SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Last night my WW and I went through her infidelity step by step. It was awful, but it rang mostly true.

She went to another man's house at his invite "to hang out." I was out of town with our daughter, and he was a friend. She claims to have believed it was (or at least could be) innocent, but she admits that it obviously wasn't an invite that was appropriate to accept, even on the surface.

He was praising her beauty, telling her how wonderful she was, etc. He was hitting on her hard, in other words, and things led to the only thing they could: he began kissing her. She pulled away, saying, "I shouldn't be doing this," but she didn't leave. She didn't stop him. He started undressing her. Again, "shouldn't" but without any effort to leave or to make him stop. Sex followed, initiated by him. She cried after and covered herself, ashamed. She met with him the next day to discuss how no one could ever know, got assurances no one would, then began to cry again. He suggested they not do this in public to spare her the embarrassment. Naturally, back to his place they went, where essentially the same scene replayed itself, complete with her teary-eyed departure. Thereafter, she claims the only contact they had was phone and facebook, partially due to fear of discovery. I sincerely want to believe her, and she gives no sign of holding back. She knows how wounded I am, though, so I still fear it continued until d-day but that she won't tell me because the truth will somehow be too much to bear.

I know that I'd made her feel unloved, unliked, unwanted in any way BUT physically. I acknowledge my role in making the marriage seem unsustainable. Her account is essentially that she was brokenhearted & had given up on us, only to realize (too late, she feared) that she didn't want our marriage to end.

We're working on R, are in both MC and IC, but I'm having a big problem trusting that what I'm being told is reliable, both with regard to her feelings for the OM and their activities together. Logically, it doesn't matter; I know she had sex with him. How often, her role, her opinions/feelings on it/him. . . all of those are matters of little importance next to the fact that she did it at all.

I know it's normal to be hesitant to trust, but I WANT to trust her again so that we can at least begin to move forward with R. How do I connect my logic to my emotions?

[This message edited by hrtbrkn77 at 8:12 AM, May 13th (Tuesday)]

You and I are in a similar situation.

I told my wife early on in our relationship that I could not be in a relationship with someone that I could not trust so her admission of her ONS really shook me to my core. It caused me to re-evaluate what was important in my life. When I was single without children I told myself that I would never tolerate such a breach of trust.

The reality of being a husband & father of two young children caused me to rethink this. In the end I realized that trust is freely given to someone and then the person “earns” the right to keep it over time. My wife and I had been together for almost 10 years when she had her ONS. I told her that she had depleted a large portion of the trust she had earned in her account but had not overdrawn the account yet so I could still stay in the marriage as long as she was committed to not repeating her mistake. Again I gave her the trust and she is now “earning” the trust back.

[This message edited by BetrayedbyONS at 12:13 PM, May 13th (Tuesday)]

I think of it differently - for me, trust is one of the things that came back late in the game, about 3 years after D-Day.

My W earned trust by answering lots of questions - many of them several times - and by making changes. It takes a long time for changes to take hold, and she was dangerous until that happened, and trust came after she had new habits WRT showing love, honesty, integrity, etc.

In other words, since you don't fully trust your W, keep asking Qs when you feel it's appropriate, and watch your W's behavior. That's how she'll make or break her part of R.

Along the way, each honest action added to the trust bank, but as I say it took around 3 years for her to build up the minimum required balance.

Just wanted to reach out and send some support your way... This must've been so hard to hear... I am wishing peace and healing for you.

hrtbrkn:

Your mind and your heart will be doing a tug of war for a while. While I can understand on some level where my H was that "allowed" him to cheat, it is still a bitter pill to swallow.

Things that have helped me:

+Realizing it was not about me, and that I played very little into what he chose to do or not do;

+That preexisting conditions in our marriage helped set the stage for infidelity, but did not cause it. After all, I was in the same marriage;

+That understanding my H's why only gets me part of the way to healing.

+Trust takes a long time to earn back, and through lots of consistent action.

+Hearing the details, as much as you want, helps both you and her.

Your narrative misses the lead in to these events. Maybe you know them, but if not you should ask. It may help you recognize trouble ahead sometime in the future.

Your narrative misses the lead in to these events. Maybe you know them, but if not you should ask. It may help you recognize trouble ahead sometime in the future

.

The lead in was our lives. In hindsight, I knew she was unhappy, knew she wanted counseling, knew she felt I didn't like her (she'd even begun to doubt I loved her). I ignored it all and/or passed it off as fleeting, despite the frequent recurrence of her mentioning all of them.

He's a younger guy from our gym who was ballsy enough to flirt and flatter then outright ask her over when he sensed vulnerability. She can't fully explain wtf possessed her to take him up on it, but IC should get to the bottom of the motivations and ways to avoid them in the future.

I didn't make her cheat, but I did make her unhappily married. We're working on both.

Thank you all for the well wishes.

It hurts so much to hear the details but the fact that your WW told them to you even though it could have driven you to D is a very big first step. As for whether it's the entire truth, well, yes that's the rub. If she's holding back information, that will only hold your healing back or completely derail your chances of R. I hope she is aware of that and if she isn't then tell her directly. A's damage the BS's ability to trust what's real, and that is so confusing and emotionally draining. WS's are clueless about this often. If something isn't sitting right with you, like her timeline for instance, then I'd dig a little deeper to find the answer.

Once we have what seems to be a complete understanding of the A events, then we can start putting together a narrative and fit it into our understanding of reality and start the process of assimilating that reality in our minds.

You won't trust her for a long time. Every time she shows you she is being trustworthy she is adding to that trust bank. Your bank is pretty much empty now and she has a lot of work to do to fill it back up. Consistency and her being aware of what you need are key.