SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So sorry you are now a member of the club that no one ever thought They would be a member of

First, BS on her saying she was vulnerable because of a new job. That is an incredibly lame and insulting excuse. Second, the only reason she told you is because he became physical in a way that she did not like. Had he not the affair would still be going on but she got scared and came running back to you.

Why did she cheat? Simple answer is because she is selfish and she wanted to. She wanted the Safety and Security that you provided and she wanted to be carefree and have fun with whomever she wanted but the consequence of that is destroying you.

Next, cancel the wedding planning all together. Tell her that is not on the radar and won't be for a very long time if ever. Of course she is calling trying to get you to come home because she blew up her entire life and yours and now she is scared and wants you to come running back to her

Right now you only know what she has given you and it is very common for cheaters to not give up all the information out of fear that the Betrayed will leave. If you want a shot at finding out if she told you everything tell her to write out a complete timeline including every little minute detail and when she is done ask her is this everything and if she says yes then ask her if she is willing to take a polygraph test prove her innocence. If she immediately says yes then there's a chance she was honest but if she stalls or questions you then you can pretty much assume she did not write down everything

Thankfully you do not have children because affairs affect them too. Right now your brain is scrambled because of this incredibly traumatic event. What you believe to be true and safe and secure just evaporated and it takes years to try and rebuild Trust

Focus on yourself and what you need. If you want to try and repair the relationship then tell her she has to start going to IC immediately, at least every two weeks if not weekly. Tell her that until you can believe that whatever was broken or missing inside her has been fixed or found you just cannot consider her to be a safe partner

I strongly recommend you do not go to a couples counselor because they focus on putting the affair behind you and building a brand new shiny sparkly relationship. That's the mistake I made

You will probably be on an emotional roller coaster for a long time but take your time to process this. You have come to a great place for support and advice

ETA: I forgot to include that you should reach out to his wife immediately and let her know what's going on. She has a right to know. I waited 5 months and I regret every day I waited. You should also have a full STD battery. You have no idea what they were doing and if they were safe

You will never again be able to trust her the same way, it's just not possible. You now know something about her that you've never thought possible and that reality just does not go away. Truth is, an affair is a possibility in every relationship from day one. You can only control your actions, not the actions of someone else and she has demonstrated what she is morally capable of doing. What happens the next time she feels "vulnerable" as she put it? Will that be her excuse if this happens again?

Please remember this has nothing to do with you. Even if you are the worst fiance in the history of mankind that is no excuse for her having an affair. She made the choice willingly and now she gets to suffer the consequences

[This message edited by WB1340 at 4:59 PM, Monday, January 5th]

I lean toward mostly believing her story. Mostly. There's likely more to it, but it is possible there was no sex involved, and her actions do seem to align with that. I do think it's likely she encouraged things tho, and liked the attention.

I know how you feel. As far as whether or not to stay in contact goes, that's really up to you. Some people need the space, and some don't. I was married for 26 years before my wife did anything like this, and we stayed together. Neither she nor I separated or left the house. I needed to talk to her and have her around. She felt the same way, but that's us. Everyone is different. There no hard, fast rule there. We have a very lengthy history and a child (grown and out of the house) together. Right now you're flying by the seat of your pants, and some distance might be what you need.

I don't have much in the way of advice for you. Your situation is quite different than mine, but I do want to let you know you're being heard, and while I know it feels like it right now, your life isn't ruined. You have a lot of it ahead of you and you will bounce back. Even if you move forward without her, you'll eventually be fine. You can trust that. I do think if my wife had cheated on me before we got married I probably wouldn't have married her. You may never be able to trust her again, and that's tragic, but at least you found out before you guys got hitched and had kids together. You're still young. You'll bounce back. Wishing you the best man.

I find it strange that she considers it a multi-month affair if "all" it was an occasional hug and him kissing her on the cheek. In fact – it sounds a bit more like grooming or sexual harassment. I think a more apt phrase than "deer in the headlight" to indicate a frozen or paralyzed potential victim might be "young office worker under the gaze of the office flirt". I think one of the advantages we have as men is that we haven’t had to learn how to deal with constant come-ons, touching and groping and all that. . But then you make the comment about her leading him on according to the communications. Sort of mitigates any reason or excuse one might have for her behavior.

It also semi-contradicts with what you share about their communications indicating she led him on and that she spent overtime with him. Was it solely with him or with others? Did you see the overtime on her paychecks or was "overtime" simply an excuse to spend time with him? Was it optional overtime or sort-of "don’t haver to, but might get fired" type of overtime?

If they had sex over the months leading to the truck-encounter, then I find it strange that she responds this way at that event. Of course if colleagues caught them or this transpired in the supplies room where HR caught them... Or maybe there hadn’t been sex and now OM pushed for it.

Look – this behavior of flirting and sending messages and holding hands... is all high-school sort of behavior. Once past 20 you need to have lived a very sheltered life to misunderstand the signals and expectations of a "grown-up" relationship, and that goes beyond the giggly bubble-gum romance of a 13-year-old.

You have no obligation to remain in a relationship with her. That is totally your call. I don’t think being married or not should be the defining factor (your relationship has outlasted many marriages) but rather what you want. Ending it now is relatively easy. There is documentation regarding ownership of the house, dividing assets, agree on dog-custody and that’s it. Emotionally tough, but within 2 years there will be no contact between the two of you.

I personally left a near 5 year relationship only 5 weeks from our planned wedding. I think that in my instance the level of infidelity was very clear (caught them in bed) and my line-of-thought was that if this happens now, it will probably happen later.
Took me about 2 years to recover and I have never regretted leaving.

But what you do is yours.

Fergus - the fact that you've been together for a few years and now you're planning to get married in September - well, I think those are linked. People often seem to cheat around the time of a marriage - either before, sometimes during! (yes, I've heard of that) or within the year or so after. These are times when your mate should be most committed to you, most in love, most committed to the idea of marriage, and yet....this is often the time when cheating emerges and it is a giant Chinese parade of RED FLAGS. The other life event that seems to promote a lot of cheating is pregnancy/having a child. I could debate why these events stir so much cheating, but....why bother. The bottom line is that they indicate this person is NOT marriage material and not up to the responsibilities or maturity that these life events require. This is NOT someone to marry and I cannot recommend strongly enough against reconciliation. You'll just be wasting precious time and devastating yourself even more in the end. Frankly this may not be her first infidelity, and you may never know if it's her last. Because you'll never trust her again and that IS the truth. There will always be a question mark at the back of your mind. Beyond that....you have seen a side of her now that you have never seen before....this IS part of her, she can't blame it on someone else or certainly not on YOU. This has nothing to do with YOU. These are her choices in response to a life situation she could have handled in a number of ways. For whatever reason, she WANTED this affair. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHY - don't even go there. And this is a big part of her you had no idea existed. That's the biggest problem with recon to me....once you've seen this behavior, there's a whole part of her that you now see and you don't know what else is there too. Cheating always leaves a tarnish on a relationship that never fully goes away for most people....it's the crack in the beautiful vase that you can't avoid seeing and we always mourn the crack.

Cheating reveals that YOU DON'T KNOW HER - you never would have thought her capable of this, yet here you are. She can do this and lie to you for a long time and the first time (if it is) is probably the hardest. It gets easier as people get used to doing these things. Believe me, you don't want to marry this woman, find out she continues to cheat, perhaps periodically....because SHE WANTS TO....this is why she cheated this time, this is why they ALWAYS cheat....because the opportunity arises and they WANT TO....and be married with her and have kids and split have your assets and income and just have to deal with the mega disaster it becomes. Thank God, as awful as it is, you found out early and get out now. DO NOT TAKE THIS WOMAN BACK, I'm telling you, you will regret it. Almost all people who reconcile come to regret it - don't read the happy stories, there are a few, but far more people DEEPLY REGRET RECON. You have to swallow a ton of shit to accept this and it will always be in the back of your mind. I know this, I've seen this and I've read this.

You're probably still pretty young, you can get free of this, recover from the trauma, and it is horrible but you WILL recover and move on. You CAN find someone who will be a better girl friend and wife to you. Someone you can trust and have children with without a question mark in the back of your mind. Someone who cannot conceive of cheating because it's not in their moral code. IT IS IN HERS....no matter what she says.

I'm not saying that cheaters are all evil people....I just think they are different from non-cheaters, no I do NOT believe everyone could cheat, that's just cheater-logic.....I think they are basically either NOT MARRIAGE MATERIAL OR NOT SUITED TO MONOGAMY. Many people in our society now have serious mental and emotional issues that make them bad bets for marriage. You've been fortunate to find this out before you got married, do not marry a mistake. Run, run like the wind and do not take her back. You will regret it.

I know this sounds harsh and I sense that people do not like my advice often. I don't care. I don't say things necessarily to comfort people but because I think whatever I say is most realistic and would be the best life choice for that person as hard as it seems right now. I don't want to comfort you back into the mistake of thinking you two can overcome this because....most people don't. Nor should they. A mate should not start any job and start cheating - the opportunity arose and she took it. My guess is she'll do it again because they usually do. It's a hard thing to hear, but you're better off ending this, recovering and then finding someone for whom this would be INCONCEIVABLE. And we're out here, just like you.

Fergus - she may be a good friend....but she's not a wife, nor wife material. A woman who would be a good wife to you, would NOT do this.

Another thought, what if she fabricated the story about her AP doing something "physical" that she didn't like to elicit sympathy from you? It's not that far fetched.

Maybe he wanted more of a relationship, she said no, he threatened to expose the affair to you, she panicked and made up the "physical" thing.

Honestly, try to take solace in finding out before marriage, kids, mortgage, etc. When this happens after all of these things are in place it becomes VERY complicated especially if she is a stay-at-home mom. You could have ended up paying child support, alimony, ordered to maintain the house for the kids AND only getting to see your kids part time :/

Many years ago, my GF confessed that things went too far at a party. I had no way of knowing, I was in the Army and deployed. We were newer in our relationship but I was still in love. The dynamics were different from yours in some ways but similar with the confession and not married. I was torn as most people are but ultimately decided to stay with her. Why?

Her confession mattered a lot to me. I would not have known otherwise. It was not an ongoing thing, it was a one time event, that mattered too. As far as I know, it didn't go all the way. Many here would say I can't know that for sure but it's what I believe based on the facts and I am confident in it now. So that mattered too.

Did it work out? Yes, we are married for years and that decision was certainly the right one. No regrets. No other instances of poor boundaries, no affairs. It's up to you what you do. Many affairs I have known about from here at SI or with friends, I think separation and then D is often the best strategy. But you have to weigh the variables, your scale is going to be different from mine or anyone else's. But there are times when another chance is warranted and can work out for the best.

I do think you need to know more and get comfortable with the facts being true before making any decisions. You may not know what really happened for the month or two between them as the story does seem to have some questionable elements to it.

Cut and run. No contact is probably best with your ex-fiancee.