SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The only thing you have left to offer her is truth.

Its the only way to save your marriage now, if she can forgive you.

My h would not give me the truth. I had to learn it in slow, small bits.

Its killed us. I'm so uninterested in him now. We might've made it a better m, if he had manned up.

Give her the truth.

oh, and get rid of ALL OW.

Completely. No further contact.

You need to tell her everything. And I mean everything. Don't hide anything for any reason, it only makes things worse.

Of course you are going to be terrified of her coming home now, she knows that you cheated. Of course she doesn't know the details, and for all you know she is going to want all details about all affairs.

My husband wanted all details about my A. Even though it was really hard for me to tell him and really hard for him to hear, I told him anyway. Every single detail about every interaction with my AP.

I agree with kiki1, you need to forget about the OW. All of them. You cannot ever contact them again if you want your marriage to work.

It was the worst day of my life when my husband found out about my A. And I found out at a later date that my husband had all intents on leaving me on our D-Day. He was going to divorce me and that would be that. But that day, of course there were a tonne of emotions going through both of us. After talking and talking and more talking, we have worked on things. I still have a lot of work to do on myself in order to be better for my family and myself. But we are getting better. We are working on our marriage and I hate that this is now a part of our life, but it is now and we have to work through it.

I guess the only real advice I can give you is just be honest with your wife. She is going to want to know everything and you need to tell her. You can't hide anything from her.

I guess I have no choice but to tell her the whole truth. It scares the hell out of me. I sit here waiting and terrified. I can think about nothing else. Mostly for the consequences.

I don't want to see OW#2. Ever! She just contacted me and I have nothing to say to her. I work with OW#1. That is harder because I will see her about once a month, otherwise I don't have to contact her. Do I warn her about OW#2? It won't surprise me if OW#2 contacts her husband.

Everything is going to blow up thanks to that crazy bitch no.2.

Yes, I know it is a good thing that the truth is finally out, but I am hurting like hell and I am so confused with what is going to happen. It feels as if I am walking in a minefield and I just want to curl up and die.

Everything is going to blow up thanks to that crazy bitch no.2.

So if OW #2 didn't blow things up, what would you do? Happily continue having affairs?

Everything is going to blow up because of what you have done. You were the one that planted all of those mines in that field. They were bound to blow up and gravely hurt your wife, regardless of what triggered them to set off.

You've gotta own this if you want any chance for your marriage. You've gotta own this if you want any chance to fix yourself.

I'm glad you are sticking around and posting. You are getting some good advice here.

[This message edited by LosferWords at 2:37 PM, July 29th (Monday)]

Do not warn OW#1; you need to distance yourself from these women, entirely. Anything you do for either of them will look like you are protecting them to your wife. And she will find out; we all do eventually. These women DO NOT MATTER. Only your wife's feelings matter. OW#1 is also married; surely she understands the consequences of her behavior and how it will affect her marriage.

My husband tried to protect his "girlfriend" too. Don't make that mistake!!!

I guess I have no choice but to tell her the whole truth. It scares the hell out of me. I sit here waiting and terrified. I can think about nothing else. Mostly for the consequences.

Actions have consequences, time to learn that.

I'm only really going to address one thing- tell the truth, the whole truth. Do not try to pull punches. Do not try to soften the blow. Do not try to make it better by minimizing. Own what happened. Tell your BW everything. It's your only chance to save anything.

What do you want to do? Do you want to remain in your M? If so, figure why you did everything you could to destroy it. That digging will help you become a safe person for your W again.

I guess I have no choice but to tell her the whole truth. It scares the hell out of me. I sit here waiting and terrified. I can think about nothing else. Mostly for the consequences.

Take it from someone who did not tell the truth when I had the chance, tell her everything, and all at once. WIll she leave? No one knows, but if you think you love her, then show her with your actions.

Start acting proactively now. If you want to save your M, then get to work. Actions, not words.

Change email addresses, change cell number, get rid of social media, give your W access to everything, do it without her asking for it.

I work with OW#1.

Find a new job. No contact is critical.

Do I warn her about OW#2? It won't surprise me if OW#2 contacts her husband.

No, forget about OW 1, she is under the bus as far as you are concerned.

Everything is going to blow up thanks to that crazy bitch no.2.

Nope, own your shit. YOU did this.

""Yes, I know it is a good thing that the truth is finally out, but I am hurting like hell and I am so confused with what is going to happen. It feels as if I am walking in a minefield and I just want to curl up and die.""

start to think about how your wife is feeling. Empathy will go a long way right now.

Good luck, stay on here and you will get the help you need.

ETA: hit post reply too soon.

[This message edited by badchoice at 3:44 PM, July 29th (Monday)]

I suggest the following:

1. Do not leave out even the smallest of details...every ONS whens and wheres...then if she asks more TELL THE TRUTH and OWN WHAT YOU DID (those are the 2 biggest things)Dont blame anyone else. You did this, I dont care who exposed it who found it out who told...you did it. This will help her and you in your own healing.

2. Go to counseling if you are being serious about saving the M. YOU need to figure out what's going on within you that you have done such destructive things, like I said above, your own healing.

3. Read up on how a BS feels to try and understand what she will be going through as a result of your actions. Many times a BS feels the WS has no clue what type of hurt was caused "After the Affair" is an easy read and I felt it did a decent job addressing feelings of both parties.

I didn't see anyone add: if you are secretly looking at pornography, tell her. Tell her about any chats, webcans, phonesex, etc. Now that she knows you are cheating with real live people, she will also consider any virtual, or otherwise cheating as real cheating.

Show her all the bills related to these activities. Do not delete or close those accounts until she has had a chance to see everything for herself, or she will think you are hiding things from her.

Do not delete any texts, photos, or anything until she has had a chance to see them for herself, or she will believe you are still trying to hide things from her. If you delete anything, she will know you are trying to protect yourself, not her, and that you have something to hide...the mind movies for her can be worse than the reality. Give her the opportunity to decide for herself what she wants to know and to see.

Also make sure you don't "clean up" any evidence.

My husband deleted his emails and email account when he thought he finally got rid of OW.

Later he learned how much it would have helped him to prove his "story" by letting me read the emails. Now there is no evidence and I have no way of knowing what the truths were and what he was thinking.

It's sort of counter intuitive but many BS's need to know the details in order to get thru the whole process. And we simply can't trust the person who just betrayed and deceived us so badly. We need evidence to build trust and confidence that we are being told the whole truth.

[This message edited by whattheh at 6:44 PM, July 29th (Monday)]

there's no stop sign, so i'm offering my opinion.

personally, i can't believe you're worried about losing her. you've only been married 5 years and you've cheated on her twice?

that doesn't sound like love to me. that sounds like you have to have a woman around to make you feel good.

and i can't believe you're trying to blame OW2 for outing you. i mean, don't you think you're to blame for this? unbelievable amount of blame shifting here.

finally, i can't imagine that if your marriage survives this that you won't be banging another one in less than a year.

be honest, you can, this is anonymous. aren't you going to continue cheating?

@mike7.

Honestly: I have no doubt in my mind that I love my wife. If you knew the type of person she is, you would believe me when I say this. She is an absolute Godsend. Perfect in so many ways. She is loving, kind, attractive, successful and has given me a perfect home. I can't believe that someone like her would have picked someone like me.

There is no timeframe that makes it ok to cheat. I know this. Would it have been better to have 2 OW if I was married for 15 years? Or 1 OW in the 5 years? It's not ok!!

I don't want to cheat again. If my BS wants to R, if she can forgive me, I will never cheat on her. I realise now what it is that I stand to lose and I can't believe what I have gone and deliberately destroyed.

Why did I cheat in the first place? Because I am an arsehole and I could. I disrespected the woman I love and didnt care. Except about myself.

I am so sorry and yes, I have cut off all contact with OW 1&2.

Unforgivable,

It's easy to call yourself an arsehole and admit you disrespected your wife. But you also disrespected yourself. What will you do if your BW decides this is a dealbreaker?

Will you continue to do the work?

Mike7,

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:37 AM, July 30th (Tuesday)]

"This was just sex"-No,it's never just sex.It's lying,cheating,disrespecting and degrading to your wife,and generally showing no care or shame about what you did as long as you never got caught.OW 2 has done your wife a huge favour by telling her.

I agree with the advice given by everyone else, so I won't repeat point by point.

I only want to add...go back and reread your posts. While you do talk much about the virtues of your wife, she's sort of missing from this picture. A lot of what you say is along the lines of this:

I guess I have no choice but to tell her the whole truth. It scares the hell out of me. I sit here waiting and terrified. I can think about nothing else. Mostly for the consequences.

I completely understand that you are afraid, that is normal; but you make no mention of her at all, her fears, her hurts, her worries, her reactions, her feelings at all. The A's were all about you, now it's time to set yourself aside and for this to be all about her.

Do absolutely everything suggested. Read the thread What Every WS Needs to Know, read Joseph's Letter in the Healing Library...read the ENTIRE Healing Library. Download and read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair: A Compact Guide for the Unfaithful (it's a quick read, I read it in under 5 hours). Then figure out what you're going to DO, for her. If you stay in Disaster Recovery mode, you'll never get into Healing mode.

This was NOT about sex, this is not about OW1 or OW2 or any other OW. This is about figuring out what is broken in you that got you here, owning everything you've done (owning to yourself and your wife), and doing absolutely everything in your power to work on you and give her what she needs. And trust me after 5 years I know, she does not need you to minimize, hide, cleanup or control damage. You've made a lot of decisions for her, it's time to be honest and let her make the decisions for herself.

I am a BS. I just read your other post. I feel bad for anyone who is truly remorseful, and that might be you, because I don't know if you are really remorseful, or just upset you got caught and have "consequences."

But on the other post you asked how she could "do this to you?" (Say she wants a D and sent a letter from a lawyer asking for no contact).

Have you ever had a conversation with her about what either of you would do if the other cheated? I know I had this conversation with both my H's and told them if they did, I would be gone so fast they would not know what hit them. If they thought I was kidding, that was their problem.

I did file for a D two days after the final D-day in my first M and never looked back. At least I will give my XH enough credit to say he was not shocked I did this. He was a serial cheater (which you have admitted you are too...two longer term As and four ONS in five years of marriage?)

I am not trying to bash someone when they are down, but I do think you need a reality check. There is nothing shocking about her wanting out of this right now...especially since you don't have children. Just because you may have heard of lots of people staying together after something like this does not say anything about your own situation.

Did she know about any of the cheating before she got the letter from OW #2? It does not really matter except it makes your response even more shocking if this was her second D-day.

I divorced my first H. There was far too much damage done for me to consider giving him time to hope he could fix all that was wrong inside him, even though we had three young kids together at the time I filed.

Still, I don't hate my X. I wish him well. To be honest, I don't think he ever fixed anything and I'm fairly certain he cheats on his current wife (who was the final OW from our M). But she is more the type I think you expect women to be: She gets mad but not mad enough to dump him.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 6:05 AM, August 1st (Thursday)]

I came to this forum to get a better understanding of what my WH might have been thinking, doing is hoping for ect.

This post hit me in the gut. As a BS I would give you only one piece of advise

HONESTY

oh.....and pray

T