, I will do that. In the mean time I want to focus on building our relationship - which has actually been going really well.

Intention, You've known for 8 days now. You are being way too hard on yourself. You will feel the way you are feeling for months. But there is a way through all this pain and suffering. Keep posting and reading and venting here.

Thanks bigkahuna. This place is a real refuge. I can barely concentrate at work. I'll be seeing an IC tomorrow which will be really good for me.

How'd the weedend go?

I went to IC which was really good. Allowed me to vent and get a lot of emotion out. I could say things that would probably not be helpful for my FWW to hear, but things I needed to say. I tried to talk with her about it later that night but she got all defensive. Part of me thinks there is no use trying to let her know how deeply hurt I am. She ended up getting really annoyed and short with with me - turns out it was just PMS though...

So I guess I'll just keep taking this one day at a time. Going to IC again tomorrow.

Hi Intention,

Glad to see that you're in IC for yourself. I haven't been on the board in months but I saw your post and wanted to reply.

Mrs. RIF had multiple A's during our first three years of M. The first one was 3 months after we were married, then several more afterwards.

I never had a clue about the first one, found out about the 3rd one, but didn't know about the others until 10 years later when she confessed them all to me.

I just wanted to say that you are on the right track as far as rebuilding your M... hopefully your W will be willing to start MC with you through your church if its available. Be patient with her and read up on plan-A. Even though the A's happend long ago, the pain that you are experiencing is real. You both need to work through all of this together.

One positive note in all of this is that she DID confess to you... it might not seem that way right now, but if you're both committed to working together to rebuild, then you can both have a stronger, fullfilling M.

All the best to you and your W as you start your journey to rebuild your M. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Semper Fi,
RIF

Thanks RIF. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse yesterday. She can't accept that I am hurting and need time to process. She says "you look at me differently now". She thinks she made a huge mistake by telling me - and part of me thinks so too some times. Anyway, she ended up saying hurtful things like "I don't regret the A, I only regret telling you about it." I want to believe that she is simply guilty and embarassed and hurting - and so lashed out at me - but it tore into me in a deeply hurtful way. I feel like I am being kicked while I'm down. On a better note, I am going to IC again this afternoon. Only 5 more hours to go. Your prayers would be appreciated.

You're both going to have up and down days... Mrs. RIF and I had the exact same exchange that you've described many times...

You guys can get through this... read up on plan-a, continue going to your IC, and try to get your W to agree to start MC with you.

I'll be praying for you.

Semper Fi,
RIF

Blah, Blah, Blah. It's just typical fog babble - typical WS speak.

My wife came home to work on our marriage. It took 6 weeks of withdrawal before she stopped spouting BS like this and started feeling better.

Don't expect ANYTHING from her for a few weeks and expect her to lash out and hurt you.

After withdrawal and over the coming months she will have a lot of remorse over what she has done. That point will come. Keep your chin up. It will get much much better.

Of course you are going to look at your W differently from now on. She is not who you thought she was. But that doesn`t men that you will never forgive her or get your M back on track.

My H had an ONS too and he kept it secret for 3 years. But he didn`t confess. I had my suspicions from the moment of the ONS and I finally asked a third party for the truth. My H was going to take it to his grave. But the secret was killing him. Until d-day he was certain that our M was going to end one way or another, it was just a matter of time. My H had nightmares and even "daymare" images of me finding out that petrified him for years.

In a way I think an ONS WS might feel more guilt that your average WS. The ONS WS really has no justification for their actions "I loved the OP, I was unhappy with my spouse, ect" It was a one time idiotic decision that could possibly cost them everything that they hold dear.

I was livid with my H on d-day. Of course he told me how much he was hurting but I did not want to hear it. I didn`t want to hear about his nightmares our his daymares. I didn`t want to hear about all the times he almost told me or about all the time he spent in our shed practicing the speech. I didn`t care that he was never sure from one day to the next if he going to come to an empty house because someone might spill the beans.

But now when I think about I feel bad for him. My H really suffered.

Your W has suffered too. Try if you can to put yourself in her shoes for a moment. She`s been living with this lie for ten long years. That must have been extremely difficult for her. And your W confessed of her own volition. That`s amazing. She could have taken this to her grave. She has been very brave.

It does not matter to you right now that this occurred ten years ago. You just found out so it might as well have happened just last week. But you can recover from this. You have a golden opportunity here to open up a new level of intimacy with your wife that has not existed before. And you can leanr some new skills from the counselling that can make your marriage stronger and more dureable in the future.

You guys are awesome. I missed my second IC session today because I got a call from home that our oldest D9 had fallen at school and hurt her wrist. I came home and took her to urgent care. We spent 3 hours there, got x-rays. No clear indication of a break, so they put a splint and ace bandage on and told us to call on Friday once the radiologist had a chance to examine the x-rays.

It was the only communication from my W all day so at least that felt good. But she has been very angry at me this evening. Tried to pick a fight. Bringing up all the terrible things I've done in the past. Saying I should stop feeling depressed and sorry for myself and should think about how selfish I have been.

She has chosen to sleep separately from me again tonight. Giving me the silent treatment. Hold on a minute....shouldn't I be the one who is mad and sulking?! What is going on here?! Oh yeah, in the words of bigkauna, "blah blah fog babble" ;-)

That made me smile for real for the first time today. Thanks! I really don't know how I could have coped this far without having a place like this to communicate.

Maybe she is simply used to a higher level of conflict than I am. I am a definite conflict avoider. She doesn't seem to be phased by several days of this animosity. It puts an actual physical pain in my chest.

I love her and I hate what she did. I want this to work and I hate the way she is treating me. I have hope and I hurt so bad I think I'll never heal. I miss her affection so much and I am repulsed by her behavior. I think I'm going crazy, and then I read some more posts and realize that what I'm going through is "normal" and I can actually make it. I really hope so.

Well we do aim to amuse <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> LOL

I am actually a little off beam I now realise. The affair was 10 years ago so there is no withdrawad as such to speak of.

Have you printed out Dr Harley's basic concepts? Read the book "His Needs Her Needs" and "Love Busters"

Is your wife interested in building a loving passionate marriage? Her actions seem to indicate a state of emotional divorce. It is strange that she isn't "sorry"

Is she happy with the state of your marriage?

Can you do some phone councelling with the Harleys?