Back in March I found out my wife was having an affair after 15 years of being together. Completely broke my heart. I wanted a divorce originally, but opted to see if we could “work on things”. Our version of “work on things” is always to move past things and pretend they never happened. Obviously not healthy, and I wish looking back we did something differently.
From March-August, things were okay. We pretended like it never happened, and since we never truly dealt with it, you could tell things were off, even though we continued to put a smile on our aces. In August she admitted that she still had feelings for this other guy.
August-December, we continued to live together but we were growing apart. She was texting the other guy, though claiming that she was not. She wanted a divorce, I was not ready to want that though deep down I knew that there was no way our relationship could ever return to normal. I was holding out for how things were in the past. She was prepared to begin moving on with her life, but also was trying to be there for me as I grieved (which in hindsight probably gave me some false hope).
I had finally come to grips with things over the past two weeks. A lot of therapy and talking to friends got me to a point where, though I didn’t want to lose my best friend, I understood it had to be over for everyone’s sake. My wife was planning on moving forward with the guy she had the affair with, he intended to move in with her so that they could be together. I knew it would be a tough transition for me, but I was slowly ready to do it, and began working on bettering myself for my future (job promotion, lost 10 kg quitting alcohol and going to gym).
The other day, I found out he unexpectedly passed away. I had always hoped that they would not remain together (out of pure selfish spite), but now seeing how broken my soon-to-be ex-wife is, I am completely devastated for her. I’m devastated that my marriage is over, but also devastated that her whole life is forever changed. I’m devastated that a person lost their life at a young age, regardless that he had a hand in my marriage ending. No one deserves that to happen. And as much as I wanted to hate this guy, he did seem like a good person otherwise, as crazy as that sounds.
I can’t even come to grips that this has happened to me, to her, to this guy. It feels like no one is winning or coming out better in the end here, it seems like nothing but sadness for everyone involved. I’ve tried talking to friends, but I can’t make sense of any of this anymore. People have told me I should cut off my ex and let her grieve, but she’s been my closest friend for a decade and a half – Regardless of our marriage ending, I can’t imagine not being there for her. I was finally getting to a place where I could see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel of my marriage being over, but now I just see a long road of everyone grieving for so many reasons, and everyone being changed forever, probably in a negative way, because of this.