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This is my take on the 180. You find your happiness somewhere else. You do not ask her to participate. You do not ask what she is doing, where she is going, or with whom. You live your own life. You are not rude, you are just not interested. You are living as if alone. You take yourself out of the triangle that this affair has put you in. You start interviewing attorneys to see who best fits you. You get tested for STIs.
If she has become invested in another man then you are now under no obligation to be in her life.
If you really want to become committed to moving on try being a gray rock. That means no chitchat, no hugs, cuddles, kisses. You become so invisible that she barely sees you and you don’t react to ANYTHING except with a yes or a no. It is tough to do but it will give both of you the idea of what living apart will mean.

If she is dedicated to him and their affair please be prepared. She will leave.

I get it is about showing that you are moving on, doing things for you, and making a better person of yourself,

There is no ‘showing’ about it. It’s only for you, because through doing the work of the 180 correctly, you are focusing only on what you feel and think, the WS is irrelevant to the project of the 180, which is a fortification of the self rather than a wooing of the other.

are you not almost condoning the A by allowing it to continue.

Nothing you can do to make someone cheat and nothing to make them stop. The 180 is to remove yourself from it. When I was new here it seemed very counterproductive, but I went with the advice and cut her off, she was free to go.

This freaked her out because I was escaping the box she had me in. Your WW wants to run this and have you waiting on pins and needles to be chosen. Hell No!!! You are the prize time to show it.

The only way this gets "saved" is by letting her know you don't share your wife. She's free to go be with that guy, but not as your wife. Go 180 and start the divorce process.

The 180:

Really good explanations above, especially this:

Nothing you can do to make someone cheat and nothing to make them stop. The 180 is to remove yourself from it.

Cake eating cheaters require a certain amount of cooperation from their BS. They require you to play the pick-me dance, to coddle them, to withhold consequences, to door mat yourself, to rug sweep, to blame yourself, or otherwise enable the affair by fear based or false hope based inaction.

As Tanner and Cooley2 stated above, you’re removing yourself from the affair triangle. You’re refusing to be a co-operative in it.

You emotionally and physically place a protective boundary between you and the ongoing indignities.

You state your grievances and expectations, as Bigger well explained in his post above and then busy yourself with your escape contingency plan should she fail to meet your expectations.

Protecting your dignity is Job One and will provide for your best possible outcome should that be R or D.

If she does wish to return to the marriage, you have to ask yourself, do you want the old marriage back? It sounds like she checked out five years ago. Gotta get to the bottom of that. Got to get to the bottom of her fundamental whys, why she decided to just checkout and not fight for the marriage and, more importantly, why she decided to cheat vs the many other much more healthful, rational, safe, respectful, caring and productive forms of problem resolution.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 9:54 PM, Tuesday, April 18th]

Posts like yours make me remember how I felt when I was in your shoes - please know THIS WILL PASS. You will get through this...

I echo everyone else (or likely so as I have not read all responses). From my own experience, my WH was "in love" with the AP and was behaving much like your spouse aside from the sex which was more plentiful during the A than it ever was - gross. He has told me numerous times that he was convinced he was "done" with me and wanted to be with her - but after 2.5 years post-d-day (COVID messed up moving out sooner) when I finally did leave - that all changed.

One of the biggest pieces of advice I did not take immediately was to put my foot down and make the decision for him by - in my case, my leaving (the house was a pre-marriage asset of his so it was not mine to keep). Low and behold, when he finally realized I WAS leaving, he decided he wanted me to stay but it was never so clear until I bought my place and was getting ready to move.

It does NOT always work that way but it seems the best way to end an A is to end your own marriage on your terms. You can always take it back IF you and your WS are open to that.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 3:22 PM, Wednesday, April 26th]

man, I am so sorry. To me this stinks of a long term affair. Do you have the capacity to hire a PI and find out the extent of her affair ? Just for legal purposes. Or do you just want to go clean and terminate the relationship ?

You don't need to be fighting this as you enter your middle years ?

The fact that she is uncertain tells me you need to go into full protection mode , attorneys, ready to leave or force her to leave on a moments notice and the fact she's possibly spending time with him ?

Hire a PI if you are in an at fault state, do your own investigation at the same time and understand your marriage is probably done. Don't play the pick me dance. Just don't so it. Then figure out a separation plan and file for divorce.

Even if she comes back to you, you need a full understanding of what she has done and how she betrayed you and if she has crossed your boundaries that much, just end it.

She's been out with him, no sex for 5 years ? What does that tell you ?

Use your frustration over this to deal with this aggressively and constructively but not in a damaging way. Please don't feel the need to fight for her. You shouldn't have to. You are getting cheated on dude. Stop it and defend yourself.

The WS tells themselves so many lies that the really start believing the nonsense. The AP tells them how special and awesome they are.

Along comes the BS and say "what?" Then they can’t understand how you don’t see how special they are, and don’t believe the lies everyone else is buying. You are odd man out.

You have to shine light on how messed up their little fairy tale is, and refuse to be part of it.

I get it is about showing that you are moving on, doing things for you, and making a better person of yourself, but during this time are you not almost condoning the A by allowing it to continue.

This seems at odds with most of the advice on this thread about confronting the WW, and putting her in a position where she needs to make a decision now.

They are not at odds with each other. On the contrary, they work hand-in-hand with each other.

The confrontation is to let the WS know that you know, and that you will be heading in a certain direction to get you out of infidelity. The 180 is to help you stay on that path.

If you do the 180 without confronting, the WS may not know why you are behaving that way, and will keep on doing what they are doing (cheating).

The 180 varies from people to people. PERSONALLY, I think it just boils down to do what you need to do for your own sake in order to move on.

If you feel like being kind and responsive and friendly works for you then do that. If you feel like a cold shoulder is more of the way to go then do that. All in all it is for the sake of you being able to project the image of strength TO YOURSELF. The strength to move on, to heal, to walk away from someone you once held dear.

In your case, you feel like her being on the fence is not working for you and you do not want to wait so fucking tell her that times up. Time to make a choice. If she chooses you then you have a set of boundaries ALREADY set in place as to what you expect. If she chooses the OM then you know what to do. Do you know what to do now?

In all honesty, leaving you hanging is a bitch move. Hold on.. let me confide with the enemy of our marriage how I should achieve my maximum happiness. Totally zero upside to you my man.

If what you have said is true, I do not know what there it is to hold on. No sex, no kids, no love. Are you expecting something? A morsel of love? A morsel of sex? Are those morsels worth the shitty feeling you have by staying with a WW that just looked like the one you once loved?

You had 20 years with her. Walking away does not mean throwing the 20 years away. It wont every be thrown away. Just thank her for the good run and find your own happiness.

This seems at odds with most of the advice on this thread about confronting the WW, and putting her in a position where she needs to make a decision now.

It's more a statement that what she is doing is not ok and since it's not ok you are removing yourself from the acts and responsibilities of being her partner. To stop investing in someone who isn't as invested in you. If you were in active R it wouldn't be indicated, but although you might desperately want to R but as long as she is still in contact with her AP she is not a partner in R. She has clearly chosen AP over you. Since she's not a partner in R, the 180 allows you to begin healing and moving forward as you will be once the separation process is complete. A jump start on that new life in a way that helps minimize the abuse she is inflicting on you. You can spell this out to her before or after you initiate the 180. Or not at all. I feel a simple "you continue to choose AP over me and since that's not ok I am choosing to protect myself going forward. She knows what she is doing is wrong and hurtful to you, yet she's still doing it.

What triggers one person to do a hard 180 or to D is different from person to person. Your WW is denying you sex because she is having it with another man. That fact would be enough for most of us to get out of infidelity any way possible. I encourage you to find your strength and take action.

OP, I was "fortunate" that when I caught my WW, her A’s were basically over and she wanted nothing more than to R. Even with this, she lied, gaslit and withheld information from me…for years.

It sounds like your WW has made her decision and is enjoying two men pining over her. She’s a cake eater. I understand where you are coming from, you don’t want your M to end, you want to fix things, believe me, I had a lot of the same feelings after dday.

What I’ve learned over the last decade is wives that are actively cheating and "need time to figure out their feeling" are already checked out. Her love is with this new guy, you are a pay check and a soft place to land. Women that are actively cheating will not respect a weak man. I’m not saying you are weak, but she likely sees you this way.

My advice would be to inform her that you won’t continue to share your wife and that you are filing for divorce. Implement the 180, for you, to focus on you, not to win her back.

My WW had a long time, male friend as well. I suspected at least a one sided EA or a FWB thing but my wife maintains he never took her up when she offered sexual things. But, women that have these make orbiters around run the risk of cheating. This guy has been in her life a long time, there could be so much more to their history than you know.

The purpose of the 180 is not to manipulate her at all. Some people think it is used for that, but that is not the purpose.

The purpose is to start recovering your mental health. You will see it work this way when you implement it. It starts putting a small amount of distance between you two. It sort of starts reducing any co-dependency issues you might possibly have had.

Thanks everyone for your replies, I am reading them even if I do not post often.
I think I understand now about the 180 and I know that right now my total focus needs to be on my wellbeing/recovery. I have just started on meds and will begin group therapy shortly, both for long term issues, not caused by, but certainly not helped by recent events.

Right now I am not in the right state of mind to make any rational decisions.

So I am working on my health and if she makes a decision in the meantime I will deal with it, if not and when I am ready I will decide what is the best decision for ME.

Wishing you a good recovery. You are sounding supportive, determined and strong on your own behalf. Bravo! Very interested that you’re beginning group therapy, should be fascinating. Good luck 😊

Feeling bettter today, perhaps the Meds are kicking in, last few days have been rough with loads of side-effects from them. I went and had my hair coloured and I love it, also going out for lunch with some work colleagues today, not something I have done for a long time.

She has not really said much about any changes but did ask why I had my hair done and I just said that I wanted to do it, and it makes me feel happier, so I did it.

This morning she was trying to pick a fight about lots of nothing issues, but having read advice (probably somewhere on this website) about WS using this tactic to ease their guilt, and by following the rules of the tactical primer (excellent article by the way), I was polite but cool. She backed off when she realised I was not going to get into an argument about anything.

Good for you. Well Done!!!

I remember reading or hearing somewhere long ago that "the Enemy of Infidelity is UNPREDITABILITY", or something like that.

For instance, say you got all dressed up and start going out the door. She might say something like "Where are you going?". You respond in a nice and pleasant manner by saying something like "Somewhere". She might say something like "Where exactly?". You answer "I will know when I get there". At that point you disengage from the conversation and then go wherever it is you want to go.

The more unpredictable you become the more she will realize that you might not be around to welcome her with open arms should she decide that she that "You are the Prize". She will realize that she has to either fish or cut bait.

Remember, "You are the Prize". Good luck.

Good for you for refusing to engage in her nonsense.

Cheaters like to be in control. They go crazy when they are not.

Keep your eyes open for her next attempt to manipulate you. It’s coming.

My take on the 180:

R requires a lot of communication. The 180 limits communication. As long as R is a possibility, the 180 is the wrong tactic.

You can't find out if the R is a real possibility unless you talk. The probability of R succeeding shows up in the conversation. The talking is, in effect, a test: it shows whether or not you're good candidates for R.

While you're testing your WS, it's a good idea to figure out your requirements for R and your idea of an M that serves you both. R takes 2, and eventually you'll have to negotiate what R will look like. If you can't agree on the new M and the process for getting there, R won't work, and it's usually best to D if you differ too much on what you want.

Separate what you want from what you will do. I wanted R from the start. I fell for my W in 1965, and I never had any desire to split. After d-day, however, I realized I didn;t want to build a new M unless it was one that I wanted. As much as I wanted to R, I refused to sell myself out. If I had to stifle myself to stay M, I was gone, even though I felt I 'desperately' wanted R. That's what I mean by 'separate what you want from what you will do.'