SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sara,

There are members who have special needs kids. There is one who has two SN kids. Hopefully they will see your thread and reach out to you.

k9

I understand your husband's feeling regarding your son. That is normal. But he chose to have an affair which in no way helped the situation. There are countless things he could have done, within the framework of your marriage, that would have actually helped.

You, in the same marriage, with the same child, chose differently.

My sons are both on the spectrum but very high functioning. Both will probably go to college. But there are meltdowns and social challenges. We also deal with mood disorder and T1 diabetes. It has always been a problem in our marriage, because we haven't had childcare. We haven't been able to go away together. They are mid and late teens and we still can't because they don't get along.

The idea of vacationing with AP without children was a huge factor in the A part two. But while on those trips he wished he was with me, and the text messages to me during the trips were frequent and showed who was on his mind. It increased his unhappiness.

He needs to deal with himself in IC, then you need to deal with your marriage in MC, and you could use IC now with someone who understands what it means to have an autistic child.

I hope you have a great support system, care for your child while you and WH spend time together. I wouldn't hesitate to tell friends the whole story, the friends who can support you through this. Our MC gave us good advice. Relatives tend to side with their relative * no matter what* but friends tend to listen to their friend and follow their cues. So if you tell friend what happened and that you want to R, they tend to support R.

(I've never bought into the statistics about families with special needs kids divorcing more than others. More than half of all marriages end in divorce. Now, for marriage with special needs child and infidelity, I bet it is higher. You have a lot to deal with, but you can do it if you both decide to.)

I do believe that our (both of us) fear of telling the truth about our feelings revolving our son was one of the first wedges in our intimacy

This is a marriage issue that will need to be addressed and worked on. Both of you have your own share in this that you will need to own up to and commit to working on. In effect, you each own 50% of this issue.

However, he chose to take that and have an affair. You did not. Therefore, he has an underlying character gap that led him to believe that betraying you was ok. That is 100% his issue and he needs to do the hard work of figuring out what that was and then correcting it. It most likely will involve the assistance of an IC.

Yes she is the one that started it. Yes she came on to him

This is blame. Even if it is all true, he is omitting his responses. He accepted it. He likely even had his role of encouraging it. It is very common early on to become angry and focused on the AP while the WS gets off relatively unscathed. You will eventually need him to own up to more of his actions.

I asked if I could see the texts on his phone and he opened it and showed me that there were no texts from her.

You need honesty. In some way, you need him to own responsibility for what he did and not be able to just throw the OW under the bus. It doesn't sound like you are getting that yet. I'd suggest that you look into the program "Dr. Fone" and see if it is compatible with the type of phone he has. If so, you will want to have him give you his phone for a while (don't go into the details of why) and then use the program to recover deleted text messages. It will give you a much clearer picture into his responsibility and involvement. As long as you have the phone, you will also what to look for apps like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, etc. that can be used to hide communication just to be sure that no contact really has been established.

I am going to have to forgive

You will want to avoid becoming a bitter person for your own well being. I encourage you to not make my mistake -- to forgive and press forward too quickly -- as I rugswept what had happened, my WS was able to avoid doing any hard work and it was just a matter of time until another A occurred. Google "stages of grief". You'll need to fully work through the pain and grief of the loss of your marriage and husband as you knew them. By not taking shortcuts and by pushing forward through the pain, you will eventually come to the final stage -- acceptance. In my experience, feeling "forgiveness" parallels the path to acceptance. Make it a goal to heal fully and I think you will find that it serves you well.

I'm 3 years out with a completely remorseful H. I'm not bitter - anymore - I find joy in the little things again and I'm loving my new marriage - but I haven't forgiven. We've moved through the trauma, the marriage is healed - we rarely discuss the A anymore - I don't feel a NEED to forgive. Don't put any pressure on yourself Sara - just take it one day at a time. If forgiveness comes - great - but don't twist yourself into a pretzel trying.

About the pressure of a SN child - it was shocking to me when I read all our stories - how the A happened when we needed them most - my daughter has Tourettes/OCD - and was suffering horrific depression/anxiety and cutting - horribly. She was refusing treatment and Children's Aid (Canada's CPS) was threatening to take custody and put her in a residential treatment centre. THIS was when FWH decided to escape into the welcome distraction of illicit "love".

There are many parents of SN kiddos here. Many members or close family members were battling cancer. It's so common that the marriages here were strained with situations where escape was desirable. Notice though, that only one partner chose to escape AND blow up the marriage. It points to a lack of healthy coping mechanisms - usually learned in childhood.

Also - this is a great post for your WH to read - until you get the macdonald book...

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/reconciliation/what-every-wayward-spouse-needs-to-know.asp

(((More hugs for Sara)))

[This message edited by sassylee at 4:33 PM, January 16th (Saturday)]

I downloaded the book today and I'm almost done with it. It has made me cry and validated some of my feelings at the same time. I want to finish before asking him to read it. But if means what he said about doing whatever it takes, then I hope he says yes and reads it right away. After wards I think we need to start seeing a MC. Some of our issues I think will be best explored with help.

Yesterday was exactly one month since I caught them in the act. I feel like a yo-yo on steroids. Some days are pretty good and I don't really think about it. Other days I just want to cry until I collapse. Other days I want to destroy things and let everyone, every mutual friend we had and everyone she works with, know that_________(fill in the blank with every expletive you know) slept with my husband and ruined my life. But there is no way to shame her to the world without letting everyone know that my husband cheated on me, so I won't. Yesterday was hard. I cried a lot. I felt all the pain, anger and confusion all over again.

The book (How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair) is helping. It really helped to explain what I was feeling. And since my husband stated reading it the way he reacts to me and my feelings has also changed (for the positive). I have re-asked him questions about the affair which he answers with out hesitation; asked for his phone (texts, pictures, etc) and he just hands it over with out any questions or hesitation. I feel like he is really trying to be honest and transparent. He calls and texts to check in with me every day: when leaving his first job for his second job and leaving second job to come home. But I still have A LOT of trust issues with him. I have been occasionally tracking his whereabouts via the Where Is My phone App. When I first did it I felt bad. I thought I was being such an un-trusting person. Then I realized that it is because he cheated on me and I don't trust him! But I do feel like he has been trying to earn back the trust. He told me that he knows I don't trust him and that it is going to take a long time for him to earn back my trust. And he told me he will work and do what ever it takes to earn it back. I feel like the book has had a lot to do with his change.

Last week I went to the doctor to get the full STD screening. I was never so humiliated and ashamed in my life. I cried the whole time. When he got home we talked about. He apologized and agreed to go and get the full screening and do what ever else I need him to do. He apologized specifically for putting me in that situation and for the feeling that he caused, for ruining our marriage, hurting our family and son (even though our son has no idea what happened). We have started to look for a MC as well. Hopefully we can find one that has some experience with infidelity problems.

So again Yo-yo on steroids: Happy because it feels like progress on some days, sad because I re-live that he ripped my heart out, angry because he was selfish and didn't think about what he was doing and really angry and the OW to the point that I want to destroy her.

Okay, so 1 month down and 11 more to go until I have to face Christmas again and all the horrors that I now associate with it.

I know it is going to take a long time, but I look forward to the day I can post in Reconciliation.

Sara22,

you are so graceful even in the most difficult time. I could not be that calm and rational. I admire your character, and I wish you can heal well as time goes by.

If they still see work together, I suggest you put a voice-activated recorder in his car for a week or two to see if he is talking with her. There is no way you could monitor just by looking at his phone. There are hundreds of apps that would never show logs. Apps can be deleted and reinstalled and deleted again.

Did you have the truth from him? Probably not, he would be the first cheater I know of who came clean 100%. The fact that other woman told you she initiated likewise is not reliable. That is the problem with cheaters and liars, you can't tell if they are lying or being truthful.

Add on that he deleted all evidence. He deleted all texts, all messages. Do honest people usually destroy evidence? Maybe he deleted because he was afraid, but destroying evidence is the hallmark of a liar who is trying not to get found out the truth.

The important thing, though, is to regain trust. The voice-activated recorder can do that. If you check on that for a week or two, and no conversations or sitting in cars with her and him, your trust increases. If you find out they are talking or together, then at least you don't waste any more time.

The heart of cheating is breaking a promise. Why did he break his promise? What did he say to himself that he would say, "It's ok for me to cheat on my wife." He did it once, then over and over again. If the store was opened on Christmas Eve, when would that affair have ended?

Do you think other employees would suspect he was having an affair? Now supposedly he doesn't talk with her and avoids her, so do you think the other employees gossip and wonder why? Do you think at least one of the other employees ever ask your husband that, what went on between him and his bestie? If there was gossip or questions like that, would your husband tell you about it? In the past month, let's say a couple of weeks at least given the holidays and vacation, there likely would be some type of incident at work related to her and him, whether good or bad. Maybe she approached him to say sorry. Maybe she say she loved him. Maybe an employee approached husband to ask what's up. If any of that happened, would you want to know?

I think the voice-activated recorder can help you catch him being honest, or catch him being dishonest.

Those are some good points. Short answer is the they only have to see each other on Sat mornings when her class ends and his begins. Last week he told me that he asked not to take his class anymore because he didn't want to be around her. Previous to this request she was going to his class if a mutual friend was taking it. I have been to that gym many times and there is always a crown at the studio door waiting for the class to end so they can get in to the next class; so I know they are not alone there.

The business they had was just the two of them. So there were no employees to gossip. He told me that he thinks there are trainers and members at the gym that are starting to notice he and she have not been talking or being friendly with each other. But he said he didn't care about them or what they thought. We agreed that if someone asked about it that we would tell people we were no longer friends with her, end of story. That decision was mine. I told him that is what I wanted people to know.

I think I will look into the voice activated recorder. If nothing else it will give me some piece of mind.

He told me that he thinks there are trainers and members at the gym that are starting to notice he and she have not been talking or being friendly with each other. But he said he didn't care about them or what they thought.

Nah. Because you know what those people are thinking of?

"I did good today. I wonder if I can get a Starbucks to treat myself."

"Did anybody notice the fart?"

"... and I can check that off my to-do list. Next up, shower, then grocery store."

"... the hell did I park? God, I'm an idiot."

"Kardashian scandal Miley scandal Nicky Minaj scandal..."

We give people way too much credit for noticing us or what we do. Tell him to keep on not-caring because they're not-noticing.