Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
okay, I am looking for someone who cheated (and even better if had kids from the A) for some insight/ advice to my situation with my H. Please help me understand my Hâs actions. No one understands that I still love him and want to work this out. Everyone thinks I crazy and should "take him to the cleaners" but I can't get there.
H took a job overseas 4 years ago (gone 6 months, home 1 month) after about a year of that, he started an affair with a girl 20 years younger and started making babies for 1 1/2 years. (I understand his need for comfort from his loneliness and the depression of being in a horrible 3rd world country away from his family. I do, I donât like it, but I do understand why it happened. Iâm not angry about the past. I just want to focus on the future.)
OW broke up with him Jan 09 for refusing to divorce me and gave birth to the second baby on MY bday last year so he is just meeting his baby daughter now. Anyway, I just found out about this A and up until about 10 days ago H wanted to reconcile and did everything to show he meant it. He was talking about coming back to work it out and would say he loves me. But when she heard he was leaving Africa to come back to the US with me, she started fighting for him. (She says she âlovesâ him, but the girl is a young single mom in a poor African country, she is seeing US citizenship and easy money.) Anyway, whatever her new intentions, he says he still loves her and doesnât know what he wants. He left where he was based Sunday night to be with her for the holiday. He said he needs to see her and sort out his feelings before he can come home to me. He also refuses to have any contact with me or our kids until he is back in the US. The day he left he said he wants to come home to me and work this out and be a family again, although he couldnât even look at me when he said it and it was in a rather aggravated tone. I know having those kids is eating at his heart too. He is a loving father, although he hasnât been very good to our 4 children ages 4 -11 these past four years.
He has been promising on a daily basis all this time to our children that he is taking all of us to Europe with him for his new job so we can be a family again. That is all that has kept them together all this time. When it is just him and I, he canât make that promise this past week. He is going to destroy our children. Iâve told him to stop that talk and I tell the kids that things may not work out that way, but they are trusting him.
It looks as if it is pretty normal for the one having the A to be torn between the spouse and the OP. How did you make that decision one way or another? Did you bounce back and forth pursuing one relationship then going to the other and back and forth?
Any advice for the devoted wife who is still completely in love with him who is sitting at home waiting for him to turn up next week? What should I expect? Should I just run and give up on him? Get the lawyer and the restraining order? Before we started reconciling, I was ready for that, had contacted a lawyer and everything, but now after all these weeks of making plans and him being like old times, I just can't get my heart to let go. Am I crazy to think we could ever be a family again?
He says he feels like he is two different people and he wants to be the man he was before all this happened but he doesnât know if he can. How did any of you who had the A cope with your feelings?
(Sorry for the long version, thank you for your patience.)
H took a job overseas 4 years ago (gone 6 months, home 1 month) after about a year of that, he started an affair with a girl 20 years younger and started making babies for 1 1/2 years. (I understand his need for comfort from his loneliness and the depression of being in a horrible 3rd world country away from his family. I do, I donât like it, but I do understand why it happened. Iâm not angry about the past. I just want to focus on the future.)
OW broke up with him Jan 09 for refusing to divorce me and gave birth to the second baby on MY bday last year so he is just meeting his baby daughter now. Anyway, I just found out about this A and up until about 10 days ago H wanted to reconcile and did everything to show he meant it. He was talking about coming back to work it out and would say he loves me. But when she heard he was leaving Africa to come back to the US with me, she started fighting for him. (She says she âlovesâ him, but the girl is a young single mom in a poor African country, she is seeing US citizenship and easy money.) Anyway, whatever her new intentions, he says he still loves her and doesnât know what he wants. He left where he was based Sunday night to be with her for the holiday. He said he needs to see her and sort out his feelings before he can come home to me. He also refuses to have any contact with me or our kids until he is back in the US. The day he left he said he wants to come home to me and work this out and be a family again, although he couldnât even look at me when he said it and it was in a rather aggravated tone. I know having those kids is eating at his heart too. He is a loving father, although he hasnât been very good to our 4 children ages 4 -11 these past four years.
He has been promising on a daily basis all this time to our children that he is taking all of us to Europe with him for his new job so we can be a family again. That is all that has kept them together all this time. When it is just him and I, he canât make that promise this past week. He is going to destroy our children. Iâve told him to stop that talk and I tell the kids that things may not work out that way, but they are trusting him.
It looks as if it is pretty normal for the one having the A to be torn between the spouse and the OP. How did you make that decision one way or another? Did you bounce back and forth pursuing one relationship then going to the other and back and forth?
Any advice for the devoted wife who is still completely in love with him who is sitting at home waiting for him to turn up next week? What should I expect? Should I just run and give up on him? Get the lawyer and the restraining order? Before we started reconciling, I was ready for that, had contacted a lawyer and everything, but now after all these weeks of making plans and him being like old times, I just can't get my heart to let go. Am I crazy to think we could ever be a family again?
He says he feels like he is two different people and he wants to be the man he was before all this happened but he doesnât know if he can. How did any of you who had the A cope with your feelings?
(Sorry for the long version, thank you for your patience.)
Probably because the most recent post made shows up first. Your post showed up on top hers so it was read first. At least that is why I saw it first, and there was no need to respond to the same comment twice. I wrote a private response the the post tracylynn responded to. Ganging up on people who have come here for help and telling them to go somewhere else because they don't belong here is not a very nice thing to do.
I know it is a long road ahead, but I pray that you find true happiness in the end.
Hurting - I am a betrayed, but I agree with sassy. It would be one thing for your H to find companionship with another woman while he was away from you, but it sounds like he actually created a whole new family to take the place of yours while he was gone. That is taking it a bit too far and shows very little regard for you and your children.
If you do decide to keep him in your life please insist that he be tested for STDs before you have unprotected sex with him and give serious consideration to how you will deal with this other family he now has which will be a constant reminder of what he did. I had a hard enough time dealing with my Hs relatively short affair. I don't think there is a snowballs chance in hell that I could have stayed with him if he had done what your H has done, but we are all different and you need to do what works best for you and your children. I hope it all works out for you.
When children from affairs become part of the equation, infidelity goes into a whole new category... IMPO.
My very best good friend in the world entire world is currently with her H, who had a child out of the M, nine years ago. They're still together. It's still tough for her at times, especially when he comes to visit or when H and their girls have to to to functions for the little boy. I see her pain during these times, and I'm amazed and humbled by her strength... The little boy is now nine and when he does come to stay (which he LOVES to come and stay with them.) He calls her mom and tells her how he wants to live with her and Daddy.. It's really a struggle for her, because she can't be mad at this child. She know's that and she's obviously really good to him...
What's my point? Well... I just wanted to put that out there so you would know that it CAN work and it DOES work out all the time... It's just all up to the two people working to rebuild the marriage. You've got to be in it to win it.. Both of you!!!
You're H, from what I've read is not, and as much as that hurts to hear and see, it's reality... and if it were me, I'd back off... There's really not much else to do or say... the balls in his court, so to speak... I'd give him some time... but not forever... You're an individual, just as much as he... Just because there are children involved in an A, doesn't mean it can't work...
Redirect any energy your giving your H and his OW... to yourself, and your family... Leave them alone... see what happens...
Best of luck to you and your family :)
I think one of the unfortunate things that CSs experience when their spouse is having an affair is the insecurities and decrease in self-esteem. I always worry that my H saw things in the OW that he really liked that he does not see in me and wishes he did. If he had never been with her he would never have realized that he liked those things because he had no basis for comparison. I also wonder if some of those characteristics that he might have liked would have survived if they had stayed together.
As I have said before, we often put our best out in the beginning of a relationship, but as time goes on we become more settled and some of the sparkle fades. Some of the effort we made falls by the wayside because it is simply too exhausting to keep up the persona you put forth when you were courting. I think that is one of the actual benefits of marriage. You no longer have to maintain the facade. You know your spouse loves you even if you don't go to bed every night in sexy negligee with your makeup on. You can relax a little and know you are still loved none the less. Then the OW comes along and all of that comfort and security goes to hell.
Thing is, everyone is different...she probably did have one or two qualities that you may not have...my OW was zany,outgoing whereas I AM QUIET...however, he said that those things that attracted him to her eventually started to annoy him. I am sure that you have qualities that shedidnt have, and those were the qualities that made him want to marry you. My husband said she was a novelty...but the thought of being marriedto her was frightening. Still,it was hurtful to me to think he was attracted to someone so different to me...you cant help thinking that maybe that was the type of woman he really prefered.,...its all to do with the shattering of our self esteem.
Try to tell him that you understand how he feels, and encourage him to socialize more...he may always be this way, but with some effort, he could improve his life. I have noticed that it always seems to be the outgoing partners that end up having the affair....it must be frustration at having to live with a quiet person...then again, you must have been attracted to his personality in the beginning?