I'm happy for you, that you were strong enough to overcome your desires and have worked things out in your marriage.
It's rare to find a man who will openly discuss this issue from a man's point of view.
I'm interested to know, how does this happen that you fall in love with someone else? Is it that you are in a situation where you are together a lot - as at work? Does the other woman say or act in much different ways than your wife?
It happens so much in our society & would be a big help to us women, if we knew ahead of time what the answer is, so it does not happen to the people we know & love.
Well Lady J. It started out as friends with a common interest in politics and discussions and such. It is a passion my wife and I do not share though she has come around some since then but what was more important to this relationship is the things my wife and I were not sharing which was common respect for each other. All I remember is feeling very alone and that was even though our sex life was very good. That is why I get incredulous when people wish to overly simplify how this kind of thing occurs. I think it makes them feel safer or something. If its just sex then it is some how easier to understand. Well it isn’t about just about sex. Some men do work like that but a lot don’t.
What went into the mix was a tight financial situation and a stressful job and I felt my wife was being unreasonable and was not respectful of my hard work. It did not help that she came from a broken family and often times seemed to associate me with the men who hurt her in her life even though I was never like them. She also wasn’t supportive of many of my endeavors and always seemed to offer criticism quicker than anything.
I had my own faults. Sometimes I saw my mother in her and wasn’t always sympathetic to her challenges when we moved from our home state when I got a better job and away from our families. Also I think the fact that I did not go out or have a life outside of my family other than work did not help but I thought that was how things had to be. Also I did not generally allow myself close female friends since marriage though I’d always had good friendships before I cut all those off abruptly. I think that was a mistake and combined with everything made it easier to find love outside of my marriage. I actually came to hate my wife. I told her every day I loved her but had a growing resentment of her. It wasn’t entirely fair but such things never are.
When the one you are married to does not offer anything that you can connect to but sex and the children you have together it gets very lonely but even with that I never went looking for someone else to fall in love with. I knew that it was wrong. It happened through a series of events that started out harmless but I must be honest it felt like a drink of cold water after a march through a desert when we finally confessed our love for each other. It felt so good to feel respected, feel loved, and feel a real sense of companionship and allegiance from a woman who was mature, intelligent and strong yet simultaneously just comfortable and not angry about being a woman or angry at men. A woman that would defend her man rather than eagerly look to tear him down and highlight his every weakness real or imagined.
It was a blessing in some ways and I am lucky the other woman had a moral foundation because it kept us both from doing something we would have regretted. She always encouraged me to do what was right even though we both went beyond what was right emotionally. I do regret it now because when such things happen something has to be let go. I lost a woman that I loved dearly and deeply but I gained something that is priceless and that is my family and the integrity of my marriage. One thing that is certain is that it is a choice that has to be made and it will be made for you or by you.
I asked my wife for a divorce and wanted one. I really didn’t think she loved me at all but she proved me wrong and I found a way to love her again to love all those things that made me love her in the first place. We have had two more boys since then and I am really happy and we have a more honest relationship and really like and love each other. A lot of it was acceptance of each other. Her accepting that just because I had friends who were women or otherwise didn’t mean I was going to cheat or leave her and me being more patient with her as she grew in her role as a wife, mother, and a woman and learned to accept me for who I am which is often stubborn, bullheaded, and sometimes just a pain in the ass but I’m also a good father and a good husband and she most certainly is a good mother and wife. We are better people having made it through that together...