1 Year Later, FINALLY Ready To Tell My Story

Chapter 2: Close call! Where did THAT come from?

So our sexless marriage is chugging along really well, other than the that obvious (and giant) issue. But I am continuing to tell myself that the rest of it all makes up for it, and besides, it's like getting back in touch with my frustrated teenage years - "I'll be out in a minute mom, just cleaning up my room!" :lol:

My wife goes on an international business trip to Asia for a conference. It's a really cool opportunity, first time to Asia. She invites me to come with her and proposes extending the trip a few days so we can really take the city in, but I can't. I have a client coming into town that week and can't get away. So off she goes for 4 days in Thailand.

The night she gets back, she seems off. Can't put my finger on it, but seems emotionally distant and not herself. Weird. Then it gets weirder. She has a few drinks after dinner (she usually is a one or two drink maximum girl at this point), then we head to bed and she initiates sex. I am confused and beginning to hear alarm bells in my head. She falls asleep, and I get up and go downstairs as my brain is trying to make sense of it all.

I notice her purse and some things on the counter, including her hotel bill etc. I notice on the hotel bill that there are charges for 6 drinks missing from her mini fridge. I immediately know something is VERY wrong now. She doesn't drink that much, and NEVER drinks out of a minibar. Plus, 6 drinks in 2 nights? I go to bed pissed and sick to my stomach, but know there is no point to waking her up at 2:00 am while tipsy and trying to have the conversation.

The next morning, I sit her down and tell her I know something is up. I tell her she needs to come clean right now on what happened in Thailand. I did not tip my hand on what I knew, but warned her I knew a lot more than she would expect and this was her one shot to get it out on the table. She burst into tears and told me the following.

She had been out to dinner with a group of airline employees (both her company and others) and they had a couple of drinks with dinner. When they came back to the hotel, they were all hanging out in the lobby having drinks and laughing. She then tells me that the hotel bar closed, but none of the group was tired due to the time change. So she volunteered to go up and get a round of drinks for the group from her room. She tells me that one of the guys offered to help carry stuff.

She tells me at this point, that she had been flirting a little with this guy earlier etc. She says he had started chatting her up, hitting on her etc. She admitted that it felt good, she was enjoying the attention etc.

So they get to her room, go in for the drinks, he makes a pass and they start kissing. She tells me they kissed for a minute or two, he started to push her towards the bed and she freaked. She realized what was happening and pushed him away, grabbed 3 of the drinks and told him they needed to get back down to the group and walked out. She said he followed her with the drinks and they went back downstairs to the lobby. She said she waited about 5 minutes then left the group and went back to her room where she cried etc.

She tells me this story through her own tears, keeps apologizing etc. I am pissed and shocked. Don't know what to make of it all. But feel like her story lines up with the info I have (that she didn't know I had), so I tell her how upset I am and disappointed that she would put herself in that situation (drinking heavily with coworkers, flirting and allowing a guy int her room etc). I swallow the story as is, and decided to forgive her. Tell her I am pissed, that she can't behave like that as a married woman and she better not pull this sh1t again. Then I close the chapter and move on.

Rug sweep anyone? :smthumbup: If only I knew then what we all know now . . . .

Gee, I am certain that all of you TAM masters are shocked at the way this story has played out so far, and can't possibly guess where we are headed in chapter 3! :rofl:

Chapter 3: The Full Monte Betrayal

So things settle down, go back to normal as they so often do after a good rug sweeping. We are both doing well in our careers, and with each passing month the weird incident in Thailand fades from memory.

About a year and a half later, we decide to buy a house and start a family. So we move, and then get down to some baby makin! Now for a guy in a sexless marriage, this seems like a very good opportunity. Except for one thing, apparently my wife and I are the two most fertile people in the world. We decide to give it a shot, and boom!, bun in the oven right out of the gate. 9 months later, our daughter is born. Life is good.

Another two years go by, and we decide our daughter needs a sibling. And we always wanted at least two. So we decide to go again. And yes, boom!, bun in the oven right out of the gate again. 9 months later we have a beautiful son.

I know I should be so grateful that we had such an easy time having kids, but seriously, a couple of months of trying wouldn't have been all that bad for a guy who is getting laid once every couple of years at this point. :lol: Even birthday sex had fallen by the wayside. But I digress . . . .

So at this point, we are still both working successful, but demanding careers, while raising two kids under the age of 4. Needless to say, things are hectic around the house. Over the last few years, we have slipped further and further down the roommate bunny hole. And now we are becoming roommates that feel over-stressed and under-appreciated at work and at home. We begin keeping score, and each feels they are doing way more than the other around the house, with the kids etc.

As a result, we each have a bit of a chip on our shoulder. Tend to be quicker to argue etc. Now, I don't want to give the impression that things were awful, they weren't. We still had lots of good times - fun vacations, great nights with neighborhood friends and families and good nights together at home too. But we were arguing more often over the last year or two than we ever had. And about really stupid things too. And still no sex. Did I mention the no sex thing? :rofl:

So our daughter is 3 and our son is almost a year old, my wife is back at work and struggling through a merger. She is very frustrated with work. Constantly feeling like she is odd woman out as a result of being one of the few from her side of the company in the department as well as being one of even fewer women. She's definitely feeling the "good ol' boys club" thing.

She is given the chance to go to Europe for a conference, where she will be a featured speaker. She is stoked, and she should be. Given all that is going on at work, it's a nice shot in the arm for her work ego. She suggests I come with her, but I can't as I have some client meetings, not to mention it it would be difficult to line up someone to watch the kids for several days etc. So of she heads for the 3 day trip in May of 2011.

She gets back, and seems a bit distant and off again. Now mind you, there had been other trips in between these conferences, but this is the first time something seems off again. My spidey senses are tingling.

I start asking questions and pushing to know more about what she did the two nights she was there. She admits that one of the nights, she went out with a group and they stayed out until 3:00 am. But she assures me it was just because no one was tired due to the time change with the travel. Tells me they didn't really drink all that much, just hung out until the bar closed and then went out for pizza etc.

At this point I don't have any proof, but things feel off and I am still mad that she is such a stick in the mud at home with us and so eager to go out and have fun as soon as she gets away from me and the kids. I tell her she used to want to have fun with me, now all she does is pick fights. I tell her I miss the old wife, the one that was fun and playful and always found a reason to laugh. She starts crying, saying she is sorry I feel that way etc. Understands what I am saying and commits to working harder on us.

I am still uneasy. Check her cell phone that night after she goes to bed and notice a text to another guy that was clearly at the conference. Text from him the last morning she in Europe: "You coming down to join us for an English breakfast?" Wife responds, "I wish I could, God knows I need it. But I need to get to airport or I am going to miss my flight. I don't know how you guys do it. You had more to drink than me, and you're fine. I feel awful. Gonna need the sleep on my flight back. Cheers!"

So I immediately go up, phone in hand and demand answers. She is caught off guard, does the predictable "Why are you looking at my phone?" Then admits she did have too much to drink, knew I would be upset, so she didn't tell me. Assures me it was a big group out the night before and at breakfast, and nothing bad happened. I point out that the group didn't text her, just this guy. Who is he, how do you know him etc.

He's a contractor, his company was hosting the conference, had lined her up as speaker etc. That's why he was checking up to make sure she was ok. My wife is sticking to the "absolutely nothing happened". I bring up Thailand, she gets more defensive. We both go to bed angry.

Chapter 4: D-Day Set Up

So about two weeks after my wife comes home from the conference in Europe, she leaves me a playful card on the kitchen island that asks me to meet her at a nice hotel nearby at 3:00 for "some fun." huh?

So I go and meet her in the bar for a drink. She tells me she has spent a lot of time thinking about why I was so upset when she got back, and she realized that I was right. She continues to assure me that nothing inappropriate happened, but now understands why I felt that way. She had become distant, angry and not a lot of fun to be around. And she tells me she wants to change it, which is why she invited me here and got us a room. We have a nice time, and she starts making more of an effort to be fun and engaged around the family over the next few months. Things seem like they are getting better.

She is suddenly interested in sex. This same woman, who had been so uninterested for the last 6 years, is now suddenly awakened. Our sex life is back to like it was in college, 2 or 3 times per week. Sometimes multiple times a night. She starts buying sexy underwear. Working out more, and loses some weight. (Yes, I know all of these should have been HUGE indicators. But again, this was in my uber ignorant phase).

I should mention, that during all of this, I am still concerned about her new friend from the conference in Europe. So I am keeping an eye on her cell phone and work email. Her email is on our iPad, so it's pretty easy to poke around every once and a while. And her phone isn't locked. I see the very occasional text to/from OM, but nothing incriminating. So while I am concerned that this guy is interested and seems to be a little friendly with my wife, I decide not to do anything unless I begin to see an inappropriate content or amount of contact.

In August of 2011, I see a text from him telling her is in the lobby of her office building and ready to go. She texts back she is sending one last email and will come down, asks where he wants to go for lunch. He says it's her call. I ask my wife what she did for lunch that day and she tells me she went out by herself and brought a sandwich back and ate at her desk.

This moment marks my initial realization that something very wrong might actually be happening. I step up my surveillance efforts.

She has a conference in Las Vegas in September, and I come along. We have a good time in Vegas. My last night there (weekend before her conference) we go out for dinner and a drink. She has more to drink than she normally does. We come back to the room and we have some pretty wild adult time. Four times to be specific smthumbup: still my personal best, had to brag!). Needless to say, it was a lot of fun and a great night. She then goes into the bathroom afterwords for a minute. I notice her cell phone isn't on the nightstand where she had put it when we walked in. When she comes out she sets it down and then goes to sleep. I grab said cell phone and see she sent the OM a text at 2:00 am Vegas time that says "I drank too much tonight. Could really use that English breakfast."

I am crushed. We have this great night out on the town, great sex and her first thought is to run and send him a text. I know I must expose, but need the smoking gun.

Three weeks later, I get it. She forgets to delete an email to OM from her sent mail. I see the whole chain of email from the last week or so. Not pretty. Nothing sexual in nature, but 4 or 5 emails back and forth a day. All personal, no work. Discussions about how great it was to see the other, how much fun they had. Can't wait to see you again etc.

I start to realize that some of the team outting and business dinners over the last 3 months were BS. She was with him. So I was home watching the kids so she could have an affair. It gets better. In one email she mentions that I am heading to <city>the next week for work (OM lives in <city> and commutes to our city each week as consultant). He make ecrack about being glad my work flies me on other airline so we don't have to have the awkward meeting in the airport. My wife writes back and makes a joke, suggesting he set me up with his wife while I am in town and he is gone.

So there it is. She is having an affair, I am watching the kids and running the house while she does it, all so I can be the butt of her jokes with the OM. My furious rage sets in deep.

Chapter 5: D-Day

So I discovered the email while I was home after work on a weeknight, but had to hold it together for about an hour. Our routine was that I left work, picked the kids up from daycare, came home and got them settled, and would then start getting dinner ready. My wife had a longer commute and usually got home around 6:30 or so.

So I am at home, with my entire world crumbling down around me and full of rage, and all I can do is work on dinner and wait for her to come home. So I prep the kids dinner, and hear her car pull up on the driveway. I give the kids a kiss and tell them I have to go out for a bit, but that mommy is home and will take care of them. I walk out to meet her on the back steps of our house and immediately say the following:

Me - "Do you want to tell me about "OM Name".?"
Her - "What do you mean." Wide-eyed and suddenly pale.
Me - "You know exactly what I mean, so don't for one more minute lie to me. The lies are done. I know. I know you have been having an inappropriate relationship with him since your conference in Europe. You have lied to me and deceived me over the last 4 months and it all ends now. I will not listen to your bullsh1t one more minute. He is not just a friend. I want to hear you say the words right now. "
Her - "What do you want me to say?" now crying, and trying to reach out to me.
Me - "Don't you dare touch me. Not after what you've done to me, to us and to this family. Now say it. Tell me what you did."
Her - "I can't. I can't say it out loud." Crying hard.
Me - "Then I'll say it for you. You f'ed him. You betrayed your husband and destroyed your family and f'ed him. You ended your marriage and crushed the one person who has always supported you. I'm done. The kids are inside, their dinner is prepped. Feed them, play with them and put them to bed. Enjoy your time with them, think about what you've done to them and their childhood. I am leaving." At which point I started walking to the car.
Her - "Where are you going? What are you doing? We need to talk about this."
Me - "Not sure where I am going, but away from here right now. There is nothing to talk about. Anything that could have been discussed has already been destroyed." Then I closed the car door and drove away.

Truth be told. I drove about 4 blocks away, pulled over and let 'er rip. I cried like I have never cried before. It took every once of strength I had not to break down in front of her. While I am crying like a baby, she starts texting me frantically. I keep sending really cruel and harsh texts back. I texted some things that I am not proud of, to be honest. Some things I do regret saying, to be honest. I was perfectly justified, mind you, but I was set on inflicting as much pain as possible.

After about two hours, I drove back home knowing the kids would be down. I walked in and went down to the wine rack. I grabbed a nice bottle we had been saving and came up the stairs. She was in the kitchen crying and looked up startled. I told her I was going to sit down and drink this bottle of wine, and she had the time it would take me to drink that bottle to come clean and tell me everything. That she needed to answer every single question I had honestly and completely no matter how uncomfortable it made either of us.

Then I sat down and angrily drank a bottle of really good wine while I learned the deepest and darkest secrets of what my wife had become. I told her I didn't know if I could fathom staying married to her, but that the only shot she had was telling me everything. I then asked her if she wanted me to get her a glass, which caught her off guard. She said "No, why would you even ask me that?" To which I responded "Well we had been saving this bottle for a special occasion, and I think this qualifies. It's not everyday that a marriage of 8 years and a family of four is destroyed."

I learned she had indeed slept with POSOM at conference in Europe. Had gone out with a group, came back to hotel and had a few drinks and then gone back to his room and had sex. She came home freaked out, and then doubly so when I immediately picked up on it. But then two weeks later she met him for lunch at work. They are started lots of texting and emails. Occasional phone call. They slept together 3 more times over the next 3 months. All three times were after work while I was home watching the kids. Awesome.

She had the typical fog going on, said she felt like she just needed to be selfish and have something for her. Was getting lost in all her roles as mom, wife, employee etc. Didn't have anything that was just for her. She also said that she felt like she was being a better wife and mother during the affair, that having something that was just for her made her more giving in other areas. She was afraid if she gave it up, she would go back to being "a shrew" as she said. Good-old fashioned cake eating anyone? :scratchhead:

I told her I would stay long enough to help her figure out why she did this, but that didn't mean I was necessarily sticking around for the long haul. I said that I wouldn't force her to move out of the house immediately if she did the following:

Send a NC text to POSOM, which she did and I read.
She agreed to never again contact him, ever.
She agreed to get help, MC at the least.
No more travel, for at least a year.
Full transparency - phone, email etc.
She agreed to expose the affair to her parents and mine - sit down and tell them, face-to-face what she had done.

In hindsight, I am sooo lucky that I accidentally did all of the above without fully understanding it was the best and only shot I had. When I cam to TAM and started reading the posts, I was delighted to learn I had done most things right based on my gut.

But I do have to confess to messing up one are pretty badly. I made the mistake of calling the POSOM the next morning.

I told him that he was never to try and contact my wife again. I explained that if he saw on her on the sidewalk coming towards him, he better cross the street. I then explained that my family farms, outside of the city. And that when I was a kid, we would go hunting out on these large tracks of desolate land. And I told him we always had to be really careful not to drop anything (cell phones etc) because there was no chance you would ever find it again if you dropped it. I explained that even large items would never be found out there, even if people were looking for them. And then I reminded him that many times in these situations, spouses can react very violently and that I was working really hard to control my rage. But that any future contact would make it mush more difficult to control that anger.

The above paragraph isn't my finest hour, but if I caused him to fear for his safety a bit, I won't lose any sleep. The part that I regret is what I did next.

I told him that he didn't get to walk away clean from knowingly f'ing another man's wife. I told him he had 24 hours to tell his wife, and that I would be calling her to verify he had manned up and told her. Yeah, so I literally gave him a game clock to manage his gas lighting against.

When I called his wife the next day at her office, she was pissed. She stopped me before I could say much of anything and said, "OM told me everything last night. Now please do not ever call me or OM again and let us live our lives."

At the time, I was really confused. Not sure why anyone in her situation wouldn't want to hear what the other person had to say. But that's before I really understood the gas lighting thing. So if there was one thing to do over, it would be not telling him that. I would have just called OMW, told her and offered to send emails etc.

Chapter 6: The Next Year

So after D-Day, I made the decision to allow my wife to stay in the guest room of our house. The main driver for this was not wanting to disrupt our kids lives while we figured out what to do next.

We did sit down with both set of parents in the first week, and my wife told them what she had done. Looking back, I think her strength in these moments were the first glimpses of the woman I married still being in there. She did not want to do this (obviously), but I had told her it was a must and she tackled it head on.

Interestingly, her parents were very disappointed in her behavior and supportive of me not leaving. But they also quickly talked about all of the stress we both have at work and that sometimes that can result in not being focused on each other etc. I don't disagree with what they were saying, but listening to her parents blameshift was surprising. My wife and I have since discussed it and she agrees it was odd and misplaced. But I suppose it is the unwavering love of a parent, and the unwillingness to see your child in a bad light. I don't fault them at all.

We started MC together a few weeks after D-Day and still go about once every 5 or 6 weeks. It's been good. The sessions have always been more focused on the marriage than the affair. We really only talk about the affair through the lens of it affecting the marriage, if that makes sense.

So we have spent much of our own energy focused on dealing with the affair. We have read a lot of books together, had some intense conversations etc. But I can say confidently that we both have MUCH more clearly defined boundaries now. My wife understands the affair is 100% hers to own. She also knows how much pain it caused and is focused on slowly rebuilding trust and our relationship.

After about 6 weeks or so, she moved back into our bedroom. I am also happy to report that our sex life is much better. We are back to a more regular engagements, but also into really enjoying each other again. The HB phase was kind of nuts, we definitely didn't understand what was happening there. I'll never look at our laundry room the same way. :rofl:

Interestingly, she has also brought up the trip to Thailand during our R process (about 6 months in). She told me she wanted to come 100% clean on it. She said that the truth was the group had gone out, but that she had invited that guy back to her room. Wasn't sure what she was thinking, but was drunk. He came in, they kissed for a while, had a few drinks, kissed some more and then she got cold feet and said he should probably head back to his room. This was hard to hear, but I appreciated her bringing it up and wanting to address it. I also give her props because she referred to this kissing incident as her first physical affair. She owns it as such.

It's been a year. A year full of ups and downs, good days and bad. Some days I am in a good place, some days a pretty dark place. R is a grueling process of relentless work. But thankfully, my wife is 100% committed to it as well. So on the days I am down, she helps pick me up and keeps us moving forward. She knows how close we came to it all ending, and she has told me in many ways it has made each day together since a treasure she appreciates more. She knows that each of these days is a gift from me to her that she needs to cherish and appreciate (her words, not mine).

We both feel that R is a continual process that never really ends. Our hope is that it requires a little less conscious effort and sacrifice over time. We will not take each other for granted again. We clearly understand the boundaries, and watch for any threat to them. We will never blindly trust again. That last one is a good thing, and a bad thing.

So I hope this was in some way informative. Probably not the right post to do it in. But I thought sharing my story and subsequent R to date would be good for me, if for no one else.

So thanks for listening!

Ask her for an one sided open marriage for the length of time she had an affair and watch her react...

All this time she wouldn't have sex with you and....^%##%

Ok, I'll stop here before I get banned..


And I agree with chumplady...This might not be her first rodeo. She confessed about Thailand because she probably knew you were already suspicious about it..

If a woman was ready to cheat on you and make fun of you behind her back, lying about it is no big deal..

Did you recover the conversations between them ? Or did you ignore them because you already knew the worst..

Looking at the conversations between them gives you an actual insight of the mind of the cheater and every step she took to make it happen instead of wrapping her infidelity under one big "My wife cheated of me for so many number of months"

chumplady said:

I'd also add -- when she's suddenly hot for you? That tells me she can turn it on and turn it off. Whatever her "problem" before, it can suddenly disappear when she thinks her cake supply is drying up.

She's manipulating you with sex. And she's perfectly okay with withholding sex and cheating on you.

You've got bigger problems than you know. I'm sorry. I know this truly sucks.

Click to expand...

:iagree: I mean consider his wife's strict catholic parents reaction.

Interestingly, her parents were very disappointed in her behavior and supportive of me not leaving. But they also quickly talked about all of the stress we both have at work and that sometimes that can result in not being focused on each other etc. I don't disagree with what they were saying, but listening to her parents blameshift was surprising.


As a minimum it sugest they some how ,known it/suspected it.

OP

And look at this aswell. The two times OP knows she cheated. He was allways invited, but could not join. Due to commitment. Which
Im prytty sure she most have known about it some how. It just seem's way of to me