Torn.....What to do

by Hopper
(Canada)

I found out from an anonymous phone call back in November 2008 that my wife of 10 years was having an affair on me.

At first I couldn't believe it. I am a very attractive, physically fit guy. I take care of myself and have always known my wife was/is attracted to me.

Our sex life has always been good and the sexual part of our relationship never faultered over the span of the affair.

She used to work a part time job waitressing on friday nights for some extra dough for family vacations and such(we have two children as well, 8 and 4).

I was heading out of town that day for the weekend with buddies after we had planned a football road trip for five months. What was a day I was most excited for for such a long time quickly became the worst day of my entire life.

The affair started in July when phone numbers were exchanged and conversations took place via calls and texts and some emails.

My wife took the first three weeks of August off her friday job due to a surgery she had. The first friday she went back he went to see her and conviently had a condo he was renovating he wanted her to see after her shift.

He also conviently had an air mattress in this condo. This guy is married as well with three kids of his own and apparantly was quite unhappy in his marriage.

The sex began that friday and happened for the next four weeks. Finally, after that time my wife told him she couldn't do it any more and ended it.

He continued to call/text her wondering mainly if I had been told yet as she told him she was going to tell me.

In the end she just couldn't bring herself to tell me before the phone call I received at work happened.

When confronted my wife told me everything even though a lot of it was hard to tell me. My first reaction was we were done, no if ands or buts,.......finished.


Here's where things get hard for me. I have abused my wife in the past. I have hurt her physiclly and emotionally when I used to drink, which I don't anymore, have quit for over a year now, best decision of my life too.

Five or six times it got physical. We would not communicate in our relationship. If something bothered us we wouldn't discuss it, it would fester and then blow up at the worst possible time.

My wife has always loved me, this I know. Unfortunately, I'm a hard shelled person who didn't think I needed love all that much, had been burned before and wouldn't let it happen again.

I have been absolutely destroyed inside by this, now, more than ever in the last 10 years I know how much I love my wife. She is my whole world, I love her with everything.

She forgave me all those times and though they are different wrongs, they both hurt us deeply. I mistreated her and destroyed her faith and trust in me that I would NEVER hurt her.


We are going to counseling and I have not left and neither has she. We are working hard to grow close together.

The day I came home from my trip in November we were intimate for 19 or 20 days straight, sometimes two or three times a day.

There were days we made excuses at work to run home and be together. We've gone on trips togeteher trying to build new, happy memories and bury the past.

My heart still aches through all of these efforts. The thought of her intimate with another person and/or pouring her heart out to what was basically a stranger instead of me kills me.

Some days I feel so much hate still, it's subsided a lot compared to what I felt in the beginning.

Everyday though I love her so much, miss her when I'm at work. All I want to do is hold her and kiss her when I see her.

Part of me so sorry for the pain I caused HER in the past which now I've finally faced and am sick that I could do that.

The other part of me is so scared. Can I trust her forever? Can I give her my heart in her hands again, whole, to take care of until we grow old together?

There are days I still feel like leaving but I can't imagine living my life without her beautiful(and she is a very, very beautiful woman)face to look at everyday. Her laugh, smiles and craziness would be never replaced of that I am sure!!

I'm torn, what do I do?