Hello, distraughtlost,
It grieves me to see what you’re going through. I’ve only ever been betrayed by girlfriends at most and never by sleeping with someone else, which was already painful, so I don’t even have a full picture of what you must be going through. Which is, at any rate, horrible and it is with a lot of satisfaction that I see some of our posters insisting that your feelings are legitimate. In my view, it should be even more stressed that you’re not the offender there (the distinction is sometimes blurred when we really want to have compassion on whomever did the wrong thing, to the point of turning it upside down and ultimately “blaming the victim”).
Those feelings won’t go away as quickly as they came. They are not unnatural, nor are they there without a reason. In fact, I believe few people would be able to appreciate forgiveness (as opposed to thinking the forgiver doesn’t care or was not hurt) if they were just hugged and told it’s okay. Few people would be able to forgive like that and, of them, many would probably be, in fact, failing to understand forgiveness or failing to cover the whole scope of the matter with their imagination. After all, this is not about saying “it’s okay” and then bottling in yourself sensations of being betrayed as they keep coming later. You must process the whole thing properly (although I won’t pretend to know what processing it properly means in this case since I’m not a therapist and have not been in a situation like that).
As for what pertains to the wife and her suffering, I’m sure it’s great and it’s great that her betrayed husband is so willing to forgive and compassionate with her but we as posters, responding to his situation and his call for advice and emotional support, shouldn’t be focusing primarily on the wife as the sufferer here or principal victim. There needs to be some reason and some cool. If we see a child beaten by another child, we don’t go on about how terribly suffering must be the other child that hit him, suffering from what caused all that aggression (though we may be willing to approach the matter from that angle) and from the feelings of guilt that possibly came afterward. We hug that beaten child.
Back to the opening poster. Attention, which seems to be the temptation here, is a temptation many people face in relationships. It’s a tried and true pitfall for young women (and not only young) (and I’m sure men aren’t free of the problem either). Therefore I’d try to remember that your wife may be particularly needing it from you, which is a normal thing because not everybody has the same needs, some people need more attention, others need more space.
I know how it hurts that a woman would need validation from the outside, although in my case it’s only been girlfriends or not even there. Must be even more hurtful in your case. I don’t know how it works but I’m perfectly sure that a competent therapist (or basically someone who knows psychology) knows a lot about that, since it’s not an unexamined matter. Some therapy could help and I believe therapy is most probably needed. In some cases people need validation from more than one source because of their insecurities or whatever other problems they have, so if that’s the case, then you shouldn’t worry that you’re not delivering her the validation she needs. If she has that kind of problem, then you can be a perfect husband and she will still have those problems.
I also know how it feels to feel ditched aside for someone random who showed only a fraction of the effort. It’s a horrible thing. On the other hand, if your wife has some problems that can be described as a real disorder, with a concrete cause and a remedy, then it’s not how she consciously thinks of you. As you say, even some hours before the event, she was going on about how much she loved you (even though she mentioned cheating and it might have been a result of whatever mental conflicts she might have been having). Insecurities and unresolved traumas from the past can indeed push women to the point they fall for the simplest (and dumbest) of pickup lines and the most “interesting” choices of a partner (in life or in crime). If only they knew. But, fortunately, they typically learn from experience.
As for the stories she told you that were inconsistent with the truth, and for bragging and laughing about it with friends, she needs to sort that out. Maybe after this event, she will see that there’s no glory in those tales and that the humiliating parts are nothing to laugh at. Again, the most I can say I’ve experienced is an inconsistent girlfriend, but I can relate, at least remotely, and it sucks to see you go through that. I hope your wife learns from it.
When this information came out, bit by bit, I became more and more depressed. I stopped going to Mass and was angry that God wasn’t helping with my pain. I hated God for that and cursed his name everytime I had those depressing thoughts. We went to non Christian counseling and through the course of it my wife told me the entire truth. I know many of you may think I didn’t need to know, that it seems like I was judging her for her past but I wasn’t. It wasn’t a matter of “I need to know everything” it was that I was finding this stuff out in some of the most humiliating ways possible.
I know it’s different when somebody’s been lying to you, it’s different from when you’re merely curious about the matter itself. I’m sorry to hear about your rift with God but glad to hear how it was repaired later, with help from your wife (which gives her some credit, can help you see her as someone close to you, who has done something good for you; hypothetically, if she had helped you fix a rift with God, that may have been more good than whatever evil adultery caused—someone who helps you fix a rift with God helps you save your soul).
