Marriage Missions Note: Please know that we recognize that sometimes men betray their wives and sometimes women betray their husbands. This particular article is written from the vantage point of the betrayed wife. If you are a husband who is betrayed, please change the pronouns and glean through the information so you can be ministered to, as well. Above all, we hope this article helps you in some way.)
After the discovery of the betrayal, the spouse’s emotions are usually intense. The anger, hurt, bewilderment, betrayal, and numbing shock are almost overwhelming. The betrayed spouse will be angry, and she needs the freedom to ventilate her rage.
It’s Important HOW You Say It
The language of anger is never pleasant. However, it is not only OK to say it with intensity and force, but it is absolutely necessary for true recovery to occur. People do not get better until they get mad.
If denied, that anger “goes underground” and eats away at the innermost spirit of the person. It is very important for the violated spouse to be free to express the rage that he or she feels.
After the first surge of anger comes the need for information —what happened? When did it happen? How often did it happen? And so on. This is the time for the violated spouse to ask the offender those all-important questions. Men seem to want to know the details of the sexual activity; women commonly report wanting to know if their husband loves the other person. Whatever the need, the information is important and shouldn’t be squelched.
Hiding Info
There is no good reason to hide information from the injured spouse at this point. The precious marriage vow lies shattered on the floor —there is nothing left of the marriage to protect. Therefore, the infidel who has been discovered should share each and every bit of information that his partner wants to know.
Often the infidel thinks that as the questions come, he should tell only what he thinks is appropriate, so he withholds details, covering up certain aspects of the trail. Nothing will anger the wounded spouse more than being subtly deceived at this point by double talk or half-truths. Eventually, all truth will be known anyway.
This is the time to tell it all, or at least tell it at the level that the spouse wants to hear it. There’s a difference between the two. Many of my counselees who have gone through recovery from affairs say that getting into too much detail can create tortuous mental images for the injured spouse that can haunt her for years. But you need to walk this fine line of disclosure and honesty carefully, and be sure to err on the side of too much disclosure rather than too little.
The Ideal:
Of course, it would be to satisfy the spouse’s need to know without ignoring any major revelations. The main point is to own up to what you have done and to admit humbly the full range of injury and transgression. Don’t try to alter the facts subtly to protect yourself. Just as deceit is no way to build a relationship, it’s no way to rebuild a broken one.
Withheld information becomes “unfinished business” that will have to be dragged along through the balance of the marriage. The more time that passes without the unfinished business being revealed, the more difficult it will be to bring it up. Should the marriage stay together, this secret will become an albatross around the neck of the infidel, who will have wished that he or she had completely “come clean” at the anger stage, when it was the most appropriate and helpful.
The Spouse Now Holds the Reins
The power to continue the marriage has now passed into the hands of the wounded spouse. Her reaction —whether to process the affair is that if she expresses as much rage as she feels, she will drive her spouse into the arms of his partner. That could happen; but, remember, he has already been in his partner’s arms. You couldn’t keep him out of her arms before you knew about it; now simply being angry is not going to drive him to her-more is involved here than that!
Besides, there is nothing of the marriage left to protect by “walking on eggshells” at this point. If you are going to live together in harmony in the future, you need to live together differently. It’s time to start over. The most sacred aspects of this marriage have already been violated. Now you both have to begin to rebuild.
Grieving the Loss
During the anguish phase, some recovery can begin. But it won’t be steady progress —rather it will probably be two steps forward and one step back. It’s a rocky time emotionally, but that’s part of the normal process of grieving the losses. There is loss of trust, of the one-pure marital relationship, and so on.
Just about the time that the violated spouse thinks he/she is getting over the pain, it will suddenly resurface. But be encouraged. Gradually the pain will become less intense and less frequent. You will find the good times between the down times will lengthen.
This grief process is similar to grieving the death of a spouse. Violated spouses do indeed report many responses that parallel those of widows.
Some of Their Feelings:
• They feel abandoned by their mate.
• They feel alone in their grief.
– It’s common to feel as if they could have done something to prevent this.
• They feel like a marked person. They don’t fit in with normal couples anymore.
• They have a lot of unfinished business with their spouse that is now off-limits or has been overshadowed by what has occurred.
– Plus, they feel terrified of the future.
• They feel they should be doing better than they are.
• They will pretend nothing has happened (such as the widow who sets a plate for the lost partner at the table).
Grieving is important, but it is even more important to know what you are grieving for. Some find it helpful to list the losses on paper. I recommend that you try that, being as transparent and honest as you can.
Crying in front of other people as you process your grief is perfectly permissible. Grief isn’t always predictable, not always controllable. It is certainly all right to cry in front of the infidel. In fact, he needs to see and feel the damage his actions have wrought. Be totally honest about your sadness.
Guarantees
One of the first things an angry and grieving spouse wants is the guarantee that this will never happen again. Often Christian spouses think that if they can just get their infidel partner to walk the aisle to the altar, confess his/her sin in front of the congregation, read his Bible daily, or be convicted by the Holy Spirit or disciplined by the church, all will be well. But nothing could be further from the truth. Any or all of those practices might be appropriate, but none of them will provide the guarantee that the wounded spouse is looking for.
The closest thing to a guarantee that the infidel won’t stray again is for him to feel fully the pain that he has caused the wounded spouse. Let me underline this point: promises to “behave” won’t endure; neither will artificial boundaries such as a curfew each night after work.
Remedy
The only lasting remedy is for the infidel to feel the agony he has caused his spouse. If he truly loves his mate (and he usually does down deep; that’s why they got married and why he came back), that will hurt him so much that he won’t want to inflict more on his loved one. But getting the infidel to experience the hurt of the spouse won’t happen immediately —it could take many months. Remember it will take as long to recover from the affair as it did for the infidelity partner to get involved in it. So allow some time for him to feel her pain.
This article comes from the book, Torn Asunder: Recovering From an Extramarital Affair
—ALSO —
Here’s another related article —this one written by Anne Bercht, who understands about anger “after the betrayal” because she dealt with it after her husband cheated on her. Whether you are a man or woman, the following advice could be helpful if you apply the principles that will work for your marriage after reading:
• DEALING WITH ANGER AFTER AN AFFAIR
Filed under: Surviving Infidelity
(USA) Emily, I feel for you girl and my heart cries with you as I read your post. Honey do you believe in the Lord? God is able. He is the only one who is able, and no situation is bigger than He is. I can understand that you’re hurting, I can’t say that I understand your pain because that would be impossible.
Honey, I will be praying for you. Don’t stop praying and as hard as it may be don’t stop praying for your husband. I recommend that you check out the book. The power of a praying wife by Stormie Omartian. It’s awesome. There is a sample of it as well as some great comments on this site under the "For married women" Section. The Ladies there are very supportive to and can relate to what your going through.
Emily, I recommend that you stop asking questions about what your husband did with this other woman. You’re only hurting yourself more. Just give you anguish to God and let Him handle it. You already know what happened, hearing all of the details will only cause you to feel more secluded and unloved. If your husband is willing to stop talking to this woman and go to counseling with you than he is trying.
Let God work and trust HIM. The devil is going to use those feelings of hurt, hopelessness, and despair against you especially now. I pray that the Lord Protects you. In Jesus Name, AMEN!
Love Ya, Love LYNNE
Check out 1 Corinthians 13. I think it’ll give some comfort.
(UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON) I just wanted to respond to Chris’s message which was left on 12th October 2008.
Hi Chris, when I read your post I just felt I should reply. Obviously I’m a complete stranger so you might just completely ignore what I write but that’s ok. I really hope you read what LT wrote because I thought it was spot on and hopefully you didn’t take offense to anything that was written.
This is a Christian site and obviously people just assume that those who come on here have some form of Christian belief and so obviously feel that when things are good it is God’s will happening, which might sound silly to someone who doesn’t believe in God or the Bible.
I was quite sad to read how you felt. I don’t think that God is responsible for the fact that you feel your life sucks. I don’t know the full story, just that your wife has deeply hurt you by having an affair and has completely turned your life upside down. But of course you still love her and want to do what you can to make things work between you.
I believe that God does have a plan for us, but we all have free will and therefore must be held accountable for our choices. Your wife chose to go and have an affair knowing what the consequences would be, knowing the hurt and pain it would cause you, but she did it anyway.
God didn’t force her into the bed of another, she made that choice so I don’t think you can blame God for the pain and suffering. You can blame your wife for her wrong choice.
I’m telling you that when you cried, God cried with you. Every ounce of pain you felt, God felt it with you. Every minute of pain you felt and continue to feel, God feels it with you.
Think about something, when things are good in our lives why is that??? You and your wife obviously had some great times. It wasn’t your choice to meet her was it? But it happened. You ended up at the right place at the right time which brought the two of you together. But the rest was down to the two of you, and still is. When things are bad, it doesn’t just happen, it happens because of some else’s choice which then affects you. In this case your wife, not God.
God can’t take responsibility for your marriage going wrong, because it’s not God’s doing. It’s not the devils either because even the devil doesn’t have the power to force us to do things. God doesn’t take all the credit for your marriage being good either. That’s down to the hard work of you and your wife.
However, as Christians we believe that God does take credit for us being good if we let him, which in turn helps us to do the right things. But we are bound to sin because unfortunately it’s within our nature.
I’ll briefly tell you my story, on my 2nd wedding anniversary my husband confessed that he had a sexual addiction, on 3 separate occasions he’d gone into men’s public toilets and had oral sex performed on him by complete strangers. 1 occasion was on his oldest brother’s wedding day while I was with our 2 daughters at the reception. Then more terrible things about pornography etc came to light.
I know you understand the betrayal I feel because you’ve felt it too. But how can I blame God for what my husband chose to do? I’m disgusted by him. He’s tainted everything I believed about us and is just a liar. His been a Christian for about a year and even he can not blame God or the devil for his actions. We’re trying to work things out, but it’s just so so hard. What I want to do is run a billion miles away from him but how can I?
I’m not perfect, I’ve never done anything like what he has done to me, I would never betray him like that, but how I can expect to gain forgiveness for the wrongs i do if i can’t forgive others? And God knows I’ve had so many people to forgive. At times I think I was put on this earth purely to suffer.
I’m sorry to have gone on for so long, but I’m finding that reading other people’s stories and replying is helping me. Hopefully you don’t think I’m talking complete rubbish. Even if only 1 line makes any sense to you I’ll be happy.
I truly hope that if it’s what you want, that things for you and your wife work out. Please remember that it should be on your terms because she wronged you. She may be making it up to you for the rest of your lives, but that’s the path she chose, and the same goes for my husband.
People need to take responsibility for their actions and stop blaming God and the devil. Yes I do believe that the devil makes bad circumstances at times, but we have the power to say NO.
Take care of yourself.
caroline :)
(UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON) Emily, I’m so sorry for you and your babies for what your husband has done. You do not deserve this.
I remember being pregnant with my girls and it was the worst time of my life. I felt disgusting but I cannot imagine having to deal with thinking my husband was cheating.
I know how it feels to be betrayed by the one you love. Your husband should have been there for you, but he chose do the wrong thing by you.
It’s been 4 months since I found out about my husband’s betrayal and I’m still just as angry, ashamed, sad etc as I was on the day he told me. I have good days and bad days, and on the bad days I wanna rip his head off, but on the good days I see the loving man I married.
If he’s willing to work on you marriage and you feel you want to. then try. But it’s not gonna be easy.
He needs to let you know where he is every minute of every day if necessary, until the time comes when you feel he doesn’t need to do so any more. But that day may not come. It’s about you and the children now. He did the wrong thing so therefore he has to do everything he can to fix it.
He has to keep saying sorry every day until those words find their way into your heart and you actually start to believe them. These are the things I expect of my husband who has betrayed me and cut me so deep. It feels like the wounds will never heal, but I know that God will not let me lead a life full of pain every day.
I don’t know if you believe in God or not, but I have found that reading my Bible has helped me so much. Plus I’ve bought books on healing after a betrayal. Also, it may help if you write your feelings down in a journal, even if it’s full of hateful words, because at least then those word are not staying in your heart.
On Monday my husband and I had a huge fight and I wrote him a letter telling him exactly how I was feeling. It wasn’t nice but it was the truth. On that day I was ready to leave him forever, but I had been bottling my feelings for weeks and pretending everything was ok, and eventually it reached boiling point.
On another occasion I wrote down every emotion I was feeling on an A4 piece of paper, loss, sadness, anger, betrayed, revenge and so many more, it made me feel so much better. Please try it.
I’m gonna pray for you and the children every day, because although I don’t know you, I know your pain, and I wouldn’t wish that on my worse enemy. Take care ok?
Caroline :)
(UNITED KINGDOM, LONDON) This is a prayer I’ve been saying on a daily basis, especially when memories of my husband’s betrayal start to come back to me. I want to forgive him and with the help of my Lord Jesus Christ I will. My best friend gave it to me and it’s been such a comfort, so please anyone who is suffering just as I am, copy this onto a piece of paper and take it with you EVERYWHERE.
Lord Jesus,
Thank you for caring about how much my heart has been hurt.
You know the pain I am feeling from … (offenders name)
Right now I release all that pain into Your hands.
Thank you, Lord, for dying on the cross for me
and extending Your forgiveness to me.
As an act of Your will, I choose to forgive … (offenders name)
Right now, I take … (offenders name) off my emotional hook,
and I place this person on Your hook.
I refuse all thoughts of revenge.
I trust that in Your time and in Your way
You will deal with my offender as You see fit.
And Lord, thank You for giving me Your power
to forgive so that I can be set free.
In Your precious name I pray, Amen.
Also my friend sent me a passage from one of Bishop T.D Jakes’ books which might be helpful, I hope it is.
We can no longer ostracize the victim and let the assailant escape! Every time you see some insecure, vulnerable, intimidated adult who has unnatural fear in his eyes, low self-esteem or an apologetic posture, he is saying, "Carest thou not that I perish?" Every time you see a bra-less woman in men’s jeans, choosing to act like a man rather than to sleep with one; every time you see a handsome young man who could have been someone’s father, walking like someone’s mother – you may be looking child abuse in the face. If you think it’s ugly, you’re right. If you think it’s wrong, you’re right again. If you think it can’t be healed, you’re dead wrong! If you look closely into these eyes I’ve so feebly tried to describe, you will sense that something in this person is weak, hurt, maimed or disturbed… but fixable.
May the lord continue to heal all those wounded hearts, wipe away the tears we cry and replace the pain with love. Caroline XoX
(USA) Caroline, Thank you so much for sharing your prayer. I jotted it down in my meditation book for daily use throughout my day.
(USA) Wow!! It’s amazing to find out that people actually go through a lot of the same issues. I can identify most with Emily, I’m 28 with 3 children 8,6 and 3 and I found out that my husband’s affair a yr ago. My husband didn’t tell me anything his sister told me. The "icing on the cake" is that the other woman was pregnant. Her name came up a couple of times through paperwork that I’ve seen around but when I asked my husband about her he said that she was his friend’s sister and was involved with another one of his friends.
We’ve been married for almost 6 yrs and yes, he denied it up until the paternity test proved otherwise. I know what the Bible says about divorce but I’m having a hard time getting over the pain and hurt that he’s caused. He’s apologized but I still feel betrayed. I’ve tried to get over the hurt but it’s hard because every time I think I can move, I can’t because there’s another child involved that isn’t mine.
(USA) Good article.
Recently I’ve had a couple friends ask me for advice. In a nutshell…they were engaged. They also had another "friend" who was jealous. Basically, this "friend" lied and told her that her fiancee was cheating. The problem was that her fiancee was half way across the country with no way to defend himself.(Finishing up his degree.) Not true…I can vouch for it personally.
Well, they broke up, and she ended up marrying this other "friend". Now here it is four years and two kids later, and she has finally realized and admitted that her husband had lied. Of course me and some friends helped get the truth out with hard evidence.
Now she cant decide if she wants a divorce or not. Her original fiancee says he still loves her, but is furious with her. Primarily for not giving him a chance to defend himself.
Would this situation also be an accurate description of the emotions described in the article? Should she stay married? Even if it was initially under false pretenses? Pointers would be appreciated.
(USA) My wife cheated on me while I was serving in Iraq. I keep asking myself, why me Lord. I thought I had everything together before I left to go to Iraq. I moved her back in with her parents. We just had a baby boy so I’m thinking everything is good. I asked her to tell me if she ever feels the need to want to have an affair, but she didn’t.
I found out by going through her email on the laptop, and in her email she said that she didn’t want me to find out about it, so it would not hurt me. But hurt is not the word to use. I thought I had a strong woman in the Lord but I guess I was blind. Now she wants to rush and try to work things out.
Somebody please tell me, if you cut the affair off with that person, isn’t it true that you would not send them anymore emails or want to know how they are doing? She sent him an email 3 months before I came home asking how he was, but she tells me that she doesn’t want him anymore.
(USA) I have been reading what everyone has posted. Let me just say, I know what you are going through.
It has been 2 years since my husbands disclosure of his addiction to pornography. I was hurt and devastated to learn about this secret life of my husband. I had no idea anything was going on. I don’t want to go into gory details, but I know about all the emotions, grief, and anger that you go through. Let me say, with God’s help, that can pass. It is a day by day journey. You can do it. Give everything to God, and you can make it. It is not an easy journey. I am living proof that it is possible to make it through it.
My journey has taken me to start a support group for women that have been betrayed in their marriage, at my church. My husband who is free from his addiction is the leader in his men’s accountability group as well.
You, as the betrayed spouse, need to find a place like a support group in your area, preferably a Christian one, so that you can find sound teaching, and people that you can share your struggles with. Let me also say that your husband needs to be in a men’s accountability group to help him in his healing. He also needs to be completely honest about his betrayal. Let me caution you to only ask what you really need to know. Meaning you don’t need to know all the gory details. This is something most people do, and let me tell you the images can haunt you. I know, because I wanted to know. I had to pray through the images that satan was cramming into my head. Eventually, they would pass, and not come as much. God can get you through. God can get your husband through as well.
Our 2 year journey took us from a dead marriage to the most incredible marriage we could have ever imagined. My group that I lead grows every time I start it up again. I am so happy though to see the work God is doing in each person’s life.
I pray that God will sustain you in your darkness. Cry out to God, and He will pull you through. I pray that through all of this that you are going through, you will find a deeper connection with God in the process.
Take care, and thanks for reading.
(USA) I have been reading all of your posts and I really need some prayer along with advice.
I have been married for 7 years and 3 years after my marriage I had an affair with someone from my past. He was my childhood sweetheart and I was struggling with my marriage at the time. I knew what I had done was wrong and afterward I ended all contact with the person I had the affair with. Even though my husband and I were talking about divorce all the time and fighting non stop I knew that it was no excuse for what I had done.
I just came clean with my husband about the affair a few weeks ago. I felt like the Lord wanted me to come clean about my betrayal and so I told my husband. He first asked me about the affair and then he did not want to talk about it anymore.
Now he is very angry and he has thrown a few things around in the house and I am not sure if this is normal or if I should be worried.
If any of you have gone through this, please let me know what I can expect next. We have 2 children and I worry about the anger.
(US) He only told me the truth after years of accusing me of infidelity. He was forced to tell the truth only after the threat of his niece telling me. It was his brother’s death bed request to take care of his wife’s sexual needs, and that is exactly what he did. She has no remorse whatsoever and says she pretends it is her dead husband. The subject is avoided at all cost and I’m hurt and sad beyond belief.
I can’t seem to get beyond this. I have no idea who I am. We have been married 33 years with 10 grandchildren. I don’t even feel that I can be a good Grandmother anymore. We did go to the Priest, which was the worst mistake I could have made. I was told I should believe my husband because he believed him, and I was to say at the least a decade of the Rosary a day and when I received the blessing of forgiveness. It was my job to help my husband to forgive himself! There are so many details in this nightmare. HELP!!!!!!
(USA) Within the first 5 years I was confronted with a face to face with both my wife and her lover that they loved each other. His sister was present and assisted my wife in that the affair was wonderful; they were made for each other. This man divorced his wife and broke up a marriage with two wonderful young children. He continued seeing my wife and then went away.
I found that my wife had seen him again several years later while on vacation and stayed at my mother’s house. This was really more sad to know your own family would tolerate such action.
Well several years went by and no contact that I was aware of and after adopting a precious child, within a year this man reappeared, married to a second wife and a young child with her. This time it started again. We divorced and five years later they married, but only lived together one month, but remained married for 10 years.
I was betrayed, but stupid enough to continue. Do not go there. End the relationship, and contact and go on with your life. I wasted 20+ years of my life.
(USA) I am almost thirty and almost two years ago my husband and high school sweetheart of over 12 years left me. I had just gave birth to our second son and had a 7 year old too. This all happened after our neighbor and friend was killed on his doorstep. Immediately after the death (two weeks later) I found out that he was having a little too much contact with the widow. When I confronted him he said they were just friends, but he thought he felt more. One night he left my house with her and the kids to bowl. When he came back I asked him to get his things and leave.
I started to call the girl myself and asked her numerous times to stop calling my husband. At first she said she would or that he would always call her. Later, she said he didn’t want to be with me so it didn’t matter who he talked to. She continued trying to say they were only friends. Finally, I found out the truth through my son, who says he took him to her house and saw them kissing. I filed for divorce.
Almost a year and a half later, he came to my doorstep crying and asking me to take him back. We are divorced by his choice, I reminded him. He said he wanted his family back together and that what he had done was wrong. I already had moved on with my life and started to go to church. (I was raised not to believe in anything.) It was hard. So I told him I would try. When I realized that I just couldn’t get over what he had done, I told him I didn’t want it. He promised everything and said he would wait. I asked if the other girl was still present and he said no. One day he found me with my girlfriends at a restaurant and said he was ashamed of me for being out and that I was a horrible mother. He spit in my face and kicked my back. He then went to my parents house and told them lies about me. The next day was Christmas Eve, he came to my house to drop off the kids with the girl in the car. They have been back together since.
I am devastated. This guy not only left me when I needed him the most after I had a baby, but completely stripped me of everything I worked for. I couldn’t live at my house (she lived across the street) so I had to live with my parents, in one room with both boys. The car was under his name so I had to give it to him. He even kept the dog. Now, he is trying to take me to court claiming that I am an unfit mother and he should have full custody. What is wrong with this world? I never did anything wrong. Yet, I am the one sitting alone in my room without my kids (his weekend) and feeling like jumping out of my window.
I wanted to believe when he came back that it was for real, but I knew he still had her lingering in case I didn’t. I was right and this was only 3 months ago. Now, I have to deal with that heartache again and fight at court and see him with her at my son’s baseball games. It’s hard not to want to choke her. But, I have a profession and I would never do anything to ruin my career. She knows that and taunts me. I just want peace in my mind and heart. I don’t want to think about it anymore at all. I would never take him back EVER, but I still love him so much and can’t get over the betrayal. WHAT DO I DO???
Jim- I don’t want to waste anymore years of my life… But, I dwell in pain.
(UNITED STATES) I have experienced the same betrayal that you have all felt but not by infidelity. I have always trusted my spouse throughout our 10 years of marriage to handle our finances. I trusted him so much to the point that I accepted whatever he told me and never looked at anything because I trusted that he was an honest person that would never hurt me or my children. My husband was a very giving person. He was the type that would give anyone the shirt off of his back or a plate to someone else before taking it for himself. I always thought at times that he was too giving. He would think with his heart and not his head.
He was also very obsessive about order and neatness and paying bills on time. He was the glue of our family. He ran a personal business for his family that was not the greatest income for our family but he stayed partially as I thought because his parents had no retirement except for Social Security and their business, which had to file a business bankruptcy reorganization. I had even worked a second job to help out with expenses for upgrades to our home.
I finally felt one day he was not telling me something when I asked him about our money. He came home and landed a bomb on me that we were $280,000 in the hole, which is 3 times our annual income. He had all of the credit cards bills going to his office, which is why I did not know. He put cash advances in the joint account so that when I looked at the checkbook I thought we had no problems with money.
As I started to research things, of course, he did not ever come completely clean. I found out that he had a on online gambling addiction that he later attributed to stupidity and being drunk. He never even felt he had a problem after gambling over $150,000 away. He went to gambling counseling for 3 months after my urging but I truly think he believes his actions were a mental lapse of judgment.
He also invested money in his parents’ failing business without my consent. He said he did it without telling me because he knew I would say "no". I later found out that he ran up $100,000 of debt in my name by forging my name on checks and opening up Credit card accounts in my name. He wrote a check to himself from me for $40,000. He also brought me to get a second mortgage that I thought we were using to pay off about $10,000 worth of credit card bills. After I trusted him in getting it, I thought it would just sit there. No, he drained $98,000 of it in 2 weeks. He intentionally brought me there to set it up so he could drain it to pay off his credit card debts.
I am so angry that I am still enraged after a year. I filed for divorce and have two young kids. He blames me for the divorce and says that I never gave him a second chance and I should remember all of the good things he did for me in our marriage. He was a very unselfish husband in our marriage. He would do things for me that a lot of husband would not do for their wife. It still floors me that someone could be so giving and loving, yet so deceitful and hurtful. I just do not understand how someone could have two extremes to their personality and only the good side truly overtly showing. I do not see him ever fully acknowledging the magnitude of what he has done.
Because of him, I have had to file bankruptcy. I have no equity in my home that at one point I had about $100,000 of equity. I cannot get a loan to move. Keep in mind, I am an upper-middle class person that feels very humiliated. I feel like I have been charged with a crime that I did not do. I have no credit left thanks to him. My biggest mistake as a wife was having full trust in my husband. He knew how much I trusted him to take care of our finances and took advantage of it.
It angers me that he did this to me and my children. Of course, he does not think he has done anything to the kids. He says this has nothing to do with his love for us. I do not understand that because I would have too much love for my family that I would never do the actions that he did because my love for them would stop me. I am now seeing the idiot that I married and I wonder if any of our relationship was real because I am now seeing that he shows only what he wants to show and hides the rest. His father did the same to his mother, which of course, I did not discover until later in our marriage.
He is also very mean at times and emotionally abusive. He sends me spiteful e-mails, which makes getting over my anger that much harder. I feel trapped in anger and rage and just as I feel I am starting to move forward with a new life alone. He has more hurtful comments to pour salt on the wounds more. I will have to spend the next 14 years dealing with this man. I do not know how to get over my anger and rage especially since I am still suffering from the financial consequences of his actions.
The biggest lesson I have learned from this is never fully trust someone even your spouse especially when it comes to money. I do not know how I will ever be able to trust anyone in the future. I feel like how a child would feel if they were betrayed by their parent. My husband, I thought, did not have a mean bone in his body and if someone like that can do this, then I feel, who can you trust?
There were no signs really that I can look back on that would show that I should have known this was going on. He never changed a thing about himself. His demeanor was the same and his spending was the same even while he was in all of this debt. There were no warning signs.
I do not think our marriage is able to be fixed because I do not believe I will ever be able to get over emotionally what he has done to me. It would be a roller coaster of hell that I do not feel is fair to me or my kids to have to endure. I feel if I stay anytime he is mean to me I will think of what he has done and think, "how dare you". I am worth more and do not deserve to spend a life going through this turmoil. I hope my story is helpful to others and if anyone has any advice on how to get past the anger and trust again, let me know.
(PHILIPPINES) I can truly relate from all that has been mentioned here. I just recently learned of my wife’s betrayal. We have been married for 10 years and have three children already. A 10 yr old boy, 5 yr old girl and 9 month old baby girl.
Our marriage from the start was full of turmoil but we managed to stay together for 10 years. I saw so many signs of infidelity and dishonesty from her side but I tried to ignore them or just tell myself it’s not true or she is not capable of such. At times I would confront her but she would just provide me more lies. In order for me to no longer get hurt I just stopped asking although the doubt was always there. I tried to trust her but from time to time I would see the lack of love, respect or honesty on her side and that would result in arguments between the two of us.
In fairness to her this time she did tell me that she was having an affair. What hurts so much is that she is so indifferent of the pain she has caused me and she continues to lie about things. Now what she wants is for her to have custody of the kids since I am working far from home. I further found out that she neglected our kids in view of the illicit relationship. Worst she and her partner even told me that before their relationship my wife has had other affairs. Affairs I had some suspicions of but just closed my eyes to.
I have accepted partially the loss of my wife and that this marriage no more. I love my children deeply and tell my kids that no matter what their mother has done they should respect her still. She wants custody of the kids and as a mother I know she has the right but can’t trust her to raise our children correctly and that she would not neglect them after everything she has done. All I can do now is pray that I do the right thing and that my decisions are sound for the sake of my children.
(UNITED STATES OF AMERICA) I was betrayed about 5 years ago. My husband has since given his life to the Lord shortly thereafter and is now “walking in the Light”. I’m happy for him- but even years after, my anger towards him is so profuse that I’m becoming a cancer to the very family I’ve dreamed of having with him. I have 2 very young children and I am so fearful of our future even though my husband is doing everything he can to prove that he will not hurt me again.
I’ve also allowed my hurt to affect my relationship with God. I know that I should lean on Him no matter what but, I’m still so resentful towards my husband that I can’t seem to move on… We are trying, but I need help so desperately. I just want to be freed from all this bitterness. Please pray for me.