SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm truly in belief that the affair is over. I have a phone now that replicates her phone

She can.. buy another phone.

What you believe doesn't really matter, only the facts. Facts hurt. Facts are unpleasant. The sex is really irrelevant but cheaters when caught will minimize.

Your only problem is why she did it and why when the dust settles down if you forgive her she will not do it again...it may not be an affair, maybe she meets someone and has a ONS.

Point is none of this stuff is meant to antagonise or make you feel bad. You'll get pretty straight shooters who've dealt with all the nonsense in their own lives and tend to shift through the flowery bs.

You may have the model sorry wife. Time will tell.

You need to EXPOSE the to All family and close friends, find out who else knew about the A, if some of her friends knew about it, they were enablers and not friends of the M, they also have to go, another consequence of her betrayal. EXPOSE A with OBS (if any), have your wife on speaker phone, apologize to OBS and tell her the details, she knows who OBS is and how to contact her at home or work, if she refuses to expose OM then she's protecting him and choosing him over the M and your feelings and please have her tested for STDs and a pregnancy test TODAY before you resume sex, most A partners do not use protection and even so, it's not 100% proof plus other diseases like Hepatitis can be contracted by saliva.

I understand your concern about TT, tell her to include all details of the A in her timeline, that she only has one chance, and tell her she's going to be submitted to a polygraph, you may even get the infamous "parking lot confession" right before the test. You seem to be doing a good job so far, but do not offer R so soon, there's till a LOT you don't know, there were lots of ILYs between them, maybe inside jokes about you, and much more.

Have you asked her WHY she decided to have an affair and WILLINGLY spread her legs for OM ? DO not settle for the classical "I don't know" "I wasn't thinking", Yes she was thinking a Lot on how to hide her A. Watch for a "Burner Phone" (more common than you think), look in her car and around the house.

UD,

You seem to have taken some decisive steps and that will be very good for your long term recovery - how ever that recovery shapes itself. In the meantime, you wanted to know how to act around your wife. I would suggest a detached but collegial approach. Don't be mean or say things you would regret, but long talks and crying and showing of emotion are NOT your friend at this stage. Because she is NOT truly over her affair yet. And you need to protect yourself.

May I also suggest that in addition to following through with a divorce attorney consultation, get STD tested (full panel now and followup in six months), insist she does the same (and if pregnancy is possible... Seek IC for yourself. Seriously, it takes time and finding a good one will take effort, but it is VERY MUCH worth it, even though you sound like you are squared away.

Finally, detachment and protection of yourself and things important to you (health, wealth, children, etc) allows you the freedom of time. You need not make decisions until you feel comfortable with them.

Good luck. We are here for you brother.

Many more pieces of helpful advice. I thank you all sincerely and I want to reach out and hug each and every one of you that has gone through this. You are an amazing, unique, powerful, sincere, and dedicated individual who doesn't deserve what happened. Let us hope that we can find happiness in the future, in whatever form it takes.

Regarding some messages, I have seen an IC (I made an appt. the minute I started looking through the texts, so I went next day), and I did have an STD screening. I will have her take on ASAP as well.

Telling a few friends was helpful as well, so to anyone reading this in the future, DO IT. Tell some people. It helps. They will care about you, even if it's an old friend you haven't talked to in years.

The AP/OM is unmarried, so unfortunately there is no one to tell on that side. He was not a "friend of the marriage", so to speak, and so we have almost no acquaintances in common. This is a typical scenario, I'm sure.

I am considering reaching out to some friends of his who I know did know about the Affair and never told me. I'm not close with them, however. Is this a bad idea?

I think reaching out to those people is a good idea. Like, "What the Hell? Why didn't you tell me this was going on? What do you know?"

I agree with the posters here. Very rarely do you get the whole story in just 3 days. What you get is panic that they are going to lose their marriage and will be tossed out and shamed

They justify not telling everything under the guise of not wanting to hurt you any more than you have been already.

I would show her software that goes back and revives deleted texts and conversations. I would give her one last chance to come clean. Tell her if anything doesn’t match her story there is no second chances. Often the fear of that is enough to open the vault.

Good luck, I know how you are hurting

It sounds like you have a level head and have been acting decisively. I will echo what a few other posters have said:

Take steps to protect yourself regardless of if this ends in reconciliation or divorce. Avoid getting caught up in the emotion and treat all interactions with your wife as an 'arms length' transaction. Consult with a lawyer so you are educated on what divorce, seperating, custody and estate division/support obligations look like in your state.

For the time being it is safer to assume that your wife is not telling you all the details. Hopefully she is and can start earning back some credibility. But that seems to be a rare event in infidelity...

The conversation I had with my fww after everything blew up went basically along the lines of 'you need to tell me the truth and fully answer my question. I am not promising that telling the truth will stop me from divorcing you and depending on whatbI find out I may very well divorce you. What I am promising is if I evervfind out that you lied, minimized, left things out, or was otherwise less than truthful in your answer I will absolutely divorce."

If you decide to go the reconciliation route - you may want to explore if post-nups are valid and enforceable in your state. It will not prevent future infidelity but will simplify any future dissolution of the marriage. Remember you are moving forward with a partner that has proven they are high risk. If there is a way to minimize the impact on you, it is worth exploring.

Don't forget to bring up the post-nup when you see the lawyer. Protect yourself in case this ever happens again and in case you find out more truth later and need to follow through on your promise.

You should be very careful.

She is a liar and a cheater. The only way to be sure about her is even time. And to be honest with you, even then it is hard to ever know.

You have to understand these cheaters have a game plan. There is a reddit subforum where they share secrets on everything. They strategize and they even study the advice given on SI and talkaboutmarriage forums.

Some of those cheaters have no plans on leaving their significant others. So I say be careful when you run into a spouse who seems like an expert at reconciliation.

Post-nup is not something I had considered, thank you for bringing that up. I will definitely discuss that with the attorney.

It sounds like there's a good consensus around keeping an arms length. I've been trying to do that, as well as see things from a logical perspective. I will admit, it can be hard.

Is it really too early to have deep discussions about why? I have so many questions and need to know. She is ready to talk.

It's always best to rip the band-aid off and get everything out on the table as soon as possible. If you need answers and she's ready to talk, go for it. Just remember to brace yourself for the worst. Writing your questions down first will help you to remember as it's likely that you're going to forget things during the conversation. Also jotting notes and followup questions as you go allows her to talk without interruption and again helps you to avoid missing things. Strength to you.

The good thing is that you found this place so quickly. She has known that she was having an affair for at least three months, you found out 3 days ago.

I was long divorced by the time I found SI and I did most things wrong. You re doing very well, but way to early to decide anything.

You will have more and more questions for her as time goes by.

•Are the any more A in her past, any almost A?

•Are there odd unexplained purchases?

•The true number of times they had sex - magic 8 ball says she is lying about once. Some folks don;'t consider oral to be sex. Do you ? Does that matter?

•When she was away, was it practical or possible for OM to meet her.

•Do you feel you need to DNA the kids, even if the answer is no it will show her how deeply she has broken the marriage and your trust.

•STD test you need to see the original report or be there when the Dr. tells her if on the phone. Also because she lost your trust.

•Let her know that your are talking to an attorney, you can begin the D and pause or cancel any time and if she knows that you do what you say this will show her how damn serious you are about D.

•For R she needs to win you back not the other way around.

•No matter what the roller coaster does in the next few weeks keep posting, there are thousands of people in your corner.

There are some heavy hitters who will soon see your post, and offer help, take what need but not all the advice is good fro your situation. Hang in there bro!

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 6:12 PM, August 3rd (Friday)]

First off, sorry you are here. But given the circumstances you are doing great. You have taken concrete steps. You have set some boundries and expectations. No indications from your posts of any needy or co-dependent behaviour. No "pick me" dancing. Kudos. Well done.

How can she possibly reverse this quickly?

This phenomena is very interesting. How to they go from star crossed lovers and soulmates...to "he meant nothing. I always loved you. I was never going to leave you. You mean everything to me. I will spend the rest of my life making it up to you" etc etc.

Its like they are in a raft with you. They see another one nearby and decide it looks better, more interesting, whatever. So they put a foot in this new raft. Distributing her physical, emotional, sexual weight. Then the new raft suddenly deflates (getting caught). She pulls that leg back quickly and now has both feet back, she is now "all in" (crying, begging, promises etc)

She is not the first. We see it quite often.

There may be more you do not know. And if so it will be revealed in time. As far as nitty gritty details go, some people need them, some do not. No right or wrong there, its a personal preference.

I would just suggest that you get and maintian emotional, and as much as possible physical distance from her. There are many questions you need to ask yourself.

-Can I live with what she has done?

-Can I be ok spending the rest of my life with this person?

-What will my future look like, financially, emotionally, with or without her?

-Am I willing to spend the next few years mate guarding or checking on her communications/whereabouts?

And about a 1000 other questions. You need time and space to process this. Her presence can be a trigger, or a distraction. Also many WW will attempt to manipulate their BH with sex. Usually under the guise of "re-connecting" or some such pretense. Just be aware of this possibility.

Again you are doing very well. Keep posting if you feel its beneficial.

Is it really too early to have deep discussions about why? I have so many questions and need to know. She is ready to talk.

If she has an answer to "why" 3 days in, my head will explode. This is probably going to piss off some posters, but, I think you're looking at from your point of view. In a lot of cases, the "why" for a guy is real simple. It's just not that way for a lot of women. It's not "have more sex" or "sex with someone new", it's frankly often a jumbled up mess that sounds something like "I didn't think you loved me" "He made me feel seen", and some other stuff that will literally (still doesn't to me, 20 months or so out) make 0 sense to you. Honestly, I think a lot of WS's never really figure out a "why"? Nothing that will make sense to you anyway, if my wife said "I was horny, he offered, I did it" that would be awful, but it would make sense. What she says, and what most WS's say, sadly, I just don't think you'll understand it (I know I don't).

The why comes later, IMHO. The "what" is the focus now (which sounds like your satisfied with) and then the "how" comes next, making sure it doesn't happen again or isn't still happening (opening her e-mail/phone, tracking her, reading her e-mails, etc). The "why" is probably the last question to get answered for a lot of female affairs, I honestly don't know if I'll ever get a "why" that makes sense from my wife.

Thanks again for the sound advice. I'll continue taking these questions under consideration, so I greatly appreciate the comments.

I have 0 doubt that our children are mine. However, I know that I need to ensure she understands how broken our trust is; I don't think anything would make it more apparent than if I took that step. My only reservation is that it might make it seems like that matters to me at this point. I would still be their father no matter the results, and still love them more than life itself.

I've been considering having her stay at a hotel for at least a few days so I can examine my own life in peace. I'm sure many of you will agree this is a good idea.

I'll be probing some of these questions tonight and tomorrow. Please keep posting, I am still reading.

Again, peace and strength to all of you.

Three months ago, my wife made a friend. About a month later I started to get a bad feeling;

I don't know if this was explained. How do married women become friends with single guys?

Where? How? Did they meet? At work, Starbucks, Target, Gym, Bible study?

[This message edited by MickeyBill2016 at 6:49 PM, August 3rd (Friday)]

Questioning if your children are really yours will impress on her the gravity of the situation and the severity of your broken trust. It's important she grasps how absolutely serious this is.

We don’t know how it started, but you do. Look at the how, the why, the where, the when. Something took her over the boundary that should have been strong enough and high enough to stop her.

My question is why, after what appeared to be a happy marriage, she felt compelled to cheat. I know several women who did and they all cheated because they never felt connected to their husbands. The cheating was their way out of their marriages. This does not appear to be the case with your wife so getting to the bottom of why is so important.

I think you need IC as a place to grieve and rant and cry. She needs it to look at how she gave herself permission to cheat.

Unfortunately if she stays at a hotel there is a non-zero chance that she finds a way to contact her boyfriend.

It really comes down to how much you want to play defense. You could always have her stay in a hotel and have a PI tag her for a few days. Atleast then you’d know.

You are doing well but you seem too confident that they only had sex once. We do not know the facts but if she was away how do you know they did not meet up? Cheaters can be very creative and well organised and will put more into the affair than they ever did the marriage.

Her instant remorse is very good if it is genuine but that seems very unlikely. It is more likely it is well rehearsed, which is a worry as that meant she was determined enough to continue with the affair even fearing exposure.

It is also worrying that she continued to deny and I presume continue with the affair, albeit emotional, after you suspected. That would be a near deal breaker for me.

We are given few details or background so it is hard to give sound advice on your particular circumstances but yes in the vast majority of cases cheaters continue to lie after discovery.

I too would be very uncomfortable with her staying in a hotel where the temptation to make contact would be great. She would be better with a close relative who knows all the relevant facts or you leave. I know it is her fault but to me it is safer that way.

I think you need:

- a PI if she does leave as Sharkman advised

- to give her one final chance to come clean on the basis you will insist she takes a Poly. If she resists then you have your answer.

- to understand that the advice from experienced posters is more likely to be accurate than your own judgement at this stage.

Good luck.