I don’t know if this is the right way to do this, nor did I ever think I’d be here, but here goes. This year starting June 26 2024, my wife confessed to me an affair she’d be having. I want to tell my story and ask for help, as I’m desperately trying to restore myself to being in love with her again, but I feel like there has been too much damage to me. Let me start.
I’m in the air force. Around January this year, I was set to go on deployment. Me and my wife hugged kissed, went to the mini marriage counseling session they put us on and I was whisked away to another country. At the time we were stationed in Germany. My wife, convinced that her depression would be too much and wanting our daughter to receive better medical care, we did paperwork to send her back the the United States.
Everything started fine. I missed my wife but of course I knew she was going back to the states to stay with my family and I knew my daughter would be safe too. I couldn’t have been happier. About a month after I got there though it started to set in…my deployment was only 3 months. But I wouldn’t be leaving Germany till November and my family is back in the states….my wife just had weight loss surgery as well.
I wasn’t going to live with my wife for almost a year. Immediately I started hurting from being away. The base I was deployed at was depressing and there was no getting around that. Well around that time my wife wanted to look for a job while living with my parents to keep herself busy. She was supposed to have a completely different job caring for children. All of a sudden within that first month, her body made an extreme transformation. Out of no where the idea to work at a bar had occurred to her.
I was apprehensive at first, but who was I to control my wife? I told her I was a bit uncomfortable with it but she assured me it was just for something to get her out the house and she enjoys it from when she used to do it. So I was like (what the hell) sure thing.
Well around the time she started to work at one, I was away at a depressing base and she was transforming. I was proud of her. I always loved her body despite her weight, but she looked amazing…and started dressing a bit more provocatively. Nothing too crazy but more skin than I’d ever seen her show. I tried to be tactful about it and told her it looked amazing. I noticed she stopped really talking to me a lot, mainly due to being busy at the bar and meeting new people. Making what I felt like a new life. One day I was very vulnerable. I told her over FaceTime “I don’t feel like you’re doing enough I just want to be able to talk to my wife a bit more” something like that.
I could tell she took offense to it and I remember her asking what she was supposed to do and that she’s doing everything she can. I apologized but told her I would just like to hear from her like all the other guys here were having real conversations with their wives….oh boy, had I known what would unfold after, god I wish I could go back sometimes. Around this time she also started to talk about bdsm culture (things I’m already akin to).
Here comes the time she turned into a WW. We have one another’s location via Life360. I saw approximately march 18 that she was by some apartments at 2-3am. I got really confused, I knew she had work but she would have went straight home. I called her and asked her where she was. She told me she was closing to bar, but talked so quietly, there was a dead silence. I was like…um okay, and she asked if she could call me back. I texted her and said listen, that seems fishy, your location does not show you at a bar, please tell me what’s going on. She said she was sorry that she was smoking weed (she knew I wasn’t cool with that) and didn’t want to tell me because she knew I’d be mad. I was upset with her due to her acting strange and lying to me but I forgave her. More time went by with my worry and her bringing up in our daily conversation, open relationships. I told her I know being away is hard, but things like that aren’t interesting to me and she would assure me that she didn’t want that either.
Why would she bring this stuff up? She would even go as far as to say “you know if you have needs that need to be met, you know” and then drift off and I’d say of course not. All I need is my wife. And she said yes the exact same for her. One day I woke up and saw our location tracker say she spent 30 mins at a gas station. I found this crazy odd. Why would she be at a gas station that long? I confronted her about it later and she said she had bought scratch off tickets and sat there to scratch them in the parking lot. I was like don’t do that at 3am in a car that is dangerous as hell. Go home to do that. In hindsight I’m and idiot…my wife doesn’t do [censored] like that. Then again she doesn’t do things like what she did either. Or so I thought. Well before that we had planned on me flying home in April after my deployment and she was so excited…I think? When my deployment ended she pretty much rushed me to get there. I needed sleep. I had been up for 24 hours, but my wife needed me. I busted my [censored] for an additional 24 hours so that I could make the changed flight my wife set on time for her to pick me up at the airport. Thinking back I have no idea why she put me through that if what was going on was happening.
I got off the plane to see my wife. She looked dazzling. Something was wrong though…she didn’t look half as excited to see me as I thought she would be. I picked her up with a hug but she barely embraced me, no tears, nothing. I was confused but also knew things had been weird. She told me she wanted me in the car for some fun before we left the airport prior to us seeing each other. I was like yes! After being away this is my reward. We did, but she was like, “that’s okay we don’t have to” but succumbed to it….its like she forced herself to go through with it. The whole time I was home it was weird. And she lied by omission not telling me things as I uncovered them. Nothing really lead to an affair. But things just weren’t right. She kept telling me she had nothing to hide, even did as much as to let me go to her bar while she worked. Well it was time for me to go back to Germany to finish my remaining 6 months. We talked about a second child, buying a home, all her idea. And I was on board. I was ready to build more with this woman.
When I got back things continued to be strange, I told her the situation has made trust so hard, but damn I trust her more than ever. She went off and said I only had life 360 to keep track of her and I didn’t really trust her. She threatened to leave my parents house to get her own place without daughter. I felt sick and was so confused. I threw up that night. Not knowing why she was doing all of this. She said she was so crazy about me until I said “she wasn’t enough” I never meant for what I said to come off that way. I told her I had no idea that hurt her so bad and I apologized already and I will 1000 times. For many days she questioned us as a couple. I freaked out many times trying to keep my composure and at the same time do my job, and pass my test for staff Sgt, (which I did and proud of despite all the craziness going on in my life). All of a sudden a few days later, she said she was quitting the bar. I was confused but relieved at the same time. Her birthday was coming up and I wanted to make sure I did everything I could for her to enjoy it, even if I wasn’t going to be there. She even mentioned me flying in again, which I couldn’t because money was a problem. I got her an SUV and many funny/sexual/ and a sentimental gift for her bday to show my love for her. Her bday approached and the day before she wanted to go play some poker since she picked it up at the bar. This time though, it was not being played at a bar, rather someone’s house…or so she told me. I told her to be safe and glad she did. She said it was a guys house but they have poker nights there. She still denies she ever told me this. She knows I would have been against it if it was just as single guy there. She texted me when she left the house and enjoyed her bday the next day. I even got a video of her crying at the gift I got her. 2 weeks later…she was being just like her old self. Amazing. Just like when I married her. That’s when she confessed to having sex with another man. And she trickle truthed it went from 1 time. To 2 times. To 3…to 7 encounters. All the times I had suspected something was off…she was with that man. Including the very last time when she went to go play poker. Over a month she brought all this out. She confessed it to me because she couldn’t hide it. The blindsiding….the worry…the dark days I had….i was crushed. And I still am crushed. She has since flown to Germany to stay with me with our daughter until I pcs and had been doing everything she can to be a great wife…but she completely obliterated and broke me. I can barely look at her the same and half the time kissing her makes me think of her mouth on…him.
I had threatened divorce but god I love her. I don’t want our story to end this way. Is there any possible way I can get through this? Finding forgiveness is so difficult and I’m just hurt, angry, disgusted that the woman I gave my life too would do this…does my marriage have any hope? The visions I have are gruesome. She wants to move forward and has being perfect but when I’m really hurting there’s no one I can turn to. And she has all the support. Even my mom is there for her and me. But that makes it harder. Nothing feels right anymore. It’s been almost 4 months since the end of the affair and she did 4 months of therapy, we’ve uncovered a lot of her truama, but now while she’s improving I’m left broken and I still need to manage to feel her LB while feeling this way…
