Okay, I guess I need some help with this subject.  I have been married 10 years this year to my a, it has been rocky for the last 6, it all started when I got pregnant with my son, this freaked my husband out, for many reasons, he knew we were trying but when it happened he got angry, I think it reminded him too much of his biological father, it was like he was living his fathers life following every step.

Anyway his eye started to wander, I caught him the first time getting very close with another women when I was 3 weeks from giving birth to my son.  I was devistated but we talked it through and nothing serious had happened with her so we moved on.  I thought we had gotten to a better place but unfortunetly there seems to be no shortage of women willing to get with a married man.  Anyway he met up with a girl he knew from his childhood and it didn't take long for him to jump into an affair with her.  He was drinking before but it went from 6 beers a day to 30 a day during his affair, it lasted 2 1/2 years.  I can't believe the crap I put up with.  Now I realize that I should have stood up for me and left him.  I'm not saying we wouldn't have worked it out, but he lost all respect for me when I spend my days spying on him and begging and pleading.  I got physically sick. 

Then one night it all came to a head.  I always though it would be an easy decision, if he cheated he was gone.  Now I know it wasn't that easy.  When he didn't drink, he really seemed to focus on me, of course, now my confidence is shot and I question when or if he ever loved me.  Anyway May 28th last year I caught him again, in her trailer and it was the end of the road for me, I wanted him gone.  I left there is tears called my mother told her he was leaving me for this other women and her kids.  Long story short he got a DWI that night.  And I woke up, so to speak.  I didn't throw him out, although, I still question whether I should have, I just realized I was worth more.  I have riden a roller coaster ride for so long now it is hard to know what is right or wrong. 

He has lost his license now and is walking on very thin ice with me.  I am almost glad this affair happened as much as it still hurts me to think about it.  And believe me I still think about it.  I have seen a lot of growth in me and my a over the last 10 months.  As far as I know he has ended all contact with this other women, and I have given him responsiblility for himself.  I'm not his mother anymore, I'm his wife, and although our relationship isn't how it should be, I think I am slowly gaining on sanity.

I still get sucked back in though and some days it is so hard to forgive myself for allowing him to have an affair and stay with me.  I hope that I am making the right decisions but at this time I believe God will let me know if he needs to go.  I am very confused and have asked him to leave so many times, sometimes through the roughest times I have actually prayed that he cheat so I can have a in the face reason to kick him out.  But I find that when I am really serious about it something stops me.  I'm not sure if I am supposed to stay with him. 

I pray that all of this is a growing experience and that some day we will be the happiest couple out there.  I know that is probably delusional but it is what gets me through my day.  God put me here for some reason, and he keeps me here.  I know I have a lot to work on, I need to stop expecting my a to change and to change me.  Some days I do that better than others.  

I guess I was just wondering how others dealt with this situation????

Thanks Holly 

 

Well u rang some bells with me, been there done that .  Only u know what is right for you and what u can live with . Infidelety is common in A marriages , but still dosen't make it any easier what it happens.  I chose to ignore it and do nothing (big mistake)  just burried it real deep.

But i know now that I changed I withdrew and would not allow myself to love him the way a wife should, or the way a husband deserves. that affair affected me to the point where I compromised every moral and value I had just to stay in that marriage. And the sick part is that he didn't ask me to I just did it .

When I got into Al--Anon and working the steps the pain was so deep it took 3 yrs for me to feel secure enough to talk about it. My sponsor and I talked along time about my part in this mess. And my part was of course ignoring it. I had so little self esteem and self worth that i put up with unexceptable behavior. Not his fault .   To day I know that I would never let anyone treat me that way again.  My husb left our home many yrs later for 6 months  and when he returned he asked what I needed from him ,  sobriety of course was first. fidelety and loyalty were the other two. He replied I can do that. so we started over again.

I am not sorry that I  tried again to save this marriage. But i would never ever put up with that behavior again.  today I deserve better and I know it.

Thanks Abby,

  I so appreciate your response.  Thanks for your experience, it give me hope that I may be on the right track.

Holly

Hi Holly,

I too have been through my spouse having an affair.  When I first found out about it, after we had been married for 8 years, I was so devasted.  This was prior to my attending al-anon and prior to my wife (my a) getting into recovery.

I too had always said that if my spouse ever cheated on me that would be it!  No way would I put up with that level of betrayal.  Well....when it happened for real, I couldn't do it.  I couldn't end the marriage.  I still loved her so much.  But more importantly, I dont think  I really believed that it was not somehow my fault that she had felt the need to have an affair.  In one of the most self depreciating moments of my life, I actually apologized to her for having been such a person that she needed to seek out another man. 

So we stayed together, and about a year later she found aa, and began to get sober.  I felt like the sun had finally risen and that life was now going to be perfect.  And for a while it seemed like is was going to be.  I forgave her for her past transgressions.  Blamed it on the alcohol and on myself....now things were gonna be good.

But, some while later, she dropped the bomb on me that she was thinking that we should seperate.  About this time I started attending al-anon meetings.  And started my own path to recovery.  About 9 months after I joined,,,my wife moved out and 3 months later we were divorced. 

Once again I was devasted by all this...but al-anon kept me sane.  And moreover, al-anon has allowed me to come into contact with my HP, whom I choose to call God.  And through this contact I have come to realize many things about my self and the life I had with my wife.  First and foremost I have discovered that I really didnt like or respect myself on many levels.  I was ashamed of so many of the things that I allowed to go on around me, just to keep in a relationship that I thought I could never live without.  I learned about denial.  And that I had been living in a world filled with fear and resentment.  That I lied to myself daily, that everything was going to be okay.  That someday my wife was going to "grow up" and be the woman I wanted her to be.

Al-anon has taught me how to respect myself again.  Why I would even say that I like me for maybe the first time in my life.  I now know that my happiness can come only from within me.  That I cannot and will not rely on others to make me happy or to make my life complete.  After all, If we dont like and respect ourselves, why should anyone else.

I will never again (knock on wood) quietly accept unacceptable behavior.  Unacceptable by my HP's standards as interpreted by me.  We are all beautiful children of God, and we deserve to be treated as such, and to treat others as such as well!

I don't know if I have really answered your question as to how I dealt with the affair situation, Holly  .  But in summary, I think I had to wait for my HP to resolve the situation and take my relationship where He wanted it to go, because it was beyond me to take action, I just didnt know what was the right thing to do.  He took care of it in His way and in His time. 

Yours in recovery,

David62     

Holly, I think you are doing the right thing for you, and you have to really be focused on your relationship with your HP and start taking care of YOU.  I know that when I look back on what I put up with in regard to my A--we went together for four years before we were married--I should have ended it way back when...but I didn't.  I told my A I would leave if he were ever abusive.  I am not certain I would have left if he had an affair because of my children and the fact that I loved him...I don't think you should ever feel less a person because you have decided that it might still work out.  Work on you.  I don't think my A can bring me happiness...just peace of mind...which, in turn, makes me happy.  Since he is actively drinking, I don't have the peace of mind I have when he is not...I find my peace in my readings and connection to my HP.  So continue to work on YOU.  Have a plan for YOU in case it doesn't work out with your husband--YOU will know what is right for you.  My only wish is that I should have taken care of ME much earlier in my life.  When I fell I love, I lost sight of me.  Love and prayers, Annie

Hi, My life has been a bit like yours, my husband has affairs and like you they started when I was pregnant with our first child.  I just tried to bury it , and believe his lies because to admit that I knew he was lying was just to painful.  I blamed the other women , and this went on for 12 years.  Eventually I sought of guessed he was seeing someone again, but didnt again want to admit it to myself.  He became withdrawn and I asked him what was wrong, he said he just didnt love me anymore, but would stay for the sake of the kids.  I then went through a couple weeks of hell and eventually had to tell him to leave.  He initially said there was no one else, but it turned out there was, he eventually moved in with her and I divorced him.  Partly because I thought it might make him come back.  But it didnt.  I had absolutely no self esteem left after this, I hated the other women , hated myself, but strangely didnt really blame him or hate him.  Mostly i hated myself i think.  Three years have now passed, he split up with this other other at Christmas , and you can see my other postings had been leaning on me for a time.  In those three years, i so wanted him to come back. But i got on with my life, learned to like myself again, felt good , looked good.  But still i have this part of me that needs him to love me and tell me he made a mistake.  I think i am just a hopeless corse.  I am now desperately trying to move on from this.  I dont want to waste any more of my life like this.  I deserve better, and so do you.

 

My prayers are with all of you.  What a trying time and more decisions to make.  Please give matters of the heart a long time to heal, this can be more complex than just the affair.  Lots of other related issues, trust, abandonment to name a couple.  It is not required that you forget, but it is healthy to forgive.

josey