SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I had dreams of him cheating...closest I can guess was right about when he met her. I put a lot, and I mean a lot in my dreams. I've always had those premonition/warning type dreams. Saved my life several times because I paid heed to them. I told him about the dreams. They have been so spot on so many times during our marriage that usually, he didn't blow me off with my warnings of things to come.

He blew me off. Told me stupid crap like, nobody wants an old man like me. He was 42 and still a very good looking man.

I left HI and moved to AZ 6 months ahead of him and DSS. Started having the dreams more fequently, even dreamed that she was a fat blond, but never saw her face dead on in the dreams.

I described her to him and warned him not to cheat on me.

After he was in the A, he started treating me pretty bad, passive aggressively abusing me.

I did everything I could think of to get him back in the marriage.

When I finally found out about the LTA I offered him the gift of R, but there were some stipulations.

Long story short had true R for about 4-6 weeks. Then he broke NC. You can guess the rest.

There is nothing we can do to prevent anything they do. We have absolutely no control. The WS has to want to do the right thing. There is no magick formula of words to say or actions to take to pull their head out of their fourth point of contact (for all you non military folks it begins with an "A" and ends with two "SSs")

Only you can decide if he is worth all othe hard work of R. Even though he committed the offenses, you will have to put in just as much work with him to have true R.

I can say this, love yourself most. Take care of you first. Don't second guess yourself, your gut is usually pretty on target.

I feel like I communicated the deal breaker and drew the line in the sand BEFORE he did this. He knew where the line was and crossed it, so is that it? If I say, "Oops, you were in a fog, let's redraw the line and give you a second chance." Am I being weak and being taken advantage of?

This is me, exactly. It is so, so hard not to scream, 'I TOLD you!' I told him it would KILL me - and he did it anyway. And then after, he said to me, 'I thought with 18 years together, our marriage would be strong enough to survive this' - not as a justification for the A, but to make me feel guilty for thinking about leaving. It's all kinds of mind f-ing.

All I can say is that now that he is fully out of that fog, my H is not that same man anymore. He just isn't. He has done a complete 180 - he is not even the man I knew for my whole marriage. So many things in him have been broken, have been faced, have been confessed and healed. I feel like I DID divorce my old H, and I got a new one. But I have zero love left for that old husband, and if he ever comes back I will leave. It is just too much. I am being forced to live with too much, with or without him. This is about me, now, and what is good for me. It is not about a 'pass'... it is not about him. It is about what I want, what is good for me, what is in my best interest. I want him. Don't know if that makes sense.

The bottom line is our WH's knew exactly what they were doing and what the end result would be.. When u said to your WH that you thought he had a work crush, he knew then that it was true... He didnt want you to "ruin" him getting a piece of cheap pussy so he lied and decieved you (although you were on to him)..... Now,after he's satisfied his selfish needs he is soooo sorry and remorseful.. Well of course he's all of that now, but whats going to happen the nxt time he has a work place crush?

He didnt love or respect you enough to back away from what he knew was dangerous...

Sorry, If i offended you...

Wow…you know so much in detail about their conversations. That cannot be fun for you.

I confronted my husband about 1 year into his affair - asking him if he was having one. I just knew something was off. He denied. I was hugely distracted by a lot of things so I stupidly continued to trust him and pushed it out of my mind. My husband now admits that he has a habit of often telling people what they want to hear v. the truth. Buys him time, he doesn't have to be the bad guy, etc.

So possibly this is the reason he wasn't honest with himself and with you? He was just saying what he wanted to hear and what you wanted to hear vs. what the devil inside of him was planning. He went into this most likely only thinking of himself, never planning to get involved in an affair and then it just kind of happened and before he knew it he was in it and did not know how to get out. It's exciting, fun being secretive, etc. I'm not excusing it, just trying to explain based on what people who have had affairs have told me. Also a friend of mine was an OW for a year when she was single so I do have some insight into how it happens. Believe me, the OW is not saying "But you are married…" The guy is usually saying "my wife and I are roommates, etc. " My SAWH said the OW did not ever want to know anything about me or our marriage so who knows what she was told or what she believed.

ETA - temporarily forgot about this. I don't yet know the whole story of their affair timeline (supposedly he is going to have a disclosure prepared in the next couple of weeks) but there was a night he spent all night out and did not come home til mid morning with a weird explanation. I told him if he ever did that again I would change the locks. I now know he was with her that night but I don't know how long they had been seeing each other/courting each other before that. I know…I was very stupid. But it happens. We're married to them…aren't we supposed to trust them?

[This message edited by womaninflux at 4:26 PM, November 20th (Wednesday)]

It's kind of unfair for you to take on the impossible task of "decoding" somebody else's thoughts/actions/motives. You've been betrayed so very badly and you need to be focusing on healing, not moving mountains in your H's mind. If I were in your situation I'd feel compelled to dump the heavy mental lifting on him by turning this around on him:

"So you didn't want to experience resentment if you were to be kept from sleeping with her? How do you think I should proceed now that I resent that you DID sleep with her? If you were me, honestly, what would you need to do to no longer feel resentment? Start thinking - I want answers because I am feeling resentful."

I feel like I communicated the deal breaker and drew the line in the sand BEFORE he did this. He knew where the line was and crossed it, so is that it? If I say, "Oops, you were in a fog, let's redraw the line and give you a second chance." Am I being weak and being taken advantage of?

^^^^They really mess with our heads don't they!

I will forever be eternally grateful for all of you that read the timeline and commented. Today I actually felt lighter, which is huge. I have been in a ferocious rage stage and getting opinions on "deal breakers". Maybe I will put that on the back burner for now.

As for details, WH handed over the emails and chat logs. We were able to restore almost all of the text messages. It was only a 6 day affair, but I have everything verbatim. That is HUGE, because I know what they both said and felt. Plus, they are stored safely, in case of an emergency!

Catlover50 - I sent WH a snippet of your second entry about him having to destroy something before he could wake up. It helped me to better to understand that he had to "go big" if he was ever going to wake up.

Brokendancer7, cantaccept, sailorgirl, cancuncrushed, stilliving - Knowing that you were trying to get them to wake up BEFORE as well, truly made me feel not alone.

Plainpain & devasted30 - I remember us all joining SI about the same time with bionicgal and I admit I get a little jealous, because I feel like I am the unstable one and you guys have it together. Devasted30 you can always ask for an extension, as I would freak out with a timeline. I wouldn't be able to focus on what i want with a clock ticking.

idkam - Go ahead and bring it, I need all the cards and opinions on the table. I have pretty much used those same words during my anger releases, so I don't tiptoe either. Affairs are never right and they know that. So even if they are in a "fog", they sure remember how to lie and hide things from us.

anewday78 - I think that will be my topic for tonight, I am going to try and memorize the lines...thanks!

[This message edited by ILINIA at 4:36 PM, November 20th (Wednesday)]

wow my story is similar. a month before the A started I asked my H to go to M counseling & he refused.

Wish I had time to read all the responses now, but I don't. Definitely will revisit this post later.

Wow. I think if any of us knew the skanky OW in your situation we'd seriously like to kick her butt. And that's coming from an avowed pacifist.

I truly think your WH, and mine, and dozens of others, cease to think. Their brains disconnect, to be surplanted by their lower instincts. They become totally self centered, unwilling to consider the effect their actions will have on others. This is not an excuse. I know my FWH also would have taken my words and done the deed out of spite once I armed him, because of his own sick, twisted displaced FOO issues. I think sometimes a WS is stuck in an infantile state of mind that has nothing to do with the BS.

I think he needs to do the hard work to figure out why he blatantly decided to run that train of the track, refused to see that black pit in front of him. It's on HIM to find out why he threw away your gift.

Oh my, don't get me started about her! I may start another post someday peoples thoughts.

She's 23 and her father cheated on her mom with several people and then left them, he doesn't want to have contact with the old family. When I was reading the chat logs and she was talking about her dad, I stopped and said "She has serious father issues! She's f'ed up, what are you thinking! You are 17 years older and have the same name as her dad She is damaged and you are creepy."

She was competing with me and had HUGE validation and abandonment issues, she would say stuff like "Go F your wife tonight." and in the next sentence tell him that she wanted to be on top when they did it the first time. Within 48 hours of their kiss, she had a theme song for them (how cute!), officially labeled herself the mistress, and sent him a picture saying something like "i am miles from home and I miss my mistress more than my wife."

I go between feeling pity and sorry for her, as I don't think my WH was the first nor will be the last and realizing she is going to have a sad life. To sending her a letter, tell her that she needs to examine herself and that she is worth more than being a OW that invites married men to her apartment so she can spread her legs for them.

These dang A have so many facets to them!

[This message edited by ILINIA at 5:56 PM, November 20th (Wednesday)]

Your H felt that he had already betrayed you and was going to pay the price either way. While you see his final act as crossing a huge line, he thinks that it was just a small incremental step. His biggest concern was that if he was going to have to do the time, he wanted to actually commit the crime first.

All he could think about was getting some strange. Everything else could be dealt with somehow. It's why people rob banks even though they know they won't get away with it.

How firm do you believe he is on the March date as the beginning of fanasizing? What flipped that switch? Why her? Why then?

My ruminating brain finds that too clean a start wiith no real reason....

Is he in IC working on any of this?

Hugs and kudos to you. You had darn good radar, just tough to get accurate readings from a WS in stealth mode...

They traveled together for the first time AND it was his 40th birthday. He told me that he fantasized that she knocked on his hotel room and asked to come in to help him celebrate. He remembers it vividly. That is why he's confident in the date.

Leopold - oddly, what you said is very similar to what he has said. He felt like he had already lied to me by that point, so he didn't see it as any different. I may have to ponder this...do you think they are manipulative or just not really thinking?

He's the model WH and is completely transparent. He's in IC. We are in MC. He's grown. He realizes he was an egotistical, selfish, and entitled man. And a jackass during our marriage

Me. I'm stuck and can't move. I fight with how rational was he during these conversations, because the line was drawn before they slept together. Is there really a fog? Is that an excuse or explanation? Or is it just selfishness and screw everybody else?

[This message edited by ILINIA at 10:48 PM, November 20th (Wednesday)]

I fight with how rational was he during these conversations, because the line was drawn before the slept together.

Me, too. I ask H about it because he was so insistent in those conversations. Logical, confident. He didn't sound foggy, emotional, or stupid.

He says that while he sounded rational, his thinking was totally disordered. His favorite phrase is, "I wasn't thinking straight." But he had to keep up appearances, even to himself, so he was like a drunk man very carefully acting sober while convincing himself he wasn't impaired in any way.

Your H felt that he had already betrayed you and was going to pay the price either way. While you see his final act as crossing a huge line, he thinks that it was just a small incremental step. His biggest concern was that if he was going to have to do the time, he wanted to actually commit the crime first.

All he could think about was getting some strange. Everything else could be dealt with somehow. It's why people rob banks even though they know they won't get away with it.

Yes! I believe this to be absolutely true.

ILINIA, believe me, I do not have it all together. I think about killing myself at least once a week. Yesterday I walked out the door on my children, and told them I didn't know if I was coming back. I still don't know how I'll be able to forgive my husband if the baby turns out to be his. I don't know how I'll be able to look at his face again. I am medicated, and am riding the waves, up and down, up and down. Some days I feel like our M is better than it's ever been, I have more respect for my H than I ever have - then the rage takes over, like, 'No! You do not get to f**k another woman and then end up with a better marriage.'

I warned ws about.ow the first time I met her. I could see exactly what she was made of. We had more than a few discusions about her. She was best friends with ws best friends who the two were having an A. We both agreed that what his friend was doing was wrong and how he had such a good wife, why would he do that He still dove right in. Even after.I said, please don't ever do what your friend is doing, to me. Of course his response was, I would never...