About a week before my husband told me about his affair, I noticed that he was acting weird. It seemed like he was depressed and snapped so quickly over the littlest things. That whole week I was feeling sick, I felt like something big was about to happen I just didn’t know what. I felt that it had something to do with my husband so I started getting worried. At night I would always watch him and make sure he is breathing. He had sleep apnea in the past and he would stop breathing sometimes. Everyday, I reminded him to drive carefully because it’s winter and it snows where we live. I just had this sick feeling in my stomach, I seriously thought something was going to happen to him.

Finally on December 7, 2007 around 10pm, when I was getting ready for bed my husband sat beside me with a worried look on his face. I finally asked him “Honey what’s wrong? Did something happen? Does it have something to do with work? Are you ok?”. All of a sudden he just started to cry and he said “I cheated on you around February or March and the girl just had a baby today”. I was so shocked. I looked at him and asked him if he was joking with me, he shook his head no and I started to cry. In that instant I was in so much pain, I felt so much pain, it was hard for me to breath. All I could say was “how could you do this to me? What did I do?!” He kept telling me it was a mistake and it happened only once. He said he loved me and he never meant to hurt me. I asked him why he did it. He told me it was because at the time he thought at the time that our marriage was over.

In January 2007 my husband and I were having a really hard time. It was a mix of a lot of things. From my part it’s mainly because my husband doesn’t pay attention to me. I stay at home with our daughter (she is now 4 years old) and all my time is devoted to her and to him. I don’t go out with my friends and hardly talk to anyone at all. My husband is very charming and outgoing. He has tons of friends and likes to go out and hang out. He never took me out with his friends…not even once. He never took me out at all! He would stay out till 3 in the morning with his single friends. Then he would come home and tell me that one of his friends (a girl) was getting hit on at the bar so he had to pretend he was her bf so the guys won’t harass her. I thought it was ridiculous. He even told me he put his arm around them for the sake of pretending. It was 2 girls that he did this with. I know that he loved me and I never thought he would actually cheat on me but I got so paranoid about it, I started noticing little things. One time I noticed that the passenger seat in the car was reclined. I asked him why my seat was reclined…who’s been in the car? He said nobody…He was just trying to get something and had to recline it. Or he said he gave a friend a ride. About a week later he comes home and tells me that someone at work approached him and said that some people were claiming they had seen him and a girl have sex in the backseat of our car during lunch. He told the person no, that it isn’t true. It made me very mad since wow, what a coincidence! I have been wondering why the seat has been reclined. I pointed it out to him and he said no, definitely not, I’m not cheating on you. He said “If I really did that in the car, why would I tell you about it when a week ago you were wondering about the seat? Do you think I am stupid enough to tell you something like that? I told you because I thought it was ridiculously funny that someone at work claimed they saw me have sex in the car.” At this point everyone around me has been telling me not to let him deceive me, that he is cheating on me. I still had faith in him and I know he has never cheated on any of his ex-girlfriends. He was strongly against cheating. I am not an angel myself and I have cheated on him before we were married.

My husband and I met when I was 17, a couple months before I turned 18. I already had a bf at the time but he went on a conference for school (he was in college). I wasn’t used to not talking to him since at nights we usually talked till my parents told me to get off. I was bored out of my mind so I logged into msn and decided to go into a chat room. I always thought it was funny how people in chat rooms started fights with each other. I thought maybe it would amuse me for a little bit to watch people talk to each other when this person sent me an IM. He claimed he messaged me because of my profile, it interested him and he was wondering if I was like what my profile said. I didn’t really like him but continued to talk to him. If I remember correctly, that same night we talked on the phone. I immediately loved the sound of his voice. He asked me if I wanted to be with him and for some reason, I wasn’t able to say no. It was very odd how it happened but I immediately felt I was falling inlove. The next day I immediately told my bf at the time and he was hurt. I broke off things with him and decided to be with my husband now. 8 days later we finally met face to face. I lost my virginity to him within the 10 minutes of seeing him. When I laid eyes on him there was this strong magnetic force drawing me into him. I’ve had boyfriends before, I have kissed other guys and did other things with them but I always saved my virginity. I never had an urge to have sex with anyone. I told myself when I give it up, it would be to the person I was going to marry. I have never felt that much inlove with anyone in my life. Less than a month later, he proposed to me on the phone (yes it sounds ridiculous but we were young lol I was 17 and he was 18). Then 2 months later (July 20th 2002) we got married. By then I was 18 and he was 19 (we got married exactly a month after my 18th birthday). We eloped.

I don’t exactly remember when it happened since it is a long time ago and it didn’t mean anything to me at all but I cheated on my husband before we got married. We got married within 3 months of knowing each other. I realized the mistake I’ve made and knew that sex wasn’t satisfying for me if I didn’t love the person. I didn’t tell my husband about it until we were married. I admit, I did it out of selfishness. I was afraid that he wouldn’t marry me if I told him and I loved him more than anything. Maybe that is where the first mistake started. Maybe I should’ve told him and we wouldn’t be in this situation now. If I had told him then, maybe we wouldn’t have gotten married and I wouldn’t have gotten hurt like this.

Our problems really started after I had my daughter in 2003. My husband started going out with his friends all the time, leaving me at home. He never once took me out. He stayed out till whatever time and never cared how I felt. It was horrible living in his parents house and I knew it was one of the reasons why he stayed out but he left me all alone. In January 2005 we finally moved out of his parent’s house and moved to another state. Things got better since all the tension while living in his parent’s house was gone but he still went out all the time. The going out actually got worse because at this point we are living on our own and he was free to do whatever he wanted when he wanted. He never listened to me when I asked him not to go out because it made me feel horrible. I felt like my life stopped while his kept going. I stayed at home with our daughter. I never went out, hardly talked to anyone at all. I told him how I felt. I asked him to spend time with me. Actually, the word ask is not the one I should be using..it’s more like BEGGED. I begged for my husband to spend time with me. I begged him to make me a priority instead of his friends. He told me husbands and wives shouldn’t go out together. He said that he has friends and I have mine. He claims that we spend time together. He thought watching tv was spending time together. It even got to a point when he said that husbands and wives don’t need to spend time together. I was very hurt by this. He was so cold to me.

In February 2007, a friend of his (a girl who he had to pretend was his gf at the bar) came to visit. They were coworkers but her contract was over so she decided to go back home. Anyway, whenever she was here he would hang out with her. This time, he spent every night of the week she was here with her. They went out to bars all those nights. Finally, one night he didn’t come home. The latest he usually stayed out was 2 or 3. Before he left our daughter said “you’re leaving again daddy? Come home soon ok?” and he promised her that he would come home, read her a story and he would lay beside her. By 12am my daughter was still up waiting for her daddy. She finally gave up and fell asleep. I called his cellphone numerous time but he ignored every call. At 2am he made a mistake and turned on the phone..I heard loud music and a girl talking and laughing in the background, then he hung up on me. I was furious by this time and I waited in the living room. By 6 I was hysterical. I was scared that something has happened to him. I called his parents in a panic because I didn’t know what to do. I asked them what I should do first. His mom told me to start calling hospitals or even the cops. I waited till 6:30 and in he comes. I was immediately angry. He was totally ok and never once made an attempt to call his wife who was waiting at home, worried. I told him I was worried about him, where has he been? He said he was too drunk to drive the night before and spent the night at a friend’s house. I was so angry, I told him I didn’t even sleep yet. He look coldly at me and said “Well you shouldn’t have waited then”. I informed him that he needs to call his parents back because they are worried sick. During that phone call he told them that we are getting a divorce.

A week after that he sent an email to the girl (that he went out with) and told her thank you for making it the best weekend I’ve ever had. Then he writes “I truly do love you and thank you for being such a good friend”. I just never understood why they kept calling each other honey and baby. Then there’s the I miss you and I love you. Over the next few months he continued to write how much he misses her and wishes that she would visit again.

I guess after that huge incident with him staying out till 6:30am is when he started cheating (that’s what he told me). It was a totally different girl from the ones I thought he was cheating on me with. She is also a co-worker and I found out that he would go in her house before work. At first he kept saying it was only one time. I kept drilling him and drilling him. I asked questions over and over. I got very frustrated and told him I need to know everything. He finally said it was 3 times. He kept going over to her house before work to talk because they were friends. She was going through a rough time too. Her boyfriend got deported and she was lost. They found comfort in each other…too much comfort. He said he felt guilty the first time he had sex with her and never expected it to happen again but he kept going over to her house to talk. Second time happened. Then he still went back and it happened again. He still went there after that be he swore he didn’t do anything.

Frankly, I don’t believe anything he says. He has lied too many times. There’s been a lot of evidence that he was cheating on me. Whenever I confronted him, he always had an answer and I actually believed them. I don’t think he only cheated on me with this one woman. If she didn’t have a baby, I know he wouldn’t have told me at all. I feel like such a fool. He is threatened by my best friend who happens to be a guy but there’s never been anything between us. Out of respect for my husband, we hardly talk at all. He constantly made me feel guilty for things I never even did. So I always held back, scared to hurt him even when I’m not doing anything at all.

After their affair, they still continued being friends. They even went out to lunch regularly at work and all the while she was pregnant. He said it never crossed his mind that the child could be his. She finally told him a week before she had the baby. It was the week when he was acting depressed because he was afraid to tell me. He just told me on the day the baby was born. He went to see the child in the hospital. He said the baby looked just like him but he felt nothing. He didn’t feel the way he did when our daughter was born. He fell inlove with our daughter the first time he laid eyes on her, he even cried. He feels like the worst person in the world for not feeling anything for the child. I told him he needs to get a paternity test before doing anything.

I asked him about the woman. I wanted to know what kind of person she is. Turns out her bf that got deported is also a married man. He sends money to his wife and 3 children while he is living with her (his family is in a different country). This is her second child (the one that could be my hubby‘s). She’s 21 years old and her daughter is the same age as my daughter and ironically, they same name too. I can’t even imagine what she had to be thinking for doing something like this knowing that my husband is married. It is obvious that she isn’t a good person at all. I’m just afraid she will try to get him to leave me. My husband already said he wants nothing to do with her and she meant nothing to him. How can I believe him again? To top it off, I had low self-esteem to begin with and now I have nothing left. I used to love it when he complements me but now when tells me I’m beautiful, it makes me want to cry. I think everything he says is a lie. Please someone help me! I’m having a very hard time.

Sorry for writing so much. Once I started writing it’s like I couldn’t stop. It feels good though. I just hope nobody minds reading this post that seems more like a novel lol.

Welcome to MarriageBuilders, CT...

A lot of devastation in a year for you...has the paternity test been taken yet?

Sounds like you've decided to save your marriage...have you been reading all of Harley's books? Suriving An Affair; His Needs, Her Needs; Buyers, Renters and Freeloaders? If not, please get them from the library and begin as soon as possible...the more you learn, the more tools you will have to recover with.

You have two recoveries...you're responsible for all of your personal recovery...and half of your marital recovery. You will find a lot of help on these threads all over the forums...and if in fact your WH does have an OC, then there's a special forum here for that, as well, with great posters in it.

You can build your own self-esteem (which is the real kind) and self-respect in your marriage. Part of your personal recovery. You can learn about healthy boundaries, boundary enforcements, and those will build your self-value, help you to see you are beautiful, whole, significant and complete.

LA

LA-
No the test hasn't been taken yet. As of right now my H is trying to save up money for the test. We are a young family and he is the only one working so our financial situation isn't very good.

Update on my situation:
The OW went back to work this Monday and they see each other at work but never talked. It is inventory week so my H has been working 12-14 hr shifts...during this time, while I am waiting, I notice myself feeling sick. The later it is and he's not home I get so sick I feel like vomiting. As soon as I hear the door open I feel so relieved and everything is ok again. Is that normal?

Yesterday when my H came home and we were laying in bed he told me that when he was getting a drink from the soda machine he noticed that she was behind him. He thought they were going to talk but when he turned around he saw her darting around a corner. She sat on a desk behind some boxes. He is confused as to why she is avoiding him. He thought once and for all she would want to talk about the child since she did ask if he could help her before but she has said nothing. He doesn't know what to do about this. He doesn't know what to think.

My H says the OW is the type of person that speaks her mind and is very confrontational that's why he is confused trying to figure out why she is avoiding him. A friend of his from work says it's probably because she knows he isn't the father therefore she hasn't tried to contact him. In my opinion I think she has feelings for my H and is hurt that after he went to the hospital, he never went to see her again. She told him to come back to the hospital when she was about to come out and he didn't.

He stayed with me the whole week after he told me what he has done (main reason why he never wanted to go back to the hospital and he just didn't want anything to do with her). He took time off work to be with me. I didn't even get out of bed. All I did was sleep and whenever I woke up, I cried. He was always there to comfort me and answered every question I had (even when I ask the same questions over and over). Even when I say hurtful things and call him stupid for what he has done, he just says "it's the dumbest thing I've ever done. It wasn't worth it. It's not worth hurting you or losing you".

So back to the issue lol..sorry I keep going all over the place. What should my H do? Should he talk to her about their situation or just let it be? Should he wait for her to approach him about the child? I really think that their affair was over a long time ago. I believe him when he said it was only 3 times that they slept together and after that they just went back to being friends. He even asked me last night what I thought about him working night shift. It pays more and he wouldn't see her at work anymore. I really do think he doesn't want to see her but it is hard to find another job. I've seen his browsing history and he has put up resumes and applied for jobs.

Any feedback will be appreciated. Thanks.