SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

But I don't have enough information on whether or not the couples therapy will be useful.

You have the wisdom coming from veterans of the BEST infidelity website at your fingertips. There's reasons everyone is telling you to stop MC.

You have what you learn here to guide your conversations.

You have veterans telling you not to share this site with her. We have seen the destruction that comes with sharing this site with a freshly caught WS.

You've come here for advice. You need to trust our hard earned knowledge. You may not understand it all now..which is understandable..but you will come to understand why we have advised you the way we have.

[This message edited by HellFire at 10:06 PM, Wednesday, March 23rd]

Your story is similar to mine.
I initially behaved like you.
You'll go on a giant circular journey. You will cry your bodyweight in tears.
You'll be blamed, try to fix, reject and get angry.

At one point you will (hopefully) realize like I did, that she did it because she wanted to.
She was excited, thrilled, aroused by. At that moment, you, your kids, your history, nothing mattered. Everything was disposable for those whispered words and those feelings and that GIANT fuckfest.
Maybe she will awaken (lime my WW SEEMS to have) and start working on herself, or not.

At the same time, you'll go on an incredibly painful rollercoaster; hope pain, despair anger, love, and hope again and immense pain gain.

I suffered immensely, I recovered a bit, that I suffered again than despair than huge leap forwards. Beautiful everyday moments of intimacy, truth, shared pain, and hopes. And now for almost no reason, I am in an extreme wave of anger again, and I am. not even 2 years out.

I think you're making a huge mistake with this Reconciliation is the goal ideology.

By committing to this you will almost have to force yourself to accept the unacceptable. If I'm being honest your wife (from what you've wrote) doesn't seem like a good candidate.

This is exactly where I'm at. I have a list of things I can't forgive her for:
1. The harm she risked on our children.
2. Opening herself to an emotional affair with another man.
3. Unbelievable deception.
4. Emasculation.
5. Deliberately destroying my reputation to her family and friends.
6. And specific directed contempt and vindictiveness toward me:
- Having sex with no condom and no birth control; and admitting had she gotten pregnant she'd have likely gotten an abortion.
- Repeated texting and sexting with him while sitting on the couch next to me.
- Blowing him, swallowing and then coming home and kissing me hello before dinner (she did not travel with mouthwash).
- She sent a nude photo to me while waiting for him in the hotel on Feb. 24. I masterbated to it and she as happy I came. An hour later, dressed in lingerie and high heels, she opened the door to the room for him and had sex with him for four hours, offering her body to him in ways she's never offered me.
- I spent $800 on her VDay week, including a dozen roses and two dinners. On VDay, she stripped into her bra and panties and sent him a selfie from her work bathroom.
- She bought the two hotel rooms--a total of $700. She also spent more than $800 on lingerie and thousands on new cloths during this timeframe on her personal CC.

She has you manipulated into fear. If I do this she will shut down, if I say that she won't handle it well. Huge mistake.

I don't think it's manipulation. That's how she has always been. It does not seem intentional--she genuinely can't handle conflict and it runs in her family.

Please, don't use the kids as an excuse. As the saying goes its better a child is from a broken home then to live in one.

Well that's the question--is there no way to repair our home? If there is, that's the best choice for the children.

I have to be honest. Reading this thread has given me a panic attack. I don't doubt you all mean well and I don't doubt that my relationship may well be doomed, but I'm not at the point where I'm willing to give up on it yet. I'm not sure how to act on most of the advice I've gotten here thus far. The one thing I can act on is pushing for individual counseling, and I think I will do that.

As for telling the other woman, this is among the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. I cannot just pick up the phone and call her right now.

I hope you find your ANGER … it will help you push through the difficult times.

Think … Righteous Indignation for the utter disrespect you’ve been show by both WW and OM.

Also, I concur with the advice that MC is a worthless exercise and to tell the OBS ASAP.

The men who have had the most success in getting what they want,are aggressive, and refuse to allow one more lie,or one more day of abuse.

The men will be along to help you with those "unforgivable" things on your list. From what I've read on here,over the last several years, the sexual things are going to be the most difficult to move past.

You don't have to act on everything TODAY. But in the next few days you will need to lay down your non negotiable demands for you to attempt reconciliation. We can help you with those.

Then,after you do that,all you need to do is take care of yourself, and your children,and inform his wife. (She is the OBS, not " the other woman." Your wife is the other woman) And watch her actions. She must do the heavy lifting. Not you. This isn't yours to fix.

[This message edited by HellFire at 10:26 PM, Wednesday, March 23rd]

I'm still open to it, but the couples therapist felt strongly against it as well, stating it's not my place. I may bring it up again at next session.

And here we have your MC’s view on infidelity, morality and the right of the individual to live in truth and agency. Prepare to have this credentialed twit start shoving blame at you in support of rugsweeping.

Change your commitment to MC to individual therapy for both of you. Vet the counselors carefully on their views on infidelity. If they mention unmet needs move on. Look for someone with a background in treating trauma.

I think you fear doing what you feel because you are scared to lose her. The problem is doing what you've been doing she still turned to another man. I'm not saying this to push that knife deeper, but in the hopes that you will better grasp the reality of what she did.

I get the sense that you believe if your better maybe she wouldn't have done it, or it will prevent her from doing more in the future. Truth is, there is nothing you can do to control her fidelity.

I believe, your best course of action at this point is to focus on the well being of you and your children. How your wife feel NOW shouldn't be a priority for you.

I agree with the others.

Tell the OBS. She deserves to know what has happened in her own life. And, your WW and AP need to be held accountable!

STOP with the Pick-Me Dance. It makes you look weak and moreover it costs you your self-respect in the long run.

STOP with the MC. It presupposes that you or the marriage had a part in her DECIDING to put YOU and your FAMILY and even her AP's FAMILY at risk. That is just not true. And besides too many counselors are bad anyway. They will tell you how much of it is YOUR fault and tell you to rugsweep. Horrible toxic advice in the long-term.

Your wife needs to get herself to IC to figure out why she thought it was OK for her to, again, put you and your family and everyone at risk as she did.

Right now you are hurting, it is 1000% normal, you very recently received a huge shock. The pain, the emasculation, everything. You are in a place where you would do anything to fix this and just have it all go away. There is no way but through my friend, though.

And likewise, your WW does NOT have remorse. She herself just wants HER world back to normal. (The difference between the two of you is, she was the one who blew up BOTH of your worlds.) And so while she is making promises and running around like a scalded cat trying to fix things in the now (is she even doing that?), it is only for the short-term.

And on that note, there is a (seriously misguided) tendency for many of us to do stuff such as "take responsibility for our part in the marriage" or play the Pick-Me-Dance. It's really a perverse way of trying to take some control back. Nice-Guy coping strategies writ awfully large. The extra temptation is that there will be too many people who will pat you on the back--they will tell you how you are "taking the high road". Doing these will really hurt you when it comes to your self-respect in the long run though! So don't do them.

Please stay on here, you came to the right place....

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:52 PM, Wednesday, March 23rd]

I have to be honest. Reading this thread has given me a panic attack.

I totally get this. I remember feeling exactly the same. The general advice is to take what makes sense, and leave the rest. Only you can know your situation.

Having said that, there is a collective wisdom here that can really be helpful. Everyone comes here thinking that their situation is unique and it's staggering to see how often the same tale gets retold, over and over. Cheaters share many characteristics, they aren't as unique as we that love them think they are. And that's part of the process is seeing who you've really been married to. Ultimately, for successful R, the WS's have to be willing to do "the work." And a lot of times, if they were willing in the first place, they wouldn't have cheated. I'm not saying it can't happen, there are tons of stories of successful R. But it takes a huge amount of effort on the part of the WS to fix this shit.

I also thought in my early days that the whole 3-5 years recovery thing was bullshit. I was like, pfftt I'll fast track this shit and we'll come out the other side in no time.

Yeah... no. It's actually pretty legitimate. You're still in the very, very early days of what is going to be for you a significant trauma. There's just no getting around that unless you're willing to rugsweep and that never ends well. Again, you see that happening all the time here and it's not uncommon for that BS to come back to this site with a second A.

I would take a step back from MC, get into IC for you, and suggest your WS also gets themselves into professional help. You can only control you in this. And you're going to have a shitton of emotions to process what's happened. There will be moments of despair and a great deal of grief. You're likely still in shock, you're not seeing this clearly (or your WS) and as time moves on the reality of the betrayal will sink in. I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just warning you this is early days.

Whatever the outcome, you work on you. That's the best/only thing you really can do right now for your sake and to ultimately provide stability for your children. And I'm so sorry this is happening, because it really, really sucks.

I have to be honest. Reading this thread has given me a panic attack.

I completely understand. Veterans here can come on strong. We call it "giving a 2x4" (as in, hitting you over the head with a board). We do it because most newly minted BH's come here acting like a deer in the headlights. It's common. We were all you at one time. We're friends to you. Anonymous strangers who share in common the fact that we were cheated on. We come to you from a place of brotherhood. Many of use made the same beginner errors you are making. No, correct that. Almost all of us made those mistakes. Our goal is to guide you so you don't make as many mistakes as we did.

No matter what we say or you do, I guarantee you that you will one day look back and wish you had done at least some things differently. Mostly, what BH's rue is that we were not more decisive in our actions.

I don't doubt you all mean well and I don't doubt that my relationship may well be doomed, but I'm not at the point where I'm willing to give up on it yet.

I certainly do not believe your relationship is doomed. Yet. I do think that the steps you are taking (engaging in MC, starting with the rug-sweeping and the pick-me dance, trying to manipulate the process to "force" R as the outcome) are increasing the likelihood of failure. You are stepping in the wrong direction. Your actions will diminish your chances of R.

R, if it occurs, must initiate with your WW. It must initiate in the context of her asking you for R, and of her injecting energy to drive the process. It is said over and over that we betrayed spouses cannot control the outcome and should not try. Do not use gambits or strategy with hopes you'll drive R. Don't ever back down and swallow your pride to avoid scaring her or pissing her off. She was woman enough to decide to fuck a man in a hotel, blow him and swallow and then kiss you, vilify you to her family. She's woman enough to face the true measure of your trauma, your rage, your emasculation and humiliation. Frankly, R only works if she wants it. You only know that if you start walking away and see if she chases. If she doesn't chase, R was never on your menu in any event. Wouldn't you like to learn that sooner rather than later?

Bottom line is that if you actually want to find out whether there is a chance of R, then the best thing you can do is practice radical honesty with her, and ask the same from her. "You blew him raw, swallowed, and them came home and kissed me. How fucking dare you!?! Not only is it disgusting and emasculating, but you could literally have killed me. He could have any manner of herpes, crabs, gonorrhea, whatever, and you would be passing that directly into my mouth. What the fuck? Was giving this man a blowjob in a parking garage worth risking my life? What about the fact that I provide for our children? What were you planning on telling them if I were put in the hospital with an oral STD that you passed along to me?"

The best outcome for my children is if we can become a happy couple again. I can't do that with one foot out the door.

Actually, that is the ONLY way you can do it. This is the fundamental paradox of being cheated. To save the marriage, you must be willing and ready to give it up.

By the way, the best outcome for your children is if DrStrangelove is happy in life. Your goal is to find your inner truth and seek your personal happiness. For yourself and for your children. I don't think being married to a non-remorseful cheater would make you happy. It's possible that with an investment of 3-5 years, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, your WW may become remorseful, find empathy, act courageously, help you heal. Do you think she's a long-distance runner, a champion, a leader? What is the likelihood? Do you want to invest the next 5 years of your life figuring that out? Imagine the Dr. Strangelove of 5 years hence staring you down in the bathroom mirror in the morning. Will he be happy with who you have become?

As for telling the other woman, this is among the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. I cannot just pick up the phone and call her right now.

I'm not sure why this is hard. As I said, if the shoe were on the other foot, I think you'd be grateful if she were to call you. It is the moral, right thing to do. Consider what might happen if you don't tell her but in a year, or five years, she finds out, learns that you knew, and confronts you: "Why didn't you tell me? I've been the brunt of your private joke with my husband and your wife for the last ___ years." How would you feel if that were you, realizing that, the whole time, three other people knew this giant fact that impacted your life and your literal health, but all three conspired to keep it secret from you?

I'm not aware of any thread where a BH called the OBS and it turned into a shitshow where the OBS blew up everybody's world. Usually the "fatal attraction" stuff is from the AP, not the OBS. In the vast majority of circumstances, the call ends up being a time where you share sorrow and empathy, offer mutual support and information, and conspire to keep eyes on the cheaters. ]

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 2:40 AM, Thursday, March 24th]

I have to be honest. Reading this thread has given me a panic attack. I don't doubt you all mean well and I don't doubt that my relationship may well be doomed, but I'm not at the point where I'm willing to give up on it yet. I'm not sure how to act on most of the advice I've gotten here thus far. The one thing I can act on is pushing for individual counseling, and I think I will do that.

I don't think anyone is saying you need to give up. But rather that you need to see things how they actually are. Reconciliation with a non-remorseful WW isn't reconciliation. Think about the advice you'd give your best friend or own son if they were going through something like this, would that advice be to take divorce off the table and live with it as best they could? How would you counsel them about telling another betrayed spouse that was living in ignorance?

@Drstrangelove
So sorry to see you here. We all understand the kind of devastation you must be feeling right now. You got a lot of good advice so I'll try not to re-iterate them. One thing I do want to help you understand is that right now you desperately want to piece together the marriage and relationship you had with your WW. I totally get that, me too. You have in your mind the beautiful, caring, devoted, loving wife that you fell for in the first place and were happily married to. You will do anything to restore that. What I offer is simply the truth: You are not married to that person right now. You are married to the wife that you see with your own eyes. The lying, fearful, cheating person. Your eyes don't deceive you, that's the reality of who she is right now. That's the marriage you have. So when we say when your wife had the A your relationship was over, we mean the blissful happy relationship that you envisioned in your mind. You cannot "fix" the relationship and go back to where you were, because you wife is not that person. Now through R you CAN make a new relationship, but it'll be with the wife that you see with your eyes right now. I am not advocating for R or D, that is for you to decide. I just wish to let you see that to R is not really to go back to what you had before. To R is to create something new with the wife may be able to turn into a good partner in the end. Whether or not your WW is a candidate for R that's another point all-together. I wish you all the wisdom to decide what's best for you and the strength to execute on what's right for you friend.

Reading this thread has given me a panic attack

^^ I don't think anyone here is telling you to march out and file for divorce. Consider the advice a roadmap of what not to do. Everything else can be put on the shelf for a later date.

I didn't find this site until four years after my D-day, and once I started reading, I realized I did almost everything right. Even though my husband lied and lied and it was torture uncovering the entire truth, I set boundaries and stuck to them. There was no way in hell I'd tolerate any more disrespect from him. He dumped OW on D-Day like a hot potato. He gave me access to everything, including his work email bc OW was a co-worker. He gave me access to his work voicemails. I knew where he was and who he was with at all times. He did so much more, quit a lifetime sport he was involved in, found a new job, stopped traveling, the sign of a truly remorseful spouse. An open book for years.

The collective wisdom here is from members who have walked in your shoes, please soak it all in. Have you checked out the articles in the Healing Library? Chock full of great articles, knowledge is power.

How to guide your conversations, start off with insisting she read two books, How to Help Your Spouse Heal from an Affair by Linda McDonald? (a very short read) and Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass. It's the minimum to get the conversation flowing.

SHE has to do the heavy lifting. She broke the marriage and her family. She must figure out how she can repair the damage.

"As for telling the other woman, this is among the hardest decisions I've ever made in my life. I cannot just pick up the phone and call her right now."

Yes it will. But then the wife of the cop will learn about her husband's GF. Maybe it would be the first time he cheated maybe not. What about your WW?

The OBS is probably trying to figure out why things are bad in their marriage, being told that he is screwing a PTA wife will bring her some understanding.

It is not really fair that of the 4 people most affected by your wife's choices, she is in the dark. YOu, WW and AP all know what is going on.
The fact that he is afraid of her finding out is not your problem.

However...Usually cops don't get arrested by other cops for DV. But he may want to give up his GF and save his marriage...

Hi and welcome Dr.

I felt compelled to post given how similar your WW was to line when confronted. You do t have the full story, believe me, there is more, there always is. I spent a hellish 3 years of TT from my WW before I got "all the truth". I still don’t believe it.

My WW swore on bibles, our child’s life, anything she could think of after dday 1, it was all bullshit, and all about trying to control the situation. Had she been honest from dday 1, our R wouldn’t have been delayed 3+ years.

IC is a MUST for her. Another poster posted that it wasn’t the marriage that cheated, it was her and she needs to deal with her shit. My WW did IC too, ironically pre dday 1. You know what her IC told her, don’t tell your husband, what good would come of it? Well, Mr. IC, how about not having a marriage built on a foundation of shit!?!

Like all professions, there are good and bad. The advise from your MC (I would stop MC and get her into IC) is rug sweeping. How would you feel if the OM’s wife knew of the A, knew you and didn’t inform you? I know I would want to know, 100%, every time.

The fallout is what it is. She and the AP created this shit show and they can deal with the consequences. Infidelity affects a lot of relationships, likely more than we are aware so let the town gossip if it comes to that, who cares. This asshat needs to have consequences for his actions.

When it comes to your in laws, I see this as being a shitty situation. I get where you are coming from, but if my son was cheating on his GF/wife, I’d give him one chance to come clean then inform the betrayed partner, family or not. The way she disrespected you to her family and their reaction (or lack thereof) is concerning. Some may say it’s the affair fog…..BS. Never understood how the "fog" makes you disrespect your partner.

Her admiring to only what you can prove is right out of the cheaters handbook. Check out the Adultery sub-Reddit. That cesspool is full of this kind of crap.

I have a lot to say on this topic but I’ll leave it as is. Your emotions will be all over the place in the days and weeks ahead. Stay away from the booze, did not help my situation at all.

Hands down you must tell the APs wife.

The amount of responses in this thread are overwhelming and I don't know where to start. I thank all of you for taking so much time out of your day.

I do want to be clear on a few things, in the first few days, divorce was very much on the table and she was convinced that I was going to do it. It was only after she caved with the truth and we corroborated it with various text messages that I felt an ability to come down and let the anger subside (on Saturday, five days after finding out).

I also should explain that my wife has changed at various times as well. At first she was defensive, relying on the same justifications she used throughout the affair--all the ways I failed her. It made me angry and the conversations were unproductive.

She then shifted her anger to the guy, mad at him because she was getting all the punishment for something they did together. And also feeling used by him (manipulated emotionally and taken advantage of sexually).

From there, that anger turned to despair; to feeling like a worthless whore. The great irony is that the principle reason she cheated was to seek validation that she felt wasn't coming from me, and now her self-esteem is lower than any point in her life. It kills me because my wife is gorgeous and I'd tell her that all the time. Of all my flaws, and I acknowledge them, lack of love and praise for her wasn't one of them.

She also had to quit the PTA, at my insistence because the guy was on it. She loved planning events for the kids and lost that outlet in her life. She went from adding a fun affair to her life to stripping virtually everything away. I think she's slipping into a depression and I'm worried about her. We will both seek individual therapy though--perhaps in addition to MC, I'm unsure.

Lastly, our relationship has always been bound on my leading--planning dinners, vacations, etc. So many of you are right that I now need her to lead, to show me that she is devoted to improving herself and building a new relationship with me. I disagree with some of you that I need to act a certain way to get what I want--I know what I want and I will act with absolute honestly to get it--or I'll fail with a clear conscience.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 12:43 AM, Thursday, March 24th]

Ok man. Take a deep breath. I’m guessing you have no experience about cops so let me give it to you straight. LE is my world. In many departments it is an open secret about which guy is fucking around on his wife. I can’t give you percentages but I can say without fear that many share their experiences with other cops they trust. It is fairly common. Surely you can’t think that no one knows that your wife is …. What? You fill in the blanks.

I don’t see anything indicating emotional attachment. I see your wife being a sex toy for this guy. Now his sole worry is being burned down. And you are giving him a pass. He is worried no doubt. But he holds you in utter contempt and your wife is even lower.

You want to affair proof your marriage? Then stop being passive and burn this guy to the ground. Was he on shift when the fuck fests went down? His supervisor will fire his ass.

You score no points by being a martyr and keeping your wife’s dirty laundry a secret. You will not be awarded a place in heaven. Instead you will enable this sob and reward your wife.

And by the way, I see no consequences to her beyond a stern talk. You might want to rethink this plan. It looks to me like she expects that if she replaces you for her fuck buddy you will let it go. This is not going to work.

In other words, find your anger and take control of your life. You know what to do and you know what is right. So do it.

OP, same with me regarding your recent post. My WW felt there was something special, he really got her and cared for her. I saw right through it, as a man, this guy and my WW’s AP was simply after some strange and couldn’t care less about our wives.

However, being mad at him is laughable. He didn’t make any vows to you, she did. She broke them, could have been anyone. My WW wanted me to confront and beat the crap out of her AP, why, because she felt the same as your WW. Why should she face all the consequences??

What I leaned through numerous days was she told her AP that we were in an open relationship!? So she knew he didn’t want to deal with an angry husband coming after him. She knew that he likely wouldn’t pursue her if he knew I could be waiting for him in a dark parking lot sometime down the road.

I did want to exact revenge….but I realized (again, after more TT) that she was the aggressor, he was just up for some no strings attached woman to screw and dispose of when he was done. In my case, he got what he deserved but I didn’t have to do anything, karma took care of it.

All this to say, don’t believe anything she is saying at this point. She is in full damage control and will do and say anything to prevent her life from being blown up more than it already has.