# The truth comes out and I am ok with it!



## Commited1 (Nov 13, 2009)

Ok, I have some long posts in the "considering divorce" section that explains things in detail under the subject header "my god help...."

In a nutshell: Things were REALLY BAD with my wife for 20 days. No conversation, no affection, no sex....nothing. The most she would say to me is absolutely nescessary things like, "Your work called while you were out". She would not talk about it. Period. She would not even say hello or goodbye to me. She was ALWAYS playing her face book game and talking to her face book people. It tore me up pretty bad. 

I took a stand, established some boundaries of behavior and stated rationally, if sternly, my side of things to her through email, always reminding her I love her unconditionally and will work through anything with her. The ice started to thaw just a little bit. 

I will admit I was a pig through the summer, prior to those 20 days. I went to work, came home, and played video games, and flirted with anonymous women online, constantly ignored her attempts to have any kind of meaningful interaction with me, or even just to hang out with me. I was affectionate and friendly, I was just neglecting her. On top of that I was complaining about her not picking up my laundry and washing it for me, not having a lunch made for me when I got to work etc.

I am 38, she is 29. We have 4 kids under 5 years old. 

When the ice started to thaw something happened that I thought was a stroke of luck (it kind of was). She has an online friend that is around 50 years old, a marriage councilor whos wife had died last year. They had been friends for a few years now. She sent me an email saying I am lucky he is her friend, because he was encouraging her/giving her reasons to stick it out with me. 

Well that night the three of us had a 5 hour chat/session together in which a consensual and structured method of trying to work on things was hammered out and agreed on. Note- that 20 day period of no attention to me caused me to turn my act around about 80%, making major contributions to cleaning the house, cleaning up after myself, not complaining about anything, and trying to spend as much time with her as possible and giving up playing any video games.

After that the floodgates of affection and sex opened up and she was super super cool to me in a way that I know is genuine. I felt some of this to be guilt related because she always goes over the to do nice things for me when she feels guilty about something. 

One day she leaves her laptop open and goes to the store. I wanted to check my email (which is on yahoo), and I click on yahoo and low and behold its her account already signed in. Now I already have all her passwords and stuff (we gave these to each other years ago) so if I ever wanted to really snoop I could. But at that moment I was curious so I went through her sent messages. 

Oh boy! Everything seemed normal and right until I found one email to this guy- the old friend marriage councilor guy- describing how she feels about him, how she thought about laying her head in his chest, what his scent and warmth must be like, how that they spend so much time together and share so much together that he feels like a mate to her, and how she feels all warm and tingly when she imagines standing beside him holding his hand. Also in the email she said (to him) "I know you feel this isn't right and its not fair for me to think of us like this because it is not what I really want, but I can't help how I feel at this moment..." DOH!

She came home from the store and we had a talk. I felt deeply gouged by this. I had always told her that feelings are never wrong and I would never hold it against her if she had feelings for someone else as long as she told me about those feelings. She obviously had feelings about this guy and failed to tell me about them. We had a long talk, and I did most of the talking with her being quiet and sheepish and shedding a tear. She wrote me a full tablet page message (kind of angry) and I wrote an angry one back at her on the other side of the page. These messages were pretty much lists of what we had done wrong to each other. This was before work so I spent all day at work thinking about this. 

At work I came to the conclusion that in the time frame of the email, I was neglecting her, and she simply sought attention and affection, and grew feelings for someone that was there for her. Not that it was my fault. She should have told me. But, imo, her feelings were reasonable under the circumstances. 

I got home from work and we had another long conversation, this time with her doing allot of the talking. She said she never met him in person (he lives like 400 miles away) and her feelings for him really peaked (in terms of romantic feelings) for about two weeks, after which he said they needed to not talk to each other for awhile and would have to take a break from any contact for a few weeks. I asked her if he would have had her would she have gone and she swore she would not have, that there was nothing I could do to make her leave me, at worst she would stay and make me miserable. 

That night we had a spontaneous renewal ceremony- we lit candles around the bed, poured two glasses of dry champagne. The candles were arranged in something like a ring around us. We played (on the pc) guitar music that we have made together (ya we both play guitar) and a mix of other music. 

We took the "angry note" from the morning and both agreed it represents the past, and with both of us holding the note we held it over one of the candles until it caught fire then we put the flaming angry note in a big marble ashtray. As it turned into ash we lifted our cups and each made a vow to make a clean start (along with some other pretty positive and productive words), we clanged our cups together and each took a deep drink. 

Then we sat sipping our champagne talking about how it represents a new start for us. She put her finger in her cup and withdrew it, dripping with the champagne and circled her finger on my lips...I did the same and we kissed passionately. 

Kissing became intense and one thing lead to another and we were making love. After that we sat holding each other for a little while and I noticed a couple tears in her eyes. I asked her what she was thinking of and she said all of the things we had experienced together. There were some really strong emotional things that we share, good and bad. We went over them and soon there were many tears from both of us. 

We shut the light out and went to sleep holding each other. 

Things have been real good since. I am late for work and will post later something I learned from this. 

For now though, I feel really ok with everything though it seems like her 'emotional affair' should be bothering me more. 

Ok, I wanted to add to these that she deleted her facebook accounts, her yahoo email accounts, and agreed to not talk to the 'old friend guy' who she had feelings for earlier. She made a new yahoo mail account and gave me the password etc. I did the same, deleted my FB and yahooo stuff.

Ok, what I learned and what I hope she learned is that you can't take things for granted. Relationships and how ones actions might be affecting them, has to be checked every day. It is easy to slip up, apologize, and then slip up again becauuse there were no terrible reprocussions, and then just get into the habit of slipping up. 



any comments/suggestions?


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## swedish (Mar 6, 2008)

Nice update! It looks like she was really looking for love, affection, appreciation from you and now that you are plugged in and there for her I can see why you don't feel threatened by the EA guy...first, he did not respond to her and second, she agreed to end contact and seems fully plugged into your marriage as well.


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## hurtbyher (Nov 19, 2009)

It sounds like you both have learned together. I made the same mistake 8 years ago , not giving my wife enough attention, and we recovered. However she was back to her old ways and actually had 2 affairs this time just a year ago. I was doing everything right. Don't stop giving her attention and keep a watchfull eye and ear for the signs. You have to work hard to keep each other happy. The biggest thing is comunication. We also made a plan to meet for lunch once a month and two weeks from that have a date night on the weekend nearest our wedding anniversary. It is easy to fall into the old routine and neglect each other. Good luck and glad to hear things are going well.


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## Commited1 (Nov 13, 2009)

swedish said:


> Nice update! It looks like she was really looking for love, affection, appreciation from you and now that you are plugged in and there for her I can see why you don't feel threatened by the EA guy...first, he did not respond to her and second, she agreed to end contact and seems fully plugged into your marriage as well.


Thanks! This still haunts me occasionally, but (like everyone else) I have a choice in how I am going to feel about it. It is important when I am bothered by it, to choose right consistently.


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## Commited1 (Nov 13, 2009)

hurtbyher said:


> It sounds like you both have learned together. I made the same mistake 8 years ago , not giving my wife enough attention, and we recovered. However she was back to her old ways and actually had 2 affairs this time just a year ago. I was doing everything right.


Ouch...sorry to hear about that. The most painful part to me is that I was kept out of the loop. The idea and solidarity coming from "us against the world". Like if she said she needed x, or was feeling x, I would not hold it against her as long as she was totally honest and as long as someone else wasn't getting something from her that she wasn't giving me. I can handle that. I CANNOT handle lies and someone getting something from her that I am not. 



> Don't stop giving her attention and keep a watchfull eye and ear for the signs. You have to work hard to keep each other happy. The biggest thing is comunication. We also made a plan to meet for lunch once a month and two weeks from that have a date night on the weekend nearest our wedding anniversary. It is easy to fall into the old routine and neglect each other. Good luck and glad to hear things are going well.


You are right. We agreed on date nights, but have slacked on that. We both agree to catch that up. She is getting truckloads of attention though, which she is sucking up like a nuclear powered vacuum cleaner. I am realizing that to some women, attention is to them what sex is to men. They crave it and it is almost physically painful when they don't get enough. 

I don't really need attention. Hello and goodbye, affection....if I come in from being out, I want her to want to get off the phone or pause the tv or close the computer and talk to me for five minutes. I do that for her, and she is coming around to doing that for me. If I really want to talk occasionally, I want her to want to talk too. 

What she needs and what I do not need, are constant hours long conversations about nothing. I am coming around to the idea she just wants to spend time with me. Even if we aren't talking about anything. Long periods of time where the other person is the focus of attention. Even in silence. Honestly I kind of hate that. I like it sometimes, but normally no. I like to do what I like to do and if she wants to do it with me, I am happier to do it with her than alone. But if she doesn't than oh well. But we are learning to compromise.


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