Is my husband still in love with her. Could you stay?

[Meg_]

My husband had an affair a few months ago. He says he’s over it, that he loves me, our family, but I don’t know what to believe anymore. I think he really loves this other woman. The whole situation is odd, how it happened, how it all happened. My husband and I met this woman nearly 5 years ago in the hospital elevator where he works We were having a stupid argument about where to go for our anniversary dinner. She and her husband where in the elevator. I remember taking one look at her and even then, before it all, feeling the slightest wave of jealousy. She was very pregnant, glowing, and beautiful . She looked like an exotic islander, dark skin prefect smile, and for some reason I envied the way her husband was holding her, doting on her, smiling at her. I remember thinking I bet either they are going to go home and give each other foot massages, or that she was a mega-bit*h when no one else is around and for some reason I was in the elevator comparing myself to this woman, comparing my marriage to what hers looked like “ does my husband look at me like that ?”, “ she’s probably a snob”, “ how is she that stunning while that pregnant”, “ I couldn’t get my husband to come to my check-ups when I was pregnant and he’s a doctor, yet look at this guy”. I remember her smiling at us, obviously listening to us bicker and recommending a “really great Indian restaurant” that was nearby. A few seconds of light conversation later with she and her husband and I remember feeling bad for what I had been thinking literally seconds before and stepping off the elevator thinking what a nice couple, tonight we’re going to be as happy as them. We decided to go to the restaurant and I remember feeling grateful to this women because the restaurant ended up being a good start to a great night. Completely unaware how a couple of minutes in an elevator would be the moment I would come back to 4 years later.

One night, less than 2 weeks later her husband died. I don’t know exactly how it happened, but my husband came home from the hospital later than usual looking utterly defeated. Telling me, “remember the couple from the elevator….”. He wasn’t the doctor assigned to her husband, but was there when he was brought in and told me that he had seen her outside, completely beside herself. He was worried because she was pregnant, so he took her back inside and sat with her until her family came. I remember admiring him for it at the time and feeling completely heartbroken for that women. Remembering the smile on her face in the elevator, the liveliness in her husbands eyes and I felt a profound sadness for her. Unable to even imagine what it would have been like to lose my husband, especially while pregnant with our first child. It was an awakening moment for me. I vowed at that moment to be a better mother, wife and to not take for granted the people in my life. I never forgot this woman’s face and over the years, from time to time, especially near the holidays, I would find myself thinking about her. Wondering what had happened to her, how she coped with it all, raising her baby without it’s father, often saying a quick prayer for her and genuinely hoping that her and her child were doing well. My husband never spoke about her afterward, I chalked it up to him being a doctor, being around situations like this everyday, that it did not invariably affect him the way it did me, but I’ve come to suspect that maybe he thought about her a lot more often then I ever did.

I’m sitting here 4 years later unsure of what to think. Nearly 8 months ago my husband took a call about a little boy who had been severely injured in a car accident. My husband’s a pediatric orthopedic surgeon. He deals with incidents like this all the time. All of them obviously involving children. I didn’t think anything out of the norm about his newest patient because my husband didn’t give me a reason to. Things have changed over the past years in our relationship, he works long hours due to his job. I’m always busy with our children. I guess it would be safe to say that our relationship isn’t where it should be, but I never in my wildest dreams expected this to happen. That my husband just wasn’t that type of man. I guess I should have saw it coming, his utter dedication to this case, the way he talked about this one child, his long hours, constantly stopping by the hospital even on his off days. A few months after he took the case I slowly started to suspect that something was amiss due to a drastic change in our relationship. I didn’t necessarily think it was an affair nor that it had anything to do with the hospital, but a couple of months ago he went to a 3- day work convention about an hour away insisting on staying there instead of driving home everyday. I got a call from a friend who had seen my husband walking in a park with a little boy “ about 4 or 5” on his shoulders, with his arm around a woman
who she described as a ”very pretty, exotic looking woman with long dark hair“. It all fell in to place for me, his long hours his dedication to the case. I knew it had to be her, that his patient was the child she had been pregnant with at the time.

I couldn’t believe it, but as it turned out I was right. Had I have not gotten that phone call I would have known anyway. He was different when he came back., reserved, quiet, sitting on the couch staring at the blank TV for minutes at a time as if he was trying to make a decision. I confronted him a couple of days later and he admitted everything. That call 8 months ago from the hospital had In fact been about her son, she and her son had been in there for 6 months, my husband his doctor. He admitted to an affair, or as he put it to “having feelings for her“, they had mainly been just friends, but he admitted to sleeping with her that weekend, that it had only happened that weekend. I initially told him to leave and he did for a few
weeks, but know he’s back and we’ve decided to try and work through this. We’ve seen a marriage counselor who has chalked it down to how it all happened with this woman, her husband dying, my husband being a doctor and his need to save her son for her and in a way “save” her.

Friends and family tell me that I should take solace in the fact that he didn’t leave me for her and that he is here trying to work things out, but I just don’t know what to think anymore. I still love my husband and the thought of losing him still scares me just as much as it did 4 years ago, but a part of me knows, even though he has never said it, that he loved this woman and her son, that maybe he still does. He risked everything by being with this woman, his job, entire career, family, our marriage, his reputation. I don’t think he would have done it otherwise. I have since also met with the woman. I sat there and watched her cry in front of me. Long gone is the perfect smile that I envied in the elevator.
I listened to her apologize to me, tell me that she didn’t mean to fall in love with my husband and that she doesn’t even know why or how it happened. I believe her, I know she didn’t intend for her son to be in the hospital, that aspect was beyond her control. I feel sorry for her, but at the same time I can’t stop myself from hating her. The woman has since changed doctors. He says he wants to work things out, but he still doesn’t have much to say. His smiles seem forced, his words contrived. I still find him staring at the blank t.v. or standing at our backyard door just staring outside as if it’s a prison gate. I think he loves her, that he’s just here because he doesn’t want to be the bad guy, or for the sake of our children. I don’t even know anymore. What would you do? Do you think he loves her? Could you deal with something like this? Would you stay?


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