Husband says “Look, I’m just gonna tell you…I’ve slept with someone”

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Readers Story 

April 22, 2017 was without a doubt the worst day of my life. My husband and I, along with our 3 young children had just moved from the East Coast to the West. It was a Saturday and my husband was out, taking my daughter to dance. He came home and sat on the couch. I approached him with the computer in hand. “Jay? Did you use your work email or your personal email to converse with Michaela (a co-worker I had become rather suspicious of)?” He answer with a quick, “my work email of course.” I challenged him with, “then why does it say in your personal email history you have written each other nearly 40 times in a 3 month time span?” He shook his head as if to say, “I don’t know” then he excused himself from the room while I went to the kitchen sink to start on the dishes. He came back down the stair, sat at the kitchen table and said, “Look, I’m just gonna tell you…I’ve slept with someone. It was 7 or 8 years ago at Fort Huachuca. It was one time. I never saw her again.”

And with that, I looked at him horrified. I felt the blood rush from my extremities to my heart. When a person has been severely physically wounded, blood will rush to the vital organs to keep the injured alive. I suppose my emotional being was so severely wounded in that moment that the physical response was to keep me from literally dying. With that, I ran upstairs and into our closet. I was crying hysterically as I ripped his ARMY uniforms from the hanger. I opened a suitcase and started throwing his clothes as fast I could into the case. I don’t know how long he watched this go on but he stopped me by asking “What are you doing?” Through my tears I spoke angrily, “I’m helping you pack!” He calmly replied, “That’s fine but I need you to stop and come with me. There’s more I need to tell you.”

He took my hand in his and led me from the closet, into our room where we sat on the floor facing each other. I looked him in the eyes confused and hurt as he said, “3 years ago I slept with a woman named Kiersten Diamond 6 times in two days on a business trip in New Orleans. I felt like he was stabbing me. The confusion as to what that meant and why my husband would do such a thing was taking over. I cried harder as I pleaded with him, “Why?” He just continued, “and yes, I slept with Michaela 2 years ago here in Scottsdale. It was just the one time, the last night of a business meeting. It meant nothing. I didn’t love those women.”

And with that I was completely crushed. That night I didn’t sleep. I cried and cried some more. Actually, the crying didn’t really stop until around 1 year post D-day. That may seem dramatic but I had truly never seen any of the infidelity coming. I thought my husband probably flirts here and there on business but he doesn’t have full out affairs. The following days post D-day were days of confusion and Grief. I asked “why” thousands of times but couldn’t wrap my mind around my husbands answers.

A day or two post D-day my husband felt compelled to make one more confession. I was sitting outside on the back patio chair when he came to me and said, “There is something else I need to tell you. For the past 10 years or so I have been signing onto a particular adult website and I have been making fake couple’s profiles using your photos (nude). I have been talking to other people about a particular fetish I like called hot wifeing.”  I had no idea what he was talking about. I had never heard of that particular fetish. I was unfamiliar to porn as it was and I did not understand how he was using this site. A million questions flooded my mind and I was panicked. I thought, “Oh no, he has been having cyber sex with other people. maybe he has been meeting up with people in person. What is he telling other people about me and my photo?” I was just outright terrified. I concluded I was married to a total sex addict and a pervert. I was angry my picture had been posted online and my trusted husband was allowing thousands of what I perceived and dirty old perverts to look at my naked body and imagine doing things to me I was NOT ok with. Again, I was taken with confusion about what man I had been married to for the past 13 years.

About 3 days post D-day I sat at the kitchen table as my husband did the dishes. I begged him for an answer that would appease me, “Why did you sleep with all those women?”  His patience had run out and he quickly snapped back, “Because I hated you!” The rage in me took over. “That isn’t good enough and frankly that just isn’t true! You have never hated me! You are just perpetually unhappy and you want the one thing you can’t have! You are NOT picking up that gun!  You are Not lacing up those boots and you are NOT putting on that stupid fucking helmet of yours (as I pointed to the back room with all of his war medals) and you are NEVER going back there!” He bent over the sink and started to cry. I was more confused than ever. I couldn’t understand why my rageful rant seemed to have been a sudden turning point. He said, “You’re right. Tell me how to fix this. Tell me what to do.” I’m not a very spiritual person but God must have given me the answer because I immediately said, “You need to go get help.”

Jay agreed to see a counselor and within the day he had a scheduled appointment. He shared with me later on into our recovery that he was not convinced he needed professional guidance and he was just going to appease me and to save our marriage but counseling proved to be helpful in a way that he now knows we wouldn’t be able to make our marriage work without it. Jay’s counselor guided him in helping to save his marriage, support his traumatized wife, and most of all to understand and heal himself from childhood wounds, marital wounds, affair wounds and unseen/unrealized war wounds.

I knew I needed to see a counselor as well. I was traumatized. However, I waited. I waited because I could not stop crying. I was so hurt and ashamed. I couldn’t imagine bearing my sou’ls pain to a stranger. The PTSD really became unmanageable. I did not eat a real meal for about 5 months. I had not slept. I had nightmares and obsessions. I was heavily grieving and I was so depressed, I wanted to die. I did not engage my kids. I panicked while driving or grocery shopping.  I asked questions regarding each affair all day. I would get frustrated at missing pieces and I would get angry at the drop of a hat.  I couldn’t pay attention to or hear what anyone was saying to me. I retreated to my closet to cry multiple times a day. I cried in the shower. I punched walls. There was an anxiety in me that controlled me and I was Grieving the loss of myself. I knew I would never be the same.

It took my husband about a month to really understand the level of distress and hurt his actions had caused. However, in his attempts to atone, aside from seeing a professional counselor, he got STD testing right away, he officially cut all contact with his most recent affair partner, he answered ALL questions (some of the same questions multiple times), he held me, he cried with me, he changed his drinking habits, he provided me with ALL of his passwords, he changed certain habits regarding his business travels, he wrote me letters, he presented me with a new ring, and he makes himself fully available to me.

I finally sought counseling and to this day I am working through the trauma of that day.

My husband continues to work on himself with his counselor and we see a couples counselor  when we can. We hope  heal individually as well as a couple. We have made tremendous strides and still remain hopeful. For me, I need this journey to have incredible meaning. I need the meaning to outweigh the hurt. In sharing, I hope to heal just a bit more.

_Emma
(PS. All names have been changed to protect the identities of the parties involved.)