SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You know, if having you and your support around was important to your WW she could be transparent and honest with you

^^^^^^This

I don't know, maybe the diagnosis has her running scared, reaching for some romantic notion of being on borrowed time? Even if you want to go that route though, the changing of passwords after being caught is a pretty blatant red flag. I'm not sure I'd be capable of even seeing her through the treatment. Your reasons are absolutely reasonable and commendable; I'm just not sure she is worthy of your generosity, breast cancer notwithstanding. She is making her choices.

I know it can't be easy. Hugs to you.

I'm typing in rage.

It's time to contact OM and ask him to prove his love. Twisted SOB.

I feel so sorry for you. You are a nice man. Be with her through her treatment because she is your wife and you love her, but, make sure she understands what OM couldn't do, you did.

Bailing out on her at this critical stage, will just justify her A actions for her.

I was going to say...stay till it was over, but treat her like a sister and not a wife.

However, I am so angry that she is using you. She has NO right to block you from her technology. She is still having an A. Call the AP, get the story from him. Then find out if he wants to take over and be the one to stand by her through this.

If he doesn't, maybe that will burst her bubble. If so, she is just using you till she is better. Let her go and let him step in.

Sorry you are here brother. Just some quick advice. I know I'm repeating some.

Contact an attorney. Not to file divorce necessarily, but to look into your options. Esp. regarding custody.

Document, document, document. Collect and secure all the evidence you can lay your hands on.

Expose. The OM's BW. How do you know she is having an affair also. Did your honest wife tell you? (Sarc) WW's family. They will need to know because something will be 'off' during her recovery and they will want to know why. Preferably ahead of the procedure. Your family, you will need the support. Workplace affair? Notify HR. Are they conducting this on company time? Using company E-mail? Is one subordinate to the other? No way they want a claim of harassment.

Implement the 180. You can deal with her in a detached fashion while still providing her care. Separate finances, get your ducks in a row. Prepare a list of assets. Primarily work on you. In that vein, see a physician now!! Can't say that one enough. Do you know the prevalence of STD's in our society? He's on his 3rd M. Wanna bet the others failed due to cheating also? Odds are heavily in favor of you being exposed to something. Talk to your doctor about AD's and general physical health(eating, sleeping) Don't be embarrassed. He/she has seen this before.

Care for yourself and your DD's. You may not think they know or understand, but kids are sponges and right now they are soaking up how to survive in a dysfunctional environment. Please reconsider your option of separating. Would you prefer the girls be from a dysfunctional family or in one? Maybe she should move in with her parents for a while.

Brother, she's in the fog(Hate that term) deep. Shock and awe time. Will she be pissed? Oh hell yes. Look at it this way. Do you prefer this course of action, or do you think you can continue to share her without ill-effects on you or your DD's?

IMHO, it's the only hope you have of saving the M at this point and it's slim at best.

Strength and MOJO. Do what YOU need to do for your family.

workinprogress,

It sounds like you are determined to stay and see your WW through this. I understand. It is much easier to be removed from the situation and counsel leaving. I remember after dday still feeling obligation to care for my WW.

If you stay, I recommend outing her A to others. OM's BW should be told. Unless I knew first hand I would not believe the cheating in each other line. Even if they are you loose nothing by telling her.

Tell your family so that they can help support you. Tell her family so they understand when you are less loving to her than expected.

So sorry for you, use this time to heal your self while your WW heals her body.

You have to decide what you can and can't handle because you are the one that will live with the consequences. You have two beautiful children to consider in this mix of madness your WW has created. No matter what you decide, you lose. You need to figure out which path will damage you and your children the least.

I will give you my opinion but my children are grown so I cannot relate to what all you will have to deal with. Please take my advice with a pinch of salt. If it were me, I'd tell her that from now on, the OM can support her. He can pay her medical bills, he can go to treatment with her, and he can clean up the vomit afterward. He can bath and feed her when she is too weak to do it herself. Tell her to go to him and stay there. When she realizes that she was nothing more than a free piece on the side to the OM and he has no intentions of dealing with her health crisis or the financial impact of the disease maybe then the A bubble will burst. He won't be her KISA and he won't be there for her when she needs him the most. He will dump her faster than she can blink. His new toy won't be so fun for him anymore. She will realize that she has no value to him other than what she can do FOR him.

It sounds like she is still in the A with the OM and wants to use you until she gets past this crisis. After she has healed, you will be expendable just like you were before the diagnosis. Her main concern isn't you or the devastation her cheating has caused. She isn't concerned nor does she care about the amount of pain you are suffering due to her betrayal. She is more concerned about making sure you don't interfere with her A by changing her PW's. I hope you realize that you are being used and once your usefulness has ended you will be discharged from her life.

Please contact the BW and let her know about the A. Don't believe anything you are told by your WW or the OM. They lie and lie and lie. Since they are coworkers and still in the A, I would be tempted to notify HR and give them proof.

Strength to you in whichever path you choose. It will won't be easy no matter what you decide. I hope she was diagnosed early and that she fully recovers. I wish you and your family wellness, peace, and healing.

Sorry if someone has pointed this out (at work and skimmed through replies), but I suspect OM has her email password and using his name as the subject line is some type of code between them. I'm sorry. You can't even confront her with this because you can't prove it, and it sounds like they will just find another way.

That's what I was thinking too.

Surviving Infidelity is a good name for this place. Coming out on the other side of infidelity alive is accomplishment enough for some.

The night my wife came home from the hospital I had a few drinks. Mother in law thought I should go out and get the family ice cream. I complied, but I guess my anger and stress compelled me to drive like Mario Andretti on the way home. I took a turn my Saab couldn't handle and totaled my car (no injuries, police or other property involved... just me and a curb).

That was a serious wake up call that I needed to find better outlets for my anger and stress. The revelation that my WW hasn't really been in reconciliation is in someways harder to deal with than the original betrayal. I tried hard to make things right, but didn't receive the follow through on the other end. The only way will be able to reconcile is for her to devote some serious work to IC and come completely clean with me in MC. An honest confession of all her sins, a polygraph test or a divorce are in our future.

It feels like my life is paused at the moment. I can't continue to work on trying to fix my marriage. I just have to work on being the best person I can.

Being the best father I can is so hard. Trying to be loving and caring towards the ill mother of your children knowing she isn't honest with me and is still attached to another man is a nearly impossible task. Being loving and caring towards her means not demanding things of her in her compromised state. Someday I hope she will recognize the difficulty of the act of love and care I am trying to perform.

As of right now I am just trying to be the best version of me that I can be. I am allowing that to mean that I can be extra kind to myself and replace my car with something that will give me enjoyment (my customized vintage BMW will be ready to roll at the end of the week)

I am sorry you find yourself here Worknprogress

I remember when I found out about my WW's affair. She told me that they only kissed once too. It turned out to be a 1 ½ year EA/PA…maybe longer. I never got the whole, honest truth from her afterward. I had to find out everything from other sources, including the OM's wife (Now ex-wife)

It seems to be common for WS's to pretend to go through the motions of R but if it was true R…you would know it. Mine was a fence sitter extraordinaire. I needed to be able to look my children in the eyes and tell them I did everything I could to keep our family together before I filed and walked. I reached that point about 1 ½ years later. WW was doing the minimum. Like yours, she still had passwords on everything…phone, computer, kindle…etc. Those that have nothing to hide…hide nothing. Low and behold…she was still in contact with OM. I couldn't prove it until later but I instinctively knew…gut feelings. He finally dumped her but that was after his divorce was final. He was fine sneaking around with my XWW as long as she was a free piece of azz. As soon as it real and complex…he ran like the coward that he is.

XWW still could not seem to reconnect with me after all this. I have read many times that there are two different kinds of WS response to being caught in infidelity. The first type will wake up and realize what they almost lost and work there ass off to fix what they broke. This puts the BS in the driver's seat. These marriages have a good chance of being reconciled. The second type, like my XWW, doesn't seem to be able to reconnect and ends up drifting emotionally in a sea of ambivalence. Incapable of feeling any real remorse or regaining lost feelings, these marriages are almost always doomed to fail. It's similar to a WOW spouse except they stay physically but are checked out emotionally.

I too nursed my XWW back to health after 2 surgeries…post affair. She did not really appreciate anything I did during that time. I found out later that the reason for her surgery was a direct result of her cheating…an STD gift from the OM. According to WW's doctor, it was the cause of her early stage cervical cancer. Even this did not change her or wake her up. She was still trying to contact OM. That is messed up! Now that we are divorced, she no longer has medical insurance….sad.

I have read a lot of accounts of BS's languishing in this type of miserable marriage for many years hoping the WS will change but nothing gets better. They usually just end up delaying the inevitable and file for D years later. Unfortunately this is only after the BS is beaten down emotionally and physically.

I decided to save myself the future pain and end it. My only regret is that I didn't file immediately after finding out about her cheating. The shock of divorce papers might have woke her up to reality of divorce. Instead I eased into it…big mistake.

Start to emotionally detach and focus on you and your children. Remember, you cannot change her. She has to want to do that for herself. Set an example for your children. Show them that they need to be strong and not to accept any kind of abuse or betrayal from anyone in their lives, especially the ones who vowed to love, honor, and remain faithful to us.

Is it possible you have chosen to take on being this loving and caring husband to a sick cheating wife because it gives you an excuse to remain in your own fantasy of what your marriage should be. If you "have to" be loving and caring to her, you don't have to fully accept what has happened and is still happening?

It's fine to be scared and you can take as much time a you want to make decisions, but have you identified all the reasons why you choose to keep on playing a role in this make believe marriage? I think it's important to be honest with oneself and sometimes the BS is as good at playing in their own fantasy as a WS.

I actually had a similar situation. About a year into R, where H was NOT , I repeat not anywhere near the model remorseful WS, he was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. As far as I know, he was not in contact with the FOW anylonger, but our R was so not what I needed.

It was a tough tough call.

Surgery will likely be followed by an 8 week recovery period. Depending on the biopsy results, chemo may start next and that can be a long tough road.

I dunno.

I tell ya I had to look at myself in the mirror and think long and hard about whether I wanted to start that painful, scary journey with him when he was not, not, not doing what I needed.

I can't fathom that decision if he were still in contact with the AP.

I am so sorry you are having to go through this. I do understand how hard it is. Be true to you, and try to behave in a way that, when you look back five, ten, 20 years from now, you are impressed with yourelf - whatever that decision turns out to be.

Peace.

Sorry you are here. Lots of good advice already for you. Your WW is lying to you and the fact that she changed the passwords is proof enough.

Your children are no reason to stay in a Marriage of 3 people. I speak from experience as I have 2 small children and if your WW had any shred of decency then she woudl be the one saying I need to fess up about the A go no contact and save my marriage for the children. Instead she is protecting the other man.

You are sharing your WW with another man and she is sleeping with him. My advice to you would be to go seee a lawyer today and fil for divorce. If you want to wake her up then the best chance you have is to file and shock her out of the fog if she is going to come out. I also woudl tell her that she if she wants to remain married to you then she needs to give you complete and utter transparency right now or she can pack her bags and leave. Seh can have OM sho is such good friends with her provide her support while she goes through treatment. The LAST thing you want is to be sitting beside her through this cancer treatment only to have her up and leave you once she is through the tough part. Why should she get to continue to abuse you like she is. IF OM is so special tell her to go live with him while doing the treatments.

If you do decide to stay with her for the treatment you need to read up on the 180 and detach BIG time. Call alawyer and once she is in the clear hit her with D papers if she hasn't gone complete NC, given you complete transparency and anything else you need. This shit sucks by itself but now she is gogin to lay the guilt trip on you for the cancer treatment while she has been out sleeping with another man.

Thsi ALWAYS gets worse before it gets better. Be strong for you and your children and stand up for yoruself if she can't be bothered to let you see her phones and needs privacy then she can have her privacy while living somewhere else. This is not you being mean or vindictive it's her facing the consequences she brought on herself by having an A. I fear that once she gets past this she is going to leave you. I wish you the best.

ETA: I didn't realize this was an older thread...hope the OP is doing ok.

[This message edited by 7yrsflushed at 3:24 PM, June 18th (Tuesday)]

I decided to stay when mine had cancer.

Sometimes, I wish I would have left after his XW showed up out of nowhere some years after SD moved out.

This is a woman he claimed never to talk to, there was nothing there, blah, blah, blah.

How does someone like that feel familiar enough to walk into MY house(she brought her kid along to make it look legit-oh and BTW, she is married w/kids & spouse of her own to take care of)and offer to take care of MY husband if it all gets to be too much for me?

I didn't make an issue out of it.

All that mattered to me was that he gets well again.

I continued to be there for him and take care of him, but distancing myself slightly because who knowsa? Maybe when he's all better, he'll leave, but now, at least I can say I did the right thing by taking care of him.

It has been over three years since that happened.

He regularly throws it up into my face that I abandoned him while he was in chemo.

Anybody else in my shoes would have abandoned him and left him to his XW devices.

But I put it aside and tried to do the right thing.

At least my kids know.

I know.

He is telling whoever will listen otherwise though.

This is a very hard place for you to be.

You're already hurting, trying to deal with mother of your childrens devastating illness and her affair on top of it.

Good luck with whatever course of action you choose.

I'm still here, but I'm hating it.

Life is too short.

Soooooo,

Speaking as an individual who has been left to recuperate alone with 4 children after 6 major surgeries, yes 6, she does not need you after the mastectomies. Let her swing it on her own.

It will be a good 6 weeks before they start chemo on her, let her think about what it will be like to be single during that time.

Don't go back unless she goes totally NC and becomes totally transparent.

Do not let yourself be used as an indentured servant. Because if she is in love with OW, that is all you will be to her. You will resent her for it.

Best to walk away now and hope it shocks her out of her fantasy world.

Or better yet, when she is discharged from the hospital, drop her off at OM's house and tell her she can recuperate there with him.

A bit of a gamble, but I think I'd try to bring the issue to a head right now, but discretely, somehow on helping it on its own if you know what I mean. When brought to the test right now, I think the OM will fail in her time of need. This is just me.

There is still time to possibly shock your wife into re-evaluating the marriage. File for divorce; stop being an heroic martyr and try tough love as a final solution. It might be what it takes to convince your wife that the marriage is worth saving after all. Given her on-going deceit, being a devoted caregiver equates to being a foolish optimist.

I fully understand why you feel you can't leave now and you have two small children. My WH had open heart surgery and I decided to take care of him. Then I discovered through phone records that while he was recuperating in the hospital and I was taking a "class" on how to care for him at home, he was talking to OW. Talked to OW all the time he was in the hospital and recovering at home.

Do not think for one minute WW will be appreciative of what you are doing or decide to give up OM because she realizes how good you are.

See a lawyer. Find out your options. Detach detach detach. Tell the whole family and talk to the in-laws about how you will help for now, but need help from them to take care of their daughter.

See if you can get custody of the kids.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I know how much it hurts. Keep posting.