SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Apologise for another post, but I want to unload and get your feedback.
We been married for 23 years, dated for 4 yrs + 3 Teens.
I met my wife at the age of 22 and fell in love within 30 seconds, I knew I found my soulmate. We were (and still are) a good looking couple that turs heads when we are in public.
For 20 years I have been loyal, a great father and turned away dozens of women, even models(worked in the advertisement industry).
Our sex was fantastic and we overcame hardships including a nearly fatal illness of a child, we made a dreamlife with a lot of hard work.
In my mid 40s I started hanging out with friends that cheated on their spouses and convinced me that "you only live once".
So I convinced my self that I earned an affair, I even have a right to it!! So I cheated and felt horrible but kept doing it.
After several months I felt disgusted and cut ties with everyone in that circle. I fell into self hate, guilt and eventually deep depression. I felt as if there is a different being living inside me. I stopped having ay feeling towards anyone, pushed my wife away, ignored her, and we she had stress related metal breakdown (due to her work), I wasn't there for her at all.
With time, my wife started getting friendly with a divorced colleague, hiding her phone and classic cheating signals. I knew what was going on and the other entity that controlled me, was happy that she will finally leave, I was so addicted to sorrow and self misery that I did nothing to end her affair. My wife asked me if her closeness to him bothers me? Even offered to break all ties with him, I couldn't care less.
Fast fw to Mid September. I got the news that a close childhood friend died suddenly, leaving 4 children fatherless. Years of pent emotions erupted and I started to feel like my self again. Then as if in a movie, my brain made vide clip for me for what must have happened between my wife and her colleague. I took her phone one night and it all was there. She had a 3 months affair and eventually slept with him before breaking it off. I went fully to PTSD mode, couldn't focus and was going through rage and an emotional roller coaster for over a moth. I decided to forgive my her ad didn't hide any details and confessed. Few days after the discovery I confessed to my infidelity and the reasons I drove her away.
Today we are both in individual therapy and will start couple therapy soon. We are deeply in love, we communicate better than ever before, our sex incredible (daily), but we are still deeply hurting. I still go through anger and rage periods, and she goes through self hate and guilt, which prevent her from feeling happy. We are there for each other and started going out on dates, making out in clubs and feeling young again. It was a heavy and a needless price we both paid to discover and love each other again, and I know we will be OK.

Glad you are both committed to reconciling.

Hi,

Welcome to SI. I'm sorry you find yourself here. I hope you are both committed to honesty and openness as my belief is that both are necessary to properly reconcile. No secrets.

As a WS (wayward spouse)/MH (madhatter) you are not allowed to post in the Just Found Out forum. I"m sure one of the mods will be along shortly to move this post into an appropriate forum.

  Moving to General

Hi, welcome to SI. Thank you for posting your story.

You and your wife are going to be on the emotional roller coaster from hell for a very long time, unfortunately. It does not take weeks or months to move beyond the hurt, but years and lots of hard work. One day you will feel like you will survive, the next you will rage or feel depressed or whatever emotion pops up. If you are both committed, you can move through this...

Individual therapy is great, honestly I'd hold off on the couple's therapy until you can both figure out WHY you both decided to cheat. Understand there is never any justification for cheating.

Good luck!

I know you want to leave all this behind you, but let me tell you that two wrongs don't make a right. Don't forgive because of your own guilt, this is short sighted. Your wife knew about her inappropriate relationship with her colleague, told you about it, asked you, but even took it further and cheated on you. If you both forgive each other because it's the right thing to do and you worked it out, that's awesome, but don't do it just because of your own wrong doings and guilt.

Thank you for your comments. We are committed to working it out for many reasons. We do love each other ad there are kids and families that would be devastated. We decided to forgive each other and not let it define 20 years of our love.
The Rolle coster is not easy, our rage, shame, guilt,
and visions are there to stay, but we are there for each other and we are brutally open with our feelings, which are very difficult to hear.

I'm glad you two are working through it, don't try to move on too fast, you both need to discuss what happened and why. Rug sweeping this in order to move on will only come back and wreck your progress later. You both need to put safeguards in place to prevent it from ever happening again. My W would say "I will never cheat again" it would make me cringe, not because I think she will, but because I know what she is capable of. I told her to commit to protect the marriage. Never cheating again says to me I can walk right up to the line as long as I don't cross it, no stay away from the line.

An alcoholic says "I will never drink again", that says I can sit in a bar with a drink in my hand as long as I don't take a drink. No the alcoholic has to protect his sobriety and never enter the bar.