SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

i dont know what to say, i dont know what to do.

im a man. we've been married 15 years, small kids. she started an affair with her ex-husband in the spring. should be noted that he is also married for at least a decade and has small kids. he and my wife married when she was young. she has known him since she was 16 and says they started sleeping together when she turned 18 as a senior in highschool. he was 24 and a college graduate during this time. his dad owned the store she worked in during highschool. i cant make this shit up.

anyway, i found out. confronted her and she lied of course even though she was completely caught. she slowly admitted pieces. over the following weeks, she was everything i wanted. she was kind considerate, loving. sex was as good as ever and frequent. she swore that if i would stop bringing it up, she would be that person and love me forever. she would spend her life making me forget. she cut off communication with him. everything was great with the exception that i knew she was still lying about the extent of the affair. she would swear on our kids lives. on a bible, whatever. i know now she was doing it to keep me from learning more. finally i badgered her to the point of what she calls a complete confession. i believe its 98%. the confrontation from my acknowledgment to her confession took maybe 2 weeks, 5 or so days of it we were on vacation. we didnt fight every day. many days were amazing, others were me browbeating the hell out of her. we were as close as ever and i would tell her i would turn the page if she would just come clean. i said mean things like called her a whore and called her ex a child molester. i tore up the outfit she wore on a date with him. i told her i wanted a divorce.

i dont want a divorce. not at all. i love this woman with every fiber of my being. she doesnt believe that i really want her. she went in 2 days from being all over me to telling me she didnt know if she wanted to be married. she couldnt believe how mean i was to her. that i called her a whore. that i tore her clothes. they were not on her body, mind you. they were in her closet. she is very sorry and embarrassed. but she doesnt know if she wants to be with me any more. literally days ago, she couldnt be away from me. fell asleep on my chest. showered with me.

she was protecting the depth of her lies with sex and affection. now that i know that she continued to lie, she says she doesnt know if she wants to go on.

we travel a lot. we are what many would say "well-off". she has everything she wants. i treat her like a princess. im attentive and present and loving. anyone that knows us will be blown away by this. it was that shocking to me. literally out of nowhere. we never fought. we went everywhere together. we car pooled. i love to go shopping with her. i love to play with my kids with her. i am present and caring. we had frequent dates. she knew i loved her more than air.

we are supposed to go out of town this weekend with our travel companions. she says she doenst know that she wants to go. this trip has been planned for months. if she doesnt go, the other couple will know something is up. they know us well enough to know sitters are lined, flights are made, hotel booked. they know how much we've been looking forward to this.

now, she thinks im afraid of being alone, which im not. im a relatively handsome, funny, loving person who is concerned desperately about our marriage and my childrens perception of their mother and of the sanctity of marriage.

im sorry for the ramble. i dont know what to do. all of our friends are co-friends or girls that introduced her to through my friends. i literally have noone to talk to because i know everyone i know will kill me for staying or wanting to stay. they will want her reputation destroyed, although knowledge of this alone would take care of that. she says maybe shes destructive. maybe she doesnt think she deserves me. she may not deserve me right now, but i dont care. i love her, for better or worse. by the way, this is the worst that i have ever felt in my life. people have died and i didnt feel this bad.

i dont want her hurt, i dont want her embarrassed. i want her to love me and let me love her like i have since the very first day we met. people laugh at love at first site. not in this case. i absolutely fell in love with her the moment we met. i have never stopped. i have never let down. we've never gone to bed mad. ive never slammed a door at her. it was really the best relationship that i could ever have imagined.

im so hurt and so lost and so sad. i dont know what to do. im so scared for my family. I love her so much it hurts.

sorry...

I'm in the same position in many ways. All I can say is that you can't be in a 3 way marriage and as long as that's going on then you are not really in a marriage at all. You should read the healing library->articles on this site, they will help you immensely, they have helped me. But nothing can help the pain... at least nothing is helping me yet. One of the more experienced posters here will provide way more insight than I can, but just wanted to say best wishes and sorry that we are here.

hi. im just sitting here refreshing the thread looking for solace.

have you looked at her actions?

will she write you a real timeline of the A and take a polygraph on the timeline?

Will she protect your marriage, go N/C with her ex and inform her ex's BS about the A?

Did she use protection? has she stopped loving him? Has she been tested for stds?

If she does not want to go N/C, expose the A to his current wife, you are wasting your time.

She should get rid of anything involved with the A.

How long was this A? Any others?

Stop playing the pick me dance. File for D and see if she wants to win you back.

She murdered your marriage. It is dead.

So if she wants a new marriage with you, she has to really want it.

Keep watching her actions. How old are your kids?

If you really want to stop the A, you will expose.

She does not sound remorseful.

You are playing the "pick me" dance.

You are too good for the shit sandwich she has served you.

1. You will not have 98% of the truth. You will have 100% and you will have it in written form. if you do not get this then she will get the divorce that she's been gas lighting you with.

2. You will expose the affair to friends and family. Right now she thinks that you are on the defense. This is not your secret to keep. Affairs die in the shining sun. Exposing it makes her not be able to play these stupid gas lighting games. They'll make her come face to face with her own behavior.

3. Is her boyfriend married or have a girlfriend?

should be noted that he is also married for at least a decade and has small kids.

Track his wife down and tell her. She needs to know, so that she can protect herself. Also, she can help monitor their activities on her end. Blow up the affair as much as you can. You will not save your marriage by being Mr. Nice Guy.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 1:38 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

Oh crap I didn't notice that married part.

DO NOT LET YOUR WIFE KNOW THAT YOU ARE EXPOSING HIM TO HIS WIFE.

She will just warn him. Right now, this is and a lawyer are the ONLY things that you can do. Literally the only things.

Well, she needs to provide you a written timeline of the affair down to what she ate for breakfast that morning. Give her a deadline of 24 hours to write it. When you get it go over it with a fine-tooth comb. She doesn't know it yet but her boyfriend's wife will be getting a copy of this in a day or two.

Require open access on her mobile device. If she has ANY hesitation it's because she's still talking to him. Once you get it keep it for a few hours and watch her behavior. Once you are not in the same room with her run a program called Dr Fone on it. it will recover anything that she may have deleted. It will also give you all her undleeted ones in a handy format to copy to a notepad doc or whatever (which will also be going to his wife).

Please do not hesistate on the exposure step. It's critical at this point and 99% of the "failed" cases here are because of inaction at this point. Do it, and do it swiftly.

Easy enough to see. Your wife is simply trying to avoid the consequences of her adultery. First by being nice to you. That didn't work so well, so now she's playing on your fear of divorce. She seems to think she can manipulate you into rug sweeping her A. And right now, I can see why she thinks that.

The questions are; are you going to let that happen? Do you want to live the miserable life of false R and regret? Do you want to lose you self respect and her respect?

If your answer is no, here's what needs to happen.

-Expose her to OM's wife, your family and her family.

-She agrees to be tested for STD's

-Have her write a no contact letter to her ex.

-She will be completely transparent with all her devices and account for her time away from you.

-She will discuss the A anytime you want, be 100% truthful, own what she did, and demonstrate unconditional, genuine remorse.

Should she fail to accept even one of those consequences; implement the 180 to detach and start the divorce process. If she doesn't completely turn around, complete the D and move on.

If you want a chance at true R, you have to be willing to end you marriage in order to save it.

[This message edited by badmemory at 3:07 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

this is either the absolute wrong place for me to be or the completely right place for me to be.

probably the latter.

sucks.

Your post contains a lot of concern for your WWs feelings. You are too empathetic. Maybe codependent. You don't want her hurt- she hurt herself. You don't want her embarrassed- she embarrassed herself. You want her love- love is an action, she is NOT loving you. Don't cover for her. She needs to experience the natural consequences of her actions. If your travel friends think she's horrible, well, she is.

[This message edited by redfury at 3:23 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

i love her and i want to go on. i dont want her actions to ruin our lives and our relationships. if this gets out, no one will look at her the same. yes, she brought it on herself and probably deserves it. i am still trying to protect her i do not want her humiliated even though she has humiliated me. i do not want to hurt her despite what shes done. i want to love her and figure out why she did it and do whatever i can to prevent it again.

she is a professional with a good job and this could have tremendously adverse affects on that. we live in a smaller city that is very incestuous. people are unforgiving here. they see her as the sweetest and most caring person around. until this happened, i was the biggest supporter of that image. she honestly is the best person i have ever met. minus the lying cheating affair pair.

ive raised my kids to understand that honesty is above all else. how will they respond to the fact that their mother is a liar and her lies and infidelity destroyed their happy home?

im inclined to eat the shit sandwich and chew quickly. i just want it to pass.

please dont think im weak or co-d. i have a partner that i love dearly. the thought of losing her is nearly impossible for me to fathom.

You can do this but you have to get control of yourself and you have to take control.

They are right when they say she killed the marriage. It will never be the same. Her trying to pretend it could be with trying to be the perfect wife and you agreeing to rug sweep it will never work. Never ever.

As others have said you have to be willing to lose the M to save it. And that means you may lose it. She may not be remorseful for what she did. Maybe she is.

You must first determine if she is remorseful. If so these are some behaviors she will exhibit. If she doesn't then read up on the 180 in the Healing Library here and start to work to get her served D papers.

Here are the behaviors. Adapt them for your situation:

- She would be inconsolable with the thought of how she was the cause of so much pain to the person she loves most in the world.

- she would be begging to know what she could do to make it right.

- for you she would want to let everyone know it was her that screwed up, not you.

- she would want to read books on how to support her BS

- she would be in IC as much as possible to figure out what went wrong with her and how she could do this to the person she loves most in the world

- she would feel your pain more than her own and put your happiness ahead of hers.

- she would give you an open timeline of everything that happened.

- she would write you a letter of apology highlighting how she must have made you feel

- she would focus most on your well being, ignoring her own

- she would realize what the OM really is and start being sick at the thought of him/her. She would start calling him/her names like POS for how he helped her destroy her life

She really needs to feel this way about all these things otherwise it's a waste of time to try and R.

Then, if you believe she is remorseful and agrees to do anything to try and save the marriage here are the steps I've collected from many threads that need to be taken. It's not exhaustive and you will need to adapt them to your situation.

This can be done but it's truly years of work. And by the way, one of the steps is that she needs to come clean to family and friends. She needs to admit she did something wrong and terrible, but that she's working as hard as she can to become the person she should have been. You can't protect her from this. That's a form of rug sweeping.

Here are those steps.

Examples of what to put in a plan to becoming safe.

1) a letter of NC to the OM that you see and approve and watch her send.

2) real NC. Meaning she quits her job so she can never see him or run into him again. Real ghosting. Blocking him from everything. If He tries to contact her she does not respond and she tells you. If he persists your lawyer can send him a cease and desist.

3) she writes out a full timeline of the A. Full details. And you review it with her.

4) she writes you a letter of apology telling you why she thinks she did what she did and what it would mean to her to have you stay and work on the marriage.

5) she agree to a polygraph. You may or may not have her do it, but don't tell her that. If she really wants R she will agree

6) you both do IC. Her to figure out why she was willing to go beyond her vows. You so you can work thru the pain. You should do this whether you head for D or R.

7) at a later point you might start MC to work on what was missing from the M. But only after you both work on yourselves first.

8) Expose. The affair needs to be exposed to both your families and close friends. They need to be able to help you make it thru this R. Doing it alone with just the both of u and no one else knowing is doomed for failure. If she is truly remorseful you will both go to them together and she will admit what's she has done and what she is doing to make herself a safe partner for you. If she is not willing to do this, then probably just end it here and move forward with D.

9) contact the OBS. You do it. She should help you. If she is truly remorseful she will want to do that for you. You should want to do it because it's the right thing to do for the OBS. If she won't tell her then tell her I can only assume you are protecting him because you are still in the A with him and you'll be getting the D papers this week.

10) look at implementing a postnup. Others here can give you more details on how this works.

11) she provides open access to all her technology from now on. On demand. No time to delete stuff. If not then she's obviously more interested in having secrets than your M.

12) No more going out without disclosing where she is. If "going out with the girls" has been an excuse to meet with AP in the past, then that ends

13) no more meeting alone with a man. No lunches, dinners, drinks whatever. If she has to do so for business it only happens at places of business and not behind closed doors. She informs you of when this is necessary and with whom and for how long. Social Happy Hours (outside of actual work functions) are to be attended together or not attended at all.

14) Does all required reading. "Not just friends" and "how to help your spouse heal..." etc.

15) find a friend or family member for you to confide in. You shouldn't be going thru this alone.

16) STD testing for u both. Visual proof of the results is required.

17) no new affairs. If so D papers will be served. No lies about relationships with others any more. If so we are done.

18) Any questions about the affair are to be answered honestly for the rest of our life. Never be done answering questions about it.

19) No conversations about our marriage or any other marriage with another man/woman unless your spouse is ok to talk to someone specific about it.

20) No one comes in to our home without both us knowing.

21) Communication- No secrets, no matter how hard it will be to hear. Discuss all attractions. Discuss all third party attention. Discuss all feelings good and bad. Be honest with yourself and aware of your feelings, then communicate that to your spouse.

22) We don't do anything in absence of one another that we wouldn't do in the others presence.

Again friend, you can only decide how to proceed out of infidelity. But if you use the power of the brain trust here you will see that the most successful BS's find happiness sooner by acting from a stance of strength not weakness as you have been doing.

It may be thru R (which will take years of hard work but may be worth it to you) or D, but in the end you will be happier and feel better about standing up for yourself and your family.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know how bad it hurts. My 'soulmate' is also a lying cheater. But you CANNOT love her better. You just can't. Trying to is the definition of co-d (which is not a weakness). You can choose to rug sweep. Lord knows I did it for years. But they won't change without consequences.

Think of it this way. If you caught your kid shoplifting (you've raised them to value honesty), would you tell them "Please don't do it again we'll keep this a secret"? Or would you march them into the store and embarrass the hell out of them making them confess what they've done?

im reading everything you guys are writing and i appreciate it. i appreciate the time that you are taking providing your experiences.

i may be bat shit crazy, but i honestly believe that we can go on as before and at some point in the not so distant future be better than we ever were.

i believe good things can come out of bad situations. i believe we can be more in love and a better couple than ever before. even though i know of no better couple...

i am certain that i can recover and keep this secret. i am not certain she can recover if it is made public.

she is strong and self sufficient. this could strip her of that and the last thing id want is for her to stay with me because she has no one else.

again, please keep responding to me. im so new to this and im so hurt. i really want a hug and i have no one to confide in.

one more thing. when i first found out, i wanted to tell his wife. but then i thought about his kids. i thought about her. i dont know her and i dont know him but i dont want to be even remotely responsible for unleashing that beast. i am a good person that probably cares too much.

i dont want others to hurt. i can take the pain and i can get through it. i dont see the good in destroying two families.

Read every thread here that has a subject something like "I wish I had listened...." or "I should have listened" etc...

Your instincts are mostly completely wrong. But they are yours. And it's your life and marriage. No one can do it for you.

Ask yourself how long you've been experienced in handling infidelity. Then ask yourself how long the brain trust here has.

Good luck. I'm glad you are at least reading.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 4:11 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

Btw. Teaching your kids that anything you do wrong can just be covered over and hidden is not a good lesson.

A good lesson is admitting you've done something very wrong, showing remorse and apologizing and working hard to ensure you will never make that mistake again.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 4:23 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

OP,

Let me give you the most gentle 2x4 that I can.

Newly betrayed spouses usually make mistakes; but you're making just about every one there is to make.

You have to find your anger and your self respect. And that might need to start with getting IC for co-dependence.

Bottom line; you just can't let your cheating spouse call the shots. She cheated, she deserves consequences. Rug sweeping is the absolute worst thing you can do.

i may be bat shit crazy, but i honestly believe that we can go on as before and at some point in the not so distant future be better than we ever were.

i believe good things can come out of bad situations. i believe we can be more in love and a better couple than ever before. even though i know of no better couple...

And lastly yes you can. But not by rug sweeping and hiding what has been done. You both should be in IC, her for figuring out why she could go beyond her marriage vows and for you to deal with the pain.

And that is only 1 of the major steps you should take as you see in previous posts.

Rug sweeping will almost certainly lead to DDay 2 or a pent up explosion of emotion you won't recover from.

There is no shortcut to this. It takes years of work.

Good luck.

Ps: every other couple out there that has not experienced infidelity is now potentially a better couple. They may have problems, but they don't try to fix them by having sex with someone else.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 4:18 PM, July 13th (Thursday)]

i dont see the good in destroying two families.

The destroying does not come from the telling, it already came from the doing. What your WW and her WH did nuked the families.

Giving her the honest truth is a gift, can literally protect her life if her scumbag WH is sleeping with multiple AP's - you might be surprised how often that happens. It will give his wife the power to make decisions regarding her life and her M based on reality.

There is also nothing better to make the roaches scurry than exposing them to the light. Very often, WH will throw their AP under the bus in order to try to repair their M.

The BH of my H's AP called me and filled me in on reality, I will be forever grateful to him.