SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Well, well, well. It’s been 10 months since my last post here. To say it has been a rollercoaster ride is the understatement of the year, decade & century.

For those of you unfamiliar with my story, here’s a link to my introductory post from August of last year:

SurvivingInfidelity.com - 40 Years Ago - Still A Problem Today

I’ve learned a great deal – mostly through the school of hard knocks. To this very day, I am still learning. You will find a partial list of these learnings below. Hope these will help others in navigating through the carnage your cheating spouse has created. Other than the first three items on the list, they are in no particular order of importance:

1. Read the threads here on SI, ask questions and seek advice of other members! It will help you enormously in embarking on the Road To Reconciliation – OR – the Drive To Divorce.

2. Get professional counseling! If you are the least bit uncomfortable with your counselor, find a different one.

3. Trust your gut……trust your instinct……trust yourself. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.

4. Nothing makes your partner’s cheating okay or diminishes its severity. Nothing.

5. Don’t waste time wondering how long it will take to navigate your way through the damage wrought by the affair. Everyone is different. Really.

6. Don’t waste time wondering whether your viewpoints, reactions, emotions and opinions are right or wrong. Every affair is unique. You are unique.

7. DO seek out your counselor’s and other SI members’ viewpoints and opinions on any aspect of your situation that you are troubled by or uncertain about.

8. It is perfectly okay to disagree with some input and opinions you receive. (BUT…..see next item)

9. It is NOT okay to simply reject any advice given without considering its merits.

10. It is never, ever right to seek advice and then attack a responder because you don’t agree. Simply don’t respond or very respectfully disagree.

11. Truth will set you free. Half-truths, “I don’t recall” and “exculpatory only memories”** are the same as lies. Treat them accordingly.

12. Track down “the other spouse” and tell them about the affair. They need to know. It’s the right thing to do. It will be liberating for you.

**There will be more on the topic of “exculpatory only memories” in a forthcoming post.

You went to my school!

And apparently did very well!

[This message edited by HardKnocks at 10:22 AM, July 14th (Wednesday)]

So sorry @RaleighGuy for what you have had to deal with in your life for the past 40+ years of your marriage.

I went back and read all of your post since you first posted last Aug. I did not see that you ever posted how your wife did on her Polygraph Test that was scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 13, 2020.

Also, are you guys still together and continuing to work on the marriage? One last question does your two sons know about the affair? I know in a post last fall that you hope the kids never found out what the mom did. Just curious if that had changed. Best of luck!

[This message edited by HappilyMarried1 at 10:20 AM, July 14th (Wednesday)]

Good to hear from you, RG!

RG,

Did you ever go the route of the polygraph to relieve your other concerns? You mentioned the possibility of doing so, but I didn't see if this has occurred.

Did you ever hear any follow-up from or about the OBW and/or the AP after you informed her of the A?

Long time no see. I take it she failed the polygraph, or you got a parking lot confession?

And you talked to the other betrayed spouse?

What you said about exculpatory only memories. Yes. That's why I recommend BS's always position disclosure (written timeline and poly) from their WS's the same as a court of law: the truth, the WHOLE truth, and NOTHING BUT the truth.

No lies of omission. No half truths. No red herring lies to break the hounds off the scent.

Just the facts.

[This message edited by Thumos at 1:04 PM, July 14th (Wednesday)]

Hard Knocks: I graduated with honors and have been nominated for Chancellor!

Happily Married: Thanks for your response! No, I did not go through the polygraph. I cancelled it two days before it was scheduled (at considerable expense) because I didn’t think it would yield what I wanted – at that time anyway. It may travel down that path again shortly given my frustration at the stalemate we’re in.

We are continuing to work on defining our relationship but I still don’t where things are going. In addition to banning the words “married’, “husband” and “wife” when referring to one another, there’ve been other casualties as well. We passed our 41st anniversary with zero mention of it – let alone cards or gifts. In my mind, her actions invalidated that ceremony. I married her under false pretense and will no longer tolerate any reference to it.

As for telling our sons: Absolutely no. This has done enough damage without bringing them directly into what happened. Despite what she did, I will not ever attempt to taint their love for her. I did however meet with both of them several months ago to let them know there were problems and that we no longer shared the same bedroom.

HouseOfPlane: Good to hear from you as well!

Jb3199 & Thumos: Howdy! No…….I cancelled it two days before it was scheduled. See response to Happily Married above for more details. It may come back for reconsideration shortly; however.

ButfortheGrace: No…….she has never reached out to me since we spoke last September. Have to admit I am somewhat disappointed – but not entirely surprised by this. There are several ways this could be interpreted, but at the end of the day her motives for not contacting me are of little/no consequence. And more than most people, I am abundantly aware of how things can fester for a very long time before an overwhelming urgency to find out more consumes people. It sure happened to me. She may call me back yet………..

Sounds like you've made a lot of progress in healing. I'm really glad you faced your unhappiness and are doing something about it. It's never too late to heal a festering wound.

Just read your story. My heart aches for you. Spending 40 years wondering and suffering from her betrayal could have been my fate. I discovered my ex-wife's second affair and immediately ended my nightmare of a marriage. I blew at least six years of my life with this serial cheater. I did make the stupid mistake of giving her a second chance and of continuing a "friendship" after the divorce because of our three-year-old son. I recently ended that relationship when I discovered she had been badmouthing me to everyone.

I could kick myself for allowing her to maintain any level of contact with me after my son reached eighteen. It has now been 36 years and I have as much contempt for her as I did when we were last married.

You are the poster child for someone who should have immediately ended the marriage when you discovered her affair but didn't do it. The fact that there may have been others is really infuriating. The fact that her employer threw her a wedding shower is simply bone-crushing disgusting. I hope you blew up the AP's marriage.

Stick with the polygraph exam. You indicated that she has confessed that she continued the affair after your marriage. Did she continue the affair after your discovery of the letters and birth control pills? That puts the timeline at about one month after the two of you married. If it turns out that she continued to cheat after your discovery or had subsequent affairs, I would leave her, the financial consequences be damned.

I suggest the following if you have questions regarding paternity, and I recently did do it myself. If your sons don't look a lot like you, run a DNA test on them. It will help you bring closure if you are concerned that she may have cheated while she was trying to conceive.

I truly believe that the truth will set you free. I hope your investigation leads you to the truth so that you can either put your demons to rest or take appropriate steps to find peace.

Your WW owes you the truth. Keep driving that point into her head.

[This message edited by src9043 at 5:17 PM, July 14th (Wednesday)]

Well well well....look who found his way back to SI.

The obvious question is why in the world you would cancel the poly (two days before)???

Yes you already answered this.

One of the reasons where you're at right now is because you didn't follow through on the poly.

You desperately were seeking answers last year and you were about to get them and you hit the eject button.

Something tells me you're too afraid to find the truth.

You want her to be honest? Why don't you start getting honest with yourself first.

Hope you find what you're seeking. Maybe come back next year or the year after to give us an update.

One more thing.

In your original thread she finally came clean that the affair continued after you were married and the reason she did was you bringing up her taking a poly.

So by doing this you had a solution to getting answers that you've been desperately seeking for over FORTY YEARS!!

So many other unanswered questions and two days before the poly you canceled it????

You didn't even pull in the parking lot for crying out loud.

You are where you are right now (and the past 40 yrs) not because of her but because of you.

As much as you whine about not having her remember and give you the truth it sure damn looks like you Do NOT really want it or else you would have followed through on the poly ESPECIALLY seeing that just the mention of it got you an answer that you had been struggling to confirm for over FORTY YEARS!!

I think it would be useful to you if you would step back and figure out what your target it. Right now, you remind me of a person wearing a virtual reality device, standing alone in a room flailing away. Have you ever watched that?

Your WW's strategy, for 40 years, has been to kick the can down the road and, when the issue arises, lie, reveal only that which is known and even as to that, minimize, DARVO, and deflect. It has been a successful strategy assuming her goal is to remain married on paper regardless of the diminished intimacy resulting from her infidelity. At the very least, she has seen essentially zero consequences for her actions other than, as noted, some diminished level of intimacy with you.

What's your plan? It's obvious to us that, up until now, your path has been "keep doing what I'm doing, and getting what I'm getting."

If you're ready to leave the marriage, then leave it. You have more than enough reason. If you plan to stay in the marriage, then my view is that you have zero leverage to squeeze more truth out of her. She clearly has no plans to give you more.

SRC9043:

One of our boys looks like me, but the other does not. Were you able to pull off a DNA test w/o your children knowing?

You are the poster child for someone who should have immediately ended the marriage when you discovered her affair but didn't do it. The fact that there may have been others is really infuriating. The fact that her employer threw her a wedding shower is simply bone-crushing disgusting. I hope you blew up the AP's marriage.

Truer words have never been spoken. If I had been able to deal with it back at the time of discovery, we would not be married now. I've been quite candid about this with myself and my wife. As for the wedding shower: Couldn't agree more. I spent 40 years in a multitude of office environments and know almost 100% of workplace affairs are known to some/most/all coworkers. No way this one escaped detection.

Oh RaleighGuy,

Seems you passed your classes but failed your practicum. I am sad.

[This message edited by HardKnocks at 10:10 AM, July 15th (Thursday)]

RaleighGuy: From time to time the paternity of my son would pop into my head. I discovered SI about nine months ago and after reading a number of stories I could not shake the issue from my head. In conjunction with that feeling, my ex-wife was on a campaign to badmouth me to my son, daughter-in-law, and her parents. This was totally uncalled for and unjustified. Word got back to me what she was doing and I told my son I was angry and felt the need to defend myself. I told him that the story of our marriage was ugly and that I would tell it to him if he wanted to know. He did, so I revealed to him her infidelity. Months go by and I can't shake the knawing feeling regarding paternity.

I bought two test kits from 23 and me DNA for him and his wife. I told them that I thought it would be a good idea that they become aware of possible health issues they might face in the future. They decided not to take the DNA tests due to privacy concerns. I gave up on my plan for testing my son. But I couldn't shake the feeling. I then flat out asked my son to just take the DNA test regarding ancestry tracking from Ancestry DNA only and he said sure, Dad. I told him that my girlfriend had an interesting result that I would like to investigate and it would require him to take the test. That is true, not a lie, but my prime motive was to get him to take the test to determine paternity.

I shared this information on SI and I caught hell from several SI members for my subterfuge. It's still posted under General for your information if you care to read it.

Anyway, just before midnight on Fathers' Day, I receive an email from my son with an attachment showing the first page of his DNA matches. It shows me as his biological father. He was quite excited as to the result and, obviously, so was I.

We never discussed why I really wanted the test but I am sure he knows given his reaction and excitement over the results and the fact he sent me the first page of the results. Sometimes, some things are better left unsaid. I followed my gut in handling this issue. It worked out great and now I am at peace. I sincerely wish with all my heart that you find similar solace.

I was a champion rug sweeper, aided and abetted by a terrible MC. But for me catching the ex-wife again 10 years into the marriage, I would find myself exactly where you are today. All I can say is that you owe your WW nothing. You owe yourself the complete truth. If your wife has any sense of compassion she owes you the truth also. God speed RG.

One of our boys looks like me, but the other does not. Were you able to pull off a DNA test w/o your children knowing?

23andMe or Ancestry-dot-com.

The stuff found out within my extended family from these tests...mind-boggling.

SRC9043 & HouseOfPlane If I were to venture down this path, 100% secrecy is a MUST. The 23andMe kit requires the person to be tested to spit saliva into a tube which will be shipped to their lab for analysis. Along with my own; of course. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a reason to request such a test without a zillion questions from either of our boys - not to mention my WW. I probably read too many detective novels and watch too many crime shows. But I wonder if kits are available where the DNA from a glass, cup, straw, etc can be submitted. I could easily obtain this after one of our frequent get togethers.

RG: I haven't researched it, but I assume you can find a lab that might provide the service you describe to the public for a price. You might wish to include a question in the polygraph exam, if you decide to have her do it, as to whether she was involved with another man while conceiving either child.

My son didn't ask me one question as to why I wanted him to take the test. I am convinced he knew. I assume your kids do not know about your WW's affair and you want to keep it that way.

Have you asked your WW point-blank whether she was also screwing some other guy when your children were conceived? My ex-wife was doing that when we were attempting to have another child.

[This message edited by src9043 at 4:29 PM, July 15th (Thursday)]

Raleigh Guy,

I would consider doing Ancestry as a family project. Everyone – you, WW and your boys do it. Just position it as a fun family thing - it would be cool to do and let’s see how accurate they really are and everyone gets their own report. Your WW’s reaction to this might be quite telling.