Wife in Ongoing Affair

  • Thread starter Thread starter NeedingGrace
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
TomFromMD said:
She said she wants to stay together for the kids - does she want a fake marriage, or a real one? Is she willing to work to rebuild your marriage?
Click to expand...
She wants a fake one. She is not willing to work to rebuild the marriage. What she wants is some kind of “domestic partnership”. There is no such thing in my mind. That is NOT my vocation. To love my wife as Christ loves the Church is. If someone chooses separation from Christ he will allow that separation. I think of the prodigal son, the parabalbe of the branches and the vine, the sheep and the goats, etc. So is that how I love my wife as Christ loves the Church?
 
NeedingGrace said:
She wants a fake one. She is not willing to work to rebuild the marriage. What she wants is some kind of “domestic partnership”. There is no such thing in my mind. That is NOT my vocation. To love my wife as Christ loves the Church is. If someone chooses separation from Christ he will allow that separation. I think of the prodigal son, the parabalbe of the branches and the vine, the sheep and the goats, etc. So is that how I love my wife as Christ loves the Church?
Click to expand...
Of course there is no such thing. She wants to perpetuate a sham where she gets to fake being a good Catholic and reap the social rewards while jumping into bed with another dude on the sly. Why would anyone entertain this idea for one second?

You love your wife like Christ loves the Church by excommunicating her from the family. Formally at least. She’s already separated herself from it; perhaps losing the perks and being confronted with reality will bring her to her senses over the long term. Excommunication has really been about assigning a formal and, in past times, legally binding separation in order to communicate to the sinner just how serious his offenses are. It’s not about mere punishment.
 
NeedingGrace said:
She wants a fake one. She is not willing to work to rebuild the marriage. What she wants is some kind of “domestic partnership”. There is no such thing in my mind.
Click to expand...
Please stop considering this a religious issue. If you and your wife continue a loveless marriage, no good can come of it. I will pray for you and your family, but in my opinion children are much better off with divorced parents than ones that argue and struggle due to such a serious issue under the same roof.

There are multiple options besides remaining in a loveless marriage that could help your family on the path to recovery. Civil divorce, annulment through the church, or divorce through the church if you’re Eastern Catholic/Orthodox.

Being co-parents is most important, and being civil with each other for the sake of your children, within separate households should be the goal for the future.

I wish that nothing I say is too unordinary or goes against church teachings, but please get off the computer and life your life truthfully.
 
If you are looking for advice, I’d say your really should see a marriage counselor. This is not something you can just get a quick bit of help from an anonymous poster on an internet forum. It is a case-specific situation that requires professional help (ie, help outside of yourselves).
 
NeedingGrace said:
Thanks for all the responses. I understand people’s instinct to come down on my wife. That, however, is not what I have come here for. Advice on going forward is what I seek.
Click to expand...
I’m not sure what you actually mean. Do you mean advice going forward with a wife that does not plan to end this affair and just stay married “for the children?”
Mary.
 
Ophelia23 said:
My heart aches for you. I can’t imagine the pain! My advice may seem trite, but go sit with Jesus in adoration. Pray for your wife… the welfare of your marriage is not the only card on the table right now. So is the welfare of her soul. This is very tragic indeed.

I pray the Lord guide you through these terrible, icy waters.
Click to expand...
Amen. I couldn’t agree more! :gopray: :signofcross:
 
louisak said:
We don’t have enough information to make that judgement. I wonder if you are making the mistake (very common) of thinking that annulment is just the Catholic version of divorce. An annulment is a declaration that there was never a valid Christian marriage due to incapacity on the part of one or both parties. The fact that one partner is guilty of an ongoing adulterous relationship does not prove that the marriage was never valid.

NeedingGrace, my heart goes out to you. I will keep you in prayer.
Click to expand...
He said he talked to his priest and his priest says he has grounds for “divorce”…he stated that in one of his previous posts. It wasn’t a judgement just a restatement of what his priest said.

I assume the priest was saying it was grounds for annulment, but I’m not positive, so if that isn’t the case, I retract my statement.
 
The_Bucket said:
That’s seriously my advice. The fact that you’re in any way apologetic instead of being apoplectic is kind of disturbing to me.

That said, look, blowing it all up might not be as terrible as you think. And I say that because in my experience, it took all of my brothers and sisters and my in-laws knowing about my addiction to pornography for me to actually change. I needed to be absolutely smacked in the face and have my pride blown up for anything to happen. My wife left for two weeks. Everyone knew. Everyone knew I joined a 12-step program related to sex/porn addiction. You think that’s not scandalous? Sure it is. It also saved my soul big-time.

It also probably saved my wife more heartache and betrayal. I never once contacted anyone for phone sex or did chatting or anything else. But you don’t think this kind of addiction would progress to that at some point? Yeah, it probably would. It has with other people. Just go ask my father who has had a couple of affairs that my family buried. What did that solve? Nothing. It totally destroyed my mother and led to all kinds of problems down the line with all the kids in our family. We knew SOMETHING was going on and it caused anxiety to go through the roof. At least five of the six of us have had serious emotional problems as a result.

So yeah there was more than a little vindictiveness in my tone and I’ll totally concede that. I would be out of my freaking mind if I heard about one incident let alone something ongoing. That said, when it comes to hypocrites and frauds… many times we need to get smashed by reality in order to get back to God. Again, I speak from experience as a big-time fraud myself.
Click to expand...
THIS! I know this is hard to hear and completely unfair, especially for one who has been raised to be charitable, loving and forgiving, but as long as she has you at home complying with maintaining her fantasy world, she isn’t going to change. She needs ‘tough love’ right now. If she continues with this man, she can’t have an intact family. That may trigger contrition for her. Right now she has the best of both worlds and no impetus to change it.

I am so sorry you are going through this. I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Protect your children, protect yourself. She needs to make a choice of a true marriage or her partner in this sin. Remember when we are asked to reject the “glamour” of evil? Evil is glamorous and enticing. This is as old as Creation.

Ultimatum time. She gets rid of the boyfriend, you know where she is at all times. You have the ability to monitor her calls and computer. You are both in serious counselling with a family therapist. Or else she needs to leave and go with the transgressor. Call a good family law attorney and find out the best way to protect yourself if she equivocates.

Sadly I predict she will choose the lover. He provides excitement and an adrenalin rush. She will find out too late that she has ruined many lives with her behavior. My fiance went through this same thing. He is a good man and was a devoted husband and father. She chose the boyfriend and the counselor told him that unfortunately this is the usual course of things. Our society has swallowed the line “if it feels good do it.”

Please please take care of yourself. You are the rock for your children. Many will pray for you believe me.
Lisa
 
I would suggest a few things.
  1. Your wife needs to experience the consequences for her actions. This should NOT be vindictive in anyway. You are her husband and will always be assuming the marriage was valid from the beginning (which is the proper assumption) and it is likely your love and commitment to the marriage could be the one thing that salvages your marriage. That being said, she is likely not going to change unless she experiences the brute reality of her actions. Similar to Bucket, I am also in recovery for sex addiction and one of the worst things that I happened to me was my friends and family allowing me NOT to experience the consequences for my own actions. The loving thing to do is confront your wife as best as possible with the reality of her actions. If she is anything like most of us who get caught up with lust, we need to feel the pain of our actions for us to ever consider stopping.
  2. Get a counselor ASAP. I would look for an orthodox Catholic counselor to start helping you work through your issues. It is likely both you and your wife have issues to work through and couples counseling would be huge. Also, a retroville would be good. (Probably my best advice)
  3. Do NOT be concerned about your image to the rest of your family or your church. Your marriage is damaged, keeping up false images for the sake of images is likely to cause more damage. Don’t be worried about people knowing the real state of your marriage if it comes up. In the end, we are all sinners and we all have our own issues we are working through. Openness and honesty can help restore a sense of sanity to a family that may be pulling the wool over their own eyes (or atleast her eyes) of the reality of the situation as well.
  4. Don’t lose faith in Christ or in your marriage. I have heard of couples who have went through worse (much worse compared to the things you have posted). In most instances, if they worked through the issues and kept faith in Christ, their marriage was restored to them. Their relationship was closer than ever and they actually grew closer through the struggles/suffering that they were forced to endure.
I’ll be praying for you. In the meantime, you can take my advice with a grain of salt. I am not a counselor. I would encourage you seeking out a solid Catholic counselor to help you with your issues. If you happen to be from Atlanta, I can probably recommend a few. 😃
 
NeedingGrace said:
She wants a fake one. She is not willing to work to rebuild the marriage. What she wants is some kind of “domestic partnership”. There is no such thing in my mind. That is NOT my vocation. To love my wife as Christ loves the Church is. If someone chooses separation from Christ he will allow that separation. I think of the prodigal son, the parabalbe of the branches and the vine, the sheep and the goats, etc. So is that how I love my wife as Christ loves the Church?
Click to expand...
Of course there is no such thing. Marriage is a sacrament. For her to want to create a “fake marriage” is abominable if you ask me. By giving into her wishes to have a fake marriage, you really wouldn’t be helping anyone. You wouldn’t truly be engaged in the holy sacrament of marriage, you would be enabling your wife to sin and continue to live her life in secrets and lies. Your children would not be raised in a proper environment, they may find out and what kind of an example would that be to them?

It sounds to me like she doesn’t want to “stay together for the kids”, she wants to stay together to continue her russe that she’s a good holy Christian in a good holy marriage.
If your wife is choosing another man over you, let her go. She can’t have both. It’s not fair and it’s not right. She’s got to be either all in or out. Though your posts, it’s clear she is not all in, not even close.

If I were in your situation, I would separate for the sake of my kids. I would want them to grow up in a healthy environment where their parents are in love. I would want to honestly be able to teach them how to live in a Christian way through my husband and my actions, not just through our words.

I can tell you are a good man who loves his wife despite the aweful things she has done to you, your marriage, and your family. But enabling her to continue to behave this way is not helping anyone. If she wants another man, let her go. Don’t settle for a fake marriage.
It is wrong.

God Bless you, and I hope everything works out. You’re a sweet man, don’t let anyone take advantage of you. You deserve more.
 
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.
 
You gave her an ultimatum and she cheated again. Unless you pursue the divorce (like you said you would), she will not take anything you say seriously. Basically, she has called your bluff. Your wife will keep doing whatever she wants because she knows you won’t do anything to stop her.

My advice is that you follow through with what you said you would do and file for divorce.
 
You need to talk to a lawyer and know your rights. Be careful about leaving the home less you are charged with abandonment.

Know of two situations like yours. Husband did not want a divorce but when she became pregnant with the other man’s child, that ended that. Fortunately, she didn’t sue for ex husband to pay child support. I believe the law names the husband as the legally responsible party if child is conceived as a result of adultery.

Second situation involved a woman/teacher having an affair with another teacher. Everyone knew including her husband and her kids. They got through it and remained married. Have no idea how this played out on the kids.
 
SamH said:
Why not?
Click to expand...
We are to love our wifes (and really everyone). Being vindictive is to seek revenge or to hope for harm for the other person, “to get even”, “make them feel our pain” so to speak. This is the opposite of love and will work to further destroy the marriage. Re-read St Paul’s discourse on love. That is what is needed in this situation.

On a side note, love does not mean rolling over and being a dormat either. It means allowing your wife to face the consequences of her actions. That is actually the loving thing to do even though it may seem harsh. Helping her cover her actions is only helping her to further her delusions.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top