SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Seeking,

Check the laws see how long the therapist has to keep records, report him or demand your money back.

The basic conflict of interest with therapists is that they stop getting paid if we stop going to them.

They have an incentive to keep people in conflict with other people.

In that regard they are very much like OMs where they and the WW are in a way against you, they look our for their clients well being.

In the end ask for the money back anyway tell him his record keeping is disgraceful.

Thank you all again for your feedback and comments. This process continues to be very helpful to me and your feedback is part of that. Respectfully, I won't comment on some topics because we're still going through this process and I don't want to commit one way or another.

I think I've said it, but it's worth saying again that I have considered us to be very happily married during these nearly 20 years since we reconciled. I realize now that happiness was based too much on my willingness to rugsweep everything. I think whether that's "R" or "false R" or whatever else you want to call it is semantics at this point. I'm not rewriting things to pretend that I haven't been happy. But I think we could have been happier.

Yes, we've had our ups and downs like any couple and I can see in retrospect that some of those have involved me fighting to keep my shame and anger tamped down. But there's no way I could have seen that at the time. I couldn't get there without going through this.

It's not like I've been pushing for the truth for 20 years. I didn't talk about it and I tried not to think about it. If she brought the topic up, I would tell her that there was no point in rehashing what we can't change. Again, that thinking was based on the belief that I what she had told me was true, even if I accepted that it was incomplete.

I think BSR's comment is relevant.

But I remember the terror inside my head and the mental tricks, bargaining, and compartmentalization I used before I found the strength to come completely clean. I remember the way I twisted things in my head to truly believe that I had been honest before D-Day 2 -- to even pat myself on the back that unlike other waywards, "at least I told the truth." Did that belief defy all logic and integrity? Absolutely... but that's what incompletely healed WS do.

I think this is very much the case. She did a lot of work on herself and became a better spouse in every respect. But without me holding her feet to the fire I'm sure that it was easy for her to convince herself that what she had told me was "true enough." She could honestly say that I didn't want to talk about it and simply overlook the fact that the basis for that attitude was my belief that what I knew was the truth.

On the topic of her activity here and whether she'll comment on it, I think it's important to say that there's a big difference between her obligation to be truthful with me and whatever obligation she has or had to this community. When she lied and told me that her A was physical "a few times" that was a breach of our vows and my already broken trust. But I think everyone here knows that the details in a poster's story might be changed. Whether it's preserve anonymity or avoid something particularly embarrassing or painful. If that detail isn't relevant to the point, changing it isn't really harmful. In that specific case I wasn't here to see it, and it really made little difference for her point to reader.

In other cases she was saying things that were not strictly true, but that she may have believed based on the kind of thinking that BSR talked about. "He didn't want details," is one such case. I don't believe that I ever said that I didn't want details. I was pondering the question as I tried to get answers and she was stonewalling me. She said that I didn't want details because I said, "I know what goes on in the bedroom between adults." But those were the words of our therapist in discouraging me from asking for details. If I ever said that, it was only in the context of mulling it over. But I gave in to her stonewalling and gave up way too soon. So it's not hard to imagine that she believed that was how I felt.

It's true that while she advised a lot of WSs to do the right thing even when it was hard, she avoided doing some of those things herself. She gave me credit for that, for not wanting details, for not continuing to dredge it up, and she was thankful for that. Deep down, I think she had a sense that she had taken advantage of my nature and manipulated that outcome, but it would take some real next-level, deep introspection for most WSs to admit that to themselves and act on it.

We haven't discussed this at length. These are questions that are outstanding in that last set of written questions, so I'm impatiently awaiting the answers.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 10:45 PM, Monday, August 1st]

Survus, in our state medical record retention requirement is six years so we're out around three times that.

On the topic of her activity here and whether she'll comment on it, I think it's important to say that there's a big difference between her obligation to be truthful with me and whatever obligation she has or had to this community. When she lied and told me that her A was physical "a few times" that was a breach of our vows and my already broken trust. But I think everyone here knows that the details in a poster's story might be changed. Whether it's preserve anonymity or avoid something particularly embarrassing or painful. If that detail isn't relevant to the point, changing it isn't really harmful. In that specific case I wasn't here to see it, and it really made little difference for her point to reader.

Hi again.

Thanks for your most recent thoughts.

I wanted to comment specifically on what you said above.

I did not bring up posting again on wayward side as some kind of apology or MEA culpa to those who were responding to her over the years. Sure, she probably should as she was dishonest and it’s good for her to be open to apologizing to anyone and everyone she deceived. Of course way at the top of that list is you.

But instead, if she is going to do the work the right way, she needs to start over. And that now includes informing people, friends, family, therapists, supporters on the forum, how the omissions and deception and any bad talking about you during the affair was fabricated to make her look good and obtain the high she garnered in the affair, not to get real help from anyone.

Of course, if any friends helped enable the infidelity, even if they were given false pretenses, I believe they should be eliminated from your lives. Even all these years later. They can be taken case by case, and discussed.

If this is all too hard for your wife now to finally do, I would remind her that it’s. Fraction of the pain she caused and still caused you by giving herself emotionally and physically to another man after marrying you.

I think I've said it, but it's worth saying again that I have considered us to be very happily married during these nearly 20 years since we reconciled. I realize now that happiness was based too much on my willingness to rugsweep everything.

I wouldn’t beat yourself up over this. If you were happy and in a fulfilling relationship, it doesn’t matter as much how it happened. You did what you needed to do at the time to be happy. That’s better than probably 80% of marriages including the ones with no infidelity. 29 years of happiness is to be celebrated.

On the same point, right now you aren’t very happy. You need to do what you need to do to get to the happy point again. Back then it was rugsweeping, but now it’s clean up time. You need to pick that rug up and sweep the dirt and lies out. She needs to come totally clean to the point you are 100% satisfied you know everything you can know. You saved her from pain by looking the other way 20 years ago. She now needs to step up and do the work you need to get back to a good relationship.