...to treat DW's sexting as infidelity?

[JackMatthias]

First post here so deep breath...

DW and I have been married for over 10 years and have 2 DCs aged 3 and 8. Good marriage IMO except physical side has never been that great for either of us. Anyway, all well until after birth of DC #2:

A few months after DC # 2 was born, her mobile text alert bleeps. She happens to be out of the room, her phone is next to me so I glance at it and see on it quite a flirtatious text from someone whom we'll call 'John'. Curiousity piqued, I grab the phone and see two or three texts back and forth between DW and John which are also flirty. I feel sick and I confront her over this and it turns out that John is an old flame from before my time. I make it clear how hurt and upset I am and she promises she'll not do it again. I feel bad about snooping and make up my mind to trust her. She swears blind that there's nothing in it; as far as she's concerned it's just a bit of harmless fun.

Ok, so I forgive, forget and move on. Until about three months ago - exactly the same thing happens. More traffic between her and John on her phone, this time of a more sexual nature on both their parts, although the impression is that he's largely the one driving it forward. This time I really blow up at her, tell her how angry I am, how betrayed I feel and that I feel I can't trust her. Again, she swears that it is purely a bit of fun, that it;s just an 'outlet', she has her ego massaged by it and she would never dream of cheating on me with this mush. I 'punish' her by sleeping apart from her for several days but gradually forgive her...

But this time I don't forget; I feel I can no longer trust. I don't feel bad about snooping on her phone any more and, guess what, more texts last week between her and John, more explicit, again mainly driven by him although she is hardly fending him off. This time I haven't confronted her, as the last two occasions clearly achieved Sweet FA but really don't know what to do about it. I haven't been able to get to her phone this week but am sure this is continuing, as I'm sure that what I've seen are just the texts she hasn't deleted.

Right now, I feel absolutely devastated, betrayed, very hurt, very angry but also very scared. I want our marriage to work and am willing to consider Relate or something similar (but that would involve me 'fessing up to her that I know about the latest bunch of texts), and I don't want to lose her or our DCs, but I find the whole situation really intolerable. I still love her very much but find it really difficult to be around her right now (she's noticed I'm withdrawn ATM). I'm also really worried that this latest rack of texts I've seen seems to be an escalation and that she will end up having an affair with John. Feel sick constantly and can't sleep ATM.

I feel really conflicted right now. Part of me want to throw her out but I still love her and don't want to do that to our DCs. Part of me wonders whether this is just an escapist fantasy for her and not unfaithfulness from her POV(maybe the female version of blokes looking at porn?) and I should just put up with it (not sure I can though) and play happy families and pretend nothing's happening. Part of me wants to track John down and send him a photo of the DCs asking him what his intentions are to my DW and how I should tell the DCs that, or even go postal on him and beat the bastard up!

So wtf should I do???!!!

How'd it go?

It's tonight that he's speaking to her, xPAULAx

Let us know how it goes, John, we're wishing you well.

*Jack you need to find out who cares more about your relationship, you or DW.

In tempestuous' case, it turned out (to her surprise) that she cared more than her DH. The very fact that she was afraid to lose him when he walked out and that she did exactly what he told her to do when he came back is proof.

The person who cares least controls what happens. If your DW is more afraid of what will happen if your marriage breaks up than you are, then you call the shots here.

But if you want to save your marriage, but your wife doesn't really care, then she controls what happens to you.

That is, she controls it til you decide you don't care anymore and decide to divorce her, thus making her little fantasy and excitement with the old flame presumably more awkward.*

Jack - this, I feel, is what rang true to me.

Whether we like it or not relationships are a power struggle most of the time.

Good luck sweetheart and I hope you either gain closure or can work it out.

OK kids are just being put to bed by her (her turn) so I'm going to do it as soon as I am sure they're asleep.

Good luck, Jack! Remember to be firm and unflinching and prepared to carry out any threats you make.

x

Be strong mate. Whatever the outcome, you deserve to be treated better than this.

Waiting!

Not posted before but i have been following this,good luck,you sound like a decent bloke.

Good luck!

Hope you're ok :/

No News yet?!

Right....sat down with her and told her I'd rumbled her and John. She went white and very quiet. Told her how hurt and betrayed I felt by her particularly because she knew how much it hurt me from last time. Told her I loved her and still wanted to be with her but if she ever pulled a cupid stunt like that again I would make her pack her bags and leave and would divorce her. Also insisted that we go to Relate. Asked her if she wanted out of the marriage. She said no she didn't, that she loved me, was sorry etc. and that we would go to therapy together with Relate. She insisted again that it was just a silly escapist fantasy and about being foudn desirable and there was no chance of anything ever actually happening with John. I said it was still infidelity in my book. She said it definitely wouldn't happen again.

Then I phoned John on her mobile. Told him I was onto him, that he was a sad pathetic bunny and to stay the fuck away from my wife, otherwise I would get medieval on his sorry arse. He apologised and said he'd never contact her again. I hung up on him before I could say anything that would be illegal and deleted his number.

Things were a bit awkward between me and DW for the rest of the evening. We pretty much went to bed after that. Didn't talk much; I felt all talked out and I guess she was pretty shell-shocked by how angry I was. Waited till she fell asleep and then I'm ashamed to say I came downstairs, threw some soft furnishings around and bawled my eyes out; it was like a dam burst or something. Needless to say, I slept like shit last night.

This morning, things are still tense between us; I'm still not sure she 'gets' what she's done to me. I feel very washed out and blue, feel crap physically. She had another go about needing to be desired this morning, like that somehow justifies the betrayal and makes me out to be the party at fault here, which I just can't hack right now. Maybe we'll talk about it with Relate, but right now it'll make me feel like hurling more innocent items of furniture around! Someone asked about whether I can forgive her; the answer is ATM "I don't know; only time will tell." AFAIC, she's got a lot of ground to make up about being sorry and enabling me to trust her again, and I really don't give a fuck right now about how 'desirable' I may or may not make her feel. That said, I do also recognise that I will have to look at that part of our marriage and make changes but there's no way in a blue moon even that I can do that ATM.

Sorry, bit of a brain-wank all over the board, but you did ask!!

Well done Jack, for fronting it up like that. Sorry you feel shit

However - can I just say - that 'blame' thing is out of order. She was in the wrong, she got busted and now she's trying to blame you? Whether she needs to feel desired or not, the blame for doing this behind your back lies at her door, I'm afraid.

I would be expecting her to be asking for your forgiveness, not trying to make it your fault, tbh.

Well done.

She needs to see that she has caused serious damage. She needs to see that this is not about HER feeling sexy and desired, what about YOU? What about your needs to feel loved and desired?

How sexy and desired do YOU feel when she is doing this to your marriage?

That she prefers to keep this John guy going, rather than focus on you.

Good on you for turning angry. It is deserved.

Well done Jack.

I think its normal in any long term relationship for there to be peaks and troughs of desire - plus we all feel taken for granted at one point or another.

Its what you do with those feelings thats important, and she has ridden roughshod over yours, not once, not twice but now three times. No matter how much she wanted to feel desired, it was not by you, or she would have taken steps to seduce you or at least to talk to you about how she was feeling after the second time.

Don't let her blame you for this. Whilst we are all guilty of taking our partners for granted, it is no justification for starting an emotional affair.

Id also bet that she will be in touch with John again. Make sure that you have a plan for if/when that happens. It will do you no harm to let her know that you have a plan. I feel that, having done this three times, she will be loath to give up the illicit thrill. There is no more heady mix than a new love affair AND keeping a secret.

Well done Jack !

Good to hear you got things out in the open. I think those who have done wrong always try to blame someone else for their actions but she needs to realise that what she did was completely unacceptable.

I hope you can work things out

Good for you Jack. Sorry you're still feeling crap. I hope your dw grows up now and takes you and her family for real.

Well done, Jack. Far better to beat up innocent furniture than guilty parties, as it were! I hope it all works out for you both.

Jack - it sounds like she still doesn't understand what she has done. Hopefully Relate will help her do this. The trouble with sexting is that it can be an incremental thing. It can start off as really quite mild flirtation and gradually becomes more and more explicit and more and more addictive. It gives the recipient a much needed ego boost ('much-needed' not necessarily because the 'sexter' is not getting enough attention at home, but rather about their own susceptibility to/need for flattery and perceived excitement). Those involved convince themselves that they're not actually doing anything wrong because nobody's getting hurt. It's just a silly fantasy that would never come to anything in reality.

Unfortunately, because of this incremental process, it becomes relatively easy to turn the fantasy into reality. Someone who might otherwise not be unfaithful may see having sex just one more small incremental step in a 'harmless' process. This is what happened to my dh and it took the reality of a sexual encounter to bring him to his senses. Until that point he had totally persuaded himself that he wasn't doing me any harm, it wasn't real and an encounter with the ow would just be part of this process. He fully admits that, without the physical encounter, he probably would still not admit to himself that he had done anything really wrong. I suspect this is the state your wife is in. I am sure she would swear that she would never do anything with this other man but I suspect she is, or certainly has been, quite vulnerable to turning the fantasy into reality.

I do sympathise with you - it is such a betrayal to think that the person you love is communicating with someone in this way. If she is prepared to invest in her relationship with you and try to understand the hurt she has done, I am sure you can get past this (we have done). But all the time she fails to understand she is vulnerable to doing the same thing again.

Well done Jack.

It must be a relief to have that out of the way. You're handling this a lot better than I would.

Wtoward the end of my pregnancy with DS2 DH wouldn't come near me. He was otherwise affectionate but he didn't fancy me and I could tell. We' go weeks without having sex (unusual for us) and he was watching porn more. Normally I'm neither here nor there about porn but it hurt to know that it was becoming a replacement for sex with me.

It was a tough time but I stuck it out because I understood. I was fat, uld hardly walk through pelvic pain and I was puking up constantly. It really wasn't my sexiest time!

Turns out all the sickness made me spring down to 9.5 stones right after the birth and I was as fit as a fiddle again! Things improved after that- immensely!

But if they hadn't and my dH just pulled further away from me I would have done everything in my power to help us out of it before went elsewhere. And I'd have had the decency to leave him before I even thought about that.

I hope you both manage to make it through this and find happiness again- no matter what that might mean.

• apologies for my typos. Still getting used to this blackberry phone!