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I caught my W of 15 years, sexting with her boss.

I am 43, she is 44. My W was my first real girlfriend, and she is a wonderful, smart, confident, independent and professionally very successful woman. Over the last 15 years we have built a great life together with 2 beautiful kids, nice house, and are financially stable. I'm not the most emotionally expressive guy and my W does not a have a big sexual appetite. She has reached out to me several times over the years stating she needed more from me emotionally, and wanted to to feel wanted. I found it difficult to satisfy her needs, and mostly ignored it since i thought everything else we had going for ourselves (kids, house, money) was good enough. I also did not push her for more sexual intimacy either. Instead, i prided myself in being a supportive husband to an ambitious woman, who grew in her career over time.

Anyways, caught her red handed sexting with her current boss. My world came crashing down. Following things happened next:
- She immediately broke it off with the guy, promising to change jobs as soon as she can.
- Seeing my anguish in the initial days, she was genuinely remorseful on what she had done.
- After the initial peak of hurt, as I thought about what next, it was clear we couldn't separate, at least for the kids (9 and 11)
- We had long conversations over the next few days, where we discussed why it happened, what happened, when did it start, what led to it, etc.
- As we got more open with each other, we realized we hardly knew the other person in the marriage.
- This was quite pleasantly unexpected. Helped us to plan how to fix the marriage and move on. Kind of like a second marriage to the same person.

All good so far.

However, there are some red flags over the course of her affair, i would like opinion on.

1. According to her story, although there was attraction between her and her boss for a while, the full blown messaging was relatively recent. She's always talked to me about work and mentioned several times what a good boss he is. We've met together with family a couple of times too. However, when the sexting started I was a bit suspicious, as she would be on her phone a lot, hiding from view, smiling, etc. Once when i had to use her phone for something, i noticed all chat history with her boss deleted. Which was odd. I teased her about this and also told her I trusted her, since she knows what's at stake. She laughed it off saying it was nothing, in turn teasing me if I was jealous. We left it at that.

So, she knew what she was doing something wrong, got warned about it, got reminded of the consequences, but instead tried to turn it around and blame me for jealousy.

My Interpretation: Of course, she was trying to protect and continue her affair. It felt too good for her to stop, even at the risk of her being almost caught and reminded of the consequences. Or she thought, she would never get caught. Was she really ready to risk it all?

2. Just before she got caught, we were on a family vacation planned long time ago. At this time the sexting was in full swing. She would be on her phone a lot, and when the kids were away would come over to me and be overly affectionate. Literally having messaged something like "Missing you..... Cannot wait to be back......." and then coming over to me give me a passionate kiss.

My Interpretation: I found this to be a bit psychopathic, she says she felt guilty. It would make much more sense to me if she ignored me or did her sexting privately.

Hey- your story is not too dissimilar from mine. Have a few years on you though both in age and length of marriage. But the basic context is very similar- wife who was non-communicative about what she was emotionally missing in our relationship. All else, kids, home, lifestyle seemed fine.

However, there is a fundamental difference in my wife's story, she was in a full-blown, virtual EA with some random person (married with kids of course too) she met on a gaming app in another state rather than someone she worked with. Eventually moved from the app to texting.

When I finally caught it, I was able to look at the phone records, deeply into her phone and other devices and am certain they never actually spoke with one-another (or met of course, but it was starting to track in that direction). Keeping it to texting/sexting her feeling "safe" about what she was doing.

However, while she was carrying-on with this guy, unbeknownst to me, she had randomly met some guy at a bar and what was just "some kissing" when she finally confessed based on what I'd uncovered, evolved into a full make-out session, "but nothing more". Yeah right. But I have no proof that anything more actually happened so I'm struggling with how much of the truth do I really have and does it really matter at this point. All of this activity took place within about a 5-6 month period, just took quite some time for it to all come-out (typical trickle truth).

She was clearly in a very dark place for about 6 months. Not an excuse, but everything that went on seems to have been book-ended within a 6-month period.

My point is, and I think others with more wisdom (and experience sadly) will reinforce... cheaters lie. They lie directly and they lie by omission. Unless they have some kind of epiphany, they will ONLY ever admit to what they have been caught doing and then when caught, they will do their best to minimize and divert, until a new piece of evidence comes to you. Then they will re-calibrate their lies to fit the new evidence.

I'm sad to say, I doubt very much it was only an EA if they were in physical proximity and had opportunity. So be careful if you feel you've gotten to the bottom of things. When a BS thinks that, that's typically when the bottom falls out.

There's going to be a lot of advice you're going to get but one of the best is to get her to write out a complete timeline with details. You'll get a lot of, "I don't remember"... but do your best to get it and then see how it aligns with what you know is reality. Typically, that's where their story starts to unravel. My WW's timeline of things went from... just met him, to... it has been going on for about 3 months to finally the 6 month reality when I could prove it with phone records. A second big piece of advice that I totally failed at is, if you gather evidence, NEVER reveal where it came from.

Others will come along with a lot more advice, but I wish I'd found this place sooner and had those two fundamental pieces of advice and adhered to them.

To your point, why would they risk everything... that's the million dollar question they need to figure out for themselves. They truly live in an alternate reality while it's going. My WW genuinely believed it would never come out and that it was a bit of fun, something for her because she was emotionally unhappy that would 'fissile-out" (her words). There's a lot of overlap with addictive behaviors and affairs (the chemical dopamine hits their brain get from it, etc.).

Take care of yourself, take care of your kids. Take time. No rash decisions.

I came close to filing D twice, but walked back. We’re in R and it’s not easy. She has demonstrated genuine remorse (not just regret) and is doing ‘some’ of the work to make me feel safe again, but she should be doing more to really understand her "why". Regardless, I have solid boundaries that she understands and am taking things day by day right now.

Best of luck.

[This message edited by dontlookbackinanger at 3:18 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Your communication post DDay is encouraging. Regarding your two concerns:

1) waywards know they are wrong whether something reminds them of that directly or not. And waywards almost always lie and cover up when possibly being asked about behavior. Your WW acted just like the typical wayward there. Dontlookbackinanger mentioned dopamine hits and yeah, your WW was enjoying it wnd wanted more. In her mind, you hadn't actually caught her yet so why stop? And this leads us to your second point and why her rationale for it seems false to me. She didn't feel guilty enough to stop when you almost caught her so I don't believe she felt guilty when texting right in front of you either.

2) Some waywards completely compartamentalize and some don't. Your WW clearly did not,,particularly with the social events you seem to mention where both families were there. As I just referenced, I think her explanation about kissing you passionately after sexting her boss on vacation is either a lie or she doesn't really understand how she felt/hasn't grappled with the reality that she could be the person who did that right in front of her husband. So if her reason for kissing you isn't guilt, what might it be? My mind jumps to she was turned on. By what is a question... by sexting with her boss is the obvious answer. Dig deeper and maybe she kissed you just because she was turned on and her boss wasn't there. It also could be about wanting to be desirabe sexually and having two men desire her is better than one. It also could be the thrill of doing it right in front of you excited her. Who knows? Well, she might know or she might not. If she does work to understand her behavior and why she had the A at all she might also lewrn what she was really feeling. Or she knows already and just does not want to tell you or even admit it to herself. But I for one do not believe it was purely from guilt. Is she in IC?

Last, inherent in my answer to your second point you will see that I believe there is a very high chance they were having sex. It is possible they had not progressed that far yet of course. But people who work together usually have lots of opportunities to get physical. Do you have proof she didn't? Did you read all the texts? Did you see the phone records and how long they had been texting frequently? Was there evidence in the texts that they had not had sex? If you have no proof they didn't then she is pretty likely lying about it.

Is her boss married? When she gets a new job you need to consider informing his wife and HR at their company.

[This message edited by Trdd at 3:52 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

PeaceOff,

Since it is her boss I would go to personnel and get him fired, or threaten a lawsuit, or blackmail the guy, or tell him he can avoid exposure if you tie him to a chair and punch his lights out.

Save off all the evidence you can and hand deliver it to his WW or SO and everyone in his life who has any connection to him.

And generally an intense sexting affair has also already been physical, particularly when they see each other every damn workday. Expect everything your WW say to be a minimization, lie or omission.

Get tested for STDs the boss and possibly your WW have likely had other affairs withe other women.

Also expect your WW and OM have conducted this affair for much longer than you know.

Have your WW write out a detailed timeline then take her for a polygraph. You will likely see intense fear in your WW eyes when you mention it.

[This message edited by survrus at 4:45 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

First, nothing you did, or didn't do caused her to cheat.

Second, these things are very rarely not physical, when distance isn't a factor. Married men don't enter into affairs to send sweet texts,and flirt. They're in it for the sex.

You need the truth.

You also need to call his wife,and tell her. She deserves to know. Don't tell your wife, she will warn him. He will tell his wife you are unhinged, and abusive,so she won't listen to you when you speak to her.

The way forward? If you want to attempt reconciliation, you need to make certain requirements. They should,at minimum, be..

Complete timeline of the affair.

Complete transparency. You get full access to all accounts, including the phone. All passwords.

She must be completely honest at all times.

She quits her job. Immediately.

Both of you get tested for stds.

She answers all of your questions without anger or defensiveness. And zero blameshifting.

She gets IC to figure out why she did this.

And anything else you need to begin to feel safe.

Don't rugsweep. If things are "going great" this soon after dday, you are rugsweeping.

Call his wife. Telling the OBS is the single best thing a BS can do,if they are attempting reconciliation.

[This message edited by HellFire at 5:25 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

I know some of these responses are hard to hear and not what you were hoping. However, I have to agree with them all. Folks here have been through what you are going through and they unfortunately have so much experience with this kind of stuff….
Telling the other man’s wife is a good idea. It’s the right thing to do. And it will stop whatever is going on between your wife and him. They are playing with fire and their emotions are very high right now. Hormones, lust, excitement. All of that is hard to stop because it feels good. They know it’s wrong but they just don’t want to stop. They have to be forced to stop. And it means bringing it to light. Please do tell the wife but do not let your wife know. It is the only way your reconciliation is going to work. I am sorry you are here and I am sorry we cannot give you an easier way out.

I’m back for another round of 2 cents. Re-reading your post, it hits so close to home for me.

The ‘teasing’ about the boss’ texts. My WW and I have a very close relationship with one of our neighbor couples a good 15-20 years younger than us (we’re not terribly old mind you). I want to predicate this be saying there was NOTHING ever going on between my WW and this husband. He is a dear friend and like a younger brother to me. In fact, when the excrement hit the fan, he was right there for me and was so shocked by it all. But my point is that my wife and he had a very friendly, texting relationship… just the two of them. I never thought anything of it of course, why would I? BUT my tease to her was always something like, "oh, texting your boy-toy again". This really raised her hackles and then she would become very defensive saying things like, "what?! I can’t have male friends?!". This was going on during that 5-6 month period of her EA and her ‘acting-out’ with this guy she met at the bar.

When everything (at least everything I know of) came to light, I said to her… "guess I got the wrong boy-toy". One of my hard boundaries now is "no, you CANNOT have male friends, you’ve lost that right." She breaks that (among other boundaries) and we’re done.

I suspect you may also hear (or have heard), "I was so unhappy, how did you not see it?". What am I an f’ing mind reader?! Act like an adult and communicate. I told her never in a million years did I think I needed to be looking for something like this.

About your "W not having a big sexual appetite… " this is probably going to hurt, but I think you’ll find she did have a bigger sexual appetite than you knew about, just not with you. And who knows why? It may not be about you exactly... maybe it was the excitement of getting freaky with someone entirely new... but very hard not to take that reality personally.

My WW and I got to a point where I kind of gave-up initiating because I was often rebuffed. You read about it and sometimes people (not just women mind you) go through a phase in their life where the simply lose interest. With everything else going on in our lives, I chalked it up to some kind of ‘phase’ and felt we’d come back around to it. We both totally failed to communicate on that aspect of our relationship. Again, not an excuse, but some added context.

While my WW and I have restored that part of our intimacy to some degree, it’s a really a tough reality to process what she was suddenly so willing to do some pretty wild things (if only virtually- maybe physically too, again, I don’t have all the truth I’m sure) and couldn’t bring herself to talk to me about those needs.

And, what the others have said is all spot on. Hellfire’s list in particular. Now is not the time to be nice.

My WW insisted I not contact the EA AP. F’ that. I did. He wisely never answered but through texts I sent I made it abundantly clear what would happened if he didn't exit our lives and stay gone and what would happen if our paths ever crossed. Unfortunately because they both used fake names and he was using a burner phone app, which went dead very quickly, I was never able to find his SO. The guy from the bar, I did talk to him, think I scared the crap out of him. But a blessing, they moved clear across the country within a month or so of the incident. I did have his wife’s details and after much work in IC, I finally reached-out to her and let he know what happened. No response back, but they absolutely have the right to know. And I feel much better about that.

Was it just those two? It’s likely I will never know. One of the many sucky things about all this is that it completely re-writes your history- at least in your brain. If she was capable of this now, who’s to say it didn’t happen before? I used to travel a crap-load for work- plenty of opportunity.

No one here is meaning to be overly harsh, but we’ve all been through varying degrees of this and it comes from a genuine want to help others.

You’re in for a rough ride I think, because it feels to me (and probably others) you've only experienced the tip of the iceberg at this point... so just be prepared.

[This message edited by dontlookbackinanger at 7:49 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

2. Just before she got caught, we were on a family vacation planned long time ago. At this time the sexting was in full swing. She would be on her phone a lot, and when the kids were away would come over to me and be overly affectionate. Literally having messaged something like "Missing you..... Cannot wait to be back......." and then coming over to me give me a passionate kiss.

My Interpretation: I found this to be a bit psychopathic, she says she felt guilty. It would make much more sense to me if she ignored me or did her sexting privately.

I had an EA that never progressed to a PA. I think she's telling you the truth that her guilt made her heap attention on you, but it was probably also propelled by titillation from the texts. She may have even rationalized it a bit by thinking that sexting with him could help her sex life with you. (Logic isn't an active wayward's strong suit. lol)

I also agree with those who said that it's likely that a progression to PA either happened or was on the verge of happening. It sounds like you may have caught it early enough that it hadn't gone there yet, but I would definitely be wondering if I had the whole truth if I were in your shoes.

You may wish to wait until your W has secured employment elsewhere, but the boss' wife needs to be told. My H continued to work at the same company as his AP, but they didn't have to interact much so I didn't require that he find a new job. If your W is the AP's subordinate and has to work with him closely, I think I'd be pretty demanding about her leaving that job immediately.

That gnawing doubt is your gut telling you you don't have the truth.

Sacredsoul..I'm not saying emotional affairs don't exist. I said the goal,for a man who is married, is sex. I say that based in experience, but also based on the hundreds of threads we have had on SI, about affairs,and sex. Men view sex differently than women,based on their comments on this site.

HellFire, I 100% agree with you. I'm trying to figure what I wrote that indicates otherwise!

The AP in my EA dumped me like a hot potato when I refused to progress from EA to PA. I suspect that most wayward men would do the same if their AP was in close proximity and was only interested in an EA. I actually typed that out and then backspaced over it because I was worried about making a generalization about men, even though I think the generalization is pretty accurate.

Like I said above, it's likely that a PA had started or was about to start. If I were PeaceOff, I would be highly suspicious of her telling me that it was solely an EA.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 7:36 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Agree with HellFire on both counts.

The "gnawing" is your gut telling you there is more. I can't think of a time when mine was wrong about my WW's affair/s. And for a man in an affair, at the end of the day it's about sex. I can't believe any other way.

When I caught my WW's texts they had gotten to the point where there were dates starting to be put out there about possibly meeting. Again, states apart, but WW would be somewhat near AP's general location for a completely unrelated trip. At that time they hadn't shared each others EXACT locations, but that would have changed obviously had this progressed any further. Regardless, the AP would've had to drive several hours or take a short flight to be in the same location.

When my WW tried the minimizing argument that it was about meeting this person and "getting to know one another in person finally...." I told her what a bunch of b.s.!

No guy, engaged in the online activities they were doing, would drive that far or get on a plane and not expect sex. Period. It's that simple. I told her I'm a guy, and were dumb like that. Was she really trying to convince me otherwise?! This was met by prolonged silence and then a meek agreement on her part that that could be possibly what he might expect. Which also revealed my WW's real intentions as well should that trip and meeting ever have happened.

While your WW and her AP didn't have to drive hours or get on a plane, in my mind, that makes it far more likely that, if it hasn't happened already, they were on the verge of a PA.

[This message edited by dontlookbackinanger at 7:47 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

I think i caught them too early for a PA, but I'm fairly certain it was fast heading down that way. In fact they were already making plans to take a long drive when the AP's wife would be out. Although my W initially denied this, but on further probing she didn't completely rule it out.

The other thing that annoys me as we work through this is, for the last 15 years my W has played to role of emotional high priestess. Knowing the right words to say, telling me how i should be expected to respond, what she needed, etc. etc.

Now that she has been caught red handed, I tell her that her moral compass is flawed and maybe she should introspect on what her core values are. She gets very upset when her character is questioned. I guess she too needs time to process her emotions and actions, but would probably have a better answer when she has time to think about it.

I also agree, that I'm rushing into the fixing mode. Right now, it hurts too much. I need some distraction to think about what the future could possibly hold.

So his wife knows it was an affair? Have you spoken to her,and confirmed this?

That she gets upset when her character is questioned is a sign that she is regretful she was caught, but not remorseful. That's a problem.

What is she doing to find a new job?

As long as they work together, you have no idea if the affair has continued.

You can't fix this. You didn't break it.

What work is she doing on herself, to become a safe partner?

The only thing you should be doing right now,is taking care of yourself, and the kids. Watch her actions. They will tell you if she is reconciliation material.

She gets very upset when her character is questioned. I guess she too needs time to process her emotions and actions, but would probably have a better answer when she has time to think about it.

She thinks she's a good person who did a bad thing, and that probably really is true, but something in her allowed her to betray you, compromise her morals (assuming that her morals prohibit sexting while married,) risk her family's wellbeing, and participate in harming the OBS and her children. Either she bypassed the roadblocks her character threw up, or her character isn't all that stellar to begin with, but either way she needs to dig into that and figure out why she let it happen. And she likely needs to do that with an IC.

She thinks she's a good person who did a bad thing, and that probably really is true, but something in her allowed her to betray you, compromise her morals (assuming that her morals prohibit sexting while married,) risk her family's wellbeing, and participate in harming the OBS and her children.

"I’m not a bad person, I did bad things" is probably the most triggering thing my WW can say. The simplest definition of "bad person" is "one who does harm to others". Being cheated on is the most harmful/painful thing I have ever experienced. It surpasses all the deaths of loved ones, tragedies and hardships in my life. Wouldn’t the person who inflicted this harm on me be a "bad person"? Also, the behaviors went on for 20 years. Don’t "bad people" do "bad things repeatedly"? She also harmed 5 OBS’s and their kids. Caused one divorce. Harm…

People don’t like to be the "villain" of their story. Darth Vader probably didn’t consider himself the villain either. I told my wife "you may not consider yourself the villain in your story but I CERTAINLY consider you the villain in mine". That caused a lot of self reflection and finally an admission as to part of her "whys" being "she didn’t have any morals".

Edit for some additional contex:

My goal isn’t to shame my WW. It is to get her to accept reality. If she is hung up on “I did bad things” and cheating being an anomaly (which is hard to do when you are a serial cheater), it is minimization IMO and she isn’t facing the root causes. Maybe saying she has “character flaws” is more apt but I am reacting to her direct phrasing. Maybe you have to admit you are a “bad person” before you can fix what’s broken and become a “better person”? JMPO and based on MY situation.

Anyway, not trying to thread Jack here.

PeaceOff. Don’t try to talk yourself into minimizing the situation. You say you caught them before the affair had a chance to "go physical". You may have caught them before intercourse (or not) but there are many, many other physical steps on the way to that that can be crossed easily in offices, stairwells, lunches outside the office, etc. Don’t accept offhand this isn’t physical and press for a complete disclosure and polygraph. "Righteous Indignation" is usually a smokescreen for very unrighteous behavior.

[This message edited by ImaChump at 11:26 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Good grief! The way you describe your WW fits mine to a "T". Mine’s profession in particular makes everything all the more ironic since it requires her to be extraordinarily understanding, sympathetic and empathetic. She has always used those talents ‘against’ me when we would get into emotionally charged discussions.

But this wiped that sheen right off her for me.

I explained it like a Ven diagram of "context" (the state of our relationship) meeting "opportunity" (stumbling onto this person online and both of them feeding into one-another) meeting "character" and her character failed her.

She did not like to hear that at first, very defensive. But in fairness to her, over time, she has come around on that. I do believe she is remorseful vs. regretful… now.

To SacredSoul’s point, I described it as her moral breaks failed her because other couples find themselves in similar contexts with similar opportunities, but their character hits the breaks on going down the path she chose.

In fact, I told her, somewhere in there is the person I knew (or at least thought I knew) and fell in love with who could never risk all this and inflict this level of pain and trauma on the person and people they are supposed to love the most, no matter what the circumstances.

But maybe I was simply wrong on that and as SacredSoul pointed out, this was always her character and it just had never been put under this kind of stress before. Who knows? Right now, she just needs to demonstrate she is a safe partner for this to work long-term.

Again, so many similarities with your situation and all I can say is it’s very early for you and I just feel from what you’ve said there are more shoes to fall. As ImaChump points out, PA doesn't necessarily mean full on intercourse sex. Not trying to kick you when you're down, but hard to imagine there were NO "stolen moments" considering they worked together. You need to decide what a PA is to you before she tries to... "just a kiss, nothing really..."

As HellFire says, you can’t fix this situation or her. As much as you might want to shake her asking her "what the hell were you thinking?!"… hoping that will bring some sense to her. They need to get there on their own and you need to have boundaries and consequences if they break them.

Always easier said than done, especially at the start of the shit-storm.

[This message edited by dontlookbackinanger at 10:13 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Being cheated on is the most harmful/painful thing I have ever experienced. It surpasses all the deaths of loved ones, tragedies and hardships in my life. Wouldn’t the person who inflicted this harm on me be a "bad person"?

I agree that infidelity traumatized me much worse than deaths of loved ones or anything else that's happened to me in my life, but I can't categorize my H as a "bad person." He's done lots of bad things and he's done lots of good things. He's a complicated, fallible, dysfunctional human who's still working on being a better person.

As ImaChump points out, PA doesn't necessarily mean full on intercourse sex. Not trying to kick you when you're down, but hard to imagine there were NO "stolen moments" considering they worked together.

Agree. Though it IS possible that there wasn't anything physical, the odds aren't great. But hey, she could be like me - she could have enjoyed the titillation of sexting, but never wanted to take it physical. I mean, I spent the night in a hotel room with my AP at a convention and never touched him, hand to God. It's possible, but not probable. I think I'm the anomaly.

PeaceOff,

I assume her sexting involved masturbation which makes this a very physical affair.

Particularly in light of the fact that you've had a dead bedroom for some time now, which renders her reasons for no or little sex lies.

Get the truth now no matter how much it hurts or how much she objects.

You'll thank yourself 10 or 20 years from now

I absolutely thought I caught them before PA. It was also a boss/employee. Eight years later he confessed full on PA. The AP kept it pretty "chaste" like the soulless creature she was. She was also very religious (I don’t really know how that factored into her choices), she wore a crucifix, kept asking my husband/her boss "is this bad?". Like, yeah I think it’s pretty bad to go after a father of three young kids, but you do you! Anyway, like SacredSoul said there are just a lot of opportunities in that boss/employee situation. The way my husband tricked me - which I offer up to you to consider in light of the story it sounds like you are getting — was he told me she tried to kiss him a few days before he terminated her employment. I am thinking now of how you said you saw the text chain deleted—when did this REALLY start? When my husband finally confessed last year it turned out the real story was the first kiss had happened three months before. There was no texting so no paper trail for me to catch any lies. They did it all IRL in the office. Truly gross behavior IMO but maybe thats just me being bitter. His story remains that she wouldn’t let him go further than second base. He tried and desperately wanted a BJ. Wanted sex too but was a little more afraid of that, plus they didn’t have the privacy. He could absolutely still be lying but then why confess all this stuff now. Unless he is a sadist, which mostly I don’t believe.

On the issue of bad person. I’m a psychiatrist so I hear a lot of "personal truths" from people, kinda like a secular priest. I’m convinced EVERYBODY is a combination of good and bad. The percentages of each are different. But, there is also the phenomenon of people being their "worst selves". For whatever reason at this moment in time her worst self came out. That question of why now is worth exploring. In the first three years post-d-day my husband was all about the unmet needs, dead bedroom, etc etc. I was receptive to this and did a lot of work to improve our marriage because I thought he had held back from the true PA. What a great guy! She tried to kiss you and you said no! Let me bend over backwards trying to fix everything I did wrong in the marriage. Turns out he actually went humming right along with that PA. Once I realized that the whole unmet needs thing was over. On some level I think cheaters know that will happen. Once you really know what they did—and it is like almost 90% of the time pretty freakin bad—you are no longer empathetic toward their hurt feelings in the pre-A marriage. Cause once you know what they really did you realize there is absolutely no excuse possible. You were feeling a little hurt so you decided to burn my house down with me and our children in it. Yeah, thats fair. At this point my husband is so so ashamed that (a) he did this (b) he lied about it for so long and (c) he tried to blame me.

I hate to put you in the position of needing to make this situation even more hellish than it already is, but I wish I had called bullshit on his story 8 years ago. If you have the strength I would try to get more out of her. Would it have worked in my case? Would he have come out with the truth then? I doubt it. He was running scared, terrified he had blown up his family, his job, his reputation, his whole life. He was in extreme damage control. I probably could have strapped him to a chair and tortured him and he wouldn’t have come out with it.

Most important point is I am so sorry this happened to you. None of this was your fault. There is no perfect spouse, you did your best. Her character flaws caused this. She may or may not be ready to face this. If she is not, and she keeps lying, you will have to decide if you can extend her the grace and patience to do her best to support you in your despair. I don’t regret that I gave him the chance to mature and become a better person and own his shit. The truth is I wanted to believe his lies. Sometimes I still do. It is really my husband now who is trying to push me to accept the worst possible version of events. I want to minimize it and keep it in its box because it just hurts too damn much. But this is powerful stuff, as you said. It is going to keep popping out of the box until both of you accept it head on. I haven’t done that yet so I am no one to give advice. But, stay strong, find peace and strength within yourself. If you aren’t too private a person then share the info with trusted friends. Build your own support network away from her. You will need it.

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 12:21 AM, Friday, November 3rd]