SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Here is a thought I've been haunted with about this threat. First, NT holds strong, principled religious beliefs and he walks the talk. I assume his WW holds similar beliefs (this assumption based on the generality that religion is perhaps the most common denominator shared by married people), or at least professes to hold them. At the very least, she is certainly well aware of NT's religious and moral belief framework.

Second, there is the history with NT's mother, which he has discussed with his WW, and which adds yet another layer to the fact that sexual infidelity is a hard no for NT.

Yet, despite being intimately familiar with these two data points, NT's WW cheated, and then admitted it to him voluntarily, without discovery. If I'm not mistaken, NT may not have otherwise discovered the infidelity.

All along I have wondered if this was a passive-aggressive way for NT's STBXW to drive a divorce. Hearing that she is now out with the AP, my sense about this is reinforced. A sort of suicide-by-cop.

She's been calling nonstop and is over here begging to to talk and it's not what I think I also don't think it's an exit affair if she wants to stay with me she's probably just stupid. Well whatever I'm filing without her and since the kids want me and not her I hope I can get the house to. Going to have to tell them about this to

I'm not suggesting it's an exit affair. I'm suggesting something different. Perhaps a "decoy affair". Or, maybe, a "proxy affair". Some sense that the affair for her is a tool to an end, the end being the sole acceptable reason for divorce under your belief framework.

Something important to note is that I do believe she's sincere in her faith. The reason I say this is that divorce and remarriage for any other reason than adultery is a sin. However the spouse that commits adultery cannot be married or date again, lest they live in a constant state of adultery by living in a fake marriage God doesn't acknowledge.

Apparently it was for closure she doesn't know I can read their texts and he wanted to meet her and she went for some reason. Told him she ruined it all for nothing and now she has nothing to lose. She also looked Terrible in the restaurant.

If it is an exit affair I don't know what she would gain by the fake remorse. Perhaps she knows I can see the messages and had some grand plan by lying in them? I don't know

If it is an exit affair I don't know what she would gain by the fake remorse. Perhaps she knows I can see the messages and had some grand plan by lying in them? I don't know

I actually agree with this. I think she likely DOES know you can read her messages and has set up a condition that you couldn’t possibly ignore. Given the raw emotions in play here, she had to know that (while reconciling) going to "get closure" with the guy was either an act of supreme idiocy and she hoped she could luck out and not get caught— or that you would react the way you did. You clearly were never going to sweep this under a rug and forget it.

She didn’t have to tell you about cheating. You could still be blissfully unaware of all of it, right now. So why tell you?

You don’t give out many details so I’m assuming you confronted her with him. Did she at least admit the optics on her action look terrible?

[This message edited by KingofNothing at 4:52 PM, Saturday, March 26th]

OP - It still doesn’t answer the question of what her thought process/motivation was to tell you about the ONS?

Who meets with a ONS for closure?

How did she know you knew about the meeting?

Did she divulge the A due to her faith, guilt? What did she hope to achieve?

Well, I think different (maybe I'm wrong).

Here are some facts :

- You say she's sincere in her faith
- You've been clear that there's no way you will reconcile
- Her children are very angry with her

If I try to adopt her point of view : in just a few days, she confessed to having an affair, she lost her marriage, her relationship with her children was severely damaged, she knows she's going for a divorce and may take a financial hit, etc.
Usually, affairs begin with some kind of "friendship". The AP is usually a sort of confident, then the friendship drifts to an EA, then a PA.
It seems here to be the case (you said somewhere that they have been corresponding for a long time before having sex).

Here is my 2 cent : she's losing everything. At one point, this guy sent a message to check in. And she went to a restaurant to see a "friend/confident" and be reassured while she is losing everything. Who else? Her mother? Is she close to her mother in general? Or to another friend? That's the most simple explanation. I don't believe in some sort of great plan. Just a person who completely suffers the consequences of her actions and talked to the only person she saw as a confident at the moment.

I didn't read it, but did she tell you WHY she confessed her affair?

Just a last point : it's OK if you want to reconcile or not, that's up to you. I don't want to push you in a direction.
I think, however, that there is something unsolved about you even if you think it is solved.
Look at your first message :

First I just wanted to say I hate my mother...

later :

I don't hate her though. I don't particularly like her or even love her but I don't hate her.

Deep down, do you think you have solved this conflict with your mother? Do you feel at peace with it?

Regardless of the fact that she confessed it as a ONS, there was probably more. At a minimum she probably developed an EA with the OP prior to the ONS. Now she's a pariah seemingly with nobody else that considers her to be anything other than a cheating whore. Except the OP. The OP is someone she that can commiserate with that doesn't consider her an evil POS.

Even if she's remorseful, she's looking for a future where she seems to have none. If he's dangling something out there for her, even something she really didn't really want, she may fall back into it.

If you have Christian love for her as a human being I'd suggest that you tell her that she needs to seek counselling through the church. She has a lot of work to be someone who can get right with God and begin living her faith again.

Talked to my wife and I made a mistake and she wasn't meeting with the guy but with her brother (who is also her boss) to tell her about the future of her job because she had a relationship with a client. So it actually wasn't what I thought and she didn't want to trouble me or her mom about maybe losing her job. I guess I thought he looked like him because they were in the very back of the restaurant all I saw was her with a guy and I left. So there's that I guess.

And yeah it's confirmed her brother he showed me the recipe because I wouldn't believe them I'm an idiot

Message deleted after OP's clarification.

[This message edited by src9043 at 9:47 PM, Saturday, March 26th]

And yeah it's confirmed her brother he showed me the recipe because I wouldn't believe them I'm an idiot

Please ignore my last two posts. Not relevant any longer.

And yeah it's confirmed her brother he showed me the recipe because I wouldn't believe them I'm an idiot

You are not an idiot. Especially for not believing her after her affair. Most if not all cheaters attempt lie, deny and downplay even with proof.

Her whereabouts and whom she was with has been proven to you and to your satisfaction. Excellent.

Should you trust her going forward? Not in the least. Broken trust will always remain that - broken.

This is just one more consequence to her affair she hadn't considered.

You have no reason to feel stupid, embarrassed or ashamed. Those feelings are for her to claim ownership over as the affair and the resulting damage were because of her choices.

[This message edited by smolderingdark at 1:47 PM, Sunday, March 27th]

It's not contradictory to love and forgive - but still decide to divorce her.

IMO forgiveness benefits you. Forgiving her allows you to live the best version of your life and be the best possible parent.

I’ve always found it particularly vexing when someone comes from a home ruined by infidelity. The broken family, tattered relationships. All the damage.

And then their spouse, who has full knowledge of this, decides to cheat.

OK ... I think you're getting somewhere with 'I'm a mess' and 'I'm an idiot'.

You are likely to be a mess - that's virtually universal for BSes. Frankly, IMO, realizing that is the first step in healing.

You are NOT an idiot. There's no single path to recovery, and we get no training in finding the path. You jumped to some conclusions; that's very human. You can forgive yourself, and I hope you do.

IMO, you jumped to D without thinking about it. I believe you made some decisions about M when you were a kid who knew nothing about life, and it's a really lousy idea to let that childhood decision govern your adult life, when as a child you knew only what you observed from your adult father.

You're an adult now, and you owe it to yourself, your kids, and even your W to make decisions as an adult with your adult knowledge.

If you're reporting your religious beliefs accurately, you still have to D. But ... I'm Jewish, and some interpretations of Jewish law say one must D if one's W commits adultery. But I checked with some pretty fundamentalist rabbis, and they counseled me to R. So I recommend checking with your religious leader to make sure you interpretation is correct, and remember: even if your religion allows both D & R, you are still free to choose D.

I think it's fair to say that all of us want our WSes to have stayed faithful, but that's not what happened. Given your W's A, though, what do you want? I think R is possible for you, if you want it.

Understand that it's OK to have to deal with mixed feelings - for many of us, it's not an easy choice, especially when one's WS is remorseful, as your W probably is. I think you may find yourself choosing D because of your beliefs, even though you think R is possible. It's fine to D under those conditions, but healing will require you to resolve your mixed feelings. Even if they're not mixed, you will have to deal with your anger, grief, fear, and shame - the normal feelings that come with being betrayed.

I know I've written about D vs R, but my hope is to help you deal with being a mess. The feelings that come with being betrayed are beyond awful. Early on, there is no obvious winning choice - you have to choose between staying with someone who hurt you or leaving someone you've loved.

If you continue to accept and deal with your feelings, however, you will find a winning choice - the knowledge that you can find joy after being betrayed, either through D or R.

You're a mess because your whole reality has been shattered and you're trying to reconstruct it around this new knowledge. This is a traumatic experience. The podcasts linked in the first post of this thread are really helpful for understanding what you're going through.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/617809/finally--therapists-that-get-what-a-bs-goes-through/

After D-day the emotions come in waves. Most people experience all of them but in different degrees and at different times. Your first reaction was justifiably anger. But now that that big wave of anger has moderated somewhat you are feeling other things.

Seeing your WW looking so terrible has probably fanned the ember of love that you feel for the woman you thought that you knew. You feel some empathy for this woman who has now destroyed her life and yours through a stupid, selfish act and is realizing that she now has to live with that. You are probably feeling some sadness for the loss of that partner you knew. You're probably feeling some fear over what the future holds for you and your children. Will you be happy again?

All of this is normal. And the answer is yes. You will be happy again. If you get help and address these feelings head on.

I get that you had a bad experience with therapy in the past. But you need to find someone to help you address all the things that you are feeling and understand them. I don't think harboring all the bitterness that you have for your mother has been a good force in your life. And doing the same for your WW will only make things worse.

Maybe your church has some faith based resources that you can turn to.

BTW, although you were mistaken about seeing your WW with OM, you still did see texts that suggested that he was trying to arrange a meeting. And she still did say that she has nothing to lose at this point. OM seems to be her only source of support right now. Without any kind of negotiation with your W for an NC agreement I don't know why she wouldn't meet with him.

And again, this does suggest that there was more than a ONS. There was at least some kind of EA.

You haven't really shared much of the back story about your WW's A or how you discovered it. I imagine that's because you consider the details irrelevant to your determination to D. But it's all part of the new reality that you're trying to understand now. And whether or not you share it here, your questions and feelings about it are going to continue to churn in your mind until you work through them.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 8:04 PM, Sunday, March 27th]

Seeking

The texts were to her brothers work phone. I don't know why he was using his work phone maybe he was on the clock maybe this is some grandmaster plan to trick me though I don't know There was a "I love you very much no matter what happens" on his end and her saying thank you and I love you back. Obviously meeting to talk about her job but I was so mad when I read it I guess I thought it was a burner phone or something it didn't even register to me though can't really falt that. Don't know like I said I feel like this is some elaborate plan even though it isn't

Also yes their was an ea I don't remember when I said it but they texted for a few months.

Sisoon

Yeah I've talked to my pastors and council and they all agree on divorce in light of the history with my family. I'm also technically qualified to be a pastor as a graduate of Westminster so I know about the inner workings of their thought process which gives me perspective (I think )

But anyways my decision to divorce is because this was always my worst nightmare that is, I guess, self thought of? What I mean is that everyone's greatest fear is that your kids would die or your wife and kids would die. Obviously after things like that this is mine and it happened. I've thought about what could be worse than this besides the above and it's if they aren't mine. Honestly if I found that out I would probably kill myself.

I just can't it will never be the same it will always be broken and lesser and she will always be lesser to me. We were each other's only partners and it will forever be unbalanced. It will always be there.

My lawyer has a pretty strong case for getting more because of my history that's still on file. So my plan now is to have the kids and sell the house and split the money while she gets most of the savings and I get all the retirement and pension. I plan on moving back to California with my kids so I can be away from everything here. I also realize the latter probably won't happen but my lawyer says it's worth a shot since full custody is pretty much a given for me. Though she will probably be awarded visitation until they're 18. Everything is almost good and after I file she'll be served within 90 days

[This message edited by Nothere759 at 8:07 PM, Sunday, March 27th]

I'll write more about it maybe. I gave some more information in my reply to masti.

What else would you like to know? Not sounding smart, genuinely asking

Sorry for getting back so late.

Nope, I'm good, must have submitted my response before the screen refreshed with your response to masti.

My lawyer has a pretty strong case for getting more because of my history that's still on file.

Could you elaborate on that?
One very common concern and/or excuse for inaction IMHO is when the BS fears that they will lose everything in divorce. Sort-of "if I D then I lose so much, therefore I should settle for a life with WS irrespective of if the work to reconcile is done or not".
I absolutely hate that excuse… I think it’s the most common reason people remain in an unhappy marriage with no clear plan on how to repair it.

I also think divorce laws are relatively fair – all things considered. I guess I will get a barrage of posters telling me that’s wrong and that divorce tends to lean towards the husband/wife. It generally depends on the gender of the poster…

It could be informative for us here and maybe offer some guidance if your attorney has found a reason for you to get more out of the settlement. Could possibly help others in comparable shoes.

Basically the court has what happened in regards to my living situation and my relationship with my mother on file. When I was staying with her I would ignore her or sneak to my dad's house. She eventually had a breakdown and just let me stay at my dad's.

When my dad died and things had to be divided because his will was out of date. I had a breakdown in front of the judge about how I hated her and she ruined my father's life and he would never have died if she didn't do what she did. She killed him and I hated her.
So what he's thinking is this can be used to help my situation in court

Some other stuff too but that's it. I think I went over some of this earlier in the thread but I don't recall

[This message edited by Nothere759 at 7:45 PM, Monday, March 28th]