SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Maybe it is the cynic in me, but what she is doing is textbook. She is still lying. Recovering the deleted texts would fill in the blanks. Dr. Fone is great program and worth the money.

Do you even have transparency from her ? How do you know she is not still talking to him. Or another OM ?

She is a SAHM why can't she get a job outside of the home ? Idle hands are the devils playthings. She was bored and I'd bet money she resents that you earn the household money. Her EA/PA was an attempt to "balance" the power imbalance. She consciously or subconsciously did to disrespect you. Plus if she has her own income it would help in any D outcome. Further moving houses I think would be part of that "new" beginning. Many guys that had their wives cheat on them in their homes never heal because the house becomes a trigger.

My take is that she planned this event with him. She is more complicit than she is admitting to. They went on a date and hooked up afterwards. All worked out in advance. The texts will prove it. Also a polygraph will confirm her lying. Further did the OM actually change plans based on if you were going top be there or not? Or did she just tell you that ? You need another way to validate she is telling the truth because she has shown she will lie (even about minor things) to make what she did seem "not so bad."

I'd bet she planned and carried it out. I'd bet money the next detail that comes out is related to that.

She is playing the victim card to avoid her responsibility. It happened. True. Intent matters in this case. So does being truthful.

I hate to keep saying this, but it may be she likes the lifestyle you provide for her. Only if you remove that (by her getting a job, separating finances, etc.) will you be able to see if she wants to stay M to you for the right reasons.

It is scary as hell to seek the truth. I get it. You really do need it if you want a chance of moving on from this time in your life to happier place. With or without your W.

Gator,

I’m sorry that the circumstances were worse than you had hoped. You have been hurt way more than anyone deserves to be hurt, so I am not going to pull her story apart or focus on any of the contradictions it contains.

To summarise it, she did something absolutely horrible, dropped a bomb on the marriage and your perceptions of her, and you are now sifting through the rubble to see if anything can be rebuilt.

“I still love her and she loves me.”

My heart goes out to you for feeling that you still love her, despite what she did. It’s a position many betrayed spouses find themselves in. Loving someone who has done something despicable to them. Emotions are complex things.

As for her loving you, I think you need to let her prove that before you believe it. I know that you want to believe it, and she will say anything at this point to prevent you from divorcing her and the family being permanently broken up as a result of her actions. But what she did for two years with that guy, culminating in her having sex with him, was not in any way a manifestation of love for you. The sad truth is, you had disappeared off her emotional radar at that point. I am not saying that to make things worse or be hurtful, but to highlight the fact that whatever she may say now, she switched her emotional focus from you and became fixated on the OM. And after what she did, she has a huge amount of work to do to prove that she loves you. Talk is cheap; you need to watch her actions.

Also, she needs to explain why she abandoned you for a two year period when she was fixated on the OM. It was you that was abandoned, Gator, not her! It was her that did the abandoning. You were living with her in the house, physically and emotionally there with her, and yet when you objected to her communications with the OM, she ignored you completely and actively increased her attachment to him. What part of her pursuing another man and ignoring the feelings of her husband and the father of her children constitutes the ‘abandonment’ that she claims she was feeling? Good grief, she had two men in her life for two years, a husband and another man she was obsessed with, and she is saying that she was suffering abandonment? She actively abandoned you every time she ignored your feelings and communicated with the OM. So do not waste any time investigating her claims of ‘abandonment’; it is a bogus justification that is being grafted onto a much more basic dynamic of a woman becoming fixated on another man, and ultimately bringing him into the family home and having sex with him.

“This was a selfish act and not done to hurt me.”

That is very true, and it is something that betrayed spouses can have a hard time understanding. She didn’t do it to hurt you, but she also didn’t stop herself from doing it because she loved you. After two years of being fixated on the OM, by the time she dragged him into bed, you didn’t feature in her thinking at all. Maybe, midway through, she suddenly remembered the man she usually slept with in that bed; the man who had fathered the kids who were sleeping nearby; the man who was not in the family home that night because he was working to pay for it. Maybe it was in the middle of what she herself described as a crummy and unsatisfactory encounter that the bubble of her obsession with the OM burst and she remembered she had a husband. And maybe – hopefully – that was the start of her switching her emotions and affections away from the OM and back towards you. That would certainly be good for you, as you still love her, and also for the kids. But like I say, she has a hell of a lot to make up to you and to prove to you beyond any shadow of a doubt.

“No decisions yet, no rush. We are partners for our children and will see where we find ourselves in 6 months.

My thoughts are we need to be sure what drove this is remedied and find out if I can ever be at peace with this.”

Fair enough. I wish you well as you try to rebuild things and create a stable family for the kids to grow up in. You obviously have a huge amount of love for your kids and you want the best for them, and I think anyone with a heart will hope that you succeed in making that happen.

[This message edited by M1965 at 3:40 PM, May 17th (Wednesday)]

GF,

Have you asked her if she would be willing to take a polygraph test to prove that she is finally telling you the truth?

While such tests aren't foolproof, a BH can often learn a lot just by how is WW reacts to that question.

Gator, what about texting apps that delete texts right away? Snapchat, KiK, even words with friends can be used to furtively text someone. Her regular texts may have been clean but there are many other avenues she could have been using for the planning and setxting part.

Ask her about those and watch her reaction.

[This message edited by nutmegkitty at 4:57 PM, May 17th (Wednesday)]

Hmmm, she admits she was the aggressor, after telling you she might have been drugged?

I don't think you have the truth yet.

Poly is happening next week. MC tomorrow.

I have an open mind now I hope.

I will post when I receive written confession.

I find it everything suspicious, and am not accepting the story until backed up by poly with specific questions.

Also, why is it me finding books to help the betrayed spouse?

Thanks again to all.

Hang in there Gator, it is good how you are dealing with the things as they come up. Giving time is a goos thing but expect more facts to come out and assume that she is less than truthful, ya know to "protect" you...

Does she know about the Polygraph?

It may be early for MC but maybe not if she makes up a timeline, allows her emails/text to be recovered as part of the MC. No blame shifting to you is allowed.

Has she said the I love you but not in love with you line yet?

The sex being bad is mostly a lie. And who cares at that point, they were really crossing every line there is so it's too bad that it was not good or too fast.

It's like a bank robber expecting forgiveness because he lost all the money in a crap game and didn't enjoy the fruits of the robbery. Gimme a break.

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 6:08 PM, May 17th (Wednesday)]

Glad to hear about the poly, I think that is the best way to minimize the length of the TT. I'd be prepared for a parking lot confession if I were you.

why is it me finding books to help the betrayed spouse

Stop right now.

This is on her. SHE needs to take the initiative.

Focus on yourself right now. If she is serious about coming clean and wanting to reconcile she will do this work/research on her own.

I am glad you booked the poly. Please go through with it. She may beg and plead and cajole that you "know everything" so it's not needed. Your reply should be "well then you will pass with flying colors!"

I feel her leading you to believe she was maybe 'date raped' when actually she was aggressively pushing for it is horrific.

"Also, why is it me finding books to help the betrayed spouse?"

I believe that highlights what has been wrong with the marriage. GF, you have been making a ton of effort in the relationship, probably from the word go. You work hard to provide a home for your wife and kids. You don't cheat, you don't drink or do drugs, you don't want the kids to see you and your wife arguing. I am sure the list could run for several pages.

You have done everything you can to protect the marriage, the home, and the kids. You are clearly a pro-active person who takes his responsibilities seriously and, if you see a problem, you will take action to solve it.

You are hard-wired to be a great provider and defender of the family. And because of that, you will do your best to 'save' the marriage on your own, even if it means that you have to buy the books about how you can be healed. The same way you would fix the front door if it was falling off its hinges, or patch a hole in the roof.

Unfortunately, your energy and dedication to the family has meant that your wife has grown used to not having to work, taking you and the marriage for granted, and spending a lot of her time thinking about herself. She can, and will, continue doing that as long as you are running around doing all the work.

As part of your efforts to save the marriage, you will try and find the best possible motives and reasons for your wife's actions (including giving credit to the idea that your wife and the OM were victims of 'abandonment' while they were actively having an affair behind their respective spouse's backs). This may make her actions easier to live with, but it can also prevent both of you from addressing the real issues that led to this situation.

If you continue to make all the effort now, you will set a bad pattern for the future. One person alone cannot carry a marriage, particularly if their spouse is actively damaging and sabotaging it. Think about it: over the past two years, which of you has made more effort for the marriage and family? You, or your wife? And now, after the storm has hit, who is making more effort? It's you, isn't it?

Gator, I know you are doing it with the best intentions, but what you are doing is writing your wife a permit to continue to do what she has done for the past few years: sit around feeling sorry for herself while you do the heavy lifting. You say that one thing you want to do is identify what 'drove' your wife's actions and see if those drivers can be remedied. As I see it, a big driver is that you are making 75% of the effort to sustain the marriage, which has allowed your wife to make much less effort. That has enabled her to indulge her selfishness and take everything around her for granted.

You need to ratchet back, stop doing all the work, and make her step up to the plate and devote some of the energy she threw into feeling sorry for herself and pursuing the OM to pursuing you and convincing you why you should stick around. Instead, as hurt as you are, you are doing the rebuilding work after your wife spent two years building a missile that she then fired at the family. Had she been less confident that you would be around to fix everything, no matter what she did, she might have thought twice about her affair, and she might have focused some of the time she dedicated to flirting with the OM on flirting with you and keeping the spark in the marriage.

What I am saying is that you make it easy for her to make very little effort, and to virtually ignore your needs. She has taken you for granted, because you are such a stand-up, make-an-effort guy who is focused on what he can do for the people around him. It is because you don't focus on yourself, and are effectively a self-propelled, self-maintaining unit, that your wife has got used to not having to make any effort to support and maintain you emotionally. That has to change. If she can throw her energy into chasing some alcoholic ex-neighbor who does nothing for her beyond wanting to screw her, she ought to be building a statue of the man who busts his tail putting a roof over her head and food in the fridge. But she doesn't, because she takes it for granted that you will always be there, and that you require very little maintenance. And what has happened after she has indulged in two years of self-centered, don't-give-a-damn behaviour? You are still there, and you are making all the effort, including buying books about your emotional well-being that she ought to be buying.

You say that you want to give it six months, and I think that is a very good idea. Beyond any of the issues between you and your wife, there are three kids to consider, so any action that affects them has to be carefully considered. However, I believe that you will be wasting your time if you allow your wife to play the victim, and try to find deep, dark psychological motivations and justifications for what she did. Her motivations were obvious, basic, and entirely self-centered. It is as simple as that. I apologize for being crude, but she was a bored housewife who decided to bang the pool-boy while her husband as out working. In this case, she also spent two years obsessing on the pool-boy and ignoring her husband's discomfort and emotional needs. That is not abandonment, it is the height of self-centered entitlement. And as long as you make so much effort, she doesn't have to change.

So, to make something positive out of what has happened, the next six months should be focused on making your wife devote her energies to convincing you why you should stay. Do not indulge or accept her self-centered approach to the marriage. Make it clear to her that she is on six months' probation to prove to you that she can change and become a supportive and loving wife. Think about what you need for once, and make it clear that you are not content to go back to the way things were.

Now here's the thing. I get the impression that you are a square-dealer and a straight-talker. 'Acting' may not come easily to you. But what you need to do over the next six months is act your socks off. It doesn't matter if at heart you have decided that you are going to stay, no matter what. That will not give your wife any motivation to get off her behind and change. So what you need to do is throw a scare into her by acting like you will definitely be gone at the end of the six months if she does not change her ways, win you back, provide the emotional support that you need, and shoulder something closer to 50% of the work needed to sustain the marriage. Tell her, in no uncertain terms, that you are no longer prepared to be neglected and taken for granted, and that if she thinks continuing that is fine, you will be gone and she will be relying on alcoholic loverboy for support. She has grown used to being 'carried' by you in the marriage, and she has focused her energies elsewhere. It is time to take her off your back, and make her understand that if she is going to flirt with anyone, she should be flirting with you, or you will be heading elsewhere to find a woman who will show more appreciation for you. You mentioned your ex-girlfriends, and the potential for a 'revenge' affair with one of them. Instead, why not tell your wife that it is perfectly easy for you to start messaging them and doing exactly what she did. That it will be very easy for your work trips to be the perfect excuse for being out of the house, seeing someone else. In other words, threaten her with what she did to you. Motivate her to take you seriously as a man with needs - sexual, emotional, and security - that she has to start fulfilling. Not as punishment, not in any sadistic way, but to give her a shock to the system and motivate her into being a better and more supportive wife.

You are so used to focusing on other people and ignoring your own needs that your wife has got used to doing that too. That must change. Your wife fired a missile at the marriage, so you need to fire one back at her: you have six months to change, get your head out of your behind, prove you can support and love me, or I will be gone. Make her believe that, regardless if you are going to stay whatever happens, and see what changes she makes.

Her biggest driver has been taking you for granted and ignoring you; you need to shake her out of that complacency with some shock and awe, for the good of the marriage, and the future security of your kids. Time for some tough love, Gator.

[This message edited by M1965 at 4:56 AM, May 18th (Thursday)]

What a great post by m1965! Wow!

Tell her what you expect, let her do it, don't turn into her nagging dad, either she wants to help heal this or not.

I agree with the previous three posters emphatically.

m195 said:

You say that you want to give it six months, and I think that is a very good idea. Beyond any of the issues between you and your wife, there are three kids to consider, so any action that affects them has to be carefully considered. However, I believe that you will be wasting your time if you allow your wife to play the victim, and try to find deep, dark psychological motivations and justifications for what she did. Her motivations were obvious, basic, and entirely self-centered. It is as simple as that. I apologize for being crude, but she was a bored housewife who decided to bang the pool-boy while her husband as out working. In this case, she also spent two years obsessing on the pool-boy and ignoring her husband's discomfort and emotional needs. That is not abandonment, it is the height of self-centered entitlement. And as long as you make so much effort, she doesn't have to change.

I believe the best way to approach a six month "window" is to not say "I'm going to give this six months". It's to tell your wife:

"You have ended our marriage. You have given me no reason to seek out a new marriage with someone that I cannot trust and who would do this to me. For the sake of the kid's I'm willing to give you six months to convince me otherwise".

And let that be the final proactive thing that you do towards fixing her.

I think she was startled by how fast he moved and felt shocked at how this got away from her.

Respectfully, I read this and had to call BS.

Women know when they are getting hit on. By the time they are in their early adult years they would have had just about every come on, pathetic attempt, men coming at them from every angle possible.

This guy didn't just attack her out of the blue. They had their history, their flirting, every compliment she didn't bat away and encouraged but not only that knowing she was being hit on and actively seeking him out relayed the idea that she was at least open to his attempts. If he tried it on and got pushed back, fair dues but she was receptive to say the least.

So when things finally happened, all the flirting, the come ons, the innuendo, it only leads to one place. So she wasn't surprised at all. Not in the slightest.

Tren, in a subsequent post Gator posted that his wife confessed that in fact she was the aggressor.

My take is Gator has thought of his wife for many years as an innocent Catholic schoolgirl and it will take some time to assimilate how far off that she has acted and what is the truth of her - the good and the bad.

wk55hn

My take is Gator has thought of his wife for many years as an innocent Catholic schoolgirl...

I can relate. I though everything was running pretty smooth, money was okay, the kids were doing well, friends and jobs just fine. I had made a few misteps in life, we all do, but I remember thinking the one thing I sure did do right was marry the right woman.

Fuck me! How could I, an intelligent man that very observant, have missed this by so much.

Of course sooner or later you realize it was because of trust. The big T word. I simply wasn't looking for it. That's the hardest part to get over, feeling so stupid for never seeing it coming.

[This message edited by twisted at 12:40 PM, May 19th (Friday)]

twisted, my story is the same. Even Catholic. I always had her password, no secret accounts, it was in her email and facebook, but hey, I trusted her.

I did very well professionally, and I always gave much credit to my wife. I looked around at people and saw how much drama, cheating, divorce, or their own affairs, etc., and I always thought, how lucky am I? I can focus on what I need to, I don't have to worry about my wife or my kids while at work, I love my wife and she loves me, the kids are great, and my wife is a huge reason of that.

But I never felt stupid for trusting, or not seeing the signs. She swore the vows, too. I thought we were sharing a life together.

Gator I think a good book for you to read would be no more mr. nice guy.

The world (including your W) takes advantage of those guys and therefore they always get less than they put in.

Also women don't respect guys that are passive and particularly WW aren't attracted to men that are not in charge. You need to take charge and tell her how it is once and awhile.

I still think you need to recover the text messages so you can see your W was not the naive manipulated victim here.

She knew what she was doing and pursued it. She is an adult she knows where romantic relationships eventually end up.

Spend some time looking at your W faults even beyond the infidelity. I doubt she is as perfect as you make her out to be on here.(maybe you see them, but just don't post about them IDK)

I really think IC for you would be very beneficial for you.

How are things going, GatorFool?