My wife had platonic affair with priest

[tapirman]

Not physically she claims...but they exchanged love messages. She says this is due to lack of my attention for the last few years. Like i should feel better now? I would rather that she slept with some good looking guy than this. She wants us to be together and rebuild lives but when i see these messages my world falls apart. We still live together as we have daughter and i am trying to forgive as she wants me so bad to stay family. Supposedly, it was a bad period of her life that ended. Since that moment i have obviously huge problem with trust and self confidence. I don't know how will i cope with that in future. I loved her for all 10 years without reserve. And she was very nice towards me. I still feel like watching someone else's life. Is it possible it was my wife? I am a wreck....

[bloodtippedrose]

What she did was emotionally cheat on you. I have been on the other side of this coin. I loved my boyfriend very much but he was always emotionally sterile. He would never initiate dates or initiate cuddling or give any sort of emotional support whatsoever even though he was a nice person and showed his love through financial support. He wouldn't buy me birthday or valentines gifts. He seemed to show no effort into thinking of me at all, I was just there, and he was there and that was ok with him. I started playing a video game and chatting with a nice man. The nice man was very unattractive to me but fun to talk to and he became a good friend. I would talk to him daily pouring out my heart about my problems. I thought it was a nice way to vent and didn't realize that I was using him as emotional support. In short what happened was I had a mental breakdown due to manic depression and was hospitalized for a few weeks, my boyfriend found my messages to the guy and felt like he was stabbed with a knife. I didn't realize what I was doing, I was deeply depressed and using this poor other man as an emotional crutch. Luckily for me, my boyfriend knew I was going through alot of mental issues and realized he wasn't there for me emotionally. I cut the other man out of my life entirely and learned to lean on my boyfriend for emotional support, and he learned how to be more emotional in general to be there for me. I am so thankful he gave me a chance to redeem myself, even though he had to learn to trust me again. It has been 3 years since and we are stronger for the experience, though he still has slight trust issues, for good reason, but I will never give him that reason again.
My advice is, if you love her give her another chance, but also analyze why she emotionally cheated on you in the first place and make it priority to fix.

[jordanrusden]

woh kind of weird, It's really hard to get all those years confidence and trust to be just fall apart in just a blink of an eye.
We know Priest is like human, an a sinners too, we can live on that but having an affair in your wife is kind of weird.

[tapirman]

Thank You for this explanation. It seems very similar to my situation. I was emotionally distant for years and she cried out a lot for more attention, but i haven't respond appropriately. Also i was financial support for her and our child of course all the time, and she felt very dependent. My wife explained to me that it was like talking to a machine that responded emotionally and that she never intended to leave me. She says she wishes it was me talking to her like that. I am not sure if this is entirely true. I love her, that is true. I am still deeply hurt. I am ready to forgive this, but am afraid of future now. How can i rebuild trust.

[bloodtippedrose]

It takes time, alot of time. I saw my bf as almost robotic too. We don't want to be with the men we were chatting with, they just make us feel good and loved, wanted and important. She needs to cut him out of her life and you need to take the weight of her emotional needs. If she is crying for something that seems like a stupid reason, bite your tongue and give her a hug. If she's talking put down what you're doing and listen to her. Be the first one to tell her you love her or text her something nice occasionally. Surprise her with something you don't usually do like a home-cooked meal. She needs to do her part too and stop talking to the priest/switch churches, and more importantly start communicating with you. Topics that she used to bring up to you but hasn't in so long because the old you wouldn't care or wouldn't respond.

I can relate to your wife but not to your side so I asked my bf whos been there about how you can rebuild trust. He says: "well, the first thing is that he needs to get in touch with his emotions again, if he hasn't. realize he was a part of the problem then have her cut ties with the dude she was seeing. Talk it out. Trust will be gained again in time, and in any event big or small (regular life struggles) that can help build the trust. Also, it isn't wrong for him to feel distrust from time to time, but he needs to talk to his wife when it happens to have her reassure him"

It is a shitty situation but hopefully you both can use it as a way to evolve into an even stronger couple.

[Biagio139]

Tapirman how old is your wife .. And what was in the messages.. Ive been cheated on and left for the other guy twice now.. First time was a 27 year relationship 23-40 she left for a co-worker we are now best friends .. My fiance left me for a 24 year old choir director at her catholic church.. I can shed some light