I've been on everyone's threads giving advice from my perspective, but I haven't posted my story.
First of all, I am older than most of the people posting on the board. I will admit to being a few days past my 50th birthday. And my H is 10 years older than I am. That doesn't mean we are over the hill. We have as active a sex life as ever, if that's what you're thinking.
So, to go to the beginning....I was 26 and he was 36 when we got married. We were from different worlds. I was from New York and trained as a professional dancer; he was from the deep south and a rural background. I think from the beginning he was more in love with me than I was with him. And I thought that was as things should be. I had a former love from college who had icicles for feet, and wouldn't marry me. Claimed he would never marry. So I got married to my husband. And of course, 2 years later, he married someone else. But we kept in touch every now and then. And we said that in 20 years we would meet up again. So, given that background, who thinks I had a happy marriage? OK. You're right.
For 20 years, through raising 3 children, I always dreamed that I would run off with my old lover. Although I never left, I was a WAW. Well, 20 years went by and guess what? Old love didn't reappear. Maybe in a few years, he said. I even saw him once or twice so it was a PA, but rarely.
Fast forward another 6 years or so, and we move and we get hit by Hurricane Katrina. My H has never left his home state before (this is big for southerners) and all the trauma of dealing with the house, insurance people, mortgage people, difficult teenage children, usual unhappy wife, and he decides to contact his old flame. So they build an internet relationship, and a phone relationship and even meet on occasion when he has conferences out of town. But I don't know anything about it.
Then one wednesday he tells me he is taking a vacation by himself, and he will call, maybe he'll ask me to come meet him. So he leaves. I don't think anything of it, but I try a couple of times to reach him on his cell, and the phone is off. He was supposed to come home Saturday. But Saturday he calls my son's phone and tells him that he is staying another day. Light bulb goes off....OW! But I have no proof.
So when he innocently walks in the door, I confront him in front of the kids. He denies it. For a couple of days we go back and forth on this. My S16 tells me with tears in his eyes that Dad is not seeing anyone, he just wanted to be alone. I should let up. So I start looking at the cell phone bills. (Did you know that you are supposed to look at them before you pay them?) Calls to San Francisco dating back at least 6 months! And I do know who lives in San Francisco. I put on my slinkiest silk negligee and go in and confront again with the phone bills in hand. He admits it.
The next day I announce it to the kids. My oldest, the wild child, says, "I want to call her and talk to her". I figure, why not? She needs to meet the family if she wants to take my place. So it's about 8 in the morning her time. He calls and tells her he knows she spent the weekend with his father, and if she doesn't end it, he will come out there and end it for her. So, she got a pretty good intro to my son. She called my H immediately and broke up with him. Of course, he was mad at us. But we didn't take the blame for him bringing other people into family matters.
So he was stuck. Bad marriage at home. No girlfriend to escape to. But he figured he could fix it back up with her. It was my daughter's college graduation, and we both went there to be with her. We took a little family trip just the 3 of us and tried to get along for the weekend. He was trying not to have sex with me, and I was spending a lot of my time trying to seduce him. (I was successful, but I was amazed at how difficult it was. I had done a lot of damage in the 26 years of being a WAW, and I recognized that).
We came home and limped along for a few weeks. Then one day he asked me out to the country club on Sunday for a nice talk. I thought he was going to apologize for the affair. We go to the club and are sitting at a table outside by the golf course. We each have a glass of wine. He starts talking about all the things I have done wrong in 26 years of marriage. "I don't like this about you, I don't like that about you, etc." I remember looking down at the table for a fork because I wanted to stab him with it. No silverware. So I start yelling at him. People on the golf course are looking at us. I realize that we're making a scene, so we decide to leave.
In the car going home, I thought, "Tomorrow I call a divorce attorney." But I remembered that my broker at the real estate office had gone to a marriage weekend a month before and had come home glowing. She sent us all an email telling us about the program. So I quietly said to him, "I hear there is a program for people like us. It's called Retrouvaille. It's a weekend away. My broker went and she said it was great." He said, "Get more information and I'll consider it."
The next day I got more info about Retrouvaille from her (especially the spelling of the word.) And I looked it up on the internet and called the contact number. They were planning a weekend in our area in just 2 weeks. So we were lucky. We only had to wait two weeks. We got the registration info in the mail, and the letter said that there couldn't be a 3rd party, and we needed to attend with open minds and willing hearts. I thought, "He'll never agree to that." But the next day they called and talked to each of us. And I was standing right there, they asked him if he would come with an open mind and willing heart, and he said, "Yes."
So we went. He wanted to leave the first night. He complained because there was a priest involved and his Catholic upbringing was too unhappy, blah, blah. I told him that I'm not Catholic. If I could listen to the priest talk, he could listen. So he stayed. And we did the program. One exercise at a time. And we got friendlier to each other. The walls came down for the first time in 20 years. After dinner on Saturday, we sneaked away to have sex in the room. When we got back, they were waiting for us to start the program again. (ooops). We left Sunday afternoon a new couple. We went to all the Post sessions. Week after week we got more relaxed and happier with each other.
It was hard for us to forgive each other. He had 26 years of an uncommitted wife to forgive, and I had the affair. I had nightmares about it for a long time. It took at least 6 months for the whole thing to go away and for him to say "I love you." But now it is 3 years later and everything about our lives is better. My friend told me that we are the model couple because we went through infidelity and forgave each other and went on. i am proud of that.
So anyway, now I have a new thread where we can talk about varied and sundry topics, and Retrouvaille. And I'm giving drinks to all posters. I'm thinking a mimosa would be good about now.
And I'll take a glass of Pinot Gris, if you're offering...
Me: 44, Wife: 39 M: 17 years T: 20 years Bomb on 08/25/09 1/13/10: MC started 1/28/10, 2/8/10: More bombs 8/28/10: Wife moved out No talk of D, no movement
I don't think he needed to discover it. He knew all along how I felt. When I first found out OM was married, two years into our marriage, I was disconsolate. We talked about it then. He told me that I could have waited my whole life for OM, he would never have married me. But once he lost me, he married the next woman he had a relationship with. I think he was right. He didn't know when I spoke to OM, or when I met him, but he knew he was always in my thoughts, and he knew that we were still in touch.
As for confessing.... that is something they talk about at Retrouvaille. And their advice is,... That's what the priest is there for. If you feel a need to confess something the spouse doesn't already know about, tell it to the priest. Otherwise keep quiet. You make yourself feel better by confessing to the spouse, but you just unload the bad feelings onto him. You feel better; he feels worse. They do not value confessing. They do value apologizing. I apologized for many things. I apologized for keeping another man in my heart and my thoughts. But not to specific events.
