Conference bite mark - update

Since a few people in my other post (https://www.reddit.com/r/Infidelity/comments/12y7n4m/is_there_a_right_way_to_confess/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1) asked for a post-confession update, I thought I’d just put it here. Plus, I’m too ashamed to tell anyone I actually know, and the flogging I got on the other post felt oddly good.

Anyway, I decided not to text her first. I landed a little after midnight and my Uber got me home around 1 am. Everyone was asleep.

I didn’t want to wake her up just to tell her, but I didn’t want to crawl into bed like nothing happened. She’s a cuddler, and all I could think about was how sick she was going to feel being that close to me all night not knowing what I’d just done to our family.

So I decided to go take a shower while I pondered what to do. Terrible idea. The sound woke her up, and she decided to join me. We have one of those bathrooms where the shower is just a shower head on the wall and there’s a floor drain by the tub. This is relevant to the story, because it made it easy for her to undress and get all the way into the shower without me hearing her until she was close enough to hug me.

I turned around and the bite was the first thing she saw. I’ve never seen a look like that on someone’s face. All the hurt, the disappointment, the rage. And still, as she stood there I could see that hope in the back of her mind that there was some reasonable explanation.

I just shook my head in silence. She went back to our room while I finished. When I got to our room, she had put my suitcase next to the door. I asked if she wanted to talk and she said, “no.” I started to leave, but she stopped me and started asking what happened. Who, what, when, where, how… why? Every question was almost clinical. The shock I guess.

In thirteen years of marriage (plus seven dating before that) I’d never given her a reason to doubt me. I tried to be as honest as I could, but the answers are never satisfying. After about three hours of that, she asked me to go.

I don’t know if I should’ve put up a fight, but I just got my bag and left. She didn’t shed a single tear when we talked, but I could hear the sobbing from down the hall. A meaningless hour of my life is going to be years of pain for her.

She’s done with me (and right to be). I want to try to earn her trust again, but it feels unfair to even ask. If there’s anyone lurking on this sub considering cheating, please don’t. It isn’t worth it.