My Wife Cheated on Me and Doesn't Want to Change...

all right let's go to jeremiah in los angeles california i've been with my wife for 14 years 12 married um found out last year that she was kind of having an affair with somebody at our local gym here hey let me can i stop can i stop you right there yeah sure what does kind of having an affair mean well i guess uh to me and i mean uh i'm i'm thinking of it as like a physical or uh more of a uh emotional than a physical so i just say kinda okay don't say if there was a violation of y'all's boundaries don't say kind of let's just call it what it is okay yeah yes okay she was having an affair okay with a with a guy at the gym and uh it was probably you know going on for about six months i kind of had an incling to it you know before before i found out officially but i mean it was just kind of in the back of my head um but officially found out last year for sure that it was going on and so it's been a year since then when i found out and just things right now are rocky um you know we're we're trying to work it out well i guess i'm trying to work it out but really it just seems like a one-way street with us you know i'm trying trying everything here and then you know i've never reached out to anybody else besides you know my brother family stuff like that but uh you know i saw your program on youtube and you know i was listening to it i was like you know what i'm going to reach out to dr john and that's where that's where we're at i appreciate your trust brother absolutely and it's just important to acknowledge i know we hear about this all the time all the time all the time but this sucks man i'm sorry this happened to you man now thank you i appreciate it um so when you and your wife sat down and talked about this i don't know if you sell text messages or you saw she was sending him photos or something like that you find out then you sit down and have the conversation what was the conversation like so conversation was well i i found out at work um you know with the text messages actually from the the guy's wife that she was seeing um so i got the text messages i i'm thinking in the back of my head like no this is this is fake you know i didn't know the number i'm just putting it put everything behind me i'm like nah that's not real and then they sent the text messages back and forth and i'm just like oh my gosh my world just crashed yeah dude so you talked to your wife you talked to your wife how does that go man yeah your heart's broken you don't even know what dad is right you're not eating yeah how'd that conversation go um for the most part uh i mean i came home early that day and i you know i took her by the hand and my daughter was in the room so i said you know let's go to the back i got to ask you something and you know i was real level-headed cool i wasn't you know angry or anything i just i wanted to just you know hear it from her like is this for real like i mean i showed her the text messages and everything and you know like i told you before i kind of had an inkling so when i saw those i just was like oh my god oh my goodness you know like i can't believe this right now yeah so i mean um you know she was very dismissive about it just like oh no he's just a friend you know uh and then after we talked about a little more it's like other things start coming out like oh he's my best friend i can talk to him a lot and mind you he's a stay-at-home dad himself and she's a stay-at-home mom which she has been for the last 10 years so um you know i i don't know i just was i just was in shock dr john yeah yeah yeah rightfully so my heart was in a thousand pieces i'm over there trying to pick it up trying to put it back together and that's what i feel like i've been doing the last year and it just doesn't seem like it's going anywhere so her first response was denial in a lie when did she circle up and say finally admit like yeah i've been seeing this dude um i mean i would say probably like a couple weeks after we had you know we were having conversations all the time about it yeah and you know just you know she just finally said like one day like you know like like he's my best friend like i i just want to see him all the time and it just was that was another killer it's like how do you say that this guy's your best friend when i'm your husband and we're supposed to be best friends you know we're supposed to be the ones talking all the time were you all having were you was this a total shock to you were you all having problems in your marriage have you all talked about being distant in the past no no that's that was another thing is like we we i always felt like our relationship was very close you know we're you know we're always we're always honest with each other we're always talking to each other and then um you know for this to come about it just was like i said a total shocker i just kind of i just kind of wrap my head around it honestly yeah man i'm sorry so so why do you want to stay in this relationship man because i love her i mean she's the love of my life i've been with her for 14 years we have two beautiful girls together um and we we both come from broken marriages yeah my mom and dad got divorced when i was in my in it when i was 18 and she didn't have her dad you know pretty much most of her life so um and he still isn't a part of her life to this day so when you say she's not invested she has no interest in and staying she's she telling you i want to be divorced um she's she's brought it up a couple times but it's never the trigger's never been pulled on it she's she's talked about separating you know i just don't i just don't feel the same way about you you know i i feel like we're on two separate paths and it's like you know i've always been on the same path dr john i work you know all the time to provide for the family you know that's my role as a man i feel like you know i came from that type of background and you know i i don't know if it's some type of resentment she holds towards me because i get to leave every day and leave her with the kids or what what it is i i i i'm going to tell you this jeremiah you're going to make yourself stone insane trying to get inside her head and figure out why she's thinking the way she's thinking right okay and when we get hurt or we get scared or we get out of control it's that's a temptation man it's getting uh i know why they did that because of x man you're gonna make yourself nuts you know what i mean and there's probably a thousand different things and what i'll tell you is it's a fool's errand you're never gonna fully get there and you're just gonna you're gonna drive yourself mad so here's the ah man i i'm yeah i'm going to here's the thing you can't change her mind right she's an adult and she's going to have to make that decision um what this tension is and what this back and forth is and what this uh yeah i don't know on her end and um the tension you feel in your own house walking around eggshells in your own house and it my guess is it probably vacillates between this is my damn house i'm gonna be who i want to be and then also you're on eggshells because you want to make her mad and then you're starting to feel yourself lose it right yeah exactly um and then you talk to yourself you have these pep talks on the way home your heart rate gets up you get kind of fired up about it and then that the next day you're gonna bring flowers and you're just gonna start spinning yourself out so there's the important part of the just y'all being adults right and i know i'm talking this is a pot talking to kettle here but two adults have got to get in a room and have this conversation but right there's a reason underneath that well you need to have this conversation because i need to have this conversation right you just need to make some decisions but i'm going to tell you right now you are not passively influencing your daughters you are affirmatively hurting them okay okay they are absorbing this tension they are absorbing your back and forth your wife's indifference whatever she's saying about you when you're not there her staring at her phone all day while they're in her presence or not all of that stuff they're absorbing and here's the deal brother they are in their little minds how old are they uh ten and six oh gosh yeah and they're 10 and six year old that's about the age of my kids every every interaction with their parents every bit of tension they are absorbing as their fault and they're gonna spend their life trying to fix it not a good thing no it's not all of that tension all of that ambiguity frustration they absorb and sometimes kids try to solve that through being perfect sometimes kids solve that through addiction they solve that through one relationship after another after another they solve that through the the they go on religious walkabouts whatever that may be but they spend their life chasing that down very similar situation you find yourself in right yeah and definitely all that to say is this you have got to have a hard conversation in a in a respectful kind dignified way because there is a chance that your wife is a terrible terrible wife and an extraordinary mom she might be a great mom to these girls she might does she love those kids oh yeah she does she's a great mother i'll i'll never never take that away from her she's the she's the best mom because well just like i said to the first caller man we need more guys like you in the world i appreciate your heart here my guess is this is probably a long time coming and whether you missed it or whether your wife was highly deceptive usually it's a it's a it's both and something sneaks up on people or something doesn't sneak up on people whatever happens to me i need you to go to your wife and say listen for the sake of our daughters they're absorbing this this is re writing in their hearts what relationships look like what relationships feel like and they are taking all of this tension on their hearts we can't do that to our daughters we've got to make some decisions in this house and i love you i want to be your husband i'll go to the ends of the earth to figure out how to make this work um please don't give up on us let's go get a marriage therapist let's go get all let's go all in right and and let her make a decision yeah and i know that's a scary thing because there's a reality that she's going to say i'm opting for not you and that's very scary right it is very yeah that's heartbreaking that's uh um yeah that's all in man and it sounds like she does she care about you she says she does okay obviously i mean behavior i mean the the affair nonetheless is she still in touch with this dude are they still interacting talking all the time no they're not talking at all actually the day after i found out we went and changed her phone number and uh and all that kind of stuff so she said she hasn't been in contact with him at all um since then um also too if i could just mention it like with our uh our sleeping arrangements and stuff she's out on the couch okay i'm in the bed by myself um you know intimacy is out of out of nothing we're not none of that's going on when's the last time y'all when's the last time you all slept together um like slept together or sexually sexually yeah um it's probably been about like a month and a week okay something like that okay um when's the last time you sat down and said we just need to have a grown-up intimate direct conversation with one another just that just actually the other day honestly how'd it go um you know it went better than i thought okay um i i sat down i talked to her i let her know that i was i was in contact with you guys with your show sure and i let her know that wednesday i'm i'm gonna be talking to you know uh dr john um he's a counselor stuff like that so i let her know that i'm reaching out there to to try and make this work sure have you all gone to see gone to see a marriage therapist have y'all gone she won't go no she won't go we've had that conversation she's like what are they gonna tell us and i was like well they'll tell us what we need to do yeah you know and it's like that's why i was saying it's like a one-way street with this relationship it seems like right now it's like i want to reach out i want to save it but it just doesn't seem like she doesn't want that she doesn't want to save it does she want you to be the bad guy here does she want you to be the guy that breaks it off why what's keeping her from walking out the door that's what i'm saying i don't know and i think that's what she wants is for me to make the decision i said you know what no this is your decision i am not making the decision because i don't want to make that decision i don't want to leave the relationship i want to be with you i love you yeah you know and and i don't know i i i think she's waiting for that that's maybe that's why she's you know not we're not sexually active anymore maybe she's holding out on me for that reason i don't i have no idea uh see again don't get in her head man okay we're gonna make yourself bananas um there's a thousand different reasons why intimacy happens and doesn't happen and all that um i'd love to talk to her if she'll call the show i'd love to love to talk to her to get her what's going on in her heart and mind if she would but all it to say is this if she won't have an adult conversation and she did if she won't make an adult decision yeah for you for herself you'll have to make some decisions for your daughters okay yeah sooner rather than later and my hope hope hope i again man i'm the most naively optimistic guy on the planet and i'm not naive about it i just i've seen people come back from so many different brinks come over so many obstacles because they fight and they claw and they say i'm not giving up on this thing i thought this marriage was an ash and we're gonna we're gonna redraw we're gonna rebuild it and we're gonna create something better and new and different it's not gonna be the old thing that we just reconstruct we're gonna do something remarkable i've seen it over and over and over i've had moments in my marriage dude that i was like oh man things going down it's going down it's going down and yeah we hung on and we rebuilt something new we're still rebuilding something new and i think every marriage is continually rebuilding and rebuilding and adding and growing i i've got high hopes for you man but i do as well but my house are very high she's got to um she's y'all got to make a decision sooner rather than later for those girls um so here's my challenge to you do what i just said sit down and have that hard conversation on behalf of your daughters on behalf of you on behalf of her she's killing herself man she's got to make a decision and you can let her know equivalently i will not end this marriage period and but we've got to fix this i want you back and sleep in bed with me i want you to we go to marriage counselor you know what they're going to give you tools they're going to help you have hard conversations with one another tell the truth with one another be open you may hear things about i promise you will hear things about you over the last decade that you don't like that you didn't even know you were doing but you're gonna hear a man that's what a marriage counselor will do to give her a place to be fully honest and open with you um and there'll be a referee there but also someone's going to teach you a teacher is going to give you guys some tools you can work on and rebuild this thing from the floor up but those little girls are hanging in the balance man they're hanging in that tension and they're absorbing every second of it man so the last thing is man i'd love her to call the show we will i will move her to the front of the line if she'll call the show and um or shoot me an email i'll go to johndeloney.com show let her know that um she's jeremiah's wife and we'll move her to the front of the show i'd love to hear her perspective on this she's probably not going to but um i'd love to hear from her but man we're thinking about you and let me know how that conversation goes let me know where that final decision is shoot me a note back and we'll let the listeners know how things played out don't give in to despair jeremiah don't give in to treating her less than with dignity and respect because at the end of the day that's just going to bring you down and drown you so you've it sounds like you've taken the high road on this thing continue to even if you get the worst of worst news that she's moving out and the things over continue to think about those girls continue to think about what you can bring to the table as a person of integrity and dignity and treat your wife with respect regardless of how this thing plays out she's still the mother of your kids i hate that man

Channel: The Dr. John Delony Show

Views: 132,422

Rating: 4.8653502 out of 5

Keywords: john delony, ramsey network, ramsey personality, My Wife Cheated on Me and Doesn't Want to Change...

Id: cg9chNqy4kw

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021