SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

1. Get IC for yourself with someone who specializes in infidelity and trauma.

I will not be telling the OBS. Sorry to disappoint people. Based on the conversation last week it would end our marriage immediately.

2. Tell the OBS. I'm sure you've heard this saying before: "If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth."

3. Make your wife take a polygraph test. If you're so unshakably certain she's been telling the truth, and she promises she has, she should do back flips at the opportunity to really prove it. Refusing to take one or getting extremely defensive at your request will be giant red flags. The individuals here can help you set up a list of questions that work for your situation.

4. Realize you have been spinning your wheels and essentially taking no real advice from the giant well of wisdom this site offers. I'm going to say it bluntly now. Your situation is not unique, it is not special, it is not different. In fact, I believe there have been at least a couple users who have posted in this thread telling you they were in the exact position as you.

As long as you and your WW are good parents with a safe atmosphere, your children will be fine through divorce and shared custody, should that be the route you end up taking.

My parents divorced over similar issues and my siblings and I were about the same age as your kids. We were fine, and as adults we were extremely grateful for my dad for making the hard choices. He didn't sit around waiting for the drop bears to disperse, he made an active decision to get us out of danger, knowing it may be scary and it may be difficult, but that things would be better for us in the end, and they were. He has since found a wonderful woman he's been with for almost a decade now.

If you refuse to do any of those things that are listed, well, good luck to you. I'm checking out of this thread, too.

EDIT
With your little drop bear analogy, I ask you to think of it like this: The bears are there because your wife keeps throwing peanuts out the window to attract them. She asked you first if she could do it, knowing it could attract danger to the family in the car, and she twisted your arm emotionally until you agreed, albeit after you said "I really wish you wouldn't." She shrugged and started throwing peanuts. It's exciting to her and she wants to. Surprise surprise, bears started appearing. Now you're sitting in the car with your WW and kids thinking "I just need to wait for the bears to leave." But your wife keeps throwing peanuts. You try to get her to stop, but she throws a tantrum. There is another option, tell the Park Ranger (The OBS in this analogy). The Ranger will put an immediate stop to it and give you a better chance of escaping the danger as the bears disperse now that your WW is not attracting them. But your wife has told you if you tell the Ranger, she will open all the car doors and let them destroy you all. Is that really the kind of person you're okay with being married to, at least in the kind of M you have right now? If taking the action that would make your wife stop endangering your family causes her to go nuclear, well..That's all you need to know.

[This message edited by WonderingGhost at 2:57 PM, Monday, April 17th]

But she was already feeling stupid about it all before I pulled the pin and had said to me she doesn't think that will happen again as it was all so seedy. Ironically me pulling the pin has resulted in things between us getting much worse. I know it is a control thing but I can't see us moving forward until that closure has been reached.

I find that ‘she doesn’t think it will happen again as it was all so seedy’ gobsmackingly self-centred if that’s the level of her insight so far (though good she can now see the seediness of it). Equally self-centred is this apparent need for closure, which btw is ONLY gained by no contact, time and hindsight. Is she going to try to seek reassurance from OM that she wasn’t being used (because reading between the lines this feels like it is on the agenda)? She will never ever get that reassurance and can only get it by NOT being used and usable. Or gullible. Why does she even believe OM will say anything that is believable? There is quite blatantly insufficient honesty at play here on this matter of closure, at least from what you are saying about it.

Please read all the posts about boundaries, so that you, at least, are not confused about this ‘control’ thing that is being levelled at you. It is pretty textbook for her to swing that at you. Boundaries are simply about how you will let yourself be treated, they’re not about control and it sounds you are on that path already but perhaps it needs consolidation as it sounds like she is challenging you with word games. You actually don’t need to justify boundaries, btw, they’re just the line in the sand that you put in place for yourself.

FWIW. The contact with OM for closure is both unnecessary and a grave mistake. She is still not looking deeply into herself. The answers are all there.

[This message edited by Edie at 2:31 PM, Monday, April 17th]

Ozzy. You are in the FOG because you are letting your ife dictate how this is going to play out. She has not lied to you so you should allow her to do what she wants. She has hurt you but she is getting this out of her system. What i her end game? What if the other man leaves his ife? Then it does not matter what you do because she has won that chess game. She would have outplayed you and dam the kids. They will adapt is her thinking.
You are not listening to to the advice of people who have been where you are and have done what you are doing to only get burned. They are telling you if they had to do it over this is what they would have done and there are others who have been where you are and it right.
You seem to think you know best and or are looking for validation on your approach. So you are ignoring great advise.
Stop drinking the coolaid your wife is serving. She does no respect you. She wants her cake and she wants the comfort you provide by being "HONEST" till she finally gets what she wants. What about what you want not want you want after the fact.
What does that matter.
This is toxic. It is toxic for the kids because at the end of the day they will see this as a weak and manipulative relationship. What are you teaching them about life? Seriously thin about it
So for the kids sake take back your pride. Tell the othe mans wife. You are being played by both parties. You only know what you are being told. What is the aharm infinding out the TRUTH
Please grow up. There are a lot more pressing issues that you will need to dealwith in you life and this is just a bump. Life is moment by moment not day to day. Del with this moment and the ones that follow. Youa nd your kids will ahve to adapt. That is what life is.

Bumped the Boundaries thread for you, Ozzie, and the codependency thread in I Can Relate. (Knowledge is power, you’re taking yours back by researching, keep at it)

Btw. As far as control goes, sounds like she feels she’s holding all the aces, knowing your biggest fear is breaking up the family. I hope you will see an IC, because there’s the future possibility of a bigger threat here. A loveless and contemptuous marriage.

[This message edited by Edie at 3:14 PM, Monday, April 17th]

If you want your wife to respect you then you need to project strength. To be fair, right now you are only showing her absolute weakness and she treats you accordingly. You are making the other man look like a more attractive option than you are because you continue to project absolute weakness and women like her are not attracted to it.

If you want to really win your wife back, then you need to show some strength and do stand up for yourself. Tell the OBS, then go back to your wife and project strength and tell her why you did it.

If you continue down this path you will eventually have your life blown up and she will be the one doing it while you play victim. Thing is, you would have brought it on yourself through your own actions.

Ozzy

Please! For the love of God, please check out those codependency books
and get some counseling. You are wallowing in fear while your WW manipulates
you like a string puppet.

You are allowing yourself to somehow rationalize her abhorrent behavior.
Some of these rationalizations are borderline comical to the outside observer.

How long are you going to tolerate the intolerable?

Ozzy, you keep returning to her having been honest with you throughout this.

Brother, there is a difference between being honest and just telling you the same lies she’s telling herself.

I hope this never happens but none of us will be surprised if it does. Your wife put her toe in the water, liked how it felt so asked permission to wade in. It was wonderful and without your approval might very well go swimming until you cannot see her anymore. Please look through some recent comments from old timers who "saved" their marriages only to come back here years later with another sad story.
Your wife is going to see her lover because you don’t want to go back on your word. Do you realize how Alice in Wonderland that sounds?! You have every right to be firm. You can change your mind. Unless otherwise you have not taken an oath that says you can’t change it.
Sitting here watching you drive a car in the desert as one wheel after another falls off. After a while you are sitting there alone…in the desert.

To be completely clear as this has got a bit lost. I said I would rather she didn't do it. I said this over and over. But as the other option was splitting up, I managed to get myself into a mindset where I WAS OK with it. We had such a long text back and forth when she went away the first time and I was totally cool with everything. It was only in the days and weeks afterwards that my mindset changed.

As you've already seen, Ozzy, there's a difference between thinking you can live with something because you have no choice... and actually living with it. You believed your WW would leave you and break up your family unless you agreed to allow her to explore her feelings in this external relationship but once that had happened, you found it so miserable that you couldn't go on with it.

In a way, this is what's happening again right now. You have been coerced into believing that the only way forward is to allow your WW to break NC with the AP for "closure" and to allow the two of them to make you into a silent partner on the continued betrayal of the OBS. These are binary choices in your mind because you see them as presenting you with a "GAME OVER" on the family dynamic if you don't agree.

Here's the thing though, just as you found it difficult to live with the coerced choice before, you're likely to find it difficult again. Your WW is creating additional damage right now with her actions, and every bit of that damage is going to have to be processed and dealt with in the future. Right now, you're in crisis mode just hoping to stay in the game. You've described that as keeping your family "in the car" (together), but I think the reason you're hearing so many voices warning you off is because we've seen less than what your wife is doing right now make R unrecoverable. People vary and you never know what the last straw in someone's betrayal story is going to be. EVERY word she's said so far, every action, is going to replay in your mind over and over again. That is the nature of intimate betrayal. It's trauma that strikes at our core. Every trigger will torment you until it's been processed and resolved. And sometimes... the resolution is D because there's no other way to recover from that particular trigger. It's too early for you to know what straw might break your camel's back in this, and here she is, still piling them on.

Right now, you think you'll be able to proceed with R if she meets with her AP again. You think you'll be able to live with her threats to end your marriage again if you don't toe the line in keeping the OBS ignorant. But you've thought those kind of thoughts before. You have no way of predicting your feelings six months from now or six years from now when those triggers are on blast, circling like vultures in your mind in an endless loop of rumination. The threat of D seems so immediate for you that it blocks out everything else. But a reckoning will happen. It must happen. That's the nature of the thing. Today's inaction becomes tomorrow's turmoil.

Ha! I asked for brutal so I guess this is all fair game. Keep it coming.

Brother, there is a difference between being honest and just telling you the same lies she’s telling herself.

This line resonates. I guess the reason for allowing her to see him is it is clear that she isn't going to suddenly come to her senses without this. She will end up texting with him behind my back and then that "honesty" which is all we really have is gone as well. When she has seen him then there is nothing left really.

Your wife is going to see her lover because you don’t want to go back on your word. Do you realize how Alice in Wonderland that sounds?! You have every right to be firm. You can change your mind. Unless otherwise you have not taken an oath that says you can’t change it.

Yeah I know it sounds pretty crazy. But honestly, I think if I hadn't have given my approval we would probably be in counselling trying to figure out why she wants to sleep with someone else instead of me, rather than being a couple having counselling with her having slept with someone instead of me. (We are both having IC to repeat, just looking for a CC) I know everyone here thinks I am wrong here, but has anyone else agreed to their wife sleeping with someone else???

Please grow up. There are a lot more pressing issues that you will need to dealwith in you life and this is just a bump. Life is moment by moment not day to day. Del with this moment and the ones that follow. Youa nd your kids will ahve to adapt. That is what life is.

This one I find a bit hard to understand. I've been through a fair bit in my life and can't imagine anything being more pressing than this! Reading other threads and responses I think it is fair to say that this is one of the worst things that can happen to people or am I wrong?

Thanks for the pointer to the codependency thread, it is long! Will read when I have a chance.

Right now, you think you'll be able to proceed with R if she meets with her AP again. You think you'll be able to live with her threats to end your marriage again if you don't toe the line in keeping the OBS ignorant. But you've thought those kind of thoughts before. You have no way of predicting your feelings six months from now or six years from now when those triggers are on blast, circling like vultures in your mind in an endless loop of rumination. The threat of D seems so immediate for you that it blocks out everything else. But a reckoning will happen. It must happen. That's the nature of the thing. Today's inaction becomes tomorrow's turmoil.

Yeah this is a good point. But the reason I am OK with her seeing him for "closure" it can no longer be thrown in my face that I didn't give her the chance to end this in her own mind when she was already on her way there. It wouldn't necessarily change the long term outcome but if she can realise for herself what she has done then we have a chance. She isn't ever going to get there as it stands right now.

Today's inaction becomes tomorrow's turmoil.

Of all the great things I've read on SI, this is easily in the top ten.

"whole idea does sound pretty great and I would possibly like the same opportunity while not breaking up the family"

Hmm Ozzy , can you be honest here? You gave your wife the blessings to cheat because you planned to do the same at some point. Unfortunately for you this got complicated. Both of you opened the marriage, the idiot AP doesn’t know that because he thought you didn’t know and the poor OBS is the most uninformed of the four of you. So who’s the victim here?

This is just an open marriage gone bad !

if she can realise for herself what she has done then we have a chance. She isn't ever going to get there as it stands right now.

I think you might already have your answer...

You say that giving her your approval to sleep with him was the biggest mistake of your life.

Literally in the same post you say you gave her permission to go see him for "closure", because that's all it will be and then she can't hold anything against you.

Oh, honey. I have an oceanfront property in Arizona to sell you...

You will rugsweep this (you already are), and this cycle will continue possibly for decades to come...

But honestly, I think if I hadn't have given my approval we would probably be in counselling trying to figure out why she wants to sleep with someone else instead of me, rather than being a couple having counselling with her having slept with someone instead of me

There is actually no difference between the two, even if you think one transfers fault/ blame/ power, because not only are you implicated in both scenarios, she still does have to figure out the wanting to sleep with someone else instead of you. As do you. I’m now getting a clearer picture of the adolescent side of your WW that’s emerging in this game of chess. That will become harder to live with as you go forward, I hope you will begin to resist it and the dynamic that comes with it.

Going on a night out with friends does not a full 180 make, btw. As much as her affair could be about escape from responsibilities, herself or whatever, make sure you are not on an equal escape from yourself by your focus on her and her stuff.

Agree with everything here.

I don't see that. If you agreed, I think you'd be acting different.

I am reading Not Just Friends and making notes about sections she should read if she isn't going to read the whole thing.

Reading means nothing, but that's what you're asking for - something that is meaningless.

Change means something, but you're not asking for that. That's pretty fogged up, since you ask about living in a fog.

We are both early 40s and she knows she is having a mid life crisis.

That's and excuse, not a reason

With respect, what fog am I in?

you've gotten example after example. The problem is that you've missed them.

Tell the OBS. I'm sure you've heard this saying before: "If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth."

I've never heard that; thanks for sharing. It's 100% true.

If your M is doomed, the sooner you recognize it, the sooner you all can start healing. D is devastating to kids past 4 or 5 (and perhaps younger), but they do heal when given a chance. You're not giving them a chance

But the reason I am OK with her seeing him for "closure" it can no longer be thrown in my face that I didn't give her the chance to end this in her own mind when she was already on her way there. It wouldn't necessarily change the long term outcome but if she can realise for herself what she has done then we have a chance. She isn't ever going to get there as it stands right now.

You've led the horse to water, but she hasn't taken a drink. Any Kool-aid drinking in your relationship has been done by you.

'Closure' may be helpful in honest relationships, but your W's relationship with this guy has been dishonest in all respects because of the dishonesty as t its core.

You have catered to your W's whims and dishonesty. Letting her violate boundaries is a lousy basis for R, because honesty is the single most critical requirement for R, IMO.

You've bought in.

You need to tell OBS because your honesty is a requirement for R, too. OBS is vulnerable to immense emotional pain, and she may be vulnerable to disease and other physical pain. The sooner she realizes that, well, the sooner she can start healing, too.

You are operating on the basis of your fears. I'm sure some people who let fear rule them get what they want, but That is a losing strategy.

I urge you to stop doing that to yourself.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:48 PM, Monday, April 17th]

It's sad that your wife has convinced you that this is all your doing. She's pretty good - got to giver her that.

Closure for a WW means one thing - a last chance to convince her lover to take her instead or to at least have one more lasting memory of him. This was the case for my ex and her 'closure' with the OM.

Anyways, it's pretty obvious you're set on your ways and nothing's going to change that. I'll leave you with one thought - it's often said that people deserve each other. Your wife couldn't have pulled this off on most 'men' and you my friend sound like you can't envision a day without her gracing you with her presence. My heart goes out to the kids - on both sides - and the other wife.

Nothing that others haven't said but I fear there is a massive chance that your WW will f*ck the AP 'for closure', her motives will be to convince him to dump his wife so they can live life in fluffy unicorn land together, he'll agree just to get his end away and so the story continues.

The AP knows you exist and, supposedly, your WW has told him she wants to work on your marriage so why not ask her if you can be at this 'closure' meeting? A pound to a pinch of shit she starts screaming at you to manipulate the situation, as she knows she'll get you to back down with your tail between your legs!

I can't see any good coming from this meeting.

Tell his wife. Her relationship is already detroyded she just does not know it. Your wife and her husband detroyed their family. Just let her know so she can make a decision. Also, tell your wife YOU DETROYED THAT FAMiLY not me. I am just setting the reord straight and bringing the betrayel into the light. What is her excuse.

Ozzy

What is ‘closure’ here?

Will she tell you?

What is she setting out to accomplish by it?

Can your wife articulate it for you, or is it basically pop psych?

What are the practical parameters of the in person meeting - where, how long etc?

Is she committed to forever ending the friendship and the relationship after the closure meeting? Or is she looking for away to either maintain the friendship, or perhaps memorialize it?

There is a very well regarded former Wayward who used to post on this site (still does occasionally), who started posting perhaps a year after her equally well regarded husband did on ‘just found out’. She broke no contact with AP. Her husband knew and he was leaving a little window open to see if she would be honest. The circumstance for the contact was, from memory, that she had come to realize that the AP was a player, that their romance was not so special, and that she had inflicted damage on her spouse for…nothing,. It would not have helped her to have a Casablanca ‘we’ll always have Paris’ moment with AP, which I’m guessing is what she would have wanted at the time. It helped her to have a ‘what the hell is wrong with me’ and ‘this guy is bad news’ moment, and to relentlessly pursue that line of introspection, to become a better person.

Shielding your wife from consequences won’t help her get to that place. Neither will humoring her. She needs an unvarnished view of how her behavior is perceived by you - crap, shady, manipulative, damaging, and above all….dishonest (although you seem hellbent on making her out to be honest for some reasons no one here agrees with).

I would say, I don’t approve of you having a closure meeting with him, it’s hurtful, I don’t agree to it, but it seems you will do it, just like you were texting him when you said you wouldn’t. If you meet him, make it short, make it in a public place, don’t tell him you love him, don’t tell him ‘if only…’, don’t do the star-crossed lovers / twin flames bulldust. Get it over with, come home, tell me the truth about it, promise never speak to him, mean it, do it, and maybe we can try to save this marriage you have been white anting with this kind of crap for two years.