HELP! 21, married & dealing with husbands affair!! - 04/22/12 04:08 AM
My husband and I have been together since we were both 16, married at 19 and are now 21. He and I are both attending college (he is still attending community college and I am about to graduate for a four year university, am graduating with honors and am double majoring). I honestly love him and want to work things out but I just do not know what to do. Since the beginning I let him know cheating is unacceptable.....
Since early Feb he and I started fighting a lot. It started off with small arguments that blew up pretty bad. We didnt see or talk to each other for a few days but then we patched things up and I came home and decided to cook him a nice three course meal.
At this time I started questioning his relationship with a female friend (I have more male friends and he has more female friends yet up until that point we had never doubted or been jealous). He was not setting boundaries with her and would treat her like his girlfriend-would buy her food, drive her around, talk about really really intimate things etc. During this time they were running at beach regularly and after dinner that night he told me he would be running with "friends" early in the morning. Well that morning he simply jumped out of bed without saying anything and quickly grabbed his running shoes and left. I was incredibly hurt and left to my mother's house. Again we didnt talk for a few days and finally, he apologized (via text) for what he did. I didn't respond at first because I couldnt believe how unappreciative and disrespectful he had been. Here i had called out of work just to patch things up with him after our fight and had cooked him a three course meal. When I finally tried talking to him a few days later, he ignored me (like I always did when I was mad at him). During this time I was also going through some very difficult times: I was treated horribly at work and I fell very behind on my schoolwork (I was stressed and with how I was being treated at work I felt like the reason many people disrespected me was because there was something very wrong with me).
At this point he was ignoring me and didnt want anything to do with me. When I went to see him at his parents house (who work long, long hours) he was with his girl "friend." We talked for about three hours while she waited in his car to take her home and he told me he was tired of the way I was-constantly demanding he change for me, disrespecting him when he did something wrong, and refusing to admit when I was wrong. We ended up resolving the problem and we agreed that it was best to set boundaries with his friend who instead of backing away due to all the marital problems we were having (especially concerning her) she got even closer to him-worse still, they ended up getting a job at the exact same place and working almost the exact same hours! I was ok with this at first because he had been unemployed for a while.
Anyway, he agreed he would stop talking to her and we both agreed we would work at our relationship...but then due to the problems and stress that work and school were causing me I started to become very unsure of myself (not phsyically but more internally) and one day at work, I was told by a coworker that he thought I was stupid and that he simply didnt like me. Everyone i worked with that day would talk amongst themselves and conversated and laughed as if i wasnt there. I broke down during one of my breaks and texted my husband that I really needed to talk to him and asked him if he could get home soon after I got off so I could tell him what happened. Well...he didnt respond and 12 hours later he still hadn't come home. I cried and cried and cried and even shredded a pillow in frustration. He arrived at around 11Am the next day and I asked him where he had been. He told me he had been at a party with the other woman (his "friend") and that he had "really wanted me to be there with him." I was incredibly hurt and when he realized this, he apologized and told me he would be there for me from now on. More importantly, that he would set up boundaries with this "friend" of his.I told him I thought she had feelings for him and that he was doing nothing to set her straight that he was a married man! I asked him if he could stop talking to her until we got better. He said yes but it was quite obvious he had become very attached to her and he became depressed and upset for about a week because he had lost a close and dear "friend". Eventually though I found out thru facebook that he had only stoppped contact for a week and that he had gotten back to being his usual cheery self because he still talked to her had her as his "friend". When i found out i tried to be understanding and tell myself that with all of the problems i was having , that I was not only being paranoid but controlling in getting him to stop talking to this woman.
We worked on the relationship but then my six year old autistic brother became very, very sick and was rushed to the hospital on various occasions due to high fevers and seizures. The first two times my husband was at work. My brother was so sick i decided to stay over at my parents house to help and when the third time of rushing him to the hospital rolled in I called my husband and texted him after he got off of work about what happened. He responded about two hours later and said "poor brother of yours! that sucks!" Never once did he even offer to be there for us during these difficult times. My family and I got out of the hosptial around midnight and I was just so upset because he was not there for me...again! So I called him and then texted him about where he was. He told me he was at his parents house sleeping because "our apt feels so lonely without you." I went to check both places after the hospital but his car was nowhere to be found. I called him over to my mothers house and we stayed out in the parking lot. I asked him where he had been and again, looking at me with a straight face he told me where he had supposedly been. I told him I had gone to check at his parents and then our apt but that he was lying. I pretty much let him know that night that the relationship was over because he had not been there for me when I most needed him and because he was lying to me about where he was and with who. I cut off contact with him but about a week later, he said he wanted to talk to me. I agreed and he told me that he loved me very much and that he wanted to make me happy and that he didnt care what everyone else thought about how he had been acting (at this point my friends, family, EVERYONE told me to leave him). He told me that he was now really going to work on the relationship, would regain my trust, and had stopped talking to his "friend" completely.
We started reading books on working things out and I started going to a counselor at the university I go to. We were together for about two weeks and everything was great-he was super attentive, complimented me...basically it was as if we had just gotten married. It was wonderful until one day, he left his phone out (during these few months he had been secretive with his phone). I looked at it and saw that he had been in contact with the woman recently. She had texted him that she wanted him as more than friends and scrolling up, I saw that during one of the times we broke up, he had had sex with her. When he found out that I had read his messages he apoligized and tried explaining what had happened. I didnt want to hear it any longer-for two whole months I had been in great pain from school, family, work, and then because of him. i had to withdraw from most of my classes-in the ones I did manage to keep I am pretty much failing right now. I was fired from my job as well because I called out due to my brothers hospitalization and apparantly because I was a "bad worker." He sent me a long message on facebook that he knew what he did was wrong but that he had chosen me but that now it was too late and that he was not worth it...
As of currently, Iam living with my parents and constantly cry. He on the other hand resumed his "friendship" the other woman. He later confessed that he had sex with her twice...I am incredibly hurt. we have met up twice since we stopped talking. Last sunday, I found out that he had gone to six flags with his "friend" all day. That sunday I had even texted him (after i found out where he was) that he should drive the 100 miles back from the amusement park to talk with me and straighten things out or he would never see , hear or know anything about me again (the ultimatium I gave him i now admit was immature and childish and worse still, he never showed up to talk to me that day).
We met up the next day after he went to six flags with her and he was upset at first and acted like he didnt care. On a side note: He has never abused me and he's never told me i am ugly or called me names. In fact, at one point during our marriage i got very low self eestem because i started getting horrible horrible acne yet he always made me feel beautiful.
Anyway, at first he acted annoyed and mad and was defending the other woman. He and I knew during our time talking that it would probably be the last time we ever saw each other... so eventually as i started making my leave,he asked me to stay and he cried and cried and told me that he would always care for me. At this point he told me that he didnt want to try working things out- Just seperate and move on. He told me he wasnt ready to commit again because he felt like was wasnt good enough and that he had hurt me so much already. I told him that trying to make our relationship work was so difficult because so many things had already happened, that forgiving him was going to be difficult and that learning to trust him even more so. But while we had this painful discussion we still somehow managed to make each other laugh a little bit and talk about how much we had enjoyed being sexually intimate with each other during our marriage. Because of so many rumors circling everyone who knew us, he told me he had decided to talk to me to seperate fact from fiction: what had i been telling everyone. And he also was going to do the same with the other woman....
We ended the painful discussion in the park. we said would divorce, live our lives like normal adults in their 20s (go out, have fun, date, etc.)and that maybe one day we would meet up again after years apart and get back together again.... yet it was so painful to walk away....
However, the next day I was lonely and asked him if we could get lunch. I picked him up from his school, we went out to eat and everything was fine. We talked and flirted and had an amazing time but of course there were a few times when things became tense. We however, never discussed our problems of the affair or anything. After lunch he asked to be taken back to school. I took him back to his car and we said goodbye and left.
This was the last time I saw him...its been about a week now and I dont know what to do. I have distracted myself with friends but then find myself reading books on affairs and relationships and what went wrong and just crying so much that my whole soul feels like its going to leave my body.
But im still confused!! He knew he had cheated on me and was willing to stop talking to her and work things out with me. But once I found out, he is no longer willing to make our relationship work. He texted me after the lunch we had about something but I ignored it. He texted me a second time that he had left something in my car and I ignored him again because I didnt know what to do (i didnt want to come off as needy and desperate or make him feel that i would always be available, esp when he was talking with that woman, hanging out with her and making plans). I texted him yesterday and asked him if he wanted me to go drop off the item at his house...its been over 30 hrs but still no response.
At this point I really want to talk to him and apologize with how I have been over the years-incredibly demanding, rude, disrespecful, etc. With how I have been i can understand what drove him to cut boundaries with her and eventually sleep with her. But I also see his faults in the relationship with how he treated me over these last few months.
Right now I want to let him know that Im willing to forgive him and work on the relationship and I would like to negotiate with him the possibility of getting back together. But how is it going work when he keeps talking to this woman? This woman, this supposed friend who he told me he will continue seeing as a friend (despite already sleeping with her twice). This friend who she herself, is incredibly hurt because of her past relationship with her bf. She basically allowed herself to be used by him thru sex. Reading the text between both of them, she said she wanted my husband with her or else she would try to regain the love back from her ex. It just feels like this woman doenst know what she wants (my husband or her ex) and my husband doesnt know what he wants (me or her).I feel that if I give him space right now to sort out his feelings, that he will become even more attached to her and that reconciliation will be impossible between us cause there are more bad memories present at the moment than good memories. If I do give him the time to just spend time with her, and he eventually ends it and comes back to me and i accept, at this young age we are both in, he will feel like he can just step all over me and do whatever he wants (cheat, lie, etc). I am not sure if just talking to him as a friend and building positive memories while allowing him to keep speaking to her is also a good idea becase then he will be getting the best of both worlds....
I really dont know what to do!!! I know this post is super long...but I am having so many problems! I love him and really want this to work but not if he will continue talking to her and be unwilling to stop and change jobs to get away from her.Someone please, PLEASE help me!
Since early Feb he and I started fighting a lot. It started off with small arguments that blew up pretty bad. We didnt see or talk to each other for a few days but then we patched things up and I came home and decided to cook him a nice three course meal.
At this time I started questioning his relationship with a female friend (I have more male friends and he has more female friends yet up until that point we had never doubted or been jealous). He was not setting boundaries with her and would treat her like his girlfriend-would buy her food, drive her around, talk about really really intimate things etc. During this time they were running at beach regularly and after dinner that night he told me he would be running with "friends" early in the morning. Well that morning he simply jumped out of bed without saying anything and quickly grabbed his running shoes and left. I was incredibly hurt and left to my mother's house. Again we didnt talk for a few days and finally, he apologized (via text) for what he did. I didn't respond at first because I couldnt believe how unappreciative and disrespectful he had been. Here i had called out of work just to patch things up with him after our fight and had cooked him a three course meal. When I finally tried talking to him a few days later, he ignored me (like I always did when I was mad at him). During this time I was also going through some very difficult times: I was treated horribly at work and I fell very behind on my schoolwork (I was stressed and with how I was being treated at work I felt like the reason many people disrespected me was because there was something very wrong with me).
At this point he was ignoring me and didnt want anything to do with me. When I went to see him at his parents house (who work long, long hours) he was with his girl "friend." We talked for about three hours while she waited in his car to take her home and he told me he was tired of the way I was-constantly demanding he change for me, disrespecting him when he did something wrong, and refusing to admit when I was wrong. We ended up resolving the problem and we agreed that it was best to set boundaries with his friend who instead of backing away due to all the marital problems we were having (especially concerning her) she got even closer to him-worse still, they ended up getting a job at the exact same place and working almost the exact same hours! I was ok with this at first because he had been unemployed for a while.
Anyway, he agreed he would stop talking to her and we both agreed we would work at our relationship...but then due to the problems and stress that work and school were causing me I started to become very unsure of myself (not phsyically but more internally) and one day at work, I was told by a coworker that he thought I was stupid and that he simply didnt like me. Everyone i worked with that day would talk amongst themselves and conversated and laughed as if i wasnt there. I broke down during one of my breaks and texted my husband that I really needed to talk to him and asked him if he could get home soon after I got off so I could tell him what happened. Well...he didnt respond and 12 hours later he still hadn't come home. I cried and cried and cried and even shredded a pillow in frustration. He arrived at around 11Am the next day and I asked him where he had been. He told me he had been at a party with the other woman (his "friend") and that he had "really wanted me to be there with him." I was incredibly hurt and when he realized this, he apologized and told me he would be there for me from now on. More importantly, that he would set up boundaries with this "friend" of his.I told him I thought she had feelings for him and that he was doing nothing to set her straight that he was a married man! I asked him if he could stop talking to her until we got better. He said yes but it was quite obvious he had become very attached to her and he became depressed and upset for about a week because he had lost a close and dear "friend". Eventually though I found out thru facebook that he had only stoppped contact for a week and that he had gotten back to being his usual cheery self because he still talked to her had her as his "friend". When i found out i tried to be understanding and tell myself that with all of the problems i was having , that I was not only being paranoid but controlling in getting him to stop talking to this woman.
We worked on the relationship but then my six year old autistic brother became very, very sick and was rushed to the hospital on various occasions due to high fevers and seizures. The first two times my husband was at work. My brother was so sick i decided to stay over at my parents house to help and when the third time of rushing him to the hospital rolled in I called my husband and texted him after he got off of work about what happened. He responded about two hours later and said "poor brother of yours! that sucks!" Never once did he even offer to be there for us during these difficult times. My family and I got out of the hosptial around midnight and I was just so upset because he was not there for me...again! So I called him and then texted him about where he was. He told me he was at his parents house sleeping because "our apt feels so lonely without you." I went to check both places after the hospital but his car was nowhere to be found. I called him over to my mothers house and we stayed out in the parking lot. I asked him where he had been and again, looking at me with a straight face he told me where he had supposedly been. I told him I had gone to check at his parents and then our apt but that he was lying. I pretty much let him know that night that the relationship was over because he had not been there for me when I most needed him and because he was lying to me about where he was and with who. I cut off contact with him but about a week later, he said he wanted to talk to me. I agreed and he told me that he loved me very much and that he wanted to make me happy and that he didnt care what everyone else thought about how he had been acting (at this point my friends, family, EVERYONE told me to leave him). He told me that he was now really going to work on the relationship, would regain my trust, and had stopped talking to his "friend" completely.
We started reading books on working things out and I started going to a counselor at the university I go to. We were together for about two weeks and everything was great-he was super attentive, complimented me...basically it was as if we had just gotten married. It was wonderful until one day, he left his phone out (during these few months he had been secretive with his phone). I looked at it and saw that he had been in contact with the woman recently. She had texted him that she wanted him as more than friends and scrolling up, I saw that during one of the times we broke up, he had had sex with her. When he found out that I had read his messages he apoligized and tried explaining what had happened. I didnt want to hear it any longer-for two whole months I had been in great pain from school, family, work, and then because of him. i had to withdraw from most of my classes-in the ones I did manage to keep I am pretty much failing right now. I was fired from my job as well because I called out due to my brothers hospitalization and apparantly because I was a "bad worker." He sent me a long message on facebook that he knew what he did was wrong but that he had chosen me but that now it was too late and that he was not worth it...
As of currently, Iam living with my parents and constantly cry. He on the other hand resumed his "friendship" the other woman. He later confessed that he had sex with her twice...I am incredibly hurt. we have met up twice since we stopped talking. Last sunday, I found out that he had gone to six flags with his "friend" all day. That sunday I had even texted him (after i found out where he was) that he should drive the 100 miles back from the amusement park to talk with me and straighten things out or he would never see , hear or know anything about me again (the ultimatium I gave him i now admit was immature and childish and worse still, he never showed up to talk to me that day).
We met up the next day after he went to six flags with her and he was upset at first and acted like he didnt care. On a side note: He has never abused me and he's never told me i am ugly or called me names. In fact, at one point during our marriage i got very low self eestem because i started getting horrible horrible acne yet he always made me feel beautiful.
Anyway, at first he acted annoyed and mad and was defending the other woman. He and I knew during our time talking that it would probably be the last time we ever saw each other... so eventually as i started making my leave,he asked me to stay and he cried and cried and told me that he would always care for me. At this point he told me that he didnt want to try working things out- Just seperate and move on. He told me he wasnt ready to commit again because he felt like was wasnt good enough and that he had hurt me so much already. I told him that trying to make our relationship work was so difficult because so many things had already happened, that forgiving him was going to be difficult and that learning to trust him even more so. But while we had this painful discussion we still somehow managed to make each other laugh a little bit and talk about how much we had enjoyed being sexually intimate with each other during our marriage. Because of so many rumors circling everyone who knew us, he told me he had decided to talk to me to seperate fact from fiction: what had i been telling everyone. And he also was going to do the same with the other woman....
We ended the painful discussion in the park. we said would divorce, live our lives like normal adults in their 20s (go out, have fun, date, etc.)and that maybe one day we would meet up again after years apart and get back together again.... yet it was so painful to walk away....
However, the next day I was lonely and asked him if we could get lunch. I picked him up from his school, we went out to eat and everything was fine. We talked and flirted and had an amazing time but of course there were a few times when things became tense. We however, never discussed our problems of the affair or anything. After lunch he asked to be taken back to school. I took him back to his car and we said goodbye and left.
This was the last time I saw him...its been about a week now and I dont know what to do. I have distracted myself with friends but then find myself reading books on affairs and relationships and what went wrong and just crying so much that my whole soul feels like its going to leave my body.
But im still confused!! He knew he had cheated on me and was willing to stop talking to her and work things out with me. But once I found out, he is no longer willing to make our relationship work. He texted me after the lunch we had about something but I ignored it. He texted me a second time that he had left something in my car and I ignored him again because I didnt know what to do (i didnt want to come off as needy and desperate or make him feel that i would always be available, esp when he was talking with that woman, hanging out with her and making plans). I texted him yesterday and asked him if he wanted me to go drop off the item at his house...its been over 30 hrs but still no response.
At this point I really want to talk to him and apologize with how I have been over the years-incredibly demanding, rude, disrespecful, etc. With how I have been i can understand what drove him to cut boundaries with her and eventually sleep with her. But I also see his faults in the relationship with how he treated me over these last few months.
Right now I want to let him know that Im willing to forgive him and work on the relationship and I would like to negotiate with him the possibility of getting back together. But how is it going work when he keeps talking to this woman? This woman, this supposed friend who he told me he will continue seeing as a friend (despite already sleeping with her twice). This friend who she herself, is incredibly hurt because of her past relationship with her bf. She basically allowed herself to be used by him thru sex. Reading the text between both of them, she said she wanted my husband with her or else she would try to regain the love back from her ex. It just feels like this woman doenst know what she wants (my husband or her ex) and my husband doesnt know what he wants (me or her).I feel that if I give him space right now to sort out his feelings, that he will become even more attached to her and that reconciliation will be impossible between us cause there are more bad memories present at the moment than good memories. If I do give him the time to just spend time with her, and he eventually ends it and comes back to me and i accept, at this young age we are both in, he will feel like he can just step all over me and do whatever he wants (cheat, lie, etc). I am not sure if just talking to him as a friend and building positive memories while allowing him to keep speaking to her is also a good idea becase then he will be getting the best of both worlds....
I really dont know what to do!!! I know this post is super long...but I am having so many problems! I love him and really want this to work but not if he will continue talking to her and be unwilling to stop and change jobs to get away from her.Someone please, PLEASE help me!