SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Another thought, as my wife’s confession after years of denial is in doubt (claims to have stopped after making out with her coworker even though they were at a hotel) Ikve been on a quest to squeeze her for the truth. This delay in finding out makes it almost impossible. Witnesses of the night (people at the party) had 10 year old memories of the event, unreliable.. I could ask the AP but why would he be truthful? A polygraph then. An option, but ever since her confession, my wife has had work set backs, death of a fav pet etc. I can’t bring myself to strong arm her to an examiner. This late confession probably robbed me of the truth forever.. I might just have to believe that she gave herself fully to him and see if I can get over it, maybe.

Bittn, My spouse's kissing affair was 15 years ago and I thought the same. I might as well believe the worst. 9 months after DD I just couldn't stop rumination, it was blocking our forward movement so the poly was scheduled. WH wrote out everything he could remember and the polygraph questions were if there was anything withheld or lied about in the disclosure letter. He passed and although it was so super stressful, he said he is so glad he did it. It's the consequences of secrets and betrayal, a few hours of intense acute stress is the least they could do as BS's anguish for months and years.

I might just have to believe that she gave herself fully to him and see if I can get over it, maybe.

I suggest that all the time to new BS. You can't conclusively prove a negative (that she didn't) retroactively. TT means that doubt is deep seated in your mind. Polygraphs can help but even those are imperfect. I would believe that suggesting a Poly can be helpful to both of you. Yes it's going to be stressful to her. But if she has not gone all the way, having her story verified by the poly will give her and you something to build on in repairing your trust in her.

@LessThinking and @Grubbs, Yeah, I can’t make myself believe that she danced and ground on him, walked away hand in hand with him in front of her coworkers to go make out, stopped him in less than a minute and had him and drive the two of them back to the hotel where they went to their separate rooms. That’s her story. Admittedly she looks truthful when telling it, but I can’t buy it. A polygraph is they only thing that could convince me otherwise without getting the exact story from the OM or something..

Nothing new to add, just a short rant about how much I hate this shit sandwich.

After the dust has settled, one-year post-DDay, keeping this secret from me for 15 years, until I discovered it because you reached out to the old AP to say "Hi, remember when", is the deepest cut. This alone may be the deal breaker for me. I ruminate on this so much. The limbo is like hell on earth. I think when I saw that text I decided I wanted to divorce you. Now, it feels like I'm trying my darndest to undecide that because you are this new person.

End rant...thank you.

@lessthinking, the "new person" angle gets play with me as well. Sure, my wife betrayed me, publicly, with total disregard for how that humiliation would affect me and then lied about it. But... That was over 10 years ago. She does seem to be a different person. This is a bit of the catch 22 of finding out years later. I think my wife is still lying and minimizing. If she wasn't, I would prob move right on from in with this new version of her. She came closer this weekend. When I told her that I didn't believe that she stopped at making out, she didn't outright deny the sex (though she had many times before), instead asking me to move on because "we are all Fallible". That is a different response... For her to be new and separate from my betrayer, I need full truth. Hope you have full truth in your case

@Brittn
Have you come any closer to scheduling a polygraph, and is your wife tracking that that's a possibility?

@1994 I spoke with her about it this weekend! She doesn’t believe in them, says that she is worried that the results are B.S. It was my first real push for it. Not my last.

@1994 I spoke with her about it this weekend! She doesn’t believe in them, says that she is worried that the results are B.S. It was my first real push for it. Not my last.

It's good you're making headway. I know you want her to pass, but you should prepare yourself for parking lot confessions as you get closer. She'll probably keep resisting and come with 1,000 reasons why it's a bad idea, but at least you'll get closer to the truth...whether she passes or not.
Stay strong.

Brittn,

Unfortunately, I understand your predicament all too well. I got loads of lies and wanted to do a poly. Then, I told her if that didn’t provide the results I wanted, we would try hypnosis. We would have had to travel for that as there are not many reliable sources, but it scared the begesus out of her. She tried to challenge me as to why I would put her through such humiliation but that was quickly tamped down.

I am not suggesting what I did was right, wrong, or indifferent, but it did give me the peace of mind knowing that she had been full of shit for years with multiple lies about multiple events. At first, I didn’t tell her I wanted to do a poly. I just wrote a list of about 20 questions that had simple true/false or yes/no questions. I told her I wanted her to write her answers down on that sheet of paper. She skipped a few that she didn’t want to answer. I made sure to scan that sheet so I had a digital copy. Then on another day, I handed her the same list of questions on a new piece of paper. This time I told her I would forgive the lies and omissions the first time she answered if she understood what happens next.

I told her that she will answer all the questions. We will only have one question for the poly. It will be if she was truthful about everything on that list of questions. If she declined to answer, it was time to D. If the poly said she was lying, it was time to D. If the poly cam back clean, it was on to hypnosis. It scared me too because I knew it was worth it and there was no turning back. She answered all the questions and most of them were a different answer than the first time, and unfortunately many are what I expected. I am not sure that the answers I saw were any less damaging than what D would have been. It crushed my soul. But I needed something to prove to myself that I wasn't going crazy and that some of my assumptions were correct. The collateral damage was so much truth that helped me know that other things over the years were lies too.

So, there is a way to get some truth without the poly. But, the longer you wait, the more fuzzy it will become for everyone, including you. The other side is that you need to be doubly sure that you really want to know because once you do, you can’t un-ring that bell.

Good luck with whatever you decide. More than truth, I wish you peace.

@joeboo, the truth/false question list isn’t a bad idea at all. Would def help think up some questions for the poly at least! Crazy that your wife lied so much on the first test, just to reverse herself later. Those real answers were hard on you.. I get it. I’f my wife had tells me the worst from the start, I wouldn’t be needing the poly either. Quite curious what your questions were, they might help with mine if I do the same. PM them to me if you like and you have them.

I don’t know your history, but it sounds like a lot of AP? Really sorry to hear it

Thanks for the advice. My wife is being affectionate and showering me with sex when I don’t talk about the Poly. It’s def slowing me down.

Quite curious what your questions were, they might help with mine if I do the same.

Very generic and unmistakably simple Y/N or T/F.
*was it sexual?
*was he better?
*were there others?

I believe the questions really need to be what ever brings you peace. Things that bothered me or that I struggled with may be different for you, but needing to know the unknown seems to be a common pursuit for many BS's here. I just made a list of everything I wanted to know and then made the simple questions from that. Some of the questions I am not listing here because they were personal and very specific to my situation. A few of the questions were ones that I had asked over the years but didn't believe the original answer.

My biggest caution is making certain you need the truth to make a decision about your own well being. There were answers to a couple of questions that scarred me for life. Truth can be brutal, so for your own sake, please make damn sure it's worth the pain.

Good luck with whatever you decide. I hope it brings you the peace you are seeking.

Wow! I have been binge reading your posts and realized sadly that I belong here in this 'The Club'. The Club nobody would ever want to be in. It will take days for me to get through the knowledge of this. Thank God that I found all of you. I wish it wasn't true. Him, with the the lies, minimizing, story changes, trickle truth, WTF - and now - You. All of you..
My story is the same in so many ways as all of you. I'm usually a very private person and internalize, so even here in this environment - it is hard. The last several months I've been sleeping in our spare bedroom, wondering why this is happening to me/us. I've spent the best years of my life trying to be the best wife/mother that I could possibly be - and, loving every minute of it until DDay. And, even then - I thought he would spill his guts and we could move forward. But, he tried to blame me, has said some very awful things, and kept backing away from me. He stopped kissing me, and only will give me these little tight lip kisses, he even seemed exasperated when I would try to get near him. He would back up, eye roll, and try to make it as quick as possible. I always wanted to be right next to him and asked him to help me through whatever this is. After days and weeks, and months of this - I left and moved across the hall. It hurts too much to be there, next to him but not next to him. I don't reach for him anymore. All of this just hurts so much. He still tries to give me those tight lipped kisses, but why? In many ways XCook describes how I feel, but I think he does have some real remorse. After DDay he was having panic attacks that required medical intervention including medication. He has had sleeping and weight issues also. He has also been a total jerk and caring towards me too. I'm realizing how much his actions has affected our marriage since those awful years so long ago. If I knew what was really happening back then, I doubt that I would be here now. I feel robbed of not having the real and full story then to make a better decision for myself and our unborn yet first child. While he knew all for all these years. No respect for me or even for himself. So, after six years since DDay and his last insensitive comments I've decided to NOT talk to him about any of it. No more lies or minimizing, at least now I can make a plan to try to find some peace in my world. We are roommates. Unless I hear something real out of him, this is how I need it to be. We still can and do enjoy conversations about anything else, and spend time together. I don't feel loved by him and haven't for a long time. I told him so. Like many of you, I need to know what happened. The full uncut version.

I like the idea of creating a list of questions, having them answered, and then bringing up the poly idea.

ican,

Very sorry.

You wrote,

He stopped kissing me, and only will give me these little tight lip kisses, he even seemed exasperated when I would try to get near him. He would back up, eye roll, and try to make it as quick as possible.

Yea feels like you are alone standing next to your spouse, ask how I know.

I can almost accept that my WW does not want sex leading to orgasm with me, but rejecting kissing is even worse somehow.

Perhaps she avoids kissing knowing it can lead to passion, or even to a reminder that she feels no passion for me.

I get jealous of kissing scenes in movies like a starving person looking at food.

Had I cheated and put my WW at the risk of oral HPV I might understand or come to terms with it.

[This message edited by survrus at 12:16 AM, Sunday, September 29th]

Yesterday . . .

WH: 'You stopped caring.'

BS: 'No. I have ALWAYS cared. You stopped caring all those years ago.'

(His eyes drop from me to the floor.)

[This message edited by icangetpastthis at 1:00 PM, Wednesday, October 9th]

@Joeboo, thanks for the idea. I can only imagine the questions that scarred you for life. I feel like I would ask them as well, I want every stone unturned. Again, I would welcome your question list to help build my own, I think that will be my next step, present her with the true false questions the yes, no questions, then, bring up the poly again. Seems like a great idea.

dear ican
It has been almost three years now since my husband revealed his true colors. I am still suffering from PTSD from his infidelity and total lack of respect for me. He has tried desperately the past couple of years to make up for his actions. The main problem I have with him is his attitude that after he cheated the first time, it didn't make any difference how many times he cheated after that. It never occurred to him that he made a terrible mistake, and he would never do it again. Instead, he continued to lust after other women and act on their advances for another 27 years. I will never trust him again; I have no respect for him; and I can never love him again. He is simply my legal companion and travel companion. Now I am 73 years old, and I would be very lonely without him. I do enjoy his company most of the time. Like you, had I known years ago what I know now, I would not be here. Marriage was sacred to me, and it was only a worthless piece of paper to him. Now, marriage means nothing to me. I can't stand the thought of being intimate with him. I have no desire for him. I have told him that if I predecease him, I want no obit and no mention whatsoever that I was ever married to him. My sons will be informed of my wishes also. I am ashamed that I married someone like him and more ashamed that I looked the other way for so many years. There were signs; I ignored them. We have burial plots, but he will be the only one resting there. I most certainly do not want my ashes anywhere near him. I wish you the best. This website has been a godsend for me. At least, we know we're not alone in our feelings. It's comforting to know that there are many out there who believe in being committed to marriage.

XCook

I understand the frustration of hearing them say once they did it once it didn’t matter if they messed up again. My husband cheated with the same person a number of different times over 10 weeks. It is too upsetting to me to actually say how many times. I am clearly having some challenges with acceptance. He has said scores of times that once he did it once he might as well keep doing it. Total bullshit. You broke one of my limbs so it made no difference if you broke all the others and my face and back as well. Yeah right. Absolute bullshit. And if he was more considerate now about saying "I thought this then but obviously I was dead wrong…" it would still piss me off but maybe I could tolerate him saying it. I sometimes feel that I will spend everyday for the rest of my life trying to resist the urge to divorce. The pain of the memories is much less but I can’t imagine having days free of these thoughts completely. I am 52 and I wonder whether the thoughts would be the same if we were not together. At 72 I don’t think.I would leave either. Even now there is a sense that one of us might become ill at any time and shouldn’t we be there for each other, at least as best friends. But this is one hell of a way to treat your best friend.