How Solid Really is Your Marriage

[FocusRS3]

In order to get it some form of closure and move on why not be insistent on both going go a relationship councillor and getting the complete truth. warts and all, out in the open .

For me I'd want to know the exact detail and why the deceit for so many years to be able to rationalise ir in my head but then that's me .

I fully appreciate people deal and handle things differently.......

[FocusRS3]

Symptomless Coma said:

Slow for me, she still hasn’t even begun house sale to me as she’s too busy to complete the paperwork. She’s been on holiday with him this week. She’s fallen out with her dad over this (her mum did the same to him) as she was staying at her dad’s 4 nights - I guess she will move in with the new guy as he’s left his wife and about to move into a house share.
That will complicate things as she won’t be able to have the kids over so I’ll still be 100% single dad. Oh and Mother’s Day was st. I think she expected me to cook for her.

You are best out of it and away from her for sure as I'm sure you're aware.
This new bloke and her won't last . The complications of others kids and moving from pillar to post will be more stressful than they could have both ever imagined .
As they say the novelty will wear off .

Pretty heartless any mother than can leave her kids full time pretty much .

Anyway mate good to hear from you

[FocusRS3]

tombar said:

Thank you so much for your genuinely helpful replies, one and all. I was looking for some perspective when all I could think was hurt and confusion, and it really helped.

She is genuinely remorseful and I think has been more or less honest with me about what happened - which as well as being painful to hear, was also helpful. I love her (always did - we've 26 years invested together and it has been a pretty good marriage) and she loves me. I slept on it (2 hours, but hey, it's a start) and decided that the only option I want is to forgive her. I just told her that. Forgiveness is a process I guess, but it feels a positive decision I can make. It feels better already.

I'll need to watch 'being the victim' (I have a brooding personality!) and yes, I need to recognise that there was probably fault on all sides - it was a long time ago.

It will take work and time but she's committed to that - at least that's what we talked about last night.

I'll let you know how we get on. Continued advice very much welcomed from those who've forgiven. Best of luck to the others on this thread.

Well done you but take it a stage at af time, you don't yet know when you may have a dark moment.

Sometimes what doesn't break you ( in this case your marriage) makes you stronger as they say and if you're both committed to making it good again then there's no reason it can't work .

You have, as you say , two wonderful Lads, and no further ongoing complications in terms of external influences.

Good luck

[FocusRS3]

TwigtheWonderkid said:

This is the key. She didn't go down that route because she was blissfully happy with her marriage, and felt loved and appreciated. What she did was wrong, but your actions at the time would have contributed to her behaviour.

This happened to a friend of mines years back .

I'm not suggesting the OP is a bad man of course but my mate showed no respect or love to his wife and she strayed.

TBF to him he understood why she did it and 20yrs on they are very happy together .
He had to deal with the whole physical side of things too...not nice.

[FocusRS3]

MYOB said:

Last I saw was that the ex was apoplectic after seeing a letter from his solicitor referring to her absconding with the kids, when in fact she had simply gone to visit her family. So it was bad advice from some on here encouraging the op to take action by seeing his solicitor.

It's a shame and I hope everything is okay with him and the kids.

Sounds like she has a longer term plan that doesnt include him anyway so going legal was only a matter of time only i think

[FocusRS3]

Henners said:

I think they’re saying don’t ignore the fact she’s been getting reamed.

Or something.

Reamed? Sorry that's gone right over my head........

[FocusRS3]

Henners said:

The process of making an existing hole larger.

I did actually google it in the end .

We are talking here about the OP's wife not having a sexual relationship with this guy so it confused me a tad.

Maybe the comment was just in general.

[FocusRS3]

Sa Calobra said:

A year long affair is sexual. It's a series of sexual liasons with deceipt at every turn. It puts everyone's lives on hold. The flirting part is very short. Don't be naive trying to pair down the physical element with denial.

Yup a year spent flirting without any sex does seem an extraordinary length of time but you never know.

My mates missus affair was about 6 months from start to finish. She fessed up when he caught her lying and then she admitted that she had suggested to her lover they leave their respective partners and crack on together but he told her he wasn't leaving his wife and kid. The fact she had gotten so into the guy to the point where she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him was the hard bit for my mate. That said it must have been a kick on the butt for her when he told her no interest !

As stated previously however , they are no solid and have been for the last 20yrs

[FocusRS3]

Henners said:

Must be hard for him, being forever second best to her! Jeeze.

i forgot to mention she even had all the finances written down as to what she was going to offer him to fek off!

She was also pretty brazen about the whole thing when the news broke. I remember being at her b'day party when she said "this time last year i was getting a good seeing to"!!!!

Not sure i could have come back from that but then she also held all the financial cards

[FocusRS3]

Henners said:

It is when she comes back only after being denied by the other guy. Sounds like if he’d have said yes, she wouldn’t be seen for dust.

The marriage only got a second chance because she got dumped and hubby was the next best option.

ETA: see the post above by Focus. Hubby is deffo second best.

That was pretty much the crux of it yes......

[FocusRS3]

Henners said:

Sounds fecking horrid!

Yup a pretty embarrassing state of affairs......literally !

[FocusRS3]

rovermorris999 said:

Very well put.

She may well be denying the sexual aspect of the affair because she thinks it will hurt her husband which of course it will. I can only speak for myself but the deceit and the resultant destroying of trust would be the biggest thing for me. In this situation, based on what has been said here, I'd try to save the marriage. I'd also think back to see if there was anything in my behaviour back then that may have contributed to her being in the frame of mind that would contribute to something like this happening but that isn't easy at such a distance in time. Not that it really matters. What happened, happened. Better to spend the energy looking forward, not back. We all make mistakes.

Obviously we don’t know how Tombars relationship was with his wife back then.
If he treated his wife anything like my friend did then it’s no wonder she found another man to lean on that then got deeper and he was only in it for the sex clearly .

I think if Tombar is in anyway to blame for his wife’s behaviour then that’ll be the easiest way for him to move on and accept it even if there is niggling doubt about the sexual part.

I’m not sure anyone can say what the answer is unless you’re in the position yourself and can weigh up all the factors , not to mention two grown kids. They I’m assuming have no knowledge of this and it may seriously affect them going forward if they felt the great marriage they always believed their parents had really wasn’t and start thinking of their mum being decietfull. They may then start to question other parts of the parenting .

Tombar, as I said no one can deal with this for you and you sound like you’ve already decided to move forward with your marriage .
If it’s to work it all has to stack up in your head and only you can make this happen.

I would definitely take a tiny step back from things rather than going it saying “don’t worry darling it’s all forgotten” . Get it straight in your mind , maybe take a little more time for you . Maybe your relationship with your wife becomes more platonic but your still love each other and remain together , maybe you move on from this happier and stronger . Only you can decide.

Obviously I wish you all the best

[FocusRS3]

Symptomless Coma said:

I hope it works out for you, good luck!

And you Symptomless you have been through the ringer yourself .

[FocusRS3]

ST565NP said:

You do know that all your details are on the About me PistonHeads profile ?

We all tend to forget this for sure .

Still he has nothing to hide really

[FocusRS3]

Tombar , you have already in a way accepted it and you seem keen to move on and good for you .

Better now to embrace things IMO and get on with enjoying the rest of your life and marriage .
You have explained that your wife is remorseful, loves you and wants to move forward .

Bottom line is you love her , want to continue being married , as does she and there isn’t the complication of this so called ‘affair’ that can ever come back .

You also have two lovely boys , what’s the point in turning their lives upside down now ?

Yes you may always question why and fair enough but then maybe back 10yrs you may not have been the husband you should have been, who knows . Frankly it’s too late anyway .

[FocusRS3]

tombar said:

Sadly, line manager isn't trustworthy and I wouldn't mention it to her in a million years. I get on well with her boss and I might mention to him if things stay difficult. I've one of those transparent faces!! And I work with my wife too - we have a business together which does really great work with people who need our help.

Things will no doubt be semi-rubbish for a while but I'm lucky in that i) she chose to stay 9 years ago, ii) we love each other still iii) I can understand some of the reasons for what happened in retrospect and we have agreed to learn from them, and iv) I'm not letting a corpse win (!).

I just need to train my mind to look forward together and not obsess on the past. It may be understandable but it isn't helpful.

I'm immensely grateful for the help from this forum.

Tombar, how are you coping with things?

[FocusRS3]

tombar said:

Thanks for asking. Not well if honest. I know the sensible path forward but I can't get the images of them together out of my mind - an amazingly painful process. I just wonder if this is always going to be there (clearly it is) and whether I can get over, under or around it to move forward. Have just decided counseling might be a good idea. She has too - she's going though a lot of other rough and stressful stuff with dementia of mum and aunt and unresolved bereavement issues of her best friend who died 11 years ago today.
She's the absolute love of my life, my family mean everything to me, and I can't get the feeling or or my head that is all spoiled.
Sorry for downer! I know it's a grief curve and it will move forward. I also know I can't change the past but been the future. I want to rescue my marriage so very much. (I'm also mentally tired, have thoughtt of nothing else for a week and am probably going nuts)

I figured as much hence me asking .
Without question seeing a councillor is a good idea as it will help to break it down and in some ways maybe understand it.
It may also be an idea for you to have individual time with the councillor.

Take some time for yourself especially as you work together so it may be that you feel suffocated by her in some ways .

You will move on from this I’m sure but it’s going to take time . You’ll never forget it but you’ll learn how to deal with it. The councillor is an important part here

All the best

[FocusRS3]

[quote=tombar]Thanks everyone. I think a big problem is that she's she's had 9 years to move on and get used it it .

Tombar can you elaborate on this a little more ?

[FocusRS3]

tombar said:

Back in 2008/2009 I was very suspicious that something was going on. She always denied it and my constant questioning wasn't helping, I also got lots of stress related health symptoms. She agreed to stop seeing him as a 'friend' and I decided the only sensible thing to do was to move forward. We moved on and have had a great last 9 years.

I didn't think about it in that time, had given her the benefit of the doubt, but on the way to a work event 2 weeks ago I drove past his house and saw it was for sale. A quick Google showed he'd died a year ago.

I told her. Turns out (weirdly) she had also found out he'd died this past month, when taking out soon for a music exam, she's walked the dog past his house and did the same thing re Google.... The fact she hadn't told me this made me suspicious and I had a look at her search history, then confronted her.

I totally believe she hadn't seen him since summer 2009. Or thought of him. There was no opportunity and her while attitude to our marriage improved hugely.

As a bit of salt in the wound now, is that they met when she was writing a book . I remembered that the there had been a piece of very unusual writing at the time that I found, about a woman having an affair. Rereading this now, is seems like a draft love letter to him, suggesting that he'd given her an ultimatum, me or him. (She chose me). Lots of loving words, very painful to read now. She says it was a fictionalised romanticised version of the truth. I'm not sure that I believe her. I'm also sure it isn't helpful to speculate.

So, she moved on 9 years ago, but I've just found out. Hope this message isn't too confusing.

Tombar Tks for explaining and no it’s not too confusing. Apologies for digging a little deeper but I wasn’t making sense of some parts of the story .

You’re right it’s not healthy to speculate and for all anyone knows she may well be telling the truth .
Sounds like nothing more than curiosity made her google his address and details. It’s clear she wasn’t seeing him during the 9yrs.

She has admitted loving him and having some form of relationship with him , that much you already know, So in that she is telling you the truth . You may always question weather there was a physical element to it but ultimately you’ll have to take her word on this.

I can understand why she did some research on him, I think anyone would do the same . I suppose that was her undoing really .

Moving forward- See the councillor, this will help you both move forward together.

I don’t subscribe to the idea of putting it all in a box somewhere in your mind as the box eventually gets opened . The only way is to break it down.

[FocusRS3]

tombar said:

Back in 2008/2009 I was very suspicious that something was going on. She always denied it and my constant questioning wasn't helping, I also got lots of stress related health symptoms. She agreed to stop seeing him as a 'friend' and I decided the only sensible thing to do was to move forward. We moved on and have had a great last 9 years.

I didn't think about it in that time, had given her the benefit of the doubt, but on the way to a work event 2 weeks ago I drove past his house and saw it was for sale. A quick Google showed he'd died a year ago.

I told her. Turns out (weirdly) she had also found out he'd died this past month, when taking out soon for a music exam, she's walked the dog past his house and did the same thing re Google.... The fact she hadn't told me this made me suspicious and I had a look at her search history, then confronted her.

I totally believe she hadn't seen him since summer 2009. Or thought of him. There was no opportunity and her while attitude to our marriage improved hugely.

As a bit of salt in the wound now, is that they met when she was writing a book . I remembered that the there had been a piece of very unusual writing at the time that I found, about a woman having an affair. Rereading this now, is seems like a draft love letter to him, suggesting that he'd given her an ultimatum, me or him. (She chose me). Lots of loving words, very painful to read now. She says it was a fictionalised romanticised version of the truth. I'm not sure that I believe her. I'm also sure it isn't helpful to speculate.

So, she moved on 9 years ago, but I've just found out. Hope this message isn't too confusing.

Tombar, hows it all going?

Also how is everyone else getting along now we are past the Post Xmas period when the brown stuff seems to hit the fan.

Hoping all good