Could he be cheating?

[Wiseman2]

3 minutes ago, Stream said:

 

 probably made me look like I was hiding facts for ulterior motives. . 

You were hiding facts to stay married. You lied about who the other guy was.

That's what cheaters are best at. Hiding facts to stay married.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Wiseman2

[Stream]

Wiseman2

Yes I was. I am not proud of hiding it, but in my defense it decreased the chances of getting him angrier and leaving us.

I cheated, I lied five years ago. Since then I've tried to be the best wife in the world. Gradually things were becoming normal to all of us. Isn't that better than,

He being a part time dad, kids losing their full time dad, having to face financial difficulties and emotional challenges? 

If I had been a bi*** to him these five years, I would agree with you. But I've been nothing but near perfect and he has had no complaints at all.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Stream

[elaine567]

10 minutes ago, Stream said:

. Most of me still believe that it's a bluff. Because... I know for a fact that he is a very emotional person. He cannot be physical with anyone unless he has a strong emotional connection.

 2 months worth of writing romantic poems about her... is that not indicative of some sort of an emotional connection?
Maybe not the love story of the century perhaps, but enough to get physical surely?
He is now 5 years older and wiser, the guy besotted with you, probably no longer exists.
Cheating takes a massive toll.
Now he knows you threw him and your marriage away for some trashy, Jack the lad player...
How can that inspire love and trust?
Curly hair woman is shiny and new, she is not tarnished by the past.

 

[Wiseman2]

2 minutes ago, Stream said:

He being a part time dad, kids losing their full time dad, having to face financial 

Do you work? He'll be just fine either way. He'll still be an involved great dad.

If he chooses divorce, depending on your jurisdiction, he has great grounds to get the house, kids, everything because you are the one who broke the martial contract.

[Stream]

Wiseman2

I haven't been working for a while now, we both decided that it would be better for me to stay home with the kids. But it wouldn't be hard for me to find a job, I'd just have to take some time to update my domain knowledge. 

Divorce is as complex as reconciliation when kids and finances are involved. Trust me, I've considered all possible options.

Also,

As far as I know, when person stays with their spouse for five years after discovering and acknowledging infidelity, they lose their grounds to divorce using infidelity. In other words, it means he has accepted the infidelity and lived with it for five years. 

it's all very complicated. If divorce could solve our problems, I'd be the first to hire the lawyer. 

 

 

 

 

 

[schlumpy]

13 minutes ago, Stream said:

14 minutes ago, Stream said:

 

What you have done is use "trickle truth" which is a serious error. The reconciliation process must have total truth upfront. If you dribble it out or withhold details like the OM's identity then what's left is like a time bomb that when it explodes takes you right back to the starting gate.

He just found out who this guy was. This all could have been worked through five years ago. 

I understand your desperation to hold your marriage together but all you have accomplished is to remind him once again why he should not trust you.

Are there other things you didn't talk about? Details you hope to take to the grave?

The OM's identity may be old news to you but for him it happened yesterday and it may take another five years to get back to a semblance of a marriage.

The fact that he associates sex with love and you see it as recreational does not bode well for your marriage. It gives him very little leverage with you.

At this point I don't know what your husband will do. I would assume that he's thinking he won't be made a fool of again. That would speak to his affair plans.

Since you can't control your tongue I strongly suggest that you hash this out in counseling. You will need the referee skills of a competent marriage counselor.

This time tell him everything.

No more unexploded ordinance laying around.

 

[Wiseman2]

It's painfully clear that you never got professional sound advice from either a therapist or attorney. All your assumptions are from infidelity sites and hearsay.

You don't even know if he's "bluffing". 

Being a sahm has been the reason you are on the internet all day. 

With all due respect, your marriage sounds like an exhausting game and sham I would personally hate to be part of.

Hope things work out for you.

Edited November 17, 2020 by Wiseman2

[usa1ah]

5 hours ago, Stream said:

Wiseman2

Yes I was. I am not proud of hiding it, but in my defense it decreased the chances of getting him angrier and leaving us.

I cheated, I lied five years ago. Since then I've tried to be the best wife in the world. Gradually things were becoming normal to all of us. Isn't that better than,

He being a part time dad, kids losing their full time dad, having to face financial difficulties and emotional challenges? 

If I had been a bi*** to him these five years, I would agree with you. But I've been nothing but near perfect and he has had no complaints at all.

You still cheated on him. Like I said before, nothing you do will change the fact that you cheated. All the hardships if a divorce happened would have been because of you. With you saying “isn’t this better then the alternative” just illustrates that you have no idea how you have hurt and destroyed the man your husband was. 

[usa1ah]

7 hours ago, Stream said:

Pottering About

He said the affair will commence in a few weeks when she arrives here. I couldn't tell if he was serious or bluffing.

Before the last conversation I believed that he only wanted to hurt me, but after the conversation, I am no longer sure if all he wants is just to hurt me.

I hope all he want was just to make me feel the same pain and nothing more. If that's what he wanted, then he's already succeeded.

...

Yes, I will try my best to save the relationship.

I am gonna fight and try my best to stop it. I know I am being a hypocrite. Can't help it, I am just humans too. Even the thought of him with another lady makes me vomit. I've learnt my lesson. I wish I could take back the hurt I caused him five years back.

I don't know how I'd be able to cope. I didn't think of anything when I gave him the hall pass. I haven't thought of this yet 😕

If he wants out.. I don't know. I can force him to stay or make his possible exit extremely costly for him financially and emotionally.  I already have the support of our families and close friends. They know how much genuine I was in reconciliation.

But I don't want him to stay unless he wants to.  I really hope he wants to stay. Because in the past five years, I've not given a single reason for him to doubt my love or commitment to him. I hope he isn't gonna punish me again for something I did give years back.

Also he and kids are inseparable and I don't think he will be willing to be a part time dad. 

The families and close friends are the support network. I am also planning to get counseling.

Thank you very much Pottering About

Your replies are helping me a lot! I really appreciate your help. 

I honestly consider you to be an expert. Thank you again.

 

You will never know his pain, your going it to this with your eyes open. 
 

You blindsided your husband with a guy going around bragging that he f’d your brains out. That you told him he is the best that you ever had. That your husband sucks in bed and it was a mistake to marry such a loser. 
 

Even if you didn’t say any of that, if your OM is low enough to kiss and tell, then he will also talk s*** about how bad your husband was to you. 
 

Your marriage is over. 

[mark clemson]

Ahem.

Don't let anyone put the blame for HIS DECISION to cheat on YOU.

I won't say the situation, your priority infidelity, etc had "nothing to do with this." Clearly there were issues in the marriage. But - HE COULD HAVE CHOSEN to be honest with you.

Victim blaming is baloney. Don't let yourself be deceived/talked in to blaming yourself. Your HUSBAND made a choice to deceive you instead of working on the marriage or asking to divorce so he could find someone else.

Surprised I'm the one who has to be saying this.

Edited November 17, 2020 by mark clemson

[usa1ah]

7 hours ago, Stream said:

elaine567

I am not saying the healed completely, bit things were going great for us, until he learnt about OM's identify, which probably made me look like I was hiding facts for ulterior motives. I hid OM's identify for us to be able to heal faster. I did a huge mistake there. 

You hid the OM id to keep yourself from looking the fool. Your husband warned you and you blew him off. Yours is not the first thread that I have read this. There are several of them ending the same way as yours. They all say “why didn’t I listen to my husband”. 
 

The question is, why didn’t you? The reasons you gave are bs. We all feel that way. None of us believe we would ever cheat on our spouse. So what is the truth, did you become your OM’s friend just to spite or prove your husband wrong?

Your not a victim of the OM, you were warned about him by your husband. You knew exactly what and who he was. Yet, you let him walk right in and take you to bed. I honestly believe you wanted him from the start. The “you won’t tell anyone” is the give away. 
 

You will never fix your marriage on lies. The past 5 years doesn’t matter now because YOU start R on lies. Instead of being honest with your husband after you already F’d another guy, you kept lying to him. 
 

You ruined the R by your own lies. 

[usa1ah]

I am blaming you for your husband using the hall pass. 
 

I am blaming your for destroying your marriage because of your lying to him. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by usa1ah
I do blame you for him using the hall pass

[mark clemson]

4 minutes ago, usa1ah said:

I am blaming your for destroying your marriage because of your lying to him. 

Apologies - but:

So therefore it's OK for the husband to cheat??

So I guess anytime someone "feels" their marriage is "destroyed" it's then ok to cheat?  You know, JIC it's not actually destroyed?

Perhaps your WS felt the marriage was "destroyed", too? Maybe you lied to her a few times??

Sorry, no. Revenge affairs are not justified affairs.

[usa1ah]

10 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

Ahem.

Don't let anyone put the blame for HIS DECISION to cheat on YOU.

I won't say the situation, your priority infidelity, etc had "nothing to do with this." Clearly there were issues in the marriage. But - HE COULD HAVE CHOSEN to be honest with you.

Victim blaming is baloney. Don't let yourself be deceived/talked in to blaming yourself. Your HUSBAND made a choice to deceive you instead of working on the marriage or asking to divorce so he could find someone else.

Surprised I'm the one who has to be saying this.

I believe any thing sexual with someone outside the marriage is cheating. But OP is the one to give her husband the hall pass. He has chosen to use it now because of the revelation of the OM. This is still her doing because of the lies 5 years ago and the revelation of them now. 

[usa1ah]

1 minute ago, mark clemson said:

Apologies - but:

So therefore it's OK for the husband to cheat??

So I guess anytime someone "feels" their marriage is "destroyed" it's then ok to cheat?  You know, JIC it's not actually destroyed?

Perhaps your WS felt the marriage was "destroyed", too? Maybe you lied to her a few times??

Sorry, no. Revenge affairs are not justified affairs.

He has a hall pass from OP. 
 

She has yet to tell him he can’t use it. 

[usa1ah]

2 minutes ago, mark clemson said:

Apologies - but:

So therefore it's OK for the husband to cheat??

So I guess anytime someone "feels" their marriage is "destroyed" it's then ok to cheat?  You know, JIC it's not actually destroyed?

Perhaps your WS felt the marriage was "destroyed", too? Maybe you lied to her a few times??

Sorry, no. Revenge affairs are not justified affairs.

I have never been cheated on. 
 

My wife betrayed me with her family and financially. 

Edited November 17, 2020 by usa1ah

[Pottering About]

I can see how this news has changed things for your husband and, as some others have already said, I don’t think the last 5 years count for anything as the information about the OM is new to him. 
 

If my wife cheated on me, I know if certain men were the OM then I would be off like a shot, no turning back, no reconciliation, and extreme dislike of my WS. I stand to be corrected but believe a lot of men think like this and the same applies to women. 
 

In terms of damage to your marriage, I do think the OW is not as big a danger as the details of the OM. Although your husband may or may not be planning a revenge affair, I am afraid I see him as the victim here and not you because of this new revelation that he found out about in the most horrible way.

 I think you will have to work a lot, lot harder on saving your marriage this time round and I would not expect your husband to help you.  If your husband doesn’t end it anyway, you are probably in for a long hard ride with no guarantees. On the positive side, you have shown resolve and determination to repair your marriage before and you can do it again if you do not decide to walk away. 

So, where do you go from here? I think that my original questions to you are still valid but you may have to rethink your answers which will evolve over time as matters develop. 
 

Others have already asked if you work. Do you think you should be exploring potential career opportunities if matters do not work out the way you want so that you have social contact, something to focus on and an income stream?

You have expressed regret about losing your temper but you are only human and this has probably provided you with a safety release to get it out of your system. What is done is done but do you think your reaction fed into your husband’s desire to hurt you and he got a degree of satisfaction from that?

How will the news about the identity of the OM affect your support networks, particularly if he has influenced his family? Will this affect how (or even if) they help you? 
 

Finally,  I do think the identity of the OM ratchets this up several notches and is way above the pay grade of contributors to this forum. I feel that contributors are not going to be able to offer further meaningful advice and agree with Wiseman2 that now may be the time to get professional help. You have received a lot of adverse comments already (bit of a kicking really) and I do not think it s going to get any better. Is this the time to step right back from this forum for you own peace of mind, may be check in once in a while to update everyone?

I do wish you well for the future. Make sure you look after your mental health!

 

 

[mark clemson]

2 hours ago, usa1ah said:

I believe any thing sexual with someone outside the marriage is cheating. But OP is the one to give her husband the hall pass. He has chosen to use it now because of the revelation of the OM. This is still her doing because of the lies 5 years ago and the revelation of them now. 

 

Okay, but the HP would be for an open, revealed EMR, presumably of the brief and limited duration variety. This is implied in the name "hall pass". He didn't do that/go about it that way but chose to "cheat". IMO he is still the one "breaking the marriage" here.

Maybe the current state of the marriage isn't to his liking and that's why he chose this path instead of using the hall pass. Ok, but he's still cheating. ANY cheater could use the excuse that they're unhappy in the marriage, and I think many if not most of them are.

 

2 hours ago, usa1ah said:

I have never been cheated on. My wife betrayed me with her family and financially. 

Fair enough. I did not read your PPs.

[Stream]

Wiseman2

I wish we had taken professional help. I agree with that. But you have to understand that it's a bit of foreign concept for us and my introverted husband doesn't open up to strangers.  But if he wants to reconcile, this time I'll somehow try to get us help. Thank you.

usa1ah

Five years ago I did cheat and take full responsibility for that. You are right, I might never know the amount of pain I've caused him. But I imagine it must be way way more than what I am experiencing now. I understand your point about OM's bragging. I know what you mean.

There must be something wrong with me to ignore my husband's warning about him. I don't know why that happened. May be I was over confident about my self control and moral system. May be I thought my husband was being over protective of me. I don't know the answer. But you make a good point. At some point I will definitely need the answer for that.

I take responsibility for the destruction of the marriage and the hall pass.

mark clemson

Actually, I was the one who gave him a hall pass. That was a desperate attempt to make him stay.

Pottering About

I am not the victim he is, I understand that. I never claimed to be the victim. I haven't thought about work yet, we both decided that it's better for me to stay home, so I did so. But I can find work if that would be required in the future.

Initially I didn't use any harsh words, I was patient and was trying my best to say my side of the story and convince him to work on the marriage. However, the moment OM's name came into the conversation, he became very angry and I do understand his anger. At a certain point, he told something like, he that he had found the best girl for him and that they'd start the affair in a few  weeks. It crushed me. Then he attempted to show her photo to me. I couldn't bare the pain anymore and humiliation anymore.

But .. in a way, it taught me how much pain he must have endured and enduring. 

If our families and friends knows the identity of OM, they'd most probably take his side.. and may be they might even help him divorce me 😕. Most of the family, especially his side knows the kind of guy OM is. 

 But my husband hasn't told anyone yet. That's one thing that gives me hope. Ahe hasn't talked about it to anyone. If I hadn't found the writing, he wouldn't have mentioned it to me as well.

Again my intuition says that he wants to recover the marriage. I think he's in far too much pain and doesn't know how and where to seek help. He is a very introverted. He doesn't open up to anyone other than close family or his best friend. On this instance, he hasn't talked to anyone I feel.. most probably to protect me 😕

He is an amazing man.

yes, I feel the same. 

When he is back, I'll try to talk to him again about seeking professional help. If he is willing then we'll go together, if not at least I'll go individually.

I won't quit, I'll try my best to help him heal and go towards a proper reconciliation path. But.. if it doesn't work, or if he seriously wants to leave me.. then I will let him go. 

thank you very much Pottering About

Your suggestions help me a lot. I am also very thankful to the kind and respectful manner you reply.

 

 

 

Edited November 17, 2020 by Stream

[Stream]

Each and everyone of you have helped me in a way. Thank you all of you!

As some of you  have been suggesting, I'll seek professional help and stay away from sites. Hopefully everything will work out for us.

I'll update you guys if anything changes.

Again thank you very much all :)

 

[mark clemson]

2 hours ago, Stream said:

I am not the victim he is, I understand that. I never claimed to be the victim.

I respectfully disagree with this. He was the victim of your affair. YOU are the victim of his.

 

2 hours ago, Stream said:

Actually, I was the one who gave him a hall pass. That was a desperate attempt to make him stay.

 I understood. Not the best decision - it sometimes doesn't come across the way it's intended to a BS from what I understand.

Edited November 18, 2020 by mark clemson

[SincereOnlineGuy]

On 11/13/2020 at 10:10 AM, Pottering About said:

Am I the only one who finds the whole concept of hall passes quite insulting and condescending?  Isn’t the truth that they are offered to lessen the WS’ guilt and are not aimed at helping the BS. 
 

 

Of course...    in just the same way as does fessing-up  to the affair when to do so would be (easier on the offender and harder for the innocent one).

 

But it is funny how those who make a life of cheating left and right are the only ones who cannot see the clarity in that.

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by SincereOnlineGuy