Betrayed Spouses Support

Thomas,

It's been awhile since I have visited this board.  I have been reading for hours now and it brings up very painful memories that I have now gotten past.

D-Day for me was November 22, 2007.  Me and my H had been together for 5 years & married 9 months, and just had our 2nd baby 2 months prior.  I had a gut feeling for months that something was going on with my husband, but tried chalking it up to pregnancy hormones.  My biggest clue was his CELL PHONE.  He used to leave it laying around & suddenly it was always in his pocket on vibrate. No one was allowed to touch it.  He also started workin out, buying new clothes, taking much longer to get ready for work.

Well Nov 21 2007 I am preparing for his family to come over for thanksgiving.  Me & H watch a movie, then we have sex.  Well he goes to bathroom to clean up & he accidentally left his phone.  I quickly grab it & go under his txt messages, my life changed forever. Happy bday baby, I luv u is what I read, we r meant to b together, etc. I quickly write down the # of the OW, bcuz I know he is going to lie and deny. He comes back to our room, I am shaking & ghostly white, I say how could you cheat on me?  His response,Why r u lookin thru my phone?  unbelievable!!  I am crying uncontrollably, I cannot believe this is happening to me, we just had our 2nd baby.  Long story short, found out he was seeing a Co-worker, for probably about 9 months.  I kicked him out 1 week later, he was still lying and cheating and I could not b with someone that I cant trust.  He begged for me back on several different occasions but I couldnt do it.  I was also for a period of time consumed with revenge.  Got into a little bit of trouble bcuz of it.  Would not recommend going the revenge route, just hurt myself and slowed my healing process.

Almost 2 years later, I am very happy in a new relationship for a little over a year, have my beautiful children, and am moving in a positive direction.  So those new to being betrayed, please use these boards to help.  Without these board I do not know how I would have gotten past the worst time in my life.

Thank you to everyone here that has helped someone. 

My 7 year old tipped me off one day when she came home after school and told me that her friend "K" wasn't on the bus that morning because she stayed at the babysitter overnight. My daughter was excited because "K" was supposed to keep it a secret but told her anyways. I started to wonder why my daughter and I weren't supposed to know that. I also started to wonder about the fact that my husband came home the night before at 2:30 AM on a work night looking quite crumpled. I had believed his excuse about pulling over for a nap because he didn't want to drive tired. In fact I have always trusted him completely - 100% and believed anything he told me. I never checked his phone or e-mail or whereabouts. I was 100% sure he was a man of character and integrity. I wondered about these things and told myself it was a coincidence but there was a seed of doubt. I kept it to myself for a week until one morning I decided to have a look at his cell. I was floored to see that every other call was to and from "K's" mother.

This woman is the mother of my daughter's best friend and also my neighbor. She has spent countless hours at my house looking me in the eye and misrepresenting herself as a friend - sometimes even bringing me presents. Usually these gifts were of the dessert variety and I now suspect that she was just trying to fatten me up. Tell me what kind of a mother dumps her kids at the babysitter overnight on a school night so that she can meet the married father of her daughter's friend.

After several months spent in the discovery phase - and boy what I discovered, my husband stopped the lying and denial and admitted his 9 month affair with the "next door neighbor". Apparently I was too busy cleaning his dirty toilets and taking care of the kids that I just wasn't giving HIM the attention he deserved. The lying and cheating was "THERAPY" for him. It kills me to hear him say that betraying my trust was therapeutic.

He now has done a complete 360 and treats me like royalty. He professes his undying love every time he sees me. He also sneers at the mention of her name. I don't know but this seems odd to me. I have filters and traps of all kinds set up everywhere and haven't seen any evidence of further contact. I guess it may take close to forever to really trust again. It has been 13 months since Dday and we have been married 11 years. Jenny Sanford is my inspiration.

Earlier this year you wrote:

"I asked him what he read and he told me that he would like to meet and talk about this in person. He didn't want to go into it on the phone. I told him that I wanted to hear this from my H but if I needed to I would call him back. "

Did you ever get back with the OW's husband and how did that go??

Hey,

No, I never did call him.  I did (as you may or may not know) confront my H that night and he told me what the messages said.   Basically he said the OW wrote a text saying that she thinks she was falling in love with "someone".  From there I found out that she had talked about leaving her H and my H claimed that he never said he would leave me but he admitted he never told her he wouldn't either.

The other H did call me about 3 or 4 days later to apologize for turning my life upside down.  I told him that I didn't bear any hard feelings towards him for this.  We did talk that time and he pretty much confirmed what my H had said was the truth.   He also told me some of the things that my H didn't tell me.  Nothing that was a deal killer for our rebuilding.  It was more like the trickle info you commonly refer to.  At that point I told him that I wished them the best of luck and hoped I never talked to him again.  He seemed to be digging for info on his W which I really didn't have.

When I told my H what was said, he went back to the OW telling her she better keep her H from calling me again.  (He claims it was because it upset me again but looking back I know it was because it wasn't really over.)  It started a whole "he said, she said"  heated discussion amongst the spouses and EA partners.  The one thing I had going in my favour that let my H know I wasn't just making things up (like she was) was my parroting skills.  I can usually repeat recent conversations verbatim.  She was caught in her own words more than once.  It helped my H realize that she wasn't the great "friend" that she claimed to be.

The other H did call me again once more after that telling me that they were still in contact with each other dispite the fact they both promised NC.   Again, I told him I needed to hear this from my H and asked him never to call me again.    The first call might have been an sympathetic individual not wanting someone else to suffer like he was.  After that it felt more like he was calling me to get back at his W.  I didn't like being used by my H and I certainly wasn't going to be used by a total stranger.

To this day I have never spoken to the OW.   I wanted to at some points.  I asked my H for her cell phone number and he refused to give it to me.  He said it wouldn't serve any purpose.  I informed him that I really didn't need him to give it to me, I still remembered her H's number and could call him for it.  I am sure he would have given it to me.  I am sure this statement caused them both to sweat for a while.  I decided that nothing I was going to say to her would make any difference.  Not to me or to what she was going to do in the future.   I don't like confrontations and no matter how calm I intended to be I realized that I would be giving her power and the opportunity to get her digs in.  Not worth it in the end. 

Besides, I have the last laugh.  I have my H and we are (in some ways) doing better than before the EA.  She has a marriage that she is still not happy with.

I know that is a lot of info, but once I getting going ....lol

Having said ALL that, can I ask you why you are asking?  I hope you are not having doubts about how you handled your situation.  From what I have been able to gather from your posts, you have handled yourself very well.

Best to you and yours.