Background: Married for 19 yrs, both had affairs during multiple military deployments after 9/11. Both agreed to no contact rule. That was over 10 yrs ago. Doing great for now.
I ran into 2 old GFs from before the marriage. One at the grocery store, the other at the work office. Told the wife about it. Made a joke that they both gained 100 pounds since the last time I saw them 20+ years ago. She laughed and seemed OK with it.
Started a conversation about which of her old BFs that she might run into back in our new/old hometown. At first she spoke of guys from before marriage that I barely remember. Then the subject turned to the 2 guys she had affairs with during the marriage, 1 emotional and 1 physical/emotional, both co-workers.
She felt the need to tell me a lot more details than previously mentioned about the physical/emotional guy, i.e. length of affair (from "a few months" to "3 full years"), seriousness of actions ("just messing around" to "we were planning to run away together"), places of sexual rendezvous (from "bar parking lots or cars" to "he would come over to our house everyday at lunch plus at least 1 night every weekend, and weird places like cemeteries and parks", sexual performance "he had a lot of stamina to keep things steamy with both me and his wife", and other things that she had never mentioned before or downplayed. She also confirmed that the affairs continued even after I returned from deployments (I was home for about 6 months over a 3 year period). I also discovered that the reason she lost her job at the time was not from having a "devil wears Prada" angry boss but from the affairs with the 2 guys in the office. Apparently the boss made it public and announced to everyone i n the office the reason for the firing. Emotional guy moved away to take a job elsewhere and physical/emotional guy was fired about a month later for the same reason and with it being made public.
I thought I would be OK with it now after 10 years but it triggered some negative feelings, especially about being in our house (we had a young son at the time), the length of the affair and the plans to leave me. I thought the other guy (physical/emotional) was just a drunk idiot older work friend who was taking advantage of a situation and manipulating my wife but seems it was mutual or worse. He was/is married and my wife stated she informed the other wife of the affair at the end.
She also talked about how great the guy was that she had the emotional affair with. She ended by saying reluctantly that if something happened to me (like death), she would seek out the other guy to remarry (he does not live anywhere near us). He is younger and never married but supposedly kept it in his pants even when she offered "it" up for him numerous times. Maybe he's gay. I am not so worried about him.
I know by reading this site that triggers are normal and after 3 days it has subsided somewhat. I had the most common visual of thinking of her having sex with the other guy at the cemetery and other places and not being able to get that vision out of my head.
Since the physical/emotional guy lives in the same town as us, I am considering reinforcing the no contact rule and reengaging my monitoring of her communications. He is not aware that she is back in town as far as I know, and the only way he would find out is if she made it happen (this is a large city).
Gotta go to bed, more to follow..
I ran into 2 old GFs from before the marriage. One at the grocery store, the other at the work office. Told the wife about it. Made a joke that they both gained 100 pounds since the last time I saw them 20+ years ago. She laughed and seemed OK with it.
Started a conversation about which of her old BFs that she might run into back in our new/old hometown. At first she spoke of guys from before marriage that I barely remember. Then the subject turned to the 2 guys she had affairs with during the marriage, 1 emotional and 1 physical/emotional, both co-workers.
She felt the need to tell me a lot more details than previously mentioned about the physical/emotional guy, i.e. length of affair (from "a few months" to "3 full years"), seriousness of actions ("just messing around" to "we were planning to run away together"), places of sexual rendezvous (from "bar parking lots or cars" to "he would come over to our house everyday at lunch plus at least 1 night every weekend, and weird places like cemeteries and parks", sexual performance "he had a lot of stamina to keep things steamy with both me and his wife", and other things that she had never mentioned before or downplayed. She also confirmed that the affairs continued even after I returned from deployments (I was home for about 6 months over a 3 year period). I also discovered that the reason she lost her job at the time was not from having a "devil wears Prada" angry boss but from the affairs with the 2 guys in the office. Apparently the boss made it public and announced to everyone i n the office the reason for the firing. Emotional guy moved away to take a job elsewhere and physical/emotional guy was fired about a month later for the same reason and with it being made public.
I thought I would be OK with it now after 10 years but it triggered some negative feelings, especially about being in our house (we had a young son at the time), the length of the affair and the plans to leave me. I thought the other guy (physical/emotional) was just a drunk idiot older work friend who was taking advantage of a situation and manipulating my wife but seems it was mutual or worse. He was/is married and my wife stated she informed the other wife of the affair at the end.
She also talked about how great the guy was that she had the emotional affair with. She ended by saying reluctantly that if something happened to me (like death), she would seek out the other guy to remarry (he does not live anywhere near us). He is younger and never married but supposedly kept it in his pants even when she offered "it" up for him numerous times. Maybe he's gay. I am not so worried about him.
I know by reading this site that triggers are normal and after 3 days it has subsided somewhat. I had the most common visual of thinking of her having sex with the other guy at the cemetery and other places and not being able to get that vision out of my head.
Since the physical/emotional guy lives in the same town as us, I am considering reinforcing the no contact rule and reengaging my monitoring of her communications. He is not aware that she is back in town as far as I know, and the only way he would find out is if she made it happen (this is a large city).
Gotta go to bed, more to follow..
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