Ok here it goes. I was doing something to the wife in the bedroom that she did not like. Even though I know it was hurting her. This was going on for a long time. I was also not giving her the support around the house and emotional support that she needed.

She came to me one day asking if I minded if she went to a movie with this guy that she had met through work and if it was ok if she talked with him. He works somewhere else, they had to correspond for work related issues. At the time I was really disconnected from her and told her that I didn't care as long as she didn't have sex with him. They never did meet and I found out she had been texting him like over 1000 times in a month. I confronted her about it and she told me that it was just a friendship. In the end she told me that she was starting to get feelings for him. She thought about having sex with someone besides me that wouldn't hurt her but she said in the end she didn't think she could live with herself if she did.

We made a promise to each other. I would not hurt her again in the bedroom and she would cut all communication with him. She actually emailed him in front of me and told him that all future communication between them would only pertain to work. She told him that she loved me and didn't want to lose me. She told him it was better that they didn't talk because she was trying to repair her marriage. Her excuse for talking with him in the first place was to see if all men liked what I had been doing. To her he was safe because they never met. She has never lied to me and has told me everything including that she sent him pictures of herself in her bra and panties. I've asked her numerous times if she misses talking to him but she tells me that she only thinks about it when I bring him up.

This all happened over 6 months ago. I'm starting to trust her again and have had no signs that she is talking with him. We are supposed to re-new our wedding vows this summer and move to another state.

My question is should I believe her or should I worry? I worry that she might be talking with him some other way but I haven't seen any signs of this.

Thanks,
scaredoftrusting

Are you married?

Yes. We have been for almost 17 years. Dated 3 years before that. 2 kids (12, 15)

I am having enormous trouble moving past the fact that you got enjoyment out of hurting your wife. You purposely caused her suffering in the bedroom. Do you enjoy hurting her?

Will she have sex with you any more? And how does she explain that she allowed you to hurt her without taking a baseball bat to your head?

Yes. You need to answer this question first. Why would you do something sexually painful to your wife without her agreement?

I wasn't forcing her to do this. It's not like I was holding her down. She just wasn't getting any pleasure out of it. She thought there was something wrong with her. I never purposely hurt her. I just wasn't paying attention to the signs that she wasn't in to it.

Yes she still has sex with me. I'm not doing what I was doing anymore. We are having a very active and satisfying sex life now that the hurting is gone.

The issue is should I believe that she won't talk to this other guy anymore. I really do love her and want our marriage to be the best is ever has.

sot, instead of trusting her, I would put measures in place to make sure there is no more contact. For example, her life should be so transparent that it would be impossible for her to speak to him again. One way you can do this is look at her cell phone bill and have her give you her password.

Additionally, you need to be snooping to make sure there is no contact. Instead of asking her, find out on your own. Put flexispy on her phone, GPS on her car, keylogger on her computer. These are all measures that will help you learn to trust her again.

Thanks for the advice. I do check her cell phone bill everyday. It displays all the numbers that have been called or incoming calls but also displays any numbers for text messages. She uses the same password on her phone that I do so that isn't an issue either.

I have been snooping. I have the password for her work email so I look at it everday. The only way that she could be contacting him is if she has another account setup that she is only using at work. I have not found any indications of it at home. She knows that I am tech savy so I don't think she would do anything else at home. She has been transparent with me.

She has confessed everything to me and our priest. I have also went to him to confess my part in causing all this. We both are reading the his needs, her needs book and everything that it suggests we are already doing to better our marriage. We spend all our free time together. She doesn't have anytime during the day to meet him so I'm not really worried about that anymore. Keep in mind this happened last October and I have been snooping ever since.

My only other question is am I being naive that she will not do it again. This has never happened before and she says the only reason that it did happen was because I was hurting her. I also did something similiar to this when we were first married. I was talking to a girl on line and the wife found out by reading my instant message logs. She confronted me about it and I stopped. Should I put the same trust in her that she did in me back then? She says she could have lived with me not helping around the house and everything else but the hurting pushed her over the edge. Keep in mind that I was doing this thing in the bedroom for six years and it took her this long for something to happen. She told me after talking with the priest that she thinks she was doing this to try to ruin our marriage so that I would stop. She says now that I have stopped she is 100% committed to our marriage.

Yes, that's what I am suffering from as well when do you know it's truely over, and how can truely forgive, forget and move forward when the signs are there that the marriage is in a better place, it's like how do you know that they are who they say they are meaning if they did it before and were able to get away w/it how can you know that it's truely the phrase what you see is what get?

I tell you it's prayer, and not allowing yourself to be the brunt barrior of the pain, I give it God, and keep it moving when I think it's too much, or it pops in my head I pray... And it's a continued effort to give it to God.

I also talk to the H about my feelings I'm sure he would rather not have to listen too them but I didn't do this you did so you must hear me out, I can speak now w/out getting emotional I can clearly state my feelings, and things that I deal w/out allowing it to make me upset.

Try Prayer.. When you are down nothing try prayer. But I do still check as well to keep him and give him accountalblity. I don't check everyday but I ask that work the cell phone be brought in the house, but how can you know he's not deleting calls you truely can't but you must have faith that God will not put anything on you can't bare, and that he will see you through it all, and knowing that I move on in health and mind is at rest/peace.

SOT, the biggest red flags I see here is that your wife does not take 100% responsibility for her affair, does not discuss her complaints with you openly and that you both believe that trust is something that should be freely given instead of earned. I would resolve those issues first and THEN incorporate it into a program of recovery. Most marriages don't recover from affairs, they simply limp along in a crippled state, worse off than the pre-affair marriage. To fix that, I would get the book Surviving an Affair and follow the program outlined there. Other resources are the MB online course or phone coaching.

Your wife had an affair because she has poor boundaries around men. Period. It had nothing to do with your "hurting her." That does not cause an affair. What caused the affair was that she allowed another man to meet her needs.

And did she TELL you that you were hurting her so you could stop? Did she tell you that she was unhappy with your not helping around the house? If she is not telling you about her unhappiness, then she is harming your marriage. Complaints are necessary in marriage and if she is not doing that, then she is contributing to the problems in your marriage.

As far as trust goes, it was too much trust that led to the affair in the first place. I would focus rather on good boundaries. It is not a lack of trust that wrecks marriages, but a lack of boundaries.

Good point

Actually after I would hurt her she would tell me and cry. I would cry as well knowing that I was hurting her. She did tell me that I wasn't helping and that it upset her that she had to ask other womans husband to help her with things like boy scouts and such.

I'm not sure I would call what she had an affair. It was an emotional affair but when I found out she was actually in the process of ending it. She told me that she only talked to him to find out if every man out there liked what I was doing. She says it was safe because they had never met. She was actually just going to divorce me until I found out and turned everything around. I believe that she has stopped talking to him because I can't find anything to indicate that she is.

She actually has said that what happened was her fault and that she should have just left but I feel like some of the blame should be placed on me since I knew I was hurting her and continued to do it. She specifically said that if I wasn't hurting her this would have never happened. She could have lived with everything else just not the hurting.

She is conveying her complaintes to me now as well. We are talking more openly than we ever have.

I don't understand. So you did this ONCE and when she told you that it hurt her, you stopped? I am completely confused about what this has to do with her need to talk to another man. Talk to him about what? And why?

No I did it more than once. I continued to do it for almost 6 years. She would let me do it but would get nothing out of it. She felt it was her duty as a wife to allow me to do it. I wasn't fufilling her needs in the bedroom

She only started talking to him to try to get information to find out if what I was doing was what all men liked. She admits she let the talking go to far. She admits that it was wrong. Most of what she talked to him about was leading up to asking him about this one thing. I had left her emotional three years prior to this and feel this is what might have caused some of it.

At times I feel like I should just let her go and move on. I did the same thing to her back when we first got married and she confronted me about and never said another word after I stopped. I'm afraid that if I keep bringing this up that it will push her away. I have some people telling me that I shoudl continue to let her know how I feel and other people telling me to let it go but to keep my eyes open to anything suspicious.

I just don't know what to do. I never thought something like this could happen to us. I thought there was nothing I could do wrong for her to leave me.

It wasn't just one time.

No it wasn't. It wasn't all the time either. It got to where I was doing it more often and she was just tired of it. She was tired of the hurting. That is why I think part of this is my fault.

Bump

Does anyone have anymore suggestions? Am I to blame for some of this?

Let's label this, shall we?

Your behavior is a love buster, correct?

Here's the list:

Selfish Demands
Disrespectful Judgments
Angry Outbursts
Annoying Habits
Independent Behavior
Dishonesty

IMO, this qualifies as a "Selfish Demand".
You may try and say "I never demanded she do this" .... but that would be a weasel excuse. Don't even try.

You continued to do "something" that you were fully aware caused her pain. For years you did this. Years !

Are you this selfish in other ways?
I bet you are.
You lack empathy for your wife's feelings.
End that selfishness today. TODAY
Educate yourself about what else you are doing that is a love buster.

Suggestion:

Download the lovebuster questionnaire and politely ask that your wife fill it our so you know exactly what you've been doing to hurt her in addition to the sexual torture.


Look to the ~~~> right in the box of clickable links and go to the one that says "Love Busters".

For now, you work on fixing ALL the love busters. 100% effort.

When your wife wants to, she can ask you to fill out the questionnaire from your side. Do not demand it at this time.

Read my previous post for my immediate suggestion.
Let us know how your wife fills out the love buster questionnaire.

Are you to blame for her decision to go outside the M to have her needs met?
No.

Are you RESPONSIBLE for making your wife very miserable and unhappy?

Indeed, you are.
Own it.
Own responsibility, not blame.

Ok, this is her fault for not telling you. You obviously can't know that something is unpleasant unless you are Madame Cleo [and have psychic powers] or she tells you. As long as she is not honest about her displeasure you can't know what the problems are. It makes no sense that she would tell a perfect stranger and not you.

I also wonder if she is truly not in a physical affair if she is having such personal discussions with this man?