[mdomick]

Abridged story:

We have been in a marriage of 15 years, have 4 kids and were very active in the church for most of that time. In June my wife entered an EA with her best friends husband at the church that lasted a month. When They had decided to get physical and backed out at the last minute is when she revealed the situation to me(her choice, I was blind). From that point we have left the church(which has destroyed my kids), and she agreed to NC when I had a small breakdown. She confessed, apoligized and has down everything I asked her to do as far as severring the relationship(which was alot, the families were very intertwined), and for the most part she has done it with humulity and I cant see anything else that she cound do, both as a wife and as someone who sinned.

I have always taken pride in my family. When it came to choices between friendships and family, I always chose family. My wife was the first woman I dated(in my 20s, and only one I have ever been intimate with). While I feel my anger is justified, I am losing the battle. When we left the church I lost all the relationships I had, along with my wife and kids relationship. We have found a new church, but it is difficult...I just dont want to be around people. I am being treated for depression, which makes me even more angry, but i see that it is necessary.

It has gotten so severe that I am now having Nightmares about killing the other fella every night, although I have not spoke to him since this happened. I feel god is testing me, since twice in this city of 200k he has been placed in a place where I would run him over.....and had to stop myself. I never have been a violent person....and this frightens me more than anything else.

When does it get better? I know it could be much worse, but that doesnt make the anger or loathing retract. How Long until the wound is a scar and stops seeping blood and pus.

Im afraid to close my eyes.
Pray for my peace,
Dave

 

[aug]

Talk to your wife best friend. Let her know what your wife said. Check out your wife story. Ask her best friend if she knew anything.

You do this mainly because:
- cheaters always lie (that's standard)
- you have another set of eyes keeping a lookout on the situation
- and the other spouse deserves to know too

 

[aug]

Dont tell your wife you're going to talk to her best friend. If you do, she will talk to her husband to warn him. Then he will tell his wife, you're a nutcase trying to stir up sh!t.

Cheaters lie. If your wife said it didnt get physical, dont believe it immediately.

 

[C-man]

The dirtbag OM is not worth physically hurting.

What did your wife tell her "best friend"? I imagine they are no longer friends. What's their marriage like?

For the POS OM - instead of fantasizing about hurting him - maybe try contacting him and just tell him what a POS he is for cheating with a married woman and cheating on his own wife and family. Tell him what you think and move on. Men who cheat with married women are cowardly scum, in my opinion.

 

[mdomick]

She knows. When Dday happened and we withdrew from everything at the church her bestie forced the issue and we told her to confront her husband. I later had to care for him in a medical situation(job deal, no one else could do what I had to) I dealt with her and we spoke some.

Pretty standard stuff. WS says he started it, He told the OW that she started it....the truth is somewhere in the middle.

As of right now, I want my patience and love back. I want this hole in my stomach to go away. I want to be a father to my kids and not a guy that has to physically grab himself in order to not act out when I happen to see a trigger.

I know Time is the answer...........but that doesnt make me feel any better

 

[C-man]

Any reason you withdrew from the Church? Was it embarrassment? Did the other family withdraw too?

Any possibility you could go back - just you and your kids if it would bring comfort for them? If you're still together with your wife, maybe she will have the courage to go too, and face up to her mistakes.

 

[mdomick]

they had 4 kids, we had 4 kids all in the same age group at church. Also she taught in the preschool with the other woman and our families were intertwined in other ways. This was one of the things we had to do to go No Contact.

 

[C-man]

But did the OM's family withdraw too? Or just your family? If the OM is still involved in the Church with his family, does anybody in the Church know what happened?

 

[aug]

I think it'll be easier to take if it did not become physical, yes?

You could schedule a surprise polygraph test for her so she does not have the chance to prepare her answers.

 

[Hope Springs Eternal]

Abridged story:

We have been in a marriage of 15 years, have 4 kids and were very active in the church for most of that time. In June my wife entered an EA with her best friends husband at the church that lasted a month. When They had decided to get physical and backed out at the last minute is when she revealed the situation to me(her choice, I was blind). From that point we have left the church(which has destroyed my kids), and she agreed to NC when I had a small breakdown. She confessed, apoligized and has down everything I asked her to do as far as severring the relationship(which was alot, the families were very intertwined), and for the most part she has done it with humulity and I cant see anything else that she cound do, both as a wife and as someone who sinned.

I have always taken pride in my family. When it came to choices between friendships and family, I always chose family. My wife was the first woman I dated(in my 20s, and only one I have ever been intimate with). While I feel my anger is justified, I am losing the battle. When we left the church I lost all the relationships I had, along with my wife and kids relationship. We have found a new church, but it is difficult...I just dont want to be around people. I am being treated for depression, which makes me even more angry, but i see that it is necessary.

It has gotten so severe that I am now having Nightmares about killing the other fella every night, although I have not spoke to him since this happened. I feel god is testing me, since twice in this city of 200k he has been placed in a place where I would run him over.....and had to stop myself. I never have been a violent person....and this frightens me more than anything else.

When does it get better? I know it could be much worse, but that doesnt make the anger or loathing retract. How Long until the wound is a scar and stops seeping blood and pus.

Im afraid to close my eyes.
Pray for my peace,
Dave

I know that you will get a lot of advice here about what to do post-affair. Some of it will be rough, but a lot of it is right-on. I just want to say to you that there are people out here who are spiritually sensitive, and we hurt for you having to leave your home church. If there was any way you could go back, that would be great, but you seem to be serious about No Contact, and I repsect you for that. It's such a shame that things got to where they did. Praying for you, mdomick. Never forget that God is in your marriage with you.

 

[mdomick]

Some do know in the church, they are still there. We went public with the eldership why we were leaving, although without naming names. It may have been a mistake but I was afraid I would lose control if I saw him again.....I still am. It has been 3 months and I cant seem to loose the anger the strings have on me. I dont particularly want to share this with my wife, although she knows, because it drags her through the guilt again. I dont want to see her hurt either.

I guess it boils down to the fact the she apoligized to me and to the other spouse but the dirtbag hasnt seen fit but place the blame on my wife for the EA.

and.....im angry again...my apoligees

 

[Homemaker_Numero_Uno]

To answer your question and to stay on that point, rather than addressing things you didn't ask about, anger doesn't just go away. You have to actively address it. Besides the EA and having to make significant life adjustment in response to this sudden stressor, you may have other issues in other parts of your life that relate to the anger. Such as all the compromises you made in the past, and all the opportunity cost you incurred in this marriage willingly in the past under certan assumptions that you now find violated. It would be best to talk to a therapist and to be entirely honest about what you think, and also what you dream about, and the extent to which it's now interfering with your life. Your anger is yours, even though it came to you through a situation someone else in your marriage had a hand in. How you respond to the emotion of anger is something that is under your control, but of course it is overwhelming. Besides therapy, you might find short-term Rx helpful in giving you relief needed to secure what is good and stable about your life (or can be) and to have some rest at night. Also you might find you need/want/benefit from having some increased alone time or time with friends to do with as you please, for mental and emotional 'stretching' and to have a life that's not entirely dependent on home life. This might be a little sidetrip from the life you became accustomed to as a family man involved in church along with all the other things involved with being a family man (work, kids, chores...)

So, anger isn't just going to go away. It came wtihout any heads up, but you have to welcome it as a sort of difficult guest. Having intense anger is kind of one of those stages of life that tends to happen after you grow up, so it's one of those things we don't learn from mom and dad, unless they are open with us when we're kids and they're dealing with something. I myself saw my parents angry, but they didn't manage it. I think it killed my father, and in my mother it seemed to be a manifestation of her mental illness. So I was very serious about taking care of anger, and was successful in doing that.

Good luck!

 

[C-man]

You have every right to be angry. Just make sure that you don't act out your anger in a physical way. I say this because you have kids and if you're arrested for assaulting the POS OM, you lose and the kids lose. The POS OM is simply not worth it. He is a scumbag. He's a coward because he fooled around with your wife behind your back. You are better than him.

I used exercise as a way to get rid of a lot of anger. Lost 16 pounds. Of course, now that I am "moving on" I am gaining some of it back!! Exercise helped but wasn't enough. I also used family and friends to vent - thankfully they're patient with me. But even that wasn't enough. So I know what you're going through. I finally ended up contacting the POS OM (by email because that's all I had) and it DID help me, even though the cowardly POS denied everything. But it allowed me to move on because I had obsessed about the POS OM sitting there thinking he got away with something. I let him know that he didn't and it helped me to deal with some of my anger.

Anyway, good luck and remember, the cowardly, scumbag OM is not worth physically attacking.