SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You keep saying your GF is remorseful.

Would you please tell us how she is *showing* you she is remorseful, aside from telling you how sorry she is?

What I'm asking is for you to provide us with tangible proof that she's doing the work that's necessary to show you that she is a safe partner.

She's readily and consistently answered all of my questions about the affair, given me access to her texts, and offered to go NC whenever I want. She has expressed shame and confusion about how she could have done something so horrible, and she has said that she knows she'll need to figure that out and work on herself in therapy. She has never been impatient with my own pain, and she has consistently tried to support me and comfort me. She hasn't tried to shift blame or dodge her own ultimate responsibility.

I don't know how "tangible" all that is. And honestly, I'm mostly believing her because of the way she says it. Yeah, I might be seeing her through rose-tinted glasses, clinging to what we used to have. But I'm also silently hoping to catch her in a lie or for her to slip up and reveal some last terrible secret. Honestly, I want clarity more than anything else. If she's just evil, then I can walk away in confidence. I just don't think that's the truth here.

Maybe there was another guy that she got herpes from ?

It's not always the case, but herpes symptoms usually appear within a week after infection. I think Occam's Razor applies here.

She can;t live with anyone else for the time being or you cannot move anywhere ? Continuing to live together is the worst thing you can do in this situation.

Neither of us have family nearby. Maybe I could find a place to stay for a few months, but I'm not yet convinced that it's so critical.

Toopol,

I think you are doing fine. This is not a race and there is no rush. Keep taking your time. Carefully evaluate the situation. This will eventually come down to what you want and can you be comfortable knowing what you know. If you stay, you are the one has has to be comfortable with the situation, you have to live with your decision. I feel that if you keep doing what you are doing, you will eventually get to a point that will allow you to rationally decide which road you want to go down.

Your doing fine. Keep talking and keep reading. It will all come together in time.

She sounds remorseful, and willing to work with you. Patience will so if that is really true. If you decide to walk, you can do that today, tomorrow, next month... or any time along the road. Your in control of your own destiny. There may be pain, but for where you are at, your ok..

Leaving aside breaking up or staying. It's your life and you can read what the odds are of living happily after walking down the aisle and saying the vows to someone who has already broken them repeatedly.

I give up on that one.

But what is totally baffling to me is that you apparantly have been sitting there in your house knowing this guy who banged her brains out for two weeks, who has told her he loves her, and she is still talking to him for anything other thatn the first contact to ask the medical questions.

Maybe I understood that incorrectly. I hope so. But this is truly bizarre if you are fine with her conversing with OM whenever she feels like it.

Tell me please I got it wrong.

offered to go NC whenever I want

Wait...what???

Please explain this toopol. Is your GF STILL in contact with Bellboy, even now?

Maybe I understood that incorrectly.

Yeah, you got it wrong. The only contact is texts regarding medical questions, under my supervision.

The only contact is texts regarding medical questions, under my supervision.

Whew. Thanks for clearing that up, toopol.

She's readily and consistently answered all of my questions about the affair, given me access to her texts, and offered to go NC whenever I want. She has expressed shame and confusion about how she could have done something so horrible, and she has said that she knows she'll need to figure that out and work on herself in therapy. She has never been impatient with my own pain, and she has consistently tried to support me and comfort me. She hasn't tried to shift blame or dodge her own ultimate responsibility.

Toopol, you do realize that most of this boils down to nothing more than lip service, right? Words - nothing more. And if I recall, you're still pretty early in the whole process - she's saying all the right things now - but will she be singing the same song 6 months from now? A year? Do you want to put your life on hold that long to find out?

As harsh as it was, I agree with everything that betrayed1965 said and urge you to re-read his post. Despite the inner turmoil you feel now, you've been given a gift here - don't ignore it.

Toopol, you do realize that most of this boils down to nothing more than lip service, right? Words - nothing more. And if I recall, you're still pretty early in the whole process - she's saying all the right things now - but will she be singing the same song 6 months from now? A year? Do you want to put your life on hold that long to find out?

Well, I'm relatively new here, and I don't know much. Do you think it's possible for someone to have an affair, feel remorse, and help the relationship heal? And if so, what does that look like?

What does remorse look like other than lip service?

How about

Doing research on the internet on how to help your partner heal after you've betrayed them. Creating a user profile on a forum, posting your story, asking questions.

Hauling yourself down to church on your own and going to confession. Asking the priest what you should to to make amends, and start doing that.

Calling around to find a therapist who specializes in infidelity, making an appointment, and going. Repeating with a second therapist so you can decide if one is a better fit than the other. Then setting a weekly recurring appointment.

Buying books on infidelity and deceit, reading them, talking to your partner. Buying books for your partner if you think they will help.

Starting a journal to write out thoughts and try to work through inner processes that lead to becoming a lying cheating slut who made a mockery of her long-term boyfriend's proposal.

Considering if you should move out if you think it might help your boyfriend heal and make the best decision for him to move forward in his life. Doing some research on apartments or extended stay hotels to figure out the cost. Giving you the information you found during your research to your boyfriend and offer to move out for a few months and pay for all the costs.

Writing you a heartfelt letter disclosing every detail, expressing deep shame for hurting you, and offering to do literally ANYTHING needed, including a polygraph, to help you heal.

Writing a no-contact letter to the bellboy. Blocking his phone number, setting up filters to delete any incoming email. Offering to put spyware on your computer so your boyfriend can monitor your communications.

These are some examples of what a remorseful person DOES proactively, to help repair the damage they did.

toopol,

Absolutely. And my wife is a near perfect example of remorse in action which is why we are reconciling.

Heartbroken has it exactly right. My wife went to IC for months, twice a week. She spent hours journaling, working on exercises from the workbooks her therapist gave her. Read everything she could get her hands on. No Contactwith POS. Took a polygraph. Offered for us to get divorced if that would help me. Outed her affair to our daughters and others. Quit her charity work. Gave me a written timeline with details. Volunteered information about her affair that I'd have no way of knowing and that made her look significantly worse, but did it because I asked for her to be honest and transparent. Puts herself third every day, behind me and our kids. I could keep going on.

Point is that words matter very little. They're very nice and necessary, but in the end, they cost nothing. What counts are behavioral changes and actions. And ones that are long lasting. Crying how sorry she is and how ashamed she is is nice, but it doesn't get to what happened and how. Has she answered that? Has she offered how she went from not having sex with you in 2 years to banging the bellboy whom she just met? How she continued even though she knew you wanted to propose? Has she said she was still planning on marrying you while she was having sex with him? Or was she having second thoughts? How transparent has she been?

You mentioned you don't want a polygraph. I know you don't want to debate it so I won't. But I will say that "parking lot confessions are all too common. People swear on the lives of their children that they're telling the truth, but in the end it was just a tactic to get the betrayed spouse to drop the polygraph, and they are forced to confess in the parking lot of the examiner's office or otherwise fail the test. That's real life. Has happened here hundreds if not thousands of times. My point is how honest is your gf being? By definition, having sex with another guy is deceitful. So why do you presume she is being honest now, when she has every reason in the world not to be?

Reconciliation is possible, but it takes a tee does amount of work. Your gf, as of now, has done none of it. Why you are giving her the benefit of the doubt is frankly, beyond me.

Thank you heartbroken_kk. As the song says 'you took the words right out of my mouth' (ahhh, I love me some classic Meatloaf).

toopol, heartbroken_kk has provided an excellent answer to your question of what true remorse looks like.

I've said it before - you're too early in this mess to know for sure whether you're dealing with a truly remorseful person or not. I will admit, your GF is saying all the right things right now...but will she continue to say them down the line? I don't know. You don't know either, despite wanting desperately to believe you do.

Look, in all honesty here, I could see giving R a shot if you were already married, but the fact is, you're not. As was so eloquently stated upthread, you're still in the audition stage of your relationship and your GF failed her audition - miserably. It really makes no difference how fantastic of a gal she was prior to this - the fact is she cheated on you.

Now, is this a dealbreaker for you? It's okay if it's not, you know. It's completely your life and this is your decision to make, but as a previous poster said, from here on end, because you know the facts, you are a willing participant if you choose to stay.

I do know one thing though...and I'm not projecting, simply telling you of my own experience...my XH cheated on me while we dated and yes, I ignored the chance to dump him. I stayed with him, married him, had kids with him, and although it took years, he most definitely cheated again...and again. By then, untangling our lives was a helluva lot more difficult than just parting ways. Everything suffered - children, finances, extended family, friends, future dreams, you name it, but worst of all was the hit my self-esteem took from knowing that I could have prevented all that pain by simply walking away decades before - that I actively chose to settle for a broken, tainted man because I was afraid I wouldn't find anyone else.

I learned the hard way that no one should ever settle - not out of fear, not for anything. What I wouldn't give for a "do-over" for the last 30 years...

So, when I see a situation like yours, where you have an opportunity to choose, of course I will try to help you as much as I can so that you don't make the same mistake I did.

toopol, with over 7 billion people in this wonderful world, I really have a hard time believing that your GF is the ONLY one out there for you. Please don't settle...you deserve more than what you're getting - you deserve loyalty, and a herpes-free future.

It's not always the case, but herpes symptoms usually appear within a week after infection. I think Occam's Razor applies here.

What I meant was that she might have also slept with another guy during the same time period as she was cheating with this guy.

Also, the first link after I googled about herpes symptoms'

A person may show symptoms within days after contracting genital herpes, or it may take weeks, months, or years. Some people may have a severe outbreak within days after contracting the virus while others may have a first outbreak so mild that they do not notice it. Because of these possibilities, it can be difficult for people to know when and from whom they may have contracted the virus.

Maybe you can pull out another Occam's razor about your own actions and motivations.

but I'm not yet convinced that it's so critical.

You are not convinced about anything that will take you out of the comfort zone( where you don;t have to break up or separate.)

[This message edited by kimichi at 9:01 PM, May 12th (Thursday)]

I always thought that cheating was a dealbreaker for me. But when it happened to me I fought back my own beliefs. I wanted to build a wall around me and my wife where.no one could get in. Heal us both. I was flooded with emotions. Overloaded. Never knew I could feel so much at one time.

Pretty much checked out mentality.

What I'm getting at is that eventually your mind will settle down and you will have to make a decision that will effect the rest of your life.

You'll know what you will need to do when the time is right. For.now your doing just fine. Just don't do anything you might regret.later. Like get an STD.

Toopol, thanks for the correction and making things a bit clear.

You are in a tough spot...

Okay, take your HOME that you share with your GF, if that wasn't a factor - would you leave her?

If so, then you have your answer.

It is possible she had sex with a virgin and did get herpes from someone else.

Two years before you two had sex?! Geez, I've had sex with women who I've known for 10 minutes and didn't get any STDs.

But I prefer to know them at least a few hours. I usually had standards back then, in my youth

[This message edited by SuperNBD at 5:01 PM, May 22nd (Sunday)]

I've been re-reading this thread. I feel sort of pathetic for not having left my girlfriend yet. So far, I've only decided to give myself time before deciding whether to break up or commit to reconciling. I keep thinking that I'm just a week away from ending it, but I still haven't.

Anyway, I don't expect anyone here to have any new advice for me, really, but I still appreciate the advice I've been given thus far, and I wanted to give an update.

When she first confessed, I thought that I'd be in shock for a week or two and that I'd be back to normal after that. Nope. I've been getting better, but much more slowly than I anticipated. I keep discovering new ways to think about it that knock me on my ass for hours at a time. I keep thinking that my story is not nearly so bad as most that I read here (not married, no kids, no decades of history). But on the other hand, neither of us had ever had sex with anyone else, and it was so counter to the image of who I thought she was, and it happened while I was making plans to propose. So I can forgive myself for taking it so hard. Oddly enough, I felt better (i.e. less crazy) after seeing more and more people using the language of "trauma". Once I started thinking in those terms, it made more sense. I have triggers. I have flashbacks. I spent a month telling the story over and over, trying to fit the puzzle pieces together. I'm not weak or crazy, just traumatized a little. It's not "okay" but it's normal.

My girlfriend has continued to make an effort to support me and figure this out. She got "Not Just Friends" and read some other material about infidelity with me. We've spent some time talking about her issues in therapy. She offers to talk and listens when I tell her about my anger and pain, and she expresses a lot of remorse. A few times, she's gotten caught up in her own loop of worry and despair about whether I'll leave, and she ends up mired in self-pity. That's not cool, since it leaves me high and dry in my moment of need, and our therapist has been trying to address it, with mixed results. But it's been something she struggled with for a while, so I don't see it as a sign that she doesn't care about me. Then again, if it gets bad and she's just incapable of supporting me through the healing process, I might want to leave regardless.

One new wrinkle that I suspect you all will hate: she's going on another long business trip soon. Her company asked her to go, and she came to me to ask if I thought it would be okay. At the time, I figured that I'd either be much better, or we would have broken up by now. Also, I was only thinking about whether I trusted her not to cheat on me. So I told her it would be fine, and that she should go, and that I wouldn't let it be the thing that destroys our relationship. Stupid. Stupid! I shouldn't have said it and she shouldn't have listened to me. Now it seems likely that it's just going to be weeks full of triggers, while I'm left alone with my thoughts. We'll end up talking over crappy video calls on hotel wi-fi, just like we did when she was having the affair. Part of me thinks I should just ask to skip the calls, and take this as an opportunity to get space away from her and the relationship. But I don't know. It seems bad no matter what.

At this point, I still feel like it's really unlikely that we'll work out in the long term. But I don't want to break up with her and tell my family about it unless I'm really sure it's what I want to do. And I'm not sure. Sometimes I look at all the doubts I had in the past, all the times we almost broke up before, all the terrible details of the affair, and I think that it's obvious that I should just break up and start over. But I can't just do that. I don't know what's really true, because there's a competing version of this story with a happy ending: We had a good relationship for years and years. We had some doubts and some communication problems, but instead of letting them break us apart like some couples, we were committed to the relationship and went to therapy to work on it. And things got better, and we were happier than ever, just as I believed when I was making plans to propose. Then, thanks to naivety and vulnerability and a confluence of circumstances, she cheated on me. But she realized it was wrong and told me about it, and neither of us gave up on the relationship. It was a hard process, but through it, we became closer than ever. And when we finally did get married, we did so confident that nothing could tear us apart, because we were willing to work to build something strong and beautiful.

Right now, I don't know if I believe that. I might. But I don't want to do anything drastic until my mind stops flipping from one extreme to another every couple of hours.

In the meantime, I am ready for the pain to stop. I've had my fill, thank you very much. I'm ready to move on to the next phase. Please. Except, I don't seem to have any control over the speed of this process at all. If I thought that breaking up with her would prevent me from feeling this way, I think I'd do it, but I don't think that's the case. I think it would be a whole painful thing in its own right, with some new flavors of pain and some old ones all mixed together into a delightful cocktail of shit. In the short term, there is no happy option. And I'm angry at her for that, but I also think she's honestly trying to help, to offer me a happy future with her. If that's real, I don't want to throw it away in anger. If we're both going to come out of this as wiser, better people, and if I can trust her not to do this again, then I don't want to fall prey to the sunk cost fallacy. The affair happened. It's irrevocably a part of my past. But whatever. That shouldn't affect my decision except insofar as it changes my expectation of the future. The future is all I can control. I'm trying to focus on the future, but it's not easy when the present is so hazy. Ugh. I'm ready for this feeling to stop.

One new wrinkle that I suspect you all will hate: she's going on another long business trip soon. …Part of me thinks I should just ask to skip the calls, and take this as an opportunity to get space away from her and the relationship.

This is a very good idea, just explain it to her so she have the mind set to thnk what she wants. Maybe she realizes she doesn’t want to be with you, maybe you do. The place she is going is the same where her affair took place?

But I don't know. It seems bad no matter what.

It seems bad but it isn’t, it isn’t at all. This is tha change you both have to see what do you really want.

This place is not just for advice, you can vent, share, journaling, etc.

You don’t have to do as we say, you don’t even have to agree or answer all posts. You just need to get well

Please please rethink this. The A happened but it shouldn't affect you decision?

Of course it should. It should be your North Star from now on.

You have a desperately needy person on your hands, she was that way before and nothing has changed, except she has betrayed you and expects you to help her out by clinging to you.

This is not sunk cost analysis. It's how your life will run from now on. You triggers at her next trip are only a foretaste of your future.

(((Toopol)))

My wife traveled for work, carried on a LTA with a coworker. I caught them immediately after one of their trips.

We were together for almost 18 years. Trauma is the exact word to use.

She'd never had sex with anyone else and I only had one partner before her. I didn't know what to do right from the beginning and I found this forum after several days of agony. I did a lot of stuff wrong at the beginning and I didn't follow the advice here for a while.

What I did do is man up. I found my backbone and made it so that the XW had certain things she had to do. The first thing was to make me feel better about our relationship. She failed miserably. She still worked at the same job, in the same position, and continued to work with the OM.

That is a poison that kills every day. Never let your wayward partner have continued contact in ANY way. Fuck a job, fuck a lifestyle. You just die slowly with that going on.

This was my wife of 11 years and we had two kids together. I gave her three and a half weeks before I pulled the plug. I'm not even sorry to say this -- man up. You do not stay with a cheater who isn't your spouse. I don't care who they are. This isn't something you get over in a month or year. This is something you'll think of for the REST OF YOUR LIFE.

Check around. Check the betrayed menz thread. Look at what the most common comment is. I'll help you out, "I wish I would have left." These are men with decades of time pre-affair and years post-affair. Most of what I read said they never regained any respect for their wives.

The ones that are happy that they reconciled are much fewer in number.

Think hard about what you want. Don't be scared to change. Set firm, very, very firm boundaries. Make sure there are repercussions for breaking those.

Best of luck.

Thanks for the update. I have a couple of thoughts for you, but I have to get my kids ready for school, so I have just a second, right now. I will post more later. For now, I wanted to suggest that you stay in very close contact with her during her extended business trip. Be careful with this one. This is the setting that drew her in, and she hasn't yet figured out why she chose to act out by having an affair. So, the stage is set for it to potentially happen again. If you choose to take this time to get distance from each other it could make her feel especially disconnected during her trip. You need her feeling connected to you on this trip, not especially disconnected.

Her business trip isn't to the same city or a nearby city, is it?

[This message edited by nomistakeaboutit at 5:46 AM, May 23rd (Monday)]

Then, thanks to naivety and vulnerability and a confluence of circumstances, she cheated on me.

Do you really believe this? Are you really able to write off having sex with some hotel clerk for two weeks during the "honeymoon" period of your relationship (about to purpose). And was it the navivety or vulnerability that caused her to vidio chat with you each night (after having sex with him) and talk all lovey dovey...

Also, I'm guessing "circumstances" was that she was away... and would never have done this if she had been home... that's just grasping at straws. You can't be together 24/7 being away should not have been an excuse at all and I highly your counselor for encouraging this excuse.