To start, whoever came up with that WAT's list is a genius. If only I had found rule #1 before..

If this isn't the appropriate section for this I apologize but it just felt like it should be here, although my d-day was actually Sept. 15 2007.

To start, Im a 34 year old male (32 at the time), two children, 8 and 11.

My story isn't that much unlike most other guys, it's actually probably quite tame in comparison. Anyway, when it's over I think you'll agree that I'm a pretty screwed up guy right now. I'm also not a good story-teller but I'll try my best.

I was a director (IT) of a bank for several years when they decided they wanted to split the operational side out seperately and hire another director to run that department. The lady they hired was a large woman and had a personality that would literally light up the entire building when she walked in. She was terrific to work with, terrific to talk to and her and I instantly became good friends. She was married with no children and I had already known her husband, he worked in a different company in the building. While I'm pretty confident she never messed around on him, she had a habit of hiring young men to work for her that she found attractive. And so it started.

As I said, we became good friends at work and pretty soon that led to couples events outside of the office. We all loved watching the UFC fights and we'd get together pretty often. We started to trade the events at each other's houses to swap the PPV charges. Pretty soon we started inviting a few other couples over. Once it got up to about 4 couples we decided that was a big enough group and it became an expected event, continuing to swap the cost every other event. This went on for well over a year.

When it was time for the lady's birthday we had a huge bash at her house. Everyone was wasted that night and I laughed so much I could barely talk the next day. I felt it was a pretty good time. We went on with our and I thought everything was going pretty well, I never imagined anything was wrong at all.

Sorry for all of the backstory, but there's a reason for it.

My wife is very attractive and she has worked really hard on her diet and excercise to get fit. She started buying new clothes, including bras and panties (I know, red alert) and almost seemed obsessed. She started talking about breast implants, which I found odd because she was always extremely judgemental towards other women who had them. She also suddenly wanted this huge SUV that I felt was extremely expensive and impractical. I finally got her to settle on a smaller SUV that was fully loaded that wouldn't guzzle a tank of gas in a day. It just seemed like she was being so irrational and pig headed, completely out of her nature.

We were drifting apart around this time. I was, and still am to a degree, a work-a-holic and was also working late or having to get up and go in the middle of the night. Somewhere admist all of this, my gut started kicking in and I really felt like something was wrong. There's a little tidbit I had to learn the hard way: your gut is usually right.

The first clue-in was when the lady at work came over and told me that my wife was calling one of her guys (one that started going to the UFC parties regularly) up at work constantly and he had freaked out and told her about it. Of course I immediately confronted my wife about it and she played it off like they were blowing it out of proportion. It's really funny the things you will allow yourself to believe when you love someone.

After that incident, I didn't hear anything for a while, but my wife wanted to invite the guy and his wife (whom she had "befriended") over for new years. So we invited them, we drank, we watched movies and then my wife did the dumbest thing I think I have ever seen her do. She said she was cold, grabbed a blanket and sat next to him on the couch. She asked him if he was cold and covered him up under it. She also, very obviously (she was wasted) started rubbing on his leg. We all just sat there, speechless with huge eyes and stared at them until I stood up and demanded she go into the bedroom. We had it out for a few minutes and I really figured he would high-tail it out the door, I was pissed. He didn't though, he kept telling his wife that I was his friend and he wasn't just going to take off on me or some such trash like that.

My wife continously just acted like she just didn't understand and it was all so innocent and she didn't mean anything blah blah blah. Sorry I get a bit wound up thinking of it all.

Insert another few months of "strange coincidences", and let's fast forward to my wifes birthday. She went out drinking with the lady from my work that night as a birthday present (yes, everyone felt she was just that much fun) and, I think you guys are using OM, well his wife went with them and he and I went to go play pool. We ended up at home late at my house while we were waiting on them. She offered to take him home since "somehow everyone just got so confused" and they ended up dropping his wife off. She said she could just take him and I could stay if I wanted. Yeah, the look she got from me.. Well needless to say I went along. Somewhere in the middle of it though they got the idea of OMs wife to drive their car back so they could stay longer. They came, he acted like a complete idiot, nothing sexual that I saw just being a fool, so I sent them packing.

I'm assuming that you're seeing a pattern with the drinking by now?

When they finally went home, I blew my top at her. We were screaming and I ended up throwing her phone on the floor and breaking it. As terrible as this violent act was, it was one of the better things that ever happened to me. The next day she told me she wanted to seperate for a while because of the verbal abuse and violent behavior. I begged her to reconsider, promised her I would do anything to get her back and she accepted. The rules? I had to stop drinking so much (yeah we'll get to that part later), start excercising more and do something about my temper.

So, I stopped drinking completely, went on a great diet, started working out again and went to anger management therapy. That
therapy was the greatest thing. Who would have known that if you don't want to be violent when you're angry that you.. just don't? Anyway, just to clarify, I have never laid a hand on my wife but I sure threw a lot of crap during my tantrums. Thankfully that's all behind me now and I'll never allow it to control my life again, but I digress.

Another stipulation was to stop accusing her of having an affair (HAH!) and being paranoid (another HAH!). Which I did.

My wife started walking with a female (employee of the lady at work) who lived close by. I think my wife was trying pretty hard to become friends with her, or so it seemed. Of course I didn't think anything of it, I had worked with this girl for years and knew her and her kids so I thought it was cool.

My wife and I were going out shopping one Saturday, and I stopped into work to do something and walked by and saw the lady at her desk with the other girl my wife had been walking with(operational people are always there on Saturday mornings). I waved, said hi, and saw she was crying. I asked her what was wrong, she just stared at me and the other girl was looking down, so I told her just a sec, I'll be right back. I went to my office and came back to her desk and sat down, that's when they both all spilled it to me.

Apparently, at the ladys party, the OM had approached my wife, both were wasted, and told her she was hot. After that, emails and many many phone calls happened. The phone calls were impossible to trace before because she was friends with his wife. The email account was a secret gmail account I didn't know about. I, of course, had immediate access to his email and it only took a couple of emails for proof. My wife was still waiting in the car with my children at this point, and the girls I was talking to were bawling so I consoled them and told them I would call them later and headed to the car.

I didn't say anything mean to her, just to drive me home. When asked was was wrong I just said "I know". Of course, all she said at the time was "How much do you know?" while looking straight ahead. Stomach, meet feet.

I immediately started packing. The kids were there and my daughter was very upset because she didn't know what was going on, and I wasn't about to drag them into this. I just told her that it was something we would have to talk about later. I left and went straight to work. She called me and begged me not to leave, she came... fairly clean on the phone and I demanded that she give me the username and password of the secret email immediately. She did and it was all right there, no denying it. It had been going on off and on for almost a year. Some weeks alot of email. Sometimes intimate, sometime just friendly chatter, and some months nothing at all. Why she never deleted it is beyond me, she says she doesn't know why either.

So very very long story short, I came back to her and we went to marriage counseling. It helped, but it still hurts. I understand that I am to blame for the situation, and she is to blame for her actions - it took a long time to get to that point though.

The whole reason for this post is, I'm wrecking our marriage over it. I don't know if I'm doing it intentionally or not. Sometimes I think I am but and I can recognize that, but really, when she get's things off her chest about what I'm doing that's bothering her it's usually a surprise. I'm waking her up in the middle of the night because I'm agitated and can't sleep because I'm thinking about it. I'm making snide remarks. I'm drinking again, sometimes heavily, which never helps anything. She claims she never slept with him but I'm pretty sure she did at least once. Anyway that's what I've prepared myself for, might as well not be delusional.

She's been completely cooperative with giving me any information I've asked for. She takes the kids when she leaves. There's no more going out on her own at all, recreational or otherwise and she's never complained about it. She's done everything she is supposed to do for the last year and a half about as perfect as any human putting forth effort can do. She's acted loving, caring and loves lots of hugs and kisses. I feel like the biggest jerk in the world sitting here writing about it.

Yet, I'm still making her suffer, and it still hurts. It's been a year and a frickin-half. I'm way past my personal goal to be moving past this. I use the fact that they tried to get me drunk all the time and pass out as an excuse to not stop drinking and I allow myself to get angry and not care that it's killing me and our relationship slowly. It just hurts so bad and I think I'm starting to become a bit numb to even day to day intimacy.

I was actually making progress, or I think I was, until the other night.

My wife took our daughter out of town for a game and I went over to a guys house to drink and play some games. It was a friend of a friend thing, and my single friend picked me up. The guys wife had invited some of her couple friends over and they were all drinking. Towards the end of the night I noticed my single friend go around the corner by the front door, and the guys wife followed. I saw their shadow..yep. I confronted him about it on the way home and of course he claimed that she just gets that way when she drinks and he got out of there when she started doing it. He said this happens quite a bit. I don't believe his story about being innocent. It's depressing and I'm having some really frustrated feelings again. As far as my friend, I don't trust him now so I'll be breaking ties.

Honestly, I don't trust anyone anymore. I feel terrible for the guy and angry at his wife, but I don't really know what to do about it.

I'll wrap up with this, I think alchohol destroys marriages. End of story.

If you haven't quit your job already, then do so as soon as you can. Drop all of these friends, and move if you have to. Stop drinking because you know what the results will be.

You and your wife need to address what's wrong and start over, whether that be together or apart. Read up on the material on this site to help understand what's going on with you, to understand what you need and what your wife needs from you.

I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of this, but you're getting a chance at a fresh start. Things don't have to be this way.

Sorry, it was already so long, of course there are a million details.

I took another position elsewhere about a month later. Everyone at my old company knew about it and it's just not a good idea to make the executives angry because they feel they are losing one of their hardest workers. They couldn't fire him over it, but needless to say he had a pretty tough work environment, got demoted and pretty much ignored until he was forced out to leave a few months later.

Supposedly, he came clean to his wife as well and is going to AA and counseling. Maybe he's a better person because of it all too, I still hate him though.

As for friends, yeah, I can live without friends like that. I rarely talk to anyone from the old "circles" anymore.

Since I know myself well enough to say that I would never do this to my wife, or another man (especially if he's my friend), I try to have some hope that there are men out there who just don't want to betray their friends either. I'm losing hope. You can find a woman attractive without ever acting on it, it's easy enough I would think. Good ole alchohol somehow gets in there and completely smears the boundaries between right and wrong.

I'm certainly no saint, but I also don't have the desire to carry out a manipulative, lying and degrading lifestyle.

Sleepless,
Do you feel she has not told you everything? Those feelings can eat away at you like a nasty bacteria.

Is this what might be holding you back from recovery?

Sounds to me like you both need to stop drinking. Is that possible?

Was it only a EA or did it end up going PA?

The fact that your wife and the other guy tried to get you drunk so you would pass out, would have been the deal breaker for me. She didn't just carry on an affair. She actually planned with another man to betray you (what a drunken skank). You have far more courage in light of this then I could ever have. I might be able to forgive an affair. I could never forgive her for scheming against me. Eventually you will have to choose. Don't live your life numb. Here is a thought. Maybe the problem is that you think the old marriage is dead. If it is bury it. I mean have a funeral for it. And grieve it. But then start dating again like it is a new relationship. This could all be done without the knowledge of your children. I think she has the burden of convincing you that she would choose you again. You may have some doubt about it.

I don't know, the scheming thing just seems so incredibly treacherous. Does she still drink? Personally I would tell her, if I ever see you with another drink in your hand. The next time you see me will be in front of a judge at our divorce.

I'll try and answer all the questions.

I don't know if she's told me everything or not. I do know that she has definately told me a lot, with a lot of gory details. It seemed that at first she was definately being honest with me but she swears she never actually slept with him. It's hard to believe someone that has been lying to you obviously, so yes it still eats at me a little bit. I don't know if it's justified though since she has literally answered every other question regarding little occassions here and there where I was suspicious that went well beyond what the emails told me. It's kind of an internal struggle at the moment, even if she hasn't told me 100% I think anyone would agree that's she's told me enough.

On the EA/PA. I believe it did start out as EA but ended up as PA without actual intercourse (maybe). She's admitted to kissing and groping, which is definately far enough.

On the alchohol, it's no problem for her. It's become a crutch for me. Anything is possible, after this weekend I just don't have any desire to even drink socially anymore which is definately a big change for me. I doubt I'll be able to keep that mental frame unless I get off my tail and get some real help with it though. I know that, and I know it's hindering me from moving forward, but anyone else who has dealt with this knows that words are just that, words, and I don't have enough faith in myself at the moment that I will stick with AA. As much of a big macho tough guy act I like to put on, in the end I'm just another human being with his own problems.

As for the quoted, thanks that is good insight and certainly a plan to consider. We have been much more open with each other since the incident so I believe we could actually sit down and talk about something like that.

You don't know how many times I've actually said that to her, that I just don't feel like she would choose me again.

The scheming... that is definately the worst part about it. All of the lies, all of the emails where they were talking about how they "changed their stories and had everyone so confused at this point that everyone is just going to drop it". Then I remember back to all those incidents and think about how she made everyone think I was crazy for accusing her of these things.

She has gone to counseling on her own, so have I, and we've gone together. Some things are better, some are the same. If anything I realize now when I'm creating a bad environment again and I actually take steps to improve it but there's still this turmoil.

It all boils down to this, I don't think I'm ever going to get over this, and I'm not sure it's fair to her or my family.

Part of her repentance then should be letting "everyone" know the truth of the situation.

Sleepless,

None of us can recover if we believe that the extent of the A is more than what we are told.

We have evidence/gut feeling, that just does not make sense with what WS's are saying. When things don't make sense, someone is lying.

And it eats us away inside.

Ask her if she will take a polygraph.

ManinMotion: She lost all of her friends over it. You know, I still love her for who I know she was and not the crazy person that she became (or unleashed) during all of this. She's never had a lot of friends and I'm not really sure why. This group was pretty much it for a while and when the fit hit the shan they dropped her immediately. It was even one of these friends that she told everything to that informed me about it as soon as she had heard. It didn't make sense that she told this to someone that I had known longer than she had, it almost seems she wanted to be caught. Who knows.

I feel bad for her because of that sometimes, but she's gotten more active in our childrens lives now and we have made new friends with other parents. I keep them all at arms length though, no more late night parties, coming over regularly, etc.

It sometimes makes me angry that I lost my friends too. As everyone will say though, your life has now changed for better or worse and at some point I'll have to find a way to accept that.

Our family does not know, and I made that decision at the time because I chose to try and work it out.

As for the evidence, I really don't need it. What she did, in my mind, is just as bad as if she had done it in every imaginable position with the guy. It's the same thing either way. Whether they did or they didn't only 2 people know for sure and it looks like it's going to stay that way. As I said, she's been brutally honest about everything else so I don't really think that's the root of my problem, although these things are usually not one root but many little things. At this stage, with all of the effort she's put in, I don't think a polygraph would help.

I haven't even asked her about it in a long time. We did a lot of talking about it in the beginning for a few weeks after it all came out and she appears to have sucked it up and answered all of my questions without complaining. Bringing it up now, after we haven't talked about it in so long might seem like a slap in the face to her. I'm really thinking this is my issue now and not hers.

So it's been about a year and 1/2? You know they say it can take anywhere from two years or longer to recover from an affair. Some people never can.

Have you thought about getting coaching at the coaching center here on this site? I've never used them, but I've heard GREAT things about them. They can give you a PLAN for recovery. It seems like now, you're just kind of wondering around trying to get there on your own.

I'm so glad you found MB. It WILL help your marriage!

Yes I have looked at it and I've also looked at the response of all the wonderful people in this community.

I will continue to look over it and I'm positive that I will find something here that will work for me.

Hey Sleepless,
Your story gives me such a different perspective on my situation and I thank you for it. My WH's A started in an environment of fun and drinking also. Sin City as a matter of fact. I believe that in the "partying" environment that you describe this is sometimes what happens. Is that reality? No. Reality to me is. . . when I look in on my little kids sleeping with there school clothes and books layed out for the next day. They have such hopes and dreams for their lives to be the victims of our inappropriate adult dramas. It is just NO FAIR! Let me ask you though . . . do you think that you helped to cultivate an environment of drinking and perhaps permissiveness? Sometimes everyone is in that realm and they just get carried away with it? I'm not blaming you but are you surprised with all of the drinking and partying that was going on? I am not judging you my friend. . . just putting my thoughts out there . . . When you open yourself up to this type of spirit . . . bad things can happen. You have the right idea . . . change that environment right away!

Good Luck!

If you are going to think about burying the old marriage. Everything has to come out. THERE CAN BE NOTHING HIDDEN TO WORRY ABOUT AFTER THE FUNERAL. YOU HAVE TO SPEAK TO HER AND BOTH AGREE THAT SHE TAKE A POLYGRAPH. If you don't do this. You will have lingering doubts. You must know if they slept together. Or for that matter if she slept with anyone else. If she does not agree to the polygraph test. You may rest assured that they slept together. As I have suggested here before. You can find a local polygraph technician and print out there information. And show her when you speak to her. You must surprise her with the suggestion. AND YOU MUST BE LOOKING AT HER FACE AND SEE HER REACTION. If you guys are to have any chance at all with a new marriage, everything has to be on the table when you bury the old marriage.

Ocean: Yes, I definately played a large part in creating this environment. I did so many things wrong, and not just to her. I also neglected our children and subjected them to my violent outbursts and my verbal abuse. I did my own part and I'll never make those mistakes again. No trying my best, no working on it, I'm just not going to do it.

This has all taken a huge toll on them as well. They are like sponges, they sense everything, hear everything and I'm pretty sure my daughter (11) has figured it out by now. In my mind, they are everything and I am nothing but I understand that they need me as well as her. My wife has always been a better parent than, aside from maybe while the A was going on and she pushed us all away. I don't feel like I was being a better parent during that time, I feel like we were both being bad parents.

Ouch: I see that there's not dancing around this. I'll take your advice (and everyone else that has mentioned it). It just looks like something I am going to have to do, and I guess we'll just have to see how it turns out.

I truly hope that your marriage can be reconciled in love. Here is another scenario. If you merely print out the information and tell her that you have scheduled a test, and tell her that this is the way you will finally be able to get beyond this, and that she should jump at the chance. " I mean you have told me everything haven't you?" Again, if done with no warning. And you say its already scheduled and that you can go right now. Most likely she will spill the beans on everything before you put the key in the car door. A lot of people think a polygraph is used because you don't trust someone. In the case of infidelity, I believe that you take the polygraph so you can trust again.

Sleepless,

If you have lingering doubt about your wife's affair being only EA (which I highly doubt due to the amount of alcohol that was being used the whole time they were together), this could be the the whole reason you have not healed. Even if your wife's affair was PA, and she has been in fear of you leaving her because of it, her continued denial only puts healing on ice. It is best for you, her, the kids, and the marriage if the truth comes out. I am hoping it was only an EA. Then you at least have a defined point to work towards getting beyond this. But even if it went PA, the truth will be out, and again, you will have a defined point to work towards healing from.

Sleepless,
I agree with ouchthathurt's comments. The full truth must come out. It is highly unlikely that she maintained a year long affair, conspired to keep people confused about it, exchanged intimate emails, and drank copious amounts of alcohol, but did NOT sleep with him. She probably tried to hold off for a little while, but resisting the power of that forbidden sex would have taken more willpower than she obviously had.

You may not really need her to admit that it was a full PA, but what you do need is a wife who is willing to lay it all out on the table and be completely open and honest moving forward. If she is maintaining secrets about the affair still, she is avoiding the consequences of her actions and it will literally be impossible to obtain any real level of intimacy.

The polygraph is your best bet to confirm that you have the truth. I would explain that its not an attempt to expose more lies or punish her further. The purpose is to confirm that you are on a solid footing of truth, so you can really commit yourself to the marriage.

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Supposedly, he came clean to his wife as well

What version of events did the OM give his wife and how did it jive with your wife's??