New - Desperate & Confused, H won't end affair

[Lisa65]

Hello,
I'm sure most new people start this way, but I never thought I'd be posting on a divorce forum.

My story is looooong, oh so long. But I feel that time is of the essence here as I feel I lose ground by the day, so I will try to nutshell this as much as I can.

Three weeks ago today, I learned that my husband of 22 years is having an affair with a coworker. Two days after that, he was fired from his job, in part because of said affair (but also several other factors). I did not initiate a confession to me, I basically caught him.

We had been on a family vacation, he flew home a day early because we suspected he was about to be fired and he had an appointment with his attorney. That night he was supposedly having dinner with a platonic friend, then he texted me he was tired and headed home. I texted him to ask how things were, and he didn't answer. Texted an hour later and he didn't answer then either. Long story short, four hours later I had sent 7 texts and called him twice without a response. At 1:30 am I finally texted saying, "Look, I can only think of 3 scenarios here and none are good. Either you're out drinking, you've been in an accident, or you're with someone." Finally he texted back saying everything was fine, please calm down, he had gotten home and fallen asleep on the couch and had been sleeping for the past couple of hours. Problem was, I recently installed some home automation stuff (door sensors, cameras, presence sensors for cars) and knew he was lying. I hadn't installed the stuff to catch him - I hadn't even suspected him!

Anyway, I told him I knew he was lying, and asked if he was with someone. He was quiet for a moment and then just said yes quietly. The rest of the conversation is a bit of a blur, but basically I learned that it was with a beautiful young coworker of his. I asked him if he was leaving me and I can't remember what he said. I think he said "No. I don't know." After a few more minutes of conversation with me crying, I felt there was nothing left to be said right then. I said "I hope she's worth it" and hung up on him. I somehow believed he would call me back or at least text frantically. He sent just two short texts, saying something like he was sorry he wasn't the man I thought he was, that he is a very messed up, flawed person.

My heart sank.

The next day I tried to act normally in front of my 16 and 19 year old kids as we packed up the car, ate at the cafe we traditionally eat at every summer (we've been vacationing at the same spot for 15 years) and drove the 5 1/2 hours home. Absolute worst day of my life. Up to that point.

When I got home, the talking began, and it hasn't stopped. The things I have learned have ripped me apart. I first learned that my husband is a chronic liar. Every single thing I asked, I learned I had to ask it three times over a day or two to get the whole truth. When I got home that night, I quickly learned what I was already beginning to suspect - that this wasn't just a one-night stand or a casual fling. Despite being caught, he had stayed the night and into the next day, hanging out with her, getting coffee, strolling through the city. He didn't come home until the afternoon.

First he told me the affair started on July 3rd, about two months earlier. The more we talked the more I realized that I was in trouble - he intended to leave me for her. I couldn't understand it. We talked and cried the rest of the weekend. I forced myself to ask questions about their relationship in an effort to understand what was happening. It was so excruciating. We were both upset and it was clear that he was confused, scared and extremely mixed up. He said he knew how difficult everything had to be for me but asked if I could do the impossible and give him just a little time to prepare for the next day. I'd forgotten - he was probably about to lose his job. Until Friday night, that had been the worst news I could imagine. Somehow we agreed to just concentrate on whatever lay ahead for him at work the next day.

The next day, Monday, he hugged me goodbye and went to work. I got up and did something I have never done in my life. I sat down to think and noticed his iPad on the table. I have never once invaded his privacy, but I picked it up and guessed his password on the first try. He doesn't use the iPad that much and is generally one to delete old emails, texts, etc. Nevertheless, there was enough there to make me cry. Nothing that contradicted anything he had already confessed to me, but it filled in blanks in a terrible way. I saw one lone text from the woman that said "How are you my love?" It was dated July 11th. I wondered how they had gone from starting up on July 3rd to "my love" a week later. I saw that they had been ordering takeout from Seamless.com and had ordered pizza the Friday night I caught him. Pizza on Friday night has always been a tradition in our family. I saw from his browser history that he had been searching for divorce lawyers as early as August 6th, and it looked as though he found one. I saw that he looked at two books on divorce on Amazon. And I saw that he had subscribed to a saved search for apartments in the city. He had received on that same Monday morning - a place in Chelsea - and he'd opened the email.

I went upstairs to take a shower in a total daze. Before I could get in, he texted me - "They fired me." I asked what their reasoning had been. There were a litany of things - inappropriate relationships with women, being disrespectful, and a bunch of other things. Basically, conduct unbecoming to his position in the company. I took note that inappropriate relationships with women was first on the list.

After a couple of hours of him wandering around in the city, he finally came home. We sat down and it was then that I learned even more. The relationship with the OW had not been since July; it had started in March. Six months. There had been another woman, someone that worked for him as an assistant for 7 years but left a couple of years ago. Apparently that had really been more of the typical fling, and probably more of an "emotional affair" as they commiserated about family problems.

More talking. More crying. And still I waited for him to come to his senses, to plead with me to forgive him. It didn't happen. He loves this woman.

My life has been an absolute roller coaster of pain ever since. Through many, many, MANY hours of conversation between him and me, we have both learned so very much. For that, I am grateful. But still terrified. I have been through the gamut of emotions, in no small part because I kept learning new things. At first I dismissed everything as a midlife crisis for him. I don't doubt that comes into play in some ways. However, there are so many other factors.

He was utterly convinced that he loves this woman, and that he wanted to marry her. However, over the past three weeks lots of things have changed. He has admitted that there are lots of things about her that concern him. He seems to actually know rather little about her or how she feels about things that I'd think would matter if you wanted to marry someone. There is a 20 year age difference between them, which scares him. And he says he still loves me and doesn't know if he can live without me. He said those things during the first week.

We have actually been communicating more these past weeks than in our entire marriage, and more honest and stripped down. He acknowledges that he has been ripped down to the studs - he has disgraced himself, has lost his job in a humiliating way (he was general counsel of a big company), we are facing financial ruin, he is horrified at the person he has become. We have both earnestly been seeking answers and help in every way we know how - talking to each other, reading books, articles, etc. He began therapy last week with an excellent therapist whom he saw five years ago that really helped him (as I now know, due to the earlier brief affair he had). I believe this therapist is very good for him. I just began seeing one for my own sanity, and yesterday we started with a marriage counselor.

It was so hard for me to understand how this woman got hold in our lives, how he could possibly be thinking of leaving me, ripping our family apart, for a woman he's only been seeing for 6 months, no matter how intensely. First I read, and he also confirmed the same thing - that it wasn't that he was choosing between two women, necessarily. He felt he was choosing between two paths - two possible new futures. And he was terrified of making a mistake. Over the past week or so, though, he has come to a different conclusion, or a more specific one. He says he realizes more and more it is less about the OW. He just this week has come to admit that he honestly doesn't believe that relationship will or would last, even if he leaves me for her. He says he sees the pitfalls and he's read the statistics and he's no dummy. The relationship was fueled nicely while it was a nice secret fantasy bubble, and while he still had his job which paid extremely well. But now that he has been fired, now that he is not seeing her every day, now that he has been forced to look at the reality of it - I think, and he has pretty much agreed, that the "halo effect" is dissipating.

So what he is trying to decide is whether our marriage is salvageable. I have learned that he "stepped out" (as he calls it) a few other times in the course of our marriage, to varying degrees (all very casual and not all were actual sex). Painfully, I learned that soon after we were married, he had what in many ways was similar to the current affair, except that they never actually did anything. He said the girl was very similar in personality to the one he is seeing now. I asked him why it never went further, and he admitted it was because she stopped it. She was about to become engaged and she had the balls to make a decision. He said he is desperate to understand why he has been like this when he obviously loves me and our marriage has always been considered pretty good for the most part.

There is so, so much more but I've probably broken all kinds of first post rules by this lengthy introduction. I have lots of theories on what has gone wrong, and what needs to be fixed, but no idea how to fix it. I am about halfway through the DB book and find it very helpful, but I also feel like I'm not quite sure how to apply it to my situation.

My first worry is how to handle him and how to handle myself. I believe a great many of our marriage problems stem from the fact that I lost respect for myself over the years, and thus he did as well. The women that seem to turn his eye are those with a bit of an edge. At first we characterized them as "type A" or women who could keep him on his toes, but that's too superficial and sounds bitchy. He doesn't like bitchy. I think it's about self-respect - they have it, and I lost mine a long time ago. I think he basically ended up doing a lot of the things he did because, well, he could. I didn't put my foot down, I didn't tell him to *f* himself if he stepped out of line. I am not a meek person, but I became a rather passive person and I didn't love myself enough to not take crap.

So here I am. Deep in my heart, I believe this marriage is salvageable. I feel I can see where we went wrong. I think the OW is a symptom of everything and I genuinely think it would be the worst mistake he ever made if he ran off with her. And honestly, I think it would be an enormous mistake for the OW, too. But I don't know what steps to take next. I have already made countless, countless mistakes. Within the first few days I told him he had two days to break it off with her. Yeah, right.

The loss of his job and his income have severely impacted our decision making. We will likely have to sell our house. We don't really have the money to support a second living quarters, no matter how small. We are desperately trying to not have to let our children know what is happening any more than absolutely necessary. Our daughter is back at college but our son is home. He has already heard one fight (we almost never fight, but I screamed my heart out at him a week ago). There just isn't much info out there for a situation like ours, where neither spouse is really a jerk, where they are trying to maybe work things out, but he is not yet willing to end the affair. Lots of what I have read has said to give him the space he needs to work things through in his head, and to keep him in the home (home based advantage, I guess). And honestly? I really, really don't want him to leave. For practical reasons as well as emotional.

But I am struggling with my self-respect. I feel like I'm just hanging around, waiting to be told whether or not I've made the cut or not. I feel like I'm just repeating a pattern where I'm allowing him to think I'm a sure thing, I'll always be here. Other books like on tough love advocate being loving, telling him I love him and want our marriage to work, but that he needs to be shown the door while he figures things out. I'm all for showing a little strength, but with all the conflicting bits of opinions, I'm lost.

I'm sorry so long. That was almost therapeutic to me. As I said, there is so much more. Right now it looks like he's the big jerk, but there are so many extenuating circumstances - this isn't cut and dried cheating. So if I sound unreasonably reasonable about the whole thing, that's why.

Thanks for listening.

Lisa