newly betrayed

[Mustard Bomb]

double-posted

[Mustard Bomb]

For legal purposes later, keep a record of *everything* now and think about hiring a lawyer.

 

Get her full name, address, and where she works. Keep all emails from her that you can find, and keep cell-phone bills. If he makes any calls to her on days with emotional import for his real family, highlight them. (e.g. he called her during a daughter's performance, or family dinner with friends) If you find any receipts for things he has purchased her, keep them. (check *all* creditcard receipts - and check for hidden creditcards. call your bank(s) and ask for *complete* statements for the last six months/year) Keep an objective, updated, journal that chronicles all conversations about her, and hire a private detective if you can. Just have this information ready in case it does come down to a divorce; it may help with alimony. It may not at all help in the end, but it may help protect you.

 

If he claims he has stopped contact with her, keep maintaining those records - as another poster mentioned, they can be used to make a stalking/harassment case against her. She can also be named in the divorce.

 

I disagree with not telling anyone. Rally the troops - you should talk to friends and family about your pain, as their testimony may help you later as well. But get marriage counselling, personal counselling as well, and save the receipts from those sessions as well.

 

You have options. Unlike the other woman, you are not totally dependent on a man to make decision for you. Protect yourself, even if you choose to continue to let this man stay with you.

[fanou22]

Something baffles me in this thread

 

Why do you want to scratch the OW's eyes and not your husband?

 

Lady,

 

From your posts you make it sound that you husband was an innocent bystander and that the OW forced him into the affair. I may have missed it but when your husband admitted to the affair did he show remorse? Did he tell you that he loves you and wants to remain with you faithfully?

 

Seems like you were the one who lost the sleep while he got a good night.

 

I apologize if I seem harsh. It is not my intention.

[jmargel]

You two need to see a good licensed marriage counselor. Also, he must stop all contact, give him that ultamatium and stick with it. Either you are the most important person in his life or your not. Only then can you two start rebuilding what you once had. A marriage consists of TWO people, not three.

[lady]

beleave me I have wanted to do bodily harm to him also. I want some of the pain I am feeling to be put back on him. Not to hurt him but to show him how devistating all of this has been and is for me.

 

I have done enough damage to our relationship in the past I am by no means trying to make myself out as being totally innoccent in what has brought us to being where we are now.

I have done my share of not being there when he needed me and when I should have been completely tuned into me and him. Thru all of this there was only a very breif moment that I thought of him as the worst bastard in the world, but then I thought about what a very good husband and dad he has always been.

 

I know alot of you are going to disagree with that last statement but up until now he has never done anything for me to have any dought of his love and devotion to me and our family.

 

He has carried me thru some of the toughest things life has thrown at me. That is why this is so very hard for me to get a grip on. How can a man that has always been your rock to lean on suddenly became the rock that is trying drown you.

 

I keep hearring on here to talk to family and friends, the friends that matter already know and I can not for my own sanity go to his family and my family is no support whatso ever. So all of that is not an option for me.

 

Anyway me doing that would mean that the 2 people I want to protect from all of this ( my youngest children) would ultimately find out. And there are certain things kids should not know about there parents relationship.

 

I have never in my life been so afraid, not even when I thought I was going to loose my oldest daughter when she was born, not before having major surgery. Nothing in my life has prepared me for this. Everything in my marriage up to now has done nothing less then make me feel very secure and protected by my man.

 

So where do I go from here, how do I make him understand what I NEED the most from him without it pushing him away.

[whichwayisup]

First off, I'm giving you a huge hug because you NEED one bad...

 

Just continue to be honest with him, how you feel, how he makes you feel now and cry, don't be afraid to cry infront of him. Maybe if he really sees the pain he inflicted on you and the family he will realize the depth of what he did.

 

I'm real sorry that he's done this to you, you love him so much, I can tell by how you write but also stay tough too. Call him on his BS and don't allow him to put this on you! It is not your fault, he is the one who cheated.

 

Keep posting and Everyone here will help you through this.

[EnigmaXOXO]

Exposure to friends and family will help to stop his straying. It may make him angry as hell, but hey, it's his mess right?

 

I agree. "Exposure" is what adulterers fear most of all. Loss of face among mutual friends, parents, children, in-laws, and work colleagues are a bigger concern for them then being discovered by their spouse - who they've already stopped caring about hurting. It's about keeping up appearances to save one's own reputation - an act as selfish and self-centered as adultery itself.

 

Few that have strayed would say they were fearful of the marriage ending or their spouse leaving. As a matter of fact, they secretly wish it were so. What they worry about most is the potential financial repercussions and being ostracized (even shunned) by their social network of family and friends - all those who were fooled into believing they were "good people."

 

Can you imagine bringing that OW/OM home to meet the parents, kids, friends and family who LOVED your husband/wife (your children) and KNEW this woman was partly responsible for the break-up of your family? Man - wouldn't those family gatherings be cozy and fun?

 

I imagine it would take a big pair of brass balls to do that, and it's been my experience that most people who cheat are spineless cowards at heart. And I've known MANY.

 

He keeps saying he would like to keep her as just a friend.

 

Personally, this would be a bigger slap in the face to me then the initial betrayal. He can't be feeling all that badly about the hurt he's caused you if he still wants to keep her around. Seems to me he's testing his boundaries - seeing how much you're willing to let him get away with. It's unlikely he'll ever be faithful to you (or anyone) unless someone is strong enough to stand up to him and deliver the consequence.

 

I'm with Dazed. Call a relative; someone close to you that you can trust to be an emotional support system for you. You're going to need an ally and some friends in your corner in ADDITION to some professional counseling if you still want to make this marriage work. Nothing to be embarrassed about if you have done nothing wrong. Your husband deserves to made to feel uncomfortable. He's been keeping enough secrets…don't continue to enable his charade by covering up the lies for him.

[Adunaphel]

Dazed and Enigma gave you great advice.

 

If he insists about 'staying friends' with the OW (which he should *not* do if he realized how much pain he caused you or if he cares about your relationship), telling anyone you (safely) can about their affair is a great idea.

[lady]

I'm sorry but I can not let some of what is being said go. First off I do appreciate all the support and help I have found here. BUT

 

I can not see him as being the same as most other cheaters. I'm not being naive nor do I have blinders on. I know who and what he is and I also know what he has done.

 

He is a very good person always has been and no matter where him and I go from here he will always be just that in my eyes. There is alot more that has happened between us then this but at this time I don't feel up to going into all of it, I have to try and get an understanding of where I am now.

 

so just remember, just because a person cheated does not mean they are all the same.

[EnigmaXOXO]

I think the spouse and the affair partner in these situations are more cohesive in their thinking and coping mechanisms then they care to realize sometimes.

 

WIFE: "I can not see him as being the same as most other cheaters."

OW: "I can not see him as being the same as most other MM."

 

WIFE: "I'm not being naive nor do I have blinders on."

OW: "I'm not being naïve nor do I have blinders on."

 

WIFE: " I know who and what he is and I also know what he has done."

OW: " I know who and what he is, and I also know what he is doing to his family. But what we have is special and I don't think my soulmate would ever cheat on me. Even with his wife. After all, he says they don't even have sex anymore."

 

WIFE: "He is a very good person always has been and no matter where him and I go from here he will always be just that in my eyes."

OW: "He is a very good person and treats me well. No matter where him and I go from here I will always be there for him."

 

WIFE: "I have to try and get an understanding of where I am now."

OW: "I have to try and get an understanding of where we'll be tomorrow."

 

Wash, rinse, recycle and repeat…

 

I'm reminded time and time again on these forums of this passage from an article on "relationship addictions":

 

The sad thing about denial is it can mirror itself. When denial sees denial, it denies it. That's why getting past denial is tricky...it requires tons of willingness, mountains of open-mindedness, and shiploads of humility. If you feel defensive in me questioning your denial then you must be hearing something threatening in my statement. What could that be? …This is denial.

 

http://love-addiction.com/loveaddiction1.html

 

Whatever the outcome, Lady, I wish you the very best. And most of all…I hope you end up being right and not just another tragic statistic. Believe me, I WANT nothing more than to be proven wrong! I'll be keeping my fingers crossed hoping that the two of you beat those odds.

[lady]

Enigma, I think what you have said makes more since then anything anyone else has told me so far. And thank you for doing it without all the name calling.

 

No matter where we go from here this man will always be a part of my life, we have kids together and no matter the pain we cause eachother we would never try to keep the other from them.

we have almost 18 yrs with eachother and have been thru so many things together.

 

Has anyone here had to deal with depression, not from a spouse but with themselves?

I have and it is until now the hardest thing I have had to learn to deal with and live with, it will be with me for the rest of my life.

For me it was dealing with each minute not day, there was no looking to the future because for you there is no future. All you can do is hope you don't give in to it, hope you make it to each day, just hoping you are closer to coping and at times you pray for the end. I know how I felt and I can only imagine what it was for him. A fear of leaving me alone because he didn't know what he would find when he came home. Walking on glass because he was afraid to say or do something that would either thro me into a crying fit or a screaming fit.

 

I went thru yrs of changing meds every few weeks, of sleeping all the time or not being able to sleep at all. A very strong fear of ever trying to live without the pills and a fear of the rest of my life with em. Thankfully I was able to go off the pills a few months ago and I am doing and feeling better.

 

But in dealing with that we closed eachother out because we could not deal with the others pain, all we could do was live with our own.

I have had several small medical problems to deal with and then 2 yrs ago I was in a car wreck, I went thru the physical therapy and finally back surgery.

 

All I am saying is I have not been the person anyone would want to be with for a long time. I am not in anyway saying that it is understandable to do what he did, but I am saying I can understand how he got to where it COULD happen.

 

I except my part in getting us to this point, but I do not feel anything I have done would make it alright for him to turn to another woman for what he should have wanted from me, what he should have fought for with me.

 

I keep asking myself why I could not see where he was heading. But I honestly never thought this would be an issue with us. I always thought our love for eachother was stronger then any thing someone else could offer one of us.

 

I will never forget this, the same as he will never forget some things I have done. But I can and have to a degree forgiven him. We are talking more then we have in to many yrs. to count. We are really listening to eachother. We still have the same dreams for the future that we had in the beginning.

 

I realy realy regret that it took such a devastating blow to get us to see what we were both throughing away. I know I have alot that I will have to forgive in myself before I can get thru this, the same as he has his own. And then we can work on forgiving eachother.

 

This may sound real strang to most of you but the one person I wish I could talk to is his mom. But I can not put her in the middle of this, maybe in the future I can confide in her but not now.

 

sorry for this being so long but it is so much easier to work thru things in my head like this

[EnigmaXOXO]

And then we can work on forgiving eachother.

 

The process of forgiving each other can only begin after your husband has put absolute closure on this outside relationship. Not while he's still in it. And as long as he's unwilling to do that - and as long as you are willing to surrender yourself to accepting it - there will be no healing or moving forward for either of you. You'll just keep hitting that old "rewind" button over and over again.

 

That's the part that concerns me the most. The fact that his heart doesn't seem to be in it.

 

Please don't misunderstand - I believe that complacency, passivity and surrender has its place. But at what cost to your emotional well-being? … Depression, Perhaps? Or might the stress of 'stuffing it all back' one day manifest itself into a life-threatening physical illness as it eventually did for my own mother?

[lady]

you are apsolutely right. He knows I NEED him to put closure to it. We have talked of my feelings in this matter. I am so afraid of saying or doing anything that will make him WANT to talk to her. I don't know how to handle this, I don't know if it would be better to force him to put what I want and need in front of how he wants to handle things.

 

In to many ways right now I feel I am betraying myself.

 

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO

[indigo_moon]

I feel badly when I read your recent posts because it seems obvious you are maybe more willing to overlook his affair because of your history of depression. Let me tell you this, depression is an illness no different really, than diabetes or asthma or a million other things..........when you marry someone, you're vowing to stick by them through the good and the bad........."in sickness and in health." Yes, you and he went through difficult times because of your past and periodic periods of depression...but he's not a saint because he stuck around.....he SHOULD HAVE stuck around because he was your husband and you were his wife. That's what spouses do, they stick together through the really bad, difficult times. It seems you feel a lot of guilt for the difficult times in the past, because of what you feel he had to endure because of your depression.....but please don't be hard on yourself or believe that you have to keep quiet or accept being betrayed all because of something you had little control over (depression).

 

I understand you don't want to rock the boat or do something to push him away or push him toward her, and you're likely concerned that if you were to do something that caused this that he would leave you for her and then you'd really sink back into a deep depression. I think you should seriously consider getting yourself into some counselling.........and if you've been under the care of a psychiatrist for your depression in the past (or still), make contact with him or her.............you need some good support systems here......you're going through a lot of physical and emotional stress, your sleep is likely being affected (and if you start to lose a lot of sleep, you're more at risk for becoming depressed). And by the way, nobody here thinks you're stupid, we just feel badly for you. Please don't punish yourself because of things you went through in the past.......that's in the past......maybe you nearly had an affair yourself back then, or made suicide attempts or had to be hospitalized or other things you're ashamed of.....but depression is a disease just like any other and you did the best you could then, forgive yourself.

[EnigmaXOXO]

First question, in the event of the worse case scenario:

 

Where do you see yourself should this marriage end? (Whether by his choice or yours) Are you emotionally and financially able to get by on your own? Have you prepared any safety nets just in case?

 

I'm asking this upfront because I realize how difficult it will be for you to deliver ultimatums or strike any kind of bargain if you can't follow through. He already knows you won't jump ship if you've become too dependant on him. In essence, you will have made yourself an emotional and financial hostage. That's not a good place to start negotiations. He'll end up threatening…while you'll only end up begging or surrendering to whatever concessions he chooses to make.

 

Is that where you're at now?

 

PS… I liked indigo's response so much, I was almost reluctant to post and risk changing the direction of your thread. Should have hit the "send" button sooner!

[lady]

if we did seperate, god help me I would be lost and he knows this.

 

Money or means of supporting myself I have none, I have nothing to fall back on I have no where else to go. Finacially I am completely 100% dependent on him. He knows this.

And yes in to many damn ways I am also emotionally dependent on him, he knows this also.

 

I WOULD make it but it would be very hard.

[lady]

and indigo you are right.

 

during the worst part of the depression I became someone that I did not want to be. And in dealling with it I became very addicted to the enternet. I found I could be anyone I wanted and while on there I could get away from reality. I had become someone I hated and that my family hated. And with him I would go from one end of the spectrum to the other. From clinging to him to pushing him away and I could not stop.

 

So I put my emotions into who I was when online and became addicted to the compliments and love (haha) I got from all the men I chatted with. or at least felt I was getting, I know now they were saying exactly what I needed to get what they wanted from me.

I put my husband thru a living hell then, I knew it when I was doing it but did not have the strength to be who I really was.

 

I wanted to be the happy carefree person I was in my fantasy world and I could not be her when I was I was in real life.

the only thing about that time that I can be happy about is that it did not go any farther than on line. which was not something I would have done because I did not want them to know the real me.

 

I know he does not beleave that but that is honestly how i felt.

 

I have tried to forgive myself for all of that but I can't. I caused us to loose something very special.

[craving happiness]

i understand your anger of course, and all rants from all the women are great, you've bashed men, hopefully you're done.

why did he stray, what was he missing, if he's looking, then he wants out, he's unhappy. what he did was wrong, but why did he do it, that's where the problem started. if you want him then figure out the problem, otherwise let him go.

[lady]

ok for starters you apparently did not read my posts. I have not been bashing men, and most deff not bashing mine.

and just because he "is looking" as you put it does not mean he wants out. If he or any other man on the planet wants out then damnit be a man and get out then go looking for your next peice. Do not tear us in half just because you are unhappy about something. If your unhappy with something we can change be man enough to say so, to talk about what you want and need. Don't look in someone elses bed to find it.

 

You married us for a reason, if you no longer want to be with us then leave us whole not in peices.

 

Don't open your mouth if you don't know what your talking about.