SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been reading posts on here since last night. I almost didn't post this, because my story feels so minor compared to what I've seen, but then again it is my story and it does hurt. I feel like putting my story down will help me.

My wife and I come from very different back grounds. Her family life was chaos. She never knew her real dad. Her step father was abusive to her mother. Both parents cheated with regularity. Divorce and infidelity aren't things that exist in my family. They just aren't things that we believe in or tolerate. I watched my grandmother nurse my grandfather as he was dieing of congestive heart failure. My parents are still together though they have had their share of problems. We have such different prospective on marriage.

I'm a good husband. I'm not trying to say I'm perfect but I put everything I have into my marriage. She has always gotten the best of me I've ever been. I lose my temper at times, but I try not not to, and when I do I come back to apologize and admit my faults. I've been there when she was diagnosed with MS and could barley walk. I've faught the dr's and the insurance companies when she wasn't getting the care she needed. I slept by her side in the hospital both times her liver nearly failed from the meds. If she tells me she wants something she gets it. Not just material things, though that's true to, but anything.

She's always had issue. She will with draw at times. Other times she will scream at me and when I refuse to engage in the fight she will scream even loader that I don't care. I've been tolerant of these things until now. But now I know I was enabling a pattern that lead to infidelity.

A few weeks ago she came to me and told me she wasn't happy with her life and didn't know what she wanted. We talked about it as best we could but couldn't make any head way. I told her that I felt like she needed to work through this with a counselor and that when she figured out what we wanted and needed we needed to figure out how that fit into our marriage. I was willing to see a marriage counselor if necessary.

Over the following week she withdrew. On top of that I've been fighting pneumonia and bronchitis and have been pretty sick. She stopped using her tablet to get onto face book and was spending a lot of time typing on her phone. Every time I touched my phone she'd ask who I was texting. Which was fairly interesting as I rarely text anyone but her.

It was a little more then a week later that everything blew up. As we were going to bed she suddenly blurts out "I'm not sure I want to be with you any more we need counseling." I got up set and left the room with every intention of sleeping on the couch. As I lay there on the couch feeling pretty down the only person I wanted to be with was her. So, I walked back into the bedroom to talk. She was texting with someone I saw the brief flash of a message on the screen before she quickly flipped the phone face down on the bed. There was no denying what was going on this time.

Things were a whirlwind. I slept at my parents house that night. Tried to talk to her the next day. What she told me was she wasn't sure if she wanted to be with me. She wasn't sure if she loved me. But she was sure she wanted to be with this other guy. I more or less gave her two weeks to get out without meaning too.

After a break down at work some friends, including my boss, calmed me down. I realized that nothing had gone as I intended and that I needed to talk with my. Wife we talked that night. She agreed to NC and marriage counseling and personal counseling. I didn't want her to send an NC letter, instead I demanded it all stop now without another word.

The next day he started blowing up her phone and she texted him back and told him that we were going to counseling, but didn't tell him specifically not to contact her any more. So, he continued to blow up her phone both trying to give "advice" on how to save our marriage and trying to sweet talk her more. She sent every word to me without responding. I know this is true because she sent it in screen shoots. Anyway, I decided it was time for me to get involved. I sent him a text and copied her the text I sent is something I'm very proud of. I'm sure you all know what I wanted to say. But what I said was:

This is J-, C-'s husband. I know what went on between the two of you. And I want to make it clear the we have decided it is over. Don't worry about her. She is safe and she will be okay. And definitely do not concern yourself with our relationship. I don't know you and you don't know me. So I'm not here to pass judgment on you. But you have to understand that you don't know her either. A lot had happens in the last 8 years that we have been building a life together. You were not privy to any of these life changing events. I don't fault you for this and I truly thank you for your service. She remembers fondly what you once had as you obviously do. But don't mistake that for a familiarity today. I would hope that you are man enough to respect our decision and never contact me or my wife again. We do not need the distraction or pain in our lives.

*thank you for your service is me reconizing that he spent the last 8 years in the army.

At the end of the day an ex messaged her on facebok. They spent all of 11 days talking and she was willing to blow up or lives over it. The talk was inappropriate, but not as bad as it could have been. Most of it was about the past, but in the end she was making plans to move to Washington to be with this guy.

My wife now says that it had nothing to do with him, me or even our relationship. You see her MS was calm, we had bought a house we were starting to plan to have kids. For the first time things were calm and everything was smooth. She says that felt wrong to her, and when he offered her the chaos that she is used to she was drawn to it. She repeatedly has said that I am an amazing husband and that I deserve better. Even going as far as to say that part of the draw of this guy is that he's so screwed up she would have been the normal one in the relationship. She's not using any of this as a excuse. It's only an explanation. She's taking full accountability for all of it. And for the first time I really do feel like she's all in on this relationship

We are in counseling. We've had one couples session and she's had her first private session. I'm meeting the counselor alone today. I get that there are levels of affair and this is about as minor as it can get. It doesn't make it hurt me any less today. The counselor prefers that we don't call it an affair, but instead say that my wife "acted out." Call it what you want it doesn't change what happened.

Right now I'm having good days and bad days. A good day is a day when I don't cry or check her facebook. Bad days I do both. Monday and Tuesday were good days. Yesterday was pretty bad. That's how I ended up here.

Brother I'm sorry you've found yourself here. It is an affair and you have to get a new counselor if you want to save your marriage. This one is minimizing and you need one that will hold her accountable for her actions. Your wife said it herself broken attracts broken. She needs help and basically admitted it. It's not acting out its that she is broken and needs to deal with her demons.

I'd be on the phone right now looking for a new one right away if you want to save your marriage. It does hurt no matter what. A betrayal is a betrayal. You've come to the right place. Make sure you read the healing library and keep posting. You'll find a camaraderie here like no other. When you get the chance check out the betrayed men's forum.

I get that there are levels of affair and this is about as minor as it can get. It doesn't make it hurt me any less today. The counselor prefers that we don't call it an affair, but instead say that my wife "acted out." Call it what you want it doesn't change what happened.

Uhtred is right, minimising this isn't going to be particularly helpful to you in dealing with it. While infidelity does come in different shapes and sizes it's still infidelity. An emotional affair is no less of a betrayal and no less destructive than a physical affair. I'm disappointed that your counsellor would have you refer to it as 'acting out' - children 'act out' adults have affairs!

I'm sorry you're here but you'll find plenty of support and guidance here.

[This message edited by Credence at 11:00 AM, March 12th (Wednesday)]

The counselor prefers that we don't call it an affair, but instead say that my wife "acted out."

Bullshit! Its 100% an Affair. Time for a new counselor.

I agree that you guys could benefit from counseling..

Marriage counseling may or may not work at this early point in time..Individual counseling for each of you may be better, MC down the road when you guys have healed more..

Be careful with your choice of counselors ...

It may take a fair amount of shopping around before you find a good counselor..

Don't take a counselor's advice or recommendation to heart if it doesn't feel right..

For example if you feel that either you or the marriage is being blamed for your wife's behavior stop and reassess the counseling that you are getting with this IC or MC..Do the same thing if the counselor's focus is to work on the marriage right away instead instead of assessing and addressing the damage your W caused with her behavior..

The counselor whom you and your W met with may not be the right one for MC.. An MC preferring not to call your W's relationship with OM "an affair" is a red flag.. IMO this counselor may not have much knowledge on helping couples navigate the aftermath of an affair..

A counselor should not be dealing with semantics at all, he or she should be addressing your feelings..

I'm sorry you're going through this. Your wife was ready to move to DC to be with an ex after only 11 days about talking? That signals either that she's lying about the length/intensity of contact, or that she has some very very serious issues she needs to address. People don't just up and abandon their whole life so suddenly. I hope she continues taking this seriously and digging in with IC ...I would also really dig to make sure you actually know everything. I would be very suspicious that there is more to this.

Yep. What they all said above. You belong here. I agree with norabird. You may not even know all of the truth. Very sorry you are here and very sorry for your pain. Please keep posting even if it's your thoughts and feelings. There is plenty of excellent advice here at SI. Starting with finding a new IC.

Thank you everyone. This was the first place on the web that I didn't basically see "Men cheat because they are a-h- and woman cheat because men are a-h-." It helps a lot. Because I knew that wasn't the case here.

The counselor did say it was an emotional affair, but she then said "but let's not call it that." I get what she's doing. I haven't always had it together I've had consoling before. I may have cut it off then, but she then followed up with telling my wife "The only way to fix this is to heal you." and she recommended IC for each of us. I'm going to play this out a bit more before I turn tail and run. If she can help my wife with her issues, we can always look at a different marriage counselor later. Right now it's more important that my wife figures her stuff out. If not I can't do it any more.

She was going to move to Washington state not DC. Not that it makes a huge difference. We are in California. So, it's still 2 states away. When she really thought it was over on Tuesday she was looking to sign a lease in a nearby town. In the end she realized that Washington was a terrible idea.

She's not lying about the time line. I saw the first message on facebook where they talk about not talking for 8 years. It was exactly 11 days before D-day. And you are are right she has some serious stuff to deal with. I only brushed the surface of how messes up her childhood really was. No excuse just a reason. She knows it too. I'm just sorry it took this for her to be willing to get help.

I'm seeing the counselor today. I'm not sure what she can do for me to be honest. The only thing she called me out on in our first meeting is when she said "Sometimes when someone is Intelligent, logical, eloquent and dogmatic the other partner finds it hard to find space in the marriage" Will I like myself. and I find those things positive traits, (although I say principled not dogmatic ) so I'm not interested in changing them. And I do try to check in with my wife and respect her opinion. Well, respect her opinion about everything but music. I might unintentionally run her over at times, but that's more about her speaking up. Because I never would knowingly do it.

[This message edited by Wodnships at 11:25 AM, March 12th (Wednesday)]

Wodnships:

"The counselor did say it was an emotional affair, but she then said "but let's not call it that"."

I don't get this. If it's an Affair, and that betrayal has traumatized you, then why the hell should it be minimized?

In my opinion, too many MCs today are abdicating their primary duty -- to be advocates for and defenders of healthy marriages. It seems counter-productive to treat an EA lightly. It's like getting an MRI, seeing a brain tumor, then saying "Well, it's probably benign. I say we skip the surgery and chemo and focus on positive thinking. It might work!"

You are getting better advice here than from this paid MC. And though I don't want to compound your pain, Norabird is right. You should dig deeper-- because there may be more to this than you yet know.

Keep sharing here, Wodnships-- you really will get a wealth of insight, from people motivated not by money but simply a desire to be an encouragement and aid to you.

Yeah I shot myself in the foot a bit. When we first talked about making it work I made three demands. She never talk to him again. She figures out these issues that drive her. She's 100% committed to the relationship. She deleted all of his contact information in front of me. (I know it's a nice gesture but it doesn't eliminate contact.

Unfortunately I should have asked to read the texts before this and I didn't. I know the communications they had on FB but not everything in the texts. I ask her about what went on almost daily. I can intellectually recognize what's going on with her, but to put the pieces together emotionally is a little bit harder.

She said something last night that made sense in a messed up sort of way. She told me that she never felt good enough for me and that she felt like he was messed up enough for her. She also said that she thought that maybe in a relationship with this guy she could be the normal one. That so dysfunctional on so many levels, but I get what she's saying.

I do have one thing in my favor. My wife is the worlds worst liar. That's a big part of the reason that it didn't last longer. She knew she'd get caught.

The truth is I will never know everything they talked about. But part of what bothers me is most of it (that I've seen) was so shallow and meaningless.

The counselor prefers that we don't call it an affair, but instead say that my wife "acted out."

Well, that's interesting. I'll suggest then that you not call her a counselor, but a fool that charges people to give lousy advice

Your wife was going to leave you. She had an affair. Why does this counselor want to call it another name?

So, if she treats a pedophile, does she prefer to call them 'inappropriate relationship seekers'? She's a fool. To get to the heart of why an affair happened, you must first accept that it was an affair.

I'm not the first to suggest this, but I'd find a counselor that has significant experience in infidelity, not someone that wants to minimize actions by giving them 'light names'.

This woman is a thief. I would not only get a new counselor, but I'd report her to the state licensing agency.

Welcome. I like your username. Mine was Sailor originally but due to a screw-up in registration, I had to change it.

If you think that this IC is going to help get to the bottom of your WWs brokenness, then fine. Let things play out a bit more. But if and when you go to MC, call first and find out what that MCs approach is when infidelity is in the mix. Because while I can understand an IC focusing on the broken thoughts and not getting too hung up on the actions, that won't fly for couples counseling. EA 100% her fault. Marriage problems each of you contributing.

Check her devices any time you need to. Each time you check, you are honoring your pain. Each time you find nothing, you are putting one drop of water back into your empty trust bucket. There's a lot of actions that she is going to have to do to get water back into that bucket. And unfortunately, there are going to be times that she screws up and spills the water. Again.

Keep coming back for help and for support. We're all here for you. And don't minimize your pain. Pain is pain. We've had people here who could build a good marriage with SAs who had multiple affairs. We've had people here who divorced over a kiss. Each of us has a completely different capacity for pain, for love, for life. Don't compare yourself unfavorably to anyone else.

Not a sailor, just a Crosby, Stills and Nash fan.

The truth is I don't see much use in couples counseling until my wife gets into some kind of decent space. Couples counseling isn't going to teach her to deal life. It's not going to teach her to be comfortable with normalcy or to get over her abandonment issues. She has to be at some level of composure for couples counseling to be at all useful.

Her and I had a long talk last night. I was feeling really down about everything and she started to list off every thing that she was doing to make up for it. I had to explain to her that first off it's been a week. And secondly until I see real change in her I'm not going to be comfortable. As log as she withdrawing for no apparent reason, as long as she's flipping out of the smallest disagreement, as long as I see the same old pattern I can't heal and we can't heal.

This probably sounds like I'm taking 0 responsibility for our marriage, but that isn't the case. But my wife can't even tell me anything that is wrong in our marriage. The only thing she can tell me is that everything being right makes her feel bad. I can't fix that. Only she can.

And she knows it. Like I said she's taking 100% responsibility for the entire mess. She's trying to do little things to show her appreciations. She's having the same conversations with me over and over again. She's seeing the counselor twice this week. That's all she can do for now. It isn't going to get better over night.

As far as checking her media whenever I want. It isn't that I'm worried about her in this. It's that I don't want to be the guy who's constantly checking up on my wife. I don't want to live my life that way and I want to work toward being who I want to be. I'm not going to let this compromise me as a person.

I know I'm rather wordy. It just feels good to be able to put all this down to people who understand what I'm going through.

So last night I was feeling pretty good and then more comes out. There is something in my WW's past that she told me a couple weeks ago and she's never talked to anyone about. One of the many things she needs help with. I found out that she talked about it with him. Sorry to be vague but I'm not one to tell other people's story. The truth is what it was wasn't important.

She said that she never mentioned it before because she thought it wasn't important. Which is either BS or just another sign of how messed up her thinking is I'm not sure which. I accused her of still holding back and she said she wasn't. I said that's what you say every time before something else comes out.

It's not so much that she talked to someone else about her issues. It's that it took 8 years of love and support for her to trust me with this. This guy drops a couple of lame lines and with in a few days she feels comfortable telling him everything.

I know many of you said there was more. But my question is how do you ever know that you know everything? There is no way to ever know empirically. so what do you do?

my question is how do you ever know that you know everything? There is no way to ever know empirically. so what do you do?

Since the trust factor is now gone and will never be back to 100%, even if you do have 100% of the knowledge you will never believe that you know. How comfortable are you with 99?

Sorry, it's a side serving to the shit sandwich she chose to serve.

Take her phone and hang on to to it. Don't let her near it. Once you are eligible for the investigative forum you there will be people who can tell you how to recover those deleted texts. None of us wanted to be "that spouse" but it is a way of rebuilding trust. Every time you look, and find nothing, some trust is restored.

Hang on to the phone until you can recover those texts. Then you will find out if she is being honest with you...or not.

Confused your post may have been the most helpful of all.

I don't know why recovering her text never occurred to me. I work in IT for a living. I'm just not thinking clearly right now.

She doesn't back up her phone or even use her iTunes account other then on the apple store. I'll have to do some research on third party apps, but it's most likely fairly recoverable.

Thank you for that.

Your welcome. I would advise that you keep this to yourself for now..until you have recovered the texts. It will help you to know if you can count on her to be honest with you when it comes to telling you those things you may not otherwise know. If you recover the texts and everything she has told you lines up with those texts, you have an excellent shot at R. If you recover them and see that she has been lying, then you at least know what you're dealing with.

Good luck!

I didn't follow your advice completely.

I told her I was going to do it when she got home tonight and she replied. "I just hope it helps us heal and doesn't create more resentment for either one of us."

Which made it clear she wasn't telling me something. After hounding her she said "Fine. When I was looking for an apartment and he told me he loved me I said 'I love you too.' but I didn't mean it and I mean it when I say it to you."

She then went on with a guilt trip about me not trusting her and that she felt like I never would. I said "How can I trust you when you just lied to me again this morning?"

I get all the typical cheater lines. "I just don't want to hurt you." "I didn't mean to lie to you." "There is nothing else you will see tonight."

I'm not going to go through it all, and it's still happening (via text) but it's a really big fight right now. It feels like a mini D-day all over again.

I don't know how I'm going to do this. If it wasn't for the fact that I don't believe in divorce I'd walk. If we weren't married I'd walk. Obviously, she was as into making this work as I thought.

What real said about accepting that you have 99% the truth or 50% of the truth..Part of healing will be accepting that you know what you know ..

Based on what information you already have and how things play out, you will eventually have to decide if it is possible that she can still be in your life as a spouse or partner..

As real wrote, this is the dessert course of the shit meal you were served..

One if the first immediate things to do, if possible, is protect yourself legally and financially if you haven't done so already..

Do plan for the worst to happen.. Protect yourself early and do it whether R or D..

Try to have things arranged so that no other person (including your WS) can steal your livelihood away on the heels of a betrayal...

Have this protection in place for the rest of your life if possible..

It is bad enough to deal with the emotional aspects of an infidelity aftermath, whether R or D..

Why should we have EVERY area of our lives go down the tubes because of a WS's choices..

If you aren't protected legally and financially it will be much more difficult to extricate yourself from the M..

It is guaranteed that your life is gonna change whether R or D..

It is one of the worst prisons to be trapped in an M with a cheater because one sees no way to get out without extreme hardship and struggle...

In dealing with a spouse who spews out half truths one must have his or her guard up..

[This message edited by doggiediva at 12:47 PM, March 13th (Thursday)]