There’s a lie people tell themselves that as long as the clothes stay on, that’s not really cheating. But the reality is that you can dismantle a marriage just as effectively through a phone screen as you can in a hotel room.
Giving away your mental real estate and late-night confessions to someone else is a slow-motion theft of the intimacy that belongs to your spouse. He’s spent a long time hiding behind the excuse that he never touched his affair partner, only to finally see that it still shattered his wife’s heart.
He thought he was playing in a victimless gray area, but he was actually just draining the battery on his own marriage until there was nothing left to save.
This man had an emotional affair, but it took him an eternity to be able to see that it was still infidelity. For a long time, he thought he wasn’t to blame because the affair didn’t turn physical with this other woman.
He spent two entire years in therapy, which helped him to realize that the emotional part of his affair, coupled with the lying, was what hurt his wife the most.
His wife was truly amazing, and she loved him with every piece of herself. However, he grew egotistical, and somehow he started seeking validation from women in ways he deemed innocent (but they were actually harmful).
To this day, he has a lot of remorse for all of the pain and suffering he inflicted on his wife, as his behavior ruined the spark that she had as the years wore on.
Following their wedding, a female coworker and friend of his, whom his wife hated simply because he had a crush on her and his wife could tell, muddled his thinking.
While he and this friend of his never grew their romance in a physical way, all of the text messages and fantasies they shared together were completely inappropriate.
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“But [as] the saying goes, the grass isn’t always greener. My wife and I got divorced, and she was absolutely heartbroken. It killed me knowing what I did, but I couldn’t admit that I was unfaithful for the longest time because I was so ashamed of not being this perfect guy I hoped to be,” he explained.
“She got married to someone else this weekend, and from what I hear, she’s never been happier. It killed me. I still love her so much, and even though I’ve been trying to date, no one even comes close to her.”
“I wish I didn’t take her for granted, wish I started therapy a decade ago to deal with my wounds sooner, wish I fought harder, wish I never let her go.”
I’m proud of him for waking up and having the self-awareness to come to all of these conclusions. Change is certainly hard, isn’t it? I think the only thing left for him to do is be happy for his ex-wife finding love again, and now it’s time for him to move on, too.
It’s too little too late for him to do anything about his ex, but he learned a lot of valuable life lessons, and he can absolutely apply those to a new relationship.
He needs to stop obsessing over his remorse because that’s not going to bring his ex-wife back into his arms.
What advice do you have for him?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
