SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I discovered my wife had an affair some 20 yrs ago last Oct 2014 but since she will not give me any info I do not know exactly when or how long it happened. I am 62 yrs old and my wife is 60 and our marriage of 39 yrs has been the best ever these years since her affair ended. But there was a period in the mid 90's when I knew she did not love me and showed no affection or intimacy. She would occasionally have sex when I pressured her but it was not really very enjoyable. It was so long ago that it is hard to pinpoint the years or how long but it seemed like it was around 2 years.

I did not understand it and thought she was tired of me or I had did something wrong. We were struggling with making ends meet and I was working long hours sometimes 6 days a week. We had 2 teenagers and was taking care of her elderly Mom. I wanted to leave her but I still loved her and could not leave our kids. At some point she came back to me and our marriage has been the best ever but I always wondered what happened back then and stupidly thought maybe she had some left over feelings from a prior relationship before we married.

The way I figured this out is that my Son discovered his wife was having an affair while serving overseas in the Military. I asked him how he figured it out and hired a private investigator. He said he read online that if your wife is pulling away from you it can mean she is having an affair. I thought about this for a few weeks and wondered if that could have been the case with my wife years ago. One night my wife and I were talking about our Son's ex wife and how she wronged him so terribly. At the end of the conversation my wife turned to me with a look on her face that showed guilt about what I sensed was her own affair. I thought my God she has had an affair and my heart began to race. I think she sensed what I was thinking and went to bed. I sat there thinking and began to recall a chance meeting with a man she knew 7 yrs earlier that was strange but I did not process it until that moment as I sat there wondering if my wife had an affair.

My wife is a teacher at a local Middle School and in 2007 She and I were taking our Grandson to his first day of school at a local elementary school. I remember the year because I was 55 and had just became eligible to retire and my wife was trying to convince me to do so. As we walked into the cafeteria there was a large group of parents and students milling around. AS we walked in My wife sort of cocked her head to one side and was squinting her eyes like she could not believe what she was seeing. Across the room stood a good looking tall guy and she walked towards him. When she got to him he grabbed her elbow and pulled her towards him and they hugged but she looked very uncomfortable talking to him. I was off to the side with our grandson about 5or 6 ft away and could not hear what they were saying. They both totally ignored me and she did not introduce me to him. When we walked away I asked who he was and she said his name without looking at me and in a tone that I knew now was like I had just met her ex lover. I was so stupid that I did not decode or process what had just happened. When we left the school I told her I did not like how she did not introduce me to that guy and she just chirped a quick I'm sorry. I remembered the many nights she said she was going to the school to work on her class sometimes not coming home until around 9:00 or 10:00. I was stupid totally trusting her.

This guy was a teacher at her school when she started in 1986 at the age of 32 and she talked about him and a few female teachers quite a bit. I knew about him from that but had never met him. He was just out of college and was 10yrs younger than her. He had a girlfriend that was a teacher there who he later married. He is certified to teach middle and high school so my wife was surprised to see him at that elementary school. He was there for only one year and the principal got rid of him because she did not like him for some reason.

I thought about this as my heart was racing and went upstairs and asked my wife if she had an affair with this guy. Her answer stunned me as I thought she would say how could I ever come up with that or something like that. Her response was " No he is not my type and I did not like him because he was mean to his girlfriend". I replied he would be her type and she responded by saying he was 15 yrs younger than her. I thought for a minute and said you were 32 when you started and that would have made him 17. I left and went downstairs and thought about this all night without sleeping. My mind was racing and my heart was beating so hard I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The next morning as she was getting up to get ready for work I said she gave me the wrong answer last night and she said he has 3 kids. She has gone from when she first met him in 1986 to some 10 years later when I think this happened and is married with children. I said so what if he has kids and then she screamed " I do not know him and do not want to talk about him".

My mind continued to spin and heart racing for the next few weeks and as I questioned her more about this it became so evident that she had an affair with this guy. I have no proof but I know this happened and she has admitted to it but then backtracked and denied she ever said some things that admitted it. At first I kept thinking this could not be true and everything was just a coincidence but gradually it sunk in that this thing happened and my world began to fall apart as I knew it. I could not sleep and lost 15 pounds and became an emotional wreck having constant panic attacks. My wife did everything she could to reassure me and help except for totally admitting the affair and giving me details. She is in total denial right now and it torments me that she will not admit and give details.

I asked her if this did not happen why do I have a portion of our marriage when I knew she did not love me. She finally admitted one day she did not love me but fell back in love with me later. When I commented that she had somebody for years and I had no one she said it wasn't quite that long and it was off and on. One night as we lay in the dark I said to her please don't ever hurt me again like that and she said she would never do that again. She has since denied ever saying these things I think because she fears I will divorce her which I did threaten at the beginning. I wanted the pain to go away and thought divorce would do that but now realize it would not have done that. There is a lot more that she has said that has convinced me this happened but it is all circumstantial. In a nutshell she has said in sort of a code that yes this happened but I am not going to talk about. I can tell there is a painful emotion attached to this guy and it drives me nuts she will not talk about it.

I am torn with living with this torment of her not talking or leaving her. It is difficult because we have 5 grandkids after 39 yrs and I love her dearly. I am seeing a counselor who is working with to resolve this in my mind without my wifes help, My wife does not support me in seeing a counselor and says we can work this out ourselves. There are a lot of more details to this story and I could probably write a book about it. I sometimes think that I am going to fall out of love with her and divorce but I keep hanging on hoping I can ride this out but it is so hard at my age to deal with this. Divorce will be the last resort as I pray she will confess or I learn to live with things as they are. Please be considerate of me but I would like your feed back. I will give other details later on how I think my wife has some kind of mental problem dealing with this affair but this is all I can write now.

I'm very sorry that you are going through this. The pain you're feeling is intense and traumatic. The fact that your WW is minimizing and rug sweeping is exacerbating things and if it continues this will severely compromise your chances of working this out. She needs to realize this. Many WS's think that denial and pushing aside facts will save their M, but it actually works against them. It's incredibly selfish and disrespectful toward you. She is protecting herself at your expense. You deserve so much more..

I would strongly recommend that you and your WW read How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair. I realize she might balk at this, since she is not really openly admitting that she had an A.

My wife does not support me in seeing a counselor and says we can work this out ourselves.

Highly unlikely. By this she means, stop digging and suck it up. Let sleeping dogs lie. Is that going to work for you? It doesn't seem like it will.

My wife did everything she could to reassure me and help except for totally admitting the affair and giving me details. She is in total denial right now and it torments me that she will not admit and give details.

She did everything except for the very things she must do to save the marriage--become transparent, admit the A, give you whatever details you need, and show remorse.

Like most newly busted WS's, my H minimized and denied at first too. What helped end this was for me to spell out exactly what I needed from him in order to try to save the M. If he couldn't meet these terms, then he must leave. It took me some time to get my bearings to figure out what I needed and enough courage say it. This, along with the book I recommended above, and MC, helped bring about the transparency I needed to give R a shot.

I wish you strength.

[This message edited by veronique12 at 2:14 PM, April 17th (Friday)]

Wow, tough story, apom. Pretty clearly, your wife is hoping that genie will crawl right back into the bottle. It just doesn't work that way.

There is no going back on your marriage now. You know. There is only some path forward.

...as I pray she will confess or I learn to live with things as they are.

Learning to live as things are likely isn't going to work. She's concerned that confessing will cause you to leave. You need to gently convince her that confessing is the only thing that gives you a chance to stay. The pain is too great otherwise. And it is too great.

Don't wait for her. Start the 180 (see the Healing Library here) and start controlling your life to put you in a place that you can live without the pain. Continue to encourage her to open up and give you a chance to save the marriage, while making it clear the new status quo is unacceptable.

Just wanted to let you know you've been heard, my friend.

Divorce will be the last resort as I pray she will confess or I learn to live with things as they are.

She wont confess, because you did not catch her. Unless you want to try and convince her that she has no right to deny you the entire truth, you are stuck.

You can tell her that she needs to take a polygraph in order for you to feel better. The questions you need answered are whatever you need to know, but they have to be yes or no. Did you have sex, did it last longer than 1 year, etc. Only questions that can be answered yes or no.

This could get her off the fence of denial. But she has no right to lie to you then or today.

Print this out for her to read:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/joseph.asp

Apom

Bring your wife to a counselling session.

Talk to your counselor in advance.

Tell your wife during the session that you want the truth. All of it.

That you understand it is hard for her but it is even more difficult for you not knowing the truth.

Let her know that you love her, have no desire to divorce her but you will not continue in this marriage until she tells you the truth.

That anything she says in front of the counselor will stay in this session.

It is clearly obvious you love your wife and she loves you. It is also clear you are an emotional wreck and need the truth.

Now get it out of her. But make her feel comfortable so she can tell you the truth.

I think it will good for both of you to communicate openly and honestly.

Now convince her.

HM

PS

Make her realize that what she hid and buried happened 20 years ago. But to you it just happened a few weeks ago.

How is your son handling his wifes affair?

[This message edited by happyman64 at 2:59 PM, April 17th (Friday)]

The important part to stress is that even though this thing happened a very long time ago, the fact that she lied about it and covered it up makes it feel, to you, like it is happening right now. That's very real and very painful, and it isn't going to go away.

Now that this has started, the only way thing to do is to keep digging and go through it -- hopefully together, but either way you've got to do it.

I hope for your sake she does the right thing, not to save your marriage, but because she cares about you and wants to minimize the long-term pain. Yes, if you'd have never found out it might have been less painful. But now that you know (and you do) it's time to deal with the truth. Anything less is disrespectful to both of you.

My wife does not support me in seeing a counselor and says we can work this out ourselves

I think you'll find all this time this is exactly what you've been trying to do but have continually come up against a giant wall.

Seems like she will never tell you the whole truth becuase she fears opening a can of worms, so for now she'll continue to stonewall until you drop it.

She's hedging her bets that you won't leave, thus has all the incentive to remain schtum.

You can either assure her that the truth shall set her free and from there you can work on rebuilding your marriage and trying to move on or

you can force her hand by making a stronger move and showing her that her bet is not a safe one and she has much to lose if she doesn't volunteer the whole truth.

My wife does not support me in seeing a counselor and says we can work this out ourselves

That is her way of saying, she is afraid of a professional therapist telling her things she doesnt want to hear, LIKE being honest to you.

Working it out on your own is her way of saying, back off, I will not tell you, but I am afraid of you leaving me, but I wont tell you the entire truth.

Do not allow this to continue. She has to hear from a therapist she has to be honest with you. And whatever you do, do not put up with any therapist to give you crap like it was a long time ago, let it go.

Because if anyone tells you that, they have no clue about how this feels and does not deserve to be a therapist.

Like other posts, it doesnt matter if it happened 100 years ago, to you, it happened the day you found out. And anyone that argues with that, has never been through this before.

Apom, I completely understand how you feel. I too am now 62 years old. Back in 2002 I noticed my then wife was starting to basically treat me like crap. Like a fool, I thought well its just hormones an it would pass. There were signs, but nothing blatant. Trying to have sex was alaways a problem for her during this time but again I thought it was maybe the early onset of change of life an urged her to go to the doctor, but she just ignored me.I put up with this behavior on her part for years, like a fool never suspecting she would cheat on me. To make a long story short, I discovered in the summer of 2010, that she had been having an affair with a married coworker. I divorced her, outed the affair to the other b/s, it was a mess. For me there had to be consequences to her. Now fast forward 4 years, we actually stated to date again an talked about getting back together. But there was one big problem. She flatly refused to answer any of my questions about her LTA,that had lasted at least 6 years, nothing. Naturally I found some things when I discovered the affair. But I needed my questions to her about it answered.She refused. An so to put it bluntly, I kicked her to the curb again. You have a right an need for your wife to come clean an answer your questions. A part of your marriage was a lie. The veracity of your personnel history as you knew it was not what you thought it was. She needs to answer your questions. Let know one on this wonderful site tell you that you really dont need to know or thats it not important to know the details of her affair. There are a lot of folks here of that mindset. The fact is that it is important for YOU. If your wife cant understand that well do what you need to do. Stay strong.

Sadly, I've been thru something eerily similar. Found out about 20 years later, also. Same suspicions, same lies at the time. Same distance, which later receded.

I put it out of mind, but it crept back about 16 months ago. This is your wife. You have a right to the truth, and ALL of it. She has no right not to answer your questions on the matter.

For me, I simply sat her down, told her I knew we'd covered this years ago, but it was now really bothering me. I had to know the truth, and right then. "I have to know." She told me everything. I thought I'd be able to handle it, but it slowly tore me up pretty good. It was like it had just happened, but with a twist. Now, all that history had to be re-examined. All those years going about her business, typical marital ups and downs, but the whole time she had this secret.

Went thru all the usual stuff. Sadness, despair, humiliation, depression and mostly anger. Unending anger. Your story makes me angry, also. Why does she think you are not worthy to hear the truth? How does she get to decide that?

Also, I'm afraid you son's situation is making it harder for her to come clean. Imagine how deservedly shitty that makes her feel. Life is hard, and the truth hurts. She is accountable.

[This message edited by jcanada at 3:50 PM, April 17th (Friday)]

Give her Joseph's Letter

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/healing_library/confrontation/joseph.asp

Apom,

First, let me say that I feel so badly for you. Shit sandwich deluxe. What you are going through is the fear of every man I have ever known, myself included. It's like 'what do you do ?'

I wish there was an easy answer but there's not.

I had a difficult decision when I was in my early 20s. My ex encouraged me to take a job out of state but even to this day, I don't believe that she did it to cheat on me but because it was a great opportunity and she was due to come down 4 hours to the South. Soon, there was space, then the cheating, then some physical abuse on her part, then an ill advised reconciliation by me, then more cheating, then we were done. I was close to owning a house, moving her down with me, and that would have cost me big time. So it was almost catastrophic but I escaped it. You on the other hand face losing most of what you have ever known, and your situation creates a serious situation.

I will add some thoughts here;

** Your situation is one of the few that I would consider reconciliation but that is completely your decision and if she doesn't step to the plate during this process, divorce is understandable. The only reason why reconciliation is understandable is because you will damage yourself every bit as badly as her by divorcing because of age, assets and family. It puts you in a very bad situation. So I will address things based on this.

1) The fact is that you HAVE EVERY RIGHT to know what happened. back in the 1990s. PERIOD. Whether she's hiding it to protect you or whether she's embarrassed and trying to protect herself and her marriage, it doesn't matter. You were violated and have a right to know before you can make an informed decision. She must provide this. The fact she isn't makes any type of reconciliation tough.

2) How do you get to #1 ? DO NOT GROVEL OR CRY to her or in front of her. Always appear strong and stoic.One poster suggested a 180. While everyone always says the 180 is for you to gain strength and independence, I don't always agree that it is only for you. The 180 gets a nonresponsive wayward to shit in their pants. In her case, the only reason she is going to be transparent is because she is going to worry that her elderly years and her long term marriage is in deep crap. The 180 will do this but it has to be organized, well thought out and to illicit a response rather than caue more long term damage. Read it and employ it by the end of the weekend.

3) A polygraph may seem extreme but it's not.

4) The lengths she is willing to go to protect the affair tells me it may be worse than you realize. You must not believe that what she may initially tell you is all that there is. It could be a lot more. Waywards trickle truth. keep pressing until you feel you have it all. A polygraph will help here. The awkward hugging incident and the fact you were ignored tells me that she was that uncomfortable, or there were still feelings there or something. Another red flag and I would be cautious there.

5) Do not let her drag the family into this until it's time for an honest reconciliation.

6) If she never comes clean, your marriage may not ever recover. It may not anyway. However, my concern is for you. If you never find the truth, your existence from here on out will be miserable and can lead to health problems as well. If you find out the truth, it can too but I believe the truth will set you free. Don't take divorce off the table but don't lead with it either, not just yet.

her stance is unacceptable. Don't want you seeing a counselor and instead work it out among yourselves but then not telling you anything and yelling at you to boot. That is odd behavior at it's finest. She wants to outlast you and rugsweep this thing.

Take your time and don't do any damage in the meantime and think each action through. Find a close friend to vent to.

I am sorry you are here. Keep us posted.

Crap dude. I feel your pain. Everyone tells you to trust your gut. But she is telling you nothing. She will assert that you are crazy. She will assert that you are obsessed with a fantasy. But she gives you just enough, just enough that you know. You know, she knows that you know, but she would rather keep the lie going.

God I know what this is like. So what do you do? Pleading, lawyering, discussing and cross questioning will get you nowhere. So assume it's all true and more now what? If she told you right now she did it what would be your reaction? Would you want to stay together or divorce her? What would you tell everyone? Think long game.

Me? I'd start d proceedings and tell her that you cannot live with a liar anymore. The the ball is in her court. She can try to rescue this by lying, which will get her nowhere, or telling the truth, which will give you the option of deciding based on truth.

It all boils down to the singular question of Does your need to know the truth override all the good years you've had since her affair?

If it were me it would be a resounding yes. Lay all your cards out and be ready for the consequences or face the consequences regardless.

She's already admitted to an affair. The issue hear is that she does not want to own up to it and be accountable.

That does not inspire confidence with regards to your getting past it, at least not while in a relationship with her.

There are two ways to go about your situation.

1.) Create a safe atmosphere, a cushion for her to fall on should she own up to it. This is pretty effective but requires you to swallow one shit sandwich too many.

2.) Show her that you're not going to put up with it. Let her fear the potential fall out of not owning up more than she does of what you'd do when she does reveal all. Approach 2 would need you acting from a position of strength and independence.

Personally, I'd go with the latter. Maybe its because I have a big ego.

Ultimately, your healing depends on this. Trust me, you do not want to wake up when you're 70 or 80 and regret not taking the necessary action especially when you knew that this rabbit hole runs deeper.

I suggest you get the books

No More MrNice Guy

and

Love Must be Tough.

Important thing to understand is that we all work on a risk/ rewards system. This is also the case when people lie/ tell the truth which makes your wife's response less of a moral dilemma and points towards a matter of survival.

Research and read.

I thank all of you who have responded to my post and feel I have gotten a lot of good advice. All of you have made me feel like you care about my situation and I thank you all. I have been weak emotionally for the past six months and have not had the courage to stand up to her denial. The few times I tried she had the upper hand because of my emotions.

I am stronger now and agree with the advice you all have given in that I have to have closure or this will haunt me forever. I will have to carefully form a plan and am thinking of writing a letter to her with information from this site on what I need to recover from this. I will also research the 180 approach and see what that is all about. I am trying to go slowly and make her feel safe so maybe she will confess.

There was a lot of response and I will try to answer a question about how my Son's situation is affecting mine. My wife does not want to be compared to his ex wife who also had an affair with a younger man 5 yrs her junior. It does complicate things a bit.

"Western" made a comment that It may be worse than I realize and my gut tells me that is true. I am trying to not let my imagination to run away with me but I have speculated a lot on what Happened.

Your wife does not like to compare what happened to your son with you and your marriage for many reasons. Your son caught and divorced his cheating wife. You both agree that it was better for him to know than to be a cuckold.

Why this does not apply to you is simple from your wife's perspective. She does not want the truth to cause you to divorce and she knows that you don't want to end your marriage. In fact, she is wrong. If you don't know enough, you may find that your marriage does crumble. If you know too much, it may implode.

Your wife was deeply involved with OM. When she saw him at your grandchild's school the world had a completely different focus. Everything was a blur but him. She had to talk to him immediately. The world slowed down as she moved across the room. His presence was such a trigger for her that any thought of you was shelved.

"I'll deal with husband in a minute," she thought, not realizing that though you rug swept back then, for you did allow that to go on for some time, today is different.

You love your wife and she loves you. She chose to stay with you over her great love. Maybe he rejected her. That humiliation is nothing she wants to share with you. Maybe she ended it. Maybe the both of them.

If she tells you the history of the affair, down playing or hiding the worst truths, maybe your marriage can be saved. But it will be rug sweeping again. Your marriage is not the same now. What it is is uncertain. Does the word unhealthy apply?

Your wife is not the sort to tell you that she remembers feeling his hardness slick with her excretions. But in truth she thought nothing of you then. She was out of love with you and she hated sharing her vagina with you when it belonged to him.

1) Go through photo albums of that time. You may be able to piece together a timeline. Your son's photos may also bring back memories. Did you, for example, go to parent teacher meetings or sports events, hoping to feel like a family?

2) Look around your house. There may be things that you bought back then when you were desperately, trying to win your wife back.

3) Can you look at your tax information from back then? Maybe your will recall how your were working and how being frozen out affected your job performance.

Putting together a timeline will absorb your energy and distract you from decisions about your marriage. However, once you have excavated the past, you will still face a decision. Are you going to allow an outside party to steer reconcilation?

An MC who works to find just enough confession and remorse from your wife and just enough forgiveness and acceptance from you to save your marriage?

The voices of bitter betrayed spouses that you meet here? Some want to see your wife punished and humiliated.

If you do a 180, your wife will eventually decide to confess. At that point you have to ask her to write a timeline. Once you have her timeline, you can match it with yours. They will never match up entirely because your wife is not going to come clean about the depth of her feelings for OM.

There was a time after the affair when you were making love to her and she felt satisfied. She loved you again and was happy to reconnect. That might be the bright spot in her story.

However, things go, do more for yourself. Get to the gym and get into great shape. Cultivate your hobbies. Don't seek your wife's approval. Don't drink.

Do you think the balance of power in your marriage is going to shift and this makes you feel uncomfortable?

Do you still have a sex life today? What has your marriage been like since 2007?

If your son learned of his mother's adultery, he is unlikely to be very forgiving. That must weigh on your wife very heavily.

Is OM married with kids?

[This message edited by LongWalk at 11:27 AM, April 18th (Saturday)]

You’ve had some good advice already. I see some oldies have chimed in and given the guidelines to help you through this.

This is the first thing that jumped out at me:

My wife does not support me in seeing a counselor and says we can work this out ourselves.

She doesn’t want you to know. She doesn’t want an intermediary to tease out the information you so badly need and knows she will be faced with someone who can see through her lies. She wants to keep this affair hidden in its box in the far reaches of her mental attic. She is desperate to rug-sweep this back under the mat.

You can tell her that she needs to take a polygraph in order for you to feel better.

(craig2001) Find some details and companies before putting this to her – do your homework. If she balks (and she will), then you know the details are pretty bad and she is too ashamed to let you know.

Make her realize that what she hid and buried happened 20 years ago. But to you it just happened a few weeks ago.

(happyman64) Add this detail to your own “Joseph’s Letter”

The lengths she is willing to go to protect the affair tells me it may be worse than you realize

(western) On the other hand, your imagination may be worse than the reality. You won’t know until you have all the information.

You spotted her response to this man when they met in the cafeteria and you were right to be concerned. She was catapulted back into the little cocoon and her responses to him were ones of being conflicted because of the very public place they were in. If she had met him in other circumstances, you can bet her responses would have been very different.

You have a right to this. You have a right to know what went on in your marriage at that time so that you can make decisions for your future based on those facts. By denying you these details (or in fact denying the affair at all), she is still lying – it’s lying by omission, and just as damaging as all that has gone before.

Keep going.

My wife does not want to be compared to his ex wife who also had an affair with a younger man 5 yrs her junior. It does complicate things a bit.

It only complicates things in her mind. Do not compare, do not even bring up your son's situation. The two are not the same.

When it comes to discussing a WWs affair, it is so easy to get off the subject and that is what complicates things. The constant getting off of the main topic. And the main topic is your wife's affair(s).

That is all that should be discussed at this time. That is the elephant in the room.

Do not allow your wife to complicate something as simple as her just answering your questions with total honest.

It always amazes me how the WS can complicate something as simple as just answering a question with nothing but total honesty.

Just answer the questions is all you are asking her. Not discuss your son, not compare, not blame, not talk about the weather.

All you want is for her to finally and once and for all answer your questions with nothing but total honesty.

Try not to lose sight of this, all you want are the totally honest answers about your wife's affair(s). Nothing else, no changing the subject, no complicating anything and NO MORE excuses from her.

You deserve the truth, today. Not tomorrow.

Apom: First I must ask this question. If she decides to answer your demand, do you think you are emotionally strong enough at this time to be able to take in all the facts about the affair when she describes in gory details what she was doing with OM while you thought she was busy at school working late? Let me tell you that every description will be like a dagger going through your heart.

If you think you can take it, then go for it. If you think that your present emotional state will not let you, then it would be better to dwell on the great years you had with her when you two were madly in love.

I'm 63 and I know how you feel; however, there comes a time when you have to ask yourself: Is finding out what happened between my wife and that man more than 20 years ago more important than enjoying the few good years I have left with her?

[This message edited by marbou888 at 12:40 AM, April 20th (Monday)]