Stories of infidelity
You are not alone and as you can see from the stories below, there are many people like you who have been put in this situation, who have survived, found happiness and moved forward with their lives.
Sara and Matt
Sara and Matt had been married for fours years. With their first child on the way, all seemed well to Sara. She had married the man of her dreams, purchased a nice home and they were expecting. What she did not realize is that Matt began having an affair with a co-worker.
After the birth of their child, there was tension in the relationship. She had gained some weigh and was naturally busy with the baby but she still loved her husband. They almost never had sex and intimacy had dropped off to nothing. Matt had told her several times that he did not feel loved but her honest reply was that he knows she loves him and that with the baby and trying to manage the household, they both needed to act more like adults then like love struck school kids.
Approximately eight months after their daughter was born things were not wonderful. Matt was working long hours and not home often. When he was home, he was distant and day dreamed often. Sara was busy being a mom and caring for her child, which appeared to take all of her time and energy.
Matt came home early from work one day and was obviously upset. He told Sara that they needed to take the baby to her mothers for the night and talk. She did not understand why, but complied. When they got back home, he informed her that he was served with legal papers and that he was being sued for sexual harassment by a co-worker. He told her how she was an angry, aggressive woman who was trying to make money off of him and the company. After explaining for hours, Sara asked to see the legal papers. He indicated that he took them to a lawyers office and that he was going to fight it but they may have to settle and pay her something despite his innocence. He went on and on about her targeting him because he was going places in the company and because he was married. She asked why the company was not defending him and he said because of some technicality in the way she filed the law suit; he had to get his own lawyer. She was upset but he assured her that things would be fine and if they had to pay her off, it was only money. She pressed him about how she could try and get away with this if nothing had happened between them and he insisted that it did not.
Over the next week she was constantly asking him what was going on, what had the lawyer said, can she speak with the lawyer, who else did she accuse, should they just contact this woman directly and try and reason with her, why wasn’t the office doing anything to help, etc. Matt became very defensive and finally told her to let him handle it. Things just did not add up and Matt did not have good answers for her. She decided to check things out on her own and contacted the court. The clerk’s office reported that Matt was named in a suit, but it was not for sexual harassment, it was for paternity.
After she confronted Matt with this information, he ultimately confessed. She asked him to move out and after another three weeks, they went to counseling to try and see if the marriage should be saved. In counseling, Sara realized that she was focusing too much attention on the baby and not enough on Matt. She also came to realize that Matt had tried to communicate this to her. Matt reported that he felt that Sara pushed him away and that he needs to feel important. Sara only cared about their daughter and that he was no longer needed. This co-worker made him feel important and was regularly making him feel all of those feelings that he was not getting from Sara. Although he knew it was wrong, he went ahead and had sex with her on four occasions. When he learned that she was pregnant, he totally rejected her and ignored the situation. He describes that he was already ridden with guilt over the affair and he could not face the fact that he may have gotten her pregnant.
Work Trip in Chicago
Michael and Linda had been married for twenty two years. They had one adult son and another about to graduate from High School. Life was very average for them. They traveled occasionally, lived in a large house and were good parents. Michael was working for a large company and frequently traveled to Chicago to see key clients and work on projects.
During one such trip, Linda received a call shortly after ten o’clock at night. It was her sister in-law, Denise. Denise had gone to Chicago to visit a girlfriend who had relocated there earlier in the year. They went to a charity fashion show and ended up stopping at a downtown restaurant that her girlfriend loved. Half way through their meal, Michael and a woman appearing to be in her late twenties came in and were seated. They were both dressed casually and before Denise could even comprehend what she was seeing, they were kissing. She made her girlfriend confirm what she was seeing and then she left without being noticed. In a complete panic, she called Linda.
After Linda was able to comprehend what Denise was telling her, she called her girlfriends and tried to figure out what to do. One of them advised that she get some professional help. She sat up all night talking on the phone with friends and crying. In the morning, she called a private investigator specializing in this type of work to assist her. Michael would be in Chicago for two more nights. After getting Michael’s schedule figured out, the investigators were able to locate him at his client’s office. They followed him to his car which turned out not to be a rental car as anticipated. It was a local vehicle registered to a single woman. Ultimately Michael was followed to an apartment building downtown. He parked the car and entered the building as if he owned the place. The P.I. quickly figured out that the vehicle owner lived on the 8th floor. After stopping by a neighbor’s apartment, he learned that Karen and her boyfriend Michael have “lived” here for the past three years. The neighbor described Michael perfectly and Karen sounded like the woman Denise saw him with. The next night the P.I. filmed Michael and Karen as they went to a book store and then got coffee. They held hands as they walked back home. An hour later, Michael exited the front of the apartment building walking a small dog up and down the block. A background check of Karen determined that she was single and had been working for one of Michael’s clients. They contacted Karen’s mother under pretext and she reported that she wished Michael would either break down and marry Karen or let her go because Karen wanted kids and Michael was always out of town for work.
When Linda confronted him, Michael would only say that he needed more than Linda was willing to give him and that he wanted a divorce. Her lawyer reported that Michael had been staying with this Karen for just over five years and that Karen believed that Michael was staying with his wife until his son was ready to go to college. Michael agreed to all of Linda’s demands, largely because of the proof she got from the detective.
After Work Functions
Ellie and Brant had been married for six years. During that time, they had tried to conceive without success. Ultimately, the doctors reported that she was unable to have a child. Brant wanted to adopt but Ellie could not accept their situation and she said that if she could not have their child, it was not meant to be. She threw herself at her work. She started dressing better, hanging out with the gang from work and going out to events with the marketing people and clients. She was always on her cell phone talking to someone about work or the social life or the people at work. Michael found himself coming home to an empty house more nights than not. She was coming home late and often drunk. They only made love when she was drunk. She became very guarded about her cell phone and often left it in her car. As Brant noticed more signs of infidelity and confronted him, she told him he was crazy. She said that the more she could do to help the company by meeting clients, who like to stay out late and party, the better it would be for both of them. She said that she is a big girl and that she can stay out late if that’s what the job requires. She ignored Brant’s requests to work less and be a better wife to him.
At the urging of a friend, Brant hired a private investigator to watch Ellie. The very next day, the private investigator called him and asked him to come to his office. He reported that after work she went to a local sports bar with many of the people from work. He filmed her talking and laughing in the bar with a large group of people. After several hours, she left and drove back to the office, following a man from their group who had walked out the door moments before she did. They entered the office and turned the lights on. The private investigator could see them walking through the office. They went into an interior office out of sight. Approximately twenty five minutes later, he filmed the man walking down the hall from that office with no shirt on. He returned to that same office and then both of them walked out. Ellie was brushing her hair. The investigator filmed them as they left and followed her to another bar. The man arrived one minute later and they went inside and had more drinks before she went home.
Brant was devastated. He confronted her and they both broke down. She told him it was because of her problems conceiving and not with him. They reconciled and things seem to go back to normal. She quit her job and started working at another company in the same industry. After three weeks on the job, the late nights returned. She was now buying new sexy underwear and leased a very expensive car. Brant expressed his concern and she swore that they were fine and that she would never do that again. His gut feeling told him otherwise. Brant called the investigator.
This time things were no better. She went to a professional basketball game and then met a group of people at another restaurant. At the restaurant she became visibly intoxicated. As more of the group left, she was filmed hanging on a man twice her age. Shortly after one in the morning she and man went to her car, parked in the remote rear of the restaurant’s parking lot and had sex in the car.
Brant and Ellie divorced despite her continued attempts to reconcile. He is now married and was nice enough to share his story with us. He reports that in retrospect, she was so convincing about having changed that if his parents had not pushed him, he might not have hired the PI and would still be in a false marriage to a woman that had problems that he could not control. He went to counseling for five months after he decided to leave Ellie and has found more happiness then he imagined he could. He asked that we mention that the victims of infidelity did not make this happen and that the lesson to be learned from his situation should not be that there is no hope of repairing a marriage after infidelity. He wants everyone to know that you will recover and you will be happy once you have the truth and are truthful with yourself.