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...
We’re to start? Here is my story. sorry it's so long and confusing.
On Monday night I found out my husband of 18 years is cheating on me. But not in the typical way you’d expect. Yes there was sexting and videos. But here’s the rest of the story.
The weekend before he went to a cabin with “the guys”. Or so he told me for weeks. Turns out it was a cabin to himself. To figure out his identity. See my husband thought he’d come back and tell me he’s a woman. But what he discovered was a past trauma he never dealt with.
Let’s rewind for a second. Our relationship is strong, was, I suppose now. I never worried about cheating. I know he loves me (he still does even now). There’s an ex girlfriend from high school(20 years ago) he still randomly touches base with. Mostly emails. Always has. Never hid it from me and I don’t really care. She lost her husband a year ago to cancer. Tragic right?! So she reached out to him cuz he’s always battled depression and she wanted someone outside her peer group. Ok cool. I get it, he’s talking to help a friend. We even talked about what she’s going through. Again no one hiding anything.
Somewhere along the line the conversations between them changed. He choose to disclose to her his feeling about identity issues. Because he didn’t know how to talk to me, his wife about it. Ok I can even get that too.
Back to the cabin. He figures out trauma from his high school years were never dealt with. He split into different people then. And he panicked, lost it by himself in a cabin in the woods. Suicidal (not the first time) So he called HER. Instead of his wife. She drove 6 hours to see him. They were there for over 2 days together. Supposedly nothing physical happened. Mind you sexting and videos have been ongoing for weeks at this point. he’s now head over heals in love with her. They got matching tattoos. They cuddle and comfort each other.
Now it’s Sunday and he comes home. (I’m still clueless) though I know something is “off”. He continues to tell me about his weekend with the guys. Explains the 4 heart tattoo , as for the dogs. At this point he’s on his phone constantly. By Monday night I’ve checked his phone and found the text messages between the two of them.
“I miss you holding you. Love you with all my heart. Can’t wait to talk to you. She (being me, his wife) is upstairs, call in an hour. “
There was of course a confrontation. I walked outta the house that night. The next day we talked. I’m being told he planned to tell me everything. That he was trying to figure out the words. He still loves me but is IN love with her. That he’s broken into different people. It was not done maliciously. None of it was planned. I believe all of that. I truly believe it hurts him to know how badly he fucked everything up. But does that even matter?
Can someone love more than one person at a time? And can those other people accept that there’s someone else. How does one process all this. He cheated, he lied, he’s also not himself. He’s broken. He needs professional help. And it’s all tied together into a massive knot and one can not be solved without the other unraveling.
I know I should be angry, furious and I am. But I’m also sad and hurt and defeated. I’m mourning a relationship? Is that a thing people do, I don’t know. I don’t want it to be over.
I can’t image a life without him in it. Even after everything I love the stupid man but this can’t be undone. I’m crying and pushing him away and missing him all at the same time.
So here I am sitting and considering. The man I’ve loved my entire adult life. The man I moved to another country for. The man I’ve gone through hell and back for has shattered not just me but his own self too.
It’s all broken. He’s broken I’m broken. Our relationship is broken. There is SO much healing that needs to happened. can we survive this together. I simply don’t know how.
You can work on your own healing if you want to and I highly recommend you do so. Find support for yourself, read a lot of good books on divorce or dealing with difficult personalities (husband), and how to heal after such a loss. There will be healing if you chose to do your work to heal yourself with help. There are divorce recovery groups and therapists. Stay on here and talk to us and respond to others. Journal your feelings so you start to understand yourself.
This situation you describe is very distressing on many levels. You might benefit from journaling every evening pen to paper about what you are feeling. Name out those feeling words. Find a chart online with all the feeling words if you can't name them. Read that chart and pick the ones that resonate for that day.
You see, as I look at it, there is his lying. There is his lying, again and again. He's led a secret life. He claims he thought he was trans gender -- this is to strange that he claims he healed his childhood trauma and no longer is transgender. I don't know, this sounds like manipulation of you to me. It doesn't work that way from the reading I have done. It just sounds weird. Maybe he really is and is now using this GF and the hot sex with her and the new tattoo as a way to avoid to himself who he really is (transgender). He didn't bother to tell you and then he has stories about how he could not tell you or you would not listen or some such BS. Lies.
But he was living his fantasy life with the ex-GF. It is cheating. I am sure they did more than cuddle if they got matching tattoos. More lies. The fact that he went and got a new tattoo with the woman and then came home to you is so manipulative sounding to me, so off the charts. He doesn't respect you enough to wait to do something like this. Instead he basically flaunts his new "love" to your face, his wife. I don't know, this kind of makes me sick to my stomach. He sounds so messed up.
I would tell you that the man you thought you were married to is not the man you actually were married to. You will have to grieve through this process of divorce and change. You will also grieve that this husband turned out to be so messed up and such a liar. It is natural to not want to be divorced but I think if you think it out, you will realize the man who you were married to was a liar and a cheater and hid many secrets about himself from you. The ex-GF, now new GF, is likely on the rebound from her husband's divorce but that is not your problem.
He did break the marriage. But somehow he got away in that marriage by leading a double life with you. His thoughts were always different than you knew he was thinking. Sometimes these people are like sociopaths or chameleons. He has some real serious issues if I am honest with you. Unless you deal with the reality of his lies and the false marriage you thought you had, this will not heal within you. It is okay to feel angry, sad, furious, hurt, rejected, etc. I think a book called Life Code may help you to see that he is not the nice loving husband you thought he was. Or maybe the book, The Sociopath Next Door. This falseness is something to grieve for sure.
You may want to heal together and reform the marriage but he has his new life. Do you want the damaged goods that he is showing you that he is? There is also likely fear at being alone. And anger at him for being so false, presenting a false front to you, and maybe even anger at yourself for assuming he was who he presented as. This is all so new for you but if you can do some journaling, face and name your feelings, and realize that you may have dodged a bullet in his new life and new "love" and now you get to live a TRUE life instead of this FALSE life with him.
You take it day by day. You learn to let go of the things you can't control, like him changing back into that man you assumed was your husband. You can control your healing. I wish you the best. I was also married to a guy living a false life with me. There are many things I didn't really know he was doing that he lied about, then him abusing drugs and alcohol, and the lies. I just decided I was done. When I realized his lies and his false life and how he killed my love. There is happiness after such situations but first we have to heal ourselves by seeking whatever help we need. It is not longer about him, but if he was false during the marriage he will continue to be false now. I am so sorry. Big hugs to you.
This forum is pretty active and is a good place to discuss relationships with people who are supportive but will also tell someone the truth in a kind way. Not all forums on DS are that active but this one is good. If you need it.
The NYPost:
Koenig had been the Bergin family’s “liaison” – a surrogate-parent role traditionally taken on by Bravest when a fellow firefighter is killed.
Although “liaisons” are not officially designated, the role is part of an honored, unwritten pact going back more than 100 years.
“Not only have these men dishonored their own families, they’ve dishonored the memories of men who are heroes, who were their brothers,” Mary Koenig said. “It’s the department’s dirty little secret.”
She was a “friend” needing a shoulder.. that’s how it starts..