Perseverance, Understanding or Leaving?


Important keys to any relationship are communication, trust, honesty and the act of apologizing. I had given up on a future including intimacy in our marriage. I had begged my wife during our first year together for this and married her knowing she was incapable of showing me this side of herself. She claimed she simply did not have any feelings to share with me or needs for me to fill. She has continuously broken my trust over and over, knowingly and maliciously via staggered disclosure of emotional infidelity during the entire year of 2010.

My wife is now trying (and having slow but moderate success) to learn how to communicate, show love, share intimacy and be honest. Please keep in mind that for months I was unaware of much of what you are about to read. I found out through close examination and scrutiny of my phone bill in late June 2010, spying, and bluffing.

My story:
I had always begged my wife to be more transparent, intimate, share her feelings. I finally resigned myself to a marriage void of intimacy, kissing, or affection.

In January 2010 my then 30 yr old wife of 5 yrs (8 yrs together) began a texting affair with a single 24-25 yr old male coworker. These texting sessions became marathon events where they would start as early as 5 am, lasting until after 3am. Hundreds/day. She was also flirting and sharing intimate thoughts feelings and personal information she had not even shared with me, with at least 1 other ex-boyfriend via Facebook.

I was traveling every other week. I came off the road March 1st. For the next few months she was increasingly hard to get along with. May 15th he stopped responding to her texts. She sent pics of herself to him of herself in bra and panties (she eventually admitted 3 months later) but still he did not respond. Keep in mind this admission came after hundreds of lies, so no one but she and he really know what was sent.

On Memorial Day weekend I got drunk on purpose because of her treatment of me and her lack of respect towards me. I blacked out but it was reported to me that I became verbally abusive towards everyone including her entire family. This is appalling abhorrent behavior and I am still very ashamed of my actions even in the face of what has occurred. The next morning I started a recovery process which enabled me to own my anger and unhappiness. I wrote apology letters, did all the housework went to counseling, anger management, read voraciously, did hours of research on the internet and began meditation classes. I could not sleep, went from 190 lbs. to 147lbs. Went through 3 jobs and was literally a neurotic, paranoid mess.

On June 18th, a Friday night she came to see me play a gig (I am a musician) and asked me to watch the kids (1 from her previous relationship and 1 of ours) while she had a "girls night out" at a bar. We had begun (I thought) to heal from my misbehavior from 3 wks prior (having sex, talking, etc...). She called the ex co-worker at 11pm and they made several calls to each other then started texting again until 12 midnight. She was also texting the girlfriend she was supposedly with. At that point (midnight) according to the phone records, all outbound activity on my wife’s phone stopped for 3 hours. The co-worker quit texting her, she quit texting him. (It seems very apparent to me they were together from this point) Her friend (whom she was with) called and texted her phone several times-no response. I tried calling and texting her with no response. At 1:25am my wife made a 2 minute outbound call to her girlfriend. (To let her know she was alive?) Her girlfriend made several more calls and texts that were not returned. At 2:45 my wife called her GF (I presume to let her know she was on her way back to the bar) and began texting her up until 3am (I presume this is when she was dropped off by him to her GF). At that point the 24yr old co-worker called her several times (presumably on his way home), she made and returned calls and texts to him until about 3:30 at which time the texting frenzy between he and my wife began again (presumably after he arrived home). This continued until my wife walked in the door at 4:20am spent 30 minutes in the bathroom, came to bed, got back up and vomited for 30 minutes.

The next day I lamented "just when we seem to be doing well, one of us always screws up". Starting that morning their texting continued, sometimes at the rate of over 180 texts/day until the following Friday. Meanwhile my wife refused to talk about her extreme lateness and on Monday she stopped talking to me altogether. "I'm not talking to you" she exclaimed. "Why?" I asked. "You know what you have done, you have betrayed me" she screamed. Oblivious to what she was referring to, I racked my brains trying to figure out what actions I had taken that she may have misunderstood.

On Tuesday she cut her hair, dressed provocatively and started wearing makeup (which she rarely did) and went to class at her college-at least that is where she claimed to be. The following Friday June 25th I decided I had enough of her childish behavior and called her oldest and dearest GF whom she had mysteriously stopped seeing. This woman was her boss at her seasonal PT job (where my wife met the young man). I asked her if she knew why my wife had not spoken to me in a week. She took a long pause then reluctantly said "I can't take any more of this and I can’t talk to you over the phone, can you come over?" Naturally I rushed to this friend's house.

When I arrived, she informed me that my wife and the co-worker had become very close, enough so that she and everyone in the office were sure the two had started an affair. She told me of my wife’s visits to her, which had become more and more infrequent. She said my wife texted often at her house; she said my wife told her "my lifestyle is over because my husband is not going to be on the road any longer". When asked about the lack of her wedding rings one night my wife replied "I am not really married anymore so why should I wear them". My wife had also asked her to come to the beach with her to meet this younger man and that if I showed up while he was there she could just say "he is a friend of ours from work". The friend told me she felt that my wife had stopped calling her and coming over to see her because my wife knew that she did not approve of her extramarital relationship. Unfortunately she never confronted my wife about it. She then begged me not to tell my wife that she was the one who told me all of this. She asked that I simply read my phone bill and leave her out of it as she still wanted to maintain a relationship with my wife. I left in disbelief. She must be wrong; my wife was incapable of such deceit and dishonesty. We had talked about other couples infidelity. She had said many times, “People should end something before starting another” and “if you ever did something like that, we are through.”

Upon hearing this disconcerting news, I phoned her GF of the aforementioned "girls night out". She informed me she did not want to get involved, she knew of no one by the name of the person my wife was texting and she confirmed the fact that my wife had indeed expressed to her that she was unhappy but assured me my wife was not cheating or planning on it. She assured me my wife loved me or she (GF) would know about it. She later admitted she split up from my wife for hours that night-then later denied she said it! I do regret her being caught in the situation.

Upon confronting my wife about her texting partner, the look she gave me was that of someone who had seen a ghost. She said they were “just friends”.  I knew she was lying. I asked her if she was cheating, if she had met him outside of work or kissed him. My wife answered a definitive “no”. Again, I knew but was unwilling to admit it to myself. I wanted so badly to believe her. This was the first of many many times she said, “There is nothing more to tell you” or “I am tired of beating a dead horse.” I asked her to choose between texting him or being with me. (Later, she continued to text the co-worker through the weekend up until we walked into church on Sunday.)
She then informed me that she was sick of me, sick of our house, and wanted to move out of our home with our daughter. I then asked her what the entire silent treatment was about. She responded that she and one of the previously mentioned FB ex- boyfriends had had several chatting/email exchanges. He told her that I was emailing him and threatening to send his GF edited versions of their conversations unless he stopped contacting her. He then instructed her to lock me out of her computer and phone, spy on me (run through my web history) and to be very careful and secretive, to which she complied with, without questioning me. I was dumfounded and left speechless at her obedience upon receiving and in being complicit carrying out his commands. I of course denied this and told her if I had found any evidence of her carrying on inappropriate conversations with anyone, she could bank on me confronting her before I confronted him. She did not believe me. (Months later this FB ex- boyfriend admitted it was in fact his wife that concocted the entire operation posing as me.) I left to gather my thoughts and came back to inform my wife I did not want to be a controlling husband. If in fact they were just friends, I informed her I thought that texting or any friendship between a married woman and a single male is inappropriate. I told her to stop texting him at night and we need to be together when one of us needs to go to bed. She did not respond and I assumed they were still texting. I asked to see the texts-she had deleted them.

I was in such a state of shock and denial along with her threatening to leave I could not demand anything. She had complete control. She said she was getting a new phone, and leaving, presumably to be with this boy. As if he wanted a married mother of 2 for anything other than sex?

Over the course of the next few days I started a new job. The following Wednesday she went with a group of women to see the vampire love story movie twilight. She came home and we had sex during which she told me (in a very tiny small voice which I had to ask to repeat several times) “I don’t want to be with anyone else” and “are we going to be able to get through this?” to which I responded in my ignorance to what really happened, “of course baby!” The next morning brought fresh flowers delivered to her work. Her response was “I am afraid you have gotten the wrong impression, nothing has changed, and I am still leaving you. Last night I made a mistake. I simply shared my body and showed you some emotion. You had met a purely physical need and that is all. I will not make the same mistake again.

Over the next couple of weeks of begging her to talk with me I had gotten nowhere. I accepted the fact that our marriage was over. How could there be any future with someone so adamantly opposed to even a discussion with their spouse? One night when she was gone I wrote a song about my resignation. She then wrote me a letter in response to my many texts, emails, typed letters as well as a few handwritten notes. In it she stated she felt nothing for me so she texted him to feel something and didn’t (obviously she felt lust at the very least) and upon my confrontation she became overwhelmed with emotion and feelings (though she never once showed any signs of feelings other than extreme irritation with me). She speculated she had started to come back around to me possibly because I had started to pull away.

This was the point I really started to realize my wife had some serious psychological issues. I had experienced these types of relationships in high school. I sank even more into despair. What had I done? I was trying to resuscitate a marriage to someone who was so utterly foreign to the concept of love, devotion and commitment that she played chasing games with the father of her child. Sometime over the next month, without notifying me, she took the lock off of her phone and pc. When she finally told me she did so, after I had been questioning her, I was confused. I asked her after a few drinks one night, during sex, why she did not tell me she had stopped texting him and unlocked her devices. Her response was “I didn’t want you to know that you had control over me and I thought it was funny to watch you squirm.” This comment did even more damage to our already strained marriage.

Over the next 3 months we fought hard. I left 3 separate times for about a week each time. I also later found texts to her ex husband and other friends regarding the fact that I was an asshole and a horrible husband. During 1 of my absences she emailed the co-worker again and invited him to email or text her sometime and finished it with one of those winking characters ;o) She also answered a friend’s questionnaire and responded that she missed him and that she wished she was with him. (To this day she has no explanation for her actions)
   

Pt 3:
I grew up in a Mayberryesque town. I enjoyed a very supportive and open minded loving mother. Dad left at age 9 but remained in my life. I had been meditating now for some months and began to dig deep into my own psyche. Searching the memories of my childhood I rediscovered my latent Dominant tendencies and began to remember adolescent bondage fantasies. Stripped neighborhood girls and tying them with ropes to trees. Talk about suppression of abnormal thoughts. They seemed normal to me at the time. My mother and Grandmother were very thorough in instilling the ways of chivalry and what it meant to women to behave as a gentleman. I had always been dominant as a bandleader and in business. I had withheld my dominant nature from my personal relationships with women. I didn’t know there were women that wanted men to be that way (domineering) I went through some anger issues and a juvenile delinquent phase before getting into the Navy, learning the value of discipline, spirituality, morality and subsequently “finding myself through music. I led a limited, controlled hedonistic lifestyle for many years.

Before meeting me-an educated, articulate, spiritual, centered, passive, non-controlling, trusting, loving man (albeit with some anger issues that I have resolved to overcome)-she claims she had always been a natural submissive (from early adolescence). I did not demand anything of her, so she became unraveled and lost in the lack of responsibility she had been used to adhering to. The problem was her horribly abusive childhood (sexual, physical, emotional and abandonment issues), as well as her abusive, sadistic, addictive (alcohol and drugs) undisciplined and selfish partners in her past relationships. During our talks one night she mentioned her first brief marriage was in the nature of a 24/7 BDSM lifestyle. She says she withheld her past and her desires and thoughts from me because it was not accepted by the general public. She thought I wanted her to conform to society’s idea of a perfect marriage. She knows I have always shunned “normalcy” so I don’t know why she thought that is what I wanted. Upon asking her the question of why she had been withholding of her innermost thoughts and desires for all of these years came the often used, now dreaded reply “I don’t know.”

I did months of personal as well as internet research and read dozens of books on the subject of BDSM before suggesting anything to her. Everything from the psychology of masochism, and sadism, to the actual dispensing of pain based on a loving consensual level. I learned everything from the how, why, what, where and who. I am fully aware of the love, communication, commitment, trust and honesty necessary to any relationship but even more crucial to this new lifestyle of which I intended to embark. Upon learning of my newfound interest, she very cautiously yet excitedly agreed to discuss and explore a D/s relationship with me. She admitted she not only needed the discipline but desperately wanted that from me. I believe she genuinely thrives on it. She stated she would give me anything from now on.

It has transformed our marriage. We discussed in detail the previously mentioned D/s relationship that she left due to a disrespectful and abusive Dom. After I explained what he was lacking -love, forgiveness, self control, trust, - (this list goes on and is exhausting just to write!) She decided she wanted to be submissive to me because of her lack of focus, lack of respect (for herself as well as for me) and for the lack of a sense of achievement. She is starting to learn how to apologize-without any explanations-for her actions. She is still struggling to put into her own words acceptable apologies for many previous transgressions and insane behavior-but has made some genuine progress.

I had been advised by experienced practitioners of this lifestyle to STOP and not to engage in any BDSM lifestyle (with the exception of bedroom play) until she overcomes her fear of telling me the things I have requested and taking responsibility. After telling her we are shelving this aspect of our lives, taking back my choker, stopped her spankings, putting away our toys, and informed her we are going back to counseling, she became despondent. She said she was floundering and flailing away at life again. Could not make decisions; decide what she should wear to please me…? She was acting up, began being disrespectful and was basically miserable.

We tried counseling several times with different therapists but she is not opening up in that environment. I feel she is having difficulty being vulnerable in any way but sexually. She struggles with apologizing for her attitude, negative assumptions, condescension, sarcasm or temper. It is with great effort, I feel, to communicate what she wants.

In order to bring my wife and our family back to a state of safety and happiness, against the advice of the BDSM community, we are practicing a D/s relationship again. Now she says she trusts me completely, in that I will not leave her or use revenge or her submission to exact punishment for her past indiscretions.

We are happier now than either of us has ever been. She offers to do anything I wish with this 1 exception. I still hear the same “There is nothing more to tell you, you already know everything.” The same thing that I have heard since discovery of her deceitfulness. She has said she will do anything for me. She says she cannot figure out how to show me that she loves me and only me. I have given her many examples of ways to do just that. She is eager to show me sexually. Yet still unable to show me verbally or via the written word.

She also claims she does not have time to read the letters I have written to her that has built up over the last 6 months. She had no problem finding the time to text him to the brink of the destruction of our marriage, yet she cannot find the time to do as I have asked to enable us to repair my trust and our marriage. She claims texting him took no brain power, my letters requires her extreme focus.

I feel I cannot completely trust her because she still withholds intimate information from me while sharing with others. Most recently: our daughters acceptance into a school that is logistically not an option for us; our taxes not being filed for the last 4 yrs-btw her pt job where she met the OM was at a tax filling business; comes home late and drunk after I have asked her specifically not to; I have to pull every thought, emotion and intimacy out of her by lots of talking (mostly me) going through her texts and emails or through sex. She has said in the past she was dishonest because she didn’t want to hurt me or she thought I would leave her when faced with her actions. (Selfish and egotistic -meaning SHE didn’t want to hurt; and in not trusting me to be mature enough or strong enough to love her unconditionally)

I don't feel I have any anger left about the affair. It is the lying and berating she put me through that I am still resentful of. We have tried counseling. She simply has nothing to say. The silence is painful. When the counselor pushes her to respond ("what do you think of that?") It is "I don't know." On the rare occasion when she does say something it is to justify something that I have expressed hurt over. She truly believes in her mind things that did not happen and has completely forgotten things that did. Ex: I had a tooth pulled during 2010. We talked a great deal about it when it happened (she had 2 pulled less than 2 yrs prior for her braces and major tooth surgery) Now she claims no recollection of it; When I give her something to read, she does so and when talking about it later, completely replaces words and context which alters the meanings of what was written; She does the same with my spoken words. We have been to 2 different therapists who are simply not addressing these issues. 
She claims it isn’t worth it to voice things she feels I shouldn’t be bothered with-such as her feelings. Through these talking sessions I feel she is starting to learn to trust me with her feelings, to be more vulnerable, trusting, intimate, and optimistic. More and more often, she is showing me physical intimacy-even in front of the kids and our fr/fam. Sometimes she likes to cuddle now and kiss me (???). That is totally new. I feel this is an amazing change. She is learning to look at the big picture. We discovered through our talks she was not “getting” what she needed from me (Intimacy, genuine interest, friendship, shared responsibilities) not because I wasn’t giving it but because she was not “giving” it. …She is now a much happier person in general day to day life, though now and then she does act out in order to test my Dominant nature, (maybe so that she may feel loved?). She talks about how negative everything seemed before-how she thrived on it-how she felt her sarcasm and pessimism made her friends laugh. How she felt empowered by being negative and mean.

She STILL has not read my letters. I think she is afraid to read how I felt back then. I have told her I cannot move on until she reads how I felt, tells me the before, during and after story of her and this guy for the first 6 months of 2010 and the last 6 months of 2010. She went from desperately trying to leave me-to loving me and promising me she is willing to do ANYTHING I ask of her. She told me recently, the first 3-4 months after I found out, she just never realized what a powerful effect my persistence had, staying with her through all of her lies and deceitfulness and working on myself as well as our marriage through this ordeal. She claims (sadly) that she could not or would not have had my capacity to forgive and persevere. I just want to be there to recognize her weakness, share her excitement, and support her when it happens again. There has been a certain sexual energy borne of this travesty, it does excite me, I think that’s one of the reasons I want to hear how she felt and how it happened.

She meets 7 0f 9 DSM-IV-TR traits in studies suggesting the signs and symptoms of Borderline Personality Disorder or Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder. The only trait she is not displaying is suicidal or self-harming behavior. We are talking at least 1 night /week (which we have replaced our Discipline and punishment with) and learning to control her raging, projecting, mind reading, avoidant and ambivalent behavior, pessimism, selfishness, limited coping and communication skills-she can communicate but chooses not to, maybe because of what she assumes will happen if she does. I asked her why she is uncomfortable when we get into serious discussions (exploring our issues) gave her examples and reasons why; feeling she may hurt my feelings or I will not understand her, etc She said she thinks we just talk in circles and she is afraid the police will be called again. Her friends and family are unaware of her personality at home in private. Some have suggested she is emotionless and has a bad temper in regards to her children and I. “That’s just the way she is.”

We have a 5yr old daughter and she is the reason I am still here. I do not believe in staying for their sake but realize if we keep letting her rage the results will impact their lives even more detrimentally than divorce. She is honest moving slowly forward. I believe her inability to disclose what happened suggests a character flaw. Also, I believe she is suffering from this BPD. This is surely inhibiting her behavior.

Her friends and family have always maintained they know her better than I do, IE: “She is just not an affectionate person. If you are expecting her to be nice you should leave now, she isn’t a touchy feely person. Don’t make her mad or she will leave you.” Her friends and family have always maintained her integrity and honesty, IE: “One thing she is not is a liar. She would never cheat on you. She would never leave you. They are just friends. Nothing much happened. Etc… They have been wrong at every single turn. It is as if no one knows her but me. Even though she has admitted much of these things to me, they still believe her??? They say that whatever happened there are two sides to every story and it is inconsequential, in the past and that she is making herself vulnerable by being totally submissive and agreeing to do whatever it is I command. Some of our friends have suggested she is telling the truth. IE: “He left to go to a party, she stayed, danced, drank and nothing really happened.” I am amazed at these friends naiveté. Or do they simply want me to stay with her because of her weakness??? Her own father told me “once she says she is done, she is done” She has told me “she is done” 100 times.

The counselors and therapists argue with me and tell me I am wrong to assume or accuse without solid evidence. I believe the phone records and her inability to explain are proof. We have seen 3 different therapists now and I feel I have made more progress and we are further along as a result of my own research, subsequent intimacy/communication exercises and efforts. I just wish she could be batted into reality by a Dr. Phil type instead of by me. She must have resentment towards me for pulling all of this out of her and explaining (as nicely as possible) that I truly feel the excitement of all the texting rendered her insane and there will be no healing until she admits everything.

Things were going better now they are falling back into the way it used to be. She reacts via raging when I show the least bit annoyed or angry. As I said, I am still reading, researching and meditating to control my anger but after so much yelling, sometimes I can’t seem to remain calm. I try but after 10 min of yelling in front of the kids I lose it. I end up leaving or barricading myself in a room she is not occupying.

She completely rewrites history sometimes within 2 minutes of the incident. One of us is crazy and until I realized she was "gaslighting" me for so long (tying to make me think I am mistaken or crazy) I thought it may be me. She claims she does not have low self esteem but how could she not? I fear her constant use of the term “I don’t care” will be the swansong of our marriage. This is her standard answer to my questions from “do you want to have sex?” to “what would you like for dinner”. Or is this another sign of her low self esteem-she doesn’t feel she deserves to even be asked?

My question is how do I continue in my efforts to support my wife (emotionally and sexually) if she cannot or will not admit being with the OM even in the face of proof via the timeline provided through phone/text msgs? The answers to all of my questions are: "I don't know", I don't remember" or the most recent, "I am so sorry, I was so selfish" (I thought that was an improvement over her previous answers or the lack of admissions.) How can I be honest and share my needs, desires and plans for us without these admissions and proof of her ability to tell the truth? Every time she tells me "that’s all there is" there is always more. It is a never-ending rabbit hole. I love her, am beginning to develop trust for her again, however I am disturbed with the dishonesty/withholding or what she refers to as not important enough or “I forgot/ I don’t know” I am thinking of asking our therapist to test us to find out who is more crazy; Her for lying and raging or Me for sticking around.