SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Organic2003:

It sounds like you are gaining some trust and respect back for your wife. Somehow I think she is earning it and will make a safe and loving wife.

Maybe but I honestly don’t know if I trust her much yet. I think it may be more that I trust myself. Looking at everything for the last 20 years I see things much clearer. I recognize behaviors that I believe I would be able to spot again instantly if they start back up. That makes it possible for me to sit back and see what happens. Without that, I think I would already be gone.

Stinger:

Well, now that you think you know her better, how do you like her?

I’m not a big fan at the moment but I still love her. I am not enough of a romantic to think that is even remotely enough but it is enough to see where things are going.

Can you ever trust her?

I don’t know yet. Right now, I actually think I could given how much this is causing her to change/look at herself but that isn’t enough. As I said above, I am starting to really trust myself and my gut. If I never start to really trust her again that will be a problem and I will need to move on.

Have there been other affairs( of course you may never know).

I kept all the old phones over the years and have gone through all of them and found nothing. She swears there wasn’t. Of course, I can never really know but none of us can. If this has taught me anything it’s that no matter who you are or how well you think you know your significant other, your person could be out there banging someone else and there is a good chance you may never know.

What happens next time, if it happens? Do yuh ou lose another 4 years operating under a false reality? Do you contract another, more deadly STD?

All possible with her or anyone new for that matter but assuming I ever reach the point to try R and it happens again I walk. If I lose another 4 years after I gave her a second chance then it would be on her, not me. Same with another STD. If it is a deadly one, she is the one that would have to live the rest of her days knowing she sentenced someone to death for her own selfish ass reasons. I would live my days as best I could until I died. Afterlife or not, it wouldn’t matter much at that point.

All I can say is this happened to me when I was just about your age. It devastated me for a number of years, and still,bothers me. But, life got much more peaceful and fun once I reconciled myself to moving on without my cheater. It was scary and sad for a good long time, but turned out well for me.

I am glad it worked out for you and it may well be the exact path I take. I hope no matter what I do it works out as well. I just don’t know what exactly is best for me yet.

waitedwaytoolong

The question isn’t how she could, but why? I know I’m probably projecting, but bringing your lover into the home is about the biggest disrespect you can do to your spouse. Especially if it’s an on or off relationship. Why do this? Has she given you an explanation? Couldn’t she wait a day or two and not add this offense on top of all the others

It is certainly up there but from reading up on the wayward side and various books it really does seem to come down to a mindset that I don’t think you or I will ever understand but isn’t as uncommon as we would hope. Many people, once they get into these things, they don’t think straight. They don’t use logic; it doesn’t even occur to them that it is extra insulting because they have convinced themselves that what they are doing is okay in their f-ed up heads.

I will NEVER get it. I will NEVER understand it but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. The fantasy they believe in is strong.

I am not saying some people don’t do it on purpose as a slap in the face, but not all waywards are trying to be cruel.

In her case, the few times it happened, his place was unavailable, a hotel was not practical as I handle all the credit cards and finances, we never have cash (plus I would see it being withdrawn) and he was too poor to afford a room. The only option was outside somewhere or our home. I was out of town so it was the obvious choice.

That is a really shitty way to think about it but that was the mindset. It doesn’t seem to be an attempt to belittle me or cause extra damage, it was just the most viable option.

As for waiting, sure, they could have but if they waited, they would have been back to outside as his place wasn’t an option for a long time (seems his mothers moved into his place for a year and some months while recovering from some home issues of her own).

Now she says she loves you more than her own life. And she did during her affair. She may think she does, but her actions say otherwise

Agreed. She thought she loved me but there is no way you can do that and truly love someone. You may think you do but you are either constantly pushing it down to be in the A or don’t have it at all. That is something she is going to have to figure out.

The really sick thing here is her giving you the STD in her mind might be the thing that saves her.

No, she knows that it won’t. I may not be thrilled at my chances out there but I will NOT stay with her just because of the STD. No way in hell.

BeyondRage:

Your post wasn’t up when I was responding to the last group so let me hit some points in yours real quick.

I'm sorry. I'm not buying it was only sex. A woman can get sex anytime she wants to. She wanted it from this guy, and since she has given you the standard line that the sex was not great, then why the fuck didn't she get ego kibbles from someone else. Thats not hard for a woman to get either.

She wanted this guy because it made her feel good about herself. In that sense, no, it wasn’t only sex. Hell, if you think about it, it wasn’t at all about the sex, it was the emotion and the high from feeling wanted by someone she thought shouldn’t want her that was what she was there for. She may not have loved him or wanted a future with him or even hung out/talked with him but it was an emotional affair in that she was there for the boost it provided her. The sex itself was secondary so it being good or not wasn’t really the point. Not something I can ever understand but it seems not entirely uncommon either.

You problem, my friend, is unless you can ACCEPT what she did, you will never be able to reconcile. Not forget, but accept. You and only you can decide if you can do that and allow the time to see. It's probably easier in a lot of cases not D.

Agreed 100000000%. I will never forget. I may never forgive either but I have always felt like the one thing I HAVE to be able to do in order to stay is accept and move past it.

She should have offered to take polygraph test any time you want in the future.

She did. I have looked into and found the place we will go if I decide it is needed at any point.

Thanks again everyone who posted. Different views and experiences, even ones that may not directly apply, makes me think about things, look at them in a different light and that helps a ton to be sure of what I am feeling/thinking.

Hey are you taking care of yourself at least??? Physically and emotionally?? Sometimes a lot of BS neglect their health and I've always felt it makes decision making and processing that much harder.

[This message edited by JS84 at 10:15 AM, May 22nd (Friday)]

Hell, if you think about it, it wasn’t at all about the sex, it was the emotion and the high from feeling wanted by someone she thought shouldn’t want her that was what she was there for.

I doubt that she was pining away for the waiter dude 7 days a week but if there was some sort of monitor hooked up to her there would be a spike when he contacted her and she'd be excited to plan the next meet up until it was consummated. So she would've been high on that for a week or two.

I hope that you are looking at her change in behaviour as a extreme reaction to being caught in a 4 year affair. Can she keep it up? For a while she will be trying to unravel the why and how she did. Sort of like a juggler frantically trying to keep all the balls in the air, which she did during the A.

Can a couple months or years of good behaviour make up for 4 years of a seperate life...That affair is still hardwired into her brain and will take a long time and a lot of effort to erase. Hard to quit, like smoking or gambling or other behaviour that is "bad" but gives a high.

Good luck and keep an eye on what you want fist. Then her needs.

I still think you should sue her.

JS84:

Hey are you taking care of yourself at least??? Physically and emotionally??

Not well. I did at first and fell off hard. It is one of the things I am trying to really focus and work on now.

MickeyBill2016:

I hope that you are looking at her change in behaviour as a extreme reaction to being caught in a 4 year affair. Can she keep it up?

I am and it is the thing I am watching closest. If I see her starting to slack off or revert, I don’t need to figure anything out, I am done. If she keeps with it, I will eventually come to a decision one way or the other. If I choose to stay, her not stopping that work going forward would be a condition I insisted on. If that is not doable or acceptable for her, I leave.

Can a couple months or years of good behaviour make up for 4 years of a seperate life...That affair is still hardwired into her brain and will take a long time and a lot of effort to erase. Hard to quit, like smoking or gambling or other behaviour that is "bad" but gives a high.

Agreed but ironically enough, I believe a shock to the system is exactly the kind of thing that can make a long term change possible. As an ex-smoker (1-2 packs a day) when I was diagnosed with hypertension I quit just about immediately and never looked back. It was one of the easiest things I ever did in my whole life despite it having been near impossible before that day. I had tried hundreds of times and failed. That eye-opening realization of just how much I was destroying my health gave me the clarity I needed to quit and change my behavior. Sure, intellectually I knew I was doing myself harm when I smoked but for whatever reason it never really hit home until that day.

My hope is that this can do the same for her but more so.

If she can salvage herself out of this mess and become a good person, a loving person, someone worth being with and sharing a life with then it will be hard for me to not give it another try. However, even if I can’t stay with her, she needs to make those changes regardless to be a happy person herself. If she chooses not to or can’t, then she threw her life away for a short-lived ego boost and gets to live with that choice. She will become part of my past and I will move on to whatever life holds for me going forward.

I'm curious to know about the statement I saw somewhere that in the period leading up to, and possibly during her A, your marriage was essentially sexless. Like you guys were having sex just a couple of times a year.

Is that the case? If so, who would you describe as the "low desire" partner in your marriage, and the "high desire" partner. Sex occurring that infrequently is often, perhaps usually, dictated by the "low desire" partner.

So she brought him into your bed,because his place was unavailable?

If he is a single man,why in the world is his own home unavailable?

Sounds like he has,or had, a girlfriend. Please look into this. This innocent woman needs to know she has been exposed.

Hope you had her replace the marital bed.

How is it going today Dranth ?

butforthegrace:

I saw somewhere that in the period leading up to, and possibly during her A, your marriage was essentially sexless. Like you guys were having sex just a couple of times a year.

This is true. We have both been on meds at various times that have impacted our sex lives. When neither of us are on them we are good. When one of us is, it is less so. When both of us are it is pretty barren.

HellFire:

If he is a single man,why in the world is his own home unavailable?

Sounds like he has,or had, a girlfriend. Please look into this. This innocent woman needs to know she has been exposed.

His mothers house burned down and so she moved in with him for about a year and some odd months. He also has kids who he takes custody of over the summer. At those times his house was not available.

As for a girlfriend, seems he is the one with the “morals” in their relationship as he cut it off those times he was dating and would come back after he no longer was.

Westway:

Hope you had her replace the marital bed.

As I mentioned before, we have separate rooms due to sleep issues so there was no marital bed per se. She still has the one she used and as far as I am concerned, she can sit in it. I’m not touching it and if she wants to see me, she can come to the other bedroom. If she wants to replace it bad enough, she can pay for it with her own money as I had already split all our finances back in February.

Numb&dumb:

How is it going today Dranth ?

Not great. Been pretty negative about everything the last few days. Something about realizing that nothing I did mattered has been dragging me down. It didn’t matter how much I cared, how I treated her. It didn’t matter how well we got along or how much we laughed. It didn’t matter how many times we had to comfort each other or help one another through the bad times. It didn’t matter how many years we had been together or the life we had built. In the end she put it all in a box, shut the lid and screwed someone because she wanted to. Nothing about us, or me mattered at the moment.

Sure, it matters to me and how I view myself and of course you can’t control someone else but that all of that was so easily reduced to nothing, that it was all meaningless to her in that moment. It just doesn’t sit right.

She is certainly sorry about it now and has shown what seems to be a lot of remorse but I am having trouble with it of late. I get that it is part of what is wrong with her and that it isn’t my doing but it still hurts like hell.

That's one of the toughest things is when they say you were not anywhere in her head when she was banging the other dude for 4 years...

My X was only wandering for 6 months or so before it all came to light but for my wife to say that she didn't even think of me when with him was something I could not get over...

.... In the end she put it all in a box, shut the lid and screwed someone because she wanted to. Nothing about us, or me mattered at the moment.

Not just for the 'moment' but for 4 years.

You are not the first BS to feel this. And I can't give you the 'right' answer because there is no right or wrong ....just what's right for you to live your best life going forward.

You can forgive her - but still decide that D is the best option for your life.

Consider distancing yourself further from her (so you don't have to see and talk to her every day) in order to experience what life without her is like - and to get to a place where you can make a rational decision to R or D.

No offense but it sounds like you have been essentially roommates prior to the affair.

Dranth, thanks for the update, sounds like the emotional pain is stuck on a race track. Lots of good advice been offered. Recommence the cardio and gym when you can. You said it was better. Beyond Rage gave some good pointers. Thanksgiving2016, great statement.

Are you and WW going to work on this? Getting back to a marriage or just co existing?

Buffer

MickeyBill2016:

That's one of the toughest things is when they say you were not anywhere in her head when she was banging the other dude for 4 years...

My X was only wandering for 6 months or so before it all came to light but for my wife to say that she didn't even think of me when with him was something I could not get over...

Knowing every time they got together she made me not exist is rough and I honestly don’t know if I will ever get over it.

Robert22205https:

You can forgive her - but still decide that D is the best option for your life.

I don’t know if this it the type of thing I can ever forgive and D is certainly the way I have been leaning from the get go but something is holding me back and I can’t figure out what it is.

So, what is keeping me here?

I have spent a lot of mental energy trying to figure that one out.

I thought about the finances. It isn’t for the money; we both will be fine on our own. Either of us could support our current life style without the other working if we were together and even more so alone. I have no real fear of losing assets or paying alimony.

That can’t be it, so I keep digging.

I thought about just being on me own, of being alone after having someone with me for so long. However, I am not afraid of being on my own and would be fine living that way. I don’t need a serious relationship with someone and I enjoy time to myself.

That doesn’t seem a likely reason so I keep digging.

I thought about the fact that I know/understand how screwed up she can be mentally and can absolutely see (looking back) how she can end up in an A like the one she had. I can see how she could be loyal and even reject other advances over our time together but fall for this particular one due to the right mix of mental mess at the right time.

Okay, so I can logically work out how she got into this mess, that doesn’t make me want to stay though so I keep digging.

I thought, what if it is me? What if I have some weird martyr complex that makes me want to stick around to fulfill some sick need of my own that provides a gross sort of validation? That doesn’t line up with how I feel though. Picturing myself is this monument of virtue above it all makes me laugh at the ridiculousness of it.

That can’t be why I would want to stay so I keep digging.

What if I am WAY overthinking this and it is simply because I still love her and am unwilling to let go? I do, God help me I still love her but I have never been one of those people that thinks “Love will conquer all”. It takes more than just that. That person needs to be a partner, needs to be an equal, needs to trust and respect me and me her. I should want her and she should want me. I foolishly thought we had all those things and that we were one of the lucky ones. I watched relationship after relationship of friends and family fall apart and thought, man, thank God I don’t have to deal with that. She would never do that to me and I certainly wouldn’t do it to her.

Well, here I am. Turns out we weren’t that special after all. Just another cliché.

Thanksgiving2016:

No offense but it sounds like you have been essentially roommates prior to the affair.

It certainly looks that way now.

Buffer:

Lots of good advice been offered. Recommence the cardio and gym when you can. You said it was better. Beyond Rage gave some good pointers. Thanksgiving2016, great statement.

Are you and WW going to work on this? Getting back to a marriage or just co existing?

Your post came in as I was putting up my last one so let me respond to this real quick.

I have every intention of getting back on track with the cardio once the legs are fully healed (just have to actually take it slow). As for workouts, even if I just have to start with basic calisthenics as weight training then so be it. It needs to happen.

As for me and my WW working on getting back to a marriage, if I can get to a point that I feel it is possible to eventually accept and move past this then absolutely. I want to fix all the crap in our relationship that was ignored. I know I have seen it here many times but this mess has really put a spot light on our relationship in a way that reveals all the little cracks and dirty corners that we just didn’t notice or ignored. We did some things well and a pretty piss poor job on others. That will have to be addressed.

Good luck

Buffer

First.of all most people are good people. But they cheat. So good people do cheat.

After reading your post you WW had a long affair. The emotional high was wearing off.

Second, it’s great having a young man seeking, you . Having sex with you. Filling what ever fantasy you are having, “That great life with AP.”.

But after a time she figured out a waiter could not support her life style. In stead af being the hot GF she is becoming his mother. She will be Paying for everything, And him working four hours a day, with no future.

That when she figured out life is better with you, yes you can love two people at the same time,. But the question always is. Are you being love then way you want to be love.

All people are different ,

Dranth, just wanted to say I'm thinking of you today. I know this is a super tough time. Not to minimize any other A one bit, but an LTA is its own special kind of hell. I suspect I've felt pretty much everything that's going on in your mind....lots of us have. And I don't think many (or any?) WS will EVER have even a basic understanding of how devastating it is. I don't think they can even imagine what it's like to have every memory for the past x years (in my case, pretty much the entire M) become tainted - perhaps irreparably. Many BS just don't have the capacity for that kind of compartmentalization. I think it's just not in our blood somehow.

I also understand the kind of digging to figure out why not just pull the plug and D immediately. while, I did/do have practical reasons for still being M (and my WH has yet to show the kind of inner work your WW seems to be putting in at this juncture), during year 1 it ultimately came down to wanting to work on myself and my healing w/o also having to deal with D and finding a new home, etc. I guess I could say it was a practical decision on both fronts (emotional and just day-to-day stuff I didn't want to put on my plate in the midst of the post dday trauma).

I bring this up bc I think it's a common thing for a BS to kind of kick themselves for not immediately filing for D. Like there must be something wrong with me for still being M to someone capable of such immeasurable hurt to me and my well being. Those feelings still creep up on me. I think it's just grieving all that was lost, including that wonderful idea that somehow we and our WS and our M were "special" to the extent this could never have happened.

An easy analogy is that dday basically destroys us. Floor us. We can't sit up, let alone stand, or even THINK about trying to walk. It takes time to heal each and every wound. And when it's gone on for years, there are a LOT of them. A song, a date, a photo (I had already checked out of most FB, but those fucking "memories" that turn up when I do go on there just kill me), just about anything and every part of our story has now become darkened by the realization that our WS were in their A at the time. That our reality was not real, and it was made so by the one person we believed would never do such a thing.

Eventually, we ARE able to lift our head.... then our shoulders.... then sit up. A bit more work and we can even get on one knee, and ultimately lift ourselves back up to standing. And the next thing you know, enough time and healing and processing has passed and we can actually learn to walk again. It will be a different kind of walk. There will be times we still kind of crumble. There may be a permanent emotional limp of sorts. But walk we will. Skip we will. And jog and run too.

I guess the bottom line is to do what you can to keep some space for self compassion. Every one of us arrives at dday with our own special kind of emotional suitcase. And every one of those suitcases has some stuff packed away that we probably would have done well to have unpacked and chucked a long time ago. For some, maybe it's just a funky pair of socks. For others, it's a whole damn wardrobe of funk. It sounds like you are trying to clean that out, and I say kudos to you. Rather than kick ourselves for not opening the suitcase, we can find ways to dig in and purge those items that no longer work in our lives of today.

Godspeed to you.

And FWIW, I do not believe that "good people" cheat. I believe that during the time of an A, a WS is NOT a "good person" . S/he may have been "good" at certain aspects of life, but not as a whole person. IOW, the "good person" persona is all just an act IMO for them to try and feel good about themselves and to tell themselves that what they are doing is somehow ok. "Good" people do not spend days/weeks/months/years/decades living a lie.

I do, however, believe that cheaters can change and grow and begin to behave as the "good" people they projected despite living a secret sexual life. Just my opinion on that front.

[This message edited by gmc94 at 2:46 PM, May 31st, 2020 (Sunday)]