I apologize up front for the long story. My wife and I met when she was a Freshman in college. Fast forward 4 years and we got married. I had already graduated and was in the Navy at the time. She moved out to San Diego with me and the first year we were married she went home for the Summer. This was about 9 years ago. May 2013 she came clean on not one but two times she cheated on me. Turns out during that Summer when I was deployed she had an affair with a guy that she met out at the bars. She claims it only happened a couple of times that Summer with him and that none of her friends knew about it.
I left the military in '08 and we had our first kid that year. Two years later in '10 we had our second kid. During her confession last May she told me that she rekindled this affair from '04 in '12 for one night only. About a year later in Dec '12 she was out at the bars and started flirting heavy with her friend's brother. This turned into a 3 month long affair that ended in April '13 right before she confessed everything to me. We definitely were living like two separate people from about the end of '11 through when I found out about the affairs last Spring. I'm not an affectionate person either. She has complained for years that I don't show affection or give her compliments. I honestly believe the lack of attention and treating her like a buddy and not a wife was part of the reason she looked elsewhere. We also were probably having sex maybe once/month. Not blaming myself here but I can see it being part of the cause.
I convinced her to not leave as I want to work it out and not break up our family. It was obvious talking to her that she had feelings for this second guy and he actually ended it after telling her it wasn't going anywhere with her being married. She agreed to go to counseling and we did for maybe 3 or 4 months last year. We recently moved to a new city and I found text records showing her texting back and forth over the past 3 weeks to the guy that she first cheated on me with. She was in his town last weekend and I also saw a phone call at 1AM that lasted < 1 minute. She's been deleting all the texts. She claims the call was to have someone to talk to in order for her to stay awake on the way home from the bars with some girlfriends that night and that he was actually out of town. She did get a text from him yesterday that said he was in Maui and saw that she had called. She hasn't responded to him since.
I confronted her and she claims its definitely not an affair and that they just talk about random things. She had sent him a pic of herself as well and claims she likes hearing the compliments that he gives her. This was what she said about both these guys - they make her feel great about herself with all the compliments/attention. She knows this was wrong even though it was just texting. I don't know if I can trust her to give this up and never talk to this guy again. The second guy is actually unavailable because he's dating one of her friends now and they're living together. Luckily she avoids that friend and doesn't want to see him. We also live about 2 hours away which helps a lot.
So she says she's committed to never talking to this guy again and that she knows she shouldn't have even been talking to him based on what happened in the past and how we're fixing our marriage. My wife is definitely attractive and very fit. I'm starting to wonder if she has self esteem issues and that its deeper than simply having the two of us doing joint counseling. Should we begin going individually? Is this a lost cause?
I left the military in '08 and we had our first kid that year. Two years later in '10 we had our second kid. During her confession last May she told me that she rekindled this affair from '04 in '12 for one night only. About a year later in Dec '12 she was out at the bars and started flirting heavy with her friend's brother. This turned into a 3 month long affair that ended in April '13 right before she confessed everything to me. We definitely were living like two separate people from about the end of '11 through when I found out about the affairs last Spring. I'm not an affectionate person either. She has complained for years that I don't show affection or give her compliments. I honestly believe the lack of attention and treating her like a buddy and not a wife was part of the reason she looked elsewhere. We also were probably having sex maybe once/month. Not blaming myself here but I can see it being part of the cause.
I convinced her to not leave as I want to work it out and not break up our family. It was obvious talking to her that she had feelings for this second guy and he actually ended it after telling her it wasn't going anywhere with her being married. She agreed to go to counseling and we did for maybe 3 or 4 months last year. We recently moved to a new city and I found text records showing her texting back and forth over the past 3 weeks to the guy that she first cheated on me with. She was in his town last weekend and I also saw a phone call at 1AM that lasted < 1 minute. She's been deleting all the texts. She claims the call was to have someone to talk to in order for her to stay awake on the way home from the bars with some girlfriends that night and that he was actually out of town. She did get a text from him yesterday that said he was in Maui and saw that she had called. She hasn't responded to him since.
I confronted her and she claims its definitely not an affair and that they just talk about random things. She had sent him a pic of herself as well and claims she likes hearing the compliments that he gives her. This was what she said about both these guys - they make her feel great about herself with all the compliments/attention. She knows this was wrong even though it was just texting. I don't know if I can trust her to give this up and never talk to this guy again. The second guy is actually unavailable because he's dating one of her friends now and they're living together. Luckily she avoids that friend and doesn't want to see him. We also live about 2 hours away which helps a lot.
So she says she's committed to never talking to this guy again and that she knows she shouldn't have even been talking to him based on what happened in the past and how we're fixing our marriage. My wife is definitely attractive and very fit. I'm starting to wonder if she has self esteem issues and that its deeper than simply having the two of us doing joint counseling. Should we begin going individually? Is this a lost cause?
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