SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is just a basic over view. Well in short I screwed up with my wife and left for the ow and it was messy and I treated my wife badly. A short time later I realized how bad I screwed up and hurt the most amazing woman in the world to me my wife. So me and my wife decided to try and make it work and me and my wife messed with her a little bit to let her get some pay back of how bad me and the ow treated her but nothing horrible just my wife sending her pics of us holding hands and such before she knew me and my wife were getting back together. I waited till me and my wife were together then we told her. I had to stay at the job I was at until I could get a transfer to some where else and the ow works there also and my wife was at the new house where we are now and now the ow is mad at my wife well and me to for messing with her and she has some how made texts messages that look like I wrote them but they are from different phone numbers not mine and telling my wife I was sleeping with her after the fact and we were not I have the person I was staying with the whole that we also work together and if we were not at work we were together and he has also told my wife I was with him also. Not sure how to handle this all the other people she has talked to have told her it is not true I don’t blame her for not believing me after all it is my fault for the lies and betrayal. Just not sure how to put my wife’s mind at ease about all this.

I am reposting this because this is my first post and did not realize that the stop sign was automatically checked sorry new to the site thanks

Well no stop sign so here goes:

You SHOULD have left her alone. Once no contact was established silence would have been the way to go. Now you have a mess. As a BS I totally understand your wife wanting to "get back" at the OW, but now the two of you have rattled the OW's cage and she's pissed.

Block the OW completely and LEAVE HER ALONE. Honestly? I don't know how you are going to get yourself out of this.

And why would YOU want to mess with her? YOU did this too! You are just (if not more so because you were married) to blame for the affair.

Now you are experiencing the aftershocks of infidelity.

Well thank you for your honest opinion Evertrying. We really did not establish no contact yet until after me and my wife messed with her. You are right we pissed her off and now she is just after revenge and I think you are right we should just block her from everything and not speak to her again. But my wife wants to call her and see if she can figure out the truth because she does not believe me and I don’t blame her for not believing me just don’t think talking to her will get to the truth.

Thanks

Evertrying

Ps

Sorry for the grammar I have never been good in English

But my wife wants to call her and see if she can figure out the truth because she does not believe me and I don’t blame her for not believing me just don’t think talking to her will get to the truth.

Does your wife HONESTLY think that she is going to get the truth from this OW? After all that is going on?? Or is she just frustrated trying to find the truth because there is NO RELIABLE source to get it from?

I don't know your story, but if you haven't done so, make a very detailed timeline of your affair for your wife. At least she will have some starting point for her to start fact-checking things that don't make sense to her.

That's a good start.

Another JB weighing in-

I can imagine the scenario where this was something your BW and you saw no other way to proceed in terms of finally giving to the partner you made real commitments to. Not to say I see you as being bullied into it, but this is a good indicator of just how malleable we are when firmly in the throes of deceptive and toxic behavior and decision-making.

I think you need to really think about what in your mind saw this as a reasonable way to proceed: Your wife treats the AP as an outside threat to your partnership, and you going along with this likely points to you wanting to get out of the accountability of the decisions that YOU made in concert with the AP, which means you aren’t the victim that your BW is. (Kinda like calling leaving your wife for another woman “screwing up.” No harm in acknowledging it as a life-shattering betrayal.) That’s not a challenge, it’s a hunch. But you can learn a lot, I believe, in understanding how this decision played out.

I say this to provide some context and belabor the common point of your way forward as a cheater and liar: You will need to work out for yourself who you are. Would RLF, if he were just ONE PERSON on his own, agree to targeting and harassing another person? Likely not. So the concessions you make now need to be well understood in order for you to truly change. RLF needs to be a self-sufficient human whose actions enrich his life and the lives of the people he touches.

This is a common symptom of not understanding what we should have brought into a healthy relationship to begin with- And that’s being the natural value to a partnership, one that does not bend to whims or adjust to perceived expectations. Your honesty is your only chance to improve as a person- AND THEN maybe as a partner after. You gotta get YOUR HEAD STRAIGHT first and then you can begin to demonstrate a degree of safety to your BW, but that’s a long way.

This sucks, and I wish I had good advice for you but only time is going to allow your BW to believe what you have to say but it’s going to take a lot of time and effort to get there. If you can’t be patient with your BW while you work for the both of you, it’s likely going to be a long and fruitless process...

We’re here for you, but let’s roll up our sleeves and DIG SOME. Hoping the best for both of you.

This is Repair’s BW. What happened was that after his 6 - 8 mos affair, he left and was with OW. He was separated from me and they were boyfriend & girlfriend. After a few months he realized he wanted to come back and make it work. He had not really split w/her yet. We had been talking and decided we wanted to try to make the marriage work. We got together and slept together. What I did was to text her. I asked, “ Hey, I just wanted to check. Are you and Repair still together?” She replied, “ Yes we are” I said, “ Then why is he laying naked next to me?” That was pretty much it. Then she didn’t believe me and asked for pictures. I sent two pictures. One with us smiling together and one with us holding hands. That night she drunk texted, called etc.. ALL NIGHT LONG!! She was hounding us all night. Then said she was coming to his house, but he wasn’t home. She did go to his house and hounded his roommate until he kicked her out. According to Repair, she came over to the house and spoke to him briefly a day or two later. He said he just said, “ There now you’ve seen me. I don’t want to be with you anymore, GOODBYE!” According to him that was the last tome he spoke to her other than a quick talk during work about work on her birthday . He did tell her happy birthday.

Fast forward to day before yesterday. He was getting ready to switch jobs and move 3 hours south to my new home. He was going to surprise me. Well, I guess, since she works with him, she found out before I did., she sent me several screenshots of texts from him from other people’s phones. She has lots of correct information about when we were together, things about my kids, etc. Her evidence is quite damning, but his friends claim he didn’t use their phone even though it shows their number on the screenshots.

He says people at his work love to gossip and she could get this info off social media and he swears she fabricated the texts. I don’t know what to believe.

I am thinking about calling her w/ him to see if I can figure out what’s true.

BW, never,ever call the OW asking for her to tell you anything about your husband. It puts her in a position of power, and makes you look weak.

Both of you need to go total NC with her. If she continues, send her one message telling her she is to never contact either of you again, or your kids, and if she does, it will result in legal action. If she continues, have an attorney send her an official NC letter. If she continues, get a restraining order.

You can also change your phone numbers, lock down your social media, and cut out any mutual friends.

BW, I would recommend a polygraph. They're quite common in these situations. You can ask if he has been honest with you about NC.

Oh..and wishing her happy birthday? Shit move.

I also recommend that BW get her own account and username here,so she can post looking for support.

[This message edited by HellFire at 1:36 PM, August 22nd (Saturday)]

Agreed with Hellfire. NC means NO CONTACT.. ever. The OW is already pissy and she'll do what she can to eff up any possibility of R, so no.. there's nothing but trouble to be had by calling her. I also agree that a polygraph can go a long way towards settling your BW's mind, Repair. So, if possible, you should schedule it, put her in charge of what questions are asked, and go through with it. If money is tight, sell something you don't need.

It sounds like you and your BW poked the bear, so the OW is going to do or say whatever she can to hurt you.

I think you're right to be suspicious, Repair's BW. Why did he wish her a happy birthday after acknowledging that she treated you terribly and helped ruin your marriage? That's very disrespectful of him. It does raise the question of what really happened during their "closure" and why he would want to remain friendly with her unless he was intentionally keeping the door open for the A to start back up in the future.

I agree with CT. If you're serious about your truth, Repair, then prove this to your BW with a polygraph.

BW, I would recommend a polygraph. They're quite common in these situations. You can ask if he has been honest with you about NC.

Oh..and wishing her happy birthday? Shit move.

I also recommend that BW get her own account and username here,so she can post looking for support.

do NOT contact the OW. She is just (if not moreso) as untrustworthy as your WH.

Thanks for the advice. Hellfire, I do have my own account. I am writing from my account. I’ve had it since his first affair 8 years ago. You can read my story for more details.

You are right, If I ask her questions about him I’m making her feel important.

A polygraph is a good idea. I’m not sure how that exactly works and how reliable they are, but it might not be a bad idea.

Thanks for all of the help.

No stop sign sooooo....

Lilflower, I read your bio and old posts, and I have to say, his username says it all. ‘Repairlilflower’?!? He’s the one who needs repairing.

The OW problem here is that he’s still got one, and this isn’t the first nor will it be the last.

Listen, I’ve been a betrayed wife. I was with my x for 18 years. We had two kids. He fucked a coworker...and who knows how many other women I never discovered. I tried to R because we had a house and kids and history and a life....he rewarded my attempts to believe in him and restore our marriage by at a minimum joining Ashley Madison months later. He and his OW worked together the whole time, so for all I know they were fucking the whole time too. I KNOW this is hard. I KNOW you love him. I KNOW it’s scary. I also know just as well as you do that how to get the OW to leave you alone isn’t the real question here. How to get yourself out of infidelity and lies and hurt and deceit is.

You’ve had a track record of communicating with OW, and continuing to do so now is not healthy. Block her number. If she continues to contact you, do as was suggested and get a lawyer to draft a NC letter for you.

And then? Please go to IC. Please stop taking breadcrumbs. Please know your worth and love yourself enough to no longer let your WH manipulate and use you. You are worthy of so much better, and believe me when I say it’s HARD to see that when you’re buried in the mess, but better is out there waiting for you.

OP, you say you want to put your wife’s mind at ease, but your actions for the past 8 years have shown otherwise. If you are truly committed to fixing this, realize you need to repair yourself first. You have a LOT of work to do to even get close to being a safe husband for her, and frankly nothing in her post history points to you doing any of it. You want to handle this ‘OW problem’? Start by not having OWs,. Then try coming clean to your wife about the full extent of your infidelities, by going to IC to work on yourself, and by showing up consistently and honestly to support her healing. If you love lilflower, you need to be willing to stop manipulating and gaslighting her and you need to be honest so she know who and what she’s dealing with and can make her choices based on those truths. In other words, show her you love her by letting go of the outcome and respecting her enough to walk away if that’s what she needs in order to heal.

Just a reminder that this is the wayward forum. Please direct your advice to the OP rather than his wife.

Gently, truth is not to be found from someone willing to sleep with a married man and jump through all the hoops necessary to do that while eluding detection by two spouses. Your wife will be sorely disappointed if you continue to pursue this avenue. And at some point, she will realize that this method is permitting you continued contact with your AP.

Your wife needs to get all the answers from you. And of course she won't believe you. Eventually, she might, if you stop playing games and get busy with a timeline that provides her with all the details of your infidelity. But even with that, the oft-quoted time for healing is 2-5 years, and really, while that sounds long and some disagree, I've been around here long enough (LONG before my last ddays) to know that it's conservative; many grapple with issues related to infidelity for much longer (actions in the aftermath of dday play in sadly), and most of us have at least some fallout pretty much forever. That doesn't mean that we're emotional wrecks forever. It means we have some things we see differently and things we do differently, for ever after.

As unfair as it is---and it is--your wife is responsible for her own healing. Assuming you're doing what you need to be doing, the rest is in her hands. You can't restore her well-being. You can't make her feel safe. You can't decide, for her, whether you're worth the investment to see whether you can become a trustworthy partner.

That's all for her to do.

For her, I'd recommend a therapist with a doctorate in psychology who uses modalities that move beyond talking about feelings and into territory like biofeedback, neurofeedback, and EMDR. Brain function is literally changed by this kind of trauma. Addressing the storm caused with modalities that are geared toward helping the orbitofrontal cortex function properly again is ENORMOUSLY helpful.

It makes talking with you (or, if she decides it's better for her, going NC with you) possible.

I know it's risky business suggesting therapy for the BS. But this is for HER--not you, not the marriage.

RLF, I think it's telling that you did not include that this is the SECOND instance of you leaving your BW for an OW. You're still not being honest. Why should your BW believe you? You have lied and TT'd her to death. If you want to start rebuilding the trust in your marriage, give her a complete timeline of all and any affairs including whatever went on with her cousin and take a polygraph test. Put your money where your mouth is for once or accept that you're on a path to losing her for good because NO ONE deserves the mountain of crap you have dumped on her. Eventually she's going to realize that and leave you in the dust if you don't get it together and start moving towards truth and R today.

Apologies, WOE. It wasn’t my intent to break rules, and if needed I’m happy to edit my post.

Apologies to OP and his BW as well.