SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Reconciliation -- to me -- is two people wanting a stronger, more authentic relationship, who protect each other, have empathy for each other and do whatever it takes to accomplish those goals.

If this is not the goal of both spouses, then why bother? It did take time for me to decide that I wanted to take the chance. It took well over a year of my fwh ' s actions for me to want to come back into the m. I can't imagine settling and staying without a better closer, more intimate relationship.

The bottom line is what do you want? Sounds to me like you have already moved on. If that's the case, I don't see how a better, closer relationship is possible.

CincyKid

Did she ever admit to full on sex? I can't remember but you and I both know they had full on sex. If she's sticking to her lie then she's not worthy of reconciling with.

She still swears up-and-down that they never had full on sex. Both my IC, her IC (who I used to see as my IC too), and our MC say that it is plausible that she is telling the truth and that without evidence I should let it go... But I don't really feel like that is good advice. I've considered doing a lie detecter test on her about it but... I'm not sure it's worth the money since I'm already one foot out the door anyways.

CaptainRogers

One thing you said sticks out to me. You talked about the various votes to stay, but then you mentioned someone you met on Tinder. Knowing what I know about that app, why did you go on Tinder? That is not typically the action that someone who wants to stay and reconcile would pursue.

I think part of that drowning feeling includes your own actions. Have you been pursuing other women and/or connecting emotionally with them rather than trying to reconnect with your wife? R is a two-way street and it requires 100% commitment from each partner. If you're not all in, then you need to be out.

I think I went on there because my self-esteem was (and still is) shattered. Because while my wife was desperately in love with another man for five years while I was a devoted husband and father. Because I feel in-human. Undesired. Unworthy of love and affection. Worthy to her only now because her AP left her. Because she stands to lose so much in terms of social standing and money. Because I want to know what awaits me in terms of mate selection on the other side of divorce or if the best I can do is someone who is willing to start and have an affair while trying to get pregnant and being pregnant. Twice. I'm a mess... I shouldn't be on there and I have since deleted it.

For the record, my wife knew I was on there. It was not a secret. I was also upfront with people on there about my status. I never met anybody from that app and mostly I got words of encouragement to save my marriage or words of encouragement to execute on a divorce. It was like... being here sort of. People to talk to but instead of being a wide open forum it was one-on-one conversations.

I'm desperate for human connection... but not from my wife. Being near her... talking to her... only hurts. It only makes me want to divorce.

So I think maybe I was connecting with other people and not my wife... but I don't really WANT to connect to her. I want a wall up between us so she cannot hurt me anymore. So she can't trick me anymore. I want her further than arms length away...

And saying that... thinking about that the way you just made me think about it kind of answers my question doesn't it? I should divorce...

samiamsad

I'm about at the same point as you on my timeline and I feel the same. My gut says D is the best option, but I have two young kids so it's complicated. I just can't imagine living the rest of my life with a person who could do such terrible things.

We are right in the same boat. Tomorrow, 8/10, is our 10 year anniversary. We started in dating in 2001 so 16 years together total.

She's cheated on me twice. Once in 12/2001 and then from 12/2011 through 6/2015 -- but she was in love with her AP from about 6/2011 through 12/2016.

So hang in there! Thanks for the support.

I'm sorry you are hurting so much I understand. Stay off Tinder. It won't help anything. it isn't healthy. We don't get our value from other people. I battled the same thoughts and feelings. Keep your self-respect intact. With 2 kids in the mix, please keep your head as clear as possible while making hard life decisions. Again, I'm sorry she has put you here. TT is awful.

You haven't mentioned much about your W being remorseful.

sisoon

I think R is probably the best bet for almost all people, if the WS is remorseful.

Why do you say this? I'm not being combative... I'm looking for something to hold on to that makes R make sense.

Is your W remorseful?

She seems to be. But I don't know what her motivation is. Part of me thinks she is afraid of losing her lifestyle. I wonder if this was happening before her AP dumped her if she would be as remorseful. My gut says no...

I, too, wonder why your IC is urging you to stay and work. Is it because s/he hears something from you that you don't hear and understand yet? IOW, do your communications to your IC actually mean you want to R?

I don't know. My IC also does couples therapy. Maybe, like you, she believes that R is typically best? But I told her on day one that I was skeptical about R and wanted to work through whether or not that made sense for me.

But here's the thing: after infidelity, you have a free choice. You can - and IMO should - get everything, especially 'shoulds', out of your mind except, 'What do I want?'

If the answer is 'D', I would bet that's the right answer for you - and that's the thing that counts most, IMO

.

What do I want? I want to be with my kids. I want to stop hurting. I want to feel like a human again and not this hollowed out shell. I want to feel good about myself again. I want a partner I don't have to hold at arms length.

Oldwounds

Anyway - based on my wife's actions after her confession, those helped me to realize there was something worth rebuilding here.

What did your wife do to convince. You've previously stated that she "worked her butt off". In what ways? What did her trying to mend things look like?

First, I wrote it wrong: I think R is probably best when the WS is remorseful, AND if the BS wants R.

I say this because I think most of us really benefit from being in a couple. R is hard work, but if you both do it, you end up (re)building your couple. I also believe that an R'ed WS is less likely to cheat than any random new person I's be likely to hook up with.

D probably heals an individual faster than R does, but the individual ends up single. That's better than being in a bad M or in an M with an unremorseful WS, but it does leave the fBS wanting a partner, and knowing that any new partner may cheat.

But R works only if both partners want it and work for it, and it's not necessary to want it.

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I urge you to ask your IC why s/he thinks you should stay. I would expect an IC to help you figure out what you want, and and I'd expect the IC to suppress his/her prejudices in any session with a client.

I'm certainly prejudiced toward R, but to me, I'm still on SI to help fellow BSes figure out what they want. Prejudices be damned!

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What do I want? ... I want to stop hurting. I want to feel like a human again and not this hollowed out shell. I want to feel good about myself again.

Gently, that's all work only you can do. IMO, the best way to heal is to feel the pain, because I believe feeling pain (or any feeling) lets it go. Is your IC into 'feeling work' or Gestalt or TA or Humanistic Therapy? If not, maybe you should look for someone who is.

Releasing the pain will allow you to enjoy being human. It will also free up your inner resources to nurture yourself, to realize your W's A was due to her internal issues, not anything in you or your M. If you release the pain, you'll see the world and yourself differently and more clearly.

What do I want? I want to be with my kids.

I understand. I didn't go through that, but someone close to me is going through it now. I suggest you contemplate how life would be seeing your kids only half the time, at best - not the the loss, but more how you would arrange your life and how you would stay a major part of their lives. I think that will take some of the fear and grief away from the prospect of D.

What do I want? ... I want a partner I don't have to hold at arms length.

To some extent, many (most? all?) of us forgot that our WSes are separate people who we can't control. In a sense, we should all hold our Ses at arms length in some respects ... our interests are almost the same, but they're not identical.

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Have you considered the possibility that you're co-dependent? The only reason I mention it is that Co-D people have a hard time detaching, and you seem to, too. Maybe some time with Co-Dependent No More would be of benefit.

OTOH, your difficulty making a decision may just be because your d-day is still pretty recent. Some people just take longer than others to figure out what they want.

That's OK, bro. If you're still going back and forth between D & R, don't act yet, except to resolve your pain. Give yourself a lot of breaks. Be kind to yourself. You don't want a quick solution, you want the best possible solution in the circumstances, and sometimes it takes a lot of time to be sure you understand the circumstances.

Observe your W and yourself. If she's remorseful, and if you want to spend your life with her, great. If not, not as great, but still, great!

Everything is right about taking the time you need.

[This message edited by sisoon at 9:54 AM, August 9th (Wednesday)]

After 4 and a half years on sites like this and reading through hundreds of people's stories of infidelity and the aftermath, I've never heard of a man divorcing his cheating wife and regretting it down the road. Not saying it doesn't happen, I've just never seen it. Almost 100% of the time a year or two down the road the BS is doing great.

The guys who do stay with their cheating wives??? It's a mix and some people do well and rebuild their marriages. But I've heard no shortage of betrayed spouses, especially men, who regret staying and if they could would go back and divorce right after D-day. Some of them having had D-day over 10-15 years previously.

I really don't buy into the whole "Give it 6 months" or "Give it a year to see how you feel" advice. If you're done you're done.

And it doesn't matter what your IC, MC, in-laws, crazy cousin, or whoever think about what you should do. It's not their marriage. It's not their life.

For some people infidelity is just a deal breaker and that's okay. Don't let people emotionally manipulate you into doing something you don't want to.

If you want to leave and know you want to leave then leave. File for divorce. Stop marriage counseling, you're just wasting time and money. Start talking to lawyers to see what your options are.

Your wife is a serial cheater. And you can't even be sure she only cheated twice with only two men, it just sounds like she got caught twice.

[This message edited by JS84 at 11:26 AM, August 9th (Wednesday)]

I totally agree with JS84! Read that post several times aslan. Awesome post JS84.

Your wife values outside validation, and the gratification it gives her, more than she values a committed, intimate, lifelong relationship. It's that simple. Serial cheaters rarely (if ever) change.

Listen to your gut. I wish I would have listened to mine. I "knew" D was the right choice for me and I chose to stay for other reasons - primarily my children. I wasted many years dealing with her bullshit. I so wish I would have left immediately. I can understand the D path to surviving infidelity. I have a very difficult time understanding the R path to surviving infidelity.

So I think maybe I was connecting with other people and not my wife... but I don't really WANT to connect to her. I want a wall up between us so she cannot hurt me anymore.

Gotta say that this hurts me to read. I know because I've been at this precise place. I didn't want to be hurt by her again. Didn't want to give her the opportunity to hurt me. Built that wall high and thick.

And then our MC helped me to tear it back down. But, I was willing to do that be cause I wanted that connection with my wife. I wanted us to be connected. I wanted to be able to finish our story together the way I wanted it written, not how she had written it when she stole the pen from me.

What you need to do is to look deep down inside, beyond your hurt, beyond the betrayal and ask yourself...do I want this story of us to be over, or do I want to write this I to a happier ending. If you want it to just be over, then D is probably the best case scenario for you.

She brought her new baby' to see the AP? My first thought when I read this....because she thought the baby was his.

Once you had the DNA tests done it took her off the hook for admitting ithe PA to you.

I can see the point of does it matter if it was a full PA. She still had a 4 year affair. Sexual life with this man while pregnant with her child.

When I read the stories of mothers completely endangering the mental health of children (divorced families) to have sex and become an adulterer. It infuriates me. Mothers are supposed to put their children above all. It says so much to me about a woman's personality to commit adultery.

Always trust your gut.

I wish I'd followed my own advice many decades ago. But instead, here I sit, an old lady who is suddenly facing old age all alone. In my efforts to help DH, I isolated myself from friends and family and all the activities I used to love. It didn't work and he moved on. I'm still here. I look around and feel like I'm in a strange land.

Get out and do it now. File for legal separation or divorce or whatever it is in your state that protects you and your children. Then build your own life, strengthen your mind and your body and your soul.

After that, then decide if you want to be married to her. Too many of us try to make major decisions when we can barely figure out what to fix for supper because of the trauma we're suffering.

Wishing you good days ahead.

If your gut says not to reconcile...then listen to your gut.

If you cannot go into reconciliation 100% then dont do it.

1) WRT men regretting D'ing their WSes, some number of couples remarry after infidelity-caused Ds, and some of them are men. I think they regretted their Ds.

But, as you know, the question isn't whether some men stay or remarry. The question is what you, aslan, want to do.

2) CR keeps bringing up your Tinder experience. Let me join him.

You feel like shit. No amount of attention from other people will change that. Only you can change your self-image. Only you can can change how you think about yourself.

Ego kibbles are cheap and easy to collect. Iurge you to go for real change in how you see yourself - harder to do than getting ego kibbles, but oh, so much more meaningful.

Hi Aslan

I came across your thread and it tore at my heartstrings.

I was wondering how you were doing and what was happening with your M

Sending you best wishes.

A voice in me says same thing...don't reconcile. But, in being perfectly honest, a big part of that is my ego talking and a desire to punish him. It will be punishment for him to lose his family, so a part of me wants to take it. That is my deep down carnal self talking. But my rational mind is a bit more pragmatic--he's a decent guy (less good than I thought though lol), a good dad, my kids seem happier when we are together, I don't want my kids to have a blended family, I don't want some other woman playing step mom or them to half or step siblings, I'm bread winner and I want his new endeavor to become profitable so it makes any future split easier financially. I worked really hard to get where I am, I'm not planning on giving it up bc I chose to divorce while he's at his lowest income ever to date. We've been together 25 years since high school, so we grew up together and he's comfortable.

Notice I didn't say love. I don't think love is a good reason to stay married. I have love for him, but I'm not in love with him. I'm ok with that for now. We are separated but working on it. If anything, I would rather wait until my kids are older to divorce--and I may do just that unless he fucks up before then.

So I don't think I "want" to reconcile, I'm doing it because it makes most sense overall to me.

He will never have all of me. Truth is, he never did. I always kept a piece of myself to only me. Now, he just gets less. I will never blind trust anyone again. I will trust him to a degree, but never will I be blind. I trust myself and love myself a lot more now. I trust I will be fine if we he screws up again.