SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

OK here goes.

I guess it's safe to say this all started end of year in 2021. I felt stuck in my job and decided I wanted to look into a new career path. I Knew this would be difficult as I would need to keep my full time job and have 3 young kids and a husband but was going to do schooling in addition to all of this to eventually begin a new career. My husband was extremely supportive of the idea (I'd be making more money. Of course he would be) so I took on the challenge.

As schooling went on I became more and more exhausted .. my husband started to become less supportive.."you don't have time for me anymore"..

I explained to him that I still loved him and that i was just exhausted and promised things would get back to normal once the schooling was done..

Summer of 2022.. we had booked a camping weekend for my daughter's bday.. I had initially had that Friday off but after changing jobs ended up having to work.. I told him to go ahead camping and I'd meet them there Saturday..

Things seemed off after that weekend..then out of the blue my husband said "i think we should break up"

I asked if there was someone else.. was laughed at as he said no..

I fought.. hard.. this is my family.. everything was so perfect prior to the schooling..

he then admits he kissed a girl while camping the night before I got there.. that he didn't wanna break up but he felt guilty.

I asked if that was all.. if it was all I'd move past it.. we could get through it.. but if I found out later there was more and he lied.. it would be a deal breaker..

He promised no.. that was all that happened.

About 2 weeks later I came home ... things had been going great.

"I gotta tell you something before you find out from someone else"

FUCK..

He then tells me he had sex with this girl that same night..I was completely crushed

All the lies.. the cheating. We have been married 10 years and have 3 beautiful kids together.

We have decided to try and make it work and he SWEARS nothing else has ever happened .. and I truely DO want this to work.

We've done counseling together and apart .. I just find it soooo hard to trust him.. to trust myself cause I believed every single lie..

I wanna forgive.. I wanna move on.. I wanna forget the whole thing. It's just so hard!

Are you sure you have the truth?

His comment of needing to tell you,before you found out from someone else is odd. If this was a random woman ant a campground, who would tell you?

It sounds,from his behavior, that it's not a woman from the campground, and he was in an affair,and knew someone was about to tell you,so he invented a random campground woman to throw you off.

What work is he doing to become a safe partner?

Is he fully transparent? Do you have full access to all accounts and the phone? Passwords included?

Is he answering all of your questions without anger or defensiveness?

Is he digging deep to figure out why he cheated?(It has nothing at all to do with anything you did, or didn't do)

Did he get tested for stds?

Exactly what is he doing?

Unfortunately, your dday was a few months ago. Infidelity isn't something you get over. It's something you get through. Reconciliation is a process, that takes years. If you rugsweep this, you won't heal,and he's still wayward.

Who is the OW? Have you spoken to her, or told her husband?

I actually know the girl.

She came to the the camp to stay with friends of ours.. we have hung out with her many times..

He allows me to check his phone or anything I just don't.. I don't wanna go down that rabbit hole of over thinking everything.

He ended up telling me cause the girl got drunk and told a friend of mine about it and he knew she would tell me.

I haven't spoken to OW.. I don't trust I would have anything nice to say

You said you have 3 young children. Where were they and what were they doing while your husband was off having sex? Did they witness anything or were sworn into secrecy? What has your friend told you about OW's version of events?

If you haven't already, you need access to all of his devices and social media accounts to verify as much as you can about what actually happened, ideally using phone recovery software, since he's probably already gone on a deleting spree. I know you "don't want to go down that rabbit hole," but until you know the full scope of what happened, you don't know what you're actually forgiving. Your husband is only going to admit to the bare minimum of what he thinks you will be able to prove.

While it's certainly possible that this was a one-time thing, it's also possible that this was planned in advance and was, at the very least, an emotional affair before the camping trip.

My 3 kids were sleeping in the camper.

The OW has told a similar story of what happened..

They were sitting around the fire.. everyone else had gone to bed.. one thing led to another blah blah blah..

I don't know if I'm just nieve or trusted so much in What we had .. but I don't wanna go through his past conversation or see anything prior to this.. it killed me to find out the little that I did.. I don't wanna know more.

I just wanna trust in what we have and trust when he says it'll never happen again.. I just wanna move on and not think about it all Damn day and night.

I just.. don't know how

[This message edited by Amymomof3 at 9:57 PM, Friday, February 24th]

I just wanna trust in what we have and trust when he says it'll never happen again.. I just wanna move on and not think about it all Damn day and night.

I feel ALL of this. Ultimately it’s YOUR decision on what information you want to know. Only you know your limits your brain will handle. I wanted all the info and got it - but the overload of info was HARD to digest. It SUCKED. But at least I had the full picture. And I knew I had everything I needed to make those hard decisions - giving him a chance or walking away. He had to come clean or it wasn’t happening.

Don’t you want to know what you’re forgiving? All of this SUCKS - but he has to come clean with the whole truth, otherwise what are you actually forgiving him for? The ONS obviously. God forbid there was nothing more, but if there was- are you prepared to find out years down the road (and have to go through THIS trauma again?) Why not now and get it at ALL out in the open so you know exactly what facts you’re dealing with. You cannot make an informed decision with half of the truth. That’s not fair to you - and extremely selfish on his part. Yes he’s remorseful and should be - but helping you heal means you need to know everything that happened, what led up to this - was there anything before, what happened after, who else knew about the hookup… Let’s say a few years (heck, it could be months..) down the road, this girl gets sloppy drunk and starts running her mouth. Drink minds speak sober thoughts remember that. And she starts revealing way more that you were ever told and it comes back to you. But if you were told this from the beginning - anything revealed after the fact is already known to you. Your husband waited 6 + months to tell you the truth - AND he only told you the truth (or his version of it anyway) AFTER he found out this girl told someone in a drunken conversation about their hookup. The reality is - had she not had that drunken episode, your H may never have said anything to you. He was prepared to go to his grave with this secret. The ONLY reason you know is because he was afraid someone else was going to beat him to the punch. Remember - cheaters lie. And then they lie some more. No one here on SI can decide what’s best for you - but what we can all agree on is you need to know the full truth so you can make decisions about the future of your marriage having all the cards laid out for you. Go to IC and work through the trauma, take care of yourself, you are worth all of that and you deserve nothing less than the truth. Have your IC on standby to help you through discovery. That shit is PAINFUL but at least you’ll know you’ve made a decision on your marriage based on full disclosure. I’m sorry that these words may sound harsh - but you deserve the truth and the onus is on him to provide it. Yes it’s uncomfortable being in the hot seat - but if he says he loves you and wants you to feel better and to heal from this - then divulge everything.

You do not have to choose between digging through icky history and sweeping everything under the rug. Put the onus on him to prove to you through his ACTIONs that he is not going to repeat this behavior and has not lied about what did happen. Read Linda MacDonald's "How to Help your Spouse Heal From Your Affair, a short pithy handbook on what HE needs to do to show you that you are safe. I recommend this book a lot, because it saved my marriage when my husband just wanted to push everything under the rug and I was in agony. It was his "wake up" call and he still implements its recommendations a decade later. Try it.

Welcome to SI, and sorry you're here. Infidelity is the worst pain imaginable. There are some pinned posts at the top of the forum that have lots of great information. Also, the Healing Library has great advice, too.

If OW has a boyfriend/girlfriend or husband, please let them know.

Also, you may want to get tested for STDs. Unfortunately, some members have been given an STD and some even turned to cancer.

Watch his actions and don't listen to the words. You are the prize, and he should be doing everything in his power to show that he's doing the work to be a safe partner.

I am so sorry for what you are going through. From what you say, I hear some parallels. My WS felt 'lonely' and like I prioritized kids and career over him. He just "needed" to feel desired. All of this suggests his affair is a response to my actions. It is not. It is a response to his own inability to express his needs, communicate about issues in our marriage like an adult, and practice the self-control necessary to be in a loving, committed relationship.

The best advice I found here (and I am, like you, still in the early stages), was this: recovery comes before reconciliation. I found the same guide for WS and gave it to my spouse, and after a few weeks, I sat down and wrote him a letter. I said that we both needed time to recover, but that if he wanted to reconcile, he had to do some deep explorations on the things that caused the affair--in his case, they have to do with the ways he sees sex and love and the things he has trouble talking about. I told him that was his work to do, and at the end of it, he needed to decide if he could commit to giving me what I needed to reconcile—love, fidelity, transparency, and brutal honesty at all times. If not, I had the self-love to set myself free.

In that process, I feel like I have started to take back my own power. To repeat a phrase I have found on this forum—I am the prize. I deserve all my spouse's love and fidelity.

All of this is to say that there is harm that has been done. Be sure you are healing. Be sure you are demanding that HE genuinely reflects on how this came to be, how his choices created this harm, and what he will do to ensure he never does it again.

My WS felt 'lonely' and like I prioritized kids and career over him. He just "needed" to feel desired. All of this suggests his affair is a response to my actions. It is not. It is a response to his own inability to express his needs, communicate about issues in our marriage like an adult, and practice the self-control necessary to be in a loving, committed relationship.

Same here except minus the kids.

Another thing I have heard around here that has been helpful is the reminder that WH and I were in the same marriage. It wasn't like he was putting all this effort forth to make me feel desired. Yet, despite this, I remained completely faithful. So, it's not about the relationship, it's about the morals and character of the people in it.

It wasn't like he was putting all this effort forth to make me feel desired. Yet, despite this, I remained completely faithful. So, it's not about the relationship, it's about the morals and character of the people in it.

Amen, BallofAnxiety!

I think about this, too. Hey, it's not like we could not have found an opportunity. I had an award-winning poet crushing on me during the time of his affair, and I was always really careful to mention I was married and never even open any part of myself to the IDEA of being with someone else because an affair was inconceivable to me.

In the end, they failed us. They did not live up to our standards of fidelity and love. I have lived up to my vows. He did not. PERIOD.