Update on "need some advice", and I need some more advice :(

[dark elf]

Here is the old thread I posted about a month ago:

 

http://www.loveshack.org/cgi-bin/lovetalk.pl?read=30655

 

Anyways, here we are a month later. I've tried to deal with my emotions as well as I can, I feel (as well as she) that I've become quite a bit better at explaining how I feel, and dealing with my repressed emotions. We've spent quite a few days & nights between now & then talking, removing the barriers, and getting down to what we really feel, or at least I thought so.

 

And then this weekend happened. During the last couple of months she has told me about one of her male friends from work who she was seeking help from about our relationship, and also he helped her realize more about her religous beliefs and such. I've talked with this guy too, and we talked about my religious beliefs a bit (of which I'm still mostly undecided). So anyways, back to this weekend. We spent a couple of hours going through some of the hardest discussions on how she is telling me that she is dealing with her feelings, and how her usual reaction to problems is to run away from them. She says that she doesn't want to run away from our marriage and wants to stay with me. A bit later she tries to call her friend from work (who I talked to earlier in the day, he said he just got out of the hospital after a bad back problem). His wife answered, and basically told my wife that she wasn't going to let her talk to him, and hung up on her. She calls back, and demands to talk with me. I talk with her, and she tells me that she found a pair of my wife's underwear under their bed wrapped up in one of his shirts. My wife is standing next to me while I'm talking with her, so I ask her about this, and she says she was doing laundry over there, so I tell his wife this and tell her that I trust my wife, and say there must be an explanation of it. Later on, I straight out ask my wife if she has ever slept with him, and she admits she has. She says it was about a month or 2 after we got married, and that she was truly sorry for what she did. She said she didn't even talk to her friend for a month after it happened. She also said that she was planning on telling me about this on that night.

 

I have always told myself that as long as she didn't cheat on me, I could forgive basically anything else, and have. I've helped her deal with her addictions to drugs and alcohol to this day, her emotional problems, etc, but I never expected for this to happen. If my parents gave me nothing else, they gave me good strong moral beliefs, and about the strongest one I've kept through my life is that there is never a reason to cheat. I do sincerely love my wife, and I told her that I did want to reconcile my marriage with her, but I told her that this is an extremely difficult thing for me. I was a virgin when I first met her, and I have never slept with any other person, I have never so much as flirted with another woman, and now this happens. I am trying very hard to deal with as well as I can, but it's very hard for me to not just lapse into depression. Sex is something that I have always felt very strongly that it should only be shared in love, and cheating on your spouse hurts more than being shot straight through the heart. I know this is something that I can never truly "get over", and it's something I have to deal with if I want to stay with her. Her "friend" is moving to california with his wife to try and straighten things out with her, my wife no longer works with him, and his wife will not let him talk to my wife any longer. I realize that he helped her emotionally when she felt that I couldn't, but I still can't see any justifications for her actions.

 

So now what? I don't really want to leave her, but then again I can never look at her the same. I can never have sex without thinking about them (and we have a very healthy sex life, it's not like she wasn't satisfied). I feel like I was a fool for putting my unconditional trust in her, but I don't want this to harden my heart, but I know I can never fully trust her, and there is really no way for her to truly earn my trust again. So where do we go from here? Has anyone here dealt with this before?

 

[midori]

Oh wow, I'm so sorry.

 

Only you know your limits. Only you know your capacity for forgiveness. It's all well and good for people to cite adages that advocate one thing or another, but in the end it will come down to what's in your heart. I think you need to take some time to figure out what that is. Might take a little while, but give yourself that time. And don't hem yourself in with "should" or "ought to" kinds of thoughts. Can you forgive her? Do you want to? Those are the questions you need to be clear on. Everything else will follow from there.

 

Does your wife seem repentant? What explanations does she offer for a) the infidelity itself and b) her inappropriate "friendship" with this man after the fact? The former is bad enough but she shows remarkably bad judgement & lack of consideration by maintaining her connection to this man. Where is her concern for your feelings, how has she demonstrated her respect for you? Why was she willing to expose you to this man's charade of concerned friendship?

 

One also has to wonder about this other man, about his motivations for getting involved as a counselor in your marriage -- again completely inappropriate under the circumstances. And why ON EARTH did he keep your wife's panties under his bed, wrapped in one of his shirts? He was begging to be found out by his wife ... and you apparently. How stupid/careless/callous is your wife that she didn't pick up on this? Why didn't she get her stupid panties back, or insist that he dispose of them so as to leave no evidence of their indiscretion?

 

These are questions that I'd be asking in order to determine whether or not I could forgive a cheating spouse. People make mistakes, fine. But this doesn't seem to be an isolated fluke, but part of a larger pattern of selfish, irresponsible and flagrantly dishonorable behavior.

[femaleperspective]

Here is the old thread I posted about a month ago: http://www.loveshack.org/cgi-bin/lovetalk.pl?read=30655

 

Anyways, here we are a month later. I've tried to deal with my emotions as well as I can, I feel (as well as she) that I've become quite a bit better at explaining how I feel, and dealing with my repressed emotions. We've spent quite a few days & nights between now & then talking, removing the barriers, and getting down to what we really feel, or at least I thought so. And then this weekend happened. During the last couple of months she has told me about one of her male friends from work who she was seeking help from about our relationship, and also he helped her realize more about her religous beliefs and such. I've talked with this guy too, and we talked about my religious beliefs a bit (of which I'm still mostly undecided). So anyways, back to this weekend. We spent a couple of hours going through some of the hardest discussions on how she is telling me that she is dealing with her feelings, and how her usual reaction to problems is to run away from them. She says that she doesn't want to run away from our marriage and wants to stay with me. A bit later she tries to call her friend from work (who I talked to earlier in the day, he said he just got out of the hospital after a bad back problem). His wife answered, and basically told my wife that she wasn't going to let her talk to him, and hung up on her. She calls back, and demands to talk with me. I talk with her, and she tells me that she found a pair of my wife's underwear under their bed wrapped up in one of his shirts. My wife is standing next to me while I'm talking with her, so I ask her about this, and she says she was doing laundry over there, so I tell his wife this and tell her that I trust my wife, and say there must be an explanation of it. Later on, I straight out ask my wife if she has ever slept with him, and she admits she has. She says it was about a month or 2 after we got married, and that she was truly sorry for what she did. She said she didn't even talk to her friend for a month after it happened. She also said that she was planning on telling me about this on that night. I have always told myself that as long as she didn't cheat on me, I could forgive basically anything else, and have. I've helped her deal with her addictions to drugs and alcohol to this day, her emotional problems, etc, but I never expected for this to happen. If my parents gave me nothing else, they gave me good strong moral beliefs, and about the strongest one I've kept through my life is that there is never a reason to cheat. I do sincerely love my wife, and I told her that I did want to reconcile my marriage with her, but I told her that this is an extremely difficult thing for me. I was a virgin when I first met her, and I have never slept with any other person, I have never so much as flirted with another woman, and now this happens. I am trying very hard to deal with as well as I can, but it's very hard for me to not just lapse into depression. Sex is something that I have always felt very strongly that it should only be shared in love, and cheating on your spouse hurts more than being shot straight through the heart. I know this is something that I can never truly "get over", and it's something I have to deal with if I want to stay with her. Her "friend" is moving to california with his wife to try and straighten things out with her, my wife no longer works with him, and his wife will not let him talk to my wife any longer. I realize that he helped her emotionally when she felt that I couldn't, but I still can't see any justifications for her actions. So now what? I don't really want to leave her, but then again I can never look at her the same. I can never have sex without thinking about them (and we have a very healthy sex life, it's not like she wasn't satisfied). I feel like I was a fool for putting my unconditional trust in her, but I don't want this to harden my heart, but I know I can never fully trust her, and there is really no way for her to truly earn my trust again. So where do we go from here? Has anyone here dealt with this before?

How very sad. I hope that when you truly feel "heard" of all your pain and loss, you will feel some healing. For it seems to me, infidelity is like a death, a death of trust. Just a thought, could you go through the grieveing stages of death to heal the loss of trust? Check out Elizabeth kubler Ross,(sp)? that may give you some understanding of where your feelings are, and how to use them to move you forward, rather than become lost in the depths of depression, and that the "rollercoaster" of emotion is normal.

[Kiz]

I posted something earlier tonight to the young woman who cheated on a guy...people, listen, AIDS is still out there.

 

Maybe you are a more forgiving person than I am, but you were only married two months and she cheats? Jeez, will this be a bi-monthly event or did she just want to celebrate her two month anniversary.

 

I could forgive, but I would NEVER forget and it would take a long time before I trusted her.

 

I believe you said you don't want to leave her, and that's admirable;but, she would have to understand that you are not going to jeopardize your health because she has no self control.

 

I realize we are all seeking advice from each other, but it's unlikely we'll ever meet...as soon as one party in the relationship starts seeking a lot of "outside counsel" from members of the opposite sex, flags should go up.

 

Get thee to a counselor. Get her to a doctor. Require monthly physicals...YOU are more important than her...when it comes to your health.

 

She owes you big time...in every way that counts.