(The following article is a contributed article obtained through an interview.)
I was not happy in my marriage. My wife was difficult and overly emotional. It was hard being with her and my children. I just didn’t enjoy my married life after 18 years so I started an affair with an older married woman.
I hadn’t altogether given up on my marriage and family but I was no longer committed to making my marriage work even with marriage counseling. I would typically be texting my mistress while in the waiting room at the counseling office or after we finished our sessions. I would also generally blame my wife for my unhappiness. She didn’t provide enough sex to satisfy me. My porn addiction wasn’t my fault, it was her fault. If only she provided me with more sex and would stop harassing me about helping around the house or with the children it wouldn’t be so hard and unbearable. The counseling sessions didn’t work and the therapist didn’t seem to recognize my plight.
Months later, my wife discovered my affair and who my mistress was. She informed my mistress and her husband that she knew of our affair. That was the moment I realized it was too late to work on my marriage and that I didn’t love my mistress.
The fallout of my affair prompted some real introspection on my part. My wife wasn’t the cause of my unhappiness, I was. Yes, my wife was not the easiest person to be married to and withheld sex from me from time to time but I had hurt her with my porn addiction and my infidelity and adultery. I had also hurt my children and that was painful to bear. My marriage was hard but my decisions made it much harder.
Rather than move out of the house I moved to the basement. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to try to be the husband and father my family deserved. However, my betrayal of my family and my treatment of them had caused too great of a rift. They didn’t trust me anymore and they had the right to not trust me. I had blamed them for my midlife crisis and unhappiness and chose betrayal instead of loving and caring for my family.
I tried to work things out with my wife and children way too late and could now only blame myself for it. I failed to recognize my midlife crisis and chose to blame my wife and children for my unhappiness and in the process, I ruined two families with my mistress. My kids are in therapy as are the children of my mistress. Not only do I now have to live with my choices and their consequences but everyone else does now too.
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The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children negatively impacted by adultery, affairs, and infidelity. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.
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