My married journey includes H's 3 affairs...

I'm new here. Married 27 years, 2 adult children, 2 grandchildren. H has cheated 3 times with long breaks between each A. One affair was a long distance EA and PA, one was a PA and one was a cyber-affair with no physical contact due to the long distance (OW lives in a different continent). Here is my married life journey. I will break it down in a few posts as it is lengthy… I apologize for this in advance. 2 March 1992: DDay #1. H had just returned from a 2 week business trip. While there, he met OW. They spent a lot of time together during the last week of his trip. They had sex and spent the night together on his last night there. He said he had fought off her advances the night prior but on his last night there, succumbed to her. H is not a drinker but while on this business trip, he drank a lot every night and said that his inhibitions were low and he that lacked good judgement and liked the attention that she paid to him. When he returned from his business trip, I sensed that something was off. I confronted him with my suspicions 2 days after his return and he admitted that he had "screwed up" and made a mistake and had sex one time, in a car in a parking lot, with a woman that he met in a bar. He said that he was sorry. Little did I know that they would continue calling and talking for hours on end for the next 3 months. H was in the military and worked shifts so it was easy for them to talk often. I was a SAHM at the time with 2 young children and looked after other children in our home for extra income. H became very distant from me and our children. He went from being a loving husband and doting father to being cold and distant with me and not wanting to spend any time with the children. During that time, we began fighting regularly. He also hit me quite a few times and I hit him also. I suspected that he was still in touch with OW but he kept denying it to the point where he had me convinced that I was crazy. I went through the days like a robot. I still managed to look after and keep the children safe but was an emotional mess. I brought up the "D" word a few times but each and every time, he would say that he didn't want to lose me and the kids, that he loved and needed me, that he would be better. I loved him and stayed. Things would get better for a bit then get bad again. It was like riding a rollercoaster. Eventually a few months later, he said that he needed time to himself and planned to go on a "fishing" trip alone. I suspected that this was a ruse to spend time with OW, that they had planned for her to come and be with him but he of course denied it. Turns out I was right. He and the OW spent a week in our little family camper in a city 3 hours south of where we lived. He took the only vehicle that we had with him, leaving me without transportation. Everything "exploded" after she visited him and her H called me and asked that I tell my H to stop calling his W. This was pretty much the end of their A. I found out a lot about the OW during that time, such as how he was her 4th or 5th affair and how her and her H had 5 children and she didn't know who the fathers of at least 3 of them were etc. After much talk, we decided that we should really give our marriage a good try before parting ways and seeked counselling. Individually at first and then we went to couple counselling. It was brought to light that as a young mother, I may have paid so much attention to our children that H had begun to feel neglected. This did not excuse his behaviour but helped me understand why he had done what he did. We worked hard on ourselves and it brought us closer than before. We became happy again. As happy as we were, the person that I was ``before`` that faithful DDay, no longer existed. The bright eyed, happy wife that I had once been was gone. I now felt cold, insecure, jealous and cynical on the inside. To this day, I still miss that person.

Put the internet to work for you. via Personal Recipe 2629979