SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone, I'm very new to this and recently discovered in February my wife has been in an emotional affair since November. I never thought I'd ever know what this forum was let alone be typing in it. I'll give the quick story below, but I am hopeful we can reconcile. We are married with 3 younger kids.

Wife went to a wedding in end of October, I stayed home as we couldn't find a sitter for a few days and it was during Halloween weekend. She briefly met the person at the day after reception with a group of people. I'm confident nothing physical happened, she had been staying with my close friends and they have confirmed. However when all the pictures were posted on Instagram, they connected and started messaging.

Our marriage wasn't perfect and I'm not saying that as victim blaming, because it wasn't. Somewhere throughout the cycle of life we were in with 3 young kids we became more co parents/roommates and weren't focusing on each other. Still absolutely no excuse, she picked the immature and immoral route. The bond she and him had was over that because he is also in a serious relationship that was in a rut.

The Instagram messages turned to more serious messages on a secret app I've never heard of. The bonding over their relationships quickly turned to sexting, exchanging of nudes, frequent phone calls, etc. I found out about the affair after noticing some strange messages. When confronted it initially was downplayed and lies started happening. The truth started to trickle in as I did some snooping and eventually found the secret app and saw the pictures and really explicit messages. There were many lies told at the beginning. That part hurts just as much as the action itself and pictures that are seemingly burned in my head. The initial lies are what is tearing me up about trusting her going forward, but I think we can rebuild the trust over time.

The whole story is out, I truly believe I know everything. Her friends have threatened to never talk to her again until she confessed to everything. Her mom and I have a wonderful relationship and she called me begging to stay and will help to get my wife help.

The "reason" for the emotional cheating was typical of what I've read online; validation, compliments, he said all the right things. It was creepy and almost love bombing-esque. He was upfront with her about never leaving his girlfriend because he's about to be engaged to a woman that comes from family money and he wants a part of that. (Real red flag in a human being) It has taken every ounce of strength out of my body not to reach out to his future fiance, but I will not. Partly because I don't want her feeling what i'm feeling now.

I am struggling deeply with my mental health. I'll be having a good day one day, then i have several panic attacks and the images of her nudes and his nudes just cannot escape my mind. I started therapy this week to address the panic attacks and constant flooding over emotions. I'm a fairly skinny person and I've lost almost 20 pounds since this has started, but I'm beginning to work on myself; getting my appetite up, return to working out, etc. I've just felt like a fog come over me for the last month or so.

I know I may be looked at as a fool for wanting to stay. I love my kids, I still love my wife and I don't want to break up this family over an "emotional" affair.I'm looking for maybe positive stories from those that have stayed and what we can be doing better to ensure our relationship thrives despite all this and anything else I can be doing to improve my mental health.

She has done a lot of "right" things since the betrayal and the lying.
-Full access to her phone any time
-She's signed up for therapy and we're starting couples therapy next week
-When I have flooding of emotions, she's there and she consoles me. She apologies, she cries, she asks what she can do to help
-While she said the affair was because of the attention and validation she was getting, not once has she indicated I was to blame for the affair. She has taken responsibility and isn't gas lighting me into thinking it's my fault
-I've only told a few of my friends and she has reached out to all of them and have had difficult conversations with them, not to defend her side of the story, but to fess up and work on moving forward
-She is overcome with guilt and consistently expresses it was validation she got and she could never in a million years do something physical; but she did enjoy the "riskyness" of the behavior.

So TLDR, wife had an emotional affair and lied about it on numerous occasions. I'm trying to reconcile and looking for advice from those that have been through this and succeeded. While I don't think she'll relapse, I truly believe that, I'd like to at least give this another chance.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

My wife had a very brief, short physical affair with a co worker almost exactly a year ago. In fact this day last year may very well be the day he suggested they get a hotel room together, to which she said "sure," and they followed through with it a week later.

When I found out she reacted much the same way your wife reacted and we're still together. It's been a rough ride with lots of ups and downs over the last year, but we're actually getting along a lot better now than we did before. I'm sharing this with you to let you know you're not alone, and a relationship can be salvaged, tho after only a year we're still fairly early in our recovery process. Much depends on how your wife responds to it, and thus far she's doing better than many do.

I was lied to, deceived, and there was quite a bit of sneaking around. I know how you feel. I drew a hard, red line and started divorce proceedings before she snapped out of it and I got the whole truth. She's been laser focused on repairing the damage ever since.

You're going to be on an emotional roller coaster for a while. The general rule of thumb is that it takes 3 to 5 years to recover from infidelity and reconciliation can be a lifetime work in progress. I don't think it would hurt to let her know that anything like this happening again would mean the end of the marriage. Whatever you do, don't sweep this under the rug, and don't do the pick me dance.

As far as the other betrayed partner goes, I think she deserves to know. She deserves agency. What happens if she marries him and he does it again and goes even further with the next one? How would you feel if she knew what your wife did and kept it from you? Didn't you want to know? Or would you rather you never found out and it continued to this day?

[This message edited by Pogre at 4:57 PM, Thursday, March 26th]

Hi BB, sorry you had to find this site.

he's about to be engaged to a woman that comes from family money and he wants a part of that. (Real red flag in a human being) It has taken every ounce of strength out of my body not to reach out to his future fiance, but I will not. Partly because I don't want her feeling what i'm feeling now.

This is a mistake. The other betrayed woman has the right to the truth about her relationship, and especially to take action to protect herself. You might think you’re being noble sparing her from the pain you’re dealing with but you’re rationalizing being complicit in their affair and his plans to financially abuse her. If they have children she’ll be dealing with this leach for the rest of her life.

Check out the Healing Library here. Is your wayward wife seeking resources to deal with her infidelity? Has she read How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by McDonald or Not Just Friends by Glass? If not, why not?

Please tell the fiancé. The guy sounds like a predator. They are out there and looking. Your wife won’t be the last woman and she’s probably not the first so that poor woman needs her truth so she can make a realistic decision about the person she’s trying to marry. She needs to be told he was upfront about wanting her money. That is a crass statement to make about a woman you "love" to another. I don’t understand your wife. I just don’t understand how she did not say I’m not sending you naked pictures. I’m not sexting. Please advise her. The reality of her life is that anything she sent is now fodder for online sex addicts. All he’s got to do is post her pictures one time online and it takes on a life at its own. People are such fools. There’s no excuse for a woman married with three children to behave this way.

Thank you everyone for the responses and support.

Regarding the other woman who I desperately feel bad for; I will reconsider telling her.

One fear I do have; before I knew for certain the messages had stopped I told her I was going to reach out to his girlfriend

She had called him letting him know I had found out and she was cutting off all ties with him and was tired of the lies and deceit. She also let him know I was going to be reaching out to his girlfriend. (It bothered me to my core she had called him because I was under the impression there was no more communication, that was another early lie)

That set him off and he screamed and cursed and called her all sorts of names saying my wife ruined his life. My wife said his anger was like nothing she’s ever heard before.

A part of me feels if I tell his girlfriend, there may be some sort of retaliation. Whether it’s trying to find her or releasing the nude pictures online for fodder.

My wife and I have been in a decent spot since the infidelity and the lies stopped and I fear the blow back may ruin the progress we’ve slowly been making.

I know that’s selfish on my part and the other side of my heart breaks for the girlfriend and I do think she should know. Her situation is different; I’m 10 years older, married with kids. She’s in her 20s with a boyfriend and should be able to at least make an informed decision about entering into a marriage with a man of this moral character.

Baseball

Sometimes terminology is everything, sometimes not so much…

To me the line between emotional and physical affair is clear:
The moment an action is taken or done to intentionally create sexual emotions it goes from emotional to sexual, even physical.

Imagine your wife had used a webcam to record herself strip for OM and then send him the file. Would you consider it emotional? What if this had been done live online? What if they had done this while in the same room? No physical touch yet. But isn’t there a clear intention to create a sexual response in the OP?
If you had caught them both naked in a room, but sitting on chairs three feet apart – would you still be thinking of this as an emotional affair?

Your wife sexted and sent nudes. This was a sexual affair – maybe not physical in the sense that he touched her or vice-versa. It’s more proxy-touch in that they touched themselves to sexually stimulate the other.

Why might this be relevant?
It doesn’t allow for the minimization of what took place, and it emphasizes the seriousness of what took place. I do think couples can reconcile from infidelity, and I think that there possibly being no "traditional" physical sex might make that process a grade easier. But only like doing a marathon while wearing sneakers might be easier than in boots.
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One thing that maybe shows my age, but never stops surprising me is how willing people are to share nude or explicit content online. Your wife is taking the risk that OM – a person whose morals allow him to cheat with a married woman on his future fiancé – respects her privacy regarding the safety of the pics. Or the safety of the storage area of the app. Or the honesty of a tech asked to fix said storage device… The ways those pics can get into general distribution are so many and so common that basically the only defense for most that experience this is to hide in the quantity. In other words: hope that there are enough so that someone into that genre of porn doesn’t connect the picture to you.
We never condone communications to OP after an affair other than a No Contact letter. The base form is something like:
OP – I have realized that what I was doing is betraying my marriage and I have committed to my marriage. I will never again in any way or form intitiate contact with you and request that you do not contact me. Any contact will be shared with my husband and can lead to legal action.
Only… I would add to that:
Any pictures we shared were intended for private use, and I strongly recommend they be deleted. Any form of distribution or sharing will lead to legal action to the full extent of the law.

If he is inclined to share, and based on his morals, I wouldn’t expect him to comply, but by having this letter she is in a position to possibly have files removed and to press criminal charges.
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Finally: Like others have suggested: Share with the fiancé. If not for her sake, then for your marriages sake. If he’s about to get married and his fiancé hears about this… his focus will be 100% on saving that relationship. He will dump your wife like a hot potato.

Tell her. You'd want her to.

Believe me, I struggled with the same fears before I did.

You don't know how the conversation b/w your wife and him actually played out. Maybe he lashed out in anger at her, maybe not.

Telling her is also a surefire method of preventing future contact. Which (and I mean this sincerely) could still be happening. They usually take it deeper underground. But you've gotta blow this thing up.

Your wife should be the one to contact his fiance. That poor woman needs to be protected from this gold-digging POS. And as an act of contrition to you, she should be happy to do it if it'll help you heal.

If she won't do it, that means she cares more about protecting him than she cares about you. And you could very easily justify walking away from this marriage.

Even if he threatens to release the photos she sent him, that's her cross to bear for what she did. She sent them knowing it was a risk.

I think Bigger's advice to send a no contact type of message mentioning that the pics are not meant to be shared anywhere under threat of prosecution is a good idea. Many, if not all states now have revenge porn type laws that allow

prosecution for things like that.

I know there's a lot of focus on that part of your story (contacting OBS), and that's because you've found a group of folks who have all been betrayed and I think every one of us have been in the OBS' shoes. I'm pretty sure almost every single one of us would want to know, including you. Plus it's just the right thing to do.

As far as your wife's infidelity goes from what you've typed she's doing a lot of the right things so far, assuming you have the whole truth. Just know that it's rare to get the whole story right off the bat and trickle truth is a very common phenomenon. I don't know if that'll be the case with you, but just be braced for further revelations.

As far as how you're handling it, the mental images, imagination and mind movies are also pretty common. PTSD type symptoms are pretty common. Infidelity is real trauma and it takes time to work through it. What you're feeling is normal. You're not alone. There are some good folks here who understand what you're going through. Keep posting, ask questions, or even just vent if you need to. Just typing it out and getting feedback was very helpful for me.

[This message edited by Pogre at 11:10 PM, Thursday, March 26th]

I know I may be looked at as a fool for wanting to stay. I love my kids, I still love my wife and I don't want to break up this family over an "emotional" affair.I'm looking for maybe positive stories from those that have stayed and what we can be doing better to ensure our relationship thrives despite all this and anything else I can be doing to improve my mental health.

Friend – so far the replies you have gotten (including mine) might not sound too positive.

This site is different from many other infidelity sites in its inclusion of Wayward’s. As is stated on the first page of the site:
All who have been impacted by infidelity are welcome here, even the betraying partner, provided they are remorseful and committed to healing

It is also seen in that we have a forum for Waywards, where they are granted a level of protection. Some see this as making SI pro-reconciliation, but I simply think it means many of us see it as possible. Probably because the very founders of this site are a couple that dealt with infidelity and managed to reconcile to a happy marriage until Deeply Scared untimely death. The Admins, Mods, Guides and other staff and prominent members are a combination of reconciled, divorced, betrayed and betrayed on. I think we represent a good spread of all the elements of "successful" surviving infidelity – be it through reconciliation or terminating the relationship.

Yes – you will get the posters telling you that your only option is divorce. You might get the posters questioning your dignity, self-respect and all that by staying. Funny thing is I have yet to hear the voices that will tell you to reconcile no matter what.

The way I see it, our goal here is to get you out of infidelity. If there is an active, ongoing affair then IMHO the only way out is divorce, and I would be telling you to start that whole process. However – since the affair seems inactive – I do think you have the option of exploring reconciliation.
Just keep in mind the third, possibly the most common path people take. That’s rugsweeping and never dealing properly with the why’s, the how’s, and the where do we go from here. This tends to lead to new affairs, resentment and pain. Of all three options this is IMHO the worst.

So your first statement is wrong.
We won’t look at you as a fool for wanting to stay.

We understand that desire. As it sounds like your wife recognizes her affair and seems willing to end it, then I do believe you have a good shot at reconciling and the above advice – even the tough parts – are basically all geared at helping you reconcile.

If I list what I see as challenges for you:
It’s very common to have posters think that recovering from one type of infidelity might be easier than recovering from another. It’s also near-universal that the wayward minimizes what actually took place. I came out swinging stating that this was a sexual affair rather than an emotional affair, and gave you my reasoning. Not to make it harder, but rather to make you both aware of what you were dealing with. Reconciliation can only start with the truth.
The hardest type of affair to recover from is the type the person posting experienced. Be that an emotional, sexual, physical, fetish, multi-partner or single OP… Making statements like "thankfully it was "only" an EA" is minimizing rather than helping. I think you both have to recognize what really took place.

Most of us think the key to recovery is that you the BS feel you have all the info you need. We have seen repeatedly that the BIGGEST destroyer of marriages isn’t the affair per se, but the trickle-truth that is near-universal from the wayward spouse.
I can share right now (and excuse me for being graphic): If you were to learn NOW in these early days that they did meet up and she did give him a BJ or whatever… THAT realization would cause LESS damage than maybe discovering 3 months from now that they kissed.
The reason is that for 3 months you would be working at healing, thinking you knew everything, and then discovering that she’s holding back. Holding back is a display on no-trust. A display of lying. It’s like having the scab of a slowly-healing cut torn off and seeing the exposed flesh start bleeding all over again.

I really encourage you to do this:
Tell her you WANT to reconcile but to do so you need to understand what you are reconciling from. NOW is the time for EVERYTHING – ALL the truth. Tell her no matter what then you will not explode or storm out – you will do your utmost to commit to a 30 day period of discovery and acceptance on how to move on. It’s an amnesty period per se.
I would also make it clear that with the sexually oriented texts and pics… this is a sexual affair and she needs to acknowledge that. I’m fine with both of you adapting some "limitations" on how sexual it was, but be clear that there was a sexual context in this infidelity.

I also strongly suggest the NC letter I recommend. Frankly – as far as keeping OM away its not worth the paper and envelope. Based on his scruples (as described by you) he might continue poking at her simply for laughs. What it does (and it’s main goal) is it shows a commitment from your wife and lays out the rules for attempted contact. It makes it clear to her what your expectations are and how to react when he does poke at her.
The words "Any contact will be shared with my husband" clearly lets her know that if he does send her a text, or PM, or asks through a friend… then it’s not her role to ignore it and not mention it again, but to share this info with you.
What we see repeatedly here is that at some point – maybe 1-3 months from now – there is some contact "for closure". Might be "how are you? Husband fine?" or her asking if the marriage is going on. When you discover it, then it’s excuses with "it’s innocent" or closure. The NC letter is a clear statement, sent by her own free will as part of her decision to willingly work on the marriage.

As you might have sensed, I don’t value the scruples of the OM highly. He enters a dead-end relationship while in a committed relationship himself. This is why I don’t put it past him to share his pics with his buddies or post online or whatever. Therefore the addition regarding the pics. Look up both federal and state revenge-porn laws…

Finally: Our collective experience indicates that if any gap is left there will be SOME attempt at contact. Like IF OM sends your wife an innocent sounding message maybe half a year from now "Are you OK?" he’s not really checking if she’s OK. He doesn’t give a hoot about that. He’s asking if she’s available. When that happens you want your wife to let you know, and you two can decide the next step (block and ignore, send a legal letter… whatever). I would place the odds of this contact taking place at something like 8/10.

However… our collective experience also shows that if you let the spouse/partner of the OM know they will in 9/10 instances focus completely on saving their relationships. That generally includes dumping the AP in some way or form. Do this, and the odds of the future contact goes down from 8/10 to maybe 1/10.
Furthermore – your wife on learning that she was "nothing", or "a crazy MILF" or whatever he calls her – has a serious wake-up call, making that possible future contact less attractive.
I can state it here and now that NOTHING you can do to save your marriage will do more help than letting the OM partner know.

All you need is "I think you deserve to know that my wife and your partner had a several month long sexually explicit online relationship. My wife claims it’s over, but I think you should know about this."

You can expect OM to contact your wife, and you can expect her to be unhappy with this step. Just remember – the paths out are reconciliation or divorce. In either instance, the OM and his emotions are a total non-issue.