Wife of 31 years had an affair, my story

[Mrs. John Adams]

he did not have intercourse....so i guess you can take out the SEX

 

but yes I guess you could say...he had a relationship with another woman to get back at me.....he was self destructive...I had emasculated him...and quite frankly...i think he hoped i would kick him out

[LifeWasted]

he did not have intercourse....so i guess you can take out the SEX

 

but yes I guess you could say...he had a relationship with another woman to get back at me.....he was self destructive...I had emasculated him...and quite frankly...i think he hoped i would kick him out

 

I see. Thank you for the clarification. I'm not trying to disrespect you, I'm just new to this adultery terminology. I thought an affair meant to actually have sex with someone not your spouse. Both my ex wife and ex girlfriend cheated on me, but I never thought of having a revenge relationship to get back at them.

[wasabi555]

She was clearly talking about the time period when she was in the affair. She knows it was F.U. thinking and behavior. She is working on not being selfish and entitled and all the bad things and so far has been completely successful. She does not want to be that person, she HATES that person with a passion now that she sees it. I may have said this already but in the last couple of conversations she offers up things like "I hate what I did to us" and "you can't hate me anymore than I hate myself". She truly gets how bad her behavior was and her remorse is not an act.

 

What she feels and what you think she feels/should feel are different. Due to the bullish way you seem to be going about this, you cannot tell the difference. Due to this approach of focusing all your energy on defending imaginary traits of your wife, you are probably missing a lot of real time symptoms and will be surprised when you two hit a major roadblock..

[bigman1]

VBM,

 

Just responding to some of your posts. You have self identified as a pragmatist. You wonder how your IC could be wrong about her. You also gain strength in defending her. I want to point out a few things.

 

I, a fellow pragmatist, can tell you, your pragmatism is based on your desire to achieve your desired result. You have chosen to acknowledge only so much of the bad but not all of it. Sure, she cheated and that is bad. But she cheated with a convicted rapist and overall bad guy. She also was pretty adept in doing this despite your alternating suspicion of her (as evidenced by your statement that you always thought that she could cheat) and your blindness (as evidenced by the whole reason that you are here). In short, you give her just enough blame to allow you to still defend the her. She has told you that she IS really f*&cked up. You say, no, she WAS f'd up in that she cheated and was vulnerable, but now she is not and never was in the 35 years prior. That is not pragmatism, it is myopic. You can see, but don't want to see all. If it works for your heart, go for it. It won't end well, but go for it.

 

As far as you IC. They are your IC. You self report. They are trying to help YOU. If you want her, then fine, they will help you with that. They are not your leader, they are not her counselor, they don't know her true thoughts only what you report. That being said, if they see a future with her, it is because you see a future with her. If you said that this should be over, then I bet they would see how to help you with that. My point, they are operating on limited, filtered, agenda driven information provided by you. They can't be wrong or right. They are just helping.

 

Your need to defend her started out at the beginning. It was your default reaction because you were faithfully married to your wife. You were committed. So to have this whole end of relationship concept thrust upon you at a time when that was not even a thought in your mind could only have resulted in you choosing the marriage. I am not saying re-think your position, I am just saying you were surprised that you had to make that type of decision, so you opted to stay and fix what you never knew was broken.

 

As a poster said earlier, you need to really consider the scope of this stuff. Being a pragmatist and hating how insecure strong emotions make people like us feel, being goal driven gives us comfort. I know we are different, but I like pragmatism, logic, and reason. I hate strong emotion and conflict in my own life. I deal with it regularly in my client's lives, but in my own life, it shuts me down. I seek peace. I will let stuff go, even if I stew about it. I just compartmentalize it and only deal with it if I absolutely cannot avoid it. Reading your posts, I think that description fits you as it relates to this situation.

 

The best thing you can do, IMHO, is to stop defending her. You need to make a strong case against her. (I'm a lawyer, so pardon the legal metaphor) You need to get at the true scope of her guilt. She was never vulnerable. She's no one's victim. Come on, a convicted rapist who elects to use charm to get a woman to cheat? NOPE. I put a lot of rapist in prison as a prosecutor. Your narrative on that dynamic is so devoid of reality that I thought that you were a troll. Seriously. I could go on about that charming rapist concept, but I won't.

 

The 35 years have to be questioned, deeply. When did she feel dissatisfaction? What did she do about it? Once you have completely, and without mercy, dug through all of the evidence to show how guilty and complicit in this she was, only then can you truly resolve this. In my criminal practice, I have found, until you know how strong a case is against your client, you can't begin to build a defense. You will get burned every time. I don't mean you need to eviscerate her emotionally. Just, stop with the defending. Get a real thorough grasp of who she is and was and not who you need her to have been and need her to be now. Good luck.

[Mrs. John Adams]

Wow...bigman1.. That was profound. Bravo!

[road]

Wow...bigman1.. That was profound. Bravo!

 

 

 

 

I don't know why but some how we are disagreeing, again. :lamo:

 

 

There is nothing profound in BM's post.

 

 

Point:

 

 

People post why is it that the BS stays mad at the AP forever and can forgive their WS.

 

 

Simple, there is no need to forgive the AP for the BH to forgive and recover their marriage with the WS.

 

 

No BH or BW, will recover their marriage focusing and staying focused on what their WS did.

 

 

People do not see this for some reason.

[drifter777]

Great post bigman. Being pragmatic about experiencing such a traumatic, emotional event just keeps him in his head. And he's more comfortable in his head because he doesn't have to feel. It could work for him depending on his ability to embrace denial.

[Mrs. John Adams]

That's what you gleaned from big mans post??? Oh road...what are we gonna do with you!

[VeryBrokenMan]

I hear everything you guys are saying but you have not been in the room during every conversation we've had and I cannot convey everything she has said and how she says it. And I've not shared things here because I felt I would have been called weak and a patsy. I know many of you feel she is staying for the wrong reasons and wants to sugar coat the affair and will say anything to stay in the marriage. But I don't feel that is the case.

 

I know she has no financial incentive to stay. I've not shared this before now because I know I'll be raked over the coals for admitting this and I'll be called weak and people will tell me it was a mistake.

 

I had my accountant and attorney prepare papers about a month or two after DDay that showed her exactly what she would get in a divorce. The papers split our assets 50/50 and I told my attorney to write the settlement like he was her attorney and to be completely fair to her. He is not a divorce attorney but agreed to do it but told me he could not let me sign the papers even if she did. I had no intention at the time of signing the settlement so I agreed I just needed to see what her intentions were. But I knew in my mind that a divorce would be a 50/50 split and would be totally fair. It's never been about the money for me and I truly believe that she has been instrumental in my success and deserved half.

 

We met with both of them in his conference room and I told my attorney to make it seem like a real divorce settlement signing. I told her before the meeting that they were going to talk to her about a post-nup and what the divorce would look like. She sat on one side with our accountant and my attorney and I were on the other side of the table. At the time everything was in doubt and I hoped that this would be a dose of reality or I could at least gain some idea of what she was thinking.

 

They explained fully what a divorce meant to her life and how her income would look after the divorce. I started with nothing and we are not wealthy but I've been lucky on many investments and I've worked hard my entire life. And by selling off assets and reinvesting them they told her she would not have to work another day in her life after the divorce, she could keep the house and if the assets that were divested after the divorce were properly invested her income and standard of living would not change. She looked at the settlement and listened carefully as they talked about it and asked a few smart questions as they talked.

 

After they got through I told her the only thing that would change is that I would no longer be in her life. Everyone was calm and she was "matter of fact" with her questions as they explained things. To be honest it did not look good for our marriage and I remember thinking "this is the end". After a few more questions she sat in silence for a long time looking at the paper and then out the window. I glanced at my attorney several times not knowing what she was thinking but assuming the worst. To break the silence I told her that I would pay for an attorney of her choice to review the settlement for her. And I told her she had my word that I would divorce amicably and she would be set for life.

 

After what seemed like a lifetime sitting in silence she looks at me with tears rolling off her cheeks and said firmly she did not want any of my money if we divorce. She wrote in big letters "NO" across the paper and tossed it toward us as she got up to leave. She looked at our attorney and said "draw up papers that say I get nothing in the divorce and I'll sign it". She glared at me across the table at me and said “f&*k you firstname lastname, how dare you think I want your money, I want you and I’m going to fight for us because you don't seem to want to and I get that”.

 

And then she stormed out slamming the conference room door without saying anything else but I could tell she was furious. We all just looked at each other and sat in silence, I was stunned because all this was before I felt she was really "getting" it. I went back to work and she was still furious that night when I got home and we had a huge fight about the meeting. At one point she told me "The fact that you were willing to give up half of everything you work so hard for after what I've done tells me what I already knew, you are a good man firstname lastname and I want to spend the rest of my life making up for this and there is NO one I'll will ever want to be with again". And she went on to say how grateful she was to be getting a second chance and how committed she was to become the person I wanted to be with.

 

I think that is the day I decided to reconcile even though it took me another month or two to really commit and believe that is what I wanted and to fully accept she was sincere and that is what she wanted. Everything changed with her that day as well and I think she might have made a decision too. She started being the person that I knew before all this and the woman I fell in love with.

 

So you guys can spin that all you want but in my heart I know that she chose me over anything materiel that day and that is the backdrop for what has happened the past 4 months and is critical to understand why I feel safe about her intentions in moving forward. She still has to change and remain committed but I think her intentions are right at this point.

[VeryBrokenMan]

 

 

You miss the point. Not the BH seducing the "hot actress", but her seducing you.

 

That's a tough call and I'm not sure any of us can say what they would do in that situation. And that is honesty. But I do know I've been tested by someone in the same league as a "hot actress" and I passed. I also firmly beleive that reality never lives up to fantasy so I think I'd probably be pretty realistic about things if that "hot actress" ever tried to seduce me.

[drifter777]

I don't know why but some how we are disagreeing, again. :lamo:

 

 

There is nothing profound in BM's post.

 

 

Point:

 

 

People post why is it that the BS stays mad at the AP forever and can forgive their WS.

 

 

Simple, there is no need to forgive the AP for the BH to forgive and recover their marriage with the WS.

 

 

No BH or BW, will recover their marriage focusing and staying focused on what their WS did.

 

 

People do not see this for some reason.

Thinking that a BS can truly heal by NOT focusing on the betrayal their WS perpetrated. Failure to do that is what we call rugsweeping or simple denial. Blaming the AP or a "rough" place in the marriage is avoidance.

[VeryBrokenMan]

VBM, after reading a lot of comments on here, I don't think anyone is telling you to stop and divorce your wife. But everybody is saying to slow down and think about this more objectively. Most of your posts have been you giving excuses for her betrayl. You say that you aren't, but you are. She had a tough couple of years, you didn't pay enough attention to her, OM was a predator (you even started a thread over that), she is too trusting. Dude those are excuses. When you first started posting here, you listed all the horrible things your wife has done to you over the years. Things that personally would have caused me to walk a long time ago. Now she is showering you with attention, which is what I think is clouding your judgment and causing you to rush through this process. IMO, you need to see this extra attention for what it is, damage control. It's not going to last. You need to ask yourself if she is doing all these extra things because she wants to or because she feels she has to.

 

I don't think it's clouding my judgement at all. I see things for what they are these days and I'm skeptical of everything she says or does. I know she is giving me extra attention and that will not go on for the rest of our lives. Nor do I expect it too. But what she is doing is allowing me to heal and to eventually forgive.

 

What would you have me do differently?

[VeryBrokenMan]

What she feels and what you think she feels/should feel are different. Due to the bullish way you seem to be going about this, you cannot tell the difference. Due to this approach of focusing all your energy on defending imaginary traits of your wife, you are probably missing a lot of real time symptoms and will be surprised when you two hit a major roadblock..

 

Why are they imaginary traits?

[VeryBrokenMan]

Has she always understood that you were going to have to support her whether she stayed or left?

 

I made that clear on DDay, I never wanted a divorce that was anything but amicable. She knew on DDay but may not believed it until that meeting with the attorney a month or month and a half later.

[Mrs. John Adams]

VBM...if that is good enough for you...it is good enough for me.

 

So I will ask you again...why are you here?

 

If you are trying to convince all of us that she is remorseful....why?

 

Let me tell you something...

 

32 years ago...I said to mr adams...I understand that you have to do what is best for you. I won't ask for anything. I don't deserve anything.

 

I repeated that for thirty years ....every anniversary of dday and he went into depression.

 

I have not said that now for two years. You know why? Because I finally truly understood remorse....and I don't have to say that....because he KNOWS I finally understand his pain.

 

I admire your wife for her attitude...her humbleness....I truly do.

But this story you just told....does not scream remorse....it screams sorrow...it screams commitment....

 

If you are satisfied...and she is satisfied...then you do not need to continue to try to convince everybody else.

 

I think you are here for validation. I think you want to convince everybody here that you and your bride have achieved total remorse and forgiveness...and you want us all to applaud you.

 

And for the life of me...I don't know why

[VeryBrokenMan]

VBM,

 

Just responding to some of your posts. You have self identified as a pragmatist. You wonder how your IC could be wrong about her. You also gain strength in defending her. I want to point out a few things.

 

I, a fellow pragmatist, can tell you, your pragmatism is based on your desire to achieve your desired result. You have chosen to acknowledge only so much of the bad but not all of it. Sure, she cheated and that is bad. But she cheated with a convicted rapist and overall bad guy. She also was pretty adept in doing this despite your alternating suspicion of her (as evidenced by your statement that you always thought that she could cheat) and your blindness (as evidenced by the whole reason that you are here). In short, you give her just enough blame to allow you to still defend the her. She has told you that she IS really f*&cked up. You say, no, she WAS f'd up in that she cheated and was vulnerable, but now she is not and never was in the 35 years prior. That is not pragmatism, it is myopic. You can see, but don't want to see all. If it works for your heart, go for it. It won't end well, but go for it.

 

As far as you IC. They are your IC. You self report. They are trying to help YOU. If you want her, then fine, they will help you with that. They are not your leader, they are not her counselor, they don't know her true thoughts only what you report. That being said, if they see a future with her, it is because you see a future with her. If you said that this should be over, then I bet they would see how to help you with that. My point, they are operating on limited, filtered, agenda driven information provided by you. They can't be wrong or right. They are just helping.

 

Your need to defend her started out at the beginning. It was your default reaction because you were faithfully married to your wife. You were committed. So to have this whole end of relationship concept thrust upon you at a time when that was not even a thought in your mind could only have resulted in you choosing the marriage. I am not saying re-think your position, I am just saying you were surprised that you had to make that type of decision, so you opted to stay and fix what you never knew was broken.

 

As a poster said earlier, you need to really consider the scope of this stuff. Being a pragmatist and hating how insecure strong emotions make people like us feel, being goal driven gives us comfort. I know we are different, but I like pragmatism, logic, and reason. I hate strong emotion and conflict in my own life. I deal with it regularly in my client's lives, but in my own life, it shuts me down. I seek peace. I will let stuff go, even if I stew about it. I just compartmentalize it and only deal with it if I absolutely cannot avoid it. Reading your posts, I think that description fits you as it relates to this situation.

 

The best thing you can do, IMHO, is to stop defending her. You need to make a strong case against her. (I'm a lawyer, so pardon the legal metaphor) You need to get at the true scope of her guilt. She was never vulnerable. She's no one's victim. Come on, a convicted rapist who elects to use charm to get a woman to cheat? NOPE. I put a lot of rapist in prison as a prosecutor. Your narrative on that dynamic is so devoid of reality that I thought that you were a troll. Seriously. I could go on about that charming rapist concept, but I won't.

 

The 35 years have to be questioned, deeply. When did she feel dissatisfaction? What did she do about it? Once you have completely, and without mercy, dug through all of the evidence to show how guilty and complicit in this she was, only then can you truly resolve this. In my criminal practice, I have found, until you know how strong a case is against your client, you can't begin to build a defense. You will get burned every time. I don't mean you need to eviscerate her emotionally. Just, stop with the defending. Get a real thorough grasp of who she is and was and not who you need her to have been and need her to be now. Good luck.

 

 

I think what all of you are doing is missing the fact that I do not defend her actions to her I defend them to you guys. I don't make justifications for her affair when I talk to her nor do I accept any from her, I save that for here. The fact that I can see the reasons she has done this does not mean I accept them.

 

I would be livid if she used some of the reasons I mentioned here for having the affair. She tells me she made the choice to cheat period. She does not offer justifications or reasons. She does not blame me or our relationship. She blames herself and her unhappiness with herself.

 

She did a horrible thing to us with no regard for me. So I ask all of you how do I move forward without seeing the reasons and justifications I've set out? There is no alternative that I see, but please enlighten me on just how I do that.

[VeryBrokenMan]

Thinking that a BS can truly heal by NOT focusing on the betrayal their WS perpetrated. Failure to do that is what we call rugsweeping or simple denial. Blaming the AP or a "rough" place in the marriage is avoidance.

 

What is the alternative?

[VeryBrokenMan]

VBM...if that is good enough for you...it is good enough for me.

 

So I will ask you again...why are you here?

 

If you are trying to convince all of us that she is remorseful....why?

 

Let me tell you something...

 

32 years ago...I said to mr adams...I understand that you have to do what is best for you. I won't ask for anything. I don't deserve anything.

 

I repeated that for thirty years ....every anniversary of dday and he went into depression.

 

I have not said that now for two years. You know why? Because I finally truly understood remorse....and I don't have to say that....because he KNOWS I finally understand his pain.

 

I admire your wife for her attitude...her humbleness....I truly do.

But this story you just told....does not scream remorse....it screams sorrow...it screams commitment....

 

If you are satisfied...and she is satisfied...then you do not need to continue to try to convince everybody else.

 

I think you are here for validation. I think you want to convince everybody here that you and your bride have achieved total remorse and forgiveness...and you want us all to applaud you.

 

And for the life of me...I don't know why

 

Then just tell me in plain terms what I should be doing because I'm clearly not seeing your side if this argument. I'm honestly asking what steps I should be taking that I'm not. What actions will make you think "he gets this"?

[VeryBrokenMan]

No BH or BW, will recover their marriage focusing and staying focused on what their WS did.

 

People do not see this for some reason.

This is the issue really. I can't move forward by punishing her and myself for the rest of her life.

 

I can choose to dwell on the affair and how bad that behavior was but to what end? To make her and myself miserable for years? I choose not to do that. That is not rug sweeping or avoidance. It's a fact the affair happened and I can't change it. I can expect certain things going forward and I can have zero tolerance for when those things don't happen. That's all I can do. Why do I need to dwell on anything else? What good does that do me? I still ask questions and we still talk about the affair DAILY. But then we move on and I'm just not going to be mired being the victim and "poor little me" place. I'm just not. I'm stronger than that.

[VeryBrokenMan]

I think you are here for validation. I think you want to convince everybody here that you and your bride have achieved total remorse and forgiveness...and you want us all to applaud you.

I've explained that I'm here because it helps me to type my thoughts and focus my thinking on why I feel as I do. It has nothing to do with validation or anything like that. I could care less what internet strangers think. And I don't need your applause. In fact I need to opposite, I need you to tell me I'm wrong so that I can see the issues from all sides. Just don't expect me to agree.

[LifeWasted]

I've explained that I'm here because it helps me to type my thoughts and focus my thinking on why I feel as I do. It has nothing to do with validation or anything like that. I could care less what internet strangers think. And I don't need your applause. In fact I need to opposite, I need you to tell me I'm wrong so that I can see the issues from all sides. Just don't expect me to agree.

 

Same reason I'm here. I chose not to stay with my wGF, but I like using this forum as a sort of journal and I like the healthy banter and debate.

 

I think Mrs. John Adams is wondering why you ask for advice when you have already made your mind up.

 

Well, I can be that way too. I will set myself a course of action, not sway from it, but then I'll go out and ask people's opinion on my decision. Decisions can be changed. You may feel like R with your WW is the right decision right now. And that is fine. A month or so down the road, you may feel differently and change your mind.

 

My advice to you, for what it is worth, is do not make your WW any promises. None. She is not a safe person to make promises to.

[VeryBrokenMan]

I think Mrs. John Adams is wondering why you ask for advice when you have already made your mind up.

Does posting here mean I'm implicitly asking for advise?

 

Maybe I'm just looking for alternate opinions or arguments to my positions and thinking.

[Mazerati]

Does posting here mean I'm implicitly asking for advise?

 

Maybe I'm just looking for alternate opinions or arguments to my positions and thinking.

 

It is good to vent without worry. LS is the place to get a widely varied arts of points and counterpoints.

 

Curious too your thoughts on my questions earlier in the thread.

 

Maz

[LifeWasted]

Does posting here mean I'm implicitly asking for advise?

 

Maybe I'm just looking for alternate opinions or arguments to my positions and thinking.

 

I think so. I do think there is an unspoken contract with the other posters. Sometimes I debate, sometimes I don't feel like it, sometimes I stand back and watch the arguments and just take in what I'm hearing.

[Mrs. John Adams]

So you post as a therapy...you don't want advice....but you like to argue.

 

Understood.