SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all, I am new here. Three weeks ago I found out that my husband had been having some sort of emotional affair with a woman he used to work with. We've been together 20 years, married for 14, early 40s, 2 children.

After many months of increasing disengagement and constantly being on his phone I checked his phone and found messages between him and a woman he had never mentioned. The messages were honestly strange - there was reams and reams of technical work discussion, with her contacting him all the time for his input and then suddenly the conversation would take a sharp turn and they'd be discussing her (wild) sex life and he would be lamenting his lack thereof. So they weren't discussing doing sexual things together and there was no evidence that they wanted a relationship of that sort with eachother, but the content of the messages was EXPLICIT to say the least and he would push her for details. He even asked for video calls a couple of times (in a "jokey" pushing the boundaries way, but the intent was v clear), which she rebuffed.

The message thread was full of individual message deletions and appeared to have been fully deleted at some point a few months back, so I knew I wasn't looking at everything. I gave it a day then went back to double check I had seen what I thought I had and, lo and behold, everything was gone, just a single innocuous message between them both and nothing else.

I confronted him that night as I knew then that it was as bad as I thought, and he knew it too. He confessed fully. She was an ex work colleague (from about 3 years prior), they'd stayed in touch, she often needed help with technical queries and things built from there. About 18 months ago the conversation had turned inappropriate, he takes full responsibility for pushing her for details about her sex life (she's single) but she seemingly obliged happily. He blocked her on all platforms that night and deleted her number, sending her one last message to say what he was doing and why. I sat there whilst he did this.

So, he is absolutely abject and is desperate to try to put things right and to reconcile and rebuild properly. I believe he is completely sorry. He started therapy immediately, is answering all my questions, is reading around the issue, has given me complete access to his phone and has completely overhauled his behaviour - which is all good, but I can't stop myself thinking; it's not that hard, why could he not have put the effort in before?

In terms of why he did it, he can't really explain, but he says he was unhappy at work, felt worn down by the general grind of family life, generally felt disengaged from me and the kids, it was a bit of a thrill and also felt like I was not paying him enough attention sexually. As a side note, I work full time in a senior and demanding job, and also had been doing all the heavy lifting on the family side since he had been checked out for months.

This has totally destroyed me. I can hardly eat or sleep, I feel sick all the time. I told him I'd give it a year to see if I felt we could properly reconcile but now I'm regretting my hastiness as I don't know how to get through each day let alone a year. I suspect I've done everything wrong in handling this. I threw him out but now he's back. I messaged the other woman and she confirmed it was nothing physical, just chat that got out of hand. She apologised - I've responded since (to ask her to examine her behaviour, suggested she was minimising and to try to understand why she shared what she did) but she never got back to me. I can't think straight and yet I have to as I have to work, stay sane and keep looking after the kids (though he is doing a lot more now).

How do I do it when it all feels like too much? I've booked to start therapy myself in a couple of weeks which I think will be useful. How do I get out of the loop of wanting to know why he did it and him not being able to give an answer, when honestly I don't think there is a satisfactory one that could explain it to me. Then we both end up frustrated.

I feel like he sold me and the kids for a ridiculously low price and I don't know how to come back from that. I love him and want to believe we can rebuild and be happy but I don't know if I can or how to.

I do want to reconcile. He is not a bad person but he did a really bad thing. I know he is sorry but I cannot understand why he did this in the first place, knowing how hurtful it would be. I have up and down days, today I'm pretty buoyant, two days ago I was a total mess.

Any ideas for how I process this very gratefully received.

Hello,

I am sorry you find yourself here. My husband had a similar affair with an old friend that mainly revolved around her discussing her sexual exploits although it did turn physical 6 times in total. I only found out about my husbands affair 12.5 years later and am currently 6 Months past DD. We are both in individual counselling and trying to work through things but it is hard. At first I needed sleeping tablets and beta blockers to cope. My doctors have been really supportive, please reach out to your doctors for medication if you need it.

So sorry you had to find us.

Couple things:
Read in this forum and in the healing library. Both contain great information. In this forum, look for posts with the bullseye - they are especially useful and may be a few pages back.

take great care of yourself. Eat healthfully, drink lots of water, get sleep and exercise daily. Avoid alcohol and drugs. See your doctor if you are having trouble sleeping or anxiety.

Get STD tested and dont’ have unprotected sex with your WS until he does as well and shows you the result. He says there has been no physical contact, but cheaters lie. And you just can’t be too sure. His willingness to get tested will tell you a lot about how sorry he is as well.
(Words are easy; actions are all that matter)

Get in IC if you can to help you process this. He should also get IC to help him understand why he did this. This is a trauma and it will take a long time to work through it. A good trauma informed counselor can help. Avoid MC for now— the marriage didn’t cheat. He did. Is there anyone IRL you can talk to who will support you regardless of the outcome? Bestie? Sister? Pastor?

Don’t let him tell you it was a mistake or assign ANY blame on you. You are responsible for 50% of any M issues, but he is 100% responsible for how he acted. If he was unhappy, he a lot of other options- he CHOSE to cheat.

Ask him to retrieve the deleted texts. Ask him what HE IS GOING TO DO to fix himself. He needs to drive this bus….

Keep posting. Often more truths come out over time - we call it trickle truth. They admit the bare minimum to minimize their actions. I hope this doesn’t happen to you, but it is extremely common, unfortunately.

Lastly, trust that YOU will get through this and be okay. It will take longer than you want, but you will heal. You may D, R, or stay in limbo, but you will heal. And you gave him a year - so what. You can change your mind any time. Not making a decision when in trauma is wise, so take your time to figure out what you want.

Thank you for your responses. I have good support from some close friends and my sister so I'm well looked after on that front.

Re therapy, I'm booked to start in 2 weeks and he has already started. I think it is helping him already, even if he can't articulate why he chose to manage his dissatisfaction in this way. I hope the therapy helps get him there as I cannot wrap my head around it. I guess I want it to be more complex than the old mid life crisis type situation where a married man gets a bit of fresh attention and loses his mind for it, consequences be damned. It's just so very basic and I thought he was better than this!

I might be going against the tide but stop asking why he did it. It felt good, he got some sort of almost peeping tom type thrill out of it. He did it because he wanted to and he enjoyed it. There is no other explanation. What he needs to do is find out why he thought those puny excuses he gave are not ridiculous. He needs to work on boundaries. And his a** needs to be present in the room with you instead of holed up somewhere being 13 years old.

Welcome to SI and so sorry that you're here. There are some posts pinned to the top of the forum that are great resources, as well as some unpinned posts with bull's eye icons. The Healing Library is at the top of the site and is another source of information.

Your WH (wayward husband) should read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald and Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass.

As for understanding why he did this, any reason he comes up with probably won't make any sense to you. Really, there's no good reason for an A (affair). If he felt disconnected to you, why didn't he use the energy he was using towards the AP (affair partner) into your relationship? This wasn't a mistake. A mistake is forgetting to grab a gallon of milk at the store. He made deliberate, conscious decisions to cheat. He needs to learn some better coping mechanisms to stress, work/home life balance. You can't solve your problems with somebody else's genitals.

Realize that this is trauma. The can't eat or sleep is your brain on trauma. Please practice a lot of self-care and give yourself grace. I don't think anybody gets through this doing everything right.