I am sorry this is so long, writing it out has actually helped slightly.
Before the affair, our 28 year marriage had many ups and many downs. We were married young, and so made many mistakes (no known affairs).
But for the last 10 years, I had naively believed it was more up than down. We were fortunate enough from my prior job that neither of us really needed to work financially. My wife chose to work because she liked what she did for a living (RN) and it provided benefits. I was a stay at home dad for our two youngest (now 9 & 11). Two years ago, my former business partner asked if I’d start a new law firm with him. My wife and I talked about it, we hoped that it wouldn’t take too much time from us, but we agreed that it was a good idea. We both knew the danger of the time it would consume. Business aside, it wasn’t a good idea for our marriage. The workload is relatively heavy and because I own the place, I brought home a cloud of problems from work each day. Our marriage was in a rut, and I was at least half responsible for it.
Several weeks ago, I discover a text message that was suggestive of an intimate relationship, but was addressed from someone who used to be a (female) co-worker of my wife. It was on the phone front page, so she hadn’t deleted it yet. Hours later it was gone from her phone. More texts came from the same number and she quickly read them and deleted them in front of me. For a week, I went through every imaginable possibility.
In the end, I confronted her, and she stuck with the story that it was a girlfriend from work, how dare I?
I felt guilty for not trusting her, and tried to calm down. That night, for first time in weeks, she suggested sex. It was worst ever, which, given the state of the rut and boredom we were in, was saying something. 24 miserable hours later, I was emotionally certain sure she was lying.
I pulled the cell phone and data records and was shocked. 40% of her call time was with that same number--4-8 hours of phone minutes per month, dating back for over a year. Worse, there was a 40 min call to that number shortly after I previously confronted her. Now knowing these details, I again confronted her. Story changed to it was harmless flirting, though this time there was no outrage at the suggestion. But she assured me that there was nothing more, and she again promised all contact would stop.
45 minutes later, she then called him again from our home phone, thinking that I wouldn’t have ability to look at that. I also at that point sent my own text message to him, asking if he’d like to talk about the nature of his relationship with my wife. Later, I used a friend to help discover his identity – because she said it would do nothing for me to know and she wasn’t going to tell me who it was.
When I pressed her on the issue of the phone call, she refused to talk to me about it. While I was too upset to recognize it at the time our kids were in the car with her, and she didn’t want to talk about it in front of them. When I kept pressing on whether she’d made the call that I knew she had, she told me “enough! I’ve told you everything!” and hung up on me. I immediately texted her saying if we couldn’t talk, I have to talk to his wife. She didn’t reply to my text. So I made good on my bluff. OP’s wife’s phone went to voicemail, I left a message saying I had something personal and hard to talk with her about. I was cornered and afraid, thinking that this was the only way things would stop.
That afternoon, my wife confessed to the affair. It took several days to get many of the details, including (over the next few days) correcting a few lies about some of the confessions. In short, the details were devastating.
The affair had been going on for 11 months, 2 visits per week with multiple sex sessions on many of those times. It happened, inter alia, in our bedroom, our spare, our couches, his bedroom(s?), a least one of the cars. So many times they had long ago lost count. It was all unprotected, but that was ok because he said it was ok. I asked for the brutal details and got some. She told me that the sex was better than ours because of a number of issues, including his size, his fitness and that he cared more. Other details she doesn’t want to tell me, because they are too trivial in her mind, or (/fear) they are even more devastating. She is angry if I ask for them. I am angry when she tells me some of them, though I try.
The day after I learned the first details, OP’s wife called me back and I told her that her husband and my wife had been having an affair for nearly a year. My wife is furious at me for that call – she is worried for their family. OP’s wife claims that she couldn’t be more grateful, and disclosed some very large details about affair that my wife had omitted, even when I asked. She has called me a few times, but now seems disappointed that I appear to be giving my wife a shot at reconciliation.
My wife tells me that she doesn’t want to continue the affair and that she is deeply sorry and wants to rebuild. Many times I believe this. There are times when the talks get heated that the state of our marriage at the time the affair started is brought up. I don’t like being blamed, but our marriage clearly needed work, and I needed to be a part of that work.
From the day I confronted her about the text message until almost today, I had consistently said that if she stopped talking with him or seeing him, and if she was fully honest with me, I’d be willing to work on things. Except for perhaps yesterday, each day, she has broken one or both of those promises in one way or another. I don’t think she was dishonest yesterday, and I don’t think she had contact with him. Today, she asked permission to meet with him in private to end it formally – for closure. The fact that she asked me instead of just meeting him was encouraging. She told me she didn’t want to break up by note, and that in person was best way. I offered to accompany her, and she said no. I went back and forth, but ultimately told her that if she needed more private time with him, she’d have to lie to me about it, and that if we ever built a new foundation for this relationship, the first building block was then going to be based on a lie. She said she wouldn’t contact him then.
She asked if she could call him while I was on the phone. I said yes, as long as it is short and direct. She said great, she’ll text him to let him know the call was incoming. I agreed, and she agreed to save the text message.
I’m terrified to discover what’s next…
I don’t know if I’m just being insanely jealous and pushing too hard on details. It has been less than a week since the affair was exposed. Maybe it is all too soon, but it feels like I can’t get into it enough.
I also don’t know if I am overblowing the idea of no private closure with her affair partner.
The range of emotions are pretty spectacular, worse than anything I have ever experienced or imagined.
Help.
