Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
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Originally Posted by Jellybeans
That is good you saw the counselor. It's nice to talk to an objective party who has no clue about your personal life, to let it all out.
When does your wife go see the MC?
When will the couple session be?
RIG, a lot of people have really amazing sex after cheating is discovered. I have no idea why that is but I've read it on this very forum before and I can attest to it as well in my situation. It's weird, right?
I personally don't believe in soul mates ("Hole" mates LOL).
My wife has her MC session today. It's very liberating to be able to talk to an objective person. I'm not quite sure when the couples session will be. He said he wanted to meet with us individually for a few weeks. As far as the sex is concerned. Yes it's really weird. I almost feel like I'm doing something wrong. I'm just glad to know other people have experienced this as well. It makes it a little less weird for me to know that it's somewhat normal. I read on SurvivingInfidelity.com that it was called Hysterical Bonding.
I don't believe in soul mates either. I think that's a bunch of crap. Marriage is what you make of it, and it requires great effort and care. If my marriage ends in D, the next relationship will require the same effort and care. It may feel like soul mates in the beginning, but I know from experience life will step in at some point in the relationship.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Enjoy the hysterical bonding while you can, its fantastic!
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Originally Posted by RestlessInGeorgia
I don't believe in soul mates either. I think that's a bunch of crap. Marriage is what you make of it, and it requires great effort and care. If my marriage ends in D, the next relationship will require the same effort and care. It may feel like soul mates in the beginning, but I know from experience life will step in at some point in the relationship.
Ah, but the affair partners do while in their affair. Here's a funny cartoon made by marzipan there from SI mocking the whole soul mate thing. These are based on the emails and texts that she discovered between her WH and the OW.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Quote:
Originally Posted by RestlessInGeorgia
After all of this happened, I cried out to God to ask why he would allow this to happen to me. I never got an answer, directly. But, the first thought that came to mind was the story of Jesus and the Adulteress. As she was about to be stoned for having an affair, he stepped in and told the crowd, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone." Since guilt had set in on the crowd, not one stone was cast and the crowd dispersed. Jesus then turned to the woman and asked where her accusers were and whether they had condemned her. She told him no one did and he responded, "Then neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin."
This story hit me like a ton of bricks. It not only dealt with a cheating spouse, but also showed me that I'm not innocent either. It spoke to me on many different levels. It told me that I too have sinned, and will continue to sin against God, but he still showed me grace. It showed me that Jesus was willing to forgive for adultery, shouldn't I show the courage of my beliefs and at least entertain the thought of forgiveness and reconciliation? Don't I owe this to the person I claim as my lord and savior? I know the bible states that God hates divorce, but it also says that a marriage can be put away for infidelity. Jesus said it "CAN BE", not that it has to be. I believe the reason for this allowance is because of the pain caused by the total betrayal and that God knows this pain is very hard to overcome.
I, too, had these thoughts. That story popped immediately into my head. Also, the "God hates divorce." and "Except for adultery," pieces. Yes, scripturally, we have the right to divorce our wives.
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Originally Posted by RestlessInGeorgia
I now know that if I forgive her, it's because God forgave me. I know that it will be his grace, not mine. I also know that if I can't, God is not ashamed of me. So, I think I owe this to myself to try and forgive the biggest transgression ever brought against me.
Even if you don't believe in God, Jesus, or any other deity, forgiveness is good for the soul.
I had not been to church in years. I also grew up in the church. I have started back, mostly due to the affair. One night, we had a huge fight (verbal, never any physical fight. I have never hit her or any other woman.) I do believe the affair is finally over, yet I was harboring very much anger, bitterness, and resentment. This particular fight was 98% my fault and it was in front of the kids. I was ready to walk away. The next day, I went and talked to my counsellor (Christian pastor and marriage counsellor). That night, I went to church. Guess what the topic was? Forgiveness. Something hit me hard that night.
I realized that forgiveness wasn't so much a gift that I could give her as it was a gift I could give myself. Part of the Lord's prayer is "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I don't want to get into a big theological discussion between law and grace, etc. I wrote a long letter to my wife the next day. I told her I forgive her. I laid out in detail what I was forgiving her for. With each sentence, I felt more and more peace.
Now, that has been a week ago. I don't know if reconciliation will work or not. To be quite honest, my heart isn't really into it. For the kids' sake, I will give it some time. Mainly because the affair is over. However, I feel 100% better. I don't know if my marriage will work out or not. I do know that conscience decision to forgive has given me internal peace.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
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Originally Posted by HurtinginTN
I, too, had these thoughts. That story popped immediately into my head. Also, the "God hates divorce." and "Except for adultery," pieces. Yes, scripturally, we have the right to divorce our wives.
I had not been to church in years. I also grew up in the church. I have started back, mostly due to the affair. One night, we had a huge fight (verbal, never any physical fight. I have never hit her or any other woman.) I do believe the affair is finally over, yet I was harboring very much anger, bitterness, and resentment. This particular fight was 98% my fault and it was in front of the kids. I was ready to walk away. The next day, I went and talked to my counsellor (Christian pastor and marriage counsellor). That night, I went to church. Guess what the topic was? Forgiveness. Something hit me hard that night.
I realized that forgiveness wasn't so much a gift that I could give her as it was a gift I could give myself. Part of the Lord's prayer is "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us." I don't want to get into a big theological discussion between law and grace, etc. I wrote a long letter to my wife the next day. I told her I forgive her. I laid out in detail what I was forgiving her for. With each sentence, I felt more and more peace.
Now, that has been a week ago. I don't know if reconciliation will work or not. To be quite honest, my heart isn't really into it. For the kids' sake, I will give it some time. Mainly because the affair is over. However, I feel 100% better. I don't know if my marriage will work out or not. I do know that conscience decision to forgive has given me internal peace.
I know that I have to forgive her, eventually, for what she has done. I'm just not sure about reconciliation. That's why I don't want to make any rash or quick decisions. If I divorce her, I want to know that it was the right thing to do. I want to be able to walk away from this marriage without a thought to whether we could have reconciled. I know that only 35% percent of marriages survive affairs.
It's hard to have the person you are closest with, betray you so completely. I accept the part I played to lead up to the affair. I was young, selfish, uncaring, naive, and stupid. I will, however, never accept responsibility for her choices. NEVER. She created this whole mess, it's up to her to do the heavy lifting to help fix it. My part is to try to get some normality back in my life and recognize her efforts to help me through this. The gravity of what she did has hit her like a ton of bricks and she is doing the heavy lifting that she should be. I don't know how long it will last. Only time will tell.
I haven't even told her that I'm entertaining the idea of reconciliation. In fact, I've told her only that I don't know/see how/if this can be repaired. I don't want her, for an instant, to think that I condone what she did, or absolve her for her grievous betrayal so easily. In the meantime, I am engrossed in self-reflection and working on me. I want to be the best me I can be, for me and no one else right now. I have enacted my own 180 and will hold firm. I may seem like I waiver from it in some of my posts. But, the thoughts in my head, stay in my head, or are expressed on TAM, for right now regarding forgiveness and reconciliation.
Our situations are the same, but different. You and your wife have children together and me and mine do not. Stay strong, my friend, we will survive this and come out better on the other side regardless of the outcome of our marriages.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Quote:
Originally Posted by lordmayhem
Enjoy the hysterical bonding while you can, its fantastic!
Ah, but the affair partners do while in their affair. Here's a funny cartoon made by marzipan there from SI mocking the whole soul mate thing. These are based on the emails and texts that she discovered between her WH and the OW.
I love the satire of how utterly ignorant the WS and OP are. "We are in love. My d!ck is perfect." XtraNormal has always been one of my favorites, I can't believe I haven't seen those before. Thanks for sharing the link. I have a good mind to show them to my wife, so she can see the absolute absurdity of affairs. I probably won't at this point though.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
^ Your situation is also different from TN's in that he is always there for his wife, no matter how much cheating she does. She has continually walked all over the chances he gives her and she has had an ongoing affair for almost a yr.
It sounds like you make no promises to her and that to me, is good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lordmayhem
Enjoy the hysterical bonding while you can, its fantastic!
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Quote:
Originally Posted by RestlessInGeorgia
I know that I have to forgive her, eventually, for what she has done. I'm just not sure about reconciliation.
I believe forgiveness and reconciliation are 2 entirely different matters. The forgiveness has set me free from the constant anger, bitterness, etc. of dwelling on the affair. Whether we reconcile or not remains to be seen. As long as certain conditions are met, I am still willing at this point to work in that direction.
It's like the Cherokee story of two wolves.
An elder Cherokee told his grandson that two wolves were fighting inside of him. One was good (happiness, contentment, peace, etc.) and the other was bad (anger, bitterness, hatred, etc.). There was a contstant struggle between these two wolves. He told the grandson that these wolves were inside of him as well. In fact, they were in everyone.
The grandson asked which one would win.
The grandfather answered simply, "The one that I feed."
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellybeans
^ Your situation is also different from TN's in that he is always there for his wife, no matter how much cheating she does. She has continually walked all over the chances he gives her and she has had an ongoing affair for almost a yr.
It sounds like you make no promises to her and that to me, is good.
I just love that they call it "hysterical bonding."
And I've seen those cartoons before...hilariuos!
Hey, the marriage counselor said "Forgive me for the analogy, but it seems you are sticking a flag in the ground and claiming the land as your own." I think I laughed for a good 20 seconds.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
I just saw the cartoon... the funniest **** I've seen in a LOOOONG time. If I were still in contact with HER I'd send it to her. I'm laughing my ass of as I write this... Oh man, it just kills me. About the hysterical bonding- Did you find your wife attractive in that way EVEN after you found out she gave herself to another man? I don't know if you've read my posts, but my STBXW wanted me sooo bad to do her after her revelation. Needles to say I was completely turned off by her by that time. She would actually undress right in front of me as if nothing happened. I put a stop to those shinanigans REAL quick. It seemed so fake and almost like she was giving me a mercy f!@#k or something out of pity. I never touched from that day on. I resorted to self stimulation- how pathetic , huh. On the bright side I got to screw every Hollywood actress I had a thing for; then again it was only in my mind... ha ha.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
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Originally Posted by sexuallyfustrated
You don't know how men accpt this from women? Wow but women should be use to it and take the man back because it's different , it's a man. I have heard this reasoning from so many ppl and it's not cool. What are you really saying with this in terms of women and men and affairs?
I have stated it very clearly before that I'm not here to give women advice since they get plenty of it from other women/friends/family/oprah/etc. Im here to give men advice. I dont condone cheating either way and I know I didnt give that impression with my post. I speak from a man's POV to a man and I don't know anything about dating a man so I leave it to women to give advice on male infidelity.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
RIG, I think you blamed morituri for a comment that I had made-the 2% one.
No, I am NOT condoning an A with a cheater, but the 35% comment made me think of my 2% one, and I just threw it out. Maybe, what I was trying to say was, I still think that you have a good chance to save this, 35% or no. Whether or not you stay is your decision and you have, in my opinion, every right in the world to divorce her, but I wouldn't let some statistic sway my decisions.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
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Originally Posted by F-102
RIG, I think you blamed morituri for a comment that I had made-the 2% one.
No, I am NOT condoning an A with a cheater, but the 35% comment made me think of my 2% one, and I just threw it out. Maybe, what I was trying to say was, I still think that you have a good chance to save this, 35% or no. Whether or not you stay is your decision and you have, in my opinion, every right in the world to divorce her, but I wouldn't let some statistic sway my decisions.
I apologize if I came across as blaming anyone for the statistics. That was definitely not my intention. I just can't see how any relationship can survive, that was born out of an affair. Anyone in their right mind would assume the other person is going to do the same thing to them. I guess this is why the percentage is at 2%. That just means those 2% are just idiots.
Right now everything is still raw. I can't seem to go 5 minutes without thinking about her affair. Today I am in full-on rage mode because of stupid mind-movies. My wife asked what was wrong with me this morning and I told her that she should know what's wrong and shouldn't even have to ask. She said she just wanted to know if she had done something wrong last night or this morning and I told her no she hadn't, but that she probably wanted to leave me alone for right now. I haven't gone into full-on rage mode since D-Day more than the first week after, and only twice this week. I know since I'm only 11 days out from D-Day that I shouldn't expect anything less.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
How has your wife been acting lately? Does she seem guilty or remorseful to you?
Sorry about the mind-movies. I wish I could tell you they stop, but they...don't. They may go away or lessen with time but you'll always have triggers. I"m divorced and still have them! Crazy, huh?
Re: affairages... some do last. It does go against the odds and what is expected though. My aunt's husband left her for his nurse/other woman eons ago, married her, and they're still together. He's a total alcoholic though and not a good man.
But I agree--it's a poor foundation to start a marriage or any good relationship on. The distrust/mistrust/knowledge that you both caused a lot of damage to a lot of people is not good. Most people who end up together as a result of an affair almost always say they wish it wouldn't have happened "that way." That's very telling!
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
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Originally Posted by ahhhmaaaan!
I just saw the cartoon... the funniest **** I've seen in a LOOOONG time. If I were still in contact with HER I'd send it to her. I'm laughing my ass of as I write this... Oh man, it just kills me. About the hysterical bonding- Did you find your wife attractive in that way EVEN after you found out she gave herself to another man? I don't know if you've read my posts, but my STBXW wanted me sooo bad to do her after her revelation. Needles to say I was completely turned off by her by that time. She would actually undress right in front of me as if nothing happened. I put a stop to those shinanigans REAL quick. It seemed so fake and almost like she was giving me a mercy f!@#k or something out of pity. I never touched from that day on. I resorted to self stimulation- how pathetic , huh. On the bright side I got to screw every Hollywood actress I had a thing for; then again it was only in my mind... ha ha.
I read your story and have feelings of great sorrow for what happened to you. 2 years of her having an affair and her ending the affair when she was ready to settle down and have children with you. I would get the same feelings that you have. I think you are making the right decisions for your circumstance.
To answer your question about finding my wife attractive after finding out about the A, no I did not and at most times still do not. After finding out about it, I told her not to touch me in any way. I told her I would sooner let her lover touch me, than to let her touch me. I felt this way for the entire first week. I was cold, I wouldn't undress in front of her. I showered separately from her. I normally sleep naked, so I slept with pajama pants on, still do today, and probably will for an undetermined amount of time. I would go about my daily routines and not even glance at her. I stopped telling her I loved her. She no longer got a kiss good-bye or hello or before bed. She tried to touch me once last week to pinpoint a spot on my back that was hurting. When she touched my back, my skin crawled and I recoiled.
Then, last Sunday, I couldn't really explain it, but we had an argument that ended in us sharing repressed feelings and emotions that we hadn't expressed to each other before. I felt the sincerity in her voice and she felt it in mine. We went to bed and laid there staring into each others eyes. I know, corny, right? Then before I knew it I was tearing her clothes off in almost a primal manner. I was so turned on, I felt like I couldn't control it. We then had the best sex we've ever had in our entire relationship. Afterwards I laid awake for most of the night thinking I had made a huge mistake. I made sure she knew that the sex didn't absolve her of her affair and that I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do. She said that she understood.
Well, since then, we have had sex every night except for Tuesday. The only reason we didn't Tuesday was because her muscles were aching from the sex and over exercising. But, we resumed Wednesday night and probably will continue for god know how long. I think I understand why this has happened to me. Subconsciously, I am trying to break any emotional and/or physical bond she had or still has for OM. Trust me, it's started working. She's flirting with me again through texts and I flirt back even though my heart's not really in it right now. I see she is trying to make an effort and I don't want her to feel like I don't notice it. How long will this new change last? I don't know, only time will tell. If I feel the marriage can't be like this most days in the future, I'm walking away. I know everyday is not going to be perfect, and I know everyday will be a struggle but if she puts in the effort and I reciprocate in kind, I think we can build a beautiful marriage, born from much hurt. That's really the only hope I have and I need to figure out if it's possible and I can move past the A.
Does she deserve forgiveness and reconciliation? Hell no she doesn't? But, I have to know that if I divorce her, I have given my all to this marriage and can walk away with no regrets of leaving her.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jellybeans
How has your wife been acting lately? Does she seem guilty or remorseful to you?
Sorry about the mind-movies. I wish I could tell you they stop, but they...don't. They may go away or lessen with time but you'll always have triggers. I"m divorced and still have them! Crazy, huh?
Re: affairages... some do last. It does go against the odds and what is expected though. My aunt's husband left her for his nurse/other woman eons ago, married her, and they're still together. He's a total alcoholic though and not a good man.
But I agree--it's a poor foundation to start a marriage or any good relationship on. The distrust/mistrust/knowledge that you both caused a lot of damage to a lot of people is not good. Most people who end up together as a result of an affair almost always say they wish it wouldn't have happened "that way." That's very telling!
She does seem remorseful. Right now I'm still not convinced of whether it's about the affair being exposed or whether it's about what she's done to me. She listens when I talk about her affair and seems very apologetic. We just started MC this week, so now is the time for me to start figuring out if this can be turned around.
Do you believe your uncle is an alcoholic because of marrying the woman he had an affair on your aunt with? Does alcoholism seem to be his way of dealing with the guilt, or is his current wife not the gem he thought her to be? I know you probably don't have the answers to these questions. It seems to me that life has repaid him for what he did to your aunt.
Re: Found out wife cheated first year of our marriage,7 years later 
XtraNormal has always been one of my favorites, I can't believe I haven't seen those before. Thanks for sharing the link. I have a good mind to show them to my wife, so she can see the absolute absurdity of affairs. I probably won't at this point though.
They may go away or lessen with time but you'll always have triggers. I"m divorced and still have them! Crazy, huh?
