It has now been a little bit more than a year since I found out. February last year was the month that I thought I had lost everything, the love of my life, my family. The sense of meaning itself. My husband came home from a work trip, completely changed. I had noticed a few things had been off during the time he was away, but I wrote it down to possible depression, something he had struggled with in the past. It had been a rough year. I was unemployed and looking for jobs, but in a field with high competition, which made the prospect of landing a relevant job seem almost impossible. This forced him to be the main breadwinner and in his line of work, travelling comes with the territory, which meant that he had to leave a lot, for weeks at the time. Looking back we were both under heavy strain because of this. I was home alone with two small kids and it took a huge toll on me mentally.
But to me, the suddenness of it made me question the theory of depression, and when he finally came home and I saw him face-to-face I knew something was very wrong. I'm not certain of the exact timeline, but I think he was home for close to a week when he finally admitted he had met someone on the trip that he had made a connection with.
I want to back up a little bit, because a few days before this moment of revelation I had pressed him on why he was acting so cold towards me all of a sudden. At first he said it was nothing, that he didn't feel well. When I pressed him again one night he told me that he thought we were too different and wanted different things. That hit me like a ton of bricks, because I KNEW in that moment that someone else was in the picture. In no other scenario would he have said something like that. Because everything between us had been great before he went on the work trip. We were loving and affectionate, had great sex and were making future plans together. When he said the words that shattered my whole perception of reality I felt a desperation and sense of confusion that is hard to put into words. I told him that whatever it was that he was doing, he was making a huge mistake. I was so scared. Because it felt like a break-up from out of nowhere. He then looked at me with what felt like contempt and asked "is that a threat?" I couldn't believe that the man I loved sat in front of me and said something so vile.
The way he talked, the look in his eyes, it was like a different person than the caring, attentive and sweet person he usually was. It was as if he had an aura of darkness around him. He later explained it was as if he was meeting the end of the world with open arms. I felt extremely unsafe, so I would take distance from him and we hardly really talked for the next days. We did some things together with the kids, but I only felt so insanely hurt, with a growing terror that soon everything would come crashing down.
The day of the revelation I had literally just started a new part time job after having been unemployed for an entire year. Before that I had been a sahm until our youngest started kindergarden at 2. And on the evening of my very first day I sat on the couch, and ironically I was reading a book about a woman who is cheated on by her husband.
After having put our oldest to bed, he came into the living room and asked me what the book was about. I think I said I didn't really know yet and I put it away. He sat down and I confronted him about what he had said previously about us wanting different things. I told him how much that scared me and asked him where the hell that all came from, as I didn't recognize anything he had said about us or me. I asked if he had met someone else, and at first he was quiet, but then he finally admitted to it. And my world came crashing down. Like being hit by a truck, like all warmth left my body. I froze. All I could ask was if he had had sex with her. He said no.
I asked where she was from. He answered a different country. He met her on the work trip and they had made a connection, that was his words. This had made him doubt his feelings for me.
I just sat there in shock for a long time not being able to say anything. It was as if my brain couldn't make sense of anything. That night I was in a state between dreaming and awake. The morning after I felt sick to my stomach, I couldn't believe my new reality. I called in sick for work. I told my husband that I had enough, that we were over and he could start looking for a place to live. I told him the kids should stay with me, but that I had no intention of keeping them from him. I only wanted things to be stable for them. Considering he was gone so much, it would practically be the only option anyway. All of this I said, but I couldn't believe that I was. It was as if I was outside of myself looking in. The words I was now saying didn't come from a real place in myself, it was purely self preservation. I felt abandoned, but I wasn't going to wait around for the final blow. He had thrown me into the abyss with no life line, no solution or seemingly any desire to even look for one.
I told him that once we would separate I might want to move to a place closer to my family. At this point I was alone with the kids for large parts of the year. I had been unemployed for a long time, and had now only managed to get a short-term contract for a part-time low-paying job. The contract only lasted until June, so I knew that after that I would be in the same shitty situation as before, only now single and having to make it on my own. He objected to me moving, said I couldn't take the kids from him. I told him that this was a consequence of his actions. I couldn't stay in a place with no network, no job. And that I in no way was taking the kids from him. This would only mean that he would have to put himself last and find a solution to see them. It was horrible going from the loving family I thought we were to this.
The pain I felt was so bad I thought I would rather die. I didn't see any hope. It felt as if he had completely lost it, but my gut told me that there was no way he could keep this up. I just couldn't believe it. I clung to the hope that he would "wake up" and come back to us. But as time would go by, that hope became smaller and smaller. It was the darkest time in my life.
At first he did the classic thing of blaming me. To me he might as well have been beating me while I was down. As damaging as that was, I knew deep inside and thanks to this forum that he did that to deflect responsibility for what he had done. Later on he would retract these things, but would hold on to that he didn't know what to do, because his feelings for this woman remained. I told him that what he was doing was wrong, that he was destroying our family. But he was still not able to come back to me.
I did a lot of reading online and concluded very quickly that he was limerent. I had never heard of that term before. I also read about the so-called "affair fog" on this forum and it was a very accurate description of his behavior. This in some way helped me see it for what it was. As something unhealthy and destructive, not just "new love".
The first days after d-day were an absolute mess. I made a very impulsive decision to apply for a job in the town my parents live and where I grew up, quite far away. It was a very interesting position, relevant to my education, so as painful as it was I decided to apply, because if worst came to worst I would need to stand on my own feet. It felt like a sign from the universe. A big part of me was screaming against it. The part of me who was loyal, who was fighting for our family. The other part that I had to do this to survive.
As mentioned, my first reaction to my husband's betrayal was to throw him out. But later on we sort of came to an agreement to wait. We started talking a bit more. He had moments of clarity where he seemed to recognize the absurdity of the situation. He came with theories of why he was going through this. I tried to listen and remain calm in these conversations. But when nothing really changed it became harder and harder for me to "wait". It was humiliating to sit there, knowing he was unable to stay out of contact with the ow, knowing he couldn't choose me. I felt so degraded. She was in a different country so the contact was purely digital. I felt unlovable and unworthy. I felt that he was just waiting to make the final decision of leaving us for good.
At some point the kids had a week of holiday and I decided to take them to my parents. I needed to get out of the situation I was in. After two days of sick leave I was back working, which was an absolute torture given the state I was in. But I felt I had no other choice as I had finally just gotten a job after so long. Back with my parents I could sort of fall apart, and I felt as if I was entering a depression. I was doing the best I could hiding my feelings from my kids, but I couldn't be present for them, and that hurt so deeply. Without the support of my parents I don't know where I would have ended up.
I put more pressure on my husband, which felt as if it only pushed him further away. Now that we were not physically together I thought he had no reason not to go deeper into his feelings for this ow. It became clearer and clearer to me that whatever we were doing wasn't working. I couldn't be in this position anymore. Every second was torture. So when we got back home from the holiday I told my husband that I couldn't do this anymore. The pain of seeing him with the kids was so strong that I could not longer manage to pretend in front of them anymore. So then I knew it was time.
And I thought I saw fear in his eyes. He said that it was good that we soon would get into therapy, something that signalled to me that he was having some hope for us again. I had contacted a free family therapy service the day after d-day and we were still waiting for an appt.
Then my husband asked for us to do something together. I was extremely suspicious by this sudden change, but hesitatingly agreed. The day after we went to lunch. We talked a lot, cried and ended up hugging and kissing each other. This marked my husbands turn back to me, back to us, back to himself. In the next days he went NC with her and deleted her from all social media and has been committed to me ever since.
Fast forward to now, we are a year into R. My husband has grown a lot. Very quickly he took accountability for what he had done. He made it clear that I was not to blame. He has been steady as a rock throughout this year. Assuring me that I am the love of his life and the only one he wants to be with. He sees what happened as a result of his own issues.
We have been through a roller-coaster, first of hysterical bonding, very intense, passionate feelings, lots of sex. That was followed by heavier periods. I am the kind of person who turns inwards, and have never really yelled or said mean or unreasonable things. So in many ways I have felt that I made it easy for him. Too easy maybe. As time went on, I have been more in touch with my anger and then I push him away from me. It feels safer to be the one who pushes away, than the one who is abandoned. I also think it has been necessary for my healing process to assert myself and be more demanding, so as to not lose myself. I have people pleasing tendencies and it's easy for me to suffer in silence than to take the fight and risk losing.
When he "came back" it was as if the tables turned and the insecurity now came from him, as to whether or not I would be the one to leave. Being in that position felt safer. But I miss the feeling of blind faith. Of trusting completely in our bond and in our one-ness. I struggle with the abandonment and the betrayal. That even if he is doing everything in his power to build trust, the leap of faith is still mine to take.
What happened to us was not a slow burn, like a marriage slowly deteriorating and ending up in one partner having an affair and then leaving. It was like a sudden blow to the head, a total shock. Like I was catapulted into a nightmare world where nothing made sense anymore. I went frantically looking for signs that I had missed something. But all I could find was loving exchanges between us. Not long before he had said that he was terrified of losing me, because he had a dream that I left him from another man. It felt like an evil joke from the universe. I don't want to get all psychoanalytical, but it does seem strange.
Our life hadn't been perfect by any means. The challenge in our life at the time was him being gone too much. I was home alone with the kids and at times it was extremely heavy. I didn't have a job, and I felt that I had no direction. The only thing I knew for certain, and that was the thing that held me together, was our family and our relationship. I was so proud of how we had managed to stay connected with the life we were living.
I have struggled a lot with finding a sense of meaning, because the experience shattered all my beliefs about what we had, who we were, about love, about people in general. I felt as if I was detached from myself and my life, and I have worked so hard to find a way back.
I ended up getting the job. I was literally shaking when I told my husband about it, because I thought he would be against it and I knew that if he would try to stop me we wouldn't have a future. He was supportive, he said he understood that it was the right thing to do. And so we moved. Luckily it all went very well, despite all the fear I had about how it would affect us long term. Me having a job to go to has made a massive, positive difference in our life. Of course not without challenges, but mostly it's been very good for us.
If you managed to read this far, thank you. This forum was a life saver for me in the early days. So much pain, so much wisdom shared. So I thought it would be valuable to update on my situation.
