I haven't posted here in a long while, mostly because my husband and I have been spending most of our spare time trying to heal. I thought it was might be relevant, though, to come back and share our hopeful story. We are nowhere near a purely blissful happy ending (if such a thing exists), but we are becoming a stronger couple day by day. Six months ago I never thought this would be possible...
In November of last year I found out that my husband had been having a full-blown romantic affair that started shortly before we got married in April 2004 (we had been living together since 2001). To add insult to injury, there was a second woman with whom he'd been seeing casually since longer than he and I had known each other. The relationship with Woman #1 (the romantic affair) had apparently ended a few months prior because she got fed up with his excuses (she didn't know that I was in the picture). He kept in contact with her and obviously still wanted her back, though. Woman #2 was also getting upset because he saw her less and less (I'm guessing starting with his involvement with W#1, I mean that's a tough schedule to keep up!). At any rate, when I found out about the affairs, I was at a complete loss, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me (you all know the drill). My husband pleaded with me not to make any rash decisions. He promised that the thing with W#1 was over and that he would stop seeing W#2. (You can probably guess how reliable those promises were.) I needed time to think, so I decided to wait before making any life-changing decisions.
At the beginning of January I came across emails confirming that not only was he still seeing W#2, but he was trying to reconcile with W#1. This time, I really flipped out. My first action, though, was a calm one. I simply wrote a polite email to both of the women explaining the situation. I was fairly certain that neither of them knew that he was married, so I was hoping this would be welcome information. Fairly soon after I sent the email, I got replies from both of them. They were both shocked and apologetic toward me. Both also expressed a desire never to see my WH again. Luckily, they stuck by this proclamation...
I kicked my husband out for a few days, but I found that I wanted him around to vent at and try to get answers from (pretty futile exercise), so I invited him back. The first few weeks were h3ll. I cried a lot and was very depressed. Soon, a feeling of empowerment came over me, though. I realized that I held all of the cards. I could do whatever I wanted -- kick him out, move house, leave the country -- I had options. Once I felt more in control, I was able to interact with my husband in a productive way. We took baby steps in trying to rebuild our relationship, with no real agenda. We talked a lot, and although I know I'll never completely understand his actions, the talking helped to bring us closer. Surprisingly, there was still a lot of love there.
The details of our particular situation aren't relevant, but I just wanted to show that there can be hope for even the most twisted of situations. Time will tell, but we just may celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary together. Right now, I'm just trying to make it to our third...
