SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thanks for the update CBM123. For your sake I really hope that your wife has been completely truthful about her infidelity and that she is genuinely remorseful and fully dedicated to helping you heal. If you believe that she's on the right path and you believe that being with her rather than without is the better option for your personal happiness, then I wish the best for you both.

As far as the memory lapses go, you might leave it as she tells you when she remembers something. I was frustrated when my WH couldn’t remember things, but he did tell me when a memory came up later. Things that are significant to you now might not have been significant enough to your WW to keep fresh in her head all those years. I’m not saying quit asking, just that some of your answers might come to her at odd moments in the future. Some questions might never be answered, just because it happened so long ago.

Not sure how great of an idea it was for you to show her this place. Now anything you post is open game for her. Makes it really easy to give you what you say you expect here w/o actually doing it on her own.

CMB

I’m rooting for you both. I can tell others here are as well.

And you are getting good and varied advice from excellent posters here. It’s important you hear all aspects of what people have experienced from infidelity. Use their wealth of knowledge to create your own plan forward out of infidelity. With or without your WW.

I dont know if I missed someone saying it, but three key things struck me as important so I want to mention them to you.

1- I think it’s important to know how your wife feels about her actions back then. Is she hurt by them as well? Does she think fondly about that time or does she painfully wish she could go back and time and tell that young woman who she was to really think about what she is doing to the man she loves. Honestly if she wanted to experiment with others she should have moved out first and let you know she wasn’t ready for the type of commitment you had. So maybe asking her how her actions affect her today, and how she looks back on that time, would be a good discussion to have together. Does she stand next to you and feel the same hurt and anger you feel how those choices she made have and will affect your relationship?

2- does she understand the pain you are feeling. Can you tell if she feels your hurt. Or does she also think you should just get over it. A truly remorseful WS would be telling you she understands if this is a deal breaker for you. She would be telling you that you have every right to leave hear if it would help you find happiness. It’s ok for her not to want D herself, but she should want you to make the choice that’s best for you, especially since she made a horrible choice that affected you without your concent all those years ago.

3- ask her directly to honestly tell you if she had feelings for this man. Remind her that only honesty counts. Even if she says yes she might have for a short time, I wouldn’t see it as a deal breaker. She could have been confused at the time but then realized who her true love was and went NC with him when she left the job. The important part is that if you are going to take the time and work thru this pain, you might as well know the whole truth you need to work past. Make sure she knows she should tell you now so nothing trickles out later after you’ve already started reconciling.

So can you tell if she truly shares your pain with you and is devastated by how her actions have hurt the man she loves?

She should in no way be rushing you to make a decision. She should be letting go of that outcome and leaving it as your choice. And unlike the others in your life, who obviously don’t understand the effects of infidelity, she should in no way be pushing you to “just get over it”. The pain is real and she should be acknowledging it.

Lastly I want to share a bit of my experience with you. I don’t know if it will help. If it doesn’t, just discard it.

But I had the same thing happen to me over 30 years ago. Same GF that was a year older and graduated a year ahead of me. We had been dating about 6 months when she went on a week trip with a friend to Hawaii and slept twice with a guy. We were in a committed relationship by then, but were not living together. A few weeks after getting back she confessed and I forgave her.

I want you to know I would have still married her just based on that. The one time before marriage I felt she committed after that moment and we probably eventually would have married anyway. Then 18 months later, weeks away from me proposing, I caught we her in a lie and she confessed to the cheating again with someone she had introduced me too in her grad class. And this time she had feelings for him. She Asked if she could date both of us for a while.

I was devastated and it was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t want to marry a woman that was sleeping and had feelings for another man. So I left. Told her to go be with him. That I couldn’t be with her anymore.

Almost a year later I found my partner in life whom I’ve been with for 30 years.

My point being, if it was just the one person, and a few years before you were married, even if you knew you might have still married her at the time and had the same great marriage you thought you had today.

So while it’s shitty her not telling you, and you should take all the time you need, under her encouragement, in order to heel, you may not have chosen to leave her once you found out.

However, if there were others after that, and you found out, you most likely would have ended things before asking for her hand in marriage. So make sure you are absolutely sure it was just the one when you are having honest talks with her.

I know you will take your time going forward and not let anyone pressure you into forgetting it all without working thru the pain. I’m glad you are both now in IC. You each need to do that work before coming together in MC.

You own this CBM. The outcome is yours and you should carefully work it so you get what YOU need in the end. If that includes her in your life, great. If it doesn’t, as I said above, she should support you in your decision because a truly remorseful WS should want happiness for you even at the expense of what she wants.

Good luck.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 12:39 AM, November 4th (Sunday)]

Stevesn - Thanks for the advice and sharing your story. Your story is what I am terrified of happening, that I trust her too much and I either find some new adultery or she commits more in the future. That would crush me.

Last night, I finally laid down the law and set out parameters for her of what I need, and laid out consequences if I don't get it. I told her I want her written timeline done by Friday, and that I am completely done with the lying/half-truths/omissions that have plagued her confessions. She is then going to get a poly next week to confirm timeline and confirm no other cheating or lies.

I said to her, "you will fail this polygraph test if you keep lying to me now. An omission is a lie. You don't get to decide for me anymore what is "safe" for me to hear. Tell me everything, in all the details, or I will leave you when you fail this poly."

I told her that if she fails the poly, I will "divorce in place" for the kids sake, but that I will truly divorce her and she will have to earn me back, or I will move out after a year and be totally done. I also told her that if I choose to reconcile, she will be signing a post-nupital that gives me full custody of the kids and no financial obligation to her in the event of more infidelity.

She gets very shaken when I talk about divorce and especially taking full custody of our kids, but she remains steadfast that she isn't withholding info and the only things she may have withheld "by accident" would be details about events. I find it laughable that these accidental omissions are always details that paint her in a worse light - i.e., "oh god, I do remember that I said to him that I had been waiting for him to make this move for a long time. Why did I say that? I didn't mean it. I'm sorry I didn't think of that before." And I take the stomach punch, and don't lash out, because I want all the details, but I die a little bit more inside.

I feel better and much more confident/in-control having made the ultimatum and deciding 100% to do the polygraph. I also feel like she now truly understands that I will leave her and that she cannot lie, even by omission or half-truths, without suffering serious consequences.

To your questions:

1- I think it’s important to know how your wife feels about her actions back then. Is she hurt by them as well? Does she think fondly about that time or does she painfully wish she could go back and time and tell that young woman who she was to really think about what she is doing to the man she loves. Honestly if she wanted to experiment with others she should have moved out first and let you know she wasn’t ready for the type of commitment you had. So maybe asking her how her actions affect her today, and how she looks back on that time, would be a good discussion to have together. Does she stand next to you and feel the same hurt and anger you feel how those choices she made have and will affect your relationship?

She is very hurt by her actions, this much I can tell. She uses the word "disgusted" a lot and I think she really can't believe she did what she did, that she feels like it was a different person that did it. She says that while it was happening, she would feel absolutely terrible while around me or by herself, but that once she was around him she would enter this "trance" and be infatuated with him and the rush of the affair, then immediately go back to feeling like shit after doing the deed. I think I do believe her on this, her recollections and emotions seems real when she tells me about it.

2- does she understand the pain you are feeling. Can you tell if she feels your hurt. Or does she also think you should just get over it. A truly remorseful WS would be telling you she understands if this is a deal breaker for you. She would be telling you that you have every right to leave hear if it would help you find happiness. It’s ok for her not to want D herself, but she should want you to make the choice that’s best for you, especially since she made a horrible choice that affected you without your concent all those years ago.

She is coming around on this, but at first I felt like she did not understand my pain and the hurt she caused. She admits to being totally unprepared for my reaction and she said she thoughts that since I knew "she cheated already", I would take the news better than I have. Needless to say, her lie about a one-time kiss is a whole lot different then carrying on a sexual affair for months. She does understand how I feel now and reading the books and articles I think has helped her a lot. I wish it came to her more organically, but I can't be mad about her trying to improve.

3- ask her directly to honestly tell you if she had feelings for this man. Remind her that only honesty counts. Even if she says yes she might have for a short time, I wouldn’t see it as a deal breaker. She could have been confused at the time but then realized who her true love was and went NC with him when she left the job. The important part is that if you are going to take the time and work thru this pain, you might as well know the whole truth you need to work past. Make sure she knows she should tell you now so nothing trickles out later after you’ve already started reconciling.

So can you tell if she truly shares your pain with you and is devastated by how her actions have hurt the man she loves?

She has admitted to me that she had feelings for the guy. I shared above how she told me that she said to him, "I have been waiting for you to do this for a long time". She also met with him sober at least once (she's admitted one time), they got lunch and went back to his place for sex. She believe this is the last time they had a sexual encounter, and she says she remembers feeling the most intense guilt and shame during and after this encounter. I get the sense that this sober interaction was the one where she realized he was nothing special and not worth ruining her life over.

It was very clearly an emotional and physical affair. She swears to me that she did not love him and did not say "I love you" to him, she says she was 22 or 23 and just infatuated with the thrill of it and taken by the affection and attention he showed her. Her excuses are "I was lonely (she had just moved cross country to be with me six months or so prior and was having trouble making friends), I wanted attention, I was super immature, I drank and smoked too much, I had no self control, I was selfish." Obviously nothing excuses what she did, but these reasons to help paint the picture of how it unfolded for me.

She does share my pain to an extent, but I think the years between the affair and now have dulled her feelings on it a bit and makes it difficult for me to feel that she has true remorse. I think she had to convince herself it was less than it was in order to lie to me for so long about it.

Of course, the fact that so much time has passed and it being so difficult for her to piece together the memories is entirely her own fault and of her own making. I've told her, "if you fail the poly simply because your memories are jumbled and you can't tell truth from fiction, that's your own god damn fault. You could have told me before we got married, but you didn't."

So here I am today, still not sure what I want in the future and still shattered by what happened in the past. I look at my wife and I feel love, and attraction, and desire - the urge to just forgive and move on is almost overwhelming sometimes. But then I think long and hard about what she did and about how I would feel if I found it she did it again, and I can't live what that possibility.

I need to get to a place where I know or believe in my heart that she never strayed again, and then I can forgive this monumental fuck up from over a decade ago that she carried into our marriage and allowed to poison our life. I'll never be the same and neither will our relationship, but I think I could feel that our marriage is worth saving and that it can still be a great marriage moving forward.

Things that make me feel better and want to reconcile

- It happened so long ago and (if I believe her, which I think I do) she never cheated again

- She voluntarily confessed

- She's been a great wife and mother

- She broke off all contact with the OM

- I love her and am still immensely attracted to her, and I genuinely don't think I would find a better person to be with

Things that bother me and make me fear more bad news/failed reconciliation

- She lied for so long and lied so effectively, lying to me while I cried about what I thought she did

- The fact that she is still lying by omission and trickle-truthing me about details

- The fact that I have absolutely no records from this time in our life and can't verify anything

- The fact that she is gorgeous and guys flirt with her a lot naturally, and she has had other situations where she has (successfully) turned down advances. I am jealous by nature and this is difficult for me to deal with even without knowing what she did.

- That my principles strongly push me to want her to suffer just consequences for her actions.

I don't understand why you say she's been "a great mother" and yet you make threats to try and take her children away from her. If I were her, I'd have booked an attorney within 24 business hours of that threat leaving your lips. And I would NEVER forget that you'd said it.

Yeah, I get that you got hurt. Guess what? So, have all the rest of us. That's why we're here. But there truly are ways to make your situation worse, and you appear to be finding them.

Excuse me? The only "threat" I made was that I will require her to sign a post-nup that protects me and my family if she becomes a serial cheater. I really can't believe you would say what you just said. I didn't threaten to "take her kids away", I threatened to become the primary caregiver in the event I have to divorce her due to repeated infidelity.

How easy for you to be high and mighty about me "finding ways to make things worse". I want nothing more than to make things better and I've been doing my best to accomplish that in the most difficult time of my life.

I'll also add that I am new to anything relating to divorce or custody, so when I say "full custody" I mean the kids would stay with me primarily and she would have visitation rights. Not that she would never see the kids.

I also don't expect this to ever happen - I just want her to be committed enough to our marriage and to her controlling her behavior that she would feel comfortable signing it knowing it would never need to be executed.

First, Chamomile tea knows first hand that none of this is easy.

Second, if she truly doesn't remember anything that she doesn't include on the timeline,or told you about prior to the polygraph, she will pass that question. Polygraphs determine lies. Truly nor remembering isn't a lie. Prior to the test,she should give you a complete, detailed timeline. Tell her to make sure every single thing she remembers is on it. One of the polygraph a should be, " Are there details about the affair that you've purposely withheld from your husband?"

And, "Other than the man your husband knows about, have you had any sexual contact with anyone else during the entirety of your relationship with your husband?"

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:49 AM, November 4th (Sunday)]

Thank you Hellfire, those are excellent suggestions for questions. I have told her the questions I expect to ask are:

1. Have you lied or withheld information from your husband in regard to your affair with Brian?

2. Have you lied or withheld information from your husband about any sexual contact with any other person?

3. Have you knowingly hidden information from your husband that would lead to the discovery of illicit activities on your behalf?

I have told her that not remembering is not lying, but that fudging memory or omitting information is lying. For instance, I asked her if she felt like she lied to me when she first confessed and she said "no". I then recounted probably many ways that she omitted information or told half-truths, and asked again if she felt like she lied. She said, "I told you what I thought you needed to hear. I didn't lie about the rest, I just didn't know you wanted to hear it."

I can kind of understand that, but the issue I have is that over these two weeks I have asked her over and over again for the whole truth and it just keeps trickling, one little piece at a time. That excuse doesn't hold true any longer. I told her, "is it worth withholding one more ugly detail when I already know so much of the ugliness, especially when it may cost us our marriage? Please, just tell me whole honest truth, as much as you can remember, and let's make sure you pass this polygraph."

Here are example of the lies/half-truths/omissions I have dealt with:

1. She initially made it sound like the first time they had sex was spontaneous, when in reality she consciously got in a car with him to go to his apartment specifically for sex.

2. She initially told me she had no feelings for him, that the sex was just "available" and it made her feel better. She has since admitted having feelings for him.

3. She neglected to tell me of a 4th interaction in him, in which she remembers giving him a blowjob and taking a shower with him. She has told me this was when she was sober, and why it was so painful to recall. She maintains that she can't remember if they had sex during this interaction, but I feel like you would not take a shower unless you did. It makes no sense otherwise and frustrates me she can't/won't remember.

4. She didn't tell me until very recently that the sober interaction started with a lunch date, not an impromptu thing at their work. It was truly an emotional affair. She just disclosed this yesterday or the day before.

5. She gave me some "good examples" of her turning down advances from men and made it seem like they came out of nowhere. However, upon questioning, it became clear that she put herself in some really shitty situations that she should have known (or did know) was leading a guy on. It hurts to know that even after the affair, she continued "playing with fire" by spending time along with other men and letting them drive her home drunk from parties when she could have called me. It makes me doubt that nothing happened, but she has remained firm in her denial of any further infidelity.

6. Various small details - things she said, things she did - that paint her in a worse light and more active in the affair, then just passive as she first made it seem.

Dear CBM123,

I know you are new to this process and it is my opinion you are handling the situation as best as you can. We are here to help you and not condemn with a non-constructive critical tongue. HellFire has responded with a good post; in which I concur. Move forward in the way you think is necessary to find peace. We are here to help!!!

Best,

Bigheart

The only "threat" I made was that I will require her to sign a post-nup that protects me and my family if she becomes a serial cheater.

So, what's your plan if she refuses to sign it? Are you willing to file for divorce and fight for primary custody of your kids? That's the corner you've painted yourself into. So now, she either signs it under duress (which most likely wouldn't hold up in court anyway) or you're forced to escalate in order to make good on your ultimatum. Either way, instead of fomenting emotional intimacy, you've created an adversarial environment which is not necessary when dealing with a repentant WS.

I don't disagree with your points, but good lord you could really work on your delivery. Do you know how much it sucks being here for support and being told by someone that you're "making things worse" and that my WS should leave me? Truly awful to hear.

I am TRYING MY BEST to do the right thing and protect myself. Some ideas may be flawed and this one probably was, but it felt like an appropriate consequence at the time. My wife did not yell & scream or threaten to leave me, she cried a little and said she would do whatever it takes. It HELPED me to hear that.

Just so you know post-nups do not cover child custody or support.

...it felt like an appropriate consequence at the time...

Consequence or punishment?

One of the first things I realized after my WH's adulterous Craigslist binge was that punishment and reconciliation were not compatible. After 30 years of marriage, he had cheated with multiple partners for nearly a year and he had done this with a cold deliberation which even now seems impossible to comprehend. He had destroyed everything we had; every memory, every holiday tainted. Hell, he'd even spent my birthday that year screwing a troll and then handing me a card that evening which read "hope you find your happy place". Not only did I discover all of the incriminating emails, but I had photographic and video images burned into my brain.

So, yeah... I understand pain.

That said, I still had to differentiate between consequences and punishment very quickly after DDay. I came out of the gate swinging for the fence on divorce. That's the natural consequence of adultery, and it was everything he could do to slow me down. Once I became open to reconciliation though, I realized that it's completely incompatible with punishment. IOW, I had to accept that there could be no punishment for him which didn't also punish me.

In our pain and shock, we can exacerbate an already bad situation. You can't take a punishment back. Done is done at that point. If, however, there's a natural consequence for the perfidy which has been inflicted on you, be sure it's one which makes sense to you and which furthers your goals.

CMB

Thanks for answering my questions and commenting on my posts so completely. I do think you are doing well and being thoughtful and listening to all our comments and trying to understand the path you have in front of you.

No one here has had an EASY time with infidelity. Know that you are not alone and unique in what you are experiencing.

And thank you for the full responses. I actually triggered a little bit when reading your story. Not be cause I miss my old GF one bit, but because I remember those days 30 years ago when I was getting half truths and didn’t full trust what I was being told. How painful it was to look someone I loved in the eye and feeling that she was not all in as my partner in life and I was being let down by someone I cared for so much and realized that the person i wanted to spend a life with was never going to be a safe partner for me.

As an addendum, she came back to me 6 months later, cheated on her AP back with me for a week and asked to come back. But just looking at what she was doing I saw a life full of pain and infidelity in front of me. I let her go for the last time and it was truly the right decision.

As for you and your WW, the key is continuing to impress on her how important the truth is. Tell her if she really loves you she will give you the gift of the truth after years of her lies. That even if it means she’s going to lose you she owes you the truth. She needs to realize she has to let go of the outcome. Only focus on giving you what you need. That if she and you Reconcile on half truths and omissions you are doomed to repeat this pain and anguish.

TBH, even if she told me she had physical relations with one of these 2nd or 3rd guys you mention I still might try to reconcile and move forward with this woman, especially if she changed her ways after marriage.

I do think my exGF was a good person back in the 80s when this all went down for me. She was just not ready to make a decision on me, and she was not mature enough at 23 to see how her actions affected anyone else. I don’t think you have a wrong decision in front of you, just a difficult one.

As for your approach with her, just think it thru in light of what people are telling you. You are able to modify how you want to handle things going forward. It’s totally your prerogative. No one is an expert at handling infidelity.

I can’t remember if you are each in IC, but finding one that has an expertise in infidelity is paramount.

Keep posting, you are doing well.

CBM123: I think you're doing a good job of working through your trauma. Practice the 180 to the extent you need it to create space to clear your head. As to advice here on SI, take what you can use and leave the rest.

The picture that is emerging from your WW is about what I expected. Waywards always minimize. She is used to lying to you about the A. Lying is her default. So telling the truth is going to require a change from her.

In the long run, I think what will make a big difference for you is the quality of your relationship since deciding to get married. Have they been good years?

I recognize that she lied to you about this back when it occurred, and as you are learning, it was a big lie. And she has continued to lie to you about it for years. Very selfish of her. But is she otherwise selfish in your relationship? Is she a giver or a taker? In other words, did she lie because she truly loved you and wanted to be in a giving, sharing relationship with you? Or did she lie to you because she is a cake-eater who continued having her way in the relationship?

Also, I think it's important to figure out why she wanted sex with this guy while living with you. I realize she said she was lonely from having moved, etc., but you mentioned she is beautiful. Beautiful women are beleaguered for sex, all the time. She decided to have sex with this specific guy, for a reason, and it wasn't merely loneliness. You were her Plan B, at least for a time.

In other words, did she lie because she truly loved you and wanted to be in a giving, sharing relationship with you? Or did she lie to you because she is a cake-eater who continued having her way in the relationship?

She did say that she only confessed because she felt the marriage was strong enough that he wouldn't leave her. That means that having the relationship was more important to her than treating her husband with honesty and respect.

Hi CBM,

“I have asked her to write out a timeline. She is working on it, but she is holding firm in her "memory lapses" and gets very discouraged when I say I don't believe her on these.”

That is a double-edged sword, isn’t it? It is possible that your genuinely cannot remember some things, but as betrayed people, we default to thinking that it is a desire to hide something. If we are realistic about it, there are going to be some gaps that your wife will never be able to recall. If you put too much pressure on her, she may make something up. So sometimes, if we have pushed with perseverance, we may have to accept that “I just don’t remember” may be true.

“She has asked me to include a question about her memory on the polygraph (i.e., "have you been lying about what you remember") as she feels strongly she will be vindicated on this. It does help me believe her.”

I think that is a good idea.

“I don't really believe in polygraphs and I am a little worried of her having take it. I feel there is no good outcome - I won't believe a good outcome, and a bad outcome would be catastrophic (and not even reliable)”

The part about you not believing a good outcome is very insightful of you. I think you are probably in a state of shock, as many of us are when we are hit by an unpleasant revelation.

We can all get into a mind-set where the only things we believe is the bad stuff. It is perfectly natural to get into that state of mind, but please – for both your sakes – recognise that it can become a self-made trap.

We can set a situation up where even if we have 100% of the truth, we will never believe that, and we drive ourselves crazy pushing for something that we already have. I have done that myself.

The way I deal with that tendency in myself is to set a date that becomes the end of my ‘investigative’ period. At the end of it, I accept that what I have is as good as it is going to get, and I can move on to the next stage of the process. I find this approach very helpful, because it gives me control over something that might otherwise have me running on the spot endlessly, like a hamster in its exercise wheel.

If I didn’t set an end date, I could stall at that stage, and be forever smashing away at something in the belief that there was more that will be revealed if I keep digging.

If you get caught in that trap, it will be exhausting for both of you, and prevent you from getting to a better place. So please consider setting a date by which you say to yourself, “I have enough details to have a picture of what happened. I now have to process them, to make sure there are no issues that might pop up again to cause trouble in future”.

“I have no doubt that at the time, she only stopped because of being caught. This bothers me, but the reality is that she did stop and worrying about what would have happened otherwise doesn't matter.”

I think that is the best approach to it. Many affairs stop because the fantasy bubble they exist in gets burst, and their tacky, damaging reality becomes apparent. I do think it is possible that your then girlfriend came to her senses when she realised that once someone else knew what she was doing, word might spread and get back to you. Sometimes people need to be ‘scared straight’.

Also, it is interesting that your wife described the ‘high’ of the affair. That is how many other people describe it too, but you have also said that at the time of the affair, your wife was drunk or high a lot of the time.

Do you – and does your wife – think that she has a weakness/vulnerability to wanting to escape reality? Like an addictive personality? That may be a tendency to get drunk or high, or the mental thrill of doing the forbidden/walking on the wild side.

She needs to explore that in IC, and the two of you can discuss it, because if she does have a vulnerability to putting herself in risky situations, it may come and bite both of you in the behind if she does not get a handle on it. And the first stage of preventing it is acknowledging that the vulnerability exists.

I think that she may have such a vulnerability because it sounds like she engineers risky situations:

“She remembers it taking at least 3 months of flirting with this guy before it escalated.”

And her saying…

“…I do remember that I said to him that I had been waiting for him to make this move for a long time. Why did I say that? I didn't mean it.”

…indicates that she is in denial about knowingly staying in a risky situation. I am sure that she wishes she had not said it, and probably hates that she did, but she needs to accept that when she said it, she meant it.

The reason I am labouring the point is that denial is another form of escape.

Also, she needs to change her behaviours so that if she recognises a risky situation, she leaves it. More importantly, she should not engineer them:

“She gave me some "good examples" of her turning down advances from men and made it seem like they came out of nowhere.

However, upon questioning, it became clear that she put herself in some really shitty situations that she should have known (or did know) was leading a guy on.

It hurts to know that even after the affair, she continued "playing with fire" by spending time alone with other men and letting them drive her home drunk from parties when she could have called me.”

This is a problem that she needs to address, not just for the safety of the marriage, but also for her own personal safety.

Apologies if what I have written so far seems negative. I actually believe it is positive, because the issues in your wife’s behaviour that can create an opportunity for infidelity to occur are being identified so that they can be worked on.

I am glad that you are having good and enjoyable days with your wife, and that you are still making love.

I see a lot of potential for healing in what you have described, even if things are still sometimes stormy between you.

I think you can do this, CBM.

The comment I have about the polygraph, CantBeMe, is that I wished you hadn't said a failure leads to D. To me the polygraph is a tool that is used as a part of a package to determine a plan of action. I think saying that the outcome of the polygraph is an important aspect for you in making decisions that will affect the rest of your life.

Nonetheless, it has been said. None of us had the book about dealing with a spouse's adultery for dummies before hand. Compared to adultery handling the fallout of finding out about adultery is small potatoes for the WS. If they can't take the heat they caused by their atrocious behavior it tells you something about them.

From the little I know based solely on what you've related it seems to me your WW is a good candidate for R. R is completely up to you. It's totally possible and alright if it's a dealbreaker for you. I say again, though, that it appears there is s basis for attempting R if that's what you decide.