SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We understand the concern and we are monitoring this. That being said let this be a reminder not to call out members and please stay on topic.

Monitoring what?

throwaway3692 You have a pm

throwaway3692,

I hope that you get the courage to delete the number. If you don't, please don't play with your wife's emotions. I cannot emphasize enough just how devastating and world-shattering it is to find out your spouse, your person chose to lie to you, betray you and choose someone else over you. By keeping the number, you're just kicking her in the face when she's already crumpled on the floor.

And if you're still pondering whether you should keep it or not, please look deep into yourself, to that part you don't want to admit is there and ask yourself if you're the kind of monster that destroys a person and then watches them suffer.

Don't make your wife suffer just so that you don't have to.

Sorry for the silence. I’ve been dealing with a lot. I understand how the number question was becoming an obsession and I apologise for that. I was trying to figure out my thoughts because it seems that it’s just one big mess.
If there are any fellow waywards on here - when you wanted to make things work with your wife, or if you felt any regret re your ap - you deleted/blocked every connection to your ex ap?

To the bs - please feel free to answer I just don’t want to trigger anyone.

I am a BW. I would caution you that if you are looking to reconcile you should delete AP number. I would feel that my husband is either still continuing his affair or wants to. Either is unacceptable. I would be done. No point trying to R with someone who is still hung up on someone else. If you are not all in on R it will never work. Let her go if you can't or won't be who she needs.

Perhaps this was an exit affair and you should be transparent with your spouse to set her free.

Love is an action, not a feeling. You keeping the AP’s contact info is certainly ego discordant with loving your spouse.

It’s ok to say you don’t love your spouse, if that’s the case. Heck, the majority of relationships fail, and your marriage might be circling the drain. You should just let her know so she is aware of your feelings.

Who knows, maybe it’s true love with your AP and you are keeping her number because you sense that. I would encourage you to transparently tell your spouse that you want to explore your feelings for your AP. It’s the respectful thing to do.

As a BS, I would actively want my WH to be happy. And if that means without me, caveat emptor, go with peace.

So my vote is, keep the number and perhaps you should use it. Be sure to tell your Bs that you will use it, if you pursue this plan.

Call your AP. Find out what is real. Put it out there so you can decide what you want, and so can your BS. Pull it all out of the darkness of secrecy.

Secrecy makes it sexier. Full light of day should be eye opening. For everyone.

Did any wayward spouse on here feel like when it was over with their ap they felt like they were filling a void, trying to forget about them?

I recommend "Maia's Withdrawal Survival Guide" (currently bumped on page 1 of the Wayward Forum) to pining WS who are trying to detach and/or anyone who is trying to understand that mindset.

Unfortunately, you will never heal nor be able to move on while stuck in obsessive thought patterns.

It would be best to see a therapist STAT to work on your obsession. Only then will you be able to heal. This kind of obsessive thoughts can last years. Years of being stuck wondering. No amount of internet strangers can help and no one can make the decision for you to stay or leave.

Once you get therapy, hopefully it will be successful and you can see that part of the problem lies with your indecisiveness and obsession.

It would be terrible to be stuck in this loop in the years to come. Remember, the only person you can control is yourself. You can control whether you stay or go. Move on or stay stuck. I hope you find peace.

Brief threadjack, Viciouspink, I see that you've been registered for two years but just made your first post. Welcome to active membership! I hope we'll be hearing more from you.

I blocked every channel I could. Quit my job and moved away from my industry (which I spent my entire adult life trying to make a name for myself in).

It took a long time for the intrusive thoughts regarding the affair and my AP to fade. I don't think it's because I loved her or we had something stronger than what I have with my wife (in the end, what we put into a relationship is what we get out of it). I've come to realize that the trauma I inflicted, I inflicted also on myself. The bond I shared in my affair was a sickness and it took a looooooooooong time to heal from. Healing from trauma takes time. Not just for the betrayed partner but also for us as the cheaters.

In other words; the obsessive nature of the thoughts should clue you that the relationship you built with your AP is toxic. To your wife. To your family. And to you as well.

Hi throwaway3692,

Wondering how you're doing and if have you thrown away the number?

Throwaway, you started this thread 8 days ago. 8. Days. You have spent 8 days pondering and obsessing over your AP’s phone number.

As a BS, I just want to say, please leave your wife. You don’t express any empathy or care for what it is to a BS for you to spend 8 days on this issue. 8 days thinking about anything associated with your AP instead of on what your wife is suffering and what she needs. If she knew (that is, if you were in any way honest with her), she would understand exactly what it means that you are willing to spend this amount of time and energy grasping at any straw to justify keeping A PHONE NUMBER when she is bleeding out as a result of the wounds inflicted by her husband and the woman attached to this number.

If you truly cared about your wife, this phone number would be your enemy. Period. The AP would be your enemy.

You are worried about hurting your AP’s feelings. I didn’t see you mention your wife’s feelings once. Please leave her to pick up her life. I can tell you that staying in a relationship with someone who willingly did this to her and now worries over hurting his co-conspirator’s feelings while not seeming to remember that his wife is a living being with any feelings at all will be nothing less than torture. Honestly, if you regarded your wife as a person with feelings (the way you apparently regard your AP), you never would have done this to her in the first place.

The only concern that you have expressed is that your wife will find out. This is a concern about yourself.

Please, I know what I’m talking about. Your inability to care about what you are doing to your wife is hurtful on a magnitude or beyond that of the actual affair. The fact that you have seen her pain as a result of the affair and still can’t quite muster real care for her well-being shows that you are not able to be there for her at this point. That being the case, you should have enough decency to be honest with yourself about that.

Staying with her just because you don’t want to lose whatever she represents for you is selfish. She deserves to be put first after what you and the AP have done to her life. It is pathetically obvious that you are not really interested in getting rid of the phone number.

Ask yourself what about your wife’s pain and her needs have you spent this amount of time obsessing over.

8 DAYS. Keep the phone number. Set your wife free. You don’t have the right to keep both. You really don’t. Please.

The one person you should be asking the question is your wife. Because, really, if you are even considering reconciling, it's the only one that matters.

I would imagine if you can't answer your own question honestly yourself, and you can't be honest with your wife, and ask her the question, then reconciliation wouldn't even be on the table.

Think about how your wife would feel to read this thread.

You need to work to heal yourself through IC and counselling, posting on this site and listening to other Waywards. Be honest with your wife about your feelings. Give her the agency to choose what happens next in HER life. The only person you are focussing on and considering is you.

You have been given an incredible gift of finding this site, and the generous advice and support contained within it. Grab that with both hands.

I wish you well,but also hope that your wife gets the honesty she deserves.

Throwaway, I want to relay a story that happened at my house this week.

My youngest takes Tae Kwon Do classes. He is ready to test for his next belt. We have been given a series of options for his testing. The day that is the least intrusive to our family's schedule is the day available to test at the TKD center. His classes are typically held at our gym.

The last time he tested at the TKD center, unbeknownst to either myself or my wife, her AP was one of the folks judging the test.

I had taken my youngest to the testing. I knew immediately that the AP was there (this was roughly 4 years post D-Day v1.0). I stated focused on my son and his drills. I made it through without any issue. The AP was part of the group photo. That's how my wife found out he was there.

Return to this week and our discussion on the belt testing. Thursday evening (tonight) is most convenient for our schedule. I told my wife I would be happy to take the youngest. She said no. I said "It's the most convenient time and it's right by my office." She said no. I asked "is it because AP could be there?" She said "I don't want you to have to worry about it. I'll just take him to the gym on Saturday."

After a couple more attempts to say that I am happy to sacrifice seeing AP for the scheduling convenience, I finally gave in.

She's taking him to test at the gym on Saturday.

The moral of the story is that she cared more about me not having to be anywhere near the AP than she did/does about making changes to an already jam packed life schedule.

Have you set aside yourself and done what is right for your wife yet?

Throwaway, your username and posting history (only on this subject) suggest you joined SI simply to ask this one specific question? To the point of making it your username?

I think you should ponder the many things you are not thinking about or talking about while you obsess on this one subject. You have not shared details of your M, your dday, your A, your reconciliation efforts, your feelings on any of it. Why not?

Cheating is a massive character deficit that brings on huge damage to your life and the lives of your spouse and kids. It appears to me that your obsession on this small topic is allowing you to hide from thinking about all the big ones? I have seen that here before. To be honest, it was a BS that could not stop posting about this exact same question. She kept asking and asking what it meant that her WH had kept the AP's number. She kept asking and asking if he intended to use it, exactly like what you are asking. In this same obsessive manner.

Hmm. Very curious.

Regardless of what this means, the result is the same--obsessing about one small thing suggests you are avoiding looking at the more important things.

She thinks I deleted my AP number. It’s still in my phone

As of May 23, 2022...

Currently it's June 14, 2022.

In my direct and succinct way, not meaning any disrespect, this is how I see it...

If you did nothing about your AP number to date but read and think about all the great advice posted to date, I feel sorry for you.

If you did something about your AP number, I commend you on your courage in what seemed to be a difficult decision for you.

I read through your posts and everyone else's posts in this thread. The one that stuck out and struck me the hardest is where you stated you were afraid to hurt your AP.

As a BS, I find this extremely offensive. Why should she matter more than your wife (if you are truly wanting to reconcile and heal your relationship)? You are making your AP's feelings more important than your wife's. Why?

If you REALLY care about your wife and want to repair the marriage you will delete the AP's number, block the AP on any social media or messaging apps no matter what.

will figure out how to send via admin message

[This message edited by luckynumber7 at 6:56 AM, Monday, June 27th]