SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

BR -

I'd pull the VAR. I think she gets it.

Hang in there. You've got a long road ahead of you, as I'm sure

you know.

I think the VAR has served it's purpose BR, you know she is rigidly sticking to everything agreed upon especially NC and keeping her cheater friend at arms length. The VAR can only cause a potential backwards step now if she found it.

Wife sounds incredibly remorseful and full of genuine regrets about what she did. Long road ahead but you have your plan and you know she is taking this shit very seriously and in my modest opinion both her actions and her words match.

If my time on SA has taught me anything it is that actions matter most and genuine remorse (ie not from being caught) is a golden commodity and your wife seems to be sparkling

I wish I was clairvoyant

Lovely sarcasm there steady, kinda inappropriate too after the good news. I think WWs eagerness to take a poly showed a hugely high probability she knew she would pass any question asked of her, infact she was desperate to take the poly to help BR and I think she would take a poly every month if BR wanted.

I think she would fess up to anyone BR asked her to. Go to any amount of therapy BR asked or move out and give him space if BR asked her to. Change her career or even give up work if BR asked her to. Terminate any friendship BR asked her too if he didnt feel comfortable with the guy or girl. I think she would sign a pre-nup ... none of this seems necessary and BR doesn't want that type of marriage, wife knows she ffd up and is prepared to walk over hot coals to fix the damage she accepts responsibility for.

Now if she had been saying things like 'what if i don't pass these things arent accurate i read X article ....' or 'please don't make me have the poly I changed my mind ...' then maybe you would have a point.

If people cannot see BRs WW is not the regular trickle truthing, self centred and remorseless cheat most people are subjected to then I feel kinda sorry for them, and sorry that their infidelity was so soul destroying they just assume all waywards are full of shit.

BR got lucky for sure, but I also believe he made his own luck. He did not pussy foot around with his wife he went nuclear from discovery and he impemented a solid plan backed up by evidence that she provided and his own via VAR.

I fully expect for instance since it has been talked about in this thread for neanderthals wife to fail her poly (noone would be surprised) and on the flip side it was no suprise to me that BRs wife passed completely. It is what my instincts told me so....

Bumps in the road for BR in the coming months? Sure, R is terribly hard and god it has made me ill sometimes ... as pointed out is a marathon not a sprint but BR seems to be leading the pack

Good luck BR once again. I hope your weekend of discussions and planning go well.

The fact is, she brought the party pack every time she left the house once it started, even when she did not have sex with them. They used to laugh ( girlfriend and her) in e mails about my wife being “prepared” for nothing most of the time and girlfriend asking is she going to use the battery powered one or the one attached to two legs.

BeyondRage

The above illustrates just how trivial the sex act is to your wife.

Michigan

I think that the point I have been trying to make in my posts will help in your R. The point is that your wife doesn’t see the sex act as a big deal and you do.

To her it’s like she promised to go on a diet and she was sneaking some candy. Eating a few pieces of candy just isn’t a big deal.

She meant no disrespect even though you can’t see her acts as anything but disrespectful. Sex and emotions are two different things for your wife. To sum it up to her it wasn’t personal but you can’t see how it could be any other way.

She may have great remorse but it only because she was caught and has seen the consequences (the hurt she has caused you). If she was never caught she wouldn’t even feel guilty because it wasn’t personal.

She always thought you were a great guy and never intended to leave you.

[This message edited by Michigan at 5:04 PM, October 12th (Saturday)]

Stick around and read some more, Curd. You might see that it isn't infrequent that a WS eagerly agrees to a poly, might even suggest it and is all in with it. Until it gets real close to actually happening. They do so because they don't actually think the BS will follow through. Hence, the fairly common parking lot confessions.

It's pretty easy to say you knew they would win when the game is over. Something like I was hoping she would pass with flying colours because she seemed to be doing all the right things might have been a better call.

I expect Mrs. BeyondRage fully expected him to follow through. She suggested doing a poly to him. It seemed like she would probably pass. She did. Good for her. Now BR has that off his plate. It's still actions over words and watch and evaluate. It appears that Mrs. BR's actions will match her words. I hope they do.

She gets it.

You did a lot of things right from the beginning. For that I hope that you stick around and encourage others to take the path you chose and continue to share your experience as you move forward.

It is good to know that you have the truth but there is still a lot of healing Nd rebuilding that has to happen.

You guys will be fine if you continue to support and hold each other accountable. There is a way out and it can be pretty marvelous on the other side. Be kind be firm demand and give respect. Most of all be honest.

@steady

Been reading here and other places for many months (7 now), I just didn't post my woes here, i preferred to choose the advice I wanted to take from the various threads and I am very happy with SI it has been a great help. Maybe I will post oen day but threads like this make me want to not bother

I know many cheats will agree to a poly, some think they can beat it or their spouse will back down. To me his wife very simply wanted a poly for him to help him heal and prove she was being genuine, it seemed clear as day to me (shrugs)

BRs wife (as he pointed out so many times now and has to keep repeating it) gave up her private journals, her secret emails to friend and the guys, gave him her phone (and works phone) and it is just my novice opinion she went beyond what she could have.

My assessment of BR right from his first post is he is a very determined individual with good instincts and his behaviour towards his wife could have left her in no doubt that her entire life was one more bad choice from disintegrating. She chose to come completely clean and pour her guts out.

She seems very much in love with her husband and desperate (is the right word) not to gloss over or rugsweep or manipulate him but to sincerely repair the relationship if it is possible.

BR for all intents and purposes did a 180. I hope other people who like me found their way to this forum after having their lives upended follow BR's blueprint.

Demand everything. Confirm the facts. Talk to those involved. Tell the family to keep the hell out of it. VAR / Poly etc. Do not forgive too easily. Be prepared to walk away. Slow and steady wins the race ...

Time will tell as always and the coming months and years will either see positive changes and hard work in the wife or the doomsayers will be proved right.

My guts tell me it will be positive changes, BR is not going to tolerate anything less his thread has made that crystal clear.

[This message edited by LemonCurd at 9:05 PM, October 12th (Saturday)]

I wish you well in your efforts to R. If you wouldn't mind sharing the questions she was asked on the poly I am sure it would be appreciated here.

BR, I believe you and your WW have a great shot at moving past this. Will the memories ever go away? No. But they will fade. Will you still have hard times and emotional ups and downs as the result of this trama? Yes. And as time moves forward, this sadness will be less and less. Will you have moments of great sadness and despair? Yes. And eventually, new memories and happy times will fill this void.

From what I have read on your post and your optimism, you will get through this. I believe the two of you will prosper and your marriage can be better than ever.

I went through a very tragic experience with my WH. I love my WH dispite the hardships he put me through. I have made my WH work hard (as you are doing with your WW) to win my love back. Still working on the trust part though but it is getting better.

Our marriage and friendship has grown by leaps and bounds. Our relationship with our two kid's have excelled. We all are excelling!!! Nothing has been hidden from them by choice. I've always felt that the truth always sets me free, so my kid's know the truth. These are my feelings though. This is my path. But my path has made my family stronger than ever and we are all growing dispite the setbacks and sadness we've experienced. No lies.

Your WW obviously wants things right with you because she loves you, she truly does love you. And because she loves you, I believe that the two of you will overcome this and get to know yourselves and each other better, in a new light! I am rooting for the two of you.

Congrats of WW passing the polygraph.

Good luck to the both of you with the heavy lifting regarding R.

Pull the VAR.

You have your head screwed on the right way.

B4

Yes, it seemed very promising but it still must be a great relief.

I think that the point I have been trying to make in my posts will help in your R. The point is that your wife doesn’t see the sex act as a big deal and you do.

I am pretty certain she now will see it as a big deal.

Fool me once dot dot dot...

GREAT WIDE OPEN

(1) Have you had sexual relations with any other men during your marriage other than the two BR knows about

(4) Have you have any contact by any means with OM1 or OM2 since you were caught.

These were my original questions. They were enhanced as suggested and she was explained definition of sex acts.

Her answer to ALL of the questions was NO. And there was no doubt she passed. At this point there is no real need for debate on the questions. I got the answers I needed. There are a LOT of SMART folks here who may have come up with better questions but that would depend on your situation.

Now I want to address the WHY in my opinion and explain it. But before I do I want to thank BIGGER. In his post he stated the two reasons one being POWER and VALIDATION. That struck home to me, and i will explain because i feel i owe it to those of you who have taken your valuable time to try to help me. But I am not trying to start a debate. i understand there will be some that may question every word i write but thats OK. Its what I believe that matters.

So lets start my shrink analysis of what my wife did.

Lets start with the term validation. We ALL like validation to an extent. Anyone that says they do not like to be recognized or praised is not being honest with themselves.

Here you have a woman who has had it all her way since she was a kid. wealthy parents (remember Dad is big time physician). She is prettier than most, more popular than most, and is in high school an ELITE athlete. I was a recruited athlete in a much more visible sport, but her performances in her sport exceeded the level of me. today i would have been what is called a three to four star recruit. She would have been a five star. So all through high school she is big time in the "in crowd".

Now off to college, big time womens track program D1. Most popular sorority loaded with what was described here as "lookers". on a huge campus in with the "in crowd" again.

Of course then she meets me. So now she is dating a big C student who is part of a team that goes to three bowl games and is ranked nationally for three years. No star but more validation from her peers.

Then we get out of school and get married. And like a dummy I get her pregnant four times in such a short time. no validation or power there. Just two kids in their twenties struggling for years to figure out how we are going to survive, send these kids to college and buy a house. Fortunately, my career gets going well, and now she finds herself just a time ravaged housewife trying to cope with four kids close to the same age for years. NOT VERY GLAMOROUS, VALIDATING , or POWER inspiring.

That's when the GNO shit starts. many single hot girlfriends parading into clubs and the group i am sure dropped jaws when they strolled into these places in not what you would call 'proper" business attire. plenty of the WRONG kind of validation going on here and I am thankful i did not buy into the "don't be a prude and don't be controlling' bull shit . As I detailed i put a stop to this and i am SURE if i had not that i would have been divorced a long time ago.

So now its back to good old housewife life. bye bye validation and power. I bring home the paycheck other than her job teaching at health clubs and she cooks and cleans. Now she is not complaining but i am not sure this is what she thought her future would be limited to.

Then the girls get to middle school and high school and it has become evident that our encouragement to participate in athletics plus the God given abilities start to make it clear with the increase in opportunities for women to get athletics scholarships that they all have a chance to to do this at some level.

At this same time, her parents and my fathers childless uncle drop a shitload of money on us so that we can buy this five bedroom house we are now in and which is now almost paid off.

So now WW is the Mom of girls who are the stars of each of their teams. She becomes the Mom all the others want to be "friends" with. the Mom that most want to sit near at games, and the leader of the moms groups organizing support activities for the girls teams. Pretty heady stuff again. The "IN ": crowd times four.

Then of course she is also the "hot" looking Mom that our girls continue to remind her of as well as their male zombies hanging around my house in battalion size strength.

Now comes the ultimate power trip and joy for any parent. Some of you will relate to this. every day practically in the mail for years there are letters from coaches, phone calls from coaches, campus visits, house visits. And one by one they choose where to go and eventually they are ALL GONE. And all during this process, of course i have input but she does all the leg work.

Now we are EMPTY NESTERS and she is in her forties. The POWER and VALIDATION are gone other than what our marriage can give her, WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH. . Remember, I am not trying to excuse what she did. I am trying to explain what my interpretation of it is.

So then she goes back to work, and she is just another sales representative in a huge company. And as an outlet reverts back to an uptick in the physical training (running) at which she excels. And this is where i wish i had read the Not Just Friends book. The out of town running starts, she connects with the girlfriend, they are of the few women who can run in the packs of men, and you all know the rest. PLENTY OF VALIDATION AND POWER to be had.

I am not blaming myself. I am going to bring up Esther Perel again so don't go batshit crazy on me. One thing in her talk that resounded with me was when she stated that "marriages where children consume all of the effort and are in front of the relationship" are more likely to produce infidelity. Well, we were TEXTBOOK on that one.

Now there is no reason to start everyone arguing about what I have written. It is my belief on the major WHY. And as I have stated, there is no WHY that i have seen here for which the statement cannot be made that thousands of folks are in the same situation and do not cheat. i understand that and have never disagreed it. But my wife did, causing me to have to deal with it. There is no need to keep repeating it.

I have pulled the VAR from her car, which seemed to be what everyone who commented recommended. I refuse to stay in CIA mode for years and years.

Regarding trust. Obviously there are going to be no more out of town hobby activities alone in co ed company. She is not going to be able to work without interacting with men. So its all on her to do the right thing because if i sat here and told you she will not get "hit" on again and again i would be an idiot.

She has a lot of married girlfriends that i do not believe for a minute she would cheat on me on a trip with them, but she has now turned down two out of town opportunities for a week end away in the near future.

We are going to start to do more things together. But i have no intention of attaching her to my hip everywhere she or I goes.

There are two ways to look at things. Its the old glass half empty or glass half full. When I think of the situation i could have found myself in that many here are enduring, i can to some degree feel fortunate.

We now need to start improving our communication and she needs to talk to me if she is feeling down or in the dumps about something, and she needs to get her validation from me and her beautiful family and learn how to do that and be satisfied with it. That is our task. It is a big job, I know that.

Tushnurse, thanks for the post and invitation to stick around. And again thank you all for helping me.

You have handled everything perfectly. There will be no getting around the pain, but you guys should have a good chance of making it.

You are right in that you can't police forever. I actually had my PI do drive by's a few times a week for the first few weeks at random. She knew his car and could see him.

It wasn't that expensive as it didnt take much time, but it was still a waste of money. My EX, like I think yours, is not a serial cheat. It was MLC that almost destroyed her life. She is too smart and is too happy in her marriage to ever put herself at risk again.

I wouldn't however let her do the traveling events. Not for fear that she will cheat, but for the pain that you would go through reliving the past. I bet she will willingly let that part of her life go. Plenty of opportunities to run in events that dont require an overnight.

BR, I posted a while ago on a different thread about a study I had read about that was about the frequency of adultery by age and sex. IIRC 45 (mid 40s) was the most frequent age of women committing adultery and 55 for men. Reasons were given and I think I remember it was about middle age, empty nest, fading beauty (perceived but not true, IMO), etc.

My WW was 45 when she started. Successful at work after being home and 2 daughters left home the same year for university. It was an LTA and I didn't catch her.

Sorry. That was a sidetrack. I just wanted to inject that your supposition could have merit and backed up by some research.

I turned 55 and didn't cheat, though. There is still a question of why some will and some won't with the same conditions and circumstances.

BR, for what it's worth, I think you nailed it.

How long would she have kept going if you didn't accidentally catch her.

How kind of you to take all that time to spell out your thinking within the context of her life and your marriage. I had to chuckle at all the admonishments to commenters, however; strong opinions are both the strength and bane of SI.

I also commend you on behalf of future BSs who will read your story and hopefully take similar steps needed to mend their lives and escape infidelity. While you have a lot of healing to do over the next few years, you are OUT of infidelity now in my view. It just has a long aftermath....

So, thank you for both tolerating and benefitting from the lively debate here. You will have more chapters I hope you will share as time passes.

My only suggestion would be to encourage your WW to put energy into something that allows her to mentor or give to others, like she did for your girls. Validation and power come from that more profoundly than from being the center of attention all the time. The time of life for “generativity” begins now.

[This message edited by Odonna at 2:50 AM, October 14th (Monday)]

and I am thankful i did not buy into the "don't be a prude and don't be controlling' bull shit

This comment made me think of reddit and how the posters there go nuts if you even dare to suggest a partner behaves a certain way or you insist doesn't go out drinking in clubs till 6am or sleep over at friends houses (of the opposite sex)

Can I ask BR what was the poly examiner like? Young or old, ex police or corporate? Intimidating or friendly?

Did the poly guy have advice for you or just let you run the questions? I have seen some examiners mentioned on here who talked the BS out of going through with it I can't remember the threads but yikes.

Did he give you the results privately or together and did he explain them? Sorry for all the Qs it's just incase I ever need to hire one of these guys, no plans at the moment but I am not stupid, a time may come.

I am sure you both were relieved when it was over. Did her parents have anything to say?

Anyway, good luck once again to both of you.

Hopefully this can close the chapter of investigating. You have enough to understand it. You don't have to like it, but knowing the "truth," gives you one heck of a head start towards healing without worrying about the next shoe dropping.

Nothing to really add here. What is she doing to learn to value her own self validation versus those external to her ?

I know you aren't big on therapy, but I do think she would benefit greatly from it.

FWIW I think it would hurt if you did the same. I get it is not for everyone, but I can tell you that it tremendously helpful to me. Alas, it is your life and your are much better suited to make that call.

Keep working it as you've have been. You are well on your way to surviving this. Hell, even thriving after it.

I had to chuckle at all the admonishments to commenters, however; strong opinions are both the strength and bane of SI.

Odonna, and what makes your advice any different from the other commenters??

I think it is the posters decision to decide whether they want to accept the advice or just scroll on by. You really never know what the poster is needing to hear in that moment.

As the saying goes, take what you want and leave the rest.

Steady Chevy, I’m going to thread jack and discuss what you brought up about ages of cheaters. A woman’s estrogen level starts falling off after age 35. By about 45 it is low enough to begin menopause and most women are through it by age 50. What no one seems to talk about is that women have testosterone in their bodies. It is smothered by estrogen through childbearing years. Once estrogen levels are low testosterone becomes more powerful. All of a sudden that sweet, loving wife is horny as hell. On the other hand a man begins to lose testosterone in middle age and by age 55 might begin to have ED problems. As his testosterone lowers his emotional side comes out. This man who has never shed a tear starts crying over things. On top of that he finds a woman at work who thinks he is perfect. He is now primed for a very serious emotional affair. A blue pill and some condoms and you have an affair. These are called gray divorces and from what I am reading it’s becoming an epidemic.

Those are powerful driving forces but there is another one that should be discussed. Contempt. In a marriage if the power structure is skewed then you have the makings of an affair and a divorce. There is nothing more demeaning than a person you live with making prickly, pointed, demeaning remarks at you and about you. If you are the one who is doing this you are asking for it. If you are the victim of it you are wanting out. This is the major reason that good marriages last and bad ones don’t. There is something so painful about being married to someone who thinks you are not worth their consideration and respect. That seldom gets talked about on this forum but it is such a primary reason for cheating and divorce that it should be. The more subtle the put downs are the harder they are for the victim to address, but it is a slow, day by day, year-by-year, torture so the marriage stinks. I am never surprised at a person who cheats in that kind of marriage.

This is not addressed to any particular person but if you know that this is how you treat your spouse you need to figure out how to stop it.