My story to date and current struggles

I'm a betrayed spouse 3 times over. My first wife of 5 years left me for another man. My second of 7 years cheated multiple times and I finally left her. My third of 10 years had an affair and we're working through it.
In a way I felt like I almost didn't have a choice. I already had two kids from my second wife (which I have custody of). I didn't want to put the two I have with my current wife through a divorce. Not only that but what of love?! At 45, having been through three marriages, how could I ever believe in love enough to ever consider trying to build a life with someone else?!
We've made an enormous amount of progress in healing ourselves and our marriage. I feel like my biggest obstacle currently is letting go of the worry. In essence feeling safe.
She has been phenomenal through this and has gone above and beyond when it comes to putting her work in and being understanding. I really couldn't ask for more.
If I get to the root of my worry I think it's this. She is my whole world. Without her I feel as though my life would be destroyed. Utterly. So it's not just that she has the capacity to destroy me but that she has it in her to do so.
Maybe that isn't fair of me because the worry ignores the possibility and even likelyhood that she has learned and grown. However it isn't reasonable.
I wholeheartedly want to trust her. I even feel bad that I don't.
All of that said, I can't deny that the worry is certainly keeping me from being able to enjoy this better version of us to it's fullest.
I can only hope that time will help with that.
Another huge thing to me that is so far irreconcilable in my mind is that I had found out that contact with the affair partner had been sparse but consistent for over 20 years. He lives far away so physical encounters haven't really been a thing with the exception of the one time I'm aware of (since we've been together). However that means the relationship was there long before I came into the picture. Since he was in the background through all of our years together, I feel like our time up until recently was all sort of fake. Assuming that she is now entirely open and honest, there wasn't a single year where they didn't exchange emails, texts, and phone calls.
I feel like even if it wasn't all fake necessarily, I certainly feel like none of it ever meant as much to her as it did for me. We've had two kids together. I've seen the conversations where she's talked about those times with him in emails.
Almost immediately after D-Day I began to look at myself and try to figure out what was wrong with me. Here I am at 45 and my third wife has cheated on me. It took so much for me to gain enough trust to want to go into marriage a third time in the first place. Part of that was made easier because she was and still is the most caring and good-hearted person that I've ever known. I always thought that her standards and morals were such that I need never worry about infidelity. That if either of us were ever to faulter, it would much more likely to be me.
I knew I had to make a lot of changes though. Identifying what I should have been doing differently was surprisingly easy and making those changes in light of what had happened was also quite easy. If nothing else this all has caused me to fix a lot of what was broken in me and discard much unneeded baggage.
I can say that it's as if our marriage, our life together, had a near death experience. We were right there on the verge of it. Initially in the moments after discovery/disclosure I had considered it over. Now it's as if we see things in a whole new light and our time together is nothing short of amazing. We appreciate and support one another like we've always felt we could. We enjoy each and every minute we have together. Intimacy is on a level I never dreamed was even possible before. Not just with her but with anyone, ever.
I can't imagine either of us ever going back to the people or the couple that we were.
We have gone to counseling but to be honest we had already been going for two years before the physical encounter had happened. I attribute much of my healing as coming from my faith, my understanding of philosophy, our willingness to change, and my wife's hard work and patience in helping me along.
I had forgiven her early on in the process. The trust is still an issue but it has gotten a lot better and I don't get triggered as often.
The days have gotten better as well. I don't wake up feeling as though I'm drowning and need to struggle to get to the surface anymore. That's not to say I wake up positive either. Or that I don't struggle some days. Some of those I still find myself questioning my sanity and now and then end up in some pretty dark places. I try to gauge my healing progress on how fewer of those struggling days I have now as compared to months ago. If I do that then it is very evident that things are getting better. I do worry though. I've mostly managed to discipline myself to not go looking for anything else. I have come across things by accident though. So I worry that if I do, all of my progress will come undone. This has actually happened already a few times. It's been a while since the last though but I'm not sure I could weather another one.
So that's pretty much where I'm at right now with this. Nobody knows outside of my wife and I, our counselor, and my adult daughter and two adult stepdaughters. I'm a bit of an introvert and don't have any real friends to speak of. So there's times I feel like I don't really have anyone to talk to. That's brought me to here to share a bit of my story and thoughts.
Thank you for reading all of this. I know it's a lot.

10 comments posted: Friday, November 4th, 2022