I've been reading Rollo and posts on this board for awhile, since soon after the drama of catching my wife cheating last March. Maybe my story might be of interest.
I got married 30+ years ago in college to a South Asian 8 who is four years older than me. She was the exotic foreign grad student that I had to have. Something like Shakira Caine. I was 22, a veteran of the U.S. Army and she was 26.
Before I met her I had been let down hard (but honestly) by a woman I idealized and loved as the one-and-only in a beta AFC kind of way, so in some ways my eyes were open to what females were all about, that girl pretty much told me I was an AFC and how I went wrong, along with how the guys she was banging got her. I also had a couple of other relationships and wh0red around while in the military overseas, but not a lot of experience.
It was not too hard to get my wife-to-be into bed, in spite of her Muslim background, and soon we were living together. She claimed I was her first. I always had serious doubts (no particular pain, obstruction or blood when I first put it in). It was not a big deal to me then, but in the light of recent events is significant.
We had problems because of our different cultural backgrounds. I still wanted to party like an undergrad and she wanted me to stay home and gaze into her eyes. I was obviously too young for the kind of relationship she wanted, but she was and still is very sexually responsive so we got along well in bed.
After a couple of breakups and make-ups, I asked her to marry me. We got married and had three kids. In the early years she was a SATM while I was back in the military. I was doing some difficult and dangerous things while I was in, ended up getting out for civilian life but staying in the active reserves. Almost all of the work I've ever done has been difficult, stressful and often dangerous, in and out of the military, including my off-and-on employment over the last ten years as a contractor in the wars in southwest Asia. She ended up working too, but I always made more or a LOT more money than her.
A bad dynamic developed in that she was always administering what I now recognize as $hit-tests, mostly trying to assert dominance over all my expenditures and my activities. It's not like I was spending a lot at all - we lived comfortably and well within our means, but she would complain about money I was spending on lunches, coffees and the occasional pub session. I was failing most of those tests and the fights that resulted meant she'd give me the silent treatment, etc. I never felt that I was appreciated for what I was going through in the world outside my house in these difficult and stressful jobs. Still, we had our good times and she was attentive to me when she wasn't $hit-testing me.
I had a series of affairs, from my early 30s onward. My moral failing, if you can call it that, was that I didn't think sex was much more than shaking hands and when I saw something I liked would take the first step to approach them, then the second step of a number, etc. I was always honest with my mistresses (who were mostly Brazilians) and always told them I loved my wife and had no plans to leave her. Since I set my own work schedule it was easy for me to get away for daytime trysts and have these affairs without much impact on family time. Actually, I was getting along well with my wife then, bringing her flowers and taking her out often, and was pretty happy.
When I was in my mid-40s I messed up a good deal by taking it to extremes and getting a harem of 3 other women. I blame the invention of free online dating sites, Viagra and my rigorous exercise routine supplemented with then-legal androstenidone :crazy:. This harem did impact on family time and other things, exciting my wife's suspicion. She got into my workplace and put a keylogger on my work computer and the home computer. From that, she found my emails to 2 out of the 3 women. Funny thing was, she took my emails to my number 2 girl and brought them to my number 1 girl. The number 1 girl was a lawyer and wanted to team up with my wife to destroy me, but my wife said she didn't want to do that. After that there was a lot of drama, which included my wife starting to tell me every time a guy hit on her and how she flirted back, but things calmed down.
Because of my military- and civilian- acquired skills, I ended up getting recruited for contract positions in the southwest Asian wars after 9/11. These were paying me up to $22K a month. There was also two months vacation a year, so even though we were separated, we would be able to meet in Paris, Berlin or Cairo for holidays. Plus, I would be home for months at a time between contracts.
Through a combination of age, lack of opportunity, aversion to further drama, and resignation/commitment to the marriage, I settled down and determined to remain faithfully married. She still $hit-tested me a lot about the same things, but I was used to that now and the arguments were mostly pro forma.
I was on another contract beginning last year, and wasn't taking the time to communicate a lot with her on Skype and phone, it was pretty much an email a day with a summary of the day's events, plus a Skype call or two per week. The time zone difference and her and my work schedule is a factor.
So she tells me that this "old flame" is in touch with her on Facebook at the beginning of March. I think "uh-oh," but had no idea what was about to happen. This was a guy from her undergrad days before she met me. He was an American foreign student at the uni she attended, with an interesting background of being an ex-U.S. Army intelligence linguist, there to improve his language skills. Basically, they had some kind of love affair and then he jilted her for another foreign woman (a model). He then went on to a career consistent with that of an intelligence officer in non-official cover, but maybe it wasn't that. I think he took her virginity, pumped her and dumped her back then.
So about three weeks after she mentions this guy in passing, I get the "Dear John" email. We go back and forth, and she had been enough of a blabbermouth to enable me to track down this guy's wife and call her. I arranged to meet my wife for a short vacation, and when I had the chance to grab her laptop, I looked at the Skype and an "I love you" message from this guy popped up. She's lying, lying to me, giving me the "just friends" thing.
Long story short, I end up getting the cell phone records showing the hundreds of texts and hours of phone calls, plus even some of their emails (before he set up a Petraeus/Broadwell- type email account "drop box" that he controlled), and some really whiney pleading voicemail messages he left her on Skype. Turned out they met twice, spent four nights together. She says he is impotent and somewhat sexless (he is 63), but went down on her. I raised enough of a ruckus to stop things, but after another trip to see her for reconciliation purposes when I said I would forgive her, she calls me three weeks later to tell me he's been "blackmailing" her and that she had been in touch with a second pay-as-you-go cell phone.
This is when my heart begins to harden, but things go on. She takes a trip which excites my suspicion again, but she is defiant about providing proof that her story is true. In the preceding drama I contacted a lawyer and took the step of sending them a retainer. Also, in the back and forth I began to read and consider the alternatives to being married, meaning: living anywhere I wanted, with any type of woman I wanted to be found in a global marketplace of social media and dating sites, and doing what I wanted. I took my last break from SWA in SE Asia and I know the possibilities are endless.
I tell her that the fault is not so much in the affair, but in her reaction after the affair, where she had too much regard for the other guy's feelings, according to her letting him down easy, and not enough for mine.
Still, I am still strongly attracted to my wife and the comfort level derived from 30 years of marriage is nothing to be discarded lightly. The property implications are considerable. I will be comfortable, but the short-term effect is that I will be homeless, other than some Containerized Housing Unit (CHU) in SWA. I told her, "you really screwed up," and she agreed.
Now I'm wondering, what's next? Do I take the leap?
I got married 30+ years ago in college to a South Asian 8 who is four years older than me. She was the exotic foreign grad student that I had to have. Something like Shakira Caine. I was 22, a veteran of the U.S. Army and she was 26.
Before I met her I had been let down hard (but honestly) by a woman I idealized and loved as the one-and-only in a beta AFC kind of way, so in some ways my eyes were open to what females were all about, that girl pretty much told me I was an AFC and how I went wrong, along with how the guys she was banging got her. I also had a couple of other relationships and wh0red around while in the military overseas, but not a lot of experience.
It was not too hard to get my wife-to-be into bed, in spite of her Muslim background, and soon we were living together. She claimed I was her first. I always had serious doubts (no particular pain, obstruction or blood when I first put it in). It was not a big deal to me then, but in the light of recent events is significant.
We had problems because of our different cultural backgrounds. I still wanted to party like an undergrad and she wanted me to stay home and gaze into her eyes. I was obviously too young for the kind of relationship she wanted, but she was and still is very sexually responsive so we got along well in bed.
After a couple of breakups and make-ups, I asked her to marry me. We got married and had three kids. In the early years she was a SATM while I was back in the military. I was doing some difficult and dangerous things while I was in, ended up getting out for civilian life but staying in the active reserves. Almost all of the work I've ever done has been difficult, stressful and often dangerous, in and out of the military, including my off-and-on employment over the last ten years as a contractor in the wars in southwest Asia. She ended up working too, but I always made more or a LOT more money than her.
A bad dynamic developed in that she was always administering what I now recognize as $hit-tests, mostly trying to assert dominance over all my expenditures and my activities. It's not like I was spending a lot at all - we lived comfortably and well within our means, but she would complain about money I was spending on lunches, coffees and the occasional pub session. I was failing most of those tests and the fights that resulted meant she'd give me the silent treatment, etc. I never felt that I was appreciated for what I was going through in the world outside my house in these difficult and stressful jobs. Still, we had our good times and she was attentive to me when she wasn't $hit-testing me.
I had a series of affairs, from my early 30s onward. My moral failing, if you can call it that, was that I didn't think sex was much more than shaking hands and when I saw something I liked would take the first step to approach them, then the second step of a number, etc. I was always honest with my mistresses (who were mostly Brazilians) and always told them I loved my wife and had no plans to leave her. Since I set my own work schedule it was easy for me to get away for daytime trysts and have these affairs without much impact on family time. Actually, I was getting along well with my wife then, bringing her flowers and taking her out often, and was pretty happy.
When I was in my mid-40s I messed up a good deal by taking it to extremes and getting a harem of 3 other women. I blame the invention of free online dating sites, Viagra and my rigorous exercise routine supplemented with then-legal androstenidone :crazy:. This harem did impact on family time and other things, exciting my wife's suspicion. She got into my workplace and put a keylogger on my work computer and the home computer. From that, she found my emails to 2 out of the 3 women. Funny thing was, she took my emails to my number 2 girl and brought them to my number 1 girl. The number 1 girl was a lawyer and wanted to team up with my wife to destroy me, but my wife said she didn't want to do that. After that there was a lot of drama, which included my wife starting to tell me every time a guy hit on her and how she flirted back, but things calmed down.
Because of my military- and civilian- acquired skills, I ended up getting recruited for contract positions in the southwest Asian wars after 9/11. These were paying me up to $22K a month. There was also two months vacation a year, so even though we were separated, we would be able to meet in Paris, Berlin or Cairo for holidays. Plus, I would be home for months at a time between contracts.
Through a combination of age, lack of opportunity, aversion to further drama, and resignation/commitment to the marriage, I settled down and determined to remain faithfully married. She still $hit-tested me a lot about the same things, but I was used to that now and the arguments were mostly pro forma.
I was on another contract beginning last year, and wasn't taking the time to communicate a lot with her on Skype and phone, it was pretty much an email a day with a summary of the day's events, plus a Skype call or two per week. The time zone difference and her and my work schedule is a factor.
So she tells me that this "old flame" is in touch with her on Facebook at the beginning of March. I think "uh-oh," but had no idea what was about to happen. This was a guy from her undergrad days before she met me. He was an American foreign student at the uni she attended, with an interesting background of being an ex-U.S. Army intelligence linguist, there to improve his language skills. Basically, they had some kind of love affair and then he jilted her for another foreign woman (a model). He then went on to a career consistent with that of an intelligence officer in non-official cover, but maybe it wasn't that. I think he took her virginity, pumped her and dumped her back then.
So about three weeks after she mentions this guy in passing, I get the "Dear John" email. We go back and forth, and she had been enough of a blabbermouth to enable me to track down this guy's wife and call her. I arranged to meet my wife for a short vacation, and when I had the chance to grab her laptop, I looked at the Skype and an "I love you" message from this guy popped up. She's lying, lying to me, giving me the "just friends" thing.
Long story short, I end up getting the cell phone records showing the hundreds of texts and hours of phone calls, plus even some of their emails (before he set up a Petraeus/Broadwell- type email account "drop box" that he controlled), and some really whiney pleading voicemail messages he left her on Skype. Turned out they met twice, spent four nights together. She says he is impotent and somewhat sexless (he is 63), but went down on her. I raised enough of a ruckus to stop things, but after another trip to see her for reconciliation purposes when I said I would forgive her, she calls me three weeks later to tell me he's been "blackmailing" her and that she had been in touch with a second pay-as-you-go cell phone.
This is when my heart begins to harden, but things go on. She takes a trip which excites my suspicion again, but she is defiant about providing proof that her story is true. In the preceding drama I contacted a lawyer and took the step of sending them a retainer. Also, in the back and forth I began to read and consider the alternatives to being married, meaning: living anywhere I wanted, with any type of woman I wanted to be found in a global marketplace of social media and dating sites, and doing what I wanted. I took my last break from SWA in SE Asia and I know the possibilities are endless.
I tell her that the fault is not so much in the affair, but in her reaction after the affair, where she had too much regard for the other guy's feelings, according to her letting him down easy, and not enough for mine.
Still, I am still strongly attracted to my wife and the comfort level derived from 30 years of marriage is nothing to be discarded lightly. The property implications are considerable. I will be comfortable, but the short-term effect is that I will be homeless, other than some Containerized Housing Unit (CHU) in SWA. I told her, "you really screwed up," and she agreed.
Now I'm wondering, what's next? Do I take the leap?