Without excruciating detail, the gist is below. Married 6 years, cheating before marriage, lied by omission. Truth is out and she’s heartbroken that I can’t even say “I love you” anymore
Longer version Wife and I got into a heated argument, she made offsides comments in the heat of the moment.
In the past I would relent and see things “her way”.
This time I stood my ground, this interaction had me reevaluate all the arguments I had relented on previously.
One was about her and an ex on a work trip 6 months before we were married. She had come back from the trip over the top affectionate.
A few weeks later while showing pics of her trip to friends there were pictures of the two of them that seemed odd.
When I brought it up later that night she said it was no big deal, when I told her how it made me feel she yelled at me that I had “ruined a perfectly good night with friends”
I brought this trip up again after we’d calmed down from the most recent argument.
She admitted they had “hooked up, but it wasn’t sexual”.
I asked for a definition of hooking up and she refused until a few days later when she confessed it meant sex.
She has been love bombing me since and has said “that me realize I never wanted to cheat on you” (yes folks, you read that right… after cheating… she felt remorse and was like… never again) and “I’ve dealt with that trauma already and we’ve built a life.
We need to work to figure this out” she’s even suggested I talk to him so he can confirm how much she only wanted me during that time (literally no idea how that makes sense).
She has accused me of internalizing the problem and not bringing it up .
I told her I had trusted her fully so there was no reason to bring it up.
I took issue with her suggesting it was on me to interrogate and bring forth the truth as disingenuous.
She had ample opportunity to bring it up before now but has hidden the truth to get the life she wanted/wants. She’s now heart broken and is insisting I’m not doing enough to save our marriage, in her mind she’s doing everything she can.
Counselor, books, suggesting outings together.
For me, I can’t stand to look at her and the pushy-ness from her feels self serving. Like she’s trying to manipulate me to stay for herself, not that she actually loves me
There are other normal marriage issues, money/kids/house stuff, but I can’t get over this one.
Am I the asshole? I’d like to hear an assessment
