SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you everyone for your advice. Most of you want me to divorce immediately but I have a list of reasons not to do it YET:

1. Yes, I would divorce immediately if not for our son. She has been a better parent to him than I have been.

2. The hurt that I feel is unimaginable. But seeing her reaction when she saw me hurting, is it possible that she is feeling more pain than I am? The massiveness of the amount of tears (and snot, etc.) seems ridiculously impossible. I wouldn't have believed it if I've not seen it. It seems like I haven't seen her face not wet with tears since dday a month ago.

3. She is a doctor, so if she wanted to leave me, she could have without financial problems. She could just have left with OM and even if the OM left his job, her money would be more than enough for them.

4. She is willing to take the fall. She tried to out herself and the OM to everyone. When I say everyone, I mean EVERYONE. I had to stop her from telling our families. Even the OM's family. Heck, she even tried to tell the hospital where she worked when she quit her job. I had to be with her everywhere she went so that she would not spill the beans. In this small town, that would have been a death sentence for her and AP. The AP especially would have lost most of his career prospects.

5.I have all the emails, I think. I read everything after she told me her affair story, and it all coincides with the emails.

5. She already moved on from the AP, as the emails suggest. But during our medical school, with all the extreme stress we were going through, and me becoming distant because of the course load, she became depressed. It was the right timing when AP tried chatying her, telling her how he has changed, and apologizing to her. She turned him down but continued to chat. Eventually, the AP began telling her how she has changed into the "best person possible", and the rest is history. During this time, I was struggling academically and didnt pay much attention to her.

I dont know how it will turn out, but I think I should let my mind clear up for at least a month before making a decision. This way, my son wouldnt be affected as much.

[This message edited by Confusedmd at 8:33 AM, July 5th (Monday)]

CMD, perhaps you might think of it this way:

1) There’s no doubt that she’s terribly distraught now.

2) Whether she’s remorseful is another question. Regretful? For sure. You can’t tell if she’s remorseful until a few weeks/months down the road, while she’s trying to win your trust back.

3) Even IF she’s showing you all those signs/actions now, surely you can see that she’s still an UNSAFE spouse. Didn’t you just say that she admitted to still having feelings for OM?

4) She needs to fix herself. You need to heal and adjust yourself while she’s doing so.

I'm confused with the timeline. You may get more target advise if you summarize your story/timeline in your profile.

My understanding is that she knew him intimately before you. She broke up with him because he cheated.

Then later she chased after you and you two started dating in 2015; married in 2019; had a baby in June 2020.

After she started dating you, can you list their: contacts, what took place, and the date?

She did not enter your M in good faith. You never had an M. Believe this: if lovey dovey wasn't all done with her, she'd be monkey branching over to him. That's all he wanted was hot sex and fed her all that kibble bullshit so she'd do it. She did.

As stories on SI go, this is not an extreme case. She sounds like the usual run of the mill cheater who tries to get away with it. Lying, misleading are standard. Next comes the love bombing and sex bombing. Don't take the bait.

I'm sure she's lying everywhere about the extent of whatever this was. With what you are sure about, already, you should probably end this. She wants to "save what you had". When she says that again, tell her: I am, we had nothing so it's easy to save.

Your pain will continue for a considerable length of time. You were lied to and you trusted her. You will never see her the same, not ever. I'm big on R but I see nothing in this story that says R is possible at this point.

I know I may seem to all of you as weak, but I am trying my best to keep the house together. I have a 1 year old son who needs me. I try to do everything through this unimaginable pain. I am trying to do the right thing for my baby son.

WS has been begging me to quit my job so we could work our marriage out. We have enough savings to last for about a year with neither of us working. We live in a house bought by her parents for us. We have little debt.

To clarify, she was coming home to her town because she had her job there, then after the 2 weeks of straight hospital duties, she would come back to spend time with me. During the affair, she would have sex with AP in the 2 weeks she was in her hometown.

I know that she is a horrible person. And I know that I am in an extremely vulnerable state. Rest assured that I will do what's best for me and my baby. I just need some of your advice along the way.

I'm confused with the timeline. You may get more target advise if you summarize your story/timeline in your profile.

My understanding is that she knew him intimately before you. She broke up with him because he cheated.

Then later she chased after you and you two started dating in 2015; married in 2019; had a baby in June 2020.

After she started dating you, can you list their: contacts, what took place, and the date

?

2015 - we started the relationship after her sort of pursuing me more than I pursuing her

2016 - when he contacted her again, when she was depressed

2018 - she gives in to sex with AP

2019 - we got married and got pregnant shortly after. We decided to save ourselves and didnt have sex until after the wedding

2020 - he dumped her

2021 January - she (sort of) dumped him back

2021 June - she confesses the affair

CMD, respectfully:

At the end of the day, your decision(s) are yours alone to make. I believe that the veterans here at SI (I dare not count myself as one), simply want you to be able to make them without feeling like dogshit after that.

If you choose to R, it will be on YOUR OWN terms, with you in control, eyes wide open and fully in charge of yourself and the process.

If you choose to D, it will be after having objectively/honestly thinking things over and deciding upon an action that serves your child and yourself most. Your wife can heal either on her own, or with your assistance - but outside the damaging confines of a jagged marriage.

Will I be able to forgive her?

Statistically speaking, possibly yes. But probably no.

Oddly enough, you’ll have a better chance of forgiving her if you divorce. Forgiveness is about the past, and it is far easier to let go of the past when you don’t have to worry about trusting her in the future. There’s a really, really good chance you’ll never trust her again. Ever.

I applaud your choice to do right by your son. Think it through on whether he should be raised in a toxic marriage or an amiable partnership.

Also, DNA test him. You should know the truth.

Sending strength!

Children are no reason to stay. You are forcing your child to stay in an unstable family.

Tears are more often than not a manipulative tool by WW. I read on reddit adultery forum a post by a woman saying “if I got caught I would cry until I’m forgiven”. You want to see actions, not tears.

She’s a doctor and earns money. That’s means alimony for you if you D.

Let her take the fall. Let her tell everyone. That’s part of the process to kill an A. A thrives in secrecy and dies when exposed.

So, at a minimum:

-STD test

- DNA test for your child.

- is the AP married? Contact the OBS

- timeline

- IC for her

- “how to help your spouse heal from your affair”

- talk to a lawyer just to be informed

Is my understanding correct that the affair ended after you got married?

That were was no EA or PA after you got married?

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 9:25 AM, July 5th (Monday)]

Basically she admitted the affair after she felt that I was losing my love for her, no longer there emotionally. She can't bear "losing what we have."

So which is it? Your 4wkationship was not good enough to keep her from cheating or it is so good she cant live without it? It can't actually be both.

You do realize she is spewing bullshit right? Right now, she is in damage control, willing to say or do anything to mitigate harm to her world. Your world, well she does not really care about. She might one day, when and if she hits the remorse stage, but that takes time.

Some people here lean towards R, while others D. Me, I've come to realize that infidelity is always a dealbreaker. Usually it takes time for a BS ti realize thus as they desperately try to recover what they once had, only to subject themselves to more abuse. On rare occasions, and I mean rare, a WS dies come around, and the affair recovery industry holds them up as an example of what can be accomplished. I wish this were the rule rather than the exception, as D is difficult. Sadly, it's not.

When you are able, after the shock begins to dissipate, ask yourself, "What's in this for you?" What are YOU getting out of the deal? What do you get in the end? There came a point early on after Dday#2, that I realized that had I been on a first date with my STBXWW and she told me her story, I would have asked for the check and walked out. She just did not bring enough to the table to be a consideration, even before the adultery. Add her A and the effortless ability to lie to my face, while also trying to humiliate me at every turn, and suddenly, shes not so much of a prize.

Now, had my WW bern an amazing, kind, intelligent, giving woman who had lost her way momentarily I might have tried R, but she was none of these. In the end, I realized that we were, had always been, unequally matched, a fact confirmed by friends who felt safe to say so after I filed for D. I was young and stupid when we married. I am older and wiser now. Why would I fight to rebuild something not worth rebuilding?

In the end, you need to look at your relationship like an investor does. Do a cost benefit analysis and then decide. Rake emotion out of it. Dont look at your WW and try and see who you hope she is. See the actual woman in front of you, the one who has repeated shown you who she is, and believe that.

I am simply going to remind you of something you posted when inquiring about this before:

"I don't need any details. I just need to know if she is cheating or not. If she cheats, I'm gonna immediately go for divorce. We are still supposed to be in the honeymoon stage, if she cheats now, then how much worse will it get when we go through the midlife stage."

Please know that you have experienced a trauma. It will be impossible to think straight or make decisions. Our betrayed men here will urge you to file immediately, DNA your child, and expose your WW to all.

I'm hearing that this advice is too much for you to handle right now, so keep the trauma thing in mind. You went from believing you had a regular, above-board life to finding out the whole thing has been A LIE.

What can you handle right now? Protect the innocent parties. Your baby and you. You need to nourish yourself and the baby, keep you both clean, fed, sleeping well. If you can't do this for yourself and him, GET HELP. Call in grandparents, hire help, get help from your primary care doctor.

Get out with your baby, go on walks and take him to the park or zoo and read to him. Cling to what is real.

Do not quit your job. Why should you? You didn't do anything wrong. To work on the marriage? HAH. What was wrong with the marriage was someone was lying 24 hours a day, and that person wasn't you, so the person who needs work is the liar and cheater.

Your WW needs to work on herself to figure out why in the world she would do such horrible things. She needs individual counseling (IC) immediately. You need IC for trauma treatment. Counseing for the marriage can wait, because at the moment there is no marriage.

TL; dr - take care of yourself and your baby. Get the help you need. Watch to see if your WW takes steps to help herself. You don't have to decide about the marriage or anything else right now.

I empathize with your concern for your one-year-old child. My ex-wife and I divorced when my son was 3 1/2 years old. Our marriage was terrible but the co-parenting was quite successful. There was no way I could stay with my serial cheating ex-wife. I simply can't imagine how horrible life would have been for me and my child if I decided to stay with the ex-wife for the sake of our son.

You have a one-year-old. That does make things a little more problematic but certainly not insurmountable. If you split but remain very good co-parents your child will grow up thinking that having two separate loving households is the norm. He won't suffer the trauma of experiencing one household being taken from him. Older children have to deal with that reality. Babies do require more attention and care than a 3 1/2-year-old, but if the two of you can afford it, you can hire a nanny to help in that regard. Don't allow the fact that you have a child to chain you to this horrible woman. Also, do a DNA test on your child to confirm paternity.

Most of you want me to divorce immediately but I have a list of reasons not to do it YET

We don't "want" it. Considering the events you've been through and the thousands of events we've encountered here, we think D is for the best. And I don't think anyone has expressed an opinion that this should happen "immediately". But seeing a lawyer and learning about your legal options is something you should do immediately.

1. Yes, I would divorce immediately if not for our son. She has been a better parent to him than I have been.

Define "better parent".

Feeding him well? Or is it to ensure that he grows up in a loving, happy family?

Or to fuck with someone other than his father while he was still in the womb? (Btw, You should definitely take the paternity test.)

Will divorce prevent her from being a good parent? If her A didn't prevent it, her divorce wouldn't either. There's no point to stay married to her. On the contrary, growing up in a family full of infidelity, insecurity and lovelessness will be negative for his psychology.

2. The hurt that I feel is unimaginable. But seeing her reaction when she saw me hurting, is it possible that she is feeling more pain than I am? The massiveness of the amount of tears (and snot, etc.) seems ridiculously impossible. I wouldn't have believed it if I've not seen it. It seems like I haven't seen her face not wet with tears since dday a month ago.

No, it is not possible.

It is impossible for someone who cheated on you from the very beginning of your relationship to feel more pain for you than you for yourself. She suffers for herself. Tears are not a measure of pain. At least for crocodile characters.

You believe she is suffering because you saw her tears. I don't want to cause mind movies, but you can't compare since you didn't see how she fucked her AP. Do you think that over the years, over and over, while rejecting you and fucking him, she was doing it unintentionally and painfully?

I don't remember writing the truth so harshly to anyone before, but you should stop deceiving yourself and start seeing things as they are.

In this small town, that would have been a death sentence for her and AP. The AP especially would have lost most of his career prospects.

Let her say whoever she wants and ruin AP's career. Both must face the consequences of this A.

But during our medical school, with all the extreme stress we were going through, and me becoming distant because of the course load, she became depressed. It was the right timing when AP tried chatying her, telling her how he has changed, and apologizing to her. She turned him down but continued to chat. Eventually, the AP began telling her how she has changed into the "best person possible", and the rest is history. During this time, I was struggling academically and didnt pay much attention to her.

You're a doctor too, right? I don't know your branch, but I'm sure you have knowledge; is it recommended to cheat on your spouse to cope with stress?

She was the person who should have understood you best at that time.

I know I may seem to all of you as weak, but I am trying my best to keep the house together. I have a 1 year old son who needs me.

No, you don't look weak, but you are very confused and not thinking clearly right now. This is also very normal, maybe you can't do the right thing right now, but you shouldn't go wrong either. We are here to warn you.

Keeping the house together may not be the best option for you and your son. He deserves a happy father to be happy, and that's hard to do in that house.

WS has been begging me to quit my job so we could work our marriage out.

The problem wasn't your job or hers. I couldn't understand why she quit her job and why she asked you to quit your job too. You were neither married nor working when she started cheating. What does this have to do with her infidelity?She's the only one who needs fixing here.

2019 - we got married and got pregnant shortly after. We decided to save ourselves and didnt have sex until after the wedding

Wait, am I getting it wrong, you haven't had sex since you started dating until the wedding?

And needless to say, she was having sex with AP during this time.

So you almost had sex just to make a baby. Because you said you were often rejected afterwards.

In the future, if your son came to you one day and told that he had experienced the same things, what would you suggest to him?

Why would you do this to yourself and your son?

[This message edited by guvensiz at 2:14 PM, July 5th (Monday)]

I may have missed it but is the AP at your or her workplaces? Is this why she wants you to quit?

You have a future without her, maybe it’s better to cut and run.

Confused I know we've been totally honest with you, from the first time you wrote, and you don't think it could be true, that she was cheating,

Well, as we know about your pain and what you are living, and it is really difficult, that you can make a good decision in your mood and mental state, you should take some time, no matter how long it takes, it is important that you find yourself in a better position,

It begins, by taking time alone, without it, it can be with your child, but without it, and without contact, it can be a week or more, it is important that you are alone, to meditate and have a good evaluation of your future ,

For no reason do you leave your job, if you think, sharing with your colleagues still helps you mentally.

Try to do sports, join a gym, go for a run, buy a treadmill, physical activity, it helps you both physically and mentally, it will increase your self-esteem, and you will start to see things from another perspective, you can still go to a counselor individual, even not commendable matrimnial,

Do not import the reasons that you have to stay, if you are valid in this moment for you, go ahead, what if you can not stop doing is worry about yourself and your child, a time will only help you a lot,

Try to change the way you act, share more with your friends, try not to take their cries too much into account, tell them that you want more facts of their love than cries, that they need to go to an individual counselor, and try not to interact with them too much. She, for the moment, remember that time flies by, in the blink of an eye, many things happen, and both you and your child deserve to be happy, do not let their cries prevent you from leaving with your son.

Why haven’t you exposed the AP to his family?

Does the asshole have a wife? A girlfriend? EXPOSE HIM, NOW!

If he works with your wife expose him to his workplace. NOW.

And don’t tell your wife you’re doing this.

Whether to R or D is a deeply personal decision that doesn't have to be arrived at immediately. My ExWW, whom also works in a hospital, laid down an impressive display of post DD emotions including snot, tears, sex bombing, love bombing, and even threw in a case of Shingles to top it off. I found myself becoming more sympathetic and concerned for her physical and emotional welfare than my own. It was this forum that straightened me out and reminded me that I am the victim-not her, and that care and attention is being deftly re-directed towards her and is a common and effective tactic that is very consciously or subconsciously invoked.

Spend some more time here and you will begin to recognize the difference between regret and true remorse. Regret is temporizing, unsustainable and selfish with little productive, constructive, and caring action and especially, little-to no, pro action. Remorse is forever. Remorse is action. Remorse is consistent. Remorse is patient and persistent and proactive. Remorse perseveres. Remorse doesn't feel sorry for itself. Remorse feels sorry for you. Remorse doesn't care about itself or its agenda or outcome. It cares about you and yours. Remorse is selfless and puts your needs first. Remorse is those parents camped out at bedside holding vigil in the Peds ICU with their child on full life support, who have to be dragged away by social services after the plug has been pulled.

Your marriage is on its deathbed. You have been severely traumatized. We're talking lifelong trauma. Your marriage has been mortally damaged and everything about it has been brought into question. A truly remorseful spouse should get off her pity pot and start kicking ass if she's gonna save this marriage. She has a fleeting opportunity to save you and this marriage that Remorse would never squander. Yes, R is possible, anything is possible when the full brunt of human willpower is brought to bear. It's going to be a monumental effort on her part, and yours but, she's got to do the heavy lifting.

In the coming days, your path towards R or D will become progressively more defined-by her, and clear to you. Her actions will make your decision more obvious. Watch her closely. Watch her onstage and offstage performances. Her current tears and snot could be nothing more than a performance. Many advise VARs in the cars and other places she feels offstage and safe to speak and act freely-naturally. I caught my seemingly remorseful ExWW talking shit to her BFF. Hearing her talk behind my back was a revelation.

You are in a deep trauma. Unless there is a reason connected to the affair, I WOULD NOT quit your job. Just because she screwed up her career, it doesn't mean you have to. Aside from a few weeks where I just couldn't function, work was the only thing that took my mind off what she did. Its natural, even if it isn't warranted, to let this affect your self worth. Being without a job will not help this.

Five years is an awfully long time for something like this to be going on. She has some deep rooted issues to let it go on for so long.

The fact that the affair was going on while you were actively trying to start a family is even more concerning. Do you have any idea if they were using protection?

I concur with the others about getting a DNA test. Your son will always be yours, but you need to know if just for medical reasons. The test will also hit home to her exactly how deep her betrayal was. Let her know you are going to do this.

You did nothing wrong here. Promise her nothing. You need to take a deep breath and figure out what you want. My guess is she is already pushing you for forgiveness. Its way to early for that.

My EX too swore she loved me and that he "meant nothing". Aside from her being lonely which is a piss poor excuse, what other reasons does she give you for this?

For me a few week betrays was too much. It is all about what you can stomach. You are at the start of a marathon. Take a breath and take care of yourself and you son first. Don't fall for the depression on her part and the inclination to comfort her. She doesn't deserve it.