DEAR ABBY: After 10 years with my wife, including eight years of marriage, I accidentally discovered that she was having online affairs. She put me through weeks of lies, denial, minimization, and obfuscation before finally coming clean to me. At this point, I’ll never know if I can believe her after her seven years of on-and-off cheating with one main partner and two others. Even though I thought she was remorseful and changed, it’s hard to live with what has already happened.
It’s been 15 months. I can’t get over the pain of the betrayal and the feeling that she didn’t love or respect me for most of our relationship. Plus, there are images that I can’t get out of my head. I want to leave, but finances and young children make things complicated. Also my wife cries and gets dramatic and makes me feel bad by telling me she will just go to a homeless shelter. I don’t know if she’s deliberately trying to make me feel guilty or what. Please help me. — LIVING IN PAIN IN OREGON
DEAR LIVING: Of course your wife is trying to make you feel guilty! The best defense is a solid offense. She hasn’t lied to you once – your entire marriage has been one continuous lie. Are you really sure that the children are yours and not those of her lovers?
Talk to a lawyer NOW. (While you’re at it, make an appointment to be tested for STDs.) If you’re the father of one of these children, file for full custody. Where your wife will live after this is up to her. (Maybe one of her lovers will take her in, sparing you your undeserved feelings of guilt for protecting you.)
DEAR ABBY: I have been independent from my family for 25 years. I always lived within a few hours drive of them. (I now live an hour from my mother and three hours from my sister and her family.) At every opportunity over these 25 years, I have always visited them – spending time, money on gas , traveling thousands of kilometers in my car and sometimes missing work. No one ever visited me, except once when my sister was passing through and wanted to have lunch.
I’ve invited my family countless times, but there’s always an excuse. Often, it’s because my home is too small to accommodate them or I have a roommate. I am expected to spend my resources to visit them or go broke to have a place that can accommodate them. I’m reminded of this unbalanced situation every time my roommate’s family visits me several times a year. They stay in hotels.
I am not confrontational. I love my family, but I think some boundaries need to be set. Am I being unreasonable? If not, do you have any suggestions? — ALL ABOUT ME IN FLORIDA
DEAR ALL: If it is not practical to continue traveling to visit loved ones, stop doing so. However, keep inviting them to visit you, and when you do, tell them that you know they would be more comfortable staying at a nearby hotel or motel, which is what the your roommate’s family for years.
Dear Abby is written by Abigail Van Buren, also known as Jeanne Phillips, and was founded by her mother, Pauline Phillips. Contact Dear Abby at www.DearAbby.com or PO Box 69440, Los Angeles, CA 90069.
New York Post
