SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There are no consequences. She’s proven to me and her that she can do whatever she wants and I’ll be here.

My H would have never confessed on his own. He was deep into a weird fantasy of his creation, the M was over, I didn't love him, I wouldn't be concerned about his multiple sex partners, blah, blah, blah. He also lacked the emotional intelligence to be able to start such an adult conversation. All things I learned after I stumbled upon his secret life.

The randomness of how I discovered used to send chills through me. The big " what if", you know? We've talked about how things would have played out had I not "caught" him. He says he honestly doesn't know, except that he was already making mental plans to find yet another new AP since he had quickly become disillusioned with OW3.

It's mind boggling at times. But in my case he did open his eyes to the reality of the shitstorm he'd created. He wanted out. He was stunned to see I did care, did still have love for him. To his credit, he chose to change himself. And for 5 years that is the path hes taken. Turns out that other self he was pretending to be wasn't working out for him as he'd planned. So when given the chance at R, he jumped in immediately.

But there was nearly a year of TT and absolute freaking chaos to get to the bottom of it all. Once he "had me back" he was scared I'd leave if I knew the full truth. Truth was, I figured most of it out but it took him a long while to finally face up to some hard truths himself. The biggest shock for me has been having to face the truth that the man I married was not the person I thought him to be. I had to accept this weak, broken, pathetic character as my real H, and that sucked. But watching him work to rebuild himself has softened me to him and allowed R to continue. I'll always know what he was, and hope that he's grown enough since then to make me not sorry that I chose R over D.

[This message edited by psychmom at 2:44 PM, October 26th (Saturday)]

Hallmack- is that a life you feel you can thrive in? I mean this best intentioned, but you know you're settling with no respect or boundaries and allowing yourself to be devalued. This can erode you as a person. It will likely null and void any reason to stay. Most will cite kids or finances for settling. But an eroded miserable parent modeling a disrespectful, unhappy marriage and learning manipulative disrespectful behaviour from the wayward sets the kids up to have their own unhealthy relationships and issues. The finances are worthless when the price is your own self worth and happiness.

What is your aim? What's your reasonable for staying? I feel desperately sad for the position you're in, it's no life for anyone.

[This message edited by Tentwinkletoes at 3:41 PM, October 26th (Saturday)]

I’m already eroded and have no value. I want my old life back. The one where I knew that my wife would love me and never betray me like this.

I'm afraid that life no longer exists. If the wife did ever exist. I'm sure you dont need to be told that. But sometimes it takes a while to accept that.

The pain is paralyzing. It leaves you stuck grieving for what was and what you've lost. I can see from your join date you're newish here so assuming dday is raw and recent too.

Nobody can force you to look forward, and its sometimes difficult when you're so stuck on the loss and grief. But eventually you will need to look forward. For your own well being. I hope that's sooner rather than later.

It would be worth seeing an IC to help you come to accept where you are in the present day. And hopefully start to figure what you want and need from your future.

Your W is not healthy for you right now. It sounds like you realise this, but you just havent reacted or acted on this yet. I'd love to shake you and get you to react to this. But that's unlikely to help. So if you havent already read the 180 in the healing library. And try to implement it. It's a tool to help you deal with this pain and new realisation. It will give you distance from an unhealthy ww to allow you to heal somewhat or just see more clearly. I didnt want to do 180' at times. Perhaps fear it could do more damage but I realised if a 180' which is designed to preserve my mentality and strength is enough to damage the marriage then the marriage is already over. You need distance and detachment to find your perspective.. it doesnt dictate what comes next it just gives you the space to figure that out.

What your ww has done is horrendous. And while it is normal and understandable to feel this debilitating pain, you owe it to yourself to find a way of being unstuck. They never explain that the bs has some duty of care and work to do for themselves. Regardless of what ws does. It's time to to start taking care and working to allow yourself out of this position. Theres always something to salvage but it gets harder the more you sacrifice and lost staying stuck.

I was on the phone with a client and went to look up something she wanted when I noticed what I thought was MY email open with an unsent email in the draft folder. It said “ILU LOML” from sender and “Ilu2 VVM CW2CU.” which was actually from my husband. I

t was HIS email he left open, corresponding with his trash bag -married with children and still lactating! -Coworker.

I’d confronted him 3 times before that discovery which he denied and I believed. I am a very stupid, naive, codependent woman.

I love you. Love of my life- Trash Bag

I love you too. Very very much. Can’t wait to see you.- Douche Bag

Devastated673, you have a pm

I found out by waking up to an empty bed, though I had suspicions for a while before that. I gave her a chance to talk that morning upon her return, but she didn't. I texted her about two hours later to check in, and she dropped the bomb on me then--via text.

I should have run then and there.

[This message edited by AthameAflame at 7:39 PM, October 27th (Sunday)]

How did you find out, and does it matter? For me, reconciliation would be much easier had she confessed on her own.

I was suspicious that my FWW was having an affair. One Sunday afternoon I decided to search through her phone. It took me a few seconds to open her chat log, see a man's name I didn't recognize, and read a few of their messages (never got to read the rest).

I can't honestly say that a confession would have been any less traumatic and devastating than reading those text messages. Would her honesty have been to her credit? Nope! Why believe anything a WS has to say about an affair.

Deal with you got going on, brother. Wishing this or that had been different, comparing this pain to that pain, isn't going to help you to heal or reconcile. It will only drive you insane.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 8:05 PM, October 27th (Sunday)]

I can't answer that question because I only have one experience, accidental discovery. I seriously doubt it would've gone any other way. My fch's too spineless to ever have voluntarily admitted what he had done.

an eroded miserable parent modeling a disrespectful, unhappy marriage and learning manipulative disrespectful behaviour from the wayward sets the kids up to have their own unhealthy relationships and issues. The finances are worthless when the price is your own self worth and happiness.

Perfect! You should keep this somewhere so you can copy and paste it whenever the need arises. I may do that. I'll give you credit, twinkle.

I only have one genuine experience, accidental discovery, followed by TT, followed by the truth. For the record, that was shit.

But for any WS reading who haven't confessed yet, I would say that in a spectrum of terrible options, sitting your BS down, confessing voluntarily and being completely open and honest from the outset is the least worst way of doing it. I'm sure for the WS that prospect is terrifying but it's the right thing to do, given where you have arrived.

In my nightmares, walking in during the act would be my worst case scenario.

for any WS reading who haven't confessed yet, I would say that in a spectrum of terrible options, sitting your BS down, confessing voluntarily and being completely open and honest from the outset is the least worst way of doing it. I'm sure for the WS that prospect is terrifying but it's the right thing to do, given where you have arrived.

Totally agree. At least it shows you’ve got some idea that you have behaved terribly, and the proactiveness will be helpful when trying to rebuild the M, if this is on the cards.

Knowing in your heart you are being lied to but being told there’s nothing there is the worst, it drives you insane.

While I do think it would have better had my WW confessed rather than me finding out accidentally, that’s only because it would have given me a better picture of where her head was at. But in the end, what matters most is what happens after you found out.

I, too,learned by accident.

I invited my WH to meet me for dinner after work, telling him I wanted to talk to him about something important. See, he had been acting suspiciously,so I had snuck out to his truck in the dead of night a couple evenings earlier. I dug around in the truck, looking for a clue to his strange behavior. And I found what he was hiding, I thought. There was a vape under the drivers seat. He supposedly didn't smoke, so I was going to playfully bust him at dinner...

So there we are, sitting side by side in the booth having dinner, and I brought it up:

"I know what you've been doing, what you have hidden, so why don't you just tell me?" I was smiling up at him, my arm wrapped around his, leaning against him & feeling so deeply in love with this strong, hard-working man who had been sneaking around to vape. He shifted uncomfortably, fidgeting, and all in one breath he said, "Ok, before-work-in-the-mornings-I've-been-going-across-the-street-to-the-park-to-have-AA-meetings-wi th-Ryan."

What?!?? I sat back in the booth, letting go of his arm, laughing. Confused. It was like cutting open an envelope & expecting a letter to fall out, but a dancing purple hippo fell out instead. I was so. damned. confused. What was he talking about? Who? What???

So I choked out, "no, that is some sort of crazy lie. What is going on here??"

And then, my perfect world exploded. Baffled, I told him, "I know better. I'll give you a chance to be honest with me. One chance. I already know the truth, but it would mean a lot to me to hear it from you." Which was a lie--I knew nothing. All I knew was that he had a vape under the seat in his truck.

After some hemming & hawing, an interminable pause, he told me he and been seeing a woman at the park, and riding to & from work with her, and had been her BOYFRIEND/lover for the past 3 years of our short 4 year marriage.

And there I was, my enchiladas turning to ice as my still-beating heart was ripped from my chest. Jesus.

CHECK PLEASE!

Um, yeah ... I'll never go out to Mexican again.

If this shitstorm had ruined MEXICAN for me, I would’ve murdered someone.