A
male
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:About 2 years ago I posted an issue in this forum about how my wife cheated on me while we were dating and how lost her virginity to another man. This was despite her telling me she would not have premarital sex with anyone until married and I waited for her not knowing she was secretly having sex. The link I originally posted was http://www.dearcupid.org/question/my-wife-lost-her-virginity-to-another-man.htmlAs time goes by I feel less pain but I still think about her infidelity every day. The main issue I have after all this time is that she gave me very specific and graphic details of their lovemaking sessions because I demanded to know all the dirty details, threatening to leave her if she kept anything from me. In retrospect, I should have not asked her that because now I am tormented by it. In particular, when I go to bed to sleep I cannot shake from my mind this image of my beloved wife being deflowered by her lover and her having her first orgasm with him inside and no condom. (She was very forthcoming about how it happened and what she felt). Just writing about it gives me the chills because I feel he “conquered” what I fought for and waited so long to earn. Are my feelings normal? Are these images ever going to go away? I try to forget about it but I can’t.We have not talked about it for more than a year because I love her very much and I do not want to lose her. I decided not to continue probing her to see if she cheated with me other times or if she ever was unfaithful during our marriage. I do not think I could handle more revelations at this stage. It is true that sometimes I questioned if my children were really mine and I have concluded that they are. I did the math on the time they were conceived and where we were in our lives at that time (friends, etc). They also physically look like me and to each other. I love my children more than anything in the word and I cannot allow what happened between their parents to affect them in any way.I just would like to hear of anyone with a similar experience if he or she has finally made peace with this type of betrayal. I am trying to but I have not leaved it behind me.
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cheated on me, conceive, condom, infidelity, jealous, orgasm Reply to this Question
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (19 August 2013): You can't undo the past and you can't and shouldn't trust the future. I would say it's a bad idea to continue this marriage to her. You can still raise your kids together just not as husband and wife, and from different households. Don't equate your kids with your marriage. They are not the same at all.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (16 August 2013): I think it is time you learned to let go and leave her, because this relationship is irreparably broken. You need to move on to heal, not to stay stuck with an unchanging set of circumstances.
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A
female
reader, agneeman  +, writes (14 August 2013):
 I am sorry you are going through this. My stomach is in a knot. I am going through something similar and would love to share it with you, but not as your post has me in angst about the parts of it that are far worse than my story.
I just want you to know you are very normal and I can relate.
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A
reader, anonymous, writes (31 May 2013): This is verified as being by the original poster of the questionThank you for your responses. I have always valued fidelity in my own life. Due to my job, I have lived and traveled across several continents and occasionally I have been in situations that could lead to improper relationships. Because of my love for my wife I have never been involved with anybody else and even when I sense that somebody else maybe interested in me I cut all contact to avoid problems. I just love her too much. I think a big part of my pain is that I always thought that she could resist temptation like I have and knowing that she gave in makes me feel not only betrayed but also inadequate.A second problem (and I have not talked to her about it) is that ever since she confessed I have been second guessing many of her past actions either when we were dating or married. Because of our traveling and studies, we have been away from our extended family for many years and also we have been apart from each other. When I was in graduate school I could barely spend time with her and she would spend the summers with her family (many thousands miles away for me, in the same city where her lover lived) while I toiled in my studies, looking for a brighter future for us. During her vacations, she told me she sometimes would go out with her former coworkers and I never questioned her because I did not know she had been involved with her boss. If she wanted to reconnect with him during that time I would not have noticed. My wife is very attractive and when we were dating I knew that several guys wanted to be with her but she said she loved me and only wanted to be with me.After she confessed, I reviewed her past actions under a new light and I tried to remember the times when she acted out of character to see if there are additional indications of cheating. To add to my pain I have found some signs that at that time I dismissed as unusual but now I am not sure. One memory that keeps coming back happened when I finally obtained my graduate degree and started working. She went home with her parents that summer and we were apart for about 2 months. When she came back she was very attentive to me and I noticed that her sex drive had increased significantly and wanted to be intimate often and also try new positions in our lovemaking. This was a major changed on the way she had been acting during my studies but I just thought that it was due to our long separation. What I found unusual was her intense drive to get pregnant. As soon as she got back she started asking me to have a baby. I was startled and I said that it would be better to wait a little at least until I was better situated in my new job but she was restless and adamant about having a baby. Even at one point she cried and she said it was time to start a family. What man can resist a very attractive woman asking him to make her a baby? I certainly couldn’t and soon thereafter she got pregnant with our first child. After she confessed to me about her cheating of course I remember that event and I questioned whether she actually got pregnant by somebody else during her trip back to her family’s and tried to be with so I would pass the baby as mine. Our child is definitely mine because the time of conception was a few months after she returned, it was not possible for her to get pregnant during the summer or the baby would have been 3 months earlier. However, what I question is her intense sexual urge upon her return. I have a feeling that she started sleeping with him again during that summer and when she came back she regretted it so much that she decided to become a mom to forget about her martial affair.There are a few other episodes that have made me suspicious about her having multiple affairs. The main problem is that in its moment I did not see anything suspicious but now I see the same episodes in a new light and it looks more sinister. Maybe the entire problem is in my head and she never cheated after that one time. The problem is I do not know and I have no way of knowing. She has denied having other affairs but if she lied about that one, how could I know she is not lying about other times? I wish I could find peace because I love my children too much and they cannot be in the middle of this.
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A
male
reader, dougbcoll +, writes (31 May 2013):
 what you are feeling is not jealousy or retrograde , it is more of hurt, and loss. "are my feelings normal?" I will have to say yes. I can not picture no guy that loves his wife enjoying the thought of another guy with his woman before they were married. my story is close , but it took place while we was broke-up. needless to say we got back together and have been married for thirty years. we dated she was a virgin, we broke-up she gave her self to a guy. but she gave herself to eight guys during that time. yes it really hurts. she will not talk about it. 30 years later it still hurts and bothers me. during the years of raising our kids acted as a buffer, they kept us busy to not put much thought into it. they are grown and a couple of years ago I really got depressed over it , dwelling on it after all of these years. I am better now but it still enters my mind every day to an extent. its a feeling of loss, and hurt. she will not talk about that time period , she regrets it. she calls it junk, and wants to block it out of her mind. like you I pressed for some information a couple of years ago , and I got torment for it. I found out the first time was in a white van. I had images of a jerk on top of her in the back of a white van. it was like I was seeing it happen. needless to say I got depressed. you was deceived in believing she was a virgin on top of it all. yes her past may still bother you for a long time. my wife's past would not bother me if I did not love her, and did not care. any way this is how it has effected me.
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A
female
reader, YouWish +, writes (31 May 2013):
 Yeah, retrograde jealousy is when someone is obsessively jealous over a partner's past sexual history from before they met their current partner. In retrograde jealousy, no one has cheated. They simply are jealous for not having been the first sexual partner or boyfriend/girlfriend.
In your case, I wouldn't even call what you're feeling "jealousy". I'd call it that you were cheated on, brutally betrayed, lied to, trust destroyed, and in your case, I'd have ended the marriage upon the moment hearing that she was regularly sleeping with her boss while pretending to be some pure "no sex until marriage" person, because that goes beyond lying.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (30 May 2013): Well 2 years isn't a long time to get over a betrayal of infidelity. Many people who choose to stay married after they have been betrayed, take many years so you're still in the process and its normal you're not totally OK yet. This is just going to take a really long time. Trust once broken is extremely hard to regain and for good reason. I think you need to re examine your decision to stay in this marriage and your reasons for doing so. If you are suffering intolerably and after 2 years there's little sign of it abating then the better thing to do is to end this marriage. However the obsessions with graphic images is not healthy. You got what you asked for which was all the details. Why on earth would you even want to know? You know what sex entails so why ask for all the details? Also your having built up this whole concept of sex equating "conquering " and "deflowering " is a problem for you. Men who do not attach those meanings to sex at least are spared that torment of feeling emasculated because they don't feel there was anything at stake to "conquer " in the first place. By associating sex with conquering you feel robbed which is an additional violation on top of your wife's betrayal of your trust.
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A
female
reader, sugarplum786 +, writes (30 May 2013):
 You love this woman and you cannot let her go but you also cannot forget her infidelity. You will never have peace of mind until you make a decision. You even question whether the kids are yours, whether she is still sleeping around, this is not healthy and neither will it bring you any peace. I suggest you consider a seperation, no matter how hard it is and during that time decide if you are ready to let go and if not then you need to give up on your marriage.
You are the only one that can decide where to from here. I must admit by what you have said, I suggest the time apart and make a clear and decisive decision about your future or you will go crazy reliving your wifes unfaithful behaviour. In truth you should never have married this woman as she has degraded you and insulted to the point that you are now in this position.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (30 May 2013): Women always cheat for a reason? Well then so do men.
I am sure everyone has a reason. It doesnt condone it in the slightest. If you can handle this then stay, if you cant then leave. There is nothing wrong with being hurt over her actions. You are not to blame so do not blame yourself.
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A
female
reader, R1  +, writes (30 May 2013):
 This isn't retrograde jealousy, you are hurt because she cheated and lied there is a loss of trust which takes time to rebuild. Women always cheat for a reason, maybe you could look back at how you were in the relationship at that time. You talk about what you had to 'fight for' in regards to sex with her, maybe she wanted her first time to be special and not something she was pushed into... I don't know this is something only she can answer. But the blame is unlikely to lie solely with her.
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (30 May 2013): I couldnt, and I wasted 3 years of my life trying to. I think I overestimated how much I would hurt in the short term and underestimated how much better I would feel in the long term.You should know by now if you are willing to get past it or if you want to move on. All I can say is this is your choice and sooner or later you have to make it.It wont be easy either way but mate you have to either man up and get over it or man up and leave. We have all had something like this. And before you think that your case is different I had my long term partner sleep with her lover when I was at my grandfathers funeral. Her relationship sounds much like your wife's.I understand your pain and I understand how hard it is to make a decision. But for me that was 5 years ago, I am now engaged and I have no idea why I found this choice so hard. I regret ever condoning her behaviour and regret every sacrificing my standards to accomodate her indiscretions.Goodluck and god help you through this
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A
male
reader, anonymous, writes (30 May 2013): What you are feeling is neither "retrograde" nor "jealousy". She was betraying you while you were very much together.
Your wife did this stuff while you were together and she lied to your face for years. She even made you stay celibate the whole time so she could continue having her fun without consequences. If your hurt feelings are not a rational and justified then I don't know what is.
Your marriage to her, or your self-respect & mental peace? Which one do you want? She has made it impossible for any man in your shoes to have both.
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