SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Long time SI'er....first time posting to this thread. I guess I was just waiting. So much good advice from other great SI'ers. But I was silently cheering for you, I was really hoping this one time we were all wrong. Truly. She seemed like she was doing everything right EXCEPT for not being transparent, no passwords unless you absolutely jumped thru hoops and made all your friends and family members believe you were crazy, or it was your anger. That part is so sad. That is where we all see it here too often that they are lying thru their teeth, but doing everything in their power to NOT tell you.

I am sorry. The pain of this whole thing and what it does to a BS and to the family is absolutely the very worse thing that anyone can do to someone they profess to love. To cheat and then squash you and belittle you and make you out as the bad person, this is defamation of character in any court but when it comes to infidelity no court will look at it. She allowed you to look like the crazy one, the mean one, that it was all because of your anger.....it is so bad and so wrong.

Take care of you. Do good things for your self. You are a good man who found out his wife was cheating, my anger was pretty overwhelming at that time, I too was looked at like a crazy person and mean and controlling. It is so unfair and something I still struggle with to this day. No answers for you, just so sorry this has sadly happened as it sadly seems to do around here, they all fall into the same sad pattern.

I will admit that there is nothing more that I want in this world than to have my marriage back; but I want the person she was.

Let me suggest something to consider, and something I have learned the hard way. Consider that she never was who you thought she was. When I started looking back, I realized, and in fact we both did, that my wife had always told white little lies. I always thought she was completely truthful before her A. But this wasn't true.

We say that our WW are broken. But what does that mean? What broke them? Isn't it possible that there were never who they thought we were?

How are your daughters taking this? As a recall she had them all convinced (and ganged up on you) saying that it was a misunderstanding that you had blown out of proportion.

DoneGone,

I am sorry brother. This sucks. But if I may, can I offer some perspective for you.

First, please please please detach from the notion of wanting your old life back. It will KILL you if you keep yourself focused on the past. I know it is easy for me to say, five years after Dday. But it is truth. Be, live, exist in the NOW. Focus on you and your healing separate from her. Take care of you!

Second, everything she is doing is just a show unless there is some pain point for her. I mean, a real pain point. Not just seeing you grieve. That is not HER pain. What consequences besides something related to you has she faced? Because, and I say this from experience, they believe they can get you back if they just lie to/seduce/sweet talk you enough.

No, real pain is real consequences. Has she shared the truth with your children? She gaslighted them and enlisted them to attack you. Can she face them with the real truth? Has it cost her something she cannot easily recover?

I wish you well. And I wish your strength and healing.

It never ceases to amaze me how the heart can love and how resilient the heart that breaks can be. Even when it bleeds it still struggles to regain love. Its incredible.

I decided to read the thread after everything became quiet and I found some time to sit and just read. And I did cry because you have this gift of capturing what it feels like. To be so torn. I honestly will never forget how it felt when he said to me, "and then we got a hotel room and had sex." There are moments we always remember, the birth of our children, the death of loved ones .. , and then there is "that" moment. It is like the morning the sun went down and everything just changed after.

I believe that you will do what is right for yourself. Whatever happens, I hope nothing but the best for you.

DG

So sorry you had to read those horrible things. It always amazes me that people find someone to marry, build a life with with and plan for the future, then selfishly screw up like this.

The number of single people looking for love out there, then after cheating, the WS spouse suddenly realises what a good thing they had and appear remorseful. The loss of trust and the deceit are just impossible to come to terms with in some situations. That's what makes reconciling a non starter or a loosing battle for some who try to get past it.

what do the kids know and what was their reaction after they found out ?

What have they done to make amends to you ?

Regarding the wife you knew 'dying', she did.Who is this person now ? Who knows. Are you right to be skeptical ? Hell yes.

Would you be wrong to divorce ? No, not at all.

What is your gameplan DG ?

You are out of your house but probably have peace of mind. Where do you go from here ?

We say that our WW are broken. But what does that mean? What broke them? Isn't it possible that there were never who they thought we were?

This is an extremely good point imo. This experience makes us all take a good, hard look in the mirror. Sometimes, you find that you were just as broken as the WS, but in a different way.

Codependency (I'm not saying you are, but it's a definite possibility for anyone who finds themselves in this situation) allows us to look past all sorts of things to our own detriment.

Sometimes, we feel the need to learn how to love ourselves before we can move on. In my mind, that's how many folks get sucked into shelving their self-respect and "hanging in there" when these situations come about.

You've been at this quite awhile, DG. Whatever happens though, respect yourself. If you're able to do so and stay with your WW, then great. If, however, you don't think that's going to be an option though, then there is zero reason to wait imo. None.

I really appreciate your anxious inquiries concerning my daughters. I really appreciate your care and concern.

I have three daughters, all adult, two still in college. They seem to have declared a modicum of distance from their mother. My grown daughter lives in another state and the two youngest are staying with me until fall semester. Their behavior is civil toward their mom and nothing more. I am still searching for my role in all of this and just do my best to love them and let them know that we are ok.

They cannot comprehend why WW would do what she did when our marriage was absent of any relationship dynamics that would give cause to cheating. They are grieving the loss of their ‘best friend’ and addressing feelings of betrayal and anger.

WW committed a huge error in judgement when she enlisted them as confidants and required them to be her emotional caregivers. They were pressured to empathize with her plight and pain only to discover that they were being used as pawns in an ugly game. Of course, this has had a most profound effect on them because if they cannot trust their mom, whom can they trust?

They do not know all the details of WW’s infidelity and I would never want them to know everything. What they do know is that she had a sexual relationship with a family friend. They understand that she lied to and manipulated all of us. They are quite bitter that WW used them to comfort herself, when it turned out, that she was a betrayer. They are left with an added and unwanted burden of guilt for taking her side against me. Needless to say, they are struggling with issues of their own. All of this coming at a time when they are trying to show their worth and value to society.

This is apparent in their attempts to push me and OMW together. My middle daughter, very uncharacteristically, stated that OM “deserves it” and that she wouldn’t blame me if I “go for it.” My youngest agrees and said that would sure teach them both(WW and OM). They have been taught better than to say or think like this. This illustrates to me the level of pain and anguish my children are enduring and I now have all three in counseling.

I cannot blame them for lashing out because, as you may remember, I was probably one of the world’s worst. I try to let them know that I understand that when the person that you trust the most lies to you, it kind of changes your perspective of the world and everything can become suspicious. If the person you trust teaches one thing and acts totally differently, you wonder how much the world is lying to you.

When WW involved my daughters in this mess, I was forced to re-evaluate my own behavior. The big issue was no longer the fact that WW was unfaithful to me; my new goal was to get my family through this as undamaged as possible. They are not idiots. I could not feed them the “your mom is broken” garbage, or tell them that “mom made a mistake.” I did try the ‘just because she betrayed me doesn’t mean she will betray you’ approach. Their reply, “When she betrayed you, she did betray us.”

My youngest daughter bemoans the fact that she lost the perfect mom. I sympathize with her pain because I know how she feels; I lost the perfect wife. It is extremely painful knowing that they share in this pain. I would not wish it on my worst enemy. I guess their feelings can best be described as anger and ambivalence. They describe their emotional conflict in terms of having two moms – the one who used to be their mom before the affair and the one revealed to them when the infidelity was revealed.

All I can do is reinforce to them, my faith, that marriage is not a sham and love is not an illusion and that they can put their faith in love. What their mom did is not a black mark on them and they are worthy of receiving monogamous love.

Thanks for the update!

It's great that all three are in counselling!

Best wishes to all of you

[This message edited by HobbesTheTiger at 2:29 AM, August 3rd (Monday)]

Through all of your frustration you never vilified your wife to your daughters. You knew in your heart that the truth would come out. I was confident that you would repair things with the girls. I also know you will facilitate repairs in their mother-daughter relationship. That's just who you are.

DG,

Thank you for the update on your daughters. Their reactions and the resulting fallout is as we had all feared.

How long ago was the third MC session when she gave you the passwords and tracphone?

Were you the one who told them the truth or did your wife put on her big girl panties and come clean with them herself?

What has she, your wife done to try and repair the damage she has caused to them? Have they been responsive or receptive to her? Or are the wounds of her lies and betrayal of your daughters' trust too still too raw?

Like BS's dealing with the lies hopefully time will heal your daughters' wounds and allow them to one day reconcile with her. Providing she is remorseful and does the work necessary.

You're a good man, DoneGone.

I don't mean this to blow smoke up your ass, and in the big picture this means crap, but this anonymous internet guy finds a lot of strength by reading your story.

Eric said it - you're a good man. Great job getting counselling for your daughters.

So where are you in terms of the relationship?

nme1

So where are you in terms of the relationship?

WW told me over the weekend that we have to talk. She goes on about how good we are together and that we couldn't allow her stupidity to ruin the rest of our lives. I told her that she doesn't get to cheat and ruin our lives and then decide that we cannot allow her cheating to ruin our lives.

Once again I let her know that I was not ready to talk about us, and when and if I ever became ready to talk about us, she would be the first to know. She went on to say that as long as she was on the bottom of the list of people I wanted to talk that she would never have a chance to repair the damage. I told her, "the problem is not that you are on the bottom of my list, the problem is that I am on the top of yours."

Wk55hn

Why didn't they have sex?

I did not explain it very well. They did have sex. They had a lot of sex.

What is the stuff that bothers you most?

At this point, I believe it is the way WW disrespected me.

In one of her email conversations with OM, he joked about me being pathetic and stupid when I walked in on them having lunch at the restaurant. Instead of being confused or suspicious, he stated that I just joined them for a few minutes and left. He said that had it been him, he would have opened up a can of whup ass on the spot.

Even with all that WW was doing, I would have thought she respected me enough to shut down or at least ignore this type of crap. She did quite the contrary. According to WW, this was like a turning point for her. She had been debating on whether or not to sleep with OM. I had actually caught them red handed and everything was still ok. In fact, they joked that it was even better because now they had my blessing because, as I left, I told them to enjoy themselves.

They laughed back and forth about how I could be so dense as to walk in and catch them and yet be so clueless. They were even playing footsies while I was sitting there holding WW’s hand. And the real gut burner is that, according to WW, I was the deciding factor in her deciding to sleep with OM the first time.

She argues with me over this but it seems pretty plain to me. Later that same evening she emailed OM saying, “After he (WH) left, I knew I wanted us to happen.” She connected deciding to sleep with OM with me having been there.

There was a lot more back and forth in their emails concerning this incident, and it is all pretty disgusting, dirty and cheap. I am seriously considering posting some of it on here because WW insists that I am interpreting it too harshly.

H**L NO. This was not the reason they started having sex. She is using this as blame shifting. Ask her to take a poly and see what she says. The fact that you walked in on them and still trusted her enough was the reason she started??? H**L NO

She went on to say that as long as she was on the bottom of the list of people I wanted to talk that she would never have a chance to repair the damage. I told her, "the problem is not that you are on the bottom of my list, the problem is that I am on the top of yours.

What she should know is that there is no list. Top or bottom. The only important thing is what you want and what you want to do. She is not in the mix of how that gets handled or what gets done. Its your problem to solve and she is not in the mix.

She keeps thinking that she has some say in this after you have now exposed what she has done.

She gets no vote now. Its up to you and what you want.

Why waste money on a poly? DoneGone is doing exactly what he should be doing right now.

A poly would be like adding whip cream to a 500 pound sundae

They laughed back and forth about how I could be so dense as to walk in and catch them and yet be so clueless. They were even playing footsies while I was sitting there holding WW’s hand. And the real gut burner is that, according to WW, I was the deciding factor in her deciding to sleep with OM the first time

Demand your wife explain this to you, why were you the deciding factor.

Affairs are strange things and almost impossible to understand, but she needs to start explaining herself.

As for this OM.....he is a PUSSY!

Call him and tell him that you heard what he said, and better late than never, so just so you know, live the rest of your life looking over your shoulder.

Because revenge is a dish best served cold.

This OM is a walking POS without question.

If your wife cannot start answering your questions, especially the how and why, than it will be tough to R, but she needs to know this.

Ya know ......I really, really like your daughters suggestion about hooking up with OMW!!!!!