In thirty minutes my husband will be here at work to pick me up for our first session at the counselor’s office.
One week ago today I discovered that he had gone out, gotten drunk and had a one night stand that resulted in her getting pregnant. He lied to her about me - said we were getting divorced. He told her whatever she wanted to hear so she would have an abortion. He slept with her again and made her believe that he would stay with her. This went on for 5 weeks. He claims that during that time he only slept with her the one other time (not counting the drunken night that ended in pregnancy).
He hid all this from me while he was on the road. I found phone calls where he was getting off the phone with me to say goodnight and calling her. I saw where he was texting me and her a minute apart. He says that he made her believe that he was going to be there for her and he did whatever it took to keep her from thinking that we were still together so she wouldn’t call me.
He quit his job on the road and came home. He didn’t tell me at first. He was home for a week when I saw a suspicious text message. Nothing lacivious, just a little off. When I asked him about it he confessed everything. He told me that at this point he had told me so many lies about this that he couldn’t keep them straight, so please just sit there and let him tell me exactly what happened. I threw up. I felt like my face was hot and the couch was spinning beneath me. After everything he told me, he said that he knew he was at the point where there was nothing left to lose and that there was nothing left to tell.
I strangely believe him. My husband was a truck driver that worked over the road for a month at a time, sometimes 5 or 6 weeks. He said this all started from a bad day at work when he went out to a bar and got very, very drunk and lonely and went home with someone (he was at a home office, he wasn’t drinking out of his truck - he may do stupid stuff, but that’s not one of them). I don’t think it’s right, but I understand how it could happen. It’s all the stuff afterward that I can’t get over. I’m the fixer in the relationship. He admits that if he had just told me the truth when it happened that I could have helped him, and he wouldn’t have been at her house and slept with her again. He said he thought he could just put it out of his mind and pretent it didn’t happen.
He made us an appointment yesterday for a marriage counselor. I really want to get past this, but I don’t know how. He gave me his cell phone and took mine. He calls me whenever he leaves the house. He is never where I don’t know where he is - and he did all that without asking. But we can’t live like that forever. There will have to be a time where I either learn how to trust him again or don’t, and cut him loose. I don’t want this to be one of those things that I claim to be over and throw in his face if he doesn’t do the laundry. I don’t want him to walk on eggshells the rest of his life, because that will only lead to his resenting me and a very unhappy home life. I want to believe him that it was just a mistake that he knows he shouldn’t have made, and I don’t want to be stupid in forgiving him.
So today we are going to a marriage counselor to maybe get some idea of how to fix this. Last night we both sat on the couch and agreed that we want to fix this, but neither of us knows how. I really hope this helps. And I really hope I’m not being naive in accepting his version of the story. I’ve tried to poke holes in it for a week - looking for the weak spots in his story. I can’t find any. Maybe this will help me stop looking for those holes, and stop picturing him with her and all the details that make me sick to my stomach on a daily basis.
I have nothing to add here except good luck. I sincerely wish you and your husband the best. I’ve been on the other end of this, as the offending husband, and I wish my situation had worked out better.
Yikes. What a mess. I’m a little unclear if there’s still a baby or not. If there is, that will certainly complicate your life for years to come. Even if you can get over the initial resentment, it’s very, very difficult to swallow having x dollars come out of his paycheck every week to support a baby he has with another woman. And, of course, a child means that he will be connected to this woman, through the baby, forever.
Not that I’d trust a woman to tell the truth about paternity. He needs to get a paternity test.
Of course, if she had an abortion, then disregard the above.
My very best wishes to you. If you both want to save the marriage, and if he’s determined to stay on the straight and narrow hereafter, this can work. Good luck and God bless.
This is just such a refreshing change from that other infidelity thread that was going on.
I’m so glad you’re going to counseling, and I’m so glad he cares about you and your marriage enough to take the initiative to try and fix his mistakes and regain your trust. As you’re already gone, you’ll have heard and said a lot more things since you posted the OP, but I hope is goes (went) as well as can be expected.
There’s a long road ahead, if you chose to repair the marriage. But you can do it.
I have a very good book that I would recommend to you in addition to the counselling. It’s called “NOT “Just Friends” - Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity” by Shirley P. Glass, Ph.D. I think it would be very helpful for you and your husband to both read. She addresses exactly what you’ve talked about here - the revelation, the aftermath, how to move past it, should you move past it, how to get trust back again, the whole thing. The bad news - it sounds like it takes a lot of time, work, and commitment to get past infidelity. The good news - marriages that do get past this seem to be much stronger in the long run.
Best wishes for a good outcome for you and your husband, Shelli.
ShelliBean, good luck. I hope you can work this out - you sound like a very caring person. And a point in favor of your husband - at least he came clean with you; you didn’t have to find out. I think that shows that his heart really is with you.
Best of luck to you. If both of you truly want to fix this, it can be done. Counselling is a first step in the right direction, but it will take a lot of work on top of that.
You can rebuild the relationship. It won’t be quite the same as before, but it can work again. It may well even be better as you both work together to make it happen.
Give yourself time. He’s offered to let you keep complete track of him and wants to go to counselling - that’s a good starting point for now. As you rebuild your relationship and learn to communicate, you will slowly rebuild the trust. Eventually you will no longer feel the need to keep such close tabs on him.
Suburban Plankton and I are also living proof that couples can recover from this. Thankfully no pregnancy in our case. We have been married happily for 11 years since the affair and for a total of 14.
If I may offer some advice as someone who is repairing her marriage after an emotional affair.
My marriage is now stronger than ever because of a few things:
a. I was honest.
b. I continued being honest, even if it hurt.
c. My husband allowed me to be honest, even if it hurt.
The person I had the emotional affair with is not doing so well. They are in individual as well as marriage counselling.
The reason both counsellers give? She doesn’t want him to be honest. She wants him to lie to her and tell her what she wants to hear. She wants to punish him at every chance.
Listen to the truth. No matter how much it hurts. It’s easier in the long run to be honest. The last thing you want is your husband, who deceived you, to have to continue deceiving you.
There is a reason my husband is ok with me talking to my friend. And a reason his wife is not ok with him talking to me, working with me, or being in the same county as me. I’m not the reason he cheated. He isn’t the reason I cheated. As I repeatedly told my husband, HE is not your problem, I am your problem. Until I got fixed, it didn’t matter how many “him’s” were out there.
If it’s any consolation, both my husband and I are much happier now.
Well, I’m back. It was interesting. To clear one thing up first: there is no baby anymore. She had an abortion before he came back home - that is clear. Although my husband did not take her to the clinic, he did go to her house before he left town to tell her not to contact him again, that he was going back to his wife. He says while he was there he saw the prescription bottles from Planned Parenthood for some after-care antibiotics. Also, I have not been to my gyno yet to be tested and we did address that today. I will be going in the next week hopefully. I have stared at my doc’s phone number several times and been unable to make the call because the thought made me sick. Now that I have gotten this out and told strangers I think it will be a little easier to make the call.
Therapy was not like anything I’ve ever done before. I never even talked to the school counselor in HS. I was surprised about one thing: we spent a good deal of time talking about my husband’s life and his feelings. I guess I thought this was all about me. I could tell he was uncomfortable but I could also hear some relief in his voice to talk about his first wife and the things he went through with her and to be in an environment where no one was judging. The therapist was objective but sympathetic with me. We both had to write goals before we started and both of us wrote that we wanted to know what to do to get past this, and how to make me stop picturing it in great detail and torturing myself with the questions about the lurid details about sex. I also said that my goal was NOT to beat up my husband, but to eventually accept that he’s actually sorry and get to a point where I don’t have this nasty feeling of not feeling like he hasn’t hurt enough yet. She recommended some exercises for me to stop the constant thoughts and suggested that if I don’t start sleeping and eating soon that some meds might be in order.
Thanks for the well wishes! I will check that book out, **featherlou **.
As for the other girl, well, I did something I swore I would never do. I blamed her. We talked about that and how she isn’t the problem. My husband treated her very badly by lying to her, and he will have to deal with that because I cannot make him feel better about it.
She is now calling 20 times a day, threatening me, calling me names. We are changing our cell phone numbers this week. Part of me does feel bad about this for her, but there has come a time where she has to be left behind and deal with her own issues.
Thanks again for the good thoughts!
ShelliBean, good for you for getting counseling, and for wanting to make it work! Shirley Glass’ book mentioned above is a great one. I’m not a counselor by any means, but I work for The Gottman Institute so I’m around couples’ therapists all the time – that book is one that we really like.
One thing that can be helpful is to look at it as though you were starting your second marriage with your husband. Your first marriage with him is over; your relationship will not be the same. But don’t despair: you can build a new marriage, and it may be better than your first.
This really concerns me, ShelliBean. I hope it won’t have to come to that, but please promise that if she continues to behave in this manner, you will pursue a restraining order against her. It sounds to me like she is blaming the wrong person too. It’s not your fault that he lied to her.
I sincerely hope things work out for you and your husband. It sounds like you’re both committed to making it work, which is the most important thing.
No, she does not know where we live (well, she knows what state) and my husband says that he’s not positive she knows his last name. I really hope she’s just blowing off steam and will give up and say “screw this” and go away. My husband erased the message she left, but I have asked him not to erase any more in case they become ‘exhibits for the plantiff’. I will stay careful until I feel better about it, though.