SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Good to hear from you, Hikingout. Hope you are doing well. The year of COVID seems nearly at an end, finally. My year of COVID kicked off with a heart scare seemingly prompted at least in part by my WW's failed polygraph and ended with me ... well ... getting COVID.

Hoping for 2021 to be better for all.

Good to hear from you, Thumos.

I still believe by definition that until your WW comes forward with that last lie she holds that caused her to fail the polygraph, she cannot be remorseful because the core of her focus is still on herself. Regretful and willing to do some of what you need, yes, but until her focus shifts to you, and starts with her being honest, she hasn't yet found remorse. Perhaps we disagree but I have a hard time believing that remorse is ever built on a continuing lie.

I still believe by definition that until your WW comes forward with that last lie she holds that caused her to fail the polygraph, she cannot be remorseful because the core of her focus is still on herself. Regretful and willing to do some of what you need, yes, but until her focus shifts to you, and starts with her being honest, she hasn't yet found remorse. Perhaps we disagree but I have a hard time believing that remorse is ever built on a continuing lie.

I do agree with you nekonamida.

I've been a silent reader for a while now, and I hope you're doing much better Thumos.

Thumos, nice to see you back. I do hope your health just gets better and better.

Thumos glad to see you are back and continuing to focus on getting your heart and brain to a healthy place.

Please don't forget to make sure your body is healthy too, especially after the Vid. Keep an eye on yourself and if you notice your body not being normal, let your Dr know. I think the world of autoimmune issues is going to grow exponentially after this, the inflammatory, over the top immune response a lot of people are having sucks. Be kind to you though. And don't let anyone blow you off.

Thumos,

So glad to hear your health is returning and you are coming back from COVID! Our neighbor had it, if my wife wouldn't have checked on him that fateful night, he would have been dead by morning.

Wanted to chime in on the divorce issue with the Church when infidelity is involved. I have been a Catholic all my life, and yes I have issues with some of their teachings. But I do know for a fact that Doctrine is very much against infidelity and it has been written that way for centuries. The destruction it has on the core Belief of Family and all parties involved is why it's in The Commandments twice.

Adulatory is the one big YES in the Church for a divorce. I also believe that Doctrine states the adulterer forfeits their membership in the church. All this is based on gospels of Matthew, Paul, Luke and Mark.

[This message edited by SlapNutsABingo at 12:45 PM, March 16th (Tuesday)]

Thumos, really appreciate your post about your faith... and 'tapping the breaks on D'...

Faith is a primer for so many things. I hope the very best for you.

Giving up momentum is a killer. Momentum is hard and painful to build and often twice as hard once stopped a second time.

Your life is your own, but going from D to not D and thinking you can just pick it back up...that momentum is painful to drop and pick up over and over. Either way, I wish you the best. You have the ability to handle it and come out the other side strong.

To clarify, my WW understands the chances that I will decide to end the marriage are extremely high. She accepts that "reconciliation" such as it is may be defined by our being divorced.

I appreciate the insight on momentum, but I don't feel I'm slowing momentum. I have a lot of knowledge for how to quickly implement a D when I'm ready.

Also, I haven't slowed down on other fronts: decluttering, de-junking my life, streaming down possessions, getting right physically, reducing debt to zero. These are my focus right now.

Thumos

Just wanted to say good on you for having the strength to re-evaluate. I wish you very success with whatever you eventually decide is the best route forward for you.

Also, I haven't slowed down on other fronts: decluttering, de-junking my life, streaming down possessions, getting right physically, reducing debt to zero. These are my focus right now.

Great minds think alike. This is my focus right now. I’m a little bit ahead of the curve and debts are now completely wiped out, pre Dday WGF looked after all the finances (how’s that for me being controlling !!) and imagine my surprise to find that she had run up a credit card to over 15k as we were living beyond our means. Anyway 6 months post Dday I took control, we are now debt free and have savings enough for the 2 off us to have safety nets each. My focus now is to detangle the finances, get house ready for sale, declutter and be ready to put house on market within a couple of months if that is still our direction at the time. I’m also working out 6 days week, watching my diet, supplementing with vitamins and proteins etc. I will also take myself away soon for a holiday alone and one with kids without WGF (once we tell them)

“The Horns of a Dilemma”. Interesting way to frame your current position. I’m assuming you perceive your horns to be (a) remaining married to an unremorseful cheating wife who continues to lie, and (b) divorce. I do think it’s worth examining this a bit. Traditionally this metaphor describes a choice between two undesirable alternatives, which presupposes knowing the pros/cons of each alternative and determining that each is in fact undesirable. I don’t believe that is your situation. I think your current situation is an example of what some call “analysis paralysis”, others refer to as “the Devil you know versus the Devil you don’t”, which is precisely the conundrum that led you here in the first place.

On the one hand, there is the infidelity. I’m one of those who believes there are degrees of betrayal, some worse than others, and that the cumulative impact informs this calculus. In your case, there are the known elements of the A, which are awful enough: the playing house with the AP in the presence of your kids (to the point where your daughter was uncomfortable); the planned unprotected sex in your own home; the fact that she decided to do this with a man who was/is entwined in your quotidian existence, assuring you the pleasure of re-living this experience virtually every time you try to be a father to your son; and the installation of a gaudy horcrux of the A into your home in a manner that was cruelly mocking and which you had to personally remove. There was the extraordinarily (even by SI standards) cruel and prolonged gaslighting and blame-shifting in the aftermath of Dday. There was the manipulative use of religion and MC to encourage rug-sweeping. Most of all, there remains the stubbornly defiant dishonesty about the scope of the A which, by all appearances, your wife intends to maintain to her grave. I agree with nekonamida that this reflects a fundamental lack of remorse.

Is a divorce really a disagreeable alternative? It is an unknown. I believe that, because it is unknown, you view it as undesirable. Perhaps your subjective view should be the end of the analysis, although if I were a cynic I’d suggest that the recent decision to pursue a Catholic catechism is a (possibly subconscious) construct to fortify a choice to remain married. By the way, and without intending to TJ or engage in religious dispute, I believe it is logically fallacious to profess to adhere to both ecumenical Christianity and Catholicism. You’re either one, or the other, or neither.

But I digress. As to divorce, I wonder if your hurdle is the concept of becoming a divorced man (in the abstract), rather than the nuts and bolts of whether the specific divorce you could arrange with your WW as co-parents of your son would be an untenable existence. Divorce can feel like stepping out of that airplane for the first time. No matter how many times you’ve checked your parachute and repeated your training, that first step is terrifying.

I know it’s been stated before, but I’d remind you that a nominally “intact” but dysfunctional family can be worse for a child’s emotional development than at least one functional parent living single and having part-time custody. You have stated that you work in concert with your wife to ensure your son does not see a dysfunctional family. Perhaps you succeed in this. Yet we know that children see and understand way more than their parents think they do. Your son has confronted you directly about the ban on playing with the AP’s son. At the very least he knows there is poison between you and your wife that involves the AP’s family. I’d put money on it that he and his sister have discussed more that they let on.

In other words, I don’t share your view that divorce is necessarily a horn, nor that you’re in a dilemma. If I were to use a metaphor for your circumstance, I’d choose “Hobson’s Choice” – as in, that is what your WW is offering you.

I’m not suggesting that the choice is necessarily the wrong one for you to make, by the way. Many husbands have it worse in marriage than you do, including husbands where there is no infidelity.

I am suggesting, though, that you’ve been wrangling this same choice at least since you came here in August of 2019, and I believe really since at least about the start of 2017. More than 4 years. Last Autumn you were resolute. Then came Christmas. Then the heart scare. Then the ‘vid. Life stuff. There will always be life stuff. Every married person who ever divorced did so in, around, and among life stuff. Meanwhile, remaining mired in analysis paralysis is irrevocable in that the linear time that passes you by cannot be recovered.

When you first came here, I suggested that you look yourself in the mirror as you stare down your own mug and imagine what your reflection will say to you down the road if you allow paralysis to continue trapping you into inaction. Does the Thumos looking you in the mirror this morning thank you for the past four years since you shared a morning glance on April 13, 2017? What will the Thumos gazing at you on April 13, 2022 say? April 13, 2025? 2031? If I recall, you’re around 50 years old at this point. Maybe 55. Young enough to pursue a meaningful second life partner if you wish, with time for a little sowing of wild oats in between. Just saying.

Not to t/j my own thread into a theological discussion, but the question was raised, so I want to help clarify (nothing more than this, I'm nnot trying to proselytize here nor am I violating SI's normal rule to avoid lengthy religious discussions).

So to clarify, I meant "ecumenical" in the sense of "mere orthodoxy" (little "o"). I'm ecumenical in the sense of that I hope for unity among orthodox Christians. That is to say, I consider other Christians who subscribe to the Nicene creed to be Christians. And I believe one can derive theological benefits from these other traditions. For example, my RCIA materials included quotes from Protestants like C.S. Lewis. Odd that the Catholic Church would endorse such materials if they didn't see the benefit. Another example: the charismatic movement in evangelical circles has had a salutary impact on Catholicism over the past 30-40 years. Fortunately, the Catholic Church shares my views, stating: "The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions. She regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men." And Pope Benedict said of other orthodox Christians that they are "incorporated in Christ and thus are in a certain communion, albeit imperfect, with the Church."

As for horns of a dilemma, I was using the phrase, yes, to refer to two difficult choices. In the case of divorce, I remain unconvinced this will not have a deleterious impact on my son and his future. I know it is confusing and confounding to read about these situations from the outside looking in via anonymous Internet postings, but all I can tell you is I'm not white knuckling my daily relationship with my WW. It's most defintely not like a reenactment of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?"

That isn't to say that I don't struggle with it. I most certainly do, as I've outlined ad nauseum. The end of this story has yet to be written. Mainly, I'm taking some time for myself and not pressuring myself daily to resolve this with finality for the time being.

other thing that's worth updating here: My WW had a long conversation with my son about his friend, the friendship, her AP etc. It was age appropriate, but my son now knows.

P.S. I'm actually 50, although I'm blessed not to look like it for some odd reason (few people that work with me believe it when they learn I'm more than halfway through life). The past four years have taken a toll, but somehow I've managed to still keep that Clooney-esque twinkle in my eyes.

Need to update my tagline.

Great to see you back Thumos!

other thing that's worth updating here: My WW had a long conversation with my son about his friend, the friendship, her AP etc. It was age appropriate, but my son now knows.

Good to see her take at least this bit of responsibility in action. Too bad she can’t now full come clean on why she failed the poly....

I've been following your thread for some time, and I hope you've been doing well.

I already shared this in general, so I may be complicating this by posting here. But anyway...

I've had a couple of double whammy revelations that I'm trying to process the last several weeks that I would like to share here. I'm feeling very raw about these things and just wanting to type them out so I can work on thinking them through.

Not sure what to do with these things yet:

1. I found out that a man I admire and respect a great deal had an affair a number of years ago with another parishioner. This man I admire and his faithful wife were essentially forced out of their church because of this affair (the affair was with the wife of a large church donor). First, the disappointment of learning this man I admired and respected did this horrid thing to his wife. Second, learning that this church punished the faithful wife and children for something the husband did. It's just hard to fathom this cruelty.

2. An acquaintance of my WW and myself came over to bring her child for a playdate with our son. She stayed and had a few glasses of wine with us. She is a very nice, very genuine person and we had one of those mid-life conversations that turn real and candid. While we were talking two things came up.

-First, that her husband had cheated on her earlier in the marriage in what was essentially a ONS out of town. She knew something was wrong immediately when he got home, he confessed and they reconciled. It wasn't easy, of course, but she said "I don't know what I would have done if he had done this in my own town." If you know my personal story of my WW's infidelity, you'll understand this hit me hard, as my WW's affair happened both in my town and in my own home. And that even today, I have to see my WW's AP around town, as BFTG likes to say "in my quotidian life."

-Second this acquaintance -- because of the business she owns -- does some work peripherally with my WW's AP. Because of my town's politics, my WW's AP came up in the conversation we were having. She held nothing back in her assessment of my WW's AP as being (not her exact words, but close enough) a completely entitled douchebag born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who is irresponsible and has never held down a real job.

Again this hit me hard and I've been thinking about it for several days. My WW's AP became my friend not because I really liked him at first, but because our sons became friends. I was reluctant at first, but because I am always striving to see Jesus in everyone, I began developing a friendship with him.

This conversation about his real character brought back the fact that my WW threw me under the bus for this vile man, that she convinced me to thank him for a "gift" on the very same day he'd screwed her in my own home, that she separated from me during the affair and how she wouldn't even say "I love you" to me during the affair.

Just a few things that came to mind.

3. My WW has shared with me events from her childhood that add up to either sexual abuse from adults or attempted sexual abuse. This was not a gambit for attention or sympathy, or at least it did not seem to be, and it hasn't played out that way. She's still trying to tease out the memories of this, and it has been very difficult for her to talk about. I know that memories can also "telescope" from childhood, meaning that a number of incidents can be compressed into one memory of one event. I want to be supportive of her, obviously. She is NOT laying her affair at the feet of this. She is trying to figure out to what extent, however, it has contributed to her brokenness.

Anyway, day to day it feels like I'm living out the cliches of the old TV soap operas. I suppose those shows were actually more true to life than we knew.

[This message edited by Thumos at 12:48 PM, May 4th (Tuesday)]

Thumos. I don’t want to speak out of turn. However, you moved over to this Forum a few weeks ago but your posts since that time don’t strike me as being in the divorce/separation mindset. Where are your thoughts at this juncture?

I agree but didn’t want to not update here.

Thumos, do you believe the situation with your WW has changed since you were firm on D? Do you think that it could be possible that you're slipping back into old habits by asking her to return to IC? And did she listen or is she once again failing to take the initiative in preference of doing things when convenient for her? Is she DOING anything above and beyond in which case she could earn a chance at R or are you dusting off the old hopium pipe and pushing her back into R?

Thumos, do you believe the situation with your WW has changed since you were firm on D? Do you think that it could be possible that you're slipping back into old habits by asking her to return to IC? And did she listen or is she once again failing to take the initiative in preference of doing things when convenient for her? Is she DOING anything above and beyond in which case she could earn a chance at R or are you dusting off the old hopium pipe and pushing her back into R?

I think all of that is possible. I'm being very careful here. My reengagement with this site in recent weeks, and also updating you all yesterda, is, if anything, part of a careful assessment of where I am and taking a hard look at things after having taken a mental break.

I'm in a relatively much calmer mental state than I was last year all year and in the fall. So I'm using this state to try to think very thoroughly about things.

I've said I've "tapped the brakes" on D, and I want to be really clear on that. I haven't committed to R with her.