Hey Rocko - thank you so much for reporting your situation, yes, that definitely does sound similar.
I just can’t understand it, how people can engage in deception over a long period of time like this, keeping it secret from their spouse the whole time, how does they even make sense of that to themselves in their own mind?
I’m sorry you are still dealing with upset feelings about this. But I’m glad for you that being in the position you were, with no children, the proper pathway forward made itself clear to you.
For myself, after 18 years of marriage, and with two daughters that are nearing teenage, It’s not so cut and dry. I am three months in now from Dday, approximately, and still very much trying to figure out how this is going to work for us going forward.
My wife has been doing a lot of good work. Trying, at least ostensibly, really hard to figure out what was going on for her. But a lot of times I get a cynical feeling that all of this self-exploration work she’s doing is a just bunch of bullshit, and really, she just did what she did because she damn well wanted to, and thought she could get away with it.
Her one redeeming grace was that she came forward to confess to me. I literally had no idea any of this stuff was going on. I didn’t even suspect it.
I suppose her conscience actually got the better of her?…Or, as others have pointed out, maybe she was concerned I was going to find out on my own at some future point, and sought to circumvent the potential fallout from having her pattern of deception revealed through my own machinations, rather than through a confession (controlled by) herself.
…at this point, I suppose I will never know.
