Wife of 2 years and partner of 6 years. Admitted affair openly and seeks a future together. Help!

[JJJC]

Hi there,

I hope you’re all well!

I’ve been reading the posts here for the last 2 days, and really respect all of your inputs on people’s situations.

I am looking for some external perspective here, which I so desperately need, as cannot share my current situation with any friends or family as yet.

I have been with my wife for 6 years, married. Long story short, we met in the workplace, I was her boss, and due to our close working relationship, we grew closer, and admittedly had a sexual relationship whilst working together for around 6 months until my leaving that post to another firm.

Around 1 year before our wedding, a guy joined her work, who I know on a professional basis, and had offered him a job at a different business in the past and actually refered him to this job when my wife shared the vacancy with me.

she is the boss there, and he is 2/3 levels lower in the structure there.

I’ve met him multiple times.

during this period, there was texts from him to her that were regular and I saw them becoming more frequent and later in the evening to which I asked upon, and was met with ‘we are just friends’. I had no reason to suspect anything further, as we have had no trust issues in our relationship to this point.

 

the frequency increased, and one day I asked her to show me a message as I had a gut feeling something was off, there was light flirting but nothing hugely bad. 
 

this continued, and we become very very distant, utltimaltey living pretty seperate lives and as room mates per se. 

she frequented going out and drinking after work which she was not known to do, and I knew something was wrong here. We had multiple talks through this and she became very defensive and stated that she doesn’t have many friends in this city, which is true, and they are just good mates. I believed this and let it go.

I then found a cinema charge on our joint account and questioned it, to which she denied and said she was in work etc and must be fraud. We cancelled our cards. Naive at this point, and should have stood firm, but as I say, I love her and had no prior issues of this.

things stayed the same. We got married, as was all planned and had multiple real talks about cancelling the wedding, but decided to commit to it and work it through.

1 month after the wedding, I then found an email confirmation on her email of a hotel stay the day of her staff party that he sent, saying your coming to stay. I planned to wait at the hotel in question, and if I saw them that was it, bags backed and no words needed, closure.

she then invited me to this party, and I was shocked. I didn’t tell her I knew about the email. I went along. 5-6 pints deep, and he was avoiding me like the plague.

 

I then made a silly decision and put him in a headlock, took him to another room and put him on the floor and told him that I saw that email, and my wife is not interested, and continued to punch him with a few shiners made. Silly choice i know but the year of suspicion and anxiety built up and felt I had to ‘tell him’.

things calmed down it seemed, and we slowly patched things up with a lot of work. She stopped staying out late, and supported me in my job and around the house the best she could.

the next year she has completely changed and seems committed to me.

1 year on, I have a chance to move to Australia - we live in Europe now, which is my dream, and something she really doesn’t want, as her family are very upset with the notion of that.

 

she committed to Australia despite the fall out from her parents over the last 2 months and we are due to leave in 3 months.

The decision has effected her sleep, and mental health, and she has really suffered with the non support of Aus from her family. So much so I suggested her to see a therapist last week. She obliged.

 

2 days after seeing the therapist she came clean to me randomly, saying I can’t do this anymore and she had an affair with the man in question at work for around 1 year, had feelings for him, and was a sexual relationship.

 

we have talked it through as I needed to know facts and total honesty, as I has thought over that year I was cracking up and becoming a real control freak, of which I have never had or been in my life or any past relationships.

 

this gave me some closure to that feeling of insanity. I asked for full details to which she obliged, where they had sex, how many times I’ve the year and that he made her feel special and wanted, which wasn’t happening at that moment in our life’s to which I admit.

 

she said it escalated very quickly, to a full blown relationship. Which then stopped all sex in our marriage, as she felt guilt.

I asked her if she loved him and she said yes, but doesn’t anymore even though she does still care for him.

 

it took the therapist to show her she needed to come clean, and I feel it is only for her own guild in parts. Although, she now states she wants to work back my trust, knows I do not deserve what she did and is totally understanding if I walk away, but she really really really wants a chance to restore my faith in her. 
 

we are planning to go to aus in 3 months. This move means she leaves her high flying career, without another job, with the non approval of her family, but wants to do this as a fresh start and is committed to working back trust the best she can.

 

i am making no rash decisions, and am trying to be as level headed  as possible. I told her that I need time to process; 1,3,6,12 months before I come to any decision, but am open to her trying to win back my trust at this point and continue the plans to move to Aus. I told her I could turn round after 1 month there and tell her we can’t make this work and I can’t get back there intimacy. She understands and still wants to give this a go.

She also openly admitted today that she has fantasies to having 3 sums, and wanted to be honest with me about that. Whether that is another couple. Or a man or women, she wants to explore that in the future. I don’t know how I feel about that right now. But appreciate her honesty at this point as it’s the most I’ve had for over 1 year. 

I would appreciate some external input here, brutal honestly please as I’m finding it hard to process.

 

I love her, care for her, and realise I do need to fix the cracks of the relationship and why she felt so ditached that she could do this, on the contraryX believe I deserve more, and despite the cracks, I never entertained any extra maritial acts etc and stayed loyal.

 

please be brutally honest!

 

cheers and thank you 

[Wiseman2]

Sorry this is happening. The move to Australia sounds catastrophic for her and your marriage.

Perhaps this would be a good fresh start for you to go alone, since the trust seems severely broken.

Even if she agrees to go, what's the point of having threesomes and further confusing the issues? 

[stillafool]

Did she say she wants to be with him and they plan to be together?

[MsJayne]

 

2 hours ago, JJJC said:

I then made a silly decision and put him in a headlock, took him to another room and put him on the floor and told him that I saw that email, and my wife is not interested, and continued to punch him with a few shiners made. Silly choice i know but the year of suspicion and anxiety built up and felt I had to ‘tell him’.

I love this method of "telling him" 😂.  Bad choice, yes, not the most conciliatory intervention tactic, but also a perfectly understandable reaction. And all caused by your sneaky, disloyal, lying, manipulative wife. As I read your post I was thinking she was really regretful of what she did and wanted to make things work with you...... until the threesomes bit. I can't think of a better way to ensure an ugly divorce than a partner who openly lusts after other people, (unless you're happy to go along with it). Your wife is trouble, does the wrong thing and finds a way to make you take some responsibility for her actions. If she was that unhappy she should have just left, not started banging some bloke from the office. The last thing you should do is take her with you when you start a new life in a new country. The only reason she wants to stick with you is that you're ambitious and she knows she'd have a comfortable life with you. You did say, "Be brutal", so, I say she's a gold-digger and you should divorce her and be grateful there's no kids involved. Cut her loose so she go out and do entire football teams without feeling guilty. 

[Weezy1973]

Yup, no kids is a blessing here. Dump her and find yourself a good woman. Let her go explore the orgy community and live her best life.

[JJJC]

13 hours ago, stillafool said:

Did she say she wants to be with him and they plan to be together?

No, she has told him that it’s over between them, and told him that I am now aware of all of it.

[d0nnivain]

You two had been together for several years when this started.  Within a month of walking down the aisle & taking VOWS with you in front of family & friends, promising things like 'til death do us part & forsaking all others she was having sex with this other man.   She's a liar & this affair may be grounds to have your whole marriage annulled.  She has point blank told you that you are not enough for her sexually which is why she wants to introduce other people into this.  

This is not & has never been a marriage.  RUN to the nearest divorce lawyer & don't look back.    

You can't trust that she's telling you the truth about breaking things off with the other guy. Liars lie & cheaters cheat.  It's what they do.  

[BaileyB]

20 hours ago, JJJC said:

please be brutally honest!

Ok. I’m stuck on the fact that you have essentially made the unilateral decision to move to Australia and you expect your wife to accept this decision and accompany you with little consideration for her feelings. That’s not how a healthy marriage works. You mention that her mental health is suffering like it’s no big deal -

20 hours ago, JJJC said:

The decision has effected her sleep, and mental health, and she has really suffered with the non support of Aus from her family. So much so I suggested her to see a therapist

Would it not be more appropriate to say -  “the decision has affected her sleep and mental health, and she has really suffered with the non support of her husband?”

A therapist isn’t going to fix what is wrong here. 

The fact that she is cheating is the most obvious reason to file for divorce. But, there are more problems in this marriage than infidelity. 

Edited November 26, 2023 by BaileyB

[petee]

It's kind of simple to answer, really. Did she use protection? If the answer is no then she has not only disrespected you, she has risked your permanent health...divorce.

If she did us protection, then this is not a done deal; she did not 100% alleviate herself of responsibility. Are you willing to go through the months of anger/ hysterical bonding etc?

The timing is dreadful, just when new couples should be so into each other.

So, the first question is an absolute deal breaker with the wrong answer, the second is a lot of painful soul searching; sadly I think if she can do it around a marriage/ honeymoon she will do it again.

Good luck, whatever you do, but you are probably young enough to start again and go on to have a family.

[mark clemson]

On 11/25/2023 at 11:26 AM, JJJC said:

i am making no rash decisions, and am trying to be as level headed  as possible. I told her that I need time to process; 1,3,6,12 months before I come to any decision, but am open to her trying to win back my trust at this point and continue the plans to move to Aus. I told her I could turn round after 1 month there and tell her we can’t make this work and I can’t get back there intimacy. She understands and still wants to give this a go.

 

She also openly admitted today that she has fantasies to having 3 sums, and wanted to be honest with me about that. Whether that is another couple. Or a man or women, she wants to explore that in the future. I don’t know how I feel about that right now. But appreciate her honesty at this point as it’s the most I’ve had for over 1 year. 

I would appreciate some external input here, brutal honestly please as I’m finding it hard to process.

 

It sounds like you have a plan that she agreed to and is reasonably fair to both of you. So stick with that. She acknowledges you're not ready to say "ok" yet and might not, she will have time to get her job/finances back on track in Aus while you are sorting out where you stand, in case you should leave. I think your maturity and fairness wrt this really deserves some praise.

The 3somes are a separate issue. Those are nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves in a functioning marriage, and certainly are not for everyone. Tell her one thing at a time, take time to get whether you will even stay together straight. AFTER that's been worked through, you can discuss the possibility of some limited polyamory. If you don't agree to that, then it won't happen - of course she needs to understand that and agree.  Note that she might lose interest in this at some point, as people can have relative hyper- and hypo-sexual phases during their lives, so time may resolve the issue.

Hopefully what's happened is enough that she will no longer take your love/commitment to her for granted.

[glows]

I get the sinking feeling that she tired of you, wanted more excitement with someone else and had the affair, tired of him(the other man) and is now coming back to you in remorse prefacing that she wants threesomes.

While I applaud her for seeing a therapist and coming clean to you there has been so much damage done already in the trust and marriage. In order for her to be honest about threesomes she had to cheat? And what if that doesn’t satisfy her? There are a lot of questions Id be asking and none of them would be answers Id believe easily considering her track history of telling lies in the past.. I understand reconciling means learning to rebuild that trust but only you can decide when you’re past the point of no return(not able to trust her any longer). 

This is not to say that getting the marriage back on track is impossible but she’s basically saying here what she needs from you and they are new requirements that you might not have signed up for prior to marriage. I’d also consider if the marriage is stable enough to bring third parties in or a threesome. You both couldn’t even be honest with one another from the start. I would worry about adding children to the mix if you’re both wanting kids. Is this a stable life for kids when one or both parents are unhappy or distrustful.