SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

He told me 3 weeks ago. Trickled the info over the course of 2 weeks. She’s 10 years younger, married with small children.

He ended it with her as I stood by. She was absolutely blindsided as they had planned to each take some time to let their partners know gently, and then be together. He tells me he knew all along this wasn’t right for him, but it felt like an addiction, and she wouldn’t give him space or time to think. He had planned for months to tell me, but stalled until she threatened to call me.

He says he knew all along he would end it. But why did it take a year!? He was in love with her, he said, but as she started to put the pressure on, it turned more and more sour and he wanted to be the one to tell me.

He seems very remorseful, ashamed, cut all contact, blocked and deleted her, avoids her. I’m hopeful on some days, on others I feel despair. He’s reading books, going to begin counseling, we had 2 sessions of MC. He’s answering all my deep questions in detail and insists I know everything, but I feel there is more. I’ve been drilling for more for a week but nothing new is coming.

He handed over his computer and phone but had already deleted everything.

I can’t stop crying, can’t stop looking at pictures from the last year in which everything seemed ok, and knowing it was all a lie.

I suspected it since a November, asked him indirectly a few times why he is so distracted, distant, cold towards me, why he’s spending so much time at work, why the dog walks are suddenly 2 hours long. He made me feel I was paranoid, and I believed him.

A year is a long time. It’s the typical progression... they became friends at work, started meeting for coffee at work, then outside work, then they kissed, met secretly to make out, she gave him BJs in the car, then they started going to hotels during the day. Had unprotected sex 8 times. Never spent the night together but I’m sure that would’ve been the next step.

Hi Arco, so sorry you have joined the infidelity club

Let’s just breath, now let’s start.

Let’s get him tested for STDs and STIs. Please seek legal advice for your location. You need to know your rights as well as his responsibilities.

Get hubby to write out a full time line of the A, including his emotions. Take your time before making any long term relationship decisions for a while due to your emotions being on a roller coaster.

People in A are cockroaches thriving in the dark, shine a light and expose their actions to all. Especially her husband.

One day at a time.

Buffer

[This message edited by Buffer at 4:36 AM, July 9th (Thursday)]

Thank you. I told the affair partner’s husband, but he already knew.

My husband has an appointment for STD testing next week.

We did a timeline, but I still feel like there are big holes. I didn’t focus much on the emotions, I will ask him to go back and add that.

The affair went over a year, my husband deleted all traces of her from his phone, email, and all of his calendar entries for the past year. So it’s very difficult to get an accurate timeline.

How long did it take before you actually got what felt like all the information?

Run a data recovery program on his phone. If you can't figure it out, you can think about looking for a PI or IT specialist to do it for you. Ask him if he will take a polygraph test. Just seeing his reaction may be telling.

You need to have a level of truth before you can move on from this. Otherwise, it will gnaw at you for years. He needs to be willing to give you that truth otherwise he's not remorseful and isn't putting in the effort to change from cheater to good spouse. Will he go to IC and figure out how and why he did this?

Get a copy of "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from your Affair" and tell him to read it. It covers the importance of the BS having the truth of the A and what else he can be doing to help you through this.

This might sound counterproductive to saving a marriage but…

Do your research on what divorce would look like.

Do it with your husbands knowledge.

Several reasons:

For one D is a very real possible outcome of this. Making that clear will probably focus you two better at the marriage. Sort of like you tend to be careful when running with scissors.

It makes you both realize that you both have options. Like if he trickle-truths you or refuses information or change… You know what options you have.

It makes the seriousness of the issues clearer.

I am so sorry you are here. You have gotten great advice already.

My dday was almost 14 months ago. I cried a lot the first few months. Probably every day. It does get better over time. Hugs to you!

I can’t stop crying, can’t stop looking at pictures from the last year in which everything seemed ok, and knowing it was all a lie.

This is actually one of the hardest part for me as well. My FWH had an on-and-off 2 year affair. So I have 2 years of picture memories and I always take a lot of pictures, especially of our family. He has ruined 2 years of photos. It is so hard to look at pictures of us together during this time. His arm around me, smiling, and looking like the perfect husband. Then I wonder was really going through his mind at the time.

Thank you all for your replies. He is reading that book at the moment, he claims he has told me everything. All of his messages are deleted. His phone broke in the meantime so we can’t recover. He has given me access to all his online accounts and passwords. I have GPS turned on. I feel like I maniac.

He promises that it will never happen again, it was the worst mistake of his life. That it was like a bad movie, he was stuck and he didn’t consider the consequences. That it has never happened before, he hasn’t even come close, and it will never happen again. He has cut her off completely. She’s changing jobs at the end of next week so he won’t see her. The sex between them began 4 months before D-day. Before that it was emotional and lots of kissing and fondling, meeting up and secret places, hotels at the end. He says he never spent more than three hours at one time with her.

He says he’s committed 100% to reconciling with me. It’s just my heart that won’t go along with this idea. He saw her on an almost daily basis for over a year, put so much energy into building a relationship with her, lived out his sexual fantasies with her, was so enthralled with her that he was ready to leave. It’s only when she started really putting all the pressure that he got cold feet and tried to back away. She wouldn’t give him any space, and he was addicted to her. It’s so weird that this woman and my husband know each other so intimately, inside and out, and I have never even known of her existence. Yet she lives 10 minutes from us.

He breaks down into tears seeing how upset I am. Any price at the thought of what he almost dead, what he did to me and to our children. I cry every day, wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks, wake up in the morning wishing I didn’t wake up anymore. I was a happy and joyful person before, I feel like I will never be the same. I want to believe that he loves me, but how could he do this for a whole year? How could he look me in the face, go on vacations with me, sleep next to me? We never fight, everything was harmonious, just a bit distance because he pulled away.

If anybody knows of a good therapist to help me get through this trauma, preferably somebody located on the east coast offering online therapy, please send me a PN!

He will not be safe for you unless he engages in individual counseling consistently and for the long term to figure out why cheating was ever an option for him. You will not be able to begin to trust him unless he becomes safe for you, and that only happens when he has resolved the issue(s) that made him cheat int he first place. It is obvious that he is not safe now as he has done no work on himself. He needs to begin this now. Period.

His phone broke in the meantime so we can’t recover.

How convenient.

Cheaters hone the art of lying, conning and gaslighting. Your inner warning system is screaming at you to be careful and that is why you feel like a maniac. It takes a long time to recover from something like this and you are in the very early days.

See, he has a big advantage. He held all the cards and intentionally kept information from you so you could not make important life decisions- like protecting your body from deadly STDs. He risked your life on purpose without your permission. He stole time and resources from the family and he tried to make you feel crazy by gas lightening you.

He also knew this was ending and had time to prepare. How nice for him.

Right now all the crying and words don't mean much. He's backed into a corner. To me it feels like you are only seeing the tip of a very big iceberg. Precede with extreme caution.

Lots of people think MC at this point is too soon. Individual counseling would probably be a better idea for both of you right now. He needs to find his why. You need a solid person to help you survive this initial trauma phase. A safe place to think, share, vent and cry.

I am so sorry you needed to find us, but glad you did.

He says he knew all along he would end it. But why did it take a year!? He was in love with her, he said, but as she started to put the pressure on, it turned more and more sour and he wanted to be the one to tell me.

Because it was not real. Real life means real responsibilities, means really actually doing things that matter, unfortunately this is what most affairs are is an a “escape“ from the real life responsibilities that we have.

She wanted to make it real, but then you go back to being in a relationship, with real responsibilities, real bills, real household experiences.

Perhaps he finally just pulled his own head out of his ass, and realize that maybe his real wife, and real family, had real value.

He says he knew all along he would end it. But why did it take a year!? He was in love with her, he said, but as she started to put the pressure on, it turned more and more sour and he wanted to be the one to tell me.

Or, perhaps he was just leading her on, and she really wanted something to happen, so she was going to force the issue, and if she had not tried to force the issue he would never have told you, and he would continue to cheat on you, as long as she was available and willing.

Unfortunately, that is the question that you will have to figure out, over time. It may not be something you can answer, and you probably can’t believe a word he saying right now.

This is my take on men, my opinion only. Men are visual creatures. They enjoy new exciting adventures. If things are rocky at home, they find ways to get 'satisfied', a good portion of men, not all. They haven't mastered self control or they let their inhibitions take over their self control. It becomes an addiction of sorts for them with all the chemicals in their brains causing them to crave that same feeling more and more. Men are wired differently. Wives need to take care of their husband's needs, whether or not things are rocky, but men need to respect their wives also, equally. Understanding that a man's needs do not stop whether their wife makes them sleep on the couch or not would help a lot of marriages if the couple could work through the issues and then take care of the needs. The saying goes, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." It helps if the man is satisfied in his marriage and there is two-way communication and honest, open communication, and you put the other's needs above your own. All that takes work. A lot of things I learned after 2 failed marriages where they were cheating, however, they had issues that I could never be able to resolve for them.

Thank you. I told the affair partner’s husband, but he already knew.

How long had he known and is it possible that he could assist in recovering the text messages from her phone ? and if deleted run recovery software ? If he has a google account, it has a GPS function and you could download that info and pretty much know where he went and when during his A.

You need to consult a D attorney ASAP to know your options (ask about a postnuptial agreement in your favor in case he cheats again), had she not put pressure on him this would still be ongoing, therefore he's NOT remorseful, he just regrets having to end it and tell you before she did.

I am so sorry that you are here. My heart aches for you. I don’t know if this will help you or not, but it sounds like your husband had an affair with my husband’s affair partner. It sounds like the exact same pattern of emotional and physical development of the “relationship” and the same entanglement. Even the same work-day sexual escapades. I’m over three years out from D Day and it seems like we are reconciled. I’m using the word “seems” because that blind faithfulness is forever gone.

Right after D day I visited the best divorce lawyer in my state and I have her on retainer, which gives me comfort and let my husband know that our marriage is over if he doesn’t respect our vows. She gave me a reference to the best family therapist, who I think helped save our marriage.

So, I hope that you find a path to happiness and recovery, no matter which way life takes you. Hang in there.

"Wives need to take care of their husband's needs, whether or not things are rocky, but men need to respect their wives also, equally. Understanding that a man's needs do not stop whether their wife makes them sleep on the couch or not would help a lot of marriages if the couple could work through the issues and then take care of the needs. The saying goes, "Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry." It helps if the man is satisfied in his marriage and there is two-way communication and honest, open communication, and you put the other's needs above your own."

You're joking, right? Wives need to take care of their husbands' needs whether things are rocky or not? It helps if the man is satisfied in his marriage? I bent over backwards to give my husband everything he needed or wanted. If he wanted to buy something, he got it, whether we could afford it or not, because he had decided it was 'his turn' in our marriage. Not that I ever got much of anything before it was 'his turn', mind you. If he wanted to do something, we did it, whether I wanted to or not. Because it was 'his turn'. I tolerated him treating me like shit for YEARS, didn't get any of my needs met for YEARS. It was all about him all the time, because it was 'his turn'. And you know what? The first time the office skank sent him a provocative text, he was all over it. Mooned over the woman he told me only days before was such a bitch, but hey, the moment she offered herself on a platter, she certainly wasn't a bitch anymore. Then she was hot and sexy and he 'loved' her

Don't you dare tell women they should have met their husbands' needs. There are plenty of women on here who spent years playing second fiddle to their husbands' needs and wants, who never took one damn thing for themselves and their husbands still cheated at the first opportunity. You know why? Because selfish people are selfish and they do whatever it takes to fulfill their selfish needs. Putting my husband's needs above my own got me nothing but being emotionally abused, neglected and cheated on. Looking back on it, my husband now knows what a colossal asshole he was, but at the time nothing could move him from taking what he wanted, regardless of the cost to me. I'll be damned if I'm going to take any responsiblity for the choices he made to build himself up at the cost of his wife and marriage.

CoderMom,

Clearly you still have a lot to learn after your two failed marriages. What in the hell kind of horseshit was that you were spewing?!

Wow...just wow. NOT helpful!

And yes, what Intothefray said, word for word.

How freaking dare you. SMH.

They enjoy new exciting adventures. If things are rocky at home, they find ways to get 'satisfied', a good portion of men, not all. They haven't mastered self control or they let their inhibitions take over their self control. It becomes an addiction of sorts for them with all the chemicals in their brains causing them to crave that same feeling more and more. Men are wired differently.

My W treated me horribly, things were very rocky at home, I bent over backwards to make her happy and she still cheated on me. I never looked outside the marriage for fulfillment, Cheating is not a home problem it’s a broken selfish person, you have a lot to learn.

I wonder if Codermom has been drinking that Marriagebuilders' crap. That site is run by a sexist dinosaur.

Agree, see a lawyer like yesterday. Your husband is one sad, broken, unsafe guy. Selfish and entitled, the hallmarks of NPD.