I think she's minimizing and confusing regret(damn, I got caught, what's gonna happen to me and how can I fix it for me) and remorse(OMG, what have I done to my family and how can I fix it). Until she gets to the remorse point, she's not really *safe* to be around in the M. That's not suggesting you run and file for D immediately, but realize what she's doing.

I don't get it.

TBH, you probably may some day come to understand the contributing factors, but not *get it*. That's her job.(

Strength

I see it so many times that a BS is so shaken up that they agree to the stupidest shit and basically allow the WS to walk all over them. Don't be in such a rush to want to R, don't jump right into M/C, don't rush into anything. Get the facts first and process them. And do not allow her or yourself to bring more issues to the table. The issue is she cheated and that's the only thing that matters. Don't care what a persons FOO are, Don't care about the condition of the M, Don't care about a persons mental/physical state is. Only care about the fact that she is a cheat. The answers as to why she did what she did is up to her to figure out. You cant do that for her, nor should you. In fact there is nothing you can do to make her seek out the whys. She must accept the destiny she has created and go forth as she deems fit. Now she may or may not want to seek out the answers. But that's irrelevant at the moment. What matters is you concentrate on your own personal healing. Decide what it is that YOU want and need. Deal with the matter at hand and do not add more wood on the pile. I have found its easier to move ahead when you break this shit down into boxes. As an IT guy you know what I mean. Try that and I promise it will be easier on you my man.

OM very well could have sent your WW the money for another phone. Or he could have sent her a phone. Or she could go to the store,buy groceries, and a prepaid Visa card...then use that Visa to get another phone.

Sounds crazy, doesn't it? But they do it.

I've asked her probably 20 o 30 times in the last week if she's be faithful. If there has ever been anyone else. If she's ever dated, kissed, touched had sex with or even talked to any other guys that I don't know about. She says no. She swears no. For what that's worth right now.

If you brought it up here before. I wasn't ignoring it. I just can't focus well right now and missed it.

Anyway.....sending the conversations had between the two of you to this guy is quite a *slap*. Not to mention that......it also *goes against* how she has been portraying their relationship to you. Last I heard, he had threatened to tie her up until his friends came. She was upset about him taking pictures. She was upset about him writing in her diary. And after ALL of that....she is going to send him the private conversations between you and her?

I think you are mixing up my situation with someone else. As far as I know my wife doesn't keep a diary. No one tied any one up. Although I made the comment that if I came to my friends talking about doing what she wanted to do they would tie me up. And I was amazed that she has no one like that in her life. She denied any pictures were involved at all until yesterday. I've now seen GI Joe's picture of himself wrapped in a towel I wish I could unsee it, because that's brought up a whole new round of issues for me.

Real,

I read your story and it does sound very similar. Probably the most similar I've read although clearly every situation is different.

If my wife had taken off to go meet him I wouldn't have taken her back. I do have boundaries even if it doesn't sound like it at times. Even on D-day when I wasn't communicating well I made one thing perfectly clear "You walk out that door you can never come back." I'm all for working on the marriage. No matter how painful it is, but if she left to go spend time with another man or to "figure it out." I'd be done.

Stronger,

I thrive on logic. I'm a geek. Like you said I work in IT (did I mention that here or did you read the laptop thread?), read and write sci fi. Love technology. Logic is my world.

And you are very right there is none here, and it's hard for me to negotiate a situation where nothing is logical.

As far as what's going with her and the why. I get what you are saying. But it's not that compartmentalized. As long as I'm with her and seeing the same patterns that lead to her having an affair I can't start to heal. I can't trust her and I can't even began to move on.

Confused,

Point well taken.

I will say one thing. My wife is an intelligent woman so I don't mean this as a shot on her intelligence at all. But I would be really surprised if she could pull off what you are describing. She is the worst liar I have ever met. Even little things. I've never been surprised by a gift she's given me. Not because I shake the presence but because she gives it away without meaning to (never directly). A week into these lies it became very apparent that she was lying. She was able to hide the affair for all of 11 days. She's just really bad at it. And she knows it. It amazes me that she tries.

Can someone learn to be a better liar? I would imagine so. so I'm not saying I know anything for a fact. But I'd be really really shocked she pulled off what you are describing.

Its weird for me being here. As I'm sure it was for most of you. I read some of what everyone is saying and my first instinct is to say "That's not my wife", "That's not my marriage" But a before D-day I never would have thought I'd be here now.

I trusted her so much, I keep thinking about a particularly funny/sad interaction we had while she was having the affair.

I was playing some stupid phone game while she was on her phone next to me. She kept asking me "Who are you texting?" I rarely text anyone but my wife, and even her not often before all this happened. Anyway I finally looked up at her a jokingly said "What's up with you today? You know I never text. You know they say if your partner suddenly gets overly suspicious it means they are having an affair." I guess it does.

In my effort to be *concise*, I often come off as blunt and harsh. Sorry, don't mean to be offensive.

I did want to say a word on remorse as in stands in my situation. My wife isn't remorseful. She's self deprecating, feeling inadequate and unworthy, worthless and depressed. It might sound like I'm trying to say she's more then remorseful, but that's no tit at all. Remorse can be powerful and constructive driving emotion. What she's going through only serves to tear her and the relationship down.

BTW when I say she claims she only sent him our conversations to "show how screwed up I am" those were some of the texts I could recover. When she sent them to him he told her "what do you want me to tell you about that?" and she said "I just want you to see how screwed up I am."

Again it makes no sense, but it's at least consistent.

The context of the text were her saying she wasn't sure what she wanted or how to communicate it. and I was tell her that she needed to figure it out and we needed to figure out how those things fit in our relationship. This was shortly after we had had a very similar conversation.

Often times after we talk about something I will get texts from my wife the next day. It's easier for her to talk about her feelings that way. This has been true for most of our relationship, it isn't a new thing tied to the affair.

Here's the great news. You don't have to decide. You Do Not Have To Decide One Damned Thing about staying married or getting a divorce until YOU are ready to. You can simply decide that you're staying married today. And then tomorrow. And so on. You can make the decision that works best for YOU. I didn't commit to staying married until about 1 month after DDay, and then I made a commitment to my MC and FWH that I would stay married for at least one year, unless something absolutely unbearable happened. That gave both of us the chance to ride the rollercoaster and see how it went. But I didn't make that commitment to FWH until after I had seen him work for a month, doing the things that I set as absolute minimums for R. He had to work for it and keep working for R. He's still working, as am I. I judge that we will both be working for and on our marriage for the rest of our lives.

I'm not willing to tolerate any actions. Any more conversations with this guy and we are done. She ever cheats again in anyway and we are done. If she doesn't work with her therapist we are done. She knows this and she 100% believes it.

Now, that being said I don't believe for one minute that I can save this marriage by approaching with the attitude of "If this doesn't work we are getting a divorce." Even if that is the case. In my mind from this point on we are making it work, unless she proves we can not.

Some of the post here are very helpful and the support is amazing. Sometimes some of these posts also seem to believe in a one size fits all solution. The truth is no two people are the same, no two marriages are the same, so how can any two affairs be the same? I really respect any information coming from people who have been there before. Please don't get me wrong. I'm just saying that situations are different.

For instance, I read through 180 and I understand the intention. Right now my wife's self esteem is so low that if I treated her that way she wouldn't realize what she was missing, she would pull away and likely give up.

For this to work for us, I have to see a change in the patterns that lead us here. For that to happen my wife does need my support. That doesn't mean that I am disrespecting my own pain or going to let her walk all over me. And I am expecting to see change and may patients will get thinner as time goes on, but I do have to support her healing. Even if she has to do the work.

To give you an idea how bad things are. Thursday my wife told me that she never remembers a time that we made love. She remembers sex, but never love making. I pointed out key events, the first xmas in the first house we bought below the tree, the night I proposed, our wedding night and she in full honesty can not remember having sex at all any one of those days.

After her third appointment in IC the counselor believes that she has PTSD, anxiety and OCD. All things that contribute to her difficulty dealing with life. None of it excuses the affair, but as I've said before, I cant beginning to trust her again until I see a change in all the patterns I've dealt with for years. If I don't see her show a real desire to change who she is at a core level I could never trust her again and this will not work.

All that being said yesterday was a rough day. We had to go to my twin nieces b-day party. My sister and parents know what happens so my wife was already stressed. Then she went into work for a couple hours (it was supposed to be her day off) and her boss canceled on her at the last minute. Then her employees made a huge mistake and when we got home she knocked some stuff over and completely lost it.

She started screaming at me about how she didn't want to go and how she didn't deserve to be around my family. She complained about me recovering her phone and how I should have filed for divorce. I told her that she didn't get to blame me for any of this and that she created it all. I told her that it wasn't fair to the girls (12) for her not to go, but she could make her own decision. She went to the back of the house and calmed her self down. (no computer or phone with her.) and things went well at the party after that. But this is exactly the kind of thing that I would let go. I'm not doing it any more and I made it clear to her.