August 18, 2009
Is Facebook Another Word For Cheat Book? Its Easy To Have A Facebook Affair
Is Facebook Another Word For Cheat Book? How Easy It Is To Have A Facebook Affair
Networking is a lot of fun, and you can catch up on long lost friends, make new friends, and even find business contacts. However, did you know that it’s also a great tool to start a sneaky Facebook affair?
Are you familiar with Facebook? It’s one of the most popular social networking sites today. I joined Facebook because I thought it would help me get in touch with family and friends I have lost touch with. I even encouraged my wife to sign up as well.
I just didn’t expect that she would take it a step further.
As much as I hate to admit it, I got cheated on. Facebook suddenly became Cheat Book, and all because this “resourceful” wife of mine found an old boyfriend, and ended up having a cyber Facebook affair with him. I just want to throw that laptop at her for putting our marriage at risk.
I’m really having a hard time wrapping my thoughts around this Facebook affair. How did she keep it a secret for so long. I know it’s been a while because she mentioned finding this guy on Facebook about a year ago. It appalls me that she got this far without me realizing it.
How many guys have been in this situation, and worse, how many are not even aware that they are in this kind of situation? Here we are, thinking our wives are chatting away, as they always do, talking about everything under the sun with their girlfriends, when in fact, they’re doing something else.
Now that I caught her with her Facebook affair, does this give me the right to do it too? I know it’s just so easy to get caught in this kind of situation. However, even if I understand that chatting can lead to other things, it does not excuse anyone for going down that path, especially my wife. After all, I didn’t, even if I had lots of opportunities to have a Facebook affair.
When I checked the internet, I found out that there are so many Facebook cheating going on, and most of them justify their actions by saying they’re just “keeping in touch.”
Yeah, right.
I think you can justify why the moon is round if you really want to. If a person is going to start a Facebook affair, it’s going to happen. Good intentions or not, if the mindset is open to entertaining the idea of having an affair, it’s going to happen. Of course, there are some women who are just addicted to cheating, Facebook affair or any other way.
You now ask, what am I going to do? I have no idea at all. Should I also look for someone too so I can feel better? Should I confront her, and then divorce her? Will a Facebook affair hold up in court as a valid reason for divorce?
My problem is that even if I love her, I don’t trust her anymore. This Facebook affair may not have been as serious to advance to dating, but maybe that’s just a matter of time. If this other guy is keeping her from spending time with me and the kids, then maybe we’re better off without her around. I think I just made up my mind. Now, where did I put my attorney’s number ….
Keywordsfacebook affairs (27)cheating on facebook (17)facebook cheating (17)facebook cheatbook (15)facebook cheats (11) (11)facebook cheating spouse (10)facebook cheating wives (7)girlfriend cheating suddenly used sexting (7)cheatbook facebook (7)facebook cheating wife (6)facebook affair (5)facebook is cheatbook (5)another word for cheating (5)facebook cheaters (5)facebookaffair com (4)emotional cheating on facebook (4)facebook destroyed my marriage book (4)myspace codes (4)cyber affair facebook (4)
Written by: Ken
Tags: Facebook Affair, facebook cheating
Trackback URL: http://www.facebookcheating.com/archives/facebook-cheating/trackback/

Jack
August 28, 2009 at 3:03 am
I divorced my wife over it. I had enough. To me it is a full blown affair of the heart.
Ken
August 28, 2009 at 9:53 am
I agree Jack. I’m separated myself right now although it was solely from the chats on Facebook. They were definitely the last straw.
jack
August 28, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Mine turned into phone calls and letters as well. Told me she stopped and then several months later caught her again. Even talked to the guy and told him to stop. Didn’t work. So a 17 year marriage with 2 kids is over.
Ken
August 28, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Ahhh man that’s painful Jack. I’m sorry.
So was it that she needed someone else and did it through Facebook or was it just the excitement of being sneaky?
jack
August 28, 2009 at 6:40 pm
No she just liked being sneaky. She is begging me to let her come home and claims its over but I just cannot trust her. She called me while I was at the attorney filing it and begged me not to. Told me I was ruining her life. I said no you ruined your life. It went on for 4 months. Caught her 2 weeks in and got her into counceling but the counseler said she still believed it was going on. And it was.
jack
August 29, 2009 at 6:52 am
How about you Ken? What happened with you?
Ken
August 29, 2009 at 12:50 pm
My wife and I were forced to move out of a larger house with our son and had to move into an in-law apartment with her parents. We were very lucky they stepped up to help us out.
After living like that for about a year my wife got depressed and turned to prescription pills to “buzz out” for a while and hid the fact that she was on them from me. After she cleaned up from that things were great for a while.
About a year after that she discovered Facebook and connected with lots of friends. I thought it was good for her to talk with friends and get out of a rut I think she was in. We both weren’t very good with communicating but when I wanted to talk she insisted that nothing was ever wrong.
After friending the old boyfriend she left to start seeing me 12 years ago I guess things got heavy on Facebook chat and she would hide the fact she was talking to him on there. She would quickly close down chat when I walked in or pull up another window when I was around.
I knew something was up and I tried reassuring her that I trusted her and she didn’t have to hide who or what she was chatting about. She clearly got embarrassed when I said that and got a little defensive but again. Nothing got worked out and she continued.
I felt I couldnt trust her and she didn’t want to talk to me about it so I started recording her chats with a keylogger. I recorded the chats she would have with him for a few weeks and read them one night.
I was pretty devastated what I read. It was beyond what I thought. Not just flirting and chatting but more like planning to run away together type stuff and some cyber sex stuff.
She had to go out early one morning and left pretty early but when she was gone I just didn’t have a good feeling about it. I checked the chat log again and found that they planned to goto a hotel for a few hours.
I sat and waited for her to return knowing what she had just done and I asked her how her day went. She said everything was fine. I asked her a few questions about what she did and where she went. Things just didn’t add up.
Later that night she went to bed and I asked her was there anything she wanted to talk about. Again nothing from her.
I couldn’t keep it in any longer so I went into the bedroom and woke her up. We talked for about an hour and she finally admitted what she did. I was very upset but not that shocked. She didn’t have much to say about it but I was already planning on getting out of there. I was fucking disgusted and mad.
After deciding to leave and while packing up some stuff she went back to bed. It made me feel like it was no big deal to her and probably a relief. Barging in the bedroom to get something I turned on the light and she was in bed pleasuring herself as I walked in. It was almost as if she didn’t even stop cause I could hear the “magic wand” toy still humming.
Could there ever be a more humiliating time in a guys life?
I left that night and haven’t been back since. Lots of phone calls and nights out to try and get her to talk but we’re still separated. She doesn’t want to talk about it and there’s no hope I guess of us talking to a psychologist about any of this so this is where I stand today.
I made this site because I’ve heard of many other stories like this from other people so I thought I would put my energy into creating a place for people to get it off their chest rather than hold it inside. I know it’s working for me so far.
Thanks for asking, Jack.
jack
August 29, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Ken,
I am so sorry. You are almost telling my story. My wife was on pills as well and drinking a lot. The person that she was being sneaky with was a person that she went to high school with but did not know. I did the same thing. I recorded emails and chats and though it was not as bad as yours. She eas emailing her friends and telling them that she was not in love with me anymore.
That was the first thing I found. I confronted her and she did admit it but said she would stop it. She stopped using the computer for awhile but then started to get on myspace and would blog things that she said were for me. Well they were not for me. That was her way of letting him know how she was doing. So after I put all of the puzzle together I confronted her and after a couple of hours she finally told the truth. No plans of running away but was planning to meet in the near future.
I just don’t get it. Its like they don’t even have a soul or conscience. She was lying to my kids and saying I will never hurt your Dad. But she was doing it all along.
She wants me to cancel the divorce and try to put things back together again but I am just so damaged and don’t think I could EVER trust her again. That I am just living this out minute by minute. I just don’t know if I could continue living my life always wondering. I was always told that once a cheater always a cheater.
Michael H
September 18, 2009 at 4:31 am
I am so sad to hear the stories that have devastated so many marriages. Now I am living this nightmare along with each of you. My wife of soon to be twelve years and mother to our four beautiful children has been having an affair. As is the case with each of you it started on “Cheatbook.” My wife’s first love had sent her a friend invite and even though I asked her not to do it she did. Thinking that this woman that I adore would never sacrifice our family or betray me I, although uncomfortable with the idea, never questioned her about it again. On September 1st I noticed a new text on her new fancy phone that I had gotten her. Just for giggles I opened it to find the words “I miss you” from an unfamiliar number. After multiple request the truth finally came out and I find myself in the middle of an emotional train wreck that has rocked our family’s world. Just like some of you have experienced it started with simple memory lane messages and quickly turned into secret email accounts, unnumbered amounts of text messages, and those sneaky phone calls that on last months bill totaled 68 calls just from her to him. Needless to say I am devastated. Nothing seems to help the constant mix of emotions of anger, sadness, depression, insecurity, deceit, and downright self loathing to name a few. I’ve noticed that occasionally these emotions combine to create a explosion of feelings that I liken to a panic attack or near nervous breakdown. 18 days into this I was beginning to wrap my head around the situation when I find out she is still lying about some of the details of her affair. This was done after she was told multiple times that anymore lies would once again defeat me and leave me little options to consider. It sucks to go through this and some of you are dealing with so much more. I pray that anyone affected by an unfaithful spouse will somehow re-find their peace of mind and grow stronger in spirit. Typing this is hard but somewhat therapeutic. I thank you for providing a forum to discuss this issue. Please share these stories so maybe someone will stop or not start what could be a devastating act that could ruin families forever. What about the children? My experience has assuredly affected our children indirectly. They are still young but I’m sure can sense the tension in our home. I don’t want my kids to endure a broken family. I don’t want to leave my wife. But I can’t see me ever trusting the love of my life ever again. Its sad. Its unfortunate. Its devastating. Please, please consider your relationship before you jeopardize it with an affair of the heart. Those actions could change the course of your spouse, your children, your family, your friends, and YOU forever. God bless the forgiver and God bless the sinner.
jack
September 18, 2009 at 5:59 am
Michael,
I am so sorry to hear what happened to you. It is very hard to deal with the emotions. You described them well. What I know now is that my wife did not consider the damage she would cause before she did this and really did not seem to care. You are right. It is hard to get a grip after this has been done to you. I feel like I can never trust my wife even if I did take her back. She calls daily asking to come back but I think if we stayed together it would hurt even more.
Besides I do not want my kids raised in a home where their mom’s selfish fantasies come before her family.
Michael H
September 18, 2009 at 6:39 am
Thank you for your concern and I hope you and others can regain that precious inner peace. Its a lonely time that nothing seems to cure. But its comforting knowing others feel the same way and are hurting along with you. Spread the word. Tell your friends. Tell your co-workers. Let’s do our best to save someone from the same heartache we are enduring. May God’s comforting love surround each of you.
Jodie H
September 18, 2009 at 5:15 pm
I am so sorry Michael, I love you. Guys, I am so sorry your wives are as stupid as Michael’s.
James F
September 23, 2009 at 1:04 am
Can someone help me sort this situation with my wife out????
My wife I feel, started an emotional affair (she denies it, as well as she will deny everything put forth here, that’s called denial) with a guy she had the hots for 20 years ago, but she accepted marriage to a homely guy, telling me that homely guy would be more stable a situation to have a family with, she had two kids, 16 boy and 13 girl. She had the audacity to invite this guy to her wedding, against her husbands wishes (he knew she had the hots for this guy) and she proceeded to slow dance with him while he told her he loved her and that she was making a big mistake. Cut to now, my son (17) found her facebook page opened and gave it to me, I was destroyed to my core. She made contact on facebook with this very hot fantasy flame from her wedding, he tells her “he has been thinking about her in other ways” and “I hope your husband doesn’t have access to your facbook account”, in a private message. She responds by telling him that he is a sweet guy and doesn’t respond to the hit but keeps talking to him obout friends and that she had fun with him and he was a sweet guy. That was his cue to proceed to send her a long, sexually explicit plea for her affection and maybe meeting somewhere. He sent it when I was checking out her page and I intercepted it. I went balistic and told this guy he better watch his back for the rest of his life. I called my wife at work and screamed “don’t come home”
She tells me she didn’t realize that he was hitting on her when he said he was “thinking of her in other ways”, and that she was just the innocent girl and was just being nice. God knows where that relationship would have wound up behind my back had I not intercepted it!!!!
What a cover up excuse for getting caught, “I didn’t realize he was hitting on me”. I was sick, could not sleep for days, filled with sadness and deep anger at the same time (I am feeling it now and that was 9 months ago!!!!)
She told me that she has fantasized in the past about her old hunky neighbor while she was making love to her past husband, and then she told me that she fantasized about me while making love to him. I have every reason to believe that she is still doing the same in this marriage because: though she makes like she enjoys sex with me, sex is few and far between and I feel like she can’t wait for me to finish so it will be over and she can go to sleep, she won’t touch me for fear that she might have to put out, always has her eyes closed during sex, she must masturbate a lot because the lube is all used up and masturbating replaces the dread of having sex with me, she never and I mean never puts on anything sexy for me, rarely initiates sex.
I don’t think I will ever be able to trust her!!!!!! Would what she did be considered cheating??????? What should I do???????
Michael H
September 23, 2009 at 6:14 am
Hey James,
First of all I know that the emotions and feelings you are having all to well. The question you need to ask yourself is do you really love this woman and are you willing to accept her for LUSTING for another man. I wouldn’t think she actually loves this guy. I think we are all guilty (especially us men) of thinking sexual thoughts about other people. Its human nature. I think you then need to sit down and talk to her while leaving the angry bug outside. Tell her how you truly feel about her not what she may have done. Then maybe she will open up and share exactly how she feels about you and what exactly is going on in her mind. I’m not sure if I read it here or another site but it truly puts social networking sites like cheat book in perspective. Two people who had a relationship years ago are now able to communicate with each other in a secure hidden way. They begin innocent enough sharing story s and memories about times they had. THEN they run out of those memories and have to make new ones. I personally think that guys are more likely to push the envelope and try to move those memories to sexual ones while MOST women are more interested in the emotional high. This is the point where feelings get hurt and families are often deeply affected. In my walk through this hell I’ve come to the realization that somehow I have to accept that my wife lusted after another man. It hurts to feel like your second best or your in a competition for your wifes love. Nothing can make those feelings go away, I assume, except time. Let her know how the face book connection makes you feel and see if she is willing to cancel her account so you don’t have that constantly hanging over your head and you wondering what she is doing. I personally have to wrap my head around something that is not fair and so do you. Something that no one wants to believe. If she is truly what you want then tell her that. And make clear that you are going to need lots of help accepting what she has done. In other words, tell her how you feel and hopefully she is willing to prove to you that your relationship, your love, your life is more important than her selfish desires. I like the statement that I’ve told my wife. You have put your morally wrong fantasies over your family. Talk, not fight about it and see if this relationship is worth saving. But she must be willing to sacrifice and be very understanding of your insecurities. If not drop the (sorry) bitch and move on. I will pray for you to find peace and clarity both of which are something that is hard to find when your dealing with a cheating spouse. Keep us posted and I hope this helps.
James F
September 23, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Michael, I am crying as I write. Crying first of all for the compassion you have for destroyed people looking for direction, even in the face of the pain and destruction you are dealing with. I am so sorry for that huge loss and resulting pain for everybody. She sounds like a real selfish wacko bitch. Are you responsible in part in any way?? Or (as the Ben Folds tune goes) “The Bitch Went Nuts”? Thank you so much for this wonderful advice, it has caused me to try and deal calmly.
After this happened and I was destroyed, we made passionate love and she agreed to delete her account and only use MySpace. Well, after a few weeks she Lobbied me hard to do phonyfacebook again, saying no one is on MySpace anymore, promising to block those two guys. She basically said she is going to use facebook one way or another.
I reluctantly agreed and I let it go for months without checking. Now these unresolved feelings are cropping up so I started checking again and have not found anything suspicious, but I still don’t have calming, reassuring trust for her.
Not after she still says she did not recognize this guys blatant hit on her and that making contact with her first real deep love and sexual partner, they had no dialog on facebook for months after contact, each knowing how dangerous this contact is and waiting for someone to make the first move, yet she says she did nothing wrong. It is still unresolved with me and I guess I just need to find out just what I really mean to her. But I know she will say “not again, I told you I love you and I am only talking to family and friends, stop trying to control me”. She is the greatest source of pleasure and pain in my life and we have three almost grown kids. In the past it was her incredible jealousy I had to deal with, constantly reassuring her. Many times I have almost divorced her, but because of all that involves have stopped short and let things calm down until the next issue. It is almost impossible for her to stay calm and have deep conversation that may make her take responsibility in anyway. She says “of course I love you”, but I am very insecure with that answer because I don’t feel it from her. Sex has been far and few!!!! And when I ask, and she knows it’s been a long time (1 to 2 months) she has to give it up or deal my hissy fit, but she is not into it. I don’t feel the real deep connection. Now I am starting to think about other people and what it would be like to have a rational, mature, deep loving relationship with someone perhaps older (she is 11 years younger then me 51 vs 40)
I’ll keep in touch and let you know what happens.
I think I might get her in front of a counselor and lay it all on the table and see where she is truly at. I know, that if she knows others (her kids and friends) may find out about who she truly is, and what she has done, the real face behind the facebook if you will, she will make the changes needed, not for me per say, but to save embarrassment in the public face. If she thought 158 friends on facebook including her children might see her true face, I think that would be what it would take for her to seek professional help, including medication, how do I make that happen???? I am putting All In One Keylogger on all computers, it really sucks that I feel compelled to spy on her!!! Thanks for listening and the compassion.
Much peace in your days and God bless!!!!!!
Michael H
September 25, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Hey James,
Sorry for not responding sooner. I’m still trying to hold on for dear life. I have thought about you and how hard the struggle is to wrap your head around being cheated and so deceived. But James you need to listen to me when I say that life is going on with or without you. I am starting to realize that myself and it’s been less than a week since I found out that my wife actually sent this guy pornographic pictures of herself after drinking a whole bottle of wine. You are much further down the road and must be so tired, both physically and mentally. You need to work toward that word that has always seemed asinine to me, closure. If she loves you and wants to make it work she should be willing to allow you to look at her inner life through the glass. She should be willing to allow you to check her computer, her phone, or whatever would help you build your confidence in the relationship. But there needs to come a time, hopefully sooner than later, when you can let that need to check up on her go. Then you will truly begin to heal. I swear every day brings on different emotions for me. Today for the first time in 25 days I have just not cared. I don’t care who she talks to, I don’t care what she does on her computer, I don’t care if she wants another lover. Because if that’s what she wants she is going to find a way to get it either behind my stabbed back or directly in front of me. I can’t wait to see what tomorrow is like, and I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. You obviously love this girl and want that trust that now eludes you. Unfortunately there is no real way to make that a reality. She should be willing to accept the fact that you are going to be different (emotionally) from day to day, sometimes hour to hour. If you can’t see yourself letting this go or you begin to slip further into the depression that is eating your life, maybe you should consider separating and seeing if time apart gives you answers you need. Honestly I don’t know how to make the uncertainty and regret just vanish. God knows I wish I could. I do know that the only real peace I find is leaning on my faith in God. It’s sad to say but I keep relating those moments when I do feel peace to a (no offense to this Godly man) Joel Osteen message. You know, everything is going to be alright, or it’s all good kind of motivational junk (again no offense). I’m not in anyway a counselor or person with a background in helping people in this way. But I do feel the same pain that you are dealing with and hope in some way that I can make a sincere difference in helping you find that peace. It is good to talk about it and it is good to share your burden with others. Please keep in touch through this wonderful outlet that allows all of us who have been smacked in the face to share the experience. Look forward to hearing your progression and God bless you.
James F
September 29, 2009 at 8:40 am
Michael,
Again, I am so sorry for what you are dealing with. My wife didn’t go anywhere in the vicinity of what your wife did. If my wife did that it would be immediate grounds for divorce for me, ‘don’t pass go, don’t collect $200’!!!!. I understand flirting, ogling, fantasies, ego boosting (almost out of bounds) conversations with others (we are men). Very few relationships don’t do things like that because they get all they need from each other. Most relationships weave in and out of stuff like this all the time, most have fights over it, some have heated discussion and a few calmly talk it out. In the real world this is pretty normal. But Michael, we are not dealing in the real world, we are dealing with the cyber world which comes with a whole different set of dynamics, good and bad dynamics. Prior to social networking and cell phones we had home phones and letters for primary communication. Flames, if you will, were not only much harder to start but were much easily detected, which could be doused (dealt with) before a heated fire could potentially start. Comparing this to facebook and all the contrasts are glaringly obvious as you can first handedly attest to. The bottom line in both worlds is that even though facebook exponentially increases temptation and stealthy ness of an affair, if the two people in the relationship do not have integrity as one of their core values, when that relationship has problems (and all do), and one or both partners are not happy, satisfied, hurt, misunderstood, sexual dissatisfaction, whatever, and they meet the temptations from any source, you have the ripe conditions for an affair. It is the integrity of the person that is the glue, that core value that would stop a partner from fully partaking or at least come back and try and heal the relationship if there were a lapse of integrity or judgment and the other partner was willing to try and get past all the pain and forgive or such the like.
The bottom line is that if a person has little to no integrity, they are going cheat even when the relationship conditions are good. Facebook relationships cause people with even a very strong core of integrity to wander into dangerous waters and find the thrill, excitement, and validation, whatever, to be almost overwhelming. Finding themselves in inappropriate relationships, or in your wife’s case, much worse. You need to figure out if she just fell victim to the overwhelming temptations of the facebook dynamics or if this is her core mode of operation. Then you can make the tough decisions necessary to move on, or stay and tough things out, either way, enabling your life to eventually find peace, happiness and satisfaction.
May you find peace one way or another,
James
Matt
February 6, 2010 at 2:27 pm
same thing she was sleeping with some one in bed when i caught here
Jack
September 29, 2009 at 9:23 am
Michael,
I can totally relate to your emotions. I too have days that I could completely care less what my wife does however, it does come back around over and over of how hurt I am and still cannot believe how she could do this to me. It is amazing how these women have no conscience at all. I do not think there is any easy way to get through this other than I know there are healthy women out there that do not do this kind of thing. And it sounds to me like we all deserve one.
Michael H
September 29, 2009 at 11:29 am
Wow James,
That was deep and ironically what I have now realized what I have to face. Yesterday was not a good day as I found out that my wife was still lying about the truth and facts. I won’t bore you with the ugly details but it was not much worse than anything else she has done. The problem, of course, is the fact that I had to literally bring myself to a nervous breakdown to get the TRUTH. Amazingly, I actually got the truth from the mouth of the man that is on his fourth wife/confessed redneck/main instigator/known lier/etc that she had the affair with. While him, his wife, and myself talked he reveled everything that had happened and had told his wife the extent within a weak of her knowing. I took my wife two days ago to take the Camera/phone back because I couldn’t stand to look at it. While I sent her to check on the kids I talked to the rep about getting the transcripts of her text and pics for the last few months. He tells me that it takes a court order bla, bla, bla… My wife comes back in and I tell her that I’m getting the texts and pics and she melts. I see at that point I don’t have my closure, I don’t have the truth. Last night she admitted to what hopes to be everything, the TRUTH. I told her I could not do it anymore it devastated her and it devastated me. I thought about what she means to me and our family. And now armed with the whole truth have decided today that this woman is worth fighting for.
Sorry to dwell on the facts of my nightmare so long to get to this: James, you hit the nail when you talked about the “core” and Integrity of the person. I’ve said throughout that this is not my wife, this is not the women I married, something has happened to make her do the things that she would never do. Both her mother and father and other friends that have known her for much longer than me said in unison. That is not Jodie. For the real first time I have decided to help her heal and her and find the cause of this dramatic behavioral change. I’m not excusing what she has done but it dawned on me that a month or so before this started her doctor prescribed her a double dose of generic Zoloft. After some research it is more than in the realm of possibility that this could have been a major contributing factor to this ugly change. I throw this out there for any comments to maybe help me cling to something other than the fact that my wife is a lying, cheating, disrespecting, evil willed woman. Those are traits that would never be associated with this woman. Thank you James for your support and I will try to focus back on your anguish soon.
I will say that you have got to communicate. Communication is the major breakdown in every thing I’ve read when it comes to this painful experience. I will and am praying for you and others that have influenced me on this page and elsewhere. Don’t give up the fight and let the evil win.
In love and compassion,
Michael
Mark T
October 5, 2009 at 11:26 am
Michael H. I read your post on the askmen.com blog, and just found this one. I thought I would do a little therapy here also. (for myself). I don’t pretend to be able to help anyone other than just sharing my own experience with this hell on earth nightmare. It does help to know that I am not the only man in the world to go through this agony, which I have seen described as second only to losing a child. I just hope I don’t bore you guys with all of the details.
My story is very similar to the others on this thread. My world came crashing down back in January, ‘09. It was on a Tuesday after she had been “sick” since the previous Friday, and had stayed in bed pretty much the whole 4 days. She got up, and told me she was going shopping with her sister, and went to get ready. As she was leaving, I for some reason made it a point to say “I love you” instead of the “love ya” that becomes so easy to say after nearly 9 years of marriage.
There had been some tension between us during those days over what I thought at the time was just some parenting issues. Everytime I went to check on her, I could feel the tension. She was very distant. I thought that she was just still mad at me over a blow up we had a few days earlier.
I could never in a million years have thought the she was FB chatting, and cell texting another man. A former classmate from 20 years ago.
Anyway, later that day her oldest daughter come home and asked “where’s mom”. I said “she’s out shopping with Aunt X”. The daughter then said “I have been with aunt X all day. I immediately tried to call my wife on her cell, but she didn’t answer. She always answers her cell. I remembered seeing where she sent a “sweet smile” to one of several guys on her FB friends list. I then pulled up her call records on our cell phone account, and was totally devastated by what I found. There were almost 300 text messages and some calls back and forth to a cell number that I did not recognize. I called the number, and it went his voicemail. The name was the same as the guy that she sent the “sweet smile” to. About 2 hours later, she finally called me back, and said that she was leaving me, and that she had been to see an attorney to start divorce proceedings. I was in total shock, and on the edge of a nervous breakdown. She said she was at her mom’s house, and did not want to see me. I told her I was coming over to talk, but she said no, and that she would just leave. When I got there, of course she was gone. She refused to talk to me face to face about our marriage, and what was going on in her head. She called me at home a little later, and said that she needed to come home to pack hers and the kids things, and wanted me to leave the house. I said I was going to stay here so we could talk. She showed up with her sister, and her brother in-law. She said she was afraid that I was going to hurt her. As she was packing, I asked her if she still loved me. All she said was “it’s because of you”. When I asked her about this other guy, she said “it’s none of your business”.
I found out later that she had gone to be with him in a hotel room after she left the attorney’s office. She also ran back to him when I told her I was coming over to her parent’s house to talk.
That was the worst day of my life so far, but the beginning of the hell on earth that I am still living.
She still swears to this day that all they did was “exchange a few kisses”. I want to believe this, but don’t know that I ever will completely. After 2 days of nearly zero sleep, I sent her an email telling her how much I love her and the kids. I promised I would do more to show her the love that I feel to all of them. I have lived up to that promise. She decided to come home that Friday, and we have a very strong marriage now. It has been 8 1/2 months now. There were a lot of long talks about all of our issues. I of course needed to find my way back to being able to totally trust her again. I asked her a lot of questions about why the affair happened, and how she could commit an act of such deep betrayal. Over the first few months, there were some more lies, which she later came clean about. I told her when she first came back that I needed for her to tell me the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That didn’t happen, so now I am not sure what to believe. I want to believe that she is now being totally honest about everything, but I’m just not sure I can.
When I asked her questions about why she did it, she says things like “I thought you hated the kids, and I felt like you would be better off without us in your life”. “I was sure that (first wife) was the true love of your life, and you would never love me like you did her”. “I always thought that you would cheat on me eventually”. “I didn’t think you would care”. We had promised each other on several occasions that we would never cheat on each other. I held that promise sacred, but it apparently didn’t mean that much to her. I will be the first to admit that I am no saint, and not perfect. But, I have always put more into this marriage than she did. I never did anything that would make her think that I would be unfaithful. I was more affectionate than she was. I gave so much of myself, and made so many sacrifices for her and the kids. I always tried to re-assure her about my feelings for my first wife. This is another area where I am not sure that she is being honest with me. I can’t help but wonder if she said all of those things to make herself feel better, and to try to justify what she did. I may never know.
My biggest mistake was being too hard on the kids, (the youngest daughter especially) for being disrespectful, and not minding. There were times when I lost my temper because I felt like I was fighting an un-winnable battle. There were so many times when my wife would back down on discipline issues, and just overlook rules that were being broken, and hateful disrespectful attitudes. I was angry, frustrated, confused, and hurt, about the whole parenting issue. I was at my wits end, and I guess it made me pretty hard to live with. I believe that we could have worked through all of those issues with some long talks, or family counseling. She chose to just give up, and throw our marriage in the gutter. Right before the text messaged started (I think it was even the night before), I said “we both seem to be miserable; I think we would be better off going our separate ways”. I didn’t want that. I think I said it in hopes of starting a dialogue. She did not even respond. I think that might have given her the green light to let the facebook thing turn more intimate. She insists that before that it was just casual conversation, and totally innocent. In my opinion, if she was doing it behind my back, it was not innocent no matter what the topic of conversation.
I need to close this now, as I have rambled on too much already. Mike H, I hope things are going well for You. And, James, I hope the best for you also.
Michael H
October 5, 2009 at 6:06 pm
Hey Mark T,
Wow! That hurts to read… You have no idea how much you sharing your experience helps me and most likely the others that have stumbled on this site. I think that maybe it helps you as well to talk about and express yourself over your bad trip down kick me in the nuts lane. It helped me. As far as you thinking you are rambling on, please ramble away. That’s what we all need is someone to listen to what we have to say and hear about how we feel. With that said, I was wondering if you mind sharing some of your insight since you are a further down the road than I am. It was just two weeks ago I learned the most damning part of my wife’s affair (The fact that she sent him a sexting pornographic picture of herself – something I could never get her to do – and then turned around and sent the same pic to me as I sat in the meeting at the Fire Department) and that is nowhere near what you are dealing with. God, my heart goes out to you and your family.
I’m sure the shock is gone for you at this point, but how are you dealing at this now?
Does the trust and faith ever come back to where you know it’s real?
Do you ever quit worrying?
Do you ever stop wanting to check everything for proof (cell phone, text messages, computer, ect.)?
Those are the only things I can think of now. I would like to find out if your wife may have been on any of the SSRI antidepressants like Zoloft, Paxil, Lexipro, Ect? Or any other meds that may have warped her mind into doing such a tragic thing. I (not being a sap) believe that the condition my wife was in at this time was somewhat induced by the Zoloft. A month or so before the affair, my wife’s doctor doubled her dose of Zoloft. She had been taking it since January to help quote with our fourth child and some health problems she was having. These stresses caused her to feel overwhelmed and depressed. I have poured over tons of info on the side effects and it actually adds up. One of the side effects is Mania (more specific Hypomania) which Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania) describes one of the symptoms as: involvement in pleasurable activities that may have a high potential for negative psycho-social or physical consequences (e.g., the person engages in unrestrained buying sprees, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments). Don’t worry guys; I know there was still a conscious decision to continue down the tracks of the adultery train. But if you read the stuff I’ve read and know that the woman who did these things is not the woman you have known for the last 14 years, both her parents, sister, and long time friends say the same thing. Something has changed. It’s extremely hard to talk to her even now because she admits she can’t feel. There are not big ups or downs. The medication has dulled her emotions to the point that it hurts to talk to her on an emotional level because I don’t get emotional dialog back.
This whole process for all of us really sucks. It’s bad and ugly no matter how you frame it. I hope that you and everyone can pull their self esteem and pride back out of the ditch of despair and get back on track. Especially when it comes to the families involved. Our kids have defiantly been affected, mainly due to my inability to control my anger over my wife’s stupidity. But like I told her, this is not my fault. And it’s not your fault either. I wish I could give everyone who reads this something to grab and hang onto that makes a difference in their pain. I truly feel compelled to help if I can, just like you have Mark T. Thank you.
Jack
October 5, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Michael, my wife was on those drugs as well. Even after she got off completely she did it again. An affair is in the heart. They were thinking about it before they ever got on drugs. It may dull their guilt but as the counselor told us you can’t blame a drug for your actions. The first step is to take responsibility for your actions.
Mark T
October 6, 2009 at 11:51 am
Michael,
Thanks for your response. I’m glad that my rambling helped, even if just a little bit. I don’t have anyone to talk to about this, and this is the best way I know of to get something of a release. Even though it does still hurt to relive those days back in January. I have lost touch with all of my friends over the years, because I devoted every part of myself to her, and the kids. That is one of the most painful parts of this. All I ever wanted was to be treated with respect, and maybe a little gratitude for all that I did for them. When things got a little rough in our marriage, she committed the ultimate act of disrespect, and in-gratitude. She put all of the good things in our marriage aside, and focused solely on her new relationship. We used to talk about how our first meeting was fate, and God put us together. She admits that she didn’t even ask for God’s guidance when she was thinking about leaving me. She also admits that if she had not been influenced by this guy that we probably would have talked before she left me. I am absolutely certain that we could have solved our problems if we had just had the opportunity. She repeatedly said she left that day, and lied about where she was going because “I was absolutely convinced that you wouldn’t care”. My thoughts were that if I really didn’t care, she could have just told me that she was going to the attorney’s office, then on to meet her new “friend”. Then she could have been guilt free, and at least ended our marriage with honor, and dignity, which is what we always promised each other we would do if it ever came to that.
I am really sorry to say, Michael, the shock of that day has not faded very much for me. I know you didn’t really want to hear that. I still find myself just shaking my head, and thinking “I just can’t believe she did it”. It is like a horrible nightmare that I keep thinking I will wake up from, but it just doesn’t happen.
To answer your questions about medication. No, she was not taking anything. She has zanex for occasional panic attacks, but she rarely takes them. She does take a non-narcotic sleep aide for insomnia, but she has taken that for years. There is a possibility that she was in a depression. It was right after Christmas, which she really loves. Sometimes she gets a little blue after the holidays. Michael, I know you are struggling for answers, but in my case, medication was not a factor. Like I said in my previous post, she claimed to be sick, and stayed in bed from Friday until that Tuesday morning. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. She didn’t have any fever or other apparent symptoms. She just kept saying that her tummy was all messed up, and all she would eat was lightly buttered toast, and skim milk, which I would bring to her when she got hungry. I think maybe it was just nerves, and the fear of getting caught, along with maybe some guilt. Not enough guilt though to make her stop what she was doing.
One time when I was in the bedroom checking on her, I picked up her cell phone, and just looked at it, then laid it back on her lap. I don’t know why I did that, but she had an almost panicked look on her face. I thought it was strange, but I never suspected a thing. She told me that at one point she told him that she was going to stop communicating with him, and try to work things out with me. He said ok, then texted her back in about 20 minutes with some lame story about how his mother endured an unhappy marriage for years. That hooked her back in, and the online affair resumed.
Enough about the past, I will skip ahead to now. I now trust her, but I don’t know if it will ever be to same extent that it was before. I did check her FB, and cell phone records for several months. I have no evidence that she is doing anything behind my back. She did delete him and all of the other non family male friends off of her FB friends list, although it took her about 2 months to do it. At first I told her to do what she thought was right, but I ended up asking her to delete them. I guess I needed to see a sign from her that she wanted to remove all possible means of contact, and further temptaion. She said that she just didn’t think about it. It was also about 2 months after the affair that she acknowledged that what she did was cheating. She said that she didn’t want to admit that that is what it was, even to herself. Up until then, she didn’t see it because “we were getting a divorce”. As for talking about it, and me getting anymore answers, things have pretty much stalled out. We haven’t talked about “it” for 2 or 3 weeks. I am at the point where I am afraid to bring it up for fear that I will push her away. I also feel like she has already told me all she is going to. I want to believe that I have all of the information, but I am just not sure. She certainly never brings it up, and I feel like she just wants to forget it ever happened. I know that she feels a lot of guilt, and remorse.
Well, I have done another long post. There is a lot more, but I will stop for now. The floodgates have been opened. Michael H, or others. If you have any questions, or comments, please feel free. As long as it is civil and respectful.
Mark T
October 6, 2009 at 1:10 pm
Sorry guys, but here comes more.
This is just my opinion, but to rebuild a strong, loving marriage after something like this happens requires an almost Herculean effort by both parties. I believe that trust is an integral part of a strong relationship. She must be willing to go through the painful discussions, and put her feelings of guilt, and shame on the back burner. She is the one that made the decisions that got you both where you are. You must both be able to put the anger, resentment, blame, and biting comments aside. I’ll be the first to admit that I was unable to always keep those feeling from boiling to the surface especially early on. She needs to understand early on that you need to hear the truth, no matter how painful. She will probably want to spare your feelings, or maybe hide her guilt and shame by telling lies, and half truths, as well as leaving out certain details. How can someone expect to be believed, and trusted again if they are still not being totally, brutally honest?
I believe that being trusted to the extent that I trusted my wife is a rare and precious gift. Especially when someone has been through a similar experience before like I have. My first wife fell in love with a co-worker who she claimed to hate. This was about 16 years ago when the internet was in its infancy. So facebook was obviously not to blame. She cheated on me with him, and when she decided to end our marriage, found ways to blame it all on me. They are still married. We had 2 children together.
In January, my current wife, and love of my life took that rare and precious gift, and just threw it in the gutter like it was a piece of dog crap. How could she do that to me knowing that I had been down that road through hell before?
Don’t get me wrong I do trust her, but it may never be the same as it was. She is a very attractive and sexy woman. She is also 12 years younger than me. By the way, Michael I turned 50 on Sept. 1. The day your ordeal began. Before the breech of trust, when we were out somewhere I felt very proud that other men would notice her. It didn’t bother me at all, and was even kind of fun knowing that she was mine, and all they could do was look. Now, when we are out and other men look at her, it pisses me off. I wonder if she is enjoying it, and looking back at some of the more attractive men that notice her. It happens a lot. I was always proud of the fact that I was not the jealous husband type. I never even thought about where she was or what she was doing when she was not at home. A big part of that has been taken away from me, maybe forever. I sometimes still cringe when she gets a text on her cell, or when I see her on facebook. I know it’s nothing to worry about, but it kind of flashes me back to some really bad memories.
James F
October 6, 2009 at 11:28 pm
Mark, we have very similar situations! I am 51 and my wife is 11 years younger then me and we have been married for 11 years. She too is very attractive and I had little to no jealousy before I caught her (innocently) leading this boyfriend from 20 years ago on to the point that he wanted to jump her bones and he told her so. I went ballistic with pain and anger (yelling). If this is in fact her true mode of operation (playing innocent and oblivious when being hit on, consciously leading it on and not drawing a boundary line), I don’t think she would ever want to deal with the wrath of my pain and anger and rage again. That said, I will never totally trust her again despite that she claims total innocence, I simply don’t believe that anyone would be oblivious to…
“I have been thinking of you in other ways then what we have been talking about” and… “I hope your husband doesn’t have access to your facebook account”, hello!!! who is that dumb? She has not come clean with me to this day and I am about to give her an ultimatum, either come clean in front of a counselor or I am done!!!! I refuse to be in a relationship with no truth and trust!!!! If my wife went to the extent that yours did, that would be the end for me. She and all her stuff would be thrown out and she would have a hell of a time trying to get her ‘half’. To me, that is the ultimate betrayal, leaving permanent damage in every conceivable aspect of a marriage. I have way too much self-esteem and self-respect to stay with a person with little to no integrity. I would then have to get over the extreme pain and loss and get on eharmony or something and move on as fast as possible. Mark, I wonder why you think that your wife would never do something like that again and how do you deal with the total destruction of every aspect of your relationship? I can obviously use some advice.
Much peace,
James
Mark T
October 7, 2009 at 6:19 am
James,
I don’t know that I am any position to give advice to anyone who is going through this process. I can only speak to my situation, and share my own insights. If anything I say helps someone to find a little relief from the pain or to make the right decision, then that is great.
My previous posts have been describing the painful events, and the struggle that I have been dealing with to get past that pain. There are usually two sides to a story. First of all, I love my wife beyond description. I can’t imagine my life without her in it. I have forgiven her. I just haven’t forgotten what she did. The bible is very clear on the whole subject of forgiveness. I know that she would not have done what she did if she had not been really mad at me. I am not making excuses for her, but she had pretty much given up on us ever coming together on some parenting issues. Part of that was due to her stubbornness. Part of it was due to mine. Since she came back to me, we have done a really good job of communicating, and working though the parenting, and most other issues. We spend a lot more time together just talking. One of the things that really upset me before was when I would be getting on to the youngest daughter. My wife would call me on it in front of her, instead of waiting until we could talk about the situation privately. This was a really big issue with me. She doesn’t do that any more. She backs me up when I am getting on to one of the kids for being disrespectful. I won’t tolerate disrespect from a child, towards me, or my wife. I don’t want to bore you all with details like that. I just wanted to give an example of how things have changed in our marriage. It really is much, much better.
She made a mistake. She has admitted that she made a mistake. She has expressed extreme remorse for what she did, and said that it was the worst mistake of her life. I am confident that she will never do it again.
Our lack of communication is what led to her actions. Again, I am not about to make excuses for her, nor will I let her make excuses for what she did. Having said that, if I had done a better job of meeting her needs, she never would have been in a position to be tempted. She told her FB “friend” that she was unhappy. That is all it took for him to start telling her just what she wanted to hear to fill that emotional need to be desired, cared about, and validated. She allowed someone else to fill an emotional need at a time when I was unable to due to the tension between us. She will not do that again, because I will not let her needs be neglected again. We have a really great marriage. I know that it is worth holding on to, and fighting for. Besides the fact that I love this girl so much, I also know that I could not trust anyone else any more than I can trust her. I am just not sure that absolute blind trust is a healthy thing. It leads to Assuming too much about the stability of your marriage. I have been burned by it twice now. There will not be a third time.
Ok, I am going to give some background info here. Again, I just hope I don’t bore you all with it. We both believe that God meant for us to be together. When we met, we had both pretty much given up on the whole marriage thing. She has 3 kids, and I have 2. Mine of course lived with their mother. Hers were a boy 9, a girl 6, and a girl 2. She had left her verbally, physically abusive husband who cheated on a regular basis about a year and a half before we met. Even though she needed someone to help her raise her kids, I know that she truly fell in love with me. I have tried to be a good dad to all 3 of them, but it has been a very rough road trying to figure out where I fit in to all of this. The oldest is in college now, so it’s just my wife and me, and the 2 girls (now 15, and 11). I have a great relationship with both of them. Like I said, it has been a rough road, but I could not ask for a better situation than I am in now. I love them all so damn much. This is in part why I know that my wife will never betray me again. She would never jeopardize what we all have as a family. She will never again jeopardize what we have as man and wife.
Again, I would never presume to be wise enough to give advice in these matters. I can only suggest that if it is worth holding on to, and fighting for, then fight with everything you’ve got. If it is damaged beyond any possibility of repair, then let go. But, try to let go with grace, honor, and dignity. Either way, if you believe in God, then get him involved in a big way.
There is something I read in an article on the net about getting someone to be honest with you. You have to make it safe for that person to tell you the truth. You have to be very careful how you react to painful information. When she tells you something that is very hard to hear, you have to try not to explode. I know from experience that it is much easier to say than it is to do. If you react in a way that causes her more pain, and guilt, them she will eventually learn to avoid putting herself in that position. It is like sticking your hand into a fire. After getting burned a couple of times a person is less likely to do it again. Of course, even if you are able to control your reactions, there is no guarantee that she will come completely clean with you.
James, I wish you, and the others who have felt the need, and taken the time to read the posts on this board the best of luck in your journey to find the peace that you are desperately seeking.
Until next time, Mark T
James F
October 9, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Thanks Mark!!!!
Your wife is married to kind, solid person!!!!!
S
October 10, 2009 at 12:01 am
Man, this website is an eye opener, all this is going on everywhere everyday and so many people are being hurt an marriages ruined because of that damn facebook. I think it’s because of facebook’s culture of flirty add on applications that for example allow you to “send a sloppy kiss” to a “friend”, that this kind of thing is so prevalent.
I have just recently myself become aware of my wife’s own transgressions using both facebook and instant messaging programs. The story reads like a carbon copy of some I’ve already read here. Her ex-boyfriend from 10 years ago (the one before we got together) found her on facebook and applied to be friends. She did let me know about that and I told her i wasn’t comfortable with that. She agreed to ignore the request. The problem was I only ever knew this guys nickname, not his real name, so a month or 2 later when the guy applied to be friends again, she just went ahead and accepted knowing that I wouldn’t even notice with the large amount of friends both male/female that she already had on the list.
Now although being uncomfortable with certain friendships she has had with guys (which I have now found out, I was right to be uncomfortable with), I had complete trust in her that she knew where the boundaries were and would not do anything to hurt me. She would spend hours each day and night chatting away on facebook, occaisionally telling me of a funny thing one of her female friends had said or the latest gimmicky sex test that her girlftriends and here had taken. This just made me think that was all that was going on, little did I know she was chatting with this guy at the same time.
Well she went and met him for coffee one day without my knowing, I had a strange feeling about where she was going that day, but still didn’t break the trust I had for her. The following weekend she went out with a girlfriend to the local nightclub strip. Again I had an odd feeling that something wasn’t right, and even made a small probing attempt to find out her plans, only to be shut down with “I know you have a problem with me going out, get over it” which made me feel like a jerk for having even the slightest distrust in her. I should have went with my instincts and logged into her facebook, instead I decided to go with my faith and trust in her. What actually happened is she went out and met this guy and ended up kissing him in a bar. She got cold feet after this and went home, nothing more happened.
A few days later after I started asking too many questions because things weren’t adding up and she thought that her friend’s husband was going to tell me about it, she came clean, not all at once, still had to drag out all the details, even after i had been told the “whole” truth that it was a chance meeting of just some guy she knew from years ago and who was on her facebook, I still felt something was missing. I finally betrayed “her” trust and logged into her facebook to find a few messages that she missed deleting that proved she intended to meet him at the clubs and also showed some flirtacious and sexually explicit talk between them.
After confronting her again with the new ‘truth’ that I had found, she finally let out subtle hints on who this guys actually was, yep I should have known, her ex-boyfriend that she agreed to not talk to.
Although her indescretion seem to be far less that some I’ve read here, I’ve gone though and are still going through the same emotions you guys are. What has really helped is that she is trying very hard to make this right and is now forthcomming with all her dark secrets, some of which surprised me, and others I already suspected.
Hopefully I we can through this and move forward, it’s looking good so far.
My advice to anyone going through this stuff, never assume you have the full story, keep digging, there’s more to know and teh knowing helps the healing.
Trust your instincts!
Michael H
October 10, 2009 at 7:31 am
Hey M,
Unfortunately, welcome to our club. I know that the “feeling like second best support group” is something that you really didn’t want to be a part of, but we do welcome you with open arms. We meet every Tuesday at the old meat packing plant on Vine St. Sorry, that’s all the humor I can muster about a devastating reality.
I hate to hear another soul has been beaten up by the unfaithful breeding ground of Cheat Book. My wife also rejected her X’s first friend request at my request, but needed her ego stroked and did it any way. Like you, I felt nothing but trust for her so it was no big deal. Three months later I find out that she has a dark side which allowed her to not only call this (honestly, piece of shit, fourth wife, professed red neck, confirmed compulsive lier) multiple times a day, but also send him naked pictures of herself, talk about sexual explicit things, and tell him that she loved him multiple times. Can someone please find my real wife and return her to me.
I can’t express my heartbreak every time a new member shares their story to the club. It truly sucks. The feelings and emotions that each of us have and are experiencing have been compared to that of loosing a child. Not that is a fair comparison, but I can see the connection. You feel like your world and life have been pulled out from under your feet.
TRUST – The biggest problem we all face.
FAITH – Something that we all have lost in our spouse.
UNDERSTANDING – The question of “why” that never seems to have an answer.
All of these, and many more, are things that we now struggle with daily. How could someone you love do something so devastating to destroy your self esteem. I don’t have any answers. I don’t have any great advise. I do have a caring heart that wants all of this pain we all feel to lift and vanish. I think from what I’ve learned from others that time is the key. Time to heal. Time to cope. Time to allow your spouse to prove her worth. It’s easy to say but hard to do.
At times when I look at my wife I feel disgusted and can’t see myself truly desiring her again. Sure, I can still satisfy my needs through her body, but it’s different. I don’t look at her as the special loved one that I can share amazing experiences with. Instead I want her to be my “whore” that no one else can physically or emotionally ride. Kind of selfish, but so was she.
There is nothing in my life that has consumed me and taken over my existence like this has. The emotions of jealousy, anger, self loathing, and just being down rite scared are things that I do not want to be, and haven’t been until now. I now know what a panic attack really is. The anxiety is often overwhelming and pushes me into the corner feeling as though I am curled up in the fetal position in my daily walk through life.
PEACE – Something we all desire and need.
UNDERSTANDING – What is lacking daily when dealing with this hell.
LOVE – That foreign feeling that is like a turtle sucking itself back in its shell and afraid to come out for fear of being hurt.
I know that none of us deserve what we have been dealt. It’s sad to be unsure of your lover and their true intentions. Please keep the dialog going because I personally feel it helps me and hopefully each of you. We will survive and we will love again. That’s all I’ve got for now. God’s speed to each of you.
Michael H
Mark T
October 11, 2009 at 8:41 am
James,
Thank you for your kind words. The best part is that she now knows it. She will never again doubt the lengths I will go to for her. I am just glad that no one on this board has to this point told me what a fool and a chump I am, and that I am less than a man for trusting my wife, and wanting to keep our marriage together.
Michael, Just to clear up something I said earlier. I didn’t mean to imply that this pain is even close to losing a child. I thank God that I have never had to experience that. I do know people that have. Even having experienced this, I could never even imagine the agony that the loss of a child must be. I liked your bullets on trust, faith, etc. I noticed that you listed understanding twice. Apparently, I am not alone in feeling like being able to understand all of the “whys” is a huge part of the heeling process. The bad news is that there is no explanation that can ever get you to the point where you say “oh, ok I understand now, and I am ok with what you did”. And, “it doesn’t hurt anymore”. That understanding will never come. Having said that, I do understand a little better why she was to the point of giving up in our marriage. The root cause of our problems was communication. She was convinced that I would never change, and ease up on the youngest daughter.
Just so you guys know I never abused this little girl in any way. I did lose my temper with her, and did some yelling, and used foul language with her. I never hit her or called her names. There were a few time when I thumped her noggin, and I felt horrible for it immediately. I just didn’t want anyone on here to think that I am an abusive parent.
Things are much more peaceful now. My wife has made some major changes in the way she parents also. For example, when she says no, she sticks to it much better. She also is much less tolerant towards disrespectful behavior.
Don’t get me wrong guys, I will absolutely detest what she did for the rest of my life. I will hate the fact that she didn’t try harder to talk to me. It will always hurt that she didn’t fight harder for us, and that she just walked out on me without even saying “goodbye”. Let me know that she was planning on ending our marriage. The best thing I can say to you guys who are trying to hold on to your marriage is “Love the sinner (with all of your heart), and hate the sin.
There have been some comments about feeling like you should do a little cheatbooking yourself. That maybe if you do what she did it might make you feel a little better. My wife has even said that maybe I should find someone to have a “fling” with. Well, as for me, I have no desire to do such a thing. I think that maybe she said that to ease her own guilt, but I would never do that for any reason. I do not want to hurt her to get even. And, I have no desire to be with anyone else. I know that she is dealing with a lot of pain herself for what she did. It hurts her so much to know that she caused me this much pain. I don’t want to punish her further, because she is punishing herself enough. When I express to her all of my feelings about what happened, I can tell that the pain she feels is real. I only do this to help her understand where I am emotionally. I don’t want her to hurt any more that I want to hurt.
We had a major break through the other day. She finally came clean about some issues that I felt all along that she was holding back on. Our relationship has reached a new level of love, trust, and honesty. I hate the fact that it took so long for her to do it, especially after everything I told her about me needed the truth so that I could trust her again. I am just glad that it finally came. “Better late than never”. All of this time, I had a gut feeling that she wasn’t being honest with me, and there was still some missing pieces to the puzzle. Now, that struggle to get her to be honest is over. I feel like we are both on the same side of the battlefield now. I spent an enormous amount of time going back and forth in my own mind trying to believe in her, but not being able to. Now, that struggle, and war is over. Don’t get me wrong, the truth hurts like hell, but we are now at the point where we can truly starting putting it all behind us. She had carried that guilt inside of her. Now she can start letting go of that. The pain that we both have over it will never completely go away, but the love we have for each other will carry us through the rest of our lives. What we have now is truly amazing. We were talking just last night about how we both feel like we are the only ones in the world that have such a strong, and loving marriage, and that it sucks for the rest of the world that they don’t have what we have. (kind of joking of course).
The day after the break through, I truly made love to my wife for the first time in a long time. The barrier of doubt that was between us is gone. I could go on, and on about how we are now connected, but I think you guys all are getting the picture. I hope that you all can find your way to the place that I am now in. Each of you has a unique, but similar situation. A lot of it depends on how much your wife is willing to give of herself to help you reach your goal of finding the peace, trust, and closeness that you so desperately need, and hopefully the love that you once had, or maybe even stronger.
Good luck to all of you.
Kristyn
October 12, 2009 at 1:11 pm
What about us women that are having to deal with thier husbands cheating on Facebook? I’m hearing a lot of just wife, she, etc…
The cheating by my husband just came out last week and I am devastated. I had a meeting with a lawyer from tomorrow, but can’t bring myself to go through with it. Did I mention we have only been married almost three months?
What a nightmare this has been. I hate Facebook more than anything in this world. Words cannot begin to describe the complete dispair I feel.
Michael H
October 12, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Hey Kristyn,
Your right, its a two way street. I feel for you and pray that peace and understanding fill your mind quickly. It is such a struggle. I’m not sure that three months into a marriage anyone would expect this. Facebook and the like are a poison for anyone who does not have integrity. I know that this is very fresh in your mind. You should check his emails, phone records, and all the nooks and crannies of facebook and other social networking sites that he might be associated with. Do this now so you can piece together the truth. It has been less than 6 weeks for me and I’m still finding missing pieces that all point to an awfully unfaithful wife. don’t expect him to give you the truth. My wife, as many others will tell you, likes to sprinkle sugar on the truth. All I needed was the truth. Just today I stumbled across several emails that she and he had sent to each other. Brings back some of the agonizing pain, but really the lying hurts the worst.
You need to soul search and see how bad the affair was, then decide if this man is worth fighting for. Don’t let him try and let you feel that you are at fault. And don’t fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself or self loathing. It’s all false and untrue. I have now listed you on my prayer list, as all of the poor souls I have ran into here. Keep on posting as I have found it really does help to put it out there and have people with the same issues respond.
God Bless,
Michael H
Mark T
October 12, 2009 at 3:59 pm
Krystyn
This site was started by a man who was victimized by this plague. I don’t think that it was ever intended to be exclusive for men. I know that cheating is by no means gender exclusive. It really sucks for all that are affected by it. My heart goes out to you also. For a person to cheat on the one person that they have vowed to make the journey through life with is in my opinion the cruelest, and most selfish act there is. An affair of the heart, and the lying that follow can destroy people’s lives. Not just the cheated on, but also the cheater, and any innocent children that might be involved. That doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no hope for forgiveness. It depends mostly on the cheater’s willingness to stop the lying, and prove that they can be trusted again. It is almost impossible to forgive someone when they are still lying. It also depends on the victim’s willingness, and ability to forgive. That is where you have to search within yourself.
Michael,
I’m sorry that you are still going through the jigsaw puzzle box looking for the pieces that she has hidden from you. I know how that feels. I wish that my wife could talk to your wife, and tell her what she has learned about letting go of the lies. My wife is finally found some peace in that she no longer has to carry the burden of lies. The conflict that was created by me trying to drag the truth out of her is over. We both still have to live with the truth, but it is much better than the lies, for both of us. Trust me.
I know that you are still carrying a lot of anger. That is absolutely normal. It will get better with time. I do have to disagree with you on one point. You have mentioned more that once the issue of integrity. My opinion is that anyone can make a mistake. Life is a constant struggle in one way or another. There are times when people are at their strongest, and then there are times when they are at their weakest, for whatever reason. I hope that all who have experienced this pain can find your way to letting go of some of the resentment, for your own sake, and well as the person who has betrayed you. I know that I am one of the lucky ones in that my wife will never do anything like this again. She knows that she made a mistake. She has learned from it, and has grown stronger from it. Our relationship has grown stronger also. The integrity that she has always had has grown even stronger. She really is an amazing woman, but she does make mistakes, and I love her with everything I am.
I know that she has had no contact with the asshole that she had the brief relationship with. She has only negative feelings for him now. I personally would like to strangle the sorry bastard. I asked her just the other day why she thinks so little of him. Her answer was “when she tried to end it, he did not respect her enough to just stop”, “he just kept on telling her all of the things that he knew she wanted to hear”, and “manipulating her”. I know that she is not just an innocent victim, but it sure seems like he has had some practice at this. By the way, he was also married at the time. Hmmm, I wonder why he is now single.
As for facebook, if someone would just pull the plug on it, I would run out to the middle of the street and do an Irish jig, or maybe even the electric slide naked. (sorry neighbors).
Peace to you all.
S
October 13, 2009 at 2:04 am
“I asked her just the other day why she thinks so little of him. Her answer was “when she tried to end it, he did not respect her enough to just stop”, “he just kept on telling her all of the things that he knew she wanted to hear”, and “manipulating her”. I know that she is not just an innocent victim, but it sure seems like he has had some practice at this. ”
This is almost identical to how my wife feels. He kept emailing her talking friendship, and how good a “friend” he has been. He even had the balls to email me and tell me how he understands her more than I do and how dare I tell her not to be friends any more. He is quite delusional and thinks there was more to it than there was, thinks she is leaving me or something.
After I stopped letting him baiting me into replying to his mails ( I was keeping it civil by the way, threats of violence are not my style), he finally “Got it” that he was being an asshole and actually apologised to me for the first time and promised to stop interfering.
It’s kind of a relief, I know my wife had no intentions of continuing the affair but i was getting concerned that he would begin stalking her or even confront me with violence.
BTW, my wife and I are doing well now, her willingness to make up for this and be brutally honest about the full details is a huge help, without that I don’t think there there would have been any chance for reconciliation.
I’ve let go of the resentment and anger and when the bad thoughts and images enter my head I am able to address them straight away, tell myself that “yes, it was a shitty thing to have happened, but it’s not the end of the world, it’s time to move on”
Good luck to you guys with your own struggle.
Mark T
October 13, 2009 at 5:56 am
S
That is great news. I guess that really brings home the old saying “the truth will set you free”. I am glad for you and your wife that you have reached that goal that at times seems impossible.
My wife at one point offered to swear on a bible that she had told me everything. If I had put a bible in front of her she would have done it. She swore to God. She asked me to take a leap of faith like she did when she came back to me. Now she has let go of all of that, and she can ask for God’s forgiveness. She can now truly accept my forgiveness.
My wife held on to all of her lies because she was afraid of losing me, and because she was ashamed of what she did. That doesn’t really excuse the lies. I tried so many times to let her know that I wasn’t going anywhere, that I am absolutely determined to stay together, and rebuild our marriage. She didn’t trust me, and believe in me enough to just stop lying. That is just another source of pain in all of this, but at least it is all behind us now.
I am not a violent person either. I know that beating the shit out of that guy would not change anything. I was just expressing my extreme loathing for that sub-human piece of crap. I also know that hating is not good thing, but I do have a very low opinion of him. I am trying to eliminate him from our marriage by not even giving him another thought. I’m just not quite there yet.
I am really pulling for others on this board to be able to reach the point where all of the lies have stopped. I agree with S, and have even offered my own opinion that total honesty is a necessary step in moving past the devastation of being unfaithful to the sacred bond of marriage.
God bless you all.
Michael H
October 13, 2009 at 6:08 am
Hey Mr. S,
It’s good to hear that thin worlds evil is not breaking up your marriage. I too seemed to have a break through yesterday. It’s not easy to accept the truth, but I think I now have it and it seems to bring with it some sort of comfort. After I found and read some of the old emails that my wife and shark boy wrote back and forth to each other, I then knew that my wife was just as involved as he was. It hurt, but I didn’t have to wonder anymore where my wife was at in the affair. This pud, like your “wanna b home breaker,” was smooth and told her what she wanted to hear. I feel confident my wife now realizes that his intentions were not to spread love but to angle a piece of ass. Her understanding of that is important for her recovery as well. I want to move on. I want to move past my hatred at the whole ugly disgusting mess. The affair happened and the healing has to happen as well.
My wifes interest was similar in the fact he didn’t want to respect my wife when she said it was over. He made the fatal error of sending a text message that I found which started this nightmare for me. Then, after telling me in another text message, he would not contact her again called on a Saturday during the Tennessee/Florida game (I like college football). That pissed me off royally. At that point I knew he didn’t care about me, my kids, and especially my wife. So I decided to go after him with a vengeance. I found his (fourth) wife in Florida (hate that state) and proceeded to flip his world. I had so much more planned but telling his wife has hopefully got his attention. I am still very fearful that he will try to contact my wife again but I have given her some trust to tell me if he does.
I love my wife. I don’t want to loose her. I now know what I am willing to do for her love. It still makes me crazy to think about the pictures, sex talk, and deceit but am confident she truly loves me and is so sorry for her poor judgment. I hope everyone that stumbles on this page can make sense of their own mess and shortcomings. I hope they can learn from some of the mistakes we (as the victim) have made and live a fruitful love filled life.
I like the earlier comment: don’t hate the sinner, hate the sin. TRUE.
God bless,
Michael
S
October 16, 2009 at 3:16 am
So, yeah. Scratch all that… Have just found out that she has sex with some other guy 3.5 years ago… What makes this worse is that he was a friend of hers and although they sex was only 1 time, she continued the friendship with him for over a year following. The “friendship” finally fizzled out when she was close to giving birth to our second child. Yes, it is mine, I had that terrible thought for a few seconds also.
This guy has sat in my kitchen and I’ve served him coffee. 2 of her other friends new about the affair and also kept this secret from me. we’ve been married for 7 years, so that is half of my marriage with an unfaithful wife.
This is like having someone die on you and then on the way home from the funeral, just when you are starting to heal, someone else you love is also killed. It’s kind of numb, i have rage, oh yes i have rage, but the healing process and techniques i’ve used on my earlier discovery have been helping me to get through this one.
I feel like I’m weak for wanting to stay with her after multiple affairs, but damn I love this woman, I couldn’t live without her.
Wish me luck guys.
Mark T
October 16, 2009 at 10:27 am
S,
I am sorry to hear about your latest discovery. I will never understand how someone who says they love you can just keep adding one layer of pain after another by scattering the bread crumbs of truth along your path of healing. Do they not understand that it would be easier to just get it all out in the open and allow you to deal with it one time? Instead they just drag it out, and prolong the agony. Your description of the funeral scenario is a good one. Every new piece of the truth sets you back to square one in the grieving, and healing process.
I for one do not think that you are weak for wanting to hold on to your marriage, and loving your wife. I believe that it takes a strong person to choose to stay, and face the tough road ahead instead of just seeing that throwing it all away is the answer.
Good luck S, stay strong.
JMB
October 17, 2009 at 1:12 pm
I recently just caught my husband talking to another woman online. We share our network logins, so one day I went to go see what he was up to. I saw that he’d sent a friend request to this girl I didn’t know. She’d accepted. I wasn’t concerned at first b/c he’s added people from his highschool, old jobs, etc…no big deal. But this girl wasn’t from our town at all. And they didn’t have any mutual friends. I did a little more digging, and found out that he was deleting the messages he would send her, and delete the messages she was sending him. So I tricked him into pretty much telling me everything by saying that girl was my friend and we were setting him up to see what he would do.
He said they sent 2-3 messages back and forth and spent an hour on the phone one night (he hid her number in his cell phone as a secondary number listing for one of his friends). She said maybe they could get hangout next time she was in our area, and he said sure.
We went thru a similar situation but on Myspace when he was messaging and talking about meeting up with an ex girlfriend.
He swears up and down and that he would never “cross-the-line” and actually get together or sleep with anyone. He said he just wanted to feel wanted and needed someone to talk to. What do you guys think?
S
October 17, 2009 at 5:10 pm
He’s playing with fire. It starts out innocent like that and then can quickly escalate. My suggestion would be to search for “emotional affairs” on google and have a bit of a read. Then ask him to read a few of the better articles you find. I’m sure it will open his eyes to what he is doing.
Wally
October 20, 2009 at 4:49 am
Thanks to everyone for sharing your incredibly painful stories. Reading these and writing this response is therapeutic, but I am in a real bad place right now. This is a long one, and a doosie, so I apologize in advance:
I have been married to Pam for 12 years. We have 3 children, and are close with many friends and family. While our marriage has been through many of the normal “ups and downs”, for the most part, we have been happy (more on this later, I’m sure). We are busy with our jobs and our kids, and this has certainly impacted the closeness of our relationship. More specifically, I travel a great deal with my job, which has led Pam to often times accuse me of being a poor husband and father. She often refers to herself as “a single mother.” Recently, she has turned up the volume on these complaints, but this does not interfere with us having fun as a couple and a family.
Pam has always defended her honesty as it relates to our relationship, and wears this like a badge. As far as I can tell, she is honest and ethical. On the other hand, she has accused me on more than one occasion as being “sneaky” and a “liar.” Most of this revolves around lies that I have told her that have allowed for me to spend time with friends bowling, playing tennis, drinking, etc. There was a situation where I met with someone from work for a drink – someone Pam had mentioned to me in the past as having an “interest” in me based on what she had observed at a company function. There was a legitimate business reason for our meeting relating to work, but I made a big mistake not letting Pam know about the meeting in advance. This topic is brought up whenever we have problems, and my decision certainly diminished the level of trust that Pam has in me. Nothing I can say about the legitimacy of the meeting is relevant to her, but there was certainly nothing sexual about the encounter. Ellen is her name, and I am certain her name will re-surface as this story evolves. On to Pam….
Earlier this week, I received this email from Pam. I was traveling for work:
Hey Pete,
I just called you. Do you care if I meet my facebook friend Jim for coffee tomorrow? He is married, fat and bald so I won’t bang him or anything. He is gonna be in Portland tomorrow and wants to catch up. He is a teacher in Beaverton.
Pam had started her Facebook account months ago and had amassed a few hundred friends, and when she said he was a teacher, I figured that he was someone she knew through school (she is a teacher). As a result, I told her that if she didn’t think it was strange, I was OK with it. Based on my description of Pam earlier, there has never been an issue of trust. This was on Monday night. For the record, she did in fact call me, but did not leave a message.
I called her on Tuesday afternoon, and was hoping that we could discuss her meeting with Jim. She was at the grocery store and in the middle of grabbing things, sounded busy, so we never got into the conversation.
I arrived home from my trip on Wednesday and we had dinner as a family. Pam asked me to help her move the outdoor furniture out to our patio, and as we were moving the table, I asked her, somewhat jokingly, “How was your date?” Pam responded that it was fine, and that she thought Jim was more interested in meeting me since like me, he plays a lot of tennis. As I asked a couple more surface level questions (and at this point, they were very surface as I didn’t think much of the meeting), she mentioned in passing that she had dated Jim in high school for 5 days. As she told me this, she explained that since their relationship was so short-lived, she clearly was not interested in him back then, or now. She said that she dumped him when another more attractive boy came along, who she ended up dating for 4 years. While I was a bit surprised about the boyfriend admission, this was still early in the conversation so my “radar” was not really up. So I jokingly asked, “Did you guys do it?” She was getting a bit defensive at this point and responded that no, of course not, but we did make out. She emphasized that he’s fat and unattractive and that certainly she would never be interested in someone like him.
As this news sunk in, I became increasingly interested in the situation, of course. She said that she simply wanted to be friends with him. She asked if I had a problem with that, and my response was, “Does this mean that I can be friends with members of the opposite sex?” This was probably not the right thing to say, of course, but now I was a bit pissed. She responded that yes, I could be, as long as they were unattractive like Jim. She continued to be defensive and said that she wanted to meet with Jim to catch up, and that it should be ok for her to do so since she “doesn’t get these opportunities like I do.” I jumped all over her use of the word “opportunities”, but that discussion went round and round. I let the topic die, which she was happy to do, and we completed moving the table and chairs out to the patio.
We started settling in for the evening, and as Pam was downstairs picking up, I jumped on our computer. Pam’s Yahoo mail account is the home screen for her Windows account, and against my better judgement and the trust I have always had in her, I launched Explorer and her account came up. At this point, in the wake of the “boyfriend I had kissed admission”, I started fishing.
I saw Facebook messages that Jim had sent to Pam. The first message to Pam read:
Jim sent you a message.(no subject)”Tomorrow night . 700 o’clock? downtown Portland?”
Pretty benign, and considering that Pam had notified me about this meeting, no big deal. The next one was not benign, and was the gas for this engine of curiosity, anger, and envy.
Jim sent you a message.(no subject)”nothing public.has to b close to the drs office. maybe the parking lot. i prbably haveto go in with him at the end. ill call tomorrow.”
This was clearly a response to Pam suggesting a meeting spot, but as I mentioned earlier, I could not find Pam’s message to him. This is a message that hit me hard. Why nothing public? In a parking lot? The secretive nature of the meeting rocked my world a bit. Now, again, at the time I didn’t know what Pam had asked him, but I have wracked my brain to figure out what type of question would legitimize a response of “nothing public.” Furthermore, when I asked Pam about the location of their meeting the next morning, she assured me that they met at Starbucks.
The next message he sent later that evening was even more curious, and as I add the conversations between the two to this blog, I imagine that they will get even more cryptic.
Jim sent you a message.——————–(no subject)Soooo… I’m home now! Are we on Plan A or B? Maybe C? HaHa! Whatever you decide is fine with me. I’m a nice guy!(Maybe) I consulted my people and they are going to help me come up with a good gameplan. UmmK?Your BFF,Jim
Oh boy. Now here is where I am either an envious psycho or dead on the mark. What the hell Plans were they talking about? A, B and C? What is Pam’s big decision? And her decision is “fine with him.” And why did he say he’s a nice guy (maybe)? All that stuff upset me, but the evidence that showed me that this relationship had the potential to evolve into an emotional affair (at least) was his sign off of “BFF.” These 2 are “Best Friends Forever” even though they dated for 5 days 20 years ago and met for the first time since then. I realized then the emotional power of Facebook – I am certain this post excited Pam, as evidenced by her future activity chronicled below. I later found out that Plan A was sex, Plan B was friends, and there was no Plan C.
Here was the next post, which Jim sent the next day (Wednesday).
Jim sent you a message.——————–(no subject)i read more than you. I’ll give you a list of GOOD books!P.S. Thanks for saying you would be gentle. They are super sensitive! Yikes!
I later found out that this was in response to her comments to him making her his pitcher in that Farmville baseball game. She apparently wrote, “I don’t like baseball, but would like to handle your balls.”
Other than the comment about “saying you would be gentle”, not knowing about her balls comment, this one looked pretty benign. Although out of context, one could read a sexual suggestion into that.
The next one made me so pissed, and I knew this situation was getting serious:
Jim sent you a message.(no subject)”u should erase all these messages and change your password once in a while. for security.”
Not knowing what she was sending to him was irrelevant here. Asking her to erase all these message means that there are many things going on here (at this point simply emotional) that should not be going on between 2 casual married friends.
As you can imagine, by now my mind was racing. I was hurt so much by the encounter, but more hurt by the fact that the trust I had always had in Pam was now fractured. So….I decided to check phone records. There were 5 calls between them over the past five days.
I awoke on Thursday with all this information and knew I had a choice to make. Should I confront Pam now? That was probably the right thing to do, but for some strange and maybe evil reason, I was enjoying seeing this situation develop. Well not really enjoying, but I was damn curious. And was I seeking to see Pam commit the “sneakiness” that she had accused me of in the past repeatedly? Yes. Absolutely. The right thing at that point was to seek to understand by confronting her, but I am certain that I could not trust her responses, so I decided to let this one marinate.
Having made the decision that I wanted to observe her trip down this awful path (spite? wrath? pride?), I decided to close the loop on our conversation from the previous night. I wanted to put the issue to rest in her mind, as I knew that if she was interested in continuing the relationship, knowing that I was ok with everything would give her the license to hunt. So as we were getting ready for work, I told her I wanted to finish our conversation from last night so it wasn’t hanging over our heads. When I brought it up, she sighed and gave me some nonverbals that this was such not a big deal. I asked, “OK, would you simply admit that you not telling me about him being a boyfriend that you had kissed was on purpose and was a lie of omission?” She sighed, and responded with a weak, “fine, whatever.” When I pressed her, she admitted that it was, just like when I met with Ellen. I told her that now she knows how I feel (which means I am really just trying to get her back). She did continue to defend herself by saying that she called me on Monday night (which she did), but that since I didn’t pick up she sent me an email. She said that had we talked, she certainly would’ve told me that he was an someone she dated for 5 days that she had kissed. When I told her she was full of it, she didn’t push back. I then asked her about where they met, and she said Starbucks. This was a test as I saw from a message from Jim that he wanted to meet in the parking lot (“nothing public”). I later found out that they didn’t meet on Tuesday for coffee at all, and this is where is gets a bit confusing. They actually met on Sunday (the day before she emailed me to see if I was OK with her meeting him for coffee). They met at a wooded park for 3.5 hours and talked through Plans A and B. She said nothing happened then. There had also been a previous meeting at the end of August, the only other one that took place.
I arrived home late from work on Thursday, and my sister and brother-in-law were over visiting. Pam and Lola are thick as thieves, which has been good for our relationship. They were in the living room having wine, and after I had been sitting with the three of them for about 30 minutes, Pam said she has to pull her car into the driveway. She was out and back in to the house quickly, and then she ran upstairs as the three of us others were talking. 10 minutes later, my sister Lola said, “where’s Pam?” It was just a passing comment, but my antennae was up at this point. I walked upstairs quietly and saw Pam finishing up typing on her laptop, which was on a dresser in our bedroom (strange place to type – and why is she on her computer with guests over?). I pretended not to notice and went about changing into my sweats, and Pam left the room. I heard that they were enjoying their wine downstairs, so of course, I jumped online.
I found a message in her deleted files:
Jim sent you a message.(no subject)”no that was fine! No big deal at all! Where are you going this weekend? Hope you have a good time! I’ll be at Seattle with Sam tomorrow night and chaperoning on Saturday. Yay!”
What wasn’t a big deal at all? Again, because I was not confronting Pam, there were tons of unanswered questions. Still a bit cryptic, except for his weekend plans. Based on his message, it was clear that Pam had sent Jim a message letting him know that she’d be away this weekend. Likely simply an update on what’s going on in her life…no big deal. Having said that, I took another blow in the stomach knowing that their communication was frequent…daily, really, at this point. I later found out that his “no big deal” comment was about her starting a chat with him earlier that evening. She was concious of him being careful with their communication. In September, she had sent him a text after several glasses of wine one evening. He got pissed and then defriended her. This made her feel rejected, and she then stalked him with notes on FB for weeks, at which point their friendship started again.
Anyway, hoping that my surprising her prevented her from logging off Facebook, I opened up Facebook. Jackpot – it went right to her account. I went to her Inbox, and there was nothing in there. No surprise since she had done a good job deleting everything out of her mail account. Seeing the empty inbox, however, showed me that she was cognizant of deleting communication between her and her new BFF. On a related note, when I was in her Yahoo mail account earlier, I noticed that she had 0ver 100 emails in her inbox, several irrelevant ones she had opened but didn’t delete. The interesting thing was that she was very deliberate in deleting all of his messages. Unfortunately for her, she left them in her trash bin. Anyway, back to Facebook.
I then checked her Sent files from her Inbox. And there was a message to Jim that was sent about 2 minutes before I walked in the room. She didn’t get a chance to clean things up since I walked in on her. Interestingly enough, she had erased all the other Sent messages she had sent during the week that Jim was responding to. Here’s what she wrote:
Pam, October 15 at 10:37pm I will be in Seattle tomorrow too. Maybe I’ll run into you – that would be weird. Hope Sam is feeling better. Hope to see you again soon. XO,Pam
Tons of stuff here that pissed me off! First off all, she had clearly snuck upstairs to check Facebook for a communication from Jim. This is NOT something she would ever have done in the past with Lola there. It was so sneaky, as when I walked in on her, she tried to step away from her computer very casually. Second of all, and adding to the evolution of this story, she signed off “XO.” Hugs and kisses now? This was a kick in the balls, and as I write this I have a pit in my stomach. Interestingly enough, she had had a few glasses of wine, which I think made it easier for her to sign off this way. I know this is a common sign off amongst casual friends, but given the circumstances, I saw this as strong signal of her desire to keep things moving forward. And as a man, if I were on the receiving end of this, I would see a glimmer of a green light. She knows this, and would never have signed off that way in the past.
On Friday we left for Seattle. On the way there, she started a conversation with me about our future. She asked if I see us growing old together, and said she was struggling visualizing this future. She said we don’t have a ton of common interests, and that this scares her. This didn’t start the weekend off well.
We went to a play on Friday night. On Saturday, we had a busy day and at aroung 6:30, she said she wanted to run down to the hotel lobby to grab some sodas. She was gone for about 10 minutes…more on that later. That night, we went to a wedding reception. At the bar that night, she asked me how I could resist cheating on her given all the travel I do, staying in hotels, etc. I said it was because I loved her, etc., and then asked if she would if she had a job like mine. She said, “Maybe.” Knowing what I knew, this hurt.
We got home from the reception around 12:30 am, and when she went to sleep, I grabbed her iPhone and pulled up FB. I saw a message from her to him saying “Tomorrow afternoon?” His response was, “When? Where?” Another kick in the nuts. Now I had a big decision, and my decision was to follow her to their meeting spot the next day. On the way home the next morning, I noticed that she was on her iPhone a lot. When I got home, I ran into the house, opened up her FB account, and saw that she had sent him a message on the way home saying, “Didn’t know the weather would be shitty today. Take me to the movies.” Knowing that I would be traveling from Tues-Fri the next week and that they were moving towards meeting for sex, I need to approach her. Since I had all the evidence, she came completely clean. We were both devastated – as I said before, she is a great mother, and other than what happened here, an even better person. She filled in some blanks that I couldn’t deduce from what I had pulled up. The bottom line is that they have never had sex or kissed, but she said that they did hug when they met for 3.5 hours in the park. After hours of conversation, we decided that we needed to get into therapy – at that point, I wanted to try to save the marraige.
In an attempt to overturn every single rock, this morning I downloaded a program called “Internet Evidence Finder”, which allows you to download FB chats in an excel format. Pretty cool program. Anyway, I found hundreds of messages back and forth, refreshingly consistent with what she had told me. Having said that, seeing how the relationship developed online (him asking “are you happy” and her spilling her guts was a killer). There were a few comments about me that hurt (“I don’t have someone to have MBS (mind blowing sex) with, and “If you guess what our song would be I’d blow you.”)
So she had been honest about Jim, for the most part, but then I saw about 100 chats with John, who was a former boyfriend as well. He is single and they dated for about 4 months. She later admitted that he was a backup plan. He never crossed the line, but she was trying to egg him into flirtatious conversations. She said that she did this because Jim kept waffling, and that she was getting such a high from these exciting FB exchanges with men.
I am dying over here. Having all this information is good since I have it, but I have a look at virtually all of these communications that she was hiding from me. Here are my questions…please chime in if you have any thoughts:
1. Is this marraige beyond hope? Pam says that the reason she did this was that she was getting attention that she wasn’t getting from me, but she did admit that she’s depressed that she won’t be able to experience the excitement of a 1st date as long as we’re married. My plan is to go to therapy, but I just don’t know if it’s worth it if this is beyond hope.
2. Will she do it again? I asked her to delete her FB account yesterday, but she has not done this yet.
3. Is she longing for Jim? The conventional wisdom says this is not about Jim, but this was a 3 month deal. She admitted that she was hurt when he defriended her the first time after her drunk text. She actually cannot see the fact that he is a nervous married guy as the reason he did that. After I left a voice mail and FB message for Jim letting him know that I’d tell his wife if there was any more communication, he defriended her again. Now she thinks he is a weak pussy, and that if he were strong he wouldn’t have defriended her. She says she’s hurt that he doesn’t see her as someone worth fighting for. This just shows me complete dissillusionment (if that’s a word). She thinks this is about her, not about his fear of his wife finding out.
Sorry for all the details…it helped to write them. Any thing you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
Jack
October 21, 2009 at 8:53 am
Wally,
I know exactly what you are going through. I had been going through it for the last 6 months. My wife did the same thing. She admitted everything to me when I caught her 6 months ago. After I made her delete her facebook account and got into therapy. I also talked to the married jerk that she was communicating with and told him to stop or I would tell his wife. He stopped for about 2 weeks and then tried to make contact with her again via email.
She sent him an email with me watching stating that she had hurt her husband and family. That she was not interested and it was a huge mistake.
So 3 months later with her acting like everything was ok. Telling me what a stupid mistake that was and she did not know what she was thinking, I caught her again. Only this time it turned into love letters and phone calls. I was crushed. For the 3 months it really felt like we were putting things back together. That trust was being rebuilt. Wrong!
I filed for divorce the next day. She begged and pleaded for me to give her one more chance. So not wanting to lose y wife of 18 years I did. 2 weeks ago I caught her talking to her friends that were connected to this guy again. She lied and said she was not in communication with them anymore. I got the proof and confronted her with it. She blew up at me saying I was spying on her and that she had no privacy. She never did admit that she was talking to him or the friends that knew him. But she knew I caught her red handed. We are moving forward with the divorce now. I told her to leave 2 weeks ago today. So now I am alone with my 2 teenage daughters. She does not call them much. And when she is around them she acts like nothing is wrong. Sick!
Here is my opinion. I have talked with several of my friends over the past few months and now know that this situation with the facebook affairs is all to common. We are not the only ones that are going through this. Our therapist said that once a person crosses that line, that a ver small percentage will completely turn around. Meaning that they will persue the affair until it happens and then move on with life as usual.
I think it is like the women need one last kick to know that they still have it. I do not understand how someone like my wife can tear a family apart and act like it does not bother her. But as for me, I had to protect my kids and myself from any more hurt. She did not seem to mind hurting us over and over again. I gave it my best shot and I failed. So thats my story.
Jodie H
October 21, 2009 at 10:38 am
“Our therapist said that once a person crosses that line, that a ver small percentage will completely turn around. Meaning that they will persue the affair until it happens and then move on with life as usual.”
Is your therapist saying that most people who begin an online affair follow through until they have met with the other person and had sex? Even people who stopped it before that point? My husband was a marketing major and he has taught me that you can make number say anything one way or another and that the source of statistics should be questioned. So not that I question your therapist but I do question the source of his info. I suppose all the people who don’t enter therapy are not counted.
Regardless Jack, I am sorry that she chose to continue the affair. I am Michael H’s wife and am desperately trying to save our marriage. Not all people who get involved in this trash follow through to a physical relationship. I wish yours had been able to see her error and change the direction she was headed. My best wishes to you and your daughters, what a shame for them to have to endure at such impressionable and vulnerable time.
Michael, I understand your fear and never thought you were stupid for it, but I am not interested in him or any other man and I love you.
Jack
October 21, 2009 at 10:51 am
Jodie,
just to make myself clear on this. I am not saying that everyone follows through. And I am sorry that you and your husband are having these troubles. But what you say to him about his fear and that you are not interested in this other man is what I was hearing for 6 months. She even told the therapist and our pastors the same thing. She was an award winning actress and I never had a clue that she could ever be like that. I know this woman for almost 20 years. The lies and deciet was unbelievable. I am still in shock. I have to say that she really had me, the kids and our pastors fooled. If it was not for the therapist telling me that all the letters she was writing me and all the things that she was telling me were lies, I never would have figured it out. She got a little bit smarter and a little more slick.
When the therapist told me that he appreciated what she had written me telling me that I was the only man for her. That she just got caught up in her mind. That it was the stupidist thing that she had ever done. But not to worry, that she would be faithful and it would never happen again.
On our 18th anniversary we renewed our vows. Her request. She told me lets put the past behind and focus on the future. I agreed. 3 weeks later is when I took what the therapist told me and started digging. Thats when I found all that was still going on. Some people stop at nothing. And I NEVER knew that I could be fooled like that after all of these years. I hope and pray that you and your husband do work this out. For me it is my unfortunate. I am heartbroken and have never felt so betrayed in my entire life.
Michael H
October 21, 2009 at 11:11 am
Thanks for your response Jodie, but as you can see it’s not that simple. You can say that you are committed and that this will never happen again, but like I told you; you may wake up a year from now and want the same sex/lust/love/attention/affection/sexting/perverted whatever you want to call it, AGAIN!
The pain and mental, physical, emotional pain you have caused me has hardened my trusting heart. How could you have done this……. And will you do it again……. Hell, I never thought you would do anything like this to begin with. It’s obviously going to take time for me to learn to trust and love my new wife. I hope I can do that….
I’m sorry you have been dealing with this Jack. It sounds like you have received the full Monte on this one. You are in my thoughts and prayers.
Jodie H
October 21, 2009 at 12:09 pm
Hey Jack,
Was or is your wife taking prescription meds for anything? I only ask because they can alter a persons thinking. Good luck to you and I pray you will find true happiness again.
I love you Michael, we will talk later.
Jack
October 21, 2009 at 12:15 pm
Yes when it started. They took her off immediately. So she has been med free for 6 months. The doctor and therapist said that meds do not make you lust after someone. They might dull the guilt. But cheating has to be in your heart to start with.
Jodie H
October 21, 2009 at 12:33 pm
That may be true, but Phizer would not want people to think (especially Dr’s who prescribe it) that their salvation product could alter thinking. Michael found a website that listed so many horror stories about SSRI’s and murder, suicide, aggression, and the like. I could be wrong, but I doubt that some of these people had murder or suicide in their hearts before their brain was “re-wired”.
Again Jack, good luck to you.
Mark T
October 22, 2009 at 7:57 am
Hello all,
I just wanted to give a bit of an update on my situation. My wife and I continue to talk a lot. We not only talk about what happened back in January, but we talk about our lives in the nine years before, and we talk about our lives since. We are both learning better how to really communicate when we talk about pretty much everything. We are by no means experts, but we are getting better at it.
Nothing I am about to write will justify, excuse, or make right marital infidelity, or the heart’s ability to stray. None of this will magically take away the heart crushing pain of such deep betrayal. The healing that is so desperately being sought by those who have been through this ordeal will take time, and a lot of effort. For those who are trying to rebuild their marriages, the effort will have to come from both parties. For those whose marriage has been damaged beyond repair, it will be up to the individual. In either case, I don’t think some outside help would be a bad thing. We are starting marriage counseling next week, better late than never.
We just received some books that we ordered, and started reading last night. We read together, and take turns. The book we started last night is titled His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage, by Willard F. Harley Jr. The very first chapter starts off by describing how affairs happen. It basically comes down to our failure to meet our spouse’s needs, and our inability to communicate our own needs. In our case, this is exactly what happened. We each knew that we loved the other, but we had doubts about whether, and how much we were loved in return. Because I was failing to meet one or more of her basic needs, and she was unable to communicate those needs, she did not feel the deep love that I truly have for her. Therefore, the feelings of love that she had for me were diminishing. The same thing was happening in reverse. It is a vicious cycle that so many marriages fall prey to.
We are also going to find ways, with books, counseling, or whatever it takes to trust each other. Obviously, the trust that I had for her has been severely damaged, but not beyond repair. I did not betray her trust, but she didn’t trust me when I tried to tell her how much I love her, and the kids. Because of some insecurities based on her past, she did not allow herself to believe that she could ever be truly loved. In her past relationships, she was only loved for her outward beauty. She was in those relationships with shallow men who were gone after the novelty of being with a beautiful woman faded. She did not allow herself to see that she was married to man who truly loved her for who she is inside and out. She didn’t trust my true feelings for her. I have been, and will continue to gain her trust in that area.
She is also doing a lot to gain my trust back. She has deep regret, and remorse for what she did. She no longer tries to justify it, or excuse it by reminding me of my mistakes. She has said that it was the worst mistake of her life, and swears that she will never do anything to betray my trust again. When she gets a friend request from a guy on facebook, she tells me about it, and then ignores it. The only males on her friend list are family, or someone I know are ok.
I am only sharing my experience with all of this because I am hoping that it might help someone else. Each one of these stories is as unique as the individuals involved. I know that some of these stories will have a sad and tragic ending. In some, if not all, there are children involved, and that makes it even more tragic. If the person who committed the unfaithful act is truly remorseful, and wants another chance, then they have a lot of hard work to do. Some of it will be very painful, and difficult. The best advice I can give those who cheated is to come totally clean about what happened, and why it happened. Get it all out in the opened so that it can be dealt with. Dragging out the truth, and leaving your spouse to guess, speculate, and conjure up inaccurate images is the worst thing you can do. You and your illicit lover share certain secret knowledge that your spouse feel like an outsider to. This only adds to the pain. The truth will be difficult to tell, and it will be difficult to hear, but I believe that this is a very important part of the process of rebuilding trust. I know in my case, my wife’s willingness to be completely honest with me has been a huge turning point in my ability to heal. I am not totally out of the woods yet, but I see a lot of hope for me, and this marriage. I know that some day the pain will fade away.
The other day I went to visit my sister, and my brother in-law. I knew that their marriage had suffered because of infidelity. I was concerned that talking to them about my situation would open old wounds for them. They both assured me that it would not. My brother in-law asked me if I truly forgive my wife. I asked him to define forgiveness, because I had some questions about what it really means to forgive someone. His answer was “when you get to the point where thinking about what someone has done to hurt you no longer causes you pain”, “you have no feelings about the transgression”. Well, I am not there yet, it is hard to see being at that place, but I am not going to stop trying. I have forgiven my wife in the sense that I am determined to rebuild our marriage, and that I truly love her. I have faith that the rest will come with time, and commitment from both of us.
In my opinion, another important step in the process of rebuilding a marriage is to stop trying to place blame on each other. Blame really serves no purpose other than to cause more damage. I believe though that the willingness and ability for each individual to accept responsibility for their own mistakes, and short comings is an integral part of resolving the issues that lead to the weakening of the bond of marriage. It takes two to make it, or break it.
Good luck and best wishes to all.
Michael H
October 22, 2009 at 11:16 am
That was beautiful Mark T. Thank you for sharing that. I feel like Jodie and I are at that same crossroads you and your wife are at. We just started professional counseling this week and talked about the myths of forgiveness. I think everyone here needs to define and get to that place of forgiveness. Whether your relationship works out or not, it would be a healthy endeavor to find forgiveness for the cheater. That forgiveness does not mean that you trust, have faith in, or even still love the other person. It simply means that you yourself are ready to move on and repair yourself from the critical event that caused you undefinable grief. It’s so easy to say that and a totally different one to actually accomplish.
Another point, for those who are interested in making their relationship work, is the fact and reality of the same wrenching acts that caused so much pain happening again. This is something that I struggle with constantly. It’s the biggest contributor to my anxiety/panic attack/paranoid/fearful feelings that have mentally driven me to the edge of sanity. JACK your experience scares me to death. Like you, my wife has never in her life hurt anyone. She is a solid rock of truth that has provided me with the shield of protection that I desperately need. Then, as unexpectedding as death can often be, this hell was unleashed on our marriage. The lies and deceit that has followed cracked the bond of belief more and more. As I try to find true trust I am constantly slowed and even stopped by the cold callous maliced actions of my wife. Will she ever talk to this low life jerk again? Will she be truthful like her soul has always displayed before her ugly sin? Can I begin to turn my soul back over to her hands to hold and nurture? I feel like I can, and so did you JACK. That scares the crap out of me. Did your wife ever show any signs of deceit before all of this? Did she seem like a truly changed person as you have described or were there signs of anything abnormal (as I’m sure your radar was still operating on high)? I struggle with the idea of going through this again. I honestly think a part of my mind and heart has been permanent sealed from ever being assesable by another person again. That bothers me a great deal.
I hate that this has happened this way for you JACK, and I hope you are able to forgive and move on. I also hope that your wifes actions are not the norm (or at least for my wifes thinking). I will pray for your peace and healing as I will for each person here. And MARK T, I hope God and the things you all are proactivly doing continue to guide you to a fulfilling relationship that we all desire. Thank you all for your storys and support. It does mean a great deal to me.
God bless,
Michael H
Mark T
October 22, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Michael,
You thank you, and you are very welcome.
If there is anything that I have written that has helped anyone in any way, if it helps one person who has been betrayed to move towards forgiveness or one person who has been unfaithful (or thinking about it) to turn their hearts around, then it is more than worth the effort. On the other hand, I would hate to steer anyone into another train wreck.
In the book that I mentioned earlier, the author (he is a marriage counselor) talks about his approach to saving marriages as not so much about solving problems, but helping married couples fall in love with each other again. The theory being that if a person is truly in love with their spouse, then they will never even consider being unfaithful. Therefore, the trust and honesty issues can be overcome.
I know that in our case, if we had been as much in love 10 months ago as we are now, then it would never have happened. It’s not that we didn’t love each other we just weren’t crazy, stupid, madly IN love with like we had been early on in our marriage. We had even fallen into the trap where we just really pissed each other off at times. She told me just last night that her love for me now is a more mature kind of love meaning that it is based on trust, communication, and understanding, not assumptions, and misunderstanding.
I know that right now you are very afraid of letting yourself trust again. I understand that fear. You have mentioned that Jodie is a “solid rock of truth”. If you really see that in her, and she truly is that, then you are well on your way to trusting again. In our case, my wife made a mistake, a stupid, selfish, immature, horrible mistake. She knows this, and she lets me know that she knows it. I am confident that she won’t do it again. Human beings make mistakes, but if they truly repent, then I feel that they should be forgiven.
Jodie, this is for you. If Michael is willing to do the work to forgive you, and trust you again, you had better not screw it up. It sounds like he is willing to go to the ends of the earth for you. You had better be willing to do the same for him. If you hurt him again by betraying his trust I personally will hunt you down like a dog. Not really, just a poor attempt at humor.
Just be good to each other, and take care for now.
Trishan N.
October 25, 2009 at 10:11 am
Just going to say guys….
The more you try to pry, the more they’ll try to hide. When you try to pry too hard, they’re going to react. And react in a bad way.
Start trusting your wives more, and raelly mean it, don’t just say it. The more you impose the idea that they’re cheating on you, the more likely it’ll happen.
Seriously. Trust is the main part of a relationship, and if you can’t get over some chats on facebook or msn, or emails…then occupy yourtime some other way. Instead of freaking eavesdropping on them (which is wrong in it’s own way), spend more time actually doing something for them that reminds them why they were with you in the first place.
I have my own issues, but i got over them by ensuring that my wife loves me. The idea of cheating is something that clearly excites us at points. So, learn to get rid of that feeling in your partner.
Sorry, your stories sound sad, and i’m sorry to hear about it, but it just seems like you’re taking ‘facebook cheating’ to a whole new unnecessary level. If anything, make a deal. You’ll start/stop doing something if they get rid of facebook, even temporarily. everyone has flaws, so work with that.
But mainly….Trust your partner, and she’ll show her appreciation back.
Mark T
October 25, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Trishan,
I trusted my wife completely. I also did very much, and gave almost all of myself to try to meet her needs, and make her happy. I saw a message on her facebook, and where she had sent him a “sweet smile”, but like an idiot I didn’t think twice about it or suspect a thing. I TRUSTED HER. A couple of weeks later is when I got the most devastating shock of my life. By the time I even suspected anything, it was too late. There was more to deal with than “innocent chat”, or harmless flirting
You obviously have never experiences anything like this, or had your complete trust completely shatterd. The advise you give here is not based on any kind of reality. I hope no one takes it seriously.
Jodie H
October 25, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Mark,
Thanks for the humor…so good to have at this time. I am not going to hurt him again. I can hardly believe I did in the first place…3 months ago, who was that chic in the mirror? My perspective has been cleared and properly directed. Michael and I celebrated our 12th anniversary today and spent yesterday and last night ALONE (w/o the 4 kiddos) and out of town, it was so refreshing. I think we are going to make it! Not that we both don’t have a whole lot of work ahead of us, but I think the worst is behind us. Thanks so much for the support and encouragement it has meant so much to both of us. Good luck!
Trishan, as the “cheater” here, I appreciate your words but in the cold hard truth of the pain and brokenness, they are truly insignifigant. If your wife has broken your trust and you are so mellow about it, I wonder if you ever really trusted her or just told yourself that. It is a scary and lonely place to be, as I too have been there before. Or maybe you are taking those damm “nothing really matters” SSRI’s. Just kidding.
Wally, I think Pam may have hit on something I might have missed, did I get a “high” out of it…hmmmm…maybe. Because it sure was not “him” I was getting anything from.
Jack, I am still lifting you and your girls up!
Terry
November 1, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Been there, seen that and a broken heart to remember it by. Twenty-three years of marriage gone. She hooked up with an old boyfriend on facebook, had her little affair and was even planning on going to see him. To her credit, she came clean. Not that it helps much. I still love her but I don’t trust her and sadly I don’t know if I ever will again.
Michael H
November 2, 2009 at 6:55 am
Hey Terry,
That was sharp and to the point. I think you, as a gay man might say, “nailed it.” I hope you can find understanding as we are all looking for. I also hope you can learn to trust her again. We all struggle with that big word, trust. It’s sad to wake up daily and have those same uncertainties and questions. I’m praying that time will ease those burdens and a rich fulfilling relationship will become clear. That’s much easier said than done.
Mark T
November 2, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Michael,
You said it very well. Trust is very precious gift, and when it is treated so carelessly, it is difficult to want to give it again.
Terry,
The thing that you can hold on to is the fact that she came clean. That IS to her credit. It is a very good sign that she saw where she was headed, and turned around, hopefully before too much damage was done.
Good luck.
Terry
November 2, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Michael,
I wake up just fine. Getting through a day and getting a good night’s sleep are really touch and go right now.
Mark,
She really is quite incredible. I am really holding on to the friendship that we have shared over the years. With God’s help, it will be part of the rock we rebuild on but for now it one day at a time.
God bless.
Annie Mae
November 16, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Wow. I’m sorry you guys have had to deal with cheating wives…. but there’s two sides to every story. If a guy cheats it’s usually because he isn’t getting sex from the wife. If she cheats it’s usually because the husband isn’t paying attention to her.
In all honesty, if another man comes along and compliments a woman and makes her feel special she will love it and want more. I am not married but I have known many women who are not feeling appreciated at home and yes get on a site like facebook or myspace and get attention from another man. That’s all they need to leave/cheat on their husband. If they have a man telling them what they want to hear and the husband isn’t paying attention to them they will cheat.
Sandy
March 10, 2010 at 2:28 pm
What blanket generalizations and stereotypes! FYI….. my husband and I reconnected last summer. We’ve been married nearly 15 years and started to get into a rut… we worked our way out and things were better than ever until Christmas….I started feeling like he was pulling away. Now I’ve found him sexting on Facebook with a trashy thing from his high school days. He’s sorry but thinks he’s in a mid life crisis and wants to “have his cake and eat it too”. He was getting plenty at home but wants something different….all the while staying married cuz he loves me and that would just be sex….
johnny hooker
November 19, 2009 at 2:16 pm
Hears the thing. If your parter dos’nt want to be with you they should make a clean break of it. It’s hard but it wont go on for ever. Being cheated even if there is no physical contact is one of the worst things someone can do to you. They want there cake and to eat it.
How can we ever feel the trust and security that we once held more dearly than our own lives.What’s the point of hurting over and over.
I think we knew who we were before we met our partners and then we become so intertwined that when something like this happens we are afraid that we wont know who we are after so we stay knowing deep down that things will never be the same.
About ssri’s they dont make you a cheat that’s a cop out, I have taken ssri’s and they can make you see unwelcome images in your head at first and if you are severly deppresed they can falsly make you think you are better and that is why there is a suicide risk facter for them.
Who ever cheats like this or any way should know that a bit of fun for you could in reality cost some one there life, and if you can live happily with that then you don’t deserve to be with someone who is better than you.
Hear’s the bottom line. It’s going to hurt know matter what happens.
Life is not fair and it seem’s the harder you try the more you have to lose. But remember they are the one’s who have lost the most,hears a list.
There self respect
there integraty
there faith in commitment
there secutity
there social standing
and most importantly YOU
You are the most important thing in your life You hold it togeather and remember there are many of us just like you we are an army and we will prevail
Joe
November 26, 2009 at 2:51 pm
Hi all.
I’m new on here. This site could be optimised a bit better, this is a worthwhile forum. I’ve read all of the above, and felt I should share my recent story. I think some comfort can be found in it somewhere…
My wife and I were having a difficult marriage, 3 girls under five, married for 5.5 years, masses of debt, both having full time jobs, never going out together, just work kids work kids work kids.
We decided we were going to have to make some effort to give each other the opportunity to have a bit of space and support each other in that; we’d got stuck very much in a rut of ‘kids gone to bed, sit in front of the telly, go to bed, get up for work…’ and so on.
The context of this is a Christian marriage. I don’t know if any of you guys on here are Christians, but we are both born again, and married one another in a God filled knowledge that we were meant to be together. Uhuh! But wait till the end…
Well, obviously she started enjoying facebook. It’s clear to see in retrospect what was happenning, but I didn’t know at the time. I feel like a fool! She started sitting on the other sofa and not putting her legs up on my lap…but to me it seemed that it obviously wasn’t comfortable with the laptop there.
looking back, and it only took two weeks, I can see that she was starting an affair. There was probably a point of no going back. A point at which I became the enemy and he became the hope of a better life, and that’s the point isn’t it? haven’t all of our wives simply stupidly fallen for a lie? It’s not evil, just stupid.
Any way, a few months before, she and I had talked about giving each other a weekend away each; i get a weekend off and so does she, just to get away from it all. We can’t afford a family holiday.
And at this point she raised the subject again. Now I can see why, she’d already crossed the line, there was no going back. She hadn’t slept with him yet, she probably thinks she hadn’t made up her own mind, but she was going to. We all know that.
So, being utterly caring, I agreed completely that she should go away. She found a nice hotel, (in a town pre-arranged with Mr facebook) and came back to me saying she had been ‘thinking’.
She kicked me out of my home, and away from my kids. She didn’t care where I went, I had to sleep on friends sofas, b+b’s, hotels and spare rooms for a month. All this time I thought she was wisely deciding we needed space and that our marriage had big problems.
I had to call in family for massive financial help that they could ill afford to set up a whole home, so I could continue properly being daddy.
I did it too! Set up an entire home, baby bottles and crib, bunk beds, tv and sofas, the whole lot! and we started taking turns, 50/50 with the kids.
You guys all probably know what it feels like, not being able to love your own kids properly, when all they want is love and attention and you have a constant feeling in your gut of just having been pushed out of an aeroplane.
Well I just didn’t understand. I kept badgering my wife every day for counselling, I couldn’t understand how things could possibly have got this bad. Every day she refused, with the most agonising rebukes. one example: ‘I don’t want YOU!’
sound familiar guys?
And then came the crushing truth. It came via a phone text message. I was imploring her for answers, and she was exasperated. And then came those words: ‘There is somebody else’.
And it all made sense.
15 years ago she had been in the army, and met her first love when she was 21. The sad thing about it was that they never got to fulfil their relationship; they both got sent to different countries. Her first love, never resolved. Turns up on facebook.
When my wife left the army she married her first husband in grief for this guy. Had two kids by her husband. She was widowed, he ran off and wasn’t heard of for 5 years, a letter came through the door one day telling her that her husband had died of alcoholic liver disease.
I think facebook is not necessarily evil in itself, but offers users the opportunity to engage in a secret life, without it feeling secret. to cross a line that doesn’t need to be questioned because it’s acceptable, in the context of a brand new and untested environment.
Anyway, so there we are, me and my wife, living seperate lives with our kids, me getting girlfriends (yes I did, no way I wanted to be alone!) and attempting some effort of a life. And this is only 6-8 weeks in…
A strange thing hit me at about this time which I really feel I should share with any of you guys who just can’t help loving their woman (which is what you’re supposed to do) and strangely it came from my girlfriend. She had left her husband, and hadn’t gone back to him. And the one thing she kept citing as a reason was that he called her names. And she couldn’t bear it.
Don’t do it guys.
You will never, never never win your wife back by telling her how shit she is.
NEVER!
I have the same thoughts as you guys I’m sure, Satan’s whore? Turned out to be a dirty little slut just like the rest? Spreads her legs as soon as the going gets rough?
It’s bullshit guys, she’s just a person, just a crap old person, just like us.
Can we be completely straight and face up to some nasty facts? She set herself free, AWOL, absence without leave. And what must that feel like? that freedom to do what you want and just be yourself?
Do you know what happened guys? she put another man’s cock in her mouth, possibly swallowed his cum(do you really want to ask her if she did? is it really that important? she was being a daft cow!)
Well, I’ve moved into a place of assuming that everybody has had the same experience as me. But there are surely some things that we all have in common, and that’s betrayal. Utter betrayal.
HOW DO WE COPE WITH THAT SHIT?
Do you remember what I said about not calling your wife names? that’s very important.
While my wife was away betraying me, and I was pushed away knowing she was my one and only, I never ccalled her dirty names.
Do you know guys, we make our women what we need them to be? That’s a massive secret, a big one, so I’m going to have to say it again;
we make our women what we need them to be.
But as it happened, it was just an affair. Looking back on it, it was the most grossly painful thing I have ever experienced. But I was patient, I was kind. There is so much I am missing out on in this blog, please feel free to ask.
My wife is away this weekend, she has gone away for three days prayer. and I sit here and do this on my own.
when I married her I took a risk. And right now, I take the very same risk again.
I decided I would trust her, and now, I am prepared to take that same risk again.
My wife is off on one right now, this very weekend, away on a massive prayer and God trail, looking to find out who the hell she is.
Guys, don’t hate your women for screwing up, people do stupid things, they suck dick and spread their legs, get over it. that’s not what marriage is about! It’s about finding that one person you can share that SHIT with!
We could carry on until we were ninety couldn’t we? Oh, you kissed him and you screwed him? but isn’t it really about being with the onre person you want to experience that crap with?
I love her and she loves me that’s it.
Annie Mae
November 30, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Are you and your wife back together? Living together? Sometimes women and men will tough it out in marriage/relationships until another person comes around. Sometimes that’s all it takes for a spouse to cheat and end the marriage. Rarely though a spouse cheats and realizes that being at home/married is way better and regrets ever cheating and changes to become a better spouse.
People need to be careful though because if a spouse cheats at the first opportunity they might do it again.
I remember my daughter’s dad cheated and I stupidly took him back. We weren’t married but everytime he left the house I would suspect him of cheating on me again. We fought all the time because I just couldn’t trust him.
You are right though these men shouldn’t call their wives dirty names. She made a mistake and probably hates herself for it. The more they treat her badly the more she will run to the other man for comfort. If these men want their wives back they need to watch what they say and need to just communicate and figure out what the best thing to do is.
Mark T
December 9, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Michael, and Jodie, are Y’all still here?
Michael H
December 9, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Barely Mark. Yep, were still here. What’s up?
Mark T
December 11, 2009 at 7:43 am
This thing won’t let me reply
Michael H
December 11, 2009 at 8:04 am
Hey Mark, if you need to you can email me at
nospmman@hotmail.com
Hope this helps.
erwin f
December 18, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Haven’t had the chance to check the facebook account yet, but will do. Caught sexting messages to and from wife 11 days ago. At the time I approached her she said one time thing. I Had my suspicions. But according to love gurus you are sppose to move forward and realize how terrible you were to make her do it. Therefore I tried to move on with the Holidays approaching and we took a mini vacation. Everything seemed okay. Until today. I was paying my phone bill when I decided to check out detail usage of her texting. (Sorry still suspicous) Much to my suprise she texted him this morning after vowing no more communicatio. Then I went into the past detail and discovered this communication had been occuring with over 1000 messages for a year. As I sit here she is at her moms helping with Xmas stuff therefore the text this morning while she is away. Now of course after numerous phone conversations she admitted that this sexting had been going on for sometime ( she still won’t tell me when and where it started) only reminds me how unhappy she was that led her to this action. Also found out that explicit photos have been exchanged ( How many and how often I don’t know.) When approached about any further physical contact , she denies that ever happened. How does this affair goon for a year without physical contct? After all this *** has worked for us several times over the last year. Yeah that’s right even with yours truly. Has there been opportunities yes.Needless to say how do I believe anything at this point? Thank you for letting some of this off my chest. It is truly unbelievable. I’m over 50 years old and I got to be dealing with this childish behavior.
Kali
December 21, 2009 at 11:55 am
I think there are trollers on facebook looking to find relationships with people. Such as this woman who has ruined several marriages (well the guys made a choice to go down that slippery slope too) http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephanie-Brown/202800528
She is broken desperate and lonely and I should probably feel sorry for her but I dont. I have no sympathy for women that use deception.
Beware when using facebook. People will say what they think you want to hear.
Michael H
December 21, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Can I get a witness in the back… AMEN! Go sister.
It’s sad but true… Your rite Kali… Their are sharks everywhere, but combine the secret second life easily provided by the internet… A “social networking site” like Cheat Book, where a “kid can be a kid” (if you know what I mean)… And a gullible, easily manipulated, unfaithful participant… You have the evil ingredients for a life changing storm that can ripple through the foundation of entire families, friends, and even organizations (church, work, etc.)
I’m not speaking as a trained professional who has developed skills to analyze these behaviors, but I’ve experienced the horrible effects of the outcome associated with this selfish act of betrayal. From the rippling effect and emotional toll my children have had to endure. My own personal inability to trust and completely forgive or to even reconnect with my previous life before the INdecressions.
It’s sad and surreal to personally experience but then you realize that this, uninvited but life long membership, exclusive club is enormous with victims. All of which with varying degrees of pain, details, and reactions. From “kick em to the curb” to “it’s ok, if that’s what you really want.”
To sum it up, life is truly a cruel sadistic place. You need to find pieces of happiness in and gravitate toward the ones you love.
Lisa
December 27, 2009 at 11:06 pm
I wanted to also add that my best friend and other half fell into a facebook affair. It has left me and the kids devasted and disbelief. The lies, the sexting and vast amt of money wasted on this woman that lived 300+ mi away from us has completely left me numb and practically beyond repair. It was like he was on drugs or something and the woman from facebook was his fix. Nothing or nobody has been able to get thru to him. He has left our home, quit his job, moved out without goodbye, notice or anything. Literally left us stranded after work and school one day to run off to this wanton woman. that was the day he left without notice. We just came home to nothingness. Took his personal stuff that he deemed necessary and left. I honestly have never felt so rejected in my entire life. When he interacts with this woman off facebook, we dont even know who he is. His own family is in shock. They have donated, basically 2k, to our home cause of this affair and his stupid lavacious spending. He has been gone now since Nov18th and me and the kids are slowly putting our life back together but its hard. Its hard looking at our home and all that we have put into it and realise that it all meant nothing compared to a woman he barely knew in highschool 25 yrs ago. And all this affair and running off took about 4 months to wipe out 3+yrs of a perfectly happy couple. Where do you go from here?
Michael H
December 28, 2009 at 7:47 am
Wow Lisa, that makes my misery seem like just a boo-boo. I am so sorry this has happened to you and your family. I don’t really know what to say other than you obviously don’t deserve this. It takes a real looser to do what he has done and to leave his family like that. I’m not even sure how to answer your last question of where do you go from here? Obviously, this so called man is willing to gamble his family and entire life for some selfish thrill that will leave him second guessing himself at some point later on. I am honestly hurting for you as I think about your painful nightmare you are faced with. To think that this man you loved would pick up and vanish is crazy.
FACEBOOK + IMMORAL SELFISHNESS + PERVERTED DESIRES = BROKEN HEARTS AND FAMILIES
I would like to reach out and give you a hug. I’ve had several people do that (including Mark from this page), and it doesn’t make the pain go away but it does help you to know that you are not alone – AND YOUR NOT! I would like to suggest that you find a good counselor to talk to. Check out the “focus on the family” website and find someone who can provide good faith based counseling. It has helped me through my dark walk to be able to talk to someone about my experience, and maybe it will help you as well. I will also be praying for you and your family as well. I hope you will continue to post here so we can see your progress and we can also help you walk down this horrible path you are on.
God’s speed, and God bless for now.
Michael
Lisa
December 28, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I am in counseling and one of my sons starts this week. Oddly he is a professional and we both worked in surgery, untill he lost his mind. Thats how we have come to refer it as. Like you and many others, time and time again he promised to quit, what we/i refered to as communicating with this person and yet i would catch him again and again. From what it looks like this is the norm with these people who get caught up in this FB affair. or any affairs i guess. These just almost seem worse cause once stuff is deleted its hard for the average person to catch them, and the emotional involvement is almost impossible to break. Good Grief! Who would ever guess. Wish there was a way to find out some statistics on the amt of marriages/relationships that have been destroyed and devasted from this kind of thing. Kinda like bring it into the limelight of the general public. Maybe Oprah or something. I know that sounds weird but for so long I have felt like the only one untill i started randomly searching google and msn and such. Seems like there are many but most are silent or kept hidden. I am not sure which for me would be worse, for him to come home in the same way he left unanounced or even come back at all. Both are frightening to me. Where do you go from here when it feels like your other half has died but didn’t?
Michael H
December 29, 2009 at 4:53 am
That’s tough Lisa, I don’t know how to answer that question. Unlike most of the people who have posted here, who have a choice to try and work through their spouse’s indiscretions, you do not have that choice (and honestly, that may not be as bad as it seems). My choice to stay and work on my marriage has been the hardest pill I’ve ever had to swallow. To accept the fact my wife would willingly risk our family over some cheap stupid fantasy is not an easy thing to do.
One thing I can promise you Lisa is that you will grow stronger through these trying times. I can’t understand or explain why someone would do what your partner did, but it sure is selfish and somewhat crazy of the jerk. Keep your faith and keep talking about your experience so it doesn’t get stuck and build inside you.
I feel the same way you do about how large this problem is. I may be naive to say this, but I would have never thought my sweet wife would ever do anything so ignorant and selfish. The truth is that anyone is susceptible. If you don’t think you are… Your flirting with an emotional train wreck. The problem is huge… Social networking sites allow unfaithful people a chance to communicate with long lost lovers in the secret-stealthy world of the internet. With this combination and the lack of self discipline and self respect for themselves or their families, the cheater will risk much to gain little.
Don’t ever give up and don’t ever think that his choices are your fault. He made those choices (very bad choices). My prayers are lifted up for you early this morning. Stay in touch.
Michael H
Lisa
December 29, 2009 at 9:10 pm
Thank you so much. It’s wonderful to find such kind that there are good people still left in the world. Especially when one is going through something like this. It makes you feel like you are the only one and the crazy one of the two. They rationalise everything so well that eventually they can almost convince you that what they are doing is perfectly normal and you are not. Or at least thats how it seemed to me. Closure or explanation would have been nice or just exactly where he went or something. Right now the only way i can deal with it is pretend he is dead. Horrible to say but true.
K
January 20, 2010 at 5:26 am
Hi All,
I am such an idiot! I have a facebook and I told my husband to get one as well… STUPID ME! So here is my story. He found alot of friends which is great, an old woman friend from childhood found him and they started chatting on facebook (on the private chat where nobody can see…) and they reviewed what could have, would have, should have been, or so he says. I saw photos of this woman and OMG she is like gorgeous. Skinny little thing with big muscular arms and tan and has a beautiful face. Well it was over the New Year when he started a facebook account and he is no hottie… He is slightly overweight, 48 year old man etc. He is out of work so that allowed tons of time for him to “catch up” with her. Apparently she told him he should join a gym and get in shape. So he did. While we are going to be struggling to pay our bills, he felt it was important to go get a $600 gym membership so he can get in shape and start running (he never did this before), so I questioned why all of a sudden he wanted to do this. He said “I just want to get in shape”. I started figuring things out quickly after realizing from photos that this woman runs 5Ks and 10Ks, so I though I would make some simple comments in passing… I said to him “soon you will be running 5ks and 10ks”, he didn’t say anything and didn’t even realize where I was going with it. Then I found cell phone records indicating that he was talking to her on the phone at all hours and texting all the time. He was hiding in our garage to talk and text. I confronted him about it as I knew it was her by the area code on the phone number and where she lives. He said “I shouldn’t be sneaking around.” He said that he told her they need to back off because I was getting the WRONG impression. He said she said that she was SO SORRY and I thought ok, maybe he will stop now. But no, they moved it to a place where his idiot wife (me) could not see it. But he can’t seem to control himself and while I was doing HIS laundry and taking it to put away, I passed him in his den where he has 2 computers. He gave me a sideways look like OMG I have been caught. So I sort of flipped out and basically asked him to be honest with me. He said “I don’t know if I have feelings for her or not”. I was like HELLO buddy we have been married 21 years. I deserve honesty. So basically now he told me to back off or we would be getting a divorce. So, I see I am supposed to sit back and allow him to get all in shape and gussied up to meet up with her and leave me??? So I am literally pissed and I am not sure what my next step is yet, but further to this he made me feel guilty and like it was my fault this all happened. I have been a joke and I feel like these 2 are laughing at me. Luckily for me, my kids are older and one is in college and the other is a freshman in high school. Soon they will both be out on their own and I figure if we divorce maybe I can handle the it without worrying too much about the kids. What a mess facebook has been. Oh and he would be PISSED if he knew I was typing this on line! He thinks every status I put on my facebook now is directed toward him… I think that must be a guilty conscience in him. Ok, done venting, time for me to get a life.
CH
January 26, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Hi everyone. Looks like I’m in the right place. I hate Facebook. He initially hated Facebook until I found some of his friends and he then wanted to communicate with them so he created an account, which then created a monster. We both HAD separate accounts and both have laptops and would just Facebook together in the evenings sharing funny things etc. Then I would notice him going to one persons profile a little more often than the rest. I had a gut feeling something was going on and I just left it alone until I found the right time. Well, that time came one evening when he asked me to watch some game on Facebook for him while he took a bath…..UH OH….. I immediately checked his inbox and there they were. The emails that lasted over a period of 2 weeks. Thank god not any longer. He quit emailing her on his birthday of all days. I found out 2 weeks after he quit voluntarily emailing her. I confronted him immediately. You would have thought the house was on fire he got out of that tub so quick. She was an old family and high school friend. Lives far away. The emails started off harmless, then he told her she was a full blown hottie, then would check almost everyday first thing when he got to work and would sometimes just communicate with her throughout the day. She would reply with I had the biggest crush on you and he would reply I had one on you too. She told him he was yummy, hot and he would just reply with stuff back. I told him the part that really hurts the most besides the comments and him even emailing her was the fact that he mentioned everything going on in his life from kids to job to parents etc. and not one mention of me at all, just that he took me on vacation once. A little info here, he was cheated on horribly by two other women and it basically ruined him so for him to even come close to doing something like this is very disturbing. He says he wants to work on things, regain the trust, even marry me someday. HA! Not anytime soon thats for sure. I’m 7 weeks out from discovering this and he’s went from, I messed up bad, didn’t mean to hurt you, we’re just friends, it meant nothing. To, I talked to her like that all the time in high school etc. Just belittiling it. I told him that’s a lie cause he was one of the shyest guys in high school. I should know I went to school with him as well. Trying to trust and it’s hard. I do forgive him, but it’s the forgetting part that’s hard. He has deactivated his FB acct as well as myself. I just don’t want to see her face on the newsfeed all the time. She is also friends with alot of my friends. How are you all coping? I’m trying to be strong and just do things for myself and be positive. Thanks in advance
CH
Steven
February 15, 2010 at 8:55 pm
My wife, a very kind, considerate, mother of 4, thoughtful and warmly passoinate lover was so very much in love with God, a Christain woman of Proverbs 31 attributes. Then about a year ago after a home town class reunion, she rekindled “lost freinds” from her youth via FaceBook. If anyone can undo Love blessed by the almighty God creator of the universe and the source of Love, then satan and his legions working thur this FLESH based vanity will. My wife has become emotionally envolved in 1 “platonic” relationship, and 1 lust driven flesh relationship. She had booked a trip to Tennessee, with plane fair, hotel, rental car and the like to scout out the job market so she could be close to her “friends” and oh yes, let’s not forget the invitation to her lust lover to spend the night with her in Jackson Tenn superbowl weekend. Party on seems to be her COUGAR cry as she proudly proclaims for any to hear.
Discovered in her 2nd outreach and plans to vist her Flesh Lover, and uUnder the financial threat of leaving her to the bad credit of a forclosure mortgage. bad debt to car loans, and non-payment of IRS due, she is now my “business partner” till we can liquidate the assets, sell the house in this horid market, and get th ehell out of each others life. After my 2 months of shattered heart weeping, an dafter a full year of her emotional infidelity on ?Facebook, I am growing very weary of the Love burden and feel that by Easter if she is not able to find the “mind” she has lost, then my love line that holds me in faith to my marriage vows will unravel to the last weak cord and break, relasing me from my pain. I pity her. But pity will not keep me here forever. After the illusion of her “lust lover” faces the reality of the night after morning, when she finds that Prince Charming snores, tah his feet stink, that he sweats and is easily bored with anything but sex and the chase, really is addicted to the pursuit of younger girls 1/2 his age, not a cougar 5 years older, that Prince has bad breath, and social diseases, and that She is vain beyound belief, then her regrets will not be my problem. Pam, good luck finding someone as committed as I was Make sure you make arrangem,ents for a rick dude that can aford your vanity and provide a maid cause the laundry will never get done, the flors will never get mopped, the trash will not get taken out, and the roaches will crawl in broad daylingh. She will have her “fun” never knowing the selfish flesh consequences to those that love her inclusding her 4 children, mother, and 5 grandchildren. Facebook given the dark side pride in it path of destruction. VANITY rules my wife’s heart, Facebook is her life blood.
Donna D
February 17, 2010 at 1:25 pm
Well, I can’t believe that I am doing this but after reading these posts, I want to throw up. I am the person who you all hate. Please let me preface this story with I HAVE NEVER EVER CONSIDERED BEING UNFAITHFUL. I have been with my husband for 15 years; most of which have been good/comfortable. A few years ago, our relationship changed. I strongly felt that he took me for granted…the romance was gone, he was emotionally unavailable and I was just tired and empty. I honestly did try to get it back. I created time for us, talked to him about it…nothing helped. He just isn’t capable of talking about anything that makes him feel uncomfortable. In all this, my ex contacted me via Classmates and then FB. He and I were engaged and very much in love. Long before FB, he was the love of my life. We just had growing up to do. Well, now we are all grown up and have discovered that we are still very much in love…unfortunately, we are both married. It has destroyed my life. I go to therapy and do not know what to do. I love my husband and the life that I have made with him but now that I have this guilt, I can’t move forward. And then if I do, am I being fair to him? I can not give him 100% if my heart is elsewhere. Is my heart elsewhere simply because I am lacking something at home? My husband knows something is not right because he is really trying to step up to the plate but is it too late? I guess I am putting this story out here for two reasons…one, you should never look down on someone unless you are trying to help them up. I am a good person who is in a very painful situation right now. And two, I would just like your input on something…My first thought would be to try to work on my marriage by bringing him into my counseling (something I know he will do for me but not for himself; which seems like a waste). But do I confess? Do I put it away and pray that one day I will forgive myself? Right now the guilt is destroying me. For those on the receiving end of this devasting situation, would you welcome the honesty or would you prefer to live without knowing?
Charles Reves
February 17, 2010 at 2:52 pm
I am divorced now because of Facebook.
All my nightmare started by this God damned website.
My wife started talking to this “Gay guy” on face book and I didn’t really care because I had checked his profile and it said he was actually gay, so I thought it was ok.
But then this chats were more frequent until it got to the point that is was basically all day, then they went to send txts on the cellular and phone calls at home while I was at work.
Then one day she asked me if she could go to buy something at the mall with the gay guy because they has good taste about feminine style. I didn’t care because I trusted her despite all the chats and txts that honestly were annoying me already.
to make it shorter it got to the point that she wanted to be going out with that guy basically every week.
I had, I couldn’t take it anymore, she wanted to be talking all day with that guy 7 days a week. She is cheating on me and that is no gay guy, so I went into her email and I read the messages they were sending to each other, him telling her that he wanted to be spiritual only with her, and telling him how much he liked her and stuff like that. I found that the guy had even been in my house a few times before while I was at work, they used to go to the movies too. I got a big shock a horrible pain in my heart, I almost fainted of anger and deception.
I waited for her and I acted like if I didn’t know anything “Honey how did it go? did you buy a lot of stuff”
She said “Oh no I couldn’t find anything that I liked, but if you don’t mind I would like to go out with my gay friend tomorrow again”
THATS IT!!! I exploded and showed her all the emails that I printed from her facebook and her email.
Then the shameless S.O.B tells me it is all my fault because I was always at work, to forgive her because it was a mistake and she didn’t mean any harm.
Since I loved her so much I told her that I would forget all about it if she would stop talking to that “GAY GUY”, she agreed to it and I also called him and told him to stay away from our lives.
But it didn’t work a month later they were at it again and I packed up and left.
what I saw and learned from those emails is that some guys and girls use tactics to brainwash people to make them think that their relationship is not good and that they should be with them instead.
Jodie H
February 18, 2010 at 10:32 am
Donna, RUN! RUN RuN rUN RUn! I can almost assure you that you are not in love but in lust. Tell your husband? Well, yes you should because if you don’t nothing will really change. He won’t really get it how much space there is between you two until he knows. But please be aware of this, if you tell him be willing to tell everything, no matter how painful. And prepare your self for the aftermath, which will be painful and hard. And I am sorry hon, but you are going to 1 have to delete him as a friend and then block him and it would be a really good idea to deactivate your account for a while. You will miss the other communications but the communications is your marriage are far more important. After a few weeks you will begin to see things much clearer like a fog lifting and you will know that what you had with this other guy is and was just a fantasy. If you would like you can e mail me and we can talk in a less public forum.
God Bless,
Jodie
Jodiebntn@charter.net
Donna D
February 18, 2010 at 1:32 pm
Jodie: Thank you for your insight and your email. Out of curiousity, did a situation like this happen to you or someone you know?
Jodie H
February 18, 2010 at 2:26 pm
Yes, if you read the posts above you will find my husbands (Michael H) and mine (Jodie H). I am so sorry you are going through this, but please Donna remember, the heart is misleading above all things. Many people leave happy (or so so happy) homes to go after what they think they want only to turn around and realize it was a huge mistake and that the blame lays squarely on their shoulders. A heavy burden to bear after 15 years of marriage. Give your husband a chance to be what he was created to be. You made vows and though some of them have been broken not all have to be and the ones that remain and even the ones you have broken can be strengthened and rebuilt.
Jodie
Angry
February 20, 2010 at 1:40 am
Like the fellow that burned his house and fley his plane inot the IRS building in portest, saying here is a pound of flesh for you sleep well, His example while radical is at least an effective way to stop th epain. Anyone know where the house of the Devil is, he is the one that is destroying my home, not facebook, not my wife’s lovers, not the creators of the site, Come quickly dear Jesus and deliver your children from this evil world .
Sad
February 22, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Facebook ruined my life. I caught my boyfriend a few times now how he was writing to different girls, asking them to go on a dat etc. And I was sitting all this time at home waiting for him. How stupid I was! I wish there was no facebook and no egoistic assholes no more.
VeryUpset
March 9, 2010 at 9:08 am
I am dealing with this issue right now… I don’t know what to do. Facebook sucks.
Ken
March 9, 2010 at 9:17 am
Cheaters are going to cheat VeryUpset. At least you finally caught it before things got worse. I’m sorry.
Sandy
March 9, 2010 at 4:37 pm
I caught my husband lying yesterday and today about some pics and chats I found on the computer. He feels like it’s no big deal, just talk, blah blah blah. While I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. My husband has been my knight in shining armor for almost 18years – nearly 15yrs of those married, we have 2 elementary school boys and I am crushed. He has always been my best friend and I knew he would never hurt me like this…. I can barely catch my breath. My boys keep asking me what is wrong cuz they say I just don’t look happy! I don’t know what to do nor do I even know if I’m asking for help….maybe I’m just venting..