SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone,

I’m new here and never imagined I’d be posting on a forum like this.

My wife and I have been married for several years and have two young children. About six weeks ago, she told me she was unhappy in our marriage and wasn’t sure if she wanted to stay. She talked about feeling like she had lost herself and didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

The next day I immediately started individual therapy. I didn’t become defensive. I didn’t blame her. I took what she said seriously and started working on myself. I’ve spent the last six weeks trying to become a better husband, father, and partner. My therapist, my wife, and even people close to us have acknowledged that the changes have been real.

Then, two weeks ago, everything changed.

I discovered she had been having an emotional affair for roughly eight or nine months with the husband of one of her close friends.

There were months of secret communication, deleted messages, private conversations, and in-person meetings. She insists it never became physical. I honestly don’t know what to believe anymore, but the emotional betrayal alone has devastated me.

The affair ended because it was exposed. She sent a no-contact message and deleted the messaging app they had been using. As far as I know, there has been no contact since. I have been very clear that any future direct or indirect contact would end our marriage.

We are both in individual therapy, and we are also already in couples therapy. Our couples therapist has encouraged us not to rush decisions and has emphasized that my wife has to determine whether she genuinely wants to turn back toward the marriage. I’ve been trying to respect that process, but it’s incredibly difficult because it often feels like I’m carrying almost all of the emotional work.

My wife still says she doesn’t know if she wants to rebuild our marriage.

That is honestly what is breaking me.

I understand our marriage had problems before the affair. I absolutely own my part in that. I could be controlling at times, I wasn’t always emotionally available, and I know there were patterns that made her feel unseen. I am not trying to pretend I was a perfect husband.

But what hurts so much is feeling like I never got a fair opportunity to respond to those problems before another relationship entered the picture. While I believed we were simply struggling as a married couple, she was slowly investing emotionally in another man while withdrawing from me. I didn’t even know I was competing with an affair.

Since discovery I’ve been trying to walk a very difficult line.

I’m trying not to pressure her.

I’m trying to give her space.

I’m trying to break the anxious/avoidant cycle my therapist identified between us instead of chasing reassurance every day.

I’m taking care of our children.

I’m continuing therapy.

I’m trying to become a healthier person regardless of the outcome.

At the same time, I feel incredibly alone.

She is currently away helping her mother for a few days. We communicate about the kids, there have even been some genuinely funny exchanges and moments where we laugh together, but almost none of the communication is initiated by her personally. Most of the time I only learn what she’s been doing after I happen to text her. She rarely reaches out simply because she wants to talk to me.

That contrast is brutal.

I love this woman.

I don’t want my old marriage back because I know parts of it weren’t healthy for either of us.

I want to know whether we can build an entirely new marriage together—one built on honesty, equality, communication, and genuine choice.

But I also know I can’t build it by myself.

Right now I feel like I’m waiting while the person who betrayed me decides whether she even wants me anymore, and that’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced.

For those of you who have been through this:

* How long is it reasonable to live in this uncertainty?
* What did genuine effort from an unfaithful spouse actually look like while they were "unsure"?
* How do you distinguish giving someone healthy space from simply accepting emotional abandonment?
* How did you stop analyzing every text message, every silence, and every interaction looking for clues?

I’m not looking for people to automatically tell me to divorce her, and I’m not looking for false hope either.

I would really appreciate honest perspectives from people who have actually lived through something like this.

Thank you for reading.

I will give you a frustrating answer - none of those questions you have will have an answer.

But to keep things simple, whatever the outcome you need to know where things stand. Have you spoke to her affair partner’s wife?

I’d also strongly recommend that your read the library here. Particularly around how to talk to your wayward wife. ‘Grey rocking’ is about to become one of the best tools on your toolbelt

[This message edited by Sharkman at 1:52 AM, Wednesday, July 22nd]

I’m very sorry you find yourself here. Please read in the healing library and pinned posts. Your reactions to your WW’s infidelity are entirely normal. Congratulations, your M sounds very normal. Two imperfect people trying to make a partnership work. If you take nothing away from my post, at least understand this: nothing you did or didn’t do in your M caused your WW to cheat. She didn’t cheat because you were a bad partner. She cheated because she is broken. You were not a perfect partner. Neither is your WW. If she was unhappy in your M she had legitimate options to work with you or move on to D. There is never a valid excuse to cheat. If you want to work on yourself to be a better partner, do it for yourself. You can’t control her or nice her back. It never works. I would layout your boundaries, and if she wants the precious gift of R she has a ton of work to do on herself to try and rebuild trust. Have her read: How to Help Your Spouse Recover From Your Affair, by McDonald. Take care of you. Always value yourself. Good luck.