This will be my first time posting, even though I have been reading on here for quite some time. Here is a little background before I get to the questions I have for you guys. My wife and I have been married for 12 years, and have 4 kids. We met and married right out of high school, and were each other's first loves. My wife growing up, was a straight laced girl, and could be considered a goody goody. She always got super good grades, and was very responsible. Because of this, I have always believed and trusted everything she says. I could not even imagine her lying to me. She has the type of personality, that she is not afraid to tell you exactly what she is thinking. She can be very blunt, which is one of the things I have always admired about her. I have always trusted her for that reason.
Well, a couple years after getting married, she got a part time job at a telemarketing place, and not long after starting there, she said there was a guy there that kept giving her all these compliments, and telling her how gorgeous she is. I told her that he was no good, and she should avoid him at all cost. Well, a few weeks after this, she is late getting home from work, and her work is only a couple miles away from our home, so I decided to drive over there to make sure her car is there. This was before we had cell phones, and I had no way to get ahold of her at work. Anyway, I pull into the parking lot, and park by her car. After about 30 minutes, she comes pulling into the parking lot in the passenger side of the guys car that she told me was paying her compliments. There was another girl with them in the back seat, and the look on her face was total shock. So she proceeds to tell me every excuse in the book. She said they ran out of work, and there boss let them off early, and that guy and the other girl invited her to go get something to eat. She said it was completely innocent, and she didn't think I would get that upset. So she tells me that she won't talk to the guy anymore, and a month or so later, I find out that she was meeting him at a grocery store parking lot, and he would get in her car, and they would talk. She said this happened twice, and that nothing physical happened. Anyway, this was a huge blow to me. I felt unwanted and worthless as a husband. I just couldn't believe that my wife thought this would be okay to do. She said she trusted herself, that nothing would happen, and didn't think it was that big of a deal. She ended up getting another job, and I never heard anything about that guy again. This was over ten years ago, and we moved on, and I chalked it up as a mistake, and a moment of weakness on her part. At the time we had 1 daughter, and now we have 3 more kids.
So, fast forward to summer of 2014. I felt like something was off in our marriage, and was feeling lonely, even when I was with my wife. I started to get suspicious, and decided to check our phone bill. I get on our account, and there is a particular number that is showing up on there all the time that I don't recognize. Alarm bells are going off in my head at this point, and I think to myself, maybe it is one of her female coworkers. So I decide to call the number to see who answers. I call, and a man answers, and my heart sinks. I told the guy that I had the wrong number, and then called my wife and demanded to know who's number that was. She said it was a guy she worked with, and that he is "Just a friend". I started digging through the history, and there was over 1,000 texts between them over a 2 month period. Of course she had been deleting all of the texts.
I was devastated. Mostly over the deceitfulness, and the hiding stuff from me. It brought back the rush of memories from the incident over ten year ago, only times ten. So, after some craftiness on my part, telling her that I bought some software that could read her last 5,000 texts, and that she had one last chance to come clean before I read everything that was said. She starts telling me all the details, and I really feel like she told me everything she could. I will never believe that I know everything, but because of certain things she said, and the timeline, I was sure that it didn't get physical. From some of the last conversations they had, it was very close to becoming such, as he was making his intentions clear.
So after this discovery, my wife was very remorseful, and said how sorry she was, and that she didn't think it was a big deal, and that she didn't mean to hurt me. I was so angry the first day, that I came home and was looking up divorce attorneys. She begged and pleaded for me to give her another chance, and after a few days, I told her that I would be willing to try again, but only under new conditions. I told her that she had to change jobs, so she wasn't working directly with him, which she did. She now works in a completely different building, although it is the same company. She has not even seen him for the last 8 months, so I am very certain the EA is completely over.
So this brings me to my actual questions. In the wake of what's happened, how do I move forward? I can never fully trust her again, and I will always have this feeling that she wants someone else. I can't stop thinking about the affair. I think about it every day. How do I get to a place where I feel safe again? It just feels like the foundation of our marriage is cracked and crumbling, and I am trying to figure out how to rebuild it, or at least repair it. She is frustrated with me, because she thinks I should be over it by now. One of the things that still kills me, is if I ever bring it up, she will say "It wasn't a big deal, and he was just a friend". I told her I can't stand it when she says he was just a friend. She says I have just blown everything way out of proportion, and what she did is not that big of a deal. So do you guys think I am crazy? Would you be upset in my circumstance?
Well, a couple years after getting married, she got a part time job at a telemarketing place, and not long after starting there, she said there was a guy there that kept giving her all these compliments, and telling her how gorgeous she is. I told her that he was no good, and she should avoid him at all cost. Well, a few weeks after this, she is late getting home from work, and her work is only a couple miles away from our home, so I decided to drive over there to make sure her car is there. This was before we had cell phones, and I had no way to get ahold of her at work. Anyway, I pull into the parking lot, and park by her car. After about 30 minutes, she comes pulling into the parking lot in the passenger side of the guys car that she told me was paying her compliments. There was another girl with them in the back seat, and the look on her face was total shock. So she proceeds to tell me every excuse in the book. She said they ran out of work, and there boss let them off early, and that guy and the other girl invited her to go get something to eat. She said it was completely innocent, and she didn't think I would get that upset. So she tells me that she won't talk to the guy anymore, and a month or so later, I find out that she was meeting him at a grocery store parking lot, and he would get in her car, and they would talk. She said this happened twice, and that nothing physical happened. Anyway, this was a huge blow to me. I felt unwanted and worthless as a husband. I just couldn't believe that my wife thought this would be okay to do. She said she trusted herself, that nothing would happen, and didn't think it was that big of a deal. She ended up getting another job, and I never heard anything about that guy again. This was over ten years ago, and we moved on, and I chalked it up as a mistake, and a moment of weakness on her part. At the time we had 1 daughter, and now we have 3 more kids.
So, fast forward to summer of 2014. I felt like something was off in our marriage, and was feeling lonely, even when I was with my wife. I started to get suspicious, and decided to check our phone bill. I get on our account, and there is a particular number that is showing up on there all the time that I don't recognize. Alarm bells are going off in my head at this point, and I think to myself, maybe it is one of her female coworkers. So I decide to call the number to see who answers. I call, and a man answers, and my heart sinks. I told the guy that I had the wrong number, and then called my wife and demanded to know who's number that was. She said it was a guy she worked with, and that he is "Just a friend". I started digging through the history, and there was over 1,000 texts between them over a 2 month period. Of course she had been deleting all of the texts.
I was devastated. Mostly over the deceitfulness, and the hiding stuff from me. It brought back the rush of memories from the incident over ten year ago, only times ten. So, after some craftiness on my part, telling her that I bought some software that could read her last 5,000 texts, and that she had one last chance to come clean before I read everything that was said. She starts telling me all the details, and I really feel like she told me everything she could. I will never believe that I know everything, but because of certain things she said, and the timeline, I was sure that it didn't get physical. From some of the last conversations they had, it was very close to becoming such, as he was making his intentions clear.
So after this discovery, my wife was very remorseful, and said how sorry she was, and that she didn't think it was a big deal, and that she didn't mean to hurt me. I was so angry the first day, that I came home and was looking up divorce attorneys. She begged and pleaded for me to give her another chance, and after a few days, I told her that I would be willing to try again, but only under new conditions. I told her that she had to change jobs, so she wasn't working directly with him, which she did. She now works in a completely different building, although it is the same company. She has not even seen him for the last 8 months, so I am very certain the EA is completely over.
So this brings me to my actual questions. In the wake of what's happened, how do I move forward? I can never fully trust her again, and I will always have this feeling that she wants someone else. I can't stop thinking about the affair. I think about it every day. How do I get to a place where I feel safe again? It just feels like the foundation of our marriage is cracked and crumbling, and I am trying to figure out how to rebuild it, or at least repair it. She is frustrated with me, because she thinks I should be over it by now. One of the things that still kills me, is if I ever bring it up, she will say "It wasn't a big deal, and he was just a friend". I told her I can't stand it when she says he was just a friend. She says I have just blown everything way out of proportion, and what she did is not that big of a deal. So do you guys think I am crazy? Would you be upset in my circumstance?
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