SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

In my post I was not advocating a revenge affair. I don't believe in them. I can understand how a spurned spouse, who has been cheated on, could engage in such an activity and probably wouldn't blame them. I just don't believe in them myself. The vengeful part, I was indicating for you, was asking her a question that would put her mindset in the place yours is now. To me, being a little vengeful is one thing and taking revenge is a totally different ball game. I do agree with the others that you should tell the OBS. She does have a right to know just like you had a right to know. If that sends the AP off the deep end then there are ways of dealing with him. Ways the AP would not like. I must commend you. So far, you're a cool dude. I wish you well.

The main reason to contact obs is that OM will throw your wife under the bus. She will see him for what she is and for what she has become.

You make excuses for your wife and are desperate to keep her. In the long run you will regret not standing up for yourself and will haunt you.

Can you please explain what excuses I'm making? I might need some help to point out the obvious.

Yes, I am desperate to keep her and my family and I get that it's wrong approach and that I should just accept that I may have to let go. I've spent some time trying to imagine how my life could be after divorce. The main issue I keep hitting is that I need to stay somewhere close so that our kids would have their dad around. This would mean that I would have to live without a family until I would find a partner that I would want to start building a new family with. If I move close to my family, I wouldn't be around for my kids, and this is not a good option for the kids. I don't think I could live without a family. I understand this makes me very vulnerable to being abused again. And right now I am putting myself in hands of a woman who just betrayed me and lied to me for months.

And anoldlion, I understood your message wrong. I did however ask how she would feel about RA or granting me a hall pass. Not something I would consider doing.

EDIT: I have especially hard time with her doing many of the right things, including full disclosure (maybe even more detail than I need), no contact on the day of discovery, access to emails, facebook, phone, not pushing back when I push her and she does offer encouragement when I'm in a dark place and she has not made any attempts to shift blame. On this forum the consensus seems to be that these are all false and premeditated continuation of her lying. I would like to trust my gut, but am not sure if my gut is reliable even if it was reliable with my suspicions.

[This message edited by BusterMcBust at 9:03 AM, May 19th (Friday)]

I do not want a single OM running around.

See, you're thinking like a rational, ethical BS, not like a WS. For a WS, clearly, whether they were married or not was never a barrier to pursuing each other, was it? In fact, many WS get off on the illicitness of it all, the A relationship or the AP themselves would never be compelling at all if either AP was an emotionally healthy single person. Neither of them are. They are a pair of liars using each other to fill their broken parts in a sick, deceptive, selfish way.

You, fortunately, cannot relate to that mindset.

An awful lot of the time, a WH enjoys his side-piece while it lasts and promptly throws his AP under the bus once his BW discovers the A. If your WW was more important to him in reality, and in the light of day, he would have left his BW for your WW. Same with your WW. Cheaters like to cheat. Cheaters like to have all their options. Cheaters lie to themselves, each other and their BS. It is a crazy brain they have, so you cannot really get in it and predict what they would do if you don't think like them at all.

Folks who are giving you their BS perspective here have seen a lot more of the cheater's handbook in action and know how predictable WS behavior is, and how that differs a ton from what a typical BS may initially think and predict.

Welcome, sorry you're here.

And here I have more conflict. My wife even communicated her feelings of guilt to AP. AP didn't seem to have any such feelings, but instead seemed to do his best to talk my wife out of such feelings.

It is hard for me to picture my wife as thoroughly evil human who is just playing with me while continuing to lie and deceit me.

True, she's not evil, but she is undeniably selfish; her A clearly establishes that. Therefore you have to consider that she could still be lying to you for selfish reasons. She needs to demonstrate that she can and will change to be a true candidate for R. Otherwise, you might find yourself in the same situation a few years down the road.

JustWow:

Cheaters like to have all their options.

Absolutely correct! If you take away those options you have some control.

Yes, I am desperate to keep her and my family and I get that it's wrong approach and that I should just accept that I may have to let go.

Wanting to preserve your family isn't the 'wrong' approach. Giving your WW an opportunity to 'make this right,' to reconcile with you, isn't the 'wrong' approach. However, being able to 'let go' is priceless. We encourage every BS to 'detach' from their WS, to let go of the outcome, and find it within themselves to be equally comfortable with either reconciliation or divorce. The point is to get out of infidelity.

You're extremely early into the process and I know how incredibly disorienting it can be (I was a total fucking wreck when I joined SI). Whatever you decide to do, whenever you decide to do it, you've got a long, long road ahead of you.

All of your fears about what might, or might not, happen by informing the OBS are natural and rather common. You are not the first BS to hesitate for similar reasons, and, I'm quite certain, you won't be the last. I can tell you from my own personal experience that waiting as long as I did to tell the OBS everything I knew is something I truly wish I could go back and change, for her sake, not mine.

I don't think I could live without a family. I understand this makes me very vulnerable to being abused again. And right now I am putting myself in hands of a woman who just betrayed me and lied to me for months.

Brother, you are not alone. In my two years here, I've seen far too many betrayed spouses give their wayward spouses far too many chances, only to get crushed again and again and again, until they, themselves, start to break. Every time I glance through the S/D forum, I see usernames and friends I'd previously known in the R forum. When it comes giving a WS the option to R, failure is an option. Some WS simply cannot, or will not, do what it takes. You have to be prepared for that.

Most of the successful reconciliation stories I've read involve the betrayed spouse getting to a point at which either option--divorce or reconciliation--is an equally viable road to happiness. When the grass looks greenest on both sides of the fence, it's much easier to climb down. I know that's probably something you really don't want to accept, because few of us do, but in order to recover and heal, you have to be able to make the best possible decision for you and your children. For some people, it's an easy decision. For others, well... we need more time.

I have especially hard time with her doing many of the right things, including full disclosure (maybe even more detail than I need), no contact on the day of discovery, access to emails, facebook, phone, not pushing back when I push her and she does offer encouragement when I'm in a dark place and she has not made any attempts to shift blame. On this forum the consensus seems to be that these are all false and premeditated continuation of her lying. I would like to trust my gut, but am not sure if my gut is reliable even if it was reliable with my suspicions.

Trust your instincts; they have served you well and will continue to do so. None of us know your WW, so anything we say is always part conjecture, part projection, and part cold, hard reality. Wayward spouses will continue to put up a façade, manipulate, lie, gas-light, take the affair further underground, have other affairs, etc., etc. I don't believe the general consensus on this forum is that your WW is doing some or all of these things. However, it's important to realize that it's a possibility.

Trust what she does now, rather than what she says.

Does she have the courage and the fortitude to take a good long look into the mirror and see herself for who she has become? Is she seeking out help on her own to address those issues that allowed her to cross that line? Can she own and fix her own shit?

[This message edited by Unhinged at 10:47 AM, May 19th (Friday)]

I have especially hard time with her doing many of the right things, including full disclosure (maybe even more detail than I need), no contact on the day of discovery, access to emails, facebook, phone, not pushing back when I push her and she does offer encouragement when I'm in a dark place and she has not made any attempts to shift blame.

In your beginning post you mentioned that you have had IC. Has your wife had IC also, and if so when? I ask this because it's possible that if she has been to IC then she got a hold of a very good one that really set her straight on what it will take to deal with the aftermath of an affair if she wants to save her marriage; There are even books that a WS can read to help to amend their ways. Although its entirely possible she knew what she had to do from the beginning to set things straight with you, more than likely she may have been disgusted with herself and was looking for help months ago.

It's quite possible that she does truly get it. It's possible that she got IC before you. It's also possible that she was so thoroughly tricked into believe the crap that OM was spewing to her that afterwards she was disgusted with herself. I think when an intelligent person gets tricked it may hit them harder than an average person. What I'm saying is there are all kinds of factors that come into play when your dealing with infidelity. Only you know your wife. Most of the time here in JFO the WS will say just about any kind of lie they can think of in their need for self preservation and the lies keep stacking up until the weight alone brings down the marriage.

[This message edited by Marriagesucks at 10:53 AM, May 19th (Friday)]

Yeah, I'm not completely alone, but right now I can't see having very close relationship with my in-laws if divorce is the outcome. I don't think they would blame me, but I don't think I would celebrate holidays with them, have them over for birthday dinners or anything like that.

I have friends, none really close ones, or at least not so close that I've felt comfortable talking to them about this. Plus I don't wish to pull our family friends into this mess as I think this might end up hurting them.

Sure my family and best friends are just a Facetime call or a text message away, but physically they are far away.

In your beginning post you mentioned that you have had IC. Has your wife had IC also, and if so when? I ask this because it's possible that if she has been to IC then she got a hold of a very good one that really set her straight on what it will take to deal with the aftermath of an affair if she wants to save her marriage; There are even books that a WS can read to help to amend their ways. Although its entirely possible she knew what she had to do from the beginning to set things straight with you, more than likely she may have been disgusted with herself and was looking for help months ago.

It's quite possible that she does truly get it. It's possible that she got IC before you. It's also possible that she was so thoroughly tricked into believe the crap that OM was spewing to her that afterwards she was disgusted with herself. I think when an intelligent person gets tricked it may hit them harder than an average person. What I'm saying is there are all kinds of factors that come into play when your dealing with infidelity. Only you know your wife. Most of the time here in JFO the WS will say just about any kind of lie they can think of in their need for self preservation and the lies keep stacking up until the weight alone brings down the marriage.

To the best of my knowledge she has not had any IC. She said she will, but right now she feels she needs to work on this on her own. She will get IC before we go to MC.

My wife said that she wasn't fighting enough when she should have been fighting. I am not trying to lead any discussion to "poor me, I was lured into an affair by this evil man". On the upside, she is owning up to this herself as well.

Off topic, but how do I send private messages? Is there a post count I need to reach or some other criteria?

Nevermind, Saw the post count criteria

[This message edited by BusterMcBust at 12:09 PM, May 19th (Friday)]

For what it's worth, I just got some really nice text messages from my wife. We haven't been text message kind of people ever, or calling each other during the workday, but she figured we should probably keep in touch during the day as well. I've had hard time at work since D-day and hearing from her during the day without seeking contact feels quite nice.

At this point I take anything that makes me feel better...

Plus, I've usually had 4-6 beers at least once a week during a normal week and I was bit worried that I would resort to drinking to cope with everything, but I've actually drank less than normal after D-day. Another upside to lift my spirits.

Buster, you're not doing anything "wrong".

If our suggestions diverge anywhere it's because there are just a few things that *every* betrayed should do. Some of these may not be natural or be foreign to you, but really isn't that the reason you tapped into this network in the first place? If you were just keeping a diary without the expectation of feedback then there would be better places to do it.

It's like when you go to the gym. When I do back squats I have a hell of a bad habit of forcing me knees in on big lifts. It feels natural and without guidance I'd think that it was right. I've paid personal trainers and coaches for their opinion on how I can improve myself and one of those consensus decisions is toforce those knees out on the way down. It doesn't feel natural to me and I certainly wasn't able to do it from Day One, but it's something I focus on very heavily twice a week.

Same thing applies to you. Things such as exposure and 100% transparency are such absolute unquestionable good steps that most of these threads, in the early days involve us trying to guide betrayeds in paths where they have the highest degree & chance of success. It's an emptional time and it's a very difficult thing to do, but just know that things such as exposure and 100% are MUST dos. They both lead to trust, and without trust you'll never have your marriage back. You may stay legally married, but you'll never have her back because you'll never heal.

Without doing these things you'll be wondering why you still feel milquetoast in two years. We're trying to guide you down a path of success, using 50,000 people in similar shoes and literally centuries of infidelity experience at your disposal.

Make the phonecall. It'll take two minutes and IS YOUR BEST TOOL THAT YOU CAN DO THIS VERY DAY TO FIX YOUR SITUATION.

Your wife is indeed no cold, calculating evil genius.

She is more like a drug addict that will say/do anything to keep everything under control, and keep you on the line.

Hence:

For what it's worth, I just got some really nice text messages from my wife.

And yes this is 100% true:

Make the phonecall. It'll take two minutes and IS YOUR BEST TOOL THAT YOU CAN DO THIS VERY DAY TO FIX YOUR SITUATION.

For what it's worth, I just got some really nice text messages from my wife. We haven't been text message kind of people ever, or calling each other during the workday, but she figured we should probably keep in touch during the day as well. I've had hard time at work since D-day and hearing from her during the day without seeking contact feels quite nice.

Indeed!

My fWW and her AP texted like crazy, its how I caught them.

During our discussions post d-day I expressed my disappointment and hurt that she never put that time and effort into us via communication when we were apart for work reasons.

She has since redirected that time and energy to me with great reward in our relationship.

Keep this up, be as intimate as you are comfortable with in doing so, it will help rekindle things I'm sure...attack the rebuilding task from all angles.

Your WW seems to be doing the right things, help her keep that up by communicating your needs and expectations and make sure she knows that you appreciate her efforts.

Just keep watching her Buster. Only you can know how our if she's working hard enough for you.

Call the obs.

[This message edited by Wool94 at 4:19 AM, May 21st (Sunday)]

She is more like a drug addict that will say/do anything to keep everything under control, and keep you on the line.

Trying to keep this in mind. We had a very nice weekend, but since we're only 3 weeks in, need to wait and see what happens.

It's not that easy as I can't put the life on hold for any longer. Need to do the normal things with the kids, maintain some social contacts and visit family....even if it may not be the family the same way as it was couple of weeks ago.

Come to think of it, my wife might want to end the A to save the marriage for the kids, mortgage free house, "family" etc. but not because she wants a life with me. I would be willing to give up many things for a loving relationship.

[This message edited by BusterMcBust at 12:03 PM, May 22nd (Monday)]

Come to think of it, my wife might want to end the A to save the marriage for the kids, mortgage free house, "family" etc. but not because she wants a life with me. I would be willing to give up many things for a loving relationship.

I think many WW's end their affairs and come back to their husbands for this reason, maybe even most. But that doesn't mean that, in time, the marriage partners can't rediscover love and trust and go on to have a happy marriage.

What is required is that both are committed to doing the hard work to recover from the infidelity, making the necessary changes to minimize the risk of it happening again and working one improving the marriage for both.

Sometimes, fake it until you make it is the way to go.