Topic : Cheated On

Thanks for your reply. You seem sincere.  I am angry, yes. But not bitter. I just like to keep things in perspective and I am not a sugar coater.  I think one of the reasons why people can do such terrible things is because they make the act "not so bad" so they can feel better about being such horrible, evil people.  Some people are very upset at my post; but I just know it's because they are the cheaters.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a fanatic. I understand where you are coming from... sure. If a person "cheats" on their mate emotionally, it is bad sure , but it can also be traced to a root cause that does not have the " selfish (sexual) action that can cause destruction to the victim's life."  I think that makes a difference. Cheating, while possible, is usually not a "crime of passion".  It involves planing. And it is  that planning- the plan to take a risk with another persons life is what makes its such an evil act.

First things first: you have nothing to feel guilty about! You stay at home to raise your children, and that is the best thing you could do for them. Your kids deserve to be raised by their own mother, in their own home- you are raising them to be good citizens, instilling good values and integrity. You stay home to care for the children and keep your home running; prepare meals, do laundry and cleaning- making sure that all of your children’s needs are met; this is more than a full time job and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Not all mothers are able to stay home and do this for their children, that is true- but don’t feel guilty for having this privilege. They are his children, too! As you said, he always worked a lot anyway, so even if you did work and contribute financially to the household, that doesn’t mean he would be working less.

Although you haven’t worked in 13 years, it is still possible for you to obtain reasonable employment, if you need to.

You don’t say what the ages of your children are, but if they are all in school at this point, you should consider taking a class or two at a local college. The point is to get out of the house and do something for yourself that will give you a sense of pride and build your self esteem. Also, many colleges across the nation have women’s centers, where you can meet other women who have been staying at home to care for their families- you will build a network of support.

It is great that you are in counseling for yourself, I urge you to continue to do that. This gives you the opportunity to vent and to be heard, and to receive guidance from a trained professional. It will be difficult to build trust again with your husband, even more difficult if he won’t take any accountability for his actions. What you need to hear from him is that he is sorry, that he would never do it again, and that he was wrong- and from there the real work begins to rebuild trust. You can’t do this all on your own, he has to be a willing participant in repairing this marriage. Is he willing to go to therapy, too?

What are you scared of? Please don’t be scared- you deserve the truth!

No, you should not ‘let it go,’ you need to know why he is visiting dating sites. Even if he says it is “just” male curiosity, that is no excuse- he is betraying your trust by seeking the company of other women.

My advice is to approach him in a calm and rational manner; don’t say “I violated your trust…” because HE is the one who is violating your trust by going to these sites to begin with! All you need to say to him is ‘I used your computer the other day, and I noticed that you have been going to dating websites, why are you looking for other women?’

This is proof to yourself that when your instincts are telling you something isn’t right, you need to listen to your instincts. Please know that you deserve the truth, you deserve to be treated with respect, honesty and integrity; don’t ever settle for less.

     Hello.  I am not going to lecture anyone on how he/she should handle the aspect of a cheating spouse, but I would like to share some of my own personal experience.  I am hopeful that in reading about what path I'd chosen ; maybe it would offer some insight in weighing your own decisions.  I married a man in March of 2000.  We had our daughter on Christmas Eve of that same year.  I was madly in love with him.  I stood behind him and backed him in every way....until.  I found out shortly after giving birth that he had cheated on me not once but twice.  I went through the period of "self-blame" and tried very unsuccessfully to dicipher where and what I had done to cause him to look for an emotional/physical connection outside of our marriage.  After about a month of this self-destructive thinking, I became angry.  I was angry at myself, him, and the other woman.  I felt justified in my anger.  I was angry at him for ruining the future for our daughter.  I really didn't want to see her grow up without having the luxery of having her father in the home with her.  I was angry at him for lying to me and not being man enough to tell me that he was considering doing this, putting my physical health at risk by sleeping with someone else (and not telling me but continued to have sex with me while I was pregnant).  If he'd contracted anything, I wouldn't have known but my unborn child could have been blinded, deafened, or worse if something had happened.  There are so many reasons for being angry at him, but it takes two to tango.  I turned my anger towards the other woman.  Certainly she must have noticed the ring on his finger.  However, that's an understatement since the other woman he cheated on me with was his ex-girlfriend.  Then it happened.  It was like I woke up!

     I realized one day that this wasn't my problem to figure out.  He'd apparently been too blind to appreciate what we had or he just didn't care.  Either way, I was still alive and I got the best end of the whole marriage.  I have a beautiful daughter who is so much more deserving of my attention and my love than he ever was.  I decided to make some life changes for myself and for my daughter's future.  I contacted a local counseling office and for the next two years, I continued faithfully with meeting with my therapist once a week.  I discovered that I had the ability to allow or disallow certain actions in my life.  I also learned that it was up to me as far as the amount of chaos that I allowed into my daily life.  I re-discovered who I was, what I was capable of, and what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  As a result, I enrolled in college full-time.  I've maintained a 3.86 GPA and am majoring in Pre-Law and Social and Behavioral Science. 

     All in all, what started out to be a horror story, full of doom and despair ended up being a happing "beginning".  I divorced my cheating husband.  It wasn't bitter or fault filled.  I just wanted it to be over so that I could move on.  I felt no reason to listen to any more excuses from him since I felt that our relationship had been based on his needs alone.  I was a good wife, friend, and confidant to him.  Unfortunately for him, he didn't see that at the time.  We were able to put closure to our marriage not only through the divorce, but by way of counseling as well.  I forgave him for his choices even though I never received an apology.  In my opinion, his actions are his burden to bear.  I have since remarried and we have 4 children.  We have moved closer to my family and are looking very much towards the future.  I have often admired Dr. Phil's "personal accountability" approach.  My being able to find the forest beyond the trees is partly due to his suggestions.  I took a personal inventory and found that even without my ex-husband, my life still had purpose and worth.  Thank you Dr. Phil...you inspired me to succeed! 

We tried marraige counseling, that is, we went once and he siad that it cost to much. He wasent willing to put it on our insurance. Basically, he was embarrised that we were doing that. I have learned that I have to take care of me right now. Nothing is going to get better untill I take care of me and get my life on track. I cant remember the last time it was. He has said that he cant take back what has already happened. And that he doesent want to lose his family. But as far as a true "I'm Sorry", I have not heard that. He jokes about everything that has happend so I dont feel he is sorry. I just started thearpy last week so I'm in the beginning of a long road, and I dont plan to make any major decisions yet. I feel that if I did, they would be the wrong decisions and just add to all the stress that is already there.

Sharra,

 

When something is bothering you in a relationship you should never sweep it under the rug.  You should be open and honest with him about your findings.  You need to ask him why he has gone onto these websites and why there is now a distance between the both of you. 

Normally when a person starts to makes changes out of the ordinary there are ulterior motives.  Are you sure he isn't seeing somebody else as it sure sounds like he may have met someone online.  There are alot of red flags regarding his actions, I'd be very weary of what he has been up to.

Ok, so he's been doing this for SIX YEARS? The problem I see here is that he got caught and is trying to get back what he has lost. 38 years or 3 years, cheating is cheating. You are still young enought to take care of yourself and be good to yourself. Do you think you can forgive him? Do you think he is being truly sorry about what has happened and willing to change? Someone told me that you may be able to forgive, but forgiving is almost impossible. That they struggle daily with the memories of the affair. I'm not to that point with what has happened to me, nor do I think I could ever trust him again. Trust is a big issue and important in a relationship. You should take care of yourself and get into thearpy so that you can work on you. Thats where I'm at right now and I dont plan to make any decision untill I have calmed down and am sure what I think. Hang in there! And remember to take care of YOU!

I hope someone can help me with this.

Here is my story.....

 

Me and my wife have been living together for 12 years, and have we have 2 kids. Our realationship has had its ups and downs over the years, but somehow we have made it work. About 6 months ago we had a huge fight,and it was just the last straw for me, so i moved out. We tried to talk in the next 2 weeks but somehow always ended up arguing in front of the kids, because she was so angry that i moved out. She shifted from trying to get me to move back in, and two days later, she said she would take the house and all conversations would go through a lawyer. And then again a few days later she wanted me to move back in, and another 2 or 3 days later everything changed again, she would keep the house, and i could keep the depts and so on.....  I told her that I didn´t want to move back in,  unless somethings would change, and then we would start arguing again. I told her that we obviously couldn´t discuss anything, so i told her what i wanted..... that we would  try NOT to talk about exactly this matter for maybe 2 or 3 weeks, and just think about what we would like to do in our relationship. I wanted to set a date and then we would meet and discuss our things, whether to sell our flat, or try to fix our marriage, because we just couldn´t talk together with all this anger involved. On one occasion, two weeks after I moved out, I came to my home at night when the kids were sleeping, ( i rented a small flat when I moved out) and we tried to talk. That night we both became a bit emotional, shared our feelings and ended up having sex, but later that night I went to my rented flat.

I took our sons almost every day and shared the weekends with them after i moved out, but they couldn´t sleep over, because I had no furniture no beds for them.  But on the weekend of the fourth week, I took my sons and we all stayed at my fathers house and we spent the weekend there.

 

Here comes the main part of my story.....

 

I have a friend from the past who used to be a good friend of me and my wife, but me and him had a big disagreement many years ago and so we ended our friendship there. But my wife has sort of always contacted him when she and I have had a big fight, and then they would meet and talk about things. She always told me and she also knew of my disapproval of this.

4 weeks after we broke up ( on a monday) i spoke with my wife, and asked her why she always contacted my ex-friend ( Lets call him X ) when we had our fights. ( I did not know she had contacted him after I moved out, but I somehow suspected it ) She got defensive, and told me it was none of my business, since we had broken up and i moved out. She could contact whoever she liked. We spoke together for the next 3 days about our marriage, and i told her that i loved very much and told her all the feelings i had for her and needed her in my life, etc etc and she felt the same way,but she told me that she propably blew any chance of us being together. When i asked her why, she told me she slept with X, on last friday night.( The same weekend my boys stayed with me at my fathers house)  She went out to dinner with people from work , had been drinking the whole night, and X was calling her, and later that night she went to his place. They sat at his place and drank two bottles of wine, and ended up having sex. She told me that she felt bad about it right away, and she stopped in the middle of the progress. She told me that she was thinking about us and our sex life at the time because she felt that it was "bad" sex she was having, and she felt like she was cheating on me.

I asked about details, but she tells me she has told me everything about how it happened.

She said that, he was lousy in bed, had a small "fellow", and they quit in the middle of it.

( I just feel that she told me this, because it is propably best for me to know it like this, because its the "best" of the "worst" ) I mean, who quits in the middle of sex ??   I will propably never know the truth for that matter.

I told her that i would like to get over this, and try to work out our proplems, even though she had done this, but things would have to change. I also told her that i dont want the anger to take control of me because of what happened. I know that it would be really easy just to walk away and call her names, and get on with my life, but i dont want to take the "easy" way out, i want to make this work.

I told her, that in order to do so, things would have to change, especially in showing our emotions, and also regarding our intimacy.

She has broken all contacts with X, and he is no longer in our lives.

The proplem is this.

Even though she told me that she "felt" like she was cheating, she says that she wasn´t, because i moved out and our relationship was over. Even though we had a lot of issues that were not resolved, she feels this way.

I feel extremely bad about that she has had sex with another man, but somehow i feel that she doesn´t realise what she did.

I feel like my heart is going to explode, i think about this a lot, and i cant seem to get the image out of my head of them together. I love my wife very much, but sometimes i have doubts that i will never get over this.

We have been going to a marriage counceller, for 5 months now, and i still feel this way.

Our sex live has not been so good for the past 3 years, because she has been on anti-depressants, and she said it was a side effect of the drugs, a lack of sex drive. Now she is off the drugs, and still nothing has changed. We sleep together maybe once every 2 or 3 weeks

I feel like i am the one who has to accept all kinds of things and she just gets away with saying, "this is just the way it is !! "

My wife has always been very sentimantal about all kinds of things, and has cried in weddings, reading obituaries, reading sad books and so on.

But i somehow feel that she doesn´t feel bad about what happened at all.

I have cried about this and told her my feelings, but she tells me she tries not to think about what happened.

I feel that she doesn´t show "enough" remorse....

Am i crazy ?

Is it possible to get over these kind of things ??

Somebody please help me, because i feel like i am getting depressed over this whole thing....

How can i cope with this ?

Is this going to be like this forever?

How do I trust my wife again ?

 

My mind is filled with questions, and I cant answer any one of them.....