SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am writing as a recently caught cheater. I have been having an on and off affair with another woman for approximately 2 years. 11 days ago I was caught when she rang my wife and told her all. We have 2 young girls and a recently purchased new house. I have understandably crushed my wife and I have never experienced regret like this. It is the biggest mistake of my life.

I did and said things I never thought I would. I said some things to the other woman that were untrue and hurtful, including the infamous "I love you" which I did not and I love my wife.

I take full responsibility for what I have done and I want to fix my marriage. More than anything in the world and this I am certain of. But I know I need help because clearly I am sick in the head to have done to this my loving wife and our children. I also do not know why I would do anything to risk my amazing new house.

In order to help the process, I will be moving to a new apartment in 2 weeks and the lease for this new apartment is only for 6 months which we have agreed is the start of the process of healing. The ball is of course in her court because I want this to work very very much. We have told our kids that either daddy will be with mummy for Christmas, or not. That is our milestone but we both know that it will take longer than 6 months.

I have also had the first of many therapy sessions to begin healing myself. I need to fix myself before I can begin to fix my relationship with my wife.

Thank you to everyone for your tips and advice getting through this difficult process. I really appreciate any advice you can give to help me support my wife through this.

Welcome. Glad you decided to post. I'm also a WS. My circumstances different from yours, but I think I can add some helpful information for you. First of all, there is a book I recommend you read. It's called "Not 'Just Friends'" by Shirley P. Glass. I should've read it when I was first caught. If I had, I'm certain things would be much different than they are today. During this process, try your best to listen and be understanding. Don't allow yourself to become defensive or think that you have a right to be angry...you don't. It's going to be a long road, but you can make it. If you BOTH want to reconcile, you absolutely can. The main things to remember are these;

BE HONEST - Your BW is going to be asking you some questions and will be bringing up a lot of things that will hurt you. Be honest with her, no matter how badly the truth will hurt her. You have to allow her to make choices based in reality.

BE SELFLESS - All of us (WS's) were very selfish to do the things we have done. Now you have to be there for her. You have to be a healing partner if you want to make this work. Be sensitive. Let her know when you're thinking about the horrible things you've done. You can't apologize enough.

DON'T "RUG SWEEP" and LISTEN - Deal with things as they come up. Completely. Talk it out with her, show her you're listening, and remember, if you are thinking of the next thing to say, you aren't listening.

HAVE EMPATHY - It does seem that you're sorry for what you've done, i.e. you're in therapy and your starting to feel the consequences of your actions. This is probably the biggest point to make, you have to put yourself in your BW's shoes. Don't say or do anything to her, that you wouldn't want said or done to you in the same situation. Cry with her. Tell her how you feel. Communicate sincerely with her and hold her close if she will let you.

She really needs to see and feel how sorry you are. She needs to be absolutely certain you will never do anything like this again. This is just the beginning. Don't give up. Do everything you can and think before you act.

I truly hope this helps. I wish you a successful reconciliation and I hope you are both able to heal from this together.

One thing around here that you will find as gospel is that if you are still in contact with your Affair Partner (AP) then the affair is still on-going. What is the situation on that front?

If you haven’t already, sit down and compose a brief message to your AP that is succinct and indicates you are done. You have to come up with the message. Something along the lines of “Our relationship was inappropriate as I am a married man with a family. I’m choosing to end this relationship and I am committee firmly to my wife. I ask that you please honor our wishes and do not under any circumstances make any contact with any member of my family. I am blocking your contact on Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, SnapChat, phone and email (whichever of those apps may apply)

Do not write any goodbyes or anything like that. Just cut off contact. In my case, I wrote it, had my wife (From El Salvador) proofread it for the desired impact, because my AP (Mexican) didn’t speak English and while I’m fluent, I used my wife’s naive tongue with my AP to send the right message. After that,

I handed my phone to my wife and had her do the honors of

Blocking and deleting this woman from everything. I also went ahead and had my wife nuke all my social media at the time. I’ve been off Facebook et al since that day and haven’t looked back.

This is a gesture you could setup in a similar fashion with your wife. She should be a witness to your dejare for No Contact. She should also now have your password to your phone and email accounts so that she can verify you have gone radio

Silent from time to time.

The betrayed spouse is not able to really begin healing in earnest until the affair has stopped. So this is an important first step to take but unfortunately it is the bare minimum needed at this point in time.

Hi to both

Thank you for your replies and support.

Fugari03 - thank you for the book recommendation and advice. I spend a lot of my days reflecting on these things but all these things will also really help. I know we are in for a long road together, but hoping these 6 months when I move out will help towards recovery.

Bor9455 - kind of a "funny" story but I actually did this on request from my wife. I wrote a big message,I was sincere and I checked with my wife if she was happy about it before I sent it. The wife has since said that the message looked fake and like she "made me" write it. She is now considering another "more sincere" message. As for all the social media I have already deleted and blocked everything and I have zero contact with her. Problem will be once I go back to work in middle of August where she also works but looking at possible solutions to this though my boss.

Welcome,

I would recommend two additional books (recommended many times on here by others)

Out of the Doghouse by Bob Weiss. A straight to the point book, does have some controversial points of view, but a good book to help you heal the damage caused to you BS.

How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda Macdonald. A great book well worth reading.

Both are short and help get the message across.

Please speak to your boss at work. Recovery cannot happen without completely breaking from the affair, which cannot happen while you work together.

Stick with the board and people here will help.

Thank you Bulcy

Since you mentioned that you work with this woman in some capacity, I would advise you that you begin looking for a job somewhere else. Maybe in the interim, your boss can help you find ways to work opposite her schedule or be transitioned to a different department where you won’t interact with her in the interim, but if you are truly contrite and want to help your BW get some peace of mind that it is really no contact, I would tell you that a new job somewhere else is a top priority.

Also, more about your AP, does she have a husband and family? If she does have a husband, he should know about his wife. He has just as much of a right to know about what happened between you two as your wife does.

So why did your AP blow things up with your BW?

Was the AP trying to 'nudge' you to leave your wife for her?

A lot of us played our AP's and said and did things. The greatest one is 'I'll leave my wife when...(kids are grown, I have my money sorted out, etc). So many lies to keep the A going.

My AP went nuclear on my BW after I broke off the A so I can relate to what is going on here.

This is all raw and new as you are only 2 weeks out from D-Day.

If you want any hope of reconciling with your wife you need to find another job. You working with the AP will be a disaster for your BW.

Sorry, I've done my first two posts here on mobile, got to my desktop, where I feel like I can type more.

Your BW is going to want information about the affair at some point. One suggestion that I have for you is to put together two timelines, one of them is a more general, 1000 ft view of the events, and the other one is more detailed, and has a bit more of the details about the meet ups, etc. You can share with her, both timelines, the more detail heavy and the less detailed one. Let her decide which one she wants to have. There is a caveat, once a BS hears the sordid details of locations, times, sexual positions, any kinks you might have explored, etc, they cannot unhear them. So, it is best to put that level of detail in the "detailed" timeline and keep that stuff out of the other. Every BS is different, some of them hear those details and have mind movies that they cannot purge, others are just fine with it and sometimes feel like they need those granular details to heal.

The timeline is an important piece that your BW will need to understand how it all happened, and put some context and clarity to the events of the affair.

As I also mentioned, it is time to look at the Help Wanted ads. I take it based on your use of "mummy" in our introductory post that you might not be from the US, where Covid is still raging along. I would still advise you to look for a job here in the US, but of course good jobs are going to be harder to come by with Covid and the economic fallout that has accompanied this pandemic. So, start looking for a job and finding a way out of the job with your AP. Your BW will never be able to get off pins and needles with you still working with her in any capacity. Maybe you are able to work something out with your boss in the interim to avoid her entirely, but long term you or her got to find new employment. Since you cannot control your AP, you get yourself out of the situation where you could have continuing contact with her.

I would really look at the readings suggested by the board here. I know that reading them helped my wife and I both with our recovery. It helped us to understand the pain that we had put each other through and also how to take steps to try and rebuild trust. This is a long journey and reconciliation is a gift given to Waywards, so you have to prove to your wife that you are a worthy recipient of said gift. That will take more than words and a few actions.

If you haven't already given your wife full transparency on all your accounts and devices, I would suggest you do so right away. Another thing that my IC suggested that I liked, was be deliberate about your actions. When you are going to the grocery store, tell her, "I'm going to the store and I expect to be back in 30 minutes." If you are running late on the trip back from the store, let her know that you got held up at the checkout or something like that. She will be able to verify your location with you sharing your location, and also a receipt for the groceries with a timestamp. By being deliberate about your whereabouts and your communication, you are showing her that you care about her and you want to be honest with her. Keep in mind, that you haven't been honest with her for a long time, and while this exercise may seem a little bit over the top, it does help.

One thing from your initial post that I want to correct, you said that this was the "biggest mistake of my life." I'm not attacking you outright with this, but that is not the right approach and framing to use here. A mistake/accident is something like dropping a glass of water on the floor and having to mop up the spilt water and the sweeping up the broken shards of glass. Affairs are not in the category of a mistake. Obviously, I would have to know more about your story, but given that you work with your AP in some capacity, she didn't just slip, fall and land on you while both of your clothes magically flew off in that same fell swoop. This was a series of choices that you made little by little over approximately 2 years. I think you get the picture, I'm not on my high horse, but I want to be clear, affairs may be something that we feel are "wrong" and a "mistake" in the aftermath, but they were something that in the moment we gave ourselves permission to participate in.

Your IC will be important that you get in and figure out your Whys. Why did you give yourself permission to pursue a relationship with another woman. There is something about your past that made you feel that it was alright to pursue the feelings that this AP caused you to feel. It was less about the AP, but more about what she represents. Your IC should be helpful, as long as your are honest about the past with them. Also, if the IC tries to blame your marriage, I would find another one. Your wife is 50% responsible for the state of your marriage at the time of the infidelity, but she didn't cause you to cheat. We as Waywards 100% the cheating part of that equation. Some ICs will try to put the infidelity on the Betrayed Spouse, and that isn't a recipe for success in therapy.

Good luck and keep posting. The group here will be available to help you as you push through this and work on yourself.

Thank you both for your posts and advice.

MrCleanSlate - yes I had been promising to leave my wife over the 2 years on and off and then it blew up when my wife and I began to make things work at home and my wife began contacting a mutual friend to investigate.

Bor9455 - thank you so much for taking the time to write all this. I really appreciate the advice and tips. The "biggest mistake of my life" part really hit home as I do say that often but the response is often "this was more than a mistake".

We are based in Sweden but I have already started IC and I know my wife is starting too. I am moving out next week to stay in another apartment in a 6 month lease which will give us time apart to reconcile too, but keeping good contact especially for our children.