Talk me off a ledge- other side of the world and just discovered cheating

[Anonymous]

I also made him read my previous DCUM thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For OP and PPs - I am the person that mentions shouting as abuse. As a person who has gone through two abusive relationships - one which was emotional that in the end turned to physical threats and one in which cheating and other forms of emotional abuse were present. Neither relationship involved actual physical violence, and I am a very strong, well-educated person so it took a long time to understand how the emotional abuse in these relationships shaped me and counted as abuse even though it wasn’t physical.

I just want to highlight that, when considering abuse, it is wrong to look at the shouting as “it only happened one time”. The shouting happened along side another major form of abuse - the cheating, which is in and of itself, deeply emotionally abusive and manipulative and involves other forms of emotional abuse - active lying and lying by omission, gaslighting, etc. Also, it’s very common for abuse to be part of a cycle - tension builds, tension is released and then there is a good period. There is always good - otherwise why would women get sucked into these relationships? And, all abuse begins with a single act. Part of getting and staying out of abusive relationships is recognizing that abusive first act and treating like the true red flag that it is instead of normalizing it.

So, the question isn’t really is the shouting happening repeatedly - and if not then it’s just a justified one-time slip. Or is the shouting the “kind” of shouting that is “abusive”. The question is what is the dynamic of the whole relationship?

Ultimately, to successfully address the cheating, IMO, you and your DH have to acknowledge that he abused your trust and manipulated you emotionally. You have a lot of pretty, rational reasons why he cheated (stress at work, family upbringing, alcohol, etc.) but at the core of all of that, is that he choose to handle that by taking advantage of you in many ways.

That is the underlying reason why a post-nup us so important if you stay, because he abused your trust and manipulated your understanding of your reality.

I also disagree with the poster who said you have to give him hope if you expect him to stay. What the cheater decides to do about his own violations has to be motivated by his own insights about himself and his desire to change and improve, rather than an instrumental set of actions he will only undertake if he thinks she might stay.

IMO, the cheater has to understand that he needs to work every day for the rest of his life to be the kind of person that is in a healthy relationship and that he is offering her a healthy relationship. He has to know that she has the power to walk at any time. Previously, he didn’t want to give you that power - that is why he manipulated you into staying. He knew that if he was honest with you, there was a danger the relationship would be over. He didn’t want to give up control of the relationship. And that, is the core of all abuse - control.

I’m not saying OP has to stay or leave, but I don’t think it’s helpful to at this time to minimize abusive behavior. That’s the kind of rug-sweeping that DH and his family have always engaged in, and OP has gone along with in some ways.

I totally agree with you and you beautifully articulated a lot of my feelings and what has been bothering me the most. It's honestly not even the cheating itself. It's the taking away my agency to make informed decisions about my life, the deception, the avalanche of lies this required.

I'm a PP who has been replying on this thread (conflict avoidant DH had affair 8 years ago with an OW very far away, we are still together).

Yes, exactly this^. You can understand how things snowball into affairs on a human level, but the deception and manipulation involved in maintaining that secret are so deeply hurtful and unfair.

PP who explained about abuse, thank you. I hope that people who are normalizing yelling will take heed. Sure, we all yell "Sh*t!" when we stub our toe. But we don't all yell hateful things at our loved ones. This isn't understandable or OK.

OP, I could understand the "give him hope" advice if this were a chess game and staying together was the ultimate goal, but no, I wouldn't give someone false hope just to keep them invested. He broke the marriage. If he can't muster up the investment on his own without you giving him gold stars for making tiny efforts at cleaning up his own mess, then you'll be rebuilding on shaky ground anyway.

I'm just curious and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I'm wondering if you've asked if this was his only affair, what his answer was, and if you believe him.

I've asked him at least 20 times. He says it was his one and only. I've extensively dug through phone records, credit cards, bank statements, Venmo, email, his airline account, social media, and anything else you could think of and haven't found anything pointing to another one. Obviously I don't take his words at face value anymore. So far, everything he has said and the thousands of questions I've had him answer (though insanely painful) have aligned with everything I can see and piece together from the timeline.

Gotcha OP. He could be telling the truth, but it just seems like a first time cheater is more likely to slowly get boiled alive in the pot (friends/coworkers who turn into more) than to jump right into sex with a stranger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also made him read my previous DCUM thread.

Does he know about this one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For OP and PPs - I am the person that mentions shouting as abuse. As a person who has gone through two abusive relationships - one which was emotional that in the end turned to physical threats and one in which cheating and other forms of emotional abuse were present. Neither relationship involved actual physical violence, and I am a very strong, well-educated person so it took a long time to understand how the emotional abuse in these relationships shaped me and counted as abuse even though it wasn’t physical.

I just want to highlight that, when considering abuse, it is wrong to look at the shouting as “it only happened one time”. The shouting happened along side another major form of abuse - the cheating, which is in and of itself, deeply emotionally abusive and manipulative and involves other forms of emotional abuse - active lying and lying by omission, gaslighting, etc. Also, it’s very common for abuse to be part of a cycle - tension builds, tension is released and then there is a good period. There is always good - otherwise why would women get sucked into these relationships? And, all abuse begins with a single act. Part of getting and staying out of abusive relationships is recognizing that abusive first act and treating like the true red flag that it is instead of normalizing it.

So, the question isn’t really is the shouting happening repeatedly - and if not then it’s just a justified one-time slip. Or is the shouting the “kind” of shouting that is “abusive”. The question is what is the dynamic of the whole relationship?

Ultimately, to successfully address the cheating, IMO, you and your DH have to acknowledge that he abused your trust and manipulated you emotionally. You have a lot of pretty, rational reasons why he cheated (stress at work, family upbringing, alcohol, etc.) but at the core of all of that, is that he choose to handle that by taking advantage of you in many ways.

That is the underlying reason why a post-nup us so important if you stay, because he abused your trust and manipulated your understanding of your reality.

I also disagree with the poster who said you have to give him hope if you expect him to stay. What the cheater decides to do about his own violations has to be motivated by his own insights about himself and his desire to change and improve, rather than an instrumental set of actions he will only undertake if he thinks she might stay.

IMO, the cheater has to understand that he needs to work every day for the rest of his life to be the kind of person that is in a healthy relationship and that he is offering her a healthy relationship. He has to know that she has the power to walk at any time. Previously, he didn’t want to give you that power - that is why he manipulated you into staying. He knew that if he was honest with you, there was a danger the relationship would be over. He didn’t want to give up control of the relationship. And that, is the core of all abuse - control.

I’m not saying OP has to stay or leave, but I don’t think it’s helpful to at this time to minimize abusive behavior. That’s the kind of rug-sweeping that DH and his family have always engaged in, and OP has gone along with in some ways.

I totally agree with you and you beautifully articulated a lot of my feelings and what has been bothering me the most. It's honestly not even the cheating itself. It's the taking away my agency to make informed decisions about my life, the deception, the avalanche of lies this required.

I'm a PP who has been replying on this thread (conflict avoidant DH had affair 8 years ago with an OW very far away, we are still together).

Yes, exactly this^. You can understand how things snowball into affairs on a human level, but the deception and manipulation involved in maintaining that secret are so deeply hurtful and unfair.

PP who explained about abuse, thank you. I hope that people who are normalizing yelling will take heed. Sure, we all yell "Sh*t!" when we stub our toe. But we don't all yell hateful things at our loved ones. This isn't understandable or OK.

OP, I could understand the "give him hope" advice if this were a chess game and staying together was the ultimate goal, but no, I wouldn't give someone false hope just to keep them invested. He broke the marriage. If he can't muster up the investment on his own without you giving him gold stars for making tiny efforts at cleaning up his own mess, then you'll be rebuilding on shaky ground anyway.

I'm just curious and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I'm wondering if you've asked if this was his only affair, what his answer was, and if you believe him.

I've asked him at least 20 times. He says it was his one and only. I've extensively dug through phone records, credit cards, bank statements, Venmo, email, his airline account, social media, and anything else you could think of and haven't found anything pointing to another one. Obviously I don't take his words at face value anymore. So far, everything he has said and the thousands of questions I've had him answer (though insanely painful) have aligned with everything I can see and piece together from the timeline.

Gotcha OP. He could be telling the truth, but it just seems like a first time cheater is more likely to slowly get boiled alive in the pot (friends/coworkers who turn into more) than to jump right into sex with a stranger.

They originally met and exchanged numbers and texted for several months before he went back there for work and they had sex. The texting was friendly at first about music and a sport they both like then went off the deep end to flirting and downhill from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I also made him read my previous DCUM thread.

Does he know about this one?

I don't think so

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For OP and PPs - I am the person that mentions shouting as abuse. As a person who has gone through two abusive relationships - one which was emotional that in the end turned to physical threats and one in which cheating and other forms of emotional abuse were present. Neither relationship involved actual physical violence, and I am a very strong, well-educated person so it took a long time to understand how the emotional abuse in these relationships shaped me and counted as abuse even though it wasn’t physical.

I just want to highlight that, when considering abuse, it is wrong to look at the shouting as “it only happened one time”. The shouting happened along side another major form of abuse - the cheating, which is in and of itself, deeply emotionally abusive and manipulative and involves other forms of emotional abuse - active lying and lying by omission, gaslighting, etc. Also, it’s very common for abuse to be part of a cycle - tension builds, tension is released and then there is a good period. There is always good - otherwise why would women get sucked into these relationships? And, all abuse begins with a single act. Part of getting and staying out of abusive relationships is recognizing that abusive first act and treating like the true red flag that it is instead of normalizing it.

So, the question isn’t really is the shouting happening repeatedly - and if not then it’s just a justified one-time slip. Or is the shouting the “kind” of shouting that is “abusive”. The question is what is the dynamic of the whole relationship?

Ultimately, to successfully address the cheating, IMO, you and your DH have to acknowledge that he abused your trust and manipulated you emotionally. You have a lot of pretty, rational reasons why he cheated (stress at work, family upbringing, alcohol, etc.) but at the core of all of that, is that he choose to handle that by taking advantage of you in many ways.

That is the underlying reason why a post-nup us so important if you stay, because he abused your trust and manipulated your understanding of your reality.

I also disagree with the poster who said you have to give him hope if you expect him to stay. What the cheater decides to do about his own violations has to be motivated by his own insights about himself and his desire to change and improve, rather than an instrumental set of actions he will only undertake if he thinks she might stay.

IMO, the cheater has to understand that he needs to work every day for the rest of his life to be the kind of person that is in a healthy relationship and that he is offering her a healthy relationship. He has to know that she has the power to walk at any time. Previously, he didn’t want to give you that power - that is why he manipulated you into staying. He knew that if he was honest with you, there was a danger the relationship would be over. He didn’t want to give up control of the relationship. And that, is the core of all abuse - control.

I’m not saying OP has to stay or leave, but I don’t think it’s helpful to at this time to minimize abusive behavior. That’s the kind of rug-sweeping that DH and his family have always engaged in, and OP has gone along with in some ways.

I totally agree with you and you beautifully articulated a lot of my feelings and what has been bothering me the most. It's honestly not even the cheating itself. It's the taking away my agency to make informed decisions about my life, the deception, the avalanche of lies this required.

I'm a PP who has been replying on this thread (conflict avoidant DH had affair 8 years ago with an OW very far away, we are still together).

Yes, exactly this^. You can understand how things snowball into affairs on a human level, but the deception and manipulation involved in maintaining that secret are so deeply hurtful and unfair.

PP who explained about abuse, thank you. I hope that people who are normalizing yelling will take heed. Sure, we all yell "Sh*t!" when we stub our toe. But we don't all yell hateful things at our loved ones. This isn't understandable or OK.

OP, I could understand the "give him hope" advice if this were a chess game and staying together was the ultimate goal, but no, I wouldn't give someone false hope just to keep them invested. He broke the marriage. If he can't muster up the investment on his own without you giving him gold stars for making tiny efforts at cleaning up his own mess, then you'll be rebuilding on shaky ground anyway.

I'm just curious and you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but I'm wondering if you've asked if this was his only affair, what his answer was, and if you believe him.

I've asked him at least 20 times. He says it was his one and only. I've extensively dug through phone records, credit cards, bank statements, Venmo, email, his airline account, social media, and anything else you could think of and haven't found anything pointing to another one. Obviously I don't take his words at face value anymore. So far, everything he has said and the thousands of questions I've had him answer (though insanely painful) have aligned with everything I can see and piece together from the timeline.

Gotcha OP. He could be telling the truth, but it just seems like a first time cheater is more likely to slowly get boiled alive in the pot (friends/coworkers who turn into more) than to jump right into sex with a stranger.

They originally met and exchanged numbers and texted for several months before he went back there for work and they had sex. The texting was friendly at first about music and a sport they both like then went off the deep end to flirting and downhill from there.

Oh OK, that's more plausible but still, no way to know for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Re: the no shouting. We just....don't? We don't yell at each other, we don't yell at our kids. When we disagree or have a heavy topic to discuss, we've always picked a time to do so (like can we talk tomorrow after the kids go to bed) and then we talk it out. I guess our kids are little and healthy so we haven't been faced with major parenting issues yet. I don't know what else we would fight about. DH carries his weight and then some around the household and parenting, he's a fantastic dad, he cooks, cleans, does laundry, takes on some of the mental load of ordering the next size of kids clothes/shoes, scheduling doctors appts, planning trips. He's extremely handy and fixes anything plumbing, electrical, heating/AC, or car related. When he would travel for work, he suggested an agreement that his first full day home would always be a "day off" of kids and household for me. There just wasn't really any built up resentment about anything and I can't think of anything obvious we would fight about.

Minus the kids, I was in a marriage like this. Got together at 19, together 22 years, never fought. We just knew how to communicate respectfully and we rarely disagreed on anything. But my H also had a big unhealthy secret -- he was hooking up with men, which forced us to divorce. But what you describe in the paragraph above is so incredibly rare. It's rare to find someone you get along with to that degree, who you also want to have sex with. Being divorced sucks. It's lonely. You no longer have "your person" to share mundane thoughts with, go to dinner with, play cards with, travel with. My ex's family was MY family, and yet they completely disappeared when we divorced. Same with most of our intertwined group of friends. I can't fathom starting over with a stranger I meet online, someone who has secrets just like my ex did (who's currently dating a woman he met on bumble). You have a marriage worth saving.

But are you really getting along if one of the partners in the marriage has an entire secret life and relationship(s)? A marriage is all the parts, seen and unseen, spoken and unspoken. When we don’t bring something to the surface it doesn’t mean that it ain’t also a part of or impacting the marriage, it just isn’t overtly expressed.

In many ways I think it is healthier to have incidents of emotional outburst (not the the point of abuse as some posters have mentioned), than to have prolonged suppressed and repressed parts of the marriage and each spouses identities. I am not advocating for a loss of identity, autonomy or agency in the marriage, but when a partner has a huge part of their identity - like the longing for an outlet so strong that they seem a secret relationship outside of marriage - there is a lot of emotional unrest and turmoil underneath that. In ways the affair is a symptom of underlying issues that the individual may or may not be conscious of but is certainly not bringing up or addressing with themselves or their spouse.

A marriage like this… I don’t know… I don’t think you can call it rare in the positive sense or nearly perfect or smooth. It is real in the sense that each is doing their best but it sounds like so much has been repressed/suppressed, at least in the husband. And Op, I mean this kindly, but I think there could be some denial here too. The incidents, at least with drinking, that you mention about you DH would cause me to seriously question my view of my husband. Who is he? If he is truly to so calm, patient and kind etc… how could he be partaking in activities like drunk driving that are so selfish and dangerous. At the very best it would indicate a pattern of lying with himself. Where he doesn’t even see his own brokenness as a human and lack of integrity. That would cause me to wonder where else in life he may be inadvertently lying to himself. Seeming like a whole person, but underneath the surface his narrative of himself and his actions don’t align. Truly a human with broken integrity. This would be a series of conversations, rebuilding of trust etc…

Have you heard of the 3 S’s? Secrecy, silence and shame. Where there is one there are the other two. For me it is not the story of the drinking to destress because of work that is most bothersome. Yes, that is unhealthy but that is the surface problem. The real question for me is, but why hide it? Why the secrecy? Why not just drink etc… there is the indicator, the pointer in self inquiry toward shame. We hide when we are ashamed. Which would lead to the next question - what are we ashamed of? Therein lies the answer of a secret.

I think it is great that you take your husband at word value, and I also think other parts of us are a part of wholeness discernment too. There is our intuition. There is reflection, discernment, does what the person say add up as a whole. I don’t know if these all aligned for you. But I am saying this because often when we have been living with someone who had a big secret we have felt off the whole time. When things blow up, even though it is awful, there is a moment of oh my gosh it all makes sense.

I’ve covered a lot here and jumped around a bit. Sorry for all the words but I have been reading every reply and remember your old drinking post. I was always struck by how calm you were in your responses. I will admit I am not so myself. I also have a history of substance and alcohol abuse and so does my DH. We are both sober now many years, but I am not unfamiliar. Infidelity, although not discovered in the way you have, was a part of our early story too. I strongly agree with the poster who said whatever happens there will be a lot to unpack in individual therapy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I also made him read my previous DCUM thread.

I’m curious what his response is - both w/ respect to the fact that his drinking was a tell for infidelity and w/respect to what is his understanding of his own alcohol use. Does he see it as a crutch he used but has control of, or does he see it as a sign of abuse of alcohol which means he should stop drinking entirely?

W/ respect, I think you, OP, in previous posts believe it is the former, when IME, it is the latter.

[Anonymous]

Alcohol, sex like this, drugs, excessive spending, sometimes excesssive eating — they fill a hole that comes from somewhere. Maladapted behaviors. I am 2019 DDay poster. Over the last three years I have come to see that what DH did was abusive — he put my life, his life, the kids’ lives, his job, everything at risk for someone who actually did not even care about him but gave him a temporary high. I also learned that things in my history had led me to overlook certain forms of abuse even though I am high earning, and educated, and extremely competent. You both need to dig deep and in someways this may be a blessing of a kind because you are so young. This did not hit us until 25 years in and in our 50s. You do not have to commit to him. I am still pretty “we shall see” in my head but, if the growth happens, it is pretty amazing to watch someone pull themselves back from the brink of nothingness (alcoholism, divorce) and for you to set the terms for what you demand in a partner. So so so hard, I cried every day/ night for a year, could not sleep, amazing I kept working and parenting. it was my closest girlfriends and therapist who carried me and DH wrote to them after about 18 months to applogize and thank them for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Re: the no shouting. We just....don't? We don't yell at each other, we don't yell at our kids. When we disagree or have a heavy topic to discuss, we've always picked a time to do so (like can we talk tomorrow after the kids go to bed) and then we talk it out. I guess our kids are little and healthy so we haven't been faced with major parenting issues yet. I don't know what else we would fight about. DH carries his weight and then some around the household and parenting, he's a fantastic dad, he cooks, cleans, does laundry, takes on some of the mental load of ordering the next size of kids clothes/shoes, scheduling doctors appts, planning trips. He's extremely handy and fixes anything plumbing, electrical, heating/AC, or car related. When he would travel for work, he suggested an agreement that his first full day home would always be a "day off" of kids and household for me. There just wasn't really any built up resentment about anything and I can't think of anything obvious we would fight about.

Minus the kids, I was in a marriage like this. Got together at 19, together 22 years, never fought. We just knew how to communicate respectfully and we rarely disagreed on anything. But my H also had a big unhealthy secret -- he was hooking up with men, which forced us to divorce. But what you describe in the paragraph above is so incredibly rare. It's rare to find someone you get along with to that degree, who you also want to have sex with. Being divorced sucks. It's lonely. You no longer have "your person" to share mundane thoughts with, go to dinner with, play cards with, travel with. My ex's family was MY family, and yet they completely disappeared when we divorced. Same with most of our intertwined group of friends. I can't fathom starting over with a stranger I meet online, someone who has secrets just like my ex did (who's currently dating a woman he met on bumble). You have a marriage worth saving.

But are you really getting along if one of the partners in the marriage has an entire secret life and relationship(s)? A marriage is all the parts, seen and unseen, spoken and unspoken. When we don’t bring something to the surface it doesn’t mean that it ain’t also a part of or impacting the marriage, it just isn’t overtly expressed.

In many ways I think it is healthier to have incidents of emotional outburst (not the the point of abuse as some posters have mentioned), than to have prolonged suppressed and repressed parts of the marriage and each spouses identities. I am not advocating for a loss of identity, autonomy or agency in the marriage, but when a partner has a huge part of their identity - like the longing for an outlet so strong that they seem a secret relationship outside of marriage - there is a lot of emotional unrest and turmoil underneath that. In ways the affair is a symptom of underlying issues that the individual may or may not be conscious of but is certainly not bringing up or addressing with themselves or their spouse.

A marriage like this… I don’t know… I don’t think you can call it rare in the positive sense or nearly perfect or smooth. It is real in the sense that each is doing their best but it sounds like so much has been repressed/suppressed, at least in the husband. And Op, I mean this kindly, but I think there could be some denial here too. The incidents, at least with drinking, that you mention about you DH would cause me to seriously question my view of my husband. Who is he? If he is truly to so calm, patient and kind etc… how could he be partaking in activities like drunk driving that are so selfish and dangerous. At the very best it would indicate a pattern of lying with himself. Where he doesn’t even see his own brokenness as a human and lack of integrity. That would cause me to wonder where else in life he may be inadvertently lying to himself. Seeming like a whole person, but underneath the surface his narrative of himself and his actions don’t align. Truly a human with broken integrity. This would be a series of conversations, rebuilding of trust etc…

Have you heard of the 3 S’s? Secrecy, silence and shame. Where there is one there are the other two. For me it is not the story of the drinking to destress because of work that is most bothersome. Yes, that is unhealthy but that is the surface problem. The real question for me is, but why hide it? Why the secrecy? Why not just drink etc… there is the indicator, the pointer in self inquiry toward shame. We hide when we are ashamed. Which would lead to the next question - what are we ashamed of? Therein lies the answer of a secret.

I think it is great that you take your husband at word value, and I also think other parts of us are a part of wholeness discernment too. There is our intuition. There is reflection, discernment, does what the person say add up as a whole. I don’t know if these all aligned for you. But I am saying this because often when we have been living with someone who had a big secret we have felt off the whole time. When things blow up, even though it is awful, there is a moment of oh my gosh it all makes sense.

I’ve covered a lot here and jumped around a bit. Sorry for all the words but I have been reading every reply and remember your old drinking post. I was always struck by how calm you were in your responses. I will admit I am not so myself. I also have a history of substance and alcohol abuse and so does my DH. We are both sober now many years, but I am not unfamiliar. Infidelity, although not discovered in the way you have, was a part of our early story too. I strongly agree with the poster who said whatever happens there will be a lot to unpack in individual therapy.

I'm the PP you quoted with the closeted ex-H. Obviously OP and her H have a lot to discuss in therapy. Ideally they'd both learn a lot about themselves and become an even stronger team, yada yada yada. But my (rather sad) point was that my new divorced life sucks so bad that there are days when I would rather live in an effed up marriage where at least the day-to-day was pleasant and my social circle was intact. Since her H is presumably not gay, she still has the option of trying to salvage her marriage. There are a LOT of intangibles I didn't realize came with marriage until I lost them.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP you quoted with the closeted ex-H. Obviously OP and her H have a lot to discuss in therapy. Ideally they'd both learn a lot about themselves and become an even stronger team, yada yada yada. But my (rather sad) point was that my new divorced life sucks so bad that there are days when I would rather live in an effed up marriage where at least the day-to-day was pleasant and my social circle was intact. Since her H is presumably not gay, she still has the option of trying to salvage her marriage. There are a LOT of intangibles I didn't realize came with marriage until I lost them.

DP. I remember your posts. I hope you're doing better. Big hugs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Re: the no shouting. We just....don't? We don't yell at each other, we don't yell at our kids. When we disagree or have a heavy topic to discuss, we've always picked a time to do so (like can we talk tomorrow after the kids go to bed) and then we talk it out. I guess our kids are little and healthy so we haven't been faced with major parenting issues yet. I don't know what else we would fight about. DH carries his weight and then some around the household and parenting, he's a fantastic dad, he cooks, cleans, does laundry, takes on some of the mental load of ordering the next size of kids clothes/shoes, scheduling doctors appts, planning trips. He's extremely handy and fixes anything plumbing, electrical, heating/AC, or car related. When he would travel for work, he suggested an agreement that his first full day home would always be a "day off" of kids and household for me. There just wasn't really any built up resentment about anything and I can't think of anything obvious we would fight about.

Minus the kids, I was in a marriage like this. Got together at 19, together 22 years, never fought. We just knew how to communicate respectfully and we rarely disagreed on anything. But my H also had a big unhealthy secret -- he was hooking up with men, which forced us to divorce. But what you describe in the paragraph above is so incredibly rare. It's rare to find someone you get along with to that degree, who you also want to have sex with. Being divorced sucks. It's lonely. You no longer have "your person" to share mundane thoughts with, go to dinner with, play cards with, travel with. My ex's family was MY family, and yet they completely disappeared when we divorced. Same with most of our intertwined group of friends. I can't fathom starting over with a stranger I meet online, someone who has secrets just like my ex did (who's currently dating a woman he met on bumble). You have a marriage worth saving.

But are you really getting along if one of the partners in the marriage has an entire secret life and relationship(s)? A marriage is all the parts, seen and unseen, spoken and unspoken. When we don’t bring something to the surface it doesn’t mean that it ain’t also a part of or impacting the marriage, it just isn’t overtly expressed.

In many ways I think it is healthier to have incidents of emotional outburst (not the the point of abuse as some posters have mentioned), than to have prolonged suppressed and repressed parts of the marriage and each spouses identities. I am not advocating for a loss of identity, autonomy or agency in the marriage, but when a partner has a huge part of their identity - like the longing for an outlet so strong that they seem a secret relationship outside of marriage - there is a lot of emotional unrest and turmoil underneath that. In ways the affair is a symptom of underlying issues that the individual may or may not be conscious of but is certainly not bringing up or addressing with themselves or their spouse.

A marriage like this… I don’t know… I don’t think you can call it rare in the positive sense or nearly perfect or smooth. It is real in the sense that each is doing their best but it sounds like so much has been repressed/suppressed, at least in the husband. And Op, I mean this kindly, but I think there could be some denial here too. The incidents, at least with drinking, that you mention about you DH would cause me to seriously question my view of my husband. Who is he? If he is truly to so calm, patient and kind etc… how could he be partaking in activities like drunk driving that are so selfish and dangerous. At the very best it would indicate a pattern of lying with himself. Where he doesn’t even see his own brokenness as a human and lack of integrity. That would cause me to wonder where else in life he may be inadvertently lying to himself. Seeming like a whole person, but underneath the surface his narrative of himself and his actions don’t align. Truly a human with broken integrity. This would be a series of conversations, rebuilding of trust etc…

Have you heard of the 3 S’s? Secrecy, silence and shame. Where there is one there are the other two. For me it is not the story of the drinking to destress because of work that is most bothersome. Yes, that is unhealthy but that is the surface problem. The real question for me is, but why hide it? Why the secrecy? Why not just drink etc… there is the indicator, the pointer in self inquiry toward shame. We hide when we are ashamed. Which would lead to the next question - what are we ashamed of? Therein lies the answer of a secret.

I think it is great that you take your husband at word value, and I also think other parts of us are a part of wholeness discernment too. There is our intuition. There is reflection, discernment, does what the person say add up as a whole. I don’t know if these all aligned for you. But I am saying this because often when we have been living with someone who had a big secret we have felt off the whole time. When things blow up, even though it is awful, there is a moment of oh my gosh it all makes sense.

I’ve covered a lot here and jumped around a bit. Sorry for all the words but I have been reading every reply and remember your old drinking post. I was always struck by how calm you were in your responses. I will admit I am not so myself. I also have a history of substance and alcohol abuse and so does my DH. We are both sober now many years, but I am not unfamiliar. Infidelity, although not discovered in the way you have, was a part of our early story too. I strongly agree with the poster who said whatever happens there will be a lot to unpack in individual therapy.

I'm the PP you quoted with the closeted ex-H. Obviously OP and her H have a lot to discuss in therapy. Ideally they'd both learn a lot about themselves and become an even stronger team, yada yada yada. But my (rather sad) point was that my new divorced life sucks so bad that there are days when I would rather live in an effed up marriage where at least the day-to-day was pleasant and my social circle was intact. Since her H is presumably not gay, she still has the option of trying to salvage her marriage. There are a LOT of intangibles I didn't realize came with marriage until I lost them.

DP - I’m really sorry, PP. For people who met fairly young and stayed together, your marriage becomes such a fundamental part of your identity that I can appreciate the depth and breadth of the loss. It’s not something from which you recover quickly.

That said, you likely will adjust with time. You do have the option to build a new life for yourself. You may not find a partner with whom you get along - at some level - as easily as your exH, but you may well find one who is faithful and who has more integrity. I suspect that many of these seemingly idyllic marriages often do come along with one or both partners hiding a part of themselves, mostly because that level of amiability can come with a price. Having no obvious friction in a marriage suggests, to me, that the partners aren’t particularly independent individuals. So, you may find a relationship with a more friction, but it can also be one with more room for you both as individual people - with the huge benefit being that you don’t feel the need to keep secrets as big as your exH did or as the OP’s H did. There’s space for you as a whole person.

[Anonymous]

I hope I'm not overstepping here by posting. I was a MW who had an affair and a d-day. We did not have kids at the time but had been together for 15 years so a long history. After d-day, my H said to me, "I have no idea whether I still want to be with you. I am going to take the time to figure out what I want. But in the meantime, here are the things I need from you to make me feel safe." 

Frankly I am glad he said those things to me. Because as I started therapy and working on myself, I realized I wanted to change and grow not all for my husband but also for myself. While I wanted to still be with my husband, I wanted to be a better person regardless of whether our marriage made it. While the work I did benefited our relationship as well, I didn't approach the work as a way to "win him back."

Unfortunately I don't think a lot of WS are willing to dig deep and take full responsibility for their actions. It's like a deep wound and they just want to stick a band-aid on it so it heals on the outside and looks good. But wounds like these need to be healed from the inside out. And while I was working on myself and peeling the onion of my lifetime of crap, I was simultaneously doing everything I could to help my husband heal and make him feel safe. 13+ years later we are still together and have a family.

OP I am so sorry that this has happened to you and I wish you strength and healing on whatever path it takes to get there for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I hope I'm not overstepping here by posting. I was a MW who had an affair and a d-day. We did not have kids at the time but had been together for 15 years so a long history. After d-day, my H said to me, "I have no idea whether I still want to be with you. I am going to take the time to figure out what I want. But in the meantime, here are the things I need from you to make me feel safe." 

Frankly I am glad he said those things to me. Because as I started therapy and working on myself, I realized I wanted to change and grow not all for my husband but also for myself. While I wanted to still be with my husband, I wanted to be a better person regardless of whether our marriage made it. While the work I did benefited our relationship as well, I didn't approach the work as a way to "win him back."

Unfortunately I don't think a lot of WS are willing to dig deep and take full responsibility for their actions. It's like a deep wound and they just want to stick a band-aid on it so it heals on the outside and looks good. But wounds like these need to be healed from the inside out. And while I was working on myself and peeling the onion of my lifetime of crap, I was simultaneously doing everything I could to help my husband heal and make him feel safe. 13+ years later we are still together and have a family.

OP I am so sorry that this has happened to you and I wish you strength and healing on whatever path it takes to get there for you.

Thanks for sharing I really value your advice. My DH has expressed the same sentiment multiple times that he wants to do the work on himself for himself and our kids even if it doesn't work out between us. He did intake calls with 4 therapists and really liked the one that my therapist had suggested I connect him with (which I HIGHLY value my therapists opinion because she's wonderful) so he has his second appt with that one next week. I also want to see him better himself independent of me and our relationship future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Re: the no shouting. We just....don't? We don't yell at each other, we don't yell at our kids. When we disagree or have a heavy topic to discuss, we've always picked a time to do so (like can we talk tomorrow after the kids go to bed) and then we talk it out. I guess our kids are little and healthy so we haven't been faced with major parenting issues yet. I don't know what else we would fight about. DH carries his weight and then some around the household and parenting, he's a fantastic dad, he cooks, cleans, does laundry, takes on some of the mental load of ordering the next size of kids clothes/shoes, scheduling doctors appts, planning trips. He's extremely handy and fixes anything plumbing, electrical, heating/AC, or car related. When he would travel for work, he suggested an agreement that his first full day home would always be a "day off" of kids and household for me. There just wasn't really any built up resentment about anything and I can't think of anything obvious we would fight about.

Minus the kids, I was in a marriage like this. Got together at 19, together 22 years, never fought. We just knew how to communicate respectfully and we rarely disagreed on anything. But my H also had a big unhealthy secret -- he was hooking up with men, which forced us to divorce. But what you describe in the paragraph above is so incredibly rare. It's rare to find someone you get along with to that degree, who you also want to have sex with. Being divorced sucks. It's lonely. You no longer have "your person" to share mundane thoughts with, go to dinner with, play cards with, travel with. My ex's family was MY family, and yet they completely disappeared when we divorced. Same with most of our intertwined group of friends. I can't fathom starting over with a stranger I meet online, someone who has secrets just like my ex did (who's currently dating a woman he met on bumble). You have a marriage worth saving.

OP I have to agree. I feel like I have a really good marriage, a marriage I feel pretty confident I would try to save even with infidelity. I realize I haven't been there before, so I understand I can't say that for sure. But even my good marriage doesn't meet the things you describe. Also have been with my spouse since he was 19 and I was 21. Again, good marriage generally great communication but what you describe is way way way above average in terms of how much he participates as an equal partner (and I have a VERY active partner!) and how little you all fought. I totally hear you and of course it is your right to walk from this. I guess I just personally do believe that very good loving people can do truly terrible things, even (and especially!) to the ones they love. It just all isn't mutually exclusive. Both AND is kind of a big part of life. I don't like to disclose my profession here but I know the interworkings of many couples relationships and the good parts of your relationship - how good, are rarer than you think. Look at just how many people have posted here telling you their stories of similar infidelities. SO MUCH is hidden. Just don't idealize other relationships.

You said something a few days ago that has been gnawing at me. Your thread has really stuck in my brain I'm not going to lie. I am deeply sorry you are going through this. I'm paraphrasing but you said something like I deserve a loyal partner, I give that and I deserve it back. You listed other things you deserve. And of COURSE you deserve that and all the things I can't remember in the moment now. But to be very frank, your two young kids also truly deserve their parents being together. They deserve their loving family unit to be given a serious chance even in the face of something devastating. Of course you should not make a decision out of obligation or guilt, and yet I think it needs to be a bigger part of your equation. I think maybe you just haven't gotten here in your brain, right now you have talked a lot about what you need and what is best for you. But your children, who you brought into this world with a partner that you love/d deeply and who is a great father to them, deserve to be a HUGE part of your equation about whether to stay. I hate to be so frank but I think it's necessary: divorce will impact your children for the REST of their lives. It is incredibly hard on children, despite what people might tell you. Sometimes, it is the best option. I'm having a hard time seeing how in this instance it is the best option for them. It may be for you, and you may ultimately make that choice but it will have immense consequences for them. So I guess I'm just saying, personally I really think you should be giving reconciliation way more of a chance.

There are some men that are just jerks and will keep cheating. I am just not convinced your husband is one of them. Of course what do I know, stranger on the internet reading your posts. But he strikes me as someone who was pretty broken but has a LOT of strengths he could use to pull himself up and not do this stupid stupid thing again. And your marriage sounds worth saving.