My husband has recently returned from being away for eight days with the military.
I had mixed feelings about him going away. Following D-Day almost 18 months ago, he has turned down all out-of-town assignments. He knew I wouldn’t stand for it. He knew he had to stay. The thought of him going anywhere made me furious. He didn’t even ask me if he could leave. He wouldn’t dare.
Well, obviously that was then and this is now. When the annual military leave came up this year, he simply assumed he was going. This year is the centenary of the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli and there are official military events happening all over the place. Which I understood. And was why I didn’t put my foot down and tell him he had to stay. I would never have taken that away from him. But he could have at least offered, knowing how badly it triggered me.
So off he went, away with the military, and of course Gina the overweight giraffe – the cause of all my angst. She’s the silly 20-year old bitch who sent my husband flirty messages, which I discovered about a month after D-Day. She fucking loves all the attention from the men in the unit; she absolutely laps it up. A female in a military unit isn’t exactly commonplace, so she thrives on the novelty factor, batting her eyelids at any man within cooee. Silly slut.
The thought of him going away to a place where he’d be with that fucking whore triggered a tsunami of anger within me. I acted as normal as I could, as the kids were now on school holidays and I didn’t want them to sense anything was wrong.
I found myself feeling angrier than usual that week, constantly on edge and close to “snapping point”. If anything even slightly pissed me off, I went nuts! To make matters worse, my husband decided to come home on two of the evenings he was away, probably out of obligation or knowing how mad I was. So then I had to deal with his departure in the mornings again. A reminder that he was going back to the same place the silly skank was. He should have just stayed away so I didn’t have to see his stupid face.
At some point during his absence, I sent him an angry text message:
“If I find out you’ve spoken even ONE WORD socially to that little bitch, we won’t have a marriage left to “work on”. Take your martial problems to someone else.”
His response:
“I haven’t. I don’t. And I don’t take them to anyone.”
And that was how things sat for a couple of days.
We are so shit at communicating.
When he returned home for good at the end of his military stint, I didn’t speak to him for days.
A week later and I’ve only JUST defrosted.
I thought I was passed this phase of clamming up but I guess not.
There WILL be shit days. They become fewer as time goes on but they never completely disappear.
A sobering thought.
Shattered By My Husband's Affair 
I am lucky because my husband would have to make an effort to see his texting “friend” so I don’t have to deal with him seeing her at all. (He used to make sure he got to see her during that time.) I don’t know how I would deal with that, I would probably feel the same as you. Crazy angry is what I am guessing I would feel. When things got bad between my husband and me he said that he didn’t feel respected and appreciated in our marriage, that I was too controlling and nagging. I can honestly say that I get the controlling and nagging part, I do, I own my mistakes in our marriage and I am working to be a better person. But what really struck me this morning is the respect thing. Before any of this shit happened I had enormous respect for my husband. More for him than anyone else in the world. Now I wonder if I will ever feel the same about him? I still have respect for him in some ways, but in that area my respect for him is nearly gone. I wonder if he will ever be able to get my respect back in that area. I hope that he can. It makes me very sad to know that I don’t feel the same about him. I love him, I really truly love him with all of my heart. But I am still angry and hurt and the respect just isn’t what it was before. So it is rather interesting that respect is what he wanted, but respect is exactly what he lost. And I do wonder – does respect come back with the trust over time? Or is it something separate and on its own?
Same here. I ask myself the respect question all the time. SWxo
I recall in the immediate aftermath of Dday, I told my best friend that I had lost every bit of respect for mine. I had believed him to be a man of deep and strong character. Damn near perfect. I adored him. I knew I still loved him very, very deeply. My friend adored him, thought I had the best guy in the world (her husband is a porn and stripper kind of guy, ewwww) but she looked deep into my eyes that day and told me that the one thing she recalled her (deceased) mother saying about marriage was that if you ever lose respect for each other that is when you’re in trouble. There are times when you might be angry, less connected, distracted. But respect is the glue. The thing that nurtures the love. I think the respect never fully reviving was a giant part of my unrecovery. I still love him to bits. He loves me. But I don’t respect him. I admire him. I think he’s been 99% amazing, humble, strong and emotionally mature in attempting to recover and rebuild after his brain implosion. But respect is earned over decades, but blown apart by a simple action. It still utterly breaks what shards are left of my heart.
What helped with the anger? I just wrote a post about how angry I’ve been lately. I need to deal with it somehow because I’m usually the opposite of angry. Maybe it’s because it’s been 1 year since DDay this April, maybe it’s because I nearly filed for divorce and my husband then pleaded for another chance and wants to move back home (I haven’t let him move back yet) or maybe because he has only finally admitted that the name he told me isn’t her real name – after I asked him a million times because I knew who she really was. Or maybe I’m angry at myself for not just going ahead and filing for a divorce, and am contemplating letting him move back in so that I can at least be sure he’s not still having an affair! It all just does my head in!
The mind-fuck is off the charts. The one-year anniversary is a tough one. I remember feeling huge amounts of anger at that time. And that trickle-truth is a killer of the soul. SWxo
I found out on a Friday night and since then Friday nights don’t have the same appeal as it used to. It’s like a weekly fucking anniversary where I lose my shit
u are so right, SW, there will always be shitty days, here was one of my shitty day. Last week Monday was my husbands birthday, he had to work in the afternoon, I was home alone when I got a text massage, it just said” Happy Birthday to you” with no name, no title( during the time of my husband’s EA, he used my phone, the whore only knew this number). I went crazy, I was thinking that whore must did this to try to contact him again. I googled the white page, yellow page, 411, tried to find out the owner of the phone number, but they all said the owner’s name is unknown, so finally I couldn’t stand it anymore, I called the number and said ” hello, I just wondering who was texted my phone to wish my husband happy birthday”, and on the other line was a guy, he was like ” hi, this is John”, he was my husband’s university roommate. You can’t believe what a relief I felt then, it’s like a huge rock just removed from my chest. I fucking hate this, our husband are turning us into a bunch of Paranoid, suspicious, obsessing bitches.
Ha, you are 100% correct. We DO become paranoid! Man, we’d make excellent private detectives, don’t you think? Seriously though, an affair changes us in that we question everything ALL the time. I never used to be that person. SWxo
A sobering thought indeed, but I think we all realize by now the effects of the affair will linger on like a bad smell! Like Kelly said the smell of whore is hard to get rid of! Don’t feel bad for getting upset, he set all this into motion when he cheated! XO Joan
Of course. It’s only natural that you are going to have these strong feelings. There is no blue print for us that we can follow. We respond as we respond and make our way through the shit the best we can. Hugs.
Thank you again SW for your candour, your honesty is like a bucket of ice water over my head, it does me so much good to know that I’m not alone in these feelings of anger. As strange as it may sound, I find more comfort in your honesty, even the days where you feel hopeless, than I ever find in any ‘happy fluffy affair was the best thing to happen to us’ type of blog. The anger is a vicious cycle for me, I feel consumed with a rage that burns with the fire of a thousand suns, I lash out, then I feel guilty and try to compensate by being affectionate, and then I remember that my husband’s selfish actions are the reason I’ve become so angry, and then I’m off in a furious rage once again! I don’t mean to sound melodramatic but it often feels like this affair has changed me forever, and not in a good way. I can feel my heart hardening. I feel like my husband chose to drink poison but for some reason I’m the one the poison is killing. I’ve told my husband several times now that he might as well just leave because this is who I am now, thanks to him, and that I don’t think I will ever stop punishing him. He refuses to leave, he is adamant that our love can overcome this. Isn’t it just hilarious how our nasty cheating husbands all of a sudden want to be our hero/champion/knight in shining armour? They decimated our marriages, obliterated our hearts, and now they think they can be all noble about fixing it! Knight in shining armour my arse, more like a dickhead wrapped in tinfoil!!
LOL, you crack me up! But yes, you’re right. They’re the ones that stab the marriage to death, yet we’re the ones doing life for murder : ( SWxo
This. Exactly.
Omg this is me!
I’ve just finished lashing out and now feeling guilty. Then I think you did this to me and I’m off again….
So much anger in me, I can’t handle it sometimes
Like your husband he won’t leave and keeps telling me he will fix us and our marriage, be a better man blah blah like someone said ‘knight in shining fucking armour’
KJ, oh my gosh you hit the nail on the head with some of your comments, I’ve told my husband the bitch I’ve become is probably here to stay. Also my husband now treats me like a princess, waits on me hand & foot, it seems now I can do no wrong! You’re right, now that they’ve torn the marriage to shreds they try to be the perfect husband, I’ve told my husband it means little to me now! Why don’t they think, is that too much to ask? If I was going to do something that life altering, I would have dissected that sucker to pieces before I acted on it! But sadly I’m a woman & I think with my head & not the appendage between my legs!!! XO Joan
Joan, this one always makes me wryly laugh (while crying inside, like most of this shit!)
Paula thanks for the Karma post, it is bitter sweet! Love & hugs, Joan
Lol. I think it works both ways. Roger’s AP is a bitch. She was a bitch growing up. She was a bitch when she went out with him more than 30 years ago. She was a bitch while sleeping with him while I was his “life partner” (yeah, right!) She will always be a bitch. I often wish he’d left (cool, chilled out, easygoing) me for uptight, social climbing, sexually boring her. That would be super karma! Instead I am changed. I am more of a bitch than I used to be. I have to be. To protect myself and my children. Pretty simple cause and effect relationship, huh?
I hear you, Paula. Who would CHOOSE to be like this now? Half the time I feel I should be locked up somewhere. SWxo
It’s like I wrote this!!!
Exactly where I’m at, my story …
You never know when those feelings of anger and pain are going to blindside you, again, drive you crazy, no matter how much time passes. I have been doing so well. We are on a road trip to a painting workshop for me and I thought I would be able to do this thing with minimal triggers and no outbursts, tears, etc… especially since our last road trip was such a disaster. And then, we passed through the town where my husband lived at one point on the week days while he was working for a company out of state. He would return to us on the weekends. That first whore (15 years ago) flew there and stayed for a few hours at the apartment that came with his job. He took her to the airport crying, but he fucked her first. I had no idea we were going to pass right through the town. The kids and I (they were little back then, maybe 6 & 8) spent the summer with him and the first thing I noticed was a woman’s long hair in the drain catch in his bathroom tub. I asked him where it came from. He said he had no idea. He fucked another woman in the same bed I slept in with him. That was the one and only time he did that, but of course, here we are again square in the middle of a big huge trigger. It brings back all the… “how could you do that to us,” moments. OMG, I WANTED TO SCREAM AND RUN AWAY. But that is the problem with road trips… no where to run, no where to hide. Glad you are doing better. I cannot imagine what I would do if my husband had to still work with or around any of the women. Thankfully I passed through my “mood” fairly quickly. It doesn’t help to live in my husband’s past… it is a creepy, scary, destructive place. Hugs!!!
I am currently going through a property settlement before my soon-to-be-ex is leaving the country for 9 months. It is not a pleasant process to go through. Even though I know that we’re not together anymore and I highly doubt he would even be with anyone else while he’s away (he is so miserable and broken), the memories from the past where he would travel overseas for work and be with the whore keep coming to mind. A year ago he was in another third world country with her while I was home recovering from a broken back!!! Months later, he was back there for an entire month with her and even took her on a work trip/holiday to Africa while I was fed lies back home (including “I miss you so much and am looking forward to coming home to you” in a postcard. Yeah, right).
I remember when he told me this two weeks after D-Day how I fucking lost it and slapped him black and blue across his face. The rage was palpable. His cheek was bruised for days. While I’m not proud of my act of violence, he knew he deserved it. I could have killed him there and then and I told him so. I’m now glad I no longer have to worry about him going away and cheating on me because I don’t care anymore. I also know he feels so horribly guilty that he’ll never manage to be with someone ever again. He will die lonely and miserable. Good.
The other day he also sent me via post his wedding ring and the watch I gave him for our wedding anniversary last year when he was already cheating on me (I refuse to see him in person). He said he returned them because they were valuable and that I could sell them and that he felt he didn’t have the right to have them anymore. I knew his intention but it still felt like he was throwing everything I gave him back in my face. I received them with a mixture of sadness and pure hatred. I am going to sell them. I can’t stand seeing them. Over 7 months on and the pain never goes away.
I’m just so glad I can share with you all. SW, your blog is invaluable to me x
Lulu, I honour you. SWxo
I read some of the blog from the famous Chump Lady, after reading those, I don’t feel much optimist about my future anymore. According to her and the rest of the followers, once your husband cheated, you should get a divorce, cause if you given him another chance, he will most likely cheat again. Is it true? Is it means there is no hope for us? please tell me, at least one of your husband NEVER cheated again after you gave him another chance!! Please!
Don’t read Chump Lady if you have any hope in your marriage. Just don’t! SWxo
OK, I will take your advise and delete her site, it really depressing to read her stuff. I still believe there are more goods in people who really feel remorse about what they did to give us hope in the future.
Thank you, SW. Xoxo
I agree, don’t read Chump Lady. My FIL cheated on my MIL decades ago and they are still together and he hasn’t done it again. I do believe some people are just crappy people and therefore might do it again, but I am holding out hope that my husband is one of the good ones. We have now talked about what the issues were in our marriage and we are working on it together. We’ve been to counseling and individual therapy and I do think it makes a difference. I am holding out hope that we all will get past this some day. You’ll never forget, but hopefully we can truly move on.
SW, I can’t even imagine 8 days away even almost a year later. My husband drives tractor trailer and even though he doesn’t do overnights often, sometimes it’s inevitable. Right after the affair, he got stuck having to park and sleep in New Jersey, which is a good 4 hrs from home. I couldn’t sleep that night, so I think you handled it much better than can be expected. Especially since there were no overweight giraffes there that I knew of 😉 xx
I just discovered your site. Thank you for putting out your story. It is so true, until you’ve been through it, there is no way to imagine the pain. I must admit I read ChumpLady, but not with her ultimate premise in mind. Obviously, I do not agree that divorce is the only viable option, though I do agree it is a viable option. But, I do love how she defines “real remorse” and admit fully that it was and is a guiding principle in assessing our foundation for moving forward.
Hello R4L, welcome. I’m sorry you find yourself here with the rest of us. I hope you find some strength here. Sending you love and strength. SWxo
After 1year. I still periodically check our account, and his work credit card. I ask questions about whatever–whenever.
During the last several months after I discovered his affair he has made a complete change. He’s an open book now, he has a tracking system on his phone for me to see him at all times, is never where I can’t reach him, joined the church, and did these things bc he saw that it would make his life better and he states he needed to change.
The arguments come in bc I do ask questions about his spending. It’s not alot. But I ask about purchases if they are several days in a row–$11 here, $15 there, $7 here, $ 29 there. He is stationed (military) in a different state. I know that he needs things. He even sends copies of receipts when he makes purchases. I don’t mind I’ve bit. I don’t care if it’s too much trouble fir him to go out of his way to do that. I don’t care if he gets upset bc I question him. His antics cause me to search everything all the time. He had hidden money and spent thousands on his bitches. I don’t care if he’s uncomfortable. Some days I want to say F;(k you to him. I’ve had to go to counseling bc if his dumb shit. I’ve doubted myself bc if his stupidity. Of course he wants it to go away and put all behind me do we can move forward. We have a joint account but I still ask about money. He says that I micromanage him as far as money. . Today I reminded him that he brought this crap to our lives when he stepped over the line so he just needs to deal with his punishment until I feel like trusting him again.
Ive been in a pissed off mood for a while. I certainly blame him for causing my behavior and causing my emotions to be unstable. He stated that he’s not leaving our family. Whuptie Do for him. I’m still not backing down.
Thanks for allowing me to vent. I had no one to talk to except my counselor. I stopped seeing him a few months ago.
You are welcome to vent here any time, SPO! I know, sometimes it feels like our husbands have turned us into crazy people. Emotionally unstable is how I would describe myself. Well done on sticking to your guns, your husband is learning there are new ground rules now. How well do you cope with your husband seat? Do you have children? Sending you love and strength. This really is a shitty thing to go through. SWxo
My husband is military also. When I discovered his affairs and his Facebook friends and the inappropriate conversations that he had with them in FB messaging–for the phone numbers I could find, I called their asses. All were married accept one. Though it was his doing–I told each bitch that he was wrong and so was she to be involved with a man that was married and to stop communicating with him via email at work, personal email, work email, texting his cell or calling his room phone ( he is a geo bachelor)…if I discovered any communication I would contact their commanding officer. After leaving the msgs on their phones I sent the messages on FB.by that time he had given me his password. I wrote sentence after sentence and copied and pasted over and over again. I’m sure they grew tired of reading it and thought I was a crazy ass wife. They had a lot of shit to delete. One girl changed her FB page to private about 5minutes after i left her the message. I also started doing pop up visits to him. I’d by a plane ticket and make it to his room by the end of work. He would then have to drive me to his office do I could check his work computer, I went through his entire office for hidden bites and cards, checked his laptop, phone, and tore his room apart –just checking. I didn’t find anything but I was a mad woman and he stayed out of my way.
He us about to retire and I will fly out to help him drive home. Will I plan to arrive early and check him–teach I will. My counselor always said:trust but verify!
Love it! Sounds like those other women got the message LOL. Hopefully he is being completely remorseful and honest with you now. SWxo
I think all the people they have been cheated on are amaze balls!!! I found out 1 week ago my hubby has been kissing another girl AGAIN! (THE FIRST TIME WAS 5YEARS AGO WITH A MUTAL FRIEND) what do i do? of course i get ‘im sorry i didnt mean my heads fucked’ blah blah prick! We are both 34yrs 2children 11yrs and 7yrs and we been together for 15years . What do i do? I need help of course i love him want him back but i know i need to say ENOUGH!!
Man, twice in 5 years, that really sucks, Jodie. I’m so sorry this has happened to you again. SWxo
I’ve read through a few of your posts. I haven’t looked at any comments, but all I can say is I love you!!! Thank you for being out there and saying everything the way I would! It kinda helps knowing there’s someone similar to me and seeing it the way do. Thanks again.
Thanks, CJ, and welcome : ) SWxi