tough situation

Your friend, with whom you had the affair, told you you were the only one, and she couldn’t have sex with anyone else because she was waiting for you, because she was playing you. The reason she was playing you was to protect herself. She knew you were married and would likely not leave your wife. Therefore, to protect herself, she had to feel like she had control in the relationship with you. By lying to you, she did.

Maybe, if you can understand how vulnerable she felt by having an affair with a man she loved who would not leave his wife, you can understand how she needed to protect herself by lying to you and feeling powerful in this way.

See if you can find some equity in what’s happened. Your wife of 18 years has cheated on you, but you’ve gotten past it enough to stay in the marriage. Now, several years later, you’ve cheated on her. I know that 2 wrongs don’t make a right, but if you can find some equality in the fact that you’ve “evened” the scoreboard, so to speak, maybe you can turn your broken heart to where it belongs — your wife’s infidelity. I don’t think you’re over the hurt and I don’t think you feel like you can trust her completely. But, what you do have is 18 years between the two of you, and people do get through infidelities in marriage. But it’s work.

My advice is to forget the mistress. She was just someone with whom you worked out your feelings after your wife’s affair. She was the wrong person, though. You should have worked things out with your wife — but the truth is that that is enormously hard work. Now that your mistress has cheated on you, your hurt is opening the old wound of your wife’s infidelity. Let the mistress go, even though this will be hard for you to do. Your wife is the person you need to work things out with. The mistress isn’t a real part of the equation.

Talk to your wife. Go out on dates with her. Within the marriage, see if you can make your wife the girlfriend she used to be to you. And keep talking. This is a lot harder than it sounds. See if you can remember why you fell in love with her, and why you married her. What good have you learned about her over 18 years. Life is full of black, white, and mostly shades of grey. Try to focus on the positive, and rebuild your marriage. Things may never be the way they were, but it sounds like you’ve both invested a lot in each other, and for that reason, I believe you have a future with your wife — but you’re going to have to work at it. You can do it.

When you said that if weren’t for your 2 kids, you wouldn’t be married to your wife, I think your answer lies in that statement you wrote. Your 2 kids are what you need to put your focus on. It is to your credit that you’re staying married for the sake of your children. They will be better off for it. 🙂

In the meantime, I know you’re feeling sorry for yourself, but you have to find reasons to make each day a good one — even if the reason is just a game of catch with one child or watching another turn a pirouette in a ballet recital (I don’t know if you have boys or girls). There are many people in the world who want children and can’t have them. You’ve got ’em. If that’s all that’s good in your life, you’re ahead of the game.

I know it’s not what you want to hear, but for your children’s sake, and your own, I would encourage you to find something about your wife to love — whether it’s her cooking or her companionship or her family or her style or her sense of humor — something that was there when you first met here that hasn’t gone away.

You can also dig deep in your heart and see if you have some semblance of forgiveness for her cheating on you. What she did was terrible. But, it doesn’t mean she is terrible. Sometimes people do bad things, and that doesn’t make them bad people. Forgiving someone is very hard work. Ultimately, however, it will set you free — not so much her, but you.

I imagine your heart is hardened from being betrayed, cheated on and lied to by your wife. And you say that you’ve dug your own grave, but it doesn’t have to be a grave. In fact, you really can come out of this with some happiness if you do find forgiveness, and do really put those 2 children first and foremost, which means finding a way to be their mother’s husband. That you’ve stayed with your wife is admirable — but don’t give up. Keep going with her. The spark may be out now, but you can reignite it, and you can find love with her — although it will be a different love, it can become even stronger than the first love you had with her.