After the affair

[OurBest76]

Sorry this is long and probably not the cleanest timeline but please especially women out there read this whole thing and let me know what you think. I need a woman with an honest perspective who has maybe been in a similar situation with a coworker but then wanted to save their marriage.

 

Also most of this was done voice to text so there may be a lot of unusual sentence structure and words that don't seem like they belong. I hope you get the overall drift because I'm dying to know if it's too late to talk about and if I should just let it go.

 

Around 5 years ago maybe less my wife told me that she had physically cheated on me with a coworker. One whom I had not only suspected but known that she had developed an emotional relationship with. Here's the story.

After 16 years of marriage and dealing with the countless stresses arguments and ups and downs that relationships go through my wife and I hit a unusually different low in our marriage. Things seem pretty normal in our day to day I was dealing with PTSD issues and anger management and although I never physically laid a hand on my wife or children and I never believe them or name called or degraded them I would raise my voice and I would argue my point to the point of exhaustion.  My wife responds differently in these situations.  Where I have to have resolution during the argument or by the end of it my wife needs to have time. He needs to have time alone to think things out to process before she can then deal with the issue and me. For for most of 2015 my wife would come home from work and be disinterested in me and that would often lead to an argument but sometimes not. She would go to the bedroom turn on the TV and she would spend most of her time there. I believe she was dealing with a lot of depression during this time I could not have been an easy partner to live with given that I also had mental health issues. I always thought that she would come around and that I would have time and the best thing to do would be to just let her have her space and her time.  One day after an argument she told me she was going to her mom's house to stay the night. This was the only indication she gave me and I believed that tomorrow she would come home and we would work things out. This kicked off a year of us separating getting back together separating and getting back together for a total of three times where one of us stayed at our parents house by the other stayed in the house that we own together.  One day while she was in our house I had a late work night and I was in that side of the town that we lived in and we were preparing for a new product launch I asked if I could come back there and crash since it would be two or three in the morning. She told me that would be fine and when I came over I went to the basement and I lay down the couch in our family room. She came down did something in the laundry room then walked over to me. She said "aren't you going to say hello or good night?". There's something with her tone that was suggestive not angry for the first time in a long time and I said hello as I took a risk and reached over and grab the back of her thigh. This led to me moving my hand further up where I grabbed her butt and pulls her on top of me. We began to make out and soon we're having some very intense sex. While I was inside of her she began crying I tried to sue her feelings and I said "it'll be okay we will get through this.". She said nothing continue to be aggressively into the sex as I wipe the tears from her face as I could tell she was going through some emotional anguish.  Looking back the way this all unfolded with the sex and the crying the spontaneity of it all I certainly question something that she has denied but I feel in my heart to be true. But I'll come back to that later. For 3 days our relationship was good we tried to spring quality time and push the problems we were going through aside.  On the third night we were making out about to have sex when she stopped everything and said this is not going to work. We're just going to go back to the same routine and nothing will be different. This didn't seem sincere and I never quite bought that those were her true feelings.  

  I moved back into my mother's house and things progressed towards divorce. It was mid January and we had accepted our position and we were getting along very well I thought there was a true chance for us but she told me that she was meeting with a divorce attorney. I tried to talk her out of it she insisted she said she had to. I lost it my PTSD as bad as it was never compared to the hurt pain and emptiness I felt as the tears rolled down my face through the end of that phone call.   I was a broken man.  We were getting the house ready for sale and I was there fixing something she had moved the rest of her stuff out to her parents and was staying there we talked daily along the way there were some things one evening I was texting her and she text me something that was clearly meant to go towards a male coworker that she had developed an emotional relationship with. I pulled our cell phone records and counted every call and time and date she had text or called this person. How was irate clearly they talked constantly.  Well getting together to do laundry at a laundromat something she asked me to help with because we have three children and it's a big job if you let the laundry go for too long.  I moved her car after dropping the laundry at the door and her phone was in the car I opened it up I opened her text messages and I opened the messages that she had been sending and receiving from this mail co-worker. It was then I read a message that said something to the effect of she had pursued him and he wanted to work the relationship with his wife whom he was also having an emotional affair with and they both regretted something but I did not get a chance to read all the messages.  Back to getting the house ready for sale.  She and her parents walk through to get some of her stuff she looked at me her voice crackling and she just said I'm sorry. I knew that she had had an affair or at least I was pretty sure. Definitely an emotional relationship but quite possibly a physical one as well.  3 days later she came over to the house by yourself I was alone the kids were with the in-laws we have been getting along so well and she said she wanted to work on marriage out and I was overjoyed until she followed it with she cheated on me. I said with Kyle? She said yes I threw a tantrum I knew it the whole time is right there in my face and it was being denied for the past year. She told me that they only physically got together two times once during our first separation and then almost a year later after an unassuming argument that we had had in which I had no idea that she was leaving me. she merely said she was leaving for the night to stay with her parents.  After she told me that and told me she wanted to stay together we had an awkward moment then I ripped her clothes off put her underneath on the sofa and f***ed her doggy style with both rejoice and aggression. I was so awkward in my feelings for the situation I was mad and jealous at the same time I was aroused and I just wanted to f*** her  Apparently she had gone off that evening after leaving the house and dropping the kids at her mom's and had drinks with this coworker. After drinks she blew him in his car. I don't know where but part of me wants to know. And then one other time which she didn't give me details about. She insists that these are the only two incidents and then nothing else happened..

I think the first time that we got together after experiencing problems when I had the late night at work and she came downstairs that she had sex with me because she was late on her period and wanted to be able to claim the baby was mine if in fact she was pregnant.

 

Outside of that I want to believe that she only gave him oral sex twice in his car but for the emotional relationship to have the first physical interaction and the last one an entire year apart seems sketchy. I think she wanted to tell me that she had done something so that she could admit to cheating without telling me everything that she did. I do want to believe her and I'd love to forget about the whole thing but this is only added to my ptsd. It still bothers me to this day severely because I feel like there are so many questionable circumstances that I wish I had more information about..  what was devastating is I had put my wife on this pedestal I thought that no matter how many mistakes I made and there were a lot I was by far maturing and not the best husband and I left several mental health issues untreated for a very long time. But I loved her and she loved me and she was the perfect person so I knew that eventually we would work it out I had gotten my s*** together and the damage that had been done from arguments and poor decision making would have been atoned for.  

We worked it out and although we had our struggles me accepting what had gone on and being able to rationalize it in my head and she talked a bit about her feelings and however she refused to give me detailed information about what had happened. We are in the best position we've ever been and we have the most amazing healthy relationship and I love her so dearly and she loves me and we're much more mature now much better for each other and much more supportive of one another. We've learned how each other argues and how when things are getting to that point to walk away. I have let go of so much pride for the sake of a healthy marriage in circumstances.  I value not only the big picture but the little things and I try everyday to be a better person for her and to live for her someone that she can be proud of. We don't talk bad about each other to other people and we don't share our personal relationship issues with other people especially those of the opposite sex.  So is it too late now that we're in this secure spot and I feel like we could both talk about it with out being emotional since we have accepted what had happened forgave each other and moved on?  Can I ask her to give me a step-by-step of everything that happened with details approximate times year and times of day. Is there any way I can assure her that if she tells me something else happened at this point I've kind of accepted that it already has in that it won't bother me but I need to know?  Is it too late am I risking rocking a boat of the ideal marriage for information that I can't change for do anything with?  I've wanted to know and every so often I think about what had gone down and happened and although I'm not angry with my wife nor do I want vengeance I really just want to know the truth the whole truth and everything involved.

Lastly as much as I would hate to see my wife in a relationship with another man I've become sexually aroused and masturbating you thought for giving head to this person.  I feel sick and by having just said that feels so perverted and wrong and emotional torn.  At the same time I'm angry because here has grown mature adults she openly admitted to giving head to this coworker in a car at night in a parking lot but won't do the same for me for fear of getting caught or whatever the reasons. It makes me angry because it lets me know that she was trying to get him to leave his wife she was trying to win him over by doing this action and that she was the aggressor in this case. It also bothers me that because the emotional part of this she did have feelings for this guy and not just lustful feelings but definitely a love that at the very least reached beyond a plutonic relationship.  Please I need anybody's information I just need to know that what I'm feeling is okay because sometimes it tears me up and I can't get it out of my head.

[mark clemson]

I don't have any specific advice, but certainly all sorts of people have all sorts of mixed feelings about all sorts of things when it comes to relationships and sex.

My thought is that you and she could both probably use therapy from a professional. You mention PTSD and multi-month depression - these are things to address with licensed professionals, not with amateurs on the internet, however well-intentioned and savvy they might be.