After reading the latest post I am with Nopkins. You cannot win this one unless she gets honest. Whatever kept her up all night that she decided to "confess" isn't the full story. It unburdened her just enough....
Like Nop I don't want to seem harsh but PROTECT YOURSELF and the KIDS. I went through the big D with a prince of a guy. I put him through med school he put me through the hell of verbal abuse, perscription drug abuse, job changes etc... In the end I wasn't sorry for the five years I spent trying to fix things and I wasn't sorry for ending things either. I am sorry for my children but they are doing well and love their stepDad very much. My choice is always to try and save the marriage and I hope yours is salvagable. Many are. Set some specific goals, be direct with her and try like hell. Just make sure you understand the legalities involved AND do some things to nurture yourself and son in the meantime.
I don't know how many have had cyber sex/affairs here. I thought they were mostly innocent and it happened so inocently. A comment here--a jesture there. Before you know it, that warm rush of oil running over your hands and the "time to lite a smoke" is upon you and you did nothing cept talk about things you remembered doing at one point in your life.
That "kept me going"--not to the "construction of a evil husband stage" but definately the "horney housewife". 3 things can happen. 1 the thing just fizzles out like any date can. 2. you do meet and are compatable/incompatible(maybe thats 2 things in itself) 3. You become so involved that when you do 'break up' its so crushing it does nothing to help with the bad relationship youre in and things spiral downward.
In short. CyberSex/Relations are REAL! They mess with the heart and mind and can stir the feet going elsewhere. Treat her encounters as a real breech!
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
First I realized that I didn't put a time context on the online things my wife did. Not to diminish what happened but this occured when she was pregnant and then in the year following that so that makes these events about 4 years ago. We actually moved to where we are now 2 1/2 years ago.
- GEL: I haven't had the talk. The main reason that I did this was that we have a huge amount of debt that has been accumulated and since I was in college and she was the one making the $ I didn't want to risk loosing everything. So I tried to get things into counseling and kept working on my degree and new career. Being several years into this mess I didn't want to loose it all at the end. My big priority I guess was to not rock the boat and get my degree so I would have something to fall back on. Now that I am close to getting my degree I need to have the talk but I am not even sure how to approach this. I tried to get us back into counseling at the begining of this semsester back that didn't work. Is there some "talk" tempelate somewhere that I could read? As for my W schedule she works all the time now. I can't be 100% certain that she is not having A but its hard for me to tell because we are leading two differant lives. The counselor last time a year ago described it as being like people living two parallel lives that never really intersected, kinda like 2 strangers I guess.
I think I went to the counselor 6 or 7 times. She went two or three times I think. The big thing for me with counselor was to reset the "affair clock" or whatever you wanna call it. It was good to talk to someone because before that I had gotten to the point where I was really close to doing something stupid out of physical and emotional desperation. We never even made it to joint counseling with the counselor but it did help me for awhile.
- Annette: good question. I suppose I love my wife as much as one could considering everything that has happened. When we where first married I was completelly in love with this woman but no so many things have happened and time doesn't heal all wounds.
- NOPkins: You make excellant points and please feel free to continue commenting. I think I hit bottom shortly after I moved when I had given up a career and I realized that my W probably had little intention of patching things up. Since then I have been planning and working on launching another career and its been a bit too successful. Which leads into one of your other points about not leaving the house. Now I have a number of job offers and all of them are in differant states from the one I live in now. Which means I move the whole family with all the problems going on or I literally move and abandon them by taking a job in another state! I have taken some steps to try and protect myself financially though probably not enough and it was important that I try and hang on until I got my degree so I didn't end up financially ruined.
- Karen: I think the biggest thing that keeps me going is worry about my son. I don't think you or NOP are being to harsh at all. I guess this is my last ditch attempt to save things.
- Liese: I agree with you on the online affairs thing. What still probably gets to me is that nothing really changed and W never wanted to do counseling as evident by the multiple false starts etc.
I guess my biggest dilmena is when to have the talk? And literally what should I say? My relationship and marriage have really turned into a sort of partneship. The whole dam thing feels like one giant business transaction. We don't fight about anything, we don't sleep together, we both have our own duties around the house and do them to keep things running smoothly, we don't really make plans for the future, we never talk about our relationship, we never go out by ourselves its always with our S. We handle the bills, talk about money decisions like investments and such. We do all the things that I thought regular couples would do its just that we don't feel like we are a couple.
I was thinking about trying to take one final shot at fixing this and getting back into counseling after the holidays as I don't to ruin them. I guess part of me is afraid that my wife will say lets just call it quits or say something to the effect that we allready live seperate lives so lets just keep pretending to be married and do our own thing. At this stage I don't even know what my wife would do if I had an affair (I see the value in not having one) and I worry that we have past the point of no return from an emotional standpoint where the loss of a spouse becomes akin to the loss of a roommate... you know things change and everyone is just moving on with their lives.
Quote: I guess my biggest dilmena is when to have the talk? And literally what should I say? My relationship and marriage have really turned into a sort of partneship. The whole dam thing feels like one giant business transaction. We don't fight about anything, we don't sleep together, we both have our own duties around the house and do them to keep things running smoothly, we don't really make plans for the future, we never talk about our relationship, we never go out by ourselves its always with our S. We handle the bills, talk about money decisions like investments and such. We do all the things that I thought regular couples would do its just that we don't feel like we are a couple.
Sounds to me that you do know what the talk should say...you just said it all to us...now tell her. If you still love her make sure you tell her that too, ok?
I will tell you a hard thing. It is hard for me to write, and it is hard for MrsNOP (who reads and posts here) to read. I hope you can get something from it.
There wasn't an affair causing problems with us, but there might as well have been. The distance between us was vast. She had given up on our relationship but was staying with me (at least for a time). I had given up and thought that the right thing to do was to tell her what was bugging me and give her a last chance to fix it. (How's that for arrogant?)
It was my "exit effort". As it turns out, the problems in our marriage were not all her fault! Imagine that. I had something to do with it too! The problems in your marriage are not all your wife's fault, even though there is betrayal.
What you have to decide is, what is "the right thing to do" for you and your relationship. If you decide to honestly address marital issues, then you MUST be prepared to make changes in yourself as well.
I am hurt for both you and your wife. I know how the "parallel life" feels as do others here. It sucks.
I don't know what all you have read, but there are some good affair books (Surviving an Affair is one) out there. I suggest that you devote yourself to reading and studying about affairs, and marriages, and marital conflict for a couple of weeks before you decide what you are going to do.
I also suggest that you conduct these studies in your wife's presence - don't hide it. If queried, you can honestly tell her you are studying options.
Since you two are distant, you are probably playing the "duck face" game with furitve looks and glances rather than an honest open face. Please consider stopping that game and making yourself known and available to your wife. Openness is an attitude. She will read it whether or not she does anything about it.
My personal opinion, is that you owe her an honest try. I think that is the least any of us can do before throwing in the towel. I can tell you that I am glad that I did. My wife means everything to me. Our marriage has never been better. That happened because BOTH of us worked at it.
I wish you and your family all the best. -NOPkins-
I will ferret out an affair at any opportunity.
-An affair is the embodiment of entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect. -An infidel will remain unreachable so long as their sense of entitlement exceeds their ability to reason.
NOPkins, great advice...you really need to talk to her.
with all the stuff going on in my marriage right now, I have to say we're closer than in a long time...weird but true, because we are facing a LOT of our issues.
Not all of them, unfortunately I have to keep some stuff to myself just to protect myself in case of future legal stuff...
Anyway, you need to tell yourself you tried everything, you might check the DB & DR books too...
At least if my marriage ends I know I faced the issuses and did what I could to save it.
Good Luck
Slowly all the roles we act out become our Identity,
And in the end we are what we pretend to be.
-Jerry Cantrell
