My God!

Our God, not hers, apparently.

How cruel of her to reveal this so late in life.

Yes, you had a right to know.

Now that right has severely wronged you!

She may have made amends to God, felt enormous guilt for what she did to you.

She merely lightened her load by tossing the dead skunk onto your back.

I can only assume she admitted this out of having a guilty conscience.

God forbid she let loose with the truth for resentment.

.........................................

How do you get past this?

You demanded the truth, you received it, and now you must live with it.

Let the news be bad news from yesteryear.

Be angry for a month, and then let it go.

 

Sorry to hear you're going through this. That's a tough bit of news. Welcome to TAM.

Been married over 40 yrs myself.

First thought, hang in there. It's right to be hurt.

 

A good therapist or divorce. The reality is there are better people out there.

 

@Benbutton man, you've got to include the years and dates. It's a reach to jump to the hey there's better wives out there thing at this moment.

OP is right to feel betrayed and hurt, it's slow going....who knows what's best at this moment in time.

Right now OP is digesting this new to him info.

 

@Benbutton man, you've got to include the years and dates. It's a reach to jump to the hey there's better wives out there thing at this moment.

OP is right to feel betrayed and hurt, it's slow going....who knows what's best at this moment in time.

Right now OP is digesting this new to him info.

Been there, done that. Granted, not for that long, however it sucks no less. Besides, who says he has to wife up?

 

That’s rough hearing about this now. How did this come up after all this time?

 

Hi all
I have been married to my wife for 46 my wife has had health problems that put a strain on our marriage with her behaviour but we got through that and move on to get our marriage happy again.

I have finally after 46 years got to the truth of what I always suspected that she was seeing someone at the beginning of our marriage.
Turns out after only 7 months of marriage she started to flirt with an work colleague which lead to a kiss and a grope of each other in cupboard in their work.


a few weeks later at her office Christmas party
She saw the same man dancing with another woman she moved in on them and ended up in the cupboard again
This time they masturbated each other and she gave him oral sex.

After Christmas she ask him if he wanted to meet up while I was at the football and go back to his flat for sex they met in a bar she said she was rubbing him through his trousers and he was playing with her stockings
For what ever reason she changed her mind and said this is wrong and left him in the bar.

I know this was 46 years ago but it’s new to me, to say I’m devastated is putting it mildly.
The hard part for me is that we were only married for 7 months when she did this.
our marriage has been a good one
But now I feel it’s a lie and I look at her differently now.

I have no intention of ending the marriage but how do I move forward and put this behind me?

I’m so sorry. This will no doubt take time to process and decide how you want to proceed.

You (and your wife) need to understand and accept that the marriage you thought you had is no longer the same. Maybe you’ll be able to move forward together, especially after the decades of (presumably faithful) marriage since then, maybe you won’t. That will be up to you after you’ve taken time to process everything.

I’m not one for rug-sweeping or robbing a spouse of knowing the honest reality of their marriage - but honestly, after all these decades (of presumably loyal and good marriage), you should have left those 40 year old suspicions alone at this point, and she should’ve taken that 40 year old horrific betrayal to her grave.
At this point, all this 40yo revelation did was destroy (or significantly damaged) your marriage/relationship bond (and your heart) in your later years.

 

When we were married at first she came home from her work’s Christmas party she was very drunk when we got naked to have sex she pointed at my penis and said is that all you have,
I got pissed and asked her what she got up to at the party to make her say that.
We had an agreement that at nights out we both could kiss others.
She said she had kissed and groped someone at the party and he felt bigger.

about 4 years later we were expecting our first child she got promoted at her work and one of her colleagues who never got the promotion.

Phone me and said the kid wasn’t mine as she had been seeing this guy keeping in mind this was 4 years after
I kept getting calls from this guy

I figured out who it was and met him coming out of his house and had a few words with him the police weren’t involved as he would of lost his job.
After the first call I questioned her she said that she had let him finger her but that was all .
Skip to recently she said in my sleep I was shouting about her having an affair she told me she never had an affair at any time that’s when I cracked up and brought up what happened all these years ago I told her I knew she was lying and got the truth out of her.

 

When we were married at first she came home from her work’s Christmas party she was very drunk when we got naked to have sex she pointed at my penis and said is that all you have,
I got pissed and asked her what she got up to at the party to make her say that.
We had an agreement that at nights out we both could kiss others.
She said she had kissed and groped someone at the party and he felt bigger.

about 4 years later we were expecting our first child she got promoted at her work and one of her colleagues who never got the promotion.

Phone me and said the kid wasn’t mine as she had been seeing this guy keeping in mind this was 4 years after
I kept getting calls from this guy

I figured out who it was and met him coming out of his house and had a few words with him the police weren’t involved as he would of lost his job.
After the first call I questioned her she said that she had let him finger her but that was all .
Skip to recently she said in my sleep I was shouting about her having an affair she told me she never had an affair at any time that’s when I cracked up and brought up what happened all these years ago I told her I knew she was lying and got the truth out of her.

Not to kick you while you’re down, but that little “agreement” was beyond stupid, foolish and idiotic. You basically left that door wide open. Utterly ****ing ridiculous.
The phrase “play stupid games, win stupid prizes” is a real thing. You played a very stupid game, which didn’t go as you thought it would (which it couldn’t because it was stupid) and unfortunately you won a very stupid prize.

 

Well..

You permitted her at least two strikes against your honor, so this is partly on you for not jettisoning her earlier on.

 

Agreed. You teach people how to treat you.

 

Sorry to here this sir! There is never a good time to discover these things. Im ending a marriage of 40 yrs, because of this type of issue. Found out 34 years after the fact that the STBXW had been involved with another man around 6 yrs into our marriage. I couldn't shake it. 34 yrs of lying to me, saying I'm enough and she loved me, all the while she had a dirty secret behing those blue eyes!
I want you to remember this, no matter how long you've been married and how long ago it happened, for you, it was just a week or so ago. You may forgive her, but you'll never forget. My best wishes.

 

Both of us have been totally true to each other since then we even renewed or vows 7 years ago

Sorry to say, but she has lied to you on numerous occasions. So how is it that you know she has been totally true to you? Based on just what you have posted so far that isn’t likely.

What you have written is what she admitted to after years. Usually the truth is way worse than what she admitted. Look up cheater speak.

You were hollering in your sleep because your subconscious knows the truth.

she pointed at my penis and said is that all you have,

Doesn’t that imply she has a lot of experience with them even early in marrisge?

I have no intention of ending the marriage but how do I move forward and put this behind me?

I think at your age moving forward is all you can reasonably do. But you can never put it behind you. You married a cheater. You have to just accept that. Just assume you have a small fraction of the truth and don’t dig for anymore information. All you will get are lies.

There is another poster on TAM @mynymprostory who was married to a nymphomaniac for a lifetime. until she died at an old age. . If he was away at work she was doing someone else. Maybe DM him and ask how he lived with it.

Sorry for your situation. But you have a lot of company. This isn’t an unusual story.

 

Sorry to say, but she has lied to you on numerous occasions. So how is it that you know she has been totally true to you? Based on just what you have posted so far that isn’t likely.

What you have written is what she admitted to after years. Usually the truth is way worse than what she admitted. Look up cheater speak.

…Just assume you have a small fraction of the truth and don’t dig for anymore information. All you will get are lies.

Well **** Russ, I was kind of skirting around that, because in his case, I’m not sure it’s particularly useful at this point.
But since it’s been put out there a couple few times now, I guess we may as well go all the way on the reality train…

OP, of course there’s way more to what happened than what she finally admitted to you, and it’s highly likely (as in almost certain, and I’d bet $1000 dollars on it right now if there was a way to validate) that she had sex with him.
And at bare minimum, she 100% did not tell you the full extent of what happened and what she did with him.

So if you really want to operate in full, brutal reality, your base operating assumption here should be that she absolutely did way more with him than she initially admitted to, probably more often, and most likely had sex with him.
And if you really want to know the truth (and think you can handle it), have her write out a full detailed account of everything she did with him and when, and arrange for her to take a polygraph to confirm that you actually know the extent of her betrayal (which you currently don’t). And then DNA test your now adult child.
(And if you had found this out 20 or 30 years ago, I’d be pushing you pretty hard to do exactly this. But unfortunately, it’s not 20 years ago. Your call if you really want the truth.)

Or, at this point, you could just choose to accept the incomplete, partially sanitized version she told you, and try to move forward.

 

Loose lips sank some ships during WWII.
They still sink marriages...

That initial night with her coworker, saw her drunken words stink up the marital bliss.

Who says these things?

During that first year of marriage, she probably felt a lot of resentment that you allowed her to kiss other men.
She did not feel 'valued'.

Not that any of that crap matters.

................................................
Question:

Did you kiss any women during the first months of your marriage?
Or, did she think you did?

Why did you give her a hall pass to lay her lips on other men?

This Thread is all about lips and where they have been.

 

Hi all
I have been married to my wife for 46 my wife has had health problems that put a strain on our marriage with her behaviour but we got through that and move on to get our marriage happy again.

I have finally after 46 years got to the truth of what I always suspected that she was seeing someone at the beginning of our marriage.
Turns out after only 7 months of marriage she started to flirt with an work colleague which lead to a kiss and a grope of each other in cupboard in their work.


a few weeks later at her office Christmas party
She saw the same man dancing with another woman she moved in on them and ended up in the cupboard again
This time they masturbated each other and she gave him oral sex.

After Christmas she ask him if he wanted to meet up while I was at the football and go back to his flat for sex they met in a bar she said she was rubbing him through his trousers and he was playing with her stockings
For what ever reason she changed her mind and said this is wrong and left him in the bar.

I know this was 46 years ago but it’s new to me, to say I’m devastated is putting it mildly.
The hard part for me is that we were only married for 7 months when she did this.
our marriage has been a good one
But now I feel it’s a lie and I look at her differently now.

I have no intention of ending the marriage but how do I move forward and put this behind me?

You move forward with a divorce.

 

@Auld Deacon I am guessing you are late 60s-early 70s. So normal life expectancy would be another decade or so of life on this planet. So your decision to NOT divorce I totally understand and support. It wouldn’t accomplish anything but cost a bunch of money.

 

Sorry to hear it OP, something similar happened to a casual golf buddy of mine. Found out his wife cheated 40 years ago. He left the house for a week, but then went back home. From what I've heard the consequences his wife faced are now he basically does what he wants when he wants without regard to her. Don't know about their sex life, but she's now forfeited the loving relationship she's had for all this time. I guess he figured leaving her and splitting half of his net worth wasn't worth it at this point in his life.

 

Hearing MORE of the truth will do nothing but give you ulcers.

Let it go, and go with it to another life.

 

You made multiple bad choices back then to stick it out with a cheater. You always knew it in back your mind it was true. It’s you that decided to do nothing about it.

She screwed him and you can bet the house on that.

I have no idea why she spilled the secret. After all that time she should have taken it to the grave.

 

If it’s me she's taking a polygraph and having my kid take a DNA test.

 

Whelp...

She is the devil, the POS you know, I will give you that.

Back then, she was trying to drive you off with her horrible and cruel words.
She failed.

The big difference in her now, and her then, is that she is now old and is done chasing and measuring wieners.
She knows she is no catch....except to you.


Gwendolyn-

 

AD,
Sorry for all of this.

ms gamboolgal & I are coming up on 44 year married. I can't begin to imagine how something like what you described would effect me.

Agree with above Posters that I would suspect that she did more and a lot more.

I would also have your children's DNA tested to determine if you are the Father.

I would want to know.

 

Jeez - as an unwelcome member to the club: - - it happened decades ago and we have matured (at least some) and grown to see our own faults and our attraction to each other (more than just DDs on my part!) has endured in "spite" (don't like that word) of past transgression -

So? Stayed and life is good and has been for a couple decades now. Some storms have been experienced but a shared determination to try and save and share all the good things we have done together has enabled our willingness to endure pain and persevere to stay on the path together.

No kids (she had her tubes tied before we got together) - simplifies things a bit. STD? BTDT - she says She didn't and I didn't want to spend $$$ to find out (80%?) whether or not she did ??? (UNO the drill: "We only kissed") and, probably the best thing is we both endured bad life experiences with opposite sex several times before getting together.

A decade ago we hashed out the past to the point of getting bored discussing - so it is only the memory in our individual noggin' that we have learned to live with.

Since 'that time' - no issues with interpersonal activities with the opposite sex for either of us.

Regret to have gone through the experience a long time ago but glad to have worked through and made the trip to
to where we are now.

 

I have no intention of ending the marriage but how do I move forward and put this behind me?

The answer to your question is:
IN NO WAY!
WHAT YOU WANT IS NOT ACHIEVABLE IN PRINCIPLE. NOT A SINGLE PERSON IN THE WORLD HAS SUCCEEDED YET.
The maximum that is achievable for you is peaceful coexistence with an unfaithful wife as a roommate. No "love", no "sincere friendship", no "camaraderie". You will constantly feel that your marriage is tainted. The elephant in the room will stay forever.
............................................................
Unbiased conclusions from your post and your comments.
1.By agreeing on the opportunity to "kiss" at parties, you both opened Pandora's box. Because adults are not teenagers: they don't kiss, but **** in various forms, which was proved to you by your own wife.
2.You have never forgotten anything about what happened, and you have never accepted the incidents of her behavior at that party(s) that you know.
3.She has never truly loved or respected you, and there is no reason to believe that she loves and respects you now and will love and respect you in the future.
4.You have always been lonely in this marriage and you will remain lonely until the death of one of you if you continue to be together.
5.You wasted 46 years of the best years of your life because you were never really happy with her.
6.She's never been truly happy with you, no matter what she have said and says now, because her deeds (physical and emotional cheating and lying for decades) demonstrate otherwise.
7.From an objective logical point of view, there is NO SINGLE reason why you should stay in this marriage.
8.Your desire to stay with her is irrational and based on pure emotions, the main of which is the fear of being alone and unwillingness to change your habitual way of life.
................................................................................
Now my questions.
1. So are you sure that your first child and your children in general are yours?
2. Why do you believe her that they didn't have "real" sex?
3. Why do you believe her that she didn't cheat on you before marriage and after her known escapade?
4. Why do you believe that she is not cheating on you now?
5. Why do you think that you can even theoretically, in principle, "to move forward and put this behind you"?

 

"Trying to fix a marriage after infidelity instead of getting divorced is like trying to treat cancer with diet, prayer, spells, meditation, "natural" or "non-traditional" remedies instead of surgery and chemotherapy. You are afraid of pain and suffering from the use of radical proven remedies right now, but eventually you will get metastases, physical (cancer) or mental (infidelity), which will inevitably kill you, even decades later".
.................................................
This is my own aphorism.

 

That’s the best analogy I’ve ever seen here at TAM. Well said 👍

 

Its pretty stunning honestly. The whole thing. The level of disrespect for you and the marriage in the honeymoon stage no less, is pretty staggering. But.....you stayed. You put up with it. I think many would have ejected their "partner" very early on.

I have so many questions about the intervening years but its really moot at this point, right? You've lived in this reality for 46 years, the probability is very high that you'll add this to the pile of betrayal and disrespect, and stay with her in this frankenmarriage. You are not alone. Many many people do this. You just get weary of the fight, and lets face it, many start believing that this is the best they can do (a lie), that its what they deserve (a lie), that its too late to do anything at this late date (a lie).

I hope you are doing more than venting, but if thats as far as it goes, thats ok, but know that it doesnt have to be.

There is more life to live. How are you going to live it?

 

Wow this situation is what I would refer to as a real “Charlie Foxtrot”.

 

Cluster Fudge.

Slammed from all angles.

 

When we were married at first she came home from her work’s Christmas party she was very drunk when we got naked to have sex she pointed at my penis and said is that all you have,
I got pissed and asked her what she got up to at the party to make her say that.
We had an agreement that at nights out we both could kiss others.
She said she had kissed and groped someone at the party and he felt bigger.

about 4 years later we were expecting our first child she got promoted at her work and one of her colleagues who never got the promotion.

Phone me and said the kid wasn’t mine as she had been seeing this guy keeping in mind this was 4 years after
I kept getting calls from this guy

I figured out who it was and met him coming out of his house and had a few words with him the police weren’t involved as he would of lost his job.
After the first call I questioned her she said that she had let him finger her but that was all .
Skip to recently she said in my sleep I was shouting about her having an affair she told me she never had an affair at any time that’s when I cracked up and brought up what happened all these years ago I told her I knew she was lying and got the truth out of her.

Sorry you are going through this, but I have to say it. That ‘agreement’ to allow kissing other people was just plain stupid. What did you think was going to happen? You opened the door to cheating and then act surprised when someone walked through it.

Kissing isn’t innocent when you’re married, it’s not some casual, harmless thing. It’s intimate. It’s sexual. It’s cheating. Giving each other permission to do that was like saying, ‘Sure, go dangle off the edge of a cliff just don’t fall.’

And whatever she has admitted to doing is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

Both of us have been totally true to each other since then we even renewed or vows 7 years ago

Now please don't be naive. How can you say this so confidently? You're married to a proven cheater and liar. And even if it is true, decades of loyalty do not somehow erase the fact that she lied for decades.

And renewing your vows doesn’t retroactively make the original betrayal or the years of dishonesty disappear. It just means you were standing there recommitting to someone who still hadn’t come clean.That’s not romance. That’s revisionist history.

I’m sorry this isn’t the kind of advice that helps you sweep it all under the rug but I don’t think it can or should be swept away. If that’s what you want, you’ll need to swallow your pride and live with it. Because there’s no magic fix. No reset button.

If you’re dead sure she’s been faithful ever since, that’s the piece you have to focus on. Personally, I don’t think I could do it, but if I tried, that’s the only way I’d manage.