# Infidelity struggle



## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

Hello all, 

I am currently struggling in the wake of finding out about my wifes infidelity.

Last week she got a call from her best friend who said that she thought her husband was having an affair and needed to talk. My wife ran out straight away to go and see her. I didn't think anything of this and hoped all was ok for her friend. The next day we were sitting down and something was clearly on her mind. She came out with the news that has now turned my world upside down. She had been texting her best friends husband on and off (Flirty etc..) for the past few weeks and it had culminated in a snog one night when she stayed at her friends house. She says she massively regretted it straight away and it had stopped short of anything else. 

We have been married for 4 years and been together 10. She had a son from another relationship who was 3 when we got together who is now 13 and we have a son together who is now 3. 

We have had issues for a while and a lot of it comes down to monotony and the rut we have become accustomed to. We have our routines for the kids and have discussed on a few occasions how to effectively get time to ourselves outside of our household to help get the spark back. This has always been a struggle as my wife is no good at opening up to me and has a tendency to internalise everything making it hard for me to really know whats going on. 

She had a traumatic time with her parents breaking up when she was in her teen years (Who are both now in relationships that seem to work for them). She then went on to get together with a guy that was abusive and nasty, unfortunately he is also my step sons father. (I adopted my son a few years ago to cut the dad out of the picture as he was a massively negative influence and made no effort to see my son for years.)

I have also had a very hard experience with my parents breaking up after a 10 year affair and so have always had trust issues that may have contributed to what has happened.

As for the infidelity, her best friend is also a work colleague. The husband of her friend was actually someone I was becoming friends with and had been to the pub 2 or 3 times during the period they were texting each other. My wife clearly wanted us to get on since day 1 and I had been getting on with him for a few months before. Watching football games etc... My wife is now in the situation where her ex best friend has gone mental and cannot stand to be anywhere near her, so now my wife is trying to find a new job so as to make a clean break of it. I have spoken to her ex best friend a couple of times as I think we needed to try and help each other a bit and I convinced her to not let this get out to anyone at the school as the gossips would destroy my wife.

The parts I am really struggling with at this point are:

1. Do I need to know all the details of what went on for those few weeks? She has assured me is was just the one kiss and is massively regretful and really wants to make a big effort to get us back on track, but i still feel that I need to know how far it went in texting terms.

2. Can I trust her from now on? This is hard because I really want to and she is so regretful and sorry that I could not see anything like this ever happening again.

3. How do I deal with all the emotions I am feeling? 1 minute I am up, the next I am way down and crying at the smallest things.

4. Should I get my own back on the guy seeing as he was posing as my friend whilst stabbing me in the back at the same time. This is the sticking point as he told my wife that he had, had another affair before and that he did not love his wife. Should I tell her ex best friend everything or let them work it out for themselves. My main concern is that I do not want it to get any worse for my wife in her job so haven't said anything yet. I am however desperate to really **** him over as it seems he kept coming back even after my wife had asked to stop the texting etc... 

5. Does anyone have any good book suggestions or websites that may help us to talk properly and openly. My wife has agreed that she is like a closed book and really wants to open up and talk about everything. 


The strange part of all of this is what has come of it for me. 

Firstly relief.... (Weird)

I have always had trust issues which have manifested themselves in my head as a deep paranoia of someone cheating on me. I have worked hard at this and showed my wife on many occasions that I trusted her but deep down I always think something is going on. Strangely as soon as she told me I had a weird sense of relief when I saw some true emotion from her.

Secondly ever since this came up she has been massively regretful and keeps on saying that she would never do anything to sabotage what we have here again. This has caused her to open up to me more than she ever has and we have been really intimate like we were in the beginning of the relationship. This is amazing and I hope and pray we can hold onto that feeling and make the relationship stronger than it was before!


Any advice would be great... It actually feels really nice just writing this down on here.. :scratchhead:


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## F-102 (Sep 15, 2010)

No matter how good things go for you and W after this (and I have a feeling that they will), you will always have that little devil on your shoulder whispering in your ear, telling you to assume the worst. You both should go to counseling.


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## jamesa (Oct 22, 2010)

RWB said:


> She probably is not being 100% truthful about how far her emotions and actions have gone. If you read here long enough, you will see that women caught in affairs seem to all say... "It was only a kiss", "It happened just once". Affairs are rarely that simple. Usually the truth is much more involved that when first exposed.


I agree. I don't think it is just women, I am sure men are the same. It will probably take a few weeks for all of the story to come out.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

Counselling is something I would love for us to do but I don't think we will be able to afford it...
_Posted via Mobile Device_


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## jamesa (Oct 22, 2010)

milkie81 said:


> Counselling is something I would love for us to do but I don't think we will be able to afford it...
> _Posted via Mobile Device_


Are you in UK? If so you might be able to get something on the NHS. I would also suggest talking to Relate, it is a great service and the publish excellent books on dealing with marital issues.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

I am in the uk, how does it work on nhs?

I have been on the relate website and have found it really helpful. There is a relate centre about ten minutes from my house as well...
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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

F-102 said:


> No matter how good things go for you and W after this (and I have a feeling that they will), you will always have that little devil on your shoulder whispering in your ear, telling you to assume the worst. You both should go to counseling.


How do u suggest looking at her phone records? Gonna have to try and get onto her my3 account I think..
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## jamesa (Oct 22, 2010)

milkie81 said:


> I am in the uk, how does it work on nhs?


Counselling - Live Well - NHS Choices

Try this link.


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## mommy2 (Oct 27, 2009)

milkie81 said:


> Secondly ever since this came up she has been massively regretful and keeps on saying that she would never do anything to sabotage what we have here again. This has caused her to open up to me more than she ever has and we have been really intimate like we were in the beginning of the relationship. This is amazing and I hope and pray we can hold onto that feeling and make the relationship stronger than it was before!
> 
> 
> Any advice would be great... It actually feels really nice just writing this down on here.. :scratchhead:


Yes, you can recover from this and your marriage can be better. (I know it sounds crazy but it's true) You will be on a roller coaster of emotions for a while, that's natural. The intimacy my H and I shared after his A was discovered was amazing. We were closer than we had been in years and honestly, maybe ever. The intensity was something I hadn't remembered. It's like we truly know what it's like or feels to maybe lose "US" and neither of us wants that. It's been just a year for us but we're still close as ever. And we communicate - so much better!! Just tonight - something that would have been a HUGE fight was me speaking my irritation, him hearing and being done. 

It sounds like she is truly sorry and that's great news. As for knowing ALL the details - that's your call. Decide what you can handle. Sometimes, when they are truly sorry, they may not be telling everything not to continue the betrayal, but to save you more hurt once they see the hurt they've caused.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

I had a sit down yesterday with my wife and made it clear that I needed to be 100% clear on everything so that I wouldn't be making stuff up in my head. She has not once made me think she is holding anything back from me and has answered every single one of my questions, as hard as it's been.
The part that I am now struggling with is that the more I hear and the More I think about it, the more I realise how much of a dirty back stabbing weasel the OM was. He acted like a friend to her, drew her in and then started with the compliments, my W asked for it to stop, which it did until the next day or so when he would act all normal and like a friend again. I am finding it hard because all I want to do is destroy him. He acted like my friend and clearly had other intentions from day 1. It makes me sick...... 

On the other hand my wife has opened up and shown emotions I have never seen her show and our intimacy is back to how it was when we started the relationship 10 years ago, and in some situations its better! Lol ;-)

I have told her I want us to do counselling and she is very up for it, although scared as she will have to face fears about her past. She has a doctor appointment tomorrow anyway so is going to ask for a referral.. Fingers crossed.
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## Almostthere (Oct 31, 2010)

Your wife appears truly remorseful so that gives you a really good chance of getting through this. The fact that she is willing to go to counselling shows that she is taking responsibility for her actions.What you are feeling is totally normal and I suspect this will take some time to get over for you both but am sure you can do it. Sometimes things like this can give us the wakeup call we were needing to get our marriage on track and it sounds as if this is what it has done for you and your wife.
The OM does sound like a real toad, but try not to focus too much on that, Yes you have every right to feel anger towards him and the fact that you were betrayed by someone you considered a friend can make it all that more painful but you have to focus on your marriage right now, why this happened and how to avoid this happening again or destroying your marriage.
Good luck and kind thoughts.


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## mommy2 (Oct 27, 2009)

It's great that she's agreed to go to counseling. It will help your communication even more. Good Luck to you.

And I know how hard it is not to focus on OM and what he did. My hubby's A was with a friend of mine. Someone I spoke to several times a day - saw several times a week. We did things as couples all the time and I had no idea what was going on under my nose. UGH! 

BUT that was then, this is now. In the past, moved on. 

FOR YOU - you need to focus your attention on your marriage and rebuilding that relationship. As hard as it is - forgot about the OM, as best you can.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

I'm finding it hard not to focus on the OM specifically because of the friendship element but I can see exactly where u are all coming from. I haven't told anyone about this and think I am best keeping it this way. I think I'm going to find it hard when I see my best mate as we talk about everything but the last thing I want is anyone second guessing my choice and also don't want anyone judging my wife.
Luckily for me my wifes mum who I get on very well with knew something was wrong and got it out of wife. The reason I say luckily for me is that she has been a great person to talk to and it's helping massivly with the not telling anyone thing.

The strange thing is that it all feels a bit surreal now and I feel myself carrying on as normal but with a twist. Lol. My wife is the same.  

It turns out her doctors appointment is next week so hopefully the doc can help provide a referral....
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## Deejo (May 20, 2008)

You imply that your relationship has become more intimate since discovery of the affair. You have asked for advice and perspective, so here is mine.

She may be remorseful, but it isn't because she hurt you, it's because she got caught. Proceed with caution, a very common behavior following discovery is to cozy back up to the betrayed spouse. More intimacy, talking, sex. The purpose of which is to make you let them off the hook without consequence, minimize the affair, or at worst, obfuscate the fact that they are still engaged in the affair.

You need to pay attention to what she's doing when she _isn't_ around you. I sincerely hope things work out for the both of you.


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## Atholk (Jul 25, 2009)

This goes deeper than she's saying I think. Perhaps keylogging the computer or a polygraph would be in order.

She's a weasel. It sounds like she wanted to create a friendship between you and the OM which would create more opportunities for excuse for being with him. The OM certainly doesn't mind back stabbing you, but your wife doesn't mind back stabbing both you and her best friend, and ****ting in her workplace either.

That's a lot of bad. Things may be improving, but suggest a little caution.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

I find these points of view very hard to take but I can see where your coming from. I will side on the air of caution (which I have been anyway) but I feel like it was definitely a one off and that our next step is counselling.
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## marga88 (Jun 17, 2010)

im sorry to about what you are going through. I suggest that if you really want to move on, then you move on. If it helps to know what really happened then ask her, but she would probably not tell you anything. I also agree by what people in this forum are saying that she's not being truthful of what happened. It's not going to blow up if it was a "mild" affair. The answer lies to you, can you still trust her? Can you live with the aftermath?
If you want to give your marriage a chance, then make it a clean start. Ask for counseling, and it helps if you set things some ground rules to your wife.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

It seems that she has told me nearly everything. Not sure if it's possible to be 100% because they are always going to hold bits back or forget bits. You are right when you say this was a mild affair and I will have to figure out if I can live with it over time. She is genuinely remorseful and can see the damage very clearly that's been caused.
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## InRecoveryInNC (Oct 22, 2010)

The parts I am really struggling with at this point are:

_So there are several things here that as the saying goes: "been there, done that"._[
1. Do I need to know all the details of what went on for those few weeks? She has assured me is was just the one kiss and is massively regretful and really wants to make a big effort to get us back on track, but i still feel that I need to know how far it went in texting terms.

_1.) Ask yourself, do you really need to know the whole story? After I found out that my H had an affair, I thought I wanted to know everything. I wanted to put all the pieces of the puzzle together, so I could then have my 'aha' moment... you know the, I knew he wasn't going fishing with they guys that weekend -or- I was right that the calls I walked in on where he immediately hung up wasn't a wrong number... At the time, I thought it was very important to know, did they have sex, how many times and where. Did he tell her he loved her? Who really initiated the affair, did he pursue her or did she come along when he needed someone and I wasn't there... the list was long and I wanted answers to each and every question. Then one day it hit me (and I am truly just speaking for myself here) I realized that knowing each and every detail wasn't going to change the fact that it happened or wasn't going to allow me to do anything about it. It was in the past! I started to realize that there were some key things I needed answers to that if I didn't have those answers I would never be able to move forward. I narrowed down the long, long, long list to the top 3 -5 questions that I felt having an answer to would help me understand where it went wrong and was it something I could have contributed to because I didn't fulfill that need and is this something I can change in my behavior for the future. (if it was truly, something I missed in fulfilling his needs). So we had our talk(s), I wanted the questions answered in small amounts so I could absorb what he was saying, meditate on it for a while, and decide what was my next action or reaction to what he had shared. In return, I made sure he knew where I was coming from that led to either my pulling back emotionally, or sexually or whatever the situation was. There must have been a reason as to why I reacted the way I did that led to my behavior and sometimes it was because of something he said or did or didn't do but should have and we never communicated when it happened and we both just kept adding more negative memories and reactions to our already depleted 'love bank'._

2. Can I trust her from now on? This is hard because I really want to and she is so regretful and sorry that I could not see anything like this ever happening again.
_2.) Yes, but you don't want to go on auto pilot and just start trusting all over again. Take is slow, she is going to have to prove to you she is trust worthy. Spell out for her what it is going to take for you to trust her. But also be prepared to want to build her trust in you as well. Her affair is a reaction to what was going on in your marriage, whether it be justified or not (in her mind), it is her reality._

3. How do I deal with all the emotions I am feeling? 1 minute I am up, the next I am way down and crying at the smallest things.
_3.) Natural progression. Some days I think, YES! we are going to make it. Other days, I think, I being played until he sets things in motion to move on. What do you do, cry a little, scream some too, but communicate with her that today is a bad day. You are trying and trying hard, but it didn't take a day or a week or probably not even a month for the hurt to get there that caused her to make her decision, so she has to understand that it is going to take longer than a day or week or a month for you to work through the pain. But assure her you are trying but it is going to take time._

I have always had trust issues which have manifested themselves in my head as a deep paranoia of someone cheating on me. I have worked hard at this and showed my wife on many occasions that I trusted her but deep down I always think something is going on. Strangely as soon as she told me I had a weird sense of relief when I saw some true emotion from her.

_With regards to your last comment above: It was because of my insecurities and being fearful and unable to fully trust that I wouldn't be cheated on, that added to the reasons why he did it. He was faithful for 26 out of 27 years of us being together. But over the years, my paranoia would get the best of me and when he was at his lowest point in our marriage, and the opportunity was there, he made a very childish decision and said, if I am going to be accused of it or if she has already thought I have done this, then I might as well go for it. It won't hurt our relationship any more than always being accused or it being speculated that I have. (yes, bad rationalization but made sense to him at the time.) So for me, when I found out it was true, I was able to justify my thoughts and fears and paranoia over the years with a definitive "YES, I am not crazy, I knew it all along..."_


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## cowboyfan (Nov 15, 2009)

Best of luck to you my friend, our backgrounds sound somewhat similar so hopefully sharing some info will help you - feel free to message me if you have any questions!

1. Do I need to know all the details of what went on for those few weeks? In my personal opinion I'd suggest continuing to ask questions until you're satisfied. She may not like talking about it, but at this point she needs to be an open book. In my situation I continued asking (and getting more info) over time which helped me towards closure.

2. Can I trust her from now on? The biggest advice I can offer (and I'm no professional) is to search for WHY this happened. That's the only way I was able to really gain confidence that my wife wasn't likely to repeat her offense - she opened up enough to share what attracted her to the other guy and what I could do to keep it from happening again. Of course, everyone is different and trust is a lot easier to break than build - nobody knows the answer to this better than you.

3. How do I deal with all the emotions I am feeling? You're likely riding an emotional roller coaster, which I've learned is pretty normal. I'm typically a VERY even-keeled guy but became an irritable jerk for a while after my wife's affair. For me I just made sure my wife knew what was causing each of my 'flare ups' and did offer her advice on how she could help me get past some of these things (which she was great in doing)

4. Should I get my own back on the guy seeing as he was posing as my friend whilst stabbing me in the back at the same time. This guy sounds like a real loser, and as much as vengeance feels great the best thing to do is to get him out of the picture in all ways possible - drop all connections and don't look back. You've got work to do in repairing your relationship with your wife, don't let the scumbag distract you!


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

You have all been great and I find myself getting to the root of things easier because of your advice. What's happened to me sounds like a drop in the ocean compared to some of you. My heart goes out to you that have also had to deal with this pain.. 

The thing I'm finding now is that it is feeling a bit too easy for things to go back to normal.. My W is still being open but due to health problems on top of all this and trying to find a new job I feel she is finding it all very hard and has her mind on these things. I want to be there for her but am finding this hard (obviously).... The stupid thing is with her losing her best friend, job and likely all thier joint friends I am feeling selfish talking about it and feeling the way I am.. Really not sure how to handle this.
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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Milk,
I hear what your saying, my wayward wife droped everything, everyone, and told me what I needed to know (as far as details).
I too felt selfish, but remember she( your wife and nine) are helping us heal. My take is, our wifes are commiting to the marraige and they are making that dission to distance them selves from those things that may remind them of a horrible thing they did in the past.

So look at it this way, as selfish as it may seem, I would rather see my wife give up on her friendships then hang out with bad influences. It was her choice, she choose to change her behaviors and who she spent her time with. Why should I fell selfish? In my opinion shes better off with the new me, her husband for 19 years


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## seeking sanity (Oct 20, 2009)

You are right to be cautious but if she is in fact telling the truth, I think you got off lucky. There are three great hopes from most of us who experience infidelity:

1. The 'cheating' is PG, not rated X - a snog is one thing, visualizing your wife having wild, passionate, dirty, no holds barred porn sex with another guy, is something entirely different

2. The wayward spouse will recognize it as a wake up call - become transparent, honest, contrite and take immediate direct action to help you get through it

3. The result will be a renewed passion, communication and level of intimacy in the marriage. So it becomes, over time, a catalyst for positive change.

What you are describing, assuming the facts are true, rings the bell on all three.

So my advice is: Do you digging, ask the questions that need asking, get the support you need from her, but consider yourself somewhat lucky to have dodged a much bigger bullet and use this to make your marriage much better.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

I wasn't so luck, I didn't dodg a bullet, I had a mortor shell hit me;-)

But the points #2 and #3 that seeking sanity mention are right on.


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## milkie81 (Nov 2, 2010)

Thank you everyone for all your wise words. I am going to take it one step at a time and really try to get our marriage an lives back on track. Tonight I started jogging which is something I've wanted to do for ages. I feel it's time to concentrate on me a little bit! Lol. I sound like a womens magazine! 
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## geo (Oct 29, 2010)

I wouldn't feel bad about demanding details, remember she went outside your commitment. You are the one deciding forgiveness for what she did to you. Hope it is just the pg. version that your getting. Glad to here it has fired a spark in the marriage hope that as long as the info doesn't change it might be a sort of blessing in disguise (hate to use the saying due to circumstance) Remember not to trust unconditionally, she has broken that at least for awhile. as for the OM I'd personally forward all his texts to his wife, I personally don't think I could keep myself from dotting his eyes....
Any way good luck.


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