Hey folks. So I've finally decided to write out my full story. I had hit on some of it when I first joined. Granted I was all over the place emotionally at that time.
It's a long one and I'm going to be short about each area of it and discuss or answer questions that may come in more detail.
PART 1. We have been married 40 years; fact. I served in the Navy for 20 years, 6 months and 9 days. Retired in 2003. Fact. I am who I say I am,fact. I have never trolled anyone here. Fact. Here goes.

I'll begin sort of in the middle. Was in the summer of 1998. I was stationed.in Everett, Washington on a Destroyer. We had a learning resource center, with computers. What a concept. The internet was pretty new to alot, in it's infancy. Email was king. Cell phones were basic dumb phones. No texting as yet. Chat rooms seemed to be the rage. One on my workers goaded.me into opening an email account, so I was learning.i discovered chat rooms, it was a novel idea. I frequented one site in particular. Started chatting in open rooms with a specific person often, often enough to create our own private room.
Had been married 14 years at this point. No home PC. So anyway, I'd hit the chat room on lunch breaks or on duty nights. The other person was a woman. I'm sure you know now where this went. Got in to deep. Remember all was done through chat. Never have i seen what she looked like or met IRL. She wanted to meet. I freaked out. Told the wife about it. Didn't defend what I did. Felt horrid for it. I was completely honest, even went the to the site and opened up the room and let her go through all the messages. To say she was hurt was an understatement. There were never any I love you's or talk of leaving our partners. Just mundane things and sexual fantasy talk. My wife had been worried something was up with me, and unbeknownst to me 2 days before this she and her niece had cracked my email at her sister's house and found this. So there was the added humiliation and shame she endured at the both of them seeing this as well! The next couple months were very rough with us, obviously. I never evaded any questions. I took all her anger and lashing out, I deserved it. However we never talked of splitting up.
This was something very uncharacteristic for me. No matter what, it was what is called today, an EA. I still feel a deep shame inside to this day. Now a couple months later I deployed on a 6 month forward deployment to the Persian Gulf. Slowly things normalized over the next year or so. If she has ever to this day asked anything of it, I do my best to answer, given the length of time, to the best of my ability.
OK, so that cats out of the bag now, I cheated. No other way to say it! But wait, there's more, much more to this. I will contnue over several posts to today's current issues.

Glad you are getting it off your chest. It can be painful to go back there while at the same time it can feel like a weight is lifted by saying it out loud so to speak.

I know all about the chat room days. There were several times that I was in chat rooms at that time and even earlier. I was an assistant "sysop" for a local BBS. In the days before the WWW. Lots of chatting going on and not all was appropriate if im being honest. I never strayed into what I would call EA territory. I shut it down when I realized where it was heading and never went solo, always in group chats.

This was a long time ago. Does it ever still come back to haunt you or your wife? Does she still sometimes bring it up?

 

Glad you are getting it off your chest. It can be painful to go back there while at the same time it can feel like a weight is lifted by saying it out loud so to speak.

I know all about the chat room days. There were several times that I was in chat rooms at that time and even earlier. I was an assistant "sysop" for a local BBS. In the days before the WWW. Lots of chatting going on and not all was appropriate if im being honest. I never strayed into what I would call EA territory. I shut it down when I realized where it was heading and never went solo, always in group chats.

This was a long time ago. Does it ever still come back to haunt you or your wife? Does she still sometimes bring it up?

It has, because i won't allow myself to forget! I hurt her and wronged her. I don't forget because I will always be the best husband I can. Be her safe spot and rock. I have done all I can by actions and deeds to regain her trust and belief in me. I've never put myself in a compromising situation again!

 

PART 2. So now we fast forward to 2018. During an emotionally charged and stress filled argument, she let slip that a man, who had become a good mutual friend over the years, had touched her inappropriately, in our home, while alone, while i was deployed to the Persian Gulf back in 1988-1989? Cue that infamous loud record scratching sound in my head! It immediately ended the argument. I was so stunned, I just turned and left the bedroom. I said nothing of after that, till 2021. Had been getting a new home built after the loss our old one to fire in 2017. Just packed it away and felt with getting us home.
So early-ish in 2021, I was ruminating again over what she said. I'll say now for this story, I'll call the man J. I approached on this with wanting more clarity of what happened. She had said that J, her nephews friend had come over with him to help with yard work and what else my wife needed while I was gone. After a few visits, he stopped by on his own a few times and the wife said they'd become friends? On one of his visits, she was messing with a picture above windows in the living room, standing on the couch with her back to him, when she said she felt his hand softly caressing her butt. Said she immediately turned around and said they can't do that as she's married. He said he didn't know, yeah right. She asked how did he think she got the house, all that was in it and the cars? She says he replied, he thought maybe it was inherited?
So, I let it go at this point as we were both getting heated. So after a couple weeks go by, i bring it up again, pressing for more detail. The story changed. Now she says he embraced her and tried to kiss her? She claims she turned her face to the side and said we can't do this, I'm married. Couple weeks go by, something makes no sense. So I bring it up again wanting clarification. Which time did you tell him your married. The caress or the attempted kiss, because if it was after the caress, then he knew, he wanted more and you allowed him back into our home. I also told her he had to know you were married, because he came at first with you nephew. He would have told him he's going to his Aunts house to help with anything she needs as her husband is in the Navy and deployed! I told her don't play with me. No ones that dumb also if he tried to engage you romaticly a second time then why would you allow him into our home again, alone? Also did these events happen in one visit or seperare ones? She doesnt recall. Do you understand just how inappropriate that was? Then gave her the blurb about adults do what adults do. She finally did admit to having a crush on him later. J looked like a young Tom Brady. 6'plus, medium build, blue eyed, charismatic and an engaging smile. Im the shortest man shes been with. He was 19ish(?) at the time and she was 24-25.
The really bad part in all of this is how defensive she's been, DARVOing me and gaslighting. Always saying nothing happened and I'm making a big deal over nothing fom long ago. She's even tried to rewrite our history to fit her narrative. I've fully shut that crap down! She swears she told me this back then. I looked her in the eye and told her, you know my temper, you know i can be very jealous. Do you think I would have sat back and said bravo, you handled this? No. I would have handled it my way. With pain, and lots of it! He would never and been welcome in our home or life again!
To this day she swears it was really innocent. To which I say to her, in what world is this a normal thing for a married woman to do, or to act?!? Even more, I tell her, how do you think this makes me feel? You remember how it hurt, bad, when i had that EA? She says yes, to which i reply, how the hell do think i feel that this incident happened, that you compelled me to befriend him. That he sat at my table and ate with us, helped me work on the house, work on cars, play games with us, go places with us? All that time, you both had a dirty little secret behind your eyes! I feel so humiliated and emasculated that you did this to me. Lied by ommission all these years. Shamed me for what I did, yet you'd already been there, done that!
But wait folks, there still more twists in the plot! Next post and I think it will all be out.

 

Coming soon, the final of our saga. Gotta break for dinner, + she's curious what I'm doing.

 

That's fishy as hell brother and really crappy to keep the scum around you.

 

If you've made it this far, I appreciate you taking the time.
PART 3.
This part will bring us up to today. Again, I've left out a lot of minutiae, to move this along. It involves over 35 years.
So after her unintended admission, I became leary? Paranoid? Like others i went detective. We still had several of her old phones. So I charged them and opened then up to investigate. She had texted with 2 different men I didn't know about, nor she ever mentioned. Oldest thread had been someone cat fishing on her email. It was rather funny. Her, myself and our daughter who was around 13-14 at that time, would take turns returning very odd emails. Well this lasted about a month before the emails stopped and our interest was lost. Well, again unbeknownst to me, wife had begun a text thread with him. Obviously somewhere in the emails she'd given her number out. When I found this thread, I read the whole thing, scrolled to the first text and came forward. While it was for the most part innocuous, occasionally the person would use innuendo and he'd text her things like good morning lovey lady and give compliments. She didn't seem to respond in the same way and through the whole thing she not once disparged me, thankfully. However, the times she texted with him screw with my mind. I've even let her know how this hurt. That she'd text him, while making us dinner and not interact with myself our daughter. Another time she was texting him while soaking in a bath. A bath I'd make for her, in a jet tub I'd put in the bathroom years before, when I enlarged it. A tub I filled with water at the heat level she enjoyed. Bath salts and fragrant oils, scented candles. Soft background music for her, chilled champagne waiting. Soft mood light from a beautiful art deco sconce I put in for enhanced mood lighting. Serving her drinks when requested, or other things she'd ask for. Giving her quiet relaxing time to her self. Texting this man while doing so in something I provided for her pampering? Telling him she was in the bathtub. I also noted that she'd sent him at least one pic of our daughter? WTF! There were more exchanged, but had been deleted or had degraded over time, because where they were there were just blank Grey squares. I found a pic of him, or should I say he says it was him on her phone as well. She finally quit when he started pressing for money. Money to help with his daughters education. Right.
A year or so later, she accepted a friend request from another strange man of Farce book. She texted with this guy up until I found out in 2022 and demanded she cease this. The thread that I saw had been ongoing for years. Was about his mother and him having cancer at different times. When I did address this with her, she had said when she first accepted his request and they started the exchange within days he wanted to exchange pics, nudes and such. Asking if she wanted some d*ck pics and the like. She told me she chewed him out as she's a married woman with a wonderful husband and knock it off before she tells me and I kick his ass! He asked her not to tell me and apologized. That part of the thread had been deleted so I only have her word on this. The crappy part is before I even knew of this, we were shopping at a store he works at and she stopped him to find the location of something and introduced us. We shook hands. It did strike me as odd that she knew him and yet he worked at a hardware store that she goes to with me for stuff we need there? God, this makes me feel disgusted and contaminated looking back! I finally sat down one evening and told her as her husband, that loves her, I'm asking her, my wife to block and delete this man from all her socials and phone. That I'm very uncomfortable with this. Her reaction was a shock! She became angry with me and blew up and made me out to be an a-hole. But she did it.
The worst part of this, and certainly one of the most excruciatingly hurtful things about all this is that during one of our talks, just before our 38th anniversary, she actually said, to my face, "if i knew then, what i know now, i would have consummated it with J!) What? What? Who says this to the person they love and adore? Not only did she say it once, but 2 more times! Almost a 4th but I shut that down and told her you will never say anything like that to me again!
These things utterly destroyed me! I was ripped apart and it was magnified by being bipolar! I was so messed up, that at the end of the night, on our 38th anniversary, I placed a loaded pistol in my mouth, sobbing hysterically and pulled the trigger! I just wanted the pain to stop! I failed. The gun misfired.
We have been having very deep discussions in the last 6 months. She continues to try and manipulate our history, turn it on me, play victim. 3 weeks ago, on a Saturday morning after she was awake, I asked her to come into the bedroom. Told her to sit on the bed and I sat on a chair we have in there. I told her flat out, do not interrupt me until I finish saying what I have to say. I told her straight out this is your come to Jesus moment. I can't deal with this crap and discussed all of the previous issues and how it's made me feel. Also the fact that this isn't about her idea of right or wrong, but about how this has made me feel. My feelings of betrayal as her husband. It's not about her ,but about me and now the consequences 30+ years later from all her actions. Basically it was "Lucy, you got some splaining to do!" There has been an on going dialogue about all this. I've told her I can forgive, but I will never forget. We are reconciling all this. She has a choice to make. Help me heal, because she loves me, recognizes and owns her bad choices and mistakes and is genuinely remorseful. If not, then i will start the paperwork to end this marriage. I have told her this gonna take time for me to cope with. Unlike my EA, she's had 27 years to process this. She did choose to stay and work through it. I've only but 2 to 3ish years(?) Knowing all of this this? That for me, this all just happened and I'm in pain!
So this is all of it. It's long, convoluted and sucks.

 

OK, wrong not all. One very peculiar thing i had yet to mention. While sifting through her old and current phones, I found the name of her first male boyfriend she had sex with in her contacts list. The o ly name that was in all caps. She says it was SA, DATE RAPE? She cannot seem to explain this, had no idea his name was there? As I told her, it didn't happen magically. Fingers had to type all the letters in her contacts list to spell his name.

 

Holy **** Tbone. This is tough to read. I can fell your pain come through in your words.

What was her initial reaction to the come to Jesus discussion?

Is some of this what you alluded to in the thread about your daughter's health scare? Hope she's doing okay BTW.

 

Holy **** Tbone. This is tough to read. I can fell your pain come through in your words.

What was her initial reaction to the come to Jesus discussion?

Is some of this what you alluded to in the thread about your daughter's health scare? Hope she's doing okay BTW.

Yes, brother. I did elude to it. I just can sit quietly anymore. My new therapist is a marriage councelor as well and we've recently switched her hat to this in helping me cope with my feelings. In early 2023, I had a.follow on with a psychiatrist about my bipolar issues. After 2 visits, we were discussing this as well. On the 3rd visit as she was gonna try an add on med, she looked me squarely in the eye and said, I quote " you definitely have PTSD, and I'm not a marriage councelor "
I've needed let this crap out for a long time! I have finally felt safe enough here to really let all of it out! I've not clai.ed to he perfect. I di do something horrible within my marriage and I have atoned for this and will continue as long as we are together. Being here and seeing others.with these issues, led me to a serendipitous moment. I finally knew the reason I did what I did. Due to my.mental and physical abuse as a child, a part of me has always felt the need to he seen, to he heard. I've always felt down inside like some kid, standing behind a crowd, jumping up and down, waving my arms, pleading pick me, pick me, see me! I found that in the EA. I have no excuse for my actions that was on me. Yet now I do understand what drove me to make a horrible choice.

 

Sorry this has happened to you, brother.

The SA is most likely a lie. I've gotten a BS SA story before too. Her memory is super unreliable or she is lying. I'm guessing lying.

Just curious, when you had your EA, how was your wife treating you at home? Good sex life?? Was she respecting you and appreciating you?

Regardless, I hope you never feel any remorse ever again for your EA. Clearly, your wife continued to hide bad things from you she's done - and she did it on purpose to use you.

 

Sorry this has happened to you, brother.

The SA is most likely a lie. I've gotten a BS SA story before too. Her memory is super unreliable or she is lying. I'm guessing lying.

Just curious, when you had your EA, how was your wife treating you at home? Good sex life?? Was she respecting you and appreciating you?

Regardless, I hope you never feel any remorse ever again for your EA. Clearly, your wife continued to hide bad things from you she's done - and she did it on purpose to use you.

Thanks for the input. As far as her treatment of me? I was constantly being rejected at this point for intimacy. 1 out 10 might happen?
Her smiles weren't as often. I.have told her looking back we.should have divorced well before our daughter was born. She had changed from when we married. Due to my constant time away in the Navy, she had become very independent. This caused a power struggle every time I returned. No equilibrium.

 

I questioned her one day about her first partner and the SA. The big question i had was this. If he raped you basically, coerced you, then why did you go back for more? This did not go down well. I have tried to get her to understand that this did affect her and has ongoing affects in our marriage with intimacy. She just denies it and says it was long ago and what's done is done.

 

I questioned her one day about her first partner and the SA. The big question i had was this. If he raped you basically, coerced you, then why did you back for more? This did not go down well. I have tried to get her to understand that this did affect her and has ongoing affects in our marriage with intimacy. She just denies it and says it was long ago and what's done is done.

This enrages me.

she’s lying. She is using “SA” as an excuse to not have sex. She is getting mad at you because she is trying to shame you into not getting the full story……. Which she knows is a lie.

I suggest don’t stop. Keep pushing. That’s what I did. My exwife changed her “SA” story 3 times. It was impressive. It also helped that I found her journal from that time period that said she had a one night stand.

the way you described this situation sounds exactly like my exwife. I wouldn’t believe a word she says.

 

Also to those who read this. Believe me when I say that I have called myself on the carpet as well. I messed up also. However, i anever rug swept it all these years. I have always tried to be better. I had nor have no excuse. I've never forgiven myself. Not a day goes by that I don't remember the look of pure pain in her eyes. It's burned into my soul.

 

Geeze, I can't believe I've actually said all this! I feel so ashamed and bitter at the same time!
I welcome any thing you want to know, commentary or advice. I will do my best to be as honest and open minded to answer anything or clarify. I just needed to talk. You folks here have accepted me and I appreciate that deeply.

 

This is some stressful stuff. Your wife seems to be a person that is never satisfied with what they have.
I do not believe she has respect for you. The comment about wishing she had slept with that guy J is such a hateful thing to say. Kinda makes me wonder if she did. Her letting & encourage you to befriend this guy is just as bad if not worse. Again, she has no respect for you.
Hard place to be in.

 

Well, @TinyTbone, I don't think you were blissfully blind. You just said you didn't feel seen or heard by your wife.

Do you feel seen and heard now? How is daily life with her?

@LATERILUS79, if he divorces now, she will continue to be supported by him. The financial repercussions of divorcing at this point would be crippling.

 

Well sometimes? I been thinking for several years that she might be high end autistic. She just doesn't exhibit emotional feeling normally. Or maybe she's just a narcissistic person that delights in punishing me? I don't know. I've now sat with 2 different therapists and said the same thing. Is it that I'm bipolar, or that I'm just that unhappy?
Oh I've looked into what divorce will do. Had a free consultation 5 months ago. Basically it goes down like this:
A. She gets 50% of my military retirement by law.
B. She would be entitled to 30% of my state pension.
C. I will have to pay spousal support in the amount of between $1800-$2200 a month.
D. I would most likely be required to pay 50% of her housing cost for 2 yrs.
E. I would be required to continue to make payments and also insurance for the car she drives for 2yrs.
F. I would have to pay for herself and my legally costs for the divorce since she has always been SAHW.
Plus a few other incidentals. I would be living in my truck or a card board box.

 

Well folks I'm gonna close up for the night. Worked nite shift last night and had a fit full nap today. This post has exhausted me just putting out. It's after 11 where I live. I will check in the morning any posts and reply as I can to the best of my ability.

Good nite Johnboy!

 

I’m very sorry. I’ve always suspected there was much more to your story. I wish you well.

 

Have you thought of requesting she does a lie detector test? As part of the condition for the marriage to continue?

 

Yes. I told her this when we had our first come to Jesus talk a couple weeks ago. That I'm absolutely distrustful of what she has said and whether it's full on true or just a partial truth to cover her butt. She knows now, without a doubt we are walking on thin ice. That I just can't believe her anymore about us and our past. I'm haunted by so many what if's. Mind movies and rampaging thoughts.
I've begun to inquire with advertised services on polygraph testing companies near us. This will most likely happen. At least is she wishes to continue in our relationship, and she can save all the boo hoo hoo crap about not trusting. These are the consquences of our actions in life. For good or bad decisions or actions we do.

 

There is a point at which you must understand that there are times when two people just aren’t right for each other and life isn’t supposed to be that hard. You can continue to “work on it” all you like but to me you are with out a doubt wasting your time, life, and mental health. You will never get what you need from this relationship. Too much damage is done.

 

Tough story, pal.

Not much to add that wasn't alredy addressed. I wonder if when you came clean with your rather tame admission, that she wasn't saying to herself "if this dope only knew what was in my head he wouldn't even care about what he did" ...

Anyway, it seems as though it's the typical deal where many women pick men for security and safety, but then aren't totally satisfied. I learned long ago that if a woman isn't dying to **** you(or at the very least is thrilled to see you) she's probably thinking she's settling on some level.

Once you have this info I can imagine that you feel like you wasted your life with this person. 40 years of an adult life is a lifetime, imo..Quite frankly, it would have been better if she just dropped you on your head early and then you would have had a chance to be with someone who is truly better suited.

At this point with no small children to support I'd tell her to kick rocks. Whether you find someone else at this point or not may not even matter. At least you would be free to see what's out there anyway...I'm not a fan of trying to fix this type of stuff, I more in the camp of "wasn't meant to be", and life is hard enough already without this type of ******** on top of it.

Sorry you have to deal with this, hang in there.

 

Thank you deeply for being so vulnerable. I am so so sorry 😥

 

Infidelity is ridiculously destructive. Gaslighting and trickle truthing about it will destroy your soul.

A guy that used to post here almost committed suicide over being lied to and made to feel like he was insane because his wife couldn't keep her pants on.😡

 

Morning. Well Conan...guess I'm basically reenacting that guys performance? Been there and done that. Crap I have what I call nite terror dreams, as my therapist says. Now not just parts of the house fire, but the nite of our anniversary and what i did. I see my self in 3rd person with the gun. Even I can't believe it was me!

 

So, first of all Tiny I’m very shocked. At all of it. But in the same breath I’m not because life is messy and well, humans.

if i knew then, what i know now, i would have consummated it with J!)

This is cruel and wrong. While I can’t deny I’ve thought in my head “if I knew now what I didn’t know then,” in the great words of Toby Keith…. I never said that to my LH. I know what that would have done to him because deep down I do believe that he loved a fair piece of me, but was too emotionally stunted to really show that or do what was necessary to really treat me like his wife.

placed a loaded pistol in my mouth, sobbing hysterically and pulled the trigger!

This, even though I obviously don’t know you in real life, made me instantly nauseous reading. I’m not judging you, but I am thinking deeply of your daughter, even your wife and what this would do to both of them Because I know what it did to me.

I've only but 2 to 3ish years(?) Knowing all of this this? That for me, this all just happened and I'm in pain!

The issue I see here is not only has she had more time, you didn’t do it again. You didn’t repeat the offense as she has, to what seems like several times.


This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but I’m going to sing it anyways. When things like this happen, there’s a processing that has to occur and sometimes it goes on for years and sometimes it never stops processing. At least when you choose to stay with the spouse, it almost seems like a never-ending thing. The time between it being brought up in your head, may go longer between point an and point B or sometimes it’s constant.

Either way, at some point, it has to be almost lead to rest. I don’t even know if I’m saying this right because after I had my affair, I took the verbal assaults and the following me to work and I quit my job, I left a career I loved. We moved to a different state. I did every single thing that I could rectify something that really couldn’t ever be rectified I guess.

It takes a really strong couple to be able to move past something like that, and there’s a time for lashing out and pointing the finger and getting all of that out, and then there’s a time to heal from it and allow that bond to hopefully be mended, but that will never happen if it’s a constant attack. Does that make any sense? It’s not that you should be shoving your feelings down and swallowing it and taking it. You have to have time to work through it and that is a process, and it’s one thing to be doing that with somebody who’s repentant. Your wife doesn’t sound repentant which is gonna make it even harder.

I couldn’t have been more sorry if I had tried to be, but I couldn’t do anymore than I did except for go back in time and make a better choice and that wasn’t an option.

So I guess my point was, my husband should’ve just divorced me, but instead, he was cruel and used it as a means of control, which is why he chose me to begin with. I was young and naïve That I loved him so dearly that I would do almost anything for him. And I did do anything for him. But I did slip up along the way. The difference with me is I owned it, and I was on my knees every day for the next 12 years, trying to make it up to him until he shot himself one night.

So the unpopular opinion is that eventually you both have to stop beating each other up for your mistakes if you’re gonna get past it. Or, give up on each other and throw the towel in. Both scenarios are sad..

I don’t understand your wife, however. Military life is hard and time away from each other’s hard…. I think it’s pretty apparent that you get married and go into that life knowing that it’s gonna be though right? And it’s one thing to make A (meaning one time) mistake, it’s an entirely different thing when you’re bringing the guy around your husband and in your case, it’s two dudes. It’s wildly inappropriate and the fact that she can’t acknowledge that is very telling. I suspect you might be willing to work through it even more if she could own what was going on, but she’s so far into lying to herself, but that’s probably not gonna happen genuinely.

I don’t know if any of this has been helpful or just rubbed salt on your wound. Hoping you can find some peace and others comments if it can be had. And if nothing else, most important and from the bottom of this Internet strangers, heart, please keep yourself away from your firearm when you’re feeling down. The devastation you would leave behind is something I can’t even begin to explain and I so pray that no one you know ever knows.

 

So, first of all Tiny I’m very shocked. At all of it. But in the same breath I’m it because life is messy and well, humans.



This is cruel and wrong. While I can’t deny I’ve thought in my head “if I knew now what I didn’t know then,” in the great words of Toby Keith…. I never said that to my LH. I know what that would have done to him because deep down I do believe that he loved a fair piece of me, but was too emotionally stunted to really show that or do what was necessary to really treat me like his wife.




This, even though I obviously don’t know you in real life, made me instantly nauseous reading. I’m not judging you, but I am thinking deeply of your daughter, even your wife and what this would do to both of them Because I know what it did to me.



The issue I see here is not only has she had more time, you didn’t do it again. You didn’t repeat the offense as she has, to what seems like several times.


This is probably going to be an unpopular opinion, but I’m going to sing it anyways. When things like this happen, there’s a processing that has to occur and sometimes it goes on for years and sometimes it never stops processing. At least when you choose to stay with the spouse, it almost seems like a never-ending thing. The time between it being brought up in your head, may go longer between point an and point B or sometimes it’s constant.

Either way, at some point, it has to be almost lead to rest. I don’t even know if I’m saying this right because after I had my affair, I took the verbal assaults and the following me to work and I quit my job, I left a career I loved. We moved to a different state. I did every single thing that I could rectify something that really couldn’t ever be rectified I guess.

It takes a really strong couple to be able to move past something like that, and there’s a time for lashing out and pointing the finger and getting all of that out, and then there’s a time to heal from it and allow that bond to hopefully be mended, but that will never happen if it’s a constant attack. Does that make any sense? It’s not that you should be shoving your feelings down and swallowing it and taking it. You have to have time to work through it and that is a process, and it’s one thing to be doing that with somebody who’s repentant. Your wife doesn’t sound repentant which is gonna make it even harder.

I couldn’t have been more sorry if I had tried to be, but I couldn’t do anymore than I did except for go back in time and make a better choice and that wasn’t an option.

So I guess my point was, my husband should’ve just divorced me, but instead, he was cruel and used it as a means of control, which is why he chose me to begin with. I was young and naïve That I loved him so dearly that I would do almost anything for him. And I did do anything for him. But I did slip up along the way. The difference with me is I owned it, and I was on my knees every day for the next 12 years, trying to make it up to him until he shot himself one night.

So the unpopular opinion is that eventually you both have to stop beating each other up for your mistakes if you’re gonna get past it. Or, give up on each other and throw the towel in. Both scenarios are sad..

I don’t understand your wife, however. Military life is hard and time away from each other’s hard…. I think it’s pretty apparent that you get married and go into that life knowing that it’s gonna be though right? And it’s one thing to make A (meaning one time) mistake, it’s an entirely different thing when you’re bringing the guy around your husband and in your case, it’s two dudes. It’s wildly inappropriate and the fact that she can’t acknowledge that is very telling. I suspect you might be willing to work through it even more if she could own what was going on, but she’s so far into lying to herself, but that’s probably not gonna happen genuinely.

I don’t know if any of this has been helpful or just rubbed salt on your wound. Hoping you can find some peace and others comments if it can be had. And if nothing else, most important and from the bottom of this Internet strangers, heart, please keep yourself away from your firearm when you’re feeling down. The devastation you would leave behind is something I can’t even begin to explain and I so pray that no one you know ever knows.

Well what can I say to all this? You've really hit some serious thoughts and feelings in me.
No, I will never entertain the thought again. I don't want my last moment on earth to permanently disfigure my daughters soul!
This is why I have chosen to have the big moment, the final confrontation. It can't go on like this anymore. It's killing me and it's killing her. The recent slip ups with things popping out show it needs to come out, all of it. I feel the biggest fear for her is being left alone. She knows that in reality, I don't need her, but she does need me to get by. I will be fine. I will find work, support myself and keep on going, while she can barely walk due to a bad knee and no work experience.
I think the biggest hurdle right now at getting all the truth out, whether worse than I fear already, or just inappropriate is that she's known for a long time my stance on cheating. She's, I feel trying to process whether I'm being honest about extending grace at this point and really forgiving so long as I know what it is I do this for, or will screw her and leave regardless.

 

First, I want to thank you for the kind words you said in my thread.
I really appreciated.

Now, please take what I'm going to say next seriously:
-go to home depot/the hardware store
-buy 2 toilets, 1 permanent marker, 1 tarp, 1 sledge hammer, 2 bottles of cheap champagne
-set the tarp in your yard, unpack the toilets, assemble them, set them next to each other on the tarp
-take the marker and name one toilet "J" and the other one "SA guy" (you know SA guy was actually "the one that got away" right???)
-"bless" the naming with the cheap champagne
-take a deep breath, than take the sledge hammer to it. And put your back into it. Like you really mean it.
-catch your breath
-clean up back into the cardboard boxes they came from
-take them to the dump, where they belonged all these years
-come back home
-take a deep breath
-say BYE!!! to those images out of your mind. they don't deserve one more bit of energy and your time anymore.
-sleep tight, like a bug in a rug.

If you feel like you can't divorce your W,
How about you take care of YOU for a tiny bit???
How about YOU enjoy life???

She does not respect you
She will never come around to feel or care for you
She knows what buttons to push
She knows how to put you down

Go fish
Go drive around
go look at the mountains
just talk to people
finish some furniture
build a dog house

Plenty of things and stuff you can do, without being the subject of passive aggressive bitterness.

 

IIRC (and I may have confused you with another poster) didn’t you once say that you had offered your wife a hall pass while you were deployed? If you really did that, is it surprising that the situation with J happened (and I don’t think you’ll ever know the full truth about that)?

 

No you're not confused. However either folks see it as a hall pass or i worded it incorrectly.
What i did say was i understand that sometimes things happen. Things we wouldn't plan. That attraction can be strong. She's young and now fully a woman, not just a girl growing into adult hood. I told her that i can u her stand, but I'm hoping she can be faithful and respect us. However should she mess up, I asked a couple things. Don't dirty my doorstep or bed with it and I don't ever want to know. There's bliss in ignorance. What I don't know can't hurt me. Just you better be able to live it, because these kinda things will eat you like cancer. So no, I didn't give her a hall pass, just that I can understand how it can happen.

 

No you're not confused. However either folks see it as a hall pass or i worded it incorrectly.
What i did say was i understand that sometimes things happen. Things we wouldn't plan. That attraction can be strong. She's young and now fully a woman, not just a girl growing into adult hood. I told her that i can u her stand, but I'm hoping she can be faithful and respect us. However should she mess up, I asked a couple things. Don't dirty my doorstep or bed with it and I don't ever want to know. There's bliss in ignorance. What I don't know can't hurt me. Just you better be able to live it, because these kinda things will eat you like cancer. So no, I didn't give her a hall pass, just that I can understand how it can happen.

That's kind of a hall pass.

The recent slip ups with things popping out show it needs to come out, all of it.

TT, if you've already reached your limit, consider just ending it. Could you just be pain shopping asking for more horror stories, and the way she might tell them with no remorse?


Btw, I'm really sorry to hear all of this...

 

OK, so after a good nights sleep, I remembered what the latest thing she slipped and said was. It's this that has finally propelled me to where I'm at now.
Out of the blue, I asked a question. It was based on a thread I was reading here. A wife was talking about wanting a 3 some based of her admission of having them twice before they met and married, after being mar1ried for 15 years.
So jokingly I asked, hey babe...you ever have a 3 some before we met? She said no...hell no! Then tangently she said wait, maybe sort of technicly? She said she'd been visiting her best friend G at her place one time. That she, her friend G and J had all slept in the same bed?!?
Again, cue that record scratch sound! This just stunned me. I couldn't even respond for 5 5 minutes. Just silence. Then I said, rather emotionally, is there anything else that's happened that you haven't told me about, because I'm about done with all these surprises! Well, she immediately tried to walk that one back, to which I said no. You said what you said honestly, can't take it back! I immediately asked her to explain. She tried and made no sense. I asked why didn't he sleep on the sofa? Crickets. Why didn't she sleep on the sofa? Crickets finally why was he there in the first place? He lived about 40 minutes from G, we lived about 40 minutes the other direction from G, so how the hell did all 3 of you wind up at her apartment? Crickets. Again, I exclaimed how the hell can you even begin to feel that was ok? You were married. This is beyond inexcusable behavior for a married woman or man! She tried to manipulate it by saying, well G slept in the same bed with us. To wit i replied that yes she has, but big difference. She became not just your friend when we married but our friend. We all went out together and did things together. That the times she was at our home visiting and stayed over and slept in our bed with us were wholly different. You were there. You knew we were all in the same bed, you were included in this, even insisted on it as the sofa and day bed were uncomfortable. Also that shes our friend so whats the fuss? Again told her dont throw that garbage in my face and try to make yourself the innocent victim here. You're not. This was with a man that had attempted to connectnwith your married ass and you handled it again. I'm not the a hole here. What we 3 had done back in those days was because we had a deep friendship shared and amazingly, duh, um you were there in the same bed with her and your husband and know nothing but sleep and stupid friend talk happened! This, this isn't even right!