I ruined a good man.

I ruined a good man. My husband and my marriage was the envy of many of our friends and I have ruined it all. We have been married 21 years and honestly it has been a great marriage. We never argue, we spend time together doing everything from shopping to vacationing and supporting my side business. My husband is an executive in the defense industry for most of his professional life so money has never been a real issue, so When DOVID happened, being immunocompromised, I quit working altogether. Being quarantined seemingly brought us closer together. Then When we were all clear to return to our regular lives I was approached by my old company to see if I wanted to come back.

I was really bored at home so I decide to go back to full time work. Enter "Justin". Justin was a new team member hired over the pandemic and he and I hit it off straight away. I never found Justin attractive in the conventional sense. He is a tall, skinny, slightly balding and approaching 50, just a very unassuming guy. What I did like was his quirky, dry almost English style of humor, it is very cerebral.

I realize that I was mentioning Justin more and more at home just because I thought he was funny and really in line with my Monty Pythonesque type humor. My husband said that he noticed we were communicating a lot outside of work and asked what is going on and if he should be concerned. I thought it was cute that he was jealous and aghast at the suggestion that he might think anything could be going on with me and Justin.

I showed him a picture of Justin from the company function and said he is not my type at all. My husbands retort was, he is exactly your type, he looks like all the guys you dated before me. I thought about and he was right, all the guys I dated before were tall (6’2" and taller) and skinny while my husband is under 6’ and muscular/stocky hairy Scotsman.

My husband said, be cognizant of boundaries. I offered to show him our texts to show that we were just friends and he said I trust you, I need to have trust in you above all. Honestly, I was low key upset that he would even suggest that I would cheat on him and harbored some resentment over it. The texting started to increase and eventually over the course of a few months, our texts turned complimentary and progressed. I didn’t shut it down because I liked the compliments and attention and never had any intention of going any further. My husband has always been complimentary of my looks and has always made me never forget I am a woman.

As you can guess, it went way too far, my husband was away, my coworkers went out one night, Justin was there and too much drinking, some touching under the table and we ended up having sex in our house. Justin was completely opposite to my husband, he was tender, slow and loving. I liked the contrast not necessarily the sex was not what I have be accustom too. We passed out and, in the morning, even though I regretted it, we had sex again. I felt immense guilt about it and vowed not to do it again and not to tell my husband.

Justin wanted to continue seeing each other, got sloppy covering his tracks and his wife found out by reading texts. She kicked him out immediately and told me that she would tell my husband. I was afraid that she would contact him on social media and as he was out of the country for work, I logged into his accounts and blocked her. I knew I was going to have to tell my husband but wanted to do it face-to-face not while he was on the other side of the world.

My husband came home, and the first thing he said was how much he missed me. The guilt was overwhelming, and I started to cry. I told him the ugly truth, that the guy I told him I had no interest in, and that he didn’t have to worry about, had sex, more than once. His face was a mixture of sadness and disgust. He asked what your plans, what are you two going to do? I told him how sorry I was, how I cut contact with him and how I wanted to work this through together. He asked me to leave so that he could clear his head and think about what he wanted to do. I left and over the next few days begged him to talk to me but he ignored me altogether. After a week, I came home and begged and pleaded with him to talk about it but he won’t even acknowledge me. Soon he started engaging me in conversation, how long, how many times, did you use protection, where did he finish, did you disparage me in any way, did you make plans beyond this, does his wife know and would you have told me if she did threaten you, I want to see your texts. I answered them all, even though I knew it would only make it worse. He asked me multiple times, gauging my answers against previous ones. I told him that I would quit work and he said not to as I would need the job to support myself. I asked for counseling, and he refused. His opinion was that I changed not him and if anyone needed counseling, it was me. So I started IC and reading everything I could about betraying one’s spouse. I wanted him to read about being betrayed and he refused. He said, "when you first told me that you cheated, you said that it was nothing that I did, so why should I have to delve into an area that only serve your self preservation?"

I wanted nothing more than for him to touch me again but he politely asks me not to touch him when I try. I have constantly been at him for sex and just says, no thanks. He has said that the issues lie in not that I had sex with this guy but the betrayal, as his work requires travel for weeks at a time and now he will just assume that I am with Justin or another guy. Of course I tell him that I will never do it again and he say you have already proven yourself to be untrustworthy and your words do not equal your actions.

We are sleeping in separate bedrooms. He is polite with me but disengaged, almost like we are acquaintances not husband and wife. Then after about 6 weeks he kissed me and we had sex. At the beginning I just wanted to hold him and him hold me, to feel him close to me again but that was not to be. He was not kind at all. He was verbally abusive, calling me all sort of names, overly rough and finished without any concern for me at all. I asked him what that was all about, if you don’t like it, go see Justin.

The man living with me now is just a shadow of who he used to be and it is all my fault. He sullen and rarely interacts with me unless it is to abuse and use me for sex. I am at my wits end on how to proceed. I don’t want to leave or him to leave because I love him. I keep hoping that I can say the one thing that can get us back to talking and maybe healing anything to break this stalemate.

I bring up steps and situations that I think will help and his answers are always flipped back on me. He has not brought up divorce so I think that is positive, but I don’t think I can last too much longer with the way things are now. I keep hoping to see some semblance of the man he was before I cheated.

I broke it, how do I fix it?

23 comments posted: Saturday, January 28th, 2023