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I'm sorry that I'm late to the party, but you're handling it very well.

A polygraph isn't a bad idea.

Having lunch alone with any male counter parts should be off limits at this point.

This:

Having lunch alone with any male counter parts should be off limits at this point.

It is surely a likely trigger for you and is questionable at any time in my opinion

This:

Having lunch alone with any male counter parts should be off limits at this point.

It is surely a likely trigger for you and is questionable at any time in my opinion

This is a failure to show remorse. Remorse is not feeling sorry for what you did. To be remorseful, the WS needs truly understanding the pain that their actions have caused, and do everything in their power to make the BS feel safe and confident, that nothing is currently happening, and that nothing is going to happen again.

Right now, your "safety" comes from your PI tracking your wife like a dog and look what it uncovered; A harmless lunch meeting with a male colleague. I don't at all question that it was harmless. I trust that it was. But a spouse who is truly remorseful, would have seen that situation as possibly looking bad, and at a minimum, told you about it, and asked if it was acceptable. Given how recent D-Day was, cancellation was probably warranted.

That lunch meeting may also point to issues your wife may have with accepting certain invitations from men. Its certainly possible that while your wife's motives were not sinister, maybe her lunch dates motive were not so innocent. Remember, the current mess started with a simple private conversation with a neighbor.

None of this is horrible. Remorse takes time. This just points out some boundaries that you may need to discuss with your wife now (no private meetings, even in public) and in MC.

BTW, I think you mentioned getting the same IC as your wife. With MC, you speak to the same person, usually together but it could be separate at times. IC should just be between you and the therapist. In IC everything is said in confidence. If a single therapist met with both partners for IC, your therapist could not guarantee that something said by one partner would not accidentally be revealed to the other. They can not effectively help both spouses at the same time.

Good Luck!

Yeah having one on one conversations over lunch with male colleagues is not being a safe partner.

She should at the very least communicate with you who she is having lunch with. That way you can confirm it with the PI.

Having one on one conversations with a male neighbor is how this whole thing started. It’s not inconceivable that she could transfer the relationship to another man. I don’t think she is but she no longer deserves trust in that area.

You need to be clear with boundaries.

Otherwise things seem to be good.

I’m so sorry you find yourself here x

Hi SBS,

I think you are doing very well. There was a book that I wanted to recommend, but Ripped62 wrote so well about it in a post in another thread that I am going to defer to him, and paste what was written, because I cannot better it.

1) How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald

She should start with How to "Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair." It is a short read. It will take 40 to 45 minutes and provides a road map out of infidelity. It costs $10. You should read it as well.

The 15 points from Linda MacDonald's book that are a minimum for a wayward spouse to be doing in order to help you heal:

Successful Rebuilders:

• are non defensive

• examine their motives for their affairs, without blaming their spouses

• accept their roles as healers to their wounded partners

• do not resist breaking off all contact with the affair partner

• show genuine contrition and remorse for what they have done

• make amends and apologize to loved ones

• apologize often, especially the first two years

• listen with patience and validate their spouses’ pain

• allow their spouses a lot of room to express their feelings

• respect the betrayed spouse’s timetable for recovering

• seek to assure spouses of their love and commitment to fidelity

• keep no secrets

• do not maintain close ties with those who condoned the affair

• are willing to be extremely accountable for their time and activities

• frequently check in with spouses as to how they are doing

• are aware of and anticipate triggers of the affair

• are willing to get rid of hurtful reminders of the affair

• don’t minimize the damage the affair had on the children

• commit themselves to a long-term plan for recovery, honesty, and spiritual growth

You know, the monitoring gives you an incredible insight that so many of us would have liked. Good for you. It seems like your WW genuinely does see what she was on the verge of destroying.

Make her - and let her - win you back, bit by bit.

Make her - and let her - win you back, bit by bit.

The emphasis is something I added to M1965's excellent sentence. "let her" to me means allowing a path back to you; it is the opposite of burning all bridges. You lose nothing as far as options if you allow the possibility for her do the necessary work to return to you. In large part she has to find her way and be willing to do the work to get back to you.

IMO, that path back has to be pretty carefully crafted. The path back has waypoints that are the things you need to judge whether her actions in returning to you are the "right" path; the right path meaning those things you need to feel safer, less vulnerable. A path that isn't carefully constructed can have all sorts of dead ends/shortcuts that lead to things like rugsweeping and weak reconciliation.

Stung it has been almost a month since your last post, could you give us an update ? how's our WW ? did you compare notes/communicated with OBS again ? confronted OM ? if so, what was his version of the A ? will you have your WW take a polygraph on EA vs PA (kissing, bj, hj, groping, intercourse, cyber sex, phone sex, sexting) ?