SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I thought my wife and I were happy. We had fun vacations, family nights, dates with each other, etc. I knew it was stressful having both parents work and raising a small child. I knew she had some traumatic events that she hadn't dealt with yet and was resisting any ideas i had for her to do so. I knew that I wasn't always perfect and was going through some depression. But I never, ever could have imagined that she would carry on affair after affair with other men for 3 years... I can imagine and fully accept that now. Don't know if our M will survive it yet however.

Hurtstomycore,

Reading your note, I felt like I was reading about my marriage. We'd moved between 4 countries together, trained together and had the most enjoyable trips together. I was very proud of who she was and what she'd accomplished. And she told everyone the same about me. I thought we were very happy.

So to say I was surprised was the understatement of the century. Finding that everything I thought was true was actually false has destroyed my world view. It's forced me to reexamine all aspects of my life and my self-image. The feeling of now being in a reality alternate to the 'real' world persists.

I still can't figure out how my view of her character was just so completely wrong.

We're divorcing but I don't see me ever having that type of connection with someone again. And I'm not sure if I would ever allow myself that. Our 10th anniversary, which is also my DDay, is coming up in a month or so and this is really dominating my thoughts.

Yes, we'd had rough spots but I actually thought things were better. I even thought that I could understand the A during our bad time, but when things were good??? Hindsight has shown me how much I was fooling myself.

Yup. WW was very, very good at hiding her 2nd and 3rd affairs. After we R'ed from her first affair in 2010, I thought we became very happy...

Traveled the world, played music together and released 2 albums, bought 2 houses, had all kinds of cool and exciting experiences that most people would feel very lucky to share with someone. Everything from sports teams to doing theater to family vacations and preparing for our first child together. I thought we were happy.

Apparently, she was happy "with our marriage" but unhappy "inside" or whatever, so she had sneaky A2 and A3 that I didn't know about... which is why it's such a harsh awakening that makes you question your entire reality. Up is down, left is right.

I thought, and in alot of ways still think that for alot of my marriage it was pretty good.

We had intimacy problems for alot of our marriage. She was never interested in sex.

And frankly we didn't do alot together as a couple. in alot of ways we were roommates that shared a bed but were not intimate and any level...

We almost never fought, got along well etc...just were never intimately connected....

I knew my marriage was bad when we moved, and she started changing..I knew it was heading over a cliff before it actually did, i just didn't know what to do to stop it..

In the end it was better for me. I found myself i am a better person now. Later i met someone with whom i have a better relationship with.

I always thought our marriage was great as well. We are/were great parents, in sync with our views on parenthood and finances jobs etc... I was so shocked that I denied it for at least a year. I believed and saw what I wanted to see. But now I know what a lie it was. I know how his distance and attitude all had a reason. I also now see all the signs that he was never the man I thought and I don't see myself ever forgiving him or reconciling.

I thought we did, but once I found out he cheated and I came out of the shock I realized that we really didn't. I was always a hopeless romantic before and I thought once you were married that was it- happily married the end. But what I didn't realize was he was stressed at work and I wasn't very good at listening so he kept it all in. I was dealing with medical issues and instead of talking to him I kept it all in. Basically our marriage was a giant 'keep it all to yourself and pretend it's all good' mess...

Nope.

Reading everyone's experiences has me heartbroken. Especially for those of us trying to reconcile...Having questions about so much of our marriage, or thoughts of the duplicitous nature of our WS, ( how could they?), etc. Its just so sad. Somedays I feel as if im sleepwalking because surely this is the stuff of nightmares? Or maybe this is someone elses life that I've been transposed to , like in the movies. Surely this didnt happen to me?

Theres a song by Ed Sheeran, 'perfect', that makes me cry every single time I hear it. I wish I had that history with my husband that is unspoilt by the gut wrenching anguish of betrayal

I posted way back on page 1. I thought we had a pretty good marriage but had some issues. There isn't a marriage anywhere that doesn't have issues. It's what you do about them. We had a marriage that others complimented us on and envied somewhat. I believed it was getting better and better the last 5 years or so before our 25th anniversary. Then it wasn't so happy.

Yes i did think i had a happy marriage

I would have said I had a happy marriage. He was my knight in shining armor. That was before I knew that everything was based on a lie and I didn't really know who he was deep inside. I didn't really have anything to compare it to. We had our difficulties but as far as i knew, they were pretty normal. He never really opened up his inner self to me but i didn't know that until the lies were revealed.

Yea, I thought I had the perfect marriage. You know why? Because she always told me how right we were for each other and how well we got along and knew each other. We would always argue who loved who most. Yea that's why I thought so. Now I know to not believe anything anybody says and that my marriage is far less special than a lot of others.

I think everyone, including me, thought we were THE couple. We had the marriage everyone wanted to have. The marriage my kids wanted to have. He treated me so well. I loved him and trusted him as if I'd never been hurt before.

(I did think he was developing a problem with alcohol, but that's it)

We were ALL blindsided.

Yes, I did.

And the reason for that is that I know that I am responsible for my own happiness. I know that if I have needs that aren't being met, I need to figure that out and express that to my partner and work to find mutually acceptable ways to meet my needs.

How could I have known that he was so conflict-avoidant that he was bottling up his issues until they festered into something huge and ugly? I would communicate my stuff. I would ask him about his. He would say he was fine. Now, on some level during the months of the affair I realized he was off and seemed to be trying to set me up to be the bad guy, but I kept opening up my heart and reaching out and trying to connect, and in the days leading up to DDay we were noticeably closer.

Literally the day before DDay I was talking with a friend who is a therapist about how we had a happy and healthy marriage. Ouch, right? But all I know is my own perception of my reality. And I am a person who focuses on the positives and works tirelessly to change the stuff I'm not happy with.

My husband realized during the affair that he should tell me he was unhappy and wanted to go to marriage counseling, but the fact that he was having an affair rightfully made him feel that maybe that was a dick move. Too bad they can't figure this out before having an affair. You're conflict avoidant and feeling unhappy in your marriage, so you drop a giant traumatic bomb in your marriage, and you're forced to dig way down deep into your soul to have a chance of righting things. How much easier is it to say, "Hey, could we go see a counselor? I feel like our marriage could be happier."

That's a loaded question. Yes in the beginning. Towards the end even before I knew about A no. Xh thought it was a bad M a lot longer than I did though hence 2yr lta. Xh did say something once he didn't push very hard for me to listen though. Meh it's done an over now, what can I do or what could've been done is long in the past.

Nope. We got along all right, hardly ever argued, but I guess we just got comfortable, the love flickered away, things got dull, she got bored, and the rest is history.

For the first 40 years we were together, I thought my W would leave any day without notice. 40 years in, I decided my fear was ridiculous - she was all in. Her A started about 5 years later.

I was always delighted to be with her. She said we were fated to be together. During the A, she said I 'got' her more completely than anyone else; I took that as a great compliment. We had a good M.

My W's A was not due to M issues; she has said she tried to make her A relationship as good as our M. (Huh?)

People don't become WSes because of M issues. They cheat because of their own issues.

Yes. We have the same sense of humor and agree on many things. We have fun together. He works hard and is under a great deal of (often self-inflicted) stress. I encourage him to slow down, but he feels like time is running out and he needs to have X amount of money put away to live comfortably and travel in retirement. I disagree because I think we are ok financially.

He had mentioned to me several times during the past 5 years that he thought he needed to seek out a therapist. I didn't push. I should have. I assumed it was to learn to handle stress. Our sex life had slowed down in the past few years. I thought it was due to aging. Other than those issues, I thought we were mostly in sync.

I went pain shopping this morning and matched up the timeline he made with all of our photos on the computer.

Looking at these pics, we look so happy. I thought we were. It seems every single memory I have from 2011 to 12/2016 is false.

I'm particularly triggery today. H has been on a business trip since last Friday. I was supposed to join him on Monday, but Irma squelched that. We've been trying not to be apart too often.

It's when he goes on these trips that the doubts, hurt and anger start brewing.

He is putting in the work now, has been upfront and honest, is in intensive IC and does quite a bit of reading. He has called and texted me every day since he's been gone, yet I've sat here in front of this computer all day today, wallowing in pity and anger. I showered but still haven't dressed...

[This message edited by Ginac at 2:43 PM, September 14th (Thursday)]