SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I lie. It's what I do I guess. Apparently I'm even good at lying to myself because I just blew what little hope I had left all to hell. I told her, my IC, you all and everyone else that I had nothing left to hide and now I'm paying for it.

Yesterday my BS found out about a couple of small details she didn't know about. They weren't huge revelations but they were enough. I told her the predominant things I looked at on the internet but she found a couple things I had forgot and she had asked me in the beginning if she knew it all and I said yes. I should have thought long and hard and tried to remember but the point is I told her she knew everything and she didn't.

Now, I feel like it's over. Even before this I feel like she was stuck. During the heat of the battle I told her it didn't matter how hard I worked or what I did to make this better, there was something stopping her from moving forward. She denies it but it is obvious. Before yesterday I had worked my tail off for 7 months and she had barely moved forward from day 1. The whole time she could never tell me she wanted to be happy with me again. She was only there for our little boy. The whole time she just wanted to work on things to the extent of making a show for him. She never wanted to really be with me again.

Doesn't matter now. I have destroyed her. I think it's over. She says she hates me and wishes she had never met me. What sucks is I really have made progress. People don't change over night but I was getting there. Little by little. I really had left all that stuff in the past but here it is biting me again. I had moved on. I have been doing so good with everything. Now it's all for nothing.

Be honest with yourself -- were they lies, or details you actually forgot about?

I don't mean to be defensive, but it is hard for us WS's to uncover everything. It's one thing if your BS charged you to find every detail, and you willfully overlooked an obvious folder on your computer. Or if you promised to go back through everything but didn't. But IMO, you don't have to be superhuman about it. If you honestly missed a detail, without trying to minimize or hide something, that doesn't make you (us?) a liar.

That doesn't minimize her pain in the discovery. But it doesn't nullify your work since, either.

Unfortunately that is the trouble with lies. You start to believe them yourself. It leaves you confused to where you don't even know what is real. You get comfy in the world you created. It's a bad place and I'm sorry you're there.

I'm with SR. Did you remember these things that BS found out about and were you just withholding them? The definition of a lie is INTENTIONALLY withholding information; meaning you KNOW about the truth and aren't letting it out. I've had to tell this to my BH a hundred times over the last few weeks that he too has found details here and there that I haven't been able to remember. He didn't find them because I lied; he found them because I forgot them. We're clearly not perfect and we cannot remember everything. We can only do our best to recall every detail that we can remember, and even possibilities or speculations of other things that happened.

This is similar to what we went through last week, 1bI. I blew up completely over an undisclosed FB account, even though it hadn't been used since LONG before Dday#2. More because it was hidden from me over a year ago than because he forgot about it. But after I processed it I realized that, just like you said, my fWH had made HUGE efforts to change over the past 7 months, and it was "old news" in many ways.

Maybe she was "stuck" because she somehow knew/felt/suspected that she didn't have the whole truth. Maybe now, once she's had time to process it, she can move forward? I've said things like "I wish I'd never met you" in the heat of an argument, too.

Most importantly, it is NOT. FOR. NOTHING. You changed for your marriage, and for yourself. From my fWH: "In addition to changing for you, I'm just learning to be a better man in general." That doesn't just reference the porn. It means you recognize how to be vulnerable, you know how damaging lies and secrecy are, you are learning what it takes to be present in relationships. I know it seems like a waste of time, but first, it just happened...there's the possibility she can process this better now and you can still R. And secondly, these changes and betterment of yourself will go with you into the future and ALL relationships, if you don't throw it away now.

The next few days will likely be VERY awful. Try to ride it out...see what happens. It's got to be very hard, I'm sure.

Unfortunately these were partial truths. I did intentionally withhold information. It was so stupid because I told her 99% of it. Why...why?

I've hurt her again and again and again. The one person in this world I want so much to be good to is the one person I continue to hurt. Seven months down the drain. The only silver lining is I do truly believe I was and have made progress in a lot of ways. I know I have to keep on but it is so discouraging to know that I was so close and now in a snap of the fingers it's gone.

Why...why?

Because you chose to. Own that. We tell lies to protect ourselves. We are hedonists. We don't want to cause ourselves pain. Self preservation. It's both a good and harmful thing. It's not about protecting others it's about protecting us.

We tell lies to protect ourselves. We are hedonists. We don't want to cause ourselves pain. Self preservation.

I have got to be the most selfish person on the planet because all my lies are for exactly this reason.

I'm about 99.9% sure if our little boy wasn't in the picture she would be gone so fast it would make my head spin. The depth of the pain I've caused her over and over again has finally and I think permanently ruined any chance of her trusting me again. I've simply lied too much.

As I sat on my knees praying last night it finally hit me I think. The true empathy I don't think I've ever truly felt before. Empathy for what I've done to her. And it's so hard because I love her so much. She's the one person I wish I could never hurt and the one person I've hurt the most. I don't understand my actions. I'm so selfish. It's hard to even say...I hurt my wife. Then I did it again. And again. I deserve to be alone. I do not deserve another chance. She deserves so much and all I have done is crush her. Her pain is so real I can feel it. I feel so sorry for her. Sorry that she trusted me. Sorry that she believed in me only so I could let her down again.

The only good news is she is still there because of our little dude. She told me yesterday to make the choice to be happy and just make the best of it but she only means in regard to our son and not each other. My plan now is to honor my vow I made to her and take it one day at a time. To finally let go of the outcome and just start over again with her happiness in mind and not my own. Today is day 1. If the days turn into months and eventually years and somehow some way we reconnect then great but I'm going into this with tempered expectations just wanting to do my best regardless. I think I've finally hit rock bottom this time. I have absolutely destroyed her. I've always told her to believe and to just have hope but I think this time I've even destroyed my own hope.

Before yesterday I had worked my tail off for 7 months and she had barely moved forward from day 1.

My WS does this quite often also, so let me gently give you some advice. You don't know what work your BS has or hasn't done. An affair is an immense emotional upheaval, so much of the repair is simply mental. The BS must begin to realize that they are not worthless, that they did nothing to cause you to have an A. They must decide if they still love the WS, they must decide if they want to try again. If there are children involved, they also become part of the mental acrobatics a BS performs daily. So please, do not say your BS has not moved forward (in your opinion)...she may be making huge leaps in coming to terms with your A, her life, and her future.

And gently, your work, life, marriage, etc... is not over "with the snap of fingers"

Your work should continue whether your marriage survives or not. You should want to be a better person, a person who would not hurt and treat someone as badly as you treated your BS. You should try to strive to become a person that shows at least respect, to people that you love.

Your life should continue on as you become the person that you want to be, regardless of whether your BS notices or remains in your life.

And lastly, your marriage. If your marriage ends...it ends because of the repeated decisions that you made to undermine it. Each decision was made over and over, time and time again. A marriage does not end because of a split second in time over one stupid decision. An marriage(with an A) ends over repeated deceptions, lost respect for one's spouse, and selfishness. Sometimes these things cannot be fixed and repaired. And if you continue to deceive your BS (and yourself) your marriage will have NO chance to survive.

The question becomes are you TRULY willing to lay EVERYTHING out on the line (absolutely everything), do everything your BS asks of you, fix yourself, be honest, giving 110% --- all the while knowing that, in the end, your marriage may still end? Are you willing to actually do that?

Good luck to you.

The question becomes are you TRULY willing to lay EVERYTHING out on the line (absolutely everything), do everything your BS asks of you, fix yourself, be honest, giving 110% --- all the while knowing that, in the end, your marriage may still end? Are you willing to actually do that?

I thought I was and I thought that's what I was doing but I now realize I was still being selfish. I was still doing it for me. I feel like I finally got it last night. After all this time of thinking I understood but really didn't.

The way I look at it now is there are 3 possible outcomes to my situation. 1) I give it my all and the marriage fails. 2) I give it my all and she cannot ever fully commit and I end up in some kind of limbo 3) I give it my all and eventually she is able to commit and we develop a new relationship, a new normal.

The thing is I am now OK with all of these outcomes. Of course I want number 3 more than anything but I now understand that I did this to her and the outcome isn't up to me. I will try my best and work hard to be better regardless of the outcome. So the answer to your question is yes. Yes I am willing to do that no matter what the outcome may be and I'm OK with that because I made a commitment to her and because I am the reason we are here in the first place I am going to honor it.