SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

As I read through your posts,and while I am so very sorry for what she has done to you, my overwhelming concern is for your babies.

They were terribly neglected by their mother, for months.

I understand you travel for work a lot,and you need her to watch the kids. But she has shown herself to be a neglectful parent. They are not safe with her.

Make no mistake. You have been terribly betrayed. But so have your children.

And you are supposed to help her heal?

What hurts the most is when I see that she sent him these emails in plain sight, right next to me, so many times. On the back porch as we sat together after putting the kids down. On the couch during a commercial break from a show we were watching together. At the mall with my mom/kids while we were treating them to a day out. At our family 4th of July party while we were all hanging out. Laying RIGHT NEXT TO ME IN OUR BED TOGETHER, she'd email him and tell him how horny she was for him and all the things she wanted to do with him. She was CONSTANTLY on her phone, I called her out on it a couple times but I never thought she was carrying on like that.

I don’t have any advice for you, just wanted to say my WH did all of this as well. It’s definitely a big sticking point for me. It’s bad enough that they’d do this to begin with, but to do it right under our nose, like they’re mocking us, or we are that insignificant, just kills me.

You ought to stop going to any form of joint counseling with her. It can't save a marriage where one of the spouses is as broken and fucked up as your WW. Further, counselors who give crap advice like "get below your feelings" are the kind who view it as a "victory" if they can keep a couple together, no matter how much pain and trauma and dysfunction, with duct tape and chicken wire. You'll regret it.

I was told to get below my anger and talk to her about my feelings, that that would open her up to be vulnerable and potentially feel empathy, and ultimately remorse, for what she did to me.  But that it was my job (as the BS) to NOT bring up painful events or email messages shared because that would cause her to pull away and maintain the hard shell of no feeling.  That it was up to me to help her heal (and up to her to do IC) to eventually work towards being able to help me heal.

That is total bullshit. "Affair recovery counselor" is just a fancy bullshit name for a hack MC. Like calling a garbage man a "sanitation engineer". Basicall what this MC is saying is "You recover from an affair by NOT talking about the affair." Total crap. Read any thread by any wayward who has successfully R'd with her BH. The one thing every one will say is that she spent years patiently answering thousands of questions about details of the A, over and over and over. It is the natural and normal path for a BH trying to process his trauma.

After HB wears off and the mind movies start to kick in and you realize she fucked your contractor in every place she can imagine -- his car, hotel, the field, possibly your home with your kids present (he was a contractor, working in your home while you were gone, flirting with and then having sex with your wife. I would be surprised if they didnt have sex in the house) -- and you start feeling your anger, then you'll get what I'm saying.

In the meantime, read about and implement The 180. See if she starts doing any work on her own, without you dragging her to it.

Your WW devoted literally all of her "mommy time" to chasing and fucking another man. Why is she a SAHM, at all? She is a shitty mother. She ought at least return to full time work.

Your initial confrontation should have been along the lines of: "Wife, I know what you are doing with POSOM. I love you and want you to be happy. I want you to know that you are free to go to him and be with him as much as you wish. But not as my wife. Therefore, I will take steps to end our marriage. I wish you happiness." The crap MC gave you bad advice from step 1 when he failed to give you this advice. SI has the crowdsourced wisdom of many survivors of infidelity. To the extent Doc Feelgood contradicts what you read here, your high odds play is to trust SI.

Many of the things you've done after failing to confront her strongly have been a step in the wrong direction. Dont worry. You're not alone. All of us stumble and falter after being sucker punched by infidelity.

Don't give her 6 months, nor 3 months. This site is about getting out of infidelity. Start taking those steps now. Forget about the piece of shit brother she hasn't spoken to in years. That's a red herring. An excuse to sidestep the inevitable.

I would commend to your reading the threads by a poster here named Waitedwaytooling.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 7:38 AM, October 2nd (Wednesday)]

However, to throw a wrench into any timeline for recovery, her brother was tragically killed last Tuesday 9/24 by a hit and run driver. Now her complete attention is on the grieving of her brother (whom she was estranged from for the past 4 years due to his mental illness, eating disorder and being a danger to anyone around him).

That's more a distraction from the reality of her situation. Even though she probably does have some genuine regret about the estrangement, it's likely she's wallowing her mom's grief as a diversion from dealing with the shambles she's made of her marriage. Don't let her hide behind that, keep working your plan.

Ditto Robert ... Major Back Flips..

Brother Elvis,

Sorry to read of your situation. How are you and the children?

I don’t know much about your full history however WW has checked out of your marriage.

She is at present in communication with the POS crook whilst away with her family dealing with the death to her brother; hence no family face time. It is the thought that she may give something away whilst looking at you.

Please continue to seek IC and duel Counciling re the affair. But mention D and the commencement of paperwork due to the lack of real remorse and due to having no trust for her whatsoever because she has broken the NC.

Commence 180 now but keep her with you so she can truly work on R. The D can be stopped at any time. Presently she has no respect for you, her children, the marriage.

Can I ask how she justifies doing what she did in front of the children?

Did she see a happy ever after with her POS, setting up home with your children and him?

Duel co parents etc?

I am all in favour for R but I just feel she is remorseful due to being caught and ending her A not that she wants to be in a committed relationship with the man who fathered her children and provided so much.

Good luck hope you achieve R.

You say she sent him two emails AFTER you confronted her. What did they say? I think those will be very telling about what her emotions are toward both him and you. Was she bemoaning your discovery? Lamenting losing him? Scared? Horrified by what she had done? Did the emails confirm NC going forward?

Her IC also should have those emails to work with her on.

Also, do you think she was unfaithful any other time? Her boundaries seem very soft and her judgment very poor.

She has shown zero signs of remorse, was told by our Affair Recovery counselor that she "compartmentalizes painful events to not feel them" and has told me she is just a shell - that she's sorry she hurt me - but none of that feels genuine. I was told to get below my anger and talk to her about my feelings, that that would open her up to be vulnerable and potentially feel empathy, and ultimately remorse, for what she did to me. But that it was my job (as the BS) to NOT bring up painful events or email messages shared because that would cause her to pull away and maintain the hard shell of no feeling. That it was up to me to help her heal (and up to her to do IC) to eventually work towards being able to help me heal.

I see other people have homed in on this too. This is a total crock of shit. No it is not your job to 'help her heal'. That is bass-ackwards. It is HER job to help YOU heal from the pain SHE has inflicted on YOU. Anyone who says different doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

I feel ya on the phone thing too. My xwh was sexting with his 18yo skanklet and telling her how in love with her he is and how he adored her while he was sitting next to me on the couch and while I was sleeping beside him in our bed too. For some reason that bothers me more than just about anything else.

I am so sorry you are going through this. Please read up in the healing library and implement the 180. I didn't do that and I wish that I had.

You should EXPOSE her with ALL family and close friends, you even suspect she's still in contact with OM, if that's the case you're just wasting your time in MC, reading books and all the other stuff, nothing kills an A faster than FULL EXPOSURE, it also shows consequences and helps prevent any future betrayals, she should apologized to everyone for exposing you to potentially deadly STDs and for destroying the M and for risking the stability of the children's future. EXPOSE now and if OM is married tell OBS immediately

I am so tempted to expose her to everyone.  She has only told 2 people; her dad (whom she is very close with) that she had an affair, no details; and her out of town best friend (whom she said would be her support system/sounding board but that she's only spoken with twice).  If I think about why I'm holding back on exposing her because it's probably because I'm afraid it would make it too hard on her to reconcile.  I feel weak because of this.  The only time she's shown emotion about her affair to me was when I threatened to tell everyone, the neighbors, our families and friends. She cried harder then than when she saw me breaking down.

I have not told the OBS yet, am struggling with why I haven't.  I don't want to open a can of worms, really would rather deal with my own things.  But I completely understand the logic and reasoning behind doing this.  OM is married btw.  He told my wife he was going through a divorce (his 4th) and his wife would stop by his house un-announced to interrupt their calls or postpone a meet up from time to time.  I asked my wife if she knew that she was the "other woman" in her AP's relationship and she said she never thought of it that way.  It feels perverse, but I want my wife to be the one to tell the OW about the affair.

I think she knows you changed the password to the secret email account too. That is a strong indicator that she would risk her marriage AND the chance to Reconcile with you for an opportunity to speak with him.That is not a good sign. That shows just how emotionally connected she was/isI'm afraid you're right. 

He emailed her 6 times after she said was her final contact with him, messages which my wife acknowledged she read in August before telling me about the account on 9/1.  His last email to their secret account was on 9/3, 2 days after she told me about it.  Since I changed the password he hasn't emailed since.  This feels like proof that they took it underground.

The only advice I would give you, and this is only me, but if it were me I would be there to support her with compassion for her loss in any way I could while she processes the sudden death of her brother. This has got to be traumatic for her entire family. I always want to look back and say that I took the high road and be proud of how I conducted myself. She is still your W. She has obviously betrayed your trust and hurt you badly, but there is no need to sink to her level. Just my two cents

This feels like the right thing to do.  But it also feels like what a nice guy that gets walked all over by someone would do.  It's my biggest struggle right now.  I tried to implement elements of the 180 yesterday, was present but distant with her all last night.  She kept telling me that something felt different about me, that she wasn't feeling love or comfort from me.  I tried to stand my ground and be distant but I could feel her grieving for her dead brother so I sat on the couch with my arm around her.  She snuggled with me, I simply laid my arm/hand around her shoulder and kept my hand limp as she caressed and nuzzled into me.  I felt like a fraud, like a shell.  I was as emotionless but sat with her while we watched a comedy show for an hour.

While it's very sad that your BIL died unexpectedly, I don't think it's fair to you that your WW be allowed to milk you for sympathy right now. It would be wiser for her to consider how quickly life can change and utilize that impetus to strengthen her resolve to be a kinder, gentler, more honest individual. IOW, she should be USING the grief/existential crisis to fuel recovery, not hiding behind it behind it in an effort to avoid facing her own demons.

I still have no idea how to balance my needs with her grief - and I truly believe she is hiding behind her brother's death as a way to NOT deal with her affair.  She had her 2nd IC session yesterday.  She told me that the only thing they talked about was her brother's death.  She also told me her IC said that there is no timetable on grieving and that she shouldn't let society tell her how long she can grieve.  It may be weeks, months, years.  While true that nobody can tell you how long to grieve, it felt like my WW was trying to establish a drawn-out timeline for me to be able to expect her to be consumed by her brother's death and not deal with the A.

Think of it like this, if she wants a time out for grieving, she can have it... but not with you. If she wants you there, she needs to engage every day no matter what else is going on and she needs to be bringing her best efforts to it. 

This feels like the answer to my struggle, thank you for the clear synopsis.

There are replies to your post that are much more helpful than I can be, but something you said really resonated with my own betrayal. Sexting the AP while sitting next to me, or while we were out together - that really tore me up inside. I understand your anger and hurt because I am right there with you.

It's so humiliating, isn't it?  And so ballsy!  WTF?!?!  When I re-read the stuff she sent to him and extrapolate that at that moment I was giving the kids a bath, pouring her a glass of wine or had just kissed her goodnight and rubbed her back....makes me think of how disgusting she is.  Honestly, what kind of a person can do that?

MC needs to stop IMMEDIATELY. It is a waste of time, money, and your MC is actively damaging R for you by enabling your WW's remorseless behavior and putting the burden on you to fix her. NO. That is not how any of this works.

This keeps coming up so I need to clarify - or ask the group if my understanding is off.  We are engaged in Affair Recovery Counseling, not Marriage Counseling.  We don't talk about our marriage, we talk about her affair.  I feel like there is a different between ARC and MC, does the group think that ARC is the same as MC?  Our joint sessions have established a safe place for her to talk about things she's done, and have been nearly the only place where she has opened up about what she did.  I'm aware that my actions indicate I'm closer to Reconciliation that I wish I was, but I'm trying to convince myself that this is Recovery - and will take about 6 months before I can decide to R or D.  My thought is that I want to go through Recovery now to a) See if we can R or need to D and b) Be able to process what happened so that I won't be jaded the rest of my life and could find love/happiness again one day with someone else if it comes to that.

Read "No More Mr. Nice Guy" by Dr. Robert Glover. Read the 180 and implement it. You don't have to be cruel especially when she too is going through something but you also do not need to be her beacon of support after she stabbed you in the back

Downloaded "No More Mr. Nice Guy" this morning and listed to the first 3 chapters on the way to work.  I'm skeptical about all the 180 steps but implemented a few of them last night and will continue to do so.

I really hate that they use the "painful childhood" card. I had an awful childhood too complete with abuse, physical, emotional and sexual, but I'm also not sleeping around on my fWH 

I'm sorry you got the same lame excuse Walkingthewire.  I feel like it is such a cop out to blame her infidelity on bad childhood experiences.  Our ARC (Affair Recovery Counselor) even validated her excuse of this by saying something along the lines of "when people put bad memories away and don't deal with them, this (her A) are the type of thing that happens when those painful memories slip out of the compartmentalization".  Um.....wut?

Is your wife emotional over the lost of an estranged brother's death? If she can show emotion over 'him' (as you describe him), she should be doing back flips to repair the damage to her husband and the father of her kids.

She's emotional for sure about her brother getting killed.  More emotional that she should be in my jerky, selfish opinion actually.  She hadn't talked to her brother in over 4 years!  He was a mess, mentally ill and a danger to himself and everyone around him.  He was suicidal, her family tried to have him committed to a mental hospital but my WW's mother (whom she is also estranged from, over 15 years, the root cause of her terrible childhood) signed him out.  I feel like she and her whole family are feeling tremendous GUILT about her brother dying and none of them had reached out in months to see how he was doing or if they could help.

Just exactly how much parenting did she do while in the middle of this thing? It sounds like your children were not even on her radar.

She essentially neglected my children for the entire summer.  Sent them to daycamps every Wednesday so she could hook up with her boyfriend.  Put a tablet in front of my daughter and told her to play in the basement during my son's 2 hour nap time so she could masturbate together with the AP during their scheduled 1:30 to 3:30 pm "Quiet Time".  My kids seem to have no idea what is going on with us now but there is NO DOUBT in my mind that her neglect for 3 months while I was at work or out of town traveling for work has impacted them negatively.

His age, his weight, his job, do not matter.

It matters to me so much.  This guy is a complete piece of shit.  I feel like he's predator and that he preyed on my wife and she fell hook, line, sinker for his garbage.  He used some kind of "adaptive mirroring" or other Pick-Up-Artist technique on my wife and she was so weak that she fell IN LOVE with him!  He's fat.  He's ugly.  He's old (sorry other 53 year olds, my wife is only 34).  He's white trash.  He is a redneck.  He's been divorced 4 times.  He's a felon.  This matters to me because if she could ruin her life for this human garbage what would happen if a respectable guy would show her attention?

Get your money back for the work he did.

Expose him professionally.Expose him to everyone else.Why is it so easy to picture this loser.

I've thought about trying to blackmail this guy or something. Ask him for my $10K that I paid him for the floors or I expose him.  None of this is legal, I doubt I'd ever go through with it but I would love to have some kind of revenge.

I agree with others, there is a high likelihood this has gone underground. Pretty hard to go from 18 hours / day contact to nothing, given she isn't showing remorse.

I'm pretty sure it has gone underground too.  She told me she doesn't want me or the kids to go out of town this weekend with her as she goes for her brother's funeral.  She's told me that she isn't in contact with him but she was out of town all last week and barely sent any texts, only called twice and was evasive.  I know she was surrounded by her family but they wouldn't know if she was talking to me or her AP if she was on the phone.

As I read through your posts,and while I am so very sorry for what she has done to you, my overwhelming concern is for your babies.They were terribly neglected by their mother, for months.I understand you travel for work a lot,and you need her to watch the kids. But she has shown herself to be a neglectful parent. They are not safe with her.Make no mistake. You have been terribly betrayed. But so have your children.And you are supposed to help her heal?What she did to my kids this summer really makes me sad.

She's proven to be an awful wife and a terrible mother. And yes, apparently if I talk to her about my feelings enough without getting angry she's magically come out of her shell, realize all the mistakes she's made and begin to show remorse and work on winning me back.  Sounds completely logical, right?

I don’t have any advice for you, just wanted to say my WH did all of this as well. It’s definitely a big sticking point for me. It’s bad enough that they’d do this to begin with, but to do it right under our nose, like they’re mocking us, or we are that insignificant, just kills me. 

Kills me too landclark.  Sorry you had to deal with this as well.

"Affair recovery counselor" is just a fancy bullshit name for a hack MC. Like calling a garbage man a "sanitation engineer". Basicall what this MC is saying is "You recover from an affair by NOT talking about the affair." Total crap. Read any thread by any wayward who has successfully R'd with her BH. The one thing every one will say is that she spent years patiently answering thousands of questions about details of the A, over and over and over. It is the natural and normal path for a BH trying to process his trauma.

After HB wears off and the mind movies start to kick in and you realize she fucked your contractor in every place she can imagine -- his car, hotel, the field, possibly your home with your kids present (he was a contractor, working in your home while you were gone, flirting with and then having sex with your wife. I would be surprised if they didnt have sex in the house) -- and you start feeling your anger, then you'll get what I'm saying.In the meantime, read about and implement The 180. See if she starts doing any work on her own, without you dragging her to it.Your WW devoted literally all of her "mommy time" to chasing and fucking another man. Why is she a SAHM, at all? She is a shitty mother. She ought at least return to full time work.

Your initial confrontation should have been along the lines of: "Wife, I know what you are doing with POSOM. I love you and want you to be happy. I want you to know that you are free to go to him and be with him as much as you wish. But not as my wife. Therefore, I will take steps to end our marriage. I wish you happiness." The crap MC gave you bad advice from step 1 when he failed to give you this advice. SI has the crowdsourced wisdom of many survivors of infidelity. To the extent Doc Feelgood contradicts what you read here, your high odds play is to trust SI.

Many of the things you've done after failing to confront her strongly have been a step in the wrong direction. Dont worry. You're not alone. All of us stumble and falter after being sucker punched by infidelity.

Don't give her 6 months, nor 3 months. This site is about getting out of infidelity. Start taking those steps now. Forget about the piece of shit brother she hasn't spoken to in years. That's a red herring. An excuse to sidestep the inevitable.

I would commend to your reading the threads by a poster here named Waitedwaytooling.

Butforthegrace, thank you for this.  I need to hear this, all of this.  I will re-read this and try to gain strength from your words.  It really hit home.

Can I ask how she justifies doing what she did in front of the children?

Did she see a happy ever after with her POS, setting up home with your children and him?

Duel co parents etc?

She said she knew the A wasn't going to be long term. Never intended to run off with AP or co-parent.  But one of her last emails to him the day before Dday she said "If my circumstances were different I'd be with you.  I feel so much passion from you".  She basically told him if she could get rid of her kids, she'd leave me for him in a second.

You say she sent him two emails AFTER you confronted her. What did they say? I think those will be very telling about what her emotions are toward both him and you. Was she bemoaning your discovery? Lamenting losing him? Scared? Horrified by what she had done? Did the emails confirm NC going forward? 

Her last two emails to him were 1) He knows.  He confronted me.  He knows it's you.  I'm so sorry I dragged you into this.  I'll write more later when I can 2) Thanks but it is my fault and I’m owning up to it. I have to be completely transparent with him and if I’m going to do that I can’t keep emailing you. I’m hopeful things can work out between him and I. I’ll always love and care for you (AP). I wish only the best for you and your family.

Love always, (WW)

How's that for closure?

No it is not your job to 'help her heal'. That is bass-ackwards. It is HER job to help YOU heal from the pain SHE has inflicted on YOU. Anyone who says different doesn't know what the hell they're talking about.

I'm so mixed up right now, torn between trying to comfort her in the loss of her brother, subvert my anger and focus on my feelings of why I'm hurt to help her, implementing the 180 to completely move on from her and incorporating elements from the book The Way of the Superior Man to try and practice mindfulness to forget about the past, let go of what will happen in the future and try to focus on being the best version of myself I can be.  All of this is a total mind f*Ck.

This keeps coming up so I need to clarify - or ask the group if my understanding is off.  We are engaged in Affair Recovery Counseling, not Marriage Counseling.  We don't talk about our marriage, we talk about her affair.  I feel like there is a different between ARC and MC, does the group think that ARC is the same as MC? 

ARC = lipstick on a pig.

Tell the OBW as soon as you can. It's the decent thing to do. Dont tell your WW about doing so.

I'll always love and care for you?

Man, you need to get on the 180 now. Trust me when I say that you don't want the marriage that you will end up with if you don't stand up for yourself.

She has her head firmly up her ass.

The only time she's shown emotion about her affair to me was when I threatened to tell everyone, the neighbors, our families and friends. She cried harder then than when she saw me breaking down.

So that right there tells you all you need to know. It’s all about her.

You wanting credit for good behavior: keeping her secret, coddling her emotions, not wanting to rock the boat. You are not going to get it. She wants to protect her ego. In her mind it is important that everyone know that number one it’s not her fault and number two I’m not a bad person.

You do not factor in her narcissistic math. The sooner you realize this and start standing up for yourself the sooner you’re going to start moving forward and feeling better.

She also told me her IC said that there is no timetable on grieving and that she shouldn't let society tell her how long she can grieve. It may be weeks, months, years. While true that nobody can tell you how long to grieve, it felt like my WW was trying to establish a drawn-out timeline for me to be able to expect her to be consumed by her brother's death and not deal with the A.

It IS true that no one can tell you how long to grieve. But her grief isn't any more valid than yours. The typical timetable when healing from the grief of intimate betrayal is 2-5 YEARS. The pain of it takes us through the very same stages; Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. We cycle through these stages, sometimes in no particular order, again and again until we finally reach some version of Acceptance which sticks.

WS (and sometimes MC) seem to think that we can "get over it" in short order, just make a decision to carry on and then carry on. But that's not how grief works. I do remember explaining it to my WH once by asking him how long he thought I would grieve if he had died instead of cheated. He was perplexed because of course, he still feels alive. But the person who I thought he was, the person who I knew, the person I could trust... was gone. Whether that person was a figment of my own imagination or not was immaterial. The guy in front of me, wearing my husband's dear face, seemed like some weird doppelganger and MY beloved was gone.. forever. He can never be the same to me. So, how long should you grieve for someone you loved so much?

Your grief is real, and it's no less valid for the fact that your WW is still standing in front of you. She's not the person you thought she was and that person, the one you loved and trusted, is gone, never to return because your innocent belief can never be whole again. Innocence is the first casualty of betrayal, once shattered it cannot be remade. We can never regain the innocent, naive trust we once had. And even though many of us, myself included, have gone on to R and achieved contentment, our eyes are opened forevermore. Our love and trust have become mature and rational but our scars from the loss of innocence stay with us forever.

I get what you're saying about the difference between MC and Affair Recovery. I think it's doable if you're getting something out of it, but when you look at your own grief timetable, the concern is that it might be rushing you, particularly if it feels like you're being asked to make any kind of commitment to R. That said, I think you should stay with it and just hold firm on your personal boundaries as needed. You can USE that therapist to get the things you need from the process. Already, you're getting more admissions from her than you get on your own. Next, start working on how important it is that your WW be an equal partner if the marriage continues and how she needs to show certain benchmarks of adulthood, like holding down a well-paying job. (Don't get buffaloed into sending her back to school though.) The idea here is to hold all your options open while you process your grief, so you position her in a way that's most optimal to YOU.

I know it sounds a bit machiavellian to put that MC to work for you, but if you take a step back and look at your situation more clinically, you are, in essence, renegotiating terms for what's sustainable in the long run. You can't know yet how this thing will pan out, but what you do know is that in order for your WW to have a chance with you, she needs to change. And if she can't, the realities of D will demand that she work for a living. Here you see one example of "keeping options open".

Everything you're doing right now should be about keeping your own options open for as long as possible. If your own job requires travel, can you move into another role which doesn't? Will you need to change jobs completely if you end up D? Will you need to buy a car or sell a car, change your financial strategy to accommodate childcare expenses, etc? Start moving towards disentanglement. Knowing that you've got your exit plan in your back pocket will help strengthen you.

In the meantime, I'm really concerned about everything you saw in her emails. I've been there. And I put off my own therapy for two years, suffering way longer than I had to. Try to make getting your own trauma therapy (with EMDR if possible) a big priority. All this other stuff plays out over time, but when we talk about "healing", we're talking about reinventing a stronger, more vital, sense of SELF. It's about getting back to YOU, who you are, what you want, what you like, etc. The WS follows along if they're willing and able, but we walk our asses out of infidelity, one baby step at a time if needs be.

Reading through a copy of The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk and/or The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson will help you to understand what's going on in your brain and your body. Once you understand the mechanics of it, it feels so much less terrifying, so it's worth the time and effort. It puts tools in your hands. You can stop catastrophizing and start getting a handle on rumination.

It's so tempting to get bogged down in the issues of the WS. But that FACT of the matter is that we can't change anyone but ourselves. You couldn't stop her from cheating, right? You can't affect whether she makes the internal repairs to her broken character either. But you can control YOU. And you can control certain aspects of your environment, like where you live or whether you downsize to accommodate potential divorce. So, you identify what you do have control over and shape it to your favor. Your focus on your WS will feel like a laser beam, but KNOW that what it does, it's misdirected. The gap between a WS's stated values and their chosen actions is the character defect we speak of. There's nothing you can do to realign that for her. She has to do it for herself, if she's willing and able. All you can do is clarify the the choices so that she knows what happens if she fails. But even that isn't required of you.

No cheater is owed a second chance. That's your gift to either give or withhold and based on nothing more than your own preference. No one, not your WW, or your MC, or your family and friends, gets to make this choice for you, because if at some point, you do decide to continue the marriage, your future contentment will depend on whether or not you can own your choice to be there. Take your time. Get your ducks in a row. Keep your options open. Serve YOURSELF first. Make sure that no matter what the outcome of the marriage may be, you'll still be a great dad and a happy human. That's all you can control.

Strength as you process.

She gave away everything that was special to me about her to a fat, fifty-three year old, four time divorced, flooring contractor and felon.

ElvisHeartbreak

The fundamental problem is that your wife doesn’t consider sex to be special and you do. The sooner you understand this the better off you will be.

She has shown zero signs of remorse, was told by our Affair Recovery counselor that she "compartmentalizes painful events to not feel them" and has told me she is just a shell - that she's sorry she hurt me - but none of that feels genuine.

ElvisHeartbreak

While compartmentalizing is real I think your wife is acting like she didn’t do anything all that bad. She did TT you but all it took was a threat of a poly and the dam totally collapsed. She even gave you her secret email.

To me that smacks of it’s not that bad vs. sincere guilt and wanting to come clean.

The analogy I use is someone growing up in a culture where everyone eats pork. Then they convert to a culture where it’s a sin. If caught enjoying some bacon they may feel bad about letting everyone down.

They will certainly regret their actions if the suffer any negative consequences but they will never be disgusted with themselves for eating pork.

Sticking with my analogy the only way to make someone hate the thought of eating pork is for them to get food poisoning after partaking. The food poisoning is the consequence.

She hasn’t really faced any consequences and that reinforces her attitude that it wasn’t that bad. It’s like she robbed a bank, got caught and was given probation. The judge must agree that bank robbery isn't all that bad.

[This message edited by Michigan at 12:25 PM, October 2nd (Wednesday)]

If she is not showing remorse now, there is little to no chance she will in the future.

Go see an attorney, find out your situation and file for divorce. You can always stop the D if you change your mind. You don't have much to work with here and that may change her attitude.

"When someone shows you who they are ... believe them."

Sorry you're here man.

Your wife needs a reality check. Give a freezing cold dose of reality - serve her with divorce papers.

All of this is a total mind f*Ck

Yes it is, infidelity-hell mind f*Ck it is, and a personal challenge for everyone whose path it crosses and everyone does it in his or her own way, the challenge is to handle it in such a way that you will not have any regrets later. A calm and humane approach is the best way to go, the moral high ground as Fareast said.

Sad to read about the brother, I know my wayward (ex)gf was from a family full of persons with mental issues and yes she also had her mental problems as these things tend to run in the family, may this also be the case for your WW (does not excuse an affair)?

Due to the situation, and how you may look back on it later, maybe be humane and comfort her for the loss of her brother, and at the same time try and save yourself (IC for you, put more focus on yourself and less on her, etc.)?

Helping and healing yourself is always a good thing to do, and it is a power and attention struggle you are in so take back your own personal power and attention (all attention on her and effort investing in her = drama, so focus on YOU).

You are not alone, SI is here for you as you already found out by the many posts of members. Strength!

If I think about why I'm holding back on exposing her because it's probably because I'm afraid it would make it too hard on her to reconcile.

You have to get to a place where you can let go of the outcome. You have been done a massive disservice by this ARC if he can act like you can recover without help from your WW. That's insane. Every new revelation means the clock is reset. Every break of NC resets that clock too. If you believe she's still talking to him when she's away, you can't even begin to recover from something she's still doing.

R is a marathon. A 2-5 year marathon. Right now your WW is standing on the sidelines, zero preparation, not stretching, and is highly considering dropping out. The second they start, there's a high chance she will fall flat on her face and give up immediately. Until she's ready to run this marathon with you, R cannot and will not happen. Your recovery individually will not happen because her lack of remorse and continued deceit will stop it from happening. Your ARC is terrible because he doesn't acknowledge the high likelihood of her giving you new DDays = no recovery and he seems to think that you can fix her which is completely untrue. You can't run the race for her and the future of your marriage relies heavily on her running.

Wow, so much going on. So sorry you are here dealing with this.

Several big red flags from your WW.

"I wish the best for you and your family" - THAT I TRIED TO HELP DESTROY.

"I will always love and care for you" - WTF?! Didn't she say the same thing to you on your wedding day?

Your WW withdrew from you during the A, and destroyed your M. You are now grieving the death of your M, by yourself. You can't lean on your WW because she caused you the pain, and doesn't seem to be doing much to try to help YOU heal, because it is too hard for HER.

Now, she needs YOU to be her emotional support so she can grieve the death of her brother. And, it's unfair to ask HER to do any work on the M and to try to help you heal because it is all about HER PAIN. Never mind your pain. That's YOUR PROBLEM.

I hope you can see how entirely unreasonable this is.

What is more important to your WW? Helping to heal the M and the damage SHE CREATED? Or grieving for her brother? It seems to me that she needs to make a choice. Does she need to focus so much on the loss of her brother that she wants to risk the loss of her M? If she can't engage with you, why should she expect you to engage with her to help her? It is a 2-way street. Why is her pain more important than yours?

Elvis, you are doing the honorable thing. I respect you for how you are handling this. It proves that you are a good man, a good father and a good husband.

It is OK for you to stand up for yourself and YOUR NEEDS. It doesn't make you a bad person. You now know that you are the only one who is looking out for you, as your WW isn't doing it.

Far too often, BS's put the needs of others first, and I believe that contributes to adding to the pain and the struggle.

You need to implement the 180 so that you can step back and think. You need to be able to rationally consider, without the emotions, what you want.

Right now, everything you describe suggests that there is really no reason for you to consider R, except to protect your children. You acknowledge your WW is a lousy wife and mother. Clearly, we only know a tiny fraction about your M. I'm not judging, I'm only telling you what the evidence you have provided tells us. This is why YOU need the space to make a rational decision.

Damn, I was so angry when I read 2hat your WW sent him. So, so typical, mine did the same thing, although, long before dday.

Mine sent her AP an email (this is what I found on dday) expressing what a great person he is, how he helped her so much during a rough period in her life. Then came the "I'm sorry the sex wasn't great, all I wanted to do was pleasure you the way you pleasured me". That f#cking line is stuck in my head.

She apologized for what?? Letting him do things she would never had allowed me to do?!?. My WW was a piece of ass to her AP. He didnt want anything more than an easy lay. I think he probably pushed the envelope in terms of what my WW would do, just to see how far she would go. Makes me sick to think about it. Mine sexted her AP while sitting next to me too. Sorry, threadjack over!

It sounds to me like you have a balanced and realistic view on your current situation. The affair recovery counselor doesn't sound like a good one to me. Blame childhood and compartmentalization for the A? How about shitty, or non existent boundaries, the need for others to validate her, the health risks she exposed you to, the lack of parental sense, etc. Are all these nicely related to her issues as a child? Not in my opinion, this is who she is. It's a tough pill to swallow. I never thought of my WW being capable of what she was in fact capable of doing.