D-Day #1 April. D-Day #2 September. Trying to reconcile

First, thanks for any attention to my comments and questions.

Quick background.

My wife and are mid 40’s, have had a blessed and fruitful marriage of close to 20 years, have five children (aged 2 through 13), and are serious and practicing Christians.

My wife began a flirty relationship with her gym colleague (and sometimes private trainer) back in September 2024. He is on his second marriage (and it’s not a good one from what I gather), has a child and two step children, has a pretty messy life right now - just filed for bankruptcy, his wife in serious financial trouble, etc. My wife’s loved ones that know about this tell me she wouldn’t date this man and that he is a very bad catch in that way. In contrast, our life is about as blessed and fortunate as it could be.

That initially flirty relationship morphed into deep feelings and an intensive emotional affair that I discovered in April 2025. We had a miscarriage in December and this man clearly became her primary emotional and other support soon after. I found them in a car talking in April; him in the backseat. I grabbed the phone logs and the phone and discovered tens and tens of "I Love you", "You are my soul mate", -type texts and hours upon hours of calls. She would call him right after I left to drive the kids to school each morning and they would talk throughout the day and at the gym and even on family vacations. She dribbled a little truth and admitted they shared kisses and some heavy touching on a few occasions in one of their vehicles. She also gave him a large chunk of money (evaded me by lying to her mother about the purpose and getting that way) to help with his financial problems and even delivered prescription medicine to his mailbox (this man lives with his wife and children!)

I met the guy in public and corroborated their stories as best I could and told him to stay away.

We did MC and visited with spiritual counselors and all that. I gave NC ultimatum and told her separation (she moved out) and full disclosure to AP spouse and others if breached. We both wanted to fight for the marriage, especially for the sake of the children. I played Mr Nice Guy, did too much trying to win her back, we did a vacation with just two of us - I tried to show her what bad character he had, what a great life we had, how lucky we were, talked about the duty to ourselves and our children etc. I really thought it was over and we were moving on - although something just didn’t feel totally right and of course my trust and confidence was low.

We had a bump in the road in June when I discovered a Fathers Day letter she was prepared to email him, basically telling him how great he was, what an outstanding Father he was, how she loved him "beyond compare".

Of course every accolade could be immediately disproven with the fact that he’s married and cheating on his wife and family with another married woman and her wife and family; two were "honest" and "trustworthy"!

What’s insane is she doesn’t even really know this man, met him just a year ago, and nobody in our social circle is friends with him or could speak to his past character; in fact really nobody can speak to his past as he’s not from here.

Fast forward just a couple months to mid September of this year and I rolled over in bed late one night and caught her texting on a third party app. I grabbed the phone, she chased me, so I knew it was bad. And it indeed was. I found proof of their meeting up recently twice for unprotected back seat sex in the broad daylight, sexting, more and deeper soul mate kind of language etc "you are all I’ve thought about these past 8 weeks". "You really have my heart and soul". I saw texts where He was jealous she was being intimate with me. I really do think it was their first time to have sex based on the texts ("after today I feel even deeper love", "I can’t wait until I am not ovulating and you can truly enjoy it by going inside me". He clearly wanted her to leave me, etc etc but she says that was never going to happen (though didn’t really shut the door on that idea in his head, I am sure so he wouldn’t leave) - just over the top awfulness all triggered by a supposed accidentally encounter at the grocery store and "seeing your face again was like the first time I did 251 days ago".

The emotional maturity going on in these texts is at the level of junior high kids.

Just don’t understand how after D-Day 1 and all the pain she saw, she met him again and escalated things physically. For what!? I asked her how she felt after the first car sex, she said she felt terrible and cried on the way home. I said then why did you go back ? Not real good answers but infatuation and obsession has come up.

I thought in my head that I’d be filing for divorce that next week and had a lot of peace about that, but instead decided to just pause. I overheard my oldest child ask my wife "well can Dad just forgive you? There is so much bad in the world right now " - that simple little comment made me delay those plans.

My wife appears extremely remorseful (again) and claims (again) to not want any sort of future relationship with the guy and wants our family "100%". She’s a mess and knows it, says she hates her self etc. I’ve showed her closest friend annd sister her texts annd they can’t believe she is the author - sister thinks she is deeply ill. and for all of that It’s hard for me to abandon her right now and I’ve just decided take it one day at a time.

I told her IC instead of MC and more spiritual counseling, STD test, etc. She’s agreed to everything. She mentions that she compartmentalized a fantasy (not that compartmentalized as they clearly discussed spouses and she did this many times right next to me); says her love talk to him was embellished and part of the fantasy/escape, thinks she was looking for some sort of validation - we had recently had a miscarriage as mentioned, her father is terminal and confined to bed…I do think she was emotionally vulnerable ; though of course no excuse and would have been so much easier on me without the sex.

IC is really still in its infancy with her so not a ton of stuff has yet to come out of that so far as I can tell.

The last bit of meaningful news is that the affair is now generally known among at least some in our social circle, not of my doing but one of her confidants. I wasn’t too upset about news getting out as I think it only helps end things.

I love my wife deeply and the true sort of sacrificial love. We are still friends and very cordial. I do not want divorce. We have never separated throughout this, which was probably my mistake. My belief is marriage is not about me and my feelings primarily, but at some point she will have made the decision for me, I’m just not there yet.

I know things will never be the same. The deception covers so many things, physical, emotional, financial, many hundreds of daily decisions over nearly a year to keep at it, etc… but I can see a life where we are in our 80s (God willing) and she looks back on this time with tears and thanks me for fighting for us when she was so troubled.

Thoughts/Questions

1) Could she really have not truly meant the love language? And it be part of the fantasy? Perhaps a former WS is out there and could weigh in on this.

2) The torture is twofold: 1) not knowing what’s in her head. She knows if she’s open to meeting him again. I don’t and 2) did she mean what she told him.

3) It is terrifying knowing someone that wants my wife lives just a couple miles from me. This man has an awful marriage and a real messy life right now; my wife could save him. He has everything to gain and nothing to lose (maybe custody of child).

4) Am I a fool?

5) A recurring theme that has come up has been that she probably had lost (or never had?) a deep emotional attachment to me. I am not an emotional person and definitely am an idiot when it comes to picking up on emotional cues from women, so I am certain she tried (not hard enough) to engage with me on some level like that and I didn’t pass the test. The first time she saw me cry was after D-Day 1.

We have gone through so much together and have such wonderful children - I don’t know how that hasn’t created a deep emotional connection - as it has for me.

She’s tough to read, a point the MC made a bunch. I thought I had this amazing gal who was not emotionally high maintenance and maybe didn’t see that really she was not unusual in that way!

6) the AP spouse I don’t think knows of anything. So he has had none of the chaos and disruption to his life that me and my wife have. I hate that and continue to consider telling her. I promised to my wife I would if there was a D-Day 2 - and haven’t made good on that. Wife has come around on that point - having gone from strongly opinionated against it to saying "it’s your decision just know there are risks."

7) it is incredible to me she could risk so much for so little; for supposedly someone she’d never even date (as she admits if she’s telling the truth and her loved ones swear on). Was losing at least 1/2 custody of her children, her reputation etc worth it in her mind AT THE TIME?

8) Is the search for understanding pointless? I’ll never rationalize it right?

9) I’ve got to find a point where I can come to terms with having no control. I had location services and her passwords etc and none of that prevented her from escalating things physically or helped me to discover the plans beforehand.

10) I also think I need to probably bring this up less when we are alone. That’s my personality. I want to talk about this daily, but each time I do I resurrect him when I think goal is to forget??

5 comments posted: Thursday, November 6th, 2025