| To any Wayward: I don't know if this is going to help anyone or not. I hope it might: Please keep in mind that I might be jumping back and forth in time. I'm trying to make note of it but I might forget some. My story is a somewhat detailed summary but it's not a recount of the last 18 years of my life, nor is a day to day journal of my affair and the 5 years since then. I would like to state that I regret my affair and I always will. I understand that not everyone is going to believe this. It doesn't matter to me what anyone else thinks of me or about me. I'm only accountable to my husband, my daughter and myself. Those are the only people who's opinion about me matters. I own what I did, I own the mess. I have no excuse. I would also like to point out that the beginning years of my marriage were rather rocky. My husband has been a violent alcoholic. It wasn't easy for me and I know there has been a lot of resentment from me towards him. It is something I have been working on for a few years now and I'm about to close that chapter. My husband has been sober for 10 years, non-violent for 6 years. I do not like to talk about it, it's painful, it has hurt my marriage. My husband did apologize but he didn't feel it was up to him to help me trust again. I believe he wanted to but didn't know how. It was swept under the rug and I dealt with it on my own. It's not an excuse for cheating, I never saw it that way. I have been working on this for a few years now and I'm at a point where I can let it go and put it behind me. I'm in a good place when it comes to that. I will not bring it up ever again with my husband. It's painful for both of us. I have forgiven him, he has turned himself around and that makes him my hero. ************************************************** ********************************* Married since 1995, daughter born 1997. Husband's second marriage, my first. Husband has two grown daughters from his first marriage. I was a SAHM for about 10 years, then obtained my real estate license. My husband had his own business. EA in 2008, Yahoo chat, no texting, a few phone calls, never met in person. I wasn't in love with the OM. He was a lesser man than my husband. Older, balder, less educated. I cheated because I wanted attention. Someone to tell me I'm smart, pretty, fun etc. I wasn't interested in sex. I sent naked pics of me because it kept him saying nice things to me. I used him. I was selfish, didn't think about anyone but me. At some point during the affair I thought I was just getting even for the early years of my marriage. I know I was trying to find a way to justify what I was doing so I could keep doing it. I know I was cheating and I know what I did was wrong but since I had talked myself into justifying it, I was able to look at myself and be sort of okay. My husband caught me by looking through my computer because he felt something wasn't right. I don't regret getting caught. I ended the affair on D-day. I sent the OM a message explaining it was over and to not contact me again. My husband watched me type and send it. I never missed the OM, it wasn't a big deal to end it. I didn't grieve or mourn. Having to quit coffee would have been worse. We went through the usual roller coaster and there was trickle truth. Some details I didn't tell. I didn't tell right away that I had sent the OM naked photos of me. He found them on my computer and showed them to me along with other photos from porn sites. He told me that I was posting intimate photos of me on porn sites and dating sites. I admitted to the photos that were mine, I denied the photos that were not mine. We went through a phase where he accused me of sleeping pretty much with everyone and their brother. I did not but since I cheated and lied, he didn't believe me. He asked me to take a polygraph test and made an appointment. I couldn't wait to get there! I couldn't wait to answer whatever questions he had! The tester concluded that (based on the questions) that I did not sleep with anyone but my husband. My husband was thrilled about the results and it lasted for about a day. Things got worse from that point on. My husband had extreme mood swings from being all lovey dovey to depressed and aggressive all within a few hours. I didn't know how to deal with it and what do to. Of course I knew it was a result of what I had done to him but I still didn't know what to do, how to help, if I could or even should help. By that time, the economy had started tanking pretty bad and his business went down the drain at about the same rate as our marriage. We are kinda stuck to the area because of his parents and since there weren't too many suitable jobs available for him, he started studying for his real estate license. I knew he did because it would allow him to keep a close eye on me. It didn't bother me and turned out to be the best thing ever. I actually enjoy spending 24 hours with my husband and miss him if we happen to be apart for a while. The economy tanked even more and there wasn't much money to be made in real estate. My husband applied for a job overseas as a military contractor, which is his main profession. They sent him to Iraq. Having all these unresolved issues, it turned out to be a disaster. He couldn't trust me to be all by myself and him being so far away. He came back after 4 mts. Shortly after that, both his daughters moved in with us. He hadn't had any contact with them for years. Basically, it was 2 strangers with a baby moving in with us. Financial struggles and trying to blend two families took priority over everything else and stuff got swept under the rug. I ended up demanding his grown daughters find their own place to live and pay their own bills. This is an entirely different story in itself – nutshell: I'm not willing to give up my entire house and stock shelves at night at Walmart to support two grownups that have no respect for me, just not happening . They moved out. By then, our home was in foreclosure and we were still not making any money as Realtors. I started doing foreclosure evaluations for all the major lenders. It started picking up and I made pretty good money. Around the time we were 3.5 years past D-day I noticed a change. I couldn't put my finger on it but I knew something was different. There was no sex all the sudden, that's the only change I can actually name. I asked, he said it was nothing. I asked again, same answer. There was no sex. Eventually, after asking a few more times, he said he was being depressed, there were things he didn't have answers for. I would like to go back to the first few months after D-day: my husband was extremely inquisitory to the point where he would wake me up in the middle of the night and I answered questions for hours. We spent days on end going back and forth asking the same questions and I would give the same answers. At that time I felt no matter what I answered it wouldn't make a difference and that there was nothing I could do to answer satisfactory. At the time I believed my husband truly enjoyed keeping me up, frustrating me with the same question over and over again ( I do know now that this was absolutely not the case). I remember one particular time where he looked at me with a nasty grin in his face asking me to recount how many guys I had slept with. This was after the polygraph test. I made up a bunch of names and locations and told him Yes, I slept with those guys. He didn't believe me. I completely lost it. I trashed everything I could get my hands on. I own the **** I did, I don't own anything else. I yelled and screamed at him. I wanted to choke him, I wanted to physically hurt him. I did not want to answer the same question one more time. I told him to get out of my house, out of my life. I told him he is paranoid, he's insane. I could not stand the same question just one more time. I just snapped. I left and went to my inlaws. They never took sides and if they did, they never let me feel it. They told me that would do whatever they could to help me and my husband. My husband and I later came to the conclusion that they sort of must have known from experience what we were going through. We never asked them directly though. I would like to mention that I never left without telling him where I went and I always made sure he could verify where I went. Another thing he kept telling me was that I was just waiting to leave him and be with the other guy. That's why I always made sure he knew where I was and could verify. Back to my husband being depressed and me noticing something was "off": He told me that since I demanded that he stop asking me questions, he had no way to resolve any remaining issues. I didn't mean to tell him to never ask me a question again. I might have screamed that at him in the heat of the moment but I also knew we weren't done asking and answering questions. So I explained that to him and I suggested we go see a marriage counselor . He's not a talker and he didn't think it would help. I called a MC and made an appointment. We had 6 sessions. Somewhere around session 2 or 3 I had a very disrespectful text exchange with one of my daughter's friends. I had just gotten the iphone and wasn't used to the touch screen keyboard. I was texting while driving on top of that (I know, that's bad). When I got home, I went straight to my husband telling him about the nerve this teenage brat (daughter's friend) had and showed him the text conversation. He read it and then asked me who is Terry was. I looked at the texts and had spelled out teri09! And sent it. Underneath it shows the other person (brat) asking "What's that?". Because I was fuming at the time, I didn't feel the need to explain to some teenager that I had just gotten this phone and was too stupid to use the touch screen keyboard. During a MC session my husband said that he believes I had an affair with someone named Terri and I was lying about it. He said that he had seen the name Terri in a forum conversation I had with someone. I didn't know anyone by the name Terri and I had no proof. We went over this person again and again and it basically boiled down to the marriage being over if I couldn't even be honest about that. MC sessions ended because the MC concluded that we were opening wounds that had partially healed but that were in the process of divorcing each other emotionally. My husband's main motivation at the time was to stay together because it was best for our child. I strongly disagreed with that and I still do today. I will try harder for our daughter but I will not stay together because of her. Never works out. I also didn't want to divorce. I wanted to fix this no matter what and I wasn't done yet, I wasn't at the end of my rope, I wasn't to the point where I felt I can't fix it. My husband and I agreed to give each other 5 years. 5 years to see if I could tell the truth about Terri, 5 years to see if I could be a better wife, 5 years to see if we are able to work things out, 5 years to see if my husband was able to stay in the marriage without having an answer for Terri. He said he couldn't do that to which the MC asked me if I was willing to be in a loveless marriage. I was not, absolutely not! At that time I discovered TAM. A few weeks after the last session I went and logged into my old account at the chat forum where my husband said I talked about Terri. I hadn't been there since D-day. I read through a bunch of messages and in a PM I found Terri. Terri is an elderly lady from Tennessee that goes by the handle of Tenny. I had a recipe for a Triple Chocolate Kalua cake stuck to our fridge for years. I went and got my husband and had him read the message. He read it 20 times, got up and left. When I told him that this was the only person he could have meant, he kicked me out of the bedroom, yelled he didn't want to even look at me and told me to get the hell out. We didn't talk for a few days. Eventually I asked him again if that was the message he was referring to and if he did mix up Tenny and Terri. He said he might have and whatever, so what. I have left it at that since then. From my standpoint, I have resolved the Terri issue. I have answered the question and I did produce evidence. I started concentrating on doing what the MC had told me: being a better wife. It's a pretty generic thing to say, I thought and I didn't know how to do that. I had already been transparent for years, no secret email account, no secret chats, no password he didn't know about. My job requires me to drive around and take photos of homes for a few hours each day, then do valuations on the computer. I started emailing him routes with all addresses I had to visit each day so he knew where I would go, how long it would take and when I'd be back. Google maps does a great job at that. Just put in the route and it calculates drive time and miles. If it took longer, I called and explained. One time I pulled over because it rained so hard I couldn't see ahead. I made it a point to call at least once while being on the road, asking how his day was going and that I had only one more address to go or that I would pick up dinner before I went home. Just to let him know where I was and all that. I never checked to see if I had some kind of tracker in my car or anything. I still don't know and I don't need to know. Things didn't get really better though, there was still no sex either. Someone on CWI advised that I should set my husband free because he deserved much better than me. That was on a day where I felt that even though I had resolved one issue, I wasn't anywhere near fixing my marriage. I was a mess and so I took the advice and told my husband that I'm filing for divorce. He didn't respond with agreement or disagreement . Money being tight, I suggested we do most of the stuff ourselves , I paid some $200 to get the appropriate documents that we could file ourselves. I needed his help filling out some stuff (not good with numbers). He looked at me and said "I don't want to do this. I don't want to divorce. I know I have some issues that I need to work on. I just need some time, that's all." Few days after that, sex started slowly coming back. Awkward for both of us but it got a LOT better! I kept up transparency 100% since D-day. No secre ts other than he doesn't know that I'm hiding a bag of cookies somewhere in the house. Sometime last summer came a point where we felt that our biggest problem was now our financial situation, which still hadn't improved. Our home has been in foreclosure since 2009. We did whatever we could do legally to stretch things out but we knew that we were doing to lose the house eventually. We also knew we weren't able to keep up with the rising cost of food, gasoline etc. Searching for answers, we decided it would be worth trying to grow some tomatoes and peppers. I have been gardening a bit here and there but nothing major. My husband was never interested in that kind of stuff. Things started escalating like crazy. We discovered aquaponics, hydroponics. My husband taught himself to build solar cells. Within no time we were both heavily involved in turning our way of living around, providing our own food, our own electricity etc. We spend every free minute together learning how to keep fish, how to clone tomatoes etc. We had and are still having a blast learning, creating and enjoying the fruit of our labor. I have never experienced this with my husband. There is so much togetherness and I'm so grateful for every second of it. It was the absolute first time in our marriage that we had a common interest, a common hobby. I cannot say with words how much of a difference this has made for us. We are doing this together, him and me, as a team, on the same side, partners, buddies and we have each other's back. We purchased a modest and smaller home last December. We own it free and clear. It needs repairs!!! My husband is Mr. Fix-it! Nothing he can't fix, nothing. I'm about to inherit a small amount of money and we are going to spend every cent on improving the home, expanding our solar cells, building a greenhouse and we are excited like little kids about it. I have never asked him if he does feel any different today than he felt the day we finished MC. I don't have the balls. I want to know if anything has changed for the better for him. I don't have the balls to ask because I'm afraid of what he might say. I'm also afraid to rip open old wounds and trigger things. I go by his attitude towards me, the things he does and what he says. We are actively working towards our future. We are building this together. If he still felt the same he did before and during MC, he wouldn't be doing this together with me. Last Christmas party at the office we played a game where everyone had to tell something about themselves that nobody else knew. Someone said they had been married to their wife for 26 years. Next was my husband's turn. He had gone to high school with a semi-famous politician and he followed that up with "and I hope to be married at least 26 years as well." We are exactly 5 years past D-day. I am grateful and I am happy. I feel purpose, I feel there is a future unfolding right before us. I can't speak for my husband. He is still depressed over not being able to bring home the bacon as he thinks he should. We haven't had a fight in a very long time. We agree on almost everything. We have a common goal. We laugh, we're silly, we have a good sex life. We spend a lot of time together and if either of us has to go somewhere we ask each other to come along. If we are not together, we call each other. Previously when I ended the call with "I love you", I didn't get a return. I do get it now and he does say it first half the time. It's not the mushy lovey-dovey honey-sweet "I LOVE YOU". It's a "love ya" but it means something. My husband wouldn't say it if he didn't mean it or wouldn't want to say it. It's not obligatory. I'm not getting the kind of attention I was looking for when I started the affair. My husband still isn't a hugger or kisser or cuddly person. I learned that he expresses these things differently. I learned that he uses acts of service. If he changes my oil, he's saying I love you. If he's bringing me the coffee I forgot in the microwave 4 hours ago, he's hugging. I have learned that I need to talk back the same way. So I bake lemon cake even though I hate it, it's nasty! I try to remember his favorite smoked herrings in tomato sauce when I go to the store and I give "other things" I do not feel like doing ALL THE TIME but I do them anyway and voluntary because I know it makes him happy and it means more to him than a hug. I do not want to go into further detail on that, it's obviously obvious. I know that I will not go someplace else to get attention ever again. I know I did get attention from my husband but I didn't see it or understand it. I know better now. I have struggled immensely with having had an affair and I still do today. It's a struggle I have with myself, the way I grew up, the things I once believed, the way I used to look at things and how it has all changed and is different today. I have increasing difficulty communicating with my extended family overseas (mom, aunt, uncle, cousin) because they have all cheated at some point or are still cheating. I struggle with having grown up as a divorcee kid, seeing my Mom cheat, watching my Mom dump me for the guy she cheated with. My child-molesting father had no problem admitting he never wanted me or even liked me. My stepfather left the stage when my Mom divorced him to be with the OM. My grandpa cheated and had a secret second family for decades. My uncle is a cheating alcoholic to this day. My husband is the one and only male in my life that has yet to let me down. I do not want to admit this but I have been waiting for him to leave ever since I got married. I don't mean that in the sense of "can't wait for him to leave me". What I mean is, why wouldn't he leave me, everyone else did. The time after the affair has forced me to step back and look at myself. I mean the entire picture, everything from the time I was a little kid until now. It forced me to re-evaluate everything and I'm not done with it by a long shot. It's a constant work in progress. I would not go as far as saying my marriage is saved but it's on a positive path. My marriage is now different than before. It's a new one. It's better than before. I see myself in an entire new role, it's to make my husband happy. Before it was more like "How can I get my husband to make me happy?" I still do a lot of understanding things, putting dots together, I have "ah" moments. I'm still developing new principles. I feel like I'm re-building myself into the person I want to be. I want to be the person my husband wants to be married to and grow old with. As I'm working on myself and on my marriage, I become increasingly angrier with my Mom and the rest of my family overseas. So many light bulbs are going up. So many things I remember being told "it's not a big deal, get over it" that ARE a big deal and NO, I'M NOT GETTING OVER IT JUST LIKE THAT. So many lies I've been told, things I was made to believe, stories told differently or just pretended they never happened. I'm having a hard time talking to my Mom on the phone. If it goes beyond what the weather is like, it get's iffy for me. I communicate with the rest of them through Facebook and it's the same thing there. Exchanging recipes, family pictures, talk about the weather. I do not miss them. If I had to say it, I would have to lie. I don't want to be part of "that", I don't want to visit them. I do miss my home country, the food, the culture, just the way they do things over there but not my family. I believe that in order to know where I'm going and how to get there, I need to know where I came from. I can't fix something if I don't understand how it works and why and how I broke it. I need answers for myself and to myself and why I did what I did. To simply say I needed attention is not enough. It's like reading only the title of a book. You have to actually read the book to know what it is about even if the title sums it up. I know there is more and I might not ever get to the absolute end of it and close the book, but I have to try my best to get as far as I can and not just for my marriage but also for myself. I know I went about the wrong way in many things since D-day. I would like to say that I didn't do any of them intentionally. I never received the manual on how to make amends. It's trial and error, a constant learning process but so is life. I'm a firm believe that there is a positive to be taken away from any negative. It has never ever failed me. Even if my marriage would have ended in divorce and no matter what lies ahead for my husband and me, but the lessons I have learned …. I can't put a price on it. I wish very much my learning experience would not have been at my husband's and daughter's expense. I'm sorry I couldn't come up with more than 7 pages in Word :D but that's it. | |||
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