A lot of these are funny and awkward, I'm coming in late to the thread, and I'm not sure I'm even ready to talk about it with anyone, let alone a bunch of internet strangers. But I'm typing this already so here we go.

I'm very lucky to have a wife at all, let alone the great one I have. I am sarcastic, selfish, angry... basically a big list of things that aren't too attractive in a potential mate.

I also work from home and have two small children with me all day, and my wife at the time worked nights five days a week. These factors combined meant I had few opportunities to interact with old friends, current friends... adults in general.

So I started using Facebook more. It was a gradual thing. To be clear up front I didn't - couldn't, wouldn't ever, etc. - cheat on my poor wife or anything. But I did make some jokes that were wholly inappropriate to my friends, and said some things I really didn't mean (mostly regarding the attractiveness of other women) to "fit in with the guys," as it were.

This was a problem for two reasons: My sense of humor is frankly pretty fucked, and I've always had trouble relating to the whole "hurr hurr I'd fuck her" jokes most guys tend to make. That, and text is a very hard medium to derive meaning from, especially when you're dealing with, like, layers of in-jokes and coded communication and so forth.

(For the record, I'm not talking about, like, pervy conversations with women or anything that would be de facto cheating. Just "guy talk," often taken to a sarcastic extreme.)

I say these things not really thinking about my wife one way or the other: They're all jokes, she's awesome and gets my sense of humor, so no big deal.

This happens over the course of a couple years.

Shortly after our second child is born, my wife, home on maternity leave, sees a comment I make that piques her interest. And not in a good way. After several weeks of digging around here and there, she's seen multiple years' worth of these comments, all in a comparatively short setting.

This, combined with some post-partum depression issues, results in a wife who rightfully feels extremely betrayed. She's knows I'm not some cackling, perverted hyena, but she's having trouble reconciling this with the jokes, comments, and so forth. It's one of the hardest periods of our combined lives, and certainly the most difficult of our marriage.

I don't want to go into further detail here. We are still together, working through the issues, and she is working very hard on forgiving me and believing me when I say I was just joking around with the guys. I don't even mind that I got "caught," so to speak: I legitimately never thought this stuff would be an issue, but I do see how taking it in all at once and without contextual understanding would be a very tough pill to swallow.

What I do mind is knowing I've hurt someone I love fiercely and deeply, especially to such an extreme degree. Literally every day I'm reminded multiple times - a conversation on TV, a girl who looks like one I made a dumb comment about, etc. - of the way I fucked up.

After going through life thinking words were worthless I have learned a very hard lesson and done a lot of growing up. But knowing something I did as thoughtless "humor" could devestate the one person who has always, always, always been there for me, always had my back, always loved me without condition... it's taken a part of my soul.

To some degree there is a silver lining. This experience has taught me a lot about what it means to be an attentive, loving, emotionally available husband. But, I'll never be able to fully forgive myself, and the confidence hit I took after thinking of myself as a super loyal person will probably never fully fix itself.

It's a fucked up mess, and I'm the only person to blame. I hate myself a lot of the time, but I deserve it.