I am new to this site – and don’t know where to begin.. I am really nervous and am feeling nauseated. My story goes like this..
I married the love of my life, partner and friend of 10 years eight months ago. It was during our year of engagement that my husband had an affair. Both of us were quite close friends with another couple. We knew the boyfriend for many years, but his fiancé was new to the group. My husband and her seemed to get on like a house on fire.. they seemed to have a brother sister relationship and I think this is why I never suspected anything. Then this couple started having problems in their relationship and were thinking of separating.. my husband and I offered our support. He ended up spending a lot of time with the OW after work and sometimes she would phone in the morning and say her car had broken down and ask if my husband could lift her to work. After about 4 months – she decided to move back on her own to her home town some 600km away. My husband and I were under the impression from OWP that the relationship was over, and so invited one of our single friends around for him to meet. They ended up kissing that night – nothing more. The OW found out and claimed that they had not ended their relationship and that my husband and I were family wreckers (as they have a daughter together). She started texting me and telling me that my relationship was a farse and that my fiancé (now husband) was cheating on me. She made a few accusations to which I responded and told her that they were laughable.. she told me that I could continue living in my dream world and that the truth will always prevail. I confronted my fiancé at the time and he admitted to kissing her on two occasions as well as telling of many occasions when she had intimate conversations with him saying that they might as well have sex because she has already “done it” with him in her mind.. It was hard to believe my husband during all this confusion but I did. Based on this information I forgave him and decided to go ahead with the wedding. During these first 8 months of marriage I have asked him on numerous occasions if they had in fact had sex, which he constantly denied.. until last week! I was having a bad week, and something just wasn’t feeling right.. I confronted him again and this time he admitted that the two kisses where in fact +- 5 full sexual encounters of which at least 3 were secretly planned. I am devastated. I feel like I have been cheated into this marriage. I love him so much, and know that I don’t want to leave him. He says he is very remorseful and says that he is prepared to take all steps to right his wrong, counselling etc. He says that marriage is the most sacred commitment and that he will never cheat on me again because of this and the only reason he did was because he was having difficulty accepting that sexually I would be the only woman he was with for the rest of his life… and so when the opportunity presented itself he could not resist. He says that this mistake jolted him into realising that he is satisfied with me and only me for the rest of his life. I just feel how can I believe him when he has lied to me so much and lied to me so that I would marry him – what kind of marriage do we have if it was based on lies?? I feel so terribly alone, as I cannot speak to anyone at the moment. I don’t think I will ever be able to tell my mom or sister or my best friend as I know the consequences – they will never accept him again.. The OW and him have never contacted each other since the blow up… I know that for a fact as our friendship with her ended quite ugly. At the time when I initially confronted him about it – he tried to call her but she refused to take his calls but also sent him text messages saying that she would ruin our marriage and that she would do everything in her power to destroy us as she felt we had destroyed hers. At the time I thought she was just a little crazy, but now it all makes sense. She was angry that my H had rejected her and now her own partner had rejected her. My H assures me that the affair ended prior to the blow up – but I suspect it ended because of the blow up. I don’t know what to believe.
I am worried that I may have been too “forgiving” to my H, it has been very hard to hear and accept all of this but through it I have been very calm. I am worried that he is not taking this seriously. I want to take the necessary steps to moving forward and healing our marriage, but want him to feel the severity of his actions, I know this probably sounds crazy but I want to make him scared, petrified of ever doing this again.. I don’t want it to just be glazed over and I fear this is the way its heading as I am not a very strong person and am too forgiving. Please can anyone over me some advice as to how I make him realise how serious this is. When we have talked this week, he is very apologetic and he keeps asking me if I am okay.. but I feel his actions say otherwise. He has been in such a fantastic mood – almost as if it never happened. I spoke to him last night and told him that he has to be more sensitive to my feelings – this is really hard for me to deal with let alone him grinning from ear to ear and giving me the impression that “well now that I have told her its all ok” because its not! PLEASE HELP!

Welcome Heart! First let me say that I am sorry ou are here. It is a terrible experience and I would wish it on no one!
I can't offer much advice, but can listen. Sometimes that is all you need to get over the bad moments. I felt the same way about making my scared. And you know what, he has been. He has come to realize that at any moment he could lose me AND his 3 children(at least on a full-time basis). Don't forgive your H too easily, or too quickly. REALLY work through that pain. I keep telling my H that I can't forgive him yet, even though I want to. He has hurt me so deeply that I need to process it ALL, and that will take some time. I have not promised to stay, and have not promised that someday I will forgive. I told him that if he loved me and wanted to make our M work, he had to accept this. If he's not up to the work, then we need to end it now.
I hope that your H chooses you, and that you can get passed the anger and hurt. I also hope you get some really good advice and support here. You'll be in my thoughts and prayers!

Truetoself - your message really hit home for me. I have been struggling to find the words to explain to my H how I feel - and that just said it all. We had a blow up last night - and discussed many things.. at first he kept apologising and I said that sorry just wasn't good enough at the moment.. he said that he would stop apologising until I stop throwing them back at him.. I then quoted some of things you mentioned above and felt like I was really able to convey strongly how serious I was about him making the effort and fighting for this marriage. I only joined this site yesterday and have already found comfort. Thank you. Slightly off topic here - yesterday I posted my request for help under two different sections - does this matter?

Hey Heart,
I am glad you found some comfort in my words, I often feel like I sound like an idiot. That is one thing that I have had to overcome. You may not always get replies or people may not even ackowledge you said something on a thread. It doesn't mean they didn't like it, they just don't respond. So, when looking for help, don't get discouraged by that. As for posting on both boards, I think people do that a lot, especially on the weekends when it is slow. From everything I have seen in the past month that I have been here, the General Questions II board is used more, so if you have an urgent request I would post it there first! When I first got here the OW contacted my H to ask if she could call me and apologize. I immediately wrote on the GQ II board for advice, and got a couple of great responses.
I told my H again last night that he will never know the hurt he has caused me, b/c if I slept with someone else, he wouldn't mind. He has even encouraged me to do so. But, if I fell in love with someone else, he would be devestated! But I told him that eveytime I think of him naked and caressing another woman, in the way that was supposed to be mine, it rips my heart apart. Everytime I think that he said I love you to her, I can't breath and I feel like my head is going to explode. I told him that a lot of the time I CAN feel ok, but then the reality hits me that, yes, this man who claims to love me more than life itself, not only had sex, but also a relationship with another woman( and a psycho *itch at that!
I don't know if this will help you, but when I am really at my worst, I think of those EN that I was not filling for him, and can almost see what he saw in her, and how easily it was to get some of the feelings he had. Naturally she would have filled his love bank after the sex, b/c that is a huge EN for him! Plus, for 2 months prior to the physical part, she had been telling him she admired him and was basically placing him on a huge pedastool. It always makes someone feel better when a relative stranger tells you nice things, but when someone actually persues you, with an overwhelming desire, well, I guess I can see how he fell! Not that I forgive him, like I said, I am not anywhere ready to do that, but I am starting to bring understanding into my recovery process.
It will take time. Be prepared. My counselor and people who I know who went through this say 1-2 years to feel completely recoverd. Don't let that scare you, though, you will have good times too! It has been a month and a half since D-day for me, and I have had MANY good days, along with the miserable! So just hold on to those good times and tell your H, just b/c you are having a bad time doesn't mean you are not trying and do not appreciate his trying.(although you may feel like leaving) Something else I told my H is that he needs to tell me he loves me, and he is sorry even if I "spit" in his face. It may hurt him, he may feel like he doesn't want to, but he owes me that. He needs to say it everyday, and on bad days, he needs to say it all day long! Eventually the bad will pass, I will accept what he says.
Well, sorry for the novel! I hope I said something else that can help you. If not, just ignore me, and again find comfort in the fact that you are not alone! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />
Take care!
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