Perhaps I was jealous, but there's no doubt that on his part it wasn't simply not wanting me to get mad at him about seeing her and talking to her. Why lie for 2 whole years about ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to do with her? Why tell me he is at home watching TV when he is out with her when I am traveling? Not once, not twice, but every single time I was away. If he was going out with someone else he didn't lie to me. Why invite her to dinner in a restaurant where we're celebrating our son's birthday and not tell me, but tell me about everyone else he's invited? And again for my daughter's birthday? And again when we're having a party at home? Why lie about phone calls and text messages and tell me they are from her sister or her brother in law?

When I had a disagreement with her 2 years ago, he chose to be defensive of her rather than of me, which hurt me at the time but would have been ok with me had he given me reasons for why he believed she was right and I was not. I may not have appreciated his opinion then, I might even have got upset, but at least it would have been honest. Instead, he chose the coward's way out by not being frank with me at the outset and continuing contact with her behind my back, leading to hundreds of lies over 2 years and bringing our marriage to the brink of total break up. Why would he jeopardize his 20 year old marriage simply because he thought I was jealous or because I would be upset at his seeing her? There must have been a reason strong enough to make him want to deceive me, whom he claimed to love more than anyone else, not once or twice, but repeatedly for 2 whole years! I need to know that reason, be it infatuation, emotional affair, whatever.