SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sounds like your wife wants to be with someone else and you just haven't accepted reality yet . I am very sorry you are here Its a hard and shitty thing to come to terms with but the sooner you start therapy the sooner you can see whats going on

You want to believe she still loves you so this must be an innocent mistake - maybe . But here is the greater likelihood . - that she doesnt love you and you are massively kidding yourself .

Also it is highly immoral to keep the other Bs in the dark even if she is totally nuts . I think these wonderful and original people have a great future together .....you are the only person in this story who needs to make better decisions in every direction

There are people who have chosenR and hopefully they will have a gentler take for you , before then i predict you will get a deluge of well intentioned “get out of this dumpster fire” advice

You can move your thread to reconciliation if you just want to hear pro R advice .

Good luck

Your actions seem to be the classic “pick me dance”. Right now your WW gets to have everything she wants and stay in a state if indecision, the only cost is your pain. Your pain is a cost she is willing to pay for the rewards of cheating and having longer to decide what she wants. How long are you willing to pay in pain for her pleasures?

My sad experience is until I fully turned away from my WW she was perfectly willing to abuse me. I described my behavior as healing myself enough to keep taking abuse. I understand the strong desire for R, but is R possible on the path you’re taking. Good luck and please priory yourself.

You have to do you. You need to follow your own path.

But some truth: the pick me dance never works and makes you look weak in her eyes. You can’t nice her back.

Always, always value yourself. Don’t sacrifice your self-respect to keep the M intact. Your WW already chose you on your wedding day and made vows to you of faithfulness. There is no more “choosing “.

Sometimes you have to risk losing your M, to have any chance of saving it.

inkarnit,

I know I'm not going to change your mind. No one on this forum changed mine. There are all sorts of hardasses that are more hardass than me here. I promise you that, and they will come here and hit you in the head with "2x4s". I've been where you are.

You might think, "I don't want to threaten divorce if I don't want it". I get it, that's rational and good and fine. The problem comes in that eventually you will want it, and then you will ask for it. I honestly don't look forward to the self inflicted suffering I know you are about to engage in. I don't know that you will ever get clarity without feeling the pain though.

Within your mind, you are being torn in half. You want to just love and believe your wife that she can establish a healthy and loving relationship with you again, but you know she has already hurt you once. How could the woman that you love really do this? Can't she just see the error of her ways and love you? What if you push her away by being "too controlling"? Everyone deserves some level of autonomy don't they?

Take whatever advice you can use on this forum. You don't have to be "the man". Don't go shock and awe slapping her with D papers. That's easy advice to give, but impossible to implement. Do communicate your true and negative feelings though, and you know what they are. You are hurt. You are betrayed. You are unhappy. When you feel yourself holding back, you don't have to unleash a torrent of rage, but do at least go beyond your normal boundaries of peace making.

You will make progress. It will be slow, and it will not be linear. You'll go up and down. You'll try to be happy when you aren't quite happy. You'll compromise. It's ok to do these things. I hope you get where you want to go, but know that it is a long and painful path that uncalled for kindness will only extend.

You are doing the "Pick me dance".

You need to stop, and GROW A SPINE. Start the 180 now, or it will be too late for you.

Sorry if this sounds harsh, but it really does sound like you need a dose of reality.

Goodluck!

Incarnate:

The overwhelming urge of any newly minted BH is to return to the "before time." Being part of a family impacts your entire world view. You look at the world from the perspective of being part of a family. Sharing responsibilities. Building a new nest. It feels warm and cozy.

Ending that is a giant paradigm shift. It is natural to resist this with every fiber of your being.

My own circumstance was not very dissimilar from your, but the difference was that on my Dday, my WxGF told me she was dumping me for the other man and that we were through. My heart ached. I mean literally ached, the muscle of my heart. And I felt as if I could not breathe. Not a feeling of suffocating; rather, a lack of will to take another breath.

I can tell you that in hindsight, for me, ripping off the band-aid like that was by far the best outcome. As painful as it was in the beginning, I got better. Eventually I met a new woman, got married, had kids, still happily married.

I will close for now with this one factoid. I've not read one thread here on SI by a BH who divorced his cheating WW and later regretted doing so.

How involved are your step daughter’s bio dads? If they’re anything short of dead or in prison I can’t imagine they’ll be thrilled that their ex is about to introduce a freak show into their daughters lives. At some point a heads up in their direction maybe necessary. Document everything. If worse comes to worse, you’ll need it for the custody fight.

Edited for grammar

[This message edited by asc1226 at 4:30 PM, March 5th (Friday)]

The bio dads are both pieces of shit.

The bio dads are both pieces of shit.

Ok, but do either of them share custody? If you’re WW goes forward with this reality show bullshit of a lifeplan she may be risking custody of of all of her children, depending on laws in your area and custody agreements in place. Might be worth a question to your lawyer.

You definitely need to speak to the wife of the OM to better understand what is going on - don't trust your wife's word on this.

The other thing to consider is whether the OM, being a medical doctor, might face a loss of his license if the state medical board discovered he was sleeping with his patients. If you kept proof of the affair, you should consider filing a complaint with the medical board.

The best way to end an affair is to put a spotlight on it and end the secrecy.

I agree. You just need to suck it up and call the wife immediately. In the same day (tomorrow) send proof of affair to the medical board. Be in your divorce lawyer’s office first thing Monday morning. You need the lawyer ASAP - you will be operating from a position of knowledge.

Don’t assume the other bio dads are really pieces of shit. You see she actually is a piece of shit and she may have made them that way.

And then proceeded to tell me that she has been lonely and that she got tired of trying to tell me and he was there for her

Blame-shifting is when a person does something wrong or inappropriate, and then dumps the blame on someone else to avoid taking responsibility for their own behavior.

All cheaters do this.

I found out that his wife, while she is unaware of the current sexual relationship, is complicit in this.

Inform her!!!! Now.

[This message edited by Marz at 5:17 PM, March 5th (Friday)]

1) I will not be watching the kids to facilitate your time with them.

So if she pays for a babysitter while she does on a date with her boyfriend will that be ok with you ?

2) Complete honesty, even if it hurts. If I ask if you were with him today, you tell me.

So as long as she's "honest" she could go spend quality time with her lover ?

3) I want you to stop sleeping with him and only choose me. But if you can't stay out of his bed, you need to use protection. And the same with me if you choose to sleep with me.

Oh how nice of you, you are basically given her permission to sleep with him as long as she uses "protection", are you serious ?

4)

Do not detract time from our relationship to pursue that one.

What relationship ? a onesided open M ?

5) We need to start seeing a counselor, at least to begin to understand each other and see where things can go. If we can reconcile, we can pursue that. If we can't, we can pursue divorce.

She's still in an ACTIVE A and you're talking about a counselor !! Again are you serious ? at this point that's a complete waste of time and money.

6) That family can not share the space at the same time as me. They will not be in my house and we will not be at joint functions together.

So you're allowing the "friendship" to continue, she will continue to sleep with POSOM, and you're talking about not having "joint functions" Brother WAKE UP !!!

7) Be kind to each other. Think about how what we say will be heard and felt by the kids.

Kids are smart, they deserve the truth in an age appropriate manner.

She agreed to all of this. She was super embarrassed about the safe sex part, not wanting to discuss it at all but asking to move past it, but did agree to it all.

Sure she agreed to use protection with both of you, how nice and considerate !

Brother I'm sorry that you're here, look at your member number, unless you agree to continue with a one side open M, this will NOT WORK, the "pick me dance" NEVER WORKS.

You need to take control of the situation and stop letting her make all the decisions, YOU should decide for yourself, she's a grown ass woman, right now you have absolutely NOTHING to work with while she's in an active A, but if you want to have the best chance to R the first thing she needs to do is to end the A and go NC FOREVER with them (give them their money back for the gym membership or sell the gym). If you insist on trying to R with an unremorseful cheater here's some of the basics that have stood the test of time:

1) FULL EXPOSURE with ALL family and close friends WITHOUT WARNING (very important), exposure typically kills the "beautiful, romantic and exciting" aspects of the A and replaces them with pure shame and embarrassment, the more she hates the A the more she will hate her AP, it also helps to get her out of "the fog".

2) Demand she sends and NC FOREVER text in your presence, short and to the point (no sweet goodbyes), NC Forever is paramount, no questions asked. It needs to happen IMMEDIATELLY forget about "flipping switches" and all that nonsense, she's a grown ass married woman.

3) Demand she gets tested for STDs/STIs (you should too), yes she's been playing russian roulette with your health. Also the "walk of shame" to the doctor's office helps with remorse.

4) Call that lawyer back and ask about an enforceable postnup in case she continues to cheat (no spousal support and she doesn't touch your retirement).

5) She needs to offer FULL on demand access to her phone and all electronic devices and passwords FOREVER, no questions asked. There's no such a thing as "my privacy" in a M, once you tie knot it becomes "our privacy". You should take a "trust but verify" approach.

Recovering from infidelity typically takes from 2 to 5 years with a fully remorseful WS doing all the necessary work to help restore the M destroyed, right now you simply don't have that, your WW is in an active A and therefore NOT a good candidate for R, the A needs to end NOW, those who act decisively typically have better results. Others will come with more advice, keep posting frequently, the collective wisdom of SI could help you go through this difficult situation, we've "seen" it play out THOUSANDS of times, every case is different but cheaters typically follow a similar script.

[This message edited by Buster123 at 6:09 PM, March 5th (Friday)]

I am hoping that when we begin counseling, which she already agreed to, that the counselor will help with making her understand that NC needs to happen.

Counseling is not going to fix this. Get strong and stay there you’ll find yourself in worse shape if that possible.

Currently you are laying back hoping some else will fix this and In doing so you’re gonna get walked on.

Report him to his Doctors association. He’s screwing his patient. This probably isn’t the first time.

Right now she’s a problem but you are your own worst enemy.

Full exposure may help. Family, friends, other patients.

Don’t worry about pushing her away. She’s already gone.

I'm going to make one last point about the "pick me dance".

I know you want her to "choose you". There is no choosing for her though. She doesn't have to choose. She has no drive or desire to choose. She picks both. As long as you fuck her and he fucks her, she gets both. Why on earth would she choose?

And I'm not really letting her go on a date night. If she tells me that she's going over there tonight, I am going to make it very clear how much it will hurt me if she does. By not outlawing it, I'm giving her an early way to show me she cares.

She doesn’t care if it hurts you. Better wake up to where you’re putting yourself.

Anything I do that will cause shame or guilt or perceived as controlling will only hurt me.

Seriously? Consequences are a good thing.

What’s she’s engaging in is hurting YOU AND YOUR FAMILY.

Sadly, this is what I see. They are going to leave you and the OBS and live together. All the rest of it is just noise. She is looking at what to do about your child but that won’t stop her.

Please get yourself ready for this. I don’t know a single woman who stayed in her marriage after she began an affair.

I am so sorry this is happening to you. No bs can figure out the way a ws acts. It’s so nuts! You are trying so hard to control the outcome but she hasn’t even slowed down.

See a therapist to help you through this.

I was planning to speak with a Gottman Certified counselor.

You are apparently conflict available. Sorry but that won’t get you much.