My Story.
In Oct 2007 I rec�d the phone call that changed my life. It was my H, telling me that he had cheated on me. The OW�s SO was there with my H and made my H make the call to me. I�m glad the SO did, but I do not believe it was because he thought I should know, I believe he was trying to punish my H. The SO�s motivation really doesn�t matter though, because I received the truth about my life.
My H had a ONS about one year before the phone call; NC began immediately due to his shame and self-loathing. He said that he had been miserable since it had happened and was glad the SO had made him tell me. He said he had wanted to tell me so often, but couldn�t.
Looking back I realize, he treated me horribly in that year; he was always angry; was emotionally unavailable; was physically not around, when he could have/should have been. In hindsight I see many red flags, at the time I just thought he was stressed about work. His job is both physically and intellectually taxing, not to mention the fact that he has to travel out of town for work every week.
This betrayal got me to thinking, if he could do it once he could do it again� were there others?
I asked questions over a period of about a month. I finally got an answer; he had cheated on me before we were married. He continued to lie about it, until I had irrefutable evidence, then he finally came clean. During this time I was very verbally and physically abusive towards him. I didn�t know how to deal with my pain, and I had never before in my life experienced something so devastating. I felt like I died the moment I rec�d that phone call. The pain was suffocatingly overwhelming for me.
I found MB about Nov 2007 (or so), and I began to process the betrayal in a (somewhat) healthier manner. I began counseling and went back on anti-depressants.
In about Dec 2007, I came clean to my H. I sat him down and told him that I had physically cheated on him in the first month of our dating relationship, and had emotionally cheated on him for a couple of years after that. The latter was two years before we married. I have been monogamous since ending the EA. I knew that I had to stop being a hypocrite if we were ever to recover our M.
We are now 2 years out from our d-days, and have been through the worst hell we could ever put each other through, but good has come from it, too!
I have learned that I am stronger than I ever thought possible. We are learning to set and enforce boundaries, whether people understand them or not. We have learned that we both *must* really love each other to want to put in the hard work to rebuild our M. We�ve learned to change inappropriate behaviours. We�ve learned how to protect our M, and subsequently our family. We�ve learned who our true friends are, and we�ve learned how much our family and friends truly love us.
Infidelity has broken me down to the lowest point a life can go, but it has also led me to tremendous gifts.
Please, please, if you or a friend or family member is experiencing infidelity, stay here. MB has been my life-jacket for a long time, and can be yours, too, whether it�s for personal or marital healing.
This place is invaluable.
