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Hi MD: You have received lots of good advice here, but I hope that you will pay close attention to what Cooley has said about how the stress will affect your health. Living in a stressful situation for long periods of time takes its toll, which I'm now coming to terms with.

My wife started secretly eating. She wasn't doing what I'd consider hoarding food, but the Little Debbie's and cupcakes were disappearing from the pantry at an alarming rate and I hardly ever saw her eating them. She would wait until I wasn't home and no one else was around and pig out on stuff. She was hitting the chips and donuts pretty hard at work, too. She's 5' 4" tall and gradually put on about 60 lbs.

About 3 years ago she was promoted from a pretty sedentary position at work to a job that required a lot of running around and some lifting. She started losing some of that weight. When she noticed it she started changing her diet, going from donuts, cupcakes and chips to fruit and yogurt for snacks. She stopped buying the Little Debbie's and junk food at home, too.

She slowly shed most of that weight over time, but kept wearing the same clothes. I only recently (a year ago) noticed she had lost all of that weight. She's looking amazing again, and I'd barely noticed it. I sure notice it now.

Part of the reason was that she was embarrassed so she wouldn't let me see her without clothes on, and the clothes she was wearing were the same baggy clothes she wore when she was heavier and they weren't very flattering. She stopped going swimming at her parent's place, too, which used to be an almost weekly thing in the summertime. Not to mention I was a shitty husband and wasn't paying attention like I should have. She's turned into an exhibitionist with me. She runs around naked more often than clothed when we're home alone now.

The thing that bothered me was the fact that she hid her eating. I thought that was kind of weird. She also had, let's say, a complicated relationship with truth and transparency in general.

She's done a pretty complete overhaul on that since d day. She's been very transparent and truthful with me for the last year now and I believe there aren't anymore secrets. It's kinda like she's now addicted to radical honesty and tells me everything. I think she gets her dopamine hits from demonstrating honesty and transparency now, and I'm pretty tickled about it. I can see it in her face when she opens up and talks to me about stuff now. I've been reacting very positively to it.

I don't know what to make of the strange eating habits, but that's done now. She's on a health kick and wants to lose another 10 or 15 lbs and she's putting the effort into it. Hey, I'm all for it. I've been super supportive and cook healthy meals for both of us.

Hi MD,

A couple of statements from your post on 23 June suggest some cognitive dissonance on your wife’s part:

…my WW’s AP broke it off with her only a few days before she chose to confess to me. Apparently she was emotionally distraught during that time, and was reaching out to a friend for advice because she couldn’t deal with the pain of being dumped by the AP.

she likes to represent that everything ‘meant nothing to her’ but then why did she continue on for months with him…I think the depth of their connection was much more than she is comfortable to admit. I’m going to explore this theme further.

Looked at in isolation, a person being distraught about the end of something that meant nothing to them makes no sense at all. However, in light of your further insight about your wife’s compulsive/self-indulgent behaviour, need for validation, secret bingeing, and kleptomania, is it possible that what she became almost addicted to was the attention/validation she got from the AP, rather than having a strong connection to him as a person? That the attention was like a drug, and its abrupt withdrawal was like an addict having to go cold turkey? Cue the distraught reaction.

What you now know sets the affair in the context of a pattern/history of compulsive, arguably reckless/self-destructive, rule-breaking behaviour. It is part of a bigger picture that really does need work with a therapist to unpick and hopefully improve.

Is it possible that your wife confessed so quickly after being dropped by the AP due to advice from the friend she reached out to for advice? In your shoes, I would be very curious about how much that friend knew about the affair, or if they only found out at the point when your wife reached out and said something like, "You have to tell your husband". Although you would need to ask in a subtle, indirect way, it would be useful for you to know whether the friend is also a friend to the marriage.

[This message edited by M1965 at 2:54 PM, Thursday, June 25th]