AboutS. Kessler Expertise I can answer most any question about Adultery. I have experience in dealing with what to expect, how it makes you feel when you find out, etc. My first marriage ended after my "ex" cheated on me. I know how it feels to be cheated on and what you experience while going through adultery. I will answer any of your questions on Adultery to the best of my ability. I have extensive knowledge on this subject. How it not only effect you but your whole family (including the children). I can give you answers on how to deal with it, some of the signs a mate may be cheating, etc. All questions about adultery are welcome.
Expert: S. Kessler Date: 4/30/2008 Subject: My wife cheated with another woman
Question Here's a curve ball for you! I have been looking everywhere for help with my problems but no answers. My wife and I have been together for 13 years total married for 5 of them. We have had a bumpy relationship and mostly because of her abusive family background and her lies. We have 1 daughter 19 months. Here is the horrible ordeal I am going through. My brother started dating a girl and after about 6 months im guessing, they moved in together. My wife and her hit it off great. She's always had 1 close friend in her life at a time or two. Well this one got too close. They were always spending time together and taking our daughter to see this girls family which also had other younger kids her age. It got so bad my brother moved out from lack of attention and I was getting frustrated also. Just a few months ago my wife left me saying she didin't like all the questions I was always asking about where she was and doing. Basically she stated "It's your fault I'm leaving". So she moved in with this girl while I stayed with the house. For these last few months my wife and I had our battles and ups and downs. She would come to me and cry about how this girl is mean to her and she wants to move home but isn't comfortable with the idea yet figuring we will fall back into the same routine. She also broke the news to me that we were pregnant. I said it was a sign from God that we should work things out and ever since that day I had been attenative to her needs more than ever I suggested we go to counceling so she set up an appointment and recently finished her first session (mine will follow soon). The next week she sends me a text telling me to meet at a local hotel for lunch. So we met and made love for the first time in a few months. It was great just what we needed. After which she started crying about something. I asked her what the problem was and she said, "I wish that (her friend) would move back home and get out of my life!" I was all for it needless to say. Then the sun turned black and this flushing feeling came over me when she started to say, "I've been having sex with her!" I was in shock and pissed I could have screamed and not had a care in the world. But I kept my calm and relaxed although raging inside while I tried to get more information out of her. She said it happend a few times before she left and a lot more after she left but she had stopped because she knew it was wrong and she was married. I said Yeah DUH it's adultry, alienation of affection, disloyal and dishonorable. That's when the tears started flowing like rain and she started telling me she just wanted her family back. And she thought it was ok because, "It's not cheating because it was with a woman not a man." I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Which brings me to my current situation. WHAT THE HELL DO I DO? I'm stuck! She says she has told the councelor what she told me and we are supposed to talk with him next week. I fear a custody battle with my daughter and unborn child. I have all our years of debt in my name. She makes all the money where as I make less than half what she does. She could easily walk out and my life would be over. Divorce, custody, bankruptsy, forclosure are all in my future if I don't play my cards right. I have a clean record with nothing to hide. All I want is a good marriage again because I love my wife and I need her. I'm at a standstill and no clue what to do or what's next. So S. Kessler, please work your magic!
Answer Hi Andy~
Right now, don't put the cart before the horse and start to plan a divorce. If she's willing to go to counseling with you to save and salvage the marriage, then that's a good thing. I realize that it must be very emasculating to you to have your wife cheat on you with a woman (I've heard of this happening with other men that were in your current situation). It's just something you'll have to learn to cope with, as if she would've done it with another man. And you're right cheating is cheating it doesn't matter the sex of the person. It's adultery plan and simple and it was wrong of her to stray and do this to you. Adultery is the ultimate betrayal in a marriage. It makes you lose every ounce of trust and even respect for your spouse. And it's going to take some time for her to earn that trust and respect back from you. It's a process, and it can be a long and lengthy one at that.
The point here is that she has to be willing to do whatever it take to make the marriage work, and vice versa. It takes quite some time to get over the cheating, and some ppl never fully get over it. But in order for you to have some sort of closure you need to be able to forgive her and move forward. Just b/c you forgive her doesn't excuse her behavior and the cheating that she did. And by forgiving doesn't mean you also have to forget it either. It'll always be somewhere in the back of your mind, but that's just a normal part of when something like this happens to a person.
You should consider a divorce only as a last resort, when you've tried all that you could and you've exhausted all means of trying to work the marriage out. Only once you've reached that point, then it's time to give up and move forward with your life w/o her in it. After all you have a lot to lose in a divorce. However, so does she, since she makes considerably more money than you, she's probably have to pay you spousal support, and if you went for custody of the children, she'd have to pay you child support for the children. Dad's now have a 50-50 chance of getting custody of the children just as much as mom does. You just have to be persistent and plead your case to the court and explain to them why you believe the children would be better off with you (explain your wife's infidelity, her being unpredictable running and leaving you for this woman, etc, etc). It can't hurt to ask if it ever came to this point.
At any rate, right now I'd advise to stay with your wife at this point, do the counseling (remember things aren't going to change overnight or right away, it's often a long process before you begin to see real changes in the marriage and relationship), try to make things work. If after a while there is no change, and you feel you just can't do it anymore, then and only then is it time to move on, when you feel your ready and capable w/o being angry and you have closure to everything. At least then you'll be able to say that you really did everything within your power to try to make it work, unfortunately it just didn't work out that way in the end (if that's the case later). Besides at this point all you can do is take life one day at a time and see where it goes from here. You owe that to yourself and your children to make that effort.
