SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I still say you're rugsweeping, at least to a degree.

You say that you attend church as a family. Wonderful. But even Jesus overturned the tables of the money changers and rebuked demons. He certainly didn't give them a pass.

[This message edited by MidnightRun at 4:05 PM, February 3rd (Saturday)]

Keep in mind that "getting closer to God" and going to church is for you. You have no idea and will never know how or if God or church makes any difference to her future decisions, as it didn't in her past decisions. This forum is filled with church going God fearing cheaters.

I'm not taking anything away from your efforts in that regard, but just know that what she says or does in the name of God or church is not really knowable to you as to its depth or influence on her decision making.

One other thought, you used the term punishment relative to how you see certain possible actions to her A. None of the suggestions that I have read so far would be anything at all like extending punishment, they would be safeguards for you.

On average it takes about 2 to 5 years with a remorseful wife to start to feel a bit of normalcy but to be honest it never completely goes away. It's been almost 19 years since dday and I still think about about it DAILY.

In your case, I'm getting a sense of rug sweeping. Have you gotten all the details?

1. The: Who?, how long?, why?, and what?

2. Has her parents been informed? (Not in "your daughter's a whore" but in a help me fight for and protect the marriage way)

3. Has the other betrayed been informed? (2 eyes on them is better than one.)

You need to know what it is you're forgiving. We have betrayed spouses, who later find out that their wayward did much more than what they thought. Many think in the beginning that they don't want to know, so don't ask but then it later more details come out and it causes them to feel almost as bad as on dday.

We had a member who thought his wife only had protected sex but when she wanted to get STD tested it later came out that she swallowed (something BH always wanted but WW always turned down) He felt so hurt. This was MONTHS after dday and things were supposedly improving.

On average it takes about 2 to 5 years with a remorseful wife to start to feel a bit of normalcy but to be honest it never completely goes away. It's been almost 19 years since dday and I still think about about it DAILY.

16 years beyond Dday here - and I completely agree with the above.

I feel ur pain. My D Day was just 7 weeks ago. I just sold my house and I'm sitting here in a empty house pacing the rug n staring out the window. Good Luck bud. Its got to get better at some point I'm sure.

Jsmart, to answer a few of your questions:

1. The who? She works on a campus. The AP was someone who was security. How long? Approx 5 months PA, and maybe 2 months EA prior. The why? Is there really an excuse? Her reason for being weak is that I was dealing with stress, and seemed distant and she thought that I "checked out". He gave her validation and made her feel desired.

2. No, her parents do not know. What happened affected our relationship. I didn't think that it was necessary to tarnish their relationship with her.

3. The AP's wife knows, and she was the one who told me. The saddest part is I consider myself to be someone of at least average intelligence. I saw the signs and totally dismissed them. The one that makes me want to pick my own ass is when I asked to borrow her phone, as mine was in another room and she refused. I actually had the thought that she was hiding something, then concluded an affair. Again, I didn't want to believe it, and thought I was being stupid. Hindsight sure is 20/20!

You know, the hardest thing is hearing that people believe I'm rugsweeping. It's not necessarily because I think you are wrong, which makes it even more painful. Maybe you are right. Maybe I'm doing this to protect my own emotions, which is pretty damn counterproductive.

After D-Day, I came home and started packing my stuff. I left for the day and was going to come home so I could sit the kids down and talk about why I would be leaving for a while. I was luckily saying enough to realize that making such a drastic decision that could impact their very sense of security so soon after a trauma could do irreversible damage to them. I decided to try and stay that night. I couldn't be in the same room with her. That was literally the most uncomfortable night I have ever lived, bar none. For anyone who has ever served in the military, I can assure you that I had some pretty bad times to compare it to.

Sleep didn't happen. I wrote my thoughts in an email and sent it to her at 4 AM. It was the most hopeless, despair-ladden words I have ever typed out.

Day 2, we had to discuss. I couldn't stay. We had to discuss how to tell the kids. She was their mother, and as much as she hurt me, I couldn't hurt them by telling them what I thought of her. I wasn't sure I could have that talk and be stable enough.

Day 3, we had another talk. I entered into my engineer role, because that was all that I knew. No promises or R, but for the kids, we needed to be better people so we could come parent. IC was a requirement. Church was a requirement, as it was my greatest regret as a parent (no religious background). NC had to happen, and she would need to find another job. Again, no promises if I would or could stay.

She complied with all of them, but the last. She has looked, but is scared to accept something that pays less. I explained that the cost of her staying would be greater than the money difference, but she was afraid to be a single mom on less money. Her AP has found other employment.

I have stayed so far. I have given myself a year to make sure that the R is what is in the best interest for myself and the kids. If that year was up today, I'm not sure that I would stay, but progress is being made.

I’m sorry for what you are going through and I’m concerned that if you continue on the path you are currently on your attempt at R may be doomed. You mentioned that you both tried IC through Church counselors and it sounds like you both are currently in MC and that you are using the MC for IC. It also sounds like no one other than the counselors, OM & OBS know about the A.

Although I didn't make this choice, I have to live with a shame as well. It's not like I could talk to my friends and tell them how I wasn't enough for my wife and maintain any shred of dignity that I have left

.

This tells me that you still are thinking that the reason for her cheating had something to do with YOU. It didn’t! You could have been the absolute perfect husband as well as an Adonis and she still may have cheated because the flaw is in HER.

Look, you both constructed a marriage and it had a catastrophic failure. The component that failed was your wife. Now you are trying to reconstruct the marriage using the same materials and you don’t seem to have a clue what caused that component to fail. Does that make sense? MC deals with how smoothly attuned the marriage was but it isn’t focused on what caused that key component to fail. IC is designed to focus on her and attempt to determine what caused her failure = why she cheated.

I suggest you suspend the MC for a while and both of you concentrate on IC. She should be in IC with a therapist who is well versed with infidelity. She needs to figure out why she is broken, where the flaw is, how she can be reinforced so you might have confidence that the failure will not reoccur.

You need IC to deal with whether you are realistically going to be able to go all in on R. She is broken and her brokenness didn’t allow her to properly value the relationship she was in with you. You need to determine how much you valued that relationship. If she finds her “whys,” does the work and you have reason to believe she can be a safe partner will you still require the scales of justice to be perfectly balanced? How much weight on the scales would her feeling true remorse to her dying day represent?

I personally feel there needs to be consequences for infidelity and that acceptance of consequences can actually hasten remorse. In your WW case I suggest at minimum, full disclosure of the A to at least her parents. This should add weight in balancing the scales and may help dispel the feeling that she got to have her A with no real cost to her or her reputation. If you don’t at least take this step I’m concerned your sense of fairness won’t allow you to R. In the end, it’s up to you to decide just how disposable you consider this relationship to be.

Anyway you look at it this sucks and will for quite some time whether you decide R or D.

So much has resonated with how i feel. Good luck. I feel I am

Betraying myself too.

Actually, a few more people do know. When I found out, I called my sister right away. She has some experience, as she is on her second marriage as her first ended at 20 years due to him having an A. We have always been close, and I figured that she would be able to relate more than anyone else. She was deeply hurt that someone could do this to me, her brother. She has a lot of respect for both me and my wife, so obviously it was hard for her to be impartial. Naturally, her alliances are with me, and she really wanted us to try to work through it because of my children.

At the time, I was really mad that everyone wanted me to try to work through this. I was pissed that I had to be the one to decide if my family was going to be broken or not. That's how I felt. I did nothing wrong, but I had to choose whether my children would be raised in a broken home. I'm still pretty bitter about having to make that choice, to be honest. I didn't make the choice 2 sleep with anyone else, so why does this rest on my shoulders? I'm sure that the decision to not tell everyone was a double-edged sword. Of course, she wanted to maintain Her Image, and I didn't want to taint anyone's opinion if I decided to try and make this work. Her parents would have been devastated. We are close, geographically and emotionally. I'm closer to her parents in my own. She let a lot of people down, including one of her best friends who she can fight it in after D-Day. This friend listened, and tried her best to be a supportive friend, but that relationship has suffered as well.

I'm trying to do the right thing. There is no one-size-fits-all in this situation, and sadly, they don't really make a manual, or if they did, I didn't see it before this all broke.

Honestly, it all feels so incredibly unfair. I know that is a very common feeling to have, especially since I didn't know that there were so many problems that she was feeling were in our relationship. I'm angry that she couldn't talk to me about those problems before it got to this point. I'm angry that she didn't think she could confide in me and suggest MC when she felt that I wasn't giving her enough attention. I'm furious that I was living in a sexless marriage because of her own self esteem issues, yet she fell into someone else's arms. I literally cry at night thinking how we were sitting there on the couch with the TV on, and her with her phone in her hand. The kids were emotionally starved for attention from her at this time, as was I. The thing that also goes through my mind constantly is if AP's wife didn't take his phone and Snoop, would the still be going on today? What was her end game? She can't answer me that question. You don't enter a relationship with someone without an endgame in my opinion, but she says she never thought of that. Did she want 2 drop me for him both physically and geographically? Did she stay because I provide the lifestyle that he couldn't?

I know that there is a bit of rug sweeping going on at the stage, but I'm not sure how to move forward with accountability now. It's been almost 9 months since. We've been trying to move forward, and I know that there's a lot of remorse there, but maybe if she showed me a little bit more remorse, I could heal a little bit easier. I know that it's painful to replay things for both her and I, but maybe it still needs to happen. I just don't know. That's the shittiest Part of everything. I just don't know what the F to do!

Honestly, it all feels so incredibly unfair. I know that is a very common feeling to have, especially since I didn't know that there were so many problems that she was feeling were in our relationship. I'm angry that she couldn't talk to me about those problems before it got to this point. I'm angry that she didn't think she could confide in me and suggest MC when she felt that I wasn't giving her enough attention.

You clearly still don’t understand that there wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do that caused her to have the A! I’m not just saying the A is all on her. I think we all agree on that. What I am saying is that her having the A had NOTHING to do with YOU!!! I realize this concept is difficult to swallow but I will be extremely surprised if it doesn’t turn out to be true. Rewriting history and grasping at anything for justification of having the A is one of the core concepts of Cheating 101. Most of the time it isn’t even consciously done by the wayward.

I’m assuming your WW is a normally decent person with good moral standards. For you children’s sake I certainly hope she is. Please try to understand what happened. OM sees WW and finds her attractive. He tosses out a few ego kibbles in front of her and low and behold she eats them up. He then progressively feeds her more and more until she is eating them out of his hand. She begins to see where the trail of kibbles is headed but by that time she finds herself addicted to them. For her to simply continue following the trail into his bed would be an evil and immoral thing to do. She really loves those kibbles but accepting that she is in fact an evil and immoral person is too bitter a pill to swallow. So there MUST be some rational reason besides kibble lust for her to keep heading into the A. Trust me when I say they will find SOMETHING to justify continuing on. Even if it’s just the fact you left the toilet seat up. They can even convince themselves they are in love with OM because why else would they be having sex with him. At the same time they can know they are still in love with you and never have the intention to leave you. They can convince themselves they are in love with you both.

What was her end game? She can't answer me that question. You don't enter a relationship with someone without an endgame in my opinion, but she says she never thought of that.

I actually believe her. I doubt she ever initially considered an end game. Just scarf those kibbles and the thrill the illicit affair gave her.

If for one minute I thought that your inattention to her and the marriage actually caused her to have the A I would be yelling for you to run fast and far and never look back. She would never be a safe partner because you always maintaining an adequate amount of attention would simply be unsustainable. There will always be highs and lows in a marriage and I’m sure there have been previously in yours and she didn’t cheat. She needs a good IC that she can be totally honest with and that will help her dig deep to figure out why she ended up where she is now and help give her tools to prevent it happening again.

I realize you are 9 month into this hell but she needs to find out why she is so broken that she had the A. I can also understand why you are so uncertain whether R is the right thing for you. You actually believe your inattention had something some causal effect leading to her A. That belief alone would prevent me from committing to all in on R because I would know in my heart I am not now nor ever will be the perfect husband. But then again, I don’t know any man who is and I doubt the perfect husband actually exists. The same goes for the perfect wife.

Once again, you both should be in IC, especially her.

I'm angry that she couldn't talk to me about those problems before it got to this point. I'm angry that she didn't think she could confide in me and suggest MC when she felt that I wasn't giving her enough attention.

Cheater script. She's just making an excuse for her actions.

They all do this. It's just a typical cheating wife affair. The only thing different is it happened to you.

Sorry you're here.

2. No, her parents do not know. What happened affected our relationship. I didn't think that it was necessary to tarnish their relationship with her.

This is a major mistake. She needs consequences. Right now she's not facing any. Keeps her job? The place she was hooking up with POS? Are you kidding?

Telling her parents is for her to face what she's done. Some shame will help snap her out of the fog. Right now she's walking around like she's all that. Riding high on knowing 2 guys want her.

You answered most of the questions but not the what? You don't need to post the answer here but you should want to know exactly what is it you're forgiving.

What was she doing with this guy. Was she performing acts that you were turned down on. So many BHs rushing into R for the kids, thinking they can handle it but it later eats at them. So make sure you understand what it is that you're forgiving.

Hello Trying2copeinMD and welcome to SI. As NTV wrote, this is the greatest club that no one has ever wanted to join.

Brother, you've got to get this notion that you and/or your marriage is somehow to blame for your WW's affair.

The why? Is there really an excuse? Her reason for being weak is that I was dealing with stress, and seemed distant and she thought that I "checked out".

This is blame-shifting. My FWW tried very hard, for two months, to blame me and our marriage for her infidelity. That shit had me calling lawyers and preparing for a divorce. It's all too fucking common and all too wrong. The only person your WW has to blame for her affair is herself. Not you, not your marriage, not the AP. She, and only she, is responsible for her choices, her decisions, her actions.

Don't blame yourself.

I cannot say for certain whether or not MC is the right way to go. Personally, I have always believed that by agreeing to MC (something my FWW was all too eager to do in those first few weeks) is to lend credence to the notion that the there is a casual link between the state of the marriage and the infidelity. To me, infidelity is a clear departure from the marriage, not an event within it. To me, infidelity is a deal-breaker. The moment my wife invite the OM into her hotel room was the same moment she nullified our marriage. She broke her vows. She ended our marriage. And all of that was her choice.

I heard many of the same lines the rest of hear. "I didn't think you loved me anymore," and "I didn't think you'd care." One night, shortly after D-day, I sat down and listened to all of her 'reasons.' It was an endless line of sickening justifications, rationalizations, selfish, self-absorbed nonsense and eventually had me thinking that I married the craziest bitch on the planet.

Six months after D-day I made IC for my wife a condition of reconciliation. She went about ever three to four weeks for well over a year. Today, if I ask my FWW why she had her little fling, it's all about her. Every word. It's about how she felt... about herself, her issues... strong codependency, abandonment issues (she's adopted), FOO (family of origin) stuff.

Your WW has a lot of work to do on herself. She's going to have to figure out why she could have betrayed herself in such a base and self-destructive manner. Because that's really what affairs are... self-destructive.

You say she avoids conflict. There's a good start right there. What conflicts does she avoiding? Why does she avoid them? What conflicts does she have with herself that enables and fosters this poor coping mechanism? How does avoiding make her feel? And on and on...

I'll tell you right now that after a few years on this site it's become very apparent to me that WS with strong tendencies to avoid conflict are some of the most difficult people with whom to reconcile. It's damned near impossible to resolve or reconcile a conflict like infidelity when all one wants to do is avoid, avoid, avoid...

I'd estimate that at least half, or more, of those trying to reconcile a marriage after infidelity are doing so because they have young children. Staying for the kids is a huge reason why so many of us give our WS another chance. And if you ask me, it's a damned good reason, but with the singular caveat that in the end, we cannot sacrifice too much of ourselves for our kids, because they need us as whole and happy as we can be. Staying for the kids and being miserable isn't a good solution for anyone.

There's no shame in it, brother. It's just life. You didn't make this choice, you have no reason to be ashamed, you're doing the right thing by giving your WW a chance to own and fix her shit, to be the wife you deserve, the mother your kids need, and woman she needs to become. It's a tough fucking pill to swallow, but there it is.

You'll read it here over and over again, especially from me, but! focus on you, your recovery and your healing. It took me a good ten months to finally climb out of that damned rabbit hole and feel even relatively close to normal, so you're more or less right on track.

If your WW is willing and able to 'own and fix her shit,' you might be able to reconcile and rebuild your marriage. However, so long as she continues to the avoid the conflicts within herself that lead her down that road, she will never be a safe partner or a good wife (or mother, if you ask me).

Best wishes, man. Keep posting.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 10:48 PM, February 4th (Sunday)]

Several questions.

Do you shield your WW from your anger?

How she reacts when you are angry?

How the incident with "toothbrush lie" in MC ended?

What does she think about AP now?

Who makes decisions on whom to tell about her A?

I just have a feeling that you are suppressing your feelings. That your wife doesn't really know/felt what you are going through. The longer you bottle up your emotions, the harder it will be once the bottle breaks.

I want to thank you. Each and everyone of you. I've read every single response, and thought long and hard of everything.

Last night, we watched the Super Bowl. I watched my team lose (hate me, I'm a Pat's fan!), But that wasn't the most depressing part for me. It was just a game. What was affecting me is knowing that last year, after we won, what her and her AP did to celebrate.

This morning, we had a two-hour delay for school. I decided that I was going to work from home, and she went in a little bit later because she was tired from watching the game. I got up and got dressed and came downstairs. She was still asleep. I really Envy the fact that she's able to sleep when I'm going through this turmoil. Maybe Envy isn't quite a strong enough word.

She got dressed and came downstairs and asked me why I didn't talk to her at all this morning when I heard she was awake. I really didn't know what to say. Just told her I was having a hard time. She texted me on her way in to work asking if I was mad at her, and I laid a lot of shit out on the table. I told her that the agreement was that we were going to IC, MC, and she would have to find another job. I never promised her that I would stay, I just said that we could work towards it. I also required us to go to church, which I've already expressed earlier. My theory was that even if we didn't stay together, we could both grow individually and become better people through this whole process.

I do feel that there's a lot of rug sweeping going on. A lot. I'm not comfortable with it anymore. A lot of my requirements have not been met. I didn't know about the 180 concept before, and I wonder if it's too late to start now.

A lot of you people have made an impact on where I'm at right now. I feel lost, but I have a sense of clarity that I didn't have before. MC being silly as this happened outside of the marriage was profound. This was not a small event in our lives, but a catastrophic failure, and I can't help but feel like I am trying to apply first aid to a small cut on her hand, while I have a huge gunshot wound in my chest. Ship needs to change, and change incredibly fast.

I can't say that breeding everything was especially fun, but it was very eye-opening. Maybe this can help me to heal, and to decide where I want to go in this relationship

We're rooting for ya bro, whatever you decide.

I didn't know about the 180 concept before, and I wonder if it's too late to start now.

Here's my simple advise on the 180. First off, understand that the 180 is an about face. You're basically turning your back on your WS and looking forward in a very different direction. It's about helping you to the find the strength and fortitude to prepare for a divorce. It is not a tool that you can use to change your WS. It's about you and you alone.

I printed out the article and read it at least once a week or so for quite a while. Each time I read it, I understood it a little more.

I can't say that breeding everything was especially fun, but it was very eye-opening. Maybe this can help me to heal, and to decide where I want to go in this relationship

Everyone will experience SI differently. Like everything else in life, you'll get out of SI what you put into it. Personally, many of the members here have helped me to see things about myself that I might have otherwise missed (or ignored). Some have challenged me in ways that I never expected. Most have been wonderfully supportive. Not everything I read helped. Some of it hurt. Some of it was off the mark. A lot of it was incredibly astute. Sometimes, things people write will resonate like world class church bells. Sometimes, not so much.

Occasionally, members here wrote things that struck me to my core, and for that, I love them all.

Of course, SI is also a mess. It's a hot mess of people in a world of pain, so much raw emotion. People who need help. People who need to know that there are others out there who know what it feels like to be thoroughly unhinged, who understand, who've been there and done that. There is great wisdom here, centuries of experience when it comes to surviving infidelity.

Focus on you, man. Focus on your recovery and healing. Detach from your WW, step-back, watch and observe what she does.

Is she avoiding and rug-sweeping? Is she being transparent and accountable, or does she defend her privacy? Is she listening when you want to talk, or is she getting defensive? Is she taking responsibility for her actions, or is she still blame-shifting, gas-lighting? Is she being open and honest, vulnerable?

Is she willing and able to own and fix her shit?

Wow, yesterday was a toughie. Not as hard as D-Day, but probably close, tbh.

So, here was my situation. What really drove me to the site is that I felt unsettled. 9 months after my world came crashing down, I started looking for true clarity. Is this going in the right direction? I didn't know the term before, but I felt that a lot of rug sweeping was going on. I tried to attack this problem from a rational point of view, and really didn't give my emotions a voice. I thought that I screwed things up royally.

She knew that I was upset, but couldn't identify why. I demanded a timeline, which made her face the shame all over. I was also going to the MC for an IC session, but decided to bring her so she could see first hand where I was mentally. She saw me as broken, angry, and doubtful of the future. She saw my tears, which I think may have had the hugest impact, as she has never seen me cry, other than when I had to put my dog down (I loved that furry bastard!). She understood how unfair this all was, and how she placed me in an impossible decision. Leave, and lose my kids for at least 50% and destroy their sense of security or stay and lose myself. She heard me discuss how I had my stipulations to stay, and how they didn't happen. One being IC, the other being that she leave the job. At one other time, another issue came to play. I asked her for a small change in her appearance at only I would see. She didn't want to do it and thought that by me pressuring her, I was being selfish. I explained to my counselor that it really hurt, because in my theory, in the situation if she wanted to make it better, if I wanted to have sex on the front lawn in the middle of the day with her while we did a Jay-Z and Beyonce duet, she should be asking me what song. I shouldn't be made to feel guilty about what I wanted her to do.

It all rang true. She finally saw it! I left at the 50-minute mark because the counselor wanted to talk to her for a few minutes. Those few minutes turned into an hour.

When she came home, I could tell that her world was rocked. She begged me to talk to her, which I finally relented. I explained to her that she was complacent, that she was trying to blame shift and I would not stand for it. She acknowledged it all. She has agreed to IC, and more importantly, she now wants to go. She wants to find why she's broken. I explained to her that she can never be who she was. I explained to her that it's okay to not be that person, because that person was weak. That's not who I want as a partner.

I'm sorry for the huge long rambling, but I think by now Anyone who reads my responses to anything knows that it is par for the course. I have a newfound hope that this can actually work, that she is actually owning what she has done, and she seen me and light that has never happened. I came here looking for clarity, and I feel that I have it. Lots 2x4's taken, and I have to be honest, some really did hurt. I needed them. I don't know anyone on here, but if I did, I would want to thank each and everyone of you.

Best thanks you can give me bro is to make sure you heal.

Started a journal?

She still sounds self-centered, refusing some basic requests.

I agree that she should be willing to do damn near anything for R.

She needs to face consequences.