(the full story will be multiple posts. I ask that you help me with my situation. Thank you.)
Part 1 Hello all,
I originally posted in the newcomers forum newcomers forum when I recently and abruptly realized that there were severe problems with my marriage, and gained some great insight from people there.
Since then I have read through 5 Love Languages and DR which were recommended to me there. They were great and eye opening and I only wish I knew about them sooner.
I am now entering this forum because there is an infidelity component to my M issues and I feel that the best advice and information I could receive would be from those “who have been there”. I hope this post does not become too long, but I feel I have to give the most accurate information in order to receive the best advice.
I had lost my job a few years ago and was able to find a new one, but not doing what I would have liked. I was taken for granted there and payed substantially less. Just prior to the job loss we tried to have a child, through medical aid as there are issues, and that failed. This was the genesis of the big problems as we each withdrew instead of talking about what was happening. She did have a close family member in which she confided (more on this later), but I was alone. These feelings grew worse for me and I entered depression as I only wanted to make enough money to try for children again and lost focus on what was truly important to me, which is my wife.
We became emotionally separated and things felt worse. I tried to communicate on certain occasions, but in all the wrong ways (thanks to 5LL I now know). I knew something was just not right, and finally figured out that my W had had an affair for the last few months. It started as her searching to fill the emotional void and then the physical (we had been sparsely intimate over the last number of months). This combined with the fact that I didn’t like who I was anymore prompted me to do a lot of soul searching and to make profound changes (this is before I read the DR book). Her close relative knows what is going on and the support of it completely falls under the “Biased shoulder” description from DR.
My W does not know I know about the affair. But my finding out about it was the low point that forced me into action. We sat down the following day and I apologized for my past behaviours that I know she didn’t like. We spent that day together and it was amazing. We discussed a lot of things and she was emotional as I expected. I told her that I have changed because I didn’t like the person I became (which is who/what drove her away from me, I am owning it). She also shared with me things she wanted me to change and I have also added those, but a lot of my own self implemented changes were (I now know) complete 180s as described in DR. During our discussion she never mentioned divorce, but that “it might be too little, too late”. I asked her not to think like that. She also said that if “she didn’t still love me, she would not still be here”. I also tried to stress to her that we have to be completely honest with each other about everything moving forward and that I was still in this marriage 100% and that I never wanted to do anything to lose her. She said she needed time to process this. Understood.
