My wayward/cheating wife

Hey. I'm new here. I find it cathartic to write about my experience so I am hoping I can join this community and find some support, and have space to reflect. I've always been the type to deal with problems internally... people say I 'bottle stuff up' which is bad, but I don't think it's like that. I just like to think about things. I also like writing stuff down. This helps.

So I am 36 and I am a man. I've been with my wife for what feels like forever. We met in our first year of university and from that moment on we were inseparable. We'd both had partners previously, but nothing serious, and we were both virgins - oh, how quickly that changed! - and despite the stress and turbulence of university our relationship was stronger day by day. After graduation we knew we didn't want to be apart so she moved in with me at my parents house. My parents absolutely adored her - they'd acquired the daughter they never had! - and we had a great couple of years whilst we found our feet in terms of jobs and money.

Then she fell pregnant. Unexpected and unplanned, but after 5 years and a few too many missed pills it was inevitable. We knew we wanted kids, we just hadn't thought too hard about the 'when', but life made that decision for us. After the initial shock we were both incredibly excited and soon we welcomed our firstborn. 

This was the catalyst for us to move out of my parent's place, and by the miracle of low interest rates and generous relatives, we were able to get our own mortgage. We began life on our own as a family and we tied the knot (finally) but it already felt like we had everything, the wedding was just a formality.

A few years later we decided it was time for baby number 2. She stopped taking the pill again and fell pregnant very quickly. Baby number two came along, swiftly followed by the Covid pandemic which was a strange time for everybody. But we got through it.

By late 2022 we were well in the swing of things as a family of 4. Our relationship was perfect. Totally aligned values and plans for the future. We were blessed to have baby sitters on tap, kids that slept well, careers that were conducive to family life. Our relationship was strong, plenty of 'date nights', plenty of family time, plenty of holidays, trips, social occasions. Even our sex life was good... like I said, our kids were good sleepers, and the sex we had in 2022-23 was honestly better than the sex we had in our early twenties!

But you know where this is going.

One day in January 2024 my boss comes to me late morning and says I can have the afternoon off. This happens sometimes. Plus sometimes I'll nip home for an hour at lunch if I'm on top of work. What I'm saying is, it's not unusual for me to arrive home unannounced at 1230pm, and that's exactly what I did that day. Usually when I'm home at that time my wife may not be there, depending on her work schedule and depending on what errands or social plans she has. But on this occasion I know she is home - lights are on, keys in the basket, coat hung on stair rail etc. 

So I let myself in and call out. No response initially, so I wonder if she is out in the garden. I walk through to the kitchen and as I'm walking I hear a clatter of foot steps down the stairs. I look back and briefly lock eyes with a man that I don't know and I realise I'd walked past his shoes by the door. He's out the door before I can even verbalise any thoughts. 

Puzzled, I walk over to the stairs and call up to my wife - I hear movement up there, but no response. 

Eventually she emerges from our bedroom (I can see the door from the bottom of the stairs) and though she is fully dressed, it is very obvious that the movement I heard was the sound of her getting dressed quickly.

I don't remember the next part well. I remember feeling a rush of just about every emotion I've ever experienced, but I just backed away and went outside and got into my car. I wasn't looking for the guy, I just wanted to get away. Like I said in my intro paragraph, I'm a thinker. Looking back over our relationship I can't remember any arguments - it's like I can't argue. I don't like to say things until I've thought about them. And I don't like to say things until I've thought about what the other person might say back, and thought about my responses to those too. My wife is different. She will say what she feels and then whatever somebody says back, she knows what to say next because she feels it straight away. I don't know if I believe in the Myers Briggs personality thing, but I'd guess I'm INTP and I'd guess she is ENFJ. 

So, I'm a thinker, but I didn't want to think about this right now. I just drove for a while. I knew it would be time to pick the kids up from school at 3pm and, perhaps selfishly, I knew that the kids would be a good buffer that would mean we didn't have to talk about it. When I got back home at 2.50pm, my wife was pacing by the door waiting for me. I just said  "shall we go get the kids?" and we set off. 

Like I said, a lot of that afternoon is a blur to me, but I remember going to get the kids. My wife (the extrovert) usually talks to lots of people at school, whereas I don't. I guess my aura won that day because nobody talked to us. We just got the kids and went home.

We muddled through the afternoon/evening routine as usual. We didn't argue, and we didn't even mention what had happened. I slept on the sofa that night and for probably a week afterwards. 

The one thing I was sure of from the first minute after seeing her (and him) was that I didn't want the kid's lives to be disrupted, and I knew that they found it super weird that I was on the couch in the mornings. So I knew that I'd have to sleep in bed again. 

The bed sheets from that day had already been through the wash and I knew there were new sheets on - at that point I'd not 'accused' her of anything and she hadn't admitted anything - but I knew when and why she'd changed the sheets. I knew what I needed to know. 

We slept in bed together but we didn't touch, and we didn't talk about anything other than practical life stuff. I knew she wanted to - she can't not talk about things - but I guess she knew that it was not her place to force us to have this conversation.

The next two months are still fuzzy and dark in my mind. We talked about it here and there - sometimes via text message - and we only talked about the bits that I wanted to talk about. I confirmed that she'd had sex with the man I saw. He was an acquaintance of hers that I was aware of, but who I didn't know much about. She confirmed that it was a one off, and that nobody else knew - I believe this / have seen evidence. Aside from the kids, my second priority was some form of damage limitation: if my wife is cheating on me then I don't want ANYBODY else to know: she agreed. I knew she was on contraception (I'd been dragging my heels about getting a vasectomy) but I wanted to be sure that she hadn't acquired anything else - she did the necessary.

I told myself that we'd talk about it properly at some point. There were things I wanted to ask and say, but I just didn't know exactly what. I knew that I wasn't about to jack it all in. I certainly didn't want to make any quick and potentially irreversible decisions. I wasn't thinking about anything sentimental or emotional at that time, I was just focusing on the two facts that I knew for certain. Firstly, that breaking up would massively affect the children. And secondly, that breaking up would mean everybody knowing what had happened and that was a further humiliation that I was just not ready to face. 

Since the then I have just kind of carried on with it. Sometimes doing my best ostrich impression, other times I genuinely forget about it all. But more and more I have found that I am just accepting it. Our life otherwise feels 'normal'. We have fun at home with the kids, we see friends, we see friends and family, and we deal with all the trials and tribulations of normal adult life. I still love her and I feel loved by her.

At some point we began having sex again... This is one area where I don't quite feel back to normal. People talk about "hysterical bonding" and "reclaiming" but this hasn't happened, but we are having sex often. I find that sex now, and physical attraction in general, requires more 'mental gymnastics' in order to not be distracted by what she did... There's some vague undefinable part of sex that is missing now and I don't know if that can come back. I find it hard to explain exactly how I feel here... I hope that it's something I can work through.

Anyway, that's my story. Currently 10 months after the 'event' and I feel like in a lot of ways things are going well. Thank you for reading.

29 comments posted: Friday, November 15th, 2024