SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Blobette's post covered the majority of my thoughts. I am a betrayed husband who's Wayward Wife had a 3 yr long term affair (LTA) with a coworker. I would like to reiterate and add the following to others posts:

1) Your Spouse is no longer your friend. Do NOT believe anything she tells you without verifying. She has been lying to you for pretty much your entire marriage from the info you provided. Listen to her words but TRULY WATCH HER ACTIONS. She has had years of practice lying to you. You cannot believe anything she says that is not followed up by consistent action on her part.

2) You can no longer trust your heart and feelings when it comes to your Wife. Your heart is going to decieve you for a very long time. It is extremely hard but your brain is correct the majority of the time but your heart and feelings will get in the way. Prime example is your heart and feelings stopping you from doing #3.

3) Go see a lawyer asap. Regardless of whether you are going to file for divorce or not go now to figure out your rights. You need to know where you stand. You stated you have EAP, use it and get a referral for a lawyer. They often have a 30 mintues free consultation to go over basics. Don't leave the house. In some states this is seen as abandonment. If anyone leaves it should be your wife.

4) Get tested for STD's ASAP.

5) Take care of yourself, buy some protien shakes, excercise, try to rest. The beginning is rough. come here and post, it really does help.

6) May be most important if you don't already know, but why did your wife decide to tell you now? Did OM get caught first and now they HAD to break it off? Why all of a sudden is she ready to come back home after shattering your life and try to move on? There is a difference in being caught and fessing up. Both are bad but either way she needs to figure out why she did it in the first place or what happens the next time she gets lonely whether its 2 months or 2 years from now.

7) you will likely need to develop new coping mechanisms. Your old marriage is DEAD. Your wife killed that with the affair. She thinks things ar the same but she likely doesnt' even realized that they have changed for her as well. She no longer has the other man to fulfill whatever she was gettign from him and thinks the marriage is okay. Neither of you may realize it's dead now. you have ot rebuild a new M and it is ridiculously hard and takes YEARS to fix this shit especially in LTA's. you can no longer lean on your Wife for support. She sill likely become your biggest trigger as you move forward so start hitting the gym, set up some counseling, confide in a close friend so you can blow off steam and keep your head straight. Come here and post as often as you need.

8) Your wife supposedly has voluntarily come back to the M. She knows the entire truth and has for years while this is all new to you. She likely will not understand that you will be messed up for a very long time trying to process all of this. You can't change her or force her to do anything. She has to want to work on herself and make herself safe for you. Ask as many questions as you need for as logn as you need. Just remember that the only thing you can control is you. You can't nice her back, control her back, argue her back or ignore her back.

9) read up on teh 180. As you go through the emotions you may need to detach. and the 180 which can be foudn in teh healing library isa way for you to get yourhead on straight no matter what your spouse is doing.

10) Remember none of this was your fault. The decision to cheat was 100% your wife's choice and had nothing to do with whatever problems you may or may not have had in your marriage.

11) Don't talk to the other man, talk to the other man's wife. Find out if she knows and tell her yourself.

I wish you the best. This will be hard but please remember that your WIFE's actions have already shown you that she is a master manipulator and liar. She has done this to you for years and you didn't know. Please remember that as you move forward making your decisions. You cannot trust anything she says. You can only go by her actions and those have to be consistent.

I agree with the advice you've received about getting DNA test. She "swears" the kids are yours biologically? Based on what exactly. She has lied to you for 14 of the 16 years of your M. For me personally I think I would tell her that if she ever, and I do mean ever, dares to "swear" she's telling the truth again then she can pack her crap and gtfo because that is beyond insulting and laughable. It shows she has no concept of the enormity and scope of her betrayal.

I also agree that you don't have the full story on why she confessed. She's lied almost throughout the entire M. Why now? I don't think this...

I was contacting OM (other man?)to see as we are both thinking about doing a triathlon together. Since they decided to break off communication she thought it would be odd that he ignored my responses.

...is the reason for the confession. Neither of them had any real difficulty lying to their BS for all of these years. It seems more likely he got caught or knew he was about to get caught since the BW already knew. I just don't buy the guilty conscience when she is basically acting like everything is normal.

She wants to get back to when we were more open and affectionate.

Now that you know how far back the A goes did you address this? Get back to when exactly? The first couple of years of the M when you were basically newlyweds?

I'm sorry you've only just begun in learning the truth. If she is behaving like she is relieved then she is not remorseful. Some truly remorseful WS on SI have talked about a slight sense of relief in not living a lie, but that the pain they caused their BS far outweighs that to them. Your WW seems more like she was tired of the work in hiding the A.

DNA testing on your children-- PRONTO!

[This message edited by simplePete at 2:32 PM, January 14th (Monday)]

I think I get the logic for DNA testing for the children, but to what end? He's raised them as his own all this time. If he finds out they are not biologically his children then what? Or, if one child isn't his child but the other two are? What does he do with that information? Does he treat the other one differently now? Tell the OM that the child is his?

Is ignorance better in this instance? Does he simply acknowledge the possibility, but decide that the bigger picture is that he loves them regardless and move on?

Just wondering.

I think it's less about the kids than it is about the lying. If she's really trying to come clean and be authentic with Bikingguy, then she wouldn't lie about this. If she's still not to be trusted, well...

He's raised them as his own all this time. If he finds out they are not biologically his children then what?

Then he knows the truth. Then he can make decisions about his life based on the truth and not lies. The bigger issue isn't whether the kids are his biologically but how is it that his WW is so sure the OM isn't? Did she take precautions to absolutely be sure that couldn't happen? There have been BH's on SI whose WW make the same declaration only to find out otherwise. I've known a few BH's where they found out their children were not their's biologically. It never changed their love and devotion to the children. It was always about their relationship with their WW and the continued lies.

Hi BikingGuy,

You are really getting good advice here.

...I read some of the other posts and that it had been years since their D day my initial reaction was "I don't want to be here that long". But it sertainly appears I will.

Yes, whether you ultimately decide to try to reconcile (R) your marriage (M), or divorce (D), it will take a long time to work through all of your feelings after such a betrayal.

We have MC tomorrow.

An initial MC session or two is ok to get the ball rolling, but it is too early to try to work on the M in my opinion. The main issue is not to allow whatever problems there may or may not have been in the M to be an excuse for her A. Second, your WW has years of justifying her A in her mind and justifying betraying you. For many wayward spouses (WS) this justification involves a certain amount of re-writing the M history and demonizing the betrayed spouse (BS). Until your WW has had a chance to work through her justifications, and discover her why for having her A, she is not ready to be a full participant in a M.

After dday, I relied on our MC/IC (individual counselor) to help me to work through my feelings about FWW and our M. Ultimately FWW spent a couple of years in IC working on her issues. It was only after she identified, owned, and began to resolve her personal issues that we were able to work on our M.

There are some good books out there that can help you, and your WW, to understand how and why A occur, and how to heal from them. Two often recommended are Not Just Friends by Glass and Sexual Detours by Hines.

I went back to my bicycle after dday, it was a great way to work off stress and clear my head. I did miles riding as hard as I could and screaming.

Recovering from infidelity is more like a tour than a Century, and certainly not a sprint. There will be pauses along the way and some days will be better than others will. There will be ups and downs we refer to as the roller coaster. Pace yourself, take care of yourself and your kids. It is my opinion that the long-term affair (LTA) points to a serious personality issue in the WS, more so than a shorter A. When this is the case, there is more than “just” recovering from the A before you can try to heal and R the M. The WS must identify and heal the broken parts within her to be able to be a fully functioning partner in the efforts to R.

Best Wishes, and Take Care,

-Ats

He's raised them as his own all this time. If he finds out they are not biologically his children then what?

As Brandon said, he knows the truth. In addition, if they aren't biologically his then this is important info to have for medical reasons.

[This message edited by lieshurt at 3:21 PM, January 14th (Monday)]

@Blobette, Brandon & Lieshurt

Thanks for the responses.

Lieshurt, the medical standpoint is really a good point.

I seem to be in the minority in finding MC really helpful alongside IC for both of us. This may just be because we have a truly wonderful MC, who has gone out of his way to meet with us, who has been incredibly good at getting WS to see my POV, who has been really helpful in getting me to acknowledge some of the things i do that play into our dynamic. But for me, the best part is that he really has helped WH see how selfish some of his behaviors have become.

But it's important to be aware that you need to be choosy about counselling, both IC and MC. Too many SIers report that the C's blame the BS (betrayed spouse) and ascribe to the "there was something missing" line of thought. The way to think of this is, well, would you blame alcoholism on "something missing" in a marriage? Or any other type of pathological behavior? Because the WS's pathology is acted out in this particular way, suddenly *I'm* responsible for it? If you hear any of this, RUN, because it will just fuck with your mind and be pointless. Also, the reason ats and others say MC is pointless early on is that the WS may just talk endlessly about how it's your fault and say lots of hurtful, non-constructive stuff.

Good luck.

[This message edited by Blobette at 6:46 PM, January 14th (Monday)]

I may ramble here as that is we're my head is.

I did talk to the OM wife this afternoon. And now know why they ended it. Not because they finally realized that is was wrong but because his 18 year old daughter (different mother but his new wife had raised her for years). Oddly the OM and his wife had the marriage we all want - her words and mine. They were open affectionate and talked a lot. She is taking this much better than me but she has had an extra week. I will say much of what my WW said matches what the OM told his wife. Both have agreed to NC. She has offered complete control of all electronic info. Question now that I have talked to the wife is it wrong to talk again? She has shared this crap with an load out of state friend but no one else. She did say she would be willing to talk again if I needed to. But I need to (and will ask her) if contact with me only opens more wounds for her. I don't want to make it worse for her for my sake. If that is the case I would Iike to say a final good bye and good luck.

After that my WW and I talked more than we have in years. She is saying all the right things (well almost more on that below.) she is being more affectionate (mostly from guilt) and wants to continue but only if that is what I want. She even offered a quick hand gester to let her know not now, But I do realize at some point down the road it might be hard for her to offer and be turned down. As that is what happened to our marriage.

On thing that bother me is she says it was never love - says those words were never said and his wife said the same - if we can believe them. Not trying to demise it but I do know that over the 14-15 years there were years with no contact. SO the million dollar question is what the hell let to it each time.

Ok some info about me. While I will take 50% blame for the terrible marriage I will not take any with the A. I have had two relationships my marriage and my first girlfriend - who long story short cheated on me with my best friends. Oh and when I was about 16 I caught my dad on a pay phone, confronted him. My mom apparently heard our conversation and left him. So I probably have some scares for those incidents that I need to deal with. I also do not open up a lot - ha although my finger hurt from the key board. I tent to be petty and let things bother me too much. Before D day both of us lost a lot of weight by starting running. But I must admit instead of being happy her I felt like I needed to compete. I don't want live like that anymore. We talked about this and a lot more. We opened up about many of our issues - in a constructive way and not a destructive way. I probably won't get tested because the affair was so long and I know I should not believe her but I do that it was only with him. She swears NC around when the kids were conceived but she does have a terrible memory. I think I will but no sure I am ready for the results. Anyway thanks for letting me ramble on and I appreciate the words of encouragement and honesty in sharing your situation.

If it makes you feel better, rarely does the wayward spouse confess out of guilt. Most often it is because they have been caught or are about to be exposed. Even rarer is the confession after keeping this secret for such a long time.

Keeping this secret for over 10 years is a bitter pill to take. If she had not been caught how long would it have really gone on.

You are correct that you are not at fault for her cheating and are only part at fault in the marriage only.

Wise people are giving you great thoughts and advice. Some of the veterans you are referencing are still here to give back when it was so desperately needed in their lives.

Don't rush into things. You have a long way to go. You will be all over the place for some time. The anger phase will kick in at some point.

MC is good advice. However, individual counseling for her would be better suited right now. She needs to get down to the reason why she did this. I mean some serious soul searching.

Reconciling is still possible, but you need to know what exactly you are reconciling. In your mind there was no breach of trust, no question as to the biological father, no betrayal from your wife or friend.

I'm not sure it would be advisable to keep talking with the other man's wife unless it is to know if contact is made. Four eyes and ears are better than two.

If you must get the children tested to rule out the potential, then so be it. This is your decision and few in your position could offer any different advice. What you do with the truth is your decision as well.

Keep reading and posting. It really does help.

Strength to you Bikingguy, and remember you are in some form of shock, and know that your feelings will change, to include severe RAGE!

I will say much of what my WW said matches what the OM told his wife.

Know that this could well be a very well choreographed script; they know each other very well by virtue of time. Again, as you have been warned, and I can attest to personally, believe very little to nothing WW says, especially early on, expect trickle truth, and trust actions only, and respect your gut.

I can't exactly pin what my feelings are, but for lack of better words from what I have read from you, her entire behavior/attitude/how she is handling this seems weird? Seems to her this has all the gravity of buying a new refrigerator... My gut says things are going to get "interesting" very soon, and that rabbit holes can be very deep.

DO NOT worry about her anger, rage, claiming it's all your fault, whatever. These WW attitudes/personalities can turn on a dime, and SCARE YOU with who you thought you knew! Totally agree about seeing a lawyer, and so glad you WILL NOT own any of the A!

Good luck!

Bekingguy,

Reading this thread has been painful for me because I know exactly the pain and heartbreak you are going through. You have been given excellent advice from everyone and I

don't really have much to add. But, I would definitely seek IC for each of you and MC together.

Get a timeline from you WW, have het write everything down and give as many dates as she can. This was very important for me.

My WH had multiple LTAs- one that lasted 37yrs. Others ranged from 7 yrs to 6 months. My last Dday was last June ( where I found out about the one for 37 yrs) We are in MC now and WH is in a SA type program that is really helping him deal with all his issues and believe me he has a few.

Not an hour goes by that I'm not thinking about what he has done. I am beyond hurt. This is all fresh for

me.

Please take your time, you are very early in your discovery and you have a lot to process. Your WW has had years to deal with what she had done. Demand a timeline and ask questions when you want no matter how uncomfortable it is for her. Demand NC be maintained- no excuses. You call the shots.

I do commend her for telling you no matter her motives were. But even so there are consequences and don't be afraid to let her know how hurt and betrayed you are. Let her know that you don't trust her and may be never will.

You do not need to make any rash decisions yet. Take care of yourself.

I'm sincerely sorry for the pain and turmoil you're going through.

I doubt very seriously if your WW stopped her adulterous affair each and every time she decided to conceive a pregnancy with you...that makes little sense.

IF it really matters to you: Knowing if you're the biological father to all of your kids, or not: You need to get DNA Testing as soon as possible. Personally, I'd contact an attorney....get the DNA Testing: And then make my decisons about this marriage.

Good Luck.

Run

Bikingguy,

You are going to get a lot of advice either pro or con on the DNA testing. I think what you really need to decide is if NOT knowing is something that will eat you alive. It would have me and I did the DNA test... only to find out that I wasn't the child's father.

I'm divorced now and I still love the other child like he was my own. I had my name removed from his birth certificate, however, as child support laws don't just address the support of a child anymore. In most states child support goes much further and attempts to equalize the lifestyles of the "parents". I still have the other child in my life and I still put money aside for his benefit but I'm not legally obligated to do so.

I'll be honest... I'm a bit worried for you. Three kids makes for a lot of opportunity for one or more of them to be the other man's child. Good luck bud! Keep your hands and feet inside the car at all times... you are in for QUITE the ride...

Alexa

Biking guy,

Great advice for you all over these posts. Glad you found SI.com. Sorry you need to be here.

Take care of yourself. And your kids.

Re DNA testing: what will you do with this information. I worked for years in the world of genetic testing for a range of issues, and I think it is crucial for you to think this through. Give yourself time and space. Do you want the information? Will it change what you do? How you live? Is it about having the knowledge or about your ww's lying? How important is it to get everything out in the beginning? Would this kill you years later? Give yourself some time on this one. (There may be reasons for the kids to know this in terms of health issues and choices, but if there are no current concerns waiting is fine on that front.)

Give yourself time to make any big decisions about the marriage as well.

She needs to get into IC before MC can help that much. MC can help with your healing from the A, but only if ww is remorseful and you find a great mc with infidelity training.

Sleep, eat, drink water. And I say Run or swim or bike. I would actually pick out a new race to train for- not to compete but to do something positive. I did hear you say that things had gotten too competitive. But nothing is like a good run to sort out your thoughts and vent some negative energy.

Take care of yourself and your 3 wonderful kids. They need a healthy parent and you're it.

[This message edited by OnAnIsland at 4:22 AM, January 15th (Tuesday)]

Sir, nothing cuts a man to the very soul than having the biological connection to the wonderful child you thought was yours SEVERED by the soulless actions of a cheating wife.

The advice not to DNA test because of the possible effect on the children is given by people with good hearts and probably well-intentioned. But most of them really have no idea how you feel.

Simple biology states that a man cannot really know if a child is a product of their genetic contribution. Most of us live easily with that uncertainty because we think our spouses are faithful. If we should find she was not, it rocks our world in ways that others cannot fathom. Why? Because they know their biological connection to their child.

It may be that you can live without knowing. It may be that it eats you alive and denies your loved ones information that could affect them in the future.

Whatever your choice wrt DNA testing - it is yours. While people want you to consider the effects on the children, THE HORSE HAS ALREADY LEFT THE BARN. Your wife decided paternity and the consequences on the children by HER actions. You are just either finding the truth or accepting that you can live with the uncertainty.

Strength and blessings to you.

Regarding paternity: this may sound terrible, but I never wanted 3 kids. 2 was always my limit. I always felt basically that 2 kids replaces yourselves and does not make population growth any worse - this is my belief and I recognize that others do not feel this way. BUT my wife knew this and while I could have taken steps (OMG as I write this I realize my steps may not have prevented her from getting pregnant) I relied on her to take the pill. It was very rough when #3 on the way and knowing I did not want it. She was not concerned that I would not bond. We have 2 boys and were lucky for a girl on #3. Whom I absolutely love with all my heart. But I have to admit looking at her and wondering.

Just a quick summary of my family. My mom had 3 kids in her first marriage and me with marriage #2. We all grew up in the same house and while technically being 1/2 siblings that was never the case. We are brothers and sisters. My sister has adopted 3 kids and I make the mistake of saying their "real mom" She kindly corrected me and said "I am there real mom, just not their BIRTH mom" And she was completely correct. So regardless I AM their father! And I do think I am a really good one at that. I have a keychain from my kids to prove it!

So right now I think I might wait on this one. If I have learned anything of late it is to not make rash decisions and more importantly I KNOW I cannot handle a negative outcome of a test (for each). I don't think I can be strong enough for me and them right now.