SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What Change Maker said. Your wife is lying about only making plans to meet and not meeting him.

Doc from Toronto- I'm another one out here who is saddened that you've had to find SI. You will find it most affirming and useful as you tread through the shitty situation you are currently in. You made it very clear to your WW that you were uninterested in living in an 'open marriage'. If I read your post correctly, her response was to continue her affair, and continue to lie and deceive you. Could you clarify this: do you believe her to now be NC? From my viewpoint, the lying, sneakiness, and deceit are as damaging to a marriage as is the actual sex occurring outside the marriage. For this reason I firmly believe you are obligated to inform the BW. It is the right thing to do. As others mention, there are possible side benefits to you as it is likely the OM will want to salvage his own marriage and dump your wife like a hot rock. You mention being 'pressured' to attempt reconciliation by your W and her parents (duh), and your marriage counselor. This to me is shocking. Has she regained your trust? Do you believe that she is now a truthful person? Is she trying to figure out what is REALLY going on within herself that allowed her to proceed to behave in such a deceitful way and damage your relationship and your family? You have a lot of self examination to engage in as well. You need to KNOW what you need from her to continue in a partnership with her, then present your conditions to her, perhaps in front of your bogus MC. Then you will sit and watch. Doc, sometimes you were probably a shitty husband.....in the same way that I was at times a shitty wife......because we are human beings, imperfect. It's a good bet that MC would be helpful to untangle some unproductive patterns developed over your long marriage; things that maybe set the stage for your wife's infidelity. But those issues DID NOT PULL THE TRIGGER. Something very wrong in your wife allowed her to do that to you, lie to you, and her family. This is what needs to be addressed......not whether or when you decide to attempt to rebuild your marriage. I wish you luck.

I am getting pressure from my WS, the counselor and from my in-laws to consider reconciliation. I am not sure I am ready to even look at that and I need advice on how to handle this pressure.

Don't let anyone pressure you into what you think is right inside.

They are not the hurt party, they do not know what it is like.

Why is your wife pressuring you to R. Has she told you the entire truth. It is obvious she only came to you and asked about an open marriage long after it was too late.

I think your wife most certainly needs to find out how she got there. At this time, I don't think you need to field any blame for her actions.

As they say here, you are responsible for 50% of the marriage, but she is 100% responsible for the affair.

So she went from wanting an open marriage to relinquishing to attempting to R only after you refused to allow the open marriage?

I have been to hell and back with my XWW. There were the false compliances with NC, there were false attempts at R(from her side) with the MC, who my XWW fired because MC was calling her out on her bullshit.

There were oscar level performances(crying, cursing me out) accusing me of being paranoid at her still conacting OM(She was texting OM while were on a holiday getaway together and flipped out when I called her on it) only later did I find out I was right the whole time. I ended up apologizing at the time for 'overreacting'. I was played the fool. Don't be me.

It sounds like she wants to cake eat and IMO will continue to do so since you're not allowing the open marriage. It hasn't stopped her thus far. What consequences has she suffered? She is probably bringing OM over to the condo during her week off.

I am very sorry.

I want to agree with many posters and emphasize.. to tell the OP's wife ASAP.

It does many things:

It many times causes an immediate reaction causing the affair to pause or break. Sometimes it does nothing if the OP can gashlight the hell out of their spouses, but most of the time it will work.

The pause causes your spouse to react which can go any direction but it "makes time" to normalize the chemicals if there is a pause and the addiction to start it's way out of the system.

It blocks the path to the OP as it clouds the "perceived future" your wife might see as the obstacles increase with complication exponentially.

DO tell the OP's wife and save yourself a lot of grief.

My vote...Tell the OM's wife! I found out about my H's affair 25 YEARS after it happened! You can imagine what this has done to me emotionally! Please don't let that happen to her...you have that power. Keep control of your own life, don't let ANY of them pressure you in any way! You also possess that power! And FIRE that counselor...as a Doc, you know no one should be PRESSURED into anything! IMHO...The in laws & others need to stay out of this. It IS a long journey and you don't have to make any long term decisions right now. Prayers for you & your family! I know you work long hours but come here as often as you can. We may not be licensed counselors but we all have personal experience in infidelity so we can honestly relate! I'm SO sorry you find yourself here, but stay strong...You will survive!

Looks like Doc got his answers and opinions that he needed.

He has not been back since the original post. Seems like everyone is in agreement but we are talking to ourselves.

Hope he stays tough.

Yews, the OP needs to know.

And 3 weeks after is too soon to commit to R. You need your WW to dig into her why and to figure out if she can actually be the partner you need.

Get a new MC because the idea of pressure being put on you after the trauma of betrayal is awful; this counselor doesn't get it.

I'm so sorry.

Toronto – You still here?

I’m not going to post too much right now. Not until or unless you respond some more. If you have checked out then our time is better spent helping someone that’s still reading…

Look – I sometimes wonder how first-time posters feel when they read the responses. We tend to be hard-liners here on SI and we tend to be direct and blunt. If you do reply I will probably try to convince you to take some tough action. But more on that IF you respond.

I do however want to address two issues. Both in regards to your MC.

First of all: Attending MC while an ongoing affair is taking place is the equivalent of sipping a quart of whiskey at an AA meeting. It’s not going to work.

Second: When the MC negotiated the 50/50 arrangement then did he address other separation issues? Personally I’m not too fond of separation as a tool to work on a marriage, but if it’s done then there has to be an agreement on ground-rules. For example: did the MC tell you that you two could date other people while separated? Does the separation have a defined purpose?

So sorry to hear...very similar situation as me.

But be careful about the tendancy for the WW to change the truth to protect themselves

[This message edited by Hopefuldad468 at 10:04 AM, August 16th (Saturday)]