I call it a MLC but I don't really know. My husband went active duty Army and was stationed in South America for six months. They lived in an apartment, ate at restaurants and had a driver. It wasn't exactly hard duty. The whole time he was there, he called everyday. He acted totally normal. He would write me emails saying he would be glad to be home,loved me and missed me. We have always had a loving relationship, very supportive of each other, and though our sex life had slowed down, I think we were happy and content with our lives.
When he gets home, he says the first night that he feels nervous or unsettled. We don't have a intimate reunion and spend our time visiting with relatives that missed him too. Eventually he says that he thinks something is wrong because he has no interest in sex. We make a dr. appt. and his tests come back normal. I mention Viagra, and he says it isn't that it doesn't work, he just isn't interested. I try to be supportive and say maybe he just needs to get back in sync with being home. Because we worked different shifts when he got home, it wasn't that hard to pretend things were normal between us, and he started doing overtime at work, so I wouldn't see him on weekends much. Finally I notice that while I am at work, nothing is being done at home. Like he wasn't even living there. I started monitoring our router and notice that sometimes he would check an email account that I knew nothing about.
He sits down with me one night and tells me that he is not happy. I tell him I don't understand what is going on, but it still didn't occur to me he was trying to say he wasn't happy in our marriage, I truly thought he was depressed and was talking about that. Anyway, we basically have the same talk a couple of weeks later and I still don't realize what he is trying to say.
The next day I install a keylogger. I find out he has a girlfriend in South America, and is telling her how much he loves her, and when he separates from his wife they can be together. I am devastated. I read nasty emails to each other, desparate emails, emails about him not wanting to hurt his wife, and emails that sort of sound like goodbye--"I want what is right for you, I understand if you to forget about me and move on with your life." blah blah blah". He was basically getting up in the morning, checking his email to her, and looking at porn all day. He would check his email probably every 20 minutes and write love letter emails to her that would take him a whole hour to make it perfect.I find out he is also calling her while he is at work with a phone card.
I am going into work and totally spacing out thinking about it. I finally confide in one person I trust, and that helps alittle. While this is going on, I also notice that my foot and lower leg are having a numb feeling. I go to the doctor and found out I have a cyst inside my spinal canal. And will need surgery.
I'll continue this in the next post so this one doesn't get so long
Anyway, I go on medical leave in end of February. I don't have surgery until early May because surgeons kept passing me up the someone they thought had more expertise.
Here is the really "interesting part" of my story. After reading the emails myself for awhile and not saying anything to him about it, she sends him an email that says the time that she has given him is up, and he has to divorce or tell her it's over. This is what he sent her. He says he has problems (me, medical leave, surgery) that he can't fix right now and he understands that it is over.
She writes him another email and says I can't live without you, that he can continue to support me, and they are meant to be together. SO I deleted it before he saw it and blocked her address. THEN I set up an account that was almost just like hers, and told him that I (she) thought it best if we quit communicating, and wished him well. He sent her (ME) a beautiful email saying he would never forget her. I rewrote it, and resent it from his address to her. It simply said that I chose to stay with my wife and regret our past actions, and to go on with her life.
I had asked him if there was anyone else, he said no. He got home at the end of October, and had not told me, tried to leave or even discuss it till February. Then he said that he couldn't leave because of my surgery. So in my mind, he maybe didn't really want to leave or just couldn't bring himself to do it. Anyway, after the goodbyes, he wrote her a couple more messages saying how much he missed her, and how his life will never be the same and he would never forget her. Of course these really went to me. So I (disguised as HER) sent him a message telling him to please stop with the messages because I was with a man who was free to love me and had started to see him right after he left. He sent one last message that said all kind of wonderful things to her, and his regret that they couldn't work it out and be together.
I'll go to the next post because this is getting really long.
The whole time he had been home, he was kind, if not really involved in our life. Anyway I was afraid that he would in about six or so months he would try to see if she would talk to him so I (HER) sent him an email saying that she and her boyfriend were in the states now and getting married. I even gave him the date. It was the weekend before my surgery, and I could tell he was distraught at the thought but was trying to be there for me. I wanted him to think she was not the great person he thought she was.
And I didn't think it was fair to me that he was going to have an affair, and then not ever tell me. SO (this is embarrassing I went to such lengths) I left him a note on the kitchen table the friday before my surgery (Monday) that I had received a letter from someone and that it said she had an affair with him while he was down there, and that she thought I should know. I didn't want to tell him I knew because of a keylogger but I wanted it out that I knew. I said in my note that I had to leave, I didn't know where I was going, or when or if I would be back. He could call me in the morning. I stayed at a hotel in town.
He apologized, said it was over, didn't know why it even started, had always been content with our lives, that he realized that he didn't want to lose what he had. He never admitted that he loved her just said that he didn't want to lose our life.
He wrote her (ME) an email that said he can't believe she would be so cruel and vicious, and he hopes she has a good life. He told me this part himself. He said that he wanted her to know that I didn't deserve such treatment (ironic) and he will spend the rest of his life trying to make it up to me. So that is where we are at today in our relationship. I know he is really having a hard time forgetting about her, but also wasn't willing to give up his whole life or reputation to make it happen.
So anyway, he is trying to be more involved, trying to be helpful, and trying to get some feeling of normalcy. I don't think I can ever tell him that I had a hand in the break up of his affair. I don't think I will ever be that brave. I am just trying to get through each day without breaking down.
Sounds like you have your life back....hope he never finds out what you did (as thatmay throw it all away). The sad part from your posts was that it sounded like he was ending it before you even had a hand in it. I hope you two continue to work things out
TwinDad Me 39, W 36, M 11 W - MLC, WAW???? 2 Kids B/G 3 YRS Old Start of the Long and Bumpy Road..... On the verge of piecing.....a new beginning
wow! talk about resourceful! you are something else hon. I think I would've done the same. Well, it is over now and they'll never see each other since she is elsewhere. The distance between you two was a factor, but not all of it, he has other issues that need to be brought up. You two need MC pronto. I have a coworker who's H has been away for 2 deployments, and he's always come back to her lovingly. For him to have a gf there shows a lack of something, you two need to work hard in reconnecting each other and nurture your M or, heaven forbid, he might seek escape in someone else.
Consider Retrouville or other M related program, don't let this just be.
Be not afraid...I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten Joel2
30something 2kids survivor of S, MLC, A, D I have peace in my heart, at last.
I sort of makes me feel like I am the one that is mean and vicious. I don't know if I can get over that fact that he was willing to risk our life. We had never had problems.
I think it mostly started because they were in a country with very beautiful woman, and alot of those woman want to come to the US. Men go down there and feel like kings. This is a country where american men who are 3's can get attention from women who are 10's. Five of the men down there with him were married and one engaged. Four of them cheated. My husband met this girl just sitting in a restaurant having dinner. He said he never had any intention of cheating, he just got to talking and liked her.
I think he is being truthful with me now. He answers questions I have. And some of them I already know the truth.
I am having the hardest time with the truth that my life isn't what it used to be. It is so humbling and scary. I feel like an old shoe that he was just going to throw out.
In truth, I don't know if he would have had the strength to end it with her if he thought she was still there missing him. I think he really cares about her. He said he could talk to her about everything. Which is ironic, because he didn't tell her he was married until he got home. I think he sorta wanted her to be firm and end it because he couldn't bring himself to do it.
It is scary. He goes to Afghanistan for six months in January. I figure that will either make or break us for good. I go back to work in a couple of weeks and hope to not still be crying everyday by then.
No, she can't call because of cost, I don't even know if she knows his cell phone number. I also sent her an email from me later saying that I had found out about the affair (she thought I already knew) and how I was devastated. I told her I couldn't believe he would make love to me and not tell me he had been with someone else. (He told her we had not been intimate since he got back, it wasn't much of a lie, but we had been together twice) I think she decided he was a lost cause, but then since I blocked her email, she may have tried and just not got through. They never tell you whether it is blocked or not, so she may have thought she was getting through to him and he was not answering.
Am I the only one who thinks your deception, while quite impressive, could potentially be the final blow to your relationship one day?
He was wrong. So were you.
What if he were to phone the woman?
I sympathize with your plight. We've all experienced having our worlds turned upside down. In that desperate state, many of us have thought of desperate steps to take, but usually not done them.
I don't mean to be critical. As others have said, I may well have done a similar thing myself if I had the ability.
I'm just afraid that things like this have a way of returning one day. And what happens then?
Blessings,
Bill
"Don't tell me the sky is the limit when there are footprints on the moon."
I don't know, I am afraid I would have to confess about my hand in the break up, and I can't ever do that. It seems so conniving. But then so does emailing your girlfriend while you are married.
We are talking about important things now, he seems to be making plans that involve our future. That was something he had quit doing. I would bring something up to do one day, and he would just sort of go hmmmmm. Not yeah, nea, or talk about it , just hmmmmm.
