I cheated, we survived, now my wife's cheating

[JC08]

Is your secretary (the OW) still working with you?

She is in the same building but no longer my secretary. After the affair ended and everything came out about that affair with my wife, I asked her about switching jobs. She said I didn't need to do that. I was open, fully transparent during the following months, I called and text her all day, I stayed in contact over lunch periods, I turned on my location on Snapchat so she could see where I was, I called when I left work. I guess I just tried to be as open, transparent, accountable as I could be. She didn't ask me to do as much as I did, but I did to because I felt like I owed her all of that, that she had to want it, that it had to make her feel better.

Is your W employed? In spite of her parent's warning, you chose to place your W on a pedestal while taking on 75% of the chores. I might understand the outside work, farm animals, etc., but I'm curious as to why you were persistent in leaving her with little to do. Is your love language acts of service?

I bought the book the five love languages, but she left me before I got it, then have switched to the divorce busting books. I just took a quiz and yes, acts of service comes up as my love language. Which after the affair we spent more time together/with each other in 6 months then we had in 10 years. She helped me with projects outside, would help running errands or what not, would go with me to do little things. So maybe that is part of why I started getting such a deeper love for her, she was doing things I had always wanted, helping out tons more, and I just felt happy and content. I truthfully don't remember ever feeling that way, I'm sure I did years ago, but it had definitely been a long, long time. I had the wife I wanted, she was more out going and personable with my friends, more involved with my parents, seemed happier in life, and now I lost her and someone else is getting that. Kills me everyday.... I mean last weekend she didn't have the kids and spent the entire weekend riding in a tractor with the OM(He's a farmer), she would have never spent an entire weekend doing something like that with me, ever.

I think her anger toward you not staying to talk, had more to do with being left alone to deal with all the kids.........since you always took care of everything. As time progresses, you will probably see a lot more anger that you don't understand. Just look in the mirror and remember you created this princess. I think she'll want you over there to help every evening that she is "stuck" with caring for the kids and being responsible for all that work she's never had to do. I mean, she may not know what bills to pay or when, etc. IMHO, it is a disservice to his W when a H leaves nothing for her to do. Hopefully, she has the type of personality where she'll dive in and be determined to learn how to handle running the house..........but, we'll see. Once you reconcile, be smart and don't pick up 75% of the work again.

That's one thing, she has yet to be alone, completely alone since we separated. She either has the kids, or she is with him. So she hasn't really dealt with being alone yet. My girls say she doesn't do anything with them just on her phone the whole night, then put them to bed and here her talking on the phone. Yes, I did create a monster, thought that was just being a good husband/provider, didn't see it for what it was, didn't see it was leading to me having resentment. I mean after we separated she had to call and ask when the house payment was due, and how much it was, had to give her logins for online banking, everything. I mean she's capable, but in 10 years of marriage hasn't touched it.

You thought you were seeing your W take on a new happiness, but in reality, she was competing with the secretary....or an OW#2 in the future, if she (your W) wasn't enough for you. She wanted to present herself and your MR as so wonderful that you would never consider another woman/affair. But her pain and low self esteem was there.......she just wouldn't show it to you, except in those times she desperately needed reassurance. This is just MHO, of course. Perhaps the reason these times of reassurances became less, was b/c her pain was shifting to anger.

Yes now I see the pain and low self esteem was there. I didn't see it before, I mean after the affair I would tell her how pretty she was all the time. it made her happy, but she would also question if I was being sincere. I was, I always have been attracted to my wife, but after the affair and me thinking I now had this great marriage and me and her seemed to have a great marriage, it just made me fall more in love with her and really I am probably somewhat infatuated with her right now and have been since the affair ended. I seriously think she is just the most attractive woman, I know part of that is the emotional bond I thought was formed after the affair, but I am just totally consumed with her. And I felt it was the same way with her until Bam, one day she wasn't.

She never showed much anger, of course she did in the beginning after finding out bout my affair, but it last a week. Then it seemed like we moved onto talking, and trying to heal. Once she started talking to the OM more in June she started making more and more snide comments, but not tons. Once she decided we were separating, and every since then lots of anger has came out. especially right when I moved out. I don't know if she is just finally releasing it, or if the OM is just telling her how horrible I am, how great she is, and how he can't understand how anyone could ever do this to her, and it is just fanning the flame. My priest and therapist says it is good that she is getting the anger out, I wished she would have long ago, I still feel like she is justified to lash out in anger because of what I did, I just wish she would have shared more of her anger and pain with me before the OM entered and I could have seen we needed help and a different approach to getting our marriage back on track.

She said multiple time in the last month that she didn't think the pain would ever stop and she wasn't going to live like that. I asked her one time if there was a button she could push and the pain was gone, not the memory, just the pain would she stay in the marriage and she said yes, without a doubt. I tried to tell her it would, what she felt was normal according to everything I read, and that it would go away and we could get help go to MC, whatever we needed to do, but by that time the OM was the easy choice, she told me it would be a pain free relationship and that was attractive.

I may change my mind once we have more information, but at the moment, I feel your W is having a revenge affair. I think she was so affected by your betrayal that she wanted you to experience the pain she has suffered. When ole smooth talker (OM) appeared, he fit the job description.........that's all.

At first I did too, it seemed to match that definition. But she seems to hit every single point of someone in limerance. and about 3 weeks before her telling me to leave we went to lunch one day. She had been acting off that week, I asked her if she was contacting the OM, she said no but she wanted to, then asked me how long before I stopped having feelings for the OW. I asked her if she had feelings for him and she said yes, that i was the only other person she had ever felt this way about. I tried to say it was a crush, that she had to stop talking to him for that to go away, and that she didn't even know him except through some text messages. Then right after I moved out and was at the house 3 days later a message came across her phone she surprisingly left laying on the counter, that said, "Im going to love you forever and make you so happy'. Made me sick, seriously seen him twice in person and he's telling her that he going to love her forever. They don't even know each other! But she totally believes that, even voiced her concern that her parents would never accept him because of how they got together and how well they have always liked me. It was almost like her asking me to smooth things over with her dad. This was like a week after i moved out.

At this point she has immersed herself into his circle of friends, they are not parading around in public, but might as well be, her car is parked in front of his house and it's on a busy road, everyone know. She doesn't seem to care that she is still married.