Hello fellow members of the worst club ever.
I'm baaaack. Wasn't sure whether to post in JFO or Reconciliation, but here I am.
I joined SI in 2010 (year 19 of marriage) after discovering my H had had two brief physical affairs with "friends" in our small church. The two affairs went from late 2008 thru summer of 2009. First one, then the other.
The Reconciliation process was long and hard. I practically lived here on SI for several years. Eventually it felt like we'd made it through. I thought we were healed (and maybe *we* were,) but then last fall on November 30, 2025 I saw a text my H had sent to a random number that said, "Making you happy makes me happy."
馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶馃槶
That day was like I had time traveled back to DD#1 (July 19, 2009). H denied any wrong doing while painting me as unhinged and reaching.(Gaslighting!!) Our two youngest children were home that weekend (ages 20 & 22). They became involved in the discovery and rallied for their dad's innocence... said I was overreacting. (They know about the previous infidelity and wanted to believe their dad so badly.)
After a couple of traumatizing days, H came home from work with his A game. He continued to (try to) assure me that "nothing" was happening with him and the person he'd texted and said that he wanted to show me that I am his one and only. We went out to eat, the movies and had other date nights more in the month of December than we did for the other 11 months combined.
He was so attentive and begged me to believe we were ok. But my heart knew something was not right.
On the morning of December 31st, 2025 I connected his work phone to our computer and told him that I'd gained access to all his deleted texts. (H is not tech savvy and this was a total bluff.) I told him I'd be receiving a report that day. Later that morning I called him at work and he confessed to a 10 month emotional affair with a young coworker. (He was 60, she was 37.)
We are right at 6 months from DD#3.馃槶馃槶馃槶
The details of the affair (that I have been given) are that she was going thru a bad divorce and it started with him giving her "fatherly" advice. 馃槱 Then she began asking him for money. Supposedly because the estranged husband had cut her and her two young daughters off. He claims he was never alone with her, never saw her outside of their work space. The relationship was strictly by phone and the occasional money hand off (always cash) in the halls of their building. Says he never touched and even says that he never desired to touch her. (He also said she wore tight clothing and her figure reminded him of me when we met. 馃) Says he was there only for the validation of "helping" her.(We determined in 2009 that H had KISA syndrome & a Savior complex!)
So yes, of course he was getting the ego strokes, thrill from secrecy and the high from being picked by a much younger woman.
He says his last (private) contact with her (phone call) was the first week of December. After his confession I had called her to inquire about the relationship. She phoned him that day and asked him to tell me to stop calling her. (I had phoned her once on Nov. 30 also.)
A few days later he says he called her "to see where her head was at." Their final contact was the second weekend in January when I had him call her in my presence to officially tell her it was over. After he said his bit, he handed the phone to me and I told her the gig was up and to keep it moving.
We immediately went back to therapy. H has been diagnosed with NPD (covert/vulnerable).
The first few months of this year I was in so much pain I thought I might die. Therapy hasn't been all that great for me. I've found more help from online resources from YouTube. H is doing the work, says he's "never stopped loving" me, but I feel shell shocked that we are here again.
He says altho he knew it was wrong to have a secret relationship, he didnt think it was an affair since there was no physical involvement.
I heard somewhere that emotional affairs are just physical affairs that haven't become physical yet. And that in emotional affairs people are building a house they haven't moved into yet. I know it was a physical affair just waiting to happen. Then there is the forever uncertainty if he's actually, finally even told me the truth. (He knows I will be gone if he crosses that line again.)
We'll have 36 years of marriage this summer. It's crazy the new things I've learned about my H-- his childhood trauma and identity issues--- after all this time. I've learned that much mainstream infidelity counsel focuses on the deficiency of the marriage (communication & marriage issues) when what needs to happen FIRST is a focus on the deficiencies within the infidel.
How could he forget the devastation of 2008-2009?
As I mentioned H is putting in the work. He hasn't *arrived* but he is probably the most emotionally healthy he has ever been in the now 61 years of his life.
And I am in shambles. Betrayal trauma is real. I love my H but he has nearly killed me.
It's taken me 6 months to get up the courage to come back to SI and share. Besides our therapist, I have a few friends who I've shared with. But nobody who really knows this hard road. I need community. Someone (people) who knows this pain. Are we a Reconciliation failure? Does anyone else here have a similar story?
[This message edited by Flatlined at 8:36 PM, Friday, June 26th]
