SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

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.

As others have already said, HER affair was NOT YOUR FAULT. She had other options to address problems in the marriage. But I do want to address what you say about your feelings for her prior to the affair. Were you ever attracted to her? If not, why did you marry? Have you had other rewarding sexual relationships or have you always been indifferent. Is this a problem for you - something you want to change? If you have not always been indifferent why did you marry your wife if the sexual desire was not there? Is there some other quality of hers you value more?

I do not mean to be nosy here, but the more you share (anonymously) here the better advice you will get. And you might want to consider IC for yourself to really dig into all this so you can better understand what you can and cannot change in yourself. You will need to know that regardless of what happens in the marriage.

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

The only "ever-growing problem" I see here is that rather than communicating her issues to you she chose to seek validation in another man. This has nothing to do with you. The normal routes to resolving your marital issues (of which you both share equally 50/50) would be marriage counseling or divorce. Fucking another man 3 times (if that even really is the real number of times) is no where in the realm of what is "normal".

You need to shut that line of thinking down. If it's your MC that is pushing that narrative, fire the MC. If it's your WW, equally shut it down.

I don't know what to tell you. It sounds like you are rugsweeping and trying to stay together for the kids. That is not a tenable situation.

If they are at all in contact then the affair still ongoing. Period. You likely won't get any evidence on her phone.

But your BARE MINIMUM requirements from her should be:

-No Contact with the AP

-Access and passwords to all of her personal devices

-STD tests (for you too)

-IC for her to figure out her brokenness (and for you to help you sort this all out)

-A detailed timeline of her affair

-Polygraph test

If you truly want to reconcile she needs to be remorseful. Right now she wants to rugsweep and blame you for her terrible choices. She is not a safe candidate for R.

If you really want a shot at R then she needs to accept full responsibility for her choices. Even if she assumes full ownership and does the work, there's no guarantee your marriage will survive. You may wake up one day and realize what she did is a deal breaker.

She had countless times to do the right thing. Instead she CHOSE to repeatedly disrespect you and stab you in the back. And she's continually disrespecting you as she places blame on you.

Consult an attorney immediately. Even if your intent is to R it's best to know what D would look like for you.

Sorry you are here. Good luck.

What she’s telling you is complete bullshit.

Her affair is not your fault. Any of it. She chose to be selfish and cheat on her husband that was working hard to make a living and provide for his growing family. It’s complete bullshit.

I and many other wives have spouses who work their asses off. 60+ hours a week. Still, didn’t cheat. He went overseas, he cheated, I didn’t.

So you see there is no other reason except selfishness. You don’t trip and fall on a dick. She could have stopped all of it, even the sexting, pictures and especially the fucking in a car (how cliche?) at anytime and chose not to. This was her decision. Not yours. She needs to own it and stop blame shifting. Both of y’all need to stop rugsweeping, or the issue is just going to fester like an infected wound. Essentially, that’s exactly what it is.

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'd been ignored and neglected for years and needed to be selfish so she slept with him in the back of his car.

I hope you realize how ridiculous her bullshit sounds on so many levels. At the time of the A, you guys had been married for about 3 years. Thus, even if you had completely ignored and neglected her every single day of your marriage, starting on your honeymoon, it would be a stretch to say that she had been "ignored and neglected for years".

And if she felt that you had ignored her between 2011 and 2015, why then did she marry you in 2015? If she felt ignored, she could have left the relationship.

Furthermore, if she really was feeling neglected, she should have come to you, her husband, and told you this. She says that she "lost sight of who she was". Um, she was your wife. How could she have any confusion about that simple fact?

Furthermore, the POSOM (Piece of Shit Other Man) who fucked your wife was himself a married. In other words, objectively, a complete asshole. If she was truly feeling neglected to the point where her marriage was essentially over, wouldn't she choose an affair partner who was available to an actual relationship? Not some back seat fuck buddy.

Dude, you are rug-sweeping, big time. I query whether you are also doing what we call the "pick-me dance". This conclusion is underscored by your lack of desire to see her emails/messages with this asshole.

By the way, the common wisdom here on SI is that you ought to inform the BOW (Betrayed Other Wife) of the A. It's the decent, human thing to do. If the shoe was on the other foot, I'm certain you would want her to inform you.

And you should do it without first telling your WW that you plan to do so. Among other things, if she later comes to you angry that you informed (most cheaters will get angry if/when they learn you informed), then you will know she is still in contact with the POSOM.

And if she give you the bullshit line about you "ruining another person's life" or "hurting the BOW needlessly" by informing her, your reply: "I gave her dignity and agency by simply giving her the truth. You ruined her life when you chose to fuck her husband behind her back."

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.

Here is the problem. In a marriage, the man and woman become one. The marriage is supposed to be a sphere of exclusive intimacy. She broke that when she stepped outside of the marriage and created a separate cocoon of intimacy with another man. Every betrayed spouse has his own way of healing, but what I have noticed with most betrayed spouses here on SI, and especially betrayed husbands/men, is that the only way they can start actually healing is to know exactly what it is they are healing from. All of the nitty gritty details, as if you were a fly on the wall watching them fuck. There are several reasons for this:

1. Without knowing the actual details, your mind/imagination tends to create details. We call them "mind movies" and they will haunt you for life. The best way to kill mind movies is to know the reality.

2. She created a cocoon of intimacy with another man. She gave that man some of the intimacy she should have reserved for you. By refusing to share this with you, she is protecting her intimacy with the POSOM, against the marriage. It should be the other way around.

3. Basic decency and honesty. The main reason a cheater refuses to share emails/sexts/messages with the betrayed spouse is that the cheater is lying about the duration, extent, and magnitude of the cheating, and they don't want you to see the evidence of their lying. Keep in mind it is okay for you to simply not believe her, and tell her so. You don't need proof if your gut tells you she is lying.

I come back to "sex three times". They literally all say that. Three must be a magic cheater number. Enough to acknowledge that it was more than once, but few enough that they hope, in their unimaginably fucked up logic, that it won't hurt the BH too much.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 2:20 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.

Read what you wrote here.

Read it again.

And then keep rereading it until you become starkly aware of how fucking ridiculous it sounds.

I cannot emphasize enough how much you need to soundly and strenuously reject this steaming pile of bullshit excuses.

What your wife has done and how she has been behaving has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with you, your work, or your marriage.

There is no issue, problem, or “rough patch” in any marriage/relationship that renders an adult married mother incapable of knowing fundamental right from wrong.

She know what she did is utterly despicable and inexcusable - and that is precisely why she wants to blame something and someone else.

Your wife’s reasons for doing this exist solely within her and those reasons have been there long, long before you ever met her.

DO NOT accept any blame whatsoever for this.

You MUST take a VERY strong stance in rejecting her blame and excuses - for if you don’t, she will highly likely do it again at some point knowing she can simply and reliably blame you.

You must also think from the perspective of what your son is seeing.

He is watching his father being horribly betrayed by his mother and will possibly grow up believing that it’s normal to accept blame for other people’s shitty behavior and/or believing that it’s ok to blame other people for his own shitty behavior.

All of that is fostering weakness of character and pathetically low self-esteem.

You are deeply embedded in her world of blameshifting, stupid excuses, and her anger at getting caught being the worst piece of shit someone can be.

Get yourself, and your son, outside of it so you can see it for the fucked-up, Jerry Springer shit-show that it really is.

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.

Look, here's the truth you can tell her if she has "lost sight of who she is".

She is a married woman that slept with a married man in the back seat of a car in the parking lot of her job. Classy.

Your MC did a massive disservice to you by blaming you for the A. MASSIVE. In fact, it could potentially cost you your marriage because they backed up anti-R behavior from your WW.

In order to R, you need full transparency from your WW, the truth about what happened, full NC with OM, and her willingness to do anything and everything to help you R. So far you have none of that. Just a WW who doesn't want to D and let me tell you, those are a dime a dozen and not wanting to D is no where near enough for R.

You should make sure she isn't still talking to OM or a new OM. Even occasionally talking is a potential continuation of the A. If she was hiding her phone and deleting, it's because she's been lying to you. Either she lied about the number of OM, how many times she saw OM, the depth of her feelings for OM, and/or she continued the A after DDay. So if you found out your WW still met up with OM occasionally for sex, you'd care, right? If your WW was planning to leave you for OM, you'd care, right? If you found out they had sex a dozen or more so times than she said, you'd care, right? If she had more than 1 OM? So whenever you say, "I don't care" or "I'm better off" You have to realize how ridiculous and wrong that sounds. And your doubts and feelings aren't just going to go away because you ignore them. So press for the truth.

My husband and I are pretty opposite. I'm kind of an extrovert, he's more of an introvert.

We have a lot of interests that we pursue individually. He likes to game, I prefer reading or making stuff. We spend quite a lot of time independent of one another.

Sometimes, I feel a bit lonely. Or needy. I have some mental health issues, sometimes they can be a little overwhelming for me.

During those times, I pull up my big girl panties and remember that my husband may know me really well, but he's not a mind reader. I tell him how I'm feeling and what I need, which usually involves watching a movie or doing some other sort of activity together.

It's really quite simple, yet I see this over and over again: partners taking some sort of blame because the cheater said they felt "neglected."

I call bullshit. If I'm unhappy about something with my husband, it is MY responsibility to talk to HIM. It does not give me any sort of permission to totally disregard our relationship and seek out some false notion of happiness elseshere.

Stop accepting blame!

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.

With all due respect if you felt like this before the affair why would you fight to keep the relationship? It only gets tougher from here on in.

Hi OP. Have you told the other guy's wife he was screwing a married woman?

Do so. 1) fuck him up 2) in case your wife is still in contact with this jerk now or in the new year, get his wife looking at him 3) she deserves to know.

As the administration person she sent out a school text and he replied with lets meet. Then after one meeting she bangs uglies with a married man in his car. Because she wants to be selfish. Sorry seriously there so many issues here.

What is it that you desire?

More information on why she betrayed the marriage?

Her lack of boundaries?

Or why you accept her excuse and blame yourself?

Even Forest Gump said he wasn’t a smart man but knew what love is.

Buffer

In her defense, we've been together since June 2011.

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

We've moved all over the country for my career.

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

I also had some serious jealousy/insecurity issues when we first started dating, accusing her of doing everything and anything with everyone!

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

Go read ButForTheGrace and Tushnurse post again, carefully.

Stop MC. Cheating is not a marriage problem, it’s your WW that is broken.

If I understand correctly, she was having sex with the OM while she was pregnant with your child?

Inform the OBS. (The wife of the OM). She has a right to know.

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 3:44 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

We started marriage counseling a week after I found out about the affair.

Which was a big mistake. Marriage counselors generally focus on "improving" the marriage and not the infidelity itself or the loss of trust that results.

Affairs are the product of a selfish partner with unsafe boundaries, rationalizing relationship problems as legitimate reasons to betray.

That's a quote I read here a while ago. Your wife did a load of blame-shifting without any accountability for her selfish choices and she was abetted by your counselor. Healing from infidelity generally takes *years*, provided the cheater assumes responsibility and does what is necessary. That's not what happened to you. If you want to heal your marriage, you pretty much have to go back to square one. That means individual counseling for both of you followed by joint counseling with someone who focuses on infidelity.

You were betrayed and need advocate for your justified feelings. She cheated and, instead of dealing with her loose boundaries and selfishness, blamed you. That's why you both need individual counseling: to reset the terms of your reconciliation. That includes a consultation with a lawyer to better understand the very real possibility of divorce.

I also had some serious jealousy/insecurity issues when we first started dating, accusing her of doing everything and anything with everyone!

Maybe you sensed what she was capable of even then. Maybe she has always had shit boundaries and you could see this coming?

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.

Her refusal to be transparent and give you access to the texts is the death nell for your marriage my friend. You cannot save the marriage unless she is willing to be 100% real and transparent with every aspect of her life. If she is still refusing then stick a fork in the marriage and save yourself years of grief.

Shutterhappy

In her defense, we've been together since June 2011.

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

We've moved all over the country for my career.

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

I also had some serious jealousy/insecurity issues when we first started dating, accusing her of doing everything and anything with everyone!

Irrelevant. It doesn’t excuse her cheating

Go read ButForTheGrace and Tushnurse post again, carefully.

Stop MC. Cheating is not a marriage problem, it’s your WW that is broken.

If I understand correctly, she was having sex with the OM while she was pregnant with your child?

Inform the OBS. (The wife of the OM). She has a right to know.

This.

[This message edited by Westway at 3:55 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

So the guy she was banging still lives in your town & your WW told you that he will be moving to California so no need to get confrontational with the POS. Seriously dude they were going at it like rabbits then were caught they just stopped cold turkey. Yeah right. Your WW refuses to allow access to her phone or other electronic devices. You need to let her know that she had no choice in the matter if there is any chance in staying M.

There is a very good chance the A has continued after you outed her & her FB in which case the A goes underground and they become super careful. i:e burner phones. obscure chat apps..etc,etc From what you have written your WW is not a good candidate for R. She's the typical lying, blaming, self entitled, marriage rewriting cheater, nothing special about her & nothing causing her to cheat except for herself.

Expose the POS to the OBS, not for revenge just so that the OBS has the knowledge of her H's infidelity, get STD tests & make up her own choice on which way forward. Also would be in your best interests to have a STD test done even though it has been awhile some STD's remain dormant for years & tell your WW to get one done also.

[This message edited by notanotherchance at 4:03 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

Yeah, one time in third grade the teacher criticize my hand writing. And that same year my favorite team didn’t win the Super Bowl. So of course I had to go screw somebody else.

That is the bullshit your cheating wife and your useless MC are slinging.

Stop making excuses for her. Listen to what you are being told here.

[This message edited by ramius at 4:11 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

He lives in the same town as us, though she told me he would be moving to California.

How does she know this? Is she still in contact with him. You found out a year ago that she was fucking this piece of shit, and she's still in contact with him?

In one post, you said:

I've never asked to look at her phone - maybe it's because I really don't care?

In another, you said:

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?

So which is it?

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 5:28 PM, December 30th (Monday)]

Keep in mind that every single posters here have been through infidelity. Some posts might seem harsh, but all posters are rooting for you.

We are also very good at detecting cheater bullshit. We have seen hundreds of stories, it’s all very similar. Posters here will poke hole in Wayward stories the size of a football stadium.

It’s best to read the posts in the spirit it was meant: to help you go through this.

Keep on posting.

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 7:06 PM, December 30th (Monday)]