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I am a 30 y/o woman who has been married to my 28 y/o wife for almost 6 years. We dated for 2 years before our marriage and moved in together after 1 year of dating. There were some issues in our marriage that lead up to the A. I drank often, well my wife and I would drink together. I come from a family of functioning alcoholics so, I have always kept a job, and my alcohol abuse is not noticeable to most of my peers. I become a verbally abusive drunk when I black out. My wife has even said that I have become physical on 3 occasions…but I really don’t remember the first time…she never told me about it when it happened, she actually only told me recently…after her A was discovered, but I will get to that soon. The 2nd time I remember, but we were wrestling for the keys because she was leaving me to go the OW’s house (a habit that she started in January after any argument). I don’t really consider me the aggressor on the 2nd occasion because she had previously told me that she would stop the affair if I “fought for her.” The third time, which just happened last week, she claims I hit her, but I specifically remember us shoving each other. I have offered to quit drinking so that she will stop seeing the OW (what I perceived as our addictions), but she would not let me quit, in fact she said, “I want to be able to enjoy drinks with you.” In fact, the 3rd incident occurred because she wanted to get drunk and kept buying alcohol while were apartment shopping.

I have made so many changes since D-day, which was in the beginning of February. I have literally made every single change that she requested…here are some examples: My wife says that she had the A because the OW is affectionate, and I would be cold when she begged for my attention. She says that the OW is sensitive, and I am not in touch with my emotions. She says that the OW always wants to be bothered with her, but I only want her attention now because of the OW’s presence in her life. She says that she will not stop seeing that OW, because they are not “like that” anymore, BUT ARE JUST FRIENDS. She keeps reiterating that I need to trust her…but how can I trust her when she lies to me about so much. I had to consistently confront her with evidence to get her to admit anything, and when she finds out my methods for uncovering the truth, she says that I am invading her privacy. Is she gaslighting me? I never went through her phone before the EA/PA began.

December

So let’s talk about how to A started. During the pandemic, I voiced to my wife that I would like to try an open relationship. We set rules, like no sex until the other is comfortable, ideally we would both be involved with the 3rd person, and we would have to know all of the communication between each other and the 3rd person. To start we made Profiles online and were supposed to tell ppl that we were married, so they knew what they were getting into. Well…I followed those rules, but she didn’t. She presented the OW to me as someone she just wanted to be friends with (she literally has no friends, and constantly uses this as a reason to continue her “friendship” with the OW). Then she asked me if they could hang out together…I told her “sure, but no sex.” She ensured me that she would never do anything like that without my permission, that she would keep in contact with me, and would be home at a decent hour. Well after barely hearing from her all day (she left to visit around 2pm), around 3am that night, I went to where I knew they were, and told her to come home. I should’ve known what the future was going to be like from this instance because this pattern will repeat itself. She then asked to see her next weekend…and from there they met 4 times within a 5 week period.

January

On our (yes our) birthday I decided that this was becoming too much, so I left to go to my parents house out of town. She invited this girl to our home, and claims nothing happened. But during my time away she was distant. I revealed to her parents (they also live out of town near my parents) that we were having these problems, and they ultimately told me to leave her, and that I deserve better, because she will “never stop” this behavior. They told me that she lied about several things to get my sympathy in the beginning of the marriage, and that this was her first relationship (I was told she had a few girlfriends before me). There was one lie that I really can’t shake, because it was a BIG lie. Anyway, I cut my trip short because of an approaching snow storm. I told my WS to remove that woman from our house by the time I got home (4 hour drive). When I arrived home, my WS still had the OW in our apartment, claiming that the OW was afraid to drive in the snow, and that her car was stuck. Every part of me wanted to go inside and confront both of them, but I didn’t out of fear that the cops would be called (I have a security clearance for my job that if revoked would jeopardize my job), so I instead patiently waited. After 4 hours of waiting outside I finally got them to leave. My WS decided to drove the OW home (1 hour from our home and in the snow), and left the OW car at our parking garage. My wife said that she was scared to drive so she asked me to follow them…I did to ensure her safety. After I arrived to the OW’s neighborhood I sat for 1 hour waiting on them to pull up, apparently my WS had to stop and get breakfast for the OW….You can imagine this lead to a big fight once we got back home. My WS literally left me out in the cold to sit in a car during a snowstorm for 5 hours. There were several more meetups leading into February. This month contained a lot of arguments.

February

I have a dashcam in my car that records Audio, so I turned on the audio feature in January, and let her drive my car…knowing that I can at least hear their conversations while driving. Due to my suspicions I decided to review the audio on a particular day that I knew they were together…and it revealed the OW calling my WS “baby,” and the OW telling a friend on facetime that my WS was her “new girl.” I was furious! Because of this I then go through my WS phone while she is sleeping, and see the words, “I love you” in a text from both my WS and the OW. I confront my WS immediately in the middle of the night…she denies (but I tell her about the audio), she cries, and then she admits that she has had sex with the OW, and had been since January on at least 3 occasions. This entire time she had been lying about the friendship, I should have known. But she then excuses her behavior by saying that I wanted an open relationship, and that I have been emotionally neglectful our entire marriage, and that I drank to much and verbally abused her (apparently I would call her a loser when I blacked out because she refused to get a job when we were financially struggling).

By Mid-Feb she tells me that she would like to work on the marriage so we began MC, but she refused to give up her friend because “they weren’t like that anymore.” She also refused to tell the MC that she was still seeing the OW.

March-June

We have consistently tried to come up with rules regarding her contact with the OW, but she consistently breaks them (w/ the exception of 2 times). For example, she was only supposed to see her in person once a month, but then there was always an excuse of why they need to see each other more (like the OW was depressed or her car broke down etc). She ended up seeing her a few weekends in row and every other weekend instead. Instead of her coming home at the agreed time, like 2am, she would spend the night and say that she was too drunk to drive. Recently we got into a big fight where I yelled at her and called her a bunch of names after I discovered that they have been talking on the phone daily for 4 hours at a time while I am at work. When I am home they text all day. We recently moved, and of course the OW moved on the same weekend. My WS spent more time helping her move than me. She also slept at her house the entire time and would then drive 40 min to come help me, claiming that the OW has to move furniture up stairs and I don’t, and further justifying by reminding me that she moved the majority of our things our last 2 moves because I was at work. The OW talks to my own wife more than I do. My wife used this recent fight, where I remember us both shoving each other (she didn’t even have any marks) to justify her to leave our new apartment and to sleep at the OW’s new apartment. She has not spent one night in our new apartment since we moved in. I wish that I would not have signed the lease with her, but despite all of the threats of getting her own place, she made no effort to find her own apartment.

I realize now that I must stop drinking, which I will do, and she has to cut ties with the OW. She tells me that I just don’t “want her to have any friends and am being too controlling.” I have encouraged her to get her own friends for years but she has been complacent depending on me. I have never been controlling until January because of all this. I have done nothing but support her and try to lift her up, for example: I taught her how to drive and helped her purchase her first car last year, I encouraged her to go back to school and get her degree, I wrote her resume/cover letter and gave her mock interviews to prepare her for jobs. Most of these jobs that I basically handed to her she would quit without notice over small reasons. I am the only one that has consistently worked and paid bills our entire relationship, and while she was home she would take care of the apartment (cook and clean) but would also buy clothes and shoes which maxed out a few credit cards. She has kept her current job for the last 4 months…which is a record for her, but I think that is only so she can have more freedom with OW, because I told her I refused to fund her A. She started their entire “friendship” on lies…which is something I just figured out. My WS told the OW that she was single, that I was her ex (she had to explain why I was on her Social media page, and has since removed me completely from her social media page (“because I never showed interest before when she use to ask that we take more pictures”), and she also said that my Jeep and Honda were her cars. She lied about her age, about her job type, abt how much money she made. Who knows what she told the OW about me, but evidently it is enough for the OW to say that she never wants to meet me. I think this is unacceptable because my WS has already met all of my friends and I would never go anywhere she is not invited. I really don’t know what to do because my WS is coming to our apartment today, and I don’t want to fight…but I also don’t want things to continue as they are. She wants to continue this friendship without me ever meeting the OW. She says that since I “beat her” last week she is scared to come home, because she doesn’t know when I will beat on her again (I only remember mutual shoving, and if she was the one that was injured, why did a stranger stop and ask me, not her, if I were okay?). I asked her if she just would like to live with the OW because I am tired of the drama and back and forth, she continues to say she loves me and would like to work on our marriage...but we never really have a constructive conversation about the details of that without her lashing out at me about all the bad things I have done, and how she was a perfect wife before the A. She blames the A on me and insists that she is not also having an EA with the OW, but that obvi is not true. This situation has consumed me and affected me negatively at work. My close friends are angry with her. Her own parents have stopped talking to her (she keeps insinuating that her parents blame me for starting drama between them). In the meantime, she focuses really most of her attention on 2 things; her job and the OW. I did ALL the unpacking in our new place. I have had to plan all of the admin that came along with moving. I attended MC alone last Wed, and I am wondering if I should stop that and only pursue IC. I just don’t know where to go from here, she claims she still loves me and wants the relationship, she constantly talks about buying a house, and having a baby with me…but she wont budge on her continued friendship with the OW. She gets upset with me if I constantly call her while she is with the OW (she never answers the phone), but if I dont text her the entire time she is with the OW she gets upset and says that she feels like I dont miss her or care for her. She constantly cries, and talks about how I have hurt her, it is so emotionally taxing because I feel as if she is not taking any blame or being accountable at all.

BA, sorry you find yourself here. Your wife is a cake eater and not marriage material. Hell, she may be a cake mainliner. Get into a program for your drinking. Discontinue MC. That money will be better spent on IC and a divorce lawyer. Once she is served she will promise anything you want, cutting off OW, MC, whatever. She will be lying about all of this, to you and especially to herself. She is emotionally immature and not capable of a committed relationship. Unfortunately, the only hope she has of beginning to address this is living the consequence of losing her marriage.

In the future if it ever again occurs to you to open up a monogamous relationship please save yourself and your partner the time and heartache and just break up and be single.

[This message edited by asc1226 at 5:11 PM, June 23rd (Wednesday)]

There is so much that needs to be done to have a healthy marriage, but it starts here:

I realize now that I must stop drinking, which I will do,

Not will do; but actively doing. Not for her; not to save the marriage; not for (insert external reason). You do it for YOURELF and YOURSELF only. If you don't want to do it for this reason alone, you are simply setting yourself up to fail. Ask me how I know.

The marriage may or may not be salvageable. But it has zero chance with a third person in it, and a very slim chance with alcohol and an open marriage agreement in it. The two of you have to decide if you both REALLY want the marriage, and the 'sacrifices' that marriage includes.

@ asc1226 thanks for your reply. Seeing your words were really tough to accept. I think that she has allowed me to take care of her and do so many things for her for so long that it has stunted her emotional maturity. I recently realized that she is actually a lot like her mom…and I always told myself that I would never marry a woman like that. I thought she would be different if I gave her the tools. She came to our apartment last night to do me a favor. She seemed like she was trying to change, because she talked about meditating, reading a book about self-love, and also reading the Bible. Since I am practicing the 180, I didn’t bring up any topics of the future or beg here to stay, but I did tell her that I am no longer working on the marriage but myself. I haven’t drank for a week, and will decide on the program that I would like to start this weekend. I told her that she doesn’t have to go to the OW’s house to sleep, that she could go to my grandma’s furnished condo nearby. She acted interested, but then went back to the OW apartment 1 hour away instead. I don’t get it, why travel so far out of your way? If the other woman is getting on her nerves, why go back there? She ended up leaving in tears, but I didn’t cry. The only way I see this working is if we both give up something. I need to give up alcohol and she needs to give up the OW. She has made little attempt to help me recover from the A. I understand that she is hurting too.

@ jb3199 thanks for your reply. You are right, I do need to actively stop drinking, and that is what I am doing. How exactly would you define a “third person” in the marriage? Do you think that there is anyway the OW can only be my wife’s friend? Do you think things would get better if I met the OW? Is it likely that the OW and I can be cordial or even friends…or is this just an unrealistic fantasy? I ask because I think that the OW can only remain in my wife’s life if that were to happen. I can’t continue to have them hang out without ever meeting her. I would never do that to her. She asked me recently if she could go to the OW’s friend’s birthday party in mid-July. I asked could I go? She said, “you already know the answer, she doesn’t want to meet you. I tried to get her to meet you, but she refuses.” I told her that I would never go to a party that she wasn’t invited to. She just began to cry and said that I don’t want her to have any friends and I have hurt her. Also that since she gave me a heads up 3 weeks before the party, I should be okay with her going. Well I’m not. It feels wrong.

Your wife sounds like a child and one that wants everything for herself without considering the pain it causes anyone else. Honestly those are narcissistic tendencies.

And to be honest with you, personally you lost me when you asked to open the marriage. If you don’t want to be monogamous, why get married. I know there are people, good people, on here who understand open marriages and believe in them. Sorry I am not one of them.

But I do understand pain from infidelity and I feel your pain.

The truth is, I fully understand why your WW drives an hour to be with the OW. It’s because she is attracted to her and enjoys physical contact with her. Don’t believe anything she says about the OW. She says it to placate you. To keep you in limbo. To ensure she gets to keep both of you around.

Honestly I don’t hear a lot of what you get out of this relationship. I urge you to be strong. Tell her what you need to see hear and feel from her in order to stay. Then start working on the divorce process until she COMPLETES, not just starts, what you ask for.

The OW needs to be not only removed from your lives, but also from her heart and desires. That’s work only she can do.

I wish you well.

Listen I'm sorry you're in pain but you lost me when you said you wanted an open relationship.

@Booyah Yes I did want the open relationship, however I have realized that was a terrible idea. There are plenty of relationships in my area that are in ethically non-monogamous relationships, and it appears that they are happy. After things got out of control in January I closed the marriage, because she wasnt following any of the rules that were set in place.

@Stevesn Do you think that it is possible that this is only an EA, and that she is being truthful that the PA has ended? Her attitude has adjusted since the PA allegedly ended. She use to compare us a lot, and now sometimes says, "...see you are more stable, and she (OW) could never afford me..." So, it is almost as if she only wants me for the stability and sex, but wants her (OW) for her emotional needs. She came over last night, and told me a few things she was working on to improve herself, but of course...she still wont budge about her "friendship." I will be out of town this weekend...I wonder if she will come to our apartment while I am away and stay the night. If she still stays at the OW's place, then it is clear that it is not truly "alone time" or "space" that she would like (she has been using this to justify her recent action of staying at the OW's apartment for the last week...on the couch apparently).

[This message edited by BrokenAxle at 12:41 PM, June 24th (Thursday)]

First of all. It was a physical affair. So whether or not they are still screwing doesn’t lessen the pain f what she did in the past. That is real pain you’d have to heal from. And if she is not empathetic for that pain she caused then you have to heal on your own and she is in no way a candidate for reconciliation.

A real candidate would cut full contact with the AP that helped them emotionally injure their spouse. That person would be out of her life forever. If that is not the case then the affair continues in whatever shape and form, be it EA or PA. But it was physical so it will always have been a PA

But all that said, if she’s spending the night, if she’s in the APs hone, even for an hour at a time, they are having sex. I’m sorry but it’s always the case.

If you can, read The 180 in the healing library here and use it. And talk to a lawyer to get started. You really have no other path until she gets her head out of her ass and from what you said, it sounds like it’s cemented in there.

@Stevesn, "But all that said, if she’s spending the night, if she’s in the APs hone, even for an hour at a time, they are having sex. I’m sorry but it’s always the case."

I heard everything in your last post. But I have to ask...what makes you say that it is "always the case?" I am new to this site, and I haven't read a lot of other posts...is there a direction you can point me to (besides IC, D, and the 180)? She really has been acting different since the PA "ended." If it is still going on then she has been lying to my face for months about this. I have given her several opportunities to just leave and go live with the OW (permanently and officially; this is by far the longest she has been gone), but since she wont, I guess I still believe that she still loves me and has chosen to be with me...but the other part of me wonders why she cant just let the OW go. Part of me wonders if I should pull up to the apartment, or when I know she is at a restaurant with her...to see their body language. We keep our location on our phones on for each other...so that would be rather easy for me to do... Or maybe I just should call the OW, and see what she tells me...Could either of these options help shed some light for me? I think if I knew first hand what was really going on...it would be easier for me to make a final decision.

She’s proven she’s capable of having sex with another against your wishes. She lied to you then.

Grownups who had sex over a long period time dont just stop and continue to “just hang out” overnight.

I’ll let others chime in.

And if I knew they were eating dinner at a restaurant I’d at least once be parked outside watching.

Perhaps hire a PI. They’ll get you answers very quickly.

but she would not let me quit, in fact she said, “I want to be able to enjoy drinks with you.”

This is the most concerning part for me. As someone who has a problem with drink, that she would not let you take control of your health and you life in stopping is honestly appalling.

She shows no concern at all for your needs or your welfare. She is still in an active affair, persisting on staying at the OW house overnight and dating her is proof of that. She lies consistently, you cannot trust her.

She is a terrible partner, we should all want the best for our partners and she should be supporting you in your attempts to stop drinking, not keeping it going. I honestly think this is an unhealthy relationship which you are better off out of.

Take steps to focus on you and quitting drinking. Speak to a lawyer and look at what separation and divorce look like and work on an exit plan.

Do you have someone else to care for you if you D or S?

I’m sorry for your continuing health issues. It seems like the spouse is a bit uncaring.

So sorry this is happening to you.
You need to focus on your well-being now. Stop drinking, schedule yourself for a rehab if you can, schedule for IC.
Talk to your WW and discuss whichever future plans you have. I'm not sure how to reach out to her right now if I'm in your place but at least try to communicate.
Maybe there's still a way, maybe not but at least try to do your part. If she won't come around, at least you tried.
Good luck!