This is so not happening to me....

baffledthespian

Hi Ladies,

  I've been with my husband for 9 years and we've been married for three. We have an 18 month old and I'm 15 weeks pregnant with our second child. A few days ago, as we were discussing my friend's dating woes, it came out that my husband cheated on me while we were dating. In came as an absolute and total shock. Being emotional and pregnant, I guess I just need to vent my story and here what you all think, because I'm going completely crazy.

Here's the story: At the time, we had been going out for about a year and were very serious. We were in a senior year of college and had plans to move in together after graduating.  He cheated on me while he was away on vacation with his family in Cancun. He went out partying with his step-siblings and met some chick. They made out twice- over the course of two nights. It possibly got handsy, but my husband refuses to give me details that will only hurt me, and will only say that it was mostly kissing. On the second night, she offered sex and he declined and that's when it ended. My husband says that she emailed him once after the trip (which means he gave her his contact info- score!), he told her he was seeing someone, and that was that. He says that it's been eating him up for eight years, but he didn't tell me because he didn't want to hurt me. But after we had been discussing my friend being mistreated by a guy, something about the way I spoke about it made him feel like he shouldn't hide it any longer.

 When I asked him how it could have happened, he told me that he was young (22), on vacation, and felt like he wanted to be young and wild and it would never hurt me. His step-siblings were both hooking up with people (one of them was in a relationship at the time, but not a serious one) and he felt some kind of peer pressure drink, hook up, and be fancy-free. I should point out that his step-siblings probably know that something happened with this chick and my FIL and his wife probably suspected it. Who knows if they care or remember now, but they are my in-laws now and it sure makes me feel awful to think about it. It makes me feel like a total fool.

 I've been upset about it, to put it mildly. I'm upset that it happened in the first place and I'm equally upset that he has been keeping this secret for eight years. I'm upset that he made out with her on two different nights, because that makes me feel like it was somehow more premeditated- obviously he had some time to reflect and sleep on it and carried on with it anyway.

He says it's been eating him up this whole time. As far as I knew, we had always had a very close, honest relationship and my husband in particular has always been an advocate of absolute honesty. He really is my best friend. So I have been entirely blindsided by the whole thing. I haven't really yelled at my him and I haven't really needed to- he can see how hurt I feel. My husband has been acting extremely remorseful- crying, wimpering, unable to sleep, basically prostrating at my feet about the whole thing.

What's really bugging me is that I can't help the feeling of being trapped and duped. If he had told me what happened after the fact, I may have ended the relationship. Very early in our relationship (after a few dates), before we'd had a talk about being exclusive, my husband slept with another girl (he says that had a feeling that I was The One and it scared the hell out of him). It really hurt me and it was almost enough to end things at the time, but I felt like I could forgive it because hadn't been my technically been my boyfriend at the time. So if he had told me about the second trangression, I don't know that I could have stayed with him. I really loved him, but I think it would have been too much of a red flag for me to stay and work it out. And if I had stayed, I think I would have been a lot more cautious about our relationship. I doubt I would have moved in with him. Things would have been completely different. And I think it would have changed the way I see/saw him. Call me an idealist, but there's some part of me that refuses to believe that someone you are meant to be with would be capable of cheating.

    I really do love my husband. It's not as if a separation or divorce is even on the table.  He has told me that he's been faithful for the past eight years and I believe him. We (were) really happy together. But it's just so hurtful to me that he could have done it in the first place and then kept it a secret from me all this time. And I can't help feeling like I've been duped, because if he had been honest with me in the first place, we might have broken up. If he had told me later on, before we got married, I'm sure I would have stayed- but at least then I would have had the peace of feeling like I have some sort of control over my own life. And he swears up and down that he would never commit adultery. I trust him- he is the product of a broken home and he really doesn't want that and I our family is his whole world. But now that I know he violated my trust and hid it from me, I am starting to wonder if I am not capable of seeing him clearly.

  And now, what can I really do? I'm a stay at home mom and am pregnant with our second child. I feel absolutely 100% trapped. He has told me he'll do whatever it takes to make it up to me and allow me to deal with it, but really my only recourse is to deal with it and move on. And even though that's what I want, too, it's feels horrible that I don't really have options.

 Anyway, if anyone has any words of wisdom, it would really be appreciated. Because I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of misery.