SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know first hand how traumatic this is but let me say that from what I have seen and read, your situation is unusual. Your wife confessed to you. Typically, they lie and lie some more and make you feel like shit and make you feel like it's all your fault. She appears truly remorseful, is open with everyone, told her parents, her job (willing to leave it), apologized to the other wife, etc. Most of us find out on our own when things don't add up and something feels wrong. Then we are left with a wishy washy, crumb throwing spouse who can't decide to stay or go. I know this doesn't sound right, but she sounds honest to me. She made a huge f'n mistake and seems to be genuinely sorry for it and is asking your forgiveness. You will be lucky if it was just a one night stand, which it sounds like.

Right now, I'm so angry and disgusted that I have no desire whatsoever to have anything to do with her. I have thought about leaving her completely and taking a position in Europe, and letting the lawyers handle any contact. She doesn't deserve to talk to me, and I don't know if I will ever desire her again.

This is what I used to think before this actually happened to me. I thought I would do a good clean cut and never speak to him again so long as I live. The reality is very different and eventually you are going to need closure which requires contact and mature conversation.

You are also one of the lucky ones that doesn't have children yet. You really have two choices here and the ball is totally in your court.

Good luck, I know how you feel.

DM,

You have already received mountains of advice---all good---so I won't reiterate what everyone has already stated.

Just know that we are sorry that you are here, this sucks more than anything else in life...and you will come out on the other side okay. It just takes time.

We have your back, friend. Don't hesitate to bounce whatever questions that you may have--or just post because you want to. There is always someone here to listen.

Sorry again, brother.

I talked briefly with my wife, and listened to her explanation of the ONS. The OM is several years older than we are (both in our 30's) and he and my wife had dinner, which she called me and told me about. After dinner they drank a while and went to his room. She says that he began to cry and told her about his troubles (his mom had just died, his wife had seperated from him, etc......bullshit!!) , and they drank some more and lay down on the bed. She felt sorry for him and they cuddled without taking their clothes off. She claims that he was in her before she really knew what was happening, and that she let him finish it took about 2 minutes, and then she left the hotel immediately after at 1:00 A.M. They were seen together at 11:00 by a co-worker who was drinking with them, but hadn't gone to the room yet, so I THINK it was only a One-time thing, but I can't really be sure. She has only met this man a few times before, and this was the only time she was there overnight. She has sworn that this is the only time anything like this has ever happened, and that she will do anything I tell her to do to try to rebuild our marriage. She thanked me for calling her and begged my forgiveness, a dozen times, and said that she only wanted a chance to prove herself. That she would be totally faithful and transparent and would turn her PC and phone over to me and only use company computers and I could give her an allowance to prove that she isn't in contact with any other man. but IDK. She will stay with her parents until I come back, and will only go to work and back, or with one or the other parent. She says that she will do all of this gladly, if it gives her a chance. I told her that I would come back home after a couple of weeks, and Make my decision when I get home. I contacted my lawyer and told him to prepare D papers, and I told her this, and she went to pieces and her mom had to finish the call.

[This message edited by Dead M at 11:58 PM, August 2nd (Tuesday)]

I'm really sorry you're going through this.

I don't have any comforting words, but when I first found out, I remember a friend saying "right now is the worst you'll feel."

Well, 3 months out now and it still sucks... but.. the sadness has turned to anger which has been easier to deal with. I do feel like the initial shock is the worst. There's nothing quite as terrible as finding out the person you trusted the most is the one who's betrayed you.

I know it's a long, hard road whichever decision you choose. Wishing you well.

Sorry you are here.

Now I will echo what others have said, she appears very remorseful so I do urge you to very carefully consider a possible R as opposed to D (to avoid regret).

That said, by all means prepare for either R or D and getting the papers prepared shows her how serious this is.

One thing to note though:

She felt sorry for him and they cuddled without taking their clothes off. She claims that he was in her before she really knew what was happening, and that she let him finish it took about 2 minutes,

This means that the sex was unprotected and he came inside her!

I strongly urge you to not have unprotected sex with her and to consider that as a condition for R she does the following:

1) Gets STD testing.

She must test clean for all stds with you seeing lab results given by the doctor (or better yet you also hear directly from the doctor)

Unfortunately the initial HIV test can only be done 3 months after the last exposure (sex with OM). .

2) she needs to prove she is NOT pregnant via a doctor pregnancy test.

For your own protection, any pregnancy that has even the tiniest remotest chance that it could be conceived at time of ONS needs to be treated as if it is OM baby.

Too many women have had OM baby (and some pretend that hubby is father), I doubt you want that.

Not having unprotected sex with her also helps you with option 2 by not getting her pregnant now, cause if she is knocked up, you remove yourself from the equation.

I do think that if she proves STD clean and not pregnant, you stand a good chance at R with her though.

Think about it, she is this panicked over losing you, it is likely she will not put herself in this type of situation in the future.

There are no guarantees that a future woman you meet is not going to be a cheater too (possibly worse than your WW).

Good luck

PR

I also wanted to point out something from an earlier post of yours:

She can't stop crying, she tells everyone what a "whore", she is, and has been fired, along with the OM, from their jobs. She called Om's wife yesterday and confessed all WTF is the matter with people? This is OUR problem, not her boss's. not my in-laws, not my parents, OURS!!

Unfortunately it is the business and problem for the employers involved.

The fact is this was unprofessional behaviour for both of them. After all your married WW had sex with a married client not a coworker, on a business trip.

See how this could cause a potential scandal for the company and tarnish the company reputation?

Whether true or not, to an outsider or corporate competition It could look like your WW slept with a client to secure business etc..

Unfortunately perceptions matter in some circumstances.

I hope your WW understands this now too.

PR

[This message edited by PhoenixReborn at 3:11 AM, August 3rd (Wednesday)]

Dead M

Hi

I wrote to you very soon after you posted. You have been given lots of great advice here and there is nothing that anyone has written that I don't agree with.

I don't presume to know the status of your M prior to Dday. But I have to ask. Would you say you were happy? If I had asked you "Do you love your wife?" would you have said yes. If so keep reading. If not go to the last paragraph.

Ok. So you were happy in your M and you loved your wife. She has done great evil - to you and to the marriage. But she IS remorseful from what you have said.

In my sich my FWH fucked 3 other women over a 16 yr period. At least. I don't know. I found out about all of these myself and he claims there were no others. He had an EA 23 yrs ago. PA? I will never be sure because he never confessed. TO ANYTHING. I actually think there were probably more. I got TT for months.

Our children know. My family knows. My kids are grown and left home. I could easily leave. BUT - he is remorseful now - it took a while! He is now a much better H than he was before dday. Do I love him? I don't know. But I do know that I am not going to throw away this M until I am SURE that I don't want it any more. I do not want to look back in regret later. BSs in my sich HAVE been able to R successfully. I know that if I left him now the pain would still be so bad. So why not stay and see what happens. Best case scenario I grow to love him again and we live happily ever after. Worst case he cheats again and I D his arse!!!

So time for a 2X4. If you love your wife and you had a good M prior to Dday then give it a chance. She is remorseful, she confessed and she is doing all she can to save your M. Geez!!!!! There are so many of us here on SI who would give 10 yrs of our lives for that!!! And as another writer said there is no guarantee that a future partner won't cheat too.

Give her a chance!!!!

If your M was shitty prior to Dday and you didn't love her, then get out now. There's no reason to stay.

HUGS

Laura

Hey DeadM - really glad you found us.

I think all of us believed an A was a deal breaker before it actually happened. For some it is truly a dealbreaker, and that is fine - only you know what you can handle.

I want to address what I think is the reason behind some of the advice you are getting based on your "unusual circumstances", that being that a). your WW confessed on her own and b). that she has already done on her own - what most BS have to demand be done in order to consider R. Note: The above is kind of remarkable around here.

When you've lived with this reality for a while and had some time to absorb it, I think many of us that considered reconciliation , found that it wasn't possible. But it wasn't the A that killed the marriage. In the end -- it was the lies: the slow, continuous trickle of truth that was metered out, laced with half-truths over an excruciatingly long period of time - and only after we'd found evidence on our own and been forced to push for the truth.

The above was the case in my situation - 30 years of marriage down the drain. Let me tell you, divorce is hard - and it doesn't make the pain go away any quicker. And Reconciliation is hard and the pain is still there too.

Take your time, we're here whatever you decide. We'll keep you sane, the other BH's here are awesome... and they're right -- Don't go for the revenge A!

After dinner they drank a while and went to his room.

Why did she go to his room? Did she normally spend time in men's hotel rooms when she was out of town? To me, something about her story just doesn't ring true.

DeadM

Look your sitch is a bit similiar to mine.

You can have a great marriage a strong great marriage with this woman.

You will need MC and IC.

I know you are doubting that right now.

Everyone on here says no rash decisions for 1 year.

Also great info in the healing library.

has been fired, along with the OM, from their jobs.

Not that I want to add to your pain, but to know this, she might have been in touch with him in some form.

And I agree with other's who've said that her story doesn't ring true. You don't suddenly realize you’re having sex. Sounds like she's minimizing her involvement to spare her the embarrassment and you the pain that comes from her active participation in the act.

Thanks for the heads-up about the STD'S. I just called her and told her to go to our family doctor and get every STD test there is, and I will have to see the Lab reports myself. She agreed without hesitation. This is, to me, a very important point. Going through our family doctor will be hugely embarrassing to her, as we socialize with him and his wife, so her conduct will probably be known in our social circle very soon, and the fallout will be enormous. She is taking birth control, so pregnancy isn't happening, but if there was any kind of accidental pregnancy she will abort. So far, every condition I have stated, she has agreed to and has been thankful for the opportunity.

Twitchy and lieshurt, I asked her about this very point, just now, and she said that she went to his room just to talk about his problems , because he was crying and very drunk, and he asked her to help him to his room to avoid being embarrassed in public. I asked her if anyone saw this and she said that the other person with them saw him sobbing too, but I will call her to verify. She also said that when they were cuddling, she really doesn't remember exactly when it turned sexual but that she was to blame for not stopping it , at that point, even though she wasn't thinking clearly.

If there is any positive thing now, it is that my wife hasn"t lied about anything so far, and she even volunteered to take a lie detector test whenever I want her to. Can we do this? Laura, before this happened, I considered our marriage to be rock solid. Our sex life was great, (at least 10 times a week, if not more) I am "gifted", in that respect. (blush) and she has said that it wasn't about sex, as much as it was the alcohol and lonliness and frustration, her job hasn't been good for a year now, due to the economy. I'm probably being fed a line of shit, and you guys are right to call her out on these issues.

Could she be suffering from depression?

Dead M-

So sorry that you're here.

Something that doesn't ring true to me here:

If he was "very drunk" as you say, wouldn't he have trouble getting hard?? I'm not a guy, but that's been my experience with alcohol and men.

Be careful. Don't trust anyone but yourself.

Okay, I may be the only dissenter here--and I have no way of knowing, but does it sound to anybody else like this client took advantage of her? I think that it is at least a possibility. He was drunk, asked for help back to his room (he was a client, after all). Maybe she is too nice and events just got away from her and she didn't know how to get herself out of it. This whole thing sounds like it borders on sexual assault to me. I know that she should not have gone to his hotel room, but still. . . .

I know that we tend to be suspicious about WS here at SI, and with good reason. But how many stories do we hear of WS coming right home and telling all? Being so dramatically upset and remorseful? Not many.

I don't know. Just another perspective to consider.

IDK. I have never had any trouble getting it up when drunk, but I'm 20 years younger than OM.

If you read my previous replies, you would see that I am heavily for your reconciling with her. M is not something to throw away so easily no matter what.

However, her story has some people raise their eyebrows including me. When people get drunk, they lose their inhibition, and their instincts raise their heads. We can see how this can occur. Still, her description of whole event and her motivation to confess seems a bit fishy. Although he seemed traumatized by his situation and she sympathized with him, she followed him to his room? They had intercourse before she even realized? And, she let him finish inside her? I am a little worried that there is more to the story than that, despite her confession. I suspect there is minor TT going on there.

Also, her motivation to come clean may have something to do with her coworker witnessing her leaving his room. Since she willingly agrees to take polygraph, that means probbly the sexual incident must have been actually that one time only. But, her downsizing the situation as if it was unplanned and the heat of moment thing may be a bit misleading, maybe.

This sort of minor TT will be hard to reveal even by polygraph. If you will let her take polygraph, you may want to discuss with the polygrapher how to go about addressing it.

Having said that, considering the big picture here, I think you should give her the 2nd chance. I hope it all work out in the end, and I hope you get back the marriage you deserve.

[This message edited by SadCalifornian at 9:35 AM, August 3rd (Wednesday)]

Dead M, I am so very sorry that your wife did this.

Does she make a habit of cuddling with other men? That shows very poor boundaries.

I am suspicious by nature, but ... the fact that she was "spotted" by another coworker might have been the reason she came clean about the affair.

If you think that it might be possible for you to reconcile, do you have the money (about $800) for a polygraph? Many members have gotten the full story this way -- not just from the results of the test, but from the WS (Wayward Spouse) giving a full confession before the test, sometimes in the parking lot of the testing facility.

And I am pleased that you seem to be moving away from the idea of an RA. You are better than that.

Wishing you peace.

SadCalifornian, I misspoke. The co-worker was with them until sometime after 11:00 pm, and witnessed his emotional outburst, but didn't see her leave his room. She (wife) left the hotel and paid for her room at 10 minutes to 1:00 am, just wanting to get away, and she found another hotel and checked in 25 minutes later, or 1:20 or so. She volunteered to get me receipts proving both.