General Relationship DiscussionAlthough anyone can post anywhere on Talk About Marriage, this section is for people interested in general relationship and marriage advice.
OK. 10 days ago my wife left me, then revealed she had been having an affair. I feel this was partially my fault for not meeting all of her needs. She feels very guilty too (although at first she did not). Two of our issues were communication and closeness. She works 12 hour nights and I work 12 hour days so we never see each other. Looking back on it, we should have known this wouldn't work.
Since then we have talked a lot and been to counseling. Neither of us is 100% sure our relationship can work. I want it to, she is ambivalent. The counselor convinced us to both stay in the same house, but sleep in seperate bedrooms. My wife agreed to stop seeing the other man until we have things worked out. She told me she understood how I felt about that and that she understands I am going to have some trust issues for a while. She said the other guy agreed to give her space.
Problem is, she works with him. Tonight was her first night back at work since everything happened. He wasn't there, but they share work schedules so he knew she was. Make a long story short a number I don't recognize sent her 7 text messages. We have an iphone app that lets us monitor our text usage so we don't go over, and after seeing hers jump 7 texts while she was at work, I looked at our online billing and saw they were all "received" from a number I don't know. At least she wasn't sending them.
Here are the two problems I need advice with:
1. How do I ask her about the text messages in a fair and mature way? I feel that even if the love is gone in our relationship that I deserve some level of respect. I thought she had asked him to leave her alone, and either she lied to me about that or he is not respecting her request.
2. How do I ask her to switch off of night shift? It is going to be hard to reconcile if we continue to not see each other. It is also going to be very hard if she sees more of the other man than she sees of me (which will probably be true over the course of the next month looking at her schedule). If she was giving it 100% to get our relationship back on track, I don't think this would be a problem but she is still unsure it can work between us.
1. So, they were all received? She didn't send any?
Ya know, even if she's keeping to her comitment, she can't stop the guy from talking to her. She did have an affair with him, so she can't pretend he suddenly doesn't exist. You can just be honest, say, hey, i noticed this. I didn't spy or anything. I just noticed. Now, given the situation at hand, i find it rather odd. I don't demand that you explain, but it would be nice if you would.
2. Tell her you really want to work things out, then ask her how hard or inconvenient she would find it to switch shifts. Mention how helpful that would be to your marriage. Again, this is just my opinion, but put it out there as an idea to fix things, never demand anything, never put on the 'but i'm doing/giving...and you aren't' face. That always, but always, annoys people and makes them detach. If you think it's fair, even a bit of 'manipulation' works, along the lines of 'remember when we started out, we got along so well...we can do that again, if only we had the time and open mind to do it'
In the end, you know her better. Plus, my thought on this is, when your mate isn't giving 100%, you are inclined to give less, for it to be fair. But, when you give even more, they tend to follow your lead.
Maybe you could keep it quiet with her, given she didn't send any. Maybe it's time to give the guy a call. Let him know you know. Tell him to leave her alone and the two of you have chosen to work through this. It's going to make it harder for her to get her head back in it as long as this guy keeps bugging her. Contact needs to be severed as much as possible.
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--M22
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud..... it always perseveres.
When she got home I asked her and she told me about the text messages.
I also brought up her switching away from night shift, and framed it as a "for your own good" because it has caused her to become depressed. She seemed receptive.
The problem, Mommy22, is that both of us have NOT decided to work through this. She is still living with me at the suggestion of our counselor, but she has decided that it will never work between us. Our counselor convinced her she should wait until her head is straight before making such a big decision but she is set that we will never work.
That is what is so hard, I feel like I am trying to do this by myself.
It's like salt in the wound. I'm sorry. If it's any consolation, the counselor has a solid point. Her head isn't in it because the other man is still fresh. If she can get him out of the picture as much as possible, there's a fighting chance-- a chance she'll come around.
I hope that's the case.
You know, the fact that she's receptive to a change in shifts and is open about the texts is a positive sign. Maybe she knows in her head what is best but her heart hasn't caught up. If she can physically do the right thing, her heart may catch up.
__________________
--M22
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud..... it always perseveres.
If I can get her to change shifts (which means seeing him much less) and help her with her depression I think we have a chance.
Looking over a list of symptoms of depression, they are exactly what I saw in my wife leading up to her infidelity, and they are exactly how she is acting now. She feels hopeless about our relationship and doesn't want to try to make it work because she sees no hope and doesn't want to hurt me anymore. Very classic depression stuff. She blames herself, she resents me, she doubts her self-worth.
I sit there and wonder who this woman is, as she is very different from the woman I married. From her perspective, she just knows our relationship is over and that it is hopeless.
It is hard- I vowed to stand along side her "in sickness and in health" but a sickness that makes her break her vows to me wasn't what I expected!
Hello there, I've been in similar situation. The advice I have followed myself is to be honest and ask the questions I have needed to ask. I haven't always asked questions that won't help me eg I know nothing about the woman my husband had an affair with although he did say at one stage I could ask him anything and he would reply honestly. I thought that if I knew she was 10 years younger or blonde might satisfy my curiosity but wouldn't help me feel any better. However I also feel I have a right to ask questions for reassurance so when my husband disappeared into study onto computer and appeared to be changing screens when I entered the room I asked him directly if this was because he was communicating with her. There have been other similar conversations. I've tried to ask at the time, in a non confrontational way. The thing is you have made an agreement with your wife, but you have no control over whether the other man will do as he is asked and stay away, so if he is the one texting your wife it could be that he sent so many texts because your wife was ignoring him. Give her the chance to tell you this too if it is the case. You have a right to honest communication and your wife should understand that you will need reassurance if you are going to get through this. Lucy
I would be extremely cautious with what you perceive being truthful vs dishonest from her. I only say this because I went through what your going through now, just played out significantly different than yours. You may already know this from the counselor but she is going to go through some significant stages in her recovery process of this affair.
She will mourn for him if she truly eliminates him. This part of the process will likely hurt you more than the others because of the resentment you feel because of her feelings for someone else and you will feel intense betrayal which you are already starting to feel.
She will probably lie a lot in the beginning, though this may or may not be exactly true with her. It honestly varies from one person to the next but I would believe it is a high percentage who will lie to "protect" themselves.
She will likely hide a lot of things from you. There could be uinknown email accounts, bank accounts, cell phones (prepaid), and maybe continued contact outside of work. This will probably drive you nuts but you do need to know exactly what is going on and you need to do your homework to make sure she is following through with any reconciliation she commits to.
She will also start out non commital to reconciliation in the beginning. Some people like her will never reconcile and finally commit to divorce. Some people realize their mistakes, truly realize, but depending on your situation it may or may not be too late once her eyes do open. At some point she will need to take a step back to you and your marriage but she will have to come to the realization of her actions and what she is going to lose.
I was told to do many things by my counselor throughout the half year process that I did not do. I was told to cut off all communications with my ex. I was told to serve her papers way back in the beginning to kind of let her know the door was closing. I didn't do these things and in the end I flat out divorced her for adultery. Mine has been messy and excruciatingly painful to go through. Yours may be the same but you also have some control over how it may play out. It is something that you need to spend a lot of time with your counselor on.
One last thing too. STOP blaming yourself for this. There may be some things that we have done to "push" our spouse to someone else but in all reality they had control over their decision making, not you. You need to remember this because one of the other things that a cheating spouse will do is play the blame game. They will blame you for their actions because they do not accept accountability at this stage in the process. You need to realize this because it is not YOU that cheated, it was her. That was her decision she made, not you. Your problems were something that could have been addressed from what you said were some of the problems and you can't hold the responsibility of this affair as your personal baggage too. You just can't do that to yourself. Don't forget this. You can change your actions, you can change what is going on in the relationship but don't carry that other baggage. That is her's to bare.
Also changing shifts isn't really an option to me. There is still potential contact before or after a shift. In all reality, she needs to change employers to completely eliminate him from her chance to see him. Otherwise you wont get anywhere.
Question for those who survived an affair
