So as the title states, I found out a few months ago that my husband cheated on me multiple times with a nurse. I didn't find out about it until almost a year after the fact and not because he decided to come clean. Apparently it happened when he worked with her for two surgery rotations at a hospital 3 hours away, but we were still visiting regularly on weekends. They met up in a group for drinks a few times, then alone, then he slept over at her place twice during the week. The nights they slept together, he told me that his phone had died.
Discovering this has been the single most devastating experience of my life thus far. I have never felt such a tremendous amount of emotional pain, and from a person that I thought would never be capable of such betrayal. It's mind-boggling to me how he always portrayed himself as such a moral and faithful person, disgusted by infidelity. But my eyes have opened. I thought seriously about walking away, but we have kids together which complicates the situation. He seems truly regretful and says he's willing to do whatever to make things better, but we still have a long ways to go in rebuilding trust between us. The number of lies he told regarding these incidents of cheating and the fact that he didn't choose to tell me about it himself really bothers me.
We've discussed how this happened and what steps should be taken to prevent anything like this from happening again (like getting too close/flirty with female co-workers), and he's agreed to limit lunches out with females, drinks after work, etc. until we have worked through these issues.
Well he matched today and unbelievably, his entire residency class is women. I'm incredibly happy for him matching at a good program, but I couldn't help but feel bummed by this. I really hoped and expected there would be other guys in his class that he could hang out and socialize with, hoping this would lessen the need for him to seek such friendships in other women at work. But clearly he will be spending a significant amount of time getting close with these women since they are the only people in his class, and after the whole cheating incident, the prospect of that makes me feel incredibly anxious and afraid. I know it's a situation that requires trust, but I'm just not there yet . My whole world was shattered a few months ago, and honestly I'm still processing it and figuring out how one even goes about trusting someone again after something like that.
Now in a few months he's going to be spending long days and sometimes nights away working with these people, and I'm so afraid something like that could happen again. I don't want to live with anxiety everyday wondering what's going on between him and the people at work, but I can't quite rationalize it out of myself. It just feels like there hasn't been enough time to re-establish that kind of trust. I dread thinking of what the next 3 years could bring for our relationship. Sometimes I still wonder if this is fixable. It's left our marriage in such an unstable and uncertain place, and I don't feel like that's the kind of relationship that survives residency. In a class of all women, at that.
I don't know what I'm looking for exactly. Really just any kind of insight or advice, I guess. I feel like I'm at crossroads and feel incapable of choosing either path. I just feel paralyzed by all of this. It's suppose to be a happy time for him and our family, and I just feel full of dread thinking about all the time he's going to be spending away getting close with these women, and what it could mean again.
How do I overcome this?
Thanks for reading.
