SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I was told he was "broken" & "Lost". He hated his job, hated the fact he and I drifted apart and wanted to numb his pain and escape. And yes, he was pissed at me. Though he never blamed me for the A, he had been so mad at me for so long, it made his decision to cheat easier. His POS AP was just as fucked up and broken as he was. A perfect storm.

At first it was “I thought you were, and for a long time”

Now a month later: I was lonely, depressed in another country for the first time, across the world.

So basically she’s the first hoebag to show him a little attention in a bar and stroke his ego. Then she started asking for money. Like a lot.

Our cell phones were turned off, electric was on the road to being shut off and our car insurance cancelled.

I asked him one thing to promise me he wouldn’t cheat while he was gone. I think (now) it was my gut telling me what was about to happen.

Omg these are awful. I got I was figuring out our marriage and needed to see if I could be ok with it. Then after we kissed I felt awful and that I broke respect for you.

In our marriage we didn’t have much respect in the beginning. Now after his transgressions if he didn’t change I would be done. His was with a friend of ours. I always thought I was alone, but coming on here it’s so sad that I am not and this is our world.

“I didn’t think you’d care.” Hmmm, so why jump through so many hoops of lying, tt for 2 years, etc., if you knew my response would be “I don’t care”? He knew it was an idiotic reason once I challenged him on it. It was just a convenient justification he pulled out of his ass.

Four years out, his reason is selfishness, entitlement and a lifetime spent with no consequences. He’s always believed he could charm his way out of anything, so he was the guy who asked for forgiveness instead of permission. No one is the boss of such a special man. He’s mortified he slept with that idiot. Unfortunately our sex life is still affected. I have insecurities now at 50 that I’ve never had.

"I thought you would be one of those wives that would look the other way."

His response to my question of "why?" after we were already D. This, after over 20 years of me telling him I would never tolerate cheating and it would be a dealbreaker. He must have thought I was "just joking" (which was his favorite come back whenever he mocked or insulted me). He learned the hard way I was not joking.

I didn't think you'd care..

Yeah, insightful cheaters are not.

My WH said he was depressed and thought he needed to be punished. He deserved to be hurt. He has issues with severe depression. He was off his meds and ended up manic. He's now in IC and on meds. He said he doesn't remember some of it. He remembered enough for me to be satisfied his story is true. Between the emails and him explaining what he remembers I'm certain I know everything that's appropriate to know. He's very remorseful and he had tried to break it off with her but she kept e mailing him. After I found out he deactivated the e mail and transferred departments so he never sees her. She has no reason to speak to him. He makes sure he goes to his IC and takes his meds daily so this doesn't happen again. He knows this is his only chance and if he screws up again I'm gone.

This is my WW's "reason" taken from her one and only post on SI:

What lead to me making the worst choice I could ever have made? The need to for feeling important and needing something, ANYTHING, positive to light up my darkness. I was reeling from the loss of my grandmother, followed 29 days later by the death of my dad. My son was diagnosed with adhd, I had two car accidents, and my cat ran away. I felt I shouldn't and couldn't dump my emotions onto my husband. I mean, he was going through the same turmoil as me, so I carefully tried to not burden him with my issues as well. Of course that was stupid and selfish and reckless of me. I should've given this amazing man the chance and I didnt. Instead I went elsewhere. I never intended it to turn out this way. I'm not exactly a catch physically speaking so imagine my surprise when I ended up in bed with this other man.

What is missing from the above is:

She TT'd me for another 2 years after this post.

She had propositioned a long time friend of hers dozens of times over our 22 year relationship but he never took the bait (dday 3).

I had very few conversations from deleted text messages between her and the AP that didnt add up when hearing her story. Turns out, my suspicions and dissection from the minimal correspondence I had was was bang on. She could have just said "you're right", but chose to hold back for a year (dday 2).

I did a lot of work on my own to understand the "why's". Only recently have I accepted that the "Why" is as simple as:

The opportunity was there:

She wanted it:

She has loose morals.

Simple as that. She now agrees with me on the real "why's".

"I didn't think I'd get caught".

“I’m broken.”

“He listened to me.”

“You’re never present.”

He said it was because it was easier and he was afraid. Talking to her and telling her what our relationship had become was easier than talking to me about it. If he talked to me, maybe we would have broken up...yet, we broke up because he wouldn't talk to me.

Then, it was nice to feel wanted by somebody. Never mind at that time, I had come back and was giving him another chance after the first huge mess up. Never mind that she would sleep with literally anyone, and very likely from what he says and thinks, was sleeping with at least one other man while sleeping with him.

But hey, better to be wanted by her than your partner of six years.

I got all kinds of reasons - FOO, abandonment, issues with a different employee at work, etc. This all after the fact, of course.

The first reason she gave me was that he was physically attractive and nice to her. That, apparently, is all it took. A physically attractive guy smiling at you and you spread your legs.

This was all after her asking me what I would do if she committed adultery. I said D. She thought that was pretty harsh.

Reality: Opportunity presented itself, she wanted to, she thought she could get away with it, so she did it with the COW POS she supervised for 4 years.

For him it's easy: WW was easy, no investment in time, effort or money. He called, she went, they fucked, she left. Not even a glass of water, no money spent.

[This message edited by steadychevy at 7:13 PM, January 10th (Thursday)]

Man, i can relate to your description steadychevy.

My WW's ONS was a party, the guy she f'ed said "hey want to f#ck", and she said yes.

It's the thing of legends, the old saying, ask 100 women and 1 might say sure!

Unfortunately for me, that 1 in 100 was my wife.

Hers was a classic mid life crisis affair. She was a hands on stay at home mom. When our last daughter left for school she said she was lost. Like she got fired from the only job she ever had.

My daughters were off starting their lives, I had a thriving career, and she said she felt like nothing.

He was the electrician working on our home project. First appealed to her by flattering on her great ideas on the project. Then talking about how they could start a great business rehabbing homes. She was like Fredo in The Godfather looking for something that she did on her own. That morphed into a sexual relationship.

She basically said even though everyone thought she was the greatest thing ever, her self esteem was shot and he built her up into superwoman.

Of course he was just a POA and an opportunist. She destroyed our marriage for no good reason. She could have volunteered or done something constructive. Instead she destroyed a 25 year marriage and family

At first: he justified it by saying he cut it off at certain points, so he was "doing" the right and hard thing. Funny how each instance went further and further before "righteously cutting it off".

and he didn't think it would hurt me.

Later: because he was lonely and thought our marriage was over.

Now: because he was selfishly only caring about his needs and what he wanted and was lying to himself to justify it.

"Bc he was soooooo much better than me."

Six months later she started begging me to let her come home.

The reasons why were too many for me to write now. I would get a hand cramp. It was simply... they both wanted to, so they did. He thought I would never find out. It was a LTA. Even after DDay during false R, he continued because that's the kind of man he was/is. I no longer care what his version of the why's are. Blame me...OK Mid-life crisis...Whatever Sex addict..Sounds like as good of an excuse as any. I no longer have to care about his why's. I divorced his sorry, POS ass.

Other than saying they made a very bad conscious decision and taking 100% ownership of the said decision, does it matter?

I'm reading through these and just WOW.

If this is something my H had tried to 'hide' or if he 'got caught' or ANYTHING to the effect of he hoped I wouldn't find out (fortunately for me he came right out and told me or I would have never known) I'd be out of here so fast he wouldn't have even seen me leaving.

Some of the reasons your WS gave are mind boggling to me. I feel for so many of you to have to deal with that and hope your W is doing everything he/she can to change.

You guys are stronger than I am bc I just absolutely wouldn't be able to put up with so many of those excuses...ESPECIALLY the 'I thought I wouldn't get caught' ones. How in the world could you trust again?! It infuriates me for you.

This is somewhat (maybe a lot) off topic from OP's question.

I read an article recently regarding ages of people committing adultery. I don't remember the source or the study being reported, sample size, etc. There was some talk about certain vulnerable times in a marriage - 7 year itch and the like. What it boiled down to was the age of adultery followed a standard bell curve for both sexes but the average age for females was 45 and males 55.

My WW was 45.