SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Lets sum up the timeline

June 2022 - February 2023: My wife of about 20 years engages in a physical affair with another man.

February 2023 - April 15th 2023: WW ends the PA but continues an EA.

April 13th: D-Day. I confront WW with my suspicions. Denial and attempted gaslighting lasts for barely a minute so certain I am that she's lying.

~April 24th: Agrees to my conditions for reconciliation. No contact, electronic transparency, staying away from the casino where they met.

~May 7th: I look at her phone and she has a Reddit throwaway account with which she has communicated with AP. The fact that didn't delete it and left open an avenue for communication even if she wasn't using it (which I can confirm is true).

May 8th: WW uses a Google Voice number to get in contact with AP again in a way that she believes she can hide. I don't know about this yet.

May 14th: On Mother's Day of all days she lies about staying late at work so she can go to the one casino that she'd agreed not to go to. I tell her that this is no kind of reconciliation and it's on hold until she's ready to really commit to it or I give up.

May 23rd: She tells me she's going to get a massage. It occurs to me that she's used that exact excuse before to go see him. I check her location history and she's turned it off. I check her Google Voice and see that they're texting and she went to see him. I call her and ask her to come home. I do not tell her that I know at first but she doesn't come clean and eventually I show her the proof. That's when she tells me they've been in contact again since May 8th. We decide to proceed with divorce.

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Since then we've actually had the most open and honest conversations possibly in our entire relationship. I guess because she has nothing less to lose. She was able to tell me that the electronic transparency had been giving her panic attacks because after she'd been sexually assaulted when she was thirteen, the perpetrator stalked her after school every day. That hit me like truck. I think I could have lived without it if she'd just told me that she was being retraumatized. Without that reason, I was like "Join the fucking club! We're all having panic attacks!"

It's so fucking frustrating. She wasn't ready to try reconciliation; she shouldn't have agreed to it when she did. If she hadn't I had a game plan for that but she did so I followed a different game plan and it fucked her up so that at the slightest setback she went back to old ways.

I've told her that if she was willing to give it another shot we could talk about it but only because at this point it costs me nothing to leave the door open. I'm progressing as though we're getting a divorce, though. I don't see how she could prove to me that she's really ready to make a change.

I've started reading The Good Divorce by Dr. Constance Ahrons. If we're going to do this I'd like to do it in the best way possible for the two of us and our daughter. I'd like is to at least be friends. Right now, I could stand to be friends with benefits because I'm super tired of not getting laid

She was able to tell me that the electronic transparency had been giving her panic attacks because after she'd been sexually assaulted when she was thirteen, the perpetrator stalked her after school every day.

Sorry. I'm not buying it. My bet is that the electronic transparency was giving her panic attacks because she wanted to (and did) continue the A and knew it could blow up her world.

I think you're wise to proceed towards D. Has she gone NC with the AP?

I agree with sacred sound sister. I don’t buy her line about getting panic attacks for that reason.

If she was committed to honesty and reconciliation, she could’ve told you about the panic attacks. Even if she wasn’t comfortable with that, NOTHING was forcing her to stay in deceitful, hidden contact with her AP. Those two things are totally separate issues. The fact that she’s tying them together reeks of excuse making and dishonesty.

I’m very, very sorry you’re here. Take care of yourself.

Sorry. I'm not buying it. My bet is that the electronic transparency was giving her panic attacks because she wanted to (and did) continue the A and knew it could blow up her world.

Maybe. She's not a cryer normally and she was crying as she told me that. But she's proven herself to be a liar so who knows.

I think you're wise to proceed towards D. Has she gone NC with the AP?

She's told me she will not see him while we're going through this but that's not the same as NC. She just admits that flaunting this in my face isn't going to get us a nice, clean divorce where we can go at a speed and level of kindness that will best benefit our daughter (our daughter is IC herself for anxiety, depression, and a bout of self-harm).

I’m really sorry, Bob. It all sounds very brutal and she’s very self centred about it, it feels as much as a drug as the casino might be for her.

What's your ideal outcome? It sounds like you would like to R and she is aiming for D.

You say that it costs you nothing to leave the door open, but I disagree. It could cost you your peace and your marriage - if your aim is to save it. Let's run with the door analogy: If she thinks that the door is always open, she can come and go as she pleases with the idea that you'll be there, regardless. I recommend that you close the door to her and let her feel what it's like to no longer have a home in you. Detach from her, do your own thing, and move towards D. If she wants to R, she'll come knocking. You might open the door or you might have moved on with no forwarding address. Either way, you're setting yourself up for a much easier transition.

This is an awful development. Statistically, only a small number of marriages recover from infidelity. Even then, it's when the WS moves mountains to repair the damage. The odds are not in your favor, friend. You really can't say you didn't try. I think you know there's virtually no hope.

Sorry this happened to you. Good luck with the divorce.

She is still lying to you.

Friends with benefits is the absolute worst thing you can do, for the following reasons:

(1) You still love your wife. You are not going to be able to emotionally distance yourself and start moving on with your life if you’re continuing to be intimate with her.

(2) She’s having sex with someone else, even if she’s denying it. Do you want to put yourself at risk of STDs? Do you want OM’s sloppy seconds?

(3) You need to be thinking strategically going and being "a p&$@y coma" (to use a charming term I learned from BHs here) is going to cloud your judgement. As I recall, she made you complacent through sex earlier this month and look where it got you.

If you haven’t already, get yourself to a lawyer and get the ball rolling. The divorce will not happen overnight, so even if you’re holding out a sliver of hope that your wife will come around, she will have plenty of time between now and when the ink is dry to to get her shit together.

Lastly, to be perfectly blunt, your WW saying the electronic transparency was reminding her of being raped as a teen is in the top 10 biggest crocks of horseshit I’ve read on this site… and competition is tight.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 11:32 PM, Friday, May 26th]

Sorry Bob about all you and the daughter have had to cope with. Read your thread on the other forum. IMO, the one thing that needs to remain crystal clear is this. What is it that Bob wants and needs? Are you capable of ever getting this from your WW? The answer to that question leads to the path you should take, whichever it may be. Be strong and loving as your daughters father and protector. I won't sit here and waste words on would, should or could. Worlds full of arm. Chair experts. Your issue is unique to you. Maybe thousands of others like this, but it IS your issue. I wish you the very best and to your daughter the same.

Is doing nothing an option? For the time being, would it be possible to not pursue divorce and not pursue reconciliation?

If doing nothing were an option, it might be possible for you to use the time to pursue some intensive self care. Self care might involve doing some things that would allow you to focus on yourself and perhaps gain some awareness of where you are and what would help you get through this extremely traumatic experience (at least in the short term). It might involve seeing a therapist on your own, listening to your body, meditation, exercise, reaching out to family and friends, participating in activities that you might find a enjoyable, etc. Whatever works for you.

It could be helpful to try to increase the focus on yourself and to reduce your focus on your wife. Of course that is much easier said than done but it could free up the time and space that you need to see your chaotic situation with a little more clarity. "in the fullness of time" your wife will reveal to you the direction that she would like to head. If you are able to give her all of the space that she wants, you are likely to benefit. At the moment, you are in the eye of the hurricane. Under those conditions, making good decisions is extremely difficult. You will find out soon enough whether reconciliation or divorce or something else is the best course of action for you.

Hephaestus:

Of course that is much easier said than done but it could free up the time and space that you need to see your chaotic situation with a little more clarity. "in the fullness of time" your wife will reveal to you the direction that she would like to head. If you are able to give her all of the space that she wants, you are likely to benefit.

Your advice might make sense if Bob’s wife were no longer cheating and they were deciding whether they wanted to work on rebuilding or split.

It’s been apparent from the start of this ordeal that Bob’s wife has been, at best, ambivalent about remaining married to him. The fact that she has continued to cheat and stabbed Bob in the back when she was pretending to reconcile with him shows him exactly "what direction she would like to head."

It’s possible that getting served with divorce papers will wake her up to reality of what she’s losing and compel her to fight for her marriage, but if not, at least Bob will be getting out of infidelity.

I’ve suffered in limbo before and it nearly killed me.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 12:31 AM, Saturday, May 27th]

Well, you don't deserve this--no one does, but this is sad to say all too easy to have seen coming. You basically IGNORED every bit of advice you got in your last thread.

Will you now consider taking our advice?

Sorry Bob, but I’m glad you are opening your eyes. You cannot be friends, you can be civil but not friends. She is destroying your family, she is the enemy of your family, and has to be treated as such. Do not have talks with her, serve her and communicate through the attorney.

I understand you love her but that’s gone brother, she is off chasing rainbows and unicorns. Please, please be on your toes and don’t fall for her manipulation. Her world WILL come crashing down and she will come running. Don’t be her plan B.

Bob, talk to someone who has a gambling addiction and they will tell you that they get the same high from losing as they do from winning. Your wife is high as a kite right now because the sneaking around added to it. She’s going to deal with reality at some point, and where she is, and who she’s with, and what she’s doing, should in no way be your worry.

You have tried based on the idea that she loves you enough to give up this man. I don’t know what her feelings are about you, but she’s addicted to him right now. I have yet to see a marriage that happened after cheating be in a better, and sometimes worse, place than the one the ws left.

I just watched a speech a man gave about nature versus nurture. I got in on the middle of it, but he said we are not engineers who make and control others, so there is absolutely nothing you can do or should have done to stop this. She is who she is and she’s been that way all of her life.

And be kind, because she’s the mother of your child, but move on. The best way to do that is straightahead without looking back. You can wish all you want to but it’s not going to get you anywhere because she’s not going there with you.

Something I heard early after Dday 2 is "rejection breeds obsession". It made me have this obsessive love for my W. It affects our brain chemistry just like the A does. It’s also a two way street. When you 180, the WS is so high on ego they can’t handle rejection. How dare you not see how special they are. This is how false R and HB work together.

Stay the course, don’t get knocked off your mission, take her off the pedestal and see her for who she is right now.

Gently, your best bet is to

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

My reco is to separate what you want from what you will do.

The primary task for you right now, the one that will pay off the most, is to start healing yourself. Start rebuilding your self-esteem. Resolve the grief, anger, fear, and shame that come from being betrayed. Once you've mad a start on those tasks, figure out what you want. Since you're likely to want R, oserve your WS to find out if she's a good candidate for R or not.

You're at the very beginning of healing now. Your W does not look like a good candidate for R now, but you're both in shock, so both of you are too likely to be acting in ways that aren't true to yourself. Your W would not e the first WS to look like a lousy bet for R but who turned out to be more than willing to change do the work necessary to change from cheater to good partner.

But that's her - for now, your best bet is to focus on yourself.

*****

T/J - NOT posting as staff:

Statistically, only a small number of marriages recover from infidelity.

Cite your sources. Without citations any statistical argument is crap.

We know infidelity is cited as one of the reasons for D, but we have no good data on the number of Ms that do not end despite infidelity. We did have data from Peggy Vaughan available for free download, but it's not available free anymore. A majority of her survey respondents stayed together - but she does not claim that's true for the whole population.

Shirley Glass wrote that of the couples she treated that started with R as their goal, 20% did not stay together, which means 80% did. But that's about couples she treated, not about the whole population.

Most aspects of relationships are hidden. Unknown. NOT amenable to generalizations.

Cite your sources when you cite 'statistics'.

Sisson maybe this is better:

From now on, into perpetuity, for this and every future post I make, let it be known that in my own [bold]personal[/bold] opinion, and without the existence of any meaningful, longitudinal studies (since few to none have been done beyond the 5 year mark), I do not feel that a truely significant number of marriages survive infidelity in a truly meaningful way, that is, becoming truly healthy relationships where the trauma of infidelity has not deeply scarred the individuals in question. So now we can put that to rest....

Since then we've actually had the most open and honest conversations possibly in our entire relationship. I guess because she has nothing less to lose. She was able to tell me that the electronic transparency had been giving her panic attacks because after she'd been sexually assaulted when she was thirteen, the perpetrator stalked her after school every day. That hit me like truck. I think I could have lived without it if she'd just told me that she was being retraumatized. Without that reason, I was like "Join the fucking club! We're all having panic attacks!"

I am not a terribly religious person however even I recall the proverb "A wicked person runs when nobody chases them".

And what she told you is nothing outside of plain bullshit and manipulation which sounds darn wicked to me.

Justsomeguy I am in the same camp with just from what I have observed from M’s afflicted by infidelity including my own experience and reading this board. It’s not the norm for a M to fully recover. I think it’s the exception and I think it’s great when M’s do overcome infidelity. It is possible but not everyone gets to have that. I think if one is still ruminating 20 years later and it affects them in a negative way they should leave. It’s just not worth it. We only have this one life and I’ll be damned if I’m miserable or not attracted to my spouse affected by infidelity.