First, understand that every wayward wife minimizes several steps back from the truth. So if it was a full-on physical affair, they will step back to just giving oral (why they think this helps is beyond me, but they do), If they admit to just kissing, you can practically take it to the bank they were providing oral. If they say they were just sexting, they were in all likelihood screwing. Women will not put themselves in proximity or circumstance with a man where sex is likely on the table unless they want it to be on the table and want it to happen. Adults do not futz around like junior high school students mooning over each other. They have sex. It only takes hours for a one night stand to develop. Your wife was with this man for many months.
Keep that in mind. I see that she has confirmed the more you already suspected. I hate to say this, but even with these more recent admissions, there is probably more. Given your wife has now admitted to sexting with no fewer than two men (and let's be honest, there are probably more) and having sex with at least one (and there were probably more) then we should unfortunately place her in the category of a serial cheater. Serial cheaters typically do not "get better" - there is usually not a light at the end of the tunnel. They are notorious repeat offenders who will violate your boundaries again and again. They are not good reconciliation material.
Please for your own sanity and physical health, get out now. See a divorce attorney, start the filing process. It takes awhile. You need to be in a place of safety, literally and figuratively, away from this woman. Unfortunately your wife is an abuser. You need to be removed from the abuse.
Third, don't waste your time with a marriage counselor. After infidelity occurs, marital counseling (at least in the short and medium term) does more harm than good. It is mostly focused on "saving the marriage." But after infidelity, the old marriage is torn asunder and dead. So typically MC will pressure rugsweeping and enable blameshifing onto you. Don't do it.
I learned that my wife had an affair which started in the summer of 2020 and ended of February of 2021.
So we're talking about at least half a year, if not longer?
I always like putting this into perspective for a newly-betrayed spouse. That's a minimum of about 160 days -- or even more viscerally 3,840 hours, or 230,400 minutes -- of deception.
You have to really think about that, and I know you will and I know you are. But what this means is that your wife was willing to stone-cold lie to your face, or while asleep in the night allow this horrific deception to continue, as each minute of these months ticked by, hour after hour after hour.
She had to make a very conscious choice to do this. She had to will it into being. She had to think about it hard repeatedly. And each minute that ticked by, she continued to make choices to deceive you and pursue other men. She had to take a lot of complicated and perilous steps forward to have sex with other men. She did so.
She could have at any time asked herself whether what she was doing was wrong and stopped it. She didn't do this for merely a few hours (like a one-night stand) or even only for 168 hours, which would be bad enough (that's one week). Think of the mental and physical dedication it takes to LIE to your face for even 168 hours. No, that would be bad enough. Instead she multiplied that dedication to lying to you TWENTYFOLD, while carrying out seedy sex acts (even the sexting qualifies as rapacious and disgusting) that put your sanity and actual life at risk (from STDs she could be carrying around as I write this in her body).
I write this so you can become to come to grips with who your wife really is. She isn't the person you admired. She is this person, right in front of you. This is who she is. And who is she? Well, we know for sure she's exactly the kind of person who would choose a sleazebag over her husband, multiple sleazebags if her story is to be believed, then scheme to be penetrated by them, then lie to your face about all of it day after day after day stretching on for months -- even as she carried around the DNA of other men inside her.
I don't write this to add to your pain, but rather to do what George Orwell exhorted us, and the thing which is very important to do when you've been betrayed: "To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle."
What he meant was that you have to keep looking at a thing or a person as it or they REALLY are, not how you wish they would be or imagined they were. You have to keep looking until you are able with clarity to see that thing right in front of your nose.
You're in pain and shock. We've all been there. It's like being lost in a blizzard. The only thing you can do right now is trudge forward bent against the wind. Take action now. That includes seeing a divorce attorney as soon as you possibly can. I wouldn't waste a lot of time trying to talk to her or get more information at this stage.
You've been given a good to-do list by others. Read that over and start moving forward. One thing you should do this weekend is to go to BestBuy and get yourself a VAR, the $50-60 SONY. Set it up with a good memory card, then keep it in your pocket from here on out for EVERY SINGLE INTERACTION you have with your wife. It's legal in most states to record in person conversations without the other party knowing, but check with an attorney. We recommend this because it is insurance against false domestic violence charges. Wayward wives are notorious for filing false DV charges against faithful husbands as a custody/divorce gambit when they realize their world is crumbling in front of them.
Don't ignore this last piece of advice.
[This message edited by Thumos at 10:08 PM, Friday, November 5th]
