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You turned the orher cheek already when you opted out and let them train alone. You sound like you are going to turn the other cheek again. I don’t believe your reasons for not telling his wife. I think you are scared and you are willing to let your marriage collapse. These two are dominating you. I am sorry if this sounds harsh. You should call his wife asap before they wreck two homes.

I thought this wasn't an affair, so what is there to pick?

What is there to resent?

You. A grown man are being told by your wife that she will resent you if you don't allow her a cuddle buddy (and yes this relationship is not a friendship but emotional affair which has probably crossed the line already into physical) or if in the future she wants to hang out with other men past reasonable times and go for picnics alone with them?

May I ask how old you are? A bit of a 2x4 but dude come on.

You and the other wife are basically fuelling this forbidden love by playing the jealous spouses watching from the sidelines.

The onus should not be on her to pick you or him. You know your wife has a thing for him, the onus should be on you now you know how she feels to say you are my wife and you will not disrespect me or this marriage in this way and walk.

You're letting her go off for drives to think, to call him, to talk to mom, to mourn. DUDE shes cheating on you and she gets to decide?

Can you imagine a thief robbing a bank and being told, you've made a bad life choice, you can choose to keep the money and give it back..let me drive away and go talk to my mom about it while the bank manager waits in the office for me to come back.

You've been aware of this situation for a year, it's not like you discovered this last week.

You're obviously having a hard time acting decisively on pushing the POS out of your marriage. It's not easy, people at SI know this, I wanted to wish you courage in resolving this.

You're being too nice, not wanting to wreck your wife's career by telling the other man's wife. Your wife is wrecking your marriage - fuck her career. She's been working what a year, she's already having an affair with her boss - some career.

As was pointed out earlier, you're letting her make the choice to pick you?! Say what? You got that backwards man, time for you to do some picking.

[This message edited by SnowToArmPits at 2:48 AM, May 23rd (Wednesday)]

Warpedatticus, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. As a fellow BS, one with little kids, PLEASE tell his wife. She is probably in the same position as you are, feeling something is amiss, but being gaslit by her wayward spouse.

I had an inkling something was up, but I was sleep deprived and utterly exhausted. I thought I was "taking one for the team," while my fWS was working longer hours. We needed the money, so more overtime, while not ideal, was good.

It was a slap in the face to find out the extra "OT" pay he was earning was him actually spending money on some co-worker. Hotels, dinner, drinks. Meanwhile I was at home, trying to stretch our tight budget, and rewarding myself once a week with coffee or a pastry at the coffee shop near the bus stop where our DS got off from school.

Please. Tell. His. Wife.

You are not the only betrayed person in this situation. She deserves to know. Because I can guarantee you, while he's hanging out late with your wife, she's probably at home doing chores/putting the kids to bed/thinking her husband is "working late," because they could use the OT, too.

I know this is hard. I know doing anything that could push your wife away feels counterintuitive. But the best thing I did was kick my fWS out, file for separation, and start taking care of myself.

You deserve to be with someone that WANTS to be with you. No doubts. No resentment. No guilt trips.

It's really hard when you feel so sad, when your self-esteem has taken a hit, and when you still love the other person. But do you really want to be with someone that doesn't know if they want to be with you?

Take care of yourself. Show your wife what the reality of life without you is like. Right now it's hikes and runs, thrilling secret texts, romance and mystery, and probably sex with her boss.

But she's not dealing with the reality of the situation -- does she want to be an instant stepmom to three little kids that are going to resent her for what she did to their mom? Is she prepared to be judged by co-workers, friends, and families for being a liar and a cheat? Will it still be all fun and romance when half of her affair partner's wealth is being spent on child/spousal support and lawyer fees?

Kicking my fWS out was the absolute best thing I did. He moved in with the other woman, and very quickly realized she wasn't his soulmate -- she was jealous, aggressive, controlling. She gave him a hard time about spending time with his kids. She was no longer an understanding shoulder to cry on, and would get angry if he mentioned me.

You're young. You don't have kids. You could walk away, get some therapy on your own (maybe figure out why you're attracted to women that have wayward traits, and how you can notice red flags?), start over.

But if you're not ready for that, read up on the 180, Dr. Harley's plan b, and going no contact. It can feel weird or counterproductive, but if you want to save your marriage, those three things will help you so, so much.

Stop protecting someone that doesn't care about you (and right now your wayward wife does not). Protect yourself. And please, figure out a way to tell his wife.

Warped

Are you still there? Did she come home?

Please reread all the advice given you on this thread. You don’t want to remain in Limbo forever or even a day more.

Choosing not to act is a decision in and of itself. The consequences are grave as you can already tell. His wife needs to know. Why support their cheating and the betrayal of her. She has a right to know so that she can make informed decisions regarding her life.

not being able to instinctively end the relationship/friendship to save our marriage in itself feels like an answer.

I agree with all of the others, and you. You have the answer. Call the other guys wife and tell her whats going on. Blow it up. Even without any hard proof, I find in very unlikely there is not a full blown physical affair going on here.

Time to take a stand and fix it, or go your separate ways before it get even more complicated.

Sorry to hear about your situation Warped but it looks like your wife is a home wrecker. The other man's wife needs to know what's going on so she can decide what she wants to do. You would want to know so you need to extend that caring to the other wife. If your wife chooses the other man over you, waivers, or tries to negotiate, then divorce her. Marriage is about a partnership and if one partner decides to go in a direction the other partner doesn't like, it's basically over. Again, sorry.

Warpedatticus, I googled this up just now - it takes anywhere from 4 to 6 months for an uncontested divorce to finalize in Canada. I'm certain a lot of other factors play into that length of time like whether you have children or not, complexity of asset division, etc. You are only married to her for 1.5 years. That's not a lot of time invested in a marriage so your divorce (D) process shouldn't be too complicated to finalize, but your attorney will be able to better tell you and give you a good idea of the general time to finalization in your jurisdiction.

What this comes down to is her deciding if she wants to stay in the marriage (M) with you, not choosing between you and the OM.

What I got from this little nugget she gave you -

She told me she wants to pick me, but is worried she'll resent me for it months from now, or she worries that I'll behave like this with future friends or if she was assigned a male partner when she gets full time. She admitted she doesn't want to pick me and then lie and go hang out with as usual.

Sounds to me like she is mostly contemplating being single again, not so much choosing to be with the OM. I think her well established EA and high probability of a PA is making her consider HER own future with many, many, male partner assignments and male "friends", and it has her excited about HER future. Her only concern with regard to you is whether you will stick around and be her plan B while she goes exploring "what if" relationships with these future assigned male partners and male "friends" will go anywhere. She's already honing the knife called "your just an insecure man" to fend off your future concerns about all that time she plans on spending with these guys to go hanging out and winding down with after long shifts, running training runs with, then doing training fucks with.

Well, help her start imagining life WITHOUT you in her future plans by serving her D papers. Without this final line in the sand all you are going to get from her in these "talks" is the mind fucked logic that the rationalization hamster in her head generated that helped her decide to lower her boundaries and cross the line with the OM to begin with. If you think about it, she absolutely had no business inviting that asshole to run with her and you during a time that should be considered quality "us" time between you and your WW....unless she really wanted to invite him in the first place for her own selfish reasons. Once you file for D she has anywhere from 4 to 6 months to contemplate you no longer being her husband. I can tell you that during that time if her getting served does not light the fire under her ass and make her realize what she is about to lose then that kind of person is not worth extending a "second" chance of staying in the M. If she spends more time going to the OM and trying to either get him to divorce his wife or corroborate their stories to protect the OM's ass from his own OBS or protect their own assess from potentially getting fired for conducting an inappropriate relationship, then understand that that alone is a statement on where she place you on her list of priorities, and it is under her own self and the OM.

BTW, you didn't do anything to cause her to cheat. That's all on her. You've reasonably stated your concerns multiple times and she shoved them to the side so asking her to choose between you or the OM is giving her the reward of choice for a situation that SHE created to begin with by inviting this cretin into your lives. The choice is actually yours, my friend. YOU have all the leverage with how this situation will conclude. I'm sure you choose not to be a Plan B. I'm sure you choose to not have a wife that needs male friends for you to worry about. I'm sure you choose to have a wife that will respect your concerns when you point them out to her. You are choosing to not be married to person who embodies those those characteristics above by filing for D. The only choice she needs to make is to work her ass off to demonstrate that YOU are her only choice and that she can be a safe partner for you again.

And she didn't ONLY go to her mom's, if at all. She called that SOB to give him the heads up and get their stories straight AT THE VERY LEAST. We've read of this scenario so many times that it is part of what we call the cheater's script. Worst comes to worst, Warpedatticus, you are in your early thirties. You got time to pick a much better partner if your WW doesn't get her head out of her ass in time. If it does end in D, I highly suggest you get some counseling to figure out how to fix your broken "picker" of women. I did this so I know. I was cheated on by almost all of my girlfriends and finally my XW. All of them were females I "settled" for.

[This message edited by Jduff at 10:56 AM, May 23rd (Wednesday)]

Warped are you still there?

I said on another post that I had a bad day so some of my comments my reflect such. I read all that you wrote about your situation. Two things stood out to me. Why would any man stand idly by, for months, while his wife spent a tremendous amount of one on one time with another man and even stay out drinking with said man to like 3:00 am without even a text or call to her husband. Maybe I'm looking at the situation with a biased eye. In my military career and correctional career I was always around alpha type males and females who would have burned this down months ago. As the old saying goes, "you need to get the bull by the horns" because "this woman is playing you like a Stradivarius violin." She picks you! She makes a pick where there shouldn't be any pick at all. You are her husband. Right now she is about 20X more into her "boyfriend" than she is into you. She fears she will resent you in the future and you may act the same if she is paired with a man on her job. With that statement right there she is drawing the bow across your violin strings. First thing is to tell the other man's wife. Show her the time line. Then tell your wife that maybe you and her boyfriend's wife will go out drinking until the wee hours of the morning to discuss what you and her have in common. When you have a raging fire, which you have, you don't fight it with a water pistol. You get the biggest hose you can find. It's time to do something decidedly or accept what is happening and get use to the violin music. I do wish you well.

Update:

Tried, tried, tried to make work still. No avail.

Even after she agreed to end all communication with him, with in two days she was back to text.

Had our final fight this past Wednesday night. Told her she had to move out in the morning. She left in the morning, and in the afternoon she asked to meet and talk. So i did.

Conversation was basically to see if I was going to stand my ground and I did. She said she can't end her 'friendship' with him.

I left the house so she could back some clothes, when I came home she had packed ALL of her clothes even went through all the dirty laundry for hers.

Left only her Wedding dress and a single penguin slipper/sock (we referred to each other as each others penguins and stuff like that) which certainly felt like it was done as a message to me.

She reached out today to basically set a time to pack and load up her other things (furniture, dishwear etc)

One thing through all this nightmare, not once did she make an effort to salvage or save our marriage.

So now I sit alone with my dog, heartbroken and gutted.

It's whats best for me, theres no doubt about it, but holy fuck going to be some tough days.

Most importantly - thank you everyone on this board for your input and everything else. It meant a lot and really helped clear my head and view on everything.

Dbl post

[This message edited by Warpedatticus at 4:39 PM, June 2nd (Saturday)]

Yup, it’s most definitely going to suck. No doubt about it.

The good news is that you got yourself out of infidelity. Your only other option was *significantly* worse. So you’ve done the right thing and it’s just time to forge ahead. It’s unfortuantelly a well-trod path and you’ll do it.

One point, make sure that you let her boyfriend’s wife that you have her an ultimatum to choose between you two and she chose him. She will need to know this, not everyone has the strength that you do

Have you ever spoken with the BOW? I still think you ought to speak with her and compare notes. She will be particularly interested to hear how quickly and easily your WW decided to move out.

This is a classic exit affair. She didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger herself. She basically went along with your stance and moved on without a care. Very sorry you are experiencing this.

I have not spoken to the BOW (?).

I initially planned to, however after a long talk with my dad, we believe they would prefer me to do that.

As it would once again take the gravity of the decisions and the weight of their actions out of there hands, and force the BOW to make all the tough decisions.

I don't like that she's out of the loop, but with me out of the picture, it's only a short matter of time before they draw her full attention.

From personal experience, I encourage you to tell her.

My husbands married OW came clean to her husband months before I knew. So, he knew and didn’t tell me, which sucks. However, he was told that it was a one night stand, when it was much more. It wasn’t until my husband came clean with the whole story to me months later that her BH heard the truth (because he reached out to me after seeing I had contacted her). Messier still, he had been told by his wife that I knew and didn’t want to talk about it... so it turns out that’s why he didn’t reach out to me. But if he had, it would have been with her lie of a story.

So I wish I had known months earlier. And he wished he had the whole truth instead of 1/1000th.

Moral of this very convoluted story...don’t let liars control the narrartive.

[This message edited by gtflng at 5:41 PM, June 2nd (Saturday)]

Warp,

The flaw in that logic is that you are taken away the choice of the other betrayed spouse. She doesn't know what you do. She deserves to know what you do.

What about her?

I want to know about you to but when your hurt the way you are it's tough to think clearly and I think your missing something.

I miss the shit out of my dog reading about you having yours right now. I don't know if that makes you feel any better but there's a stranger out there somewhere that's jealous of you right now just for that reason.

Stay Strong,

Dogs are great. When my xWW and I had the first serious discussion I said no matter what the result our dog will be with me. He was a good listener.