"I'm having an affair.", and more...

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
221

Counseling killed my marriage, and maybe that was the intent of the counsellor.

I didn’t want to throw my wife under the bus by explaining why I had an affair, so I concentrated on the counselor’s questions about me, regarding me and my behaviour.

After four or five sessions I still had no opportunity to provide my side of the story: my reason why I wasn’t happy and why I had strayed. It was two on one. Female counsellor and wife versus me. On the initial visit my wife actually said to the counsellor “Sometimes he isn’t interested in sex with me, and then I catch him masturbating to porn on the computer in the basement.” Well, that was rather embarrassing but somehow I don’t think I’m the only male guilty of this.

The (female) counsellor looked at me like I had just strangled a kitten.

Counseling was a very one-sided, humiliating and embarrassing experience where I got no opportunity at all to provide input as to why I had did what I did. It was an attack on me and my personality without any recourse from me to state what my position was. Fucking waste of time that did more harm than good.

I’m glad I’m separated now and should have done it 10 years ago, but I’m also glad that I lived with my kids till they were teenagers.

222

So she never met with you separately?

223

That was not a good counsellor (I’m guessing you probably have realized that since then).

224

She was never a party girl. I was never a party guy. But when we got married we had friends. We did things. Over the years I’ve still enjoyed going out with friends an doing things and she doesn’t want to do anything social. And when I do get her out it’s exactly like the super bowl party. Or we had plans to go out for a concert a couple years ago with friends and she used one of our kids having a stomach ache, even with her perfectly capable mother there to watch her, as an excuse to stay home last minute. Its gotten worse and worse.

Greeting me with a French kiss even once over the last few years would have gone a long way. If after our most recent conversation, if she had done that once even if she was TOTALLY not feeling it, it would have at least given me some hope. Right now, today, would that make me fall madly in love with her? No. And I realize people are going to blame me for that.

She used to smile. She used to have fun with me. She used to seem to enjoy life. She doesn’t now.

On the day I married her she was the most beautiful woman in the world. I understand physical changes, I really do. I understand the effects kids can have on a woman physically. I’ll get slammed for this from a half the people here, but there is a reasonable expectation in marriage of your spouse making an effort to keep up their appearance. Its different for different people. Easier for some, harder for others. I get it. But second servings at dinner, fast food, 64 oz sodas, and no exercise is a choice. Yes, I have thought to myself “she loves food more than she loves me” often.

Again, Im not trained to handle those mental issues. I can’t force her to go to therapy for that.

She is still a smart, caring person. She is a very loving mother, as I knew she would be when I married her.

225

I’ve gone through the same situation as the OP. I stayed for our daughter. Then I left when she turned 18 and, incidentally, so did our daughter. It got to the point none of us could stand being around each other. At this point, I must mention that I never had an affair before this, although I considered it. My leaving was at my wife’s request, so I assumed she must have been having an affair - no confirmation on this to date. After 4 months of my being gone, she called me and asked me to come back. I went back, and things got worse. I didn’t leave again, already tried that. The following year, I had an affair, and it was the most wonderful thing I have ever felt. After I moved out the 2nd time, I realized I wasn’t comfortable anywhere else. When I moved back home the 2nd time, my wife became a new person and things were great for 3 months. Recently, our marriage has fallen back into the old pattern, and I’m now in the OP’s shoes, with a new twist - I am no longer attracted to my wife whatsoever. After talking with other married and divorced people, I think once you stay so long, you’re stuck and you become OK with that. So pretender919, either leave now, or prepare to seek comfort elsewhere if you stay. People don’t change for long.

226

But it’s not completely uncommon. I saw a lot of the behavior described by Leaffan during my own marriage counseling with my ex-wife (also a female counselor). It didn’t always feel like two against one, but it did seem like most of the sessions went like “Wife says something, she and counselor discuss it for half of the session, I say something, counselor goes ‘huh’ and asks wife some more questions.” And more than once the counselor actually said “I don’t really know if I’m qualified to handle your situation” (mainly with regards to cultural and language issues).

And as I’ve seen with my mental health counselors, there are definitely good and bad ones. I’m lucky that I have a good one now; I am worried for my near future when I move away from here…especially as it took me three years to find a counselor who could work with me well. And that’s another reason, I suppose, that I feel counseling isn’t a magic bullet for marriages on the rocks–I never could have waited that long during my first marriage to find a good counselor. Even if a good counselor would have saved our marriage, it wouldn’t have lasted another three years while we looked for that elusive person.

227

I’m not going to judge what you are doing. I’ve done a lot of really ugly things in my life and I’m not in a position to cast stones. If fact, I’m just writing this to see if I can help you avoid some of the exact same mistakes I made.

But, if you really want your kids and wife to be happy, you have to take responsibility for your feelings and actions. I didn’t want to be the bad guy, so even I moved out, I didn’t give my exwife a clear signal that I felt it was over. I guess I wanted her wake up one morning and decide she was the one who didn’t want to be married.

The only fortunate thing was that I didn’t have kids in that marriage. I do now in my current one.

You think your wife isn’t a bad person, but you don’t love or even really like her now. That’s fine, that happens to 50% of marriages. You aren’t the only one.

But, you need to deal with that as honorably as you can, something I failed to do.

If you get a divorce, and it comes out that you were having an ongoing affair, how is that going to help the relationship with the mother of your children? How is that going to help her feel better about you in order to work out the zillion things you need to do in order to share the children?

My sister did this much better than I did. She was also married, also didn’t have children and met a guy she fell in love with. She moved out, asked for a divorce and dealt with the guilt of being the bad person. She still feels bad for breaking up but she doesn’t have to feel guilty about all the shit I did while I was married.

How do you think your wife is being helped by living with someone who feels contempt for her and blames her for the problems? I know you claim you don’t, but I can’t read this any other way.

Ever have to take off a bandage? It hurts so much worse to take little tiny tugs on it. Just rip that thing off.

Put the affair on ice for the moment. Move out. Don’t do joint counseling unless you are willing to admit to the affair. It’s not fair or honest to her.

Much easier said than done, but if you want the best for your kids, I think that’s the best way to handle it.

228

Everyone seems to take the affair as a bad thing. But she’s got to be happier, because he’s not asking for sex, and he’s happier because he’s getting it. Seems like a win/win to me.

229

I am going to say something about affairs that nobody else has brought up.

I know one man who was murdered as the result of being in a love triangle.
I know a man who walked in on his wife and her lover and stabbed her, almost killing her. I dated him for 7 years afterwards, no hints of violence, I was never afraid of him.
I know a man who walked in on his wife and her lover and almost beat both of them to death. It took several cops to pull him off of them.
I know a woman who stabbed her husband, severing his femoral artery, after he told her about his past affair. Why he ever thought it was a good idea to tell her? He almost bled to death.
I know a woman who caught her husband out with his mistress and it took two of her friends to drag her out of the store before she hurled everything within reach at his head. When she got him she destroyed everything he owned, including cutting the crotch out of his pants and spreading them across the front lawn, much to his embarrassment and the neighbors delight.
I know a man whose father killed his mother, his father wanted to be with his mistress but didn’t want to give up anything in the divorce.
A friend of my friend went to the hotel where she knew her husband was with his mistress. She waited in the lobby for the to come out so she could confront her husband. The next thing she knew she had the mistress on the ground beating the hell out of her. She couldn’t believe she did that, it wasn’t her intention and she was 70 years old. Witness said she grabbed the mistress by the hair and flipped her over an couch on onto the floor.
A friends father shot and killed himself in front of her mother when he found out she was cheating.
Two weeks ago my friends son-in-law tried to kill her daughter. He is the one having the affair and he is angry because she will give him the divorce but not the house and all the assets.
Their kids had to see their father taken out on handcuffs. They had to see their mothers battered face and know that dad did this to mom. My friend can’t wrap her head around the fact that this man she has known for over 20 years and loved as a son tried to kill her daughter.

Some people out there are fucking crazy, sane people can snap.
You have no idea how your wife will react if/when she finds out. You have no idea how your lovers husband will react. You have no idea how your lover will react if/when you decide to end the affair.

People think it can’t happen to them, my friend has been saying for two weeks that this doesn’t happen in her family, this doesn’t happen to people she knows.
Well, it does happen. Rich or poor, black or white, young or old, this shit happens.

Is it really worth the risk?

230

To add to Sahirrnee’s list of violent outcomes - a friend of mine came home early one day to find his (future ex-)wife in bed with another guy. He went to the closet, grabbed his shotgun, aimed it at the guy’s face, pulled the trigger - click. It was not loaded, fortunately. He ended up just beating the crap out of the guy. Luckily, the young kids were not home. My friend is NOT a violent person, and is a good man, but people do snap. These things DO happen. The OP is playing a game where the outcome is not guaranteed.

There have been pages of sage advice put forth here for the OP to consider. Not to be critical, but a lot of it has been waved away or explained away. The OP just needs to decide what to do, and not drag this out. If you really want to do right by your kids, your wife, and yourself - make a decision to work on the marrriage, or get out soon.

231

That really is unfortunate. A counsellor should help both of the people coming to her to clarify the situation and what they hope to achieve, and help them to get there, not blame one of the people and support the other.

I agree. Counselling will be useless if there are huge, critical parts of your life left out of it. It would be like going to a doctor and getting your hangnail treated, but not bothering to tell him about your lung cancer.

232

She might be happier if she had agreed to the arrangement, but I don’t recall the OP claiming that he let her in on his little secret.

233

Obviously, updating this thread won’t be your top priority, I’m not saying it should be. I just wanted to let you know I’ve been thinking about you and your family and I hope you’re making progress in some direction.

234

Thanks. I’ve been busy with a lot of different things. I won’t disappear, I will update at some point.

235

I was the wife in this situation.

My ex-husband leaving me was devastating, but it turned out to be one of the best things he could have done for me.

Life’s too short to live with someone who doesn’t give a shit about you. And you do not give a shit about your wife. If you did, you wouldn’t have done this. You may say that she has a bunch of great qualities. You may even think you love her. But people don’t treat people they love the way that you’re treating your wife.

My ex-husband and I are doing a stellar job of raising our kid through a divorce. Shit, when the woman he cheated on me with was introduced to our daughter, she gave her a birthday present. I wrote the thank-you card for it. Do I secretly hope that she ends up treating him the same way he treated me, so he knows how it feels? Absolutely. But I will still treat both of them with the utmost respect, until a point comes when that is no longer deserved. I would hope that he would treat my boyfriend the same way once our child is involved, even though I met him well after we separated and didn’t commit adultery with him.

In the end, I was freed from a relationship where I wasn’t truly loved for who I am, and was able to get into one where I was. Plus, I lost all the weight. It was a symptom, not the disease.