wabashriver1

My husband and I have been married for over 21 years. We have 3 living children, we also had a son that died when he was 9 days old.

13 years ago, after I had my second child, my husband had an affair. He was 35, she was 19. At the time, I knew something was going on, but I wasn't sure what. He was late coming home from work, refused to touch me, was very distant to me and the kids. I found some graphic sexual emails he and she had sent each other. I confronted him with the evidence. He denied everything. He accused me of being crazy. He said it was "just" an email fling. Since I had no actual proof, I dropped it. At the time, our second child was having a lot of medical issues and I really needed my husband's support.

We went on to have 2 more children, including the one who died.

Then 3 years ago, when he and I were driving alone in the car on our way home after a social date, I said something offhanded about affairs. And he told me that they are not worth it. I asked him how he would know about that. He admitted that he had actually had one 10 years prior with the 19 co-ed. He said it only happened once and that it was a huge mistake. I freaked out. I screamed, cried, threatened to leave, etc. After several weeks, I decided not to leave over a one-night-stand from a decade prior. We seemed to do better, although he started having problems with impotence.

Fast forward to 3 weeks ago when I found out that the affair actually went on for a year and the girl ended up pregnant. She terminated the pregnancy. He says that he was never in love with her and that the sex was pretty bad. I don't know what to believe anymore. He has lied about this for 13 years.

We are currently in joint marriage counseling and individual counseling. My husband has a pattern of not having my back. He has been known to talk badly about me to other people. Since we have started counseling, I see that he has improved in a lot of areas. We have 2 special-needs sons who need a lot of extra attention. Taking them into account along with everything else, I have pretty much decided to stay married, however, I still feel foolish/stupid for believing the lies for so long. I am also very hurt and angry. My friends have all advised me to leave him. The counselor has been trying to get me to work on forgiving him. I am so conflicted.

His impotence has gotten worse since this has all come out. I have accused him of not being attracted to me anymore which he denies. I am just trying to figure out how to proceed from here.

Deejo

One of the core elements of an affair is lying.

A cheater lies to their spouse, lies to their affair partner, and lies to themselves.

Tragically, odds are that he emotionally reconciled his infidelity over a decade ago ... and because he chose to be dishonest, you NOW get to deal with it emotionally as if it occurred yesterday.

I have always found it somewhat confounding that a cheater will CONTINUE to lie about the details of an affair, even after the affair has been discovered.

My advice? Do not insist on further details about the affair if you have decided to remain married.

You know he betrayed you. You know he slept with someone else.

If you can work through and forgive him, then be open to that process. Forgiveness isn't about giving him a free pass ... it's about you enabling yourself to cope and move on without consistently being haunted by the affair or wondering what other lies your husband has told.

If you cannot let these things go, or he cannot make a sincere effort to rebuild trust and your bond ... then you should seriously be entertaining an exit strategy from the marriage. Staying would be toxic to yourself and the marriage.

__________________
"I figured out they were serious eventually but was thinking it was ridiculous. I wanted to kick them in the balls." - Trenton

accept

Well if he is impotent he wont be having another affair. I think you should trust your counsellor more than your friends.

AngryandUsed

This woman requires care and affection and her husband does not seem to be giving.

He is now getting more impotent, and OP has more problems to deal with in addition to the kids that require special care.

While I agree with Deejo, the issue is not as simple as it looks. There is a turmoil going on in OP. Unspeakable agony.
Sorry OP. Can you allow yourself cool down?

Thorburn

I would like to address one issue, his impotence. First I do not like to take the word of a cheater but he might be telling you the truth in that it may not have anything to do with his attraction to you.

I came back from Iraq in late 2009, my wife and I went to a hotel and I could not get it up. I ended up in severe pain down there and went to the E.R. All exams were normal and the E.R. doctor gave me Viagra and things worked fine. Fixed in less than two hours. My wife brought this up as one reason she cheated in 2011 that I had no passion for her when we were in the hotel. I had to remind her of the E.R. visit that after the Viagra the four hour of passionate sex where she had to tell me to stop as she was getting sore. She said oh yea you are right there was lots passion that night. Mentally I was ready to go full steam ahead but it took a pill to make the equipment work.

My lack of an erection had nothing to do with my attraction or lack thereof towards my wife - combat stress, stress in general, health conditions, medications, etc can all cause this.


In my case since the affair my wife is having problems. At first I thought it was how she thought of me. My WS can't or at best has a very difficult time achieving an orgasim due to the anti-depressive (citalopram) she is taking since she had the affair. Her libido is almost "0" due to this drug.

__________________
This kind of cosmic dumbassery occupies a temporal plane of ineptitude and lack of reason so profound a Zen master could spend a lifetime meditating upon its philosophical consequences.”

river rat

Wabash, impotence, as noted above, has many causes and aggravating factors, both physical and emotional. That's something he's going to have to work out. Re forgiving, forgiveness does not necessarily mean absolution. Read Janis Spring's book " How Can I Forgive You?" Sometimes the injury is so grave that absolution is not appropriate, but you can reach acceptance, which is also a form of forgiveness.

ishe?

My 33 yo husband recently had a year long affair with a 19yo, for her pregnant and took her for a termination! I can only imagine the grief of being lied to for all these years. If you want to pm me feel free... Seems we have more in common than we would both like!
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