I will try to make this short, but I do not want to leave anything out, so here we go.
Call me DT and my wife MT. We have been married for 9 years in November. We have two children under 8 and we are both 29 years old. We were high school sweet hearts and even moved form our home town to go to the same college. Things were great. We got engaged and then pregnant before we finished school. We got married and then came back to our home town and I got a job to start our new life. We struggled financially for the first few years, but we had each other and our happiness.
About five years ago I became very complacent in our relationship. My life became a routine and I slowly edged MT out of it. I have never been unfaithful. I don't even go to bars or strip clubs, but I have not been a good husband for a while. We have had our fair share of arguments and in the heat of it she will tell me about how I am distant and it hurts her. How I never tell her she is pretty any more or that I love her. Only problem is that I am very prideful and do not like to admit I am at fault. I do not like to hear all my issues when we are fighting. After we calm down, I will ask her to talk to me when I have hurt her and it will have a better reaction than it does when we fight. This cycle has been in effect a while.
My family is also a part of the problem we have. My mother and sister were nice to her in the beginning, but have since turned on her. They argue with her and are sometimes just rude. I do not like confrontation and try to allow them to work through it, but MT sees it as me not supporting her.
Now here is the hard part. Last Easter, my sister and brother-in-law invited a friend (call him Joe) of theirs over who was going through a divorce. He was in a very bad place and was struggling to cope. My wife and I were very kind to him and made him feel welcome. After we left I noticed that they were friends on a social media site. It struck me as odd, but I did not think anything of it because I have always trusted my wife completely. MT is a huge fan of a certain TV show and so was Joe, so I figured they were just chatting about that. For a long time that is all it was.
MT's birthday was last month and she went out with her friends for the night. One of her friends is my cousin's wife Shelly. They saw Joe at the place they were hanging out at and invited him and his friends to join them. After they left the sports bar, they went to a friend's house and all hung out. The next day she told me that she had bumped into Joe at the bar with Shelly and he was even worse than he was at Easter. Behind my back she started texting him and trying to help him. He became very infatuated with my wife and started to let her know how he felt. She initially was just flattered and told him to not say things like that, (ie you are so beautiful, how has God given me the capacity to view such beauty etc.) For the last month, they have been in constant contact. He has told her all the things I had neglected to say and she felt good about herself.
I noticed a change in her and also noticed that Joe was coming around the family a lot more. We had not seen him at a family function since Easter, but after the night at the bar he showed up two weeks in a row and my family's Sunday get together. MT asked me to help her do an update on her cell phone which required it to be unlocked. I took that opportunity to see if she had been texting him and she had. I read through most of them and saw that he was already in love with MT and she was a little confused, but definitely had strong feelings. I also saw that they had met up on nights when she was doing a grocery run and had kissed both of those nights. I found three letters he wrote her and they were very heart felt and flattering.
I know that the physical connection never made it passed a couple kisses, but she did form a certain bond. She says it is confusing, because Joe feels like a close friend to her but I know it was more. She told me that she did not want to get a divorce and that it was a mistake. She is so embarrassed and disgusted with what she did. I know deep down that if I had been there for her emotionally, been more affectionate, and just talked to her & cared more, the chances of this happening drop dramatically.
After a couple days of dealing with my own hurt and owning my own mistakes, I have started to try and mend the relationship. I am doing small things like taking her lunch at work on my own lunch break (which I have never done), giving her back rubs and hugs, and other things of that nature. We haven't kissed or been intimate though. She does receive the gestures but always seems kind of out of it. I ask her if I am coming on too strong or just making her uncomfortable. She says that I can do what I want to, but the nice things make her feel bad and that she doesn't deserve them. I keep telling her that I am motivated and awakened by the situation and want to take try hard to find our happiness again. She keeps telling me he is just grieving and that it is going to take her a while to be right with things.
My issue is that I may have been a terrible husband, but she has chosen to stay and I love her way too much to let her go. But if she wants to be with me and keep our family together, how long am I to wait for her to grieve. I feel like she spends more time grieving then trying to make me happy. I am the only one working on us and I didn't kiss another. I fear that if I continue to try and show her affection and I can see her seem hollow, I will start to resent the fact that she is not trying to work on us. Is this a normal reaction? Should I stop trying so hard? I have neglected her for so long now and I finally realize it. I am so motivated to regain that love we had in the beginning, but I just don't know if she is. I do not know if she can find the bond with me that she is choosing to walk away from with Joe. Does it seem like she wants to be with me or is just too embarrassed to have people realize the truth about her infidelity?
Please offer any advice you can. I was not successful in keeping it short and am sorry. I will answer any more questions if it seems like I left something out or anyone needs more info on me. Just not sure if I am making the right moves for reconciliation or not…
Call me DT and my wife MT. We have been married for 9 years in November. We have two children under 8 and we are both 29 years old. We were high school sweet hearts and even moved form our home town to go to the same college. Things were great. We got engaged and then pregnant before we finished school. We got married and then came back to our home town and I got a job to start our new life. We struggled financially for the first few years, but we had each other and our happiness.
About five years ago I became very complacent in our relationship. My life became a routine and I slowly edged MT out of it. I have never been unfaithful. I don't even go to bars or strip clubs, but I have not been a good husband for a while. We have had our fair share of arguments and in the heat of it she will tell me about how I am distant and it hurts her. How I never tell her she is pretty any more or that I love her. Only problem is that I am very prideful and do not like to admit I am at fault. I do not like to hear all my issues when we are fighting. After we calm down, I will ask her to talk to me when I have hurt her and it will have a better reaction than it does when we fight. This cycle has been in effect a while.
My family is also a part of the problem we have. My mother and sister were nice to her in the beginning, but have since turned on her. They argue with her and are sometimes just rude. I do not like confrontation and try to allow them to work through it, but MT sees it as me not supporting her.
Now here is the hard part. Last Easter, my sister and brother-in-law invited a friend (call him Joe) of theirs over who was going through a divorce. He was in a very bad place and was struggling to cope. My wife and I were very kind to him and made him feel welcome. After we left I noticed that they were friends on a social media site. It struck me as odd, but I did not think anything of it because I have always trusted my wife completely. MT is a huge fan of a certain TV show and so was Joe, so I figured they were just chatting about that. For a long time that is all it was.
MT's birthday was last month and she went out with her friends for the night. One of her friends is my cousin's wife Shelly. They saw Joe at the place they were hanging out at and invited him and his friends to join them. After they left the sports bar, they went to a friend's house and all hung out. The next day she told me that she had bumped into Joe at the bar with Shelly and he was even worse than he was at Easter. Behind my back she started texting him and trying to help him. He became very infatuated with my wife and started to let her know how he felt. She initially was just flattered and told him to not say things like that, (ie you are so beautiful, how has God given me the capacity to view such beauty etc.) For the last month, they have been in constant contact. He has told her all the things I had neglected to say and she felt good about herself.
I noticed a change in her and also noticed that Joe was coming around the family a lot more. We had not seen him at a family function since Easter, but after the night at the bar he showed up two weeks in a row and my family's Sunday get together. MT asked me to help her do an update on her cell phone which required it to be unlocked. I took that opportunity to see if she had been texting him and she had. I read through most of them and saw that he was already in love with MT and she was a little confused, but definitely had strong feelings. I also saw that they had met up on nights when she was doing a grocery run and had kissed both of those nights. I found three letters he wrote her and they were very heart felt and flattering.
I know that the physical connection never made it passed a couple kisses, but she did form a certain bond. She says it is confusing, because Joe feels like a close friend to her but I know it was more. She told me that she did not want to get a divorce and that it was a mistake. She is so embarrassed and disgusted with what she did. I know deep down that if I had been there for her emotionally, been more affectionate, and just talked to her & cared more, the chances of this happening drop dramatically.
After a couple days of dealing with my own hurt and owning my own mistakes, I have started to try and mend the relationship. I am doing small things like taking her lunch at work on my own lunch break (which I have never done), giving her back rubs and hugs, and other things of that nature. We haven't kissed or been intimate though. She does receive the gestures but always seems kind of out of it. I ask her if I am coming on too strong or just making her uncomfortable. She says that I can do what I want to, but the nice things make her feel bad and that she doesn't deserve them. I keep telling her that I am motivated and awakened by the situation and want to take try hard to find our happiness again. She keeps telling me he is just grieving and that it is going to take her a while to be right with things.
My issue is that I may have been a terrible husband, but she has chosen to stay and I love her way too much to let her go. But if she wants to be with me and keep our family together, how long am I to wait for her to grieve. I feel like she spends more time grieving then trying to make me happy. I am the only one working on us and I didn't kiss another. I fear that if I continue to try and show her affection and I can see her seem hollow, I will start to resent the fact that she is not trying to work on us. Is this a normal reaction? Should I stop trying so hard? I have neglected her for so long now and I finally realize it. I am so motivated to regain that love we had in the beginning, but I just don't know if she is. I do not know if she can find the bond with me that she is choosing to walk away from with Joe. Does it seem like she wants to be with me or is just too embarrassed to have people realize the truth about her infidelity?
Please offer any advice you can. I was not successful in keeping it short and am sorry. I will answer any more questions if it seems like I left something out or anyone needs more info on me. Just not sure if I am making the right moves for reconciliation or not…
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