SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm several months out from DDay. WH is extremely snd genuinely remorseful. I had long suspected his A with a neighbor/friend we were social with. I found out months after it ended so he wasn't in the fog or anything. By then he just felt like sh*t about himself and wanted to mend things between us.

So anyway, things have been going very well but now I'm stuck.

He was very forthcoming and honest about things between them, but from day one he has maintained that while they did kiss on many occasions, it never went further sexually.

I know at the time what he really wanted was someone to make him feel special, and she said all the right things.

(She has a long history of this behavior well known to everyone we know, including her husband)

She basically threw herself at him for months right in front of everyone but he never reciprocated until much later.

She was very much the pursuer. I don't say that to take blame off him, I say it because I know her and it's true.

So anyway, he says she asked him several times to be intimate and he always told her he couldn't cross that line. If you knew my H, you wouldn't find that hard to believe. If you knew her, you would know it makes perfect sense that she would pressure him for more. (He explained that his refusal to take things further ultimately caused the relationship to fizzle out).

I just have a nearly impossible time believing that there was no further physical intimacy than kissing. On one hand his story is actually very plausible, but on the other hand if you and a woman are telling each other you love each other, telling each other you wish you could make love, the woman proposes several scenarios to make that happen, and you don't??? Was I born yesterday??

He says he was too chicken to actually do it.

He said he felt as long as he didn't cross that line he wasn't "really" having and affair (all the while knowing he really was).

I don't know what to think anymore. It's driving me nuts.

How long did this go on for?

About 3 months.

In the beginning he admits they made time to see each other briefly about three times per week. He said it wasn't long before it was only twice a week, then maybe once a week, and then was pretty much only texting/emailing.

She had his head really filled with lies, (several of us actually think she may either be a pathological liar or possibly bi-polar)and after a while he really started to see the truth about her and it turned him off.

He was even vaguely aware that he wasn't the only man she was seeing behind her husbands back.

I now know for a fact based on other sources that she indeed had a least two other relationships going on.

[This message edited by OnlyUpp at 9:43 AM, March 4th (Tuesday)]

And seeing each other was being alone inside one of the two houses? How long where these times? 5 minutes-2 hours? What does he say went on during these times? Them making kissy faces at each other and just talking seems naïve unless it was just a few moments each time. Anything over 10 minutes would have me wondering as well.

Actually, ten minutes was about right.

He knew I thought something was going on between them and so did her husband. They didn't have much opportunity to sneak around. He said they usually met for a quick beer on his was home from work somewhere out of our direct area (maybe ten miles away) and then they would sit in his or her car for about five minutes and that was when the kissy face happened.

He maintains she was never in our home during this time and he was never in hers. By then we were obviously no longer friends and not socializing with them.

Maybe you could propose he take a polygraph?

I tend to be suspicious of this 'we never had sex' claim, but it must be true sometimes, and could be in this case. However I wouldn't believe it either in your shoes! So the polygraph seems like the only way to set your mind at rest.

Well if it was 5-10 minutes here and there and never alone inside a home then I suppose it's possible.

I like the poly idea. First you see his reaction to you asking him to take one. Then you actually schedule it and go.

My WH was smart enough to say he had no problem taking one but it was because he felt I would never go through with it. Yep mine was still lying. Many people on SI report parking lot confessions.

Might be worth the cost to just erase any question in your mind about this issue.

I should add one more detail that makes me lean slightly toward believing him.

In the very beginning I told him (and I meant it) that an affair is an affair and the level of sexuality between them would have no bearing on my decision to leave or work things out.

So in essence, he really has no reason to lie about it. He knows it wouldn't make things any different.

Of course now that he has been telling the same story over and over and I'm doubting him, I'm not sure what my reaction would be if I found out things were more than he said.

[This message edited by OnlyUpp at 11:07 AM, March 4th (Tuesday)]

So hard to say. I personally find it hard to believe that they only kissed, esp since it was going on for 3 months. My H TT'd me to death and went from revealing only that it was:

inappropriate flirting and texting

to

kissing/making out

to

sex twice

to

sex many times, sexting

to

it went on longer than he maintained

But maybe you're H is stronger than mine was. If it's making you crazy to know, then the only way is the polygraph.

I'm new here, but I can tell you to listen to your gut and take the advice people on here are giving you. They know what they are talking about. Sending hugs your way. You can get to the bottom of this when you are truly ready for the truth.

I have no doubt that he would take a poly if I asked him to. Unfortunately I've looked in to it a couple times since DDay and there isn't one anywhere around us....I mean not even two hours away.

So in essence, he really has no reason to lie about it. He knows it wouldn't make things any different.

That's how a person normally thinks. Wayward thinking is different. This is why many waywards claim only kissing when it went further. Or only a few times when it was every day for months. They are in full-on CYA mode and often ashamed to admit, even to themselves, how low they stooped.

MrH lied to me from June '99 until I hunted down xOw1 after d-day for the second A and asked her if they had sex. She was a pushy friend of ours too, so I had a hard time believing he didn't give in. He hugged her (LOL autocorrect changed her to germ) that's it. Then, 18mos later he admitted to kissing her.

Then d-day for 2A, seven and a half years later, he admitted to sex with xOw2. Twice. Figuring if he fessed up to sex with her, he'd go ahead and admit with xOw1. Nope. No sex. It wasn't until nearly two months later when I hunted xOw1 down and asked her that she told me they had sex. A few times. With protection.

Keep in mind I haven't seen her since '99. Turns out she lied to. Sex, unprotected. Oral, vaginal, anal (supposedly the anal was protected).

It's not just my story. I've seen it happen predominately here on SI that the WS lies about sex in the A.

My advice, choose to believe him if you will. But get tested regularly for STDs. Your H would be the rare WH that didn't TT. I wouldn't risk it though. And surely not with a pushy OW that lived right next door.

I can't give you an answer for your situation... but I can say that it's possible. There's a teeny tiny chance.

FWH was pressured for 2 months to make a move on OW. He thought if he could limit it to talk and no touching that he wasn't doing anything wrong. They'd send pictures, use the company IM.... they'd play a game called "If FWH wasn't married, I'd..."

So for this dynamic to function, he convinced himself that he wasn't allowed to touch her. She worked sooooo hard to get him to break that, and at a drunken work party she finally dragged him behind a dumpster and had her way with him.

Why do I believe this? Because the day after it happened he was an ashen zombie, and the day after that he confessed. There was about 2 days of TT, but what really shocked him was that he followed through and "actually" cheated. He couldn't live with himself.

Everything we've learned since then has taught him that he was cheating all along, but at the time he thought he could play without touching... if that makes sense. He just didn't realize that the slope was sending him straight to the place he thought he was too good to go.

I say trust your gut - whether you feel like there's more or whether it makes sense that he had his limits. It's a longshot, but it could happen.

(((OnlyUpp)))

We all know of course that the behavior of the cheater is totally unlike their "real" personality in most cases. Obviously they do and say things that under normal circumstances they never would.

All that said, believe it or not my WH really IS a very disciplined man who actually COULD control himself enough not to cross that line.

(Notice I say "could", not necessarily "did")

That is probably the worst part of this for me. He really may be telling the truth and I know if I was constantly being accused of something I knew I didn't do it would be incredibly frustrating.

WH never expresses anything but understanding and kindness, but I don't want to punish him for something he DIDN'T do, only to work through what he DID do...

Make sense?

If it does not impact your decision to R whether the sex did or didn't happen, maybe that's the way out--that the answer becomes irrelevant? To free yourself from needing to wonder?

It isn't the sexuality I really need to know about, it's that in order to move forward I need to have the truth. If I don't that that, we have nothing.

He said they usually met for a quick beer on his was home from work somewhere out of our direct area (maybe ten miles away) and then they would sit in his or her car for about five minutes and that was when the kissy face happened.

. This is what makes me think it was more than kissing. There was private time and alcohol involved. Just my opinion but you know him, we don't. He did have opportunity.

Ostrich, I tend to feel the same way at times.

She owns a business and has an office. He told me she more than once suggested they use that space after hours to meet but he didn't have the guts.

I KNOW there were opportunities and I've told him as much...

Here is the thing (and no, I'm not being naive when I say this), my WH would not have initiated ANYTHING. He just never would. She, on the other hand, would do anything she could to get in his pants. So yes, it's hard to believe he didn't give in at some point...

Just because he didn't start it doesn't mean he wasn't a willing participant.

I think it could happen the way he is telling it. It could also be a lie. That is the problem with infidelity. It's hard to believe something even if it is the truth.

I know what you mean about the OW being the pursuer. It was the same way in my situation only they went on to have a 2 year A after about 2 years of her coming on to him. Not taking any blame off my WH, it's just the way it was.

I think it can be the truth. In my case my fwh admitted to kissing and groping but has consistently stated no sex. We are 5 years out and i have never had any thing give me reason to believe there was sex......even though initially i kept waiting for that to "trickle truth" out. The ow pursued and had major history of pursuing. Her goal was actually money.....she didn't really want sex with him....she came on to him and got him to be kisa to pay her debts.

So, i do believe there can be no sex.

I also know how damaging it was to our marriage and how it changed our dynamics. The lack of sex is not what made me work to reconcile. It was his behavior after dday that made reconciliation possible.