Hi all, I have been reading through many of your experiences over the past week and I think I've finally got a clear enough mind to share my story and accept some support.
My husband and I have been married 14 years, have kids and run a company together. As I've been sorting through thoughts and emotions from individual counselling sessions, and marriage counselling sessions I'm realizing that our situation is incredibly complex and it feels overwhelming to think about how much work we would have to do to overcome this as both a couple and individually. Not to mention how our income is solely dependent on our business thriving, which means we need to be communicating effectively on that front.
2 weeks ago my husband was at the dentist and I was waiting on a go ahead for a project we are working on. I checked his voice messages (this is the norm for both of us to do) to see if the customer had tried to reach him by phone during his appointment. There were 2 messages- one from the customer, and another from a woman- "hey stranger, I'm coming to *city we live in*, give me a call, you have my number". My ears went up but I was making myself give him the benefit of the doubt. I got the number off the message options and searched it in his contacts, and it came up under a supplier's (he is a man) name. I thought ok, maybe this is supplier’s wife and it has to do with collecting a check that hadn't been issued yet. This guy's wife does his accounting for him. Far stretch, I know. But I was desperately trying not to jump to conclusions.
I waited for husband to get home and calmly confronted him by asking him to clarify what the message was about. Voicemail was on speaker, he turned white and told me this was a woman who worked for a contractor we had worked with on a recent project. I asked to see his phone and he didn't want to give it to me. He eventually did hand it over and was very defensive and wouldn't stand more than 2 feet from me. In a defensive outburst he told me this woman was giving him attention and he liked it and then tried to flip this on me and say our marriage hasn't been good for months. There was nothing to be found on his phone. I demanded details and he started giving me the run down of events:
- "She" was working in the building he was working in
- At first friendly and would come by and see progress on the job
- She asked for his number, he obliged and gave it to her
- They began texting and phoning each other, very flirty but nothing sexual at this point
- Job wrapped up 3 days after they met. He tells her he will be back in the next week or two for a day to do a walk through with the owners of the project
- He leaves, comes home to me and everything seems completely normal with him
- A week or so later he flies back to this city (just for the day) for his meeting. Leaves at 8 am
- Texts her to tell her he's on the flight and will be there soon, asks her if she's working. She says yes, see you when you get here
- He has his meeting and has to fix a few things on a very tight schedule to make it back to the airport for his flight home
- She comes in and tells him she's going to be coming to the city we live in next month, and will have a hotel room. He tells her she can't text or call him because he's married. He'll reach out to her when he can to make plans. She agrees. They then engage in very sexual texting for the rest of the day while he's traveling to the airport and back on his flight. When he gets back to home city, he then deletes all messages on his phone and blocks her from both text and calls. His version is that he didn't intend to go through with it, hence the blocking. He was very caught off guard that she was able to leave a voice message as he thought the block wouldn't allow that. I can verify she was blocked when I looked through his phone right after he came home from dentist. Still doesn't answer the question of why he kept her number if he had no intention of getting in touch with her ever again. I'm not buying it. I've told him that it seems to me he would block her to ensure I didn't intercept any messages. But obviously he could just unblock her to make contact for awhile, and then delete everything and block again.
**For context- he was working out of town with one other guy, they share a hotel room, site records prove they were on site 12-14 hour days, and the employee he was with cannot do any of this work without my husband, plus all meals/evenings were accounted for**
So all of this comes out of him and his demeanour changed from defensive to guilty. I could see the moment where he realized this was serious and separating was 100% on the table from this betrayal and breach of trust. He begins apologizing. He told me he fucked up, I didn't do anything to cause this, he could have shut it down along the way and chose not to, was justifying it by telling himself he wasn't physically cheating. When she approached him about taking it to the physical level he was very aroused. He admitted that if they had longer together in the same city he likely would have acted on it if given the opportunity. The sexting took it to another level for him and he said he blocked her because he felt tempted. Some of this lines up, some of it doesn't. He finds a way to recover iMessages and tells me the texts will verify everything he's told me, and he knows it will be very painful but maybe I should read them so I can verify what he has told me is the truth. I declined. I don't think I can handle it, definitely not now, maybe not ever. He's been completely transparent and gentle since all of this went down. When he gets a text he'll just calmly let me know who it is and what about, etc.
He told me he wanted me to see him put a definite end to whatever it was they had going on, so he unblocked her and asked me if I would prefer he do it over phone or text, and if I wanted to be there to hear it/see it for myself. I felt conflicted but said I'd feel "more comfortable" with a text. He sent the text, it was delivered, but no response and no "read" status. I don't know what to think. He figures it's not a big deal to her as they didn't have much time to "build" anything except anticipation and he hadn't returned her message. So that's just going to be a big question mark forever, I guess. It's not like I would ask him to phone her to confirm she received the message. He is keeping her number unblocked and ensured me he would show me any texts that come through at any point going forward. He deleted the number out of his phone so he can't contact her (as far as I know he hasn't written it down anywhere). I mean, there's so much I just have to trust him on which is so difficult.
I'm devastated. I feel completely blindsided. This came at such a delicate time as we just lost an incredibly close family friend in November and all of his timeline is right smack in the middle of when I was deep in the throes of intense grief. I thought we were connecting deeply as a couple because of this loss, so this infidelity is an incredibly deep betrayal. Do I believe this never got physical? I think I do believe him on that front. Doubt sometimes creeps in and I feel like I want to read the texts but I know I won't be able to bleach my brain once I've read them, and I feel like it could cause more harm than good when it comes to chance of reconciliation.
Despite all of this I'm still in love with him. I'm doing intensive individual therapy and our marriage counsellor specializes in infidelity and we have already had some big breakthroughs so I'm hopeful. He's been very open and apologetic. I've asked many, many questions over the last couple of weeks and he answers them gently, however uncomfortable some of them have been, and doesn't get irritated with me at all. The depth of our conversations has deepened greatly. I just can't get my head on straight, this is such a rollercoaster. I am seeing signs of true remorse and I suppose it's just a matter of consistency, time and healing, and the long term changes he's willing to make and show me he's willing to commit to re-building our marriage. It's very complicated when it comes to the nature of our business and him having to travel and stay out of town sometimes. I don't know how this is going to work. It's making me sick to think about it.
Thanks for reading my novel. It's somewhat therapeutic to write it all out.
[This message edited by anonymoose01 at 5:42 PM, February 22nd (Friday)]