Hey guys,

this is a really difficult thread to start, I really had no intention of boring you all with the drama that has been in my life as of late. I really could use some advice right now though, so here goes. I should warn you that this is going to be a long, depressing read.

As of a month ago I was probably the happiest I had ever been in life. I had a beautiful wife, a beautiful child, a great place to work and I live in an extremely fun city (Vancouver). Then about 3 weeks ago we went on a vacation to Halifax and everything changed, now I feel like my life is totally f**ked beyond repair. I will explain what happened before, but first a little background..

my background: I love my wife. I love her more than anything and she is the only women I have ever loved. I had many relationships during high school and University but not one of those lasted more than a semester(4 months). I had never said I love you before my wife because I had never felt that way about anyone else. Thats not to say that I didn't want it, all I have ever wanted in life was to find that perfect someone I could spend the rest of my life with..and after 23 years I found Jen(my wife). It only took two months and I had told her I love her, 4 months and she had moved in with me. She got pregnant after a little over a year (even though she was on the pill) and for me that was when we made the decision to be together forever. We had the most beautiful baby, and got married a year later (best day of my life). Things were going great

So three weeks ago we go to Nova Scotia to visit my parents and stay at our beautiful cottage on the beach. We fly on Sunday and on the Monday Jen wants to go meet a friend of hers (she had went to a university in Nova Scotia 2 years before I met her). That is fine, I have lots of friends in Halifax so she goes to visit her friend and I go out to the pubs in Halifax with my buddies. My parents look after Madison (our daughter) and we all have a good day.

I should also mention here that a bunch of our friends flew to Nova Scotia with us, some of my best buddies we will call them Joel, Ken, Lars and Katie (married and Katie is pregnant).

So on Teusday we all decide to leave my parents house outside of Halifax and drive up to the cottage on the beach. Tuesday and Wednesday things are okay, but Jen doesn't seem interested in spending time with me..which sucks because we had lots of babysitters available so I figured we would do things together. Instead she is spending a lot of time talking on the phone and texting constantly. She tells me that she is talking to her mom because her aunt just died the week before we left. That is fine, I can understand that

I start to get a little suspicious though, she is texting a lot and I know her mom doesn't text. She leaves her phone out and I grab it, go into the washroom and have my soul destroyed. Alex, the little piece of s**t she went to see on Monday, has been sending her totally inappropriate texts. I grab her and we go for a walk down the beach, I flip out on her and she starts crying. She claims that she knows Alex has a crush on her, but she doesn't have many friends(which is true) and that she saw him as just a friend. Her texts to him are pretty innocent, so I am able to accept this. I tell her she has to cut him off completely if she wants things to work, she agrees.

The next couple days go by OK, then on Friday we go back to my parents house outside Halifax and plan on going out a couple nights in the city before we leave on sunday morning. Friday night she had plans to go see Alex's sister who has a child about Madisons age, and somehow I agree to let her go for a couple hours. She comes home, and then says she wants to go tell Alex she can't talk to him anymore. Basically, she wants to go see him that night. Its like 2am in the morning, I say f**k that, and won't let her go. We have a huge fight, during which I am basically on the floor in front of the bedroom door crying..finally she relents, apologizes and we go to sleep.

Then comes Saturday, we plan on spending the day walking around Halifax and we're gonna meet up with my parents and all my friends for dinner. The whole day is s**te because she is texting again and we are fighting about it. She says she wants to go meet some friends for a drink, that its not Alex but I know it is so I tell her no. We get to the dinner and it is me, jen, madison, my parents and Joel. We are waiting on Ken, Lars and Katie to show up. Joel goes out for a smoke, and a minute later Jen says she is going out to talk to him. I know something is up, so I take Madison and go outside. Who do I see waiting by his car but Alex. I hand Madison off to my friend Joel and walk up to Alex. I basically tell him that he needs to leave, my whole family is in there and that if doesn't go I am going to kill him. He replies with something about just going for a drink, and I turn around and see Jen coming out of the restaraunt and walking down the street. I decide to pursue her, so I catch up and am walking beside her. She says she just wants to go for a drink with Alex and a couple of his friends (he brought backup, as I later learned the kid was SUPER scared of me..rightly so).

I am f**king pissed now, Alex pulls his car up beside us and Jen tries to hop in. I pull Alex out of the car and beat the living s**t out of him. This is the only bit of the story that really makes me happy, so I must go into detail here..I pull him out and start hammering him. Its amazing because every punch I threw was landing squarely on his face, his attempts at blocking were so useless it was hilarious. Then one of his friend grabs me and tries to pull me off, he can't move me but he has my one arm tied up. I start laying in with some uppercuts, god did they feel good. Each one landed squarely on his jaw, it was awesome. My friend pulls his friend off me, and I continue to beat on Alex who is now a bloody mess. In the car behind us it just happens to be Ken, Lars and Katie. So now Alex and his friends are surrounded by my friends who are from the Yukon and much tougher than these prissy little city boys. They all hop in the car scared s**tless. Finally, Joel pull me off because he has no idea why I am beating this kid but it is pretty apparant that I am going to be arrested soon (its downtown halifax, busy street at about 7pm). Alex gets in his car and f**king Jen hops in with him, she calls me immediately to say she just wants to have a drink can we meet up in an hour. I f**king curse her out and tell her if she's not back in 5 minutes don't bother coming back.

So now me and four of my best friends are standing outside the restaraunt. They have no idea whats going on. My parents are inside the restaraunt with Madison, no idea whats going on. I have to explain to all of them what just happened, and its f**king brutal. We have an awful meal and then I go and clean out our bank accounts. We planned on going out that night, my dad really thought I needed to get piss drunk. I have so much adrenaline that going out sounds awesome, but luckily Katie was there and she talked to me and made me realize that going out was probably a bad idea. Can't really remember what she said, but I remember thinking that at about 3 in the morning I would probably just want to be laying in bed with Madison. Right after this talk the bar turned its s**tty music on and I realized no way I can handle that right now, so we went back to my dads house to sit around and have some drinks. Jen is constantly phoning and texting, all of which I am ignoring.

Finally, at about 3:30am she shows up at my dads house and starts knocking on my bedroom window. I ignore it. She stays around for about an hour before my dad opens the door and throws her bag out and tells her to f**k off. She says she wants to see Madison and my dad says no (I told him too). She threatens to call the cops, which is laughable because we already know they won't do anything. She is starting to freak out now because we are suppose to be on a plane at 7am to fly to Calgary and go to her family reunion. I phone her parents and tell them there's no way me or Madison is getting on that plane. I have the worst night of my life, constant shaking and crying..something I have never experienced.

The next day Jen is still phoning constantly but I just don't want to talk to her. Finally, at about 1 in the afternoon we talk. She starts telling me all this s**t about what a mistake she made, blah blah blah. I am still hopelessly in love and can't stand the thought that she has nowhere else to go but Alex's house. I know she rebooked her flight for 5am the next mornning, so I tell her to meet me at the airport and bring her bags. I tell her if she wants to even have a chance she can spend the day in the airport, and that I will be checking in because I just don't trust her. She agrees, we meet at the airport and have a long talk where we agree to try and work things out. I leave the airport, and come back about 3 later with Madison. We all go stay in a room at the airport hotel because I am still not ready to take her back to my dads. we have some of the best sex ever, goddamn hate-sex is good

She flies back the next morning, I spend another two days at my dads with my friends. I fly back with Madison on the Wednesday. We meet at our house in Van and have a few more long talks. She admits to sleeping with him on the Monday, which just f**king destroys me. I place a lot of value in sex, so I pretty much don't see a chance in hell that its going to work now. She insists that she is changed and things will be better, so I am trying to give her a chance. On the weekend she has this weird idea that we should spend time apart with our friends. I am not big on the idea, and have a pretty awful weekend. Then Monday and Teusday are really good, she is being ridiculously good to me and the sex is amazing.

I had installed some keylogging software, and checked her email Wednesday morning. I find out that not only is she still talking to him, but he had flow to Vancouver for the weekend when we were "spending time with friends". I f**king lose it, take the day off work and go and clean out our accounts again. This time I also close the accounts and cancel all our credit cards. I also meet with a lawyer about divorce and find out some good news and some bad news. Good news that I shouldn't have to pay any spousal support (our version of alimony) and that I won't have to do the year of seperation before a divorce(because I can prove she committed adultry). Bad news that I will probably have no hope of getting custody of Madison..

Anyways, that night she writes up a huge letter saying how much she loves me and blah blah blah. She says Alex flew across the country on his own and that weekend she realized how much he annoys her and that she told him never to talk to her again. I am such a weakling that I agree to not run off on her (I had planned on staying at a friends). She has been super good to me lately, the sex has been amazing and I have seen strong evidence that she told Alex to f**k off. She did remove him from facebook, msn, sent him an email saying not to talk to her and when I checked her phone all the calls from him were missed.

At first I really thought she was only coming back for convenience, she's a student and basically needs my paycheque to survive. The last week I am starting to think that is not the case, that she really does think its a big mistake. Problem is, I don't think I can accept her. After all the pain she has inflicted on me I don't think I'll ever see her the same again, things have been good while we are together, but when we're apart I just think about how bad she f**ked me over. At this point I am 95% sure I am going to have to figure some where else to live for October. I have a long letter written explaining all of this, and am at the point of sending it(or saying it) every night..then she makes me feel good again and I don't. I need to do it soon though, because I can't handle this for much longer..I've lost 15lbs in the last couple weeks and my stomach is f**ked to the point where I can't even drink a beer.

I don't know what I expect from you guys, but it has helped just to write all these crazy events down. The hardest part for me is thinking that she will take Madison, although I think I could convince her to let me take her. She is a student and she has recognized that she can't be a mom and a student at the same time. She said I could take her, but who knows if that will change after she speaks to a lawyer. Its also really ridiculous because as a mom she can basically change her mind anytime and get custody back. Us dads get f**ked over hard..

Dude -

I'm sorry this has happened to you.

My advice is...get her to sign a piece of paper saying that if you ever split up, you'll get full custody of Madison.

Believe me - it won't be that hard to get her to sign.

Once you get that, you can decide to forgive her or forget her. You'll HAVE to do one or the other...

Poor dear. That is really rough.

If you're looking for advice, I think you need to talk to her — not fight, but talk — and find out what she likes about her relationship with you (not if she'll ever do it again; regardless of her answer there, she'll be placating you.) You can only change how you react.
And try to stay calm, for Madison's sake.

If your wife wants to make things work, maybe you can go the counseling route before jumping right to divorce.

*hugs*

I'm so sorry. It really sucks when what you thought was great turns out to not be the case.

I'd be 100% honest with her and with yourself. If you want it to work, you CAN forgive her, it's just going to be something that you have to do every day. And it won't be easy. Trust is another issue, and for me, that would be harder than forgiveness.

thanks for the responses everyone. I find it interesting that the general consensus so far seems to be to try and work it out still, marriage counselling is definitely something I have considered.

This is the first time I've told the whole story to anyone, partly because I thought if I mentioned the whole fact that she admits she slept with him part none of my friends would accept her again and they would think I was just pethatic for taking her back.

I mean its pretty bad what she did, right when we are trying to make things better she spends the whole weekend with him in Vancouver. That is the part I really can't get over, that weekend was brutal for me. The friday she told me she was taking Madisons to a friends for the night. Turns out she spent the night in his hotel room but "they didn't do anything". Saturday she spent the day with him at the beach, while I looked after madison. Saturday night I went to a hockey game with a friend while she hung out with him and Madison. Sunday I played my weekly hockey while she went to the pool with him. All this while I am saying we should spend the weekend together, because during the week our lives are stressful and it will be hard to make things work.

Anyways, all the responses have been helpful..thanks guys!

Really? You sound like you want it to work. Like you're frustrated, and don't think it can because of the situation. If you both want it to, it will.

My thoughts are with you. I wish you all the best.

It takes 2 to make things work... If she doesn't want to, no matter how much pleading, it's not going to happen...

I am of the mindset - good-f**king luck if you ever cheat on me, we are done -

And this is the mindset his friends have... not so much him, but his friends...

I commend you, theclansman, for wanting to work it out. And I am sorry you have to go through this and expose yourself emotionally, stripped, raw, simple...

I agree with Icepigs that you should, at the very least, have her sign a piece of paper giving custody of your daughter to you. Simply because you are not certain that, in the future; near or far, she may pull this sort of crap again...

Seeing so much raw emotion on how this incident has devastated you, I can only presume that you may not survive a 'Round 2'. So cover your bases and get on with your life, with your daughter.

You will be better off...

You might also want to see a counselor, just you, to help you deal with what you are going through. Friends are great for listening, but may have biases one way or the other. I really hope things work out for you, and your daughter.

Talk to a lawyer before you go the "piece of paper" for custody route. I am 99.99% sure that it won't hold up in court if she challenges the legality of it.

Also, in regards to both sustaining the marriage and winning custody, you have to control the anger. You have an absolute justification for being upset, really ... but when you get physical about it, you look violent and perhaps dangerous to a child (not that you are, at all, but that is how it could be painted in a custody fight).
In terms of the marriage, by being aggressive and beating the guy up, he won the sympathy card. He's the sensitive "victim," while you are the "brute." I don't think your wife would see your (thoroughly justified and completely understandable) reaction as a sign of how much you love her (which I'm sure is how you see it; you were defending her). She's more likely to see it as you went after him for no reason.

...I know, that sounds cruel to say, but that's how I see it.

Oh my god, hun, I'm sorry. Normally, I'd say kick her to the curb, but the kiddo does complicate things.

You do sound like you're wanting to work it out and if she genuinely seems remorseful then I'd say find a counselor and give it a try. As she's obviously destroyed your trust, I'd keep the key gen, check her phone, have her check in with you regularly, etc. Let her know you're doing these things and let her know in no uncertain terms that if she has a problem with being babysat, she's free to pack her bags. At this point she's voided her right to privacy and she's going to have to bust her ass to earn it back.

I recently had to give a very good, very old guy friend the boot after he sent me an inappropriate text and Steve read it over my shoulder. I'll even admit the whole thing looked suspicious because I hurriedly tried to delete it before Steve saw it (which, in hindsight, was pretty stupid of me).

I immediately handed over my phone to Steve and let him monitor it for the next few days to prove that the inappropriate contact was entirely one-sided. It sucked and it pissed me off to be under suspicion because of my idiot friend's drunk texting, but in the end, proving my faithfulness to Steve was more important than my pride and my privacy. If your girl truly wants this to work out, she'll feel the same way.

What a terrible betrayal of trust. I'm actually glad that you beat the s**t out of that guy...Hopefully he won't file charges.

Counseling is a great idea, both together and alone. You know we're always here to support you, but finding a professional you can confide in will help you heal.

I'm so so sorry you had to go through this. Know that I'll be thinking about you and Madison and hope all goes well in the long run.

{{{{HUGZ}}}}}

@Maven
I agree that it will work if we both want it too, I just don't know if thats what I want anymore..

@kero
thanks..

@arsph
agreed, I probably should see someone..at the very least, a doctor.

@lynxears
yup, your totally right. Thats the scary bit, even if I get her to sign an agreement she can pretty much reverse it anytime she wants..although I don't know if she would actually try, she is pretty much afraid of court and really doesn't want to waste money on a lawyer (esp money that could be spent on giving madison a better life - I agree with her there). I am kind of lucky in that my dad is extremely loaded and prepared to sink any amount of money into a lawyer if it comes down to it, so if/when I get her to sign the agreement I could make it very difficult to get out of.

as for the violence bit, I agree again. This is the first time I have been violent since high school basically, and I don't THINK she would bring it up.

@abondonedcouch
the kid complicates things, but I don't think I should stay with her just for the kid. We are both good parents and I am pretty sure either way we can give Madison a great life

Hugs to you. I walked in those shoes before, it sucks.

If you want to make it work, counseling is a good option.

Here is a site where you can get many questions answered and alot of support.

Surviving Infidelity

The awesome sex is known as Hysterical Bonding.

Been there, done that. Hated myself that it was so good.

I wouldn't have thought there was any hope for my marriage, to be honest. My husband was a relapsed alcoholic.

He made a choice to a meeting on Dec 1st, 2009 and review his choices. AA saved our marriage, not the counselor. (We won't go there right now....grrr) He has been sober for almost a year now.

You can begin to trust again, when you are ready. Right now, you are in for a rollercoaster of a ride.

It takes work on both ends and I know that you feel like you do not have any work to do on your side. Trust me, even those who were cheated upon can improve ourselves. Sucks, but true.

I was told to not make any harsh decisions for 6 months, *IF* the person was remorseful and intent on working on things. I am glad I did.

I am but a PM away if you need to talk.

Oh and women get f**ked over in custody too. I am one who did. And my ex used to repeatedly threaten that if I ever decided to leave, he would win and have the kids. And he did. He's a cop, he made more money, it was his house I moved into, I got screwed.

He had an affair that made front page news and I got sick of the treatment, the emnbarrassment and living under his thumb. So I did file. And he lived up to his threats as well.

xoxoo Donna

Holy shit!

(((((Hugs))))) to you and Madison.

As someone whose marriage broke up due to infidelity on my ex's part, I would walk away. But we did not have children together.

My story is quite sordid as yours is, but there was no children involved, and no one's ass got kicked that I know of. ;) Although my ex husband was threatened by the mistress's brother when he realized she was crazy and broke it off with her. Head spinning story. He then came crying to me for help (mostly financial that he dug himself into with her) in the middle of our divorce. *sigh* Class A assclown.

Even if we would have had a child, I cannot tolerate cheating. I don't think I would ever be able to forget and not be paranoid, or be able to forgive. But everyone is different. I've known some couples that have gone through it and became stronger and better.

You may feel as if your entire world had been thrown into a fan and shredded. But, I can tell you, that things will get better. And if this is how she can treat you, you are better off moving on. Easier said than done, I know. If she's sincere about working it out, then counseling is in order. But, it will be hard to tell right now if she'd stray again, and wants to work it out, or is afraid of what she can lose.

If you need to talk, I'm a PM away, anytime you need it.

Stay strong, be there for your daughter, who comes first and foremost, stand your ground, head held high, because you deserve much better, and much more respect than what you are being given. Counseling is a must if this is going to work.

Oh, pumpkin... I'm so sorry. :(
I wish I had some wise advice to give you, but I'm lost on this one.
Just wanted to say that I'm here if you want to talk or blow off some steam.
*snorgle*

Oh gee, Clansman, that's positively awful!

I admire your courage and foresight to hope to see things through and work this out with your wife.

Like RG, I don't have any advice or pearls of wisdom to pass on, but I'm also here if you need to talk or vent.

The only advice that I can offer is to not stay together for the kid. Of course it sucks for the kid, and also for the parent who doesn't have custody, but the alternative can be worse.

I'm really sorry to hear about your story.In China,we have the old sayings:唯女子与小人难养也。
It means women and bad guys are hard to deal with.You met both bad women and innocent bad guys.It must be tough for you.
But forget all about it,we learn from tough experince.It's a long way to go.