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At one point you say something about her not wanting to be like her Mom who was highly manipulative and cheated on her Dad.

First shes is extremely defensive about going to MC, then she spends the session blaming you. Using an excuse "Attention" that is extremely selfish at best. She deletes all of the text from the OM so you can't find out exactly what happens...but admits to choosing to "sleep" at his house... A guy she has been texted about sex toys with. She wont admit to having sex but all the signs are there that says she has... she is still lying.

Then when you say divorce... you/she decide to figure out how to separate the albums?

Im sorry I still don't think she fully understands what she did to you or the marriage. Just for wondering sake what ACTIONS has she taken on her own for repair/rebuild your trust? Has she bought read books on helping your spouse heal? Has she given you her phone and passwords so that you can track her messages past and future? Has she enrolled in IC to figure out the REAL reason she did this to you? Did you read her NC letter to OM? Did it talk about how much her marriage means to her and how wrong their contact was? No, sorry, she isn't eve giving you a realistic timeline of what happened. How can you forgive things she is not even willing to admit to you?

Really work on your 180 and watch our for her manipulative behavior.

If she were really remorseful you would have seen her UGLY cry, with snot, and having trouble talking. You would have heard the whole story of what happened. She would have been willing to tell her own parents what happened so that you would have the support you need, she would have make a list of everything she planned to do to make it up to you....you got crumbs...manipulative crumbs at that.

Also, you maybe codependent (not sure) but she seems to easily replace you if she isn't getting enough attention, or what she wants from you at that moment.

Sorry if this all sounds harsh, just wanted to shine some outside light on some of her manipulative behavior.

I am really sorry to see what has happened to you, particularly just four months into a marriage. You are really going through the mill, and it is always hard to go from the mindset of being in love to the mindset of separating for your own long-term well-being (which is what quite a number of people here are suggesting). However, some of the things she is saying to you display a worrying capacity for manipulation and blame-shifting.

“She mentioned that she was disappointed that I wasn't giving our relationship another chance.”

Is she nuts? It’s four months into your marriage and she cheated. That’s grounds for disappointment. You are the innocent party here. You’ve barely brushed the confetti off your best suit and you are already being expected to reconcile after her infidelity, or risk her disappointment.

“And honestly, I never thought of it like that.”

No, because you were using common sense, logic, and a sound grasp of the truth. For her to find ‘disappointment’ in your actions is self-serving manipulation, and unfortunately, it seems to be working on you. You mentioned that she had studied psychology. Do you think she is using it on you? She cheated less than four months into your marriage, and she’s got you thinking you’re the bad guy? Wow, she really knows how to apply her psychological training. It’s like those poor battered wives who make excuses for the husbands who clobber them: “It’s my fault, I keep letting him down and making him mad. I should be a better person, he has a lot to put with”.

“She has told me that she genuinely just wants me to be happy”.

Well, she does understand happiness. Her own. She announced in the counselling session – without even being asked, which was a nice touch – that she had been very happy with the guy she cheated with, and had a nice time. She seems to be upset that you aren’t sharing in the happiness, but of course, we have already established that you are the disappointing bad guy who fails to appreciate the efforts his wife makes to keep him happy.

Sorry, I apologise for being harsh in what I’m saying, but honestly, she is just manipulating you here. You are the victim here, not the perpetrator.

“When she was packing everything up and we were going through who gets what, she broke down at anything that reminded her of all the good times we had together.”

I remember talking with a long-term girlfriend many years ago, and she mentioned a time when she had really upset an old boyfriend. In the course of the discussion, she said, “I apologised, I said I would never do it again, I said I would make things right, I tried crying, but nothing worked”.

At which point I said, “You ‘tried’ crying? So, you weren’t really crying, you were using crying to stop him being mad at you?”

“Yes, of course”, said my girlfriend. And I thought, “Well, I’ll watch out for that one in future”.

You and I may only cry when we are upset, but some people use tears as a tool.

“I am truthfully starting to think that the good times were so good that they outweigh what she did. The good memories are so good that it makes me not even care if she were to cheat on me again.”

I know you are in a very emotional state, but you will be setting yourself up for a lifetime as a doormat if you show her that she can do whatever she likes and you will forgive her. Never never never reward bad behaviour. You are not a doormat, you have value and worth in yourself, and no-one who truly loves or loved you would put you in a position where you have to give them an open license to behave as badly as they like. Could you really face a life of spending night after night alone at home while she is out ‘partying’ with other men? What kind of life would that be, and why – if she feels anything approaching ‘love’ for you – would she expect that of you? Would you ask the same of her?

You must not set yourself up to be the fall guy in an abusive relationship, and that seems to be the way this is going.

ihate: Will you ever get over looking her in the eye and asking her to come home with you and she said no you go home and then she went off with the OM?

Can you honestly forgive that?

IHate, remember that filing for divorce doesn't make you divorced. If she continues to show her remorse, you can always put the brakes on. So, by filing, you're not making the worst mistake of your life, you're just making a move.

I haven't posted on your thread, yet, but I have to agree with what everyone is saying. I'm hoping, for your sake, that your WW is the exception to the rule, but that exception is very tiny.

If you don't file, and find out down the road that she's not the exception... well, you can't go back in time and file.

So, file and you can always pull the petition if it turns out she's legit. Don't file and you're just losing time, and the ability to see how she reacts to you standing strong in your decision to divorce and your lack of willingness to put up with her cheating and blameshifting.

And I'm so sorry that you find yourself here. It gets better. In a couple of months you'll look back at how far you've come and you will be amazed. I promise.

I went to talk to the marriage counselor again today except without the wife this time. She confirmed that I am not going crazy and said that easily over 90% of clients in the same position as me are on an emotional roller coaster when it comes to going back and forth between wanting and not wanting to get divorced. She said that the emotional roller coaster usually lasts about a month before most people that she has seen stabilize. Therefore, she recommends separating for at least a month before making any final decisions.

She also mentioned that if the betrayed spouse does not get all the details of a betrayal, that from her experience there is about a 50% success rate for reconciliation. However, when the betrayed spouse has had access to messages, and therefore the details of the betrayal like I have, that reconciliation only works out about 5% of the time from her experience.

I know you all are suggesting that I go the divorce route, but I know I will regret it if I stick to that decision having made it when I am an emotional wreck. I have decided to wait 1 month and reevaluate. I have made it perfectly clear to my wife that I will most likely not change my stance and will very likely still want a divorce, but if there is to be even the tiniest chance of trying to work things out, that we have to separate for at least a month. So far, she has agreed without question.

Of course she agreed, now she gets to play house with her boyfriend with your blessings!

Sorry, but you need a new MC that actually knows what they are talking about.

So, you separate for a month. Your WW will most likely take this opportunity to have a grand old time with OM.

The counselor's advice is bad. ThInk about it. She is saying that if you do not have all the details and facts of the A, then for 50% of the affected R will be successful. No. What this means is it will be rug swept and the BS will never know the TRUTH of what they are dealing with. The truth is a requirement for true R. One cannot process and work through things if all the facts are not known!!

I have to agree, full factual disclosure is a basic requirement for true R.

She also mentioned that if the betrayed spouse does not get all the details of a betrayal, that from her experience there is about a 50% success rate for reconciliation. However, when the betrayed spouse has had access to messages, and therefore the details of the betrayal like I have, that reconciliation only works out about 5% of the time from her experience.

How often does she see the marriage a year or two down the line? Because you see it here fairly often, guys posting that they never found out the full truth and it always bothers them. Yes, they "stay married," but at what price? Unhappiness? Anxiousness, resentment?

What is her goal? To save the marriage? Or for YOU to be happy? I propose that if this is "MARRIAGE" counseling, the goal is to STAY MARRIED.

I disagree with the separation. It is just about a death knell to the marriage. Your wife can't act appropriately. You were home sulking after SHE CHEATED, she was at the Super Bowl party, probably contacting other man while there. That's OK, probably four months in and the way she acted, divorcing is the correct decision. But you should know that the affair itself rarely ends the marriage, it's the behavior, lies, continued contact AFTER being caught is what kills the marriage.

Has anything been said about contacting other man? He is her "friend," the guy must hang with all her other friends, so it seems that almost definitely she will be in contact with other man one way or another. What is your feeling on that?

She was disappointed with you for wanting divorce.

Think about that for a minute.

You shouldn't be thinking about divorce rates. You do what you want. You are still in "pick me" mode.

This is tough, but you can do it.

I hear what you all are saying. Believe me. The state we live in/got married in requires 1 year separation before you can divorce. The way I see it, the 1 month separation already gives us a head start on the 1 year separation requirement. Like I said, I seriously doubt I will want to reconcile and I have made that clear to her. I am honestly just too emotional to make any rational decisions right now though. The fact that I keep going back and forth between divorce and wanting to work things out is proof in my opinion that we should separate for the month time. I am going to stick to that because if I keep going back and forth about wanting to divorce or not and wanting to wait a month or not, I will be starting to stoop to her level.

The downside of seperation is that it's usually a queue for the cheater to go test drive her boyfriend some more.

Honestly if you are seperating it'll be divorce, which is what it sounds like what you're probably heading towards anyways.

If you do separate, be ready to treat it like a divorce.

The situation will likely be much worse after that month so the likelihood of R will be virtually zilch at that point.

ihatechoosinga,

Make absolutely sure she's aware that NC will be in full force during the separation with zero tolerance for a "slip up",otherwise you're just giving her carte' blanche to play house with the OM. If she breaks NC be done, she made the decision for you.

reconciliation also involves taking one view point or a set of facts and making it compatible with another.

how can you do that if you dont have the truth!

if there is hope for the marriage a some point you need to know the facts or how can your reach acceptance?

your mc is an idiot.

I agree that your MC is an idiot, you can not R if you don't get all the facts as I see it too - atleast that is how i work.

Anyway about the whole divorce, separation, etc: Just remember the wife you were married to isn't the one you thought she was - so the married you had is dead and over as that woman isn't there anymore. The only way to stay married is to build a completely new relationship on new values, new love, new everything -so its not a question of if you want to stay married or not, its a question of if you want to build something new from the ground up. But instead of going from from 0 to 100 like when you meet, you are now going from -100 to 100 - its a long and hard road. So she better be worth the work, is she?

There is no way we could have reconciled if I did not have the truth. That marriage counselor is not well informed.

Is there a way to do in-house separation for the month?

So your WW is going to be living with her GF? Her running buddy? It is going to be party time for her. Bad decision if you want the marriage and that is what it sounds like.

The marriage counselor is wrong and the separation is a mistake if you want your marriage.

Wasnt she at a super bowl party without you posting selfies on Facebook? Did she not want to be with you working on repairing the damage she caused?

4 months in and she turned down going home with you so she could go home with another man is really really really bad. I don't see that she respects you or the marriage.

[This message edited by soulhurt at 8:23 AM, February 8th (Wednesday)]

I believe you have enough details already.

During the separation, you need to do the 180. I hope you've started it already.

I, unfortunately, agree that this separation is just going to give your WW a chance to be with OM. But maybe that's what you need to see to help you make your final decision.