SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Apparition,

Keep a diary of everything your WW tells you, if the story changes over time you have not gotten the full truth.

Have her write out a timeline for her affairs with all the details buy her a big note book.

Then have her take a polygraph for Christmas or Birthday.

You will not recover until all her infidelity is known, nor will she recover, she knows she is lying by omission and minimization even more than you do.

Not a spec of untruth can remain you are dealing with a serial cheater and they require alot more extraordinary precautions and changes in behavior.

Once you have a list of the OMs it's time to expose them to their spouses, SO, parents, siblings, linkedin, facebook, etc, etc.

You mention things happened early in your marriage, it could be that your marriage was always in ruins you just now found out about it.

Apparition, as a mental exercise...

If the attempt at reconciliation doesn't pan out, what will you do? What's your future?

Now's the time to contemplate on it, because statistically the odds are your marriage will not survive this. Odds-wise, it will either end shortly when you decide it is a bridge too far, or you will give it your best shot but it wasn't meant to be. Or it will muddle along in a zombie state.

The probability that it will recover and be different and good is non-zero, thousands per year manage it, but it is less than 50%.

I say this to make sure you have a realistic understanding of what you are up against. This is serious, it is life changing, and there is no cramming the genie back in the bottle. There is no 'around', there is only 'through'.

The sooner your WW gets it, the better the chance of reconciling.

Sending strength!

Odds-wise, it will either end shortly when you decide it is a bridge too far, or you will give it your best shot but it wasn't meant to be. Or it will muddle along in a zombie state.

Truth.

You are getting such good advice. I only wish I’d had this dose of reality after DDAY.

Brother, reconciliation is not impossible, but the bar must be set incredibly high. Do not settle for anything less.

I limped along in the zombie state described for nearly four years. You don’t want to do this. Trust me.

My WW loves me, she is remorseful (in many ways tho not enough) but she cannot bring herself to be authentically transparent with me.

Many wayward spouses stumble on the obstacles of their own neuroses, lack of empathy and lower emotional intelligence. You can’t fix this for them. You should not even try. It’s tragic but this is your life we’re talking about, not their life.

So my WW and I are getting divorced. She’s still sex bombing me in hopes I will change my mind. Some think this disqualifies me from giving people like you advice. I don’t know why - I think it makes me pragmatic and able to be blunt, as well as offering a cautionary tale.

You must insist on the whole truth, verify what you are being told and then with the full truth decide what you will do.

Your heart may very well decide after all this that you simply don’t love her as you did before. This is OK. In fact it is beyond OK and perfectly right after being betrayed this way.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:07 AM, October 29th (Thursday)]

and raised children in a combined household.

Was your WW married before? What’s the reason of her previous breakup?

When new posters show up in JFO, they almost never have the full story.

Many WW “fall in love” with their AP and that’s the extend of their affair. A few WW will just go sleep with random strangers, like your WW.

So, it begs the question, how many times she has done this within your relationship and all her past relationships?

Why worry about past relationships? Because there might be a pattern there.

You find out the truth first. Then, if you want to consider R, she will need to fix herself to become a safe partner.

None of us knew instinctively how to handle infidelity, so don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t do everything perfectly.

You said you had the opportunity to cheat in the past but you value your marriage too much. You WW likes your marriage too, but she can’t help herself. A stranger at the hotel tells her how pretty she is and off goes the panties. She is broken and none of it is your fault.

You should seek support IRL. Go to IC. Tell a friend or a family member.

As for the protocol in this forum, you can answer any or none of the posters. Take what you need and leave the rest. Post as often as you need and we’ll help you.

I am a technology professional with over 20 year of experience.

@Apparition - I have some bad news. If your wife has an iPhone, deleted text and other content are no longer recoverable as of iOS 13 (Maybe 12) unless there has been some kind of advances in the past few months that I am not aware of.

Thumos is right that Dr. Fone is currently the best choice, though Fonelab was the best for many years.

If your wife is on an Android, Dr. Fone or Fonelab has options for you, though I have not tested them.

***

IMPORTANT - YOU CAN STILL POSSIBLY RECOVER INFOMRATION

If she backs up her phone to her computer or has iCloud or similar cloud storage backups, you may find everything. People who are not tech savvy leave lots of trails.

Dr. Fone and Fonelab can extract information from both sources.

***

ALSO IMPORTANT - IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE - GET A VAR(S) and a GPS

VAR

Here is the VAR I recommend: Sony ICD-PX470 - it costs $50.99 on Amazon right now and delivers in one day.

- Lots of people say to use black tape to cover lights on it, and to cut a stereo headphone jack off a pair of headphones and stick it in to suppress beeps etc.

-- I disagree, just read the manual for 15 minutes and you can disable lights and beep easily

- Also, get a 32 Gigabyte card to expand your recording capacity to weeks on end

, I recommend the SanDisk 32GB Ultra microSDHC UHS-I Memory Card with Adapter - 98MB/s, C10, U1, Full HD, A1, Micro SD Card - SDSQUAR-032G-GN6MA - $8.49 on Amazon, arrives tomorrow.

GPS

-I don't know, maybe someone else can give you a recommendation.

***

MOST IMPORTANT: I HAVE A WAY TO GET ALL THE INFOMRATION YOU NEED MOVING FORWARD.

But I don't want to talk about it on the open forum. PM me for details.

Good Luck to you

[This message edited by faithfulman at 2:29 AM, October 29th (Thursday)]

Apparition - if you need to know more, your best bet is to convince your wife that you are putting this all behind you and you want to "move forward".

Somebody like her will very soon begin to resume her behavior and you will bust the shit out of her pretty quickly.

So my advice is, play it cool - or get a divorce.

And forget this "Let's work on our marriage" bullshit. She's a serial cheater and a stone-cold liar. She does not care how she betrays you. There is really not any work for you to do.

Cool 😎, thermal nuclear release has been authorised.

Go thermal on her long term sexting one night stand POS. Is he married or in a relationship? Expose him now!! You don’t need her approval.

People in a A are like cockroaches they thrive in the dark. Shine a light on both of them, now.

After legal advice have her served.

She then needs to work on proving she is worthy to R. The D can be canceled at any time.

Get her to write out a full time line for the A, including her justification to chase the AP. Her thought process for this and the other ONS. Finally how she could write off both children as they are hurt the most by her actions.

Please don’t say ‘but she is a great mum’. Great mothers don’t lie to their children so to carry on a two year sexting thing with a couple of ONS thrown in.

One day at a time.

[This message edited by Buffer at 4:14 AM, October 29th (Thursday)]

You've received great advice so far, but I want to emphasize on EXPOSURE, just because you know doesn't mean the A(s?) is/are over or couldn't resume in the future, it's called CONSEQUENCES for her huge betrayal, it also helps with remorse, right now she's not remorseful, she just REGRETs getting caught, again nothing kills an A faster than FULL EXPOSURE with ALL family and close friends, exposure typically kills the "beautiful, exciting and romantic" aspects of an A and replaces it with pure shame and embarrassment, the more she hates the As, the more she will hate OMs and the less likely she will be to cheat again in the future. Find out if the former co-worker and others are married and expose the A to OBS (Other Betrayed Spouse), it's the right thing to do and you could possibly get more info from OMs phone, exposure must be done WITHOUT WARNING to be effective and have maximum impact.

Demand she gets tested for STDs (you should too), contact a D attorney to know your legal options, knowledge is power, demand she takes a polygraph, she's a serial cheaters and cheaters lie a lot, as mentioned earlier, put a VAR in her car with some velcro under her seat.

That being said, I always recommend D when it comes to serial cheaters and LTAs (Long Time Affairs), in your case your WW meets both of those conditions so my suggestion is that you file for D, your WW seems to be in CYA mode and not remorseful by a very long shot, life's too short, you deserve so much better than a proven cheater and liar.

Keep posting frequently, the collective wisdom of SI could help you go through this difficult situation, we have literally "seen" it play out THOUSANDS of times here on SI and other forums, every case is different but cheaters typically follow a similar script.

Apparition,

So sorry you are here for this reason. There is not one of us betrayed spouses who has not felt exactly or very similarly to how you are feeling right now.

She has proven that you cannot trust in her so trust in yourself only right now.

I did not even trust in myself when everything was revealed to me but I quickly learned that trusting myself, even just a little, was far better for me than trusting anything my Ex wife said.

I didn't just think it was a good marriage, I thought we had the best marriage

You did have a good marriage, the problem is that your wayward wife was not part of it.

I made a promise to commit to working on our marriage

Did you promise this to yourself or to your cheating wife?

As stated above, you did have the best marriage as far as you were concerned so just what do you think you can do to work on it?

The answer is, I believe, that you can't do anything. This is 100% on her.

She ended up detailing a two-year run up of sexting and flirtations, admitting that she initiated advancing the friendship into an affair, initiated the sexting, shared nude photos, planned a night, and followed through

This was actions on her part that were cold, calculated, planned and executed by her.

Every lie she told, every moment she stole from you, every text or picture/video she sent to him and every moment she spent with the other man was cold, calculated, planned and executed by her.

Sorry to hear whats happened to you . It will take time for you decide what to do and it will take longer to execute it .

Focus on your own physical and mental health . Look through the healing library .

After you have handled the first wave of trauma thats when you need to get more information to know what the next step should be . Dr fone PI polygraph etc can all help when you are ready

Some people are able to reconcile it takes years to get to a better place but it is possible . Its not possible if the WS continues to lie or withhold information. Its also not possible if the BS cant move to a reconciliation mindset for whatever reasons ( good or bad ) .

If your wife has decided she isnt all in or if you have decided you are not all in - then there may not be any purpose to finding out all the grizzly details you possibly can.

At every point If you want to find out more it should be because you are on a path to possible forgiveness and reconciliation . And i would temper what you do find out with what it is that you want to achieve.

Anger is not the goal although its a normal emotion and you want to have some coping strategies in place for when you feel it overwhelm you .

Some people are too thrill seeking ( immature ) to ever develop integrity . Before you decide what to do next make sure you relearn who your wife actually is , sadly the person you thought you knew is a fallacy . Its even more important to see yourself accurately to know whats best for you . Dont make any decisions till you have gone through a few weeks of Therapy .

Hope you feel better soon

[This message edited by siracha at 7:46 PM, October 30th (Friday)]

I have to agree with the others that it is extremely unlikely that your WW is giving you the full story. It almost never happens that way. I'm normally not a big proponent of the lie detector test, but in your case, it seems necessary. If I were in your shoes, I would schedule it, and then tell her when it is, and see how she reacts. That will tell you a lot.

Don't be afraid to tell your WW that you don't believe her. She has lied to you for years, and thus, she does not deserve your trust. Again, if I were you, I'd tell her that you won't believe anything she tells you unless she can verify it, otherwise, you will assume it is a lie, as she is a liar.

You should start the 180 and give yourself some space, to think and decide what you want your future to look like. You are dealing with something huge, don't be afraid to focus on yourself.

I’m so sorry you’re here and a member of the club NO ONE wants to be a member of. You’ve received some great advice. We tend to look for affirmation of our own choices, so I like to see positive stories where reconciliation is likely, however in your situation, the odds are against you. Serial cheaters, sex addicts, and cake eaters usually don’t stop their wayward behavior. It’s almost always a miserable life for the betrayed. Now, there are a few stories I’ve seen on here where a serial cheater actually did get their shit together, but it’s more the exception than the rule.

My WHs phone records were straight up traumatizing. We’re talking 6,000 texts in ONE month. 30,000 total between him and his AP. They talked for hours on my birthday on the phone. Talked on our anniversary. Basically every important holiday or event, they were communicating. It’s some fucked up stuff. I’m sorry you had to see some of that as well.

Wising you strength and endurance. This is a long journey to healing, but know you’ll get there.

Alot of cheating happens in marriages which were never great and just needed an end . Im quite an advocate for a clean quick end ie divorce but its always much tougher to give that advice to someone who was in “ the best of marriages “

We only know her terrible attributes and serial cheating is not only terrible but also very very hard to remedy ...if you want more balanced advice on this forum in the future you might also want to mention what made your marriage the best of marriages and what other good attributes your wife has Otherwise she is just a pathetic irredeemable cheat to us and there will be nothing but divorce advocacy offered .

You have every right to know everything and she has every obligation to tell you everything ;if you really were in the best of marriages she should willingly offer everything you need for R but perhaps she should do some reading to know where you are coming from .

[This message edited by siracha at 11:00 AM, October 29th (Thursday)]

Let her know that you will be going to get STD tested and she should as well for her own well being. Not so you can have HB with her.

Are you considering an informational lawyer meeting to see where things stand?

You mention things happened early in your marriage, it could be that your marriage was always in ruins you just now found out about it.

I wasn't sure if anyone else caught this. Man I hate to say it, but I suspect OP may be married to long time serial cheater. At the very least a polygraph should be done, and I think you should prepare yourself for more bad news OP.

Dear Apparition,

I never felt insecure, but for the first time in my life I’m questioning myself. I’m wondering where I’ve fallen short as a man. I own my own business and provide extremely well.

The emasculation of an affair seems to be a problem for most men. Do not let these thoughts go too far. You need to get yourself to the point of understanding that you are a PRIZE. You own a business and provide well, you are the PRIZE.

For me, the emasculation was "I sucked in bed". It didn't take long after dating to realize how false that was. It did not take long after divorcing my 2nd cheating wife to find out that I was the prize and the line of great women interested was long. Do not be me and believe these stupid thoughts.

ChamomileTea is one of the amazing posters here at SI and she has strong and correct views on this subject. If you can't wipe out these thoughts she might chime in.

Apparation you have found yourself in a horrible place in your life. Take care of YOU, do not do any pick me dancing with your WW. She needs to prove she is worth reconciling with.

Immediately you and your WW should read:

How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair

This is the short manual on the beginning of R (reconciliation)

Apparition you are on a long painful road, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Start it by getting an attorney to know were you stand. This will also help stop the pick me crap most BS begin this road with. You and your WW need STD tests now.

Respectfully,

Organic2003

[This message edited by Organic2003 at 6:46 PM, October 29th (Thursday)]

(No Soliciting) Look up Joka's thread - I can't believe I'm listening to my ***** wife. This was Joka's 2014 saga that has parallels to yours. You should find it helpful. they wouldn't let me post a link here w/out getting approval. Don't have time for that.

It appears that some of these road travelers have a club of sorts where they are all in on side action. they meet in different cities, conventions when their paths cross. they look for new partners in the hotel bars. Seems like some of the casual encounters lead to longer affairs. When one affair ends they jump into a new one while the clueless husband is home playing the reliable provider shuttling his princess to and from the airport.

It appears that you're in an open marriage. NO MORE NICE GUY ROUTINE. Time to toughen up. The husband gets the traditional sex while the other guys get something else.

You should hire a PI to do a thorough investigation. Phone records, credit cards, internet activity etc.... Install VARs as Joka did. Your going to need proof. What you know is probably the tip of the iceberg.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 2:03 PM, November 1st (Sunday)]

The emasculation of an affair seems to be a problem for most men. Do not let these thoughts go to far. You need to get yourself to the point of understanding that you are a PRIZE. You own a business and provide well, you are the PRIZE.

For me, the emasculation was "I sucked in bed". It didn't take long after dating to realize how false that was. It did not take long after divorcing my 2nd cheating wife to find out that I was the prize and the line of great women interested was long. Do not be me and believe these stupid thoughts.

Agree 100 percent. I struggled hugely with this. My WW brought AP over to our home for sex. It's tough not to have these thoughts but don't let them rule your life because they are distorted and wrong.

Things have gotten far worse.

It's shocking to me how correct so many of the responses have been: we were not at the bottom of my WW's deceit, we weren't even at the starting line. First, thanks for the response on the iphone, she has an android, and I haven't decided whether or not I want the old texts. How much pain do I want for the possibility of getting new information? When do I know enough? Phone records may be moot. I've just been made aware of the use of burner phones: Yes, she had a burner phone. As to my wife's 1st marriage, she just admitted she cheated in that relationship, but he never caught her and it was not the reason for divorce - this I know from him.

So we're on day five from the 1st legit disclosure. I get pretty confused about my suspicions, her disclosures, her lies, more disclosures, red herrings, gas lighting, on and on, and f'cking on. Each day had new disclosures, such as finding out she stayed at hotels with hotel bars so that she could find possible sex partners. Check in, go to the bar, shaved, waxed and ready. It hurts.

I also discovered a previously unknown email. The look on her face was complete terror when I presented it and told her the recovery email was one I had access. She disclosed that she had joined Ashley Madison and Adult Friend Finder. That she'd made half a dozen meetings, having sex with one of the men twice. So the count right now is three men, one of which is a former boss and decades long friend, one from Ashley Madison (2 meetings), and one from a hotel bar pickup.

Someone says it was pre-meditated. Yep. Ashley Madison, burner phone, email addresses, choice of hotels, absolutely proves premeditation.

I love her and this hurts. An entire life, family, children, funerals, weddings, home, friends, and so many beautiful days with her. My image of her as the best person I know is very hard to reconcile with what she's done. I want my marriage, but I'm also devastated.

I have seen a counselor and had a 1st session - it was nice to talk to a person. I'm talking to my wife every day and remaining calm, but the trickle of disclosures is like a slow acid drip. I feel as if I'm being tortured. One of the very difficult parts is each day she begins with this idea that I'm out of my mind for wanting to know more when everything has been disclosed. When I point out that just the day prior new things were disclosed and she'd used that line on that day, she says that I just won't try and trust her. I'm not trying. I'm failing. I'm looking at the past and why does it matter. I'm acting crazy.

I've discovered two other possible emails and one other possible phone number, but real unsure about the latter. I haven't brought up either. I'm combing through whatever I can, but I don't enjoy it and I really just want to stop. But each time I find something and it leads to a new disclosure it re-enforces the idea that I need to keep looking. As if the 1.5 year affair isn't enough, I'm real worried she there are other "friendships"

that constitute an affair. I'm still taking it hour by hour, not really knowing what the past was, knowing who my wife is, and I certainly don't know the future.