DW cheated for 9 years. How do I get over it and rebuild?

[JojoB1980]

The last time I posted on MN was in 2017 and I got a really bad reception so please be kind. I've been with my DW 17 years and married for 12 years and have 2 children. Our sex life was great for the first number of years but naturally reduced in frequency especially after marriage. Despite this I felt nothing was wrong as despite it becoming less frequent than I wanted the quality was always great - we always climaxed at the same time (i'd wait for her) and it was obviously very loving and authentic. By the time we had our first child nearly 9 years ago, intimacy had seriously reduced and my sexual advances were fairly consistently rejected. I assumed that despite loving each other wholeheartedly and still both being sexually attracted to each other - that DW simply had a much lower sex drive than me and wasn't at all interested in sex as much as I was. This continued until 2016 when I became more and more frustrated by not just the lack of sex but what I came to feel was a lack of general intimacy between us. I became despondent over time especially when mutual female friends would openly describe their very high sex drive. I felt like very sorry for myself because I still loved her so much but always had a very high sex drive which I assumed was simply incompatible with my DW.

At the end of 2016 I unexpectedly started a sudden infatuation with a beautiful woman who was 12 years younger than me and on our first meeting showed me affection and sexual interest. I immediately felt this sudden explosion of need and desire and realisation of what I'd been missing. We started a two week "affair" which consisted of a few kisses and chats but nothing physical and we both felt extremely anxious and uneasy about it and she ended it. I was heartbroken, not because of any love for her but for the rejection and feeling that I'd lost the one opportunity I'd found for meaningful intimacy. I felt trapped in my marriage to a woman and child I loved intensely but was unfulfilled and frustrated by sexually. I was totally lost and heartbroken and told my wife about it. We went to couples therapy for 3 months where the majority of the discussion seems to centre on DW perception that I didn't contribute equally to household work which turned her off sexually. DW said very little in those sessions. Our communication and appreciation for each other did improve and we resolved to continue our marriage. I subsequently went through what I've since been told was likely 3 years of depression. Our sex life and general intimacy didn't improve and I allowed myself to fixate on the woman that got away; paying for her to move to new zealand, finding her a job, paying her deposit and generally paying to make her dream of emigrating come true just to feel a small sense of validation and acceptance.

What I didn't know was that my wife had been reading my texts and emails for the last 9 months in the belief I was having an affair and never confronted me. Eventually I realised she knew and broke down and explained my heartache of unrequited infatuation. She forgave me instantly and I felt this overwhelming feeling of security and comfort that my DW was the perfect person for me because of the way she handled it. Still the intimacy didn't improve, we had sex less than once a month to the point i started googling definitions for sexless marriage and asking for advice on mumsnet (which was awful, I got crucified).

A few years later I discovered a bag full of dildos and sex toys, and her reaction was horror. I was personally relieved because I felt it meant she did have sexual needs and drive. A while later she called me anxiously to tell me a girlfriend of a man she'd been chatting to on twitter was convinced they were flirting inappropriately and that it was nothing but football banter. The gf called me and I straight out shut her down, absolutely certain that DW simply didn't have that desire or sexual need or drive and that even if she did she'd tell me. a month later I saw the mans name come up on DW phone and opened the chat to find several years thread of extremely graffic sexting. Dick pics and extremely explicit chat going back at least 2 years. I wanted to hold it in but was shocked and frozen and went white and confronted her about it. She claimed it was pure fantasy, like watching porn and was harmless. Again my main feeling was relief that I'd discovered a sexual drive that I could tap into. The one thing that stuck out from the texts was that she'd invited him to our flat for sex and he bottled it and didn't turn up. She claimed that was all heat of the moment fantasy and she would never have gone though with it. She could see how upset I was about the episode so only 2 weeks later I was devastated to find another thread of sexting on her phone with a person she'd previously slept with before our relationship. She was reliving the sordid nature of the sex etc and it totally devastated me. That was in 2020.

Over the following 3 years we started to discuss non monogamy and joined an ENM app. Our sex life immediately went through the roof. We went from having great sex once a month to having extremely gratifying much more adventurous sex about 3 times a day for 3 or 4 months. She was sexting guys on the app and making videos (solo and with me) but she showed it to me whenever I asked and I genuinely wasn't in any way upset or hurt by them because it wasn't in secret and was done in my full knowledge and approval. Suddenly all the activity stopped dead and I asked DW directly to promise me that she hadn't migrated to another channel or platform, I also asked her to tell me if she'd ever slept with anyone else since we began our relationship and she convincingly promise me she hadn't.

Our sex life remained much better for the last 2 years although it did reduce again in frequency but i felt we were much more in tune with each other. However there was this unresolved insecurity that I harboured. She had changed the password on her phone, so i was frequently checking her laptop for evidence. I found nothing and over time began to trust again.

Then suddenly 8 weeks ago when she'd gone away to see her friend abroad, I searched her laptop and discovered an enormous cache of saved texts, photos and videos starting all the way back in 2014 in her dropbox. She obviously exported her whatsapps and hidden them. They detailed in extreme explicit detail her physical infidelity with a man she met at a work xmas party in 2013, 2 years after our wedding, around the time we were trying to concieve our first child. They had sex 4 times, twice in our flat on our couch, and twice at his flat. the last time was 2 weeks after we learned of our pregnancy. It's clear from the texts that she wanted to continue the affair and he tended to go quiet and then come back. There were texts 2 weeks after she gave birth that suggested she wanted to see him but couldn't promise sex as she had endured a very tough childbirth and just wanted to kiss him. There is evidence of her booking a hotel for them 6 months after giving birth but he bottled it and it didn't happen. The texts with this man continued sporadically in 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021 (after the whole sexting was discovered). These sexts are clearly more about reminiscing about the affair for masturbation but they both state a desire to meet up again although it doesn't appear to have ever happened.

There are other chats with other men just after that physical affair fizzled out with a man she slept with an had anal sex and used all the sex toys I didn't know existed at that time in a hotel in 2015 (our child was 6 months old). There are other texts where it's clearly just fantasy and she's using it as an outlet for her secret sexual desires.

Obviously I totally blew up and we've been in trauma and trying to fix ourselves and our relationship since. Lots of therapy. lots of talking and walking and sex. she's completely come clean and takes full responsibility for her actions. She has been patient and resilient to my volatile behaviour since, and is genuinely trying to save our marriage. She recognises that she "compartmentalised" me for years as a DH and kept her sexual activity and urges secret and separate. She didn't feel it would impact on me because she loved me and thought so long as I didn't know it wouldn't affect us. She's now realised that by doing so she alienated me for years and denied me the intimacy I had been craving. She lied and gaslit me and betrayed me horribly.

I want so much to stay with her. I love her immensely. I want her, I'm deeply sexually attracted to her. We have a whole life together including 2 children and I want to get over it and enjoy what has since become a very intimate and loving new relationship. However I still have massive bouts of doubt and anxiety. The fact that she can't explain why this happened (she's going to therapy to try to understand herself better); mean that I find it impossible to move on and heal. I feel i don't know her, i don't know myself, i don't trust any of our memories for the last 9 years including the birth of our children. I'm immediately triggered by any mention of the year that either of our children were born.

Please advise.... How do I move on. Please be kind,

Jeez - is this real? Do people actually live like this?

The fact we stayed together and I still want to stay together despite the lack of general intimacy and horrific infidelity is evidence that we have a very strong bond aside from sex.

No, that's not true. It isn't your bond that's keeping you together. You both just can't face the daunting task of separating, and you're too scared to process how horribly you have treated each other and your marriage. With a nice side order of guilt because there are children involved. So if you can "save" your marriage then it must mean you haven't selfishly fucked up your lives and those of your children.

You’re a pair of depraved idiots

@NotMeSecretFormular as I’ve responded here already I do state I love her and we’re both excellent parents to our beloved children. We have an otherwise amazing relationship but the bit that was missing and as it turns out was hidden from me and left me utterly lost and unfulfilled was the sexual element hence why it’s the main point of my post.

@wispatwirl i did do dna tests on both kids. There was one text where she asks him if he was wearing protection and pulled out as she was petrified the baby was his. The four times they had sex were within 2 weeks which was the exact time we conceived.

I really don't think you should stay together - you both sound like you'd be happier with other people

@BadNomad thats what I worry about late at night when I can’t sleep. I worry that she doesn’t really want me but can’t admit it to herself or me because she’s too scared of losing the stability of the family and our otherwise good relationship. I worry that I’m only staying because I don’t want to leave the kids or am too scared and weak or lack the self confidence to be without her. Hence me posting

Yes. Don't listen to the words, words are cheap and easy. Look at the behaviour. Do her actions show that she loves you? Do her actions show that she wants an intimate relationship with you? Do her actions show that she is trustworthy? Same questions about you.

@MsCactus you might be right. I have no idea whether I’d be happier, I’ve been with her for 17 years so can’t imagine what it would be like. We both genuinely feel and state that we love and want each other and want to stay together but my trauma is so overwhelming that I worry I’ll never get over it and I don’t want to hurt myself or her further, and create a toxic environment for our children

@BadNomad my actions definitely show that I love her and want her which is why I didn’t run away when I first discovered the sexting and stayed despite the intimacy being missing. I didn’t sleep with the other woman and told my wife about it at the time because I was distressed.

her actions have consistently suggested she doesn’t want me, doesn’t love or respect me enough to even tell me what she wants. She didn’t have the courage or respect for me to ever admit or confess what she did and instead compartmentalised me and denied there was anything wrong. The evidence is blazingly obvious and yet I still find myself believing her and wanting to save our marriage

Is there trauma in your families, intergenerationally? You have a trauma bond. You have enough therapy between you (as long as this is appropriate therapy) to know within the next five years if you can stay together, and if not, to navigate a separation with as little harm as possible to the children.

I think you need to have the confidence to leave - but also the confidence to pick your next partner wisely. If you leave your DW but get into a similar type of relationship without trust it won't help anyone. You need to believe you should be treated better than this.

For what it's worth, I wouldn't stay in the relationship if I was in your position

You do deserve to be treated better than this, if that wasn't clear. You both do!

So to lay it out:

Your sex life had dropped off - perhaps in part due to conception-focussed sex. As sometimes happens, she had a brief fling with a colleague who was new and exciting. She then spent the next 9 months (and quite possibly many years) terrified by the small chance that the child wasn’t yours. So she withdrew from you,

When you confessed about the younger woman - which absolutely was an affair, by the way, paying for significant things for her made it so - DW didn’t forgive you instantly when you confessed about the money. No such thing as instant forgiveness. She did feel relieved that you were also “guilty” which probably came across as very positive and loving to you.

But in fact you had both hurt each other a lot, but you had small kids to think of, so she went outside the marriage for sex, as she hadn’t come clean with you.

ENM together offered a respite, but still, there were buried secrets (and I do wonder if there was anyone else for you between 2016 and 2020)

And what you have to figure out now is whether you can live together without sex and both seek it elsewhere, whether you can have an open marriage but still have sex together, or whether to both give up seeing other people and start from where you are, taking it slowly and gently because of all the hurt. Or whether to split as amicably as you can.

I hope your therapist has experience of complex relationships - you will need a lot of counselling whichever of the above paths you take.

@joan12 no trauma on either side. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager and her early relationships were ethically unsound as she was effectively the side chick for years. She was then dumped pretty dramatically by her second boyfriend who she felt she completely committed fully and openly to so perhaps those created an unhealthy paradigm for future relationships where she always felt she had to hold something back for herself as self preservation.

@MsCactus i agree I’d like to have the confidence to leave and then choose to stay or go with the self knowledge that it’s a deliberate and self assured choice. I totally agree I deserve much better and would never desire to put myself in this situation.

@MsCactus why do you say we both do? Do you think I treated her badly? I loved her with all my heart and when I started a non physical infatuation i told her about it as I was distraught. I can’t see how I’ve treated her badly.

Be kind you say 🤔 what a joke and sham of a marriage!!!

Spending considerable sums of money on a woman you were infatuated with was not treating your wife well.

You sound like you've made your mind up to stay as you keep defending her. You've answered your own question.

@HelenDenver this is a brilliant and observant summary and very helpful thanks. I suspect you’re right in the main except for I think she was very sure it was my child. She says after the first episode she was ignited by the excitement and subsequently went in search of ways to recreate it. She’s adamant she always loved me and didn’t go off me but compartmentalised me and didn’t think it would have an effect on our relationship, which it clearly did. I felt it and became depressed and lost because of it. Never once would I ever have thought that she was capable of doing this and didn’t even think she was interested sexually so it hurts so much more

@RedoneP yes I have decided to stay but the trauma is debilitating and I worry that I’ll never get over it

@HelenDenver as for the question about our sex life going forward I don’t have the inclination for an open marriage personally. I’d only want to sleep with someone else if it turned DW on. She doesn’t seem bothered in the slightest if I sleep with anyone else. As for her I’d be ok with including someone else if it meant she was fully turned on by it but only if I’m genuinely included and it’s a joint adventure. She now says she has zero interest in anyone else.

Name change for this. Me and my DH have both had affairs and dalliances. we don't really do the whole open marriage or talking about it. It's more don't ask don't tell? I think if you go for a full on open marriage there's more chance of the marriage breaking down as you will see the person more etc.
I've been seeing the same man on and off for about 4 years, I haven't seen him in 1 year as I've been too busy with life and DC.

I have no wish to split up neither does DH. The sex with OM is completely different with my DH it's like a bodily function for him , OM literally worships the ground I walk on he's not as good looking as my DH, my dh is more porny but OM is like a sex scene from a film. It's hard to explain but I see him to be worshipped and taken care of. I've tried to tell DH I have these needs but he just goes back to his old ways.

my actions definitely show that I love her and want her which is why I didn’t run away when I first discovered the sexting and stayed despite the intimacy being missing. I didn’t sleep with the other woman and told my wife about it at the time because I was distressed.

I'm not sure about this. Yes, you admitted to your wife about your affair with the OW (you kissed, that makes it physical) the first time, but then you later went back to fixating on that OW again. This second betrayal was worse than the first because it came after a second chance. So, when you found out about your wife sexting another man, you could hardly hold that against her after what you had done, right? Therefore, you "forgave" her and stayed. Which, ironically, is likely the reason your wife "forgave" you first.

She told you the reason why she didn't feel like being intimate with you (the unequal contribution to household work), did you change that? To most women being equal shows you appreciate and respect them, and that is what makes them feel like being intimate with their partners. You pulling your weight would have proven that you loved and respected her.

Then you found out her affair involved sex. That makes her worse than you. Or does it....? Just because her betrayal was more physical, it doesn't clear you of your wrong doings towards her and your marriage. You need to own that and stop thinking you have the moral higher ground. Have a proper think about if your actions really do show what you think they do. Because from where I'm sitting I don't see any love, trustworthiness or commitment from either of you.