Sorry this is so long. We've been married for eight years, and have two children - five and six. For the last three years we've had problems. We've tried to work on them, but it is like we worked on them at different times. I hit a low spot in December, but got back on antidepressants. For the past 9 months, we've been doing well. Not 100%, but doing well. Sex wasn't regular, but it was happening and it was good. He travels constantly for work (and has to), and he's constantly in hotels with coworkers.
Part of our problems was his contact with a OW, who was a coworker. I wasn't happy with his contact with her, for the whole 3 years, but 2.5 years ago I got a missent text that broke me. It was ambiguous, but it was very flirty. Checking his text message history, they had texted hundred of times every month for months. We talked through it, he said nothing was happening, I begged him to go NC but he didn't. For a year, I kept bringing it up, but he kept doing it.
He was a man of character. If you told 100 people that knew us that there was infidelity in our marriage, they would all say it was me. It is so very unlike him. So I believed him. He looked me in the eye and I believed him.
Friday, I got an email from her husband. I called my husband. He was traveling but about to catch a plane home. I wasn't confronting him, I was just trying to figure out what was going on. The email also was ambiguous, and I sent back a 5 point email on why I thought the OW husband was wrong.
By this point my husband was on the plane. He emailed me (wifi in the sky) and asked what he should do. I said not to contact the woman and just let it play out. I get an email from the OW husband who quotes back parts of the conversation I had with my husband. He was watching the iMessage conversation between the two of them in real time. They were trying to hide everything.
I still wasn't convinced. I wait for him outside, and when he gets home he says things had gone too far but "Look me in the eye, I did not cheat on you."
We go through all the pain of Fri night and Sat morning. I tell him that he's a good father (he is), and we're holding it together talking rationally. I wasn't going to throw him out, and I told him that. But on Sat afternoon I ask him one last time, and I said if I ever found out he was lying, I would throw him out.
He took a deep breath and remorsefully told me the truth. He'd been sleeping with her on trips for two years. TWO YEARS. He wasn't sleeping with her when I got the text and he told me he wasn't, but it happened soon after. Maybe a hundred times. He would tell me good night and that he loved me, then go to her room and @&#$. He'd spend the night.
Oh the pain. I thought it was once or twice. I was all set to totally forgive. I can understand the sex and getting caught up. I can't understand looking me in the eye, coming home to me, all that crap for two years.
For the past three days he has apologized over and over. He's answered every question I've had. I can tell he's in pain. He's remorseful. He's being truthful (finally). He said it was never love, never talked about love, but I can't imagine how it couldn't have been.
When I ask why, he says he can't give me all the answers. He said he was trying to fill a void, but she never did and he doesn't know why he continued. He said she made it easy for him and was the aggressor (which I believe). This is not her first coworker A. She had the condoms the first time, and every time after that.
He wants to make it work, I want to make it work. He says it won't happen again and that he'll never so much as have a friendship with a woman. He felt he was above it all, that because of his character and religion it couldn't happen to him. But now he knows it can, and he will run away from everything that could lead him astray. He sent a NC letter, and I believe him. He had worked to make sure they were on the same trip for the last three days this week at her request (!!). He volunteered this information and called in sick. Turns out she called in sick too, but whatever.
I don't know what to do next. We talked about a vision of what we want our marriage to be. I believe if we had a marriage that was working, he would not of strayed. We also talked about how we were both responsible for the marriage problems, and how we could have done things differently, and how we can avoid them in the future. He takes 100% responsibility for the affair, and has never turned it back on me, but I know I bear 50% of the responsibility for our marriage troubles.
Can we move past this? Can we ever work this out? I feel like an idiot staying. I asked him what he would say about to his daughter if she was in this position, and he said he'd tell her to kick the dirtbag to the curb. I want to believe it can't happen again, but how can I believe anything when he could look me in the eye and lie? And I caught him! He didn't end it! That hurts too.
I haven't eaten a full meal in 4 days now. I've been absolutely sick in every way. This is just such a mess.
