After my wifes affair

Its been 20 months since I found out about my wife’s affair. We had been married for 19 years at the time, with three beautiful girls (15, 13, and 10).
I will try to explain, as best I can, the underlying emotion that still devastates me, and I know I will take this pain to my grave, and no one - God included - can help me with that burden. Time does NOT heal all wounds. You can try your best to box up the incredible hurt and pain as tight as you can, but please understand it is always still there, always raw and trying to get out of the box again – and believe me, it gets out from time to time. It is tears and work and struggle to box it up again. I look here on this and similar sites for answers, but I realize there really are no answers that will bring a complete closure to the emotional turmoil. I see wives asking – what can they do to repair a marriage broken by their infidelity. Maybe my feelings will help other wives here understand a little of what the husband is feeling, I don’t know. Here goes.

My parents (and my wife’s) had a rock solid marriage that lasted to their end. My mother died at the age of 70, only 6 weeks after my father passed from cancer – I always say it was a broken heart that took her from us. Anyway, growing up, that is what I grew to expect as the “normal” in a marriage. To have a wife and partner to stand by my side until the end, growing old together, to create and grow a beautiful family that we cherish and love, to have that special bond of togetherness that -through thick and thin- “no man can set asunder”.

When I fell in love with Sarah I bought into all those hopes and dreams, hook line and sinker. I was ready for that wonderful commitment. It is hard to describe that kind of love … how I trusted her with my whole life without a second thought. After all, we had our own world to be built, all ahead of us. I gave her my whole world, happily. I wanted to take this woman I loved more than anything or anyone else I have ever loved in my whole life, and build a world that was only ours.

At the start, we had what I guess every couple feels they have – a feeling that our relationship was so very special, not at all like other relationships. No other couple could ever match the love we felt for each other, the deep understanding that exists between two people without any words needed. Our bond was so strong, and we were so deeply in love. We shared a special emotional place, a special room, that was ours and only ours. It was where we were intimate, where we shared our hopes and dreams, where we shared our fears, and where we felt unlimited love and support from each other. A place where just catching each others eyes told the whole of everything. No one else could ever go into that emotional room, only she and I had the key. The key was the depth of our love and commitment to each other and our life. It sounds sappy, but I think to some extent this is true for all couples.
We married in our late twenties, we were mature and had our heads straight. We were both professionals, but Sarah decided to be a stay at home Mom on the birth of our first child. I supported that fully – it fit into our concept of raising a family similar to the way we were raised, with mom at home. Twenty years later, we have three beautiful daughters. I have worked hard and have been successful in my career over the years, and we do not have financial concerns. My profession is demanding without question, and I have travelled a lot on business over the years. I wont be defensive, but I will say I have spent my life working hard to build the family I dreamed of. I have always been faithful, tried to be loving and attentive, and completely dedicated to building the family and life I dreamed of with Sarah. I always thought my hard work as husband and father, and family team captain, making sure everyone is always safe and secure and cared for, was part of the dream. So I worked hard at my job and my family. In any event, whatever the reason (or non-reason) for the affair does not matter – I am simply trying to express what it did to me emotionally so you might get insight from my feelings.

Since this all happened and my world crumbled and disintegrated, I have done much soul-searching for answers on why I intensely just wanted to go somewhere and die. Why the betrayal felt so coldly complete. Why I felt so crushed, humiliated and devastated. Maybe my view is distorted and my feelings are misplaced, but frankly that doesnt matter - it is what it is.

So here it is.

I have come to think of the foundation of marriage, the unique bond between every husband and wife, as that special room I talked about, that only she and I have the keys to. It’s the special, magic place of emotion where you can share your worst fears and strongest hopes, be intimate in every way, and always feel the full support and love of your wife. No one else can go in that room and that’s why it is magic. No one else knows that place or what we share there. A place where you treat the other persons heart more tenderly than your own. A marriage has many ups and downs, many struggles, but go into that room for a few hours with her, talk it out, and she comforts me, always she is in my corner, and my soul feels restored. There are times in a marriage when, for whatever reason, we don’t go into the room as often as we should, and we all become more distant.

When she opened the door of that room to another man and shared the intimacy that is supposed to be uniquely and only ours… that room evaporated. It no longer exists, period. In any form. My magic, special place that I could share everything I was afraid of with her in private, and only her, and be intimate, is gone forever. It is no longer a place only we have shared. I obviously and unarguably do not have the special or unique relationship I thought I had. If I did, she would never have done this, EVER. My foundation crumbled in an instant.

In fact, my thinking gets more troublesome. If she was able to let someone into our marriage that easily is it even possible for that special place, that so-special relationship, to have ever existed between us at all? Ever? How could that possibly be? I have to think not. My hopes and dreams of this idyllic life and family must be a fabrication and fantasy world of my own making. It never existed, and I was living in a delusion my whole marriage.
I thought we were a strong , powerful team as a family. Having each others backs, protecting each other, keeping each other safe and loved, especially through all the tough times.

Then she quit the team. But she didn’t tell us she quit the team and started a new one. The affair didn’t last long, but I was the one who discovered it. I honestly don’t know whats worse, the feeling caused by the affair that I am not worth as much as him, or worth anything at all frankly, or that I garner so little respect from her that I am not even worth being truthful with. I know after having put my faith in her so blindly, so completely, I feel so very very ashamed and embarrassed. I was a complete fool, living a delusional life. The hurt was and is so indescribable. I have never cried or mourned the loss of anything as much as my marriage – but now I realize I am mourning the death of my life's dream of having a lifelong partnership as strong, protecting and loving as what my parents had, and the blanket of security they gave us as a family while we were growing up. Our home was forever. My God, I still remember our phone number from that home so clearly, over 40 years later! That's the power of a forever home when you are growing up. Talking about this now, the damn box is wide open again and there are those feelings that punch me in the gut and I cant breathe again. It doesn’t get better with time. I just get better at repressing it. Maybe that’s the path to recovery for me. But there is that wave of nausea - OMG how could she have done this to me, our daughters, our life, our dreams. She burned it all.

As regretful as she is, and wants forgiveness, there is none to give. She made her choice, and she didn’t choose me. What, exactly, do I forgive her for?

As much as she wants to return to the life we had and continue, that life can never be again. The trust has been violated deeply, the betrayal has drowned me.

I know I sound like a mess at this point, and when the box is open, yes I am. BTW, I am not here looking for advice. I don’t want to hear from anyone on God, religion, or counselling. If you want to discuss that, you have not had my experience nor do you know my efforts since the affair, and I am not interested. I am just here to share how I feel.

My daughters are so beautiful and I have no regrets (of course!) for bringing them into the world even through a relationship that is now failed. They are my reason for going on, period. The marriage failure is not their fault, they gave and still give their whole heart and soul to what was our family team. I love them beyond comprehension, and I am so extremely proud of the beautiful, gentle, smart, kind, and thoughtful young adults they have become. I am so lucky to have them!

I am sure I have gone through the cycle of typical emotions. When I found out, I didn’t sleep or eat for weeks, losing 25 lbs when I didn't really have much excess. One day after discovery day though, I had to be apart from her, to have my own space to think things through. The sheer hurt I felt to have been betrayed by the one person in the world I love the most, morphed into sheer rage. I wanted desperately to call her names and say hurtful things. I didn’t but I wanted to. I wanted to hurt her as much as she hurt me but I knew there are no words, they simply don't exist, to cause that kind of hurt. Obviously I had to get away for awhile, these feelings would cause more damage to our daughters lives. But I was manifesting a hatred caused by her destroying everything I worked so hard to build in our life together, the past 20 years. My insides had been removed, efficiently eviscerated.

I am not blind. I see other couples struggles. I know I have been a good husband, a good father, and certainly did not deserve this. Sarah threw me away when she made that decision.

So, what can you do as a wife to restore trust? First, remember that the deep love, the lifelong commitment of that special room, is gone. And it can never reappear to your husband because the very reason it existed (if it existed at all) was deliberately destroyed by the infidelity. Maybe over time there can be friendship and kindness. It has been a painful and stark realization, but I know now we did not have a special relationship, she did not have my back, she was not in my corner. There really isn’t anything she can do to show me that she was. I agree with a lot of people – actions are FAR more important that words. While I agree it will never hurt to work to show loving actions and respect, do not expect a complete marriage redemption. As I said, it is actually only logical that my emotional special place with her was a delusion, and never existed to begin with. I loved her more than anything, I did so much for her and took delight in making our family happy. At my age now, I will obviously never have that kind of relationship that my parents had, thanks to bad life decisions - mine for believing in her, or hers for the betrayal. I will never stop working hard to provide that warm security blanket of a forever family to my daughters, but my personal dream of a soulmate is obviously gone forever. Meeting when young and loving only each other for 60+ years. Magic. Times have changed.
Uggh,I need to get the box closed back up now.