SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think my posts have placed her in a negative light.

Nope. Actually you put her on a pedestal with how you describe her. You're clearly in love with this woman with the way you put into writing the things you say about her. Despite what she's done to you, you still don't admit the fact that she's not the woman you thought her to be.

Best example on how you describe her is your statement below:

She felt she was a bad girl because I am what most people would consider a good guy. I have no vices. Rarely partied. I never considered her a bad girl. I actually was the one who decided to wait for sex until after marriage. So she was more comparing herself to me.

You never considered her as a bad girl until now. In your view, she's a girl who made bad choices.

But she told me that she wanted to expose and humiliate AP and, by extension, herself to prove that she wanted only me. I said very firmly to never do that. When I left, she promised to clean the house when the baby sleeps.

I know this is not your forte but if exposing AP is what she wanted, then let her. At least tell the people what kind of man he is. AP should at least be responsible of his own wrongdoings.

Your wife should tell AP's wife too. She deserves to know what kind of man she's with. Whatever her (OBS's) decisions are with regards to their marriage it's up to her to decide but she has the right to know. She's being betrayed until now. She's kept in the dark.

You might uncover some hidden facts too if you decide to tell OBS.

I told her that there is about an 85% probability that I will not decide to R. She took it quite well, surprisingly.

Of course she will take the 15%. At least there's a chance for her. She should work her ass off and give her 1000% percent to improve her chances more.

She apologized and said that she was in awe of me being responsible enough while in such hurt.

I am also in awe on how you handle things so well on your end. That goes to show you're a kind and understanding person.

It’s hard but try and stay out of hopium. See what is versus what you want to see. Repeats happen!!!!

If you are combing for WWs to give you an example of remorseful WW then go look at BraveSirRobin posts. I follow and post on the ‘ask the WS a question’ thread (over in I Can Relate forum) and have always felt their replies, not just to my questions, come from an genuine honest place, realistic responses and the truth.

The other post to read is head over to the wayward’s forum and look for DaddyDom’s post called “Admitting it vs. Getting it vs. Owning it vs. Living it” this is genderless advice about what a wayward needs to do to be a safe partner.

I’m unsure if you are blinding yourself via your KISA (knight in shining armour) tendencies (you are a MD, you like to help people so much you made it your profession) or if you a in love with the facade of the wife you thought you had, a little of both perhaps.

There is this moment that all us BS face, hammer in hand, we can choose to break the false mask our waywards wear in order to fully accept what we thought we saw/had was a fantasy spouse and then when the true spouse is revealed we make the choice of “is this person someone I can love, trust, feel safe and build a new marriage with and R? Or is this a person I cannot live with and D?” Or we drop the hammer, don’t break the mask and either try to ignore the person behind the mask (hurt all over again when they repeat) or forever be on alert what the stranger will do next. We all are in love with the mask/false/fantasy version of our spouses, some BS make themselves sick from agonising over what was before Dday to what they now see and desperately wish they could go back to the time before Dday because even if they know there is a stranger behind the mask they want that feeling of safety and love back.

Your wife is a cheater, she has patterns of unstableness, she lies and you’re trying so hard to hold onto the dream version of the wife you thought you had you are ignoring all of that to the point you’re still defending her. She could have a wall of awards for saving humanity that doesn’t matter because she could have been a saint to the world but to betray the one she vowed to never betray, to never hurt, to always protect and do that over and over, not choosing to stop (the AP stopped it then COVID kept them a part long enough to keep that wedge there) shows you that to you she is an unsafe spouse, a horrible person. Forget what good she does others, focus on the actions from the moment she entered your life, look at her timeline and compare, she has been lying to you the entire time how can you think of her as a good person when this is who she is.

Her excuses as to why are all shift blaming excuses and frankly low effort lies (she’s a MD surely she could have made up more believable lies but instead invented such bullsh*t), her actions are self preservation not empathy for you, no remorse, she is floundering and doesn’t know what to do to keep her safety net (the marriage) but that in itself shows how selfish she is thinking, none of her actions have been about you, your hurt, no remorseful action, not one.

It didn’t sink in until now, AP is married? Without the WW knowing you need to find a way to tell APS spouse. This is for three reasons, first it’s a kindness, put yourself in their shoes, you would want to know your spouse is cheating on you, it also makes it harder for the affair to continue if the OBS is involved. Next OBS (other betrayed partners) might know and might blow up some of your WWs lies, such as how long the affair has been going on, when it ended or if it even ended, it’s good to compare timelines with them. Lastly if your WW goes ballistic about you contacting the OBS you know she is still in contact with AP. Watch her after reaching out to OBS, see if her behaviour changes in anyway, depression and sadness are signs that she has been dumped, anger and lashing out at you for making it harder to reach AP etc etc.

[This message edited by LostInHisFog at 6:21 PM, July 8th (Thursday)]

So she spent a year, A Year, trying to get him to fuck her, just to prove that trashing the marriage was “worth it.” In other words she wanted him to fuck her and didn’t give two shits about you. And this is how she explains away her behavior? And you are supposed to empathize?

Look at it this way, Assume she was addicted to meth and decided to use LSD to prove to herself she didn’t need meth. Then she drove into a bus load of nuns. Do the reasons for killing the nuns matter?

She fucked around on you and then spent another year trying to do it again. Her reasons, which are absurd on their face, don’t matter.

As I said before, the simpler explanation is usually the right one. Here, she wanted her side piece. No fairy tale about her self imposed secret plan will substitute. Don’t go down the road of pretending to buy into it for the sake of R.

[This message edited by longsadstory1952 at 8:59 PM, July 8th (Thursday)]

Longsad gives it straight. These are not Disney heroines and manly guys on horseback. These are two cheaters. Nothing else. The lying and justifying are just that. Nothing else. You need to come to terms with it. She has cheated mentally and physically. Period. There are no good reasons. She did it because she wanted to. That’s the horrible fact we all have to live with. No one held a gun to her head. My cheater got his out of town. With whom I do not know. He did it because he wanted to.

Longsadstory nailed it.

There is no need to engage in convoluted mental gymnastics here. That is unless you are going to stay with her no matter what.

She says she loved (loves?) me even during the affair.

This is a statement I see a lot of, but I fundamentally reject. A person that is honestly and truthfully in love with their spouse doesn't reject their vows AND get to say they really love them. I'm not saying your wife is a saint or a sinner. She's human, she's capable of terrible decisions, like a lot of humanity. So decisions that lead to adultery happen. I just think that if she's 100% honest with herself, she KNOWS she chose a course of actions and decisions that would cause you some of the worst pain of your life. She's not a child. To say "it was a mistake" or "it just happened-I still love you".. that really minimizes blame, and is subterfuge for hiding just how selfish her decisions were.

That's not very helpful as a plan of action for you now, I know that. Still, she needs to be honest with herself AND you. Was she even thinking about you at all when she was in the midst of a multi-year affair? I doubt she thought of the emotional burden she was placing on you at all, or if she did, it was a fleeting twinge of guilt. How you process that is up to you, but it doesn't sound like she is "all in" for reconciliation to me. You were an afterthought at best for years. That doesn't bode well for "fixing things". Damage has been done. Ask yourself.. if he hadn't have dumped her the first time, would they still be together?

[This message edited by KingofNothing at 1:26 PM, July 9th (Friday)]

Agree with above. “I always loved you” is cheating 101. It is objectively false. People who love do not act in fundamentally unloving ways. They don't carry out hateful actions. Love is a verb. Unloving acts are the opposite of love. Adultery is abuse. Your wife is an abuser.

Confused .... how are you doing?

ConfusedMD - I am getting the impression that she cheated almost all of your marriage. She was in contact with him even while she was having regular sex with you to have a baby.

She might have had an alternate reason for wanting this baby. It was between when she stopped the first time per her emails, but she was pining for him during this time.

You can't paint her in a worse light. She said she always loved you, but as Thumos said, what actions showed that?

85% divorce is a good idea right now. Also, moving to a new bedroom is a good idea. You control your recovery and don't let her make it about her.

Have you talked to her about the fact that this guy was making you jealous previously, that she probably chastised you for being jealous and you should have been more forceful. That her actions up to this point have done nothing but direct you to leave her.

Can you perhaps spend a few days away from her at a hotel or friends house? Something to give you time away from her and your son to really pull yourself together a couple days.

Edit: not worth it

[This message edited by GoldenR at 11:22 PM, July 13th (Tuesday)]

FLAMING & SHAMING: Please refrain from attacking or shaming, publicly or by using the SI.com Private Message feature. Do not bait or call out others. This includes members and non-members.

New to responding on this thread.

I'm considered an old timer around here, and am also known for being pretty blunt with my statements. I do however offer solid advice, and often can offer a path out of the infidelity, that is meaningful and has an outcome that allows you to come out of this stronger, and smarter.

1. Your W is never the person you believed her to be. The M you thought you had never existed. This is hard to accept, but it is real and true. You never had a woman that was in a committed relationship.

2. She is stuck in the shame cycle, and is too busy feeling sorry for herself to have any meaningful change in behavior that is helpful to you. She is rolling and bathing in the shame, and it's giving her something she wants/needs. It's not your job to figure it out. It is your job to point out how incredibly unhealthy this is and keeping her stuck from making meaningful changes.

3. She is mentally immature, and fairly certain she has some level of mental illness based on her actions and behaviors, and need to be the center of your world. This isn't how a normal healthy relationship works. If you have a partner that is demanding you give up friends, and make life changes so they are happy, RUN. This is a broken person, and YOU cannot fix them.

4. You are both obviously really smart young people, but you are both totally lacking in life experiences, and good judgement. As a physician you should know the old saying about this.... Good Judgement comes from bad judgement, bad judgement comes from lack of experience. Just like the med school days when you wrote orders for meds that could kill someone you are allowing your partner's behavior to kill your sense of self and well being.

5. Attorney, STD tests, And some time alone to figure out if you want to R or D, and if it is D, separate lives now. Stop the torture. The more you are around and listening to her shame and self torture the less able you will be able to have good judgement about the situation.

6. People that are WS's and want to R, need to show serious work to fix their own broken behaviors, and self. Until this is done consistently and with full ownership of their choices, R is not even a possibility. R takes full commitment from both partners to even hope it happens.

If you can get away for a long weekend do so. Alone. Think on what you want. Plan your future.

I accept everything that is said in this post, please dont hold back your words for me. I assure you I can take it. I'm a doctor, and in my specialty are, the verbal abuse is pretty common during our residency training.

For the update:

Sorry for being absent for the past few days. About the time of my last post, she was nowhere to be found and could not be contacted for most of the day. I was talking trash to her, telling her that my heart was about to burst with the pain, while AP probably was smirking in his office thinking that he one-upped me. We both were sobbing and I fell asleep. When I woke up, she was gone. I thought she finally went to AP and broke NC. I went ballistic. Well, she actually went behind my back and went to her AP's boss to expose him and their affair armed with printed evidence. She apparently threatened to get her own attorney and publicly expose the firm if they did not give him the utmost punishment. We've also been dealing with the fallout because her professional reputation has taken a hit because of it. The AP has been fired, and most likely will lose his license for his law practice in our country.

Unfortunately during the time that she was away, out of anger, I went to my lawyer friend and got the divorce papers. By the time WW went home, the divorce papers were already in our house waiting for her. So now, we're in this very confusing situation where she did a positive thing for my self-esteem, but it backfired because now, although I never really planned to yet, we are divorcing. I feel bad for her but I decided to go through with it anyway. As my lawyer told me, the earliest for it to be finalized would be by January next year.

As you can probably imagine, this has incredibly affected her. She said that she was proud of herself when she was driving home that day, eager to show me how much I mean to her. She had no clue what was waiting for her.

Will post updates later

If she’s truly remorseful she will “let go of the outcome” and give you whatever you need to heal. She’ll see that what she did in cheating deserves divorce and actually tell you that you are doing the right thing regardless of what she did by exposing the AP.

That said, you can still decide to start working with her during the divorce proceedings continue. If she will continue to take positive steps like working with a therapist specializing in Infidelity and continuing to support you in anything you need then perhaps down the road you may choose to try again with her, either before or probably after the D is finalized.

But she gets no guarantees. She’s done an awful thing. She was a willing participant and the steps she takes should be only because they are the right thing to do, not part of some plan to win your heart back. I’d let her know exactly that.

The things she does will never “make up” for what she has done, no matter how grand the gesture. But if she someday becomes someone different, someone trustworthy and with understanding and empathy, she can become a partner again, either for you, if you want it, or more likely someone else.

I wish you Good luck.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 9:11 PM, July 14th (Wednesday)]

January gives you plenty of time to make a final decision to go through with it or not. If she really wants to prove herself, she will spend this time in IC figuring out why she carried on a 4 year affair and giving you anything and everything that you would need to consider R.

That's a big one!

Kudos to your wife, or should I say STBXW. I'm not sure what was her reaction when she's eager to give you the good news with a divorce papers waiting for her.

Well, January is still a long time. You can still change your mind and cancel the proceedings, work on R or trial separation. You've got one less problem anyway so you can just focus on your family from now on.

Good luck!

[This message edited by beb252 at 1:40 PM, Thursday, July 15th]

Sorry for your pain brother.

Your spouse has serious psychiatric problems/issues.

Any mental illness in her family?

Would be very interested in her childhood/family history etc. Often dysfunctional families, promote a persona of normalcy - it’s kept in the family - pun intended.

Whatever happens, she needs to see a good psychiatrist stat!!

See flashing lights, big time.

As others have posted, it’s you and your child first.

I understand where you are coming from, however, it’s all on her.

I will pray for your guidance, peace and healing!!

Ron

MD- don't feel bad about filing for D, just b/c your wife told on her AP.

Like your attorney said, you have until Jan. for the D to finalize. This is the right path, and a path that you can stop. Its a big shock for your WW, but maybe a good step to really get to to realize that you are not playing games. Cheating is serious and often times a deal breaker.

Now, you can watch her actions. See how she treats you in the D process. Again, you can always stop the D, or slow play it. HOw a person treats you during a Divorce is just as important to watch. If you see her going after your assets, lying to the courts, and manipulating the system, that is another check on the list that makes R that much harder.

Watch and see how she behaves going forward.

So she outted him and demanding he be punished, while she herself is playing victim?

Listen buddy it takes 2 people to have an A. Both are willing pariticipants that make shitty choices not just once, or twice, but over and over for years.

Do NOT fall into the victim mentality. She is just as responsible for the A as is her AP.