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Agree with WontBeFooledAgain most likely the A was physical too. Most often workplace A's are. I honestly would have a really hard time R'ing with a WS that still works with their AP. It's just too close in proximity to each other and you cannot track what is going on there. Whether they communicate or get physical.

I wouldn't celebrate the anniversary. It's way too soon for that plus she still has not been transparent about the A. I would let AP's spouse know what was going on. She may have more info that you are not privvy to.

On the polygraph, why not go forward with it. Either she will do it to help calm your questions or she'll refuse (which gives you a clear answer she is still lying) or give you a parking lot confession right before.

I would bet some big dollars that she knows exactly when it started and exactly how. People don’t forget stuff like this unless they have brain damage. You’re being TT.

I've forgotten many things about the A, including some you'd think would stand out in my memory, but not the day it started. 35 years later, I still remember that.

I looked up polygraphers in my area. One company's website states that only four pertinent questions can be asked (those are questions I come up with) and the rest of the questions are generic. They are used to establish a baseline.

Says this is because of established laws

That's pretty useless IMO

[This message edited by WB1340 at 8:34 PM, Friday, September 13th]

It's not useless

Did you have physical contact

Did you have sex

Has the affair ended

were there any affairs before this one

[This message edited by nomudnolotus at 12:24 AM, Saturday, September 14th]

Not useless at all. One technique is to demand that she write out a complete timeline of her A. Then include the question "Were you completely honest with the details in your timeline?"

[This message edited by 1994 at 1:23 AM, Saturday, September 14th]

Has your therapist given you any constructive advice on how to answer your questions and quell your doubts?

It's the unanswered questions that are holding me back such as when it started, what did you say to each other, did you communicate outside of work. That last question was initially answered with a no and then subsequently changed to I don't know

This is IMHO the BIGGEST threat to your marriage and your chances of reconciling right now.

Keep in mind a poly doesn’t measure truth. It measures honesty.
If your wife knows she has a chance at honesty and that will be corroborated with a poly... She’s likely to be honest. For example: She insists there was no physical element in this affair. In her timeline or in the amnesty-period leading to the poly she can let you know if they kissed, made out, had sex... If she insists there was no physical contact then the question:
Have you had physical intimacy and/or sex (as we defined sex before we started this test) with OM?
Will let you know if she’s being honest on that issue. If she’s honest here, and passes all the other questions you can make the assumption she’s being overall truthful. If she fails... it should make you question all the other answers and her commitment to reconciling.
You might have 100 questions for her now, and the polygrapher might throw out 80 of them as non-factual and non yes-or-no questions. Like the poly can’t answer "did you love him" (emotional) but can answer "did you have sex with him" and "since d-day have you had any personal contact with him".

Look – I truly think that even if you were to decide right here and now that you had the truth and there was no way to further validate it and were able to work onwards from that, then if it isn’t the truth SHE wouldn’t be capable of true reconciliation. This is why we so often have the scenario here where a spouse confesses to an affair when the betrayed spouses doesn’t even suspect one.

I think at some point, A BS tends to move a bit past the importance of the specific detailed questions. When did it start, did you have sex, etc. In the grand scheme of things, does it really matter when it started? It happened and that's the most prominent answer to that question. Did you have sex, how many times did you have sex? Pretty sure you did, doesn't matter how many times, once is enough. I have mostly gotten past my questions about my wife and her AP, I am now more focused on questions like "Did your marriage vows ever really mean anything to you? What inside of you said it was OK to abandon those vows? How can I believe you can now honor those vows and feel safe moving forward?" These are the types of questions I have how.

As for your anniversary. I've had three since my DDay and I've yet to celebrate any of them. Our last one this past May, my wife wished me a happy anniversary and I didn't even acknowledge it. She was pissed because of that. I'm rather disappointed that she was pissed because it shows she's still thinking only of herself. If she were ever to work on herself, get to her true reasons of why she felt the entitlement to an action that caused so much pain, and work towards correcting those issues in herself, then I think we could build a new marriage that I would be happy to celebrate. Until then, sorry, that day is just a reminder to me that she abandoned her vows and commitment.

[This message edited by Copingmybest at 10:35 AM, Saturday, September 14th]

Some BSes tell their WSes that honest answers won't cause D or some other dire consequence. The they hear something that makes the M irredeemable, and they don't know what to do.

If you offer your WS a pass as a way of eliciting honesty, give yourself a pass for going back on your promise if the honesty reveals something that destroys your desire for R.

I repeatedly told my W, 'If you tell me something now, I may walk. If you tell it to me down the line, I will walk.' I really, really, really wanted to avoid TT.

Just musing here: For a couple of years, I thought my threat made my W choose honesty. In reality, however, she had decided to tell the truth no matter what the consequences may be.

IOW and IMO, the BS can promise to leave unless the WS agrees to answer questions and tell no mor lies ever, but the WS decides to be honest or not. Then the BS has to decide how to respond to whatever the WS gives them.

The limit on 4 questions is standard. It’s all that’s needed for you to determine if she’s lying or not. You can always go back later on for different questions.
Most of the time you’ll get a parking lot confession when she realizes the polygraph is happening.
Plenty of situations here that have had that happen.

Okay, so I need some suggestions for the four questions. What would you ask?

Tell her to write out a timeline. That will be an important step in general, but a poly can reinforce her truthfulness on the timeline or lack thereof.

[This message edited by 1994 at 8:22 PM, Saturday, September 14th]

There are few if any constants in relationship recovery, and what I might need is probably totally different to what you need. But...

I truly think that for a relationship to recover you need to know what you are recovering from.

The detail of that "from" is completely up to you, and the "truth" needs to meet two criteria IMHO. The first is that you believe it, and the second is that you can accept it.

This statement from YOU is the key to what advice I offer you:

It's the unanswered questions that are holding me back

This is why I asked what your therapist recommends. You CAN decide that you have enough "truth" and that you can accept what you consider "true" as the truth. You CAN possibly reconcile without ever knowing fully how it started, if it was "only" sexting and so on. There is always the possibility (and even a realistic one...) that your wife has told you the truth.

I also think that if you manage to move on based on what you know and IF it IS the truth then you two can successfully reconcile. I think YOU can work 100% at reconciliation believing it’s true, and your wife does her work too. Only... if it’s NOT the truth... that can prevent your wife from being as open and honest as she might want to be maybe 12-24 months down the road.

This is something we see regularly here on SI. Where the WS makes a late admission because they want to have a healthier and more honest relationship. Only... at that time YOU the BS will probably experience the years since d-day as false.

This is why I insist any info NOW will do less damage than it can later down the road.

Sisoon is correct that if you promise some amnesty then whatever you are told can push you over the edge. This suggestion of an amnesty is a tough one, but I like the wording Sisoon uses: If you tell me something now, I may walk. If you tell it to me down the line, I will walk.

Lets imagine this scenario:

You want some answers to questions... Lets imagine it’s the question of if this was "only" sexting or if there was a physical aspect. That physical aspect can range from kissing and holding hands, making out, petting, oral, full-blown sex... It can be acts you two don’t do, it can be about body-comparison... It’s a wide range.

At the moment there are only two people that know the truth...

It’s your WW and OM.

OM is NEVER a good source for truth. He has no profit in the truth. Either he wants to hide the affair (minimize) or if he’s hurt he wants to hurt you (she said I was the best and you have a microdick...). Turning to him for answers is giving what should be a non-entity immense power.

So that leaves your WW.

There are several scenarios.

One of them is the plain fact that she IS telling the truth.

If she is, then it’s a question of what is needed so you can believe her. You doubting her honesty can – and will – eventually erode the marriage. If she is telling the truth, a tool like the poly can be seen as a great way for HER to confirm her honesty.

Another scenario is that there was some physical aspect. If that’s the case, then as-is the recovery is based on you finding a way to quell your doubts and for her to live with this great lie. I don’t really see that happening. I can imagine you maybe five years from now still not trusting her, and I can imagine her maybe 10 years from now still holding a secret that prevents her from committing to the marriage.

Then there is the sub-scenario that you imagine "physical" as full-on, porn-star quality intense sex, whereas her "physical" reality is a few kisses and maybe some groping. What you fear happened is "less" than what she fears to share.

It’s great if you two can reach a level of truth simply through discussion. However... are YOU capable of that? Are YOU able to draw a line under the discovery-phase and start committing to reconciliation? Can you state that there are no unanswered questions holding you back?

If no... Well... I don’t know of a better tool than a poly as a part of a process in reaching a stage where trust can be rebuilt.

Basically you go something like:

"I am willing to give our marriage a chance, but to do that I need to be able to believe you and eventually trust you. Right now there is NO trust. That’s just a normal consequence of what you did. I have so many missing things from what happened, and I can’t really commit to our marriage without filling in the gaps. I want you to be totally honest with me and answer some key-questions. Like:

Who initiated it? When did it start? How did it start? Was there any physical contact? Kissing? Groping? Sex? If so – oral or full-sex? How many times? Where? Since d-day have you two been in contact? Is it over? And so on and so on.

If you want me, you need to be honest. I need to believe you. If you lie I will find out, and that tells me you don’t trust me. Yes – learning more will hurt me and make me angry. It might even threaten our marriage even more. But learning maybe a month from now that you are holding back or lying will definitely erode any will or belief I might have of us surviving this.

Answer the questions, discuss them with me and let’s work from there.

I will probably require you do a poly in the next month. It’s a tool for YOU to show me you are being honest because frankly your word has little weight regarding reliability to me. If you pass that poly I will have to accept – gladly – that you are being honest. If you fail... well... that tells me you don’t trust me and that we don’t really have a shot."

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:07 AM, Sunday, September 15th]

I'm writing to say explicitly something that Bigger said implicitly.

Can you state that there are no unanswered questions holding you back?

IOW and IMO, your best approach by far is to ask the questions that scare you. For me, those were:

- Do you love me?
- Are you in love with me? (What I meant and wish I had asked is, 'Do you desire me sexually?' I didn't realize this was what I meant at the time. I was overweight, over 65, and bald at the time, so I needed a lot of courage to ask this question. )
- Are you willing to be monogamous from now on?

I really wanted to R, and I knew I needed 3 yeses to start R. It took me weeks to psych myself up to D if I got a single 'no'.

So my reco is: don't commit to R until and unless there are no unanswered questions holding you back.

As for the poly, IMO you can take your time to make a D/R decision, so it's eminently possible that you can figure out if your WS is truthful or not without a poly. IMO, good interrogation techniques can tell you what you need to know. I asked each question several times in several ways and found my W's answers to be consistent, responsive, and unrehearsed every single time. And as you can see from the above, the questions don't really lend themselves to yes/no answers, so the poly wouldn't have helped me.

OTOH, if you do the discussions Bigger recommends, and you end up with good yes/no questions, and the answers make a difference to your decision, the poly is a good way to get the answers you want.

But make sure they'll make a difference. If you won't leave even if the test shows your WS to be dishonest, why do the test?

Hey there WB. Sorry that you are here.
I don’t chime in much, but I thought it was coincidental that we have the same dday. Three years apart. Also found him sexting. Although at the time I was in denial and just called it heavy flirting.

He gladly agreed to a poly (I thought that was good!) while lying and telling me it was only a few flirty messages and all the other deleted messages were mostly about work. Mmhhm. Ultimately I did not go through with poly because I felt I would not believe the results either way.

I did my own digging and was able to restore old phones and gather phone records to give me more information. And a timeline (get a timeline!).
Three months later, while I was armed with evidence, he finally revealed that it involved video chat and communication over a longer period of time and more frequent than I was initially led to believe. I guess I’m lucky that she moved 1000s of miles away before things heated up because I am sure that it would have been physical. WH says so as well.

I don’t think it was physical but I’m also sure I don’t know everything. I agree with the poster who said the need for details will subside. However, there were some details that I could not move forward without- when it started was one of them.

This year will be the worst rollercoaster ride ever. Don’t hold your emotions back. Let her see the hurt. Sometimes it takes a while for the WS to understand the damage they have done. It’s up to you if or how long you want to wait it out. Maybe she will get it, maybe not. It’s a rough road ahead.

You have a lot of good advice on this thread. Wishing you the best as you navigate this shitty situation.

It’s not the affair that kills the marriage.

It’s the behavior after the affair that kills the marriage.

Typical cheater behavior btw.

You don’t have to settle for it or accept it.

Have you made a decision on the poly?

I’ve read all the "there’s more to it than you think" posts, and I have not idea whether they are valid or not. I think a more important question to ask yourself is if you even like her anymore. I think that is something that gets overlooked as we all scramble to save our marriages, our egos, and frankly our lives as we knew them, in the wake of an affair. Do you actually still like her? What percentage of the time do you like her? It is very hard to celebrate pretty much anything with someone you just don’t like anymore and sort of despise.