SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Oh, goodness, that was my life in my early 30's. I was engaged & living with a high-end restaurant kitchen manager. He was almost 40, hanging out to all hours with the staff most of whom were in their early 20's nightly after they closed down. The drinking, drugs, on & on. He was being "considerate in not waking me" by coming home right after work since he was "so wired." I was working corporate, handling everything else at home, believing all of his stories...Until the 2 am became 4 am became sometime the next day.

Still, I honestly believed he wasn't cheating...until I simply couldn't deny it any longer. Fortunately we weren't married but we did have a lot of shared expenses & he had a child from an earlier marriage I adored. Of course, that marriage had ended because he was cheating, too. I just wanted to believe he'd changed. Ha!

I will echo some of the other thoughts here though--you cannot change him until he wants to change himself. My ex- finally did hit rock-bottom & was forced to make some serious changes. He was an extremely attractive man at that time, but the years of the party life caught up pretty quickly & he has not aged well at all--physically or medically. I feel sorry for him but am SO glad I wasn't there when it all went down.

One thing that I will caution you on with the AP though...if he is her supervisor, she has a case for sexual harassment which could ultimately be very costly. Yes, even if she willingly participated, she can make a case that it was because she felt threatened in her job. I would highly recommend you & his mom to leave her alone at this point before it crosses the line into her making harassment charges against you, too. Not saying it's fair, just that it's the way it works. Her younger age would work in her favor for that, too.

You have every right to be angry, but don't end up making things harder for YOU & your own future. It's hard to let go of what you thought was your future and rebuild, but ultimately, the sooner you can let go of this, let him be responsible for his own life & crappy choices, the sooner this will all be the rearview mirror.

Best to you...

Crumbs I so agree with you.My now ex has had a plethera of health and financial problems since my divorce.So glad I didn't go through it with him.Just like you said somewhere down the road it all catches up.As for the girl he is cheating with.I agree with that too.There could be legal implications because of it.Let them dig their own graves.

I do feel at fault that I let some issues in our relationship go on too long. The lack of sex is a big one.

None of this had anything to do with his betrayal.

And, no, alcoholism had nothing to do with his betrayal either.

Yes, alcoholism is definitely a serious problem, but it’s not an excuse for the betrayal.

There is nothing you did or did not do nor anything you said or did not say that caused his infidelity.

His infidelity has nothing to do with you or your marriage.

His reasons for his infidelity exist only within him and those reasons were within him long before you ever met him.

It is fundamentally important that you understand that this betrayal is NOT your fault.

No matter what he says or does, DO NOT accept ANY responsibility for his behavior, period.

The act of adultery/infidelity is not a marital issue - it is a personal issue of the adulterer.

When you are able to firmly realize this, you will be able to look at it from the outside and see it for what it is and make better decisions as to how and if you want to move forward in some attempt at reconciling, or moving on and making this ugly period and person a thing of the past.

I would recommend not bothering with trying to contact his adultery partner.

No matter what you say to her, you will not convince her that she is a piece of shit or make her feel any guilt.

She is only going to convince herself that you are a crazy obsessed person and also convince herself that it was all your fault because of that.

Yes, she is a bonafide, worthless piece of shit - there is no question.

People like her constantly perform mental acrobatics to justify their shitty behavior and there is no amount of moral reasoning and righteousness that will overpower their mental excuse-making machine.

[This message edited by keptmyword at 6:07 PM, April 17th (Saturday)]

Thank you all for your responses. Reading them has really helped. Today I haven't angry texted him at all. I have stopped harassing the whore. All of my revenge plans, I've abandoned. I'm going to take you all's advice and NC his ass.

You guys have pointed out so many things OUTSIDE of the cheating that was not right with him/our relationship. I came into this hoping we'd one day soon reconcile, but I'm rethinking it every other second... but also wanting him every other second. It's crazy how someone can hurt you to this degree, and you still feel you need them so badly... He once asked me who do I fantasize about (male celebs, crushes, etc). I told him no one, but him. It was always him that I saw when I closed my eyes. My mind, body, and soul was loyal to this man.

Anna123

BTW, your cheater sounds an awful lot like mine, except I had 26 years of him being out late because of 'work' drinking. I had a few rounds of calling his friends, hospitals, police etc. when he had been SO sincere the days before that he would never do that to me again ---- The watching for car lights to come home, listening for the door. It sucks and you will now be free of it!

Those nights are tortuous. I would even be checking to see if my dog could sense him coming. lol

He had actually stopped the not calling (even though I would have preferred he just come home) until the cheat. I don't know if he just didn't GAF after that. Or if he was getting so drunk/high that he couldn't remember to call. Sucks either way.

********

Reeling24

Wow, yes. Your husband sounds like mine. And so many chefs I've know. Years ago, like maybe year 3 of our relationship, we were at his bosses house. He was a pretty well known and respected chef in the New England area. That day he was getting completely wasted, at a casual afternoon lunch, and passed out behind their shed. No one else was drunk. I remember his wife looking so embarrassed, and she turned to me and said don't ever marry a chef. I took it as a joke. At that time, my H wasn't an alcoholic. In fact, we would talk about how out of control his boss was. Now he is just like him, maybe worse.

The chef wife life is a hard one for many, even with no cheating.

Chefs, and no offense to any that are on here, from my experience being in the industry have ego problems. Depending on how successful he is the Chef groupies come out. That’s always fun! If he’s not successful then there’s bitterness and blame shifting on why they aren’t where they think they should be at that stage of their career. Add drinking on top of it and it’s not their fault, it’s ours and of course they can’t take responsibility and now realize they’ve not been happy for sometime.

I've been through both. I definitely noticed when the chef groupies came out. He's never had so many female friends, or so many friends in general. But when he wasn't getting promoted beyond sous chef, he was the most miserable person. And of course I was the reason. Why is it always me??!! I've done nothing wrong to him. Omg! I can't emphasize enough how I have loved on, and honestly--Mothered this man. All for him to turn around and say he's drinking and depressed to the point of suicidal ideations because of our marriage. HOW?! To this day, he hasn't given any specific reason of anything that's happened to make him feel this way. Its always just a general "this marriage".

*******

He has said/texted so many deeply hurtful things to me since d-day.

"One year turned into two, then three, then four, next thing I know, it's been 14 years..."

But... We just got married 3 years ago. How were the years just slipping away since 2007, when you planned a surprise proposal party in 2017?

Make it make sense!

I've replayed what seems like every moment of our relationship picking out anything he wanted that I didn't do or give. I know its not my fault, but I can't help thinking about the fact that I ignored his request for a blow job a few weeks ago, because I didn't like the way he asked. Or remembering when he said that he'd like if I popped up at his job sometimes after work, but I never really did. If I had popped up on Aug 6th, he'd have went home with me... But... I don't have a crystal ball.

A part of me knows that he is full of shit. And he will most likely regret this decision, because I'm really all he had. But there's a small part of me also drinking his kool-aid, thinking, damn, maybe I really was making him miserable somehow, and he will be happier without me.

Another thing I don't know if you have thought of this but could there have been more than one AP throughout the years?You just caught this one but it doesn't mean he hasn't had other affairs.

I've certainly thought about it. There was always the space and opportunity. And I can think of other small suspicious things that I disregarded. Just like I would have disregarded that FB message, had the late night phone call not occurred. In hindsight, I had no reason to, but I really trusted him. I was tempted to text him and ask the other day. But I really don't know if I want to know.

It's very normal and healthy for you to be upset and get angry.If you were withdrawn that would be an unhealthy response to a situation where your loved one just dissapeared. However just like mine did he painted me as being unhinged...

Yeah. He literally said "Do you see the way you're acting? This is why I could never fucking leave when I wanted to. You're ready to burn the world".

And then he says that I would have TIED. HIM. UP.

I told him that I'm not ready to do the Hulk smash because he left, but because he CHEATED. As evidenced by the fact that I didn't even raise my voice the time he left 9 years ago. Its the cheating that hurts on a whole different level, and is activating my rage.

[This message edited by Mustache at 1:04 AM, April 18th (Sunday)]

His reasons for his infidelity exist only within him and those reasons were within him long before you ever met him.

It is fundamentally important that you understand that this betrayal is NOT your fault.

No matter what he says or does, DO NOT accept ANY responsibility for his behavior, period.

The act of adultery/infidelity is not a marital issue - it is a personal issue of the adulterer.

When you are able to firmly realize this, you will be able to look at it from the outside and see it for what it is and make better decisions as to how and if you want to move forward in some attempt at reconciling, or moving on and making this ugly period and person a thing of the past.

Thank you. I really did need to hear this. I will read your post over and over until hopefully it sinks well below the surface.

Let’s remove the infidelity for a moment.

Your role is not to make your spouse happy and your spouse’s role is not to make you happy. Being happy in life is 100% the responsibility of that person and that person alone.

As a couple, you each have a roll to bring happiness and love and respect to the table as part of the marriage. As a spouse, I believe that you are there to enhance the happiness in the relationship, but it should never be your sole responsibility to “make“ someone else happy.

Simply put, if you’re unhappy with your life, a relationship or marriage may not be the “cure” to providing you with a happy life. Too many people, unfortunately, believe in this whole soulmat undying love type of relationship. In my opinion it should be a relationship that is emotionally healthy and where you feel loved and supported, because once you have that, I believe you will be happy.

I hope this helps you to understand you should never except blame from someone where it’s not warranted. And in this case, it is definitely not warranted.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:59 AM, April 18th (Sunday)]