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.
Jeanettecin-
I want to thank you for your help and responses that we started to address in Cindy's "Contact" thread. . I appreciate you sharing your story as im sure its not easy to drudge it up. Yes i have been working on figuring out why i went and had an A. Ive never cheated before and was very uncomfortable with the whole situation. Let me preface my response with the fact that i know i did wrong. It was not the way i should have handled things. But here goes.
I've been M for 17 yrs. we were 25 when we got M (H was 26). We've both been old fashioned, Italians. I played the role of the doting W who would do anything for her H. Daily household things, etc. We always wanted children and ran into yrs of problems trying to have them. Doing things for my H filled that void for me bc i wanted so badly to be a mom. At 34, our first child comes. I did everything. He never held or changed a diaper bc his dad never did - that was a moms job - i never complained bc i finally became a mom and loved every minute of it. He was at a decent job and the company i worked for let me stop to p/t. When our child started preschool i resumed my f/ t position. Fast forward to 3 yrs ago when our 2nd child comes along and my H is in a poor job not making much causing him to be depressed. I urged him to go for help but he never did. So i picked up the slack, took on side jobs in addition to my f/t job and running the house and being a room mom at school, and taking care of our children - shopping, cooking all meals because our eldest has multiple life threatening food allergies and can only eat things i make her. While im juggling All of our responsibilities, he would simply go to work, come home, and sleep. Would not do anything to help out, or interact with the kids, and it was starting to take its toll on me physically an mentally. Im 42 and obviously dont have the stamina to keep up this pace like a 20 or even 30 yr old can.
Sept 2010, OM moves to the neighborhood, we run into each other at school, and start chatting. We had known each other over 10 yrs ago. Met on the train traveling to work ( im still at my same company but work from home for them now). Nothing ever happened back then btwn us. I was M like 7 yrs at the time, he was only dating the woman who is now his W. i got a bad vibe from him back then. Felt he was a player and a talker. Would bad mouth his gf. Eventually they had a child. We lost touch a yr later when i stopped traveling. So when we met up again he asked to exchange numbers and we started chatting. He told me he had M his gf because they had gotten pregnant. He said they argued alot over the yrs and things weren't that great. He became friendly w my H because of the fathers club at school. I told my H about him. He knew we knew each other yrs ago bc i had done some work for him - im a designer. Everything was out in the open.
We wld talk about our families, and it was comforting to talk to someone who wasnt always so down and depressed (like my H had become) i grew more and more resentful towards H bc i kept taking on more and more and he would not do anything to help himself. I kept trying to get him to go for IC, bought books on self help, suggesting he change careers, etc. H did nothing to help himself. He grew more jealous of me that my career was taking off. Im now w my company 15 yrs. he's never been w a job for more than 2. I've never thrown it in his face. I've always stood by him and have been supportive.
However, i was exhausted, getting more and more resentful and OM wld recognize how much i did, and it was comforting and nice to be noticed. He kept pushing and pursuing for me to "do what i want" " i deserve happiness if H is going to be a prick and not help me or himself". Little by little, our friendship grew closer bc we would commiserate with each other. He said he M his gf bc they got pregnant and his father was absentee and he didnt want to be that way with his child. He was very hands on dad and i envied that. It took 4 months before things became physical. I would cry and tell him i couldn't break my vows, this is wrong, etc. and yet i did break down and have the A. The distance btwn my H and I grew bc I lost respect for my H (and myself as well) bc he was not stepping up to the plate even though i talked to him numerous times about it. But the kids needed more and more of my attention, and i was doing everything by myself so i just couldn't dote on my H anymore. Then he became mad at me for putting our children's needs first and not doing all the things i used to do for him. We began to argue bc he was being selfish and childish. And it bothered me that i was losing a partner as he was becoming more and more needy bc he was depressed and sulking and yet not doing anything to help himself. Perhaps the A started out wrong where we were escaping our problems at home. But we fell in love (i know about the fog, but my feelings were real for whatever thats worth). OM and i didnt see each other that much bc i had so much on my plate. But we did talk /text everyday. He would say how he could be the man i needed. He hated seeing me so unhappy and we had grown very fond of each other and we always made each other laugh. We helped talk each other thru rough tomes in our personal lives. Our lives became very intertwined. Whereas at home there was so much tension. In the beginning he admitted that he wanted to stay M for his son. But after i broke it off June 2012 for 2 months he kept trying to contacting me. I caved and finally replied and we were back again in August. He told me how much he missed our friendship and we started to talk about a future. We had an argument in sept and i broke it off bc i couldn't take all the added stress in addition to what i was already dealing with at home. We went 4 months of NC. I urged my H to go to MC and wouldn't take no for an answr bc i desperately wanted to work on "us". He agreed but reluctantly. We've since stopped MC this past March 2013. The cost was bothering him. During the break up, OM contacting me from sept - Jan. i finally felt emotionally separated enough that i replied to see how he was doing. Bc i did genuinely care. Things started up again briefly and again, the guilt was overwhelming and i ended it in March.
So. That's my story. I can see how i (someone who always had ethics and morals) can succumb to an A. I wasn't looking for excitement. I began to think that H and i grew apart and perhaps we're not right for each other anymore. I have OM telling me hes unhappy and that the odds of us meeting up again after all these yrs must really mean something. So i began to believe that he was in the same boat as i was, genuinely unhappy, but did the right thing by his child in order to be a better dad than his dad was to him.
If you read this far, thank you. Any advice is welcome.
I want to thank you for your help and responses that we started to address in Cindy's "Contact" thread. . I appreciate you sharing your story as im sure its not easy to drudge it up. Yes i have been working on figuring out why i went and had an A. Ive never cheated before and was very uncomfortable with the whole situation. Let me preface my response with the fact that i know i did wrong. It was not the way i should have handled things. But here goes.
I've been M for 17 yrs. we were 25 when we got M (H was 26). We've both been old fashioned, Italians. I played the role of the doting W who would do anything for her H. Daily household things, etc. We always wanted children and ran into yrs of problems trying to have them. Doing things for my H filled that void for me bc i wanted so badly to be a mom. At 34, our first child comes. I did everything. He never held or changed a diaper bc his dad never did - that was a moms job - i never complained bc i finally became a mom and loved every minute of it. He was at a decent job and the company i worked for let me stop to p/t. When our child started preschool i resumed my f/ t position. Fast forward to 3 yrs ago when our 2nd child comes along and my H is in a poor job not making much causing him to be depressed. I urged him to go for help but he never did. So i picked up the slack, took on side jobs in addition to my f/t job and running the house and being a room mom at school, and taking care of our children - shopping, cooking all meals because our eldest has multiple life threatening food allergies and can only eat things i make her. While im juggling All of our responsibilities, he would simply go to work, come home, and sleep. Would not do anything to help out, or interact with the kids, and it was starting to take its toll on me physically an mentally. Im 42 and obviously dont have the stamina to keep up this pace like a 20 or even 30 yr old can.
Sept 2010, OM moves to the neighborhood, we run into each other at school, and start chatting. We had known each other over 10 yrs ago. Met on the train traveling to work ( im still at my same company but work from home for them now). Nothing ever happened back then btwn us. I was M like 7 yrs at the time, he was only dating the woman who is now his W. i got a bad vibe from him back then. Felt he was a player and a talker. Would bad mouth his gf. Eventually they had a child. We lost touch a yr later when i stopped traveling. So when we met up again he asked to exchange numbers and we started chatting. He told me he had M his gf because they had gotten pregnant. He said they argued alot over the yrs and things weren't that great. He became friendly w my H because of the fathers club at school. I told my H about him. He knew we knew each other yrs ago bc i had done some work for him - im a designer. Everything was out in the open.
We wld talk about our families, and it was comforting to talk to someone who wasnt always so down and depressed (like my H had become) i grew more and more resentful towards H bc i kept taking on more and more and he would not do anything to help himself. I kept trying to get him to go for IC, bought books on self help, suggesting he change careers, etc. H did nothing to help himself. He grew more jealous of me that my career was taking off. Im now w my company 15 yrs. he's never been w a job for more than 2. I've never thrown it in his face. I've always stood by him and have been supportive.
However, i was exhausted, getting more and more resentful and OM wld recognize how much i did, and it was comforting and nice to be noticed. He kept pushing and pursuing for me to "do what i want" " i deserve happiness if H is going to be a prick and not help me or himself". Little by little, our friendship grew closer bc we would commiserate with each other. He said he M his gf bc they got pregnant and his father was absentee and he didnt want to be that way with his child. He was very hands on dad and i envied that. It took 4 months before things became physical. I would cry and tell him i couldn't break my vows, this is wrong, etc. and yet i did break down and have the A. The distance btwn my H and I grew bc I lost respect for my H (and myself as well) bc he was not stepping up to the plate even though i talked to him numerous times about it. But the kids needed more and more of my attention, and i was doing everything by myself so i just couldn't dote on my H anymore. Then he became mad at me for putting our children's needs first and not doing all the things i used to do for him. We began to argue bc he was being selfish and childish. And it bothered me that i was losing a partner as he was becoming more and more needy bc he was depressed and sulking and yet not doing anything to help himself. Perhaps the A started out wrong where we were escaping our problems at home. But we fell in love (i know about the fog, but my feelings were real for whatever thats worth). OM and i didnt see each other that much bc i had so much on my plate. But we did talk /text everyday. He would say how he could be the man i needed. He hated seeing me so unhappy and we had grown very fond of each other and we always made each other laugh. We helped talk each other thru rough tomes in our personal lives. Our lives became very intertwined. Whereas at home there was so much tension. In the beginning he admitted that he wanted to stay M for his son. But after i broke it off June 2012 for 2 months he kept trying to contacting me. I caved and finally replied and we were back again in August. He told me how much he missed our friendship and we started to talk about a future. We had an argument in sept and i broke it off bc i couldn't take all the added stress in addition to what i was already dealing with at home. We went 4 months of NC. I urged my H to go to MC and wouldn't take no for an answr bc i desperately wanted to work on "us". He agreed but reluctantly. We've since stopped MC this past March 2013. The cost was bothering him. During the break up, OM contacting me from sept - Jan. i finally felt emotionally separated enough that i replied to see how he was doing. Bc i did genuinely care. Things started up again briefly and again, the guilt was overwhelming and i ended it in March.
So. That's my story. I can see how i (someone who always had ethics and morals) can succumb to an A. I wasn't looking for excitement. I began to think that H and i grew apart and perhaps we're not right for each other anymore. I have OM telling me hes unhappy and that the odds of us meeting up again after all these yrs must really mean something. So i began to believe that he was in the same boat as i was, genuinely unhappy, but did the right thing by his child in order to be a better dad than his dad was to him.
If you read this far, thank you. Any advice is welcome.
I am going to give you another perspective from a BS. Whether our conscious mind acknowledges it or not, as the betrayed, we 'feel' when something is wrong, especially when the relationship is as long as yours. My H affair didn't last long, but the process of disconnection and the eventual slippery slope he was on started a good year before the affair started. I behaved differently that year but it was subtle and I attributed it all to some outside (not related to the marriage) stress that we were both feeling.
Hindsight being 20/20 I recognize it now. I went from periods of trying to be super woman to periods of being kinda bitchy. I also slept in the guest room or couch during those periods when I was mad for no reason I could understand. To him it seemed irrational and consequently made it easier for him to make excuses. I felt irrational at times but I realize now that this behavior didn't start until his disconnection began. No one thinks it can be detected but it is.
I am in no way advocating telling him. Only you know your situation and what will work for you but if I had a line in Vegas, I would bet a lot of money on the fact that your H is in someways reacting to what he feels. He just doesn't know what or why he's doing it.
Now here's the part that I get blunt so bear with me. Based on only what you've said and taking it on face value-your H sounds like a horrible partner that doesn't want to change. I too understand the struggle to walk away from marriage, especially where longevity and Italian Catholics are concerned but if he won't change, what's the point? Isn't life insanely too short to be miserable? Didn't the events of last week prove that emphatically?
People grow apart and fall out of love. There is absolutely no shame in walking away from a union that makes you miserable. Maybe you should consider that before there's a higher body count. If your H won't work on things what makes you think you won't wind up back where you were? If not with this guy, with someone else. Just some food for thought.
No offense - and i am speaking Only about My H - but he is one bad ass mamas boy! Its always been like that. I know. And i still chose him but as he gets older and you add up that with stubbornness, and p/a it can become overwhelming. But I'll admit...estrogen can be a bitch too lol. Thanks for the laugh :)
The men in my family and close friends who are Italian have sort of an entitlement personality. Very old fashioned where the men bring home the bacon and the women take care of the home and the kids. Our parents, grandparents, great grandparents (you get the idea) have done things this way. In MY family/friends. The things is, today both of us work f/t and yet, my H, doesn't seem to take my job seriously. Its been ingrained in him that women take care of and dote on their men - as his mother has done. And his mom will acknowledge that i work and run the house and take care of our children, and juggle dr and dentists appts and field trips (and the list goes on) and yet everything is still - oh my son! My son! When all's he has to juggle is work. Its very frustrating because times have changed. Again, i am speaking Only of MY family/friends, but many of the men feel its ok to be M and have their "fun" on the side. Entitlement once again. Not that my H cheated (i dont think) but he has that entitlement, male macho - i am the man of the house and you (me) has to run the house and take care if him.
So in MY opinion within MY family/friends, our culture Definitely has an effect on our relationship dynamics.
Seems to me infidelity and marital problems are everywhere, regardless of ethnicity, culture.
Protestants and born agains have a higher divorce rate.
Seems to be Catholics do have more hang up with sex. Protestants more hang ups with alcohol. I guess that evens out.
Mamas boys -- again, not a religious or cultural thing.
Mamas boy probably more to blame here.
Mamas don't let your babies grow up to be assholes!
We have 2 girls and i am raising them to NOT be a subservient. I have a career and i am very proud of that. I am college educated and am teaching my girls (well the little ones just a baby still) but teaching that its just as important for a woman to get educated and be independent and that M is a partnership where you shate responsibilities. Actually that teaching could be for everyone just in general.
I think its because change is so hard. Plus if this is all someone knows, and what their parents did , it would seem to follow suit that they do things the same way.