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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1,660
Hard-core CEG\'er
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Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 1,660 |
Tony, I feel for you in your situation. My mother was 1st married for a short while to an abusive man. After she escaped that marriage after a few months she married my father. He cheated on her repeatedly until she finally threw his ass out when I was 7. He lived 10 minutes from me but I probably only saw him 10 times after that. Good riddence, bastard. She found another man, who was also a divorcee. They dated a long time, bought a house together, but he could never commit to marry her. Then one day he drops dead of a heart attack. He had a home office and my mother discovered messages on the machine from the other woman he was keeping in another town (he was a traveling sales rep). So, given what I've seen from the view of a child of divorce and cheating parents, my advice to you is do not try to patch things up only for the sake of your daughter. If you love her you will want to provide a stable home for her, and so long as your wife is cheating on you (and if she's done it once she'll do it again) you won't have a stable home. Set your life straight first, get custody of your daughter, and love and raise her as best as you can. Allow free visitation, but you are the parent she should be looking to for moral guidance. One observation: Originally posted by BOFH:
My particular type of control is knowing what's going on, having information. Not knowing was driving me batty.
Originally posted by BOFH:
How did I know how to find her. Well back in September when my wife said she wanted to leave, I went through my server logs and found she was researching this guy. She told me then he was a representative for Humana Military Healthcare and she was looking at getting a job. So I bought it. But I remembered the name, archived the logs as well as saved a copy of her e-mail box.
Seems to me that if the problem for Lori in your marriage was your controlling her through having all the information all the time that nothing has changed, despite your best efforts at counseling and faith healing. Time to move on.
Scott
Troll! '99 BMW 328i
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127
Hard-core CEG'er
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OP
Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127 |
Originally posted by Pigeon:
Tony,
I feel for you in your situation. My mother was 1st married for a short while to an abusive man. After she escaped that marriage after a few months she married my father. He cheated on her repeatedly until she finally threw his ass out when I was 7. He lived 10 minutes from me but I probably only saw him 10 times after that. Good riddence, bastard. She found another man, who was also a divorcee. They dated a long time, bought a house together, but he could never commit to marry her. Then one day he drops dead of a heart attack. He had a home office and my mother discovered messages on the machine from the other woman he was keeping in another town (he was a traveling sales rep). So, given what I've seen from the view of a child of divorce and cheating parents, my advice to you is do not try to patch things up only for the sake of your daughter. If you love her you will want to provide a stable home for her, and so long as your wife is cheating on you (and if she's done it once she'll do it again) you won't have a stable home. Set your life straight first, get custody of your daughter, and love and raise her as best as you can. Allow free visitation, but you are the parent she should be looking to for moral guidance.
One observation:
Originally posted by BOFH:
My particular type of control is knowing what's going on, having information. Not knowing was driving me batty.
Originally posted by BOFH:
How did I know how to find her. Well back in September when my wife said she wanted to leave, I went through my server logs and found she was researching this guy. She told me then he was a representative for Humana Military Healthcare and she was looking at getting a job. So I bought it. But I remembered the name, archived the logs as well as saved a copy of her e-mail box.
Seems to me that if the problem for Lori in your marriage was your controlling her through having all the information all the time that nothing has changed, despite your best efforts at counseling and faith healing. Time to move on.
Scott
Scott,
That's just it, I never checked on her. I had the server logs if our teen daughter started acting strange, spending too much time on the internet, I was going to look at where she had gone.
I set that up with Lori's knowledge, letting her know that everything going in and out was being logged since anyone could use any computer in the house.
So yes, I want to know what is going on. However, until my wife started acting strangely, I never checked up on anything. I just collected data.
I appreciate your advice and she must agree to complete transparency in her life if she does want to come back.
I still do love her, and I do understand why she did it. I don't blame myself for her having an affair, because she should have said something more clear to me much earlier if she felt that way for a long time. So I only accept responsiblity for what I did.
She still has to atone and do a 180 on her behaviors that led to this.
If she cannot do that, she isn't coming back. By the same token, if I cannot do a complete 180 for my insensitive ways, she shouldn't come back either.
No, there are two hurting people here that have to decide what the best way is of not hurting one another any more.
TB
"Seems like our society is more interested in turning each successive generation into cookie-cutter wankers than anything else." -- Jato 8/24/2004
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,467
Hard-core CEG\'er
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Hard-core CEG\'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 1,467 |
Damn. 
Now I hate America? That is a new one to me.
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 125
CEG\'er
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CEG\'er
Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 125 |
Man, I will pray for you. I was just married 6 months ago and I trust my wife 100% and I don't know what I would do if she were to betray that trust. I don't ever check up on her and all financial matters I know about (unless she has a hidden bank account or credit cards). I'm not controlling, but I think if she were ever to betray me I would have to leave, because I don't think I could ever trust her again and it would be too hard to try to do so (I would probably turn into a control freak, I could see that happening). Hopefully, we won't have kids for another 6-7 years, but I see how that could severly complicate things. I think you are being the bigger man in this situation, and I don't know if I would make the same decision as you (and since I'm not in your situation I can't judge your choice) but I would say you are doing exactly what you should do (especially since you still love her and want to be with her). Good luck, I'll be praying.
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127
Hard-core CEG'er
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OP
Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127 |
Thanks to everyone. She said she wants to talk on Saturday, so just pray that she will open up and be 100% open and honest, and pray that I can detect if she is not. The prayer for me is that I can genuinely listen and understand how she is feeling without invalidating what she says she feels.
Keep praying brothers and sisters, keep praying.
TB
"Seems like our society is more interested in turning each successive generation into cookie-cutter wankers than anything else." -- Jato 8/24/2004
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127
Hard-core CEG'er
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OP
Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 2,127 |
Well, we just spent the last 3 hours talking. She is obviously still mad at me for outing her. She doesn't think it was an affair, but I said there is such a thing as an emotional affair, so even if she just stayed out talking with him at Denny's until 4AM, if she was willing to share things with him that she wouldn't share with me, then I don't agree it was right.
She also admitted that she didn't tell the then entire truth about a retreat she was going on two weeks ago.
I don't know whether to believe it was non-sexual, given the amount of mis-information I've gotten in the past.
Bottom line is I'm not chasing her. I think she is going to come over every Saturday for dinner, so maybe we can start there and we will see how it goes.
But I did say that one of my boundaries was that as long as we are married, I don't want her to even appear to be dating and that I'd give her the same consideration.
This is not about logic, because if it were logic, I would have pulled the plug back in September or even earlier. She asked me about this and I said, do you really think I don't have feelings for you. If I had no feelings I wouldn't be trying as hard as I am to work this out.
So keep praying, I upset her a bit more than I wanted today, and she still doesn't think I'm very sensitive.
TB
"Seems like our society is more interested in turning each successive generation into cookie-cutter wankers than anything else." -- Jato 8/24/2004
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Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 6,198
Hard-core CEG'er
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Hard-core CEG'er
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 6,198 |
I'm gonna offer up a big fat-ass w3rd to what Stazi said.
Plain and simple: she doesn't deserve you, T-Bone. Take your daughter and be happy. If another woman comes along down the road to be the woman you thought your wife was, then so be it, and be happy.
Until that happens, go through the proceedings (custody, divorce, whatever) with a calm and level head. When those are over, you can be free to be yourself again.
Some day, whether it's weeks or months or years from now, you'll look back on this and think of how good you have it, and how character- and life-building this whole "episode" was.
Peace be still. You're in my thoughts and prayers.
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