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in a text he asked her to meet up for sex. my wife didnt encourage it but also didnt say no nor stop talking to him, she made it into a joke. this was before the second rome trip.

im going to let his wife know. she deserves to know shes married to a piece of sh1t who is willing to cheat on her.

Strength and God speed to you william

yop

this will be the second husband we out. the first was exchanging nude pics and graphic sexual emails with my wife.

it sucks. but if it were me, id want someone to tell me.

Still thinking about you william. How goes the battle and how are you?

ive had to take a break from our other night talks about her affairs. it went from a roller coaster to a straight downward trip. so for about a week and a half i avoided them. however, we start them back up again tonight.

i take drops that flatline me emotionally when i feel like im going to crash. i take pills to sleep. i have vivid nightmares and mind movies. i trigger alot.

other than that life isnt too shabby

I am happy to hear that you were at least able to take a little bit of a break for yourself.

i take drops that flatline me emotionally when i feel like im going to crash. i take pills to sleep. i have vivid nightmares and mind movies. i trigger alot.

I'd give you one of those fake huggy thingy's but that wouldn't have any solace for you.

You need to get some relief from that PTSD my friend. I know your sitch with IC so easier said than done. I bought a pair of PTSD self help books yesterday. I've felt stronger lately so my mind movies have calmed down a bit, but still happen from time to time. It's when I'm run down and an emotional mess is when they kick into overdrive. Which is what you are experiencing. I'll get to those books soon and let you know if they were worth the money or not.

How's your DD doing in all of this?

Hi William,

I hope things went well today (pretty late in Italy right now). I noticed a few things that might be interesting to point out so I'll take a shot.

Have you ever heard of attachment theory? The idea is that our earliest caregiver relationships form powerful neural circuits in our brains that shape how we relate to others even as adults. You sound like an "avoidant" attachment style. Your wife's hellish childhood sounds like she is primarily an "ambivalent" with "disorganized" as well. All of those IDK and ICR? When a child is faced with intolerable situations and no healthy coping mechanism they will "cope" by compartmentalizing what is too painful/overwhelming. This habit, too, forms powerful neural circuitry and can become a habit even when an adult. There is "implicit" memory of the painful events but it is held out of consciousness. Here is a basic overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

It would not surprise me, based on your descriptions, if your wife were diagnosed a "borderline." The relationship dynamic (or, core relationship pattern) you describe is a classic avoidant-borderline pattern. The reason she demonized you is to maintain her (perceived, but false sense of) self identity. Classic borderline. She acts on instinct (out of the chaos of her childhood) and then "reverse engineers" a logical explanation for whatever behavior felt good at the time.

We lived in Germany too, for years. Deutschland ist wie eine zweite "Zuhaus" für mich. Leider bin ich auch mit einem "borderline" verheiratet. I know the pain and confusion. I'm sorry, William. Take care of yourself and your daughter. Good luck, man.

hi idealist,

i am not sure if borderline sums up my wife although i have considered it and both bipolar.

when i first met my wife i am pretty sure (looking back now) that she was in a manic mode. always wide awake with very little need for sleep and basically she ran me ragged trying to keep up with her little need for sleep (maybe 2-3 hours a night, max). this phase lasted for quite awhile (many months) and i thought it was "normal" for her - ive known people who need very little sleep before and others who seem to need more ... so i thought little of it at the time. she was lots of fun, always cheerful, always wanting or prepared to go out and to do "something", and very highly sexed (wanting ALOT of sex - which also struck me as "normal" because it was a "new" relationship and its not rare to suddenly start to have lots of sex with someone when the relationship first becomes sexual). we also had sex VERY quickly after meeting each other, we practically raced into bed. she used to tell me that she slept at my place while i was at work when we first met to make up for the lost sleep but i found out later that it was very rare that she did so.

one thing i did notice off the bat was that she had some weird people in her life.

- a guy in scotland that she had been messaging with before she met me who "fell in love" with her, wanted to move to germany to be with her, and then got threatening. she couldnt really explain HOW this situation occured and said she was only being friendly in chatting with him and nothing else (not flirting, etc) but wanted my help in getting out of it and dealing with him.

- a musician that flat out told her that he had a girlfriend, that he had women in other countries that he saw when there on tour, and that he wanted her to be his "italy and germany girl". she agreed. she would go see the shows, spend the night listening to him moan about how bad his life was, have sex with him, and then go on with life until he came back on tour the next time. she swore at the time that this was all "normal". shortly after we met she went to go see him, stayed in his hotel room overnight, lied to me about where she stayed, confessed that she had spent the night in his roomwhen i told her that it would be easy to get hotel camera footage through my previous employerm but STILL swears there was no sexual activity at that time. a few months later she sent him semi nude photos. i almost broke up with her over it (we were only starting to get serious about each other when all of this was going on. she swore to no contact with him after i confronted her. she broke no contact not long before she went on her 2 year streak of cheating on me. now she "sees" how messed up this relationship was but for a long time i was the "crazy one" for seeing this relationship as being nothing more than a sexual toy and extremely unhealthy.

- her list of ex boyfriends and things about them also seemed odd. the one she gave her virginity to (in a bad sexual 1st experience) blamed her for how bad the experience was so she decided to "get good at sex" and "practiced" with a friends with benefits type relationship in university. another ex bf used to spit on her while having sex. another, from what she said, seemed crazy. alot of stuff she told me made me feel that she had a history as a bad "picker" of guys. i was the "normal" one and frankly im not all that normal (former special operations capable unit in the USMC with extensive direct action mission experiences, executive high risk protection jobs for almost 20 years, a stint in a private military company, etc - it left me a little paranoid of those around me to say the least and wary of everyone with low trust).

- a very odd and dysfunctional relationship with her parents and brother that seemed to consist of sharing the most personal of details and/or extremely loud and aggressive arguing between everyone. but ... i figured different cultures and different ways of dealing with things (in germany they definitely act different than americans so maybe this is the norm in italy .. neh?).

- there are others but those are the ones that spring to mind.

then after a few months she went into a more "normal" sleep pattern. she seemed calmer, and i put it all down to just a phase. we had a more or less normal relationship with ups and downs. i did notice that she had a very difficult time forming boundries. a guy at her job made a pun on a nickname for her that basically called her "big tits". she didnt like it but didnt stop it either. she would get sucked into other peoples problems, issues, and try to help ... she couldnt seem to just leave their problems as theirs. in some ways it was disturbing while in other ways it seemed very altruistic and was something i admired about her - a very loving and gentle heart. for about 8 or 9 years this was her.

what i did NOT know was that she was lying to me/concealing things from me from day 1. a guy she had been flirting with before she met me, she stayed in contact with him throughout our relationship albeit without flirting. she would hide things - for instance if a "friend" flirted with her - from me. she always seemed very honest and upfront with me. i, a very suspicious guy, was completely fooled.

in our talks she kept referring to feeling "over excited". i didnt understand what was meant by that and she tried to give me a physics explanation of atoms bouncing around. when i didnt get that she told me "hyper active", when i asked for more details she described her feelings. feeling her mind racing, inability to sleep, feeling extremely sexual (she pursued long term affair guy for many months to get him to accept her phone number, she tried to seduce him sexually, she did seduce him sexually, saw the whole thing as a game, told herself that she must be in love with him, saw winning his love as a game, and then when she got his love ... she lost interest in him and he became repulsive to her), she talked alot, started to drink very heavily during the day and kept a buzz going almost all day long, became very sure that her plans were the best and the only way to go on anything, etc. while this was going on she also became increasingly bitter and angry towards me - no matter what, everything was my fault. i didnt see her mania side, all i saw was her screaming abuse at me, telling me how terrible i was, going out with her "friends" (actually to see her long term affair guy) - she even hid how little she was sleeping from me (sometimes coming home and "sneaking out" at 4 am to go see LTA guy, laying awake all night, telling me she was sleeping at her parents to get an extra hour or two of sleep before work when actually she wasnt, etc). i had no idea of any of it. i just knew our relationship was rapidly dying. i was considering divorce very strongly and was moving towards that direction because of the verbal abuse, the neglect of our daughter and me, and her telling me that she didnt love me anymore and that i had "never loved her". i didnt know this but she was also demonizing me to ANYONE that was willing to listen to her.

her "over excited" feelings started around fall 2011 and continued onwards until spring of 2012. one of her two one night stands (the other occured several months before these feelings started), her LTA guy, and all of her sexting/nude photos and stuff occured during this time.

it sounds alot like this was another manic episode to me.

its important to note though that her first one night stand occured before these feelings of "over excitement". she was angry at me, decided that she had enough of "my shit", flirted with the guy positive that nothing would happen except a distracting flirt, wound up in the car alone with him, and then "without thinking about it" ... wound up having sex with him. she says now she felt very guilty about it afterwards and almost told me a few times but obviously never did. the rest of her affairs and crap - she says now that at the time she never once thought of me and felt no guilt or remorse while doing them.

then a switch seemed to flip in her head. spring came. she didnt want LTA guy anymore and didnt even like him. it took her a month or so to get out the relationship though. she demonized him to her friends. she "rehabilitated" me to her friends and told them that she wanted to be with me again.

around the spring she also fell into a very dark mood. possibly depressive. she sent me a text one time saying she wanted to commit suicide. but also there was alot going on in her life in other things that werent going well either. maybe a depressive cycle or maybe just being very down from the other stuff. again, i cant tell.

we talked and agreed to try to save our marriage. i got 6 months of trickle truth, when i threatened to divorce her if i didnt get the truth, she finally admitted the truth - in bursts. at first she was very defiant to match what truths she was telling me

- "i had an emotional affair, nothing was wrong with it, and i dont regret it"

- "i had an affair with LTA guy, we had sex, you are trying to make me feel bad about it, i didnt do anything wrong, and i dont regret it"

i endured so much justifications, blame shifting, minimization, etc that i still get thinking about it all.

but then, like a boom, came remorse. now she feels intensely ashamed and guilty. her feelings dont focus on her but instead on what shes done to me and our daughter. it sure seems to be real remorse rather than regret. she says now that she was like a wild feral animal. her remorse has only grown. shes telling me the truth about everything (even from years ago that id never had discovered on my own), shes agreed to (and to the best of my knowledge following "no contact" with LOTS of people), is being open/transparent, etc.

she sleeps alot more now, in fact she tends to go to bed much earlier (10 or 11) and is often tired during the day. i wonder if its a depressive stage or not. i dont know. i dont know because i know she feels down but does she feel down because she F'ed over her family and herself which is normal or does she feel down because shes in a depressive cycle? i cant tell.

she has been in intensive psychotherapy in the past. she concealed alot from her psychotherapist (including all mention of all behavior related to the mania phase) although she did mention LTA guy and that she wanted a divorce (therapist recommended a lawyer to her who she went to see but never actually filed for a divorce during her ?mania? phase).

i majored in psych in university. i didnt study much abnormal though. i dont know much about this stuff other than the intro course that we were required to take. i "thought" that borderline cycles extremely quickly through moods - sometimes within minutes. bipolar, on the other hand, has long slower cycles that sometimes can last months or even years.

in some ways she fits both catagories with the mood changes, her behavior, etc.

i dont know which scares me more -> that there is a major psychological illness that has to be dealt with (and both bipolar and borderline are serious as can be) or that she doesnt have anything "wrong" and that she was capable of acting like this and doing all of this completely on her own (and yes, i know that even if she does have either or something else that she STILL is responsible for her actions and choices). either is terrifying for completely opposite reasons.

but for me this is all uncharted waters. its, again, terrifying stuff. i dont know if her two periods of lack of sleep were "manic phases" or just how she was/is. she swears she never "cheated" in our marriage until late 2011-early 2013 but jeez ... she sure made up for it during that time period . maybe it was the one off "weird period" or maybe its some sort of cycle. i just dont know.

once we get through the system in italy and are able to get to the counseling i intend to see that

1: that she describes her manic like mood and what she was doing (alcohol abuse, sexual activities, lack of sleep, etc) during that time as well as her depressive moods so the therapist has access to all vital information.

2: i have access to her counselor and what is said in therapy.

3: that if she is diagnosed that she takes any and all medicines given to her as prescribed.

how did you discover your wifes condition? is she getting treatment? has the treatment eliminated, controlled, or partially, or not all controlled the condition? are you still married?

yes, i love germany too. there are WAY too many bad things (triggers, bad feelings, people she was involved with inappropriately, and her crappy family) for us to stay here in italy. we are planning on moving back to germany ASAP.

@ YOP

my daughter is doing pretty well. shes got no idea what happened in the past. all she knew was that mommy was always mad and not home very often. shes been heavily shielded from what was going on. now shes quite happy that mommy is home more, not going out at night, and isnt mad anymore.

there are some issues i see. my daughter doesnt particularly "trust" that mom wont start going out again in the future - shes gotten clingy as a result. she also has learned/ is learning to guilt trip mommy with "you are never home" to get her way. shes also got some anger issue with me - why i dont know. perhaps she blamed me for mommy being out at night, its hard to tell. i cant get a straight answer.

but overall, shes doing well. i can see her getting more and more trusting, more accustomed to mommy and i being "loving", doing more together as a family, etc. shes a bright girl. im sure she knew something was wrong but didnt know what. its going to take awhile for her to recalibrate.

Sending hugs to you and your DD william.

but overall, shes doing well. i can see her getting more and more trusting, more accustomed to mommy and i being "loving", doing more together as a family, etc. shes a bright girl. im sure she knew something was wrong but didnt know what. its going to take awhile for her to recalibrate.

This is all really good news. It's amazing what kids pick up on. Even when things are discussed out in the open they can still pick up on the overall energy and feelings in the house. I've noticed this with my own children.

she sleeps alot more now, in fact she tends to go to bed much earlier (10 or 11) and is often tired during the day. i wonder if its a depressive stage or not. i dont know. i dont know because i know she feels down but does she feel down because she F'ed over her family and herself which is normal or does she feel down because shes in a depressive cycle? i cant tell.

I can't help but still worry about your wife. Her up bringing, her history, she has a lot going on there. Getting sleep is a huge thing though to keeping out of a manic cycle. She very well may be depressed but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's one of the manic cycles. I hope not anyway. I think she knows the damage she has done to you and DD. Like many of the WW's over in that forum I'm guessing she has remorse and part of that remorse is taking a hard look at the destruction. Anyone who has any sense of what is right will know how wrong they were when they have destroyed their loved ones. Hopefully she's not getting wrapped up in her own self pity and is still carrying the weight as needed.

yop

Hi again William,

No matter what the reason, I am glad that you and your daughter are enjoying some respite from all that drama and chaos. My intent in the initial post was to point some things out that you may not have considered. But it seems that indeed you were ahead of me. Nonetheless I offer a few more thoughts.

There are a number of studies and clinicians placing Borderline Personality Disorder on the bipolar spectrum of affective disorders. Moreover, BPD is generally accepted to be co-morbid with (occurring at the same time in the patient)Bipolar II in between 40% and 60% of cases. Right now it seems that that genetic factors predispose people in that direction but many are not exposed to the environmental factors your wife was.

but then, like a boom, came remorse. now she feels intensely ashamed and guilty

I ran this story past a few professionals over the telephone in the last few hours. Not one buys it. It's not that she can't change but what is the etiology? We are creatures of narrative (episodic memory) and how has the narrative changed? I urge you to await your visit to a therapist, and make sure it's one with experience with cluster B disorders.

Final, and maybe most important comment. What about you, William? What do you feel? What do you want from your life? I skimmed all six pages of this thread and I notice that in all of your posts you are focused on your wife, but not yourself. Time to take care of William. This will not come naturally to you. But THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW.

former special operations capable unit in the USMC with extensive direct action mission experiences

Total respect, brother (I was a pilot). But that background of service will not be conducive to what I think is important now - you and your daughter. In fact, I think that in the long run it is best for your wife if you act such that you not give yourself away. Check out Robert Glover's book, No More Mr Nice Guy - may or may not fit, just a shot.

Regards

thanks idealist,

id not considered that it was possible to have both. ive not had anything to do with the psych field in roughly 20 years so its all "vague" memories to me.

we are slowly winding our way through the italian health care system bureaucracy. when we get there ill make sure she sees someone familiar with cluster B disorders. she wants to go to therapy so seeing someone isnt an issue.

the remorse came.

in june 2013 she lied to me and claimed she had an EA "only" with a few kisses. she was VERY defiant about it. i hadnt found this site yet so without knowing what i was doing i agreed to sorta rugsweep it.

when we had an unplanned pregnancy (which was terminated) it caused fractures in our false reconciliation. things didnt get as bad between us as they had during 2011-2012 but they werent good either.

a few months later, in january 2014 we sat down to talk about "us". i had found this site by then so i was prepared. i demanded the full truth and gave 1 week to get it. i got it and it was alot more than i had bargained for or thought would be coming. it was like projectile vomit in a way.

she had regret, in some ways, but no remorse. mixed in was defiance and anger.

i asked her questions.

- how did she feel when her parents used to bring addicts, pedophiles, and other messed up people into the house to be around them as children. how was her bringing an alcoholic boyfriend into the house and exposing our daughter to him any different? she hadnt considered it that way and finally had to admit that exposing our daughter to these people was in now way different than her parents exposing her and her brother to these people; it rocked her to her core.

- would it be okay for our daughters husband to one day "cheat" on her? if not, why was it okay for her to cheat on me? she couldnt crap a good justification for why it was okay for her but wouldnt be okay for him.

- had she asked me if i thought it was okay for her to F other people or have a boyfriend while married to me? what did she think i would have said? if she didnt ask me and i didnt know = it was her choice and thus 100% on her and i had 0% blame for her actions.

- that she said i didnt help her when her mom was dying ... lets set aside that she had already F'ed 2 guys by then and was actively pursuing a 3rd (lta guy) + sexting several others ... but that the day she first asked me for help was also after months of screaming at me (that she didnt love me, i had never loved her, that i was a failure, and lots of other choice words), choosing to avoid the house/me/our daughter and emotionally detach from us, etc. why should i have helped her after months of her rejecting/verbally abusing/and neglecting me and our daughter, would she have done the same for anyone else? she finally had to admit that she wouldnt have.

ive been through deflection, blame shifting, rug sweeping, minimization, etc. the remorse arrived after WEEKS of questions like those above and discussions.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=519502

was the original thread and goes through D-day 1-4.. its VERY long. but it details much of the arguements, discussions, etc that we had that finally "i think" snapped her head out of her ass and out of her fog. i think this is etiology you were asking about.

obviously i have no idea if her remorse it real. it looks real. but then again, i know something i didnt know before -> my wife is capable of looking me in the eyes, telling me something while looking completely sincere, acting as if it were completely true and even behaving as if it were true while knowing its not true and that she is acting another way entirely behind my back. in other words i know that i cant trust her words and that even her actions are suspect. i thought i was good at spotting liars but have come to accept that i can NOT tell if she is lying.

what i do know is

- that if she tells me she is at A then she is there. i can check.

- that she isnt going out at night anymore. at all. that she is only be going to work and then coming home and that it appears that she is actually working while at work (although it is possible that some guy comes by her work to see her because she did have several of her guys come by work to see her during her 2 year period and there is no real way i can verify this isnt happening although i believe its not).

- that she dropped her friends, closed her facebook account, got rid of her chat applications on her phone, changed her phone number, deleted and blocked everyone that wasnt work related from her email accounts, allowed me full access to all of her accounts (that i know about - i conceed its possible she has secret ones and that i wont ever be able to know if she does or doesnt because they would be on a work computer that i dont have access to), appears to be transparent, etc. is it all true? i THINK so. can i be 100% sure? no. can anyone ever be 100% sure of anything? i cant even be 100% sure the sun comes up tomorrow because a super nova is always possible, i know thats a bit of hyberbole but it does mean that i think but will never be 100% sure.

- she "says" she isnt drinking during the day. i "think" shes telling the truth. i look closely. i dont see any evidence of it or anything that makes me suspect its true. ive never been a heavy drinker nor did i ever think she was, at home she was always a very light drinker (we share a beer or drink a glass of wine with a meal maybe). shes now being very careful of what she drinks and how much and says shes seen what its like to crawl inside of a bottle and NEVER wants to do that again.

- shes establishing boundaries and asks me what i think of boundary A or was what she did in example X okay. we discuss it. her boundaries are becoming alot better. one thing that does worry me is that she says she sees she had crappy boundaries before and that shes scared that they arent good enough/strong enough yet so shes chosing to hide from the world (in a way). if someone lives in a sterile environment they get sick as soon as they come out into the "real world" and im afraid that her hiding herself from the world isnt healthy for her, that it leaves her just as unprepared, and that eventually she will blame/resent me for being "locked away" (although it was her idea, not mine).

i agree that my background of service actually is definitely NOT conducive to deciding whats best for me and my daughter. loyalty is ingrained into me, it defines me. in a way i "know" that she "broke faith" with me but just because she decided to break faith doesnt allow me to - it violates my code of honor. writing that out makes it sound stupid but ultimately it is what it is. shes accepted she did wrong, shes trying to fix herself and the damage she has done to me and our daughter, shes taking steps to ensure that it never happens again. she has agreed to a legal agreement that will be drawn up in the next months by lawyers that if she ever commits ANY infidelities or behaves inappropriately again that she forgoes all claims to custody of our daughter and gives me complete legal custody. if she cheats again ... i take our daughter and leave her; i am NOT prepared to go through this again. i guess my loyalty allows her to screw me over in a big way 1x (i sorta mentally lump it all into big screw me over rather than lots and lots of little ones) but wont tolerate it twice, i guess my loyalty does have limits.

as to what i feel and want. tricky. i have many conflicting wants and feelings. some clearly impossible.

- i want the woman i married to be the woman i married and the one that she appears to be now instead of this alien creature that she was for about 2 years. i love that woman with all my heart while i cant stand the one she became during these two years (ignoring the affairs but just the self justifications to do whatever at the expense of her family, the pure selfishness and self centeredness, the anger, the greed, etc). its hard to know if shes acting "now" and when i first met her or if this was some sort of episodic manic phase - knowing that is vital to knowing what i am dealing with.

- i do NOT want to have my daughter with only one parent. i was dating a woman long before i met my wife. we had a son. we broke up. i still see my son (albeit not enough) BUT not having me around in a regular parental role HAS damaged him in many ways, some very serious. i can see it. i dont want to do that to my daughter too. i failed my son and hurt him and although i know there wasnt much alternative to breaking up with his mom ... it still is something i didnt do lightly and now am fighting hard to not do AGAIN to my daughter. i am willing to deal with some measure of crap to try to ensure my daughters life isnt damaged. however, i also am not willing to let my daughter get damaged by my wife.

- i want a happy marriage with my wife. one in which i can trust her. yet i know that i wont ever be able to trust her 100% again. ever. thats a harsh concept for me. i still cant look her in the face and tell her i dont trust her, i look at the floor or to the side when i say it. it rips me apart to know ill never be able to trust her.

- i want my wife healed of whatever is wrong with her and am willing to help however i can. maybe its examining her FOO issues or maybe her emotional status or maybe dealing with a serious mental illness. i am not, however, willing to put myself or my daughter at serious risk. if i see history repeating im out of here. ive been there, done that, and wont do it again.

- i am struggling with some serious issues myself. i shoved alot of the stuff i did in the Corps into a not so little box. my wifes affairs ripped that box open. the military/VA machine has told me they cant help me in italy. period. i need help too. i cant take pills and drops to hide my issues forever. i cant go through nightmares of peoples heads exploding or my wife endlessly repeating "lets get into the backseat" until i wake up a sweaty trembling mass of nerves. so i want to heal myself too.

- i want for none of this to have ever happened. that i wake up tomorrow and discover its been the most F'ed up dream possible - that when i tell my wife about it she laughs and tells me that it could never have happened and that its still 2011 and she has no idea how i could have dreamed all of this.

i know i love my wife. im willing to give her a chance. im not willing to give her another chance after this one, this is it. i want my daughter to have a mom but need to be sure that her mom doesnt damage her. i need to feel secure in a safe environment. i need to be able to sleep a night without pills or go a day with anti-depressant drops and not become nervous or panicked. i need a relationship in which my wife loves me, honors me, and is faithful - all things she swore to do and didnt. i need no more lies.

i dont know if what i want is compatible with what i need

[This message edited by william at 3:53 AM, June 11th (Wednesday)]

Brother, there comes a time when you just have to give up counting on others to do the right thing. Your WW has some deep seeded issues that go way back, long before you even met her. And unless she confronts those issues herself, there is not much you can do for her or your M. In a relatively short time you have gone from what you thought was a brief EA to multiple sexual affairs, numerous sexting and photo sharing and many other illicit behaviors during your M. I have to say your story is most likely the worst case of TT I have ever read. That said, you really need to stop trying with your WW and concentrate on your own healing and issues. I'm afraid that what you think is a full accounting of what has transpired is only part of the actual story. Your WW is obviously suffering from some sort of a SA and your not qualified or able to fix her. If she is actually to the point of forgetting who she is giving blow jobs to, there is much, much more to her story and it doesn't look good for you, your D nor the M itself. My advice is to cut your substantial losses and work on yourself. As for your WW, well she needs to fix herself. You cant do it bro. I think you know that huh ?

Hi

A couple of clarifications might be in order:

1) I am not advocating that you stay with your wife or divorce her. Only you can know what's right for you. I also do not believe anyone else here on SI can know that for you.

2) The question I posed to the marriage and family therapists was whether they had seen someone who presented with the symptoms you wrote about (your wife) get healthy in a few weeks or months. That was the "no way" answer. I believe you that her behavior changed as you describe.

My advice is still to turn your focus to yourself and what you need right now and going forward. It's not easy for people like us to make that change, but it's important.

When "journalists" interview people after a tornado has ripped through their town they frequently repeat the same stories over and over. "I was in the basement over there when I heard the sound like a train. My neighbors car was up in that tree and we couldn't find our dog, etc..." They are processing what happened to them and it takes time. If you read through this thread it seems to me you might be doing something similar. Take your time to address and process this mess. The catalog of wounding events is horrible to read and I have my own catalog. But when you can, I think you need to get to know william as well as you can.

Good luck

hi idealist,

dont worry, i wasnt confusing what you were saying. i understood it.

you seem to be very well informed on this subject, and im not, so i thought more information would assist you.

i know that my wife went into this weird manic mood in fall 2012. little to no sleep. driving around the city for hours upon hours. seeing having sex and then winning the heart of LTA guy as a "game". hallucinating talking to her dead mother. incredible anger at me. believing that LTA guy and several other people were "perfect". feeling incredible amounts of energy and extremely sexual. beginning to have a serious drinking problem. an incredible lack of empathy for either me or our daughter - not even seeing the neglect or caring or else feeling guilty and then staying away even more. some incredibly bizarre notes to herself in which she states things such as "i want to go to a hotel with you and sit in a jacuzzi with you" that in the next note she says "sitting in the jacuzzi with the bubbles was so nice" - and now swearing it never happened ... this is an example but her notes are filled with episodes she swears never happened, bizzare rants, incredible hallucinations, statements of love for LTA guy that she NOW says werent real but were designed to talk herself into falling in love with him, etc.

she started to come out of it in early spring 2013. it took her 1.5 to 2 months to extricate herself from all of her affairs, sexting, etc. she broke up with LTA guy. she cut contact way down to almost nothing. she did it on her own and without me knowing. at the same time, she also quit drinking during the day and to excess - cold turkey (and again without my knowledge that she even had a problem or was stopping).

she become suicidal during mid to late spring 2013 (sent me a text msg about considering it and even discussed it).

in early summer 2013 we entered false R. she told me that during the winter she had an EA with some kissing. this was a surprise to me. i was hurt, sad, angry, etc. all the reactions to an affair. we rugswept it after some arguing. she did agree to NC and blocked LTA guy.

during our false R:

- she kept in contact with many of the people she had exchanged pics with. she told them she was serious about her marriage, stopped sending pics, but also didnt stop their sexual banter towards her. she basically ignored it.

- she went to see ONS 2 guy to get him to finish her tattoo in august, she says she gave him a ride home afterwards from the studio but "cant remember ever getting out of the car but cant swear she didnt and doesnt remember much" such as if she went into his house, had sex again, etc.

- she drastically cut going out to where it was rare and when she did she didnt stay out long, it slowly became less and less. she DID go out to a concert with a "friend" who knew of her LTA, knew the guy, and met up with other people involved (a co-worker of his for example). however, she also stayed pretty far away from them there and tried not to talk to them.

so in a way i can see that during our false R she was trying to distance herself but not succeeding and was at a high risk of getting involved in more of the "same old activities".

after an unplanned pregnancy and procedure to end it she and i became more distant. we hadnt addressed ANY of the problems, just hid them.

in jan 2014 we talked again about committing to our marriage. i was better prepared (TY SI). i demanded the truth. i gave her 1 week to get it. that night and with great anger, blameshifting, justifications, and minimization, etc she admitted that LT EA was really a PA and had been very serious with much sex, a relationship, etc. the next night she admitted that he had been in our house but minimized what they had done here drastically.

a few nights later she admitted to sexting guys. at that time she estimated about 5 or 6 (the number is actually closer to about 10 or more - depending on whether ONS guys or LTA guy are added to the number or not). again, i had no idea.

a few nights later she admitted to 2 different ONS with 2 different guys. one during this manic phase and one several months before. i have, much later, discovered that its possible that she had sex with ONS 2 guy (tattoo guy) more than once - she doesnt think so but "cant swear she didnt". again, i had no idea and this blew me away.

however, she deleted most of her emails, texts, chats, and messages before i ever saw them. the ones i have found are "bad enough". i would NEVER have found out about ONS guy 1 and 2 or the sexting if she hadnt told me. i "probably" would have discovered LTA guy was actually a PA affair. i wasnt going to "drop it" and would have worked at it until i knew.

after her confessions we discussed, argued, screamed, etc - everything everyone in this position does. her default position at first was "no guilt" and justifications. over a period of weeks she shifted to feeling regret but not remorse. over the next few weeks that became remorse. slowly, very slowly that remorse has grown.

its possible that ONS 1 guy set off a "shame cycle". she felt very guilty. began to demonize me afterwards to EVERYONE (again without my knowledge). started to go out more. started to feel she "deserved to be happy" and that i wasnt making her happy.

so a manic phase of 6 months, a snapping out phase of about 2 months, a depressive stage of about 2 months ... and then not remembering much of what happened during the manic phase.

of course, its also possible that after telling me the "big stuff" that the ICR and IDK is bullsh1t. its also possible its true. why tell me the worst but then deny me the rest? she swears this was the only time she ever cheated during our marriage or relationship. i DO know that she lied about her relationships with some people but that the relationships werent sexual or even an EA - just inappropriate (hiding that this guy and her had been flirting before we met but that she lied about this and said he was just a friend and then maintained contact with him).

is this sort of stuff normal in a borderline or bipolar? i mean ... i have no freaking idea if she just "snapped", if its a "disorder", or if the other stuff is just unrelated to what she did. her mom did die during this time and the hallucinations of her mom could be normal because of the FOO issues.

can you at least give me a heads up on whats "normal" for a bipolar or borderline?

Hello William,

I hope you and your daughter are enjoying at least some of the pleasures of Italy in early summer, before the heat comes. It was the best time for me to be there and sometimes, when things are just right, Southern California reminds me of those times in my life. Limoncello, anyone?

Sir, I am gonna do my best but a message board cannot substitute for professional care. The disclaimers usually read, "for entertainment purposes only." There is no lawyer looking over my shoulder but I honestly do not want to lead you away from personalized attention. That's what is called for here. I write in the spirit of a friend exchanging opinions and observations, not more. I hope that's OK?

First, I understand your need to want to know what the hell is happening with the girl you fell in love with. I am gonna try. But at some point, don't you and your daughter count too? This is my preface. You and your daughter are more important to me than your wife is. Your wife deserves the dignity we accord all human beings and she is sick and there are "causes" - many beyond her control - for her behavior. Compassion is in order here. But she doesn't get to do this to you and your daughter. You, William, are the critical line of defense.

If someone were running towards one of your clients with a machete, what would you do? Analyze his possible childhood problems? Ask people near you if he has been depressed? Or would you first protect the client and sort the rest out later. Even if he cut off the attack and merely stood by menacingly, would his problems eclipse the clients?

I don't think there is a "normal" for someone suffering bipolar/borderline disorder. There are commonalities between patients and presenting symptoms, but I think it's a mistake to seek a normative explanation for a patients behavior. Are you possibly trying to fit her behavior into a narrative thread that includes self-healing and a return to normalcy? I would not encourage that line of thought. There is healing for her, but I am not aware of it being easy or quick even for the best cases.

Your fist highlight, which begins with, "i know that my wife went into this weird manic mood in fall 2012...." I would recommend inpatient treatment for these symptoms.

But, you are cataloging events which reveal symptoms that have already been covered. I am so very sorry for the pain this must cause you. Her situation is already on the table. It won't matter how much we know about her - more about her won't help you. I, and I think all the people here on SI, would be more interested in how those things have affected you and what we can do to help you live with what you have been through.

I hope the bureaucracy comes to your aid soon. In the meantime, perhaps ask yourself why you persisted in the face of these insults. What does she mean to you? Have you felt that way or needed to feel that way in the past?

Focus on you and your daughter. That's first. Her drama is sucking blood from your family. That can't continue. The airline video always says, "first place the oxygen mask around your mouth, then the child's"

Good luck

idealist -

i understand what you mean. ill take it with a grain of salt

im not really trying to fit my wife's previous behavior over the 2 year period into a narrative. i didnt know that she had been lying to me about her relationships with other people and remaining in contact with many of them during our relationship. but excluding that she "seemed" honest, smart, nice, with a good heart, loving, and ... a good person. i can very clearly NOW see that she is/was a severely damaged person inside. what im trying to figure out if her morph into a serial adultress that abandoned me and our daughter is something that i have to deal with or is part of a much more serious problem involving serious mental illness. to me finding this out is very, very critical.

if i saw someone running at me with a machete ... i see what you mean. but i dont know if shes dropped the machete with hands up or is still carrying a weapon i cant see. in effect im watching her VERY closely to see. i have my guard up. i guess my options are to leave her or not. if she wasnt showing remorse and becoming the person i thought i knew all those years ... i would have left already.

i have been married in the past and divorced. i divorced for a breach of trust that involved much less than this. why exactly i am still in this marriage ... because i love my wife. i love her with all my heart. even still. although i feel so angry, hurt, and betrayed by her ... i still love her. enough to give her one last chance. one chance to not F up ... on her. a chance in which i watch her, evaluate her actions and not just her words, and dont accept anything less than total honesty and openness from her. if she blows this ... although it would break my heart, i would take my daugther and leave with sadness but not regret. does that make sense?

one thing i am doing is watching out for my daughter as well. the legal agreement that if she commits further infidelities of any sort (not just sexual) that gives me legal custody of our daughter is me looking after her. i refuse to put her more at risk. im furious at the risks my wife put my daughter in already (bringing LTA guy to the house to spend the night one night ... a few meters from my daughters room, introuding my daughter to multiple guys she was sexting and behaving inappropriately with ... as examples). if i see my daughter getting damaged by my wifes future behavior ... i take my daughter and i leave... with sadness but without regret.

my daughter and i do alot together. we play with her toys. we go to the park. we both love to skate and spend many hours a week doing it at a skating rink. we love music and dance together. im her primary care giver (i write books now and do that from home so i can be very flexible).

my daughter has some abandonment issues. when mom says shes going to do X my daughter and be back at Y time ... my daughter is suspicious. will she really be back then? why does she always have to go (even though my wife is actually only going out for work now and nothing else) out? she has bad dreams but none explicitly related to mom, her affairs, or me. she wants to sleep in bed with us everynight and its a struggle to keep her in her own bed (partly made worse by me spending most nights sleeping in the bed with our daughter when my wife wasnt even coming home AT ALL on a near daily basis so she would feel comforted; which has now created a problem of wanting to sleep with us ... or me ... which we had solved prior to this 2 year period and has reappeared in the last 6 months or so). shes also become much more clingy than before. more rebellious. part of that is probably the age. part a consequence of my wife's behavior. it makes me mad to know shes been damaged.

me. i feel very unsure.

i believe my wife when she says "i wont ever do this again" ... well, i believe she means it. i dont know if she can actually deliver on that promise because she certainly failed to keep the marriage vows one. so very uncertain if i can trust her. plus her lies, so many of them about almost everything. i watch her alcohol intake discreetly.

i dont know what i was told was a lie and what was real. im still trying to separate fantasy from reality in what i was told. i cant figure out how my wife flicked "love" and "hate" on an off like a switch. im scared it flicks again.

i have nightmares. an example - a friends head got hit close range to me and his brains wound up all across the front of my gas mask. i had to wipe them to even so .. it was so much. mixed in is my wife laying back on the car seat with her skirt up, this guy fingering her, and her saying "lets get in the back seat". i wake up in a panic. its taken sleeping pills for me to even fall asleep. i still dont sleep enough. i wake up loggy, exhausted, sad, and stressed.

i feel so much stress from wondering when and if she backslides. i am so angry that she hurt me so bad, betrayed my trust, and lied to me over and over about it. even when i asked she lied. she gaslit the hell out of me. that pisses me off. i am very sad that the life i thought i had was a lie. i dont know how stable of a future we can build without knowing "why" or "whats wrong with her". i take anti depressants to try to deal with on the worst days, on average or good days i dont take them. they emotionally flatline me and i hate taking them. i cant skate on them, they mess with my balance too much to do much on skates. so when i take them i cant take my daughter skating.

i cry alot. i broke down the other night and sobbed for almost an hour. pain just welling out my body. i hide this from my daughter. i put a smile on for her. i wait until shes in bed or hide in the bathroom "taking a shower" or "going to the bathroom" lest i upset her and make her even more afraid.

i love my wife. i stay with her despite always believing this would be a massive deal breaker. i have to struggle with redefining what i accept - because i "did" accept she did this and didnt leave. i dont feel shame but i do feel a serious WTF moment about still being here. its very hard for me to accept that i cant trust her. shes proven that. to say i cant trust her hurts me. i always believed trust was the foundation of a relationship. so now we need to rebuild trust in the midst of a relationship. its supposed to be the other way around. sigh.

when i first started getting the combat montage flashbacks i considered suicide. im past that now. im in for the long haul. no quitting on myself. but ... it really upsets me that my wife chose to shoot herself but it pisses the hell out of me that she chose to shoot me in the back too and hurt me too. i didnt ask for this. i didnt want to be pushed down this hole. the injustice of it ... grates.

my wifes doing all she can to make me feel safe NOW. i feel safer but not safe. i dont know if ill ever feel 100% safe again because i already know ill never 100% trust her again ... ever. sometimes i feel so many conflicting feelings that i just cant process them.

i cant comprehend how many people she betrayed me too (not just sexually but also emotionally or backstabbing, etc). we go over them every other night for a few hours. we are less than 1/5 of the way through the list. it feels like having vomit poured on me when i sit and listen to how bad i was F'ed over. but its better than not knowing. so i sit and get vomit poured on me. she does it gently but its still vomit. the worst people are yet to come so i get to anticipate even worse pain. there are so many people i cant even keep their names straight. how could someone demean themselves like this, for these F ups, and abandon those who really loved them in the process. its mind boggling.

im so full of stuff that ill let it stop here lest it become another novel...

is this the kind of feelings you were asking about?

I am married to someone who is Bipolar. In retrospect I think I married her during an up phase in her cycle. Her affairs - of all types - tended to occur during what I now realize to be manic phases of her illness. There was almost a cycle over 20 months - mania, followed by depression. Sometimes during the depression I sensed remorse - but she did not stop on her own - only when I found out and confronted her.

People who are bipolar differ in their cycles. Some can cycle during a single day. It is a very difficult illness to deal with - and the medications have side effects that can be frustrating for the person suffering from the illness and for their spouse. Finding the right psychiatrist is critical.

Make no mistake - the illness does not excuse the affairs. Do not let her use the illness as an excuse. Understand, though, that the illness will be with her for the rest of her life.

[This message edited by redsox13 at 8:00 AM, June 13th (Friday)]

William,

Yes, that's what I was talking about.

I am sitting on a long conference call now, but I wanted to give a shout out to let you know I read your post.

It sucks, it really does.

Good luck to you and your family.

ETA:

how could someone demean themselves like this, for these F ups,

I have struggled with this myself for many hours. My FWW chose some total losers. She said it was because they adored her (validated her - my interpretation) and she had no intention of being with them long term.

[This message edited by idealist at 12:15 PM, June 13th (Friday)]

we had another talk last night. none of them really rate a "number" on the list but just more generally inappropriate behavior.

a woman my wife found "attractive" (she says not sexually but because of her self confidence), contacted on facebook, chatted with off and on almost every week for months, and fantasized about having sex with her in a 3-some (with a guy we cover in a few days who was a guy she sexted with for almost TWO YEARS). this woman didnt know she was being fantasized about, she is a lesbian in a long term relationship. my wife did tell her she found her attractive and good looking and she told my wife the same back. but that was the extent of it. it did hurt because this took place some months before ONS 1 guy. so another one that took place before i thought. it also is the a woman instead of a guy which is different.

a guy in a band that my wife knew that she told all of her friends that she found him very attractive, sexy, and incredibly good looking. it was a running joke between them all for years. it made me feel like i had been disrespected all along for years and i wasnt amused.

a photographer friend of a photographer "friend" that wanted my wife to pose in nude soft porn photo shoots with another female - which my wife declined. of course if my wife hadnt been hanging around weirdos she wouldnt have been approached by this guy in the first place. sigh.

our next talk we discuss the guy that she had the longest running sexting with. sigh.

i alternatively lost my temper and cried last night. it just seems too much to bear sometimes. i feel like a small pat of butter being stretched over a really big piece of toast. its really hard. it feels like so many betrayals, so many knifes in the back, so much pain. i try to hold up but it seems to be never ending - the alternative is even worse ... to never KNOW the truth. its just a terrible sh1t sandwhich im being forced to eat.

my wife cried too. she said she would never do this stuff again and that shes telling me because she wants me to have the full truth. she says she will do whatever it takes to help me heal and to try to undo/repair/heal the damage that she has done. she held me. told me it wasnt my fault. that it was hers, all hers. that she was so stupid. i dont see how she could turn her love on and off. she says she loved me before, during, and now. she says that she was so angry at everyone, especially me. but that her anger wasnt why she did this. she says she doesnt know yet. she felt like a wild animal. i dont see how she could have loved me and done all of this. this wasnt love.

its so heart breaking.

she went to a tattoo parlor on her way home from work yesterday.

she is going to get the tattoo ONS 2 guy put on her arm covered.

one of the guys she was sexting with put tattoos on her ankles, she asked me if she should go removal, cover, or change them. we decided to change them.

shes also decided to remove the one she got on her stomach.

which is all very good. its pretty hard seeing them knowing the stories and actions behind them.

[This message edited by william at 3:56 AM, June 17th (Tuesday)]