Exposing the truth

March 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently came across an article on www.oprah.com entitled “Facts You Didn’t Know About Cheating.” 

You can find it at http://www.oprah.com/own-unfaithful/blogs/Facts-About-Cheating?FB=fb_unfaithful_030312_1

It says…

Infidelity and Divorce:

  • 69% of marriages don’t survive an affair.
  • Studies suggest that only 31% of marriages make it through infidelity.
  • 80% of couples who get divorced after an affair regret the decision.
  • 17% of divorces in the United States are caused by infidelity.
  • Research suggests that 56% of divorces are caused by an obsession with pornography.
  • Weight loss surgery patients have an 85% greater chance of divorcing their spouse.
  • Studies suggest that 75% of married couples with special needs children get divorced.

Men. Vs. Women

  • Recent studies suggest that there is infidelity in 8 out of 10 marriages in the United States.
  • 68% of women in the United States say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught.
  • 74% of men say they would have an affair if they knew they would never get caught.
  • 54% of married men do not know that their wives are involved in extramarital affairs.
  • Studies suggest that 70% of married women do not know their husbands are having an affair.
  • 14% of married women in the United States admit to having had an affair.

Cheating Types and Results:

  • 44% of married men cheat because they feel they are not having enough sex in their marriage.
  • 40% of married med who have an affair use an escort service.
  • 64% of adults believe that sexting can be an act of infidelity.
  • Research suggests that almost three percent of all children are the product of infidelity.
  • Studies show that 75% of relationships which start out as affairs end in failure

“There is infidelity in 8 out of 10 marriages in theUnited States.” What I find interesting is how common cheating is, but yet, how unaware many people are about it. I guess as little kids we are taught to dream of the white picket fence and 2.2 kids, but the reality is not even close to this. 

I used to think marriage should be ‘easy.’ Meaning, you and your partner should just fit well together without putting in a lot of effort.  Since the affair, the hubby and I share a different opinion on this.  Marriage is difficult, and needs a lot of work and constant attention and nurturing in order to survive.  Pre-affair, we got along great. No one would ever suspect any problems. Even after disclosure, we still had many moments where we could hold a conversation or be in the same room without anyone suspecting we were on the brink of ending our marriage.

We also chose not to tell most of our family and friends immediately.  So for over a year a lot of the people that knew us well, didn’t suspect a thing. And after we started telling people about what was going on, needless to say there were a lot of surprised looks.

We had both decided long before we started telling our family and friends about the affair and other child, that if we came across anyone that was angry or disagreed with how we chose to handle things that we would (depending on who they were) just write them out of our lives. We just didn’t think that having the negativity around us would be good for us or the kids in the long run. And really, what we decided to do wasn’t really anyone else’s business. You can judge all you want, but until your in the same situation, you have no idea how you would handle it.

So we went into it expecting a lot of backlash from others (mostly friends), but surprisingly enough, majority of people we knew were very understanding and happy we stayed together. We did have a negative experience with one wife of a friend. While at her wedding, she got drunk and decided to tell off the hubby.  At her own wedding! Sad isn’t it? Firstly, how could the hubby defend himself? He’d look like a complete jerk yelling at the bride! (I had to leave early to go home and nurse the baby or I would have b***h slapped her). Secondly, its your wedding.  Is this really what you want to focus on, on your wedding day?  Its not like she was a close friend of mine, we barely knew each other, so she wasn’t really doing this for my benefit. We just figured she’s a bit of a mouth piece and felt the need to offer her opinion on our lives, and so we did what any normal, rational person would do when someone pisses you off.  We deleted her as a friend on facebook.  

My point is, it was a major turning point to open our world up to our friends and family. It took alot of discussion, preparation and wine. But after we did it, it went much easier than we could have ever expected.

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More details please!

February 28, 2012 By 1 Comment

Thinking back, when I found out about the affair, one of the first things I did was google it. I came up with some sites about affairs and cheating, but almost nothing about an affair where the other woman had become pregnant.

So I think I should go into a bit more detail about the disclosure of the affair and the other child, since at that time I wished there was more information available to me.

Here goes…My husband called me one afternoon while I was on my way home from work. The first thing he said was “I need to tell you something.”  If you’ve ever had that feeling of dread, and a premonition that something bad was going to happen, that’s exactly how I felt. I responded with, “What did you do?” And that’s when he told me he had slept with someone else and that she was pregnant.

It felt like I had been punched in the stomach and couldn’t breathe. I immediately started screaming at him into the phone.  I was crying and hysterical.  All he did was listen. He was on his way home too, as he had expected that this was not going to be a short conversation. 

We met at home and the fight (physical and verbal) lasted that afternoon, night and continued on for the week. I guess it wasnt really a fight, it was more or less just me doing the yelling and him taking it.  I kicked him out that very night, but there were still lots of phone calls, texts and emails.  He went to stay with his parents.

His story was that he had made a big mistake, and he had tried to end it. However, every time he tried to end it, she threatened to “tell your wife” and at one point threatened suicide. I’d like to point out here, as I mentioned in my earlier post “My take on the Other Woman,” that this is a good example of an “other woman”.  She’s so desperate to keep a man, that for some reason she feels that blackmail is the solid foundation upon which all good relationships are made.  Crazy? Most likely.

Oh,  I forgot to mention, when I met my husband in our driveway, she was there too! What balls! Apparently the hubby had told her just before, that he was going to tell me everything, and she felt the need to be there for this.  

Looking back, Warren and I both agree that the only reason she felt the need to be there was because, although, the voices in her head were telling her she was in a ‘real committed relationship’ and that he would never leave her, some small part of her probably didn’t feel as confident as those voices (probably the part that told her HE WAS ALREADY MARRIED), and she most likely thought that if she was present, he would just look at her, and he’d hear the birds chirping and envision the two of them frolicking away with the wind in their hair.

As soon as I saw her I told her in very graphic detail what she could do with herself. For awhile she refused to leave, but finally gave in and left.  However, right after she drove away she called my husband (he didn’t answer) and continued to call him right up until the late night hours, until he finally shut off his phone.

So as the story goes, the hubby spent about a week at his parents, only coming home to change clothes, etc. And in the meantime continued to try to win me back in every way he thought possible. After a couple of weeks he said he was moving back into the guest room, since this was his house too, and he paid for ½ the mortgage. Obviously, this was also his way to also get closer to me and continue to try to beg for forgiveness.

Between the affair and the “other child”, the ‘other child’ was probably a bit more of a struggle to deal with. Initially I wanted nothing to do with the child. He was only a reminder of the pain my husband caused. We knew she had gotten pregnant intentionally to try to maintain the relationship because it had gotten to the point where he was doing everything he could to end the affair. Once again, perfect example of the ‘other woman.’  Desperate? Yes. A bit crazy? Most likely. 

But once we started counselling, I learned how to deal with both the affair and the other child. We dealt first with the affair, and once we were in a better place with each other, accepting the other child into our lives became much easier.

Moral of the story…stay away from crazies.

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My Crazy Life

January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If your reading this, you probably already read the “About me”, so you have a basic understanding of my background. Im not going to spend a lot of time discussing the disclosure of the affair, other than to say that when I did find out, I made my husband suffer for a very long time, physically and emotionally. You would be surprised at how much pain you can inflict with just simple household objects.  =) 

Needless to say, the first year after disclosure was the roughest for both of us. Originally my plan was to get my pregnant butt up and leave.  But being pregnant, as some of you might know, makes it tougher to get anything done, let alone, change my entire life. So at that time, my decision was to wait until I was no longer pregnant and then make my move.

However, during that time, my soon to be ex-husband and baby daddy, would not leave me alone. After numerous attempts to kick him outta the house, he refused to leave. And since, I alone could not pay all the bills, I let him stay in the guest room, at least until the baby came.

His reasons for wanting to stick around were plain and simple. His goal was to do everything possible to win me back.  And he worked relentlessly at it for months. We ended up going to some amazing marriage counsellors and even did a weekend couples retreat.  In that year following the disclosure of the affair, we learned more about each other than we had ever known before. During this time, no contact was ever made with the “Other Woman” (At least not by my husband). 

It wasn’t until just before our first son was born that I decided to stay and give it a chance. What the heck? We already spent a small fortune in counselling right?  J/K. No, my decision to stay was largely based on seeing a big change in my husband’s behaviour.    

We’ve all heard of woman’s intuition right? Well I believe that if you think someone is lying to you, then you’re probably right.  My gut was telling me that he was being truthful and was sincerely sorry for what he had done to me and to us.

Its been almost 4 years since full disclosure, and I have seen great changes in my husband, and in us as a couple. Of course we have our ups and downs, as most marriage do.  But since that dark period in our lives, we’ve worked hard to ‘affair-proof’ our marriage and move on.

 

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