SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am super hesitant to share here, and this post may not stay up long. I've been private with all of this and have never posted here.

My wife and I had been happily married for 16 years when we met her AP. He and his family moved into our neighborhood and our children immediately became close friends. He and I bonded over our careers and were on our way to becoming friends. In our whole marriage I had never experienced an ounce of jealousy or suspicion regarding my wife and other men, and her individual conversations with this man did not even register on my radar. We carpooled kids together, our kids freely walked into each other's homes, and he and my wife texted occasionally about some overlapping work issues.

Several months after our families had begun this connection, my wife actually showed me one of their text exchanges and asked me if it was too casual. I agreed that it was, and she agreed to keep their communication about work and kids' logistics exclusively. My memory is foggy now, but at some point I realized my wife had deleted part of their text thread. When I confronted her about it, she revealed that he had crossed a line into flirtation, and she had deleted that part out of fear, and had not responded to his flirting text. Together, we sat down and talked to him. I explained that in our marriage, we don't casually communicate with opposite sex friends, that it would not be tolerated anymore, and any communication between him and her would need to come through me. He was apologetic and expressed that his background and upbringing did not make this seem like a huge issue to him, but he respected our wishes and was sorry for crossing a line.

Having never experienced anyone with a narcissistic, sociopathic, manipulative personality as warped as his, I underestimated how things would play out from there. And sadly, I allowed myself to function as a semi-friend with this man, as our careers were so similar and our kids were friends and teammates. At some point during the following spring, more secret, flirty texting was uncovered. I met with him... sober... and calmly laid down an ultimatum. I even shared the gospel with this man in this conversation. That next fall, I sensed something off with my wife. I pressed the issue, and she disclosed that they had continued texting in secret, and that at some point that spring, he had begun coming to her office. Things became physical throughout that summer. Her disclosure was detailed, remorseful, and took full ownership. She expressed her desire to be with me and me only, her disgust at what she had done, and her desire to get whatever help we needed to get through this and save our marriage. My world was turned upside down, and the next few months are a blur. I got drunk and confronted him. He pleaded for my forgiveness. We attended intensive MC. I stayed, focused almost all of my anger at my wife's AP, entered a period of hysterical bonding and lots of dating, sex, and social outings with our married couple friends. We did not disclose anything to our children. That spring, I stepped away from every leadership role I was in, and took a step backward in my career path in order to circle the wagons and focus on our marriage. It was the hardest thing we had ever experienced, but our deep commitment to each other and to God's will for our marriage appeared to solid.

We moved forward. Counseling was brief, and we gradually stopped attending. Lots of "fun" was a distraction. A year and a half went by. One night I checked my wife's deleted pictures in her phone... and there it was. A screenshot of pictures she had sent him. Confrontation... Story about reconnecting on accident through something work related. Unintentional. A brief texting fling... relapse... no physical contact... Remorse, more counseling... Another heated warning to him from me. Full severance of our family ties seemed impossible... kids were too close. House was 3 doors down.

The regret I have now for all the things not done is crushing sometimes... phone spy apps, physically attacking him, moving out, moving all of us to another house... I did none of these things. I assured her I would never leave her. I pleaded for her not to ever go back. As months went by, I took this relapse as she described it. It is shocking how quickly I moved on from it, and how quickly we went back to the way we'd been for the past year and a half. Dating, sex, fun times... TWO years pass. In the middle of these two years, his work took him to another state. Our kids lost friends, but for us it was finally the end of all this... we never had to see them again... he was out of our lives.

Spring of this year... Check deleted texts... three texts between them... atomic bomb goes off in my mind and heart. Panic mode for her... story of him texting her on her birthday and her rebuffing his attempt to reconnect... remorse for hiding it... three days pass with that being the story. I contact AP's wife. She checks his phone. Contact never stopped from the relapse two years prior. Then it all comes out... the REAL timeline... the details. The year and a half of no contact was real, but the relapse wasn't temporary. It never ended once it started again. And it went further than ever. Physically, and possibly emotionally. The move out of state ended the PA, but not the texting. Two years had been a lie... my recovery from two betrayals was shredded... nothing prepared me for how hard it would be "this time." The whole truth, the whole timeline, the awakening to just how long and deep this all was... was truly like I read in all the stories... being shot in the chest... a car accident... I still didn't leave... but I was done swearing I never would. If our kids were grown and out of the house, I would have moved out temporarily. Couldn't do it to them. They're teenagers... too smart... they couldn't know. I was desperate for them not to resent their mom. She loves us all so much. Throughout all of this, throughout the entirety of our 21 year marriage, she has been the perfect wife and mother, as ironic as that sounds. Everything I thought had been a storm of grief and chaos over the previous four years was now a full on tsunami, though. I fought hard to not fall into the HB pattern of before. I succeeded and failed. I learned to focus my anger toward her role in all of this and not just his. Intensive counseling. Telling our oldest kids... deep guilt and shame for her in this. Counseling for them.

9 months now since FULL disclosure. 9 months with no contact. Do I trust in that? Don't think I'll ever say that 100 percent. Am I choosing to believe it? Yes. We've taken more steps to insure it, although I've reconciled the fact that if two people want to have an affair, they will. My wife is still, somehow, the best thing in my life. She is my best friend. Our intimacy is regular, passionate, and fulfilling to both of us. She has committed to more and deeper counseling than ever before. We talk about it regularly. Triggers? Absolutely. 9 months later, I am lower than I probably was any point during our past periods of fictional "recovery." I don't see this as bad. The shock is gone. The adrenaline has worn off. I theorize that this deep sadness is normal. I understand trauma so much more now. No hour passes without the affair being on my mind. It's like background music in my mind. I don't know if that will ever change. I'm not giving up. I believe my wife isn't giving up. The questions about who she really is inside, how she was able to go down this road and risk it all so many times, what she thinks about him now, if her mind could ever go back to that escape... I'll never fully know. But here we are. Finally, for those of you who fit a very specific category of being a man who was betrayed by a wife who relapsed repeatedly, but remains fully committed to staying and never blamed you for her affair, any insights on how it will look from this point on are greatly appreciated.

I am sorry for the pain you have gone through and are still in.

I am not sure I've ever heard of a WW who proactively brought a text forward for her husband's opinion, then met with the potential AP to define boundaries with her husband present... only to pursue the relationship anyway. That kind of blows me away. How the hell did that transpire?? Then repeatedly lying and continuing the A, it's got to be devastating.

You finally went full exposure and that added pain and shame of her kids and maybe others knowing probably helped a lot. Sometimes, as BS, our desire to keep things private actually hurts our chances at R if the WS is not committed. Exposure ends the A perhaps more than anything else. So you do have that advantage now.

However, I think successful R requires the WS, your wife, to really understand what was broken inside her and to work hard to fix that. Without that, you are still at risk. And given your wife's history, maybe high risk. Without that, her proclamations of wanting you may not mean any more than when she said it earlier and was gaslighting you to a very high degree. Has she done this work? What is her answer to you about her 'why'?

There is no answer that will make sense of her betrayals per se but the answer should enlighten the significant work she has to do to overcome her desire to be with this pos or someone else. If you read some of the frequent commenting FWW here you will see what it looks and sounds like. Hikingout, BraveSirRobin, MrsWalloped are three to look for. If she can get there, then she will likely be a safe partner at last. But I think it is uncommon for someone who has acted like she has to be able to do the work. Not impossible, but uncommon.

History is not on your side. Your wife was in deep enough to keep it going after the last reconnection. That's pretty deep investment on her part. A huge risk to her family, yet she did.

Having never experienced anyone with a narcissistic, sociopathic, manipulative personality as warped as his, I underestimated how things would play out from there.

She obviously doesn't seem him the same way you do. She's been caught three times crossing boundaries with him that a married woman shouldn't. I'm not sure I'd believe her if she changed her tune again. She hasn't been able to put a stop to it the previous three times. I'd just assume its a matter of when going forward.

[This message edited by grubs at 7:30 PM, Friday, December 5th]

Your questions and concerns are completely valid. For the sake of length and in order to focus on the events that transpired in my story, I left out a lot of detail about the conversations my wife and I have had, and about what she has learned about herself in counseling.

One thing I am not is naive (anymore). While a lot of how she handled things through the first two major disclosures and partial recoveries was similar, THIS time has been different. Her guilt and remorse are much deeper now. Her attempts to ease my mind and make me feel safe are beyond what she had done before. Her willingness to pursue the darker parts of herself and persevere through my pain and prove her commitment appear real and remain consistent. She never blamed me before... she never made excuses... but the deception was deep and long term.

Again, I don't think I will ever cease being vigilant, and on this side of heaven may never have total assurance that she couldn't go down this road again. But if I am staying, I have to choose belief daily, and lean into this process.

I'm somewhat fearful of others reading my story and judging our scenario as beyond the pale, and that we're in a dangerous place. I do believe sin is extremely powerful, and I do believe we are all capable of great depths of sin. While I can't see myself doing all she did (and believe she would have been a lot closer to D than I have been), I simply can't see my wife as something broken beyond repair. Even when I wonder what is truly inside her.

She is also currently in intensive therapy, including EMDR. We aren't rugsweeping. I realize how crazy my story sounds.

I want to add to my earlier post that your capacity for forgiveness is impressive. This may work out if she does the work. But it is also ok to accept that it is too much for you to stay in the marriage. Too much for you to reconcile. No sane human being would hold it against you if you had to D to keep your own health and sanity. Have you made it clear that, at a minimum, there are no more chances?

Yes. And I am fully aware of how sordid this story sounds and how naive it appears in a message board post. All I can say is that yes, my capacity to keep moving forward with this woman I love is large. It is not unending, though. I did tell her that if she went back, I could not promise I would stay.