Hi,
I registered here because I'm not sure what to do and where to go with my life and marriage.
English is not my first language so I apologize for any spelling mistakes in advance.
I've been together with my wife for 9 years, married for 5 - through all this time I think we were each other's best friend as well.
We have a 3 year old girl who we both adore.
We haven't ever really argued for more than a few minutes but through the years our affection has kind of cooled. Especially so, after our daughter was born as she kind of "took" some of love we shared for each other. From the start our love was not as much passion as it was sweetness (I sometimes wondered if it's supposed to be like that, but my past relationships were similar) and that sweetness just slowly dwindled as we got focused on our jobs, day to day problems and our daughter. My wife is quite focused on her career and that might be a small part of the problem but I've made many mistakes as well. I am aware that I took her for granted for a long time, I didn't try that much even when I noticed that we have some problems and I must admit for a long time I've been complaining to her about small things daily, which I'm sure didn't help our relationship.
A few months ago we had a talk (it was New year's eve I think) on which I insisted and analyzed our relationship a bit. We agreed there are some problems – her devoting a bit too much of her attention to her job and sometimes not enough to our daughter and me, and me constantly complaining about many things she does as I was on edge because of that general situation. We both agreed to "work on it" and I can say it did help a bit, last 2 months were "better" but still not nearly filled with affection as the start of our relationship or our marriage.
For the past few days she has grown particularly distant, I could sense something is "more wrong" and I asked her to tell me what it is. She said it's the usual "she's tired", it's PMS and not to worry, I told her that I sense it's more and that we will have problems if she didn't open up.
Yesterday she left her mail account logged in on my computer. We have a pretty trusting and open relationship and I wouldn't normally check her mail (it was normal before for her to ask me to log into her mail to check something and vice versa, I knew her password and she knew mine but I haven't ever used it to check her mail without her knowing) but as her behavior was so strange I did check it. And then I saw the texts she forwarded from her mobile…. It wasn't sexual but for me the first few sentences were worse, it was a conversation with a colleague she was obviously more than flirting with. He lives in a city where she has to occasionally go for work. It was sweet and full of love, reminded me a lot of our first skype conversations back in university. At first I couldn't breathe, but I got my bearings rather quickly and I kind of handled it well, I think…
After we put our daughter to sleep I first asked her to promise me that no matter what we would put the interest of our baby girl first and that she will always need both of us. She agreed and then I told her I read the mail. She immediately started crying and we spent the next few hours talking. To cut the long story short (less long I guess), it's been going on for a month, I'm not sure if she knows if she likes him / loves him or what. I'm aware that we are both to blame for the situation as I don't believe this would of happened had we not grown colder through the years. I kept it pretty cool for the most part and ended up consoling my wife as she cried and cried. We went to bed separately but I couldn't sleep, after about 5 hours of lying in bed thinking, I broke up and cried, I mean I sobbed like a little girl. My wife then came to me, we hugged and consoled each other and fell asleep like that. Strange, but as I said we're each other's best friend as well.
My main question now is not a simple one – what to do?
What is the "best" thing we can do for our daughter – this is by far the most important thing for me (and my wife)?
I guess - first things first – my wife needs to see what she wants, she kept saying she still loves me last night, and I do love her, but this new relationship she started must surely be much sweeter for her – at least for now. I told her to take as much time as she needs to figure out what she wants…
So there are two paths – one, she decides that she'll end the "affair" and we try to make our marriage work again. I think if this is the case we would need to try to work harder, not take each other for granted (sounds like empty words but don't know how to describe it better) and maybe we can see this as a shock therapy. I'm not sure however that even if this happens, will I be able to do it, would it eat me out for years, how do you put something like that behind you?
The other path is, well we eventually separate, divorce, one of us moves out – the works. In this situation, as we're both good parents, love our daughter and we don't hate each other, I believe we would make something work like us living in separate apartments but in the same neighborhood so we can both be as much as possible with our daughter. I can picture this working, but when I think of my little baby girl going to sleep even one night without me there to read her a story and kiss her, I tear up (I'm actually telling people my allergies are up as I'm writing this at work). Just how do you explain stuff like this to a three year old? My parents live relatively far and I can also not picture me taking my daughter without her mother for the summer vacations to her grandparents' house.
Even though my wife did the cheating, I feel like I betrayed my daughter by allowing my marriage to come to this state.
Anyway, any advice is appreciated.
I needed to put this in writing, sorry for the wall of text.
I registered here because I'm not sure what to do and where to go with my life and marriage.
English is not my first language so I apologize for any spelling mistakes in advance.
I've been together with my wife for 9 years, married for 5 - through all this time I think we were each other's best friend as well.
We have a 3 year old girl who we both adore.
We haven't ever really argued for more than a few minutes but through the years our affection has kind of cooled. Especially so, after our daughter was born as she kind of "took" some of love we shared for each other. From the start our love was not as much passion as it was sweetness (I sometimes wondered if it's supposed to be like that, but my past relationships were similar) and that sweetness just slowly dwindled as we got focused on our jobs, day to day problems and our daughter. My wife is quite focused on her career and that might be a small part of the problem but I've made many mistakes as well. I am aware that I took her for granted for a long time, I didn't try that much even when I noticed that we have some problems and I must admit for a long time I've been complaining to her about small things daily, which I'm sure didn't help our relationship.
A few months ago we had a talk (it was New year's eve I think) on which I insisted and analyzed our relationship a bit. We agreed there are some problems – her devoting a bit too much of her attention to her job and sometimes not enough to our daughter and me, and me constantly complaining about many things she does as I was on edge because of that general situation. We both agreed to "work on it" and I can say it did help a bit, last 2 months were "better" but still not nearly filled with affection as the start of our relationship or our marriage.
For the past few days she has grown particularly distant, I could sense something is "more wrong" and I asked her to tell me what it is. She said it's the usual "she's tired", it's PMS and not to worry, I told her that I sense it's more and that we will have problems if she didn't open up.
Yesterday she left her mail account logged in on my computer. We have a pretty trusting and open relationship and I wouldn't normally check her mail (it was normal before for her to ask me to log into her mail to check something and vice versa, I knew her password and she knew mine but I haven't ever used it to check her mail without her knowing) but as her behavior was so strange I did check it. And then I saw the texts she forwarded from her mobile…. It wasn't sexual but for me the first few sentences were worse, it was a conversation with a colleague she was obviously more than flirting with. He lives in a city where she has to occasionally go for work. It was sweet and full of love, reminded me a lot of our first skype conversations back in university. At first I couldn't breathe, but I got my bearings rather quickly and I kind of handled it well, I think…
After we put our daughter to sleep I first asked her to promise me that no matter what we would put the interest of our baby girl first and that she will always need both of us. She agreed and then I told her I read the mail. She immediately started crying and we spent the next few hours talking. To cut the long story short (less long I guess), it's been going on for a month, I'm not sure if she knows if she likes him / loves him or what. I'm aware that we are both to blame for the situation as I don't believe this would of happened had we not grown colder through the years. I kept it pretty cool for the most part and ended up consoling my wife as she cried and cried. We went to bed separately but I couldn't sleep, after about 5 hours of lying in bed thinking, I broke up and cried, I mean I sobbed like a little girl. My wife then came to me, we hugged and consoled each other and fell asleep like that. Strange, but as I said we're each other's best friend as well.
My main question now is not a simple one – what to do?
What is the "best" thing we can do for our daughter – this is by far the most important thing for me (and my wife)?
I guess - first things first – my wife needs to see what she wants, she kept saying she still loves me last night, and I do love her, but this new relationship she started must surely be much sweeter for her – at least for now. I told her to take as much time as she needs to figure out what she wants…
So there are two paths – one, she decides that she'll end the "affair" and we try to make our marriage work again. I think if this is the case we would need to try to work harder, not take each other for granted (sounds like empty words but don't know how to describe it better) and maybe we can see this as a shock therapy. I'm not sure however that even if this happens, will I be able to do it, would it eat me out for years, how do you put something like that behind you?
The other path is, well we eventually separate, divorce, one of us moves out – the works. In this situation, as we're both good parents, love our daughter and we don't hate each other, I believe we would make something work like us living in separate apartments but in the same neighborhood so we can both be as much as possible with our daughter. I can picture this working, but when I think of my little baby girl going to sleep even one night without me there to read her a story and kiss her, I tear up (I'm actually telling people my allergies are up as I'm writing this at work). Just how do you explain stuff like this to a three year old? My parents live relatively far and I can also not picture me taking my daughter without her mother for the summer vacations to her grandparents' house.
Even though my wife did the cheating, I feel like I betrayed my daughter by allowing my marriage to come to this state.
Anyway, any advice is appreciated.
I needed to put this in writing, sorry for the wall of text.
Put the internet to work for you.
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