Posted 8/30/2008 9:20 PM (GMT 0)
I'm currently in a very rough spot in my life. Easily the roughest spot I've ever been in. I'm dealing with a deep depression caused by an affair my wife had with a friend of mine.
First, a little bit of history. My wife and I have been together for over 6 years at this point. We met in March of 2002 and finally got married in May of 2007. Along the way, we had two children. One in April of 2004 and then another in November of 2006.
We never had that great of a relationship to begin with. I had a problem with distancing myself from her when we had problems and her main problem was lying to me or doing things behind my back. For instance, if she wanted to do something that she knew I would disagree with, she'd do it without telling me and if I asked, she'd lie about it until she knew she was caught. We've both admitted those issues to each other.
We've had fights in the past and have even split up for a day or two here and there but somehow always worked things out. For the longest time, it was a pretty ugly cycle. A lot of the things she did would make me feel disrespected and in turn, I'd want my distance form her since talking to her about our issues didn't seem to work. She'd agree with everything I said and then just turn around and continue doing things the way she was doing them. A perfect example is a car I owned. I sold it to a guy we both knew and he ripped me off a third of the money. On top of things, the guy would insult me to other people. So when my wife would still associate with the guy, or give him rides, or text message back and forth, I saw that as disrespectful. I told her I didn't like her being friends with him because of the way he treated me but it never stopped. Eventually I would get fed up and just want my distance.
In late 2007 and into early 2008 I tried to start my own business with my brother. It didn't go well and was a big source of stress for me. At the same time, we were having problems with my landlord. It was all a very stressful situation to be in. I found myself becoming depressed and basically spending most of my time by myself.
In the meantime, my wife was taking the kids up to the house of one of my friends every Tuesday night. I've known him since middle school and he has a son around the age of mine. My wife met him through me and began taking our children up to his house to play with his son. Every Tuesday night. From roughly 5PM until 1AM-2AM. She was text messaging him quite a bit throughout the day just about every day. And she began going out at night and leaving me home with the children. I was sleeping on the couch every night by this time. I was so depressed and feeling so disrespected by my wife that I'd given up. Finally, one morning we just made up. I'm not sure how it happened. I just realized how much I loved her and how much I wanted it to work. This was in March of 2008.
Finally, in April 2008 I began to grow suspicious. I started seeing red flags popping up and started putting pieces together. I got a hold of her cell phone and took a look into it. It was password protected, but the password was easy enough to guess. Inside, I found questionable (and explicit) picture mails sent to her from my friend. Also, her password on her computer was changed to my friend's nickname and birthday. I confronted her about these things and she swore to me that nothing was going on. So much so that I believed her. Above all else, I always trusted my wife. I knew she had a tendency to lie or do things behind my back, but cheating was something I thought she could NEVER do. I accepted the explanations she gave me and closed the book.
Or so I thought. The next day, I couldn't seem to get it out of my head. It just didn't make sense. So I put spy software on her computer. When she went to sleep that night, I checked the software and that's when it all came out. I found a secret email account she had and inside, several love letters to my friend. She had fallen in love with him.
I woke her up and asked her to give me the truth. She still denied it. I told her of my proof and she finally gave in. She gave me all the details that I'd asked for. They'd been intimate in his car about a month prior while I was at home with the kids. They'd been having an affair for about 4 months give or take. I told her I wanted her to do what made her happy. I told her I read the emails and I could see how in love she was with him. And from the way she talked about me in those emails, I couldn't blame her for leaving me. I told her to follow her heart.
We were up all night both basically crying. She was feeling immense guilt and I was feeling just about everything. Guilt, hurt, humiliation, sick, the list goes on. She told me all she ever wanted was me, but admitted the just a few days earlier, he made her make a choice and she chose me. He wanted her to either leave me or stop the affair. She couldn't make the decision at that time so she chose me. But wanted to remain friends with him. And it was at this time that I realized how much I loved her. It's like when they say you only know what you have once you lose it. Ever since that day, I know how much I care for her. She's my world. Always has been.
It's been a little over four months since I found out about the affair. Things are MUCH easier than they were initially. In the beginning, I couldn't even eat. For days. And I mean nothing at all. Everything looked, tasted and smelled disgusting. At this point, we're in marriage counseling. She seems committed to making our marriage and relationship work. We don't fight anymore at all. We're closer, spend more time together and are more open than ever before. But I'm still dealing with the after effects.
Neither of us have heard from my friend since I found out. She eliminated all contact with him and obviously I did too. But I still feel a lot of anger toward him. I have every intention of attacking him the second I see him. He was always the kind of guy who liked messing around with married women. He would pull women in by finding out what was wrong in their relationships and fulfilling those empty spots in the relationships. I'd seen him do it before. Several times. And I knew he'd try with my wife, but I didn't think she'd fall for it. I had warned her early on to watch out for him and so did a few other people we both know. But like I said, I trusted my wife until the very end and at this point I don't fault myself for trusting my wife. Doesn't stop me from feeling stupid about the whole thing, though.
We've since been to two sessions of the counseling and they don't seem to be helping me all that much yet. I'm still pretty depressed about the whole thing. I haven't gone back to work yet. Which doesn't help with the depression. Not working makes me feel like I'm not providing as I should be but at the same time, I am having a hard time being away from her for too long.
I'm in a weird place at the moment with trust. One one hand, I trust her fully again because she's so much different now than she was when the affair was going on. Every single one of the red flags are gone and she's been more loving than ever. It's hard to imagine her doing this again now or in the future. But in the back of my mind, I'm reminded of the fact that she had my full trust before and still was able to do this. So at this point I've confused. Do I trust her full again or not?
And she's told me that she now wants to be a better person and keep the lies out of our relationship. I've assured her that she can tell me anything and I'll be supportive. There's no reason to lie about things anymore. There's no reason to do things without telling me in fear that I might get mad at her.
Some times I feel like I should leave her, some times I feel like I want to have more children with her, sometimes I feel like I just want to pass away so that I don't have to deal with ANY of this anymore.
At times I have a hard time putting it out of my head. Other times I'm fine. There's even been times recently where I just want to sleep all the time. No real appetite. And on top of it, in a strange way, I feel bad for her that she has to deal with me when I get like that. I feel bad for her most of the time.
One of the biggest things that bother me to this day is that she fell in love with him. She ended all of her emails telling him how much she loved him and assuring him that no matter what happened, she would always hold him in her heart, always dream of him and always miss him. That's hard to live with. And I'm not even sure how to.
Just thought I'd share my story on a few forums. Always looking for advice.
Thank you.