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Hindsight 20/20 I wish I had separated with my WW on DDay. In response to a recent rage outburst I left and drove south to be with family and give everyone space. This has been the best thing! Working on meditation. Keeping up on the gym workouts and discussion with the WW has been so nice and calm and safe for both of us.

One thing I wanted to work through while I’m down here is what I need to know about the A. There are defiantly details my brain has bubbles up that if I never know won’t make a lick of difference. In my journal I tell myself I need to know the story up to the point when the "bedroom door" closes. (Hers was a ONS).

Things I am thinking I need to know include :

1. I want her to reaffirm this was and is the only A she has had.

2 I want to establish that even though things are tense and strained and we’re on the brink of Divorce that this is not acceptable behavior and I want her to promise me that she will handle it differently if she ever is faced with another opportunity she wants to take.

3 I want to know the story that led to the bedroom. How the fuck did this Rando guy sweep her off her feet. How did he make her feel so seen in a short period of time that she did this!!?

Thoughts? Ideally my list here are the comprehensive list of things I need to make an informed decision on if I can stay in this marring. Any suggestions on items I might not be thinking about ?

Thanks Fam.

If you wish you'd left, you can always choose to leave now.

Best time to plant a tree situation.

Edit: misread the tone of the post.

You decide what you need to R.

I suggest a complete written timeline of the night AND any preceding interactions with the AP.

What details you need are also up to you. You can't forgive if you don't know what you are forgiving.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 7:46 PM, Sunday, March 12th]

All I wanted to know about the sex was protected or unprotected. She did share more detail about it being awkward and full of anxiety. He also had performance issues. I didn’t ask this early after Dday because I wouldn’t believe her anyway.

I wanted who, what, when, where and how. I wanted to know what she thinking / feeling when she was headed to meet up with him.

This is a matter of what you need. I know she had to be open to any questions I came up with later.

It’s like stomping out little fires, something would pop in my mind I would ask about it.

[This message edited by Tanner at 7:48 PM, Sunday, March 12th]

She should be 100% willing to answer every question you ask. And she needs to understand it's not a "one and done" conversation. You will be asking questions for months. Possibly years. As the shock wears off,you will ask more questions. As time goes by,something will occur to you,and you will ask questions. And you will ask the same question, 100 different ways..in part because you're traumatized brain is trying to process what has happened..and partially because you will want to see if her answers change.

Also, she needs to write you a complete timeline, from the time leading up to her meeting this man,through the night, the next day,etc. You will have questions based on that.

If she wants to attempt reconciliation, she needs to be 100% honest,and willing, to answer every question you ask. She doesn't get to decide what you need to know.

And every question is answered without anger,blame,or defensiveness.

Question 2 is something that you can't really control. During the wedding, she promised to forsake all others, and wasn't able to keep that promise.

She needs to realize that your brain is processing trauma, and that can be the reason why you're asking the same questions over and over.

Sorry you had to find us.

I think your questions are a start, but the information you’ll need to decide will depend on whether or not your WS owns her choices, works to understand why validation was needed outside of the marriage, and what will be done to become a safer, stronger partner. Once you have that, and it can take time, you will be able to make a more informed decision.

For me, I needed the full horror show of details. When my mind doesn’t have answers, I tend to fill in the blanks and that is usually worse than what happened. It’s a very individual choice, so you ask for what you want and need.

I asked questions for two years and it will never, ever make sense. I never needed to be wanted by a woman outside of my marriage to presumably feel good about myself.

In my case, my wife had never really established strong boundaries or strong esteem, so she was not an especially safe partner.

As noted by others, marriage can’t cause cheating. Every relationship has tough moments, not everyone chooses to cheat.

Does your wife want to remain married to you? In all of your other posts, she seemed pretty clear that she was done and wanted to divorce. Also, if you're working on mediation, then you're already discussing how to amicably split, correct?

The reason that this is a relevant question is that the only leverage you have to get her to answer your questions honestly and completely is if she's fully invested in saving your marriage.

If she's ambivalent, and has no serious interest in changing her ways, she will only tell what she thinks you want to hear so you can get off her back.

All good questions Blue. None I know the answers to. I would agree her actions do not exhibit a sincere desire to repair the A. But we haven’t discussed a split or divorce. Up until this most recent blow-out at least.

Her point of view is that the state of the marriage when she cheated is what needs attention. If we can’t address our communication issues - what good is working through the A?

Add to that that she is in "The Fog". Unless I really don’t know a thing about my wife - she is severely disappointed in herself. And so asking her these questions re-surfaces those feeling she has of shame and probably a good amount of self-loathing.

I talked with her last night. I’m still in AZ so it was safer for her not having to anticipate how I might react poorly I think. I read my questions. Told her I didn’t really want her to respond straight away. Then I emailed her the questions so she could go back to them if she needed.

She said she wants to review them with her IC who hates me anyway. The narrative there is that I’m a controlling narcissist and everything I do gets filtered through a lense of "control"

I’m going back home this week. I miss my daughter. I’ll be sleeping in the guest bedroom. My plan is to keep up with the gym and meditation and to just do everything I can to show up the way I want for my family.

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

Her point of view is that the state of the marriage when she cheated is what needs attention. If we can’t address our communication issues - what good is working through the A?

If that's her point of view, then you have nothing to work with at this point. Plenty of marriages have communication issues; plenty of people resolve those issues without having ONS. Unless she can explain how the ONS would've solved your problems (she can't), then I don't see how that's relevant.

Another way to think about it is to imagine that your marriage is a house and your communication issues are bad plumbing. Your wife could've asked you to fix the pipes, called a professional plumber to make repairs, or decided the house was so bad that she needed to move out. Instead, she burned it to the ground.

So now that you're standing on the smoldering rubble of your house, you ask "How could you burn down the house?!" Her response is: "I don't want to talk about how I burned down the house... I want to talk about how much I hated the bad plumbing and why that's your fault."

Does that make any sense to you?

She said she wants to review them with her IC who hates me anyway. The narrative there is that I’m a controlling narcissist and everything I do gets filtered through a lense of "control"

If your wife's IC hates you, then are 2 possible reasons: (1) she's correctly observed that you're not a good spouse and that remaining married to you is not in her client's best interest, or (2) your wife is bad-mouthing you to her IC and painting you in the worst possible light so the IC will validate feelings that she already has.

Either way, there's nothing to indicate in any of your posts that your wife is committed to remaining married to you. I think if she were to be honest with you and herself, she would admit that she wants to leave and work on making the split as painless as possible. I think the only way you can convince her to stay is if you agree to stop talking about the affair and sweep everything under the rug... which is both unhealthy and clearly impossible for you to do.

Lastly, what have you done to work on your sobriety?

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 6:10 PM, Monday, March 13th]

Add to that that she is in "The Fog". Unless I really don’t know a thing about my wife - she is severely disappointed in herself. And so asking her these questions re-surfaces those feeling she has of shame and probably a good amount of self-loathing.

That set of emotions is not what is typically being referred to by the "Affair Fog" or "the Fog". The Affair Fog is the altered perception of reality that is caused by the excitement and seeming thrill of the affair, like a flame might seem to a moth. An inability to see clearly how corrosive and destructive the affair really is, because of an over-arching desire for the thrill of it.

What you describe above, that's just plain old regret (not remorse). Feeling sorry for herself because she's experiencing the normal repercussions from the mess she's made.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 7:55 PM, Monday, March 13th]

I think triaging the pre-A marriage is totally worthwhile. While there is never a good reason to cheat, it's entirely possible the marriage is shitty enough without the A that it isn't worth saving. If either of you think it isn't worth saving, I agree that you should punt on reconciliation.

If you both agree it is worth saving, you have to heal from the A before you can actually work on those pre-A problems. That's just how it is. You can't undergo cancer treatment when you a bleeding from a stab wound in your back.