# Does the pain of a cheating wife ever go away?



## tparis79 (Jun 22, 2012)

This might be a long post I'm not sure yet. Anyways, my wife, we'll call her PJ, and I met in high school. I was 17 and PJ was 15, we were in band together and she literally threw herself at me,she liked the fact that I was "big and strong" and she like to run and jump in to my arms. I caught her most of the time but once after I caught her we fell backward in to french horn lockers and she injured her hand protecting my head. Life was good, I was very smitten with her and she with me. I told her that I loved her after only dating for a month or so, crazy I know. She didn't respond at the time and honestly I don't blame her. We were very young and it just came out of my mouth one night after we were kissing goodnight on her parents front porch. We talked about it the next day and she said that she loved me too just that I freaked her out. Anyways life went on and we stayed together for a while. We always had fun hanging out with each other but we never had sex. After being together for about a year we broke up over something stupid. She ended up dating a football jock from a small neighboring town and I had some fun seeing some other girls. After a while we began to talk again and realized that we both had strong feelings for each other. At this time she was a senior in high school and I was already in college. After talking for a while we decided to get back together. We had only been apart for 6 months. We continued to date and eventually it became sexual. After about 4 years of dating we decided that it was finally time to get married. She was more adamant about getting married than I was, at the time I was scared by change and she basically had to beg me to get married. I still really loved her but was scared of making this big change since I was only 21 and she 19. During this time I was constantly wondering if I was making the correct decision being so young and all, especially since she was the only woman that I had ever had sex with and I was the only man that she had ever been with. I began talking to this other woman,JS, who was a good friend of mine. After a night of drinking and hanging out with JS and other friends JS invited me back to her place. I stupidly accepted and we ended up having sex. I felt terribly the next day but selfishly decided that I loved PJ too much and that telling her what happened would only cause unnecessary damage. I realized that I had ****ed up and did not see JS any more. Life went on with me and PJ and we finally got engaged. After a short engagement we got married. At the time I was 22 and PJ was 20. We took a cruise for our honeymoon and had a blast. When we got home and started living together life began again. She was working at a hospital as secretary and I at a local jail. We both worked nights. PJ had a habit of being late to her shift, going to school and working and all, and ended up getting fired from the hospital. PJ decided that she was going to try her hand at being a waitress at a local bar. She worked there for a while and I began going to college at night 3 nights a week and working night shifts at the jail. Things were always ok with PJ and I but we gradually began to drift apart. Eventually it seemed as though we were simply roommates that slept in the same bed. When I got home from work she was already asleep. I would get up for school and she would already be at school or at work. I began noticing changes in her behavior. She began partying a lot with her co workers and began talking about this guy she went to junior high with, AH, whom she had met at a party that she was at with friends from work. She would talk about him occasionally and I just had a bad feeling about it. I told her that I did not like her hanging out with him or even talking to him but she dismissed my concerns as unjustified. After I graduated from college I applied for a job in another city. I did not discuss this with PJ and when I old her that I applied for it she became upset that I did not discuss it with her. I know now that I should have talked with her about it but at the time I just knew that moving was going to be the best thing for our marriage and for life in general. I ended up getting the job and we moved. I started work and she got a job at a local bar bar tending. I assumed that after we moved and I got her away from AH things would get better between us but they didn't. Life went on and I noticed that PJ's behavior became more and more unstable. She was drinking more that ever and she was constantly coming home drunk. I caught her doing cocaine on one occasion and became very upset. We had a long talk about it and she said that she would never do it again but that it was just something that the bar industry was inundated with. I told her that if I caught her doing drugs again that our marriage would be over. Time went on and things did not change. A while later I caught her high on cocaine again. I was a push over and didn't follow through with my threat. One night I was asleep and she came home high and drunk again at about 4 in the morning. While talking about this I looked in her phone and found sexually explicit text messages between her and AH. I confronted her about this and she finally admitted that she and AH had been having an affair for the past 18 months. This was before we moved and it continued up until this time when I found the texts. Once I confronted her and had proof she became very upset and apologetic. She was crying and begging for forgiveness. We talked about it calmly for a few hours then I had to go to work. When I came home we talked about her affair again. At this time I decided that I might as well divulge my one night stand while we were dating. She was upset but it didn't seem to compare to the weight of her 18 month long continuous affair. Anyways we talked about it and eventually got through it. I decided to try and make it work with her because I still loved her and she seemed genuinely apologetic for her actions. This helped but it did not stop my strong feelings of jealousy, anger, and hatred coupled with strong mental images of her with AH. Over a year has passed since the day of discovery and PJ is currently pregnant. Things are going well however not a day goes by that I don't think about PJ's affair. Life is moving forward and PJ and I are generally happy. She quit her bar life and started working at a hospital again. She has shown no signs of adultery and seems very committed to our marriage. This turned out to be a lot longer than I initially intended but basically I want to know from anyone else that has been through this and survived, does the pain ever really go away and will I ever stop having the mental images of PJ being with AH? I don't really know the purpose for this post, maybe for advise maybe just to vent, I don't know. Anyways, any comments and/or questions would be appreciated. Thank you all.


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## rrrbbbttt (Apr 6, 2011)

If you read many of the threads on here a lot have reconciled their marriages after an affair. Some have stated that the affair killed the original marriage and what they now have is a New Marriage and they continue on with that and some are very successful in their marriages.

We are humans and unfortunately we have memories and also do things based on our life experiences i.e. the pot on the stove is hot, we touched it once and we got burned, we now use a pot holder.

A marriage is the ultimate contract between two people. "Love, honor and hold true to one another" sound familiar. Most people put the ultimate trust in the mate they have chosen. This betrayal of your marriage vows will always be in your mind. Your marriage may be the best on earth at this time but that little point of when you grabbed the pot and got burned you will always remember.

It seems you have made a good "New" marriage from this. Good luck in your future.


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## Alyosha (Feb 27, 2012)

_* "Does the pain of a cheating wife ever go away?"*_

No. Probably not. Bells can't be unrung.

But I can tell you that the pain lessens with time. I think that's about as good as you are going to get in this life.


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## hookares (Dec 7, 2011)

"Does the pain of a cheating wife ever go away?"

Yeah. You can bury the pain by joining boards such as this one and reading other's stories of plight.
The pain may eventually go away but the lack of trust may never return. The reason for this is the betrayed will always have it in the back of their skull that they contributed to the downfall of the relationship even if they don't know how.


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## anonymouskitty (Jun 5, 2012)

The pain lessens overtime time, you will be happy and content again, but the trust will never be what it was and it shouldn't be.

trust is gained in inches and lost in miles.


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## hallofgame2k17 (Mar 9, 2017)

aint that the truth.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

I believe it only goes away when the love that you feel for the person who cheated on you is given to someone else. In that case the thing that makes the pain so hurtful "love" no longer exists so the impact is gone. It did for me once I fell in love again, absolute don't care about getting cheated on, accept for the sympathy I feel for those who do. I don't think it will go away if you stay with the person who did it to you. I have read post from people 15 years out who still think about it every day. I'm sorry that answer doesn't help you, but you picked a very hard life for yourself. 18 months is a pretty horrible thing to do to a person. Try EMDR I hear that does wonders. 

Now maybe if you fall in love with someone else and then end that and fall in love again with the person who cheated on you it might. 

By the reformat your post with paragraphs, most will not read it the way it is formatted. It's just too hard.


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## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Zombie thread.

Hope he DNAed the kid.


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## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

GusPolinski said:


> Hope he DNAed the kid.


*That would be the grand test! DNA the kid ~ And I'd have a most difficult time doling out the even odds of a plug nickel that the kid is his!*


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## billbird2111 (Feb 14, 2016)

Alyosha said:


> _* "Does the pain of a cheating wife ever go away?"*_
> 
> No. Probably not. Bells can't be unrung.
> 
> But I can tell you that the pain lessens with time. I think that's about as good as you are going to get in this life.


Bells can't be unrung and burned bridges cannot be repaired.

But new bridges can be built, provided both come armed with tools and desire to build it.

I have personally seen reconciliations happen. Two former State Senators I worked for both went through this. The wife of one of them even gave birth to a son that was not his.

Both not only forgave their wayward spouses and reconciled, but in the case of the child born out of wedlock, this particular State Senator adopted the boy and raised him as his own.

So, yes, it does happen. But I wouldn't count on it.


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## Vinnydee (Jan 4, 2016)

While I have not experienced the pain of a wife cheating on me due to being in a non monogamous marriage, I did have my first love/fiancee cheat on me when I was in the middle of a combat tour of duty. I could not do a thing about it for a few months until I got home. The reason I was in the Army was so that we could get married and live on an Army base afterwards. It hurt but I found that the best way to get over a woman is to get under another woman. I spent a solid month having sex with a girl I met in Sydney Australia. I did call out my ex fiancee's name once but the girl I was with was very understanding. She made sure that at the end of the 30 days, the only one on my mind was her. As what happens with rebound relationships, it fizzled out after a few months. 

At the time I was crushed but now after 44 years or marriage I look back and realize that my ex fiancee cheating was the best thing to happen to me in my life. If not for her I would have never met the love of my life. My life would not have been as great as it has been if I had stayed with my first fiancee. Her drug use and mental problems, not to mention she prefers girls, would have altered my life negatively. So find yourself someone else to love and some day when you look back you will realize that your divorce was the best thing to happen to you. I have some friends who are very happy with their second wife and are glad that they divorced.


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