One foot in front of the other

Not entirely sure the reason for this post. I've been reading these forums a lot lately, and I guess I just feel like writing to human beings today and not my journal....

You can see my full story by looking at my other posts, but the TLDR is that last year I found out that my wife has been nurturing an inappropriate friendship/affair for the past 9-10 years. The OM lived on another continent for most of it. They periodically would send pictures to each other, talking about banging each other, their relationships at home etc. I knew he existed as a friend in her life, but had no clue the extent of it. I also recently discovered that when he was here visiting with his wife, they snuck out for a secret coffee date that i didn't know about. My infant son attended that date, so chances are it was above board, but also WTF!?

Since D Day, i've discovered a pattern in my wife's relationships with other men, which is that she has huge issues with boundaries and validation. Shocker, I know. Exhibit A, is the emotional affair she had with another dude before we were married. This one wasn't sexual, but it was intensely emotional and secretive. Again, I knew this guy was a friend but had no idea the extent of it. Exhibit B is an old ex-boyfriend from high school of which she was apparently hung up on for decades. He came out of the blue on social media the month before our wedding and sent her into a tailspin, that eventually ended in a phone call where they 'reconciled' the unresolved issues of their relationship 15 years prior. She also had this guy (along with other friends) over to her parents house when he was in town visiting a couple years after our wedding. All of which I didn't know.

We are a year down the reconciliation path, and i'm in a much better place than I was. I don't spiral down the toilet of misery like I used to. I've stopped searching for evidence like my life depends on it. I'm beginning to accept that vast swaths of my life are not what I thought they were, and being at peace with that. I'm feeling more centered and confident with who I am and what I want (not always, but more than I used to).

For her part, she is trying. She checks in with me frequently and is always open to talk, and is never defensive. She doesn't do as much "work" (i.e., reading Not Just Friends, therapy, answering outstanding timeline questions) as i'd like, but our life is quite busy/stressful, so I cut her slack and try to focus on the work she has done.

There are still hurdles for me. I have a hard time being affectionate towards my wife. It feels like if I do I will be betraying myself and giving her what she wants (i.e., her cake). I'm still predominately alone with my thoughts. I've told one friend, and none of our family. We had our anniversary the other week, and her family made a point of sending messages of congratulations and pictures/videos of our wedding. I cried alone in my basement, and wanted to punch a hole through the wall. I wonder what they would say if they knew that less than a year after that (very) fun day, she was sending nudes to a scumbag two weeks before HIS wedding?

I've read so many stories on here, and it makes me want to reach out and hug you all. What a shitty thing it is to live this reality. But there is also tremendous courage and strength in your stories, which is really what it's all about, isnt it? I see that strength and courage revealing opportunities in the misery - opportunity to grow, opportunity to become a better person, and opportunities to start over and find happiness. This is the first major shitstorm life has thrown my way, and its forced me to learn and grow in ways that were long delayed. Something to be grateful for I guess. Anyways, thanks for reading, I wish you all the best.

6 comments posted: Friday, July 5th, 2024

Long Term "Online" Affair

Hey Everyone -

Have been reading the forums for a while now, and finally decided it may be helpful for me to share my story. So here it goes.

Some background. We’ve been together since 2009, had our ups and downs, but have mostly been really solid since 2015. We were married in 2016 and have two kids together and live a very comfortable, happy, fulfilled life.

Back in March 2023, my wife’s old friend from College was in town with his wife. She hasn't seen them in years. Long story short, my gut kicks me into action and after a series of conversations with her, I snoop her phone and find confirmation in the form of nude pictures and some pretty bad texts from 2017. Let’s call DDay May 1.

I confront her and what follows is a week of TT as I slowly uncover more evidence and force her to come clean. Turns out that this friendship (which started sometime in 2011/2012) morphed into a "sexualized relationship" in the summer of 2014 when they bumped into each other on a plane, and mutually expressed their attraction and desires for one another. I’m fairly certain nothing physical happened during this meeting (I know this from reading emails they sent shortly after).

It becomes clear that this ‘sexualized relationship’’ has been continuous from 2014-2023. They have been each other's confidants, shared sexual fantasies, and sent pictures. He lives on another continent, so it was mostly email/text/skype. She swears nothing physical happened, which is probably true given the ocean and continent between them, but who knows. They also seem to have had varying degrees of contact (sometimes months between talking).

It seems to have peaked in 2017-2019, with the bulk of nudes and sexting happening during this time. For example, evidence I found shows that she was sending nude pictures to him less than a year after we were married (including sneaking away to the bathroom at a party we were at to take a photo), talking about sexual fantasies with him while we were trying to get pregnant with our first, and sending flirty pictures/texts a couple months after the birth of our first child. She maintains that somewhere around the birth of our first child she tried to "keep things platonic," and that by the time he and his wife showed up in town in 2023, nothing had happened for years. I’ve seen evidence of these efforts in text conversations, but she seemed to always fail and revert back to inappropriateness. For example, after declining an offer for a dick pic, she follows up a few days later with a sex dream she had of him. The month before DDay he playfully joked about going down on her.

In any event, we are now attempting reconciliation. She went no contact with him almost immediately after DDay. I watched her send the email and block him on all the regular channels. She has been forthcoming with some information (e.g. volunteering old chats she found). We are both in IC and MC. But on the other hand, in the initial days after DDay she went scorched earth and deleted everything, and now claims "she can’t remember" certain details and timelines.

So i'm left with an incomplete picture of what this was (e.g. I don't really know what happened 2015-2016; or if things turned physical), which makes it very hard to start healing. How the hell do I define this in my mind? Was it a super intense affair for 9 years, or just intense for 2 years with little blips here and there? Does that even matter? Does anyone else have any similar experiences? The timeline and "online" nature of this situation is really making it hard to understand and accept the nature of her betrayal.

12 comments posted: Friday, August 25th, 2023