# WH WW -Whole story (long)



## BhereNow (Aug 14, 2019)

My wife, 40, and I, 49, met just before she turned 20. We had a daughter together when she was 21 and married a year after . We will have been married 18 years this October. Our daughter is 19 and no longer lives at home.

I had an EA with the mother of my first two daughters, born when I was 15. The EA happened 4 years ago this past July. The mother of the girls and I never really had a relationship, we were kids, and the girls are now grown and married with 6 of my grandchildren between the two of them. The EA also coincides with my starting to drink again after about 20 years of sobriety. The girls’ mom was going through a divorce at the time and I was talking to her on the phone a lot. We would spend hours and hours on the phone talking about everything and about nothing. It was wrong of me to do this; It hurt my wife terribly. After catching me on the phone talking, she got ahold of a lot of flirty texts. One text even said I would pack my **** and leave to come live out there, but I was never really serious. I never would have left my wife, but this is inconsequential -I was incapable of seeing the damage it did to my marriage. I considered it all a big misunderstanding. I did not change much, though I did cease all contact with the girls’ Mom eventually. After about a year into “recovery” from this, my wife was at the point of wanting a divorce. She was still very furious over everything. She was furious that I ignored the way she felt and that I did not see that I had done anything wrong. 

We would have terrible fights over the intervening years. I was smoking lots of weed and drinking -she was not ok with me being checked out. The truth is I had been and was checked out whether drinking or not. She would call the cops on me in her anger at me misbehaving and drinking away… trying to numb my own pain. One night I was torturing her with my words and would not leave her alone. I grabbed my gun, racked a round and said go ahead and call the cops again then. I went to the bedroom, set the gun atop a dresser and went to bed. I woke up to the police drawing down on me with multiple weapons -they sent a whole swat team. I was never really violent, but she did punch me in the face once after learning I was smoking pot. They chalked it all up as a misunderstanding and me having a few too many.

After one such altercation and placing my hands on her and telling her, “she had no idea of who she was messing with” I did go to jail. Our daughter confirmed what I had done. I would accuse her of trapping me when she got pregnant with our daughter. I was deluded and a complete idiot. I would say terrible things to her. The DV charge was dismissed. I tried to get sober. I was confused. I learned that my wife had quit paying the mortgage and was spending the money… somewhere. We were about to lose our house. She told me she wanted a divorce. I begged her to not do it. I did not know or suspect that there might possibly be more going on. I did not suspect in the slightest that possibly she had shared herself with someone else. How could she do something like that? I was a model husband. I had done nothing wrong. Sure I drank a little too much but we are a family. I started to drink again and continued to drink. 

We would fight over my drinking as we were both miserable. She tried to take a bottle from me and I pushed her face as we were fighting over it. I went to jail again -nearly a year to the day after the first time I had gone. This second DV charge was dismissed after some time. I tied to quit drinking…. again. Again I started to drink. Our lives were in shambles, but she did hang on. She may have sought the comfort of others during all this. I am trying to accept this. I believe that I drove her to it. She did it very discreetly if so, but I am awake now and I see all the times that this had to have happened. I see that it is my fault, but I do have moments where I am not sure I can accept it. 

She insisted I move out and I did. I went to live with my Mom. I had suspicions that something was happening even back then, but I ignored it as there could be nothing like that happening. I would come home for “visits” and then go back to my moms to drink. I begged her to give me another chance. I would quit drinking for a time, but then she quit paying the mortgage and was spending the money somewhere. I started drinking again and drank for nearly two years, nearly completely checked out. We were still together -sort of… I was living at home, but yet our relationship was very surface. There were long dry spells of us ignoring each other. We slept in the same bed and had sex and good moments, but there was always the background of something was not quite right. I put it out of my mind as nothing like that could ever happen. She was home every night with me. She worked from home full time back then.

I got a good job and moved back home because it was closer. She tried to accept my drinking and we tried to make it work. I took off out west without warning to see my daughters and grandchildren. I saw their Mom as well. I did not sleep with her, but I did see her. My wife was upset, but she couldn’t do anything. She must have been terribly hurt by this, but I think I had hurt her so much with all my actions that she was beginning to become numb to what I did.

I was drinking huge amounts of alcohol. I would drink all night and then sleep real quick and go to work. This had to stop. I have not had a drink since last October, shortly after our 17th anniversary. I was at a point where I could see the destruction I had caused and just wanted to accept the past and be happy with my wife. I was at a point of complete spiritual bankruptcy. Somehow I had acquired a very good job in the previous year and also wanted to keep it. I wanted to keep my wife. I loved my family and was filled with dread at the fact that I was destroying my life. Mostly though I needed to quit drinking because I was dying inside. I just wanted to feel ok. I am broken on the inside and no amount of alcohol or drugs can fill that void. There is only God that can make me whole.

In hindsight I don’t believe I ever took full responsibility for the EA and the damage that it caused. My wife did have records of me calling her again. I did take off to go see the girls and my grandchildren. I am aware that this is all my fault. I have been disconnected from my wife for years. I am trying to change and make up for the past. I want to rub out the record and be a good husband and father and productive member of society. I see what a terrible husband I have been, but as I really begin to examine and look at our marriage, I see that perhaps there are reasons that we have been disconnected and everything is not entirely my fault

It was in October of 2009 that her Dad died. It was devastating for her. She was very depressed. My brother was living with us at the time. I remember having very weird suspicions and on occasion I asked her. She had the same revulsion expression the she had thrown up many times from previous suspicions when I was deployed and came home and asked questions about her and other men. I really feel like this has been pervasive… that it has been going on for years with other men. Men have alluded to me over the years that my wife was coming on to them, but I always ignored it as that is crazy. You are crazy to think that. I am wondering if her Dad dying is what really began a cycle of cheating in our marriage and possibly her desire for excitement of being with other men. Again in hindsight, I believe that our disconnectedness has always been there. I knew something was going on… I think subconsciously I have always known. 

About 6 weeks ago, before I went into this suspicion tail spin, she said that she was having libido issues and just didn’t feel like sex. She hinted that perhaps I should wait until she was ready. After I accused her and also told many of our friends of my suspicion, she was very angry that “I really drug her name through the mud”. There is a guy I work with and used to drink with that lives around the corner from us that I began to suspect, I have brought him to my house. There have been things that happened that really show the glaring truth. I went to his house and accused him in front of his wife. **** really hit the fan with this. My wife was beyond upset with this and said I dropped a bomb on us. She went to his house to explain to him and his wife that I am deluded. This has caused problems at both work and home. I am confident that something has happened as I wake up and think about it, but I have zero hard proof. Many things happened that I cannot explain easily with this scenario, all point to the fact that something was going on during the day (he doesn’t come to work until well after noon most days and he knows where I am). 

I told her that I may hurt myself and had transferred my retirement savings back and forth from a joint savings to a personal savings unsure of what to do. I was going crazy. She said if I was going to leave because I don’t believe her, then anything that happened would not be her fault. She is not going to be in a marriage where she feels like she did something wrong. She did not do anything wrong she claims. She is not going to admit to anything because nothing happened. She called me after I told her what I was contemplating and said she was not going to leave, that I did not have to leave, but she was going to “handle this” in her own way. A few days after this I believe she slept with someone… she was extremely happy and I could tell that she had had some very good and relieving sex. She had a glow about her and was very very happy. 

Memories and things said and all manner of instances began to come to my consciousness. Her face went ashen when I said I talked to my brother and told him what I suspected. My brother simply told me that he suspected that my wife had been doing things well before the issue with my oldest daughters’ mother blew up. He told me about a time when my wife came on to him, but he said he “shut it down” and that nothing happened. He never told me about it because he didn’t want to cause trouble and ruin my marrige. As I put everything together, I believe he cannot tell me what happened between my wife and him as it would make me hate him… or perhaps it would devastate me to the point of doing something terrible.

The past month I’ve accused her many times and begged her to just tell me so we can get it out in the open and begin to heal. This is when I thought it was something that happened in the past when I was on a drinking tirade. This has made her very angry on more than one occasion that I would say this. She tells me that she has been “so good to me” and I know this is true… she has always taken good care of me. She is always cooking and cleaning and doing things for me. She says that if I don’t believe her then we have a big problem. I have been grilling her in hope that the truth will come out or perhaps I can make her say something that will cause me to believe her. We are now at the point that she is not going to be grilled and not going to worry about what she says or if she can look at her phone. Perhaps all the grilling is what has put the kibosh on her extra activities. She is not currently getting constant iMessage texts that she has to delete. She isn’t constantly hiding her phone. She knows I have the password, but I think that she knows that to change it would be to admit guilt. I think it’s possible that she has resorted to more secretive means of communicating with her lovers. 

I confronted her about a text conversation on an app called kik I found on her phone -she was talking to another man. A lot of it was very flirty. She said things like she works from home and that her marriage was pretty much over due to drugs and alcohol -this was in Jun 2017. I have seen lots of other messages of her reaching out to other old boy friends. It hurts, but perhaps this is just another thing that I have to accept.

I have access to her phone, but unsure about the account password to install apps. She always has her phone on her. She is very smart though. I believe she uses Snapchat and other SM smartly. She is very emotionally smart.... much smarter than I am. I am an engineer. She knows me very well… she can tell when I go dark with suspicion.

The suspicion has been going on for months since we went to a retreat for recovery. She had a very good time, but she shared some intimate details about our sex life and I think it sent me on this roller coaster ride. A lot of inadequacy feelings and then I began to think about all the times I suspected her with other men and memories of details about suspicions began to come to my consciousness. The night before last we went to a place where someone I think she cheated with at the retreat was there. I think because she saw the guy she cheated with she got her high of having seen him and me in the same room made her giddy. She was very comforting in the car and happy on the way home. I could tell she was just placating me. I thought for certain she had plans to meet at our home the next day. I thought for certain I would catch her the other day, but all was normal. 

I had no idea whatsoever until recently that my wife would eventually resort to sleeping with other men in our home. I don’t know how to handle this. I have no hard proof other than circumstantial evidence and a gut feeling, but it is pretty strong. She is admitting nothing and just wants us to be happy and forget the past. I am tying to forgive and forget, but the nagging feeling is still with me that she is currently sleeping around. I am hoping that this is just something that happened in the past, but the details are making me crazy. How long did it go on. Is it still going on…. Etc… etc…

I am in the “hysterical bonding” pick me phase right now. I know it. Lately she has been withholding sex. Perhaps this can be from all the negativity I have brought, or perhaps this is because she truly doesn’t want me anymore. That she just succumbs to my advances out of duty. Our love life is definitely not the same. It “feels” different and I know about when it started to feel different. About a year and a half ago she began crying after sex and I really suspected that it was guilt, but she said nothing. I could tell that something was amiss and I just put it out of my mind.

We went on a lavish trip recently and a lot came out. I was very depressed the next day. I thought I could handle it. She never came out and said anything specific, just generalities. Things like if you can get oner this and be a leader for our family I will follow you. She has nearly told me a few times, leading with, “if you are ready to have and adult conversation”. There are many other instances of her alluding to the fact that she has slept with someone, but my gut tells me it was many others and now I believe over years.

We had sex last night. I was unable to climax with thoughts of her with other men. I don’t know what to do. I feel like I can try to ignore what I believe to be the truth and just pray and think good thoughts. I feel like it may be me that is ruining my marriage… that I can just choose to focus on good things and ignore my suspicions and live a happy life. I am insane with jealousy and feel like I am in my own private hell. 

She claims she loves me and wants to be with me. I want to be with her. I have contemplated suicide at any other thought. I love my wife and Just want to be happy. I want this nightmare to end. I want to just accept her love and be happy. I apologize for the very long description of the current situation, but I want to give a clear picture to ask for clear advice. She is not going to say anything outright. I only want to know if there is current lovers that she cannot quit seeing. I just want to be free of suspicion and move on with life. I am very worried that I do not satisfy her anymore and it is taking me over. I do not know how to recover from this. Any and all advice will be greatly appreciated.


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## alte Dame (Aug 7, 2012)

Buy a few VARs and plant them strategically in your home. You may not catch her with another man, but you might hear her conversations with friends/family that will throw some light on it for you. And if there's nothing in the recordings, perhaps you can quiet your gut and commit to a better marriage.


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## BhereNow (Aug 14, 2019)

I just realized that there is a limit on amount of text apparently. I posted a pretty long diatribe. I guess it has to be posted in smaller pieces. Sorry about that!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

If you have a long story to post, you might want to type it up in something like MSWord, then cut/paste the text into a text window here. That way you don't lose a lot of stuff that you typed.


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

I think that the first thing you need to do is to work on yourself to get to a better place emotionally. It does sound like you are living in a hell of your own making. 

Your first step should probably be to get into individual therapy. Get checked out by a doctor to see if some thing like anti-depressants would help you. It's very usual for a person who is going through all that you have to fall into a depression. Anti-depressants would not dope you up. Instead they calm down the voices in your head and help you get ahold of your emotions.

The only person you can change is yourself. So that's where your focus needs to be. If your wife wants to join you in making positive changes, that's up to her.

Another thing, it's not clear from your post if you actually have any solid evidence that your wife has ever cheated. If you do have evidence, what is it? Please be brief in describing it.

As you can tell, whether your wife is cheating or not, her response will be the same. "No, I did not, or am not, cheating." So stop asking her if she's cheating. Stop going to other men and accusing them of cheating with your wife. Just stop. Talk to a counselor about all this and figure out a better way to handle things.

There are more things you two can do to restructure your relationship, but you cannot possibly do that until you have helped yourself.


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## StarFires (Feb 27, 2018)

You say you have circumstantial evidence to suspect and accuse your wife of cheating, but all I see is that you contrive the circumstances to fit your suspicions. 

If your wife is cheating, you can't find that out by writing a novel about your gut feelings. It seems like accusing her to yourself, to her, to your neighbor, to your neighbor's wife, to your brother, and all the other people you accused her to weren't enough. You had to get on the internet and accuse her to as many hundreds of people as you could find. That's the way it seems because you have been accusing her for yeeaarrs, but nothing has come from it. You have used her own words against her to make her appear guilty of something that she just didn't quite tell you about. You have used her tears to accuse her. You used sex to say it felt like she must have done something. You really need to calm yourself down and get some help. 

Everybody knows about nanny cams these days. Why haven't you bought one yet if you wanted to try to catch her? Your first post said you were going to surprise her and walk in to catch her in the act. Whatever came of that yesterday? If she's cheating, why couldn't you catch her in the act?

You don't have any idea if your wife is cheating on you or if she ever did cheat on you. But you would have done something to catch her by now if you really wanted to. It almost seems like a neurosis with you, so I think you should see a doctor for the stress and distress your suspicious nature is causing you. And place a nanny cam somewhere in the house if you want to confirm your suspicions.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Sorry...

If she has cheated on thou, you may not morally 'deserve' it, howsoever, you certainly have earned it.

She should have divorced you long time ago, why she hasn't, shows her 'stuck' devotion.

It shows 'something'. She likely cheated to save her sanity.

This behavior by her is certainly wrong, yet, she certainly has remained 'legally' married to you.

And, through everything 'you' have put her through.

Alcohol destroys brain cells, so does pot. I suspect you have shed (some way too many).

I too, believe she has found comfort and love outside the marriage.

So what.....now?

Let her go.

Both of you deserve some other, less drama-filled fate, this, your present state of living.

It seems that your wife can easily find lovers, just cannot find a new (and good) life partner.
She is, has settled with you.

This is sad.


KB-



If you truly want to make this marriage work, clean up your life, tell her that you want to improve yourself, and then do it.
Be gainfully employed.
Be pleasant to be around.

No more drugs and alcohol, none, zip, nadda one.


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## maree (Jun 13, 2011)

You don’t have any proof she is cheating. Before throwing out accusations you need proof that cannot be denied. Otherwise why even bring it up? All a cheater will do is deny deny deny. Quit bringing it up to your wife. Also don’t tell family, friends, neighbors etc about suspicions without proof. You can do a lot of damage to innocent people - coming late to work is not proof of cheating with your wife!!

Your wife should have divorced you years ago - many if not even most women would have by now. It sounds like you have not treated her with any respect or behaved like a man. So it’s no wonder she may be seeking love and respect elsewhere. I don’t know if your marriage can survive even if there is no cheating - you have violated a lot of boundaries in your marriage.

I’m sure it’s not 100% your fault but from what you’ve explained most of it is. The drinking, the abuse, threats of violence, cheating (on your part)... I think it’s taken a toll on your wife. How much can you expect her to take before she seeks what she wanted and dreamed of having from a man elsewhere?

I agree with other posters that you can only fix yourself. Get professional help with your previous addiction, get a handle on your emotional state, finances, and create some stability in your life. Stop accusing your wife of cheating with no proof. Get the proof first and then confront. VAR, keyloggers, getting access to her phone/emails (all without her knowing) is where you should start.


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## personofinterest (Apr 6, 2018)

You have zero actual evidence your wife is cheating.

You are basically scrambling to deflect from your OWN unfaithfulness and the fact that you cant dictate how she feels.

Own your stuff.


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## BhereNow (Aug 14, 2019)

You have all had some very powerful and clear advice. The message is the same from everyone else I have spoken with also. Basically I am the one with the problem. I have been through some very hard things and learning all this has been very humbling. I am ready to be a better person for my wife. I just need to take action and stop trying to think my way into good action. All I have ever been is talk. I just hope it is not too late for us, but the real truth is that if it is too late, there is nothing I can do to change that. I need to own my own stuff, and realize that I cannot change the past, I can only live in the now. Thank you all. I love this forum and the honest advice given.


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## [email protected] (Dec 23, 2017)

Oh, these people are disturbed. Intense counseling might get to the bottom of it.


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## VermiciousKnid (Nov 14, 2017)

I truly believe you two are the worst things that ever happened to each other. My God, the drama. I think it would be best for you two to stay together to confine the drama to your lives so it doesn’t affect others. Whew, what a story.


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## Marduk (Jul 16, 2010)

I think that once you resort to threatening to hurt yourself to frighten your spouse into compliance when neither of you actually want to be in this marriage is way beyond the scope of anything anyone can say on a message board.

You need to to talk to somebody, man. Likely with PhDs next to their name.


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## Sparta (Sep 4, 2014)

Dude I feel for you get the hell away from her and Run as fast as you can.! she’s super tramp and not the band.! Get a lawyer get away from her.! just Get out go away dude she is playing you like a fiddle.! And why would you want to be with someone that foul and disgusting and has no respect for herself and of course you whatsoever. she’s not your friend she’s worst in a ***** OK.! Guy.! get away and have some self-respect I mean dude she’s got to have some kind of STD. Ask yourself this why do you think so little of yourself and want to be with her I mean if people are divorced for way less you want to reconcile she don’ ask yourself this why do you think so little of yourself and want to be with her I mean if people divorced for way less you want to reconcile she don’t.!


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## cdbaker (Nov 5, 2010)

WOW. Bherenow, I'm going to say the following not be be hurtful in any way but to be very very honest. She should have left you a long time ago.

Cheating is always wrong, no matter the circumstances, period, but she should have left you. There was a time in my own marriage where the same was said about me, so I understand how that hurts, but leaving an abusive, addicted spouse is perfectly reasonable. Cheating is not.

So is she cheating? As you said, you have no proof, and I question if any of your evidence or suspicion is grounded in reality at all. Did you find some inappropriate messages and such? Totally, totally inappropriate, but that really pales in comparison to your many sins towards the marriage.

My advice for what it is worth? STOP investigating and interrogating her immediately. Whether she is cheating or not, there is nothing you can do about it right this moment anyway, and even if you were to catch her, all you would do is get angrier and make it even more clear to her why she was led to cheating in the first place. Instead, go get yourself into personal therapy. Apologize to your wife for your behavior WITHOUT asking for her forgiveness yet, just explain that you're sorry for your many mistakes and you'll be working towards resolving them over the coming months and year/s. Honestly, even if she engaging in anything inappropriate with someone else, that will make her second guess her activities more than you busting her anyway. You can be the ******* who busts her for engaging with an illicit but exciting new relationship, or you can be the ******* that shows her that you realize you're an ******* and committing to not be an ******* anymore which makes her reconsider her illicit new relationship.

Seriously, stop focusing on her, and work ONLY on yourself for a while. It's time to eat crow, gain some humility.


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## Chaparral (Jul 17, 2011)

I’m at a loss. You’re an engineer but you haven’t been able to investigate her behavior at all. 

How do you know it isn’t your own guilt from being an alcoholic that you are projecting on her. Number one, I know for sure family keeps things from alcoholics. ALCOHOLICS CAN NOT BE TRUSTED. If you suspect things are going on behind your back you are probably correct. An alcoholic can ruin a harmless trip to the post office.

What evidence do you have? Anything? Why has she put up with you this long? Kids? 

None of this means she isn’t cheating. If you’re a drunk though, their could be orgy parties going on under your nose and you would miss it?


Have you checked her phone bill for frequent numbers? Have you bought voice activated recorders? Cameras? GPS devices? Have you hired a PI?

I know a guy that smoked pot many years ago. He had a girl that was the love of his life. While high he became convinced his girl of three years was FBI sent to spy on him. He was smart enough to quit pit right after that. You remind me of him.


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## aine (Feb 15, 2014)

Omg, you are on here complaining about the potential infidelities of your wife while taking little responsibility for your drinking and drug use. You blew up your marriage with your addictions yet are on here trying to pin it all on your wife. 
A typical addict who doesn’t take responsibility for his own side of the road. There is no way in hell you can come on here complaining about your suspected WW pretending it’s the same context as the other stories on here. If she cheated, she broke her vows but let me tell you having been married to an alcoholic all my life, you broke yours too, you abandoned her and she should have run then. She doesn’t owe you fidelity. 
Go sort out your ****, you are a bloody mess and your wife should have dumped your ass years ago, in fact she probably has, you are married in name only. And guess what your alcoholism caused the disconnection, you loved the bottle before her, now you are doing post-mortems to justify your actions and justify your drinking and drug use.

And of course on good old TAM the usual bull**** is doled out about VARS and investigation but no one talks about the elephant in the room. Please go on SoberRecovery.com and talk to people who have been on both sides of this scenario and get some reality checks. You need them.


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