Stay or Leave? – I was cheated on

Should I stay or Should I leave?

This is the battle: Should I stay with Allie or should I leave? As you know, Allie had an affair with a man named Mark starting in January 2018 and ending sometime around March 20, 2018 when I caught her. I didn’t catch her red handed. But right after being with him, I confronted her on a story she told me and she confessed.

Since that date, I have asked six to eight times for her to get a divorce. Her affair partner Mark is getting divorced because Mark’s wife Carrie filed this month. I don’t know the status of their proceeding except to say that all the normal stuff has been filed. We will see what happens once the judgment is entered.

So the question is to stay or go?

When Allie cheated on me the first time in 2012, I was very quick to forgive her, move through the pain and reestablish trust with her. After six years, I completely trusted her. We had a great year last year, going camping several times, taking some trips as a couple, moving into a new home and celebrating all that life offers. I look back at photos from 2017 and I simply don’t see the build up of pain that she describes.

However, Allie’s dad did some crazy shit over the past six years and she’s feeling a lot of rejection from him. But what the eff does that have to do with me? It doesn’t.

This affair took me by complete surprise. Other than a few clues she left here and there, for all intents and purposes, our marriage was going along quite nicely. We were about to celebrate 18 years, our kids were in a school they loved, and we’ve just moved into a home that we are very comfortable in. Everything was great. Literally. I can name some really wonderful stuff that was happening. Yet, Allie decided to have another affair.

She’s often said that it was a sweet time when I forgave her the first time. She loved how “into her” I was. Truth be told, I was always into her. But how do you reconcile an event like this?

Right now, Allie is remorseful. She often says how her mind is changing and how wrong she was. She have apologized many times in the last couple of weeks for what she did. She talks about how she was an idiot and that the weight of her sin is very heavy.

“When mistrust comes in, loves goes out.”

But she said that in 2012 as well. She used very similar words. She used similar actions. My problem is that she has a serious hold over me because of my love for her. I almost hate how she can get what she wants from me. I really wish I just didn’t care. I still want to protect her as much as I want to protect our kiddos.

I know if she and I get divorced, she’ll begin some crazy-destructive behaviors and I don’t want to put her or our sons through that. How do I know she’ll begin destructive behaviors? Because of the things she’s said throughout this time. She says she would want to be with Mark because she has feelings for him and it would be convenient. What? Doesn’t she realize the chances of a relationship born out of an affair has about a 0%? Of course she does.

Doesn’t she realize that he doesn’t want her? He got his ego boost and now is paying the price. Who in their right mind would want to go into a relationship with someone who cheated on their spouse to start it? That is the same question I ask myself. Who in their right mind would want to continue a relationship with a person who cheated on them multiple times?

The question of whether I will ever trust her again is probably pretty ridiculous. Of course I won’t. Fool me once…

Then, if I don’t trust her do we even have a relationship? Isn’t every relationship worth having built on the foundation of trust? Will I ever trust anyone again? Hmm?

So, I am weighing love vs. security. Balancing my mental battles with the good times. She still calls me “babe” and “honey” and “sweetie.” But those sound so empty. She still wants to plan future stuff, but I just can’t go there right now.

Divorce brings with it a shit load of pain. I know that. I would lose 50% of my time with my kids, lose my daily talks with Allie, it would be lonely as crap as I sleep in a bed alone for the first time in 18+ years. Making dinners during my “off weeks” would be super effing lonely. Maybe I am just scared of being alone?

I really don’t know. Struggling like crazy today.

Hanging on by a thread

The last day or two I have been hanging on by a thread. Since discovering Allie’s affair in March 2018, I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Anger, depression, heartbreak, isolation, embarrassment, rejection and insecurity are just a few of the emotions I have experienced in the past 6-7 weeks.

Now that my emotions are beginning to normalize a bit, I have a lot of questions in my head about Allie. Questions about whether I want to stay with her or not. I am reading a book right now called “After the Affair“. Here is just one of the profound quotes from the book when a person discovers their partner is having an affair.

“Your view of your life and the world you liven in may be ripped apart” & “the greatest threat to recovery is the loss of hope itself.”

The book is heavy, but eye-opening. It identifies feelings that people experience and describes how to recover. I am only in the first section which is written for those who have just discovered their partner’s affair. I very much identify with the people and examples the author cites.

Part of the trauma that you get to enjoy when your spouse has an affair is that several illusions are shattered. The illusion that you are special above all others is a big one. You know, the idea that because she married you, she would be faithful to you and not go out sleeping around.

Another illusion you might have had is that your marriage was extraordinary. No matter what you’ve made it through your wife sleeping with another man will end that idea pretty quickly.

Now, you’re dealing with the loss of those two ideas that you had. You’re not special and your marriage wasn’t valuable. Those two corpses will leave you reeling for a while.

Another illusion that is there is that the kids will somehow play a role in giving your wife a conscious when she strays. Nope. Even our youngest child who has Allie completely wrapped couldn’t stop her from the affair. She even had sex with Mark on our youngest’s third birthday just before having him dedicated at church. I venture to say, she’d have moved his car seat out of the way to lay down in the back seat with Mark.

As your illusions get shattered, your confidence in those illusions and beliefs get destroyed. All that you fought for in the past changed in an instant. None of it really matters any longer.

Here are some things that I believed:

18 years of history meant something.
Our three kids and their future emotions are vitally important
I am special among all men
We have an extraordinary marriage
She loves me and would fight tooth and nail for us
She loves herself and wouldn’t not cheapen herself
She wouldn’t risk getting an STD (we get to enjoy one of those now too. More on that later)
She is an upstanding Christian woman. She doesn’t have the capacity to go from texting to sex in just a few weeks.
She respects me
She honors me
She honors our marriage
She has the maturity to come to me FIRST before having an affair.
She is an honest person
She knows how bad it hurt me the first time she cheated. She wouldn’t go that far again.

You see, all those things that I believed are shit.

Another day another argument

Couldn’t sleep this morning. Woke up at 4:00 or so and just stared at the window in our bedroom. It was dark last night but there are some streetlights that illuminate our window blinds a bit. I just lie there thinking about how many slats were in the blinds. Could I count them? Would that help me sleep?

Allie moved closer to me and wrapped her arm around me. That may have helped in the past. But now, all I can think about is the nightmare of Allie sleeping with another man named Mark. On March 20th, 2018, I discovered Allie was having an affair with Mark. Since then, I have woken up almost every night at either 3:00 or 4:00 am. Sometimes I can go back to sleep. Sometimes I can’t.

Allie doesn’t like that I wake up and get up. She says it bothers her. Ok. But I am bothered that she’s had her second affair in six years. My problem is that I don’t come to decisions very quickly, especially when the decision is the hardest one I have ever made. Do I stay or do I go?

So last night I woke up. And pondered. What does staying look like? What does divorce look like? Do I want to get divorced? Can I ever trust Allie again? Will I be able to get past the visions in my head of the two of them having sex?

Allie woke up too. Then she starts talking. (always a bad choice at 4:00 am) It isn’t long until we’re arguing about some semantics. Yesterday she described the affair as a “relationship.” While I agree that it was a relationship, my mind says that you don’t get to have sexual relationships and love relationships with other men unless you’re divorced or single. Once that is the case, then you have relationships. Until then, they’re affairs. And affairs aren’t relationships. They’re fantasy escapes for cowards.

An affair is a sexual relationship, romantic friendship, or passionate attachment between two people without the attached person’s significant other knowing.

Since Allie had all of those things — sexual relationship, romantic friendship and passionate attachment — without me knowing, that is an affair.

Okay. Point made. But she was arguing that the word relationship didn’t matter. It really doesn’t but she gets pretty defensive and will rail on me until I get her point and her side.

I didn’t argue back at all. Just said that the use of the word had bugged me. Then Allie proceeds to tell me about context and how I assume things, etc. Remember, I only said that the use bothered me. I didn’t verbalize any further assumptions.

As she argued, I was reminded that this is precisely why I want to divorce. I can apologize, I can be kind, I can give grace, I can try to calmly express my feeling(s) and she goes to effing town on me.

When she took a break, I finally said that this is one of the big things I have to see change in her before I make a decision to commit fully to this marriage. I have to be able to express my feelings and be safe in that. If I can’t, then I will leave.

She said “if you want to leave, then go for it. I don’t want you to and it will suck, but just do it and get it over with.”

Before March 20th 2018, I didn’t want to leave.

What to do with her remorse

My wife Allie had a 2nd affair that I discovered in March 2018. Since then, I have been on an emotional roller coaster. Maybe better described as being in the middle of an emotional ocean with wave after wave of pain, confusion, discouragement, skepticism, isolation, doubt and heartbreak hitting me.

It is overwhelming and sometimes I feel like I am drowning in that pain. Most experts agree that it will take two years (or more) for the hurt spouse (me) to recover from my wife’s infidelity. That’s a lot of long-term pain. Then what? Will she do it again? She already has had multiple affairs so the chances are pretty high that she will, in fact, cheat again.

When I first discovered the affair in March, I thought Allie was pretty hard to the idea that she just devastated me beyond any pain I had ever felt. I guessed that she was still in love with her affair partner Mark. I even speculated that she had a bit of a mental disorder. At first, I blamed myself for not being a good enough husband, etc. Normal self-doubting stuff for when your spouse of 18 years has another affair. During this time, I have questioned whether to stay to try to work it out or to leave her and get a divorce.

Fast forward to today. Allie says she is very remorseful. She often admits that she was wrong and that this was her issue and she is 100% to blame for it.

I feel that it is great that she’s coming to this place of repentance but I always feel that it is better to keep yourself out of a situation than have to repent later for it.

As adults, we do have absolute control over our decisions, our actions, our behaviors, and our choices. She consciously chose to have sex with this guy several times over the course of two months.

Many of you might say that now that she’s repentant for her actions that I should start the healing and forgiveness process. Stay in it for the kids. Stay in it because you have a huge history with this person. Stay in it because she knows you better than anyone. Stay because being single is no fun at all. You don’t want to be divorced. You don’t want to have to miss holidays with your kids. You don’t want to be alone when you’re old.

All of those things are true. I also don’t want to be in a marriage where my wife cheats on me. Even though the alternative sucks. Even though I don’t want any of the things that go with divorce, I don’t want to be married to someone I simply cannot trust.

“But she’s apologizing. She can change.”

Is that true? Can she change? Is she able to be a different person? Or is our character so ingrained in us that we simply cannot change. We cannot be different….even if we want to?

Right now, if you took away the fact that she had another affair, our marriage would be great. She’s being honest, caring, loving, and responsive. Before, she wasn’t. And while she was pulled away from me, she would blame me for pulling away from her. That blame added up. She then used the blame to justify being at the end of herself and saying “screw it” I am gonna go for it with Mark. Bad choice.

There are severe lifelong consequences for having an affair, especially one like hers. She fell in love with Mark. They started planning activities together. Probably did some future planning as well. And I can just hear her, throwing around the “love” word to see if she could get him to respond in kind.

I wasn’t there, so I don’t know exactly, but I know her. She looks for constant validation and affirmation.

So I don’t know what to do with her current remorse. It almost burns when she says sweet words. I hear the words, but they almost come into my heart as exactly opposite of what she’s saying.

Why did she cheat?

You know, I have read countless articles, thought, pondered, tried to empathize, asked friends, asked Allie herself. And still the answer to “why” is an unknown. Oh, there are reasons:

She was unhappy in our marriage
She wasn’t getting her needs met (blaming me)
She has childhood issues (blaming mom & dad)
She was in a “triggered space” (whatever that means)
She was pursued by Mark
She never saw it coming
She didn’t pursue an affair

Whatever the reason from above, or from anywhere else, the reason “why” is still not good enough. Keep in mind she is claiming 100% responsibility for the affair. She is saying it was completely and utterly her fault while she tries to convince me to stay.

I am saying that it is not good enough because there is a much more honorable way out if you have a “reason” to go that far. You can go to your spouse and say, “I would like to get out of our marriage.”

Nine words.

It is literally that simple. So the question still remains, “why did she cheat?” I think that answer is also a bit simple. Because she doesn’t like being alone and because she wanted to.

Sure, she wasn’t really alone alone in our marriage. But this guy came along and told her she was the best thing since sliced bread. He swept her off her feet with narcissistic love bombing. She took the bait. Heck, I think she wanted the bait.

So what do I mean by she doesn’t want to be alone. Well, while she was in the affair, she basically had a good “plan B.” This means that if the affair meant that it would end our marriage, then she still had Mark. I mean, it was clear that he loved her and she’d met her soul mate. (note the sarcasm)

Mark would certainly never leave her. So, she could cheat, and it wouldn’t make her alone at all. She tested the waters with him by giving him everything, telling him that she loved him and seeing if he would respond in kind. All he really wanted was to have sex with her. He was just looking for what’s called narcissistic supply.

You see, I don’t buy into any argument that says that a person had no other choice but to cheat. A person has a million choices INCLUDING getting out of the marriage FIRST!

List of Reasons

Let’s go through the list of reasons to have an affair. I would challenge anyone to give me ONE reason that would justify cheating on a spouse.

My needs aren’t being met at home – My answer: Ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Find someone to meet your needs.
My spouse isn’t interested in sex any more – My answer: Ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Find someone who is interested in sex
My husband doesn’t listen to me – My answer: Ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Find someone to listen to you
My spouse doesn’t respect me – My answer: Ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Find someone who respects you.

You see, there isn’t a justification. Not one. If you’ve been unhappy for years, then that’s your own damn fault, not your spouse’s. What? You say! Let’s say that you’ve been unhappy for 10 years. Then I say you’ve wasted nine. The first year, you owe it to your spouse to do everything you can to work it out WITHOUT CHEATING! After that, ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Voila! You aren’t unhappy for nine more years.

You can leave a comment if you have the “perfect reason” justifying infidelity. I will answer you with the same thing “My answer: Ask for a divorce. Get a divorce. Find someone to _________________”

I don’t want to be a cheater

Yesterday I was having huge mental struggles with the idea of staying married to Allie. But I didn’t take it out on her and I am long past the argument stage. It simply isn’t worth my energy to fight with her. Instead, I will struggle and I might say something like, “today’s a hard day.”

At any rate, Allie wrote a note to our counselors, in part she said the following about me:

“Bob is still having a hard time today trusting that I won’t cheat on him in the future. I can tell you that I don’t want to cheat and I won’t cheat because I don’t want to be a cheater.”

Can anyone tell why the above statement bothers me so badly? Can you spot the fatal flaw in her thinking? Who can tell me exactly why I keep saying that I won’t know if I will stay with her?

Allie says, “I won’t cheat because I don’t want to be a cheater.” Do you see the difference in that statement and a statement like, “I won’t cheat because I love my husband”? Or, “I won’t cheat because my family means more to me than life itself”? Do you see the difference?

What she wrote to them PERFECTLY sums up why I feel that Allie is staying with me because of Allie, not because of me and not because of the kids. If given time to think, she will write that she loves family, wants to leave a legacy, and loves me, BUT when she’s in a hurry, the truth comes out. She wrote to them in a hurry.

Basically, she wants the counselors to give her a clean bill of heath. “Congratulations! You’re not a cheater any more!” She would love to hear them say that. That would be an accomplishment. Allie loves accomplishments. Do you notice that it is about her though?

She could then wear it like a badge of honor. The “I am not a cheater” badge is given to those who complete the special 6-week training course. In the course, you’ll learn:

How to not be a cheater
Ways to convince your family and friends that you’re not a cheater
Five easy one-liners to shut down those who would mention the infidelity (including your husband)
The “get over it” pin that you can proudly wear
Added bonus: You get the quick “I am not a cheater” reference guide with helpful chants you can repeat in your head.

You see Allie believes that her being a cheater can be erased rather than faced. Can you imagine if AA told their participants “Congratulations! You’re not an alcoholic now”?

Actually the opposite is true. When people go to AA meetings, they will start by saying “Hi, my name is _____________, and I am an alcoholic.”

I know a man who has been going to AA for nearly 40 years! To this day, he will say “I am an alcoholic” though he hasn’t touched a drink in four decades. Why does he keep admitting that? Because he knows that the problem he has will always be there, ready to come back at any time.

Saying you’re not a cheater doesn’t mean that you’re not. It is a phrase that is meaningless UNLESS you’ve never cheated before. Chanting it over and over will only harm yourself in the future. You’ll chant it right into the arms of another man.

What will keep you faithful? What will keep you from being a cheater Allie?

Loving someone so deeply that you simply could never do it
Open and honest communication about the real struggle you have
Telling your spouse EVERYTHING, not just the stuff you believe won’t hurt him
Being open with your temptations and having true accountability

You see, it is not that you have to publicly wear the “I am a cheater” label. But you have to know that it is always there. You have to be aware of it at all times so that you can guard your heart and mind from further temptations and indiscretions. If you finally come to a place where you can say “I am not a cheater” then that is the perfect time for your pride to launch another attack. Your pride will make you fall…again.

Saying that “I don’t want to be a cheater” is NOT powerful. Wants are weak. As soon as something comes along that you want more then you will give up that want. It is natural. If you want a taco for dinner and someone offers you a burrito, you may find yourself wanting the burrito more. Thus, the want for a taco becomes unimportant and irrelevant in light of the burrito.

To put it another way, think of all the people who “don’t want to be in debt.” Those very same people will still have a credit card in their wallet, and they’ll buy a car and get a car payment. What about not wanting to be in debt? They will justify the card being in their wallet because of emergencies. They will tell you how their old car had so many issues that they had to get this new one. They will be stuck in debt forever because the “want” simply isn’t powerful enough to overcome the other “wants”.