What about me?

May 25, 2012 By 5 Comments

 

 

 

I think in a situation like my own, outsiders tend to forget about the wife. As soon as there is any mention of another child being involved, all the attention immediately goes towards him/her.  I remember that being the case for the first year after D-Day if  someone happened to find out about the affair and OC.

I guess people tend to think that the other child will be neglected or forgotten somehow.   Maybe in my situation they thought my husband would turn out to be a dead beat dad or something like that. These same people also seem to forget about the wife’s feelings after being betrayed and how she will handle having this other child in her life as well.

Allowing the OC into my life was not an easy step and took a very long time.  I’ve found that outsiders tend to like to remind wives (life myself) that; “It’s not the child’s fault,” and “He’s the victim in this mess.”  But what those people tend to forget is that, I am also the victim, and it’s not my fault this happened either.  So why is it that a child, who in my case, wasn’t even born yet, and when he was born, was too young to know what was going on, should be put before me and my feelings? I know that sounds very selfish, but I’m not saying the OC doesn’t matter, of course he does.  But wouldn’t it make more sense to work on myself and my marriage first before we drag another innocent victim into things?  That’s exactly what we did and it worked for us.

I remember in the early days going into one of our first counselling sessions and telling Anne that I didn’t know what I was supposed to be working on first, the affair or accepting the OC.  I was overwhelmed and didn’t know how to sort myself out.  With her suggestion and guidance, we all agreed that our marriage had to come first if we were going to be able to invite the OC into our lives at some point.  Through counselling we learned that our marriage had to come first above everything, and that as long as we were happy our children would be happy as well.

My husband chose to sacrifice his time with the OC in the very beginning of our healing process, but was never a dead beat dad. And now, the OC spends almost 50% of his time with us.  What’s funny though is that even today, almost 4 years from D-Day, every now and then someone still asks a question in a very judgemental way, like; “How often do you see the OC?,” but no one ever asks me how I am doing.

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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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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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