My wife and I have been married for 21 years and dated for 4 years before.
I continue to have a very difficult time getting over a cheating/lying incident that occurred while we were dating, about a year before we were married. The issues I have are continuing resentment and negative feelings towards my wife because of how she went about dealing with this episode.
To add some context, here is a little backstory. Dated my wife while in college. It was amazing. Experiencing a new college town and sharing an apartment. About 18 months into living with each other, the dreaded cheating occurred.
She started an argument and stormed off stating she just needed space and to go back home (8 hrs drive away). The next day she told me on a phone call, she went out to some bars with friends that night and was surprised by her ex-boyfriend.
I could tell she was feeling bad about something, and she admitted that her ex-boyfriend had kissed her. After talking with her, disappointed, I said that if that’s all that happened things would be ok and we could work it out. She drove back to our place that day to reassure me.
Fast forward 1-month later schoolmates of ours tell me that I need to talk with my girlfriend. Our friends Filled me in that they heard from her ex-boyfriend that she hooked up and cheated on me. I confronted her immediately about this.
She left class to find me and relay her side, stating that, nothing happened more than the kiss she admitted to. She vehemently denied our friend’s accusations and stated that they were all lying. Further more she encouraged me to quit hanging out with those friends as they were involved in stuff she was concerned about.
Being my best friend, I decided that her word deserved more credit than my buddies and chose to believe her. Fast forward 10 years Married for 9 years, with 3 amazing kids. We are having a date night enjoying each other’s company. We get on the subject of sharing secrets and She decided to share.
She shared that she did in fact cheat on me back in school with her ex-boyfriend. That it happened a long time ago and I had no right to have feelings on it.
I was in shock. Not only was this new reality devastating, I was told that it was not ok for me to have feelings on the matter. None the less I swallowed that information and my feelings and let it fester for about 5 years. After 5 years of not knowing the whole truth, just bit and pieces of what my true reality is, I started to have issues with resentment and negative feelings towards my wife.
I attempted multiple times to communicate with her (admittingly badly sometimes) and ask questions in order to have some sense of what my reality is and get to a better place. She continues to be non-communicative about the whole thing. Stating that she will never talk with me about what happened.
That it is in the past where it would stay. I feel like she has crushed my reality. That I live in a shell of a relationship with many unanswered questions. Ultimately there has been very little acknowledgment and ownership of what happened on her side.