SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey there everyone,

I found this site/forum and feel like that after talking with my therapist, I'm at a point where I feel like I can discuss my wife/partner cheating on me with other people are who going through this/have gone through this.

We're about two weeks from when I discovered and confronted my wife about her cheating on me. We talked for the entire day on and off, and she told me she connected with someone and kissed them. I asked her if she slept with this person, and she said no, directly and with eye contact with me multiple times. To be honest, it doesn't matter if she slept with him, kissed him, once, twice...I'm gutted.

But not once have I yelled at her. I haven't raised my voice, or tried to be the aggressor here and demand that she give me her phone, or show me all of the details. Is it normal that I don't want to know the complete extent of her cheating? We quite literally were intimate the day before I found out and confronted her...We planned her birthday trip that day as well. We've got other plans for this year.

She told me she's felt depressed (she always has been to some degree, we've been together ten years, married for four) and that she doesn't have a support system here outside of me. Her parents are gone, siblings are all far away, and they're not super close. She's actually had friendships fall apart with two people in the last 2 years that made her feel unloved as well. She told me that I didn't do anything wrong, or that it isn't that I wasn't attentive, or affectionate, or caring enough either. She's felt like she's been in this depressed, gray routine of work, her crafting/candle side-business, and losing passion for her hobbies. Worst of all, she said she felt pressured to say yes to my proposal, because she thought I wouldn't have stayed in the relationship if she said no; I know this to be true that I would still have been here had we not gotten married.

I'm not saying any of her reasons/statements give her a pass, I'm not saying she didn't do anything wrong either. She's said that when she looks at me, she feels guilty (she should for now as far as I'm concerned) and she's told me multiple times that she didn't want to hurt me or set out to hurt me.

I guess what I'm getting at here is (sorry for the rather scattershot approach to my writing this everyone!) how should I go about asking my questions each day? "How are you feeling?" "Have you thought about talking to a therapist about your depression and your cheating?" - I don't want to badger her or constantly barrage her with more questions as she's had a hard time with previous toxic/abusive relationships. I want to be able to respect her autonomy and privacy if she's trying to work on this for herself and for us. But I can't help but want to ask "would you rather be with him?" Is that wrong? Weird? Normal?

I've expressed how this has made me feel, I've told her I want to work through this and really try to make our partnership better and she's said that she wants to really try too. We've had meals together, gone for walks in the forest preserve, watched a movie together since this has happened. Hell, we even sleep in the same bed still.

Am I being too accommodating? Too kind? Should I be angrier? I don't really know. But what I do know is, that I have a support system. My parents are here, alive and healthy. My 3 best friends are within 15 minutes of my place and they all know I'm in a hard sport in my marriage and would all be here to help me move out in a days notice if I just up and decided to go. My dad offered to have me move in with him for a year while I get myself sorted out too. But most importantly, I stood up for myself, I think I'm actually worth something after doing so and I know I'll be fine whether this works out or not.

Do I actually just pity my wife/partner for how she's acted and how she feels?

Again, sorry for the scattershot approach to my post here, but I felt safe writing and just wanted to see what someone else might think.

Thank you for your time.

Sorry you find yourself here. The best club no one wants to join. Read in the healing library and pinned posts. Lots of good info there. Don’t worry about whether you have acted correctly after your DDay. No one deals with this perfectly. Give yourself grace. Take your time deciding on your path forward. Don’t race to say you want to R or D. You need to digest her betrayal and heal yourself first. I believe the vast majority of WS’s do not give the complete truth on Dday or when confronted. Be aware there is more to her actions than she is confessing.

Take care of you. Eat healthy and exercise. Your WW should read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by McDonald. You will be on an emotional roller coaster for an extended period of time. You know of course that all of your WW’s rationalizations for her actions are not an excuse. Millions of married folks go through depression and feel lost or alone, and never cheat on their partner. She cheated because she wanted to do it. What is she doing to address her personal failings and brokenness that allowed her to betray her wedding vows? Watch her actions and not her words. Is her AP married? If so expose the A to his OBS. She deserves the truth of her life. If it were me I would get checked for STDs. Keep posting. Asking questions and this is a great place to vent. All of this is terribly unfair to you. Good luck.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 12:56 AM, Friday, May 29th]

I’m sorry you had to join this site but you will receive support and advice. People will weigh in based in their experiences, so you will see things from many different perspectives.

Regarding your question about what you should or shouldn’t be doing — obviously that answer is unique to each situation. Some people want to know all the details, while others do not.

But your behavior after Dday (discovery of affair day) will be like a scattergram. Somewhat all over the place. The emotional impact of an affair makes you a bit erratic. One minute you think "my cheating spouse is the love of my life and I want to Reconcile" and the next minute you want a Divorce from the cheater.

You seem to have some insight on your wife and you seem to understand her. So maybe that is why you don’t require more details from her.

You do what works best for you. And your marriage.

One very common theme among wayward spouses is that they rarely tell you the whole story off the bat. Sometimes trickling out more and more details over periods of months or even years. We call it trickle truth. It starts with "we only kissed twice," to "it was oral one time," to "we had sex a dozen times," etc.

I'm not saying this is the case with your wife. She might be telling the truth, but what I described above is very, very common. All I'm saying is brace yourself for more possible revelations over the next few months. Hopefully this isn't the case.

2 weeks is very fresh. The general rule of thumb is that it takes 2 to 5 years to recover from infidelity and reconciliation can be a lifetime work in progress, so don't beat yourself up for not "getting over it" in a few months. Betrayal trauma is real trauma. PTSD symptoms are common.

I'm really sorry you've found yourself here, but this is a good group of people who understand what you're going through. Hang in there and keep posting. Ask any questions or even just vent if you need to. This is the place for it. Just typing it out and getting feedback helped me a lot.

Sorry this happened to you Pete.

I had a few thoughts reading your story. On the details - if you don’t need to know them, that’s perfectly fine. But you might want them one day…there’s more than one poster here who’s been frustrated years after the fact with answers of "I don’t remember" to their questions. So a suggestion to consider is to have her write down all the details she can now. You can keep it in a sealed envelope or on a USB drive or whatever, just so it’s there if you change your mind down the road.

There are a few things I would say you need to know: who is he? How’d they meet? How were they communicating? How long has it been going on? How do you know it’s over? I’m particularly thinking about if he’s a co-worker, or someone you know. If you guys are going to try to reconcile, she has to go completely no-contact with him. Which might mean changing jobs, for example.

I think the length is relevant because it was an EA (she felt "connected" with him). Even if she agrees to go NC, the odds are not low that she breaks it. The longer it’s been going on, the more those odds go up. You’ll have to be pretty clear about boundaries and consequences going forward.

I’m surprised she’s not seeing a therapist. If I were in your shoes, I’d see that as more or less a requirement for R.

As for asking questions: you need to be able to talk about it with her. Otherwise, you’re just rug-sweeping. You don’t need to badger her, you guys could set aside some time every day or every week or whatever to talk about it. Or have a shared Google doc you can do Q&A on. There are lots of ways to approach it.

But the question "would you rather be with him" is a pretty fricking important one, no?? Especially since she told you she felt pressured to marry you in the first place. While her answer in words is important, her answer in deeds is even more important. Step back and watch what she does: is she researching how to fix this? Is she finding a therapist? Making changes in her life? Telling you where she is, and who she’s with? Those are just examples of the kinds of things she might do if she were trying to prove it to you.

But most importantly, I stood up for myself, I think I'm actually worth something after doing so and I know I'll be fine whether this works out or not.

Love this for you. You’re way ahead of the curve on this.

[This message edited by Letmebefrank at 2:09 PM, Friday, May 29th]

Not acting furious and angry is fine IMHO, but might need deeper understanding.
It’s been pointed out to me that when I am facing confrontational situations I tend to be deadly calm. I weigh each word and think my actions through. My kids noticed this, and (as grown-ups) have talked about how they dreaded it when I didn’t blow up and chew them out for smoking, drinking, dinting the car or whatever. They would have preferred me screaming and yelling and threatening hell and high water.
I think this reaction goes to some primal realization where you know that screaming and crying and flailing about isn’t going to make that Sabre-tooth tiger change it’s mind about having you for lunch. Might be better off slowly backing towards that tall tree and having Mr. Tigre eat the exited ones.

You do however need to react. Here are my thoughts:
Whatever "reason" she gives to explain why she felt a need to get validation from someone else don’t mitigate the fact that she was seeking a cure to a problem in the wrong place. We can maybe agree that she was depressed, felt lonely, felt forced and all that, but the solution wasn’t to be found in the arms of someone else.
This is something that really needs to be driven home: Her DECISION to cheat was a decision – not an accident or something that just happened. And… it was the wrong decision. The "solution" would have been to seek therapy, actively search for activities, friends, events…, to talk to you about the relationship issues and her general well-being… Basically everything and anything other than the arms of another person.

Imagine your wife had an infection. Like… a big cut on her thigh from falling on broken glass while jogging. That cut had gone red, then purple and was now oozing smelly yellow stuff. Let’s also imagine that she thought rubbing some crystals and drinking apple-cider would clear the infection, while you know that without proper treatment this could turn gangrenous and even fatal.
At what point do you start voicing your concerns? When do you demand she seeks real treatment? Even… at what point do you just pack her into the car and drive her to the ER despite her protests?
In many ways that’s where you are now. Your wife did list valid issues. No doubt about that. It’s her SOLUTION – her treatment-of-choice – that is the issue. So yes – you should push er towards therapy. You can’t be overtly passive about that, but there has got to be some middle ground between suggesting therapy and demanding therapy.

I also think that not knowing the truth or having any doubts or questions about what happened will hold you back…
I’m a practical man. I think a couple can recover from anything as long as both want to. But I also think you truly need to know what you are recovering from. I also think (and repeated examples here on SI support this) that learning NOW that they had sex, that this was the third lover or whatever, will cause LESS damage than being told 12 months from now that she gave him a HJ or that they grinded or whatever. When a WS shares the truth – no matter how bad it might be – it IMHO shows a true will to reconcile, and shows that the person is willing to trust the BS with the truth.

I think you should give her an amnesty – a grace period. She tells you the absolute truth NOW and you still give the marriage a chance – no matter what the truth might be.
Maybe she is telling the truth. Maybe there is more. The "look in the eye"… keep in mind this is coming from a person that has cheated.

One thing I think is key to a good marriage – and key to defining if your marriage is good or not.
She states she felt pressured to marry you…
The ONLY thing keeping a marriage together is the individual decisions to be married. It’s not enough that YOU want to be married or that SHE wants to be married. You alone can decide to divorce, and vice-versa. If she feels forced to be there then she can decide not to be there. I encourage you two to talk that through, and in doing so remove all practical hinderances that either of you might hang on to. You don’t want her to be there simply for financial reasons, nor do you want to remain married only due to the kids, or family or social status. You two want to be married because you want to be married.
When she uses thoughts like being "forced" to be there… She needs to understand that she isn’t. She DECIDED to be there.

hey Petecarparts

You have gotten lots of good advice - please take it to heart.

One thing I am seeing with your WS is she is always the victim.
She was pressured to marry, her depression made her cheat — there is ZERO personal accountability here. She needs IC to help her break through that and acknowledge, own and fix this tendency. She has always had choices. She may have not liked the options or whatever, but she had choices. How can she be a safe partner for you if she is not taking responsibility? How can she prevent this ever happening again if it wasn’t her fault due to these other external forces?

This is what you need to be watching for. Regret is easy. Saying you are sorry is easy. Owning what you did, why you did, and the extent of the damage you have wrought and getting to true remorse? that is the difficult task for a WS who truly wants to heal themselves and have any chance at reconciliation.

This may take a little time, and you can decide to wait and watch or not. But really watch actions. Cheaters are, by definition and experience, good liars. But if she TAKES THE INITIATIVE to be transparent, full honesty, seek IC and really dive into it, communicate and help you with your grief and pain…. This consistently over time are good indicators that R is possible.

Take care of yourself. Read the bullseye posts in the JFO forum and read in the healing library. Lots of good stuff for you. Also see your own IC to help you navigate your pain and recovery. .This is nasty stuff.

Best of luck.

petecarparts I really felt the tension in your post between wanting to stay calm and kind while also being deeply hurt.

Am I being too accommodating? Too kind? Should I be angrier?

I do not think there is one correct emotional response to betrayal as some people rage/some collapse/some go very quiet and calm. Calm does not mean you are not devastated and kindness does not mean you are weak but think kindness still needs boundaries as you can have compassion for her depression loneliness and past experiences without letting those things become explanations that soften the seriousness of what she chose to do.

But most importantly, I stood up for myself, I think I'm actually worth something after doing so and I know I'll be fine whether this works out or not.

That sounds important. Hold onto that part of yourself and understand the instinct to try to be fair and not become someone you do not recognise - but you matter in this too as her healing is her work and your healing is yours. If reconciliation is going to be real it cannot rest on you being endlessly understanding while she slowly works out whether she wants to face herself.

Pete,

One other question from me: is the OM married?

We had a fight this morning at 3am. She went to our neighbors to stay for a few hours. She texted me, saying she'd been up all morning crying, barely slept.

I found my anger. I found the "why" I should/could be angrier here, but I'm not going to yell. I'm not going to belittle her. She asked me "do you want a divorce?" I told her, "No, but I'm going to need answers and reassurances now. If we're going to make this work, if you're going to earn my trust back we're going to have to have the hardest talk we've ever had and you're going to have to give me the truth. If you can do that, I'm willing to give you that chance."

I learned at a very young age from my dad (who was also cheated on by my mom and they divorced) that "it's easy to be angry when you're hurt. It's hard to be compassionate. It's even more difficult to be patient."

I'm going to get my answers tonight. There can't be any trickle, I will stand my ground and believe in myself. I need to remember that I matter here and I'm not to blame.

Thank you everyone, I'm amazed at the care and support I've been shown here already. It's people like you and things like this forum that really remind me of how kind the world can be, especially when your own world feels like it's crumbling.

Friend, I personally do think you are being too accommodating. It very possibly is teaching her that the consequences of cheating are very small with you. IMO the more serious you demonstrate this to be....it communicates the value that she and the marriage had to you.

I know all are different, but I needed to know every detail because I needed to know what exactly was stolen from me.

IMO, there should be no privacy in marriage related to relational issues. Marriage is "one flesh" or "one life".

Advice...please make sure you do NOT see a normal therapist. I am have read countless cases where they hurt any chance of recovery. Find a Betrayal Trauma Specialist.

Day by day friend.💯

I held my temper too. Don't get me wrong, I raised my voice a few times, but I never once called my wife any names outside of being a liar, which was unquestionably true, but I refrained from other name calling, screaming, yelling, or generally losing my cool. This was a little over a year ago for me, and I'm glad now that I handled it the way I did. You're not less of a man for keeping your cool and not losing your shit.

I was however, definitely devastated, and dealt with some trickling of truth for about a month. At first it was "I slept on the couch," to "slept with him one time," to 2 times, to eventually 3 times in total. I caught it early. The physical affair had been going on for 2 weeks when I found out. I was able to corroborate that with places and times, plus text conversations with friends I wasn't meant to see. So I'm pretty confident I know the truth now, but those first few weeks of new info trickling out were a killer. I've seen some stories here where that trickle truth is dragged out over months or even years with devastating new revelations, and that causes more damage than just getting the whole truth right off the bat. You need to really impress that upon her. Every new detail just rips the wound open again and healing starts over.

It took me talking a stand and calling divorce lawyers and real estate agents right in front of my wife to snap her out of the fog and get the whole truth. To get her to send a no contact message, block him on everything, and put in for a location transfer at work. He was a co worker.

It wasn't an idle threat or an attempt to manipulate her. I meant it, and she knew it. Don't threaten divorce unless you're prepared to go through with it. Backpedaling on that could blow up in your face. I needed to take my agency back, tho. I knew I wasn't getting the whole truth. I decided that there are worse things than divorce, and living in infidelity without the truth is one of them.

Bigger often suggests offering that grace period where you tell her that you need the WHOLE TRUTH. No matter how bad it is, you'll at least give reconciliation a chance, but any new revelations down the road will greatly increase the chances of divorce.

I think a couple can recover from almost anything, but it has to be based on truth and unfiltered and complete transparency. The level of detail you want is up to you, but you should have at least the basics. Who, what happened, when, where, how long, and how many times. Some people need all of the dirty details, and some only want the basics. Just keep in mind that once you hear it you can't unhear it. I personally didn't want extreme graphic details, but I know what happened and that was bad enough.

There are a couple of books that get recommended often here. The one that really opened my wife's eyes was "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald. We got the audio version and listened to it together. It's just a little over 2 hours and it's packed with very good information and really digs deep into what an affair does to a betrayed partner. I would recommend your wife at least read that one. Another good book is "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass.

I think your plan to have a real talk with your wife is a good one, and for what it's worth you're handling yourself really well right now, but give yourself some grace over the next few months because you're going to be on a roller coaster of emotions for quite a while. Betrayal trauma is real trauma. Some describe it as worse than the death of a loved one, only topped by the loss of a child. PTSD symptoms are common. Just hang in there and press for the truth. If there's any chance of reconciliation it has to start with the truth.

[This message edited by Pogre at 1:41 PM, Saturday, May 30th]

Bigger, and others are trying to get you to look at the practicalities of things. Because of my training and my job, I usually look at emotions and the devastating effects they have and sometimes a wonderful outcomes they have.

The telling sentence that you wrote is your wife saying she married you because…. She did not say that she was madly in love with you and could not wait to marry you. So I’m going to bring you up a few scenarios to try to explain to you what I think might have been going on in your marriage. I have a relative, and two friends, who all left the nicest man you ever met. So I asked them what was wrong with him and they all said nothing was wrong with him. They just could not stay in a marriage where they were not in love with their husbands. So I asked them why did you marry them in the first place. One said she was sort of at a crossroads and he was so in love with her that he just overwhelmed her and the next thing she knew she was married. Needless to say that marriage was over with in about four years. She went on and married again had kids. The next one said that she just equated his nice caring personality with someone she should love. She said it just never happened. In this case she had children with this man so not only did she hurt him, but she hurt her children. The third one begged her parents did not go through with the wedding, but they had invested a ton of money and a lot of social standing and she got married. Had children and left. This is not a country of arranged marriages. This is the United States and none of these women had any sort of religious or overt culturalism pushing them into these marriages. So why did they do it. They don’t know. I know people who have a volatile marriage and they wouldn’t leave it for anything. They bring out the best and the worst of each other but they enjoy the heck out of the chaos they create. That marriage would drive me crazy but they evidently love each other enough to put up with it. I’ve gone off the deep end here just to explain to you why you being the nice man that you are, don’t have a wife who thinks you’ve hung the moon. There really is some chemistry involved and it’s almost impossible to manufacture lust, which is what pulls us together in the first place. Love can develop in a marriage, but it’s probably never going to be that intensity that people crave. I’m sorry this has happened to you because I don’t think you deserve it. I think you’re a perfectly nice man who has enough good qualities to offer any woman and she should be grateful and thankful that she has you, but that’s not how life is. If your wife is looking outside your marriage, even with something as innocuous as phone calls, she’s looking.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 2:38 PM, Saturday, May 30th]

One does not have to call one's WS names to show anger. It's much more effective - and it's effective enough - to say, 'I'm annoyed/angry/beyond furious that you _____.' Calling names recirculates the anger. When a person says and shows they are angry, they own it, and owning it releases it.

I believe that especially after d-day, one's non-verbal communications need to match one's words. I never called my W names, but when I was angry, she knew it, because I told her so. She saw and heard lots of gradations of anger, and I released a lot of 'pieces' of anger forever.

Actually, grief was my primary feeling, with anger and fear mixed in. IOW, anger is normal response to being betrayed, but it's not the only possible response. Since I wanted to R, I showed my feelings to my W to test her. If she couldn't handle my feelings, I was done with her. That opened me up to rejection, but I thought if rejection was in my future, the sooner I knew, the better.

Since it worked for me, my reco is to show your WS the amount of anger, grief, and fear that you actually feel, but take responsibility for - own - your feelings.

Stop trying to be calm. Be authentic instead.

*****

I've written often that BS heals BS, WS heals WS, and together they heal/build/rebuild the M, if they choose to. Compassion for one's WS is great, but not when it hinders the BS's healing. If one Rs, the BS is going to have to give the WS a lot of emotional support. The faster the BS heals, the sooner the BS can provide that support.

So focus on yourself and your own healing. That sort of throws the WS into the deep end of the pool to sink or swim, but that's just how it should be - R is difficult, and it's especially difficult for the WS. If they don't have the desire, strength, ability, etc. to do their work, the sooner you know, the better.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:20 PM, Saturday, May 30th]

My wife went from initial complete denial, to admitting to a single kiss, to eventually admitting to an 18 month long sexual affair with a coworker. This is very typical the confronted spouse attempts to admit to as little as possible for likely obvious. In my experience adults don’t stop kissing When they’re deeply infatuated and already crossing the line. In my case I required full answers before even attempting any kind of reconciliation. I required a written confession my wife’s confession was more than six pages long and actually painted her in quite a poor light. Make it a bit more believable in my opinion. I would recommend asking for that, when you know what you’re dealing with, what she did and order motivations were, you will be more likely to make an assessment on whether not your relationship can be repaired or not.

You are doing very well dealing with this crap so hold your head up high.