Well, much like my wife, a week ago I would have never thought that I would be on this website. But here I am...searching for answers, help and insight into what could have made me do the things that I did. I have no idea where to start and no idea what I will find, if anything.
Last week, my wife found out about my five years of cheating. There were multiple affair, one with one person lasting over two years. There was even experimentation with another guy. I In between the affairs, I would behave for a bit, but the urge to seek excitement and the need to want to be desired and lusted after became too much, and so I began to look again.
In every other aspect of my life, I am a responsible, dependable and very rational person. Sometimes, almost too much so. Yet here I was, creating secret email accounts and living this secret life to carry on my affairs. It was so out of context and character for me, yet I continued...destroying a small part of my soul every single time.
It has been about five days since DDay, and as I'm sure everybody here has experienced, there has been a roller coaster of emotions and thoughts. My wife has been on the site since last week and has found the support and comments here very helpful and I am hoping to find the same. She has told me about the trickle effect of withholding information, and I was guilty of that. And even though I have confessed, she is still waiting for another bombshell to drop. I guess I can't blame her for feeling that way as she has no right to trust anything that I say right now.
We have already had our first counseling session with more already booked. Throughout all of this, I have started to realize that there are some serious issues within myself that need to be addressed as well, and individual therapy is something that I am also open to as well.
Not just with my wife and in my marriage, but in my life, I have been unhappy for a very long time. So long in fact, that I can't even really remember a time when I wasn't. Having 12 years of marriage and a wonderful life together threatened to be pulled away from me in an instant sure as hell is eye opening to want to get me to change. To get help. To make myself a better and happier person for myself, my wife, my marriage and all the other people in my life. The crazy thing about all of this is, that over the weekend, my wife and I talked more open and honestly about ourselves, our marriage and what we want and/or missing than in the last 12 years combined. I've learned things about her yesterday that I never knew about her! And vice versa. And it felt good to be like that. Really good. It was almost like we were just meeting again for the first time and were learning about each other.
I love my wife, and always have. I'll be the first to admit, that I have not been the best at showing it. That I've taken her for granted on so many levels. And my challenge now is to prove it to her again so that we can have a chance of moving ahead together. I have to make her fall in love with me all over again. Winning back her trust and her heart is going to be the hardest, most painful thing that I've ever had to do. But if the openness and honesty that we shared with each other yesterday is even a slice of what we can have in the future, then I will do everything that I can possibly do to win her heart back.
I'm new here, so please, any comments or thoughts would be much appreciated.
