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I want to revisit why I haven't contacted the OBS again. When this all began 4 years ago I did reach out the to the OBS to talk to her about my concerns. Granted, at that point I had a lot of circumstantial information and a gut feeling. I probably reached out to her to soon. She isn't a stranger to me. I've had dinner at their house many times. I thought she would receive me as a friend with legitimate concerns. The OBS and my wife were also friends. When I reached out to the OBS I found my wife and the AP had already gotten to her. They told her I was acting crazy, controlling, and paranoid. They said I was being emotionally abusive to my wife over their friendship. The OBS refused to talk to me and didn't take anything I said seriously.

I sent the AP an email from my wife's work computer last night. Maybe is was a bad idea. Anyways, I pretended to be her and just said hi and asked how he was doing? He responded this morning saying he was doing well. They are still in Greece and will be returning on 9/15. Then he just asked how I was doing (or I guess how my wife is doing). Luckily I got the information I was looking for right off the bat. I wanted to know when they would be back in the states. I told my wife about me sending the email and asked her to come to me with any response from him. She did. Or at least she showed me something. I don't take anything at face value anymore.

My wife claims she hasn't communicated with the OBS for about 3 years. That makes sense because her friendship with the OBS really had more to do with having access to the AP than anything else. I've asked my wife to send the OBS an email just asking how she is. Re-establish some communication. Then after they return to the states instigate a phone call with the OBS. While I agree it's more humane for me to give the news, I've been completely discredited by my wife and the AP? She needs to hear it from my wife and hear the crying and shame in her voice. That's the only way the OBS might accept the information as truth. I'll be a fly on the wall listening to the call. That's my plan right now. My wife really does not want to make the call. She wants to send her a video. I kind of lost my temper a bit and told her I didn't care about what she wants. Well, I wasn't that nice about it. I think it was more like, "I didn't want my wife to go F her boyfriend". Yes, I'm back to using the word boyfriend. I'm trying not to say stuff like that, but sometimes it slips out.

I want to revisit why I haven't contacted the OBS again. When this all began 4 years ago I did reach out the to the OBS to talk to her about my concerns. Granted, at that point I had a lot of circumstantial information and a gut feeling. I probably reached out to her to soon. She isn't a stranger to me. I've had dinner at their house many times. I thought she would receive me as a friend with legitimate concerns. The OBS and my wife were also friends. When I reached out to the OBS I found my wife and the AP had already gotten to her. They told her I was acting crazy, controlling, and paranoid. They said I was being emotionally abusive to my wife over their friendship. The OBS refused to talk to me and didn't take anything I said seriously.

Legatus, can I ask you something? Why are you even bothering with her at this point? You have lived 4 years of hell. She has been an active participant in your pain this entire time, gaslighting you at every turn. Any "progress" you have made is the result of you dragging her, kicking and screaming, causing her to do the bare minimum, just to shut you up. What do you hope to achieve?

She lied to you. She lied in therapy. She lied to her "friend". There seem to be no limits on who she will lie to provided that she gets what she wants. What kind of person tells her "friend" (OBS) that you are paranoid and overly suspicious while she was conducting an affair with her husband, gaslighting both of you? And even worse, I believe that she is still lying to you.

My wife claims she hasn't communicated with the OBS for about 3 years. That makes sense because her friendship with the OBS really had more to do with having access to the AP than anything else.

Honestly, I would stop referring to OBS as her friend. How she could ever call this person her friend is beyond me.

I've been completely discredited by my wife and the AP? She needs to hear it from my wife and hear the crying and shame in her voice. That's the only way the OBS might accept the information as truth. I'll be a fly on the wall listening to the call. That's my plan right now. My wife really does not want to make the call. She wants to send her a video.

To this very day, she continues to take the path of least resistance. She isn't remorseful at all. She just wants you to stop talking about it. And the thing is, you know that. You know that absolutely no progress will be made unless you are the one driving it. I think you still suffer the misconception that the person you married exists. She doesn't. This is who she is. What you thought was your wife was nothing more than a carefully crafted persona; a mask. She may be able to change at some point but that has to come from within her. Right now she is happy with who she is and sees no reason to change. At least that's how it seems to me.

I kind of lost my temper a bit and told her I didn't care about what she wants. Well, I wasn't that nice about it. I think it was more like, "I didn't want my wife to go F her boyfriend". Yes, I'm back to using the word boyfriend. I'm trying not to say stuff like that, but sometimes it slips out.

You need to figure out why it is you feel guilty calling her boyfriend, her boyfriend.

My prayers are with you.

[This message edited by AnOminousMan at 4:14 PM, Thursday, August 26th]

If she has the world convinced you’re paranoid and controlling this isn’t the way to change that.

You’re masquerading as her online to try and setup dominos. Nothing you do now couldn’t be blown up by her just saying after the fact you forced her to say/admit to things to save the marriage.

I know you want to make the AP suffer but the fact is you can’t without concrete proof and all your proof is her word and she can retract statements as easily as she makes them.

Rise above this. Who cares what OBS thinks. Who cares if she’s married to that tosspot. Just focus on you. Focus on your well-being.

Nothing you setup now can’t be destroyed by a cooperative effort between your WW and her boyfriend. All she has to do is contact him separately from her work email and he would know your plan. She could create an email address right now and you’d never know.

This will never work and only keeps you around this shitstorm longer.

I think I know deep down you are both right. Knowing there’s nothing to be done to salvage anything, but still wanting to salvage it on some levels. Wanting something which hasn’t existed in a long time, or maybe never did at all.

I’m going to play my little game for now. There is a very good chance she will give him a heads up, I agree. But I’m aware of that, and if that happens and I find out, it won’t come as a shock. I’m the kind of person who has to know details. Paralysis through analysis. The vast majority of the messages I recovered were just her messages. His unsaved messages were mostly absent from the data. I guess I’m curious.

I could be wrong, but she is in super survival mode right now trying to prevent her life from changing. She has been hunting for jobs and apartments like it’s going out of style over the past few weeks. She doesn’t want that right now. She wants her cake and she wants to eat it to. She’ll stop eating the cake for a little while so she can make sure the cake sticks around and gives her what she wants. Once the cake is placated she will go back to having her cake and eating it to. This is about me getting the information I need. She may be able to retract her statement to the OBS later, but I’ll follow up with the OBS with the multiple versions of the timeline. I also have a few recording she might be interested in.

Legatus,

You said

She has been hunting for jobs and apartments like it’s going out of style over the past few weeks.

Why is that? Have you asked her to move out? Does she know you plan to file for divorce and/or legal separation? If she is in survival mode, why would she move out?

I get where you are man. It sounds like a sound plan.

Yes, I know I’m not supposed to Telegraph my moves, but I told her during the talk just preceding her new admission. I said the best case scenario was me filing for maintenance separation. I haven’t let her touch me at all since I started posting here. When I say that I mean no touching at all, not even a fingertip on my arm. She come towards me many hugs I’ve rejected. I’m not wearing my wedding ring. No sex. I’m not saying I love you back. I’m continuing to keep her out of the marital bedroom. I’ve stopped opening her cards, I just leave them where she put them. I think I made a shitty comment at one point about her needing a job that offered medical insurance since she won’t be on mine anymore. Also, this time has lacked me getting mad at her for the most part. I’m previous time periods like this I would wake her up in the middle of the night to ask questions ands stuff like that. I acted really distressed and desperate about losing her. I’m not acting that way this time. I’ve been saying for weeks, only when she asks, I want the whole truth because it’s important for our future relationship even if that is just us co-parenting from different homes. I guess me being significantly less upset about it this time is freaking her out. I’ve told her, it would be great if there was someway to find a course that would lead us back to trust and intimacy, but i haven’t been able to find that path and think it doesn’t exist this time. Then she cry and tells me not to say that because it’s different this time and she will show me how much she loves me. I’m her sweetly and she should have taken better care of me. We are used to be great together and can be again. She’s done with him and regrets all of it. She can do better this time, she will do better this time. Usually don’t say anything and if I do it something like, "none of your actions over the past 4 years have shown me you love me and have not made me love you." Then she repeats all the stuff I listed again hoping for a different outcome.

I think she knows she took it as far as it was going to go and now everything is slipping away. That’s why she’s trying some version of the truth as a last ditch effort. Funny, because if she opened with that 4 years ago it would have made a big difference. Not just for me but for her to. Maybe we would have gotten divorced 3 years ago and our new lives would be in full swing for better or worse. Or had a chance at real reconciliation. Maybe a single she would be visiting Atlanta and screwing the AP during weeks she didn’t have the kids. Almost every alternate version of what could have happened sounds better than what did happen.

Edited for typo

[This message edited by Legatus at 6:38 PM, Thursday, August 26th]

Then she cry sans tells me not to say that because it’s different this time and she will show me how much she loves me. I’m her sweetly and she should have taken better care of me. We are used to be great together and can be again. She’s done with him and regrets all of it. She can do better this time, she will do better this time. Usually don’t say anything and if I do it something like, "none of your actions over the past 4 years have shown me you love me and have not made me love you." Then she repeats all the stuff I listed again hoping for a different outcome.

She sure knows what to say, doesn't she? I'll bet that she even knows what she needs to do. You've probably told her a thousand times. And yet she does nothing. She only provides words that cost her nothing to give.

Thank you for opening up. I can see that you understand that the path forward for you is a straightforward one. While the answer to this may be simple, it will by no means be easy. We can't help but love the people that we do. But we must resist the siren's call and its false promises. All that awaits is ruin.

I wish you well in your path toward healing.

There are 3 big reasons I can think of as to why she is pushing for a video over a phone call.

1. She doesn't have to answer any questions OBS will ask. She's still hiding information so any questions are a threat. She may accidentally reveal more if OBS starts poking around during the phone call.

2. She doesn't have to hear OBS's pain or be held accountable for her actions directly by OBS.

3. She can later say that you forced her to make the video to OM and OBS. It's easy for her to spin a tale of how you threatened her with D/taking everything away from her and she had no choice. It's much harder to dispute a phone call that sounds like it could have come from a place of guilt and shame.

If she won't do the phone call, absolutely be the one to offer the evidence to OBS instead of accepting her doing the video.

Lover boy is responding to the emails. I’m writing them, she edits them so they smell like her and sends them.

Not sure if anyone cares about this, but I think it’s interesting. He mentions how he has been on a three month journey and is excited to come home in a couple months. He went with his wife, but his email only uses "I" statement, like he went alone.

He’s already getting down to business mentioning " It has been very sad for me that you could not be in contact.". One of the recurring themes I’ve seen during all of this is him being sad and suffering from depression and telling my wife she’s the only thing that makes the sadness go away.

nekonamida - you make great points. I agree it need to be done in person or on the phone.

You are seeing very clearly now. The emails you are working will probably at the very least provide information that the OBS may be very interested in when you finally do communicate with her.

Has your WW started IC w an infidelity specialist? I’m not sure if you mentioned that recently.

You most like won’t want to stay with her as a couple, but from your tone I know you care for her as a person and you’d want her do that work for her, even if you don’t end up together. I dont find you to be callous in thinking and to me, you do
care what becomes of her. So I was just wondering if she has taken the step to start work with a therapist.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 9:01 PM, Thursday, August 26th]

Funny, because if she opened with that 4 years ago it would have made a big difference. Not just for me but for her to. Maybe we would have gotten divorced 3 years ago and our new lives would be in full swing for better or worse. Or had a chance at real reconciliation. Maybe a single she would be visiting Atlanta and screwing the AP during weeks she didn’t have the kids. Almost every alternate version of what could have happened sounds better than what did happen.

This, right here, is the tragedy of it all.

Can your marriage still be salvaged? Possibly, but there is so much more damage, and each time, it makes your desire to reconcile that much less. THEN, when it is either too late, or just about too late, they start to wake up. Now she is in overdrive, but what does that prove? That she had the ability to reconcile with you, but preferred to still do what she wanted? I don't know if that is a trait worth valuing. Only you can decide that.

Almost every alternate version of what could have happened sounds better than what did happen.

I totally understand and agree with that statement. Your WW's A destroyed the M. Her lies and false attempts at R only made things worse and kept you both stuck. From what I've read, most WS's are selfish cowards and your WW seems to fit that profile. Her A was selfish and she selfishly pretended to R to placate you and keep you around for her benefit, not yours.

She’s still seeing the same counselor she has been seeing. It was my counselor who recommended him a few years ago. IMO my IC is very good. She calls me out on my bull and helps me understand myself. Anyways, I mentioned to my IC this week that I thought my wife’s IC was an incompetent idiot. She vouched for him, which carries a lot of pull with me. She’s typically pretty critical of her peers. My wife claims to have told her IC about the sex. I just told my wife. "I don’t know if your acting, or if you really want to make progress in counseling. But for your own sake, you need to figure this behavior out because it’s going to hurt you regardless of us being together or not." I mentioned the specialist. She can make up her own mind. I have really good insurance and we don’t even pay a copay for counseling. She has options.

I don’t feel like it’s my job to punish her. This is my Boy Scout social worker side talking, but really very few people deserve to be in pain. At work I remove children from drug addicted parents. The parents are addicts. They weren’t always that way, but one thing let to another and then they have baby born positive for meth. Their sadness when their child is taken away is real. And while they’re unfit to care for the child, I’ve never thought they deserve to feel that pain. I see a lot of that in this situation. She chases the high of the affair only to have to face the lows of the consequences. Seemingly unable to make decisions that would give her life stability. She lies to the people she says she loves and steals from them in terms of time and quality of life. She hurts them. I had a mother on my caseload who was addicted to a bunch of drugs. She went MIA for three months and then reappeared all the sudden. She said she was ready to have her kids back. Someone had told her if she didn’t test positive for drugs for three months she could have her kids back. She could not wrap her head around the idea that it didn’t count because she didn’t make herself available for random drug testing. It reminds me of my wife’s magical thinking. Note: the judge decides when the child is returned. There’s no magic number.

Ah. Now I can see where your heart comes from.

Thank you for the work you do with those who have perhaps made some bad choices. I’m not sure I could be as hopeful as you are after day in and day out seeing the destruction that occurs in families.

You must have found it hard to believe when things started falling apart in your own.

I think you’re on a good path no matter how things turn out w you and WW.

Was your WW always liberal with the truth, bending it to her favour or only for the A?

My reading from your posts is that her untruthfulness is what is killing you. I wonder if she understands that, or she is so used to embellish the truth that she knows no other way to function and get ahead in life

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 9:18 PM, Thursday, August 26th]

In your line of work you learned you cannot fix people who are broken unless they want to be fixed or repaired.

Same for your wife. She’s showed you for years SHE comes first. Right or wrong she chooses herself.

It’s good you see you cannot fix her. Only she can do that.

ShutterHappy - good question. My IC predates the affair. I have some issues from having an abusive father. That’s likely what made me switch from corporate work to social work. The breaking of trust is a huge trigger for me. I know everyone reacts to being lied to, and it’s not a completion. I think it scares me a little more than most. Before I met my wife I was always jealous and suspicion with girlfriends. I just never really trusted them. I’m think some cases were warranted and others weren’t. When I met my wife I never felt that for a second. I had and we had a very deep trust for each other. I still don’t think that was fake. I used to brag about the trust to friends. I was really proud of it. I know this probably is making me look pretty lame. The problem is, we/I was overconfident in that trust being unbreakable. So, we never established healthy boundaries with the opposite sex. That left the door open. This affair didn’t happen in a day. It developed over years. I’m trying to apply equall fault to my wife and the AP, but it’s clear to me this was his intent from the start and she was genuinely just wanting a work friend. He kept chipping away over time, slowly moving the line until things started tipping in his favor. It’s hard to say if it would have happened if we had established boundaries early on. Anyways, I told my wife one thing I was selfishly sad about in this whole thing is the loss of someone I trusted so completely. It was her and my best friend from childhood on that list. Now there’s just one. I know she won’t ever be on that list again.

[This message edited by Legatus at 10:17 PM, Thursday, August 26th]

Legatus,

Other than putting together an incomplete timeline, writing you cards/notes, and searching for a job and apartment, has your wife taken any other action you would consider constructive? Has she fully informed the IC about her affair? Has she read any books on infidelity and helping your partner heal? Has she been transparent with all internet accounts and devices? It seems like she initially tried to do the absolute minimum, which worked before. You did NOT play her game, so she felt compelled to start trickling the truth. Now she's feeling desperate since you've detached from her and the marriage. However, you haven't described whether she's had any type of epiphany. I wasn't expecting anything but it can (on occasion) happen. Not that it will matter with respect to the marriage, but I was curious.