SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

***7/10: Further update on 2nd page of this thread, wherein I actually went through with it***

This post is basically an update to this: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/660005/exit-affair-but-im-trying-to-get-to-r/?ap=1 but I need serious advice as well.

I am BS (39M). WW is (41F). Married 11 years now. AP is (34M, single). D-day was in December. AP "ended" the relationship with my WW shortly after, just before Xmas. From then until late February they were "just friends" at work, although my WW was trying her best to start it back up with him. WW and I still live together, sleep in same bed, and "I love you" slips out every once in awhile. DD (now 9) has no idea anything is wrong.

AP caved in early March and they started back up again, that time it lasted about a month. WW tried to trickle truth me, but I knew everything (I cracked her phone PW and saw all messages). He then broke it off again, in late April until late May. Then they started again, and here we are.

I'm not sure the reason for the on/off. AP may have other relationships or he gets tired of my WW and breaks it off then gets lonely, or maybe he's manipulating her into a kind dependence/attachment. From their texts it's clear that he is basically using her as a FWB, but she is very emotionally and physically attached.

When they are "broken up" my relationship with WW is good, we start to make headway to reconciliation, but she does text him and attempt to get back with him as well especially right after the break. As this was pretty much an Exit Affair, she is desperately trying to monkeybranch to the AP, but he's not having it and she's keeping me on reserve. <<--Note here that even with this knowledge I still want to one day forgive and reconcile. I do believe the person I married is still in there, even if she has become a cheater, constant terrible liar, and is clearly addicted to limerence and the dopamine/serotonin this affair is providing.

***But here's the kicker and where I really need advice: HE DOESN'T KNOW HE'S AN AP. She is lying constantly to him as well. From his perspective, my WW is divorced already, I am her ex-husband who she is in minimal contact with, and DD lives mostly with me. When we are spending time together and WW needs an excuse for AP, she tells him she's "out with a girlfriend" or a "former colleague." She has constructed a whole social life to project to him, that doesn't exist. She also lied to me at the beginning and told me that he DOES know we're still married, etc. That lie honestly put AP's physical wellbeing in danger until I found out the truth.

I want to confront AP with this info. Show him proof that WW and I are still married, live together. Show AP the evidence of all her lies to him and to me. I basically want to give AP all this info and then tell him to fuck off and end it with her permanently. I need to do this face to face as I think a text or phone call would be disregarded and WW informed right away, as I can't show AP the proof that way. The only choice I have right now is to go to his house and knock on his door (although WW does not know I know where he lives).

Is this a horrible idea? I know confronting the AP is very discouraged, it never goes the way BS wants it to and could worsen the situation. But I'm not sure about the protocol when they don't even know they are an AP?

It would also be a very calculated risk. If he tells WW about the confrontation, that's pretty much it for the marriage. If I go forward I need to at least be sure AP will hear me out, not just run away or slam the door in my face and contact WW immediately. I'm also risking that AP could be completely immoral/evil/narcissistic/sociopathic and will just continue it after knowing, but at least it'll all be in the open. But honestly I have no other play here. WS won't end it herself and this on/off pattern could repeat indefinitely. We're due to either re-sign a lease in late August or at that point part ways and finally have to tell DD.

Thoughts?

[This message edited by LostATX at 7:14 PM, Monday, July 10th]

Why are you still with your wife? After all this, you still want to reconcile with her and save this marriage. This marriage is over. She killed it with multiple stabs. How many D days do you need to wake up and smell the cofee? D her and move on. She is not worth the nightmare you are going through.

Even if you inform AP and let's assume he permanently breaks up with her, then what? You still end up with the cheating partner who doesn't care about you and totally unsafe to you. My advise is to initiate D process.

Your marriage and desire to save it aside...

It's the right thing to inform the AP. If he truly is innocent in all of this, he has a right to know. He may in fact be a person that has morals and bedding a married woman might violate that. He should know who he is sharing is body with for all the same reasons BSs have a right to know.

I don't see anything wrong with doing it in person UNLESS you have any concern with how YOU will react when standing in front of this man. Regardless of his reaction, you need to be sure that you aren't going to do anything that can get you in trouble. So consider that he might shrug and say so what? Will you feel the need to slap his face? If there is any chance you might lose control, just call him. I prefer call to text so you get your chance to say your piece.

I guess I also forgot to add, to anyone who wants to advise me to GTFO and D asap, I know. I know exactly where you're coming from. Over the past several months I have worked on myself in numerous ways and put myself in a position mentally and emotionally to be at peace with that (likely) outcome. I am aware of how much absolutely horrible wrong has been done to me, including being gaslit at the beginning of all this into believing it was all my fault.

But I'm just not ready to give up all hope. As I said, I still believe my W is in there somewhere, and I want to see it to the end to see if I can get that person back.

To anyone and everyone please still feel free to tell me how much of a fool I'm being and that I should get out and D, etc. I welcome it and totally get it.

But while you're at it please throw in your 2 cents about this informing the AP situation.

Also, to anyone worried about physical violence. No e-brag, but I am actually a quite big and strong guy, in good shape, and I know how to fight. As such, I also know how to restrain myself and my emotions in the moment. I will also be audio recording the whole convo (legal in my state). This guy is only in danger during our conversation if he were to physically attack me first, which I consider extremely unlikely.

Your 9 year old probably knows something is wrong ... kids are very perceptive, though they may not undertand what they are perceiving.

By all means, inform the ap - but understand that your W is your problem - he isn't.

Gently, NC is a requirement for R. If the WS is still in contact with the ap, the WS is not in R - and R takes 2. You can't do it alone. But you write that your W was initiating contact and wanting to keep her A going. She looks like as bad a candidate for R as there can be.

All you have is yourself here. Your best - and maybe only - path to emotional health is to find and enhance your inner strengths. I urge you to read and implement 'The Simplified 180' - https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/598080/the-simplified-180/ or https://wwws.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/discovery/the-simplified-180/.

I'm very sorry you find yourself in your sitch.

Remember:

You didn't cause this (except by marrying your W in the 1st place).

You don't deserve this.

And ...

D – Don’t
E – Even
T – Think
A – About
C – Changing
H – Her.

You state that your wife's the aggressor here. Getting rid of her current AP isn't going to solve why she is chasing another man. If not him it will be someone else. He's not stupid and likely already knows that she is still married. That would explain the breakups. Yes, she's lying to him still but he still is hanging in there. Kind of like you. Keep working on yourself. Stop believing more in your marriage than she does. You have to desire to stay married that your W does not outside of a safe place to stay until she secures her place in another tree.

Are you sure AP doesn't know she is married? Honestly, even if you inform him, he probably won't care especially if he's single. If they work at the same place, everyone else knows she is married, so more than likely he knows she's married.

What if he does care or breaks it off permanently with your wife? Do you really want a wife who used you as Plan B bc AP is no longer in the picture?

Your wife cannot ever be friends with AP, on D-Day I would have insisted she quit her job.

I take it from context clues that the AP lives in the same area as you. Marriages are public records that can be found through a Google search quite quickly. I mean, I do find it a bit hard to believe that this has been seeing your wife for some time and he hasn't done the slightest bit of looking into her. But, I suppose anything is possible, I find it unlikely that he doesn't know that he is sharing your wife, his girlfriend, with her husband.

So, onto your question, should you confront him...I usually fall under the no contact with the AP at all from either the WS or BS side on these matters. In this case, I think whether the AP find out about you existing is not all that relevant. Let's think for a second about what that would accomplish and does that align with your goals.

From your post here, you have nothing to work with on the WW side. You've said it before that you think this was an exit affair and she is trying to monkeybranch her way over to this AP. If you are working under the premise that the AP doesn't know he is having an affair with your wife, that by telling him he will either do one of the following: A) he will be disgusted of himself as that doesn't comport with his values and he will back away from your wife entirely (quite unlikely, but possible) or B) he will not give a single care about your situation and while the result may be the same as A, he just leaves your wife high and dry while he moves onto the next conquest. The reality is that this is not about him as the AP and "getting rid" of him as the AP is at best a temporary fix, because the root cause of the infidelity in your marriage is her brokenness. If not this AP Today, it will be another AP 6 months, a year, two years down the road.

You said it before, you think your wife wants to go, so here is a radical idea, let her go be with him. I mean, if they are so in lurve and happy, and you wouldn't want to stand in their way...let her go. I'm serious, go to a divorce attorney ASAP this week and have her served with papers. Sit her down and show her that you mean business, that you are filing for divorce and that you are moving forward out of the relationship and she is free to go be with the AP. You may be asking yourself, but bor, what does that accomplish?

It starts your journey to get the cheater out of your life and thus serves the overall goal of getting your ass out of infidelity, because frankly, what you have described is living with your wife in an active affair. You are having to go to your wife and ask her nicely to stop sleeping around on you with the AP and you are having to play marriage police by checking up on her all the time. That is an exhausting little hamster wheel of hell that I wouldn't wish upon my most hated enemies. Stand up for yourself, take back the power in your relationship and have this awful woman served with divorce papers. The reality is that divorce papers will be a litmus test for you, her reaction in the hours/days after being served will tell you whether she is truly capable of any reconciliation. Look, I get that you seem to have your heart set on it, and as someone who was able to reconcile from some pretty awful shit, I generally believe that it is possible in the right scenarios/environments, but what I do know is that you friend are not in any reconciliation right now and your WW is clearly not even a potential candidate for R until she does the bare minimum to stop her affair, which she doesn't seem inclined to do. You can wish, hope and pray for reconciliation all day, everyday, but R requires that both partners are willing to work on themselves and their relationship and at the moment, your wife is giving you a very clear message that she is either unwilling to do so or unwilling/incapable of doing so, but the result is still the same, someone with whom you cannot R.

The TLDR version, my advice is not to worry about confronting the AP as I don't think in the end it will serve your goal that much, because your goal should be to get out of infidelity (whether by R or D) and telling the AP that they are an AP, even knowing it is quite unlikely they don't already have a sense that your wife is in fact married, is not helping your overall goal. My advice is that you take your angry energy you have pent up towards the AP and direct it towards your wife in ways that will get you out of infidelity.

You should inform AP. How you do it is up to you. Just make sure your approach is a safe one.

Right now you are sucking hopium. You are not thinking clearly. You are not seeing your wife for what she is now. Nothing we say will reach your brain. So, do what you feel necessary. Just make sure you don't get more hurt and traumatized. Also, don't forget your children. Keep them safe too. Good luck.

I am 99% positive he does not know. I do have access to their texts, and she has to lie to him very consistently to explain not being able to talk to him/call him/leave our house. She's really walking a quite bonkers tightrope in balancing the lies to me with he lies to him.

Also, she started her current job during covid. I never met or socialized with any of her co-workers. At some point before the A, she must have told them all we divorced/separated. She wasn't very social with the until 2022 when covid died down and we were already struggling. So they all believe she is divorced as well, and very few of them know about her and AP's relationship as well.

I know he may say he doesn't care. Honestly I'm more concerned about him telling her about the convo than him responding that way.

Also it is fairly likely NC can happen if he breaks it off permanently, she was already talking about finding a new job when they were last "on a break." Not for R/NC purposes, but I can speculate because of her own hurt/feelings and not wanting to work with him after.

Also it is fairly likely NC can happen if he breaks it off permanently, she was already talking about finding a new job when they were last "on a break." Not for R/NC purposes, but I can speculate because of her own hurt/feelings and not wanting to work with him after.

Here is a different option for you, give your wife a clear ultimatum, that as a condition of R, she must be NC and share with you the NC message she sends him and she gives you all access to her phone, devices, etc.

Then, a few weeks from now, you can go confront him and let him know that you still expect to be NC and if your wife finds out about you confronting him and she mentions it to you, you have your answer, that she is not maintaining NC.

How closely does she work with the AP? I think I'd show up at her workplace unannounced to "surprise my wife." Or you could invent a reason, like "You forgot your lunch" that clearly indicates that you're living as man and wife. This blows her lie out of the water and you don't have to have direct contact with the AP.

Like others have said, the AP is not the problem here, especially since he doesn't seem to know that you exist. Your wife is the problem. IMO, the best thing that you can do is to detach from her by doing the 180 and at least act like you're ready to move on and D. STOP allowing her to walk all over you. Weakness is a turn off. Strength is attractive. Find your strength and stop letting this woman jerk you around. She might break it off with AP and stay with you, but you'll both be miserable unless you step up and stop tolerating her abuse.

I would terminate the marriage to the wife, if it's not this guy it will be the next guy. After I ended it I would reach out to the AP and let him know the situation and that she is now all his, wish him luck as he will need it.

Move on, your kid deserves a stable household even if it only with one parent.

still believe my W is in there somewhere,

Your wife is the woman in front of you. She is the same woman who is cheating on you. Lying to you. Exposing you to stds. The same woman who knows she is hurting you. That is her. Right there. This is who she is.

She wasn't wisked away,caught up in the mythical fog some BS need to believe their spouse is ,somehow,lost in.

Yes, call the OM and let him know he's being cheated on, by your wife,with her husband.

And,really,you're most concerned that her boyfriend will tell her, your WIFE, that you,her HUSBAND told him the truth,and knows she's married. Read that again. It's insane,my friend.

She's only able to continue what you're enabling.

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:59 PM, Monday, June 26th]

I like the idea of informing AP that he is being lied to, just because I appreciate the irony (she's lying to you both) and karma (your WW will be done calling all of the shots).

On another note (this will seem off track for a minute, but I promise it's not):

I'm a HS teacher. Students come to a high school classroom with a variety of skills and deficits. If I treat them all like they each have the ideal prerequisite skills they should have and just move through content and testing like no one is being left behind, MANY would be left behind and would fail. So, part of my job for each student is to understand and really see and acknowledge the learner they are, not an idealized version of what I would like them to be--not the version of what they "should" be.

Do you see where I'm heading with this?

I still believe my W is in there somewhere, and I want to see it to the end to see if I can get that person back.

You wife is showing you who she is right now. She's demonstrating it over and over. She's showing you that she's capable of deep deception and that she sees you as a backup plan.

So, right now, IMO you need to treat her like the women she is--not the idealized version of what you hope she might someday be.

Show her through action that won't stay with a woman who keeps a boyfriend on the side. Show her that you value YOURSELF more than that.

If you do, she will either see your value and fall all over herself to make real changes to become the safe partner you deserve OR she will continue down a different path and you will still be in a safer, more healed, place--because you owned your own value.

My very best support to you in your journey. I'm sorry it's so painful.

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 9:40 PM, Monday, June 26th]

I’m sorry your wife is betraying you in such an ongoing, toxic way. I agree with others who are encouraging you to detach and disentangle yourself from this woman who clearly cares so little for you.

But yes, you should tell the AP. I don’t know logistically what is the best way to do it—surprising someone at their house seems like it could go sideways really quickly. But he should know. He may not have any moral scruples, but I think there’s just as good a chance that he doesn’t think it’s OK to have an affair with a married woman, and/or he doesn’t like the messiness of it. Whatever the case, he deserves to know and make an informed decision.

Sometimes the affair partner really doesn’t know that they are an affair partner. The husband of a couple I know was having an affair, unbeknownst to his wife. His wife was traveling a lot to care for a sick family member. He told his affair partner that he was divorced, and she believed him, because when she would go over to the house, the wife was not there. When the wife returned, the affair partner kept texting the husband, but he was ghosting her and making excuses and blowing her off. Eventually, she came to the house, knocked on the door, and the wife answered. The two women talked for maybe three minutes before they realized what was going on. The level of fury they both unleashed on the husband amuses me greatly to think about, even to this day, although the whole situation breaks my heart. All that to say, there are definitely situations where the affair partner doesn’t know that they're an affair partner. People deserve to be informed about the relationships they’re in.

Wow, your WW is a piece of work.

The way this situation seems to be is that you are focusing on the one aspect that you feel you have some control over namely you can't control your WW's toxic ways, but you can control informing the AP. I kinda get that but it's a red herring. You have a lot more control in this than you are allowing yourself to appreciate. Namely, you can call time on this bullshit of a marriage and gtfo. I know you're not ready to hear that, and it's a process, but this is where you are heading.

If he tells WW about the confrontation, that's pretty much it for the marriage.

I think there's a part of you that hopes this may be the outcome.

But you're forcing the wrong end of this equation to reach the ultimate outcome. You should be looking very carefully at why you are staying with someone who has so little regard for you, your feelings, your health and well being. The pressure should be on your WW, not the AP to either end this relationship or get out of the M. And you should be pressuring yourself to figure out why the hell you are putting up with this insanity.

Go ahead and tell the AP. Best case scenario he’s disgusted with your WW and wants nothing more to do with her.

That still leaves you with your biggest problem. He’s not the one intentionally screwing up your marriage. We often give the advice here to watch the wayward’s actions because there words mean nothing. The reverse is often also true. To a wayward active in their affair only the actions of their BS will reach them.

So give other man the word. Then go see a lawyer and file. Not with the intent of waking up your WW or finding the lost love you married. Your goal should be to get out of infidelity. Maybe she pulls her head out of her ass and starts to follow. If so you can pause and reevaluate. If she doesn’t, well your closer to your goal of being infidelity free.

If you’re relying on the decency of the OM in order to save your marriage, it’s already over.

This was the situation with WH’s AP. She genuinely didn’t know she was an AP (for close to 9 months). Had text messages to prove it and WH also admitted he lied to her about it.

Although I’m going through an agonizing D and worry incessantly about how this will impact DD (who is 4, and knows something is wrong - your kids being older definitely can sense it), I thank her and some higher power every day that she told me when she found out she was an AP.

In your case, AP absolutely deserves to know.

And like others have said, I don’t know why you’re still with your wife when it sounds like you’re the only one who gives a flying f-ck about R.

I wish you clarity and strength ahead.