SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I realise that’s an excessively dramatic title, but shit is hard right now for me guys.

I don’t post very often but I really should start coming back again.

Everything sucks and everything is difficult and it’s one hundred percent my own damn fault. My BS is currently in a phase of extreme (justified) anger and has currently instituted a trial in-home separation. This happened because she found, two years after d-day a lie I had told surrounding my many and various affairs. I held on to that lie (that there was no genital contact without condoms) because I was scared and I was protecting my own feelings instead of just telling the truth.

Today she found documents on my google drive which I had honestly thought that I had deleted as soon as I found they still existed, they were stories (some graphic, some not) about characters that an AP of mine had written. I thought I had deleted them when I remembered they were there because I didn’t want them anymore, but I apparently missed a whole folder of them. Honestly though it wouldn’t actually matter if I had got them all or not because I had forgotten to tell her they existed before deleting them. I wasn’t being transparent with communication.

I’m desperadoes, I’m upset, my brain is trying desperately to tell me that it’s actually all her fault (I know it’s not, but it’s frustrating having to constantly correct my own thoughts). I’m terrified she’s going to contact a lawyer for the big D and I honestly can’t even blame her if she does.

I feel like a failure, and I know the problem is that while I can own this shit, I still don’t “get” it, I still don’t have the guts to do the serious work and be uncomfortable reliving and actually trying to help us heal from this shit I’ve caused.

Oh, and I also feel guilty posting this and whining about it, because at the end of the day, I’ve caused her way more grief and trauma and pain.

Things suck a bit right now. I have the tools to keep my mental state from sliding into oblivion thankfully but I just want to hear from people; how do you get out of this situation? Or more specifically if you’ve been here or know someone who has been here, what did you do to get out of it?

There is no “getting out” of this situation.

Best thing is being able to get THROUGH it

[This message edited by gmc94 at 4:51 PM, September 1st, 2019 (Sunday)]

I read some of your earlier posts. In your January thread you clearly stated you were finished with trickle truth and your last lie was done. As a BW I would want to know why you posted that when you knew it wasn't true. It reeks of manipulation, that it was written specifically for your BW to read and be lulled into a very false sense of security which has now been shredded.

Your earlier posts showed someone who paid lip service to doing the work but who was never really motivated to actually carrying it out.

I don't know what you can do except commit to do the work for real this time, whether she gives you another chance. Have a long hard think and let her know everything. Do it safely at a MC appointment.

You're going to be judged on your actions not your words or promises. To be honest I would have accepted the fact that the sex was unprotected long before the truth came to light but the lying that's a completely different matter and what would kill the relationship.

Carissima you basically hit the nail on the head. Thanks for checking out my past posts because you are pretty much correct I wrote them basically to say I did and could.

I’m looking back a lot now and seeing that a lot of what I did was paying lip service or doing the minimum. The BS then called the very obvious half and lazy effort and, again, in order to protect myself I convinced myself that I had really tried and that everything would turn out fine and blah blah blah...you guys know the spiel. It was wrong and now the crushing weight of my own self-centredness is currently crushing me.

I’m planning on doing the work but I’ve said that both to myself and to her the past two or more years and...well again you get the point and the picture. You’ll probably ask me next if the relationship is what I really want but I’ve never stopped asking myself that and I’ve never stopped coming up with “yes”

Regardless. Years out. A thousand broken promises and lies and half truths later I still want to try, I still want to heal myself and make myself a person who won’t do stupid shit like this.

2x4 incoming. Bigger wrote a great post about the need for 2x4s to be compassionate, and I fear I'm about to fail my first time out the gate. At the very least, though, I want to make sure you know: it gives me no pleasure at all to say what I think needs to be said, because I hate to feel useless, and I'm pretty convinced I'm useless here.

Stop wasting your time. Stop wasting our time. Most of all, stop wasting Arfaj's time. Just admit you're never going to really do the work, and let her go.

I've read through your posts. They all say the same things. Early on, the responses from fellow WS commended your honesty and self-reflection. If you need feedback like that, it's right there waiting in your archives; pull up a comfy chair and get your remorseful wayward kibble fix. None of us have anything new and magical to say now that will pull your head out of your ass. Also, feel free to cut and paste your own self-reflections from past threads, because apparently they always say the same thing, too. Maybe use the time you save to watch the Chernobyl miniseries on HBO or something. I hear it's good.

If I have any observation, it's that I would not be surprised if you have used up your credit line here as effectively as you used it up with your BW. I could be wrong. Other WS may be far more patient with you than I am. Honestly, my compassion is for your BW. If she were a personal friend of mine, I'd be telling her that anyone who could talk the talk so effectively while still lying to her was never, never going to be a trustworthy partner. If I pretended otherwise to your face, I'd be lying, and I try not to lie anymore.

You know what would change my mind? Come up with five damning things that she doesn't already know, that you think might make her leave you, even if she weren't arranging to do that already. Tell them to her privately and have her confirm that you did it, or post them "publicly" to us if you can't face her. You'll be showing some commitment and not just more lip service. You say you don't have five details like that? I don't believe you.

I'm sorry, man. I wish something had clicked for you over the last several years that you've been playing this forum along with your wife. But it didn't, and I just don't see any point in pretending that I think it ever will.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 7:18 PM, September 1st (Sunday)]

BraveSitRobin thank you for your response and your insightful answers. I’ll admit that’s more or less what I expected, but I figured that just posting the raw emotion and raw feeling was at least a way to maybe get started. My BS said I need to “sit” in the suck.

So as for your challenge? Sure let’s do it. If you’re right and I’ve already used up all of my credit here and with her it won’t matter. And if I’m to truly stop with the wayward mindset I’ve got to stop trying to protect myself and my own emotions (which was part of the reason for this post, in order to get 2x4s).

So, I can’t give you things she doesn’t already know, but I can lay out things in a much more clear way than I have before so;

1. With the long term EA partner, I was making plans with her for months and months to get her pregnant if I could. I was half not serious but half serious, sort of a “I probably can’t actually but I’d try if I got a chance.” And looking back on it all now it was just an insane bid to follow a stupid fetish that my BS was already into anyway to score some extra ego kibbles for myself. Yay me it was disgusting.

2. For a lot of the time while the affairs were going on I was mostly compartmentalising everything, and separated it out from my life with the wife and kids. Standard shit right? Well, with the ERP that happened (erotic role play) I did online? That I didn’t even try to compartmentalise, I thought it wasn’t cheating and that she was the wrong one and that I should be allowed to do it. I don’t think I ever explained that to her. I was afraid of being judged. Judging myself now for it and here it is for all of you to judge.

3. The physical affair. Man this one was just the worst. Thinking back on this it was really the lowest of my low moments. I had a wonderful partner and eventually wife, and a beautiful daughter. I also had a great friend who looked up to me and a community that I was a part of. What’d I do? Fucked that guy’s girlfriend because she was obviously into me and was easy. Fuck. There is no new information for her here really. After a while me and her started hanging out and we were essentially dating behind our partners back, though I lied to myself about that part for quite a while. She fed my ego and made me feel so good. These days I feel sick to my stomach remembering it at all, and have avoided any part of the subject so I tried to bury it whole and only touch on it briefly when i was forced to. Unsurprisingly this was selfish and actively destroyed the healing process between me and her.

4. After that bombshell, something I think my BS knows but I never really talked about with her much is just how much incest play was involved with most of my online sexual partners. It was most of it. Or at least a significant chunk. These days, that shit disturbs me greatly and it’s a part of me I’ve also buried hard because I am a father and that shit should stay the fuck away from me and my kids. I’m really scared telling this to you guys because I’m afraid people will think I’m not safe around my kiddos, but I took the challenge and damnit if the starting of healing is showing this shit in the open then here I fucking am. God I was disgusting.

5. I’m not even sure what to put here, I’m trying pretty hard not to spiral after typing the above points. Maybe I should just talk about how much in the past two years I’ve tried to blame shift or mentally make her out to be the bad guy in my own head. Thinking she had problems that was making healing hard and not me. This has been a wake up call, the trial separation that is. I should at least be clear about the fact that I never stopped trying to shift the blame in my head own head. I see it now though!

There. Challenge complete. You might be right and I might be past hope, out of credit, and unable to actually do anything. Maybe I didn’t actually post enough to pass your challenge. But I want to prove to you guys....and honestly to myself that I’m capable of making the effort.

Just a quick note to anyone who reads here: I asked StoneLotus to prove he was serious and then realized that I should have thought more about what that would mean to Arfaj if he discussed any new details here without warning her. I edited my post to suggest he do it privately if he could face her, but I don't think StoneLotus read that edit before posting. So I need to take responsibility for my part in this if Arfaj would have preferred not to have this in the forum before she was aware.

I’m fairly confident that she is aware of most of that. I just provided greater context for my thoughts at the time. I will have an open invitation for her to talk to me about any of it.

In any case, I needed to prove to myself that I can talk about it, even if it makes me feel awful. Because trying to protect myself is how I let things get this far.

What are you looking for StoneLotus?

You obviously know what you need to do. You just don't seem to want to do it. You want out of this situation, yet you not only created it, but kept it going. You've failed and things suck for you. So what? Why does that prevent you from doing the right things moving forward? If you want to get out of this situation, then stop shooting yourself in the foot. If you wanna stop doing "stupid shit like this", then stop.

You always have a choice. And those choices are a reflection on you. If you want to be a better and healthier person, then start making better and healthier choices. Don't over-complicate this with fear.

You have to ask yourself if your fear of losing your wife is more important to you than your wife herself. Really think about that one.

Failure happens. It's what you do with it that matters. Where you came from isn't nearly as important as where you choose to go. There's only one person that can make this better for you.

SerJR,

To be completely honest? What I’m looking for here is 2x4s. All your points are correct and that to stop sucking I need to stop sucking. I do know what I need to do, I just need the motivation to do it. So I’m receiving 2x4s straight to the face and letting them making me uncomfortable, letting them get to me, letting them make me feel bad so that I have the motivation to actually work on correcting what’s wrong.

Maybe that’s a back asswards way of trying to do things but good lord whatever I was doing before clearly wasn’t working. So here I am.

I appreciate that you wanted us to have a clearer picture of the nature of the betrayal. I think it's useful in one sense, because as a wayward, I have sometimes had to fight the impulse to try to appear like a model WS. (Having potentially just put my foot in my mouth with this "challenge," that's certainly not something I have to worry about tonight.) None of this is going to burnish your reputation here, which to me is at least some indicator of a willingness to try a new direction in doing the work.

But the point I was trying to make (and please, this time, let's say you'll do it privately) is that Arfaj needs to see you let go of the outcome with her. It sounds like you didn't say anything here that was really news to her, and I'm retroactively grateful for that. But she needs to know that you are ready to tell her things that she didn't trick or force or guilt you into telling her. That you have finally arrived at a place where you can bludgeon your reputation in her eyes with new information, simply and only because she deserves to know and to have real agency over her choices for the first time.

That’s a good point. She needs to see that the honesty comes from me and me alone. You may be right and I might have already spent what minuscule good will was already there, and because she’s pried everything out of me already, though I’m planning on doing a new timeline in order to really review all the information in my head to make sure she knows it all.

Regardless, if she does know it all already or not, I want to show her I’m willing to talk about it in much greater depth without needing for her to pull teeth to pry it out of me. That I’m not going to try and protect my own emotions through lying or minimising. I want to show her...fuck it, I want to show me that I can sit in the shit, and really own up to what I’ve done wrong and admit to quickly and fully anything that might come up related to this.

Why are you looking for 2x4's from us? Why are you looking for motivation from us? Why can't you give that to yourself?

I wasn't asking what you're looking for here Stonelotus. I'm asking you what are you looking for?

What is about yourself that you're running from? What is it about you that you're scared of? Trickle Truth isn't about trying to spare your BS's feelings. It's about trying to protect yourself about an ugly truth you don't want to admit to yourself. And usually it's not about the actual action, but about something deeper within us that we're frightened of.

We can guide you. But that motivation has to come from you. Taking those steps has to come from you. Doing the right thing has to come from you. You , alone... are responsible for you.

Do. Or do not.

You shit in your bed. You can either spend your time being upset about the mess, or you can get it taken care of. You either start doing the right things or you don't. You either get it together or you don't. You either put 150% into your healing and into respecting your wife's needs or you don't. You either make your choices or you let your fear determine where you go.

You might be able to save your marriage. You might not. But the only way to move forward is to be honest with yourself and to be willing to own your actions, regardless of the outcome.

Don't be a victim of yourself. What else can you do to set things right, again regardless of the outcome?

Have you ever offered a polygraph? If not, it's way past due. It will also incentivize you to really be honest with yourself. If you even think "you know, they aren't always accurate," let alone say it, that's a red flag that you're lying at least to her, and quite possibly to yourself.

Book it and do it. Even if she says it's too late and she frankly doesn't give a damn, do it for yourself, to hold your own feet to the fire. We can help you with the questions to make sure you aren't crafting them to give yourself a loophole.

SerJR you are correct again, motivation has always been my problem. After two years of lying to myself and ignoring my BSs pain I certainly deserve to be called lazy and uncaring. I get the whole do or do not mentality so this is where I’m starting it. Maybe it is sort of dumb to be looking to you guys for motivation, but I like to see it more as using you guys as a tool to motivate myself.

That and you all do legitimately have some very strong advice to guide and give. That’s why I’m starting here, or trying to really start here. If I bare my soul to you guys, stop trying to protect my feelings and myself in a public place, maybe I can come to grips with what I’ve done and what I need to continue to do in order to fix it.

Maybe that’s stupid but anything is worth a shot at this point.

BraveSirRobin, a polygraph sounds fantastic. I’ve brought it up before but I’ll do it again for her and see if she wants it. If she’s not interested then I have no idea how to handle that experience by myself, could you elaborate on how it will help me? Just trying to make sure I have a solid understanding of your logic.

You need to do it because it proves to you that you are done lying. You need to take that step even if she's past caring one way or the other (which you should be viewing as a distinct possibility). You are the common denominator in every relationship of your life, and as long as you don't deal with that, every relationship in your life will be fucked up.

I made all kinds of excuses to myself about the lies I was telling. I told myself that they were inconsequential details and yet guarded them with my life as information capable of ending my marriage. Only a wayward can do that -- compartmentalize the truth in a completely contradictory fashion that explains it away in our own minds.

The fear of the polygraph will force your head around to the places you don't want to look. I suspect that at first, you'll be full of confidence and bravado: she knows everything now, bring it on. If that's actually true, that means she finally demanded a separation and then found your last remaining lie by accident the next day. C'mon, man. You can't bullshit a bullshitter. No one is that unlucky. Which is why, as the day approaches, there will suddenly be "reasons" you decide you can't or shouldn't take the poly. Because there's stuff you either know right this second that you're hiding, or there's stuff you aren't admitting even within your own mind, and you know the poly will force it out.

I sense that you are pretty good at this manipulation game, because I said I wouldn't get drawn in, and yet, here I am. Well played, but it doesn't mean I believe for a second that you're telling the truth yet.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 10:06 PM, September 1st (Sunday)]

You know BraveSirRobin, I really really wish I sucked ag playing the manipulation game. Really all it’s brought me is lying to myself and hurting people around me. It’s a really, really dumb skill to have. It feels like it wants to protect itself, but really it’s that I want to protect it because it protects me doesn’t I?

I like your idea of the polygraph. I want to be uncomfortable and face the dark truths, I want to dig into that web of lies that is so big even I don’t know how deep it really goes. Compartmentalisation has got to die and it has got be be definitively shattered.

She might have already contacted a lawyer and what you and SerJR say is correct. I should be doing this for myself and I need to detach myself from what the consequences. I want to be genuine though. I want to be able to look at myself and not get my stomach in a twist because I think or know that I’m hiding something.

Great. Words mean nothing at this point, so spend the morning on Google and find some reputable polygraphers near you. Make the appointment tomorrow. Do no reading, zero, on how the test works. No "I'm staking a lot on this, I need to understand the science," etc. That will be your manipulative side trying to figure out how to game the system. If you can't get out of that headspace, the whole enterprise is pointless anyway.

Find a well-reviewed polygrapher, book the next available slot, and cancel anything that conflicts with it. Then you can see if your BW has any interest in the questions and/or if experienced people here have advice about what they should be.

Good idea. I can’t do it tomorrow due to life circumstances, and Arfaj can read this and judge me on it if I am wrong, but I will talk to her about it and see if I can schedule it for the next weekend (or the next one).

In the meantime, what sort of questions did you ask yourself or would you ask yourself? I already have some ideas but I’m trying to get a better understanding. Doing it to myself still sounds odd but you’ve convinced me it’d be helpful and I don’t want to just be dense and not get the right things out of it.

You write a timeline, a complete timeline with every single betrayal of her and offense you have ever committed against the marriage. You leave nothing out. Then you go to the polygrapher and have him ask you whether you included everything on that timeline. You have him ask you if everything you stated is accurate. You live or die by that document. Etc, etc.

But honestly, I still think the kindest thing you can do, the most useful and only relevant truth you can offer, is that you are either not willing to be or not capable of being a safe partner to her. Accept that, own it, and tell her that if she's done, you understand and will not continue to make it harder for her with lies and false hope. This "next weekend, or maybe the next" attitude only reinforces my belief that you are still lying through your teeth. If you really were telling the truth, you would break the damn door down to prove it to her as quickly as you could.

No matter how desperate her suffering, you have never stopped protecting yourself over her. That isn't love. If you can't stop the trickle torture, please just admit that she deserves better than you can give.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 10:09 PM, September 2nd (Monday)]