I discovered my wife was having an affair today

[skater]

Just wanted to clarify that I do think his spouse was wrong.

 

[msel68]

If I was the 'wife' in this situation I'd be singing the refrain to this song...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAKyHhuw1HA

 

[Planogirl]

Men are very visual but a big girl can certainly be attractive. I would try to keep an open mind about such things and TALK to her. If you really want it to work then you need to open up to each other and talk and talk and then talk some more.

Maybe you don't feel so upset about it because you did it once yourself plus you know that your attitude may have helped drive her to the online affair. Not that there's ever a good excuse for such a thing but a lot of factors seem to go into such things happening.

That said, is this even for real?

 

[rentayenta]

On the first part of his post it starts w/ "I discovered my wife...."
Seriously!!! Go DISCOVER your wife. Bow chica bow wow!

Love it!!!!!

 

[douglisa]

Just wanted to clarify that I do think his spouse was wrong.

I agree, but so is he.

 

[Buckalew11]

Its good that you can vent on here and be open and honest. You may not want advice, but since you posted, I'm going to give it. You CAN choose to be attracted. You may need some counseling, some dates, a new venue, whatever, but you do have a choice. You can work at being attractive and attracted. Women who feel desired are naturally more attractive. You say you don't want to leave her, but I'm worried that you have already given up. It DOES NOT have to be this way.

I do think you can choose.Give yourself some power and work on it. Man or woman, you can choose to be attracted.

I think what she did was wrong and I am sorry you all are going through this. If you are staying then you all need to work through this. Make the choice.

 

[DevilDuckie]

Just wanted to clarify that I do think his spouse was wrong.

You know, I'd like to clarify that too. Neither of my other responses bothered to convey that the cheater is at fault regardless and that I am sorry for the OP's difficulties.

OP, I am sorry for losing sight of the fact that this post was a request for a little support in a time I know from experience to be horribly difficult. (My first husband was NOT a good man.) I am sorry that you are suffering with this and that so many of us, myself included, have failed to offer you a little bit of safe space to vent.

I won't delete my other posts because I don't believe in it, but I am sorry that I didn't say this sooner.

 

[bumbershoot]

I wouldn't find my spouse attractive if she gained alot of weight. I'm sure I will be flamed, but MOST guys feel this way. We signed on with the woman we married, if a cow comes to pasture....it just isn't a good thing and the marriage will suffer.

I don't like the way you said it, but I'm a VERY visual person, and I am absolutely negatively affected when DH is at a higher weight.

Now, I'm not perfect. I do NOT like the way I look right now, and I've been working on eating better and being more active.

But hubby is always attracted to me, while my attraction varies with weight, and it varies quite a bit. Though I'll state that when I lose, he is MORE attracted...so if my hubby says he is always attracted, but it gets more so when I'm smaller...well, at some point, the attraction is lower, ya know?

You really need to stop saying thats how MOST guys feel and just speak for yourself. It goes both ways ya know. I have a very hard time believing that ALL of your friends wives have gained 50+ lbs.

The person was saying that of his friends with wives who have gained more than 50 lbs, those friends are cheating. Not that all of his friends have wives who gained that much.

Perhaps it's different between men and women, but I can't just choose to be attracted... and I don't withhold affection from my wife, but our "frequency" has gone down somewhat over the last year.

I can't choose to be attracted either, and I'm definitely a woman, so it's not a total male/female difference.

Make mad passionate love to her.

This woman was *thisclose* to full-on cheating, and you're telling the spouse to have sex with her?

 

[crazy4dabean]

Regardless, there is NO excuse for cheating! My heart goes out to you

 

[EltonJohn]

Marriage counseling isn't really possible right now; we're just making enough money to survive pretty much.

Except for marriage counseling which you say you can't afford I really can't offer any suggestions. Are you a religious person at all? If so then I would encourage you to talk to your pastor about it-perhaps he would offer more helpful suggestions.

Best wishes.

 

[Cinders Mum]

only you can decide how and when you can move on from your wife's actions. In the meantime, you need to take some time out (both of you) from being mum and dad, and find yourselves again, find your spark.

I have been with my DH for 18 years and we have had rough times, and yes I almost gave up on us a few years back, but we realised that we had got into a rut, we had forgotten how to communicate without talking about children, money, errands, bills etc to actually sit and have a conversation about what is ging on in our lives. Sometimes it is hard to get past the everyday stuff and see the love of your life still in there, hanging on by a thread.

When you are ready, reach out and I bet she grabs hold of your hand and you both can come through it, stronger and happier for it.

Good Luck

 

[bumbershoot]

1Despite her apparent sincerity, I have no interest in making her feel any less guilty about it at the moment.

2I fully expect that we'll move beyond the infidelity before too long. We have very young children, and I'm not interested in leaving her.

3my attraction to her has waned somewhat, which is partially due to familiarity I guess, but only partially. She has gained quite a bit of weight, and has made no effort to change that. (I'm not against people who are overweight, I'm just being honest about the reason for being less attracted to her.) I would never tell her that, because it would hurt her and she would never forget it. So I don't know what to say to her or do about it. It's not like I can just choose to be more attracted to her. Marriage counseling isn't really possible right now; we're just making enough money to survive pretty much.

1. And there's no reason for you to help her feel less guilty. Not sure that will EVER be your job!

My hubby never had anything going on with another person, but he did some bad stuff back when we were engaged, and he knows that ANY TIME I want to talk about it, that the topic is allowed to be fully on the table. I am allowed to be upset, I am allowed to have a flashback and talk about it (just the other day after DS and I walked home from the close-by restaurant where we had dinner with some friends, including the guy who helped then-fiance move out secretly while I was at work, as DS and I got to our door I got scared that it had been a ruse and that we'd open the door to a half-empty apartment).

I am allowed to talk, and he has ALWAYS been fine with it. He did wrong, he owns it, he had loads of counseling to figure out WHY he did it, and part of our couples counseling later on really made sure we knew that it would ALWAYS be something we could talk about.


2. Just wanted to put that part of your quote in the first post separate from the rest, b/c many people seem to have missed it.


3. She just told you this last month, all 16 days of it (or being generous, since mid-April), that she wants more affection, and since you didn't provide it, she went searching? Yeah, right!!! I'm NOT NOT NOT telling you that you should take off, I'm all in favor of solo and couples counseling and of working it through, but you can't lie to yourself either. A person who gives you a month "notice" that she needs more affection, then goes and finds someone is someone who isn't being honest.


That said, people who just let their spouse be heavy and don't say anything for fear of hurting them are just delaying the hurt.

The hardest day of our normal-life marriage (we've had some worse moments but they weren't everyday moments, they were related to having baby) was when I had to sit him down and tell him that he had gone beyond what I could deal with, and that he needed to do something about his weight. I didn't threaten divorce, that wasn't on my mind. But I wasn't AT ALL attracted to him, and it was awful. And he was so incredibly unhealthy, too.

He had been heavier about 10 years before, and he had sworn that he would never get there again. He had a picture from those days, having fallen asleep with chin on chest while on a boat...he kept that picture out. He was looking like that.

After our conversation, which involved many, many tears (from him, mainly, and some from me for hurting him so much by telling him), he re-joined Weight Watchers. And he found out he was only 10 lbs away from that highest weight. He is VERY good at lying to himself about his weight, and he had been working overtime in lying about why things didn't fit, that he wasn't that heavy, etc etc. If I hadn't told him, he would have continued the way he was going, and would have surpassed that weight.

He's now lost 40 lbs in the last 2 years, and although he's still 20 lbs over where he will be comfortable (and he wants to lose a total of about 100 lbs, which will still be above WW's idea of a good weight for his height, but the guy is naturally built like a sumo...he's NEVER going to be 180 unless he loses a limb or two), and although he still gets sad thinking about that day, he is VERY GLAD that I did tell him.


And unlike the typical female who only pretends she wants an answer to the question "do I look fat", I've been working with him to get to a place where he can "warn" me if I start gaining. Actually at this point I just need to lose, and need him to be honest if I am losing (I'm scale-phobic, preferring to go by fit and size, as I have always been smaller than what the scale says due to my natural musculature) or just staying the same.


I say all of this to let you know that it is possible to have open and HONEST conversations about weight, without destroying a person, without destroying a marriage. Now, you say you're a young family, and I don't know if that means you and your wife are young, or if you're just relatively new to marriage and babies. If you are actually young, you might have a harder time...I know things would have been different if DH and I had met and married when we were 23 and 21 (me and him) instead of the 33 and 31 that we were when married. Even our first dates were different, asking the BIG questions in the first two dates (we discussed the benefits of b'feeding and things that some people do to baby boys that we agreed we wouldn't do, in our second date, to give an idea of how serious those early conversations were!), because we just wanted to cut to the chase. I certainly didn't do that in my early 20s!!!

So maybe it will take some time to get to that point, but I don't think any spouse should suffer in silence.

Now, I don't think that people should be like Tom Leykus, putting a weight limit in pre-nups (though since that guy doesn't want kids, it's probably easier for the wife du jour to keep control of weight), and of course everyone with smaller children needs to be easier on themselves (male or female!) b/c it's hard sometimes to lose weight, and EASY to gain, but if you have reasonable wishes for the other person, where better to discuss something like that, than in a marriage????? If you can't tell a spouse that you would like them to be more fit, who can you tell?


to you OP, for being afraid to talk to her about it, for having someone who warns you that you need to be affectionate (and though she didn't say it, there was an obvious "or else" in there), and for having to deal with all of this right now.

I hope you can find some ways to work it out.

Oh, by the way, check out if your workplace has some access to counseling. That's what DH used for his solo counseling, and he never saw any negative ramifications from using their counselors. He somehow talked them into using their services FAR longer than they allowed, but ultimately they could tell that they were helping him deal with lifelong issues, and they were kind.

Once he got his head on straight, he asked if I would go to couples counseling, and we found a program at a college with a Masters degree in marriage and family counseling. Our counselor was a student, but she was observed and later on just reported to her mentor what was going on, and she turned out to be very good for us. They used a sliding scale, which did cause us to spend some money, but it was money WELL spent.

 

[Papa Deuce]

My wife has yo - yo'd up and down 50 pounds several times since we married... doesn't change for me when she is heavier or lighter. But then again, I like some junk in the trunk!

I'm all about that "for better or worse thing"... it is what I signed on for....

 

[douglisa]

only you can decide how and when you can move on from your wife's actions. In the meantime, you need to take some time out (both of you) from being mum and dad, and find yourselves again, find your spark.

I have been with my DH for 18 years and we have had rough times, and yes I almost gave up on us a few years back, but we realised that we had got into a rut, we had forgotten how to communicate without talking about children, money, errands, bills etc to actually sit and have a conversation about what is ging on in our lives. Sometimes it is hard to get past the everyday stuff and see the love of your life still in there, hanging on by a thread.

When you are ready, reach out and I bet she grabs hold of your hand and you both can come through it, stronger and happier for it.

Good Luck

Well said! You almost made me cry

 

[happygirl]

Gimme a break. If you're married with kids, you don't look to break up your family because your spouse doesn't find you "attractive". 9 times out of 10 that's going to eventually happen to every married couple. If it does happen, you do everything in your power to resolve the situation before you even think of creating children of divorced parents.

I guess I'm very blessed that now of my friends that are married finds there spouses unattractive. How do you work on finding some attractive?? It's either there or it's not

 

[chris1gill]

A great start is to start doing more activities ~together~ hike, walk, even plant a garden. This will help you BOTH physically & emotionally. Take the kids to the park, a beach, even free events sponsored by the town library if they have any. See if you can afford a sitter one night every other week. Get out with just the two of you to a place you can be with each other, but not distracted.

Your wife knows you find her unattractive and that's why she went elsewhere. I agree, if you do not want to mention her weight, you could simply say you want to start activities as a family such as those mentioned above. Get exercising, get the junk food out of the house, do it for her, do it for you and do it for your children who should not eat junk food anyhow....

JMHO but you have to get the train back on the correct path, if you don't, there is no reason to continue in a marriage with someone you are not attracted to, that's no way for either of you to live obviously.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

I know this is about attraction and weight gain, but there are many variables out there.. What if you suddenly got ill, aged maybe 20 years, was tired all the time, did not look well and was constantly in and out of the hospital having treatment. What about attraction then? Would it be ok for her to say she was not attracted to you? These things can happen overnight in marriages. Being overweight is unhealthy, she may need encouragement to lose the weight. She may feeling stressed over something and eats because of the stress and even maybe it is that she knows that she is unattractive to you and so she eats more because she is upset over it. Only you and her really know what is going on in your marriage..

Why not discuss what happened, clear the air, make a plan on how you two can work on your marriage. I just think that more discussion and understanding may be needed here. She was wrong to be seeking comfort elsewhere, but I to do think together you can work on it.

Good luck....

 

[mudnuri]

Here's to hoping you never go bald!

hold the phone, my dbf is bald....shaves every day, sometimes twice a day just to make sure the head is smooth...........i love my bald man...

Brandy

 

[3jsmommy]

If you are not willing to forgive her yet then wait. One good word of advice my father told me when I got married;"Don't let the sun go down on your anger." In other words don't sleep on it.) If your ready then go kiss her all over. Tell every spot of her body you love it. We women know w/out you saying anything at all what you feel about our bodies. Sometimes it is not what you say. Make mad passionate love to her. Are you willing to get therapy? If so I would wait to suggest that untill you have made love to her.
Here is some mood music. Now go take her.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=18TLHhhHZCA

 

[Daxx]

Marriage counseling isn't really possible right now; we're just making enough money to survive pretty much.

And divorces are free?!!?!?

If you really wanted to save your marriage, money wouldn't matter. You have two choices ... fight for the marriage or give it up. Both will cost you money no matter what you decide. Divorces aren't free and neither is marriage counselling.

There are marriage counselors who work on a sliding scale based on your finances. There are places like Catholic Charities who can help at no-to-low fees.

I think that deep down you know what you really want.

I have to wonder ... you complain about your wife gaining weight, etc. Did it ever occur to you that you may have changed and she has some complaints about you, too!??! It really frightens me that you married her for her outward appearance. I married DH for what was inside. Beauty is only skin deep ...

Hey -- idea here --- get rid of the computer and maybe both you and your wife will spend more time together instead of separately b/c you're on the computer?!