'I need to confess to my wife that I let things get out of hand with another woman.' UPDATED 2X

"I need to confess to my wife that I let things get out of hand with another woman."

My wife and I are long-distance. She works abroad. I take care of our sons (4 and 3) and do odd jobs. Originally we lived with her but our kids ended up put in a dangerous situation and I didn't want that to happen again. Quitting her job wasn't an option in her eyes so I moved to our home country with the kids while she stayed. She visits us a few times a year. I moved in with close family friends.

It was a hard and painful decision. I had a lot of resentment over my wife prioritizing her job over our family. But I love her. I couldn't imagine not being with her. I thought about divorce but we decided to try to work things out.

The other woman was my friend when we were little kids. After my mother died I left my hometown and moved in with my dad and didn't see that friend. But I stayed connected with some other people from that town throughout my life and when I moved back home with the kids I started visiting my hometown more. To see my mom's grave and visit my old neighbors.

When I met my old friend again I was excited to see her, but I'm nostalgic for everything from my childhood, it started out innocent. I was just happy to have another connection to that part of my life. Anyway she has a son too who is 6, and so we ended up taking our kids to the park together while we had a coffee and caught up.

It was innocent and I told my wife I'd reconnected with her and my wife was fine with it. She jokingly asked if she should be jealous but she didn't mean it. She trusted me. So I feel so terrible.

We met up a couple times a month from then on. I don't really know when it lost its innocence. But I realized I started becoming infatuated with her. We'd hug every time we met up and before we left and I would feel so wistful when she would hug me. She would start talking about how her ex mistreated her and her son and I felt so protective.

She started making comments like, "(My son) is so good with (your sons), it's like they are brothers!" And I talked to her about some of the stuff that bothered me about my relationship with my wife and she sympathized.

I realized that I enjoyed the attention and I found myself entertaining fantasies that I was with her instead. I kept thinking about if I had never met my wife and had instead moved back home and reconnected with my old friend, and we'd somehow had our same kids only with each other, we both could have been happy and been spared so much pain.

If I'm trying to be objective, she's a better match for me than my wife. She puts her kids first. She appreciates me for who I am. My wife does too but I feel like me and the kids are always an afterthought for her. Even when she's home and spending time with us she is always, always thinking about her job. My wife is a good person and she does good work.

But her job traumatizes her and she was already tramautized before she started it. She started doing her job to cope with her past but she's also retraumatizing herself over and over. And my kids and I pay the price. I'm not trying to justify my actions I'm just trying to explain. My childhood friend was always complimenting me on my looks, how good of a dad I am, my physical strength.

It's like she appreciated the unique things about me. And I feel like my wife loved me just because I was there for her. Like she would have loved anyone who loved her and I was just the only one who did. It wasn't always like that but that's how it started to eventually feel with my wife being so distracted by her job all the time. I didn't really notice it until I reconnected with my friend and noticed the contrast.

I should not have let things get that far I know. But at first it was just an occasional thought and I just brushed it off as intrusive thoughts and telling myself, yeah, everyone has inappropriate thoughts, but what matters is your actions. But I just let it go too far. In hindsight some of our "friendly banter" was really more like flirting and it was not appropriate. That's an action, not a thought.

Anyway today was a reality check. She said she wanted to talk to me about something serious without the kids there so I let my other friend who I live with baby-sit and met up with her. And she basically confronted me with the fact that we obviously have feelings for each other and said I should leave my wife for her.

But immediately I realized the amount of BS I was feeding myself and her. I instantly felt so bad, I didn't deny having feelings but maybe I should have. She kept insisting I think it over and when she saw how upset I was she said she'd let me think it over then left. I should have told her, no, there is nothing to think over, I love my wife and I'm not leaving her. But I didn't say anything. That in itself is weighing on me.

I need to tell my wife. I know. I just don't even know where to begin. Next time she's coming home is October. I feel like this is the kind of thing to say face-to-face but I don't want to wait that long. And I don't want her to come all this way to have a nice time and ruin it. I could leave the kids with my friends and go visit her. But on top of the money issues and logistical issues even that thought makes me sick.

I keep imagining her smiling and being delighted to see me and then how devastated she's going to be when I tell her. I can't stop thinking about her face. I feel sick.

I don't want to tell her at all and just never see my childhood friend again (I'm also mad at myself for letting my stupid fantasies ruin a friendship and a precious memory but I know it would be wrong to keep seeing her and impossible to just be normal friends now) but I know honesty is the best policy. I owe it to her to be honest.

I just don't know what to do. I feel so wrong and stupid. I don't want to tell my friends. I think one of them would be really angry at me for almost cheating and the other might actually encourage me to leave my wife. I feel like I need someone to tell me what to do because I can't process.

What do you think he should do? This is what top commenters had to say:

FlimsyMammoth970 said:

You definitely need to distance yourself and talk with your wife. However, I have a question regarding your wife. You say that her leaving her job is not an option. Why? Is it because she chooses not to leave or is it because she is the primary earner? Also, are you working and supporting yourself and the kids or is she supporting everyone?

Artneedsmorefloof said:

First off , like You said, you need to break it off And stop seeing her. Next up, you need to do some serious thinking - can this situation with your wife keep on as is? What is the long term plan here? Long distance is clearly not working for you. You need to be honest with yourself about your needs.

Then you need to see if you can find remote couples counselling that can work with you and your wife. Get yourself in there, you have a lot going on in your marriage that needs to addressed and it starts with you figuring out what you need.

FlimsyMammoth970 said:

You definitely need to distance yourself and talk with your wife. However, I have a question regarding your wife. You say that her leaving her job is not an option. Why? Is it because she chooses not to leave or is it because she is the primary earner? Also, are you working and supporting yourself and the kids or is she supporting everyone?

HeartAccording5241 said:

You need to be honest with your wife before you tell her no cause I guarantee she will message your wife and spin the story to make you look bad

Edits from OP:

Okay these comments are overwhelming and I need to sleep. Tomorrow I'm going to talk to my friends about what's going on and (after being yelled at probably) see if they'll be able to watch my kids while I visit my wife and tell her what's going on. If not I can probably ask a few other people.

If not then I'll just tell her over Zoom. I'm also going to text my childhood friend that I don't want to see her again and then block her. I'm not going to leave my wife. If she leaves me I'm going to stay single. I'm not going to date my ex-friend. I will always love my wife and I don't think it would be fair to anyone for me to date anyone else while I still love her.

To stop from having to answer the same questions over and over, my wife is an aid worker. She doesn't do it for the money. She does it because she believes God called her to do it. I do gig jobs and sometimes construction. I choose to work more flexibly and spend more time with my kids.

I put my wife through college, I'm not freeloading off her (I am kind of freeloading off the friend I live with, I'll admit that. But we're all happy with this arrangement.) The reason I left with the kids is because we got carjacked at gunpoint. My wife changes location a lot so living somewhere safe but still closer to her isn't really an option.

It's either travel with her officially through her organization, or stay put somewhere. I don't think my childhood friend originally intended to cheat with me, but I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

EDIT 2: Everyone telling me to get a stable job so my wife can come home, you misunderstand. You think my wife and I haven't spoken about this? She is never going to quit her job. She made that very clear. Her job is her priority. I promise you she's not doing it for the money.

I'm not forcing her to do it by refusing to work more. If she said she would even consider quitting if I found a more stable job I'd do that in a heartbeat.

Anyway I talked stuff over with my friends. They were understanding. The plan is to fly over and see my wife next week ish, but we still have to make arrangements. I thought about contacting my wife's boss to see if we could do a surprise visit, but it seems like it would be so cruel to show up and surprise her and make her happy to see me only to break her heart.

So instead I called my wife saying everyone is OK but I have something bad to tell her that she should hear in person and I'm going to fly out to see her. She said I should just tell her because otherwise she's going to worry about it the whole time. So I almost did. But then she said "No, don't tell me. I want to see you." So I didn't.

About a week later, he shared this first update:

First, I wanted to thank everyone who commented CIVILLY, regardless of your opinion. I especially appreciated hearing from people who had been in a similar situation or in a similar situation to another person I mentioned. I wasn’t thinking very straight at the time and I don’t think I thanked everyone properly but it was very kind of you to take the time to share your perspective.

The other thing… I should have said something at the time, but a lot of people bashed my wife and I didn’t defend her as much as I should have. So I’m gonna set the record straight now. First of all, people were saying she was cheating on me. But she would never, ever do that. She is honest and loyal, and a much better person than I am.

Second, people were saying my wife is negligent and doesn’t care about me or our kids. This is also WRONG. She’s very loving. Yes, she is busy with her job. But she says she thinks about us every moment. And when she is home she spends as much time with me and the kids as she can.

She DOES get distracted and think about things at work that stress her out, but that’s because she sees things that get to her. It’s not because she doesn’t care about us. She’s not like half the parents out there that ignore their kids because they’re distracted by their phone.

People were also bashing me in a way that I think was kind of over the top but honestly, you can bash me, but don’t bash my wife. Me having problems in my relationship doesn’t mean she deserves to be bashed.

I actually showed the post to my best friend, and she pointed out that a lot of you were probably just being sexist. You attacked my wife and said she didn’t care about me or our kids because she doesn’t get to see us much. But my friend pointed out that there are a LOT of jobs that mostly men do that mean they don’t get to see the kids much, and NO ONE says that they don’t love their kids and need to quit.

So for everyone who said my wife doesn’t love our kids: would you say the same to dads who are in the military, truck drivers, work on oil rigs? Would you say that they’re all definitely cheating on their wives? Or tell their wives that they should leave them? If not, you’re being sexist.

And for everyone who told me to get a better job so my wife can come home, would you say that to a woman who is married to a guy who does one of those jobs? For everyone saying me and my wife shouldn’t be married or have kids because she’s an aid worker, do you think there shouldn’t be any aid workers?

Or do you think no aid worker should be allowed to get married and have kids just because of their job? You realize a lot less people would be aid workers if it meant they couldn’t have a family right? You don’t make any sense. Anyway. I saw my wife and told her everything, and we actually had a nice visit.

She was glad to see me in spite of everything. And she insisted I not tell her anything bad until after she showed me something. Which was confusing to me, but I agreed. Anyway, it was a little waterfall. And it was beautiful. She said she visited the waterfall whenever she got a chance and it reminded her of me, and she wished she could show it to me every time.

I nearly cried when she said that. I almost couldn’t even tell her after that, but I already told her I was going to tell her something bad so I had to. Anyway, we sat there by for a while until she said she was ready to hear my bad news.

So… as much as it killed me, I told her everything that happened. She tried to be calm and understanding, but I could tell she was hurt. I almost wished she would have yelled and slapped me. But she just thanked me for being honest.

She asked what I was going to do, I said I wasn’t going to stay in touch with my former friend either way but I hoped she would forgive me and come home to us in October like she planned. She said I was already forgiven and asked me for more details about what exactly happened and my feelings, which I did my best to answer honestly. It was hard though.

I could tell she was getting more and more upset. Eventually she just said “Okay” and we walked back to her base without really talking at all. That night we talked more. She knows it’s hard for me to live the way we do and she just asked me again if I was sure I still wanted to be with her.

I told her I knew she wasn’t going to quit her job but I talked about how one of the hardest things is that even when she comes home, her mind is on her job and it’s hard to see how sad and stressed she always is. She said she’d bring it up in therapy and try to work on being present in the moment with her family.

She kept pressing me on if there was anything else she could do better besides quit her job and I told her how I felt about how sometimes it seems like she only loves me because I love her, and I could be anyone. She cried, apologized, said it’s not true, and told me as many specific things she could think of that she loves about me. I did the same for her.

She said she was glad we talked and glad I was willing to keep working on our marriage, because from the beginning when I told her I had something bad to tell her in person she just assumed I wanted a divorce.

She said she’s always worrying I’m going to leave her but she’s grateful for every day I don’t. I promised her I don’t plan to and told her I worry the same thing sometimes. It was a really good conversation.

The other days, I went to her job site with her for a bit and helped out with a few things. The local kids were teasing my wife about me, which was adorable. Things aren’t perfect, but they’re going to be okay.

Also, I know a lot of people said that my wife should leave me because what I did was as bad as a physical affair. And, confusingly, a lot of people said I did nothing wrong. I think it’s somewhere in between. I did something wrong but I did stop it before it got that far. And a lot of other people say I should divorce my wife. But I’m not divorcing her. She has her flaws but she’s also one of the best people I know.

All of her flaws are because she’s been through things that I can’t even imagine. I chose to love her in spite of the things she can’t give me. I will always love her. I’m not someone who can stop loving someone.

Even if we divorced I’d think about her and wonder if she was okay every single day. I can’t be in a relationship with another person even if I wanted to because I’d never be over her, it wouldn’t be fair to them. It’s my wife or no one for me.

Then a few months later, he shared this second update:

Hi. This is sort of an update of my previous posts in this sub (you can see them on my profile, the sub won’t let me link them), but it’s also a lot of other stuff to get off my chest. I made a post here a while ago. It was about how I realized I was in an emotional affair with my old friend while my wife was working in the Phillippines.

That issue is resolved; my wife forgave me, I haven’t spoken to my old friend at all anymore and I’m much more careful with my other female friends. However, some of the comments I got on my last posts have still been weighing on me. And my wife is home now, and she had a lot of big news that I want to get off my chest.

First, the good news is my wife is pregnant again. And I’m happy about it, in spite of everything. I know. Some people in my last post were asking if I was using protection to avoid bringing more kids into the world. And honestly… no, we didn’t. And I didn’t want to admit that for obvious reasons. I don’t have any defense for that other than I’m stupid.

The other major thing is that my wife probably has OCD. Basically, my wife realized she was late and probably pregnant a long time ago, but originally didn’t tell me or take a pregnancy test. She said it was like there were two different people in her head, and part of her was screaming to go get things figured out but the part of her that actually had control refused to do anything besides carry on as usual.

She was too scared to take a pregnancy test and get proof that she was pregnant because she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to go on her next assignment because of zika virus.

Basically it was a lot of screaming at herself to do something about it before she finally got the courage to tell her therapist what was going on and actually take the pregnancy test, so even though she got pregnant in July she hasn’t had any kind of care or anything yet.

Also, I guess she’d been hiding a lot of things from her therapist because she knew the therapist would make her take a break if she knew exactly what was going on in her head. So she wasn’t honest with the therapist about how she felt compelled to do this job, how she felt when she wasn’t doing it, et cetera.

But she knew she needed to do right by her baby so she finally told the therapist about the pregnancy, how she was having such a hard time doing anything about it, and then everything else came out.

My wife described to me a bit more about how it feels to be in her head. It’s not just that she thinks God wants her to do her job. The way she said it basically, she constantly thinks about all the bad things happening in the world, everything terrible that she’s ever seen, every time she could have helped someone but didn’t even if she had a very good reason, and it makes her feel like she has to be working.

She thought all these thoughts were God speaking to her, but she didn’t tell the therapist that because she thought “she wouldn’t understand.” She told me when she finally told the therapist, she basically asked her if she thought God was loving, and if so, why God would want her to constantly be thinking about things that made her miserable.

That question finally made my wife open to accepting that she might have a mental illness rather than just having God talking to her. She is home now, a couple of weeks earlier than she was supposed to come, so she can get prenatal care ASAP and a more in-depth mental health assessment. I guess her therapist just thinks she has OCD but can’t actually diagnose her or perscribe her medication or anything.

I feel so bad for her and like I failed, too. I feel like I should’ve tried to dig with her more about what she was feeling. My wife was more open with me than the therapist about her thoughts and I feel like I knew something was wrong. But I assumed she was telling the therapist everything too, and that the therapist was helping to the best of her ability.

And as much as I’m happy that I hope this means things are going to be better now, I know my wife feels awful and that makes me feel awful. Basically, she was really devout and religious growing up, but after some stuff happened to her she kind of lost her faith and felt like if God existed he didn’t approve of her. I met her around then and she was definitely in a very dark place for a while.

She says that when she started having her thoughts about how she could fix the world it was really reassuring because she thought she was finally getting her faith back. So it’s been pretty crushing for her to not have that feeling anymore.

I’m hoping her therapist is able to help her with that as well. My wife doesn’t trust religious leaders anymore, so that makes it a lot harder for her to have to go through that. I believe in God, but I don’t believe the same things as my wife and I’m less devout than her, so I don’t always know what to say.

I have told her I’m so sorry for what she’s been going through, and that I’m so proud of her for finally going to her therapist for help even though it was so hard. I told her I’m glad she was open with me and I hope she knows she can rely on me for anything she needs. And I told her I’m sure God knows how hard it was for her to get help and he’s proud of her too. That made her cry, I think in a good way.

Anyway, she’s been home a few days now and we’re just taking things one day at a time. Prenatal appointments coming up next week, but we’re still trying to figure out the OCD appointment stuff. So far we’ve just been cherishing the family time as much as possible.

The best news - my wife says when she’s done with maternity leave, instead of going back to work she might try to go back to school. She wants to get her master’s and learn another language or two, and she says part of the reason for that is that she would have more choices in her assignments and possibly be able to work with refugees here in the US instead of traveling all over.

That way we could find somewhere to live permanently as a family. She says she’s not sure yet and she wants to spend some time figuring things out. But I am hopeful for the first time in a long time that we might be able to be happy together as a family someday.

I am really just hoping everything turns out positively. I feel bad for being happy, since this is so hard on my wife, but I really hope it’ll end up being a positive thing all around in the end.

We’ve told my two closest friends (who we live with) about the new baby, but no one else yet (except internet strangers.) My best friend is almost as excited as me. She keeps coming to me talking about gender reveal party ideas. Like, randomly in the middle of talking about the election or whatever.

We’re keeping it from the kids for just a while longer because she’s not very far along yet and if God forbid the baby doesn’t make it, we don’t want the kids to be upset. So I keep telling her to be a little more subtle and she keeps forgetting, but luckily the kids have no idea what she is talking about when she does that.

Anyway. That’s my big news. Someone asked me for an update and I wanted to clear the air and get some of this stuff off my chest anyway.