SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is my first post, and honestly, the first time I've admitted to any of this outside of very recent therapy. My apologies if I ramble a little; I just don't know how to go about this. Clearly, all of these events are much larger stories on their own, but I'm putting down a bit of a timeline to give some context to where I'm at now.

I've been married since 2001. My wife and I have been together since 1998 and from the outside, most people see an idyllic marriage.

The first time I found out she'd had any sort of transgression was just before our wedding, and all I ever got was that a week prior "something happened" and that she felt it just made her realize how much she wanted to be with me... I'd destroyed a previous relationship over jealousy and agreed to not ask her about it and move forward.

About two years in, I had suspicions about a "just a friend" that she spent too much time with, talked about too often, etc. - but her denials and her telling me I needed to just trust her convinced me to let it go. Again, I moved on and put it out of my mind. A few other times over the next six years, things didn't seem right with one "just a friend" or another, but I didn't want her to feel like I didn't trust her and convinced myself to put it aside. At the end of those six years - eight years married, total - and I would never be able to just ignore anything ever again.

DDay was an evening when she broke into tears, saying she felt so guilty, and admitted that the "just a friend" I'd confronted her about two years into the marriage had been an affair. I truly loved my wife, and still do, and at the time of her confession we had an infant. I was crushed, but reasoned that it had happened years before and we could move forward. I got a very minimal sketch of the affair and told her I forgave her... but the pain, the anxiety, that soul crushing hole in my gut never really disappeared.

Another two or three years passed, again there were times things didn't feel right but we were moving forward so I said nothing. Then DDay came again, this time with her telling me she'd been sleeping with a coworker for some time and that she was divorcing me. Absolutely crushed, I moved into a spare room, resigned to what was happening but filled with rage, sorrow, grief... just every awful thing I could imagine. I tried avoiding her, we had blowout arguments... then, two weeks after she told me she was leaving me, the other man decided he was reconciling with his wife.

Suddenly she wanted to reconcile - I was so angry and so hurt I wouldn't commit to doing so and told her I needed time to think about it. That evening, she was taking pictures in lingerie for online profiles, making sure I saw her doing it and I knew why... she said as long as we were separated, she could do as she wanted, and by the very next night she was going out to meet someone for drinks. She left that evening and didn't come home until late the next morning.

We argued and after begging me to reconcile I stood firm that I just didn't know. This was so unacceptable to her that she recounted events from the night before in graphic, pornographic detail. She emphasized the things she thought would hurt me most and, if she saw something touch a nerve, she'd get more graphic, more detailed, and dig deeper and deeper, pausing once in a while to beg to reconcile and tell me how it all just made her realize how much she wanted to stay married to me - almost exactly the words I'd heard right before our wedding.

Eventually, I agreed that, although I was not ready to make a commitment, I'd see a Marriage Counselor with her while I considered things. I was stupid and agreed to see a counselor she chose... minutes into the first session the counselor told us we couldn't move forward until I'd committed and admitted that "all infidelity is caused by the husband". I sat there while she scheduled an appointment for us the next day and was told I had those 24 hours to make a decision - stay and continue seeing the counselor or be exactly the pig that all men are and abandon my family.

I left on my own to think, but no more than an hour later, my wife was calling demanding my decision. I was so broken and hated myself so much the only thing I could think about was by daughter, so I agreed and spent a year going to see that counselor, letting her poison me with so much self loathing that I started believing it. I apologized for my wife having an affair, for her leaving me, and endlessly for not immediately taking her back... this counselor would take nothing less than everything being my fault, something I inflicted on my blameless wife. Finally, we "graduated" her program and I vowed never, NEVER, again would I see anything resembling a counselor.

Over the next few years I hated myself for everything that happened, lost all value, and prayed to die more often than I ate. I didn't say a word about things that didn't seem right, but I didn't ignore them either - I held on to them, seething with self loathing and imagining the worst in every tiny crumb I found. Finally, after the same pattern I'd seen two years into the marriage emerged again with someone we knew from high school, I confronted her.

She adamantly denied anything had happened, became enraged, left the house, and didn't come home for two days. When she returned, I was in tears apologizing for accusing her - and she told me she'd spent the time since she left with him. She said nothing happened before that, but in her anger she thought that if I was going to accuse her of it, she might as well do it. Again she begged me to forgive her, and again, I agreed and told her the worst thing I could have... I told her I didn't want to know. After that, there was nothing at all I would know about. If I asked her and she was having an affair, I had already effectively told her to lie to me and tell me nothing.

So it went until eleven months ago. Last July she started telling me she was thinking about divorcing me, but denied any affair. Daily, I heard about how she was trying to decide whether or not to leave me, and near the end of September she finally decided to. This time, I honestly felt she was doing the best thing for her - the value I placed on myself was so low I felt like she needed to discard the garbage. One week is all it took, she saw a recently widowed friend of ours, and seeing the pain of losing a spouse in someone who couldn't have had a say in anything about losing their spouse and she came back, begging me to reconcile. I didn't fight it, I didn't feel it really mattered, and she admitted she'd been having an affair for three years.

The one thing she demanded was that I never ask questions about it. The last time, she'd sat down for hours and answered questions about all of the affairs she had admitted to, telling me everything I wanted to know - as long as I agreed not to talk about any of it ever again and nothing about what happened a week before our wedding. This time, she flat out would not answer more than who and how long.

Only recently, as I spiraled into darkness and came close to losing my job, I finally relented and started seeing a therapist. Four months in, and I'm seeing a lot of things more clearly... and I know I have to confront her eventually. I'm not there yet, but I know it has to happen.

The thing is, I've spent over fifteen years now dwelling on this one aspect of my life to such a degree that it's all I know. I don't have a single friend left - I abandoned them all and never made any new ones. I dedicated every moment she was around to her... and when she wasn't around, I wallowed and told myself what a piece of shit I was. I want to know who I am, but the truth is, the only things I can think of that has defined me in memory are the affairs.

I don't expect advice or support or pity. I'm just grateful for the opportunity to get this out in something other than a journal that I destroy as soon as it's full. Thank you guys for that opportunity.

I am so so sorry you are here, Friend. Man I can feel the pain coming through in your words, and I am both really sad and really ANGRY for you.

You do know though, that you DO have the key to get yourself out of these chains that your evil WW put on you, right? You can break free from the wicked shrew-Lady and find yourself again. You however will NOT heal unless you take ACTION to free yourself from your ball-n-chain.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 11:18 PM, Friday, August 30th]

Heartbreaking story, my friend. I can only imagine your pain. Your wife does not sound like a safe person at all, perhaps not even a sane one.

You mentioned a daughter, what else is making you feel like you shouldn't RUN? Your post makes no mention of any positive things your wife brings to your life. Rather, it reads like you are assuming the role of a monkey branch until she finds someone new who also cant see through her instability. I dont mean that to sound harsh, i have a lot of sympathy for your position. I understand the idea of loving someone and wanting to be loved, but I just wonder, what you are still holding onto at this point?

Welcome to SI and I'm sorry that you're here. The Healing Library is at the top of the page and contains a lot of great resources, including the list of acronyms we use. There are some pinned posts at the top of the JFO (Just Found Out) forum that we encourage new members to read, and some with bull's eye icons that are excellent resources. I would encourage you to read the ones about boundaries and consequences and before you say reconcile - recover.

Your WW (wayward wife) is a serial cheater, and it is very rare for a serial cheater to do the hard work to become a safe partner. She needs to be in therapy and dig deep into her whys and work on being safe. She's abusing you and has been for years. She is treating you as her backup plan.

Please get tested for STDs/STIs as some of them are really nasty and can have life-threatening consequences. If you're having trouble with anxiety or depression, speak with your doctor and get some meds.

She doesn't get to dictate your recovery, and R (reconciliation) is a gift that you may give - or not. At a minimum, she should read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald and Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass.

KyleReese, I absolutely get what you mean and the truth is, other than the affairs, I very much love my wife and I can't imagine life without her... which is largely why I'm still here.

At the moment, I'm at a place in life where I'm realizing that I've lost myself and feel nothing of self worth. At one time, self esteem was something I took for granted. I always saw myself as valuable and valued. Once the first DDay happened, however, that stopped being the case.

As anger and pain subsided, I felt emasculated and doubted everything I had believed about myself. When she left me the first time for another man, it cemented this new view of myself. Any last spark of who I once was, the marriage counselor ground into the dirt.

From that point forward, I made it through the day, each day. Nothing more. When she left me again last year, even that ended and I ceased even being a functional person. One of the first things I told my therapist was that hoping for more than surviving the hour is wishful thinking for children. I simply couldn't see any possibility of hope and, worse still, I couldn't see what I had lost.

I'm finally seeing some hope now. I can at least see what I've lost and how I lost it. I'm not ready to confront her, not ready to start trying to heal, but I am ready to try to figure out who I was or am. It's a very small step, but it's in the right direction.

Also, leafields, thank you. I am on medication now and I've been tested, still get tested at least annually. I wish I could go back and recover before reconciling, but that was not an opportunity I had and the prohibition on ever speaking of it again blocks the possibility in the present. As I said, I have to confront her eventually so I can have a chance to recover, but I'm not there yet.

[This message edited by Ashwick at 12:19 AM, Saturday, August 31st]

Dear Ash,

My condolences. I am so sorry for your pain. The first therapist needs to be reported to whatever licensing organization let him/her/other pronoun loose on the public.

I’m happy for you that you are rebuilding your self esteem. You have been subjected to savage attacks for years. The fact that you’re still alive and still trying to love her is a sign of enormous strength. You have every reason to be proud of yourself, and I hope you can believe that.

I’m not criticizing, believe me when I say I’m in no position to be looking down at anyone, but I would offer three pieces of advice: (1) the only person who can fix her is her; (2) are you certain that the feeling you have for her is love? And (3) how are you going to protect your child?

(1) If you think of her behavior as the emotional equivalent of alcoholism, you can understand that you can’t cure her, and she will only decide to change when she has lost everything. It may be that you are enabling her condition by reconciling. Only you can know whether that’s right.

(2) I assume that you don’t trust her anymore. Will you ever really trust her again? If you don’t trust her, are you able to respect her? And if you’ve lost respect for her, do you love someone you don’t respect? Maybe what you’re feeling is a sense of obligation or responsibility. Someone’s got to take care of her, and you vowed to do that when you married her. If that’s what you’re feeling, google the sunk cost fallacy. Fifteen years of misery do not justify a sixteenth year of misery.

(3) The one you are responsible for is your child. What are you doing to keep your child safe from the consequences of this behavior? I’m prejudiced against men who don’t respect another man’s wedding ring (that’s why I’m in this group), but your child doesn’t need this kind of emotional roller coaster.

Hang in there. This is going to work itself out. Whatever you decide will be right for you, and you will get through this.

Excellent post com1C.

I am hoping, with counseling and support, you can view your wife a bit more objectively.

The one thing that stands out and hurts (me) the most is the situation where you have not decided to commit to the marriage after years of her cheating and SHE IMMEDIATELY GOES OUT ON DATES AND DOES NOT RETURN HOME.

Sadly she comes across as a very selfish person who will say or do anything to make herself happy.

Please know that the counselor you saw who blamed you for the affair was an incompetent idiot! No one - and I mean no one - causes a person to cheat except the cheater. There is NO EXCUSE FOR CHEATING - period.

Your wife cheated and cheats b/c she wants to. She cheats because she has issues and is broken in a way that she views cheating as something she’s entitled to do.

My H tried to tell me his affair was my fault. He was very arrogant during his affair and blamed me for his unhappiness. He blamed me for his career frustrations. He blamed me for him getting married so young (lol). It was his idea to get married - not mine. He probably blamed me for his bad golf scores too! But I think you get the picture. BTW his unhappiness was news to me and he had a very typical midlife crisis affair. Text book 🤪😂.

He tried to say "we were disconnected" during our marriage. So I told him HE may have been disconnected but that was his own doing. And if he was "disconnected" then instead of cheating he should have done something to fix his feelings of being "disconnected".

Sorry this is so long but please please stop blaming yourself for your wife’s cheating. She chose to cheat when things were good. She cheated before the wedding when things were great. Tell me how that’s your fault!

PS - it’s not your fault and never was.

I hope this helps you.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 9:28 AM, Saturday, August 31st]

Thank you guys for the support. I do know, intellectually, that it was her decision... but there's a huge difference between knowing something, believing it, and feeling that there is truth to it. It's a journey I'm working on through therapy, and I'll get to believing and feeling it... just going to take some time.

Com1c, you're absolutely right that I have fallen into a number of fallacies and a huge one is that I may just feel pot committed. The last time she left, she texted that she wanted to reconcile before coming home and talking about it... I ran through the formalism, saw the optimal strategy was to divorce, and still decided to reconcile. In any other area of my life, I'd never allow myself to do this... but... here I am.

The1stWife, thank you for your anger... that was the thing that digs most deeply into me! She absolutely weaponized sex with other men against me, both with "just a friend" and with some online stranger... even now, there's rage every time I think about it. It's nice to know someone else sees that as well.

I'm sorry for your pain.

I want to make a few simple statements as a baseline for you:

1) you are not a piece of shit.

You are an important human being. Important to your kids and parents and siblings etc.

2) your wife IS a piece of shit.

She may be broken herself and there may be reasons for what she has done. That doesn't mean she's not a bad person or at least a narcissistic one acting badly.

At the very least she should not want to keep hurting you and lying to you and let you go. She's using you as a fallback.

3) Love is not enough in a relationship.

You love her. I get it. She does not love you back. It's not your fault, I think she doesn't have the capability to love. Regardless love doesn't make a relationship. A relationship is Love and so so much more. We can get into that if you want.

4) you don't "have" her now, so why be afraid to lose her.

You are truly only in A relationship with yourself. It's you and the dream girl who only exists in your head. So let her go. Work with your therapist with a goal to end the marriage and divorce. She's broken and not someone who can work effectively to build something new and real with you. She's not working to even become that person who can be a partner to you in recovery.

So your goal right now should be to focusing on who you are and eventually finding someone who is an equal partner for you.

Come to think of it I think you need to learn what love truly is as well. I think that will help you in the long run.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 1:44 PM, Monday, September 2nd]

Omg she sounds like a horrible human being, and you, my friend, sound like you’re upside down with the narcissism and gaslighting with which she abuses you.

There is nothing you can do that would cause anyone to cheat. I’m so sorry you’re in that place; I’ve been there and it’s absolutely horrible.

Save yourself. She’s been slowly poisoning you over these years, and maybe you’re unaware.

She is teaching your daughter how to be a woman. And that appalls me.

And she is abusing you. I’m so sorry. Run. You don’t deserve this. This might feel like love, but it’s not.

I see two things to focus on Ashwick.

One, your wife’s horrible choices are not on you. Her deliberate decisions to destroy your family and hurt you do NOT define you. All you did was love your daughter and your family. That defines you — you’re a father who put up with Hell on earth to hold things together for his kid.

Two. And here is the important one — you need to focus on you and what you need and want from today on. Heal up, get your feet beneath and move toward figuring out you deserve far better than being treated the way you have been.

Huge thank you to all of you! As I've said, it's one thing to know you aren't a piece of shit, but another thing to really feel that it's true. It is really nice to read other people reassuring me that this is the case.

I know I need to really confront her, and I made a very brief, minimal effort this evening... although I did not dig into the questions yet, she did agree that not being able to discuss the affairs, including whatever happened before the wedding and the most recent affair, is not acceptable. It is a small win, but if she is willing to let me ask everything I feel I need to know, it would be a horrible and wonderful thing for me.

The way I have been thinking about it is as though an officer called to say a loved one's car was in an accident out on a country road, but they didn't know anything else. The panic of not knowing anything is overwhelming... and this is where I am with some of the affairs... until a nurse calls to tell you they're in a hospital and stable. At that moment, there's such relief you don't even care that you don't know anything else... and that's where I am with what I know about the other affairs. The problem is, you quickly go from relief to needing to know what injuries they have... and when you get those answers, no matter what the truth is, it's better than the horrible images you imagined... but then you want to know how the accident happened... later, you need to know why they were out on that road.

The point of this metaphor is, the things I thought to ask immediately and got answers to were the bare minimum... and even if I get answers to more questions I will likely have more later, and it may happen again and again until I finally feel I really understand what happened. Those answers are things I really don't want to hear, but not knowing makes me imagine all sorts of horrible scenarios. Even if the worst I've imagined turns out to be the case, at least I'll know, no matter how painful it is to hear.

I didn't push it tonight because I really just don't feel ready to hear any of it, even though I need to know. I realize this sounds ridiculous and I'm contradicting myself... but I still feel like an absolute piece of shit and I don't think I'm strong enough right now to ask all the things I've been ruminating on for all this time.

Am I wrong to not ask now? I mean, if I work on feeling even a little better about myself before we start digging deep into this am I just going to make myself feel like a piece of shit all over again and undo any good I've done??

I very much love my wife and I can't imagine life without her... which is largely why I'm still here.

This is not love. This is codependency. I'm not bashing you, I'm encouraging you to gain space.

Your wife is not some awful creature, she is severely disturbed, and she is flat out dangerous to you and your child. She cannot protect your child from others when she is behaving like this, nor can you.

Imagine a better life, regain control of your life, protect that child, and remember that your child is learning lessons from all this chaos, whether you realize it or not. Those are not pleasant lessons. They are the wrong lessons about relationships and how they should be. Get counseling for the two of you together and hopefully she will learn how to act and how to expect to be treated in her future relationships.

I appreciate all of the concern for my daughter, she's always been my biggest concern. The moment I learned my wife was pregnant, my little girl became my entire world!!

She is an adult now, however, and appears to have learned to respect herself and be more empathetic as she took to heart the damage she saw despite efforts to minimize her exposure to all of this.

She suspected the truth of things, but only definitively learned that any of it was due to infidelity after she was already an adult. She insisted on a paternity test, for the purpose of medical history, after it was confirmed... but it wouldn't have mattered in any way to either of us if it had turned out I wasn't biologically her father, but we didn't have to face that. She has her own life now and, although she worries about her dad and constantly encourages me to get out, she isn't much directly affected by it anymore.

That's one of the things driving me to try to fix myself at this specific time... I'm not so focused on her now, so I have capacity to focus on myself.

I hurt for you. What your wife has been doing to you for years is the worst kind of abuse. You have already heard it, but I will repeat...you are NOT a piece of garbage. You have never been a piece of garbage. Rather, she has marinated you in the idea that you are. For whatever sadistic enjoyment she gets out of manipulating you while betraying you at every opportunity, she is not your ally, friend, love, or anything good in any way. She is (as another poster already wisely advised) poison.

I have 4 children, all grown, and all of them are telling me they doubt my wh can be honest or empathetic at all. And yet I still struggle to fully recognize their accuracy. So i do get why you are still struggling. Your daughter is your compass, right? She is telling you to run. I agree friend. It is hard and it is sad, but it is right.

Dear Ash,

As for confronting her — you don’t need to bash yourself for not confronting her more completely or more forcefully. Nobody expects a man with a broken leg to go for a run before the bone has healed, and that is for an injury to the body, not the soul (or psyche if you’re not religiously inclined). Those injuries require a lot more healing than physical wounds. Ask any combat veteran. You do what you can, when you can.

As for your daughter — adult or not, she is still your daughter, and you still need to keep an eye on her psychic well-being. She may model her approach to love on you or your spouse. There is a chance that she could end up in the same type of relationship.

As for your spouse — a lot of us are very displeased with her for what she’s doing to you. But the choice is still yours, not ours. A word of advice from my junior life saving instructor from about 1,000 years ago — if you see a drowning person that you don’t think you can save, just wave good-bye from the beach. Rule No. 1 in life saving is, "Only one person drowns." Do what is necessary to save yourself before you try to save her.

Sir, this was a very painful read. I am so sorry that she has actively betrayed you and your marriage all these years. Horrible stuff indeed. She is a wife in name only. As others have said, this is 100% on her. Habitual traitors and sex addicts are virtually impossible to R with imo. The bahavioral neural pathways are embedded now and its like a drug to them. Time for radical change.

At the moment, I'm at a place in life where I'm realizing that I've lost myself and feel nothing of self worth. At one time, self esteem was something I took for granted. I always saw myself as valuable and valued. Once the first DDay happened, however, that stopped being the case.

Gently, this is what I see as the crux of tbe matter. You have made yourself and your needs subservient to hers from the get-go. You set aside evidence of her behaviors even before your marriage. I understand this to a degree (look up my thread in General about behaviors that do not serve the betrayed well).

You are not going to change her, only yourself and its time for strong action in that regard. A couple of references that helped me were "No More Mr Nice Guy" and "The Way of The Superior Man". They helped me put some steel in my spine. Make your well being your sole focus. Therapy is good. Hopefully they can help you work through family of origins issues that are holding you down/back. Oh, and drop the marriage counseling. Its worthless.

Get on a regular work out schedule. Hire a trainer if you need the assistance. Working out regularly will help beyond the obvious by increasing endorphins. Good nutrition is equally important. Prioritze yourself body and soul. Its not comfortable at first as you have not done so in the past but it is absolutely needful.

Of course, I hope you consult a good attorney and get the lay of the land divorce-wise.

Time to be Ashwick-centric. I wish you well.

but the truth is, the only things I can think of that has defined me in memory are the affairs.

A profound insight.

If your identity is tied to being The Guy Who Is Cheated On, who will you be when you move past that?

Even while your ongoing suffering is terrible, at least you know who you are in your mind. You have a strong, powerful identity. The guy whose wife cheats on him and abuses him. No confusion. You don’t even have to create your identity, your wife creates it for you. You just have to suffer.

Fear of that question can cause people to stay with their pain. We can want an identity more than we want to be free of pain.

Your point of attack lies right there. Separating yourself this self-constructed prison.

Sending strength!

You have been in an openly abusive marriage this entire time. I recommend you do some IC to work on your confidence, boundary setting, and what seems to me to be an extremely codependent personality.

I know you feel like you love her but this sounds more like some sort of attachment/trauma bond situation.

You are worth more than this, and I think for your own insanity you should move towards divorce. I very rarely say "this should be the outcome" but I don’t see how you can heal in this environment. Your wife is completely unsafe, and you will continue to be taken under by the sheer madness and chaos she seems to need to live.

You are devinely loved, and inherently worthy. This is active ongoing abuse, with an abuser who is unlikely unwilling and unable to stop.

You are not meant to be a human punching bag.

DobleTraicion, I can't thank you enough for your reply! I did look back at your post you referenced and am absolutely shocked at how many of the bullet points you identified are directly applicable to what I've done throughout. Things I still hadn't thought of as maladaptive suddenly are clearly problems that have prolonged absolutely every aspect of this pain. I needed that reality check, and I needed it desperately!

I am exercising and strictly watching my diet. I wish I could say that I'm doing it for health reasons or to help me through this, but the truth is I started boxing again (along with everything coach expects his boxers to follow) as a way to avoid therapy... figured I could vent my pain through pugilism. The MC was a long time ago, but it was so horrific I was doing everything I could to avoid IC... I simply didn't trust that it would be any different than the MC. Took months for me to realize that, although diet and exercise does make me feel fantastic, it isn't helping any of the emotional problems beyond the immediate moment I'm working a heavy bag... IC with a good therapist was necessary, and inevitable, but this was just one more way I tried to avoid it. That being said, I am not quitting on boxing... it's one of the few things I have right now that I can look at and say, "this, right here, is only ME!"

Com1c, as before, your insight is really valuable as well. It's never occurred to me that my daughter could end up in my situation because of my actions. The idea of it is heartbreaking, and I needed that revelation. She's a strong woman so I didn't think she'd ever allow it, but then again, I was a strong man at one time and I fell right into the pit. I need her to see that she deserves better than what I've done.

All of you are amazing, and every word of encouragement has been absolutely and completely appreciated. I find myself reading all of your words, here and in other posts, when I'm feeling at my worst. There is a lot of hope you guys offer, even if there's always the painful journey to get there, and I appreciate both the hope and the caveats... false hope is so much worse than expecting the hard parts.

My biggest regret in posting here is that I didn't find you guys earlier. I'm going to go through hell to get myself in a better place, and I don't know if I would be determined to do so if it weren't for the short time I've spent here... both reading before I posted as well as all the encouragement after I finally did tell my story. You guys are amazing!! Thank you all... I plan on being around here for a long time, and I will always be grateful to you guys for just being here.