SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

On January 10, 2019, I found out my wife had been having sex and exchanging inappropriate text messages/photos with a current student at the school that employed her. I found a roll of condoms in her purse and confronted her - she denied at first, and eventually confesses to sleeping with him three times in the back of his car. She confessed she cheated because she did not get the appropriate amount of time and attention from me. We found out we were pregnant on February 4, 2019. I ordered a paternity test, and it was discovered that the baby was mine. So here we are, almost a year later, with a 4 month old little boy, and while we tried marriage counseling, it didn't really work. We were told the affair was a symptom of an ever-growing problem. I am devoted to my job, we've moved all over the country for me. Again, this guy gave her time and attention while at work during the day, and she wasn't getting that from me. My question...what do I do? We're getting along, but I am still thinking about what she did and we haven't discussed the issue for months. Do I confront the guy she cheated with? I only think that will cause bigger issues. Looking for guidance...plus, we have a healthy baby boy to take care of now. We were married in Oct. 2015.

I'm sorry this happened to you, but I'm glad you found this place. There is a giant amount of crowdsourced wisdom in terms of dealing with infidelity on this site. All of the posters here have been victims of infidelity in various ways, and we all post here voluntarily, and anonymously, because we want to help our fellow victims.

First step for you is to start browsing The Healing Library (yellow box, top left of this page). There is a ton of helpful stuff there.

I would suggest you read other threads on here. There is a long thread by a poster named "Walloped". If you can find that, read it.

Your approach so far has been diametrically the wrong thing to do. I say that gently, but bluntly, because what I want for you is to heal. MC (marital counseling) immediately in the wake of infidelity is almost always totally unhelpful, at best, and usually it is harmful.

Also, not talking about it is the worst thing you as a couple can possibly do. We call that "rug-sweeping". It is a guarantee that this will fester and rot in your heart and it will become worse, not better.

As a BH (Betrayed Husband), your WW (Wayward Wife) has inflicted a trauma to you. If your marriage is to become a healthy one, you need to heal from that trauma, and she needs to acknowledge her role in causing it. Think of this as if she had snuck out of bed one night as you lay sleeping and smashed your femur with a sledge hammer. First and foremost, healing works best if the two of you discuss the affair often, openly, and with blunt honesty. This includes you venting your rage. Yes, rage is normal and even healthy for a BH. Keep in mind that millions of women are married to men who work hard, and remain married without fucking other men (never mind students in the school where they work). In fact, for most women, having a husband who works hard is a desiderata, even a wet dream.

Two good books to read (both you and your WW):

"Not Just Friends"

"How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald.

I can tell you that a WW cheating after feeling neglected by a BH who works a lot is one of the most common themes here on SI. The first thing you should allow yourself to acknowledge is that this is totally fucked up bullshit logic on her part. You had NO ROLE WHATSOEVER in her decision to fuck another man. If she felt like she wanted more attention from you, it was incumbent on her to communicate that and take steps to make the marriage more affectionate. NO MATTER WHAT YOU DID, no matter how many hours you worked, her decision to fuck another man was a completely broken, horrible, and stupid decision by her.

Your marriage can only heal if she acknowledges this, takes ownership of it, and seeks IC (Individual Counseling) to figure out what is broken in her moral compass that would lead her to make such a wicked choice. Keep in mind this was her choice. Do NOT let her get away with calling it a "mistake". A "mistake" is putting 1 tablespoon of baking soda in cookies, instead of baking powder. Or locking your keys in your car. A woman does not find another man's dick inside her vagina by mistake. She must make dozens, perhaps hundreds of decisions and choices to sneak around, lie, gaslight, and deceive, never mind betray her marital vows, before she takes off her panties and chooses to let another man inside of her.

I say it that way because the strongest urge of a newly minted BH is to go back to the "before time", to the marriage you thought you had with the woman you thought you loved. Your first task is to face the grim reality that you can never go back there.

In fact, the woman you thought you loved never existed. The real life flesh and blood woman next to you, your wife, is the kind of woman who will decide to fuck another man if she feels she isn't getting enough attention from you. We know she is that type of woman because that is in fact what she did, and I don't reckon she has sought counseling to fix what is fucked up inside of her.

She is not a safe spouse until she does that.

Big picture. You were married for barely three years, with no kids, and your wife decided to fuck another man. Now that you have a son, the stress and burden of family life will be 10 times what it was in the first 3 years of your marriage. If your wife cannot keep her panties on merely because you work a lot (and presumably she enjoys the material benefits of your earnings), how many other men will she fuck when you add the stress and strain of raising a son?

Yes, her A (Affair) was a symptom of a "bigger problem", but not the "problem" she is trying to blame -- you working. The "bigger problem" is a WW with poor coping skills and loose morals who would rather lie to you and cheat on you than work with you to try to make the marriage better.

I would strongly suggest that, in the Healing Library, you read about and implement The 180, and also that you read and print "Joseph's Letter" and give it to her to read.

Good luck.

By the way, "sex three times in the back of a car", that is almost certainly complete bullshit. Almost every WW who has ever been caught in an affair has said "we only had sex three times". It's utterly cliche, and almost always a lie.

You should start considering what you need to heal. For most BH's, this includes:

A complete written timeline from her about the A, including all of the "nitty gritty dirty details" of her sex. Since it occurred within the past 20 or so months, she should be able to corroborate most of it with her texts/messages/emails to the POS she was fucking.

Complete device/account transparency, with your unfettered ability to read, copy, and review anything and everything she sends to or receives from anybody.

Complete ownership by her of her fucked up choices and a sincere effort to figure out why her moral code is so broken, and to fix it.

Finally, and most importantly, true remorse, which is built on empathy -- a sincere effort to understand your pain and trauma and to help you heal from it. This starts with patiently and completely answering all of your questions about the A, over and over and over, as many times as you want to ask them.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 12:17 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

She chose to cheat with a student where she was employed? In some states, she would go to jail.

She chose to cheat, before working with you on an agreement about how much time and attention she wants and needs? Not a good way to handle the conflict.

The only way to decide what to do is to figure out what each of you wants. That means you must talk to each other. Otherwise, you both may be wasting time in a relationship that neither of you really wants.

I do hope the new baby is bringing joy to you!

Her cheating had nothing to do with you. Period.

She is a cheater because of her own shitty character. Period.

And sex with one of her students??? Dear God.

You need to find a good IC.

You might also want to consult an attorney. You cheating wife's unilateral decisions have resulted in one gargantuan cluster fuck.

I'm so sorry that you have found yourself here.

We were told the affair was a symptom of an ever-growing problem.

Yah that problem is she is a very broken individual that needs to figure out why she needs validation from others to be happy and fulfilled in life.

SHE - Chose to cheat. Chose to lie. Chose to blame everything other than herself. NOT ok.

YOU- are owning the blame. Stop that. That will just destroy your self worth. Most grown up people are devoted to their profession, and go to work everyday and put that is a priority because that is what is commonly referred to as "Adulting". Yah it sucks to a certain degree, but you absolutely have to do it.

Your wife needs IC (individual counseling) to figure her shit out, and then fixing it. Until she does that you will not have a safe partner, or a healthy M.

Like the others have said check out the healing library, figure out what you want and need. Download and read No more Mr Nice Guy. No one ever saved their M or their sanity by trying to nice their spouse back.

Knoxguy

I found out my wife had been having sex and exchanging inappropriate text messages/photos with a current student at the school that employed her.

She confessed she cheated because she did not get the appropriate amount of time and attention from me

How is her spending time and energy with the other person helping her get the time and attention from you?

This is blame shifting 101. Don't allow this to happen.

You can claim 50% of the problems within your marriage but 0% of blame for her affair.

She cheated only because she could and she wanted to.

How old is this “guy” she had sex with? If under 18 and the authorities find out it’s considered statutory rape AND she could face jail time. If she’s a teacher she would lose her ability to teach.

This situation has serious problems.

Plus she’s blaming you for her affair. No way is this your fault. As others stated she made the choice to cheat.

FWIW my H travelled all over the world for his job. I never cheated. We were apart Monday to Friday for weeks in end. I was home with kids and house etc. I never complained and never thought about cheating. Her reasoning is just pure crap.

Yeah, how old was the student?

Your WW is full of sh*t. Her cheating had nothing to do with moving around and you not paying as much attention to her. If lack of attention was a problem she could have come to you and the two of you could have worked on it. That is the way adults in a marriage do things. So, the real problem is that she is not an adult. She may be of adult age, but her brain is a teenager. Fucking in the back seat of a car? That's a high class woman right there.

Don't let her blame her actions on you. Take her down off that pedestal and see her for who and what she truly is. She is a cheater plain and simple, and she needs to own her shit. If the kid was a minor, you need to call the cops on her disgusting ass.

Any dumb ass excuse she has is just that - a dumb ass excuse.

She had many options of how do deal with her [alleged] issue of lack of attention. She could have gotten a job, made friends, joined a gym, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.... She CHOSE to cheat.

As for confrontation - if he is a minor you alert the authorities and let them confront his parents.

If he's of legal age, you out him in any [legal] way you choose.

Your WW needs help. Serious help.

Ask yourself. What would you do if (in years to come) this was YOUR boy and HIS teacher? Start there.

Save all the evidence of her affair. You may need it someday.

Is your wife working with the OM or does she see him at all?

How old are you guys?

How old is the student?

How did they meet?

How did he get her number?

Thank you all for the feedback. It has been a difficult year. But at the same time, a great year, because I am the father to a healthy three year old boy.

In her defense, we've been together since June 2011. We've moved all over the country for my career. I also had some serious jealousy/insecurity issues when we first started dating, accusing her of doing everything and anything with everyone! It wasn't healthy, and I own that.

We moved in August 2019 for my job and by the end of October, she had connected with this student. My wife had an administrative position and the guy she met (and gave her all the time and attention) was there to become a barber. He was also married with two children.

From what she tells me, they would sext one another and meet in a parking lot, twice in the morning before work and once in the afternoon over lunch break and have sex in the back of his car.

We have our son now. So it's a difficult situation. We're eight hours from family and really on our own. We started marriage counseling a week after I found out about the affair. I felt like it was all my fault that this happened as a result of therapy - us moving for me, me being insecure, not really attracted to her, sex being a chore, etc. I own that because it is how I felt.

But we got married and now have a son and I'm not sure what to do - how much longer do I wait? We haven't discussed the issue in months. I've interrogated her time and time again about the details of her affair - she refused to show me texts/photos between the two of them. I asked and she ended up deleting all of it.

Probably best I didn't see it - and I never confronted the other guy because I didn't want to seem weak.

Looking for direction - what's best for our son? My career is important to me, but how do I give her all this time she needs? I don't know if our relationship is salvageable.

Get phone recovery software and blow that shit up with OBS.

Inform the school district - as an administrator this is predatory behavior on her part.

NONE of this is YOUR fault. Everything you listed is an excuse. This is HER and HER fault alone. She had hundreds of options. Fu*king a student for attention didn't have to be one of them.

The guy she met up with was 28 years old, married, 2 children. They met at the cosmetology school she worked in an administrative capacity - he was there as a student becoming a barber. She says she sent out photos from a school event to all the students and he replied back and asked for her number. I was always curious how things escalated, from start to finish. He got her number, started texting, asked her to meet up one morning, and she said that 2 of the 5 times they met up, no sex occurred. She stopped him the first time. She lost sight of who she was as a person, wife, and friend is what she tells me. She'd been ignored and neglected for years and needed to be selfish so she slept with him in the back of his car.

He already graduated and is out working full time. He lives in the same town as us, though she told me he would be moving to California. I've never asked to look at her phone - maybe it's because I really don't care?

Before taking any advice about how to R, it is important that we know if a crime has been committed here. Is this a high school student? Was he old enough to legally give consent? Because if he wasn't, YOU are the one who is at risk if it ever comes out that your WW slept with him. You will be liable for court costs and any debt she could go into due to this. If she committed a crime, you are going to want to see a lawyer no matter what decision you make about your marriage.

And really, do you want to stay with someone who didn't just cheat but did so in such an unethical way? Your WW was the adult here even if he was 18 or whatever. He didn't seduce her. It was on her to say no and keep things professional. She's pretty messed up to cheat let alone cheat with her student. She needs IC badly. She needs to figure out why she risked everything - her family, her marriage, her job, etc. - just because this kid paid her some attention. And if she doesn't get it, how long before the next student pays her some attention? Maybe the next one will speak up. Maybe the next one will be even younger if this happened at a high school. She can't just coast by putting all of the burden on you to keep her from making bad and destructive decisions. Only she can prevent this from happening again.

So he's a former student or did he graduate since DDay? How old was he during the A?

Brother, can you both get into IC?

You need to discuss and communicate to each other. MC won’t fix what was missing. She made the conscious decision to get naked. She had many times to talk with you. Take no blame! Her actions her decision!

It takes years to get past a A. Each person’s journey is a different time and mix of emotions. Read the book’s recommended and talk.

Brother if you rug sweep then it will just resurface later, trust me.

Buffer

[This message edited by Buffer at 3:01 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

She lost sight of who she was as a person, wife, and friend is what she tells me. She'd been ignored and neglected for years and needed to be selfish so she slept with him in the back of his car.

Dude - this sounds like something a desperate teenager would try to BS his/her parents with. And is just about as credible.

It's up to you if you want to accept this bullshit. But let's be very clear - it's bullshit.

You have been given sound advice and many tools to use at your disposal.

What you do with them is up to you.

why are you accepting her excuses and buying into the self blame ?