Let me start by introducing myself. I'm 32 years old and my wife is 33 years old. I've known her since the fifth grade. We started officially dating when high school ended. We we're a match made in heaven. Everyone always thought we were perfect together.
We have two beautiful boys together one is 6 and the other 3. My wife almost finished her degree but put it on hold since she had gotten pregnant the first time. She chose to stay at home with our children. We discussed it and she wanted to stay with them until they both started school.
Fast forward to the present time and we've found ourselves in a situation as old as time itself. We're not rich by any means but we live very comfortable. I make a decent living and do a lot of side work for extra cash. My wife began going dancing with her mom and dad because they belong to a dance group (Two Step, Waltz, Polka) type dancing. She asked if I minded if she started going with them. I told her no problem because a few nights after work I teach Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts and could not make the event. I get paid for teaching and have been training for the past 10 years. I figured what was the worst that could happen since she was with her mom and dad. I was so wrong for making this assumption.
Her mom and dad have a lot of friends that attend the functions as well. I've taken off to go as well but just not regularly. The wife had gained some weight with our second son but soon lost it just prior to wanting to go dancing with her parents. We hired a personal trainer for her and she did so good (the weight wasn't an issue to me). I have always been a romantic and given her praise and encouragement like a husband should do for his wife. To the point where my friends would make fun of the way I treated her. I call her sweetheart and my children also have called her sweetheart since the day they began speaking. That is her name to us. They do not call her mom, just Sweetheart.
Her mother and father are friends with a couple and We've known them very well for the past ten years. I always thought they were nice people. The husband dances with my wife occasionally, she tells me along with her dancing with her father and other older men in the group.
I begin to get suspicious of her behavior for about a year after the dancing shenanigans started. She is crying a lot more often than she used to, showing signs of depression etc etc.. always using her phone. FYI my wife had never dated or had sex with anyone prior to our marriage.
A year passes and DDay comes along April 29, 2013. We're laying on the couch together while the kids stayed the night at my in-laws. She flips her phone open for a moment and I catch a glimpse out of the corner of my eye, she flips the phone upside down quickly. I lay there for a moment and then calmly ask her what it was and she said it was an spam email. I lay there getting more and more angry because my heart is breaking all at the same time. I demand the phone from her and find a years worth of texts, emails, and photographs. At first all I see is a few nude photos of her. She tried to take the phone from me and said " why can't you let me surprise you"? She was pretending that she was going to send those to me (she used to do this from time to time)a long time ago. I wasn't buying it so I began prying and found all of the evidence I needed to fit the crime. It is my in-law's good friend that she's having the affair with. He's 54 and married, I've sat and ate dinner with them on many occasions, even while this affair was taking place. The man has looked me square in the eye and shaken my hand. I was blindsided that it was him of all people. A man old enough to be her father and who had grandchildren the same age as our children.
I go into a rage and burn her wedding dress, all wedding photos, take her wedding ring and crush it with some pliers. AS you can tell I have a little temper problem. I texted the man from her phone and asked what him what he was doing. He replies back that he was at home and couldn't talk because his wife was nearby. I load the wife up in my truck and start making the trek to the man's house pistol in tote. My wife is hysterically apologizing to me for all of the pain she's caused but it's falling on deaf ears. I call my mother in law with whom I'm very close to because she has our kids staying with her and my father in law. I told her what was going on and she starts sobbing in disbelief. I asked her to keep the kids for a few extra days and not to tell her father until I get all of this figured out.
We finally make it to the man's house and my father in law is in the drive way drinking a beer with his "buddy". They see me hauling up the long winding road to his house and the man takes off running toward his house and my father in law is standing there dumbfounded. I pull up and get out and he says "what in the hell is going on" I get out and run the man down and tackle him.
I proceeded to beat this man within an inch of his life, he has a broken arm and ankle, multiple lacerations on his head from eating my elbows. I finally stop because my father in law grabbed me and said to stop or I was going to kill him and go to prison for manslaughter. I stopped for a moment and the man was writhing around on the ground in pain , probably from the broken bones. At one point he tries to get up and I give him an uppercut and his teeth bury into my knuckle. I've got blood pouring from my hand now. The man's wife comes outside while I'm way laying her husband and she knows instantly why I'm there and what this is about. I finally gain my composure and his wife is hugging me, sobbing, telling me this is the third time he has cheated on her. God was with me that day as no one called the law but he was taken to the hospital. I leave with my wife in tow even though I wanted to leave her with her father who is equally angry at her for what she has done to our family.
Fast forward a few weeks and my wife and I are trying to get all of this figured out. I develop a major infection from the cut in my finger. I finally go to the doctor and they send me to the hospital who in turn transferred me to Herman hospital downtown because the infection was so bad. They ended up removing my finger because I waited to long and the infection set into the bone. Now I'm left with a permanent reminder of the whole incident.
The wife and I are in counseling but I cannot seem to shake all the images and things that they were talking about via text and email. Things like how it would be great to start a new life over together and how perfect they were for each other. My wife claims that it was the attention he gave her that overwhelmed her and her need to feel desirable. No matter how many compliments I gave her she said it didn't do the same thing for her since she thought I had to say those things to her since I was her husband. Coming from someone else who didn't "owe" her anything meant so much more and it made her high so to speak. She has admitted to having some serious self esteem issues. I'm having a terrible time coping and trying to digest all of this. She has changed her number and gave me access to everything and shows genuine remorse or so I think but I can't seem to shake off the fact that she had sex with another man for a year behind my back while I was working so hard to maintain a comfortable lifestyle for my family and balance spending time with them as well. She claims if she could've gotten the attention without the sex that's what would've happened but yet their are emails and text messages from her to him of herself masturbating and saying she can't wait until they get to meet up. I'm so heartbroken and feel as if I'm the only person in this world that has been knocked down so low. I'm a fighter and have been knocked out a few times but this one has knocked me down for the count. Any help or words of encouragement are welcome. I know I'm not alone in this endeavor, that's why I'm hear. My condolences to all of the other broken hearted people trying to find the strength to continue on.
