When my wife got home that night I had a nice dinner waiting for her and asked her to let me speak for a while without interruption. She agreed and I told her how much she had hurt me and that I was sorry for losing my temper. She understood and we cried together for a while. She told me she never intended for it to become a romantic entanglement and that she would make sure there was no further contact. She also said she wasn't interested in him and that she was just looking for a "whiff" of romance.
I told her she would have to earn back my trust and demanded she smooth things over with her family. She agreed and called her parents the next day. She told them the entire story and said we were going to reconcile.
By Saturday I thought the situation was behind us. My wife had to attend graduation so I was surfing the net and drinking coffee. I opened her e-mail account on a whim and found a very sexual e-mail from a completely different man. The e-mail said "wow that scene was hot last night. I want your romance *******. I am going to think about that one in the shower tomorrow morning"
She had replied "I want you Frank."
"Frank" used to be married to Debbie. Debbie's sister Lisa was married to my wife's brother. He met her at her brother's wedding and had pursued her ever since.
I literally fell out of my chair. This was the love of my life. This was the woman I wanted to have children with. This was the only woman I had ever been with.
I got myself up and printed out the e-mail. When she walked in the door she called out to me and was very sweet but I was not in a generous mood. I casually asked her how Frank was doing and threw the e-mail down on the table in front of her.
Her first tactic was to attack me. She said it was very hard to respect me after my business went under in the summer/fall of 2008. She said after breaking contact with Steven that she compulsively contacted Frank and he immediately turned the conversation sexual. She said she stopped talking to him last February because she did not want to humor his desire for talking dirty.
I maintained my calm demeanor and said
"We are not doing this. You are helping some jerk off get his rocks off on the internet and KISSED another guy in Philadelphia. Can you please tae a moment to explain how in the hell this is about me? Are you just that good at mental gymnastics? Or are you just that sadistic?"
She tried to resume her attack and I said "Fine, let's get through the rest of teh school year as friends and I will make my departure this summer."
She looked thunderstruck after I said that. She knew I was serious. The idea that I might leave her really shook her up.
A few later she e-mail both guys in front of me and told them that any further contact was not apprpriate and that her marriage was too important to her to do any further damage.
She then gave me the passwords to all of her e-mail accounts and agreed that she had given up her right to be trusted for a long time. She told me she would rather die than go through life without me.
We agreed to postpone our trip to her parents house for Christmas a few days so we could get some things ironed out.
Her behavior since has been exemplary. We argued a lot and I realy laid on the guilt, but we also began to make love a lot more and when we were not arguing we were like a couple of newlyweds again.
Right after Christmas she had another work related trip. We went together to Pihiladelphia (ironically.) We argued most of the way there and she kept bringing up finances. I hit back with my nastiest thoughts on her dalliances.
That night in the hotel I stayed up late to check her laptop activity after she was asleep. I then decided to surf the web a bit and came across the MB website.
I devoured thread after thread and realized that my wife and I were not nearly as far gone as a lot of the couples on here. We talked over breakfast the next morning and I began making love deposits. After I kissed her good morning and smiled at me and suddenly began to cry. She apologized over and over again.
She told me she loved me dearly and was willing to do what ever it takes to win back my trust and make our marriage work. She explained that she was never interested in these guys, she said that the only reason these guys interested her at all is because they made her feel attractive. She said her secret internet world was a cheap thrill for her and was not worth the pain it caused me. She said she soothed her guilt by blaming my financial struggles.
She reminded me that before she went to Philadelphia the first time she had a terrible case of separation anxiety. At the time I chalked it up as travel jitters, but her sense of dread was her conscience.
We agreed that a couple of her friends are enablers and other than at work should be shut out socially. My WW's "friend" was with her in Philadelphia and told her that seeing this guy was fine, that "she deserved a little fun."
My wife went to her morning meeting and when she came back we had the "do not disturb" sign on our door the rest of the day.
I must admit I got a little guilty pleasure out of the fact that I spent an entire afternoon doing something that this other man could not even accomplish after shoving drink after drink at my wife for 6 hours.
We went back to Ohio and had a pretty uneventful rest of the vacation. I was depressed at times and she was really suffering from the guilt. Armed with the knowledge I got here I just kept making LD's in her bank.
After a week of steady deposits we are like a couple of teenagers. We drove home today and more than once we seriously considered pulling off and checking into a hotel.
I am constantly making deposits but remaining firm in my requirements. When the subject of the EA's comes up I make it clear that my requirements stand and then change the subject.
Things seem to be going well but I cannot shake the fear. I am constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Tonight I peaked at her faculty e-mail account and someone had e-mailed her on Christmas eve to wish her a Merry Christmas. I think it was a former student but the thing that bothered me is that the person wished her and a male dean a merry christmas simultaneously in an e-mail addressed only to my wife. Here is the text from the e-mail:
May you have the best Christmas ever. May peace and happiness be with you always. Wishing you and Dr ******* a merry Christmas this holiday season and a happy New Year!
Ina (Jun)
Now my wife knows I have access to her e-mail account so if there was anything untoward she would have deleted it. She was extremely thorough in covering up her tracks before things were exposed so I think it is innocent but it does bother me.
I am reading into EVERYTHING right now. I saw on my keylogger that she said she and someone else were "ships passing in the night" and that a February trip to Tenn. sounded great.
I asked her about it and she showed me the e-mail. It turned out that she was talking to a female friend about a couples weekend for the four of us. If i had taken the time to check the e-mail I would have realized it was innocent and avoided a discussion about our marriage.
I am so paranoid, and each time I show my paranoia I make a withdrawal from her lovebank.
Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. Any insight or advice is most welcome and appreciated. It feels great to get soem of this out.