How would you feel if your partner took off their clothes and went down to their underwear with another person they found attractive?
This 31-year-old woman is wondering if her marriage to her 32-year-old husband is salvageable, or if she’s only still with him because they have kids and a long history. Also, she is afraid of having to start over without him, but let’s set the stage here first.
She met her husband back when she was 15, and they have been with one another for 16 long years. They have 5 kids; their oldest is 5, and their youngest is 4-months-old.
“We’ve always been very close, almost inseparable. People used to say we were obsessed with each other. We did everything together, talked all the time, and I genuinely believed no matter how bad our arguments got, we would never cross certain lines,” she explained.
But lately, they’ve been arguing a lot after her husband started talking to a girl. Their fights turned into them both saying incredibly unkind things to one another.
Despite their issues, she still thought that she and her husband would only ever be loyal to one another. Her husband later on informed her that he’s been feeling miserable for quite a while, but he never conveyed that to her.
To her, it seemed that they had hit a rough patch, as all normal couples do, especially with the stress of having little kids thrown in the mix.
But then she found out that her husband had been flirting with a girl who saw him in his boxers!
“Last year, while I was pregnant, I found out he had been talking to another woman behind my back. She’s 22. That alone messed with my head because I’m 31 with 4 kids at the time and pregnant with the 5th,” she added.
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
Her husband met this girl while she was handing out her business cards, and her husband didn’t exactly have a use for her services, as she’s a tailor.
Her husband decided to go to this girl’s house anyway, where he got measured for clothing. She’s super upset that her husband took off his pants, and this girl saw him in his boxers.
Following that little appointment, the messages her husband exchanged with the tailor girl grew flirtatious in nature. She saw some of them, and they were not appropriate at all.
“I saw messages where he told her he liked the view when she measured him and joked, saying next time she could measure something else,” she continued.
“He also picked her up physically at one point. He says she was showing him boxing drills, and he picked her up from behind, joking around, but it still feels like crossing a line. The part that destroyed me wasn’t just that he talked to her. It’s that during that same time, he was cold with me.”
“I was pregnant, emotional, we were arguing, and he could be harsh, rude, dismissive. I even remember crying and him telling me he didn’t care about my tears. Meanwhile, he was texting her, calling her beautiful, being playful, giving her attention. He even messaged her while sitting across from me at my birthday dinner.”
She ended up going through her husband’s phone, which is how she discovered all of this information, but the way. She believes that her husband has been refusing to fix the damage done during their arguments because he could use that as an excuse to talk to this other girl.
It’s been eight months since she made the discovery of the messages, and her husband has changed for the better. He’s patient, kind, and full of affection for her.
Her husband promises he won’t leave her for this other girl and that he had a moment of weakness. This girl fed his ego; she was not being super respectful to him at home, and so he sought out attention from someone else.
Her husband says he will never do this again, and he admits he feels remorse. While their marriage has improved in a big way, she’s unhappy.
“I get triggered randomly. Something small, like her viewing my WhatsApp story, can ruin my whole day. When he calls me beautiful, I think about him calling her beautiful,” she said.
“When he hugs me, I remember he told her she’d like his hugs. When we argue, I think about how he was arguing with me while flirting with her. I also feel embarrassed. I stayed loyal to him for 16 years, no matter what.”
“I never cheated, never entertained anyone else, even when we were in bad places. And he still allowed another woman into our space, especially while I was pregnant. Now I don’t know what’s worse, that he did it, or that part of me still loves him and wants the marriage to work. Sometimes I feel like I can be happy with him again.”
She also does wonder if she will no longer respect her husband for crossing the line. She’s curious if it’s possible for her to one day feel secure in her marriage, or if she should give up now.
What advice do you have for her?
You can read the original post below.
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
