(The following is a contributed article.)
If you are expecting to read my story and understand everything I sacrificed for my affair, I am sorry to say this article cannot adequately express the totality of my sacrifice. Instead, I hope to begin to convey how impactful it has been.
I wasn’t raised with a lot of early childhood trauma. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t raised in a bubble, with perfect parents, or with perfect siblings, but I was raised in a good home. My parents provided a decent lower-middle-class income level living and a modest home for our large family. We struggled and sacrificed as a family. We never had a lot but we had each other and that was more than enough.
I was raised in a good and faithful family. My parent’s marriage was by most measures today, a good and committed marriage. My parents loved me and were committed to their marriage and family. I knew their marriage wasn’t without problems and faults on both sides but my parents were committed to working things out and remaining faithful to each other. They believed their marriage, and by extension, their family, was a gift to cherish and protect.
My marriage started as a fairy tale love story. I was committed to my husband and marriage. My husband and I married while we were both in college. I was excited to start our family and have several children like my parents. I loved growing up with siblings and wanted the same for our children. I wanted to be a great wife and mother and I was for a time.
Looking back at my marriage, I wasn’t personally ready for parenting. I loved having siblings growing up and babysitting but raising children was a lot harder than I expected. I’m not suggesting it was too hard — just that I wasn’t mentally ready. I hadn’t had to deal with things equally as hard as marriage and children before marriage.
Shortly after college, we had to move far away from family and friends. The move and adjustment were very, very hard on me mentally. I began to blame my husband and resent him for requiring such a sacrifice of me and our family. I had always expected that we would live close to and amongst family so our children would be close to their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.
For the next 10 years, I tracked the sacrifices I made as a wife, and mother, fully expecting to eventually be rewarded with an easier life. All I wanted was to raise my children close to family but it didn’t end up that way. I eventually started to invest my energies in activities that distracted me from my growing discontentment.
I started to make selfish decisions that I knew would prove neglectful to my husband and our children. My husband was patient — and why wouldn’t he be? I blamed him for my unhappiness and discontentment and could see how he wore the guilt I inflicted upon him regularly. I didn’t even need to say it, he just knew that I felt ‘He wasn’t enough’ as a husband and father. Actually, I didn’t just inflict him with guilt but I openly blamed him, I punished him repeatedly for failing to provide for me and our children a life living close to my parents, siblings, and their children.
In time I found other women and even men who shared my discontentment with their spouses. We aired our spouse’s dirty laundry and failings freely in our discussions — always virtue signaling our virtues and goodness and the shortcomings of our spouses. One day, I started an affair with a man who shared my victimhood narrative and desire for a fresh start through infidelity.
As our affair progressed, we discussed divorcing our spouses and marrying each other. It was exactly what we needed. Our spouses were deadweight and had failed us. We wouldn’t fail each other. We had grown so close during our affair and would only grow closer in our marriage.
In time we divorced our spouses and married. It wasn’t exactly what I expected though. My affair partner turned husband was not who he had led me to believe. He was at least half the problem of his first marriage. He was flirtatious with other women, not engaged as a husband or father, and was consumed with his public image.
After years of marriage to him, I’ve since realized I gave up a good thing for a ‘pretender.’ I betrayed a good man, marriage, and family for an illusion. I broke my marital vows for a man who conveniently gave up his vows for unbridled passion and sex. Of course, unbridled sex was fun and exhilarating but that too became a thing of the past once we both settled in on the reality of meshing our two infidelity-broken families together. I would have never guessed how much his children could hate me and my children hate him.
I ruined a good marriage and jumped into a marriage that was built on infidelity and two faulty delusions. I fight every day to push back the endless thoughts of what I gave up and how I have irreversibly altered the lives of our children through my infidelity. My decisions forced my children to be raised by my new husband who, if I am being honest, isn’t half the man my ex-husband was.
My ex-husband was not even close to being perfect but I always knew he was faithful and committed to me. Ironically, he was faithful to me, the woman who belittled and betrayed him. It’s safe to say that I was an adulterous b*tch to him and our children, but I can’t undo what has been done. I wish I could but there is no going back.
Recovery from Infidelity
If you have experienced infidelity-induced trauma caused by the emotional and sexual betrayal of your spouse, there is hope! If you are a child affected by parental infidelity, there is hope! If you are a spouse who has betrayed the trust, love, and fidelity of your marriage, there is hope! We recommend that you seek support through professional counseling and therapy as well as through groups dedicated to supporting you through this traumatic journey. You are not alone and recovery and healing are possible!
Share Your Story
The CHADIE Foundation shares personal stories of spouses and children impacted by infidelity and affairs. If you have a story to share and publish, please use the contact information below to share your story with The CHADIE Foundation. Our mission is to help educate everyone about the damage infidelity, affairs, and adultery cause families and how to minimize the impact.
About CHADIE Foundation
The CHADIE Foundation (Children are Harmed by Adultery, Divorce, Infidelity, and related Emotional trauma), helps spouses, partners, and children who adultery, affairs, and infidelity have negatively impacted. To learn more about CHADIE and how you can help, please email us at support@chadie.org or visit us at CHADIE.org.
The CHADIE Foundation 