SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This first thread may be a bit long. If you stay with me, thank you in advance.

My story is convoluted, but I'm a BH (38) with a WW (37). I posted on here a few years back, and immediately deleted it all because I was scared my wife could somehow find it. And I was in speculation mode without a real, true "smoking gun" and I wanted to believe her back then. I've been on these forums reading voraciously ever since. Standard advice has been done. I've been STD tested, I do have an attorney on retainer with whom I've consulted and found out what a divorce may look like, and he's on hold to file the divorce papers, I've told the OM's wife. I just need a place to talk this out and see if my story is beyond broken at this point, and maybe just writing out the timeline will help me too.

In march of 2022, I found out that my wife had been in a full blown affair since July of 2019. Emotional, sexual, love, limmerance, and all of it. I work night shift, so they'd take day trips while I was sleeping and our 4 kids were in school. They'd go to a different city and get a hotel with day rates so they could be intimate during the day and then go out shopping and eating or whatever and be a "real couple" without risk of being caught in our home city. It started off at work between them, and somewhere right before Covid shut everything down, around February of 2020, he took a job an hour and a half away, so they started seeing each other way less. He still lives very near us, but he started commuting and the time they'd spend together at work (and office sex, of course, because why not) had to stop. So they no longer work together now. In March when I discovered it, I think she was trying to get caught. She left a phone with all their messages in the front pocket of her bag, with no password on the phone, knowing good and well that I was in blood hound mode searching her stuff and convinced she was cheating. She knew if I saw a strange phone in the front pocket of her bag, I'd read it. After confrontation, she managed to convince me to stay in the marriage and give her another chance. It's been a brutal 7 months, but I thought there was real progress. Things were different. She'd plead that I wasn't competing with this other guy, that he meant nothing to her, and she went out of her way to be the loving wife she had been before all this started years earlier (I forgot to mention we've been married 19 years). She was open with her phone, sharing location with me whenever she went places, we were living like a husband and wife serving one another and trying to be kind to one another, she started doing my laundry for me again and I started cooking for her again. Our sex life was incredible, but it always was even throughout her affair (except for a very short time where she did cut me off in the very early stages of her affair and I suspect the height of limmerance, butterflies, or whatever with him). But it was even better these past 7 months, with a deeper, more spiritual intimacy compounded onto the great physical part of knowing each other so well after all these years as a very sexual couple. She's sincerely been everything I think anyone could ask for in a WS committed to reconciling.

That's why I was utterly shocked to find out it's been a lie a couple of days ago. I'm now trying to find out how utterly of a lie it's been, from a spouse whose word I can't trust really at all. There's a much deeper back story going back five years, with a couple other men and what would be called emotional affairs that may have been physical, and one of which almost certainly was to some degree. But suffice to say, there's a long history of inappropriate messaging and conversations, even before her current affair partner that was discovered in March of this year. And I'm still not sure how much of that I fully believe her on. I almost tend to believe she's telling the truth about the flirting stuff in messaging stopping, but only because of her loyalty to her primary AP, not anything to do with us or our marriage. I think he stopped the other men.

Regardless, two days ago I went through her phone thinking I'd just be reassuring myself. I didn't expect to really find anything. I haven't looked in months and months. I'm just not wired that way, I just want to live and not be a detective all the time. But I look and behold there's sexting between her and a man from our kid's ballgame earlier in the week. They were at the ballfield, he told her to come sit beside him, and she responded with a meme saying "yes daddy" and then he sent her some 50 shades of gray memes and she responded in kind. This guy isn't the primary affair partner. She says it was all a joke, but acknowledges it's all cheating still. Crying, sorry. But freezing up and refusing to let me have her phone after she took it out of my hand. I call the guy because I know him since our kids have played ball together for years. He tells me how deeply sorry he is, acknowledges that it was screwed up, but assures me that he's never touched her and his story lines up exactly with her. It's all more jokes than anything else. But he tells me, "There is another man, and it's not me you have to worry about. You need to go through your wife's phone and you'll find stuff between her and someone. Even if I wanted to be with her, she just jokes around with me. There's a guy she's actually with." I ask her what he's talking about, and she says she has no idea. She hands me her phone and says I can go through it now, but she's had ample time to delete whatever she wanted. (God this is a long, complex story, and I'm sorry).

At this point, I tell her I'm just done. I'm going to file for the divorce. I've had an attorney on stand by since March, and I'm just done. She begs and pleads, swears there's nothing with this guy from the softball field, that I'm her soulmate and she can't imagine living without me. She wants so desperately to see our grandchildren grow together and enjoy this next phase of life as our kids all grow up and move on (and we would be a young empty nester couple because we started so young, and we've always dreamed about those days of child-free 40s to just enjoy one another and travel and be young grandparents). Then she tells me she will not live without me, and makes very credible suicide threats. It could well be manipulation, stopping me from leaving. And I believe in some sense it was, but I also don't know that it's merely that. I didn't know what to do. I called the police. We had her taken to a hospital, and now she's been committed to a mental health unit by order of a psychiatrist. She's been in there and will be for a few more days. I've talked to her on the phone since then, and found out that for the past 5 years (about the time everything started going very very south in our marriage and her personality), she's been abusing adderrall. I've known she took it,but had no idea how incredibly high the dosages were or how much she was taking it or that she had been crushing it and snorting it to get high. She finally confessed to all that, and she's going through some pretty intense withdrawal in the hospital right now. I've talked to her, and she says right now she finally has a clear mind. This is rock bottom. Yesterday was our youngest son's (her baby, the mama's boy of all mama's boys) birthday. Today is our oldest son's 18th birthday (busy winters around here with all these october babies). She's missing them both in a mental health unit. She's finally being confronted with the fact that she's out of control with this drug addiction. She always felt like she had it under control, even though she knew she didn't feel like herself and had wanted to be clean for a long time, and never quite could because every time she tried to get clean she'd become so unproductive that she felt like she wasn't able to even be a mother or go to work without the drug. She swears this is rock bottom. No more secrets. She just desperately needs another chance. But the problem is that I've heard all that before, and I thought rock bottom was back in March, adn there's one last twist that I found out about last night, and not from her even after she was in the hospital crying about being at rock bottom and wanting to be open and drop all the secrets she's been carrying.

She's been talking to the original affair partner this entire time that we've been "reconciling". I never ever saw that coming. She had me convinced he was gone. She's been so emphatic in that. She had his number blocked, and I'd check to make sure it was still blocked and every time it was spot checked, he was still blocked. Instagram. She'd never used instagram in the past. She had it, but never really liked it. So that was how they communicated because she knew I'd check facebook messenger and snapchat (that only has our children on it as contacts and the affair partner is blocked as a condition of her keeping that due to some weird ways her and our daughters use it to communicate). But I never knew to check instagram, and with "vanish mode" it's a cheater's paradise. I found out because I decided I was tired of keeping her secrets like I had since March. Our kids kind of knew because they'd hear us argue, but we didn't explicitly tell them things. They knew the AP's name. They knew there was something. But this time when I came home I just directly told our oldest 3 about me catching the sexting with the dad at the ballfield and how I think I'm filing for divorce and she's in the hospital. At that point my oldest daughter says,"Dad, I wanted so badly just to stay out of everything, but I love you and you need to know Mom still text's AP). That blindsided me. She had photo evidence. She had confronted her mom about it and said, I know you're not supposed to be talking to him, and WW just lied to our daughter and said she was going through and deleting stuff and that's why his name was pulled up. My daughter didn't believe her, so she took a live photo one day of her instagram chatting him over her shoulder, and once I told them what was going on, she gave me that with the timestamps. Then my other daughter, younger, speaks up and says, "yeah she talks to him all the time, I didn't realize they weren't supposed to be talking."

I asked my wife about this while she was in the hospital, and I felt like I was getting a bit of trickle truth, but eventually she admitted that she'd been talking to him. She said the primary reason right now was because A) He wanted to get a restraining order on me after I went to his house and tried to tell his wife and went to his work (an hour and a half away) and confronted him after a really bad day recently, and she was trying to convince him not to do all that, and B) because he had threatened suicide and said told her how he gave up having kids with his wife for her and gave up a big job promotion moving states away to stay here to be with her and she felt guilty and worried about his mental health (yeah, the irony of him being suicidal and her feeling stuck to stay because of that coupled with what she did to me a couple of days ago is not lost on me at at all). Then she admits that at first, it wasn't that. She kept him unblocked on Messenger at my request early on. I wanted him to be able to reach out, and I wanted to see her show me and prove she'd be faithful when he did. And she says that for a month or so he never did reach out through that one avenue where he wasn't blocked (he was blocked on the phone the whole time). But then he did. And she missed his friendship because during the affair, she had given up everything for him. She didn't even have any girlfriends left to talk about life with, and she was just lonely. Her only person at this point was me, and I was raging still and going through the things BS's go through post D-day, and life was really really hard on her with no friends and worried I'd leave any day (and I did at times say I was, and I was in an ocean of up and down and good days and bad days like I'm sure so many here can relate to). So she responded. And they started just talking as friends again. And she lied PASSIONATELY AND WITH CONVICTION to me all the while that there was no contact with him. And she admitted that they became sexual again, twice. She says at that point the guilt was so great over all the lying that she had to get zombie like high in order to give him what he wanted, and that while she admits that during their affair before she was in fact an enthusiastic sex partner, not just doing it for him, that this time was different. Now she did feel awful, and she had to get incredibly high just to give him robotic, zombie like sex, when all she wanted now was the friendship. She says that did stop after that, and she quickly realized that a friendship wasn't possible. She felt awful, but that's when he started with all the things he had given up and the mental health challenges, and she didn't block him simply because she couldn't live with her conscience if he harmed himself (the fact that he has a WIFE, and she should be his confidant, apparently didn't cross her mind). But there's no way to prove any of this. It's all her word and a bunch of vanish mode instragram messages. She admitted that they met in a parking lot last week and talked for a few minutes, but swears there was no physical contact, not even a hug. She says she does still tell him she loves him in their messages, but it's not the same as before. They don't talk about a future together anymore, and now she's completely willing to go totally no contact. She'll give me whatever I need. She'll delete the social media completely. She's going to get clean and off the drugs, and is in the process of doing that now. She's being set up with mental health professionals and a plan once she gets out. It's going to be different this time. That her last contact with him was in the hospital telling him what happened and where their relationship had led her to, and that she was finally and totally done (again, I've heard all this before). She's committed to doing whatever it takes to prove that she can be the wife she once was, and we can have that future we always dreamed of, and that I'm enough and she wants only me (heard it all before). This is, according to her, a true final rock bottom (heard that before too). This time she's getting clean off the drugs (I haven't ever heard that one).

I just don't know what to do. I don't know how to view everything. In some way it's cathartic just to write it out. And I've left out a lot of details, even as detailed and transparent as I've tried to be in this post. It's a book to write just this much, and if you read this far with me, thank you. I'm open to people's thoughts and opinions, as I'm just in no man's land of not knowing what to do. I know in a perfect world, for my own sake, if I could have everything I ever dreamed of, I want my faithful wife who used to exist. I'm just not sure that person exists any more or ever can again, and even if she can how I could ever trust that she is being true. And I don't want to live like this. If she can't be faithful, I feel like somewhere out there is a new life, and there are women out there who would love to be faithful to a man who's faithful and loyal to them (probably many BW's on here feel that way). And if I can't have my wife, then the next best thing is to cut my losses and try to one day find that with someone new. I want to and feel like I deserve to be someone's "guy, one and only, that dude for her" and be able to safely give that same level of loyalty to another imperfect, but faithful woman. Thank you for reading. I apologize for the book. I won't do this level of writing again, but I felt like it was necessary for the story to make any sense.

[This message edited by 1345Marine at 4:02 PM, Friday, October 7th]

Others will be along with great advice. I just wanted to let you know that you've been heard, and to remind you that you can care for a person, support them, love them, co-parent with them - and not have to be married to them. Take care of yourself.

I’m so sorry for you and your children.

Unfortunately your cheating wife will lie and never take ownership of her choices. That has been her pattern.

It boils down to this - do you want to continue to remain married to a serial cheater — or do you want to get out from this nightmare?

Her addiction, her issues, her lying, blah blah blah were never an excuse. She appears to be manipulative to ensure she does or says whatever she wants and gets away with it.

You are at the crossroads here.

You have been repeatedly lied to and cheated on and at this point, you don’t need to discuss anything with her or confront it go to marriage counseling etc.

You just need to decide what you wish to do.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 4:13 PM, Friday, October 7th]

I don't have time for a long post. For now, I'll just say this. I was only into your post a few lines when the thought occurred to me: "His WW is an addict."

Being married to an addict is a special kind of Hell. Nobody would blame a person for leaving a marriage with an addict.

However, being married to an addict who is also an adulterer, that's a double Hell. Your long thread screams "forest/trees issues". That is, you've been so focused on each individual tree, for so long, that you have lost sight of the reality that you're in the forest.

The answer is simple. Let her go. You have been under stress for over 2 years. Do you know what that does to you physically? Please read the book THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE and then put on your armor and tell her to leave. She is now having her children keeping her secrets and that is it grossly unfair and wrong. Just let her go. Every single time she mentioned suicide call the cops and they will put her in that same place and eventually she will figure out that you are not falling for it. Although I think she’s somewhat of an addict I also think she’s extremely narcissistic and so is that boyfriend. The two of them would’ve been much better off going on some roller coasters on the weekends and behaving themselves otherwise. This is who she is.

I'm so sorry you've joined the club no on ever wants to be in.

I was married to a serial cheater in my 1st marriage. Like you I worked evenings (co owner of a pizza shop). My Wxw would see her boyfriends in the evenings when I was at work. In 4 years she f#cked at least 10 I can account for...and possibly another 5 or 10 I was merely suspicious of.

My advice is follow through on your divorce. Make sure you get full custody of the kids. I'd DNA test all of them just to be safe.

Read up on the healing library in the tabs above. I'd implement that and only speak to her about the kids. Its a way of disengaging from her emotionally.

Also you must contact his wife and present her with the evidence you have. She deserves to know what a POS her husband is.

Your WW is a badly broken woman. Its not your place at this point to fix her. She's a liar (all cheaters are) and an addict on top of that. Make sure you're eating enough and getting enough fluids. I'd strongly urge you to join a gym and get back into shape.

There is a happy future out there for you, even though its bleak right now. The heavy hitters here will be on to offer better advice...but all of us here have been through this and we are here for you.

I’m sorry but adderall doesn’t make you cheat. I wouldn’t buy I’m an addict that’s why I cheated story.

Your WW is a serial cheater and lier. This will continue as long as you’re together.

Clearly, you are reluctant to do what you already know you need to do. However, there is no R with this level of dysfunction. It’s way past time to end this farce of a M.

1345Marine,
I am so sorry from the bottom of my heart you are here, I am glad you chose to post your story this time, best place to be during this time. Even in the last few weeks on SI there has been more and more people who have chosen in the past to R but have just found out that their WS has cheated yet again.

That also goes for me--I had my original D-Day in 2015, 6 years later I'm back again. Seems like some sort of uptick in the ability to hide things with social media OR just the demise of anyone with ANY moral consciousness. I used to think a WS could change & be safe, BUT I firmly believe anyone who has been a serial cheater in the past will absolutley continue to cheat.

A long time poster posted this in another members post and I CANNOT express how spot on this is for YOU, I or anyone dealing with a serial cheater PA or EA form. THIS IS SO SPOT ONREAD BELOW.

Healthy ADULTS don't need to be validated. They validate internally. Healthy adults are self-fruitful in the matter of contentment and life satisfaction, and when things come up which make them unhappy, they address the cause and solve the problem. OTOH, the vast majority of cheaters cheat because they're seeking external validation. They are NOT emotionally healthy. They can't do it on their own. They've got a hole inside them and no amount of external validation will fill it. Certainly, the old and familiar validation of a spouse doesn't get the job done. Our "kibbles" are stale and boring. They don't create enough adrenaline anymore to make the cheater feel special. It's like getting an "atta boy" from your mom, right?

This 1345Marine, is exactly what BS's are dealing with, we are and can't be enough, they are not healthy or safe individuals, never will be sadly. The truth is hard and hurts but this is the reality.

YOU are not like her, and wrapping your head around this for some sort of reasoning will leave you even more preplexed. Just the mindf*** for her to cheat so flagrantly around her own kids shows a complete lack of utter decency and respect for your kids and you, She is in a mystical, unicorn world where the rules don't apply to her VERY much classic narcassistic in every way.

They are in essence above the laws that apply to the average healthy individual.

I would have zero remorse right now for what seems like a bucket list of her individual problems and protect yourself and your 4 kids. They are in need of your attention and efforts right now not her. She has made her choices without any care to them or you. They have taken on too much for just being kids, having to screenshot her phone all in the name of protecting you shows just how much they love and respect you. Get custody of them and use her addiction and mental health as the rationale. They need peace and stability and you can provide that long-term.

Only NOW that she's been caught she wants to act right?!?! Literally mind blowing that she wants to "get right" when she has or never will be right in any capacity. It is much better to be alone than to have this mess in your life.

Please take good care of yourself, this is so incredibly hard on someone (as you unfortunalty know)

Brother I'm very sorry you've had to endure all this, but you came here for advice and I don't like to sugarcoat things, as with any LTAs and Serial Cheaters my standard advice is to file for D, life's too short and you deserve so much better than a proven cheater and compulsive liar.

I found out about last night, and not from her even after she was in the hospital crying about being at rock bottom and wanting to be open and drop all the secrets she's been carrying.

Believe me I like others here have read hundreds if not thousands of stories and let me tell you that I don't recall even one where the WS kept in touch with the AP after being committed to a hospital after suicide threats, heck you said it yourself, you've been through several "rock bottom" episodes and yet she keeps betraying you and with several OMs in the mix, you mentioned you don't want to live in detective mode your whole life and I sincerely don't know how that's possible with an LTA, serial cheater and drug addict.

Notice I barely mentioned her drug addiction which is another problem on its own, you've endured way too much and I sincerely think it's time you pull the plug, your M has been a farce for many years, your children and probably more people knew/suspected what was going on, you mentioned you had an attorney on stand by, make the call.

1345Marine,

Sorry that you are here, but there are some great folks on this site that will have some solid advice to help you.

I too, had the misfortune to have a addict and cheater as a first wife. I hung in there for a number of years thinking that I could "fix" her.

She also had numerous stays in hospitals/addiction centers etc. None of those situations helped. Eventually after many years of "doing my best" and "staying for the kids" I had to throw in the towel and move on.

Interestingly enough, the pain of ending the relationship was easier to handle than all the pain of the addictions and cheating.

I really don't have a ton of advice, but I can tell you that the sooner you get to the point of no return so to speak, the sooner the healing starts.

As a side note, I have not seen my first wife in over twenty years now, both my adult children are in my life, along with two grandchildren that the ex-wife has never seen. By all accounts she is still active in her addictions and cheating ways.

Good luck to you Sir, whatever path you choose to take.

Ordinarily, I'd say take your time. The problem's not going anywhere. But right now while she's in the hospital, I think the time is ripe to put things on the path you'll want to see them on for the next six months. This would actually be a really great time to tell her that you're done if that's your inclination because she's already hospitalized and if she threatens suicide, she's right there where she can get immediate help.

One of two things is likely here... either you set firm boundaries requiring her to make it on her own, or she comes home as a psychiatric patient and life becomes focused on her and her issues. You can work with either one of those scenarios, but you do have time right now to make a choice about it. The choice I gave my cheating fWH about a month after dday was that he could be "all in" or "all out". But you don't have to have such a strict ultimatum. You can be 90% out, or 70% in, or however you want to frame it. Yours are the boots on the ground and you get to decide. The impetus here though would be setting the parameters now, before she gets home.

I think in your position that I would be done. A three-year affair and then flagrant false R would be more than I would want to deal with. I don't buy into any notion that Adderal was causal in her cheating. More likely, the same defect in character which allowed her to commit adultery allowed her to abuse her medication.

I cannot express how hard this is to read. I knew a woman like this. She had deep seated life issues that predated her bad behavior, but suffice it to say that after 3 marriages and meth addiction, criminal justice intervention and despite the concern and help of loving parents and friends, despite every opportunity, she ended up hanging herself for the 7 year old to find.

My guess is you still don't know everything but here is what I am seeing.

Sex addiction

Drug addiction (Alcohol?)

Pathologically lying

Thrill seeking

Anti-social behavior (50 shades talk while purportedly reconciling)

Self-entitled behavior

Willful damage to your kid's psychological well being

Continuing suicidal ideation as a form of manipulation

This woman is never going to be cured. It will take years of grief and continuous backsliding to get to some level of normal behavior, if ever.

The only thing you don't talk about is her spending habits. What does your bank account and credit card history show? I'm betting it is not good.

There is a world out there that is safe. Due to the kids, you will never be totally free of this emotional energy vampire but you don't have to live with her.

These are a kick in the teeth to read, but thank you. I'm reading and processing. I have quite a bit going on while she's in the hospital and there's still a household to run. If I'm being honest, I desperately wanted to hear more optimism. I desperately wanted to hear that relapse means a lot more work, but here are some examples of multiple relapses and a story as bad as yours that did end in successful reconciliation. But, it very well could be, and is probably likely, that those stories just don't exist in any meaningful number.

With regards to a few specifics, I would tend to agree with everyone that I don't have the full truth. There's a lot still being hidden at this point. The only time it would ever come out would be if a real rock bottom is hit. I keep thinking after each incident that "this one" is rock bottom. And we keep going deeper and deeper into an abyss. So it's obviously never been hit. But there's still a small voice in me that wants to hold out hope that this one, this time, as far as it's gone, this is rock bottom. Time would tell I guess.

One thing that is set in stone for me is that I'm going to be kind and supportive of her and try to see her get well. That doesn't mean as my wife or as her husband. That's very much unsettled and leaning towards very unlikely. I can be a good human to her and support her while living in a different place and even going through a divorce, I think. But, as with above, time will tell.

I agree completely with staying in shape and making time for that. It's been a lifesaver for me since D-Day in March. I'm in the best shape of my life. Ran my first half-marathon a month back and finished with a sub 9 minute mile pace. It's my happy place, and I won't give it up. I also love to lift, so I'm going to keep embracing that too. If anyone is reading this as a lurker like I have done for years, looking for advice, that's some of the advice I'd most vocally embrace. Take care of your body while going through hell.

I appreciate everyone's support and kind words and even the kicks to the teeth. I wish there was more optimism, but it can't be falsely generated either. I'll write more later or respond to individual stuff as appropriate and as time permits.

I’m so sorry for what you are going through.

I wish I could give you more optimism but unfortunately the people on here know what they are talking about.

You can take care of her but you have to look out for yourself and your kids first.

With that said the only idea I have is this.

You need to tell his wife again.

And you need to investigate this other man the sports dad mentioned.

But instead of you telling his wife. She needs to do it.

This primary AP is an enemy to you and your family.

She needs to show you that she is all in. She needs to tell his wife everything.

She needs to prove her commitment and being the one to hurt him won’t solve everything but it will help.

If she can’t do that then you know for sure where her heart lies.

Also she needs to tell the sports guys girl or wife.

She needs to come clean once and for all. Maybe it’s not a good idea if the professionals say so but while she is just sitting in the hospital she can be working on the full written timeline of everything.

If not she needs to write it out once and for all when she gets back.

Tell her this is it. No more secrets. It will be investigated. And make her permanently and forever deletes all social media. None ever again for any reason.

It’s a little easier to write it out alone then to tell you to your face that’s why it’s always a primary suggestion.

Also no male friends or acquaintances of any kind. Ever again. No messages even a hello between her and another man.

That’s a tough consequence. She probably won’t be able to handle it long term.

You should probably move on honestly.

There is a reason you are getting that advise. This will stay with you forever. The quickest way it will get better is move on with your life.

I’m so sorry. You deserve better.

I wish there was more optimism, but it can't be falsely generated either.

It's just too soon for optimism. Three years is a long time to cheat, to look into your face every day and LIE. Then, to observe the crushing despair, insecurity, and everything that goes with it... and keep on lying and cheating. Right now, you've literally got nothing to work with. It's not enough for her to beg for another chance and claim she means it this time, all the while manipulating you with threats of suicide. It will take TIME for you to observe her actions and see if she's even capable of making changes. She's a total tear-down at this point, and even if you invest the YEARS it will take, there's no guarantee she's going to make it. You're still a young man with a lot of life left in front of him. I think you owe it to yourself to spend some time thinking about whether you really want to make more investment.

It's obvious that you're a kind-hearted guy, and yes... people have come back from worse. But I do have to point out to you again what Butforthegrace said earlier, re: "forest, trees". You're really bogged down in what's happening now and all the drama it entails, but ten, twenty, forty years from now she will still have cheated on you and put you through hell. It's the first round of decisions where she crossed the line where the defect in her character lies. All this other stuff is a distraction in a lot of ways. The bottom line is that she's a cheater with no compunction about casual betrayal. All the tears and snot-bubbled promises to change are for her right now, not for you. She's losing everything she had, her security, her family dynamic, the respect of her children, extended family, friends, etc. But she's still the same exact person she was a few weeks ago, texting with a paramour in front of her kids. The kind of introspective, painful, humbling work a WS needs to do in order to change all that hasn't happened yet and won't for a pretty long time. R is a big ask. It's a continuous process. We don't just make a decision and everything goes back to how it was. It can NEVER go back to how it was because how it was was her leading a double life and you being robbed of your agency.

It's okay if you do want to make that investment. I'm not saying don't do it. I just want you to have your eyes wide open about what you're getting into. We're gonna be here supporting whatever you decide, but the key to healing no matter which decision you make is to focus on YOU. You can't live your life for anyone else and after you've been through this kind of trauma, the key to healing is to relearn how to really depend on yourself and be whole within yourself.

I suggest you start to detach and let the psychiatrists and other doctors at the hospital handle her recovery, that of course doesn't mean you grey rock her either, but limited interaction nonetheless, stop being her KISA, she's probably using the same manipulation tactics (suicide threats)that her boyfriend has been using on her (or so she claims) heck she's still been in contact with her "primary" AP while being there, so take this time to detach and get your ducks in a row.

Again I suggest you file for D (you can stop it at anytime or not), your WW is most likely still lying to you as she has demonstrated every single time, not only about her primary AP but about the others, she has shown you she's not R material by a very long shot and therefore IMHO your only logical option is to D and end this farce, you can't fix her and again she has demonstrated over and over again that she's not loyal or trustworthy, btw I suggest you get STD tested yet again.

[This message edited by Buster123 at 9:54 PM, Friday, October 7th]

I have some optimism for you.

You are a good man with some lovely daughters who love and need you. Preserve that part of your family. Circle the wagons.

Their mother’s behavior will challenge their sense of family and relationships. Be there for them and also preserve your own dignity.

Because of your daughters your future won’t be bleak. There will be many joys. That is so whether or not you end up with your wife (if she has it in her), are single, or find a new life partner.

[This message edited by straightup at 10:36 PM, Friday, October 7th]

You say you read here regularly. Maybe you have a sense for the advice I give. I believe I'm even tempered and try not to bias too much towards R or D.

Your wife is a serial cheater. Her cheating wasn't the joke, your marriage was (to her). Mental health is a bitch, but at this point it isn't your problem.

Stay the course on D. Full custody is a slam dunk.

Sending strength.

Your post is just paragraph after paragraph of the excuses and manipulation she’s come up with for every infraction.

The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior and I can’t see how you could think she’d possibly be any different.

Also, don’t fall into the sunk cost fallacy. She’s had enough chances. You’re young and have a whole life to live and find someone who will respectful enough to not cheat and lie on you constantly.

Sending you strength to get through this.