SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

First Post - Hardly know where to begin.

DDay was Feb 1 2023. I fucking knew it! She's been putting distance between us since it happened in Sept 2022. When she finally admitted to the A, we both indicated our desire to R. However, she just doesn't seem like she is into it. I see posts that it can take time for a WS to recognize the damage done. I think right now seeing my anguish just makes her feel more guilty. She says it was part accidential , part exit. Yesterday she said her IC suggested a 6mo seperation because she things she is making me crazy.

I am certainly acting crazy. wild ups and downs. Tears daily, angry outburst (in front of the kids I am sorry to say).

If your reaction here is to post about how R is a myth - I'd prefer you save your energy

Cheating is never an accident. It's a choice.

What you are experiencing is normal for a BS. You have been traumatized, and your brain is trying to process the enormous betrayal.

What work is she doing to become a safe partner?

At MINIMUM..

Full NC with the OM. If the affair was with a coworker, she finds another job immediately.

Tested for stds.

Full transparency. You get total access to all accounts and the phone. Passwords included.

She answers all of your questions without anger or defensiveness. And zero blame.

She figures out,in IC, why she chose to cheat. It has NOTHING to do with anything you did,or didn't do.

She drops any friends who knew of the affair.

She is proactive in healing the damage she has caused you,the marriage, and herself.

You are very close to your dday. Right now,your job is to take care of yourself, get tested for stds, inform the OBS, and watch your wife's actions.

R isn't a guarantee. You must have a remorseful WS, who is willing to do the work on themselves.

Also, a Ws who wants to separate so soon after dday usually either wants to run from the consequences of their actions, or is still in the affair.

[This message edited by HellFire at 4:55 PM, Saturday, March 4th]

R isn't a myth, but you should really post in JFO. You are still in shock and at best in recovery. You aren't even ready to choose R or D, and most likely you are not out of infidelity yet.

Boilerplate stuff:

Your wife needs to give you complete electronic transparency. All accounts, all passwords, device access.

Read "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glassand "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald.

Get a complete written timeline of the A, and optionally (but generally recommended) a polygraph to confirm. This helps avoid TT and further bullshit "I didn't say that/mean that/etc." It's written down. It will also help you make sense of your now shattered history and understanding of that time.

Tell the other betrayed spouse.

No contact with AP, with the no contact message sent in your presence. Agree that she will immediately tell you if AP reached out again.

I'm sure I'm missing stuff, but right now you are still flailing wildly looking for safety and your WW can't give it to you yet. Lean on your friends and family. Don't keep your wife's secret for her. Don't rugsweep, minimize, or accept any blame for the A.

Eat healthy, drink water, get sleep. This can be hard at the beginning.

Individual counseling for both of you. Don't start marriage counseling right away. You are likely to receive blamedhifting and further traumatization at the hands of an inept counselor and you will be unequipped to call out their bullshit.

You are in for the world's shittiest rollercoaster.

Sending strength.

Thank you both. WW gets credit for some but not all. She is in IC. The A was an ONS in a far away state so I'm not terribly worried bout NC. She says she didn't even know his name. She has some significant trauma from a previous marrige that makes her feel like sharing passwords is a control mechanisim and... I'm gonna show my ass here a second and say that I'm starting to think that her IC is a man-hating bitch. I swear everthing I do right now is being chalked up to some 'control' mechanisim.
STDs well.. got bit there.

NO I get no transparency. (See Control Mechanisim)

She answers all of your questions without anger or defensiveness. And zero blame.
No- She thinks I read too much in to anything she tells me, so she tells me very little. Answers no questions.

She figures out,in IC, why she chose to cheat. It has NOTHING to do with anything you did,or didn't do.
Maybe ... (See man-hating bitch)

She drops any friends who knew of the affair.
No one knew until she told me.

She is proactive in healing the damage she has caused you,the marriage, and herself.
She is not. I think she questions if R is in the cards at all.

You are very close to your dday. Right now,your job is to take care of yourself, get tested for stds, inform the OBS, and watch your wife's actions.
Good advice.. Thanks

R isn't a guarantee. You must have a remorseful WS, who is willing to do the work on themselves.

Also, a Ws who wants to separate so soon after dday usually either wants to run from the consequences of their actions, or is still in the affair.
Its the former - she is ashamed of herself. I firmly believe that.

Thanks for the reply

"How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald.

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Without full transparency, there can be no reconciliation. Without being honest,and answering questions, there can be no reconciliation.

Complete honesty amd transparency are the cornerstones to a successful reconciliation.

She has control issues from a previous marriage? She should be working on the in IC,and at the same time,learning to understand why transparency is so important after infidelity.

Since she is refusing the very basics, you need to pull back in offering R. Read up on the 180,in The Healing Library, and put it into play.

At this point,she is not giving you anything to work with.

I'd ask to sit in on one of her IC sessions. Maybe her IC is telling her those things,but since she already has an issue with transparency, she may be telling you that her IC is saying these things, when in reality she isn't.

A bad IC can do a lot of harm.

[This message edited by HellFire at 11:05 PM, Saturday, March 4th]

Own the control mechanism.

"Yes it's a control mechanism because you have proven to be an unsafe partner. If you can't give full transparency, then I can't verify when you tell the truth and I can never rebuild trust. Unfortunately you put us in a place where these measures are necessary."

Her first job should be to be trustworthy. You're not going to believe her at this stage. But, she needs to be trustworthy. And, truth be told, in the early days of R for us, my FWH was and wasn't. It was a pattern, skills he learned over time, and TIME. And I had to learn to trust myself in my perception of him again. If it was part exit A, there are reasons that need to be explored. BUT, she could have explored them with you before the A. She needs to learn how to do that. IC could help. I don't think being in the room with her and IC will help. While many won't agree, she needs some sense of self. She needs someone supporting her. I think carrying the reality that she was the cheater is a heavier load to carry than many of us BS can sense. There are no guarantees. I'm so sorry you're here. It absolutely sucks.

The thing is, you'll BOTH have to decide to dig DEEP to R. You have to lean into each other and put on that yoke together. And, you have no control on whether she does or if that is what she wants. It's a moment by moment thing.

I did the same. Lost my shit in front of kiddo, sobbed, broke things (thankfully not people) did things I never thought I'd be capable of. IT.IS.NORMAL. Not ideal, but normal. Forgive yourself and do better when you can.

GO to JFO. Are you in IC? Please go, if not. This is HARD shit. Bottom line....learn self care. Do whatever you have to do to get through the next moment. Eat the cookies, ask for the hugs, treat yourself as you would a close friend who has just been through a major trauma.

You will feel better again. I promise.

Thank you Ladybugmaam - I do believe she is beating the shit out of herself. I believe that she is avoiding me because I represent pain and confusion. What is JFO? I am in IC.

JFO= Just Found Out forum here. It's for people that just found out.

I’m sorry you had to find us, there are a few familiar things that stand out. She is still in a wayward mindset. It is selfish for her to put her guilt and ahead of your pain. She is manipulating you to drop it and move on. This IC is no good for her, they are already blaming you. It’s time to apply consequences and remind her who did this.

Jdisco,

Sorry that you find yourself here brother. This place is a great resource for folks in your position and I hope that you stick around to get the most benefit you can from the hard earned wisdom that has been crowdsourced from thousands of equally as unpleasant experiences as yours with infidelity.

So, to recap from your posts in this thread, your wife had a ONS while away and she is now suggesting that you do a 6 month trial separation and she is being the opposite of transparent with respect to sharing her phone passwords and access. My spidey sense is tingling with that one. One thing that we all know, it is like page 1 of the Cheater's Handbook, Cheater's lie and they like a lot. I would highly doubt that she doesn't know this guy and since you have no access to her email, phone, etc. you are really hard up to verify that she is not having any contact with this guy. Do you have access to the phone bill that you can check to see if a number is recurring on there a lot in recent months, probably leading up to the Sept 2022 meet up. What about bank statements? Any charges there that might indicate a hole in her story? I'm going to be honest, this got my spidey sense tingling because it sounds like total unbelievable bullshit. A more plausible explanation is that she is still deep in an affair with both an emotional and physical component, although the physical component has perhaps been limited by distance since you mentioned a far away state.

It sounds like your wife may best be suited to see a proctologist for help, as it seems that her cranium has been fully lodged up her rectal cavity and with a problem like that, you need top shelf medical help. She has completely broken all trust with you and yet she expects you to trust her story about a ONS with what evidence?

To your initial post, R is not a myth, but it is hard work on the part of both spouses. Right now, your wife has all the power. You come to her asking for access to her phone and you come to her requesting this and that, all of which she is shutting down and turning it back on you. She won't talk about the affair because you read too much into it? Come the fuck on, that is some DARVO bullshit. You are not the one who had an affair, she is.

As a BH, you have to lay down some ground rules for any potential R, which do include full transparency, a written timeline of the affair, an STD test, objective evidence that there is No Contact and an STD test to make sure she didn't bring you anything nasty or life threatening. You should be firm with your list of your requirements for any R and if she won't do it, that she needs to leave the house and you will begin the process of Divorce. I understand that you want R and I respect that, but we have a saying here that I will paraphrase, "only he who is willing to lose the marriage, can save the marriage." I'm working off your limited information in posts, but if I had to guess, your wife has not suffered many consequences from the affair. I mean, are you still doing things around the house to help her? Doing nice gestures like bringing home flowers, candies, etc.? Did you go all out on the most recent Valentine's Day? Those are all forms of something we call the pick me dance.

Navigate to the top of the SI page and see the healing library. Look for the 180. I think that is something that you need to understand and implement yourself. You are emotionally attached to your wife and you love her. Again, totally normal and I get it. However, that closeness and love we feel can really mess with our better judgment. You need to look at the 180 as a way for you to gain some distance from her so you can try to be more objective about whether she can do the work or not for R. At the moment, she appears to be completely unwilling to do the work necessary for a successful R, as evidenced by her unwillingness to move a finger. The most successful WS when it comes to R are the ones who after discovery are moving heaven and earth to show their BS, not tell, show them that they (the BS) are the prize. At this stage talk is cheap and easy and I would bet your wife has talked the talk, but has she walked the walk. The 180 is not a manipulation tactic but if you do distance yourself from her, treat her like a roommate and maybe go so far as to sleep in a separate bedroom, it will show her some consequences and that you are not going to just sweep this under the rug. Where you guys are right is that she is expecting to just let time pass and you will rugsweep it and never deal with the issues that got her there.

Which one is it?

She banged another man as an accident and exit from the marriage?

Now she's beating herself up because you represent pain and confusion?

Seems the common factor in all this is you

It also was not her first rodeo, she just got caught this time. I'm betting once you find the full extent of her "accidents" it will make sense why she's treating you this way.