# Help...is my marriage over?



## makaveli (Jul 8, 2010)

My wife cheated on me 7 to 8 months ago. It all started when she was out of town for two weeks for her job and she was there with a guy from her work. I wasn't threatened by this guy since he was out of shape (my wife is all about fitness) and not to sounds rascist (he was black and she told me she wasn't ever attracted to black men). So I thought nothing of her going out of town with this guy. Well we have a daughter who is 2 1/2 yo and we purchased a home 1 1/2 years ago. So I thought we were good. 

Well the whole time she was out of town she was going out every night and partying. We use to live in this town so she still had some friends. Well she call me one morning two day before she comes home and tells me she woke up in her room and doesn't know how she got there. I immediatley tell her to start calling the people she was with so they could help her out...she sounded like she was guilty of something when I was talking to her. Well she called me back and told me the guy she works with came and picked her up. The next day she tells me we need to go to marriage counseling because she is not happy..so I agree with her to go and work out things.

Now she is home and she tells me right away that things are going to be different because she wants to talk on her cellphone outside so she can talk with her family and girlfriends not in front of me...cause it makes her uncomfortable. I thought that was very suspicious.

So she was going outside every hour and talking on her phone and telling me she is going out for girls night out every couple of days. Well one day she tells me she wants to talk to me and she tells me she wants seperation. Now all ofthis was sudden and way out of left field...everything she was doing was unexpected behavior. She was all about being married and the family life and now she is the totally opposite.

Well I give her the space and move into a friends house. We talked and I started to do some investigating to see if she was lying to me. Well I looked at the phone bill and found this number she constantly called so I called it and a man answered. I looked at her work roster which has everyone phone numbers on it and it was the man's number that she was out of town with. Now when I say they talked on the phone...it was calls in the middle of the night and texts w photos as well.

So I played along so I can find more stuff out and installed a digital voice recorder in our house. I even put one in her car. Well I guess she found out about the phone bill and baught a prepaid phone. 

The stuff I found out from the calls was devistating...she made it sound like I moved my stuff out of the house, I was looking for an apartment, we talked about splitting our stuff up etc.. And this was the stuff she was telling this guy. 

Now I am at a picnic where we are all at and I walked up to her and kissed her in from of him. She seemed really uncomfortable with it. Then she said she wanted to hang out with her girls. So I left after the guy left. She told me she was going to be a couple of hours late home and I went and picked up our daughter and waited at the house. 

She comes home and I tell her I will be right back. I get the digital voice recorder from the car and listen to it...well as soon as I left she called him and was complaining about the kiss. He asked her to come over to his place and she said ok but that it was broad day light out and that he can't give her a guilt trip about leaving early.

This was the straw for me and I went home and confronted her about this. She told me she would stop and even called him and told him they can't talk ever again. I found out the pics she sent him were of her breasts. But she flat out denies sleeping with him or anything sexual (which my gut tells me is a lie). 

So now a couple of weeks go by and she is acting strange...so I follow her. I catch her calling him on a pay phone. She said she did it to see if I would follow her which is a bull**** excuse.

I told her that on want to work on things through marriage counseling and if I catch her doing this stuff again then it is over.

We go to marriage counseling and stuff is getting better. She doesn't work with this guy anymore and he is deployed for 6 months. The one thing she doesn't bring up is the infidelity and even goes so far as to say she didn't cheat on me.

Well we have been good on and off mainly because I am trying to get over the whole cheating thing. But she continues to stick to her story but I know in my gut she is full of it. The other night she tells me that we can't ever talk about what happend again because it pains her to relive through that and if I bring it up again then we will get a divorce. This all came after I asked her to take a lie detector test so that I don't ever have any worries again about what happend. She said she would until the talk about never mentioning it again. It seems like as soon as she knew I was going to find out the truth thats when she got mad about about it. 

She basically told me I have to forgive her which I am working on but she is not giving me the opportunities to do...instead she gives me threats. I love my wife unconditionally and want things to work out. If I didn't then I would of been out a long time ago. There is so much more to this but I can't possibly type it all out right now. Please help me and let me know if my marriage is capable to be saved or is it ruined forever? Thanks


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## Wolf359 (Jun 10, 2010)

You know she did, but I think you should just let it go. If you know deep down that she did, but is too embarrassed to say leave it at that, if you can. It will be hard, but try for your kid. Maybe she has came to her senses now. I would try to let it go, for 3 months. No talking about it, except in counseling. I think your wife is a alpha wife. She will not admeant wrong at any level right. If she does it again, I think you have your answer. Make sure you still watch her very well. Key logger, new cell phones, sink the cell phone if you can, voice recorders etc... I hope it goes well for you.


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## Orion (Jul 17, 2010)

makaveli,

I am sorry that you are going through a bad time. Feel free to take this with a grain of salt but here it goes. Your marriage may not be over but it's probably permanently changed. Right now, I am sure that you have serious (and understandable) trust issues with your wife. Even with counseling, these might linger. Even if you get over the trust issues, it is possible that you might never look at your wife the same again.

Also, I understand your wanting your wife to take a lie detector test. I believe that she isn't trying to take one, and does not want you to ever bring up the infidelity again, because she has not been forthcoming with the truth. See, you don't need a great memory when you tell the truth. You need a really great memory when you lie. She does not want you to know that things went a lot farther than she let on.

I can't see how your marriage can survive if you have lingering doubts about our wife's truthfulness and character. Unless SHE decides to address this, I think that you'll have a rough road. If she does choose to address this and make a strong effort to be the wife that you married, I think that the marriage can be saved. You might not ever look at her quite the same but that does not mean that you cannot have a successful marriage.

One last thing, don't be bullied by her threats. She screwed up and if anyone needs to be on eggshells, it's her. Good luck.


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## Chris Taylor (Jul 22, 2010)

Continue the marriage counseling.

After my affair, my wife and I went and it allowed her to vent/complain/***** about what I had done. but the marriage counselor also said that after that grieving period, you have to move on.

Now, "moving on" may be divorce or it may mean a stronger marriage but you have to be allowed your period of grieving for what happened AND be able to put it behind you to make the marriage work.

If you continue to live in the past, it won't.


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## blownaway (Dec 11, 2010)

I'm so sorry. I hate the fact that we have new members on this site every day. Cheating is apparently an epidemic. 

As far as your situation goes, I have a big problem with her dictating the terms of how you are going to fix the marriage. No talking about it, no details, no nothing. From what I've seen on this site and from what I've read, that's not the way to go about it. She's not giving you the assurance that she is going to be totally transparent and do whatever it takes to repair the relationship. Even if she doesn't have the opportunity to see this guy again (at least not for the next six months), she obviously had some void she was trying to fill and that's where the affair and the deception came from. In your gut, you know that she slept with him or had some physical contact with him and she doesn't want to come clean. She won't admit because she is either too ashamed or she is still in her "fog" of denial. 

This is just my opinion, but I think it's a mistake to try to move forward by just sweeping it under the rug. She wants to do that for her own selfish motives, not to protect you or to show you that she wants to repair things. If it keeps going like that, be prepared that once this other guy comes back from his deployment, she may run right back to him. There is a lot of work involved here - you're willing to do it now, but I suspect the more she resists, the less likely you're going to want to turn this around. Good luck!


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## myhope (Dec 9, 2010)

lots of people tell you to "move on" or "get over it" or "forgive". none of those really ever seemed possable to me--like people giving advice without knowing really what they were saying.

the best phrase i ever heard--maybe it was on this board or maybe another, i can't remember right now. but the best thing you can hope to do is "accept". getting over it, etc may fall into line after that--but "accept" is really all that can be asked for. it requires nothing from the other person, just an honest look at yourself and where your life is now.


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## CH (May 18, 2010)

Wow, so what I read was, wife cheats, wife lies, and you have to be the one to forgive her and not ask questions.

How about a quick boot to her behind and right out the door. If I tried that crap on my wife with my affair, I would have probably been out the door myself. I've taken all the blame and told her it was an EA and full blown PA affair. I did not go into the details of the PA but that's between my wife and I if she wants to know or if I even want to tell her the exact details.

If you need answers, she should give them or else it'll eat you up and you'll end up slowly resenting her until that resentment turns to hatred. Then you'll wake up one day and say WTF, I just wasted XX years of my life with this POS person. Trust me, that little voice in the back of your head will keep on talking until you either hate her guts or you just don't care about anything anymore to dull the pain.

Plain and simple, you either go along with the status quo and leave things alone until it happens again (it will since you two have never resolved the problem that caused her to cheat in the 1st place, and she'll think she got away with it once and she can do it again), or you make a stand and have her take the lie detector test or else.

Once you find out the truth, that will open a new bag of worms for you. With confirmation will come a billions questions as to where, how, etc... You will want all the details, the cheated always want all the details of an PA. Can you stand the truth at that point, was he better, did she like it better with him or you (sex wise)....

You're sitting on Pandora's box right now...


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

From my experience, I could not and would not move on with my wife until I got my answers. She hated her self and it was god awful for her to talk about her cheating. With that said I knew then that her consequences were not only going to be how bad she felt, but how even worse it was to talk about it. 

She understood the deal and said she "would do what ever it takes to work it out" so there I was listening to the ughly detail of 20 some odd lovers she's had in the last 13 years.

My imagination was no longer my enemy, I truely understand what want on. That was 11 months ago and I havent brought it up since October. It took about that long to get it all out with out her having a neverous brealk down.

See she understood the consequences and dealt with them, shes glad she did tell all, and shes glad that I gave her time. Now we can move forward all this crap is complete.....completely behind use.

Her secrets are out and my imagination is clear. Now that I've learned from her experience/adventures. I can give her the attention and valitation she was looking for. We go out and do some crazy things and we stay away from certain place. 

Its all out in the open and shes paid her dues to me and its over and done with. I mean it something I will never forget but I sure can forgive alot easier knowing the half truths and they are enough to get the picture I needed to move on(with her).

So the level of forgiveness, I believe is the amount of consequences/talk your wife wants to andure to help you heal.

I don't think your going to heal/forgive very well, thats my $0.02. Sh*t its been 8 months and the both of you are still stressing over it. Tell her to spill the beans, bring it out in the open, and get it over with, so that question stops eating you up.

Then you only have to stress about the fact that it happened, you wont be thinking about the sorted details.

Good luck and I hope your wife gets it.


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