Wife kissed another woman

[Petrichor88]

She admitted this to me and I'm struggling with it. They'd been texting and doing video calls after meeting at an event a year earlier. These calls were when I was out of the house at work.
She made out they were friends and said she was going to stay with her one weekend as she lives a few hours away. That weekend they kissed. Wife told me they had a crazy connection.

We've been together since teenage years, married 13 years. Two DC.

It's all a bit of a headf*ck... Things hadn't been great but nothing major. Communication and 'us time' had slipped.

But I had no reason to believe she was conducting an emotional affair. The deceit is hard to deal with. She tells me she doesn't want to be with her and that it was almost like acting on a fantasy, but I'm still struggling to move on from it.

I find the whole thing quite embarrassing tbh.

I don’t tolerate liars or cheats so I wouldn’t be trying to ‘move on’ from it.

My friend, I feel for you. I felt uneasy just reading your story... I know a stranger's 'sorry' won't make you feel better or make this whole problem go away, but you came here for a reason, vent it out, see what people think, etc.. So here is what I think:
I usually promote communication, and problem-solving together, counselling, or just trying to work through any issue that could make people drift apart.. I could ask you for details, what you did or didn't do to make "us time" slip away, or what her role was in the relationship struggling, if you guys tried working on it over the years or not... But not this time. Not when the betrayal has already happened.

If I were you, I would just leave. She spent the weekend, and she admitted to a kiss. I may be negative, but as soon as she mentioned "fantasy" I thought to myself, sure, you kissed in a moment of crazy passion, and then you each went to your separate bedrooms and fell asleep over a boing book... Ok, I am not being nice, I do not know, nor do you.. But it doesn't even matter, even if it was just a kiss, I could never look at my wife the same way...

Obviously, as parents, kids need to be a priority. (And I do not mean staying together for them, speaking as a child of divorced parents, trust me - staying together does no favours for them). By that I mean that I would separate in the most calm and humane way possible, no need for the children to witness fights, arguments, name-calling, or any nasty stuff. I would just say that it betrayed my trust, and regardless of me still having feelings and loving her, it is not something that could ever be undone.

Ultimately nobody can tell you what to do... I just really wanted to let you know that I symphathise, and shared how I would react.

Thank you for that considered reply, I appreciate it.

I will come back to this tomorrow... You're right that I'm sort of just venting it out in a cathartic way and seeing how people view it.

Deep down, I know it's done long-lasting damage to our marriage... potentially irreparable damage. It's not what I wanted but it's happened for a reason.

The gender is irrelevant. Cheating is cheating.

It’s happened because your wife is indulging herself in an affair. Like some lovelorn teenager.

Don’t you be putting this on yourself.

People can say there were marriage problems etc but that does not justify betrayal like this. If there are problems then you deal with them. You do not cheat.

So wide went to stay with this woman for a weekend and only kissed, cmon you know if this was a guy we wouldn't believe just a kiss happened. Anyway still cheating for me so I would be moving on

You can’t trust her, so for me, the relationship would be over. 💐

I’m sorry this has happened. I’d say it’s not so much the kiss as the “crazy connection” that would trouble me. I am gay. But only came out in my 30s (having previously been married to and divorced from a man). I remember the first time I kissed my now ex-wife like it was yesterday. I felt that incredible connection and as our relationship developed, everything that had never felt right to me in previous relationships with men, suddenly felt so right. Like I finally “got” how other people felt when they were in love. It wasn’t just that it was a woman, it was the specific woman. But even though we broke up 10 years later, I’ve never gone back to men. It flipped a switch in me.

Your wife will probably not be honest with you about her feelings, for a variety of reasons. She may well be feeling confused herself and not know what she wants. She may be afraid of what people will say, of the judgement of others. She may just feel guilty.

I’d suggest that you each have therapy separately, before going together. This might help you both - but especially her - be able to speak honestly about what you want and about how your relationship may be salvaged (if you both want that).

It’s not easy. But whatever happens, it won’t feel this bad forever.

As it's already been pointed out, people stay hidden and do what is expected of them, suppressing their feelings when it comes to being intimate with their same gender. She was honest with you about the situation, likely hoping you would take it as a sign that this is likely her new path to follow. You don't know how many people have left marriages because in the end she's hoping to likely get your blessing to move on to make themselves happy. You can't change how she feels, so it's likely time to explore how to make yourselves both be happy by letting her go as you just can't accept her new desire for another life. It likely is that she can't go through the motions anymore and you obviously can't eihter now with her confession. Life is too short to drag it out and find someone who will love you for you, not as an escape on what society expects.

Why did she tell you? Was it guilt or is she telling you because she wants it to be a catalyst for her to change / come out / split

Why did she tell you? Was it guilt or is she telling you because she wants it to be a catalyst for her to change / come out / split

If it was just a drunken kiss then I could forgive and forget, something more, which sounds very likely then I couldn’t.

Gender is irrelevant.

if it was just a kiss; I doubt she would have told you, unless @slipperypenguin says, it’s a catalyst for her to start separating hoping it will give your hand.

Oh no that is the absolute pits. I wouldn't be able to stay after this. It's hard but you can move on and do better.

Do you really believe that it was ‘just’ a kiss? She cheated.

What made her tell you?

I’m inclined to cut some slack for all kinds of indiscretions for couples who have been together since their teens. I know there are exceptions but few people are meant to spend the rest of their lives with their teenage love. Maybe your wife is gay, maybe she isn’t. Maybe you have outgrown each other. But the problem is likely much deeper than one kiss, or a crush.

I think the gender is actually relevant.

Unless she's genuinely bisexual, which I think you would probably have realised by subtle signs in her behaviour.

If she'd had a passionate kiss with a man she felt a visceral physical attraction to, that could be a one off mistake.

But if she had a passionate kiss with a woman, and is not bisexual, then the whole of your marriage has been based on a lie, both to herself and to you. To continue your marriage she will have to go back to living that lie. I doubt if that will be sustainable long term for her.

I'm sorry you find yourself in this position but I think you should take some comfort in the fact that she been lying to herself more than she's been lying to you.

I agree with the last post and was going to say the same.

If OP is a woman, then the wife is gay and it's straight up cheating.

If OP is a man and his wife has been hiding her sexuality then it's cheating with an added layer of complication IMO.

I've just realised that I assumed that the poster was male because of the children. The title "another woman" might suggest that the poster is actually female themself, in which case this is straightforward cheating. Lots of relationships survive one brief cheating episode.

Thanks for the comments. Sorry for the ambiguity, I'm male.

My wife told me because she said she has never kept anything from me before and it was eating her up inside. She didn't tell me immediately, but several months after it happened. In her words, I deserve to know the truth. She tells me she doesn't want to be with a woman, wants to be married to me, wants to work on our relationship and take it to new levels, etc.

The kiss itself actually bothers me less than the deceit of arranging secret calls and chats behind my back, actively waiting for me to take the kids out to their hobbies before jumping on a call. That stings.

One thing I would just highlight is what you just said in your comment above OP - "deceit of arranging secret calls, and chats behind my back". It doesn't even have the facade a lot of people love to hide behind: the 'oops, I made a mistake by accident'-type, which frankly I could never believe in either,.. cheating of any kind is a choice. Always has been). There is effort going into arranging things, emotions, by your own words a 'crazy connection', all the way to being physical with a kiss (bare minimum, but I believe some of us are struggling to believe that they stopped there, while they had the weekend for themselves - not that it matters).
She betrayed you, OP, that is just the objective truth of it - there is nothing that could make it all undone. It doesn't matter how long you have been together for, a betrayal is a betrayal regardless, I know people like to justify things like this with time, boredom, or whatever convenient words they can come up with. It was a choice of hers to actively go behind your back and betray what you had together.

The question is, what you would like to do, what your plans are...

One thing I would add though - I commend her for owning up to it, not cool for doing it, not cool for sitting on it that long, but eventually telling you is better than not doing it at all.. Just wanted to say that it doesn't mean she is a deplorable human being who deserves nothing but hate... but actions have consequences in the adult world...

It's cheating (though not as bad as having sex) - you deal with it the same way you would if she kissed a man. Maybe you get through it - maybe you don't - but the usual way forward I believe is her taking accountability, counselling to address any underlying issues and then you working out if you can trust her again or not after this.

"You deserve to know the truth" meaning "I can't cope with the guilt" or "I think I might be about to be found out".

It is never an altruistic move to share something like this with a spouse.

I agree with @Imdunfer .

It's worth your finding a therapist so you can talk through your feelings about this independently.