SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Others have addressed your wife. The thing that instantly jumped out to me is your "sharp decline". You need a complete physical exam with focus on testosterone. Look at X-ray for lungs. Possible colonoscopy and other really fun exams. Make sure that isn’t some hidden physical issue causing your depression.
If nothing is found see a psychologist or psychiatrist. A change in behaviors and feelings needs to be addressed asap.

I will try to continue to post updates through this process for anyone that is interested in following this.

WS has been to IC a few times since my last post. As for me, my next session is in a few days. She has been working with her therapist to create the timeline of events of the A. One recent update is that after reviewing some of the events, her therapist seems to believe that the AP engaged in "abnormal stalker behavior" both during and after the A (driving 8hrs to show up at our place after DDay as an example) and supported the restraining order. She also believes that WS could very well still be in danger and needs to create a paper trail for the restraining order to prepare for a worst case scenario.

She has reviewed the events along with some of the messages with WS and is claiming that WS fell for some very serious emotional manipulation and threats of suicide by AP (WS apparently has proof of these that will be part of the timeline) and that WS's vulnerability to those behaviors + need for validation needs to be addressed in the upcoming sessions. This includes some previous relationship/sexual trauma my WS experienced that I'm not looking to go into in great detail online, but that the therapist does feel did play a role in some of WS' behavior. I don't know that I necessarily feel like this is totally rugsweeping, as both WS and the therapist have acknowledged the role she played in the A as well as the hurt that this has caused me, but it does feel a bit like softening the event. (Though I suppose that is her therapist's perogative in some way.) Nonetheless, I concur that if therapy is helping WS in her own healing journey, I'm willing to give it time to see how it goes. She has also suggested that we at least try to spend more time together as we hadn't verbally spoken more than a couple words/small sentences in over a week post DDay and communicated mostly through text. We've been talking a little more but things still aren't really great or even too good between us at this time.

As for my own IC session this week, we are focusing on tackling some of the issues/"sharp decline" I've experienced over the last few years and sorting through some of the things that have prevented me from being able to take as good care of myself and my relationships (especially between WS and I) as I would have liked prior to any of these events.

Make sure that isn’t some hidden physical issue causing your depression.

Got a physical + some lab work done fairly recently (minus a few of the fun tests) and physically I'm in pretty good health. I'm extremely active and take care of my body, however, mental health issues, especially depression, are a genetic predisposition that runs in the family. Sadly, I have generally a pretty poor perception/experience of medication management and pyschiatry as I cycled through a plethora of prescribed anti-anxiety and SSRI medication as a child that had caused some serious adverse affects such as psychosis and mood regulation issues at a young age.

[This message edited by JohnTerriblefate at 3:03 AM, Tuesday, April 8th]

Identifying the possible causes of her inappropriate behavior does not make her a safe partner.

Ask the therapist what tools she's developed to control herself going forward so she is a safe life partner.

Identifying the possible causes of her inappropriate behavior does not make her a safe partner.

Ask the therapist what tools she's developed to control herself going forward so she is a safe life partner.

I agree with this sentiment. Will do

Because you can see the following is coming up; "I did this because of X trauma as a child and this thing that happened 10 years ago and also 2 years ago I went to McDonalds and they were out of the McRib I wanted."

You counter with "lots of people missed out on a McRib 2 years ago and they didn’t cheat."

You get my point. Don’t fall for it.

She has reviewed the events along with some of the messages with WS and is claiming that WS fell for some very serious emotional manipulation and threats of suicide by AP

If this ever comes back to you anything along the lines of "You must accept that your wife was a victim here", you need to push back against that with all your might. She’s a grown-ass woman and fully capable of making her own decisions. No doubt OP is an asshole. That’s irrelevant to your wife’s culpability.

So many betrayed men fall into the fallacy that their wife was bamboozled, manipulated, tricked, whatever. It’s all a horrific coping mechanism some men do as they become willing to look for any reason to keep their family together. Only years, sometimes decades later, they inevitably deeply regret taking this stance, as they realize the consequences of…. shielding their traitorous wife from consequences.

Hope that won’t be you.