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Wife Cheated -- Now what do I do? (1 Viewer)

DartTeamGoalie

DartTeamGoalie

Footballguy
So I am mostly a lurker on here, and I know you don't know me, but I really am looking for advice.  I discovered in March that my wife had been unfaithful to me.  Long story short, she has been involved with four guys over the past 11 - 12 years.  Three were physical, and the fourth mostly emotional over email, although they did meet twice and kiss.  The letter I found to the most recent guy said that he was her true love and if they had met under different circumstances, she would have chose him over me.  She is now very remorseful and wants to reconcile.

I know what you are thinking.... drop her like a hot rock.  I mostly agree, but there is a complication.  We have two sons, aged 10 & 7, and they are both adopted.  As I am sure most any parent in my situation would, I have strong hesitations about ripping their lives apart.  But the fact that they are adopted makes it feel worse.  I feel like in essence we made a pledge to their birth mothers to provide them with a stable loving home as they grow up.  The fact that she had already been unfaithful once before we adopted infuriates me beyond words. 

So what say you?  I am prepared to stay for the benefit of the kids, but I don't think I want to.  We are going to counseling but quite honestly I can't ever see me truly wanting to be married to her again.  God help me.

I await your comments.  I don't mind schtick and smart ### comments, but I am not really in the mood for them.

Thanks.

 
Divorced here, two daughters, living with their mom.

Drop her like a hot rock. Kids are resilient, trust is not.

Living with someone you do not love is pain eternal.

GL

 
Anymore, the norm seems to be split-home anyways.  The kids see this through their friends, I am sure.  Leave her, and do it asap.  The kids will be fine.

 
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It's noble to stay in it for the kids sake, but I agree with @msommer here.  Kids will feed off of the tension and they will react accordingly.  Besides, do you want them to grow up thinking that's what married life is like?  You'd be setting them up for failure as they wouldn't know the difference between what they see going on in their own home and what a "good" marriage is supposed to look like.

 
Not sure how you can provide a loving home to your adopted kids when you will be constantly hating your whore of a wife. The trust will never be there. Leave her. This is a very easy decision.

 
That kind of cheating habit won't change.  You may be able to reconcile a mistake, but not the same mistake four times.

 
The question to you is this:

 If you stay you must forgive her and completely let the past indiscretions go.  You cannot hold onto them, dwell on them, bring them up, or think about them.  You must completely remove them from your mind and trust her unconditionally.  It is an extremely hard thing to do and if you cannot do this your life will be miserable if you stay because you will always be thinking about it.

Can you do this?  If you cannot then you must end it now because it will only get worse.

 
Sorry Dart Team.   It really sucks for you.   Agree with the what the others have posted.  Staying with her would be a horrible decision.

 
Yeah get out. The kids will understand long term and you just need to continue to be the best father you can.

 
If you could be civil towards each other for 5-7 years I'd probably stay for the kids.  That's a big "if" though.

5-7 years goes by in a flash.

 
No question there will be some harm to the kids, but I think divorce is absolutely a strong consideration here. And this is coming from someone who is very anti-divorce. One affair I could see as being able to reconcile. You can possibly accept that it was a mistake and rebuild trust. But 4 freaking guys?! That's not longer mistakes. That's a pattern of behavior and there is zero reason to believe that she would ever change.

 
I found the letter on Google drive.  She wrote it on her work computer and accidentally backed it up on Drive.  She is a better liar than she is a file manager.

The kids have no suspicions now.  I am basically "playing house"  for their benefit.  The only change is that we aren't sleeping in the same room.  One of us sleeps with each boy.  They see this as a summer vacation exception from the norm.  Over the long term, they will probably eventually figure it out.

 
I'm sorry to hear about your situation, DartTeam.  I can feel the pain in just reading your words.

Since your eldest child is ten and you said that your wife has been cheating for twelve years, does that mean she was cheating almost immediately after you were married?

 
DartTeamGoalie said:
So I am mostly a lurker on here, and I know you don't know me, but I really am looking for advice.  I discovered in March that my wife had been unfaithful to me.  Long story short, she has been involved with four guys over the past 11 - 12 years.  Three were physical, and the fourth mostly emotional over email, although they did meet twice and kiss.  The letter I found to the most recent guy said that he was her true love and if they had met under different circumstances, she would have chose him over me.  She is now very remorseful and wants to reconcile.
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No she isn't, and no she doesn't (at least not in any way that is not completely selfish)

Leave.  You will be better for it in the long run.  You will be happier after a little time passes.  Your kids will react like any other kids, adopted or not, and as long as you stay a major part of their lives, will be fine.  

Its not easy, but it is a lot easier than living with the constant feeling that it is happening all over again (because you will feel that every time she puts down her cell phone when you walk into a room, or is 30 minutes late coming home, or is getting railed by some dude on your couch)

Its worth it.  There are lots of good people out there that will not make you feel like this.

 
Went through a similar circumstance, though not with adopted children. If you stayed,I think it would eat away at you and in the long run, put a damper on your happiness, which would, in turn, affect the happiness of your children. I don't think the fact they're adopted makes a difference here (other than the guilt you feel). Regardless, it will be a tough conversation to have with them (and your wife), but as long as you two can agree that the kids' needs will always come first, I think you'll all be better off in the long run. 

 
Al O'Pecia said:
I'm sorry to hear about your situation, DartTeam.  I can feel the pain in just reading your words.

Since your eldest child is ten and you said that your wife has been cheating for twelve years, does that mean she was cheating almost immediately after you were married?
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We have been married 19 years, so over half of our marriage has been a sham.  I had no idea.

 
DartTeamGoalie said:
  The letter I found to the most recent guy said that he was her true love and if they had met under different circumstances, she would have chose him over me. 
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That's brutal.  I'm not sure how you can ever feel the same connectedness you once had with her after reading something like that.

 
I don't know if there is a perfect answer here, but I can say that my siblings and I are the product of two parents who decided to "stick it out" after they had stopped loving each other. They got divorced as soon as my younger brother went off to college. And the kids turned out alright.

In a way, I admire them both for putting their emotional needs on hold so that they could devote all of their attention to raising the kids. They never missed a baseball game or a school event, and our lives seemed very close to the "typical" lives that my friends' families led. Sure, I never got to witness two parents who said "I love you" to each other on a daily basis. But I figure that's no worse than the kid who saw his mom saying "I love you" to a new 'stepdad' every 6 months.

 
Wow, man, sorry you're going through this. That sounds truly awful.

It sounds like you already have your answer. There is a lot of crap you have to put up with to make a marriage work. The payoff for putting up with all that crap is having someone to share everything with, knowing you can trust them unconditionally. Once that trust is violated, things will never really be the same.

You might be able to salvage the marriage at this point, but I don't think I could. The physical infidelity is one thing, and that would require a lot of effort to recover from. But, the breach of trust, especially four times, I'd never be able to get past. It shows that she is fundamentally untrustworthy and has no integrity. How do you build a partnership with someone who isn't honest with you?

i wouldn't stay together for the kids, no matter what the situation. Staying in a loveless, toxic relationship, for their sake, would do them more damage than good. Be a good example for them and move on- be an adult, spend time with them, love the crap out of them and don't bad mouth your wife to them. Show them how a real man handles something bad that happens in their life, and show them that it's healthy to have boundaries and expectations from people in your life. They'll get it, eventually.

go see a lawyer now, and start planning. Strike while the iron is hot and your wife is feeling remorseful/guilty. Get the best settlement you can now, because I'll bet sometime soon, she won't be feeling remorseful; she'll be feeling vindictive. Have your ducks in a row before that starts to happen. GL, GB

 
DartTeamGoalie said:
They were both newborns.
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Then it's not like they've gone through a "loss" before.  You're not going to "put them through something" again.  They will adapt and adjust - like someone said, kids are very flexible.  They will be fine.  If you stay in the marriage, will you be fine?
 

 
Since this has come out she brought up some childhood sexual trauma.  No adults involved... sounded like curious kids experimenting from the little that she has told me.  Also, her home life sucked as a child, with her parents fighting all the time.  Also she says she feels like she was a different person then and doesn't know how she could have done such horrible things.

Mental issues at the root of this, or is she just saying this to try and cover her ###?

 
What does more damage to a family - a divorce and clear split or...

1. Dad resents mom for years and it festers

2. Mom continues to cheat and the kids find out

3. Mom leaves for another man unexpectedly thus crippling the kids' trust

I'm with Grove here... I am pretty anti divorce and if it was one affair you try to fix it. But she has ruined this marriage (years ago, 4 times over). It's less damaging to the kids to split now. And as heartless as it sounds, you have at least some more leverage now to get the best terms for you and the kids. 

 
The youngest is 7 yrs old so we are talking another 11 years...

-Confront mom and tell her you need a timeout to think about everything and the only reason you didn't file for divorce right away is the sake of the kids "WE" adopted...this will crush her if she has even a shred of decency. If she responds with "whatever you think is best" then you know she is just waiting for you to discover what she did so she can end the marriage.

-Have you given any serious thought to having an open marriage until the kids are out and you can divorce? Even if the "open" is in your head and you never verbalize...she did 4 guys so you have a few to catch up over the next several years. if you divorce there will eventually be another guy they have to see in order to be with mommy and it sounds like that is your true horror show. 

-Forgive mom and go do something totally spontaneous, this is another option.

-Go join a gym and either tighten up or lose 20 lbs over the next many weeks before you confront her, be looking and feeling your best. 

-Sincere Ts&Ps your way, 

 
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DartTeamGoalie said:
Since this has come out she brought up some childhood sexual trauma.  No adults involved... sounded like curious kids experimenting from the little that she has told me.  Also, her home life sucked as a child, with her parents fighting all the time.  Also she says she feels like she was a different person then and doesn't know how she could have done such horrible things.

Mental issues at the root of this, or is she just saying this to try and cover her ###?
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She's was different then? I know you found out in March, but when did this happen? 

 
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DartTeamGoalie said:
Since this has come out she brought up some childhood sexual trauma.  No adults involved... sounded like curious kids experimenting from the little that she has told me.  Also, her home life sucked as a child, with her parents fighting all the time.  Also she says she feels like she was a different person then and doesn't know how she could have done such horrible things.

Mental issues at the root of this, or is she just saying this to try and cover her ###?
Click to expand...
Again. The trust is gone. She can see a psychiatrist without being married to you

 
DartTeamGoalie said:
Since this has come out she brought up some childhood sexual trauma.  No adults involved... sounded like curious kids experimenting from the little that she has told me.  Also, her home life sucked as a child, with her parents fighting all the time.  Also she says she feels like she was a different person then and doesn't know how she could have done such horrible things.

Mental issues at the root of this, or is she just saying this to try and cover her ###?
Click to expand...
If they are or not, the outcome is still the same, right?  I have a buddy that had two kids with a crazy girl.  She had crappy parents.  Her crappy parents brings him no comfort when she is throwing things at him.  

Do you still love her?  

 
shadyridr said:
Not sure how you can provide a loving home to your adopted kids when you will be constantly hating your whore of a wife. The trust will never be there. Leave her. This is a very easy decision.
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He has to deal with a whore right now but after he leaves he will be living in a 1 bedroom apartment and paying $1,000 a month in child support plus watching his kids raised by some alpha male named Dirk.

 
Good luck DartTeamGoalie.  I don't have any advice to you other than to do what you think would be best for you and your family.  I'm wary of anyone that thinks this is an "easy decision."

 
MoP makes a valid point. You may want to consult with a lawyer if you are seriously considering divorce, just to get an idea of what you'd be looking at financially. 

 
I would suggest marriage counseling.  She should probably go to sexaholics anonymous. Maybe it works and things get better, maybe it doesn't and it ends up in divorce.  Just imagine what it would mean for your boys if you and your wife were able to overcome this and fall in love all over again.  It is amazing how times you see kids making the same mistakes in relationships their parents made and just giving up too soon.

 
Frostillicus said:
How did you find out about the other 3 guys?
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She confessed.  Through google history, I found things that conflicted with her story about the last guy.  I told her that she needed to tell all because if I ever found out she was still lying to her I was out the door that day.

 
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