My wife (39) found out three years ago that I (41) had been hooking up with a woman I met online who lived two hours away. When she visited, we checked into a hotel. This went on for three months, and we had met a handful of times when my wife caught us. She was waiting in the hotel lobby and saw us coming down from the room. She left me the next day.
We separated for eight months, and it was terrible for all of us, especially our children (m9, f7, f3). Eventually, we started talking about getting back together. My wife believed that since our sex life wasn’t enough for me and she was sure I would cheat again, we might as well open the marriage. I told her no because I had learned my mistake, but she refused to reconsider. I relented. We decided—or rather, she decided—not to tell each other when, where, and with whom.
Now, over two years later, we look normal on the outside. But on the inside, I’m dying a little more each day. Every time I see her happy, I wonder if it’s just her natural bubbly self or if she’s thinking of someone else. She’s a very beautiful woman, and I know she has no trouble finding men who want her. Whenever she takes a shower after coming home, whenever she rejects my advances, I wonder if she’s been with someone else. And that kills me.
I’ve tried to discuss closing the marriage, but she shuts down those attempts quickly with the divorce card. Before all this, we had amazing sex several times a week. Now, in the past three years, we’ve only done it four or five times. She demands I use protection and refuses to let me eat her out or make her cum in any way. I stopped asking because the sex is painfully humiliating now. I haven’t slept with anybody else because the look on my wife’s face in that hotel lobby still makes me sick with guilt.
