SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

But isn't pretending it doesn't hurt at all or that you have no emotion a mind game as well? Can't we be honest but still firm?

I think you need to get to the bottom of this sooner than later; read those texts my friend.

Crushed is really offering some solid advice bro - You are doing well, you are not taking it, you are not letting her sleep in the same bed as she wants - She wants it all, you and the Divorced guy - well you did not marry Divorced Creepy Guy Sexing It Up with Another Person's (your) Wife.

Hold your ground. Stay in the House. Expose. Lawyer - alimony will shake out as it does, your main concern is to get out of infidelity and boy she does not want to let you out! Wow!

So you keep wanting to see your wife, your life-partner, you keep looking for glimpses

- I struggle with that too - Where is that person?

Sadly she is right in front of you as Crushed stated

1. Your wife isn't the person you've believed her to be all of these years. She has a character gap that has been hidden away and it has led her to try to fill/numb it by cheating.

Please read the texts, it will hurt but then you will have less ambiguity and will know more about where or who you wife really is.

Good Luck! Stay here, come back to this thread as you can, these people of SI are brilliant and kind.

For heavens sake read the damn texts. You say you are afraid. What you fear is the unknown. I get that. But really, you know what's is going on in your heart.

She says it will hurt you. Of course it will but she is protecting herself from you finding the truth. Why? Because she wants to lie and spin the tale. Really, do you plan on holding them and not reading them for a day, a week,a Year? Just do it. Knowledge, no matter how painful, is power.

Stay strong. Truth is your friend.

ETA. Seek out walloped and space ghost threads as your guide on how to go forward.

[This message edited by longsadstory1952 at 8:57 PM, January 10th (Tuesday)]

Crushed and Sybo have given you EXCELLENT advice. You can decide not to listen and put up with this shit for the next 6 months (what I did), hoping she will come to her senses while you tiptoe around her (what I did). DON'T do what I did ! Save yourself a lot of agony and hand her D papers. She'll wake up really fast, one way or the other. In retrospect, I would far rather have been spared the 6 months of false reconciliation with multiple more D-Days. That was like having the knife in my gut turned just a little more every day / every week.

Read the texts. Spend $50 to buy a VAR, put it in her car then listen a day or two later. If you're not angry now, I can about guarantee you will be after what you'll most likely read (texts) and hear (VAR).

Oh, and just for the record, my xh swore on his father's grave, on his mother's life, on our daughter's lives, blah blah blah, that he & the slunt hadn't screwed. Guess what. He lied.

Sorry you're here. It's hard - very hard - to recover from this crap; it destroys the very foundation of everything you hold near and dear. Get a jump on it early on (like now) or you'll be on the crazy train for way too long.

Read Crushed & Sybo's posts over and over until they sink in. Then act. (((( ))))

You are in the right place, there is no judgment here just experience. Take what you need and know we are all rooting for YOU.

Regarding the VAR, great idea (mine chirped at low battery so he discovered it but I had it long enough to know what was happening). But another option is an app that will reveal deleted messages, what's app conversations, etc. Dr. phone, Teensafe, 360 . If you have the password it was very enlightening for me and has allowed me to begin to trust what he says.

Hugs your way, you are not alone.

manualgtr,

In just over a day, you've amassed a lot of responses and dialogue. It's because we've been through the pain, we don't want you to make the mistakes we've made and we want to point you in the direction that will get you out of pain fastest while producing the highest likelihood of your wife snapping out of the "fog." However, accepting it all while you are still in shock is tough. Take it in as quickly as you can.

Just know that you have a lot of people here who care what happens to you and are in your corner.

I am going to be meeting with a lawyer in the next few days with a separation agreement in order and have her possibly served. I don't want to divorce and I'm doing my best not to interact with her. I'm not going to tell her what I'm doing.

Currently just on my phone in the guest bedroom. It feels good to not be crying every night anymore. I'm trying to my best to distance myself from her in order to possibly snap her out of this. I know many people think I'm lucky and I don't have kids with her. It's so fucking hard to do that. I think she still does love me judging by the flashes of her old self. I might sound naive but damn.

Also to the person who asked, I was her first but she wasn't the first girl I was ever with. She was a virgin when she met me and I asked her out in high school junior year because she was my locker neighbor and we'd talk sometimes. She was in dance class with my sister and my sister told me my wife had the biggest crush on me and i should ask her out. I should say I regret it but I don't regret out time spent together. I wish I could go back to those days when she was absolutely in love with me.I feel sick

[This message edited by manualgtr at 11:54 PM, January 10th (Tuesday)]

Ask your sister to read those texts. She would be able to confirm what you need to know without having to share the details.

Your WW will withhold the truth for as long as she thinks it would keep you from leaving, for as long as she thinks it gives her leverage. Filing and serving her takes away that leverage and turns the tables on her. All of a sudden the truth is the only thing that will give her a small chance to reconcile with you.

I know many people think I'm lucky and I don't have kids with her. It's so fucking hard to do that. I think she still does love me judging by the flashes of her old self. I might sound naive but damn.

You are definitely lucky you don't have kids with her. It would be 10 times worse if children were involved. As for her loving you.... do her actions back that up? No, they don't. Those little glimpses you see are her gaslighting you. She is attempting to keep you guessing and hoping so she can continue seeing the other man. Just remember this... the next time you start thinking she still loves you, stop and say to yourself a few times,"My wife has a boyfriend." As long as she has a boyfriend you must continue to detach from her, do the 180, expose her affair to her family and yours, and continue to move forward with divorce.

We know this shit isn't easy. I was with my girl two years, just before we were going to get married she got herself another boyfriend behind my back. She ended up leaving me and marrying him. You will get through this.

[This message edited by longforgotten at 12:07 AM, January 11th (Wednesday)]

Here is a reality check. A marriage is made up of two people. As of now you have three people in this union. You said she is your wife, partner, best friend. Your wife has chosen someone else over you which puts you in second place, maybe even Plan B. Your partnership is dissolving before your eyes and she is forming one with someone else. Your best friend is no loner your best friend because she is cultivating a new best friend. If you are facing this at seven years of marriage, what will you be facing at 10 years or 15 years? She says you were not showing her attention. So I ask you what kind of attention was she showing you. You have to be together to show attention to one another. Did you ignore her and her attempts at attention? She says she loves you but she is still in contact with the other man so does that mean she loves him more? If she is in love with another man then now is the perfect time to walk away. You have no children and you earn the same amount of money. You are sleeping in another bedroom and haven't been intimate; are you still wearing your wedding ring? I don't know about you but I decided a long time ago that I was not going to share my wife with someone else and she decided that she wasn't about to share me. After a long and secret battle that pretty well settled the fog in our marriage. You have to be the one to decide if your wife and your marriage is worth a second chance. If you decide to R then put off having children for a few years. Just in case. I wish you well.

Your wife is in a fog.

She is immature. She does not understand the difference between limerence and mature love.

Several actions can snap your wife out of her fog. These actions fit within her current (immature) world view. Basically, they throw consequences and reality into her face. Do not attempt to win her back. The actions are:

Lawyer up.

Inform her HRO.

Demand she takes a new job.

Request STD testing.

Request for a lie detector test.

Require that she tell her parents.

Request she attends IC.

Request she provides all passwords.

Request she frequently checks/calls in.

Request for a time line.

Be firm: you are not to blame.

As for what you can do for yourself,

The 180 is for you.

Maintain your integrity

Do not have a revenge affair.

Drink water not alcohol.

Her anger is a mask for fear. When she is angry, you are onto something.

Exercise.

Manualgtr, separation is a terrible idea.

If she hasn't done anything with this man yet, great. Regardless, this gives her every opportunity to do it. File for D and knock her off the fence. If she can't choose, you CAN.

If you file for D, and you guys try to reconcile, you CAN always not go through with it. That's what happened with us. Filing for D lets her know you mean business and will not be her 2nd choice.

What's separation? She gets to enjoy all of your benefits and no worries of you actually being around?

Praying for you Man.

How well we all recognize the things you are saying. The thing is you are trying to deal rationally and sensitively to a situation where she is clearly so deep in the fog she does not view having her marriage and her affair as being contradictory. My wife was there once and it was the most difficult experience of my life. In her case she was dealing with mental illness, PTSD, and addiction issues and needed years of therapy,

ongoing AA and support from a myriad of sources to heal. One thing she told me afterwards was she had to have consequences for her behavior because she was like a petulant child at the time. I on the other hand was tip toing around, trying to be a private detective and only creating her discomfort when I was absolutely sure of what I knew, and even then reluctant to confront. In hindsight that was totally ineffective in addressing her behavior. You have the information available to you to blow the lid off her secrets. Not sure why you are reluctant to delve in. I would have killed to have such a tidy package available to answer my questions, but everybody is different. The feeling of lamenting the loss of the life you thought you had, while natural and painful, is not going to serve you now unfortunately. The reality is that dream is over and the sooner you can adjust the better you will be able to deal with your new real. I hear lots of people on here telling you not to believe her that the affair has become physical. As counterintuitive as this sounds, that is not the issue now. I had that same reaction when I came here from people and it threw me into deeper depression at the thought of it and sometimes anger as my natural reaction was to defend my wife. In the end it was never resolved fully even after we did reconcile, but at a certain point, well down the line, I realized it was essentially irrelevant. The fact she has an emotional tie to another man is the core of the problem and if there has been physical contact that is a symptom and playing out of that inappropriate emotional bond. Lots of time can be spent worrying and fretting over was it physical or "just" emotional, but that emotional bond is where the problem originates. My wife learned a saying from her AA experiences that says "you are only as sick as your secrets." This is where your wife is. I strongly advise not letting her get away with this dual life. Her delusions and fantasies need to be confronted at all turns so she can not retreat to this fairy tale world she has created for herself. I recall reading in my wife's journaling at the time about how she thought she could love two people at the same time. She looks at that now as a reflection of how sick and distorted her mind had become. But the fact is that they can lie straight faced even if they were the most honest and above board person before. Such is the power of their addiction to this fantasy. I think she absolutely needs to find qualified counseling and you could benefit from it as well. Unfortunately not all are equal and it is imperative to find someone who understands and will not let her get away with her shit. In that setting though you could find an ally to make her confront what she has done and how out of touch with reality she is. Whatever you do stop worrying about being the good guy and throw convention away because she is not dealing in reality right now. Confront and enforce boundaries. Recognize that she is sick right now and you cannot help her or yourself if you let her continue to delude herself with this dual life. I look back on where I was years ago and remember how painful and hopeless it felt, but in my case we made it because once my wife got the help she needed and was willing to do the hard work to deal with her illness, but transparency was essential. You have to find a way to break the spell and make her deal with the reality of what she has done and recognize how skewed her viewpoint is right now. If she comes out of the fog there is hope she can deal with whatever issues are causing her behavior, and if you don't get anywhere than sadly it is just not meant to be and you can hold your head high knowing you did what you could and start moving on. Life is Broken said it well- you can prolong the suffering while making no constructive steps towards resolution and healing, or you can accept that everything has changed and be proactive about moving forward. There is no rose petal covered path option here, however I can tell you that when your wife gets out of the fog and if she really, really wants to make amends for her bad behavior, you can make it. At that point it would be up to you how to proceed, but for now you have to do what you can to get her back into reality. There are no guarantees here unfortunately, and you did nothing wrong, but the onus to go forward is now on you.

Trust me, you new to recover those texts. If she is in a fog the truth will start to kill the fog. Full truth is the only way you can save a marriage.

Also if you do decide to divorce then having the texts will save you the twelve months on wondering if you are doing the correct thing.

Work place affairs are hard to uncover because they can communicate in person and through company IM or email. You need to look for a burner phone and also get a VAR velcroed under passenger seat of her car. A lot of talking is done on the commute. She may have a friend that she confides in and may be egging her on.

I truly doubt this is not sexual yet. It may have been when you first had your suspicions about that this guy and she said no, he was just a friend. That is when you shouldn't have gone HARD against it but you let her bully into accepting it. Now it's to the point that she's deciding between a divorced guy she's known for a few months VS her husband that has been in her lift for about half of her life.

You shouldn't compete with him for her affections. Speaking of affection. How has that been? I'm talking intimacy. Kissing, hugging,

sex. Is it still happening? If so, does it seem like she's going through the motions?

Most woman are not able to emotionally have sex with more than 1 man. So they'll usually cut husband off sexually or resort to cold "duty" sex. You'll know what I mean if you know your wife.

Yes, I agree with Wool94.

First of all, what's up with the 'Separation Agreement' ? I mean, really, what the hell is that. Either fix it or finish breaking it so that you can rebuild somewhere else with someone else who will care about you. All separation does is allows her to continue to see the other man without you being around. It punts your problems down the road and while you might take that time to do things to make youself recover, she might take that time to have a 'full on affair' with another guy.

So, in 8 months after separating, she comes back to you and says she 'wants to work things out' and you give her that chance not having any idea that she just had an intense, fierce full on affair with this guy, how is that ok ???

Separation is not the answer. Separation is hiding from your problems.

Your defiance in saying that divorce is not an option is both limiting your options and damaging your standings. As Anoldlion said, now is the time to walk away. You have no kids, you put her on a pedestal even though she isn't worth 2 nickles rubbing together right now with her behavior, and you have nothing to lose.

You could easily fight for an amicable settlement right now and get out of this despite living in a horrible divorce state for men rather than prolonging your pain, punting down the line your problems and making things harder later.

The way you came around to find out what's happening was very decisive. Every decision you have made since then is poor. If she really gave two shits about your feelings, she would have ended it with this dog after seeing how badly hurt you were. So why is a separation agreement going to impact her ?

And who the hell do you propose moves out ????

Whoa! I missed that. Separation? That is a HORRIBLE idea. You think she'll use that time to think about what she wants? WRONG. She will used that time to REALLY test drive this guy. I'm talking living with this guy. Once that happens, she will be the one serving you D papers. You can take that to the bank.

You have gotten a lot of good advise by posters who have been in your shoes and have read 100s threads just like yours. The names may change but the responses and path things take is so predictable.

Relationships born of adultery have a HIGH failure rate but don't think for a second that she will come crawling to you. Nope. She will repulsed by your weakness. Letting another guy poach her makes you the weaker guy.

Have you give thought of going to her job and confronting this guy in person? A visit to the office's HR dept will let your wife know that you're fighting for her. She'll be mad at first but she'll see some ACTION from you.

Right now she see's him as the stronger alpha guy because he's risking himself by going after a taken woman. While she sees you as the weaker beta man because you're allowing it. This battle is not logical. It's a war of the heart. I'm not advocating violence against POS. I'm talking intimidation.

I am going to be meeting with a lawyer in the next few days with a separation agreement in order and have her possibly served. I don't want to divorce and I'm doing my best not to interact with her. I'm not going to tell her what I'm doing.

Lawyer good. Not telling her until you hand her papers good.

Seperation? Not so good. As others have said, you don't want whatever this is to get an opportunity to grow or worse, go underground.

Detach. Regroup. If you serve her and let her work know what is happening it gives you better control over the situation. NC is the only shot at ending the infidelity.

And get some counseling. Get some rest. Take care of you.

Manualgtr,

Separation = Rug Sweeping

Not Reading the Texts = Rug Sweeping

I don't want to divorce

Your only chance for this is to first get out of infidelity. Some of the best, most experienced, articulate posters have given you advice on how to get out of infidelity.

Notice the consistency of the advice? That consistency should speak to you.

Notice that there are no one line posts that say "You must divorce" or "You should reconcile"? All of the posts are written around getting you out of infidelity now.

I know you fear the content of the text messages. The content of the text messages is part of the abscess that has infected your marriage. The abscess has to be opened up and drained before it can have a chance of healing.

Also know that SI threads are filled with BS who would consider it a godsend to have any text or email messages to inform their decision making.

A great suggestion has been made to have your sister read the texts.

Separation and not reading the texts are not a path out of infidelity.

Stay strong. Keep posting.

I get not wanting to read the texts. I made a decision myself not to read everything. I knew there was pain there. I just needed to know how many times they saw each other in person, how often they were in contact, and when they had sex which was basically every time they saw each other. Can you say you already know what you need to know? If you do, forget the texts then. From what I gather from this thread though you don't have what you need. Do whatever you have to do to get the truth. Read the texts, schedule a polygraph, whatever. Get to the truth. She isn't going to give it to you freely. You will have to force it.

I also get not wanting to divorce. None of us do. You need to face the fact that it may be a possibility. Your wife needs to know its a possibility. Nothing will give you a better chance of saving your marriage than telling your wife you are willing to leave it.