Wife leaves and sleeps with anotther man.

Texwill--

You may or may not be ideal husband material. I suspect not, because most of us fall short of a marital ideal. I have a good opinion of myself, but I'd never claim perfection.

From your account your wife seems very immature, very impulsive and a bit of a drama queen.

When you were courting, these qualities appealed to you. Why?

Insofar as immaturity, impulsiveness and drama appealing to me, I dont think that was what I fell in love with. But I suppose you might be onto something, I have to think about that. I have accepted some responsibility for this, but I am still unsure how much is fair to place on myself or her when considering my options.

My wife and I dated for over three years before we got married and were happy. I truly don't believe that she had ever cheated on me. Three months after we were married she left me. Then begged to come back and then when she did, left me again two months after that. Then had sex with a total stranger less than a week after sleeping with me.

Before she left the first time, she said that she was unhappy with me because based on what she said I think she expected our marriage to better than our dating. She was upset that I didn't touch, caress or compliment her as much as she said she wanted. I am aware that I am not an overly "touchy-feely" man (especially in public), but I never have been, and we were happy before and she was so exited to get married to me. She was also upset that I went out with my best friend (who was best man at our wedding, and she has always maintained that she liked) once a week, as I have for almost ten years. She confronted me about her feelings and told me that she was unhappy, and I told her that I was as well but over other issues. I had never been married before and haven't had a roommate or lived with anyone since I was in the Army years ago, and sometimes got 'cabin fever' as I sometimes like to read or spend a small amount of time alone and could no longer do this as we work the same day hours.

Reading - and other kinds of solitary pursuits like study, writing, or art or crafts - can be done by two people in the same home. I do agree that some alone time is reasonable, even necessary for well-being. I had a boss once that loved his long drive to work because it was the only alone-time he had.

Keeping up a long time friendship is reasonable to me - a person can't be all things to another - once a week seems pushing it, or not - meeting at the coffee shop? poker marathons?


One saturday I went out with my best friend to see a band in another city two hours away and at about 10:00 PM she calls my cellphone and tells me that she's moving out. By the time I return home, she and all her things are moved out of our house.

Well, I can see being miffed if you both usually have weekends not at work, and saturday night is a special event night for you two. Moving out of the house over it? Sounds like a situation of "straw on the camel's back" - that there was a lot more causing irritation than that one instance. Sounds like a big communication gap at the least.

Over the next few days we talk and she tells me that she was upset and that if I had come home faster and stopped her she wouldn't have left. She also said that she thought that she was the cause of me being unhappy, and that she loved me so much that she wanted to be happy, so she left.

I think she left because she was angry at the time, probably angry and hurt. Not that she didn't also want you to be happy.. emotions are sometimes complex.

After talking more, she begged me to take her back, and I told her that it would be hard for me, because it hurt my feelings to be abandoned in the middle of the night. But I agreed to take her back, because I still loved (and love) her. I also asked her to promise to not do that again. She promised.

Hmmm, so big of you - you think. There seems a big lack of communication between you re why she was so unhappy about your behavior that she would actually move out. It's not just you that was hurt. You were both seeing yourselves as hurt, and you got to be the "I agreed to take her back" person.

A couple of months later, she expressed how she was still unhappy and how I needed to show her more affection and attention. This, I admit, was harder for me because I was still hurt by her running off on me. I told her this. She said that I had to just forgive her. I told her that I didn't know if I could forget it, and I admitted that I sometimes wondered if she would be at home when I got there from work at times. She asked me if I would ever forgive her and love her the same was as I did when we got married and I said that I didn't know if it would ever be the same until I could find a way to understand what was really going on with her. That very night, she said that she couldn't be in the same house with me if that was the case, and immediately left again. The next day she brought help and moved all of her things out again.

Two people wounded and wounding. Failure to communicate again.

We were still talking about our marriage and what was wrong and so on. Then on a saturday night two weeks later I went out and inadvertently found her at our local bar&grill all dressed up by herself (no girlfriends) sitting next to some guy I didn't know. I went up to her and asked how she was, and she smiled and asked me if she could buy me a drink. The guy next to her didn't behave like I thought a guy on a 'date' would have under the circumstances. And of course, neither did she, based on her response. I told her "No thanks" and left and went home.

Another loss of a chance to communicate.

Later that night she called me and asked if she could come over because she was drunk and wanted to make love. I agreed to it. The next morning before she left she said how much she enjoyed it, and wanted to do that again.

The next couple of days, she called and kept asking me to lunch and I declined

Now I'm beginning to wonder, and go back and look at the start of your thread - You're looking for help because your wife had sex with another man. But you stubbornly resisted her efforts to get back with you, as shown in the rest of your paragraph....

and also emailed me asking if we could just "date" like before. I responded that because we were still married that might seem odd to be "dating". She responded back something like "OK so we can just be married like before then?" I said that couldn't happen because we hadn't worked out our issues. She kept calling, and on a wednesday, three days after we made love, we got in a heated argument on the phone and she suggested that our marriage was "all or nothing" and she wanted to get back together again, and that was that. I said some hurtful things to her in response, such as "If thats how you feel, then go file for divorce then; I dent want you moving back in right now" and "you weren't acting like someone that wanted to be married last saturday out all dolled up letting other men hit on you and buy you drinks" and so on.

That same week, friday, two days after our telephone argument, and six days after we last made love, I learn from a concerned mutual friend who called me that she is out slowdancing and hugged up with some other guy at a dance club.

Well, she had tried to get back with you... and was feeling, I would surmise, resentful, and needy at the same time. Not perhaps the most mature behaviour, but understandable.

I check into it and find this to be true, and not only that, they are kissing and rubbing on eachother. Then she drives him to his house and goes inside and stays the night.

I agree with Sozobe that this is creepy to me. You wouldn't take her back. What are you doing checking what she is up to? That is her business.

I call her cellphone that morning at about 8:00 AM and she doesn't answer. About 9:30 she finally leaves his house. She gets to where she is staying a little later.

This watching stuff IS creepy.

I go in person and ask her what was going on. She tells me that she was out with her friends and invents a long and complicated story about how she spent all night driving her friends around and stayed at her friends house to take care of her because she was sick. Knowing this was all lies, I became even more hurt and left.
Oh, boy.

Two days later we begin talking again. She says that she did want to get back together with me and I told her that was impossible without honesty. It took more time but over the next few days and several different versions of the story, more truth emerged. She admitted that she met some guy and danced with him, and did the "freak dance" at the club (where man rubs his groin on the behind of the woman) and let him rub her thighs. She was wearing a skirt and no underwear at the time. Then they went to eat and then kissed him for a few minutes in the parking lot and let him rub her legs again. Then drove him to his house and went in and got undressed and rubbed his back, kissed and then had sex with him. Then the next morning my phone call woke her up, and after waking she got on top of this guy again and had sex with him again.

She tells me that she was hurt and was looking for someone to make her feel good. She also said that she has never done anything like that before, but she just wasn't herself that night and next morning.
That sounds about right.

This making her tell all the details is also on the creepy side. The only important thing is that she did have sex, and therefore the question of protection if you two have sex again is important. The details are not your business. You don't own her. People who are married do not own each other, and, by the way, you wouldn't take her back.

People who are married, at least many of them, have promised to be faithful. That is not the same thing as ownership.

I still love her more than I have ever loved anyone before, in spite of all this, but I am so horribly hurt and confused. I have read probably hundreds of forums and marriage counseling websites and cannot seem get any satisfactory answers to this dilema. She and I even went to counseling a couple of days ago and I didn't feel any better about this.

Is there any realistic hope for us?
I don't know. I can see counselling helping both of you, but it would be for much more than one visit.

Any advice? Any opinions? Anything like this happen to anyone else?
Things like this happen with people all the time.


Thanks!

Interesting that the general surmise is that it is all on the wife, by us - more or less (I'm still unsure on that) - who know not much at all re the marriage.

I feel free to post that as I, a woman, have found myself siding with one or the other faily often - sometimes NOT the one posting. Truth is, we don't know, this is just a forum where people talk.

Interesting that the general surmise is that it is all on the wife, by us - more or less (I'm still unsure on that) - who know not much at all re the marriage.

I feel free to post that as I, a woman, have found myself siding with one or the other faily often - sometimes NOT the one posting. Truth is, we don't know, this is just a forum where people talk.

She wouldn't by any chance be smoking hot and/or exceptional in bed would she? Trust me, there's relevance in this question. Details not necessary; your assessment is (and your perspective on how others view her would be helpful as well).

I'll need an answer to that first question to respond intelligently. I suspect I have this figured out.

OCCOM BILL wrote:

She wouldn't by any chance be smoking hot and/or exceptional in bed would she? Trust me, there's relevance in this question. Details not necessary; your assessment is (and your perspective on how others view her would be helpful as well).

I'll need an answer to that first question to respond intelligently. I suspect I have this figured out.

Actually yes, and yes. She is very physically attractive. And I would consider her very good in bed as well.

Others seem to view her as an attractive woman as well. At her employment, she seems to get an undue amount of male attention, and when we are out together, many men will unabashedly stare at her. She does dress somewhat provacatively at times as well, which adds to this attention. Lowcut cleavage-baring shirts or dresses, tight miniskirts, etc.

Does that help at all? What do you think you have figured out?