It is time time for me to get out of the shadows of SI and tell my Story. I have been married to my wife for 20 years. We have two very successful daughters and and awesome son-in-law, who is like the son I never had and one of my best friends. Our marriage has been packed full lies and mistrust from me since the beginning. Here is a little back story. I had a profound stutter as a child. I have delt with intrinsic shame and self esteem issues my entire life because of this and my upbringing. And to deal with it, I learned, from my parents who had self esteem issues as well, to lie and present myself as someone I was not to escape these feelings. I became a master compartmentalizer, used disassociation , lying and gaslighting to protect myself.
My wife was sexually abused by a family member for over ten years and had married three times before me. She had spent years in counseling and therapy to deal with this trauma in her life. She had done great work on this too I need to add. Our two daughters are, actually, my step daughters. I never call them that as I have raised them as my own.
My wife was single for several years before she met me. She had resolved herself to going to be a single mom and was happy with that. Then I came long.
As I stated earlier...our marriage has been packed full of lies and mistrust. My poor wife had no idea what she was getting herself mixed up with. To be honest, I had no idea I was as messed up as I was. If I had, I would have told her to run. Run like hell away from the likes of me. There have been three major events in our marriage. All my doing. Early in our marriage I was looking at pornography. 2016 she caught me steeling from one of our customers ( if caught by them, she could have gone to jail also), and this past October 2017, October 17th to be exact, her world came totally crashing down. She discovered I had been having a 3 month affair. The one thing she thought I would never do. Me too, was have an affair. But here I am. Looking back on myself, with my FOO issues, inappropriate boundaries, needing to give and receive affirmation from people and on and on and on. I was a prime candidate. Now let me stop and say, this was not an ACCIDENT nor a MISTAKE. It was a choice. A conscious decision to leave my wife and family on the curb and engage another woman for my “kibble bits” of affirmation and “unconditional acceptance.” Shit... my wife had been the one giving me unconditional acceptance for twenty friggin years. Let me, also, add that in between these three major events in our marriage there have been countless lies and disrespectful acts by me to her.
So here I am, as I type this my wife is on the other sofa... probably on Surviving Infidelity trying to decide if she should stay or go. I have been a self preserving, trickle truthing, gaslighting, lying SOB.
Our marriage and family life have not been all bad. We have made great memories as a coupe and a family. They have just been overshadowed by all of this. At last count, we figured well over 100 people know about my affair. My wife knew this was the only way to, possibly, get my attention. And it worked. My ability to be SLICK and snow people into thinking I am this awesome guy are over. Everyone knows my game. I mean everyone. Right down to the women in the dental office we go to.
My healing journey has only just begun. I have years of work to do. I am, finally, in that place in my life where it is more painful to continue as I am than to face myself for who I am and do the work needed to heal. I am in individual counseling for trauma. My wife is in individual counseling for trauma. We are in marriage counseling. We are on a hard ass road. Hard whether we stay together or not. It is as volatile a range of emotions as one can expect. And then some. My heart is breaking for her. All my wife wanted was a good man and husband. She had all the hopes and dreams for the future that all betrayed spouses have on their wedding day. Our marriage in all sense of the word is over.
I can do is just hope that.. as I work on me and she works on her that there will be an us in the end.
Any words of guidance and wisdom are definitely welcomed.