Seven Year Itch...Why cheating occurs.

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Its called "The Seven Year Itch" even tho it can happen anytime in your marriage. (Go google it...loads of info out there on it)

I too was married for almost 10 years when the "itch" hit me. I was confused about what I wanted...but certain that I was no longer happy.

After so many years married he had slowly began to treat me like a child. I had a routine and had certain responsibilities that were expected of me and was scolded like a child if I didnt get everything done.

My husband and I worked alot of hours. (we worked for the same employer) Most nights he'd come home crabby and griping about work right thru dinner each night. Then he would plop down and watch tv until 9 and go to bed.

We dont live in a city. I've lived in this house since I was 9. I bought it from my parents right after graduation. I never moved out, my parents did. Its 15 miles from anything....so isolation is sorta built in. Years of begging to move have landed on deaf ears. So I'm stuck here in the sticks. (1982 till now)

We never went anywhere on weekends and the few times I planned a family outting he managed to complain alot and make me and the kids miserable the whole time.

Yet, he wouldnt let me take the kids without him to go have some fun....like go to the park or whatever so he would insist on going with us and ruin our outtings. So I eventually stopped going out with the kids altogether. I was stuck in a rut! Nothing to EVER look forward to. NO friends (most long gone years ago because of how he treats everyone)
He's one of those self-proclaimed "perfect people" who have no problem pointing out your flaws verses his perfection."

He never seemed happy and didnt celebrate any holidays. For years I picked every present our children received. I worked full-time and struggled with our children cause if left to him they'd never develop sense of self, love, compassion etc.

He "re-connected" with an old friend from highshool (found on classmates.com) A girl he had tried to marry three times. (she always backed out) He began to email her and eventually calling her on the phone. He invited her out for two weeks one summer along with her new husband. It was clear to me once he set eyes on her again that he still loved her. All week he was a different man. He was kind and cheerful and even treated our kids like a father should with lots of hugs and kisses. He even helped with homework and read bedtime stories!(Guess he was trying to impress her).
One drunken night that week he told me..."yes, if I could I would still like to be with her." That made me feel like 2nd fiddle. He totally denys having ever said that but he was blasted drunk ... and I wasnt.

Two years I put up with this "friendship". Him calling her and ending every call with, "I love you too". It tore me up! When asked he would say she's just a friend and besides she lives in another state and is married.

I dont call my friends and I never told them "I love you". He wasnt "cheating"....physically anyhow. But mentally VERY MUCH SO.

I was sent by my company away for two weeks on business out-of-state. I was nervous to go but needed to for work and I had hoped time alone with our two kids would help all of them bond.

I cheated on him while I was away.

I worked 8 hours a day (along with 12 others sent with me out-of-state). We all went out for dinner each night and that usually led to drinks afterward. I spent the first couple nights "crying in my beer" about my lousy life.

One night my husband called me and told me his "friend" was getting a divorce. He then told me he had invited her to move in with us. Evil or Very Mad

I got blasted drunk that night and wound up in bed with a co-worker who was my husbands exact opposite. He was lively, cheerful, carismatic.
I wish now that I had not cheated but was lured by my longing for living and pissed about him inviting her to live with us! I reasoned, at the time, that he was going to leave me to be with her. It was just a matter of time. So for the rest of the two weeks I partied like it was 1999.

Coming home wasnt easy....I was dreading going back to the "rut".

It wasnt long before I was busted. He just flat out asked me if I cheated. His suspisions brought on by my personality change and my suddenly wanting to go out with friends and have a life beyond sitting on the couch.

We worked thru it. ALL of it. Painfully. What happened, where and why. And I put my foot down about his "friend". I didnt like the rut and I didnt like 2nd fiddle. It's been almost 2 years now and still we work on it.

We resolved that we did indeed love eachother and we examined our lives prior to my cheating. He did agree as to why I wasnt happy and we worked together to change our lives...TOGETHER.

Cheating doesnt mean love is gone. It means things are wrong and if not fixed....well divorce hurts alot of people when you have kids.

We are both happier now. We go out with eachother (leave kids with a sitter!) And we take our kids places now spending time like a family should. We kiss more, hug more and connect deeply with eachother now. He doesnt call or write his friend anymore. I quit my job and have shifted focus to our family and our lives rather than $$$$. He plays with his children now. Giggles, hugs and kisses. Life is better for all of us now.

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I'm glad things worked out for you, mrspookie, but I'm a little confused about the point of your story?

Surely not, "If your marriage is ailing, go have an affair and that will send the message that things need to improve"?

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The 7 year itch may occur but not everyone who has it scratches it.

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Ive been reading here for a few weeks now. It seems alot of people have questions on cheating...why...how...and most important what to do.

Most say just leave. Like thats best for everyone. For me thats like throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

I mearly wanted to post my story (as the cheater). And to make known that it can be worked out.

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For some couples, its a deal breaker no matter what.

For me, that's a deal breaker. You cheat, you don't love me the way I deserve to be loved. Plain and simple.

Fantisizing about another person, having a crush, those are normal things. Everyone does it now and then. However, what changes everything is acting on those thoughts.

I think that the person you're with deserves better and if you can't keep your hands off someone else, you don't love your partner as much as you should or could. Which isn't to say you are a bad person. It just means to me that perhaps you should move on and let the person you cheated on find someone who can be faithful to only them.

Maybe it's a rather old fashioned and ridged way to look at things but it's how I feel about it.

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I enjoyed your story. I don't believe that you are promoting cheating but trying to send the lesson that it is better to be honest and deal with things honestly from the beginning. I'm sure that wish you had done in the beginning what you did in the end. But you know, through pain we grow. And sometimes it takes that pain for us to grown. Hopefully, you both will be able to go through painful things with communication and understanding before hurting each other at the deep level you were before. Good example and good advice!

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mrspookie, thank you for sharing your story and welcome to A2K. There is no one answer fits all to relationship situations and each couple must determine for themselves what will and can work for them. At one point in my life I was as strong in my feelings as some others here state. And then I found myself looking at the world through a lens I never anticipated. Sometimes things we always think will be black and white are gray and sometimes the answers are simple. Only those who have walked in those shoes knows for a fact how they responded, the rest of us can only guess.

I hope you and your husband continue to work through your issues and come to a place in your marriage where you can both honestly say you are happy. Thanks for de-lurking and now that you're here, I hope you stick around.

lunaflynn, welcome to A2K!

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I am happy for you, but my first thought after reading your story was:
What would have happened if you had put down your foot earlier?
Did it really have to go that far?

Your husband sounded like a real idiot in the first part of your story, but the way he has changed sounds like all he needed was someone to wake him up.

The point I am trying to make is: If I found out my husband was cheating, and after confronting him he told me about all the thing that had been going wrong for the last ten years, I would have to ask myself why he had not told me earlier.

And he might be right in many or all things, but my relationship with him would be over.
Might sound hard, but I have been cheated on for many many years, and put up with it, and was always hoping he would change one day.
I decided I will never go through that ever again.
I just would not be able to trust him any more.

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I had always told myself that I would not stay with a cheater. Until I was actually faced with the reality. When I found out that my husband had developed feelings for another woman and was unhappy in our marriage I tried desperately to get counselling and work on our issues. My relationship didn't turn out the way yours did. 3 years later and he is still with the woman he had developed feelings for. This was after 15 years of marriage and two wonderful kids. I understand now that people go through changes. Some stick around and work through them and some simply walk away.

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martybarker wrote:

I had always told myself that I would not stay with a cheater. Until I was actually faced with the reality.

Good point.

I guess you can't say with 100% certainty until you can say with 100% certainty.

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Yeah.

Part of what's making me wince about this account, though, mrspookie, is that this idea (it can work out, cheating isn't the end of the world) only really seems valid coming from the cheated-upon. You can say that you're feeling much better, that life is good, etc., but what does your husband really think?

It seems to me that it's more his call than yours.

The quitting your job part, in the context of recent posts that you say you've read, also makes me wince. I'm glad that worked out for you but in terms of a message -- and you say you wrote this to send a message -- it's dangerous. I think for a lot of these situations, the husband telling the wife to quit for the sake of the marriage would be a really terrible idea for all involved.

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No two relationships are the same.

I certainly didnt write up everything in our story about our 10 years of marriage good and/or bad.

I cant "speak for him" and expect to be 100% accurate of his thoughts and feelings.

I know he loves me and I him.

I know we both put eachother thru hell.

And I know it could have been avoided if we had been more honest and talked with eachother step by step during our marriage. We both learned that the hard way.

As for quitting my job....well if you read my story you would realize that the guy I cheated with worked with me. Even tho the affair was over my husband must have been constantly worried about the other guy working with me possibly slipping me love notes, flirting...so to spare that pain and put a foot forward to fixing our marriage I quit working there and got a new job instead. My husand understood this and his opinon is all that matters to me.

I am not suggesting that people quit their jobs. I am suggesting people talk to eachother about how they feel right up front ... step by step.

If I had told him in the beginning that I wasnt comfortable with his re-connecting with an old friend this whole snowball effect could have been avoided.

I didnt say anything because I trusted his love for me and never imagined he'd fall for her again and "want to be with her if he could".

For the sake of wanting to trust I went along with his re-connecting and it bought me a crap load of heartache. When he said he was moving her in with us .... I cracked.

I posted my story as a ray of hope for others possibly in a similar situation.

Forgiveness is hard to give and hard to receive/earn. Yet, what sadness to lose a spouse over the lack of communication and the snowball effects that happen because of it.

My hope, for couples in crisis, is that if they do indeed love eachother....they need to communicate how they feel....and work on their marriage.

It seems a wrong move, in my opinion, to just stub up and say, "well they cheated ... its over period."

Do you not really love your spouse?
Is your love so thin you can flip a switch and say its not there anymore?

Will leaving be better for you and the children in the long run? Or are you doomed to repeat your lack of communicating in your next relationship as well?

Life is learning. Learn and grow together. Forgiveness is obtainable.

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[quote]Do you not really love your spouse?
Is your love so thin you can flip a switch and say its not there anymore?

Will leaving be better for you and the children in the long run? Or are you doomed to repeat your lack of communicating in your next relationship as well? [/quote]

Answers, yes I DO love my husband.
I also loved my other partner (the cheating one), I suppose that is why I stayed as long as I did (six years). But in the end my trust could never be restored, after he'd cheated on me (repeatedly) and it was driving me crazy.
Leaving was not easy, and it took a while and a few hundred miles to finally get over it.
I did not have children then, but even if I had, looking back, I have to say: Yes, even with children, leaving would have been the right choice.

For me, that is!

I also believe, that this does not have to apply to everybody in a similar situation. As I mentioned, your husband seems a nice guy overall, who just needed a slap to wake him up to reality.

I am very happy that it worked out for you. And I hope for your husband, that even if not straight away, his trust in you will come back eventually.

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Im wondering if this was a man who cheated, would all these answers still be so ... forgiving? Confused

I am willing to bet there would have been slander all over this thread. Comments about how he cant keep his dick in his pants. Or how he is an abuser, or some other rude thing like that.
Sheessh, I might have been the author of a few of those myself.

So why is it, when a woman cheats, people are more likely to listen to her and give her excuses credit , where as a man just gets ignored and looked at like a dog?

I have been avoiding this thread because I am of the mind that, you can have a bad marriage, a bad time in your marriage, or even a small tiff and it is absolutely not ok to take your clothes off with someone else.

Having sex with someone else is not an accident.
You have ample time to think about what you are doing.
I am not a person to accept excuses about cheating.

Cheating is dangerous from the perspective of std's.

cheating is damaging, and one of the most abusive things someone can do to their relationship and their spouse.

And no. I would not change how I feel .
If my husband were to cheat, I would move out.

We would have to live next to each other to raise our daughter, but I would no longer share a bed with him.

Of course I would love him. but trust is a huge part of a lasting love, and if that trust was broken in that way, I dont see total forgiveness on the horizon. So I would save myself that time and effort and leave.

He would still be in my life.. but not my bed.

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Its strange to me that no one understood that I had felt cheated from the moment he said, "I'd be with her if I could". And all the "I love you" talk he did on the phone. And lastly, "I told her to move in with us."

Should I have just kicked him out then?

Oh never mind. I know what the answer will be from some of yall.

"I wouldnt make the effort."

Guess love isnt worth fighting for in some people's lives.

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mrspookie wrote:

One night my husband called me and told me his "friend" was getting a divorce. He then told me he had invited her to move in with us.

Where the hell does a man have the right to offer to have someone move in with him and his wife (no matter what the relationship) without cousulting his wife? On top of that, there was obviously a relationship (whether sexual or not, between the man and this woman).

That would have been the point at which I would have given the man the heave-ho.

I don't think that your cheating was wise, but it was certainly understandable.

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mrspookie wrote:

Guess love isnt worth fighting for in some people's lives.

It is when it's worth it.

Not all love is guaranteed to be good or with the right person or even returned. And it doesn't make eveything all right again.

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Once a fight involves 3 people, it is no longer a fair fight.
Making a 'fight' for love involve a third person takes sleeping with someone.
It is no longer a fair fight at that point.

I personally think , if my husband were to start crowing like a rooster about some other woman the way yours was, it would have signaled the end of a marriage for me too. But for me personally, just as I said in my post, cheating is not ok. It sounds like HE was cheating, or at least attempting to make it easier.

THAT IS NOT OK with me.

Again.. I said ME.

Not you, not anyone else. ME.

There comes a point when personal responsibility kicks in and someone stops and says " I cant do this". If a person waits until they are already done getting off in someone elses bed before they let that personal responsibility kick in, that person does not belong in -my- bedroom.

Again.. I am saying ME.

Not you, not anyone else but ME.

Im sorry if you are looking to strangers to justify what you did, and what your husband did, but Im not going to do that. I dont personally believe in cheating, so I dont hear any justifications as reasonable answers. I see them all as excuses. And that is just my opinion.

The conversation of the thread has turned to what an individual would do if someone cheated on them.
And my response is " I would leave".

And then I posed a question / theory that if you as the subject only were a man, how would the answers be different?
And I think they would be almost all different and more of a judgmental type where as, the subject is a woman here... the answers are sympathetic and concerned.

It is a double standard.

I was pointing that out.

Do I agree with your husbands actions?

uhh.. hell no! And I dont blame you one bit for feeling cheated on, used, ignored, and worthless to him.
Not one bit. I can absolutely understand why and how you felt that way.
That would have driven me batshit.

But I was not making my post a comment on your story. I was simply posing an observation.

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I didn't take it that mrspookie was looking for justification or acceptance. I think she was sharing her story for those who are facing a situation of finding their spouse involved with someone else and hearing that it's possible for a relationship to recover. Nothing more than that.

I agree, shewolf, that the point where one person takes their clothes off is the point where they've chosen to enter a realm of no return. Once you've slept with someone else, it can't be undone. And it is a choice.

At the same time, I'm all too familiar with the infatuation of a spouse over his long-lost college sweetheart. I wasn't trapped in my relationship in any way and chose to try to work it out because I knew that his behaviors were a sign of bigger problems that we both had created. I also agree with those who have said that the clothes don't have to come off before the extra-marital relationship is considered an affair or cheating. Mrpookie was having an affair long before mrspookie did.

None of this means that I agree with her choices, simply that I understand them and I think I understand her motives in posting her experiences here.

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I think her motives are probably good, I just worry a bit about the message. Guy whose wife is (or might be) cheating comes and reads this. What message does he take away from it?

The quitting her job part especially concerns me, as part of her apparent recipe for a happy marriage.

So, imagining this reader, I wanted to say hmmm.

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Seven Year Itch...Why cheating occurs.

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