Yesterday was my wife's birthday and we had plans to go out to dinner with my son and her folks last night. Then, around 10 AM, she said, can you come into the kitchen, I need to talk to you. (We both have home offices, FYI).
She then proceeded with a pretty difficult confession/conversation. She has been getting more and more emotionally attached to one of her customers ( a guy she has known for more than 10 years) and things began to get somewhat physical recently, but not to the point of sex (neither the Bill Clinton definition or otherwise) but she said it was headed towards that.
In my alcoholic fueled zombieness for the past 5-6 years, I have forgotten and was too numb most of the time to respect my wife and give her the attention, kind words and just simple "presence" that any good husband and real man shows his wife.
In steps a man who is going through his own marital strife and they start to share more and more feelings with each other and a real attraction begins, not just a friend thing. He said he was falling in love with her and she admitted to me she was falling in love with him. (Tough stuff to hear). Cutting to the chase, they had decided to call it off before Christmas as my wife said she really wanted to give our marriage a chance. Whether or not they would have actually had sex by then, who knows. They probably would have. I do know that I have been the only man she has been with in her 51 years on earth and she never had any real serious boyfriends in HS and college, so I'm sure that plays a role somewhere in all of this (and she realizes that as well). She brought all of this up because my 17 year old son was suspicious of this guy and snooped on her phone texts. He found some sexting (no photos) and was rocked obviously. She decided that she had to tell me not so it unburdened her, but so that I could try to help him and put this thing in a context for him of our long-deteriorating relationship. I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that she says she is commited to our marriage, that she realizes she is asking to trust me on the fact that they were ending it anyway and that nothing sexual had happened yet. (I know there was kissing and I'm sure some "other stuff.") She was absolutely hysterical most of yesterday and I was telling her that I played a huge role in this with my years of benign neglect and not making her feel truly loved. This is ALL TRUE by the way and not something I am just agreeing with her on. She has had a chance many times over the years to act on things when male customers hit on her but never has. She is one of the few women in a hugely male dominated industry. I also trust her completely. She is just not the horny type or the flirtatious type or anything like that. She would have to develop a real deep and lasting bond with someone to sleep with them, but that's where this was heading. We came to the realization that A) -- it was fortuitous that she accidentally discovered how much I had been drinking 42 days ago which finally got me on a much overdue road to sobriety (or I would still be drinking today) and B) that as brutal and traumatizing as it was for my son to see these texts, it brought the situation to a head and forced her to tell me so that I could help save him as my son has a tremendous amount of anger towards her right now. I'm not really looking for feedback but just felt I had to do a mind dump on this thing. I'm about as at peace with it as I can be and take my share of the blame for creating the barren field that my wife had been living in emotionally so that another caring person could step into. Things have been a lot better between us the past 42 days and she realizes this and loves it. I think we will make it but this was a really strong jolt in the road. ALSO: I did not have the urge to drink and still don't. I got to my AA meeting every day and will continue to work the steps, go to meetings and come here to DS. Much love and support to you all, PG