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WW and I are preparing for a formal "disclosure" of the affair.

I feel I know most, if not all, of the information I need to have about the affair, but I'm told by our MC and IC's that it is helpful.

It is a formal event where you both sit down and read out written statements about what you did.

For Edith, she will be admitting to all parts of the affair that she committed. I will make a formal statement to her of the impact to me of the affair. Then we will both make statements in how our actions contributed to the ill health of the marriage before the affair (not to be confused with causing the affair). Then we will both make statements of boundaries in which we state what we need to keep ourselves safe going forward.

Supposedly it will help formally express all that has been felt and done piecemeal over the last 27 months of trickle truth.

I will, at the end of the disclosure, ask Edith to have a polygraph to confirm some token points of the disclosure to ensure she is telling the truth. I am really done with lies.

It will probably take a month or so to be all done with it. Hopefully by Christmas I will then have moved out of the "What have you done!?!" phase of the affair to the "Ouch! That absolutely killed me!" phase. After then a year or two of anger and disappointment at my lot in my marriage, then a couple years of disgruntlement and acceptance.

One day, hopefully before all my children are off to college, I won't wake up and think of the affair within the first few seconds. Maybe I can even go a whole day without feeling sickness or pain. It's hard to even hope for that at this point.

But, life moves on, and we will either get better or we won't. At any rate, I won't be in limbo that much longer.

Thanks again for all of the help, commiseration, 2x4's and encouragement.

Why? I don't get this. Why the "formality"? I've followed your tale since I came here. Yes, her TT put y'all way behind the curve toward healing. But so did some of your inactivity. My question has nothing to do with those delays... but rather, why the "formality"?

Why not just talk?

Communication is the issue. Not something that a one-time "formal" thing will fix. It seems almost..well...fanciful..to expect progress from some sort of magical-much-anticipated-formal-hearing-and-airing-of-the-grievances.

You two may be making this into a boulder. It is a pile of sand. This "formality" also allows you to delay what you should have been making progress on all along:

It will probably take a month or so to be all done with it.Hopefully by Christmas I will then have moved out of the "What have you done!?!" phase of the affair to the "Ouch! That absolutely killed me!" phase. After then a year or two of anger and disappointment at my lot in my marriage, then a couple years of disgruntlement and acceptance.

Goodness! Roll your sleeves up, both of you, and get to it. Why drag this crap out?

It seems almost to me that you are "formalizing" the pulling off of the band-aid. Just tear the damn thing off already. Why "plan" for such a long drawn out process? It seems masochistic on some level.

I can relate to where TushNurse is coming from.

Think of the old Nike slogan: Just Do It. Just do it already.

Edith does now understand and readily admits that the affair is all on her. She's doing much better in that department. She is just so worried that I'll leave her that I think she's clinging on to a few last things so as to not send me over the edge. She doesn't realize that it's those last few things (I think) outstanding that I need before we can move forward and get better.

Apparently, she never read how to help your spouse heal from an affair or any of the other books or Josephs Letter here in the healing library.

It is the oldest excuse in the WS book about continual lying, they just dont get the pure hell of wondering what the entire truth is.

She already did all of these things, she cannot change what she did by lying and I do believe so many WWs think that by lying, they can undo what they already did do.

Nope, she needs to understand that lying does not undo what has already been done.

I fear that there is more, maybe more with this OM or with another OM. At this point, she needs excuses, and she can already fall back on this BPD disorder, yet she is compounding the hell with lies.

She needs to come clean now and drop the facade of this reason and that reason for lying. Her lying will force you to leave her, not the truth, yet she refuses to understand that.

I dont care what disorder a person has, they remember and they know what they did and lying is their choice...not a disorder.

I'll see your 2 years of TT and raise 4 NP! I think what you are doing is good, even the addressing of marital issues from both sides.

I may be in the minority, but I found owning up to my part in marital issues before the affair was good for me, and also good for my wife.

It was good for me, because it was all out on the table, and she could see that I was being upfront with her. We didn't have a perfect marriage, and I knew that. Why not admit to my part in that? It was "clearing the decks" for dealing with her affairs. "Yep, I had some bad behaviors, but YOU chose to have an affair and I didn't" is a very powerful position to be in.

Now, although I changed my behaviors because I needed to, I still focused like a laser beam on her affairs, and forced her to. Maybe your wife and mine are especially hard-headed and too stubborn/entitled/broken to do the work immediately, and this is what it takes to "prod" them into action. It was two things that finally caused the light to go on in my wife's (Marcy70) head. I was willing to deal with this and didn't think I was a perfect spouse, BUT I was also ready to leave once the kids were grown. Barring physical/emotional abuse of the kids, I think it is best to let children grow up in an intact home. I could be civil to her and be daddy to the kids, and they remained happy and thriving during the six years of her refusal to help me heal.

So I understand completely where you are coming from NP5. I applaud you for your strength and resolve. I acted weak at first. Not proud of that. But ultimately this path worked for us and I can see how it could work for you.

Good luck! I hope you are able to find the happiness that you want in life with your wife and family.

NP5,

I hope that this time you finally get all of the truth out of her. I hope the truth comes out, she finally owns her shit, and you can finally start to have healing.

I hope this emotional abuse of trickle truth, blame shifting, and other wayward behavior finally ends. I hope that you can finally end this portion of your nightmare.

The inclusion of the marital issues in this formal disclosure is allowing in non-issues. Marital issues are never the cause of the cheating. The simple reason is that waywards cheat because they want to. They come up with excuses to allow them to do it, they blame others, but at the final verdict, its because the wayward chose to cheat.

I think this whole thing is a horrible idea. I'm willing to bet this will turn into a what NP has done wrong bash again. She will justify any actions on things you have done wrong.

PLEASE listen to my suggestion, NP.

Set up a polygraph for before the formal disclosure, but after she has finalized her statement.

Ask one question : is the disclosure statement you have prepared a full accounting of all your sexual and emotional contact with men other than NP since your wedding?

That way, you will either know with some degree of certainty that she has finally come completely clean in this disclosure OR you will know she's still full of it, and you can refuse to participate in her continuing fraud.

Do not go through disclosure without a passed with flying colors polygraph.

Thanks for answering me NP5

When my wife finally hit rock bottom, we agreed that she would write out the entire story. I kept asking the same questions over and over because what I was hearing wasn't sinking in. Over the course of several weeks, she'd write for a while, and then I'd read it.

What we learned the first night is that I was way too emotional after reading it to be able to have a rational conversation. We decided to wait 24 hours so that I could process what I had heard.

That's what bothers me about what you're talking about. You're expected, in a relatively short amount of time, to sit there and listen to her whole story, with potentially new information, and then respond with a pre-written Victim Impact Statement. At this point, you don't even know what the whole story was.

And after this, what if you have more questions? Will it be met with "we had a formal ceremony, so no more questions are allowed"?

You've been dealing with this for a few years now. I don't see the rush to get this all done in one sitting. Why aren't they giving you time to process what you hear before you respond?

NP5

You know we really care about you. I know the 2x4s suck, but people really, really want you to heal.

If you see this as a step in your healing, then fantastic. It is a step, an action, something you are doing. I am completely in favor of that when compared to the approach of feeding this dependency you both have for each other - her emotional vampirism and your terrible need for the pain to be dampened by her touch.

But you need to prepare and have your consequences ready if you go through with this. There is a really high probability that she slept with him again on the night in question and that she will lie about it. She is not really capable of telling the full truth (or at least her past behavior strongly indicates that she is not capable of telling the truth without severe action).

So what do you do when you find out she slept with him again when you were supposedly in "R?"

What do you do when you catch her lying again?

There is a reason she has reduced the verbal abuse and increased the clinginess. It may be she has seen the error of her ways and really wants to help you heal, but you should be prepared that her behavior is significantly driven for the purpose of manipulating you.

I really hope this ends well for you. But it will only end for you if you are ready to face what you will find. I mean really ready and have viable and concrete plans in place.

Strength to you NP5. I really mean that.

The way I see it is that whether NP leaves his wife now or waits longer to see how this all shakes out, he and Edith share 5 kids. She is going to be in those kids' lives either way. Isn't it better for NP to see Edith committed to treatment so that she can be a healthier mother? If NP were to leave her now, would she bother with the treatment? I don't think he is doing all this for himself as much as he is for his kids.

Divorce never has to leave the table, but the sooner Edith gets treatment the better off her kids will be.

NP5

I have silently followed your story a year.

I believe your wife to be a master manipulator.

She does and says just enough to keep you under her control.

Everything you know about her A you had to force out of her.

She has not changed, she is simply wearing a different mask. She changes it to suit you.

You know who she really is, but tell yourself differently because it is too horrible a concept to process.

She may leave you, but you will never leave her. Not if you stay on this path.

Your codependency has handicapped you.

You fear losing her so much you are settling for crumbs now and abuse up to now.

You are going to have to take drastic action. You must prepare to divorce her in every respect including actually filing.

She claims she fears you will leave to make you believe you matter most to her.

You serve a purpose in her life, but it is not what you wish or hope it to be.

I would not say these things if I did not really believe them.

Everyone her keeps telling you the same things over and over. I don't see how any formal disclosure changes anything.

She cheated on you, lied about it and continues to blames you for it.

Those are the only pertinent facts

If she had time for an A, she has time to do whatever you need to heal but she has no intention of doing that. She is playing the long game. She KNOWS you will never leave her. You may theaten it, but your actions say otherwise.

A take lots of time in the mind . When she was looking 'busy' many times her mind was on him. I know this because I did it!

Without him in her mind she should be able to do this work.

I share that to point out that if she managed an A, 5 kids, a home and a job then she actually should be much

[This message edited by Brass Tacks at 10:24 AM, November 6th, 2015 (Friday)]

Why? I don't get this. Why the "formality"? I've followed your tale since I came here. Yes, her TT put y'all way behind the curve toward healing. But so did some of your inactivity. My question has nothing to do with those delays... but rather, why the "formality"?

Why not just talk?

Formality is in our lives for a reason.

I used to be Lutheran. I became Catholic. I used to just silently ask God directly for forgiveness. Now there is a formal procedure for asking forgiveness with a priest present (alone) in a confessional. What and Why does it matter?

It matters. That's all I can say. There is something about doing a review of your conscience, writing down all the stuff and ways you screwed up and then verbally confessing. It has an impact on me and many others as well.

When you get married, you don't just say, "hey, let's be married". You go through a lot of trouble and formality.

Edith broke those vows, severely, in about the worst possible way. It would do her and I good to return to the formality and officially hear -- I broke my vows to you and before god.

Now there won't be a hundred people there to hear it. Praise in public, correct in private, they say. But it will still be a formal acknowledgement that she deeply betrayed her husband and family, destroying the marriage.

Goodness! Roll your sleeves up, both of you, and get to it. Why drag this crap out?

I would have been well on the way to being better if Edith had told me all and thrown herself into remorseful reconciliation. Instead she tried to cover her ass and hide from the truth. This has made the whole affair much worse. So much wasted time and additional misery for me and her family and herself. She is thrashing and kicking and screaming at the medics that are trying to stop the bleeding. All because of her pride and stubbornness and resentment.

I have given her time to come around when she refused to earlier. I'm kind of at the end of the waiting now. I've given her so many chances to be truthful and to come back to her family with a right heart. It's not my fault she is so... wayward. It's not my fault she insist on tearing the band aid off one hair follicle at a time.

Meanwhile, week after week goes by. Grand after grand gets spent on ICs and MCs trying to enable her to get it and rejoin the marriage in truth and with a right heart. It's been excruciating.

There is a really high probability that she slept with him again on the night in question and that she will lie about it.

I know. I know. That's the sad part. That my family has to sit and writhe in pain, in limbo, as she steadfastly rages on me and lies to me and resists the polygraph. But the polygraph, leading up to and immediately after, seems to be the only time she will admit the truth. It is the only way out of limbo, yet she choses to keep us here, week after week, month after month, for two years.

Autumn,

Set up a polygraph for before the formal disclosure, but after she has finalized her statement.

OK, I will consider it carefully. There is merit to it. I won't say what I will do as Edith may read this. I'll leave it open as an option. Thanks!

Brasstacks,

She has manipulated me, very much. I am setting boundaries and going to IC and MC to establish a healthier relationship for both of us. I don't think she has done what she did out of cold calculation, but out of resentment, rage, fear. DBT Therapy should help her gain control of these emotions and allow her to focus on achieving what she wants and needs in a collaborative fashion, rather than through manipulation and raw emotional reactivity. Believe me, I hate the drama. I need to get off this merry-go-round because I can't take much more of it. Helping my wife become a healthy person is the best course of action that I see right now for me and my children. But I won't do it at all costs. The abuse must stop.

Ok, I get it now. It must be like a 4th step which is a written moral inventory and then a 5th step where it is shared with someone she is accountable to. In AA it is most often a sponsor. It is a sort or confession.

The question becomes is she capable of rigorous honesty? Some people are not capable of it.

It is the litmus test of people being able to recover from addictions according to the Big Book of AA in the chapter under' How it Works.'

In many ways my A was an addiction. I continue to apply the steps to my recovery from it. the book is online at no cost should you wish to explore.

There is step work after the inventory that include recognizing faults and making amends. All very neccesary to R.

I hope it brings you much needed clarity and peace.

In AA I have known people who have held back things on their 4th step. They ended up drinking again. The 12 steps are simple, but they are not easy. It comes down to this one thing: The pain of changing is less than the pain of staying in the disease.

I hope, for your sake, that Edith can summon the courage to actually give you the truth.

She has told me a number of times in the past, "My greatest fear is that you'll leave me." So I reply, "Then why did you do the one thing that would make me leave you!?!" Her reply is, "I don't know!!"

NP5, I'm going to say this as kindly as I can and I'm speaking from experience from myself and people I've known with a BPD parent. This isn't just about the A. It's about the string of behaviors that followed that push you further towards D. She does this because her ego matters more than your M. I hate to say it but it's true. At the end of the day, putting on a mask as someone who didn't make all those bad choices means more than the M. She always puts herself first. Until she gets serious EDMR therapy, the kind most useful for treating BPD, she will always be this way.

This is further confirmed by the fact that what she did was not the one thing you'd leave her for because you're still here 2 years later. Still dealing with not even having step 1 towards meaningful healing of your M fulfilled. She's had very little in the way of consequences for her behavior. She has no incentive to stop when you keep telling her you're leaving and then don't. You need to at the very least stop saying she did something to make you leave. Stop being dishonest about that because all it teaches her is that she can do things worthy of a D and get away with it. Either leave or don't. You don't need to bluff her about it especially when she knows you're full of hot air.

Formality is in our lives for a reason.

There is formality in filing for divorce. I'm wondering if it will get you better results? You seem to be torturing yourself.

Nekon,

Stop being dishonest about that because all it teaches her is that she can do things worthy of a D and get away with it. Either leave or don't. You don't need to bluff her about it especially when she knows you're full of hot air.

For the longest time, and there are people here still that saw it, I said, "I will never divorce you, never, not going to do it!"

I said that. I said it to Edith during the A.

Look where that got me. That's what commitment gets you.

But I was looking at it wrong. She was betraying me and my children. She was abusing us. My commitment now is to my self respect and to protect my children. It is not healthy or good to subject myself and my children to this betrayal and abuse, which it certainly was. I have now told Edith that I will divorce her if she starts up the affair again (OM or anyone else) or significantly breaks NC.

Now if she saw him that Monday night, she would have started up the affair again. But she promises she ended it at the end of February. So yes, she would have cheated on me again. Will I divorce her? I do not know. I do know that I will do what is in MY and MY CHILDREN'S BEST INTEREST. I have been forced by my wife's actions to view her as a separate entity. Her having sex with another man separated herself from my family and me. She has caused me to do this--to chose between living a lie and protecting my children and myself.

My IC says, "a relationship is only as healthy as the ability of the least crazy person's ability to set and enforce boundaries." I am the least crazy and my boundaries were very poor, so our relationship was very unhealthy.

She's working on being less crazy and I'm working on establishing and enforcing healthy boundaries.

Also, Edith has said she is open to doing EMDR and DBT Therapies to improve herself and be a more safe and caring wife and mom.

Also, I will study the AA stuff. Sounds helpful.

For the longest time, and there are people here still that saw it, I said, "I will never divorce you, never, not going to do it!"

I said that. I said it to Edith during the A.

Look where that got me. That's what commitment gets you.

Just to be clear, I wasn't telling you to say you're committed. Don't do that either. Say neither one because it's the truth. You don't know so you're better off not shooting yourself in the foot either way. Maybe even be honest about it and let her realize that she may be losing you soon.

Can you shed light on the October 4th TT?

Yes, what happened in October NP?

Oct 4....

She confessed to more encounters than she can remember. Also other aspects of the affair she lied about to me to minimize the breadth and scope of the affair. It is apparent to me now that she truly was head over heals in love with him and could not stop herself. She had considered divorcing me to be with him. She was addicted to him and gave herself to him in every way.

It is devastating. I am in deep pain again, but at least I feel I'm getting the truth now. I can build from that.