I feel like I'm optimistically standing in front of a field of red flags

This is my first time posting on here. Im not quite sure how to go about it, so I'm just gonna lay it all out there. My wife and I are still together working on reconciliation and things seem to be going in the right direction. We started marriage counseling this last week and I also started individual counseling. Any support, opinions, or advice are greatly appreciated.

Her affair progressed through the month of August. In the beginning of the month it started as chatting over Instagram, then by the end of the month there was nudes, sexting, and meeting up. She insists they did not have sex but I'm not sold on that. They met up numerous times in our vehicles, his vehicle, went to lunch on a couple occasions, and in the work stairwell. All during work hours. She says they only made out but I'm by no means convinced but I don't have evidence otherwise. Not coworkers, but in a field where they could cross paths on occasion.

How I found out:
I never used to look at her phone or worry about anything. Then one day late August we were laying on the couch and a text from a family member of hers popped up and it was about me so I read it. Conversation was my wife telling the family member she was super unhappy with me and had been for awhile and that the only reason she hadn't divorced is she didn't want to share custody of our kid. There were also complaints about things I said or did that were plain not true. This was a gut punch and I had no idea she was unhappy. That night I brought it up, we had a big talk, no arguments, just productive talk, narrowed down what the issues are, and made a plan to fix the core issues we figured out. This was a big deal because in the past we would just shut down and nothing would get resolved. After that I would check her phone occasionally. I found a conversation with one of her co-workers talking about a "secret" and memes and stuff she would send that were comparing/talking bad about me. I noticed the next morning she deleted the messages she didn't know I read. I brought it up and we had another big talk about deleting stuff and being honest with me and bringing up issues so we can work through them. Hindsight is she gaslit the shit out of me as to why she deleted it and tried to get me to feel bad for looking at her phone. It was another "productive" talk and we agreed on a plan. Then a week later September 10, she had a conference and went out with coworkers after. When she got home I went out to greet her and it was dark so she didn't see me till I got to the car. I could see she was in the process of deleting text messages but didn't finish because she saw me there and shut her phone off real quick. She got out and tried to act real sweet on me. I asked if she took any pictures and I took the phone out of her pocket and she panicked. The messages she was deleting didn't make sense as to why at the time, it was just a coworker asking where she was because they were about to walk over to the conference that morning and couldn't find her anywhere for like an hour. She gaslit the shit out of me again but her excuse as to why she was deleting those and why they couldn't find her made absolutely no sense to me. Hindsight, and later admission, it's because she was with AP for that hour out in my car. We had a big talk again about deleting stuff and productive plan made that night, but then I kept the phone and told her I was going through it. I ended up finding tons of nudes in the photo trash bin that didn't go to me and then screen shots of conversations that she must have sent to a friend that were between her and him on Instagram also in the trash. I woke her up and confronted her about what I found. She would not admit until the literal evidence was in her face. And even then it was definitely trickle truth. She told me she knew it was wrong and wanted to stop and planned on ending it, but then after that talk we had earlier that night, she was definitely going to end it. We had another big talk, much more heated on my end toward her that night but ultimately I decided we would try to work through this. Part of the plan moving forward was she agreed to have tracking software installed on her phone and she would give me all of her passwords. Long story short on this, the following week, she had a feeling that the phone might be recording but didn't do a good enough job muffling the microphone by stashing it in a jacket on the other side of the office.. it still picked up her conversations with AP on her office work phone. She's even recorded telling him she's "so paranoid she has her phone wrapped up in her jacket across the room". I gave her opportunities to come clean and she denied denied denied. When I confirmed this is what was going on, I left work early and called her while at work to confront her. She denied it was happening so I just started talking like I knew because I did know. Into the conversation I asked if she felt addicted to this and she said yes. I told her that either this ended now or me and our son would not be in her life any longer. She said she didn't want to lose the family we and built over the last 8 years. She left with early to come home and we took off the next day as well. On a recording from after that conversation, she obviously figured out the phone was recording. AP called before she left and she took the cell phone to her coworkers office and then went back to talk to him on her office phone. She says it was ended on that conversation. I believe her because she was sobbing when she went back and got her phone. Like it was a breakup.

Call me a fool, I keep thinking I am one for this move some days, I decided to remove the tracking software. My thought is that I believe contact has now ended, although I can no longer verify, and I just feel like that amount of tracking would just create resentment and a wedge between us when the goal now is to come back together. I took the leap of faith to take it off there and I've got times now where I'm in my head wishing I didn't. This was 100% me.

Through our talks, she says she has been checked out for awhile but doesn't want to be but also doesn't know how to pivot back. She feels like I'm a stranger and she is a stranger to herself. She says she also has resentment towards me that had built over the last 2 years. My thought is we are at least having open communication that we didn't used to have.

Things seem to be improving although it is still early. I've probably done everything wrong to this point, but it's a situation I've never been in before.

We attended our first marriage counseling session with someone that specializes in infidelity this last week. The session went well and we both like the counselor/plan. Leading up to the session, my wife was extra quiet and seemed distant. After the session it was even more so. I brought it up to her to see what was going on and was met with push back and defensiveness, it was like pulling teeth for her to open up. For example she finally said she was anxious because she has never done counseling before, so I asked why it made her anxious and her response was a snappy "I'm allowed to be anxious". I gave it a minute for her to relax a little and told her I'm just trying to figure out what's going on with her and what she's feeling. She ended up telling me she felt "dogged" in front of a stranger, referring to my explanation to the counselor's question of how I found out about the affair and description of what occurred for me to find out. She said she feels differently about a couple things, but when I asked if she disagrees with anything I said, she said no. She started crying and said she didn't want to talk about it right then. I shelved it because we had to get back to work shortly after. Later in the day I approached her regarding the conversation. She said she is sad/depressed and embarrassed. The rest of the evening went fine and the next morning she was feeling better.

I'm sorry for this long post. I just needed to get this out there. I'm in this limbo world where I can't decide what to do. I've been focusing on myself alot more, including working out and other stuff. My anxiety and sadness is way down. My longest stretch of good days so far has been 11 days. Early on I was lucky to get 30 minutes of feeling ok a day. I'm wanting us to work, and want to have patience to see how things go, but some days I wonder if I'm wasting my time. I wish I had an answer one way or the other so I could get on with my life.

Like the title, I sometimes feel that I'm optimistically standing in front of a field of red flags.

6 comments posted: Sunday, November 16th, 2025