Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
Here is my woeful story. We had been together 8 years before we got engaged. It was delayed because I wanted to establish my career before family etc. Eventually we got engaged. After a few months I postponed the wedding. My career wans't going well and my parents interfered a lot. She was very upset. We had a couple of months apart and I proposed again and she accepted. My parents were certainly not supportive of our marriage which caused greater stress for both of us - especially in the first few months of the wedding. Anyway, 14 years and 4 wonderful children later I found out that she had an affair with a married man during our split and two months after we were married. It was over a 6 month period. Essentially she was planning a wedding while she was with him!
When I confronted her she denied it. Then she said it was once. After futher discussion she told me she had been with him at least 6 times. What hurts even more is she worked with guy for years and we socialized with him and his wife. They both attended our wedding, looked after our chldren when they were young on occassions and we went to social gatherings with them. I even helped him clean up his house before he sold it. Wouldn't you have thought she would have encouraged me not to go. What a fool I must have looked like. His wife eventually left him and he became a regular visitor to our home. We supported him as he played the victim so well. Later he would often visit with his new girlfiends. Sometimes he would drop my wife home from work and would be inside with her when I arrived home. It never made me comfortable so eventually I said he wasn't to visit when I wasn't home. One day, before we had children a message came through on her phone at the desk I was sitting at that said "I love you so much it hurts". I confronted her for an explanation and at the time she said he was mixed up because they were good friends and he was suffering the loss of his marriage. I confronted him but he just hung up. She claimed nothing had happened and I believed her.
It has been two years since I have found out and it hasn't got any easier for me despite two years of therapy. I don't hate her anymore but I can no longer go on with her. She had numerous times to tell me while we were split, before we were married and before we had children. It would be far easier to split then. Now we have four children, a house etc.
Some have said to me "oh that was so long ago - move on" To be honest, 14 years could be 14 days ago. It is still so raw and I have many triggers. I can't look at the wedding video because he is in it. It has destroyed our family. Betrayal is the most painful emotion I have ever felt. I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. She said when I called off the wedding she felt rejected and he was there for her. She said they never went out in public together and she never wanted a relationship with him. She said he told her he loved her but she never felt the same. She said she loved me but he helped her escape the pain she felt. I just don't understand how you can be in love with someone but have an affair. Am I abnormal?
Can anyone relate to her comments about rejection? I'm trying to understand.
You must ask yourself, since then has she been faithful? Does she have any type of contact with him?
I can tell your a good man as I am and don't believe in audultrey.
Stay strong my friend
She seems to blame you and the brief split as her reason for doing what she did, and that shows a lack of remorse for her actions, still, all these years down the road. However, what she cannot blame you for, is her failure to correct the mistake she made, all those years down the road, by removing him from your lives. Instead, she felt entitled to the affair, and entitled to keep you in the dark and him in her life, right under your nose, all these years. She involved your children, your family, and your friends, and claims it meant nothing to her; how detached. To me, this type of longterm, apathetic and entitled deceit, is inexcusable beyond current repair, and this may be why you are unable to reconcile your marriage.
The deceit didn't happen and stop 14 years ago, it's continued throughout your entire marriage. There was no d day 14 years ago because the affair didn't end. You caught him in your home alone with her, and felt uneasy over it, and if he confessed to loving her so much it hurts, I doubt they were having tea and crumpets.
She lied about it only lasting for six months; cheaters lie about the length of their affairs to preserve themselves, and only admit to what they've been caught with or what seems reasonable without drawing suspicion. She's not as innocent as she wants you to believe, and I wouldn't doubt if they were talking about a potential future together that afternoon that you caught them.
Ninety percent of cheating spouses lie about the length of their affair, and the depths they plunge to, in order to make it happen and keep it alive.
I'm truly sorry you are dealing with this. Know that nothing you did or did not do, had anything to do with her choice to keep the affair alive. You have been stellar. It's normal for grieving and healing spouses to search for reasons why it happened and make some sense of it, even going as far as taking some of the blame, in order to justify the absurdity of it all, in an attempt to heal their wounds.
I wish you well.
I concur with Lenoire to say that I doubt the affair ever stopped. You have to ask why would it? People in affairs generally have little self control or sense of responsibility. That is why many end up having kids out of the marriage or getting a STD or doing generally risky things that will ruin their family and life.
My wife initially said she had loved me all along and even during the affair. A year later she recognized that she loved my attributes, what I provided her, and how I made her feel for being with her.
She loved me as an object to reflect her self image off, but not as a person. With a long period of therapy she started to understand that love is not loving how someone makes you feel but actually loving someone as a person and putting them first or giving them priority.
CSes have a twisted understanding of love that is a corrupted Hollywood type of love. I don't doubt my wife truly though she loved me the whole time, she just had the wrong definition of love.
I often think what are the odds that a particular client would walk into my office and have a conversation that unravelled the whole mess. I had a gut feeling for 14 years that something went on. I didn't really believe in gut feelings but this whole event made me a believer.
So sorry ur going through this. It's common for cheaters to deny everything. But she needs to show remorse and realise what she did in order for you to be able to consider working things out. It doesn't matter 14 years or 14 days. She cheated and lied for years. How sick to keep him around. I'm sorry but I don't buy that she was "just friends " with him after the affair. If he sleeps around like you say please get tested for STD.
Ur not alone and all your thought are really normal. We all go through the same pain. Hugs
Staying together for children is never a smart move. The bottom line is you deserve someone to love you, Someone you can lay down with at night and rest peaceably knowing she's not having sex with others, or endangering you with std's. Remember, everyone the OM slept with, your wife slept with and in your you've slept with - germ wise. Everyone always says the use condoms and I find that is not always the case.
Depending on how honest she is... that’s how we got through it.
“How to help your spouse heal from your affair” helped him come clean! Ah ha moment for sure.
Good luck to you and your family.
You were right. The fair went for around three years. So we went from never sleeping with him to once to about 6 times over 6 months to three years.
She was with him while we already had two kids. I made her get DNA testing and have found out my third is not mine. Devastated. So some of you hit the target
She lied for three years. From the moment I saw the first text (before we had kids) I asked her if she was sleeping with him - No she said.
So why did she cheat on me for three years instead of just leaving me?
She said because she loved me and thought she would lose me. WTF!
betrayed to death is right. "It is a character disorder at the very least, a personality disorder at the worst"
We are both in therapy and i have studied this subject on and off for three years and believe it is a major personality flaw. Every other excuse is a secondary issue.
Your wife views people as objects. She loves what you provide her in terms of stability, companionship, finances, child care etc.
She however is not capable of loving someone as a person with inherent value, but only how it benefits her or reflects her own worth.
To phrase it correctly she loves attributes about you, what you provide her, and how she feels around you, but didn't love you as a person.
When the degree of selfishness passes a certain level it is considered narcissism, and beyond that lies a sociopath.
It's not that she became this as all children are narcissistic in nature. Some will grow and mature and some will not.
My CH says he knew I would not tolerate cheating, that he feared I would leave him so he lied (repeatedly) and did it anyway. So he knew it was wrong and that I would not be ok with it. What we ended up with is a real possibility of the very thing he feared to begin with (me leaving him). How crazy is that??? You might assume they would avoid behavior that would lead to consequences they fear most but there is no logic here, there is no untangling the skein. They are not wired the same way we are, is about the best I can come up with.
We all have learned a lot the hard way. Double down on some individual therapy right now to help you deal with this additional trauma. I wish you the best in whatever you decide.