My husband found out I cheated on him 4 months ago. The affair lasted over a year. There were only 2 instances of sex on the same day over a year ago. It was a long distance relationship-mostly thru email and phone. He just became more of a close friend to me. Anyway-he found out by hacking into my email. I ended contact immediately and have been devoted to my husband.

My life for the past 4 months has been a total nightmare. He became an alcoholic and extremely verbally abusive to the point where I would be bawling my eyes out with him screaming at me for long lengths of time. I also got into some bad habits that I am no longer involved in.

I tried everything to be a good wife to him and make him happy. Nothing worked. We also have an 8 month old daughter.

Last week he left the house to move out temporarily because he said he needed to work on himself and gain perspective on his life. He said it would be good for our marriage and he would come home and everything would be better and that the yelling would stop.

While he was gone he went out drinking and met these 2 women. He took them back to his hotel room and had sex with both of them. He used protection and stopped during the middle because he said he realized what he was doing.

Now he is not drinking and is doing everything he can to fix things. I really believe he is genuine because he is sober now and is totally calm. There is no more violence and anger.

The thing is that I feel totally awkward about being intimate with him. I feel like I am not good enough. Obviously I could not satisfy him sexually if he needed 2 women.

He also admitted cheating on me to hurt me because of what I did. We are in therapy but have not been in about a month. We go back on Monday.

I just don't want to expose myself to him. I feel totally vulnerable and how can someone love you if they admit everything they have been doing for the past 4 months was designed to hurt you?

HELP!!

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"The thing is that I feel totally awkward about being intimate with him. I feel like I am not good enough. Obviously I could not satisfy him sexually if he needed 2 women.

He also admitted cheating on me to hurt me because of what I did. We are in therapy but have not been in about a month. We go back on Monday.

I just don't want to expose myself to him. I feel totally vulnerable and how can someone love you if they admit everything they have been doing for the past 4 months was designed to hurt you?"</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">GG welcome to MB.

You have to understand that what you are feeling right now is exactly what your H experienced after he found out about your A(affair).

1. Don't you think that he also felt that he was not good enough for you sexually if you needed another man?

2. Don't you think that he also asked himself how can she say she loves me yet and having sex with another man during the time she was pregnant with our first child?

I don't bring these points up for the purpose of being mean to you but to make you realize that if you want your marriage to heal, you cannot hold on to resentment of what he did when what you did is just as bad.

BOTH of you need to continue counseling with a pro-marriage professional and follow the principles embodied in The Four Rules For A Succesful Marriage . I also recommend that the two of you read the Dr Willard Harley's books 'Surviving An Affair', 'Love Busters', and 'His Needs Her Needs' as well as all the articles on this website.

The two of you have an excellent opportunity to overcome this is you conquer your individual resentments and practice the principles of the four rules for a succesful marriage consistently.

Thank you for replying. I understand what you are saying.

The main difference I think is that I did not have my affair to purposely hurt my husband. I know what I did was wrong but my motivation was not to make him suffer or feel pain.

His motivation for having sex with two strange women whose names he did not even bother to get was purposely to hurt me.

I feel like I did not really understand the hurt and betrayal the comes from being cheated on. I had no idea what the aftermath would be like. He knew how much it hurt and yet he still did it. That is the thing I am having trouble with.

What he did was wrong no doubt about it, but you forget that people that are in pain and deeply hurt can do things that normally they wouldn't even dream of. This in no way excuses his choice to have an A, but realize that your A gave a tremendous blow to his self image as a man. Knowing this does it surprise you that he was vulnerable to an A of his own?

Somebody here had this to say about resentment:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"Resentment is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die"</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What you are feeling is very normal and in no way do I want you to get the impression that I'm telling you to 'quit your whining and get over it' (besides it doesn't work anyway). Both of you need to emotionally come to grips with your individual actions and move towards conquering your individual resentments, and that is going to take work on the part of both. But if you two are committed to doing the work necessary, you will overcome your resentments and then you can move forward to a better marriage.

One more thing, if you don't forgive yourself for what you did, then how can you forgive your H for what he did? Forgiveness is necessary to overcome resentment, and it is not a gift you give to those that hurt you but a gift you give to yourself.

Ditto what TOOMuchCoffeeMan said…

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">but realize that your A gave a tremendous blow to his self image as a man.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">An affair is as devastating to one’s self image no matter their gender.

And……

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The main difference I think is that I did not have my affair to purposely hurt my husband. I know what I did was wrong but my motivation was not to make him suffer or feel pain.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">What you probably did not know when you opened the Pandora’s box of infidelity on your marriage is that a huge number of BS (betrayed spouse) end up having secondary affairs. The numbers are well over 50%.

Let me start out by saying that your husband’s one nightstand was WRONG!! Your husband’s one nightstand is not about revenge. Most WS (wayward spouse) tend to see it that way. But it is not all about the WS. This is about you husband and how damaged he became from your affair. The secondary affair is an attempt to self medicate, to make one’s self feel like they have some worth to someone.. as the BS generally ends up feeling like they are totally worthless after an affair.

The difference between your affair and your husband’s is that you made the conscious decision to cheat on your husband for an entire year. He had a one-night stand and realized his folly in the middle of it and ended it.

You see it is not wise to start playing who is the worst adulterer because a person can twist is to make either of you seem worse then the other.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> There were only 2 instances of sex on the same day over a year ago.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You say that your affair was mostly emotional. Emotional affairs can actually be far more devastating then affairs just for sex. Why? Because we are what goes on between our ears and in our hearts. The fact that you opened your self up emotionally to someone else, that you confided person and private things about yourself and your husband are a huge transgression. Many on-line affairs also include cyber sex, phone sex and all sorts of sensual talk. The physical is only a vehicle that can be used either for love or for cardinal pleasure. This statement of yours minimizes your affair. Your marriage will never heal if you continue to do this.

Another thought is that your affair but your husband, your child and you at risk for STD’s. Your husband has now put you and him at risk. I hope that you two will get tested for STD’s. It’s essential.

I am not saying this to blast you but to make you realize that you are not on any high ground here. You did something terrible. Your husband did something terrible. You are both equally wrong. So don’t try to make him into more of a villain than you are. If you expect him to forgive you, then you are going to have to forgive him.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">His motivation for having sex with two strange women whose names he did not even bother to get was purposely to hurt me. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Ah that statement that he did not even know their names is another attempt at making his one night stand worse then your year long affair. Just because he did not know their names is not worse. You mean an affair it somehow ‘better’ if you know the person’s name? It’s somehow better if you meet a total stranger over the internet and learn his name, not really knowing anything real about him. Please do not tell me that you knew all about him.. I am very well acquainted with internet relationships. I met my H that way. And he cheated on me through our engagement and the first 9 months of our marriage with women he met just like you met your OM (other man). He had 10 affairs going all at once. None knew he was engage and married, none of them knew about each other (well not until I told them all), and each one thought she was his soul mate. If the two of you did not live in the same town you know precious little about him.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I feel like I did not really understand the hurt and betrayal the comes from being cheated on. I had no idea what the aftermath would be like. He knew how much it hurt and yet he still did it. That is the thing I am having trouble with. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">We often hear WS come here with this statement when their BS has a secondary affair. Your affair was a selfish act meant only to satisfy yourself. His affair was the same. Just as you did not care about the damage you caused your husband while your affair was active, for some brief time he did not care about the impact on you. All he cared about is that he was hurting so badly that it was destroying him and he was trying anything he could think of to make himself feel better. Again, his actions are no more terrible than yours. What he did was a terrible, destructive, hurtful thing. So were your actions.

It sounds to me like your H’s one nightstand shocked him sober. Good, maybe now the two of you can start rebuilding your marriage. My advice is for the both of you to read every thing on this web site. See the “Welcome to Newcomers” link in my signature block. Then read the books (in this order) “Surviving an Affair”, “His Needs, Her Needs”, and “Love Busters”.

I do have a question about your healing. Before your husband went off and had his affair, how much did the two of you talk about your affair? About not only what happened but the why for’s of it? How did those talks go?

WELCOME to MB! I am so glad you are here, ready to begin a new exciting chapter in your life. Having an affair sucks. You made a lousy choice, and so did your husband. There was a poster here about a month ago who was certain that her best chance to "recover" from her H's infidelity was to have a revenge affair of her own. She said "it will level the playing field". We all told her what a majorly dumb idea that was ..... she did not believe us. I was never certain if she carried out her plan or not, and part of me thought her idea was so lame, that it had to be a prank poster .... but, here you two are, living proof of what a crummy idea a revenge affair is.

You said:

"My life for the past 4 months has been a total nightmare."

I'm sure your husband's nightmare may well have been worse than yours.

"The affair lasted over a year."

Why wasn't your year-in-adultery a nightmare for you as well? .... something to ponder....

"Anyway- he found out by hacking into my email."

Why didn't you confess on your own? Why didn't you stop the A before your H discovered it by snooping? What made your H suspicious enough to hack into your email? Had your H asked you if you were having an A before he did his snoop? To what extreems did you have to go to hide the truth?

"I ended contact immediately." <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

Great! Why then and not before? .... again, just stuff for you to ponder.

"He knew how much it hurt and yet he still did it. That is the thing I am having trouble with."

One of the things you will both have to figure out is where you each want to be as far as maturity and spirituality goes.

Now, you'll both have to learn where your OWN weak spots are ... in order to recover. (Recovery of your individual selves first, and then recovery of the relationship)

Don't spend YOUR time gazing at your H's weak spots! You have plenty of your own weak spots to keep you busy for awhile. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

The thing you say you're having trouble with is why he did what he did??? WRONG!!! Focus on why YOU did what YOU did ..... then you will begin to recover yourself.

Be kind to your H. He's bleeding internally more than he shows. Be kind to yourself, you have already begun an amazing journey. Keep moving forward, and focus on what YOU are responsible for, and you can't go wrong.

Pep <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

<small>[ July 12, 2003, 11:45 AM: Message edited by: Pepperband ]</small>

My mother had a cousin she fought constantly with. The story goes that she used to run inside and scream "She hit me back!" She didn't get much sympathy I'm afraid. This isn't a contest to see whose infidelity is the worst....and if it was....I have a feeling that you might not win that contest. The duplicity that it took to conceal and participate in a year long affair is enormous! Revenge affairs are awful things, terrible ideas and hurt recovery....but you cannot quantify blame and come out ahead. Neither of you deserve what you got....and there is no way to make either of these two acts defendable. But you are not going to be able to slide out of the responsibility of being the first to abandon your vows.

Please know that I feel for both you and hope you can get past this.....but the first step is going to have to be YOUR accountability....sorry <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

Thanks everyone-it is really nice to have some objective opinions.

Zorweb~I did not meet the person I had an affair with over the internet. The relationship just continued over the computer-it waslong distance.

Anyway-I know what I did was really wrong too.

And Pepperband-I did not tell my husband because I did not want to hurt him. I honestly did not think he would find out or that our marriage might end. I realize now that I should have told him. I realize now that I should have let the relationship with the other man go a long time ago. I just could not let go of him. I needed him for support. Things were not great in my marriage and I felt like I was getting positive support from this other person. Anyway-I don't want to try and justify what I did. I know it was not right.

The thing that bothers me is that for the last 4 months I felt that I was doing everything possible to try and rebuild my marriage. But we got lost very quickly. Our marriage turned into an abusive and rarely sober relationship. I have become this doormat who let her husband tear her down because I felt like I deserved it because of my affair. Now he admits to his destructive behavior and is very sorry for it. I also realize that being abused like that is not acceptable.

I know that we need to heal and move on. We want to take our affairs-lock them in a box and never talk about them again. Everyday our marriage seems to be getting stronger.

I wish he would not have felt the need to retaliate in such a way but I am sure he wishes I did not go to another man for support. We have both wronged each other.

So how can I deal with my insecurities because of this? He seems very optimistic and confident about our future and that makes me happy. I just want to be able to open myself up to him again. I just feel like if I do he will be dominating and controlling me again. I guess it just takes time. I let him kiss me today and that was okay. Maybe just taking it slow.

Anyway-thanks for your advice.

And just for the record-I got an AIDS test when he found out and was negative. I was tested for all other STDS when I was pregnant so I know that I am safe. My husband wore a condom the whole time with his affair so he is safe too. Thanks for the concern.

Georgie,

Condoms do not protect from aids or other STDs. The idea that they do is a falsehood perpetuated by the media. They leak, get rips.. and the AIDS virus is smaller then the holes between the molicules of the latex. People get aids all the time while wearing condoms.

Also, think of this. Failure rate of condoms in pregnancy prevention is someting like 20%. That's huge. It's the same or higher for contracting STD's while using them.

And gee, if the women he picked up were that loose... well I think a test is still needed.