I'm new here....I wasn't sure where to post this because my situation is a bit different.

I'm a 53-year-old lady who just lost my 54-year-old husband to cancer a month ago. We had been married for 34 years and have four grown-up children and two grandchildren. He had a history of unfaithfulness and he had told me about three different women. I thought there were no more. Since he was diagnosed with bowel cancer in August, 2009, I thought he had been faithful to me and believed he would surely not be attractive to other women anymore because of the cancer. I also thought he was going through too much with the surgeries and cancer treatments over that time to entertain the thought of flirting with other women. Well, that turned out to be wrong!

I looked through his emails on his iPad a couple of weeks ago, most of which he had deleted but some were still there presumably because he had become too ill towards the end to manage using the iPad properly and delete them all. I was devastated to discover that he had "secret" relationships with at least TEN women online, some in different countries (I live in Australia)and he often met up with the ones who lived locally or who visited here from wherever they lived. The relationships varied between close (but inappropriate) friendships and romantic relationships - in other words, emotional affairs. I say this because his initial surgery and radiotherapy treatments in late 2009 had permanently damaged his sexual function and sex drive. He was able to just barely function with me with the help of viagra-type drugs but I seriously doubt that any other woman would have settled for that.

I need to go back and fill in some history. He was first unfaithful back in 1981 just after our first child was born. I have always had chronic illness throughout our marriage (chronic fatigue syndrome, several migraines a week, and narcolepsy). He told me he wanted to leave me because he didn't want a sick wife and he had also fallen in love with a young woman at work who reciprocated his feelings. This continued for several weeks until the woman was transferred away from his place of work and he then decided that he wanted to stay with me because we had a young baby. He claimed that this affair was never physical but I will never know the truth about that.

As far as I know, he was faithful for a good many years after that. We had three more children and then my health improved for a while, enabling us to be involved in leading the music ministry in our church for several years from 2000. We were both passionate about the ministry and it was a fulfilling time for both of us. Then my health problems worsened again and we were forced to give up the ministry at the end of 2004. I think we had also both burned out from doing too much. My husband became very depressed because we both had thought my health wouldn't decline again, and the loss of the ministry had left a big void in his life.

We had always planned to go on some sight-seeing trips around Australia when the kids grew up and he had long-service leave, and he wanted us to go on trips overseas but my health problems would have been too much of an obstacle. When the time came in 2006, he disappointed me by announcing that he was going on an overseas trip on his own to England and Scotland. He said he "wouldn't go without my blessing" and I stupidly and reluctantly agreed to it. After this trip in October that year, he came back and was different. A few weeks later he announced that he didn't love me anymore and was considering leaving me. I was shocked and confused and didn't even suspect that he might have cheated on me because at the time, it would have been totally out of character for him (or so I thought). Three months later, he announced he was going back to the UK/Scotland a second time and that while he was there, he would "decide" whether he would stay married to me or not. Soon after arriving there, he sent a text saying that he had decided to come back but he made excuses to delay coming home for another two weeks.

After arriving home, he didn't seem to be remorseful and when I asked him if he promised he would never leave me again, he said, "No, I can't because I might feel like that again." He also told me I couldn't bring up the past and discuss it again! So for 15 months (during which time he went on two more overseas trips without me) I lived from day to day wondering whether he was going to leave me and afraid to discuss it in case he did. In May 2008 he announced he was moving out and "hoped" that with counselling, he might be convinced to come back. Counselling was a waste of time. In Australia, the legal requirement is that couples have to be separated for a whole year before filing for divorce. For seven months, I made it clear that I was waiting for him to come back and wouldn't agree to a divorce. He responded by harrasing me to do the property settlement because I had come into a substantial inheritance from my recently-deceased father. I refused to do so and told him that he would have to force the issue with a divorce in a year. At the end of seven months of separation, I somehow managed to convince him to reconsider the divorce and he talked about coming back home, but he said we should have a time of trying to restore our marriage by "just dating" for a while first.

I hated the idea but reluctantly agreed....anything to save my marriage. Then he confessed to me that he had had what he claimed to be an emotional-only affair with a woman he had met at a church an hour's drive away from where we live. He claimed they hadn't even dated because of her "strict greek orthodox background" which he said prohibited her from "dating" him until he was divorced and that they only saw eachother at church and church social functions (yeah, right). I believe the only reason why he told me about this woman is because she loaned him $60,000 to buy a block of land which he claimed was only for investment purposes (but I believe they had plans to build their "love nest" on it). He said he had ended the relationship with the woman and would now try to sell the land as soon as possible to pay back the debt. I was very upset that he would still be tied to her by this debt until the land sold.

After two and half months of "just dating" in early 2009, I became impatient so he came back home. Then just three weeks later he confessed that he had been "carrying a burden" and needed to tell me about it. He said that on the first trip to the UK in 2006, he had had a one night stand with a woman he met in Scotland. Then when he went back there in February 2007, he had plans to look for her but said he couldn't locate her because they didn't exchange last names. When he realised that he couldn't find her, he decided to come back home (and I have no idea of how much truth there is in this confession). After dumping this on me, he announced that he was moving out again for a few days and that I should get "counselling" to help me deal with this news. He apparently thought I should just "get over" this in a few days!! I told him the next day that I didn't want him to come back. We were separated for four weeks and then he seemed remorseful so I let him come back.

A few more weeks passed and he didn't want to talk about anything or help me with it. He seemed to think he had "cleared the air" and that was the end of it. Then in June, 2009 the woman who had given him the loan turned up to visit him at work...supposedly to ask him if the land had sold yet and when would she be getting her money back. My emotions were raw and I became extremely upset because I was still so insecure. I tried to explain to him that I had so much to deal with and of course I would be upset. He became angry and told me a counsellor told him that he "only had to say sorry once" I was never to bring anything up again. That to me is just like carelessly tossing me a band-aid after beating me to within an inch of my life, then saying, "There - that's all you get, now just shut up and get over it!" He sneaked out again early the next morning and left a note on the kitchen bench telling me that he realised he couldn't get past all the events of recent years and it was time for both of us to move on separately with our lives.

Amazingly, after six more weeks of separation he did come back home again after making one excuse after another to keep delaying it. He claimed that a counsellor had showed him that my response to the woman visiting him at work was totally normal. However, after he came back things were still very unresolved. Just a week and a half after he came back, he was diagnosed with the cancer and I think that was his excuse from that point on, for putting marriage issues on the backburner and not discussing them.

The block of land sold a few weeks later but we had to drop the price and lost $25,000...that debt had to be added to the mortgage on our home so that he could pay back the woman. I was extremely upset about this. I believed he had no further contact with this woman after this...but now I find that he has been seeing her and emailing, texting and phoning her regularly for the past two and a half years.

I also discovered that he had lied to me about his living arrangements when we were separated in 2009. He told me that the townhouse he shared was owned by a married couple who were supposedly not even living there most of the time. I objected to that at the time and said that whenever the husband wasn't there, he would be alone in the house with the wife. Now I find that there was never any husband and he spent the whole time sharing the place with this woman, whom he has also kept seeing and being in contact with since then. I also found that on his first UK visit, he stayed for a few days at a Bed and Breakfast owned by a woman who he has also kept in contact with and seemed to be close to. At the end of last year, he said in an email that he "still had strong feelings" for her.

Another woman in New Zealand says that he spent a few days with her on a trip there without me in 2007, going on sight-seeing trips with her. She also stayed in contact with him and visited him here a few times. I have found that he met nearly all of these women on internet sites just before his first UK trips in 2006.

I am reeling from the extent of his lying to me over the past two and a half years. He always told me where he was going and who he would be with...so he had to lie to my face about a lot of that. Of course, I know now that I should have "exposed" his cheating when I learned of it in 2009. By the time I discovered this site and realised that, he had been diagnosed with the cancer and I thought the problem wouldn't arise again. I had kept it a secret from everyone so that our children and his family wouldn't be hurt, and I see no point in exposing it now. I finally told my sister recently because I couldn't cope with all this on my own any longer. I also have an interstate friend who I stay in contact with from time to time on the phone, and I had confided in her. There is also an online (female) friend who knows. Everyone who knows him here thinks he was the most wonderful, Christian man and they don't know the truth. He was a paradox because he was a "committed" christian on one hand, but the shabby way he has treated me has been incomprehensible.

I had always been waiting for the day when he would finally have "the talk" with me and express total remorse for everything and reassure me of how much he loved me. Now that can never happen. He did seem to try and make things up to me since he had the cancer, by taking me on some of the Australian sight-seeing trips that we had planned and he was mostly kind, thoughtful and loving towards me....but I always felt an emotional distance from him and now I know why. I had some happy memories of the good times we spent together in his final years but now they have been spoilt by the hurt of his betrayal. I was so gracious, forgiving and longsuffering towards him and he didn't deserve it....he had no idea how hard that was for me....and he apparently never appreciated it because he just continued treating me like a doormat.

Thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this long story....I feel lost and don't know how on earth I am ever going to deal with all of this and move on. I have zero interest in making a "new life" and have no friends....the traumatic events of the past few years left me so damaged that I felt like I couldn't socialise anymore. Now I am more damaged than ever so I feel hopeless. I went to a counsellor today and will keep seeing her weekly for a while. I hope someone here has some helpful words for me...right now I just feel so lost.

I'm so sorry for all your pain. I just wanted to say I hope you find all the peace you need.

I don't even know what to say or where to begin. I wanted to give you a hug and you're in my prayers.

Most posters are in the U.S. and will be on later, but I didn't want you to feel ignored.

Welcome to Marriage Builders, my friend.

Welcome to Marriage Builders SS. I am sorry for the reasons that bring you here. I have no advice to give you, just want to thank you for sharing your story. There are so many people on this site that are dealing with situations that could relate to any time during your story. Perhaps this can at least be a window for them into a life of serial cheating without a plan of action. Forgiveness without action is not the answer and I'm sure you see that now.

You are 53 years young and that means you have many years of life ahead of you, even though your husband has passed and you do not have the opportunity to find your peace with him, you can use the MB principles to learn how healthy relationships work and use those in your future.

I know you said that you are not interested in exposure. However I would highly recommend you reconsider it. Your WH is gone, but he has left a path of destruction in his wake. You are alone trying to protect and hide his secret life, and that is just not a burden you should have to carry after years of living with a serial cheater. Hiding the reality of your own life will only continue to keep that evil in the darkness, when it should be exposed to the light. And you need support, from your family and friends and those who are most important to you. Also, exposure works for the OW as well. There are many OW in your situation who have actively worked to destroy your marriage, they may have BS's and friends and family who should know about their secret lives too, and hold them accountable to a higher standard.

Thank you for the replies.

I also have a question which I asked in the "Operation Investigate" forum but I'll repeat it here. I didn't need to use a password to access the emails on his iPad because it was still signed in. What I'm finding is that no more emails will load in the inbox prior to July last year and while this could simply be because he deleted them before that date, it applies to all three of his email addresses and I'm thinking that it's an iPad thing. I would really like to access earlier emails so I can have some closure. I'd like to try signing in to the email address on my PC to see if more emails will load, but I don't know the password. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I could find out what it is?

sydney, there may be a way to reset the password for the email accounts. If they are free online email accounts like Yahoo, GMail, HotMail, there is usually a way to reset the password if you are logged in. So if you can do that, then you could set the passwords to something you know and log in from other devices.

Hello
Welcome to MB-Recovery forum.
This is where you belong.

Because you are just 1 month out from WH's death, I will use my most delicate approach.

Here is simple advice that you can write out and tape to your bathroom mirror, so you can read it to yourself several times every day. Aloud, please. Every time you are in that room, read it aloud.

Quote

Soon, I will give up hope for a better yesterday.

Tell me once this is taped to your mirror.
After that, I'll have more to say.

SS, I am so sorry for all that you have gone through. I know it must be terribly painful. I will pray that you find peace in the coming months.

One thing that might help is if you write a letter to your husband telling him exactly how you feel - about all of it! It can be very cathartic to get it out on paper.

I agree with the suggestion on exposure. It may be too soon for you, but at some point you really should consider telling people in your life what happened to you. I understand that can be frightening to consider - telling everyone your dark secrets - but infidelity thrives in the darkness. What it has done to you emotionally and mentally is terrible - and you need support, even though your husband is gone: especially now that your husband is gone! You have a lot of good years in front of you and living them out hiding in shame would be a terrible waste!

Pep's right: you can't change yesterday; but you have the power to make a better tomorrow.

I think you need to give the existing password and then suggest the new one (twice). That's to stop just anyone finding your PC open and resetting the email password, I suppose.

I wrote that down but I won't be taping it to the mirror....my daughter and son still live at home and I don't want them asking questions about it. I'm still not comfortable with the idea of exposing all this to them (and their other two siblings) because I know it would absolutely break their hearts. Plus I believe this kind of behaviour is potentially contagious....they might not approve of it now but what if they are ever tempted this way themselves in the future? Subconsciously, there would always be that thought that if Dad did it, then why not them?

Actually, "yesterday" just got even worse. I discovered elsewhere on H's iPad that he had kept a copy of an emailed Interflora receipt for an order he had delivered on Valentine's Day (just this year). At first glance, I thought it was the box of flowers that he had delivered to me because he was away in another city at the time to participate in a cancer drug trial....but when I looked closer I noticed that the box of flowers was not only better than mine but he had also ordered a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates to be sent with it. I'm pretty sure I know who the recipient was but I emailed interflora and asked them for information...not surprisingly I received a prompt reply that they can't give that information to anyone other the sender/purchaser because of "security regulations". So I emailed again and said that H had passed a month ago and attached a certified copy of his death certificate as proof. I think now they are just ignoring me. It makes me so angry to think that H could do this behind my back but I don't even have the right to know who he sent them to.

This has just been the last straw for me today....that he gave his mistress a better present than me on Valentine's Day....and I feel like just writing off our marriage as a total sham.

I'll see if I can find out that Hotmail password by pretending I forgot it and see what happens.

Do you know if any of these OW were married at the time of the affairs?

Maybe two....one of them lives in New Zealand and she sent him an email last year to tell him that she and her husband or partner had had a fight and she was moving out...then she says, "I guess I shouldn't be surprised because I have been having affairs for eight years." But this year she mentions him again in an email as if they are still together.

The one in England that he met there six years ago seemed to be married at the time according to some photos but I don't think she is now.

The one I believe he sent the Valentine's Day gift to is divorced (go figure).

I have had no luck with resetting the Hotmail password. H's "secret question" for identifying his password is "Grandfather's occupation" and even though I gave the right answer, it apparently doesn't match the one he gave...so I am stuck.

Are you going to expose to these OW's BHs?

I know you are reeling from recent knowledge about the length and extent of your husband's infidelity. I am so sorry.

I have just a couple of comments about deciding whether to tell your adult children about your husband's affairs. Dr. Harley often comments about his 50 year marriage to his wife Joyce. They have never had to endure an affair in their marriage. Dr. Harley also has mentioned that he is the first male in his immediate family to have been faithful in marriage. Why? He was well aware of the impact of infidelity and resolved to be faithful. But, resolution is not enough. It takes the establishment of precautions as well as the cultivation of a great marriage.

The precautions include not having friends of the opposite sex, not discussing personal issues with members of the opposite sex, being each other's favorite recreational companion, sleeping together every night, etc. Without these types of precautions, it is easy (?) for the best intended person to "slide down the slippery slope" into an affair.

In 2008, on the day I found out about my H's emotional/physical affair, I called my MIL. It turns out that FIL (deceased in 2003) had had at least one long term affair and an unknown number of other affairs. FIL was an Air Force pilot, was away much of the time and it was easy for him to have a secret, second life. For years, MIL idolized FIL to the children. It would have been far better if she had given the children the knowledge of how to avoid the pain and suffering in their own marriages.

Our children all know about my husband's infidelity. When our youngest found out, he said that he thought he would not be able to respect H again. This past Father's Day, the same son gave H a hug and told him how much he loved him. A few months ago, our older son had been talking about moving in with a girlfriend. We had a frank discussion about romantic relationships, the dynamics of living together without marriage, and gave son and girlfriend copies of Dr. Harley's book, "Buyers, Renters, and Freeloaders".

One good thing to have come out of our enduring an affair in our marriage is the ability to openly talk about these things with our children. I encourage you to have frank discussions with your children.

AM

Thanks for letting me know.
I'll keep quiet, as promised.

Best to you.

I wouldn't know how to contact them....I only have the OW's email addresses.

Have you looked up her name and pull up public records to see who she's married to?

Try this. Trying To Figure out Identity

It looks like the New Zealand one is still married but I believe the husband knows she is a cheater and chooses to stay with her. I'm not really up to getting involved in any of this...I have too much to deal with as it is.

Wouldn't you have wanted someone to tell you?

I don't have any real evidence that they had more than a "platonic friendship" which is what she made it out to be. I'm undecided about whether I would have wanted to know...H evidently had a serious problem and his history shows me that he probably would have preferred to go our separate ways rather than give up his large "fan club" of women. He had been separated from me for a year in 2008/09 and hardly seemed to miss me then...anyway the point is moot now. I am definitely financially better off now because we were never divorced and he took me on some nice vacations around our country when he was well enough in the last two and a half years...those things I don't regret.

I can't help but think that all your personal suffering is never going to go away until you find it within you to let people know your truth. Let the people that are close to you in life in - and you will find support and peace. Keep living with a lie to protect your wayward husband and you never will truly live.

It is obvious you are looking for answers - but don't want to tell anyone you know about what you have suffered - ARE suffering! While part of me understands that, the rest of me truly hopes that you let go of the worries of how it is going to affect everything else if you come out with the truth, or how hard it is going to be. Trust me, it will be MUCH harder on you to swallow this and carry on like it never happened. Sure, there will be tears and drama at first - but there can also be healing. What you are looking at right now is a life full of inward tears - and never healing. Your kids - and others in your inner circle - will be BETTER OFF, not worse - for knowing the truth.

Of course, it's up to you - and it's all I am going to say on the subject... but I hope that you choose LIFE rather than fear.