No, I want to go and figure out how we got here. I have an idea, but the the problems I thought we had never in a million years would have led me to believe that this was possible.
I may have been in a bit of a funk, and bored stiff, but no way was I that checked out.
I’m all for it. I’m not leaving her. I know counseling will help.
Make sure she gets tested for STDs.
Do you really wish you didn’t know now what you didn’t know then? In the short run you’d be spared pain, but in the long run, knowledge about such things is usually a good thing to have.
Yes, reading emails not meant for you is a violation in the standard marriage relationship, but it is a few orders of magnitude less than the violation that carrying on an affair is. You’ll need to own up to your part in the dysfunction, and so should she.
You’re absolutely correct. I am going to get through this.
Yeah, you definitely want to work on your insecurity problem with your counselor.
Obviously there is something. As others have said, the cheating is the symptom, not the disease. Here’s hoping you can get through it.
I really don’t see the reading of emails as a huge violation. My reason for not reading my wife’s emails is not because I’d be violating her privacy. It’s so I don’t get into OP’s situation. And no, I do not in any way suspect my wife of having an affair.
I hope this means she’s going too. You could try individual counseling as a supplement to couple’s counseling too, though.
You think? I’d figure if I couldn’t get over the suspicion that Bob was stealing from me, and then it turned out Bob really was stealing from me, I didn’t need to work out trust issues - they’re for when it turns out Bob was honest all along.
Agreed. I mean, I don’t believe for a second the OP went on the e-mail to see if her friends said something good about him. It’s telling that he goes on to say “I’m a bit insecure”.
Sure, he did wrong to go through the e-mail, but I suppose something triggered him to do so. And I would also submit that perhaps wife wanted, subconsciously, to be caught - or she might have covered her tracks better. But that is pure conjecture.
Even if I did stay in the marriage, it would primarily be for the kids, so I guess I have no useful advice to give you. Sucks, bro, hope whatever you decide works out for you and your family.
There is no justification for having an affair. I don’t care if you’re the worst husband in the world, that doesn’t entitle her to have an affair. If she’s unhappy, she should talk to you. If that doesn’t resolve it, she should divorce you. Only then can she be with someone else.
I’m sure she’ll come up with reasons she felt justified, but that doesn’t mean she was justified. It’s like when a guy shoots the driver who cuts him off in traffic. Yes, there was a reason he was upset. No, that doesn’t mean he was justified in firing his gun.
One key part of recovery should be that your wife absolutely recognizes that the affair was wrong without regard to how it was started. Do not allow the reason for the affair be based on something you did or didn’t do. Yes, you may have contributed to the problems in the marriage. No, that doesn’t mean she was justified in having an affair.
I feel this is key to ensuring she doesn’t have an affair in the future. Otherwise, she will only be faithful as long as she’s in her happy place. She should not have an affair for the same reason she doesn’t shoot people on the highway–she knows it’s wrong and won’t do it regardless of the circumstances. You don’t want her to feel entitled to have an affair in the future just because you’re not keeping up with your chores or something.
Damn straight. I was livid when I found my wife was going through my emails. Thats not exactly true. I never made my password a secret. I didn’t care if she looked. I was pissed when I found out she looked through them often and that after my 20th reunion she read and deleted an email from an old friend. She assumed that I slept with her the night of the reunion and we were planning something. What was really happening is we were hoping our families could get together and be friends. I never came close to cheating on her in 15 years together. And by the way, I never had her passwords or checked on her. Although there were plenty of other problems, I never thought she would cheat on me. And I’m still sure she didn’t.
I don’t agree. To continue with the metaphor there may be more than one disease but cheating is one all on its own. They could be related but you have to work out whats wrong with the marriage and work out being with someone who cheats. Plenty of people have marriage problems without cheating.
…Or what he said.
I trusted my woman absolutely despite the rocks he hit pre-marriage. As much as it shouldn’t have been, I was also stunned when I figured out she was hooking up with a dude whle I was doing my part earning dollars. At first I also wanted to work things out. It became impossible, however. The slap in the face made me take a more objective look at the marriage and the closer I looked the more I realized how incompatible we were, and what an injustice it would be to me, her and the kids to continue it.
fatmac98, your pain (and by all that’s holy I know the pain, and the confusion from being humiliated when you did nothing wrong) from THIS affair is her fault. If it happens again, you’ve just got yourself to blame. Find out why it happened. If THAT doesn’t change, bite the bullet and get away.
I’m not going to blame him for reading his wife’s emails - that’s almost completely beside the point now.
How did you find me out?
Actually fatmac, IMHO, I think you needed to see her emails not to see if she was talking you up, but I think you were looking for confirmation of your suspicions that something was wrong at first and then suddenly got better, and this was the first opportunity to find out why. Did you ever ask her back in March or April why things were so disconnected? If so, did she avoid the conversation or downplay it with some sort of stressful/depressing period in her life as an answer? Was there something she needed from you last year that you were unable to provide, which might have made her emotionally vulnerable, which might of led (for lack of a better word) her towards the affair?
Now, I’m not going to judge you for looking at her emails, because I too had to confirm or quell my suspicions as well, and I used her emails to prove (or disprove) that it happened. But in my defense, I had noted at least a month or two of behaviors (that I noted above) that was out of the ordinary for her. I didn’t want to give her another opportunity to lie, because my trust was already damaged and I just wanted to get beyond the initial betrayal. I instead confronted her about it. The issue of me looking at her emails was a smaller issue and can be addressed during counseling.
If that’s the same thing that you experienced, then…NO. That was not fucking stupid on your part, fatmac. You could have asked her if there was an affair going on when things were disconnected, which meant she would either be truthful with you, or she would deny it, further hurting you. Having an affair and hiding it is an omission and a betrayal of your marriage, I think it’s more humane for her and you to just not give her another opportunity to betray you.
Correct…Do not talk to your friends and family about this. It would make things worse, because they will judge and have longer lasting opinions of her which would make it harder for the two of you to heal. A counselor is a safe way to talk to each other and uncover the truth with a third party watching to make sure things stay within boundaries until the two of you feel more comfortable on your own.
To me that always sounds like excuse-making for the cheater, like they’re less than fully responsible for their own actions.
No, the essential “disease” in a cheating scenario is in the cheater’s character.
Usually there are problems in the marriage that involve both parties, sure. But as Loach said, plenty of people have marriage problems without cheating.
And you never should again, either.
My two cents, and I speak from personal experience: If you’re not gonna leave (and I sure as hell would!), resign yourself to a marriage of convenience only. Things will never be the same between you again, no matter what.
I suspect that’s the kind of marriage the overwhelming majority of people have anyway, so it can’t be all that rough.
No way I would have sex with her again, particularly as long as she might be carrying one or more STDs.
Ain’t cruel; it’s just being realistic.