My husband Michael* was always the ‘good guy’. It never crossed my mind that this man, the father of our daughter and person I’d vowed to spend my life with, would stray or have eyes for another woman. He just didn’t seem the type.
“I can’t believe he’d do that to his wife!” Michael would exclaim when we talked about friends or acquaintances who had affairs. I took comfort in knowing he was scandalised at the very thought of cheating.
But, six years into our marriage, I started noticing Michael was acting strange. He was thoughtless, rude and always grumpy. When before, he would never go out drinking or arrive home late, he was now waltzing through the door at all hours of the evening.
The spark and passion from our relationship had all but fizzled and it was beginning to feel like we were roommates, reluctantly sharing the same space.
“Is there someone else?”
I chose to stay with my cheating husband after finding out about his extra marital affair. Image: Love Actually.
One night he arrived home at 4am and I sat waiting for him on the couch. As soon as he walked through the door, I started demanding answers. Michael was like a brick wall and I had to pry the truth out of him by asking specific, heart-wrenching questions.
“Is there someone else?” I asked. He replied with a solemn yes.
“Have you had sex with someone else?” Again, the answer was yes.
It broke my heart in two. I screamed, cried and yelled that I never wanted to see him again.
He followed me as I stormed out of the room, he begged me to listen, not to leave him. He told me as much as he could that night as I cried the hardest I’ve ever cried.
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“My husband was out impregnating another woman”
Michael told me about every time he lied to me about where he was, when he was actually meeting up with his ‘mistress’ – I’ll call her ‘K’. The worst blow to my heart was when he told me that K had fallen pregnant.
While I was at home raising our beautiful little girl, my husband was out impregnating another woman.
Michael assured me that he and K had “taken care of it”, but it didn’t make me feel any better.
He told me how stupid he was, how these past few weeks he’d been trying to figure out a way to tell me… how he didn’t want anyone but me, he was a fool… he’ll do whatever it takes to fix this.
That was the first discovery day (D-Day) and it was the last day I was the ‘old me’.
I decided to stay with Michael and to work on our relationship together in therapy. Image: iStock.
“I’d made a vow to stand by him”
Our marriage had changed irrevocably that night. However, in a strange way, Michael’s guilt made him more loving and attentive than ever before. I decided that I’d made a vow to stand by him through sickness and in health. The extra marital affair was a disease that clung to our marriage and now it was time to heal.
After agreeing to stay together and have counselling, we worked on ‘us’ every day. I cried daily, but I focused on the here and now as much as I could.
Only three months passed, and we were better than ever – I still cried every day and was in so much pain, but he was working really hard. Michael was in it for the long haul.
He let me ask as many questions as I needed to and answered them the best he could. I took solace in the thought their extra marital affair was only a few months long and it simply a backseat rendezvous, nothing special. Nothing romantic. No weekend trips away.
Then, at the three-month mark, my world stopped once more when he told me there wasn’t just one woman. There had been another prior to K and it had lasted two years.
This was worse than the first betrayal. I felt embarrassed and like a fool, as if the whole world were in on it and I was the only one who didn’t know.
“I was grieving his memory”
On second D-Day, Michael moved out of the house. I cried myself to sleep every night, thinking of the two long years I was painfully oblivious to his extra marital affair. I had no idea who my husband was anymore.
As we spent time apart in separate homes, we continued to go to counselling and he bent over backwards to prove he wanted to stay. I went back and forth over my decision to either forgive him and make this marriage work, or decide this was unforgivable.
The exact moment I decided I was going to stay and work on our relationship is burned into my brain.
One of the nights Michael was living in another home, I opened one of his drawers and pulled out a sweatshirt that was left behind. I sat on my bed and held it close to my face, I smelled him and instantly started crying, like he had passed away and I was grieving his memory.
It was at that moment I thought to myself, “He hasn’t died – he could be here with you if you let him”. Michael moved back in the next week.
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“I have not said ‘I forgive you'”
It’s been a year and a half since the first ‘D-Day’. Things will never be the same between us, and I hope they never are. We’re finally like a married couple again.
The infidelity made me realise what was worth fighting for and our marriage is now happy.
I have not said “I forgive you” because I don’t. I don’t forgive him for making terrible choices and choosing to hurt me. But I choose not to focus on that “old husband” but rather the “new” one I have now.
Marriage is hard and takes work. It’s not easy – but nothing worth having ever comes easily.
*Names have been changed.
This article was first published on Kidspot and republished on theAsianparent with permission.
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