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So I am currently writing my timeline, and have been trying to explain the situation with my AP to my BS during a period in my timeline.

So in short, I work for an organisation which requires integrity and a moral compass therefore by nature affairs arent exactly welcomed and it can be career ending and worst-case scenario can end in prison if the circumstances apply

My BS just can't understand why I then continued to see the AP nor can she understand why I continued with my physical relationship despite wanting to end things with her...

The way I have tried to explain it and my feelings are as follows and i would appreciate your insight.

During the initial few weeks I developed some crazy intense feelings for the AP these were all totally misguided and we were sneaking about and doing all the shady things that us WS do in these situations.

After a few weeks I made the decision that my BS and I were not going to work out (despite our relationship being really good and her being brilliant) and I convinced myself we were riddled with issues.

I then went through a few weeks of back and forth, lots of manipulation and blaming the BS before then reaching the point where I realised that the AP and I were not going to work. There were lots of red flags, she was really obsessed and would be very controlling, demanding to know where I was, what I was doing, insisting I shouldn't come into the marital home to see the kids and then when I did bombarding and blaming me for not keeping her in the loop. It hit a point where I couldnt deal with it anymore so called quits on it HOWEVER it was very wishy washy and i blamed my own struggles for the A ending. Anyway after a couple days I agreed to meet her as she wanted to see me, I did so and we ended up restarting the A by having sex. It was again an instant slap in the face and i realised I just landed myself back in the same predicament again. The AP now started to up the ante, she was now in a panic she knew I was struggling she could see me pulling away and could see that I was starting to have my doubts and so she did what she knew best and that was to throw herself at me and use her body as a weapon.

During this period of time (around three weeks) having known exactly what I had done whilst I should and that it would have cast doubt on me I became very down. I would argue, be dismissive and generally be as arrogant as they come towards the BS whilst trying to find a way to end the A without the AP deciding to go all postal on me and my career thus also impacting my BS.

I was cowardly and felt the best way was to just go along with everything and to just try and turn her against me in ways, saying how much I was struggling and that I couldn't do things anymore and hoping she would see that element of me and decide she couldnt cope either.....she didnt although she had days when she said she too couldn't cope and when I said let's end it she panicked and said she didnt want that.

Anyway as time went on over the next few weeks we continued to have sex from time to time(occasionally it didnt work, I wouldnt be able to perform), I continued to make time to see her albeit I was pissing her off by not going when I said I would or when i did was being all distant. One evening she asked me to visit and I again had sex with her during my working time (this is career ending, could result in jail time and generally just an absolute stupid decision), I have told my BS this and explained about the fact I was feeling low and was already scraping the barrel so I had sex as a pick me up and because I was thinking only of sex at that point.

I wasn't in the fog, I was trying to push her away I was trying to escape but evidently my actions don't obviously show that and my bs is struggling to comprehend this.

I accept i wanted to cake eat and i accept that, it was a truly selfish decision what I did and I took a ridiculous risk which could have bad serious consequences.

So to my fellow WS, what crazy stuff did you get embroiled in?

If a BS is reading this, what examples of funked up stuff did your WS get up to and how did you accept that when trying to reconcile??

On a side not:

I have been an absolute douche to my BS during the affair and now with trickle truthing and cowardice, I struggle at times to really try and explain things i am a neanderthal in some regards so I need to learn to lean on others to get their advice to understand some of these things

..

Thank you all in advance

[This message edited by Tinytim1980 at 9:52 AM, Sunday, February 18th]

I'm a BS. More in rugsweeping than reconciliation.

If a BS is reading this, what examples of funked up stuff did your WS get up to and how did you accept that when trying to reconcile??

His affair ruined our business and my job. There is no acceptance. There will never be acceptance. Of course we can't understand that you getting your dick wet with strange is more important than your spouse, or your kids, or your job.

Because that's how unevolved animals behave, not humans capable of making vows to each other; for intelligent beings able to conceptualize the future and understand the meaning of consequences.

There are many MANY red flags in your story here (you're throwing a lot of blame at your AP, for instance. She didn't rape you, right??) As a BS whose WS I now consider a pathetic and barely-sentient subhuman because "my dick at all costs!!" and his inability to own his own shit, I would highly recommend you take a really long hard look at your post DDay behavior. You'll hear on this site a lot that the BS might have been able to forgive the affair, but the abuse and lack of self-awareness afterwards is what really killed the marriage.

I accept i wanted to cake eat and i accept that, it was a truly selfish decision what I did and I took a ridiculous risk which could have bad serious consequences.

"Could have"??? IT DID. It sounds like since you didn't get in trouble at work, everything is peachy-keen, jelly bean. Your wife will be lucky if she ever has another day in her life (as long as she has to look at your face, anyway) where she DOESN'T think about your affair. You fucked her up royally, but as long as YOU didn't experience "bad serious consequences..."

So to my fellow WS, what crazy stuff did you get embroiled in?

Sounds like we're all about to play Truth or Dare here. Are you taking this seriously at all? Sure doesn't sound like it. Sounds more like you want to compare war stories.

Are you in IC?

Hi thanks for your post,

Believe me when I say I know that I came out of this unscathed (other than all the anxiety and other issues i have going on) and i know how lucky i am to be given the opportunity with my BS to try and own this stuff.

I have done terribly post DDay and am truly trying to work on my stuff. It is easy to blame the AP for my shitty behaviour however as I have explained to my BS in my timeline I know my involvement and know exactly what I have done.

The aim of my post really was to try and gauge the level of stupid stuff that gets done during an A it really isnt about the truth and dare as you put it. More just trying to work out and establish what others have had to deal with and how to get through it all.

I have gone through IC and have some more coming up to try and work on some of my issues. I also have gone through CBT and some other bits to top it all up but it's a challenge and one that at times I have truly failed. The pain that my BS is going through though and the fact she has to look at my face daily allows me to see the pain that I have caused her, I have truly broken this woman and if I can post some stuff on here to hopefully get some answers to make sense of the shittery that I did then I shall...

Tinytim;

I am glad to see you understand how horrible the decisions were that you made. You recognize you jeopardized your career, your self-worth, and your marriage for a "good time", which eventually turned into ashes. That is a brutal realization for you to come to. I am glad to read you are in IC. It is good you have provided a timeline. These are all good steps, and in the right direction. Yes, you have made some serious mistakes post D-day. Will it not be enough to push your BS past R and into D? Only the BS can answer that, but each time you hold something back, or not tell the whole truth, or get caught in another lie, you push your BS closer to that line, and eventually over it.

I am a BS. What I needed from my WW was the absolute truth. If I asked a question, she answered with as little information as possible to satisfy my question, but I wanted more. I asked if she thought of any details after our conversation to share them with me. (Ask me if I wanted to hear them, first, though.) She never did, and I am convinced she knows more and remembers more but refuses to tell me. I suggest you be as open and as honest as you possibly can. Is this not what your M needs to survive – for you and your spouse to be totally bare with each other at all times?! This does not guarantee your M will survive, but it is practically guaranteed it will die if you don’t.

If you want to try to earn her trust back and begin pulling her away from that D edge, then tell her the truth until she tells you to stop. Volunteer information as you recall it. This proves to her you are no longer hiding anything.

If you two R, keep this pattern up. You will find living a life that is transparent to your love is easy and holds both of you accountable for your actions. You will both be happier knowing there are no secrets between you and the trust level will slowly rise.

This is kind of confusing:

I was feeling low and was already scraping the barrel so I had sex as a pick me up and because I was thinking only of sex at that point.

I wasn't in the fog, I was trying to push her away I was trying to escape but evidently my actions don't obviously show that and my bs is struggling to comprehend this.

Were you only thinking of sex, or were you trying to push her away? Which is it?

"I'd better keep having sex with this woman who could freak out and destroy my career and my marriage if I don't pretend to still be into her." I don't see anything baffling about placating the AP with more sex so that she wouldn't blow up your life. The screwed-up thing was taking that risk in the first place.

The opportunity presented itself and you needed a "pick-me-up" because that's "all you were thinking about." The seal was already broken and you were horny, amirite? Don't say that you were trying to push AP away while you had your penis inside her. That defies logic. You could have faked ED again. You could have faked diarrhea. Nobody argues with the diarrhea excuse. But you didn't. You may not have been into the AP anymore, but you were into the illicit sex. To a BS, there's not a whole lot of difference.

I mean, I get hating yourself while you're doing something, but doing it anyway. I recently picked up the stupid habit of vaping. It makes me feel like shit and I'm mad at myself, but I still did it anyway. I finally got tired of my own crap (just yesterday) and I put the stupid vapes permanently out of commission by throwing them in the pool. Not the safest option since they have lithium batteries, but my lungs appreciate it and I feel better knowing that I can't change my mind and pick them up again without making a deliberate choice to go out and buy another one.

Metaphorically, you didn't throw the AP in the pool. You tucked her in your back pocket so that you could use her again because you weren't done with her yet.

Tinytim1980

I suggest you start by writing a time line of your doings with AP

Then add a "what I was thinking" or thought I was thinking as a parallel "timeline"

Then Get the book "Cheating in a Nutshell" and read a couple of times.

Note Chapter 8 "Lying"

No longer say anything not total truth. If you can't stomach saying the words, just defer the words to a later time and understand the "Lying" also includes "by omission"

Whether your spouse stays or goes - you must change your definition of Integrity and/or (subset) honesty.

If you google "Lying" you can find an essay by Johnathon Wallace on a site with "spectacle" in url - it is worth a read . . .

[This message edited by Hippo16 at 12:51 AM, Wednesday, July 26th]

No stop sign, so as a BS, I will give you my thoughts…

If you did it, tell her.

If you thought it, tell her.

If she asks questions answer them honestly.

If she asks the same questions over and over, answer her honestly over and over without frustration.

If she wants you near her, be there. If she doesn’t want you near her, go away, let her know you’ll be back near her as soon as she wants.

My husband was unable to follow this simple recipe, and he lost everything, including me.

[This message edited by GiveTimeTime at 3:10 AM, Wednesday, July 26th]

I am a BS. What I needed from my WW was the absolute truth. If I asked a question, she answered with as little information as possible to satisfy my question, but I wanted more. I asked if she thought of any details after our conversation to share them with me. (Ask me if I wanted to hear them, first, though.) She never did, and I am convinced she knows more and remembers more but refuses to tell me.

If you did it, tell her.

If you thought it, tell her.

If she asks questions answer them honestly.

If she asks the same questions over and over, answer her honestly over and over without frustration.

If she wants you near her, be there. If she doesn’t want you near her, go away, let her know you’ll be back near her as soon as she wants.

A million up votes to this sage advice from two betrayed spouses.

...and this is why:

I have been an absolute douche to my BS during the affair and now with trickle truthing

After all this time, you are still trickle truthing??

What's going to change this? Time hasn't. Opportunities haven't.
The devastating pain of your partner hasn't.

Why? Because you are still worrying about you way more than her.

In this post, you clearly outline the risks you took during the affair. Each of those risks took courage.

Yet now that showing courage would serve your BS more than you, you can't seem to muster the courage to be fully honest.

Can you imagine how insulting and destructive this choice to hold back truth is to your BS? Can you see that you are still full of self-centeredness and lacking in true empathy?

Like other BSs, I guarantee that your lack of truth, integrity, empathy, and work post Dday is ultimately more destructive and painful than the initial betrayal.

Do you have it in you to initiate a conversation where you sit down with her and voluntarily spill all the details that she is willing to hear?
Do you have it in you to write a complete and accurate timeline that includes as much detail as your BS needs?

The next move is yours.

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 5:44 AM, Wednesday, July 26th]

"If a BS is reading this, what examples of funked up stuff did your WS get up to and how did you accept that when trying to reconcile??"

I will respond directly to this as a BS (Dday December '22). My WH's timeline and motivations were very similar to yours and I just couldn't wrap my head round how he was actively trying to end it with the AP and at the same time meeting for sex in her car and still making declarations of love via text. He's being totally honest, so I don't doubt that at the time he convinced himself that he was trying to 'do the right thing'.

Ultimately, there is no logic to it and I've stopped trying to hunt for a logical explanation. Sometimes we try to search for a greater explanation when the simplest will do: the sex was still on offer so he took it. He had also developed contempt for the AP so by stage he was probably punishing her a bit. He had a habit of blaming everyone else (especially women) for his shitty choices and then making them pay.

I have now (after a lot of IC) accepted what he did as the actions of an utterly broken person. He was deceiving himself and his AP as well as me. I look back at what they did and see the actions of two emotionally immature and insecure people, using each other for the external validation they needed to avoid the real and difficult work of self examination and introspection. They were both utterly deluded.

I have genuinely accepted everything he did, but at the cost of my respect for him as a person. I hope that in time he can earn it back. His current actions mean far more to me now than his past behaviours. Complete honesty, openness and ownership from him are what's keeping me in the marriage. I am prepared to grant him the time and space to work through his (immense) personal shit. Progress doesn't have to be linear, but he does need to be trying.

The ball is indeed in your court.

Believe me when I say I know that I came out of this unscathed (other than all the anxiety and other issues i have going on) and i know how lucky i am to be given the opportunity with my BS to try and own this stuff.

I have done terribly post DDay and am truly trying to work on my stuff. It is easy to blame the AP for my shitty behaviour however as I have explained to my BS in my timeline I know my involvement and know exactly what I have done.

The aim of my post really was to try and gauge the level of stupid stuff that gets done during an A it really isnt about the truth and dare as you put it. More just trying to work out and establish what others have had to deal with and how to get through it all.

I have gone through IC and have some more coming up to try and work on some of my issues. I also have gone through CBT and some other bits to top it all up but it's a challenge and one that at times I have truly failed. The pain that my BS is going through though and the fact she has to look at my face daily allows me to see the pain that I have caused her, I have truly broken this woman and if I can post some stuff on here to hopefully get some answers to make sense of the shittery that I did then I shall...

You may have felt like you come out of it unscathed and I'll grant you that as it is your feelings and who am I to tell you that they are or aren't valid. However, your BW is not unscathed. If you are able to reconcile, maybe there will be a day years from now where she doesn't think about the affair, but I've got to tell you, as a WH/BH, there hasn't been a day in over 3 years that I haven't thought of my wife's affair and since I cannot completely untangle my EA from that mess, my own shit. That is what I would call from "unscathed." So while you are free to feel and think whatever you want, I would urge you to reconsider how you frame that answer, because it is incredibly self-centered of you to only be concerned about your own situation. What other work are you doing to become a safe partner?

Have you gone no-contact with the AP? Since you mentioned workplace affair, have you or your AP switched jobs so that you will never hear from her or see her ever again in the workplace?

I am trying to give your post a generous reading of what you are asking and support you the best I can, but I cannot help but feel that your post was a bit of a dick measuring contest on just how fucked up your A was versus maybe others. If you wish to read around SI, you can find some of the most fucked up, sordid stories from BS and WS about what the WS did during and after their affairs were discovered. The truth is, infidelity, whether you had a one night stand to a multi-decade affair and everything in between whether physical or only emotional, it all hurts like a motherfucker. As we say around here, one of the most important things that the BS deals with in a reconciliation situation is that at some point they are asked to forgive their wayward for the affair, but if you read the JFO or General forum, you will find that so many BS still have a question about what exactly they are being asked to forgive. That is why it would be better for you and her to sit down today and have you vomit out everything you did, said, thought, etc. during your affair. Stop the trickle truth. I also get that there may be something that you forgot about, because we are human beings and we forget, but do some self-reflecting and try to write out a timeline and try to put together as detailed of a history as you can. It may or may not be relevant to your BS that X happened on Tuesday the 12th or maybe it was Wednesday the 13th, but use corroborating evidence to help you nail down dates and times as best you can.

Once you've dealt with getting all of the past out and letting your BW have the whole story, then comes the work of unpacking your own shit and fixing it. Dealing with all the brokenness within you that lead to you picking an affair over the thousands of different alternatives you could've chosen.

BS here. I really don’t see the value and sharing which screwed up things occurred in my situation. It is not something I share so lightly, it isn’t a competition.

I think you need to think inwardly.

Answer the questions

Why did I cheat?

Why did I keep cheating?

Cheating is your choice. What happens afterwards are consequences of your choice. You cheating while knowing the consequences, seems pretty destructive.

You have a long journey ahead, your wife does not have to stay. And know that you have broken trust and created pain. You need to understand and so does she.

As a BS who went through a load of trickle truth, false R, and lies upon lies upon lies - I feel like I need to remind people on here that no one needs to provide US on this site with anything they don't want to. In reading this thread I have a few observations: 1) most of us didn't have a WS with this level of introspection - most of us had rug sweepers and avoidant WS who didn't really even think as much about the A as the OP has, and 2) While pointing out to a WS that their responses seem self centered try to remember that a WS need not talk here solely about their BS. If the OP wants to talk about their own feelings and perspectives that should be 100% fine. I don't get the requirement that an OP is not able to say how they are feeling - it must be about the BS at all times. This is just bonkers to me. Moreover, I think it is human nature to describe things in terms of yourself - from the first person - and is not an automatic "you're being selfish" response.

Someone on one of the other posts by the OP said "Working on your own issues is good, but when you're specifically doing things she wants and needs for R it's not all about you." I totally agree. Further, I'm glad OP is doing more than most and has the nerve to post where BS's can potentially tear him a new one. I wish my WH had done the same.

As a BS it was hard for me to grasp that this whole process wasn't just about my WS or me as the BS. That's the whole relationship thing. Joint effort. Unfortunately with R, as a BS we want to tell our WS to shove their needs and wants right up their _____, but the reality is, IF you want to R as a BS or a WS, it's never going to be all about either of you.

It seems to me in relation to this post and your more recent-ish post in the Reconciliation forums, OP needs to really get a handle on the defensiveness and controlling the outcome. My WH struggled with this mightily. I wanted details that he didn't think added to the whole picture. He had been cheating on me for 2 years with a married co-worker. The first 5 months they fucked like rabbits as I was out of state working. When I busted him and subsequently returned home, they took it underground and came to some weird arrangement that they wouldn't have physical sex anymore and instead took to masturbating for the other one telephonically - sometimes texting, sometimes calling, sometimes via video chat. They did it a LOT. There were upwards of 500 texts per day to each other and multiple calls, etc. To my WH, the fact that I knew all of this should have been enough, and my request to confirm whether something happened on a certain day was just overkill, pain shopping, and designed to attack him - to make him say out loud these things I already knew the basics of.

The giving of specific details about a time they had sex in the parking lot by some restaurant in March of 2018, or another instance for what appeared to be a 3 hour long masturbation session (replete with breaks to work as one of them was at work at the time) for example, seemed unnecessary to him - attacking. And he struggled with answering for me because of guilt and shame and became defensive and angry. "Why ask about something you already know happened?" or "We have already been over all of this, why do you even want details?" were thing he would sometimes say, and almost always (he tells me now) think.

If I'm honest, sometimes, especially in the beginning, it was an attack. Yes, admittedly I wanted my WH to have to relive that to me - to tell me to my face, and to admit that when I had asked him about it right after it happened that he had lied - brutally, telling me I was crazy. I wanted him to have to suffer even if it felt like such little pain in comparison to what I had to go through because it was clear he did not want to talk details. I did. I wanted that on some level.

But there was more to it - a whole lot more.

I also wanted the details because it was affirming to me that I was not crazy for being suspicious - and because it gave me a tiny bit of self esteem back. When someone you trust is in the process of lying to and betraying you, and you think they are but you can't confirm it, at least for me, it made me feel terrible about my WS and myself. I felt terrible for thinking that my WH could do such a thing. I felt terrible about me for being suspicious AND wondering IF I was enough for my WH. It was such a total undercut to my self esteem, my self worth. I felt like an asshole for not trusting him sometimes and an idiot for not trusting my gut - sometimes concurrently. Living through all of that - in my case for several years - was crazy-making. I was so depressed (I have never struggled with depression previously), and on most days I had to convince myself to get up. These things happened to ME. I was sobbing and freaking out while he was having sex in the parking lot and responding to my texts at the same time (what a multi-tasker) and that when he came home I allowed him to convince me (kind of) that he wasn't - when, in fact, he was. For whatever reason that incident has stuck in my head - it really struck me - and I wanted confirmation of what was actually happening on that day. I wanted it. Not that it would change anything, but I wanted it anyway.

I also wanted WH to understand how much it hurt me not only AT THE TIME he lied (or omitted) about what happened when I ask, because without the context I was sure he didn't get it. I wanted him to think about what he was doing and what I was doing at the same time so he could understand what happened to me. Because in my mind, if he did, he would feel so bad FOR ME that he would absolutely want to tell me everything I asked so I could know everything I wanted to know no matter what I was asking about. To many a BS (myself included) the "pain" and the shame/embarrassment/whatever of a WS seem like nothing compared to the pain a BS feels. We simply cannot grasp how/why a WH, when caught, and when claiming they want to R, does not just spill the beans until we ask them to stop, to give us what we are asking for. The defensiveness seems like, IDK, like a cover up. This is why (for me), when a WS trickle truthes us - oftentimes they trickle-truth the marriage/the relationship to death. For me, in my mind it was simple: if my WH could grasp 1/10th of the pain the A and the lies afterwards (and in my case the false-r - that was the real killer) there would be nothing that would stop him from answering all my questions - nothing from sharing in some of the pain he caused US. To a BS the fact that the WS is wiling to "protect themselves" over the needs of the BS, after causing so much pain is PROOF the WS cannot be trusted to make a different choice in the future or trust in what they are telling us now.

The rehashing of events searching for details - or confirming of no new details is a process some of us engage in more than others. It is also some of what a WS has to accept if they want to R (to a point - I have heard on this site that years later some BS's talking of rubbing the A in the face of their WS on purpose, for no reason except to hurt them - which isn't R either...but the general rule is answer if asked).

Are there things I wish I hadn't asked, that now seem unnecessary and are just gross things burned into my mind? Yep. But the thing is, it's not for WH to determine whether or not I get to know these things. At one point later, when he was much less defensive, I asked about something and his response was to tell me before he answered was that he believed some of the details were going to be hard for me to hear but he would tell me if I still wanted to know. I persisted and he answered. He did not ask why I wanted to know, until after he answered. It used to bother me that he would ask why - I didn't feel like I owed him any explanation. As we have moved through all of this to a better place, as friends, I believe my explanations as to why have helped him understand where I am coming from. Sometimes the "why" is more important than the question itself, but he had to get to a place where he wasn't trying to dictate what I knew and what I didn't.

In hindsight there are some things I wish I hadn't asked, but unfortunately that gatekeeping has to be on me. The best my WH could do was tell me a lot of what I was asking about was going to be bad, upsetting. I don't know all the sexting details - I had his phone forensically recovered and could read almost all of it - but after 3 months of reading I couldn't stomach any more...but that was my decision. Or (he also worried) that maybe he was going to tell me something that was a deal-breaker - that was too much for me and I would never speak to him again. The thing is, maybe that could have happened, but that should be for me to decide too.

So, OP - this mess of incomprehensible ramblings above, is just a tiny piece of insight into why TT is so damaging. Do so at your own peril, and know that your BS may or may not ever believe you. The BEST you can do is just tell the truth, spill whatever beans you may be holding onto inadvertently or not (this is why a timeline is so helpful - there is no on the spot pressure to remember exact dates etc and your BS can ask questions to fill in the blanks), and let your BS choose how to proceed, and then you get to decide if you want to proceed in that same direction.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:28 PM, Wednesday, August 2nd]

Thank you all for your posts and the comments above, I really couldn't be any clearer in that I know I have broken my spouse both mentally and physically due to the lies and inability to just be totally honest with her about my actions.

One of the things I have ALWAYS tried to do is fix things....throughout our marriage I have always tried to fix everything, my bs would come to me with problems at her work and rather than simply trying to listen and be that shoulder to cry on I would try and give her solutions that would fix the situation instead, then get all funny about it when she came to me with the Same issue a few weeks later.

The same has happened with this, I have tried to fix this at my pace and speed and have tried to manipulate her at times to join me at my pace. Controlling the narrative and controlling the possible outcomes. Getting frustrated and defensive at times and at times huffing and puffing over the mere fact she tries to ask a question tht I knew I had already TT her over.

Only recently we agreed that throughout the affair i had painted it one way rather than giving her clear indications about my actual feelings and what everything meant. so when I have then disclosed some shocking stuff to her it required further exploration and in turn makes me realise that actually those initial conversations and the painting I'd given to her about the affair just wasnt accurate.i wasn't trying to TT her, i just tried to walk the easier path for me..not for her!! She now has to process it all over again and the cycle of pain for her continues and for that I am sorry.

My BS has made it clear now, two months to get my head in order and to show real progress. Whether we can come out of this at the other end I dont know but i certainly hope we can.

This has totally refrained our marriage and how she sees me. Our future is no longer guarenteed which scares her to death along with me. I want to believe I can be a safe and decent partner for her, the defensiveness is at times a challenge (another flaw of mine) but i am working hard to own that and recognise the damage, I am also working hard on how self centred I am realising that even on the smallest of things I turn it back to poor ol me....its a joke but I am doing everything I can.

Once more thank you for all your posts sorry I havent posted to all your replies as I have been manic at work and kids are off on their holidays so its somewhat busy.

Thisissolonely in particular, thank you for your post. The time you have taken and the detail you have gone into I am grateful for and it means a lot.

If I only had really opened myself up to my vulnerabilities and not tried to protect myself, instead choosing her healing over all of it then she would be much further down the path of healing.

Hi. The pattern of your affair was similar to my ex’s, so I feel I was a bit tough in my response to you.

He told me that he broke up with her a lot. That he was afraid of her and her threats to tell me so he would go back with her.

This is what he didn’t see.

each time he went back, he picked her over me AGAIN. He never picked me again.

He told me he didn’t want their relationship. Yet he did not pick me.

They broke up around 9 times.

He actively and purposely chose her over me each time over a period of 5 years.

He told me he didn’t want her, yet he stayed with her

He for absolute certain didn’t want me or chose me.

He never got that this was a knife sunk deep each time he picked her. His behaviour spoke very clearly.

This is why I said you have to understand and tell her the why. You went back to an AP that you didn’t like. This can’t make sense to her. For me, this never made sense to me.

Good luck.

[This message edited by Tallgirl at 12:07 PM, Friday, August 4th]

@tallgirl, you honestly dont have to justify being tough on me and seeing your latest response I absolutely get why you were (personally didnt think you were?)

So my situation whilst similar only lasted three months (a month and a couple weeks of being obsessed with her) but then for the remainder of that time I was all over the place.

It's really hard to describe it all to be honest, I know my AP wasnt a nice person and is not someone who I would associate with let alone be in a relationship with. Her controlling and obsessive behaviours were somewhat terrifying BUT I know that I discounted all that in order to make myself feel better and to have that ego stroked and be that knight in shining armour when she did call and was all upset. The fear of my BS finding out wasnt the biggest concern i have realised, I discovered that it actually all comes from me trying to preserve everyone's else's reality of what I look like to them.

I acknowledge I didnt choose my wife or kids throughout this time, I put my self centred self first and rather than simply picking her up and dusting her off after literally destroying her emotionally I chose to focus on what other people saw me as OR would see me as.

Most of my fears moved very quickly beyond her even telling my wife what happened and swiftly sat within what she may do with regards to my job....again I just focused on little old me.

Even when she found out and the affair was bought to light (by this time I had given two failed weak shoddy attempts to leave) i chose instead of trying to reconcile or attempt to explain anything to run off to the AP.... she was the only one who knew the truth, I felt shitty and depressed and i figured she might be able to give me a high of some description. I also figured "well it's all screwed" and that is it ....no more relationship....no more us and therefore any pressure to end things was just not there anymore.

The obsessive and controlling behaviours increased mind and she knew I was pulling away. A week later the BS made it clear there was a possible chance to fix this mess....even after this I then spent the next two evenings with the AP and despite telling her (after a massive row with my bs) that I had been an ass and an absolute horrid person to my BS she just shrugged it off and blamed the BS ..... anyway I then realised I was someone that I didnt like, was behaving in an awful way and treating my BS in a terrible way that no one should find themselves in so I ended it and told her to leave me alone.

I threw away any concerns or fears about my job, didnt want to hear from her or see her and just wanted to focus on the BS. Even after that she still decided a week later to send me a snotty message having a dig at the fact I was home again *I wasnt I was just sleeping after a night shift* insert a very angry NC phone call and that was the last I heard from her...

Does tht make any sense or am I just rambling....

My little rant about being respectful to OP wasn't directed at TallGirl - it was just a general observation about wayward postings in general (and I was thinking of something someone said on OPs other post), so sorry, it was not a directed statement.

Re your last post OP. It does make sense to me - it also confirms what my WH has said 3+ years into IC - that he cannot understand why he did what he did when he did it, and oftentimes there were multiple issues at play. Sometimes he wanted fantasy land, sometimes he wanted me, and sometimes he wanted to just relish eating the cake and have it all. Sometimes (after the first year especially when the "magic" had worn off a bit and AP was demanding more of his time) he wanted to run away from it all because he wished the A had never happened, but that, like you said, because it had, his mindset was "fuck it, I've screwed it all up anyway" he did nothing. Other times he was paralyzed with fear over losing his job (the A happened mostly while working at a very high security clearance level facility where such behavior would have been grounds for termination) and didn't want to rock the boat, afraid the AP would freak out and they would both be fired, or I would freak out and attempt to have them fired, etc, and tried to maintain the status quo for his own self-preservation. A few times, apparently, he even fantasized about suicide, never considering it seriously, but seeing it as the easiest way out for him and convinced himself it would be the easiest way out for me too .

Ultimately the whys were pretty simple but it's taken him 4+ years to figure them out.

Why it started: the ego stroke was massive - he liked the adoration and her chasing him (AP definitely was the chaser - I have read most of their pre-A texts which on my WH's end started innocently enough - in fact his texts indicate he was totally clueless about some of her attempts at flirting, or he did a fantastic job of blowing them off). Her willingness to act like some sort of fantasy porn/phone sex operator turned him on. The elicit nature of the A, and it occurring at his work, made his workplace and his job, which prior to the A (and again now) he complained of hating, made things more exciting and interesting there - he no longer dreaded going to work all the time.

Why it continued: Low self esteem - there wasn't enough admiration for him in this world. He would feel disgusted with himself and needed the admiration as a pick me up, but much like hard drugs, the more you use, the less of a pick up using is. He became nit-picky of "us" in ludicrous ways, to justify his behavior (e.g. TISL is a "bitch" for complaining and nagging about my refusing to fold my laundry or letting her fold my laundry when I have 6 clean loads piled up in the guest bedroom and all over the laundry room, or we have nothing in common because she is sick of watching South Park reruns for the 90th time) and actually convinced himself of all kinds of "irreconcilable" differences between us. He is conflict avoidant and struggled with confessing to me, ending things with her, or telling anyone anything at all. He wanted to - sometimes. While the lustre was gone, he still liked some of the wild shit she was willing to do via video, although he admits that some of the stuff she did/sent he found weird and uncomfortable and sometimes a bit stalker-ish (e.g. the 3 page long poem about how fantastic his penis is ) some it it was a total turn on, so in the moment he was into it. When the moment was over he increasingly felt disgusted, and really did just want to run away, but could not due to his employment. Honesty, but for his job and the inability to immediately transfer away, I think he would have been one of these disappearing spouses who send their BS a few short words and leave - he was that much of a coward.

Why it ended: I left. His work blew up when a lot of co-workers he counted as friends learned about the A (OBS, AP and my WH all worked together in this secure facility, in close contact with each other on most days - WH was in OBS-AP's wedding as groomsman so it was pretty ugly). He and AP discovered they had been lying to each other for years about everything and that their A was just a big sham. Management did not learn or at least did not discipline him for the A but his work life went from socializing with a lot of his co-workers to being excluded from every social event they have now. I forced him to tell his best friend, who, as a BS himself, was not happy with my WH and really talked to him a lot about it. All these things combined, and the fact my WH said he was miserable at where his life was, but glad the drama of the A being fully outed had unfolded and was behind him, decided he needed to figure out how and why he would have sabotaged our life together, and his own life, so wholly, and what he needed to do to not be that person any more.

No worries, I wasn’t reacting in that way TISL. I just started thinking. Always a bad thing. 😛

TISL,

Psychologists would have an absolute field day with people like me and your ws with how similar our stories are.

Whilst I wasnt in a workplace like your husbands it seems, I was in one which carried significant responsibilities and would have been in a similar boat if it came out.

I have always loved my job and have worked my nuts off to get to where I am, however the two years prior to my A I got promoted and landed a role which I hated with a passion. It lacked any responsibility, it was in a place which lacked any activity and it was a place where my equals in our daily briefs would rip the piss out of me as I just had none of the action or excitement. I grew to despair my job and found it highly boring and just unfulfilling and for someone like me who likes to be busy and have a sense of self worth it was a real issue for me. Add to that mix my BS hated me working nights (something which hadn't been the case for several years now) it added another dimension to our problems and my feelings of crappyness.

Christ though the justifications I actually used were just so pathetic:

1.she moaned about my shift pattern, how dare she want me to be home at weekends and nights!!
2.she moaned at me about her issues, didnt listen to the advice I gave her and I just felt as though she overloaded me all the time. Reality was that I was a crappy husband who should have actually just supported her rather than try to fix her issues.
3.She didnt drive.....I mean wtf!!
4.We have prioritised the children in our relationship.....that's a WE but its something we have always been proud of and we gave our the girls everything due to our own crappy childhoods (mine was ok compared to hers....)

I too have also explained to my BS the suicide plans, talking about how I would have these ideas of driving the car into the reservoir on a night shift or just disappearing but knowing I couldn't have done.

Towards the end of the A I was even sending my BS new properties and making enquiries about emigrating to just escape this mess something which would have cost me hundreds of thousands in the long run. I then told the AP I was looking to flee in the hope it would have her again make some choice to leave me etc (it didnt).
I would have gone to all manner of lengths to escape this person even moving several hundred miles away and changing jobs .....but yet I wouldnt have been the one to have told her we were over due to a fear of what she COULD have done. As it turns out she did nothing of the sort thankfully and so i kept my job (albeit it could be argued by my BS that I shouldn't have done)and now the last we heard she is in Australia and no where near us!!

Anyway Even our personalities (your ws and i) are similar, I too am a conflict avoidance coward. But during this I was an absolute twunt to my BS I had no issues being horrid to her but I couldn't to the AP as the fear of what she could do was overwhelming. I used my BS essentially to vent and offload all the anger and hate I had for myself and as I have said before in posts I regret so much of what was said and I could simply never undo any of that. My words were so vicious towards her and also so unnecessary.

The crazy shit:- How can someone write a 3 page poem about someone's penis.....there is surely only so much someone can write about that thing!!! Could probably write that on a back of cigarette packet..

My AP was very much a stalkerish type and for a long time I confused that with her showing me affection but as time went on I realised that not to be the case, her asking for the constant calls or texts and the pictures made me eventually realise what she was doing. These were all done to ensure I was where i said i was, that I left the locations I said that I had.
For example...

One day she asked me to call when I left my parents and was heading to work...the drive is 45 mins say but after half hour of her on the phone not saying anything and being quiet I then said i was now at work. She then literally questioned me for five mins asking whether I had been at the marital home or not as I had made it 15 mins sooner than expected.

It was mental she knew exactly what time the kids finished school, how far away the school was from our marital home and how long I had to talk to her on each of these occasions. She knew how long it would takn me to drive to each of my three work places from either my parents or my marital home and would expect calls or messages when I had made it there or had left.

One day I had left my phone on the desk at work, went out for the shift and came back to several missed calls and a volley of texts demanding to know where exactly i was and that I needed to send her a pic of my uniform to prove I was at the place i should be. When i refused and told her to leave me alone as i didnt need this in my life she flipped and said "well I guess I'll start asking questions to find out where you are and your not going to like who I speak too" implying work and my BS, so little old me being a coward rather than calling her bluff just obliged with proving it BUT even that was my fault....inshould have just did it when she asked apparently and not argued with her.

But yep, this is the person a week later or so when the BS found out I ended up staying with and continuing the A for a very short time....

The difference in me though when it did end and when it was all over was significant, my BS describes my eyes returning to normal and this darkness lifting....I certainly felt that way!!

TT1980 - for me, the situation became bearable when it became clear my WH wasn't trying to hide anything anymore. His TT was mostly minimizing things. When caught he usually came clean - he never denied the A was ongoing until d-day 3 (which I described elsewhere - I saw them together in what would have been an innocent setting sans his denials he was even speaking to her then, and he claimed it wasn't her), and even then, he confessed to the return of the A pretty quickly (in about 6 hours). As such, upon discovery I knew the majority of the major facts pretty quickly - I just hadn't a clue about the why's.

One of the major why's I overlooked was the one of control. AP was more than willing to let my WH control her and their relationship/contact/whatever you want to call it. He would block all means of her contacting him until he was available, whereas when he would message/call/give her the signal at work, she would make herself available to him as fast as she could. She would wait for his calls in the parking lot of the grocery for hours if OBS was home, or fake having to stop somewhere after work for the chance to text him, whereas he would block her sometimes for days (or the better part of two weeks when we were on vacation one time). He had no such control over me. After the A was exposed I wanted more accountability from him, and he gave it to me, but he was resentful. After confessing that he indeed was sitting with AP on d-day 3, he seemed ANGRY, like he was barely able to contain himself. And I called him out about it - I said "What are you so angry at me for? How do you feel about me right now?" His response was: " I know I shouldn't feel this way, but right now, I feel nothing but disdain for you." Disdain. I can tell you at that moment that last little light was crushed out of me for our relationship - I knew I had to go.

He could control her. He liked that, a lot. Me, not so much, and certainly not without a host of lies every day while the A was ongoing.

Yet here we are, still friends. Still kind of dating. How did that happen?

When WH finally let his guard down when it came to me. When, he finally realized that the knife he was stabbing me in the back with daily (interestingly just like the knife TallGirl described) wasn't just when he was having sex or talking or thinking about AP - it was the lies , which in his case were usually lies by omission that constituted the biggest dagger of them all. Death by a million cuts is an adequate description - he killed US slowly and painfully, with each little lie. When I said this in my first post here, it really is the crux of the damage of TT:

To a BS the fact that the WS is wiling to "protect themselves" over the needs of the BS, after causing so much pain is PROOF the WS cannot be trusted to make a different choice in the future or trust in what they are telling us now.

That is what did it for me with the TT (and the false R in my case) - that is what killed us. My WH told me so many lies mixed in with the truth that I could not begin to tell what was real and what was not. He would give me 95% of the truth and then omit 5%, under the guise he was telling me everything. So when I found out about .01% that wasn't true - that he claimed it was - it undid all of the truth. The fact that it was hard for him to tell me that 95% and harder for me to hear it meant nothing. It meant that, even when asking for the truth, and even when hearing a whole bunch of painful stuff, he would or COULD still lie and withhold something. He could not be trusted fully so he could not be trusted at all. He would still opt to trick me - try to play me - even when I was in tears, had lost 25 pounds in 4 weeks, even when he was so worried about my being an unsafe driver he would drive me to the store or the bank and would have food sent to me for lunch when he was at work, even when he saw how decimated I was - he could still lie AND tell me he wasn't. There is no solid ground on which to proceed.

IDK if your BS will ever get that trust back. It's tough - but it can be done. But it comes through consistency. There is no magic pill. No secret amount of time that must pass for it to happen. It takes as long as it takes, and sometimes the BS can't get there anyway. But is has to be every time. It's as my WH now says, is about holding yourself accountable, every single minute, and admitting that you don't want to when you don't want to. My WH now tells me that he is feeling defensive, and why he thinks that is - and weirdly talking about his discomfort makes it easier for us to proceed. As I said before, my telling him why I want to know helps too. We don't have to do that much anymore, but it happens. Granted we also don't talk about the A much anymore, but that is because I feel like he has been honest, and attempted to answer my questions honestly (a lot of time has passed so at this point I don't think he would be able to recite dates very well - neither could I for the most part).

So you can get there, but the sooner you stop the TT and open yourself up and talk to your BS (and IC) about how you are feeling and struggling, the easier it will get for you, down the road, no matter what happens.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:48 PM, Sunday, August 6th]

It sounds like you were in an abusive relationship with the AP. Look up trauma bond and see if it is relatable. It might answer some questions around you hitting the self destruct mode when you were wanting to end it but didn't.

It doesn't make what you did ok and does not justify anything but if it is a trauma bond it will make things make sense. My husband had one and he had a similar experience to you. He was diagnosed with a mental health condition and the affair has broken us. Man and wife on paper only currently despite the affair ending almost a year ago.

Have you asked your bs what she needs from you? You need to actively listen and provide honest answers. If you don't know the answer say you do not know but agree to try and figure out the answer. My husband suffered trauma but his affair inflicted trauma on to me. The damage caused by affairs is huge and there is no one approach fits all to healing. You cannot heal your wife or undo what you have done but you can support her by listening, recognise when you are getting defensive and stopping and giving her time. She may heal but she will never forget