SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I really want to spend the rest of my life with someone who can/will be there for me, but these last two years, she has not.

Imagine if you focused on yourself these past two years…. What if you’ve been going to the gym that whole time and putting in work there? Maybe you’d have a six-pack by now, who knows?

Instead, you’ve been supporting the WW……that’s ass-backwards. There are SO MANY good women out there who are 1) available and 2) would never cheat on you

I agree with Hippo. Move on. 22 months ? You deserve better.

She will melt down and try to keep you. However, you have to ask why she put you through this in the first place and how she treated you after you knew.

Better fish in the sea. Find one

We have not done MC, she has not done IC.

Friend – that just tells me that you have been swimming without any set direction for two years, and still haven’t seen any land.
It’s great that she’s agreed to MC but just be very clear what that can do, and what it won’t do.
It won’t fix the affair. It won’t find out why she did what she did. What it can do is improve your communications, and that in turn can help you both decide if this marriage is salvageable or not. Without IC – where you both seek professional guidance for your personal recovery – then MC will not do much to save the marriage, but maybe make help you two in ending it.

I want to address one issue you seem fixated on: It’s how special your relationship is, how you love her, how you can’t be without her.
Well… if all that’s true… then why not just accept she sometimes has affairs?
After all – if losing this marriage is the absolute worst outcome then why risk it? Stats indicate affairs seldom last for more than 2 years and so what if she maybe picks up a new lover every 4-5 years? At least she will remain married to you…
It’s not something I would accept, but if you truly think not having her is the WORST outcome…

Then think how much effort she will put into reconciling if she KNOWS there isn’t really any risk.
The moment you accept that sharing her is worse than losing her and the moment you both realize how fragile your future together is will be the moment your marriage finally has a shot at reconciling.

Ps. I never get the "plenty more fish in the sea" point-of-view. A partner isn’t the catch-of-the-day and quantity isn’t the prime definitor for finding a good spouse. It’s bordering on suggesting a parent that lost a child lighten up because they can always have another one. Just be careful of not letting this fish drag you into the deep if nothing improves.

Bigger, I appreciate the honesty. Quite frankly, these last few weeks I feel like I have rounded the corner so to speak. I was telling a friend who happens to be going through the same thing as me how every day that passes I’m feeling more fine regardless the outcome. Im feeling like I’m not really interested in catering to her needs anymore. If our relation ends, then it’s ok, I can see happiness down the road without her. I sense she’s picking up on this vibe, especially after I discussed with her how I’d been considering maybe it’s time to separate for a while. She now sees me as someone who can proceed in daily life without the need for her. It took me a while to get there, and I have this site to thank for my newfound way of thinking. I do enjoy my time with her, but it’s not worth the stress or the worry that comes along with the thought of it possibility happening again.

A couple of suggestions for you. This goes into a couple of tangents, but hopefully I can connect them in some way in conclusion:

First: When you think something is precious you tend to be more careful with it. Even something sturdy like a diamond. If you had diamond worth millions, you would take extreme care of it because you KNOW that it’s worth is in its size and purity and that if you are careless, you can lose it. Well… your marriage to this woman is precious to you. It might be priceless, but if broken it loses its worth. It becomes scrap. When you realize this, you tend to be more careful in how you handle it.

Only… this diamond of a marriage isn’t tangible. It’s a perceived value, like you have a closed box that you THINK could contain a diamond. At some point you MIGHT have to accept that the box is empty, or the diamond only polished glass or has a flaw and that your efforts to save it aren’t worth the effort.

OK – Why is this important?
Well… Imagine you had an employee that knows that NO MATTER how he performs you won’t fire him. He can miss deadlines, take days off, steal from the tilt… whatever. Knowing that despite your unhappiness he’s getting a check at the end of the month. What incentive does he have to change?

The moment you realize that there are only two things keeping the marriage together is the moment you get the strength to change things. Be it changes to IMPROVE the marriage – to find the diamond in the box – or be it changes to realize it’s an empty box and to move on.
Those two things? Really simple: You realize that you are in the marriage only because you want to be in the marriage. She realizes she’s only in the marriage because she wants to be in the marriage.

That’s it. That is the only thing that can hold a marriage together. Anything else is fake, an excuse. Your kids will be fine with divorced parents, you won’t live on the street and starve, you will retire with a decent pension… The streets of our country are not lined with starving and desolate people that got that way by divorcing.

When you have this awareness, you can have the conversation with your wife:
Why are you married to me?
Why am I married to you?
Why are we married?

This can lead to the conversation:
What is it you want in a marriage?
What do I want in a marriage?
What do WE want together?

You remove all excuses. Can’t afford divorce? Yes, you can. Can’t afford 2 houses? As a divorced person it’s only what YOU can afford, what she can is of no issue. Bad for the kids? No – nothing confirms being raised by two loving, but divorced parents are worse than being raised in a dysfunctional family…

You also accept that the precious box just MIGHT be EMPTY, or that her actions or lack of positive change could have changed that large precious stone into rubble.

Second:
She didn’t cheat because of the marriage or because of you, and that’s why MC won’t necessarily deal with the infidelity. Again, a parable: If you had the worst smelling breath in the universe… your wife could talk about it, ask you to brush and floss, use mouthwash… whatever. She could suggest treatment, a doctor, dentist… She could even leave you if you ignored her requests or continued your diet of garlic, coffee, and onions. All these would be "normal" reactions to whatever issue she had with you.
What would not be a reasonable response would be to stuff a shotgun-barrel into your mouth and pull the trigger.

If she did that nobody would justify her actions. Nobody would think YOU caused it. If you survived… well… Your friends wouldn’t rush you to a dental hygiene session suggesting you and your wife go to a gun-safety course later.

In 99 out of 100 instances I think infidelity is due to insecurity. Validation, power… insecurity. That is internal. That is in HER not you. That’s why she NEEDS IC. She needs to understand why she DECIDED to have an affair.
IMHO this isn’t optional. She needs a professional to talk this through and find different coping mechanisms. For some people 1-2 sessions might suffice, for some its long term.

When you can sit your wife down and tell her something along these lines is when you finally get to see if there is something salvageable:

Honey – I always envisioned growing old with you but I have realized that there is one thing IMMENSLEY worse than not having you, and that is sharing you.
The minute you decided to have your affair is the minute I lost you. At best I share you. I shared you with the OM, and now I share you with the infidelity.
I don’t share my wife.

I don’t WANT to divorce, but I understand that I don’t want YOU – I want YOU AS MY WIFE. While you are in infidelity (active or not) I don’t have you as my wife. If you aren’t here for the sole reason that you want to be married to me then I don’t want to hinder your future happiness. It’s better we accept facts and move on separately to a happier life.
If, however you want this marriage then I too need to want it. I need to believe it can improve. For that you need to dig deep into why you had your affair, and that "why" doesn’t really involve me. You need counseling to improve yourself.

We can do MC, but that can only help our communications and in moving forwards. Either together or as a couple.

I want you to understand that it’s not a given conclusion that I make it through this with you. It’s what I want, but even more I want out of infidelity."

When you two are together at that point – where you realize that if you don’t take this crisis seriously you are doomed to unhappiness – that you two can finally decide your next steps.

Bigger, You Rock! That post was exactly on point to what I’ve been feeling. My nature is one of multiple attempts at a goal with diligent effort, and sometimes is fails, but not for lack of trying. Same with my wife, I’ll go through hell for a while to get the best out of what is available, but eventually the switch will flip and I will realize that I have wasted precious time trying to accomplish something that may have been unattainable after all. I guess it’s my way of being able to say to myself "I gave it my best effort and maybe it just wasn’t meant to be". I very much appreciate the time you’ve given to me to help me understand this crazy place we find ourselves in.

Coping,

Your wife sucks just like my husband. He sucks too. Anybody that is capable of doing what these people have done to the one that trusted them the most, suck. I can tell you that even with full enclosure, transparency, honest to God remorse and shame, R is still an extremely difficult journey.

I am 2+ years from D-day, WH is doing everything humanly possible to fix this marriage. He literally has done everything right and then some but at two years, i am still struggling. I can’t imagine doing this without him putting in full effort and this is with weekly MC and IC for both of us yet i can still taste that shit sandwich her served up.

My hats’ off to you for hanging in there this long without her help. It must be extremely difficult to be violated in such despicable way and not even get the acknowledgement from your WW about the pain she has caused.

I hope your wife comes around and realizes what she needs to do. You deserve at least that much. Regardless of the outcome, you deserve closure IF there is such thing. At one time you were good enough for her to marry you, she should at least honor it now and stop shitting all over it still by denying you of truth and genuine remorse.

Hugs to you