SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My original post is in the General Forums about red flags. I suspect that my wife has cheated and I blew any chance I had of really gathering proof because I came out of the gate right way. I wish I had known about this forum sooner.

She has sworn that she has never been unfaithful and I just don't believe her. I don't want to break up my family unless I have proof, which may not happen. I was thinking though of telling her that we will need to have attorneys draft a post nuptial agreement that would basically say that if either spouse has or does commit infidelity then the divorce settlement would be heavily favored financially to the non cheating spouse.

We will be empty nesters in 2 years and I feel she may be just waiting until they are gone and then I would see what was really up. I figure if she has cheated she will not want to sign anything and if she hasn't why not. Would also benefit her financially in case of infidelity on my part.

Anyone ever done something like this or have any feed back?

I doubt any attorney would allow her to sign a retroactive agreement (innocent or not.) You can try to get her to sign one for infidelity going forward. What are you going to do if she refuses?

You're attempting R from what? From deciding that your suspicions were unfounded?

In my mind that would add to the feeling of her being unfaithful. Our marriage is not in a good place anyway. I think that my suspicion and questioning pushed her situation underground and she is harboring resentment towards me. I have never been insecure or non trusting in relationships, which is why I am having such a hard time not trusting my intuitions here.

Tough decisions ahead I believe.

Post Nup vary state to state. Some states require it to be fair and not signed under duress or coercion. By being fair, you might not be able to get any deal that slants one way or another, and it may end up as just agreement on custody, support, splitting of assets. I would talk to your lawyer in depth about it before slapping the table.

As far as your situation goes, I can relate entirely. I was in false R for a while, and completely in the dark about the full extent of my WWs affair, I only knew that something wasn’t right and the story wasn’t adding up. I felt the same way, I need proof in order to D, because I also didn’t want to break up my family on just a suspicion.

Here’s what I ask you, because I had the same epiphany. Is the marriage in its current state acceptable to you? From what I read, there is already more than enough. If you’re looking for evidence of her cheating when you have never before, you already know your answer. I have never read anyone’s story where their instinct was wrong, and they almost always find it’s way worse than they thought. I get jt, you want the solid answer.

If the feeling of there is more isn’t going away, as it clearly looks like it hasn’t, you have to do what is best for you. Can you keep going in this direction and be happy? I realized, no I couldn’t. I don’t believe the doubt/suspicions will go away for you, they most certainly didn’t for me. I made my decision based on what little I knew and said whatever it is or isn’t, this isn’t acceptable to me and I know enough to make my next move. So I made my exit plan and stopped working on my marriage. I didn’t care about R anymore, because I knew I wasn’t actually in R, I just didn’t want to believe it. That was the best decision I made in this whole ugly mess.

I get it, you want the solid answer.

What if the solid answer is that she didn't cheat? There's no way for her to prove that, so you continue to treat her with suspicion until you run your marriage into the ground.

If my husband treated me like I had cheated when I hadn't, our marriage wouldn't be in good shape either. And then if he came to me asking me to sign a pre-nup with an infidelity clause, I'd tell him to stick it where the sun don't shine.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:43 PM, Thursday, July 27th]

SacredSoul,

You make a good point, and i should add that I am making an assumption that she has, I absolutely do have a bias. From my personal experience, and from the 1000s of posts/blogs etc that I have read it almost always is more when ever a spouse has a suspicion, but I have to admit that it has given me a serious bias towards these situations.

And I absolutely agree with you, if she really hasn’t done anything being constantly accused of it would grind it into the ground and kill the relationship.

With infidelity though, I’ve seen it repeatedly, instinct is right, and the suspicion isn’t unfounded. It’s a terrible spot to be in, I know because I was there.

HINHF, I'm sorry. I wasn't directing that at you.

I followed OP's other post about his suspicions about his wife. The conclusion seemed to be that he was chalking it up to false alarms.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=660994&HL=83407

I'm a little confused about woodsracer's history, but I think he's been married twice, and W1 was a pretty terrible wayward. If that's the case, I'm betting there's some unresolved stuff from his first marriage that is making his gut hypersensitive and is possibly causing him to misread things with W2.

woodsracer, is the wife you describe in your first comment in this thread your current wife, or a former wife?:

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=661254&HL=83407

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 9:38 PM, Thursday, July 27th]

I have only been married one time. Prior to red flags I have never been even mildly insecure about cheating, never been the jealous type. This all started with the events I mentioned in my other post. My wife's actions caused legitimate concerns for me. I was not smart in my thinking when I saw the red flags and blew any chance I had of getting good info. I am trying to reconcile the marriage based off of what I know and feel. I know she had a lot of nude photos of herself on her phone, most of which I had never seen. I know she showed a nude photo of herself to someone and was very comfortable in doing so. I know she got home one night at 2:45 am when place she said she was closed and 12. This was when covid was an issue so most places stayed open longer than county mandated times. But still a red flag to me.

I am in a very difficult spot here because I don't want to disrupt my children's lives with a divorce, IF, I am not 100% sure she cheated. I had a very unstable childhood, moved out when I was 16 and basically had to figure out what kind of man I wanted to be and what kind of life I wanted for my family, which was a stable household with parents in a stable marriage. So I take breaking it up very seriously. My wife knows most of the shit I went through in my child hood, so she knows that infidelity would be a deal ender. I believe she cheated, I believe she was mostly very smart about it, I believe she knows that if I have proof I will divorce her. I am starting to think she is waiting for kids to go off to college and then go from there.

I want to believe she didn't cheat. I want this to be the person I grow old with.

I guess my idea of the post nup with the infidelity clause is to try and flush out the truth. The sole purpose of it would be drastically financially penalize a wayward spouse. I figure if she were to agree to it she probably didn't cheat. I am the primary breadwinner by 8x and she only worked last 1.5 years of marriage, owned real estate prior to our marriage and have inherited a bit of money during the marriage. My financial contributions are basically everything we have financially. For 19 years I saw us as a team. I no longer view us that way and I do miss that.

Maybe typing through this is therapeutic for me in some way. I am able to work through things in my mind while typing and getting lots of perspectives from everyone taking their time to reply to my post.

Have you considered asking her to take a poly? Frame it as, "Honey I know in all likelihood you are completely innocent. Unfortunately something in my gut keeps eating me alive. Would you be willing to do this poly to help me crush my gut’s ‘false’ ideas so we can move forward with a great relationship?"

I see what happened. I think you meant to quote someone else, but it appeared as though you wrote it.

(On this thread.) https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=661254&HL=83407

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 11:22 PM, Thursday, July 27th]

I think you're trying to get a guarantee that your wife didn't cheat, but there's no way to prove a negative. My recommendation would be to table this, trust but verify, and decide that you will deal with infidelity when and if it rears its ugly head.

ETA: This isn't a bad idea:

Have you considered asking her to take a poly? Frame it as, "Honey I know in all likelihood you are completely innocent. Unfortunately something in my gut keeps eating me alive. Would you be willing to do this poly to help me crush my gut’s ‘false’ ideas so we can move forward with a great relationship?"

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 11:32 PM, Thursday, July 27th]

She would not do a poly. Pre nup she would if she didnt cheat.

woodracer,

I am a corporate lawyer, so I don't practice family law, but if your state allows post-nuptial agreements AND actually enforces them, to be valid your wife will need separate, competent legal counsel. I can not imagine her lawyer allowing a retrospective act of infidelity to trigger the terms of a post-nuptial agreement; if they do, that is proof they weren't competent. If she doesn't have separate counsel, in most states that fact will render the post-nuptial unenforceable. If you could include past acts, imagine the negotiation between you and your wife to define the past acts of infidelity in sufficient detail which would trigger the terms. Mind boggling. If your marriage is rough now, the discussion around your idea will push it over the edge. You seem to think that she will suddenly have to tell you the truth. Much more likely is that she will not even entertain it. It may even push her to file first. During the divorce she will use this and your distrust to justify going all out to get everything she can, even in a no fault state where everything is 50/50. Parties to a divorce that run up legal fees just to torment the other partner is not uncommon. Even if they get less, they are angry.

If you really have decided that you can't see yourself staying in this marriage, you should be working to make the split as amicable as possible. You haven't found real proof and your continuing to antagonize your wife will not help you in a divorce settlement. If you are going to divorce, forget about trying to force a confession and get tactical and focus on preparing for divorce. I am not a proponent of divorce but you seem to have decided that absent a confession you see no other way forward.

She would not do a poly.

Have you asked her?

I am in a very difficult spot here because I don't want to disrupt my children's lives with a divorce, IF, I am not 100% sure she cheated.

Exactly how do you think any D would NOT disrupt your kids' lives?

I had a very unstable childhood, moved out when I was 16 and basically had to figure out what kind of man I wanted to be and what kind of life I wanted for my family, which was a stable household with parents in a stable marriage.

Stable strikes me as an unworthy goal. After all, you could stabilize in a relationship in which you both hate each other but continue to live together.

Could your worries be due to the insecurity left over from your childhood? Have you worked with an IC to separate what you think, feel, and do today from the ways you decided you should act as a child? Have you considered a MC session or 2 in which you tell your W that you have a terrible, gnawing fear of her having cheated, and you'd like her help getting over it?

What will you do if she did cheat?

Have you considered what would prove to you that she didn't cheat? I ask that because if you don't know, you're setting yourself up to D.

If you need a poly and your W refuses, then what?

I'm very sorry you're in this dilemma. It's your dilemma, though, and my reco is to work on yourself first - not because you're to blame, but because your thinking about this is a big barrier to feeling joy.

SI should have a LIKE button. I'd like the heck out of sisoon's post. Very well said.

Too Old,

Thank you for the reply, we are in a no fault state and my thinking would be to have a post nup and list any prior inappropriate items as excluded, still thinking through it and if I even broach it.

Sisoon,

Divorce would impact my kids, I am not willing to do that unless I have actual proof.

I appreciate your comment on "stable", gives me something to really think about.

If I were to find out that she had been unfaithful, I would end the marriage. For a period of time I was in amnesty mode with it.

I don't think a post nup helps you

Our marriage is not in a good place anyway. I think that my suspicion and questioning pushed her situation underground and she is harboring resentment towards me.

Time to move your discovery phase underground also, if you didn't find anything then either D or stay the course, watch her closely because cheaters get comfortable and sloppy, if there is infidelity and you are on alert, you will find it.

Hey Woods!

I think SacredSoul33 and sisoon have been guiding you along with some stellar advice here.

It is obvious that you have two dilemmas fueling one another.

On one hand, you have past experience with infidelity that has caused you to feel pain. Such an experience, as we all know too well, is likely to color the way you look at the world in general.

On the other hand, your wife has engaged in some inappropriate behaviors that, while they do not rise to the level of infidelity per your evidence, are bound to be very triggering to anyone with such a perspective.

I am wondering Woods, if it may not be high time for you to just sit down with your wife and simply have a very open discussion about the current state of your marriage. I believe that you mentioned that the both of you may have been in a bit of a rut even before your specific suspicions about infidelity took hold?

Forge a discussion that is non-confrontational. Frame it in such a way that you are talking because you want to improve your relationship by developing more closeness and hopefully pull yourselves out of the stalemate that you are in for the sake of your family. Make it clear to her that your questioning of her boundry issues as of late comes out of this concern to heal your relationship, not to lay any unjustified blame at her feet. Then, invite her to express any dissatisfactions that she may be having.

You could have this discussion within the framework of marriage counseling if need be.

Or better yet, take a long weekend or maybe even a vacation (if finances and scheduling permit) where you can be alone and have some fun together. Relax. Reconnect. In a setting like this, tensions will be lowered which may be more conducive to having such a discussion. It may just be the re-set that your partnership needs.

This advice may seem a little trite, but I think it would be more effective at this point than polygraphs and post-nuptual agreements. These, in my view, are only going to sew further awkwardness between you and your wife ongoing.

With the way you are approaching it now, it seems like you are working overtime to fit the crime to the scant amount of evidence that you have (instead of the other way around). This is just leading you into a self-fulfilling divorce prophecy.

Either way, I wish you luck!

Keep us updated.