Focus on the Family Community : All Content - Relationships and Marriage

Stunned and Lost. Multiple Affairs over many years...

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 21:35:48 GMT

So often in society we hear of the man having multiple affairs...Here is my story.

My wife and I have been happily (or so I thought) married for 24 years.Children are almost ready to move away.

A few weeks ago as a result of the other spouse discovering her husbands affair, my wife admitted to me that she had been unfaithful. She has claimed she is sorry and truly regrets what has happened. She has gone so far as to say she was glad they were caught as she felt trapped in the affair and didn't know how to end it.(All the while continuing it...) Within a day we agreed to see a counselor. It was a quick initial visit, but I told her I needed to know EVERYTHING if we were to deal with and save our relationship. At the time she promised she had given me all the details.

The next day I found out the relationship had gone on longer then she had said it did. Almost a year instead of 5 months. Shock, pain, humiliation, revulsion, sadness...Everyone here reading these forums knows the feelings. We went to a permanent counselor the following week and began our sessions. There I told her face to face, in front of God and the counselor that she couldn't lie to me anymore. My heart was crushed but I could see a time that I could forgive her for what she'd done. With tears she promised she would be truthful.

The week went by... a second, a breath, a minute, an hour, a day at a time. I've been crying to God asking him to get us through this pain. We met with the counselor again, and again I said you must be totally committed to this, you must come clean. She vowed there was nothing else. Last week she called me at work and said she had to tell me more. I dropped everything and went home. It wasn't just one affair she said, there were 2 more. She had wrestled with telling me, knowing what damage it would do. One affair started the day before our wedding and continued off and on for the next 23 years. (As if it makes a difference, she said there was a 12 year break in the middle...) Affair number 2 happened years ago when the kids were small and it lasted 2 months...I couldn't breathe, I couldn't see. I walked out...As a faithful man, God got ahold of me and I came back home that night...why, I wonder at times...

At dawn the next morning she blurts out. "I got pregnant and had an abortion from the second affair............"

It's been 3 days and she has vowed that she's now bared her soul to me and God and there's nothing else left...

Today I sit, scheduled to see the counselor again this week. I've read where Job never lost faith in God through his trials. I always wondered what it would be like to have your heart blasted clean of all emotion, laid open to God, now my wonder has come to fruition. I never in my 24 years of marriage have questioned my faith. The last year I've had a struggle with God's silence in my life, now I wonder if he was somehow preparing me for what lay ahead. I don't blame him for what has happened, but I need to know why it has happened.

My wife has come to me, absolute terror in her eyes of what she's done to me. She's been physically sick the last few weeks, not eating. She's said that she needs to go to counseling to figure out why she has done what she's done. She's willing to let me have access to everything she does... I thought I knew her these last 24 years but I didn't. Yet, I can see her regret at the pain that she's caused.

I promised the counselor at the start of this that I would give it 90 days before I filed for divorce. Little did I know what was in store for me...

The world says simply...leave her NOW. Once a cheater always a cheater. Get on with your life. You'll be the loser if you stay....

But I'm not of this world, I need something, someone to tell me what and why and how... I imagine the destruction our divorce would cause, not just us, but our children, our relatives, our friends...God.

I just need to take the proper path.

Thank God for this site it feels better to know there (unfortunately) are others going through the same thing

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:46:19 GMT

my husband left me and our 2 kids about 2 months ago. He said he lost love for me and told me to find another place to live. The song from i believe toby mac that has this in it Saw it coming but it hit you out of nowhere sums it up. i have gone through such a rollercoaster ride of emotions, anger, being scared, more like petrified. i still have the not so great days but now i have a peace, people think im crazy when i tell them how the peace is from God. especially my parents that we no wlive with who dont care much for my belief in God. I am thankful for my friends from church cause they are trying to to talk to me about how to handle the hard times and to follow God and knowing He has this and it will be okay. but there is something about being able to talk to people who have been or are in the same situation so please pray for us and please i would love to be able to talk to some people. God bless you all and thanks and im praying for you all. + <3

My husband wants a divorce, its all my fault!

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 22:26:50 GMT

I have been married for 3 years but with my husband for almost 10 years. I have made many mistakes and now he wants out and I am heart broken. I grew up in a phhysically abusive home and have let it into my marriage. When I have been angry I have hit and cursed at him. Not to excuse my mistakes but that is not something that is current but something from about 7 months ago. Mainly because I have tried to change my ways. I am so heart broken over what I have done to my family and wish that I could take it back but I guess I can't. Is there anyone out there that can encourage me or atleast understand me. I am not proud of myself I am actually trying to even care about living. Please pray for me.

Husband assault charges, What do I need to do now?

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:11:39 GMT

My husband and I have been struggling with our marriage for a few months now. But it is much more serious now. A couple of nights ago he was intoxicated and hit me when I would not "cuddle" with him. He also shoved me in our bedroom right after I told him I didn't want him to sleep next to me because he hit me. After all of this he went to sleep on the couch. So I went to my parents house (with our daughter, she is 7 months old) and I called the police, but it had been 3-4 hours since it occured. The officer came and took pictures and a voluntary statement from me. When the officer went to our place to see my husband he said there appeared to be scratches all over his body. He wanted to know if I did that intentionally. It was in self defense, I don't know what was said but apparently my husband told the officer I was hitting him.

It ended up that my husband was arrested and brought to the county detention center (jail) and he is being charged. I did not choose to press charges, it is something they legally (the county) have to do to protect the victim and family. At this point I do not know what to do/say because I won't know anything about his charges and fines until after the hearing tomorrow. I am very nervous and anxious to hear what the judge says.

This is a very situational occurance and he has never been to jail. I am not justifying this by any means. I am just trying to say my husband is not the type of person to be found in jail or in any serious trouble. So I do want to be able to talk to him, when the county allows that, if he is willing to talk to me. The problem is, I don't know what he is feeling and thinking about all of this. I really want to go to marriage counseling with my husband or alone and try to work things out. For now I can only hope and pray that he feels the same way. I have been praying for the Lord to soften our hearts and to guide me through this.

Please pray for our family and the healing of our marriage. Thank you

Infidelity in a marriage which resulted in a baby,Do I stay or go?????????????

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 14:18:25 GMT

My husband and I have been married for 12 years. We are Christians. He strayed away from God because of a sexual addition. and recently admitted that he has been having an affair(sexual encounters) with a woman for 10 years! As a result a baby was recently born. As you can imagine this is a shock and a rollercoater of emotions has been happening. We both have been before God crying,fasting and praying. He wants to hold the marriage together by any means necessary. We have two children and that is a major component. I am praying that God deals with my heart. I do love my husband and know I must forgive. This is the law of God. However, I don't know if this is a burden that I am willing to carry because of his stupidity and disregard for the possible consequences. I am lost and could use prayer and advise!!!!!!!!!!!

Is this marriage worth saving

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 02:40:16 GMT

I posted an article last week regarding my husband. We are currently separated and he has no intentions of working on our marrige. He has done so many horrible things to destroy our marriage; pornography, affairs, verbal and physical abuse. He is also mentally ill. I think bibically I have enough reasons for a divorce. Can anyone attest to that? This has being the most difficult journey of my life. I am so drained emotionally just thinking about it. One of the reasons I'm scared to proceed with the divorce is because I know he is going to harass me and enlist other people to do so as well. I am so crushed inside because I have an autistic child who takes up alot of my time and I have to deal with this. I feel as though this is more than I can bare.

Here is my problem

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:08:11 GMT

My name is Ronda and I am new here but I have a concern with my family and it is really bothering me. So here it goes. My husband and I were both married to other people before and his wife left him and my ex husband abused me. Niether one of us have kds of our own but both had step kids. I do not have any conntact with my former step kids except I get a email every now and again but my husband's former step kids are in his life in fact one lives with us. He is 22 and is working on getting his GED he has no job and he really does nothing all day! It is really making me angry I fell like we are trying to have our own family and this is getting in the way. He gets a samll check since he is disabled mentaly. he lived with us for a while and it worked out real well for a while then he went to vist his sister and did not come back for three months now he is a total diffrent person and not for the good. I have tried to discus this with my husband and he never wants to talk about it. We are just starting the process of doing the froster care to adopt program and I feel Like we need to concertrate on us. I just do not know what to do. I am triyng to change me by dealing with my issues and my hime and marriage and I feel like I am doing everything and they are not doing anything. My husband beleives in God but does not like church and hates the music and to have to give up his bad habbits no way this boy is the same way. any advice would be wonderful.

Thank you

Ronda

Desperately needing advice on emotional affair

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:50:24 GMT

About a month after our first wedding anniversary I found out my husband had placed his profile on several dating sites. His profile read that he was looking for someone to share his life with and he was getting over a bitter seperation or divorce. When I confronted him about the issue he got really angry with me and wanted to know how I found out. I had asked a few weeks before whose name he had written down on a piece of paper he said it was a old friend from his trucking days. I found out this so called friend was not who he said it was, it was a girl on one of the dating sites he was on. The pain I felt that day was like someone reached in and ripped my heart out. We met with the pastor who married us and when he was asked why; he put the blame on me for my being to controling and not letting him do anything when he wanted to do stuff. At the time I was working two jobs with close to 60 hours a week trying to pay the bills, this was putting a strain on my health. I ended up in the hospital meeting with a crisis counselor and for several syncopal episodes.

My husband was not able to find a job due to the economy and health issues that came up during the first few months of marriage. My only issue was I felt he was not spending enough time with me and more time at his parents, friends and ambulance calls. I am an EMT and he is a ambulance driver, it was thru our respective volunteer fire companies that we met and was married a year and half later. Before the wedding he tried to tell me that we had to postpone the wedding because of money issues and even since we have been married he feels we would have been better off not getting married because of him not having a job. I was very understanding about him not having a job and the issue of not being able to find a job. I was looking for a fulltime job, beacuse I had went down to on part time job that consisted of me staying away during the week due to only having one vechile. We was seeing the pastor every couple weeks and during this time period my husband said he would take the profiles down. A later times I would find he had been back on the profiles, so in Nov of 2009 I got him a facebook account so he could talk to his friends and me online. After a upsetting conversation with the pastor, we decided that we needed to not go back for a little while. He left for Tennessee for a trucking job, after seeing the doctor on the job there he was advised he was not in the physical condition and sent back home. This was another blow to his pride; he told me he felt like he could not do nothing right, that no one believed in him, and that he was not able to be a husband to me. Christmas passed and the new year rolled around things was seening to get better, but in truth it was not getting any better.

I was already struggling at my work with a co-worker and also with my mother when I was staying down to got to work during the week. At home I just wanted to be able to spend time with him, but it seemed like if his dad or anyone else called he would go running to assist them leaving me in the dust. This was wearing on me and making me more upset that I did not know what to do anymore; I was questioning staying in the marriage and even God. I decided to try to spend my sunday mornings trying to get myself out of bed leaving my sleeping husband behind with the hopes of seeing him after I got back from church. I found a wonderful support from ladies in the church and I met another lady my age with some of the same issues from our backgrounds. I come from a very abusive home, my mother was verbally and sometimes physical to my dad and myself. My little sister escaped most of the abuse, due to her health issues. At the age of 13, I was sexually molested by a classmate for 2 years at a small private christian school. Even at the tender age of 15 I choice to wait for marriage, even though it was going to be a struggle for me. It was from this background that I came to a point that my heart was led to helping young girls thru life's issues. In Feb of this year I gave my testimony of my past at a ladies retreat, it was so freeing to tell someone else. My husband has told me I still need to talk to a counselor, the counselor I had before the place closed advised me that being a speaker would be one of the best things for me to do on this issue. We started going to a local pastor who is a professional counselor in our local area. The pastor advised us we need to work on communication, and gave us a assignment of one date a week. I have tried to set up the dates and let my husband set up the date nights but it seems something kust does not work out right.

In late april of this year I was able to find a fulltime job as an EMT, within a month of finding the job we was able to get a place in the lower income housing to help out on the cost of rent and housing. It was around this time period that a "old friend" came back into his life, this woman wanted to meet me. I was just not very sure of this issue, due to my husband carried an old photo of her in his wallet. My husband chose to talk to her more and I met her one day. She seemed nice at first, but after a little while her sarcasm and comments wore on me. One night she asked my husband to go out to the bar with her for her birthday, they called me and told me what was going on since I was at work. When time came for my husband to come pick me up, he was not there. I was very upset when they showed up, finally. A second time while I was away at work she decided to call him to go out to the movies with her, I happened to call to say goodnight to him and the phone call was cut short. The conversations I have had with her over time, she tells me that he has talked to her and told how much he loves me, and that he does not know why I do the things I do. I had chosen to walk away from her, because she upset me with her comments. When I told my husband that I felt the friendship needed to be stopped, he grew very angry with me saying he is not giving any of his friends up at all. The other day I tried to talk to him after having a long talk with my pastors wife about things. He tells me do I ever do anything right in your eyes, am I not doing enough trying to keep things going.

Very recently he was hired by an temp agency, so he has been working over 40 hours a week. Health issues still hit us, more him than I. Every wens evening he comes down to pick me up from work and hangs out at my work till I am done. A situtation came up at work where a male co-worker commented about my husband's attitude and asked me if my husband was having an affair. My husband overheard me talking to a church friend about the situtation and was very upset the question was asked and said no he was not having an affair.

I am emotionally exhausted and broken, I do not know how to communicate to him, I am trying to keep working and being at home only two-three days at a time. Because of my job involving working on weekends, I am unable to make it to church. This is something I hate so much and I feel I am getting lost without that time. I have been blessed with a part time job that does not take up as much time and will help with the bills. Thru that job I have been blessed to have a support group of ladies to call or go, too. I want to heal our marriage and I know deep down our Lord and Saviour can do that.

Confused about my feelings of love toward my husband

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:55:29 GMT

I might be making mountains out of mole hills but I believe that I am following out of love with my husband. We have been married 7 years and dated 5 years before that. During any of my past boyfriend relationships, I have gotten these feelings that he was not the one for me. These feelings were "thoughts of dating other guys", "not being tied down to just one guy", and being able to do anything I want, when I want. So now that I am married, I am getting some of these feelings again. I love my husband but I dont think I am "in love" with him anymore. Last year, I kinda got these feelings but felt it was because he was not showing me any love the way that I wanted to be loved. I was going to have major surgery, and I felt he was just going to be there at the hospital in body form. I was proven wrong. Since then, I have looked at him like a I could just eat him up. I loved him sooooo much. Now in just a flick of a light switch, my love has changed. I am basing everything on my past boyfriends and knowing how my feelings are. I want to be soooooo wrong,and I want God to show me that I am making a mountain out of a molehill but deep down I don't think so. My mother always said that these feelings will either get worse or better. I feel that they are getting worse. I am afraid that we will separate and then divorce. I have not read anything that lets me think that I can change my feelings or that these feelings are coming from something lacking in my marriage. I know that I am either going to get tired of dealing with these stupid feelings and divorce or I will get used to them for them to be even worse the next time. I don't want to loose my husband over something stupid. I am so confused!!

Need Prayer for Marriage

community@focusonlinecommunities.com — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:20:31 GMT

Hi. This is my first time posting a thread, although I have been thinking about it for a while. However, I feel like I am in a battle, and somedays (like today), I feel myself being pulled into the trenches, I know that I am need of the prayer of others to help pull me out. My husband and I are in counseling, and we really just started a few months ago. The counselor told us right from the get-go that marriage counseling can be a very long process, and boy, that was an understatement. In some ways, I feel like we have gone backwards. Neither my husband nor I were prepared for the challenges of marriage. Both of his parents have been married and divorced several times, and quite honestly, I just don't think I understood what it meant to be a wife. Although I have always considered myself a christian, I have only, in the last two years, begun to understand what it meant to walk with the Lord. My husband had a very difficult childhood. Through our counseling sessions, my eyes were really opened to the depth of his pain. He was raised by his dad and told often that his mother had left him. He did not have a good relationship with his mother growing up, and in general, it was not a healthy situation for a kid. I don't want to sound like I am putting this off on my husband, because I certainly have my own issues. However, through my walk with the Lord, my eyes have been open to some of the ways that I have failed in my marriage, and what I need to work on.

The problem that we are having right now, and have been having for a while, is that my husband has completely shut down. He speaks to me with utter contempt. He can't even look at me. Despite my efforts to be positive, when I try to talk to him and his body language seems as if he hates me, and I just end up breaking down and crying. I wish that I could be stronger. It seems as if he has built these huge walls around himself now, and no one, lest of all me, is going to be able to get through them. We have another counseling session tonight, so I am praying for some help and direction from her, and I have not stopped praying to God for help, strength, comfort, direction, etc. The reason why I am writing this is because I know that my husband is not my source of peace, and I know that he will never fill the void in my heart. But, how do I keep from letting my sadness, my hurt eat me up? That is why I would appreciate some prayers. Also, although he goes to church, I don't know if he is saved. This must sound strange because he is my husband and I should know this. But, anytime I broach the subject, he gets angry, and changes the subject. So, I also pray that he will open up his heart to God's peace.

Thank you for your prayers.