hi everyone: I am new to the board, which was recommended to me by my therapist. So here is my story, I will try to keep it short and to the point.
I have been with the same man for 15 years and we have a lovely 5 year old daughter who we adopted 4 1/2 years ago. About 2 years ago, I started to drift away from our marriage, thinking I needed more independance and I started getting and paying attention to other people instead of my husband (there has been no infidelity on my part). I lost myself and my own identity and feel as if I abandoned both my husband and my daughter. I do believe I had an emotional affiar with a woman friend who was going through troubles and issues with her marriage. I felt responsible for her feelings and her happiness. We have tried, he has waited for me to come around, told me he would always love me and would wait for me to go through this crisis. We went to marriage counselling and I went to two individual counsellers as well. In April, through massive tears I told him I gave up on our marriage and we became technically separated. We still lived in the same house (still do), share the same bed, spend time together, have sex and spend time with our daughter and families together. I thought we were slowly getting back together, my head was coming down from the clouds and back to reality and back to what was most important in my life although we were not communicating the greatest. About a month ago, he told me he was done waiting and was seeing someone else. This of course snapped me back to complete reality and now I am fighting to save my marriage, my husband and my family.
He has said some hurtful things and I do not know what this other woman is to him. He has not said they have had sex but they are spending time together, and they work for the same company. I of course have been an emotional wreck for the past month and am overcome with guilt and shame for what I have done. My daughter is only 5 and she does not know what is happening or that mommy and daddy are going to be living in separate houses.
My therapist says I should not give up yet and I really do not want to give up on my marriage, on him yet. He deserves for me to wait this out for him. This person in his life is simply giving him what I failed to give him over the last little while and I am going to try and show him that I am truly the person he fell in love with 15 years ago and not this stranger that has been in our lives the last 2 years.
Its hard to not ask questions of where he is going or who he is with but I am refraining to for the most part. I am keeping my emotions mostly in check, especially when he is around and I have always and will always be my daughters number one fan and supporter.
The next step my therapist has recommended is writing him a letter to tell him what I value in him and our relationship. and also what I see as our future relationship. I realize that he is in the "infatuation" stage with this new person, such as I was with my new friends so he may not want to listen but I hope he does. Weve been through alot over 15 years including the adoption of our daughter, and I truly believe we can make it through this.
Would love to hear from anyone going through a similar story or if anyone has written any letters like the one my therapist has recommended. I plan on buying a really nice card and hand writing the letter on nice paper and also include a picture of our family on our daughter's adoption day which was the most happiest day of my life.
Thanks for reading, looking forward to getting some good information and help from the site.
