SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I understand your position Legatus and given what has transpired it is probably too late.

I think the fact she believed the Mexico trip was still on b/c you guys "would be good" shows she’s way off the mark.

So sorry for you - but I hope you will be happier in the long run. You have certainly endured too much heartache.

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.

You are correct you know the score but all you are doing is pain shopping which just keeps you under her control.

Why? More wasted time invested in this? 4 years already. How much more time will you allow to slip away? For what? You can’t get time back.

I understand you want her to ‘get it’ but I think you’re the one who’s not getting it.

[This message edited by Marz at 9:18 PM, Friday, August 27th]

Actually I feel much sympathy for your plan of action. Correct me if I’m wrong but to me it sounds like a last resort for an amicable divorce/co-parenting by her proving that, at the end, after four years of pain and suffering you‘ve been going through, she chooses you and your family over this POS and helps you blow up his life as much as possible. I wish you all the best!

The Mexico trip possibly represented hope for your WS. Hope that there is a future.

If the trip was still on, it would mean that you would be together until then. It would also give her an indication that you are staying with her, as it would have been a couples trip, not a singles trip.

You have taken away that fantasy from her, which is probably why she is taking it so hard. In her mind, the hope is now gone.

I spent the weekend visiting friends out of state. Lots of venting and talking about all of this. The friends are saying to walk away and never look back.

A strange thing is happening though and I wanted to see if anyone else can relate. I’ve only become more sure over the last week that I need to cut her lose. My inner voice continuously screening that she is unsafe.

There’s men another side of me that is thinking about scenarios where R would be possible, even though that seems crazy to me. Maybe it’s normal resistance right before making a big decision and following up with it. Has anyone else felt this? There’s a part of me that wants to be tender with her, but a otherwise that wants nothing to do with her.

You’ve discussed how devastating the 4 year EA has been - the lying about it, gaslighting, her absolute mistreatment of you, utter lack of concern for your feelings, we’ll get over this before Mexico, etc.

However, your discussion of her having sex with the POS, and her intention to continue to do so (lying about the condom, birth control, premeditated aspect, etc.) hasn’t seemed to carry the same weight in your postings. How much does the PA affect you?

It’s a crap shoot. There are guys on here who reconciled and it lasted for years. House of plane, who caught his wife in bed with her fuck buddy made it work. Mangled heart did despite his wife doing 2 guys. So it can be done.

There are guys on here still trying to get to the bottom of what happened 40 years ago. Raleigh guy comes to mind. There was a guy on near whose wife had a 12 year affair and would reach out to OM every few years.

What do you want your life to be like? A lot depends on how you view your wife. You make her sound like a conniving witch, but maybe there is another side. What does she bring to the table day to day other than crazy making?

Legatus I can answer your last question based on my experience. We do have a subtle difference in that when my H decided in dday2 he really did not want to D - he was committed to making amends. Unfortunately your wife did not commit to any actions towards making amends for quite some time. Snd that is where the most damage to your marriage occurred.

So we were in false Reconciliation fir 6 months. I’m working my butt off reconciliation h snd he’s still cheating. He’s planning to D me — typical mid life crisis affair.

Dday2 he demands a D (yet again). I’m blindsided b/c 3 days earlier he says he doesn’t want a D and we had a wonderful weekend. Then later on dday2 he doesn’t want a D. Same routine as the last few months.

I learn he’s still cheating and I snapped. No yelling or over emotional confrontation. I calmly tell him I want a D and there is nothing left to his marriage.

I has my plan B and I was in the hard 180 and executing my well planned exit strategy. I found him a place to stay (he doesn’t want to leave) and I am marching down the path to D. He’s begging me to R. I couldn’t listen any more so I told him he could do what ever he wanted but I am not helping. I’m not lifting a finger. He’s on his own.

I wasn’t speaking to him unless the kids were home.

Somehow he started to make changes. He started doing things to repair the damage on his own. I didn’t tell him to read a book or get counseling but he made changes that were significant.

After three months I was not as harsh but still very hurt and still planning to D. I thought about D every day for a year.

And then I realized we actually were reconciling. It was 12 months from dday2 and we were still together and happy and those changes he made were still there.

It’s been 8 years. We are happy. I have moved past his affair. He’s not given me any reason to doubt his commitment.

Odds were not in favor of is reconciling. But he moved mountains to do it. Lucky me.

We are one of the few who survive and are happy. Nothing is unresolved. It was a long shot — but he never took no for an answer. If we had a bad day then he started over the next day / he didn’t hang on to a bad day.

I said some hurtful things — and I do regret it. But over time I lost the anger and rage and no longer live under the cloud of unhappiness due to infidelity.

Yes as a betrayed spouse I had to make some choices to accept everything and realize I can only move forward. Looking back was not helpful. But I also had zero tolerance and he knew I could D him at any time for no reason. That was the gamble he was willing to take.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 7:55 PM, Sunday, August 29th]

You have some hopium going on. Stick with the facts you know. Unless you want to keep yourself in this.

A strange thing is happening though and I wanted to see if anyone else can relate. I’ve only become more sure over the last week that I need to cut her lose. My inner voice continuously screening that she is unsafe.

There's a similar scenario here wherein the betrayed spouse who's leaning on D for a long time but couldn't pull the trigger suddenly realized that he really needed to file for D. I believe part of the reasons are, he couldn't find a good quality on her WW that she couldn't find with any other women. In fact, some girls have even more better qualities including not cheating of course. After he realized that, he informed his WW and then filed. That's it!

Legatus, it appears that you're given the rare opportunity to gain some measure of closure for your heart and mind knowing her story was curated with the physical aspects eliminated. But even now it's highly unlikely she's giving you the raw truth and depth of her betrayal. Anything is possible but geez man, recall the character she's worked exceptionally hard to conceal from you over the years. This is not something that is overcome with a flick of the switch. The PA that occurred that night is a piece of the whole truth.

Unfortunately, the playbook dictates that the only reason you get a bit more information than last time is because they're out of ideas and it becomes absolutely necessary to trickle just a bit more truth.

Legatus, how are you holding up?

Thanks for asking. It's been an informative couple weeks. We've been doing the questions answer thing. I send her a word doc with questions and she replies. It works well for me since I can go back and reread the answers and then ask clarifying questions. I'm on the fence about R or D at this point. I know that frustrates a lot of you. I really wish she acted the way she is this time the last time we attempted R. I'm having a really hard time believing there's any chance for any level of trust to be rebuilt. That being said she actually seems to be doing what someone does when they want to try to save the relationship. She's super responsive to my questions. She'll wake up early or stay up late to make sure I get them back within 24 hours. She also gives complete answers and volunteers a lot of extra information related to the question. Historically I've gotten the shortest answer possible with no elaboration.

Example
Q: what did you two do the next morning?
Old typical answer: I don't really remember. I think we just had coffee and then went to get Tina at the airport.
The new way she answers: Tells me everything as it unfolded. What they talked about in detail. If they were touching each other (handholding, kisses), what she was thinking about them and about us.

She quotes Shirley Glass all the time when we do talk. She wants us to reread the book together and then discuss it chapter by chapter. In the past she would get annoyed if I was triggered by something associated to the affair. My concern would be met with defensiveness and anger. Now I'm hearing her say things like I have a right to be upset or scared of being lied to, she hears me out, takes blame for it being her fault. Apologizes for the pain she's caused. She's still not sleeping in our bed.

My gut for once is telling me that she is probably being more honest than she's been for a long time. She has told me a lot about that weekend in October 2017 and it doesn't appear to be sugarcoated out of concern for herself or me. That means I've heard a lot of things that were hard to hear. She's given me a detailed about of the weekend which. Hey, and for once the story makes sense even though I don't like it. She maintains they only had sex once ever and it was during that weekend. Not sure I believe that. I mean, if that was the first time they had sex why not get the most out of the weekend? The only details I haven't asked are what they did during sex.

I'm glad I didn't ask because I did end up having sex with her since my last post. It might be more accurate to call it hysterical bonding. I know many of you won't be happy to hear that news. I'm only human though. There was an unexpected byproduct from having sex, a new thought I can't get out of my head. While we were having sex I started to wonder if she made the same sounds when she had sex with him. Did she do and say the same things. I know the answers are all yes. It was almost like I was watching them have sex when we were having sex. That's bee a big deterrent against me doing it again. Has anyone else had a thought like that during sex? Any idea how to get that to stop?

Another visual I can't seem to stop thinking about is her wedding band. I asked her if she wore it the entire weekend and she said yes. So, that means the wedding band has likely touched his penis. It rubbed on his skin as they had sex. I'm not trying to be graphic here, but that's what's been going through my head. It really bugs me. Maybe because the wedding band represents the marriage and it was like she was rubbing our marriage all over him. I'll need to bring this up in IC.

She actually asked me yesterday when we were going to do the polygraph. She said she wanted to do it soon because she wants to keep moving forward. I gave her a list of questions I would like asked during a polygraph. She didn't seem phased and said she would pass. So, I'm going to have her set up an appointment to get that done.

We have not talked to the OBS yet. She is on board to do so, but we were having trouble figuring out a way to contact her while the OBS was out of the country. The AP and his wife come home today though. I've reminded my wife that once we tell the OBS it's possible more information will come out about the affair so if she was not being completely honest she needed to rectify that before the call. I still think there's a high probability she met up with him while on a work trip in recent years. She maintains she did not. I guess the poly might help with that.

A couple of you called her out when she reported the sex between her and the AP was awkward and not that good. She's volunteered more information on that topic. Mainly that it was fairly brief, but it was nice and it made her feel closer to him. I didn't really want to hear that, but it's better than her only telling me what I want to hear. It's more believable.

So, like I said, in the past her stories didn't make sense because they were full of lies and lies of omission. She seems to really be working hard to make amends. My gut is starting to tell me she's being honest. I don't feel like I'm dealing with the same person I've been dealing with for the past 4 years. The one in front of me actually seems remorseful and 100% committed to to everything in her power to reconcile. Problem is, it may just be too late. It's hard for me to believe she won't repeat this behavior in the future. I go back and forth between wanting to leave her behind and working on R. It changes daily if not hourly. If I can't get off that roller-coaster then the default solution is D.

STD tests came back negative.

Legatus,

If you wife is all in on reconciling, maybe now is the time to have her sign an post-nup. That way, if you do decide to divorce in the future, you can avoid a prolonged, nasty divorce and avoid lifelong alimony, etc. You would both need lawyers to review before you sign, but it would like mitigate some of the risk/pain of a potential divorce. I suggest you discuss the possibility with your attorney.

Blue Raspberry - From what I've read, post nups aren't generally upheld in Michigan courts. Something about the law/courts seeing post nups as an incentive to divorce. Apparently the only time they hold up in court is when they are drafted after a divorce is filed and are used as a means to save the marriage. Strange, but I read that in multiple places. What I can do is file for a maintenance separation. It legally separates us financially, but we remain legally married. Later if divorce becomes necessary the financial part is already taken care of. She has agreed to an equitable division of assets. She said she'll sign anything. I think it's fair for both of us. I get the feeling I could get a lot more out of her in her current state, but it doesn't feel right taking advantage of her. Also, she's going to be around forever since we have kids. I don't want resentment over it.

[This message edited by guvensiz at 6:11 PM, September 15th (Wednesday)]

[This message edited by guvensiz at 12:11 AM, Thursday, September 16th]

How about the birth control and the condom? Did she come clean about those as well? I felt that your realization on that one was very damning for even her most recent bout of truth.

Legatus,

If the maintenance separation agreement gets you where you want to go financially, I would suggest you move forward ASAP. She is agreeable now, so take advantage in case she has a change of heart in the future.

I strongly caution you on making ANY permanent decision anytime soon. She has been acting this way for a few weeks. She lied and lied and lied for YEARS. She watched you hurt and continued to hurt you for YEARS. Take your time. I don't see why filing for divorce and getting a post nup would be a bad option if it allows it to hold up in court. Her behavior after you file will tell you a lot anyway - like a crystal ball.

Legatus,

My concern is, what if AP and OBS decides to D after you tell OBS (Tina)? Would that mean that AP and your WW might have the chance to resume their affair or will there be a chance they they will be together? From what I see right now, your WW is doing everything to stay married to you because she has nowhere to go. What if, I mean, what if, suddenly AP becomes available when OBS decides it's over for them? Have you discussed that with your WW? Because, if we go back to 4 years ago, your WW has already or was deciding to D you back then, correct?

Have you not had a change in fortune, she might have already filed. Also, after discussing with her that she will be left with nothing if you D, she backtracked, correct?

Just stating my concerns here because, what if, suddenly a door opens for her?

All the best!