Dear Dorothy,
My wife and I have been married for a little over three years, but have been together for about seven years.
A few months after we started dating I met a friend of hers, a man whom she introduced as an uncle. She said it was his generosity that helped her through the university. At first I had no reason to doubt her introduction, as he was more than twice her age and married.
You can imagine my shock after three years of marriage when I discovered that the so-called uncle was her sugar daddy. Of course I had trusted her and married her, but she lied about the true relationship with her so-called uncle. I confronted my wife and asked her if she had ever slept with the man, and she said no – never, that they were just friends.
To compound matters, in the three years of our marriage she has remained friends with her “uncle”, and he sometimes visited her when I was at work. I was never comfortable with his visits in my absence, but let it go as I thought he was really her uncle.
Now that I found out that he’s not really her uncle, and that they have both been lying to me, I am really upset and do not trust my wife anymore, and now I don’t know what to do.
I feel betrayed, hurt, and extremely upset over her lying to me about this man.
My Dear,
She lied to you. That is wrong. What do you want to do? Do you want to put an end to your marriage, or do you want to see how it can be salvaged? Most people find it hard to forgive a betrayal and work on rebuilding the relationship. You have to really think about how you feel about her betrayal, and if you can bring yourself to forgive her and rebuild your relationship. If your decision is to forgive and rebuild the relationship, she needs to do the following to earn back your trust:
- She needs to admit what she did wrong – that is, cheating on you. Yes, she cheated. She was seeing an ex without telling you.
- She has to come clean about her past relationship and any other issues that you have doubts about. No matter how ridiculous and prying your questions seem to be, she has to answer them to your satisfaction. She has to be open and transparent with you.
- She must apologise to you and mean it. She must take responsibility for her lies and deception, and resolve to put an end to her lying and cheating.
- She must cut off all contact with her so-called uncle. No visits whether you are home or not.
If you think that she will turn a new leaf and be true, and she resolves to be faithful to you and means it, you may consider doing the work of salvaging your marriage. It may not be a bad idea to see a marriage counselor together. Good luck whichever way you decide.
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