Met my wife when she was 13; I was 17. We lived in the same neighborhood; she came from a home where practically everybody had committed adultery. I came from a home where there was no adultery or anything remotely like that. My wife claims her childhood was horrible; I guess mine was perfect.

In any event we eventually got married and are still together; she is 50, I am 54, however she could pass for 35 and I could pass for early to mid 40s----------- We are both in great shape.

Two years ago she met a former high school/classmate online through classmates.com. They had an internet/phone relationship that became physical one year ago. The other man (OM) lives in the town where we grew up.

One day she was at the computer and became nervous when I suddenly approached her. It was then that I realized something was wrong. I found a way to get into her email and found all the evidence. It seems that on the day I got into her email her lover had decided to sent her a collage of their best emails. In these emails she professed her love for the guy and mentioned that she had waited all her life to finally sleep with a stud like him. It was not a pleasant experience to read these words!

In any event I went back to our bedroom (it was midnight) and confronted her. She admitted the affair and asked me to forgive her right away because this was her 1st infidelity. I said I had to divorce her, but change my mind 16 hours later when I realized this would destroy the lives of my five kids.

I came home and the two of us talked a lot, but also became hypersexual. Two months later, I am still hypersexual, whereas her hypersexuality lasted about a month.

She cut all ties with the OM instantly, but decided to call the OM about two weeks ago after asking me several times for my approval. She admitted she was thinking about him and needed to close the door properly. In any event they talked and suddenly the OM got enthusiastic and started to email her again. I knew about this because my wife had given me her password as an act of good faith. I asked her to write the OM a stern letter telling him to go away forever and she did.

My wife tells me she is willing to do whatever is needed to save the marriage. However, I know she still thinks about him. I must say the guy is out of her league. My wife is very attractive and this man is not what you would call a handsome man. In any event she has now lost her sex drive and I am very hurt. She claims it may come back and I have backed away. I will only have sex if she wants it.

My questions are:

1. How does one trust after such a betrayal
2. It seems she was in love with the guy if one believes the emails. How can she switch from the OM to the husband with one snap of the finger? She was hypersexual with me for nearly a month and told me countless of times that she loved me.
3. I suspect her frigidity is related to withdrawal from the OM and guilt. She also claims I said some nasty things to her. I guess I did, but what do you say when you are betrayed like this.

Stanley

Its not nice to say welcome to MB, but be welcome to the help, support and advice you will get here.
I am a FWW myself.
From your post I think your wife may indeed be in a withdrawal. Seems to similar to what goes on at that time. I suspect you are probably not getting 'I love you's' much either?
The other thing I think may be going on is that your wife expects you to 'get over it' because she has apologised. From my own experience thats not realistic. Its going to be a while before you really trust her.
I think she has to have NO CONTACT with the OM or it will happen all over again.

I really think you need to seek some MC for yourself and your wife.

Also read the basics here on the main site and ask the more experienced people on this board for advice.

Hope it can work out

Thanks for your support! My wife claims to be comitted to make this work. She also agreed to inmediately change her cell phone number and has been quite cooperative with me.

In the aftermath after the discovery the OM set up a email account so he could communicate with my wife. However my wife was so dazed that she did not get the info regarding this new email account.

However, I knew about this new email account and actually guessed the password to enter the mail box (the password was my wife's name). In any event It turns out my wife was not communicating with him at all (she had been truthful). However, the OM had written a long lithany of daily emails professing his love over and over again. The emails were not read by my wife, but he kept writing anyway. He even reprinted old emails from my wife where she had expressed profound affection for the OM and that HE (the OM) WAS THE ONE------ you know the soulmate thing, ect. In this email the OM was puzzled because my wife was not with him.

In any event several weeks later I told my wife about this email account (that she knew nothing about). She said she vaguely remembered when the OM had told her about it. She asked me to show her the emails and she read them all. I know realized this was a mistake and it probably caused the so called withdrawal. She then started to ask me if she could call the OM just once to properly close the door and I eventually gave in. She also replied to a couple of emails right in front of me with the excuse that she simply wanted to know if he (OM) was OK. Of course, the OM started to email again to her regular account. She recently wrote him the ultimate Dear John letter and told him she loved me and wanted to stay married.

The thing is---------- at the onset I thought my wife had done this for sex and nothing else. I had no clue that she could be in LOVE. On top of that she was SO SEXUAL WITH ME! She told me she loved me all the time. However, the I love you is less frequent nowadays. I had no idea she could be emotionally hooked to the OM.

The thing that is now bothering me is that my wife wants to visit her mom for three days. The OM lives in the same town and I will not be there. My wife says that I have to trust her. However, I must tell you that the very first time my wife slept with the OM was when she invented a trip back home to visit her mother. Luckily two of my daughters will be with her. But, I am in no position to tell my daughters to watch her.

Do you think she is likely to fall for the OM again?

I must say I made the discovery when the affair was PEAKING, not in the early stages or when it was dying down. My wife admitted several days ago the OM was still in her system------ whatever that means.

I told her I would grant her a divorce if she loves the OM and that I would not mention the reason for separation to the kids, but she refused. She claims she wants to stay married.

I find it is somewhat therapeutic to write----------- Therefore, I will continue.

Yesterday my wife and I checked that email account that was set-up for communication between the OM and my wife. There were four long emails where the OM went on and on and on about how much he loved my wife and how special the relationship was. He affirmed he couldn’t understand why my wife did not love him enough to leave the marriage; therefore he is puzzled by her reaction following D-day. These emails were very irritating because they detailed the emotional intimacy with a lot of clarity. The OM also mentioned that he felt my wife and I had fallen out of love completely and that he always knew my wife was going to leave me. He was also angry in that he felt that perhaps my wife just used him. My wife and I read this stuff together and she was VERY EMBARRASED when he described how my wife felt about the relationship.

Afterwards, my wife told me she was VERY UPSET about those emails and was fearful the OM could do something crazy. IN fact in one passage, the OM claimed he was planning to tell the world he was in love with my wife and that he always felt they were a couple, soul mates, and meant to be together. It was really awful, but I read it all with my wife by my side.

Later I asked my wife if her withdrawal had gotten worse and she told me it was actually dying out. Of course, I don’t trust a word she says, but that is what came out of her mouth.

The problem I have with this email account is that both my wife and I know the password, but this is an AOL account and we are unable to delete it. Therefore I check it daily to see if the OM writes and so does my wife. Therefore, yesterday I entered AOL and change the password. My wife was happy because she is now realizing that ongoing contact may mean divorce. A very good positive sign I saw from her since D-day is that she DOES NOT WANT A DIVORCE.

There is one more thing I need to say. I guess this is really crazy and I may need an opinion. About 16 years ago my wife wanted to spice up the sex life and asked me to be more vocal during sex. I tried many things and one day stumbled into a phrase that made her very horny. I would tell her she was having sex all day long with many men while I was at work and that she was very slutty, ect, ect. She really enjoyed this fantasy and I actually got into it. We used this off and on for years up until the discovery.

Then-- a few days after D-day my wife told me: "Your fantasy became a reality and now you are horny all the time". At least this improved our sex life. In any event I was in the midst of the so-called sperm competition and wanted to have sex 24/7. She then said that we used the fantasy so much that perhaps it influenced her decision to sleep with the OM. She also cited that she had been curious about sex with someone else as I have been her only partner. She also stated that her age (49) plus problems with our grown children had caused her to feel old and that the OM made her feel young again.

I then tried to transfer her infidelity into the realm of fantasy to see if I could get over it and it worked for a couple of weeks. This made my wife very sexual and she even verbalized her escapades in bed as she was reaching orgasm. However, this so-called perversion did not help me for very long and eventually I became depressed again, however, I think it helped accept the sexual part of the affair. The thing I CANNOT ACCEPT IS THE EMOTIONAL INTIMACY.

Not sure if this is the way to go, but I was willing to try anything.

Stanley - Your marriage sounds very promising. I think you are doing very well. Come and join in the the Loyal Husbands thread in the general questions forum.

Or post this thread there. There is much more traffic there, and you will get more support from others going through the same thing.

Thanks for caring.

I will paste the URL over there. BTW, I have felt fairly well for 2 straight days. My wife is attentive, but she is not sexual like she was immediately after D-day. I think she has to be in withdrawal even though she tells me she thinks less about the affair. I try not to pursue sex, but I guess she still can tell I want it badly. I don’t know how to play cool very well. BTW, I am the ultimate faithful husband, so I will post over there.

BTW, when my wife was 14 she took a summer job in a local photography shop and she had oral sex with one of the photographers for the entire summer. The guy was 35 years old and told her he could not have intercourse with her because he didn’t want to go to jail. My wife told me about this 15 years into our marriage. I was floored by her confession and even felt betrayed because I had started to developed romantic feelings for her at that early age. I am three and a half years older than her.

I must also say that 14 years ago she took a job and had an EA that lasted a few months------------ mostly lunches. At that time I was very detached from her and she would tell me all about these lunches to see if she could get a reaction from me. She even told me she liked the guy and I told her to go ahead and leave. In any event she stopped the affair on her own and then one day I woke up and felt betrayed. I eventually healed quite well and forgot the whole thing. She was 36 at the time and the OM was in his mid to late 20s. He was a very religious Iranian of Bahai faith who was still a virgin. My wife enjoyed talking to him and was attracted to his innocence and purity. In retrospect, that probably kept the affair from becoming physical. I must say that at that time my wife really wanted to spice up romance between us and she seemed much more innocent than what she did at age 49. During her PA she never complained of lack of romance in our marriage. She also admitted the PA gave her a thrill and a lot of energy and she felt she could maintain a double life as she was only seeing the OM once every two months. The rest of the time it was over the phone and email. However, towards the end it was more like every two weeks and she was very stressed and could not sleep well. Her demeanor towards me changed drastically and she was reluctant to have sex with me. She later confessed that she felt very guilty and stressed about having sex with me.

Hi Stanley,

Many similarities in our stories so I'll try to share from my own experiences. You ask...

"How does one trust after such a betrayal" - trust, you will find comes with time (and a successful recovery). Make no mistake, our innocence (or naivete) is forever lost so don't look for that to return. One thing that I've found helpful is to let the "judging" of our WW's actions to God, that's his province. The best we can do is undertand and forgive. Remember...love makes all things possible.

"How can she switch from the OM to the husband with one snap of the finger?" - like you, that too perplexes me. It's as if we're dealing with dual personalities (in my case it may well be - only counseling will determine that). Please encourage your wife to seek individual counseling. Mutual counseling (with a pro-marriage counselor) will also benefit the two of you. BTW, IF you figure out this "Jeckle/Hyde thing", please do let me know. I'm as baffled as you!

"I suspect her frigidity is related to withdrawal from the OM and guilt." - IF your spouse is displaying symptoms of withdrawal, this may be part of your answer. For myself, I've yet to detect any signs of withdrawal, and we're approaching our 4th week of NC. Again, for myself, guilt is not a factor. Wife refuses to feel guilty (this I understand because guilt serves no useful purpose...these affairs can not be undone.) Remorse, on the other hand, is understandable. Your wife's feeling of ambivalence toward you MAY be due to a deficit in her LB$. As Dr. H indicates, feelings of love are triggered when a certain level is reached in her LB. Keep working on meeting her emotional needs (You and she have done the ENs questionaire...yes?).

"She also claims I said some nasty things to her. I guess I did, but what do you say when you are betrayed like this....LB(Love Busters) from both parties are sure to drain the respective Love Banks. Concentrate on meeting her ENs and keep those "deposits" coming.

Stanley, if you haven't done so already, read (and digest) His Needs, Ner Needs (HNHN) and Surviving An Affair (SAA). Both are INVALUABLE insights and guides to marital recovery.

One last thing Stanley, DO NOT try to make sense of all this! WS's actions defy both logic and rational analysis.

My best advice is to accept the situation we've been presented and move on. No matter how hard we may try, it can neither be changed not undone.

My Saga

Stanley568...I'm so sorry you find yourself in this situation. The email thing is reminesant of my H and his OW who wrote each other daily (that's how I found out too). I know your pain.

In response to your questions, your wife is going through withdrawal and as you may know, withdrawal begins again after contact...so she's back to square one, I'm afraid.

Hypersexuality is typically as you try to meet the need you thing the OM met. It's a way to get close and share.

As far as her saying that she loves him, I'm sure she feels she does. I got the ILYBNILWY speech on 3/24 and he moved out 6/21 to live at his dad's. He too says he's in love, but I know it's only a fantasy and when the bubble breaks, he'll recognize it. Hopefully, I'll still be here.

If you haven't also read, The Divorce Remedy by Miehele Davis Weiner and When a Mate Wants Out by Jim/Sally Conway. Both have given me additional info to pull from when I'm feeling as low as low can be.

Guilt, anger, and withdrawing may also be signs of midlife crisis. You might want to brush up on that too.

Best and keep your chin up...focus on you, you're the only thing you can control at this time. Visit a new hobby, revisit and old one, sing, dance, go out with male friends...keep yourself busy. Smile. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Susan

Ron:

Thank you for caring. You are right----this is quite difficult to understand. What really gets to me is that she waited until she was 49 years old to do this. She did have a =her EA 14 years ago, but it was quite minor and I know nothing happened. In fact my wife got pregnant while she was en the EA and I called the guy and told him I was doing paternity testing. He categorically told me go ahead and test all you want--- we never slept together. I told him my lawyers would call him and OM did not flinch. However, lately I find myself looking at my kids to make sure they have my traits.

As for my saga:

I discovered another email account that the OM had set up in Yahoo for special communications. When my wife talked to the OM she advised him not to send any emails as I was monitoring all computer activity. Well-------- the OM sent emails to this account where he describes a new plan of action to continue the affair and that now they (my wife and OM) have to be more careful). He also describes a so-called meeting between him and my wife where he was dying to sleep with her, but couldn’t.

My wife says OM is desperate and wants to create havoc in our marriage. This may very well be true. However, how can I be 100% certain?

Susan:

Thanks for reading my words. I think that affairs are all about confusion and they affect those who long to revive the butterflies one has in the early part of a relationship. My wife was very sexual at an early age.

The reason I fell in love with her was because she sort of looked like Lolita whenever I would see her walking down the street. Of course I was17 years of age and didn’t think about anything else. When I met her she was already boy-crazy and had very low-self esteem. At 13 she was masturbating every day and had a very enhanced libido. I suspect her testosterone was high as she had some acne. Anyway I thought she would simply be a short romance in adolescence, but I ended up marrying her six years later. When I met her-------- my dad strongly advised me not to have intercourse because she was a minor. Well, I must have done everything in the sun, but intercourse during the courtship. We never talked about sex, but it was implied that we would wait till marriage for penetration. During the six years of courtship my wife changed drastically and embraced the positive aspects of my family and somehow left behind the HUGE dysfunction of her family. As you know she had an affair with a 35 year old man at age 14 while working in a photography studio. This affair was all about oral sex and I only found out years into the marriage. In any event my wife was always a fabulous woman who somehow made me feel quite good. I never had the desire to look elsewhere even though I had limited sexual or relationship experience. I must say she made me a very happy man and was and still is the best mom any kid can hope for. She is also a very unselfish person who is not materialistic------ she has a good heart------- I have no doubt!

She had her EA 14 years ago and she carried a lot of guilt. She was mad at me because I did no mind the fact that she was having lunch with this co-worker. This affair was rather innocent and a result of my HUGE detachment from her. I remember how she used to tell me I was not romantic and caring. However, we were always sexually active.

As you know with her PA she was different. She hid her guilt and never complained about the marriage. She only got stressed when the OM started to fly into town every 2-3 weeks. Before that it was every 2-3 months and she was not stressed.

I believed she probably lost contact with reality. I asked her: “What were you thinking? Didn’t you realize you were humiliating me?” Now she realizes she was, but at the time she was so involved in the fantasy that she never thought about it.

Stanley

It is possible with most email accounts to block a sender so that mails from him never enter your account. May I suggest that you do this as much as possible. The fact that you and your wife keep checking these accounts cant be helping her recovery. What you need is to get this man out of your life completely. Go in and block the sender or change the password and dont let your wife know the new one. Im sure she will thank you for this!

Best wishes for your recovery

Debra

Debra:

Thanks for your words. This is an AOL account the OM set up after I discovered the password for my wife's account.

The funny thing is that in the aftermath of D-day my wife was so stressed that she never got the password. She was so distressed she couldn't think straight.

I learned about it by "snooping"------ apparently the OM gave my wife the screen name, but she never got the password.

For about a month my wife never tried to go into this account because she was unaware of it. However, I was aware of the account and eventually guessed the password-----"my wife's name!"

The OM wrote daily emails into the account for about three weeks and stopped when he realized no one was reading them. Then I got into the account and read them. A few days later the OM started to write again thinking that my wife had read the messages.

I wrote a stern message to the OM telling him to desist. This made my wife very angry because she does not want me to interact at all with the OM. She also made the point that I only learned of the emails because of my spying. Otherwise neither of us would have never known these emails existed.

In any event I gave my wife the password and she read the emails--------- I think this was a mistake and probably made her withdrawal more acute.

I went in and changed the password so she couldn't read anymore--- she was OK with this, but the OM changed the password back to my wife's name again hoping that she would communicate with him.

I wrote a 2nd stern email and even used abusive language regarding the appearance of the OM. My wife went ballistic--- she is very sensitive about comments regarding the looks of the OM.

At this point I think affairs that start in the Internet are quite wacky. My wife's OM is a huge physical mismatch next to her. In fact the OM described himself and my wife as the Beauty and the Beast. I believed my wife fell in love with the words, the voice, ect, ect. Once she saw him physically she was already in love.

The OM has a website and I have seen several photos of him. If you ever met my wife you would think this is the last man in the world she would date. In any event after D-day I made it a habit of telling my wife how ugly the OM was. I did it so much that she resented me quite a bit. I guess I gave her a ton of love busters!

BTW, I don’t insult the OM anymore. However, I sometimes make comments that can be interpreted as degrading to the OM and have to be careful with my words.

During the affair the OM would tell my wife that it was likely I was having an affair because I was not paying a lot of attention to her and she had to go outside the marriage looking for affection. My wife told the OM I was not the kind of man who has affairs and the OM made a bet with her saying that he was 100% sure I was cheating. I guess people judged others from their own perspective in life.


In any event right now we seem to be doing OK. The only issue I have is how to trust her again.

<small>[ August 13, 2004, 09:21 PM: Message edited by: Stanley568 ]</small>