SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

No one here can tell you what to do. You do whatever you need to do to make yourself feel better.

Personally, I wanted to talk to my CH even though I hated him at the same time. He ripped my life to shreds and I wanted to get to the bottom of it..whether it was R or D in the end. But, I'm a talker, that's how I process. I wanted to talk to him, sometimes for hours but I usually kicked him to the guest room when we were done. Everyone has their own path.

I think your hair will grow again. Your body was as traumatized as your soul and when you don't feed it or hydrate, hair loss is a natural result. Are you truly taking care of yourself now?

Ugh.. the hair loss. It's brutal. I hope you're taking daily vitamins and keeping hydrated. If you're not eating, you really need to try to get some healthy foods into your body. Of course, the best remedy is stress reduction, which is hard to do when you're dealing with trauma. Meditation can be beneficial. You might even try a phone app to get some guided sessions. Yoga can help too, or even just walking.

In terms of your WH wanting to talk to you.. is that something which helps YOUR process? That's the only thing which matters right now. Does it help you or not?

If you decide to allow it, choose the format which makes you most comfortable. Cheaters typically don't like to commit their dirt to written forms, so it would be interesting to see if he balks at doing a "timeline" for you. Or, you could speak by phone. That gives you control in that you can end the call at any time if it becomes uncomfortable. Meeting in person would allow you to read his body language and facial expressions, but again, I think you'd be wise to have an exit strategy in case you begin to feel overwhelmed or manipulated. You can also decide to refuse communication out of hand for now. It's totally your call.

Hang in there. You're doing great.

((hugs))

Do not speak to him if it will impact your healing.

If you do speak to him be prepared for him to utter unbelievable nonsense that you know is composed of lies; him attempting to persuade you to give him a chance because he is miraculously cured of all his personality flaws and maliciousness that allowed him to betray and hurt you; and/or miraculously grasp that you are the only woman for him and break down emotionally. I really do not know. This is just fairly typical cheater speak.

Be wary of him wishing to rugsweep the affair, gas light you by attempting to minimize his behavior, and engage in blame shifting. There are a number of harmful techniques wayward spouses deploy to avoid consequences, hide the truth, or get what they want.

We have a saying in another forum that "no contact equals no new hurts."

I understand wanting to have closure or perhaps speak your truth. This is your call. You know much more about your health and situation than I do. It really will not matter if you do not fall for his lies and manipulation.

If speaking to him will cause additional trauma you should wait.

Whatever you do, retain the narrative. Do not allow him to have any type of control over you. When he had it, he allowed others to hurt you and he caused immense harm to you himself.

A big part of me wants to tell you to put your boots on and walk. I do not feel he deserves you. But, this is not my call. You are the only one that can identify what is the best path for you to get out of infidelity.

[This message edited by Ripped62 at 12:43 AM, January 25th (Friday)]

Glad you are getting the rest you need. You deserve it.

A few things:

1) personally I’d listen to what he had to say but make no commitment to respond to it right away.

2) let him know that you will only give him a set amount of time (eg 1 hour) to come and see you and deliver his message and you reserve the right to cut it off early at any point if you feel you need to.

3) don’t let anything he says sway you from taking your trip back to the US. You need the time away and also have important information to gather on how to beat handle D if it comes to that.

Speedbump, sorry about your hair. The trauma you experienced emotionally and physically makes that side affect not surprising to me. You will regain your strength and with it will return you physical attributes and also your happiness down the road. I can’t predict yet if WH is a part of that, but I’d say both paths are possibilities at this point.

You are a long way from having to make any decisions. Take in all information and process it over time. The pace is set by you.

Have a restful few days before you leave.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 12:28 AM, January 25th (Friday)]

Please heed the advice given by SI members. Your health takes precedence over everything else. Try some protein shakes to get some much needed nutrients.

I understand the mental gymnastics regarding his request to talk. It may give you some of the answers you need or he may just apologize and beg for mercy. For me after a few years I have come to regret the lack of a discussion/confession face to face.

Do you fly stateside soon? Let us know, we worry.

I am sorry for your hair loss. I experienced the same thing after discovery of my wayward wife's betrayal.

My dermatologist showed me that I also had alopecia areata. She felt it was due to stress from dealing with infidelity. She was a BS and experienced hair loss as well. It is treatable in many cases.

I lost a lot of hair because I went through a stage where I just said f' it. I was just trying to hang on at that point during the grieving process.

I'm so amazed how generous you all are with your time, advice and compassion. I feel so fortunate to have found you all!! Thank God, really!

I'm not gonna lie, the curiosity is killing me. I can't even begin to imagine how he hopes to explain all of this. Very weirdly, one of my fears is that he will try to lie his way through it and that I would actually feel sorry for him and would have to deal with that, knowing that even after all that has happened, that could be the person he is. Pretty sure I'm not explaining that well, but it's like I don't want to see him fall any further, but I kind of need to see if he would. Just reading here indicates he will keep lying to me and the odds are far less likely he won't. It's like I want to see where he falls in this category but also not sure I can handle the truth of that. Hope that makes sense at all.

And then I think, ask for the timeline but I really already have that. I've had all these conversations in my head (so failing at de-stressing) about what I would say or do if we meet. I was thinking that maybe I give him the iPad, let the cat out of the bag and instead of asking him for a timeline, have him go back and read all their messages from my perspective (empathy - put yourself in my shoes) and imagine what that must be like for me. Then I'd ask him to take each reply of his and tell me what he was thinking about me and us when he wrote them. Tell me where his head was. Tell me what motivated him to say and then do the things he did and then tell me what thrill he got when he saw my reactions, responses and emotions when they "got me". How'd it feel "winning" at the game of "let's destroy Speed bump."

I guess that's the info I'd really like right now and so makes me curious enough to see him. I have no need to keep gathering info and knowing if they are talking so I don't need to keep the iPad. I have backed it all up and stored it and I'd get kind of a high seeing him scroll through those messages in front of me and I could see his reaction to the horror and see its effect on him. Does that make me an awful person? I kind of feel like it does and I'm not sure if it's healthy to want to do that, but I really want to. It's thrilling but sickening all at the same time. Pretty sure I'm not really explaining it well but then I never really thought I'd be in a position to have such a conversation with anyone, let along my H. "Hey honey, I found these messages you had with the slutty neighbor where you seem to have fallen in love with her, decided you wanted to have sex with her, and did, and then decided, hey, wouldn't it be fun if we really messed with her mind and got more and more risky about doing this in front of her by daring each other to do sexual things in front of her or right near her? Wouldn't that be an awesome game? Yeah, let's do that!! So, can you take a read back through those messages and let me know where your mind was and when your soul turned completely black? It would really help me understand this so we could then have a constructive conversation about how we move forward."

See, that's the kind of chatter going on in my head. Make sense?

Don't worry about the hair, it will grow back. You should have seen all the hair in my brushes, in my hands in the shower. I couldn't believe it. Just do what you can to sleep and get some meals.

Can you imagine if he came here to this lions den? Everyone here would tear him to shreds. What can he possibly say to excuse this cruelty? He was not out of his reasoning mind. The texts prove that he jested and gaslit through it. Sick and inexcusable.

You want answers. We all do. Most of the time we get a pale version, more lies or some gymnastic explanation they hope we will believe. How could he watch you get thinner and thinner obviously completely stressed out before his eyes and ignore it? Now he says he cares?

I completely understand the thought behind showing him the transcripts and getting his reactions. I went for the same shock factor when I enacted final OW’s orgasm on my front door step. He was shocked, horrified, slapped around the face to see his BS ‘being’ OW in full needy climax, incongruity of person, incongruity of place.

But I feel you should keep your information safe and still wait to see what he has to say. That way you will know if he dissembles or not, withholds information or comes totally clean. And knowing that will be extremely useful as to how to proceed with negotiating your recovery (yours not the marriage). Perhaps you can do shock and incongruity another way, though collapsing at an airport will have been pretty impactful on his cognitive dissonance.

As I said earlier, OW is clearly very jealous of you, your professional standing, your character, your very personage. I do not absolve your WS of his part in any way, but I see this as a concerted and determined attack on you by OW, your WS the weapon and the seeming prize, the prising away of him surely the proof of your not-so-superiority that is one of the primary motivations for this deeply toxic individual. Your WS’s willingness to partake in this attack is, yes, demonstrative of some of the resentments identified earlier in the thread. Let us see if he has any self awareness of any of this.

[This message edited by Edie at 2:16 AM, January 25th (Friday)]

SpeedBump:

Continue to rest and get stronger before you travel. That is the most important thing. If it were me I would listen to what he has to say under conditions you are comfortable with, and only then. Choose a setting where you get the information you need. I believe in face to face discussion but only if it does not impact and set you back in your healing. The format you mention is okay. It’s your call. You do you. You are in control.

I hear you, boy do I hear you. Part of your thought process makes perfect sense, you want to take the evidence you have and slam it in front of him so he can "see" the horror show he put you thru, you want to pass on the pain to him he inflicted on you... and I gotta say, a part of me thinks its not a bad plan. I think it is similar to other stories on here of BS's making copies of emails they have seen between the 2 cheaters along with a copy of the divorce decree, they put it right in front of the WS and just say "here you go!" I am out!

However I feel to try to keep some sort of balance here I just want to go back to your first post on this thread and just "re remind" you of something that I feel is at play here, YOU were the major bread winner, you were the one who was contributing the most to the lifestyle HE was able to Iive while staying married to you. He has probably loved that lifestyle and doesn't want to give it up. That is why we call them "cake eaters". They want the BS and the cushy marriage and all the gains of what that relationship has brought, but they still turned around and stabbed you in the back and cheated. See part of your first post below:

I know my marriage is over. He has been saying such awful things about me and yet, I work so hard and thanks to that, we have a pretty nice life. He does contribute but I make far more than him and he has always contributed in what we call "sweat equity" because he does a lot of renovation work on our home because he's really good at it and has worked in construction. He still does work on a part-time basis. I just always thought we were complementary that way but now I see he resents me and literally I feel like he can't stand me.

So my advice for now would be this, however it is your life and you do what you want, I think you need distance and being able to go to the States and get away from this madness for awhile might be very good for you. Get around people who love you and have your back. Also step away from the drama and the dysfunction of what he has brought into your life.

Taking a couple of weeks with no phone calls, no texts, no anything from him and just taking some time to step away from it all is what would be healthy for you. You were ready to get on a plane before you ended up in the hospital, I would find a way to keep moving in that direction.

But that is just my opinion, I know how crazy making this all is and how a BS wants answers and how the need for those answers will drive us to madness because of the absolute unfairness of it all. I get it.

[This message edited by realitybites at 3:41 AM, January 25th (Friday)]

Do not tell him about the iPad. Keep him in the dark. If you tell him he will go through all those messages and trickle truth you.

Oh Wenda, he could not possibly TT me. I know every lovin' detail I need to know about what they did and said that I need to know. That is my one true blessing. I don't need to rely on him to tell me how it all went down. Silver linging, I suppose, as I read on here about the horrible destruction the ensuing lying causes.

My experience with having the emails sent to me by the OW was this.

I asked my H at DDAY2 what email account he used. He said his personal yahoo account. I looked at him and said “that’s a lie”. It was a lie because he made a secret g-mail account to communicate with the OW.

My point is even having irrefutable proof - the cheating spouse may still lie. Don’t expect if you give him the iPad he will tell the truth.

Another email I read where my H was Divorcing me to be with the OW. I asked him about it. He lied and told me a complete lie - though I had it in black and white. Of course he was ashamed of the email but thought a lie was the answer.

I hope speaking to your H doesn’t cause you further pain right now.

Hi Speedbump. Yes you have seen it all, and it must be so horrible for you. There could be other conversations you don’t know about. They may have figured out you have seen the messages. They could even be using that to manipulate you. Please be very careful.

Speedbump, I think you should do whatever is right for you. If it were me, I'd let him do the talking first, to see what it was he wants to say, before I asked him to go through the messages. Just to see if he mentioned them himself. If you ask him about them first, you'll never know if he would have brought them up independently.

1. Never reveal your source

2. If there is even a .00001% chance of reconciliation then why would you give up a possible way to monitor activities?

Speedbump

I wouldn’t specifically show him the iPad. Has there been any more contact between them in the past 24 hours?

Honestly I would just listen to what he has to say.

Then if he hasn’t done this in his little speech ask him what he has done to educate himself on how to rebuild a M after total betrayal, not just by cheating, but also by totally disrespecting by words.

Hopefully he’s done some of that. His actions since DDay show at least a small bit of awareness that he has to take certain steps to start the reparations: verbally attacking the AP, going NC, doing acts of service, supporting your response.

Honestly I understand your not wanting him to fail. I hope he does succeed at changing himself and working on who he is as a person, even if you D. Many WS’s, thru their experience of being a betrayer, find empathy for the first time in their lives. Realize that their actions and choices do not occur in a bubble and have real effect on others, most importantly their significant other.

I doubt he’s gonna do anything less than beg for mercy and ask for a chance to show you how much he wants to be in your life. It would surprise me if he doesn’t go beyond that.

If I was advising him I’d tell him to come with a full written confession and timeline and a long apology letter and show you a full understanding that these things while necessary are woefully insufficient to heal a broken heart.

If you want to expose anything at all, I’d take one of the more incriminating and juicy texts you found and copy it onto a piece of paper. That way you don’t have to just hand him the answer to how you found out.

If what he comes with is less than you hoped for, ask him to read it out loud. That should have some great impact.

Perhaps before you do that ask him to show you all their interactions on his own phone. I’m sure he’s deleted them but at least it will allow you to make the point that anything he does to protect the affair works directly against the chance at recovery. Then decide if you want to hand him the one shining example of what you already know and ask him to read it back to you.

Speedbump, it is perfectly valid for what he did to be a complete deal breaker for you. In fact, even if I felt as the BS that I wanted to give him a chance, I might even tell him he would have to work a plan to help repair the relationship as my ex-H and that the gift of starting a new relationship is something he would have to earn, over a long period of time by showing dedication and compassion and remorse and honesty.

Again, I’d recommend telling him a specific amount of time you’ll give him to speak today so he has to respect your healing and also to make sure he knows that while your gone any breaking of NC with the POSOW completely ends the communication he is now being granted with you.

I hope my comments and those others are providing help support you no matter which direction you take away from his infidelity.

Sending you best wishes in your recovery.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 6:31 AM, January 25th (Friday)]

You do realize if you divorce him he will have to find a full-time job. He won’t have time to fool around with the neighbor. He might actually become a grown-up. Still there’s no guarantee. Right now you want to fix things. That is human nature wanting to fix things, get answers, wanting to know why. The very first thing to do is get yourself healthy. Just think, those two set out to torment you. SB, there really is no explanation for that. It does not matter if she started it. She could not have done it without your husband’s participation. That’s the crux of the matter....he was willing to put you through that for weeks and weeks. That says all you need to know about who he really. If he loses you he loses his gravy train.

I wouldn't give him the iPad right off, SpeedBump. I would want to see what "explanations" he had about what went on and how he would respond to any questions you have. If there was great divergence between the evidence you have and his telling of it the iPad could be used to call him out and prove his attempts at deception, manipulation and dishonesty. I would also watch for any blameshifting attempts to the OW - that it's mostly on that evil woman. It's not.

You do have it all backed up so you won't lose anything. I hope the back-ups are in a safe place. I certainly understand the urge to get the explanations and the shock value.

You are a thoughtful woman. I'm analytical but did so many things wrong. It's good to get input from a group of "advisors" but in the end it is your call, your decision.

As others have mentioned, look after yourself first. Do what is best for you. If you do meet with him before you leave for the states be prepared for him hoovering and doing damage control. Others have gone into this in more detail. It is typical behaviour.

I don't have anything to add about hair loss. That certainly can be a stress and nutritional issue. I thought since I'd made it past 65 without much hair loss as a man I was probably less likely to experience partial baldness. I've noticeably lost hair in the last year or 2. The ladies have indicated you will probably recover but it certainly emphasizes getting enough sleep, being well nourished, plenty of water and stress reduction.

Stay strong, SpeedBump. As I said before, you've handled this admirably even though you don't think so. The best wishes of the SI community are with you.

ETA: My post crossed over Stevesn's. He makes several very good points including copying out snippets from the evidence that you have rather than revealing the whole thing.

[This message edited by steadychevy at 7:04 AM, January 25th (Friday)]