I want to thank everyone for their comments, questions and support. Your questions have helped me to understand Doug’s affair a little better. I know it is hard to understand that even after a year I was not sure about all the dynamics of their relationship. We would have these questioning sessions and most of the time I really couldn’t grasp what he was saying because I was so emotionally upset. By seeing everything in black and white and little by little piecing together all the information I believe I have a pretty good picture of the affair.
For one, I would like to call Tanya a million inappropriate names but I am not going there. Secondly, I believe that Tanya had a totally different goal for their relationship than Doug. I know Doug had that “in love” feeling for her, I witnessed that first hand when I initially found out about the affair, but I believe he never intended to leave our marriage. Tanya on the other hand wanted my husband. It wasn’t just a passing fling, or a diversion from her unhappy marriage. She was ready to give up her marriage for a better prospect and I shutter to think about the lengths she went to achieve her goal. I know that when I found out about the affair, the man I knew for half my life was not that man at all, and I blame her for that. His thoughts, goals, reasoning was not of someone who was a devoted husband and father.
Maybe that is why I didn’t give up, I knew that eventually he would break free from her spell and come back to me, a place where he belongs and is truly happy.
Thanks again to all of you wonderful people!
Linda
23 replies to "Thank You!"
Hi Linda,
I have been asking Doug lots of questions and I’d like to ask you if you don’t mind.
I’m in the same position as you and am going round and round in circles getting the same old answers. I can’t believe anything he tells me cos of his previous lies.
Doug says his EA never got sexual. How do you KNOW he’s telling you the truth? I know for a fact that their texts were sexual. How do you know Doug’s weren’t which is what he claims? How do you know they didn’t actually have sex? Is it just what you choose to believe cos you can’t stand the alternative?
I hope that doesn’t sound nasty but HOW can we believe the words of someone who’s betrayed us so much?
I can’t believe two people would be so emotionally close and never mention sex!!
If she was trying to take him away from you and as Doug said got jealous over you and him, why didn’t she offer or at least lead him on with sex stuff? x
Ninny, I understand your need to know everything about the EA, I felt the same way. I felt that if I knew every detail, conversation, lunch date, etc. I would finally be able to understand his affair. I learned that I will never understand or accept it, and I was only driving myself crazy trying to do so. I finally had to decide if I really wanted to save my marriage, I had to put my energies into my relationship with Doug.
In the beginning I felt like I was giving in, being a doormat, however by not letting it go I was giving the affair and Tanya too much power. The constant questioning and talking about the affair made it seem a lot more special than it truly deserved. When it comes down to it, there nothing magical or special about the affair or the OW, I needed to put the focus back on our relationship and allow Doug to see me as the person he fell in love with many years ago.
I know that you deserve the whole truth, and to know every detail. However will it make any difference in your recovery? My recovery has been a long and difficult process and to say if I knew everything would it make a difference, I believe it wouldn’t. It is outrageous to think that it has been easier believing it wasn’t sexual, for me knowing that he told Tanya that he loved her was heartbreaking, finding out it was sexual would just be another layer of pain and betrayal. I have chosen to believe Doug because honestly I have no proof to the contrary. You may think I am in denial, honestly I believe I am just trying to survive this ugly mess and to save our marriage.
Hi Linda,
You are very brave being prepared to discuss your devastation with us strangers.
Yesterday my husband returned from a week away golfing.
We had a very erotic reunion in bed and everything was fab. We then sat sharing a bottle of wine and it all went bad again. I brought her up (can’t even remember the exact things I said). He ended up nearly strangling me (this has happened before when I quiz him about their relationship).
Instead of bringing us together when we do things like that, it is reminding me of her and the closeness they had. Then I voice it to my husband and he gets mad and we end up arguing.
We are two educated people with highly respectable jobs but I can not come to terms with what he’s done. I know I never will. If I could believe what he’s telling me I could MAYBE but he’s lied so much the trust has completely gone.
We do actually love each other to death but the stress of all this is gradually wearing away at our marriage.
Ninny, Why in the world would you bring up the affair when you were enjoying yourself together both passionately and emotionally? If you insist on bringing her up, I would suggest having better timing. Linda has done this to me a few times, and each time she regrets it and wishes she hadn’t. Maybe try to talk about it the next morning. Mention to him that you have these feelings and the reason why. Don’t waste the times when you can be rebuilding your relationship. Just my opinion.
Ninny, I understand bringing it up, even at the times when your trying to rebuild your marriage, I have done that also. Sometimes something just sends me a trigger and I have to say it no matter what. It’s very hard to hold your tongue in those situations. Maybe over time it will get easier to stop yourself and not bring it up when the timing is not right.
Doug, this is something I think you will never understand. It’s easy for you as the betrayer to say to stop yourself and wait till morning. That is a lot easier said than done. I think even in the happiest times of the marriage, the affair will always be lingering in the back of our minds, and to not say something is almost impossible.
Broken, I see your point, and perhaps you are right–I won’t understand it. On one hand I know (and totally agree) that you have questions, and need to know details, etc, and I have totally been available to answer all of Linda’s. However, don’t you think that if you want to rebuild your relationship and to give it the best fighting chance, that maybe you should bite your tongue during moments like that? It can do no good for the communication and only causes the betrayer to shut down and get pissed off. You’re in effect taking one step forward and 2 steps back. I’m looking at this only from the standpoint of saving your relationship and making it better and maybe saving both parties a little frustration and resentment.
As for your other question… I think I realized it, but when you’re involved in an EA you just don’t think or care about it because you’re living in the moment. It wasn’t so much that Linda found out as it was the talks about our relationship, family, etc that resulted from her finding out that finally knocked some sense into me.
Doug, your asking a betrayed spouse to be reasonable so that the marriage can have a chance, but you weren’t at all reasonable while you were having your affair. Just imagine that all those “good feelings” you were getting from Tanya and how that made you keep the affair going, well now imagine all the “bad feelings” we have that keeps us from being reasonable. The feelings I have are completely insane and horrible, and when push comes to shove, I can’t be reasonable. Just like I think the betrayer can’t be reasonable when the high of “infatuation” is in full effect.
Broken, I agree with you. All I’m saying is it would make communication and healing easier if it could be done. I know it’s easier said than done.
Doug… I’m sorry if I’m badgering you with all these questions and responding to you with an angry tone. I’m having a bad day and I guess I am using this website to vent. Either ways, thank you and Linda for creating such an awesome website.
Broken, You’re not badgering me at all. Gee I didn’t even realize you were using an angry tone until you just told me 😉 Sorry you’re having a bad day.
Broken.
You sound a betrayed spouse after my own heart. I can ‘hear’ in the tone of your posting that you feel EXACTLY like me.
Sorry, not having read any of your posts before, are you a wife or husband of an unfaithful spouse?
Ninny, I am a betrayed wife, my husband had an EA with his coworker. I found out about it almost a year ago. I read some of your posts and I had and still have the same questions you have. I know how you feel, and I also fear that sometimes my H’s EA turned sexual, although I have some “evidence” which shows otherwise. It’s a very stressful situation. The OW is single and is absolutely obsessed with my husband, it’s very scary. The OW has given me vibes that nothing happened… but I strongly feel that if something did happen the TRUTH will eventually come out, it always does. Nothing can be hidden forever.
Broken,
I found out 17th June 2008 and foolishly thought it would then stop as we seemed to be so back in love again as it brought me to my senses after I had been very unloving due to what I now think was the menopause.
I discovered more undeleted texts on 29th July (day before our 31st wedding anniv). One of hers said she felt guilty leading him on as they’d done ‘nothing’ YET!! At least this meant they’d not ahd sex. He replied ‘Don’t feel guilty, I told you I’d wait, it somehow makes it more exciting’.
He convinced me he had been a stupid old man and loved me more than anything etc. and was already trying to phase it out so after our cruise it would be business contact only with her. He said she ‘expected’ those sort of texts but he was bored with the whole thing as they both knew it was leading nowhere. Of course, he claimed his telling her he would wait was just part of ‘THE GAME’.
I begged and begged him to promise me he had no other phone as he was showing me all his itemised bills to ‘reassure’ me he no longer texted her.
Surprise, surprise on 1st April 2009 I discovered he had a secret pay as you go bought about 3 weeks after we returned from our cruise (he did not contact her during the holiday as his bill proved). He forwarded her a smutty joke from his proper phone to his secret one to then forward to her so her number wouldn’t appear on his proper bill. I checked his phone every night when he was in bed and thought it was strange to send such a joke to a number not in his contacts so I rang it next morning and guess who answered!!
As you may have read, i immediately phoned her at work and she was obviously scared stiff of what I would do as her husband was oblivious.
He was devastated that I knew yet again and was terrified of what I would do. He agreed to show me the bills from the start of their EA which he previously said he’d thrown away but I know he hoards stuff for years. No wonder he didn’t want me to see them, copious texts and long phone calls. He even gave me her address when I said I wanted it (he got that from the database at work).
The OW also said he had done this sort of thing before which made me look into something that happened in 2001 and have written about on here (buying a Tiffany heart pendant for another work colleague).
Anyway Broken I don’t know the depth of the texts on the secret phone or if it became sexual but I would hate to believe he could do that given our renewed red hot sex life and deep love. he swears he needed to keep in touch over serious work problems at her practice (different place to his) and texting was much easier.
I will never trust or believe him again after all the lies and deceit but love him too much to split up.
Every day she tortures me and is in my mind every waking moment. It’s a life sentence I can’t see me ever getting over.
Ninny, I found out about a year ago. It seemed that all contact with the OW stopped after I found out. I can tell from the emails I saw. I have access to his work account. She did not want to give it up however. And actually sometimes till this day, she tries to have “friendly work” conversations with him, he blows her off. From the emails that I saw and the emails she sent him, I can tell the EA did not turn sexual, but that my H did want it to be. He pursued her like a mad man. My H like yours also claims that this was just a GAME. That’s just an excuse to make me feel like he didn’t really want her or love her, and I know that. It’s very hard to move past the fact that my H wanted another woman. It crushed my heart.
I try to make the marriage work, but I don’t think I can move past this. Sometimes I want to leave so bad. I’m not sure what’s holding me here. I definitely don’t have the same feelings for him like I had before. I keep thinking I’ll wake up one day and feel better, that day has yet to come. I wish he never did this. Because it changed our relationship forever. Like you I think about the OW constantly and the conversations they had. I constantly compare myself to her. Which I know is stupid but I can’t help it. One thing I know for sure is that I wasn’t and still may not be enough for my H. Because if I was, he wouldn’t have done this. Affairs ruin your self esteem and crush your spirit. It changes everything about the way you view the world. How disgusting that someone who you love so much can change your life and personality for the worse. They take away all the things you hold dear to your heart… like trust and security. How can the person I gave my life to do the worst thing imaginable to me? It makes me feel like I can’t and shouldn’t trust anyone in this world.
Broken,
Its discouraging to hear how its been a year and this still weighs on you so heavily. Its only been a few months for me and I can’t imagine letting my feelings about what happened last that long. I hope I can do better for myself.
One thing I keep reminding myself is how much I love my wife. And that I can still love her. And that there is ways that I do trust her. Ways that I feel in my heart that today she doesn’t want to leave me. I know she doesn’t trust me or anyone with her heart right now, like she did with him.
But she is still here. And I get what I get from her. Even if its not what I need or want. I mean isn’t it just all of this that makes a marriage. I will give my wife all that I can. Security, warmth, a home, a father for our kids and if it ever happened, take a bullet or metaphorical bullet, for her.
Because I said I would and because she means that much to me. Who cares what her heart feels for him. Who cares what she told him and what she didn’t tell me. That wasn’t my end of the deal. That wasn’t what I pledged to her.
I know it all sounds good on paper and we all ask “what about what I need”. I still feel the same wants. The same needs. But I made a choice to uphold my end of the deal. And if she is still here. There is a chance that all my needs and wants will come to me.
He wasn’t there for the past eighteen years. While he was going though a few wives. I was holding her hair up while she was sick. Giving her two great kids. Changing diapers. Buying a house. Making love to her. Fighting with her. I WAS.
Not one of those memories can be changed by what has happened. I know he told her all the wonderful things he was going to be and do for her. But where was he. Where is he now. I wonder how he feels today? Probably not much different. Still selfish. Still needy. And still full of himself. Go have another beer for me W—. I still have my wife.
Michael… I know how discouraging my thoughts are. I feel like I should be getting better, because so much time has passed, but in actually I’ve been getting worse. I guess the initial shock wore off now and now I can logically sit and think about all the details of what happened. I wish I could offer some advice as to how to move past this, but I don’t have any. Your right about your W choosing to be with you and how that shows that your better than the OM. Sometimes I feel the same way and that gives me some consolation. That my H choose me over her. But it still hurts that he choose her over me, while involved in the EA. At one point in time, she was more important than me. It’s a tough road ahead, I hope that we can all move on somehow.
Something happened this weekend that I wanted to share with all of you.
My sister is a divorced mom. She has been dating a man ( and I use that word to describe his gender not his character ) for over half a year now. He has kids. And he is self centered and selfish personified. He is full of him self.
They have had fights. And have had some good times. And my sister is happy most of the time.
On mothers day at 1 on the morning he left her alone on the city streets in the nearby big city. Not a good place.
I understand from what she has told us that she has some blame for the fight. But here’s where I look and wonder. What kind of MAN would leave a woman on the streets and just go home. If she wanted to get out. Let her get out and stay nearby to make sure nothing happened to her. Make sure someone comes and gets her. Makes sure someone doesn’t attack her on the street.
May god have mercy on the soul of a man like that. Because I don’t and don’t think I ever will. This is unforgivable. And thais is unacceptable for any man to do. No matter what the circumstances. What kind of MAN would do this.
Michael, I agree with you 100%. Not a good thing to subject someone you supposedly love to possible physical harm like that. Unforgivable.
Broken,
I feel worse on so many days. That my wife trusted him with things that she wouldn’t trust me with in the last fourteen years, and to this day still doesn’t. But they she has a connection to that time in her past. And he reopened a lot of wounds in her heart.
I can hope that in time, with or without my help she will come to grips with those things again. Who am I to want her to bring me into those feelings. How could she look at me knowing I know those things. And now she has to relive them with me.
I can only do my part in making her life better now than it has been in the past. And I can’t do that if I drag these demons back to the surface all the time. But I want her to know that when the do surface that she has someone here to hold her and help her though it.
Hi Broken,
You say you read emails during the EA. Would you be able to reveal the type of things they told each other? Did they also communicate by other means such as texting/phoning and did you see any of these?
You are ‘lucky’ he stopped after your first discovery. My husband carrying it on while swearing undying love to me is what makes it impossible to get over.
Had you been reading his emails before you knew they were having an EA or is that what made you realise?
My husband telling her ‘he would wait’ sounds to me that he was ready to become physical but she was the one not ready to go that step further. It sounds like they had discussed the future and what they would be doing.
Like you it is becoming harder, not easier, every day. I feel he is not doing anything unfaithful any more but the hurt he’s already caused can not be wiped out. I am going over and over and over their texts and imagining what they said in the hundreds of ones I didn’t see.
I wish to god I’d rang her on day one but my husband threatened ‘I might regret it’. That’s probably so he could carry on with his sordid little ‘game’.
How long did your H’s EA last? Theirs lasted from about March to July 2008 but then he had the secret phone for another 8 months and as I said he swears that was for business only (mmmmm). I can’t understand if they so had the hots for each other why it hadn’t turned sexual by the July when I read her text saying they’d done ‘nothing yet’. Same with your H, what stopped theirs becoming physical?
Do you quiz your H all the time? I do and it’s getting more and more regular. He goes mad and says what different answers do I expect. I suppose I am trying to catch him out with details.
Do you feel you weren’t/aren’t enough for your H? As I said, I was very unloving due to the menopause and can in a way understand his need for love and attention and the ego boost off another woman. What hurts is him carrying on while swearing he’d made the biggest mistake of his life and loving me to bits.
I would dearly love to tell her H everything I know. Is your H’s OW married?
My H is nearly 58 and I’m 56 and the OW is probably about 38 now. I never thought I’d be facing this at my time of life. Are you much younger than us?
Yeah, it’s ruined my life and actually his too. We both lost 1-2 stones during last year and he looked like a whizzened little ill old man, certainly not some romeo womaniser.
I bet you’re just like me and think your own husband is different from all the other scumbags but truth is they are plain simple liars and cheats.
Ninny… I read emails after I found out about the EA. I was able to retrieve some of them, most emails were flirting and talking about how they felt for each other. He did have another account that he cancelled, and those emails I never saw and will never see. From what I could tell from the emails that I did see was that they liked each other and wanted to be together. The account that was deleted, may contain sexual emails, but that I will never see, so I don’t know. After I found out I confronted the OW, I basically told her to back off. She responded in such a way to tell me that nothing happened, but that in fact my husband did want it to turn sexual. I also saw emails and still see emails where she attempts to still communicate with my husband. She also hints at little things from the EA in those emails… like the fact that my H wanted it to be sexual and that he had feelings for her. The OW is not married, but single. We are younger than you and your husband. I found out by accidently picking up his phone one day and seeing an email she sent him. I had no idea that he was involved in an EA which lasted TWO YEARS.
Yes I still quiz my husband from time to time, repeatedly asking the same questions, I am to trying to figure everything out through the details, and he also gets mad saying that I should stop because his answers are not going to change, although sometimes they do!
I still feel that I am not enough for my H, obviously I am not, otherwise he wouldn’t need another woman to fulfill that emotional need. I did at one time believe that my H was different from other men, I no longer feel this way, I have my guard up now. I think he is like the rest of them. I will never fully trust him like before, and I will be ready if this happens again, except next time I will just walk out, without quizzing him or giving him a chance to explain. I hope I answered all your questions, if not… ask away! LOL
I found this website and was reading everybody’s comments. My H had EA 2 years ago, and I still find my self always wondering. I go through spells, when I think everything is ok, but every once in a while I find my self snooping because he acted weird or I am just paranoid.
I think he EA was a year in the making. Well according to the phone records, but I am sure it started before then, since he worked with her at the time. Luckily he lost his job (how many people get happy when their spouse loses their job) but I did because I knew that would make things easier for all. Recently I found where he was searching for her on Facebook. This just brought all those old feelings rushing back.
We have been together a long time, we have a child, I love him and I know he love’s me. Just when I think I can get past this, I get a blow like this. I caught him before because he was acting weird I knew something was up, so I started snooping, and in the span of a couple of hours, I had it all figured out. Thanks to phone records and old emails. And once I confronted him about he kept denying it saying they were just friends, I actually sent him an article on EA then he realized what he was doing was wrong.
I think he knew anyway or he wouldn’t have been sneaking. I just feel like I am on a roller coaster ride again after finding that he searched her name. Sorry for the ramblings, I have just kept this so bottled up, for so long. I have never told anyone. And I have not said anything to him about what I found. Because I may be making a bigger deal than I should. I just know how it makes me feel and I feel horrible!!!
Hi Ruth and thanks for commenting. Linda has the same type feelings as you do at various times. It could be something very obscure and simple that can set her off and make her wonder if something is still going on. It’s natural. Don’t beat yourself up about it. It’s also natural to want to know the truth and to want to snoop, though it may be beneficial in your case to try not to (snoop), and instead put your energies into strengthening your relationship to the point where he won’t want to or feel the need to stray.