I am a new member to this site and am unsure on how to do this. My wife suggested that I try posting on this site to try to help the both of us she is an existing member and has sent me several links to different posts hoping they will help me help her.
As I don't want to let this post get too lengthly and for the fact that this is hard for me to start out I will just give a brief overview of my affiars.
Over an 18 month period i cheated on my wife with 5 different women. My affairs began and ended before we were married. My wife found out a few days before the wedding and thankfully loved me enough to fight for what we had. We are now in the process of reconciling and i have cut contacts with all my partners. I know that some things I did right in this and some things I have done wrong. I came clean to my wife one night after she received a message from one of my partners and the worse thing I could have done was sugar coat the truth to spare her feelings although i will say that her and i are in the process of rectifying that mistake. I was selfish and only thought about myself, not once did i ever give a thought to what i was doing to our relationship or how much pain i was to put my wife through once she found out. She has done nothing to deserve the way i have treated her. I thank god every day that she decided to fight for us.
Second, you did good by coming clean. Not many WS do that without fighting every step of the way.
Third, there are a few hard and fast rules if you really, truly wish to help your BS heal and save your M. The first is complete honesty. You answer her questions. Every time. No matter how many times she asks. And you answer truthfully even if it makes you feel and look like sh*t. She deserves nothing less.
You be an open book. No hiding *anything*. You want to rebuild trust? Then you give her reasons to trust you. This will take a long time and it's your actions that will count. Right now your words are meaningless. She has no reason to believe anything you say right now.
Find out your why. Why you thought having an A was a good idea. How you justified it to yourself. Why those "reasons" made it okay to tear your BSs world apart. Not easy. You'll have to take off the blinders and take a good, hard look at youtself and face things about yourself that you probably won't like. This is necessary so you don't make the same F'ed up choice again in the future.
R isn't for sissies. It's hard work and you'll have to do most of the heavy lifting. There will be no instant results. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
You'll find great advice here, the support you need to get through this and the occasional 2X4 if we think you need it. To stay on the right track. We swing those to help, not to hurt.
Keep posting, asking questions, telling your story. The more we know, the more we can help.
Again, welcome to SI, the best club no one wants to join.
All affairs are variations on a theme. No one has 'Beethoven's 5th' to everyone else's 'Chopsticks'.
This is an awesome site. No other place like it, particularly for the WS who wants to work out why they did what they did.
Have you checked out the healing library? There's a link in the little yellow box in the upper left hand corner of the screen. Lots of useful info in there.
So, I might be splitting hairs here, but I think it's somewhat important. You were caught. You didn't confess. So, you only came clean after you were caught. That implies that you may not have come clean if you hadn't been caught, and that is not necessarily a good thing. Not sure what the ratio is of those who were caught and those who confessed, probably around 50/50, but it doesn't really matter in the end. The fact is that you still cheated, just like the rest of us.
The other thing is about your comment that you could have sugar coated things...which in no way would have spared your BW anything. It would have been much more cruel to sugar coat things. That is generally what we refer to as trickle truth (TT). Most/many BS's eventually say that it isn't the A's that hurt the most, it was the lies (TT). It's often the lies that seem to lead to D.
So, when you refer to the mistake you and your BW are rectifying, what are you thinking was the mistake. Just a bit unclear to me on that one...
Take note of Clarrissa's words, especially the part about figuring out your "why". It can take a very long time to figure that all out. Sort of along the lines of how your BW's world was torn apart, and everything she thought she was getting is no a false view, you may find that a lot of what you though you knew is also a lie, except for you, it will be your own perspective about yourself which will be under the microscope. Be prepared for some big changes in yourself if you stay on this path to R.
Again, welcome.
Beccause your wife will never be safe until you can get to the root of your issues. And believe me, cheaters have issues.
I am curious as to if you expected your wife to dump you.
Do you respect her for not dumping you? (think about that carefully)
I cheated on my first love half a dozen times in six months. I chalked it up to youth, newfound sexual freedom, college life and alcohol. He forgave me after the first 2. Not after the rest.
I figured it was circumstances and youth. I would NEVER do that again.
But the defect to cheat was in me still. Because I never fixed my shit. I thought it was bad timing, whatever. It was all me.
So, what now, truckdrvr?
In regards to the healing library whenever I click on it all I get is a FAQ
That's just the default page. Click on any of the links that are of interest to you in there
My tolerance for stupid shit is getting less and less.
