Kim, I could have written that myself! As I was reading your last post, I felt like someone finally knows what I am thinking right now. Last week I found out about an emotional affair that my husband had been having for a while. We have been married for 4 years, and the last two have been pretty stressful. We were having a difficult time with money, and had to move in with my parents for a bit to catch up. Things got pretty bad once that move was made. We had fought before, but had a few BIG ones once we moved. My husband was working nights at a gym, and I would visit him and I even became friends with the “girls” that worked with him (I call them girls because none were over 22). He was in sales, and they worked at the counter. I would visit him, and bring dinner for all of us and hang out after my workouts.
In the coming months, I noticed that my husband was becoming exceptionally close to one of these girls. I tried to brush it off as a little jealousy on my part because she was very fit and they seemed to get along very well. I would not say I was totally out of shape, but she was very athletic and my husband is also very athletic so I saw a bond that we did not share.
Once we moved into my parents house, we started to fight a lot. The first BIG one even had me saying to him that we were over, which is something that had never come across my mind before. During this fight, he had said that he doubted our marriage because he thought about connections with “other people” and didn’t know if that meant we weren’t right for each other. I knew INSTANTLY who this “other person” was!! I told him that I also have met people that interested me, but that I thought it was normal to like someone, but it didn’t mean you wanted to be with them. He actually said that it made sense, but of course denied that there was a specific person he had in mind. This fight was in January.
In February, I lost my job which added more stress but we were now in a better position financially. In March, I found out that I was pregnant with our son. I was happy, of course very nervous, but VERY happy! He seemed so too! He was smiling and excited to tell people, it was a really fun and happy time. Until April, when I was looking at our cell phone bill and noticed a bunch of text messages to a number that I did not know. Sure enough, as I assumed, it was her phone number. I was shocked!! In all, it was 150 text messages back and forth in a month!! When I confronted him, he just said that they were jokes about the gym and people there and that she just had the same sense of humor as him (and I apparently didn’t really have one). I said that it had to stop because that was too much, and even asked if she was the “other people” he had mentioned during our fight. He immediately said I was crazy, but that he would stop if it made me uncomfortable, but he refused to stop being her friend because she was a good friend by now. I was skeptical, but I was also very hormonal and blamed my insane jealousy on that. I was never a jealous person before, so I really did think that I might be making it into something bigger. We continued to fight and be disconnected, but again, I was looking forward to having our son together and repairing any issues that we had.
Fast forward to last week (our son was born in October, and is now 5 months old)…I had a sense that something was “off”. He was being very secretive, and wouldn’t give me the password for his Facebook page when I asked to see a picture of a mutual friend. Well, that made me question him, so of course once I got him to put in the password, I immediately looked at the messages. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach once I saw how many messages he had sent her. He thought he was smart and deleted the inbox, but I guess he never thought to look at the sent box! (Side note, I am a computer programmer, and he is so bad with anything electronic that he needed my help setting up an email account and using a Blackberry) I saw one email that was from two weeks after my son was born stating that “there is nothing he does not love about her” “he wishes sometimes that she were with him and not me” “he can’t leave his wife and rob her of her youth”! I was devastated.
I asked him calmly, and his response was that I should not have snooped through his stuff. I yelled, cried, and everything else you would expect. He kept saying that he doesn’t feel that way anymore, he made a mistake and moved on and I should too. On the third day, I was oddly calm and he tried to get a rise out of me. He said I had two choices, either leave or get over it…Well, that did it! I screamed that I hated him and we were over. I told him that I would make the appointment with the divorce mediator that a friend of ours used and that would be it. I told him I was not interested in a word he had to say after that. I followed this by leaving the house for the day to visit a friend with our son. For a few hours, I had resigned myself to the idea that we were over. He thought I was weak, and I was going to show him that he made a huge mistake. My only weakness left was that I had my son. I grew up with parents that hated each other, and refused to do it to him. I gave him 2 days to say something meaningful, but he didn’t. I still felt guilty because of my son. After about 5 hours or so, I got an email from him saying that he was sorry. He said that he would do anything to make it work, he didn’t want to lose me, and he would go to counseling if I wanted. I didn’t know what to make of it! I didn’t reply, but I came home that night. I decided to give him one chance to say the right thing. Well, he must have practiced, because he let me say what I wanted, answered my questions and kept saying he loves me. That was about 5 days ago.
Now, he is still letting me ask questions, which is a big step considering that he initially told me that he would not discuss the past with me. He is trying to help more with our son (something he has really been lacking in for 5 months). I, in turn, have realized how much we really did grow apart over the last year. I take responsibility for being bitchy and mean. I also take responsibility for putting my expectations too high. I am trying to understand that he just needed someone to talk to. But, I cannot get out of my head that I didn’t deserve what he did! I think he crossed a major line by sending her that email. He said that his feelings were a mistake and that he moved passed it.
The things I have found out since have been making it harder. Like, 1. He told her I was pregnant before we even told out families, he says it was because she was such a good friend 2. He kept in contact with her for at least another month or two, even though he said that he realized it was a mistake right away 3. He had hung out with her outside of work and never told me, which makes me trust him even less. He swore that there was never anything physical, but I can’t tell if I should trust him. I think, he lied before, why not now? Do these questions ever go away? I want to give our marriage a good effort. My son was my first reason to try, but I really do love my husband. When we are good, we are GREAT, but when we are down, we treat each other very badly. I have millions of reason to try to make it work, but I am scared that I will not be able to get past what he did. I am not sure what to do now. I have ups and downs, and blame him and then understand. Do these things ever leave your mind? Does counseling help?
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