Almostrecovered

alas, after some really solid wonderful years of growth and happiness we ran into some bad luck

About 2 years after the birth of our second child my wife's legs kept feeling like they were asleep (pins and needles) and the feeling wouldn't go away. After several doctor's appointments, an MRI and a spinal tap (which she had a terrible reaction to), she was diagnosed with MS.

We both were stunned and scared of the future now. We were now looking at expensive drugs (even with insurance) to "maybe" help my wife's condition as she could look forward towards relapsing and remitting lesions on her neural network. Possible blindness, paralysis, wheelchairs etc

Fortunately, in the 8 years since her diagnosis, her condition is considered mild compared to some cases. Plus with new drug tests on the horizon my wife's outlook is much better now as it doesn't appear she will end up in a wheelchair or have anything too dibilatating. Nevertheless, we didn't know that then and it was something that weighed heavily on my wife. Even today, the facial tics and numbness in her fingertips drive her crazy.

And it weighed heavily on me as well. Yet because of my years of needing to suppress negative emotions due to my bipolar disorder I'm afraid I didn't address her the illness the way she needed me to. I know this now from after dday discussions but at the time I projected a apathetic attitude towards her MS, I felt that if I did this I can alleviate her stress if I made her think it wasn't a big deal.

Aside from the MS, my wife started to become unhappy in her job. Without going into detail, she worked a hospital job. She had the same amount of education and training as a nurse but her particular field never paid as well, never got recognition that others did and she had to deal with a lot of hospital bureaucracy. Add the fact that she is a wallflower type of personality she often felt left out of the group of coworkers.

Thus we decided together that while she was still young (almost 30 at this point), it would behoove her to go back to school to get a masters in another related field that would make her happy (sorry wont say what), get more money and more recognition. The problem was that in order to afford it and also have time for school and work at the same time she had to take the graveyard shift at a different hospital. (this also allowed us to pull the kids from day care when they werent in school)

This move proved to be a huge mistake, I believe it affected her MS negatively due to lack of sleep, it affected her emotional well being and we now spent a lot less time together and only slept in the same bed twice in a week. Thus our sex life dwindled to maybe twice a month as a result.


My wife and I viewed her night shift as a necessary evil that would eventually be over and something we would slog through to get to the golden ring.


Of course, having been lonely at night with the kids in bed and the wife at work I began to spend way too much time on facebook and playing dumb games like mafia wars and some online poker. I now started to divert my attention to reconnecting with old friends instead of where I should have focusing more.

I will say that even though I had reconnected with old female friends I purposely allowed my wife to view any and all emails/FB messages that she wanted to and if I ever met with them I always tried to get my wife to join us and never put myself in a spot where we would be alone that wasn't a public place (and no bars) and always tried to include husbands. Mind you I didn't go galavanting around too much either, I had maybe gone out about twice a month if that.

so as we near my wife's affair I can say that looking back we had problems that weren't being addressed. But I was complacent back then, I didn't think we had anything too earth shattering to deal with.





I know now that complacency is your enemy

southern wife

Have you ever considered writing a book?

Almostrecovered

thanks for the compliment

before dropping out I was an English major and I have always enjoyed writing, prior to the affair I blogged regularly but stopped since I knew that all that would come pouring out of my blog would be crap about the affair

southern wife

You're welcome. You are a good writer for sure. This "book" is definitely hard to "put down". But I have no choice, because it's not finished.

Almostrecovered

sorry for the spurts, I do have to work and doing this at home isnt an option as Id rather be playing with the kids, having sex with the wife or enjoying time with family.

southern wife

Oh no, don't be sorry at all. We completely understand. We'll all just go pop our popcorn and wait patiently for the next chapter.

better than before

I can't stop reading either I think all our marriages got put to the side over the years; so good to reconnect with the one you love!
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Hijo

Thank you so much for writing. It is giving me the courage to consider telling my own tale of woe.

Fortunately, it appears your tale has a happy ending. Unfortunately, I don't know about mine yet.

Almostrecovered

Part 3-

A-storms a-comin'

Since I always had the luxury of friends to talk to and do things with and my wife really hadn't, for years I always encouraged her to go out and have a break from the kids. Through our passive aggressive delivery system of sarcasm, I knew that she was jealous of my more forward approach socially and the ability to get out and about. Thus I encouraged her constantly, "Why don't you call up so and so and go have coffee for a bit?" But she never could muster up the nerve to do it. Her reasoning was that if people wanted to hang out with her they would call and since no one ever does this then why should she. (typical shy/lower self esteem think)

Thus when she started to talk about a group of people who she started having fun with during her dinner break (or whatever you call eating at 2am) I felt happy for her. As I stated before, she never felt "included" in her previous job so this was a good change for her I thought.

She shared with me the personalities of these people as they were a mix of hospital workers, techs, and security guards (both male and female). She talked about their gossip, they way they joked, etc and nothing seemed inappropriate. Sometimes they would as a group go out after work and get breakfast. She was always enthusiastic about talking about her new friends, so being the good and supportive husband I expressed happiness for her.

Over these months my wife started to lose weight. While she was never very fat and was always very attractive to me after the baby, she did start to look better than she ever had before. Due to her MS, she also had other neurologically related disorders including migraines and fibromyalgia so she was taking medicines like Topamax that also contributed to appetite suppression. Unfortunately for me, I was the heaviest I had ever been. After quitting smoking I gained 35 lbs and never took it off and I gained even more through poor habits and too much ice cream.

Despite my weight gain, the other change I noticed during this time period was that my wife was really starting to come around sexually. She became bolder in initiating and expressed the willingness to try new positions, clothes/undies, watching porn with me and uh.... new orifices. I figured since she just turned 33 that she was hitting her sexual peak, so I was not going to complain about this in the slightest bit. It was enjoyable yet at times I felt as though I couldn't keep up with her desire and started to fear my performance levels weren't up to snuff.

August comes and I notice that she was starting to talk about how cool a certain male member of the group was. His sense of humor was similar to mine, he liked to cook like me and my wife (a foodie), he was expecting a baby in September and she was excited for him, and he owned a humidor and knew all sorts of things about cigars. Despite being a smoker for most of my life (I was quit at this point), I never enjoyed the heavy flavor of cigars but my wife would on rare occasions enjoy smoking one. Thus it was something he could talk to her about that I couldn't. I started to feel a twinge of jealousy as his name kept popping up. She became facebook friends with him and started to interact with him more on the same stupid games I was playing like Mafia Wars. Note, that in my usual passive aggressive manner, after seeing his picture and noticing that he sure did look a lot like me, I made joke to my wife that she was a chubby chaser.

At the end of August, my wife asked if I would mind if she and a group of friends went over to his house after work to try some of his premium cigars. I started to feel really jealous at this but held my tongue as I felt that if I was going to go out with friends then she could and I shouldn't be controlling. It was with a group, the guy was having a baby any day now and thus I shouldn't worry. I felt I was being silly for feeling jealous and dismissed it. I guess my gut was screaming at me and it was well founded.

The day she went over to his house was August 31, 2009.

Almostrecovered

Part 4-

The affair and D-day

That morning before she went to bed she called and told me that it was fun and that everyone had a good time. During the next 2 weeks, I heard hardly any mention of Mr. Cigar guy and felt relieved and started to get comfortable that my jealousy was for naught and patted myself on the back for doing the right thing by allowing myself to trust her in that situation.

I believe it was a Wednesday when I was at work one afternoon and our son's teachers knew to call me instead of my wife for any issues since she slept during the day. The teacher called and was asking me what dates were best for my son's next IEP meeting (he has ADD). I told her that I thought my wife emailed her (as she told me she did) and I would check with her and get back to her the next morning. I went into my wife's email to see if the date was discussed in any emails with the teacher. I saw nothing in the inbox so I looked at the outbox. That's when I saw a few emails from my wife to Mr Cigar Guy.



My wife isn't the most tech savvy person in the world and it was obvious that she didn't realize that she needed to delete outbox emails if she wanted to hide something from me. (she clearly deleted inbox emails that corresponded) These emails had clearly shown that he was coming over to my house 2-3 times a week the past 2 weeks. While nothing overtly sexual was being said, there was certainly a flirty playfulness to them as they called their meetings "appointments".

At this point I could feel my face flush with blood, my heart started pounding so much you could see my shirt pulsate, my mind raced the same way as it does when I get manic and all I wanted to do was to react. I lost control of all logic and all I wanted to was get home.

I printed out the emails, and then ran out the door, shouting to my brother as I left "I have a personal emergency, I can't tell you why but I have to get home!!" I rushed home in a tizzy, the drive usually takes 25 minutes but it only took 17 minutes and I'm shocked to this day I didn't get pulled over for doing 70 in a 35mph zone.

southern wife

My god, this is a nail biter. I'm on the edge of my seat!!

Almostrecovered

As anyone who goes through trauma knows, often certain memories get burned into the brain despite the fact that we are so worked up at the time that we aren't thinking clearly. It's an odd occurrence that while the event is happening that our brain makes our senses so heightened that we take in so much of our surroundings yet often get frozen in action or just merely react instead of thinking. It's obviously a survival instinct when the flight or fight part of brains gets activated.

I stormed through the house and up the stairs to our bedroom. I can still remember the smell of the beef stew that was in the crock pot simmering in the kitchen. I can tell you that it was a nice sunny day of around 76 degrees. I can even tell you the fact that my wife was sleeping on my side of the bed when I came to confront. Why I remember such a weird and inconsequential detail is beyond me, but I can still picture what the scene was like in all aspects as I flipped the light switch on (we had room darkening shades for obvious reasons).

The dog laying on the bed at my wife's feet got startled and barked for about 3 seconds, waking her up before I had the chance-

Her (groggily) - What are you doing here so early?

Me- Could you please explain to me why the F@CK you are having a man over to our place without me knowing about it?!!!

Her (woke up real fast here)- W-w-what do you mean?

Me- Guess you don't realize that you need to delete outgoing message, now answer me!!

At this point she got the old deer in the headlights look and there was silence for maybe 5 seconds.

Me- Well maybe when you have the answer, I will come home!!

I stormed out and shot off in my car, picked up some smokes and went straight to a nearby bar. My hands trembling so much I couldn't hardly light the first cigarette I had in 2 years.

useable

me too

Almostrecovered

It was a truly weird scene at the bar, there were maybe 5-6 other guys and one middle aged woman sitting around the bar. Each one had at least a chair in between the next person as to not invade personal space. No one was talking to one another and everyone seemed to have had their faces buried in their drinks or phones. The bar was so quiet that only the TV's with ESPN highlights flickering made any noise. I didn't mind this at all as I was looking to do the same, yet I couldn't help but wonder if I would end up like these poor souls. Always sitting in a bar in the middle of the afternoon alone yet surrounded by others.

I ordered a beer and despite it being really frosty cold, I managed to hork that sucker down in 3 gulps. I nursed the next one in maybe twice the amount of gulps. This time in between gulps I was pausing to think that I was now "one of those guys who got cheated on" or "a loser divorcee who watches his love of his life get everything she wants while I die lonely." Just as the 3rd beer arrived in 10 minutes time since arriving, my phone rang in a silly ring tone that was assigned so I'd know it was my wife calling.

Almostrecovered

okay guys, sorry to say I will likely take a break until Tuesday (unless I get some time in the morning tomorrow)

obviously, you can see how much I was doing wrong at this point but I can promise I eventually wised up

have a great weekend folks