“Let me understand this. You had an affair.”
“Yes.”
“You went to a hotel?”
“Yes. She made all of the arrangements.”
“You went to a hotel to meet another woman.”
“Yes.”
“You went to a room and took your clothes off in front of another woman and made love.”
“Yes.”
“Where did this happen?”
He told me how they met in another city an hour from here.
“You got in the car and drove an hour to meet her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you think of me?”
I honestly don’t remember how he answered that question. The truth is, it didn’t really matter. What mattered is that my husband, who never even notices when other women are flirting with him, did something completely out of character. He left me and his life behind and drove an hour to meet his Lost Love whom he discovered on Facebook. He had an hour to stop, turn around and come home, but he did not. He was compelled to drive at 65MPH on the interstate for an hour to meet his Lost Love in another city, the same Lost Love, by the way, whom he had criticized for being self-centered, who had cut him loose, broken his heart and rubbed his nose in it so many years ago.
Why in the world would he do this?
After His Affair 
The father of my son cheated (actually turns out he was leading a double life). I tried to forgive him several times to try and keep our family together but he never changed, seemed remorseful and when I would not tolerate the lies and continued relationship with the woman he cheated with he ran back to her. I’m OK with that because I know I do not want to be in a relationship with him. The hard part for me is that my son is only 2 years old and he spends half of his time with his dad and the other woman. They have taught him to call her mommy, he sleeps in their bed. It seems he spends much of his time with her, not his dad. It just hurts and I am really having a hard time letting go of half of my sons life, especially knowing the other half is with them. How do I get through this? Every time we exchange it hurts. The stories of their family vacations hurt. Every time he says her name, it hurts. I don’t want to be with him at all, it isn’t that, it’s losing the time with my son and my dream of family. I want to move on and be happy, just haven’t been able to ‘not care’ and be triggered constantly back to all of the pain of his infidelity & lies when it is constantly thrown in my face. I would love to hear how other women have dealt with the other woman raising her kids.
Christy, I am so sorry for your pain and frustration. I will post your letter on its own page and see what I can find.
Lyn
and I want the answer to the last question? why didn’t he think of you? what made him drove over there? even if there were problems in your marriage How could sleeping with another woman was going to solve it?
Because this why is missing in almost all the blogs I read. If there is a post in which he writes why he had this affair, please send me the link.
I want to know why he was continously having the affair and then trying to stop her lovers husband to tell you. It clearly means he was in full senses and is sorry that he got caught…They are involved head over heels in the affair and then beg to come back?
He shredded her papers her husband sent to prevent from upsetting you? didn’t he think of you when he was sending those letters? The truth is he just wanted to save himself and wouldn’t have stopped if he was not caught.
I would really like the post in which a wayward spouse describes what goes on in his mind in that hour long drive and what he thinks when he checks in, takes off his clothes and the drive back?
How does he feel when he bids goodbye to his wife when inside he knows he is going to sleep with another woman?
because when you are capable of doing all this all the begging for forgiveness seems only superficial and has no meaning because its just guilt for getting caught.
Daphne,
Thank you for writing. I apologize for the delay in answering, but have been having internet problems in addition to going on vacation.
We had some very confrontive moments on this topic. Why didn’t he think of me? He said he did think of me and was conflicted…but went anyway. This, of course, enraged me…how dare he?
These questions you post tormented me, and no answer he gave was good enough. Why would it be? You can’t spin betrayal into anything else.
After having countless conversations around these questions, it came down to this: having your cake and eating it, too. Selfish and greedy. The thing which blows my mind in researching the topic is that the bottom line has been said to be this: men have or don’t have affairs largely based on opportunity.
This has completely changed the way that I view men. I used to think that people leaned towards doing the right thing. I now feel that only people who are committed to their principles and aware of their weaknesses have a decent chance of avoiding temptation. It amazes me how many women think that it is impossible that their husbands would ever cheat…I was basically, one of these women, but it wasn’t something I spoke of, I simply felt secure in our love for one anther. Every marriage has rough spots and we had weathered a couple, so…why was this tension different?
My husband was one of those men who thought he would never cheat. This is a mistake that Peggy Vaughan and her husband write of. If a man sets himself up to think he is too good to cheat, then he will not be diligent to avoid situations in which it could happen. In my husband’s words,
“I thought I could handle it,” when he contacted his high school love and kept it a secret from me. My thing was, how could you ever think I would be okay with that? He knew I would not be and he also knew what I would say, but, he went ahead and did it, anyway. Self-centered, egotistical decision. This point right HERE, where it began, was a source of torment for me. He knew AND HE DID IT, ANYWAY…which, or me, boils down to this:
If he loves me, he didn’t love me enough not to do it…not to honor my wishes. His response to this was a halting, “I am sorry to say that although I don’t feel that is true, my behavior condemns me.”
You bet it does.
The up side of this is that his making a decision while ignoring my wishes had long been a problem for me and probably the main trip in our relationship. It was something which infuriated me…who did he think he was? Was he “in charge?” What the hell?
Let me say this: after this major, blatant demonstration of doing exactly what he wanted to do regardless of my feelings, things have dramatically changed. Unfortunate that it took this monsterous mess to bring his ego/arrogance/whatever you want to call it, down, but, it did. So far, so good. It’s now coming up on 4 years since the affair came to light and I am still taken aback at how good things are.
Clearly, the cooperation of the offending party is key in recovery…secondly, I like to believe a major part is how I refused to let him intimidate me and leaned very hard on him when I needed to. I tried and sometimes, succeeded, in remaining cold and calm as I said what I thought, and those moments seemed to be key turning points. The more emotional one of us in a marriage gets, the easier it is for the other to dismiss what is being said as “hysterics.” I wasn’t going to have any of that.
So, I punished him with bringing up the obvious contradictions and holding his feet to the fire. I suffered enough that both of us thought I was never going to recover.
Did I answer all of your questions? I didn’t ask my husband to do this because he is stretched to the limit, just now, with his work.
Bless,
Lyn