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The day after DD, my wife, on her own, told AP they could never communicate again. She showed me he was blocked for every form of communication. She has been very remorseful, has agreed to every demand I gave her if we were to reconcile, acts repulsed at the thought of what she did, and says she hates AP.

Of course, anyone on the betrayed side knows you can never know what you can trust any more. I want to believe her sincerity, but I have constant doubts about everything. I found a website that allows you to sign up for a realistic phone number, and send/receive text messages through a web browser. When she was in the other room, I texted her pretending to be him on a prepaid phone, saying “I had to go get a new phone just to talk to you. I miss you.”

She immediately responded with “fuck off”, and then told him she was going to tell me he contacted her. She came into the room, visibly shaking, and told me what he just did. She started crying.

I know that this one act does not guarantee she will be 100% trustworthy from here on out, but I was so glad she handled it that way, instead of ignoring him but not telling me, or worse, kept talking to “him””.

What is really pissing me off is this guilty feeling that keeps creeping into my mind that I was doing something wrong by testing her like that. I know I’m not in the wrong; anyone who has had their trust betrayed is justified in what they do to validate any promises from the betrayer.

Hi KdFenix12,

Doing things like that may not leave us feeling great, but sometimes we need to do them for the sake of our peace of mind.

Of course you have doubts, and only time, and your wife making good on her actions, will help to banish them. It does not happen overnight.

On the plus side, at least it proved where your wife's relationship with the OM is now.

Don't beat yourself up, my friend. You didn't ask to be in this position, but you are handling it well.

My guess is that you feel a bit like you are messing with her trust and your own sense of integrity with yourself and your own wife by making yourself into a liar who uses lies to try to catch a person who USED to be a liar and isn't one with you or her former AP anymore...

Machiavelli popularized the phrase "the ends (desirable results) justifies the means (otherwise unjustifiable methods of obtaining that result)."

I think that doing this kind of thing can backfire and cause a certain degree of resentment and entitlement or justification on the part of the (former?) Wayward if they discover that they are being played or effectively lied to by their very own spouse that held the moral high ground of comparative innocence and child like trust.

I'm not meaning to equate a simple test of this kind to anything even REMOTELY like adultery and the like, but I've seen waywards make a mountain out of a molehill and make a country mile in their own selfish minds out of any inch that their perceived opponent gives a single inch up on positionally or morally.

I would have had someone else do the dirty work of playing the part of the player AP, I think.

I'm not sure why that seems so much safer of a bet on my book, but it sure does for some reason or another.

[This message edited by Cephastion at 12:28 PM, February 11th (Monday)]

I told her after that I did it, and told her exactly why. She said she understood, and was angry with herself for putting me in a position that I had to do something like that.

I agree with what you said that there is a chance of resentment on her part, and had considered that before texting her. The way I saw it was if my action is going to prevent recovery from the damage done by her actions, then this is not worth saving.

Kd,

I can see how you’d feel sullied, like your soul needs a shower. You are a man with integrity, and your world has been rocked. I hope you realize that your wife passed this test with flying colors. Not only did she respond perfectly to him, she came to you, shaken and revolted.

I think you have a chance. She is deep in regret and heading much more quickly to remorse than most waywards do. The difference is regret is over what i’ve done and the consequences to me, remorse is the realization with horror of how you have damaged others.

The general rule of thumb on SI is to keep your sources close, and don’t reveal them to your WW. In your situation, it’s up to you. You are an honest, upfront guy. You feel slimy over what you did because it was deceptive. Justified? Absolutely, but still deceptive. If you share with her what you did, she might understand, or she might feel affronted. That in itself is a test of where she is in the process. If she is affronted, then she is still living in that entitled wayward mindset that thinks what she did is not that big a deal. How dare you...If she is hurt , but completely understands why you needed to do it, then she is beginning to get it. She is beginning to see the layers and levels deep the betrayal went.

Even if she does get it and continues to respond perfectly, you are still in the early stages of dealing with this storm. She has taken great first steps, but you are going to have difficulty trusting her. She lied for months.

Give yourself a break. This hasn’t corrupted you, you are still a good man. The fact that this bothers you, proves it.

We cross-posted, and I cheered inside when I saw her response to you telling her.

This is early, but these are really positive signs.

You are exactly as good a man as I thought you were.

I'd offer a slightly different take on this. This whole storyline about her claiming that she was "tricked" into sex with this man is your WW attempting to minimize her conscious, intentional decision to have sex with another man. My hunch is that whatever reasons she had for making that decision, it didn't pan out the way she anticipated, and now that she has to deal with the fallout, she is realizing she made a bad choice and it wasn't worth it.

Either way, it is clear that she still has strong feelings for/about the AP. She told "him" to fuck off, and was shaking when she spoke with you. All of that is evidence of strong emotions. They may now be negative emotions, but they are emotions. In other words, it is clear that she still has a bundle of strong emotions (negative or positive) surrounding the A and the AP.

KDFenix12 much like our WS aren't 100% not wayward eimmediately after Dday there is a period of time when we don't have our "right minds" with us.

Learn from it and move on. Use it as an opportunity to increase the pathways of communication. Next time you feel uncertain, ask her directly and put the ownership of proving it on her. It is something she can do if she wants to earn back your trust.

It is up to her to earn back your trust. It is not your job to prove it for her. KWIM ?

BTW don't feel too bad. I once did something similar I sent flowers to my wife without signing the card and left it open.

I said nothing and waited to see if she asked me right away or someone else (I was monitoring her communications).

Well she called as soon as she got them. I did feel a little shitty about doing that and realize that my attempt was passive aggressive and not direct. I pride myself on being direct.

Of course I cam clean too and she looked a little hurt once I explained the reason behind it. She too understood.

If you aren't feeling safe you need to express that to her and ask her to help you feel so. It is something she can do that helps you heal.

Some day I will learn how to quote a post, but until then, @butforthegrace:

All I have to go on is what she has told me. It happened twice, she ended it. I’m not going to pretend it’s impossible that is all bullshit. I have said to her multiple times that the claim of manipulation is a way to hide behind what she did, even if she’s doing it subconsciously. She has owned what she did, she cannot figure out why she allowed it to happen, and is going to start IC so she can figure out what allowed her to do this.

I agree with the still having strong feelings for him. They appear to be very negative, and that is my hope, but only tome and effort will tell

Butforthegrace,

He’s two weeks out. How many waywards are able to take full ownership in the first month? None.

It seems to me she woke up from her affair fantasy quickly, and is trying to piece together how she got there. Was she manipulated? Probably. Groomed? Definitely, but that doesn’t change anything. She had poor boundaries and needs work out in IC how this happened. That’s on her. She can’t believe what she did, and you can only process so much self-loathing.

The way I see it, she hates the AP, herself, and the situation she caused. The contact just caused all that trauma to bubble up. She was struck again with the horror of what she had done. Do you really expect her to feel ambivalence two weeks out?

Kd seems to be responding cautiously, and I will say again, that all of her behavior has been positive.

Hi KD!

I did a similar thing and she failed miserably.

Sounds like your W is seeking honesty.

Sorry small semantic difference

she cannot figure out why she made choices that made it happen,

Fixed it for you.

I thought the fact that during the affair, you thought marriage was the best it has ever been, that it was a sex only affair but that strong reaction tells me she had strong feelings for him.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. Her response was hopefully a revulsion at what her actions have caused and not a way to convince herself that she now hates him.

It almost seems like this went straight into rug sweeping. Has she faced any consequences other than having to answer some uncomfortable questions?

Like I said on your other thread, I suspect this affair went on longer than you think an involved way more than 2 sexual encounters. you better do some digging. Also that low point you in your marriage you mentioned happened 4 years ago, you better dig to make sure that the same thing wasn't happening back then.

KdFenix,

I thought from your prior posts that this OM is a neighbor, meaning you still live near him, this is going to cause endless triggers for you.

Expose the OM widely drive him away by any means necessary.

Get a polygraph for your WW.

You are doing well. I don't have a problem with the test.

Her response to your text was excellent, just the way it should have been. I think it was also good that you told her and she responded well to that too. It may take some time before she is truly remorseful. Treat her well and with respect and this is likely to happen more quickly. She may then start to open out. Try to give her a safe environment as you need the whole truth before true reconciliation can take place.

I think it is unrealistic to expect her to be 'indifferent' at this very early stage and her anger is understandable.

So all seems good but be very wary of the 'manipulation' the 'only did it twice' and the continued contact just so she would not lose her friends. In my opinion none of these likely to be wholly or even partly true. She really has to admit to herself that she was the one responsible for the betrayal, particularly at a time when your marriage was in a good place. I find the timing hard to understand. What was she thinking? How did she rationalise what she was doing during a period when your marriage was better than ever? All very strange. You need to get to the bottom of this and not rugsweep.

IC for her is good. MC seems too early. I think at some point she needs to take a Poly.

It happened twice, she ended it. I’m not going to pretend it’s impossible that is all bullshit

It sounds like you are not quite sure what you are reconciling...

Why not ask for a detailed timeline? Tell her that you may ask for a polygraph and that lies is what will kill any chances at reconciliation. To rebuilt trust, she must start with the truth.

Your wife did the right thing by coming to you immediately.

My H had the same situation after DDay 2. The OW contacted him again to be “ friends “. He saw the email and showed me immediately. He was shaking b/c he thought I would blame him for it.

It’s been 5 years since DDay 2 and we reconciled. My H consistently did the right thing and proved he could be trusted. He made amends (still does). He’s no longer the guy he was during his Affair.

Your wife has taken a positive step.

Regarding her attempt to say she was manipulated by the AP. I responded to that in a prior post. My H also made the mistake of continuing to say “we were disconnected”. I finally told him he could not tell me how I felt. And if HE was disconnected then it was because HE didn’t communicate to me.

He finally understood after about 6 months that his cheating was a choice and to stop trying to justify it. He finally got it.

Hopefully your wife does too.

I envy you. My WW used her occasions to break no contact by telling them that I know, and that if she ever asked for any of the texts or any info to just say that they had all been deleted and to ignore anything else.

Your WW sounds like she is very remorseful.... Try to find comfort in that and know that there are many of us whom never get that from our WS and it really kills your soul.