SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm three months out and man oh man do I wish I had seen this 3 months ago. I haven't read any of the replies yet. I was too anxious to get down here with a reply. But this post really resonated with me. I've been feeling sooo stuck. I just can't get over the hump. I've hit a wall. I know that I need to file for divorce (with the fervent hope of R) but it's such a hard thing to do. Gulp. Not to mention the $$$ factor. The two lawyers that I've consulted with both wanted a 5,000.00 retainer fee and that's just not going to happen. Sigh. But this just went straight to my heart. I feel like it could be me writing this 5 years from now.

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Nine months from dday and I want to keep this bumped. I didn't even find SI until four months I to what was a false R. It made me realize it was false. I wish I'd known sooner. Honestly, I wish this had been taught in pre marriage counseling services. It's a life skills, for real.

I would give my spouse longer to defogger Tyan listed, but YMMV. I made so many mistakes, most of all, rushing to reconciliation and MC before there was any remorse or even an end to the infidelity.

Now that I realize all the things I did wrong, and more importantly, what I want and need from him, I'm better able to act, and to ask and hopefully to get it. I will not say we are Reconciled lightly again. I hope we are working toward it, but it took keep months of ic and Journaling to be even able to know what I want.

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This is how it should be done! Don't waste years of your life like I did trying to nice a cheater back, just to end up divorced anyway.

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Bump, great thread.

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This is such excellent, right-on advice (acc. to my experience).

I know I've related this before here on SI, but at one point, about three months after D-day, a month after he had stopped couples therapy, after I found out he was still having sex with the AP (though leading me to believe that the physical part was on hold), when I decided to go ahead with the divorce … the WH's comment was "What's the rush? Can't you give me a year?"

WTF???!!!

Thank you, thank you, thank you to those who bumped this! I'm a week out from DD confirmation [though suspected for weeks....months even]. Not ready to write out my pathetic tale, but please know that these posts are helping me immensely.

I'm not alone.

I will survive.

I have choices.

I don't have to make extreme life decisions right now [thank God...because my emotions are all over the place]

Thank you for this post . I have followed some . I have been to a attorney . I gave my WH my conditions for going forward in our marriage and repeated over and over this is his one and only chance. I will not trust yet and I will verify what he tells me. . I am 3 months out from d day . We are in R although he won't go to counseling. How do you differentiate between real remorse and remorse that he got caught ? . I start IC next week primarily because I don't like the person iam becoming .

I still obsess and monitor him. I can't change his behavior but I CAN change my reaction to his behavior . When I am at my lowest I repeat that statement over and over .

I don't know where we will end up but I do know I will be ok .

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Honestly, in hindsight I wish I would have filed for divorce immediately and then halted the proceedings *if necessary*.

In my case it wouldn't have been necessary, as I have an unremorseful wayward that was having an exit affair.

So many times we see folks here that struggle through attempted R for a few months or a year only to find out it was false. If the D is filed and progressing, your WS knows you mean business and they are either going to get their shit together in short order and start doing the work, or your exit plan is several months to a year ahead of schedule and you can be out shortly after finding out things aren't progressing as they should in R.

If your WS gets it together and starts doing the work, you can withdraw your filing.

I also wish I had implemented the 180 like nobody's business. I didn't do it at all, and that just made it harder on me, in hindsight.

Love this post. I too wish I had this earlier. I am 5 months out and wished I had been more consistent with my boundaries. My WH is trying hard to R, he changed his phone #, blocked her on Linked In, but didn't block on FB until I tried to do it myself 4 months in and he had a very defensive reaction to me asking him to block her. He also gave me passwords, but we were already 1 month in and he decided to clean his accounts before handing over the passwords. When I stumbled onto something in his e-mail he instantly changed his passwords, didn't tell me, and I figured it out on my own (pissed), Every time I informed him of things he got delete happy and cleared out any sort of evidence forcing me to go by his word and we all know how good that is. Also things I have noticed is he puts his phone on the charger in our room right away, but puts it screen down no matter where it is in the house, hmmmm.... So don't give away your secrets. My WH thinks he has me convinced that she has no way of contacting him, but again I have no proof he ended it except his word. He will never leave me and I know this and I told him this. He is too guilty, remorseful, and could never leave me because he admitted he will be silently apologizing the rest of our lives.

I am at a place where I don't have feelings for him and don't miss him at all when I am at work. I hope this goes away because I am very confused. He is now doing everything he should have been doing in the first place, but still catch him willing to be dishonest about stupid shit. He is still very unstable and basically told me he would kill himself if I were to leave him. WTF!

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I chose not to reconcile and left my cheater. However, I do have some advice to add to this thread.

I've said this many times on SI and can't stress it enough.

An NC message/letter/email/text/call is ONLY AS GOOD as the intentions behind it.

There are numerous BS's in this thread who endured 2nd, 3rd, 4th (and so on) D-Days after they started reconciliation, believing their cheater had stopped contact with their affair partner only to find out they hadn't.

A cheater will do whatever they have to do on D-day in order to keep from being dragged into divorce court. If their BS demands an NC message be sent immediately, then they'll DO it.

Most of the time, it's a dog and pony show designed purely to appease the BS. Many times, the cheater simply contacts their affair partner the second they get some time alone and apologize for the cold, blunt message they had to send and tell them their BS forced them to send it. Many will also ask their affair partner to lie low until the smoke clears and when things get a bit back to normal, they can resume their affair.

Lastly, just because you don't 'see' any proof of continued contact on your cell phone bill or his/her phone itself doesn't mean they've gone NC with their affair partner. Only a damned FOOL would use the same method of contact they'd used the first time - which got them caught. They may have gotten a burner phone or created a new secret email account that you don't know about while you're monitoring the email account you DO know about.

And it's also possible they're now using one of the MANY free apps available for cell phones that allow you to text and call within the app itself, using WiFi rather than your cell provider's calling and texting features. Of course, these apps do NOT leave any kind of trace on your cell bill which is HUGE for a cheater. Just because you don't see a chat app on their phone doesn't mean they're not downloading it for the day then uninstalling it when they get home. There are also BS's who discovered their cheating spouses were actually using the CHAT function in some online game apps to speak to their affair partners. So while they're sitting on the couch next to you playing "Angry Birds" or "Trivia Crack" on their cell phone, they could also be chatting within the game itself.

Cheaters can be very resourceful when they have the need.