“I was a rookie and foolish with OPSEC. So I got caught,” this guy on Reddit wrote.
“I came out of the shower and found my wife on the floor, crying. She’d dug through my phone and found an email to my affair partner. I was very lucky that the email was just conversational, not sexual. But, she knew I was talking to other women, and I wrote I was very unhappy with my sex life.”
Seriously? Your phone was unlocked? Adultery 101.
But I digress. This isn’t a “teaching moment” article. This dude actually said being caught improved his marriage.
That’s a miracle.
“After the initial arguments and her nearly leaving me, a strange thing happened. She began to try harder to improve our sex life. More frequency and trying new stuff.”
If I was found out, that shit wouldn’t happen. I guarantee it.
My hubby would be, “You can go fuck whoever you want. I don’t want to touch you with a ten-foot pole, you whore.”
That seemed like the more rational response.
Am I right?
Once D-day (discovery day) hits, all bets are off. You either slam each other where it hurts (usually financially and emotionally) and play dirty until lawyering up. No rational conversations ensue. No, “Geez, hon, I understand why you did this. But it’s rough.”
Communication isn’t a strong suit in couples who sit in separate rooms.
Physical violence might even ensue. Throwing, hitting, or worse. It’s the stuff of countless headlines. Being clear-headed wasn’t likely.
If discovering your spouse’s affair causes you both to take a long hard look at your relationship and see both of your shortcomings, I applaud you. That takes serious guts. Putting your marriage under the ultimate stress test.
Instead of doing the “pick me dance,” it takes fortitude to figure out what you want from your partner. Are you better off apart? Will counseling help? Does the marriage have a chance?
The pain of betrayal needs a LONG time to heal. And, it may never fully recover.
This isn’t hysterical bonding time — when the betrayed spouse offers plenty of sex to keep the marriage intact, followed by a dead bedroom as before. It’s real change.
“Yes, I was discovered, but I finally felt like my husband ‘saw’ me an individual, after a long time of seeing me as a mother, wife, cleaner, cook, and occasional source of sexual satisfaction,” wrote another Redditor.
“He, too, love-bombed me and seemed to take me less for granted. Was it the right way to get him to do those things? Absolutely not. But am I grateful for the positive repercussions? Every damn day,” she added.
So, getting caught can be a net positive for some.
I know I wouldn’t expect the sweetness — only the bitter hurt. I’m sure my hubby would not reach out with a laurel leaf. Our marriage is deeply rooted in self-delusion. No revelations to be had. He’d leave me in a second. Reconciliation wouldn’t be possible; let alone sex.
So, the guy above who got a more willing wife in bed was damn lucky. “It’s not the sex I’d have with an affair partner, but it’s better than before.”
“It helped. In the same way, hitting rock bottom can help a drug addict. Brought to light a lot of stuff about spouse and me,” he wrote. Maybe you can change the dynamic after all.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.
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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.
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