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mrplspls,

As you contemplate all of this how confident are you that this was her first rodeo, or certainly her only rodeo afterwards, in the three decades of your marriage?

The phrase "once a cheater, always a cheater" is not always true in the sense of acting out adultery. But it's so very often true that it has become a watchword of caution for very good reasons.

At the very least "the once a cheater" saying alludes to the fact that many WS's fail to address the core set of toxic neuroses that allowed them to commit adultery in the first place. They might "white knuckle" good behavior like a dry drunk, but they don't want to and they haven't grappled with the sickness inside.

There are a number of things quite troubling about this -- among them, that she was unfaithful to you so very early in your marriage.

I can only assume based on the timeline and that you had your children together in the early/mid '90s, that you were basically newlyweds when she was already telling you about her love for her boss and her desire to leave you.

You think she just "wised up" all of a sudden after that and never did anything like this again? No dalliances, no flirting, no kissing, no heavy petting, no inappropriate emailing or texting with other men?

It's certainly possible. Is it probable? Only you know.

I'm asking because there's a certain level of willful blindness here on your part: you've already told us you basically elected to blot this out of your mind and rugsweep it for three decades, not even letting yourself think of the possibility she'd been physical with a man she told you she loved in 1988.

Do you think you willfully ignored other warning signs?

Something to think about.

[This message edited by Thumos at 2:57 PM, October 15th (Thursday)]

I do not understand why you believe that she wasn't in love with him and had not been rejected by him. She is a proven liar and cheat. You know that. It seems more likely that once he had his way with her and she realised he was not going to be a long term prospect for her, she magically "realised she was in love with you"???

I understand that you believe that she has been remorseful and has been 100% faithful since - but what she did is a divorceable offence even now.

And you cannot be sure that you have the whole truth or that she has been faithful since.

I would definitely DNA your kids not only to be sure that they are yours but to send a very stern message to her that you do not trust her at all.

Also I think you should at least file for D (you can always stop the process later). She has to be the one to do the heavylifting starting with the onus being on her to prove that what she is saying is true and to show in actions (not words) that she loves you and will be completely transparent and honest with you.

Even after all these years, I would not be able to stay with her myself.

How long had you been married when the adultery happened?

18 months

Thank you for your kind words Siracha

if you are not otherwise in an abusive relationship and your wife makes you feel loved then Id say the best thing for you would be to process what has happened together and forgive her.

Loads of people live in fulfilling marriages without seemingly key ingredients like love ( arranged marriages ) sex or monogamy - if you feel fulfilled by your marriage then thats reason enough to stay .

Anyone who stays or is in R has to consciously decide to not be angry ( easier said that done ) otherwise you are hurting yourself more than her

In early days ANGER was there, I hope to move it out of the conversation. I am trying to put the years of caring and happiness into the equation.

Monogamy was a given in my head and heart. Maybe her keeping her huge mistake from me saved me from myself?

In early days ANGER was there, I hope to move it out of the conversation.

You may wish to push it aside. Gently that is the wrong strategy and won't work. Your anger will have its say whether you like it or not, as you're about to find out.

As Sisoon notes, you have to process these things in your mind and body. Your efforts to use willpower over what are basic moral emotions that form the foundations of objective human morality will backfire.

And again, gently, I don't think she saved you from a damn thing. That's exactly the sort of nonsense that wayward spouses like to spin. It's a lie you're telling yourself.

She couldn't even remain faithful to you for 18 months of your new marriage. I don't know what you mean by caring and happiness in that context.

[This message edited by Thumos at 4:34 PM, October 15th (Thursday)]

your first two posts are contradictory. In the first you said you are conflicted and kind of sad. In the second you were kind of of hinting the posters must calm down because you have had a good marriage.

If you need some sort of justice to feel better you can go after the OM. Also he may have a different story to what your wife describes about the nature of the affair which may really does not matter much now due to the passage of time

[This message edited by goalong at 4:46 PM, October 15th (Thursday)]

She has grown, matured. If those who have known her, short or long time, found out her WS story and status, they would be SHocked.

You could say the same about a great many wayward spouses - most of them in fact. When our extended circle starts learning my WW and I are divorcing bc of her infidelity I assure you they will be shocked.

Other than that, what's the point of this statement? To tell us what a great gal she is?

What is the empirical hard evidence for someone "growing and maturing" who couldn't muster the moral framework to stay faithful to you for more than 78 weeks of your new marraige, who lied to you throughout the entirety of your marriage and just dropped a radioactive dirty bomb on your life?

mrplspls:

Sorry you have found yourself here. Please read and reread sisoon’s post. It’s good advice. It really is a gut punch. Your WW has to realize that although this is ancient history to her, it is a fresh emotional trauma for you. And she has to empathize and put herself in your shoes. Most importantly take care of you. You will be on an emotional roller coaster for a while. She needs to be open and not defensive with your questions. You figure out what you need and what you want to do. The only way to process the emotional trauma is to go through it. It’s for the best.

You are not alone in your experience finding out years later of your spouses infidelity. There is a section in the I Can Relate Forum for “those who found out years later”. Check it out. Specifically you can search for posts by iamanidiot who like you found out about his WW’s infidelity thirty years later.

You are in shock and processing everything. Take your time. Good luck.

[This message edited by fareast at 5:10 PM, October 15th (Thursday)]

FYI - you talked about "early days" as if this is already a distant memory. you're still in early days, sad to say. You've only begun the process of dealing with this. It typically takes 2-5 years with waves of anger, sadness, regret, trauma, suspicion and many other recurring emotions and cycles of flatness to recover from the trauma of infidelity.

mrplspls,

One thing on your side is time. You have no deadline to make any big decisions. So please allow yourself as long as you need to take stock and let the dust settle.

Depending on the nature of your feelings, there are different kinds of treatments, therapies, and approaches that can be taken to combat them.

There are more than seventy thousand members in this forum, and this is just one online forum. Many, many people have gone before you on the path you have begun walking, and all of them (and us) have tried to find the right combination of elements that work for us in our particular situation.

The combination that works for you might not work for me, and the combination that works for me might not be right for you. There are no one-size-fits-all magic bullet fixes for these situations.

Any true and solid 'fix' will be a combination of multiple factors, applied over a period that can take years, which enable you to reach a sense of acceptance and peace about what happened.

Forgiveness may or may not be possible (we are all wired up differently), but it is probably best to leave that until after other more pressing issues have been explored and hopefully resolved, so that you make that choice fully informed and after reaching a sense of what feels right to you.

All of us were left reeling by the revelation of infidelity, however it came to us. As others have said, it does not matter that it happened thirty-two years ago, because you only found out about it recently, just like someone who discovered a current affair.

The best way to use any public forum is to take what you need from them, and understand that no-one ever used every suggestion or action that may be proposed by dozens or even hundreds of individuals.

By sifting the ideas and suggestions put forward, you can start to build a composite list of the things you need, and those that don't, and that can build into your recovery plan.

Sometimes it can be incredibly hard to figure out what we want, and until we do that, we cannot plan how to get it.

There may be some posts that feel close to attacks, but they are not. They are frequently posted by people who fell into traps of their own making who do not want to see others do the same thing.

Rug-sweeping or offering immediate forgiveness may seem attractive as quick fixes, but they actually fix nothing, and can leave a person with unresolved issues for years.

It is better to deal with the troubling issues now, because the sooner that is done, the sooner they can be neutralized or disempowered.

As time passes, you will build a better and better idea of how you feel and what you need, and that can help us to focus our suggestions to help you reach the solution that you need.

I hope we can do that for you.

In the meantime, please take good care of yourself. We live in challenging times, to put it mildly.

There may be some posts that feel close to attacks, but they are not. They are frequently posted by people who fell into traps of their own making who do not want to see others do the same thing.

Amen to that

Everyone has strongly held opinions based on what they have seen before and what they are seeing in your posts . What i am seeing here is a women who made a terrible choice probably out of her immaturity but subsequently went on to be a good spouse . I think that because thats what YoU feel and you should know

In most cases betrayed spouses have no way of knowing what type of marriage they will have even if they get over the cheating ; in your case this isnt relevant you already know you went on to have a good marriage .

I am not suggesting you pretend this did happen in fact I suggest marriage counseling to help you out of this in the most honest but also most drama free way possible

Anger makes a good servant but a bad master , your posts reveal a great deal of maturity, i am sure you already know this

Wishing you the best

[This message edited by siracha at 6:24 PM, October 15th (Thursday)]

My friend. You ask how to ease the pain. One way is to not let her control the narrative.

It was not a mistake. It was not a single bad choice or an error in judgment. It was a year long campaign of sordid behavior and deception in which she was trying out another man. It involved dozens of decisions and misleading you ant lying cold eyed in your face.

I can’t tell if it was then or more recently, but it seems like her comments were taunting you. This is really bad.

Yeah supposedly she’s been a great wife since, but her defensive behavior is not that of a good wife.

We label things as we want them to be. You need to get some control and not let her try to sanitize her actions. It will be the beginning of regaining control. And that in a small way will start you on the road to feeling better about yourself.

Mr++,

Pay the OM a visit get his side of the story, then dime him out to his W.

It’s not all gloom and doom. Read oldwounds on reconciliation posted today. His story is very similar to yours. Check it out.

If your wife is behaving the same way, you have something to build on.

I am trying to put the years of caring and happiness into the equation.

And her lying to you by first betraying you then keeping that worst secret possible from you.

Or were you referring to your caring and her happiness?

Maybe her keeping her huge mistake from me saved me from myself?

No. You're trying to come up with a reason for why this is not a horrible thing she did 33 years ago, and continuously since then by keeping it secret from you.

And it wasn't a "mistake". For chrissakes dude, she told you she was in love with him, then had sex with him before and after your lengthy (Honeymoon?) trip!

It doesn't get more premeditated and aware of what one is doing than that.

I get it. You don't want to leave your wife. That is a very valid feeling.

But I strongly suggest that if you do stay with her, truly understand her and stay with who she really is, not some romanticized version of her where she isn't a self-centered cheater and liar.

[This message edited by faithfulman at 2:26 AM, October 16th (Friday)]

Been there and done that.

My FWS spent 18 years lying to me about her behaviors in our marriage, including an affair, which I confronted her about at the time but she successfully lied her way out of even in MC that we went to.

The one thing that I can say is that you don't have to make any decisions right now.

You are getting a lot of advice, all of it good depending on the situation, but use only what you can in your situation.

It will be very hard, if not impossible, due to the passage of time, to get all of the details that you might want, but it will also be hard to be sure that you are getting the truth. To this day, I am utterly amazed at how many lies, and the type of lies, my own FWS told in order to gaslight me, our MC#1, her IC's #1, #2, and MC#2 until MC#2 saw through the BS.

Keep in mind, you simply are in the period of discovery for now, there may be much more.

Yes, you could ask your adult children to DNA test for paternity, if you find a problem there then you will KNOW there was more to the story, but if you don't find a problem, then you will have created yet another problem and have no evidence that there was no more to the story.

I would agree, it is very troubling that she was unfaithful so early in the marriage, but how old were you two?

As far as what is coming, the next 5 years is going to suck, that is no joke, the next two years you will not want to repeat ever again. Get IC, if you want to reconcile then get MC, but get IC either way.

Mr+

Secret 33 years, confession recent

Wow - sounds just like my story too.

The worst for me was trying to get the facts after all this time from somebody that had hid all those details from me.

The final story was much worse than I could ever have imagined - and it took a long time getting 90% of that story.

Over in the I can relate forum there is a topic For those who found out years later.

I did a lot of reading there, going back years. It helped me.

Remember:

You have been told a story with NO concrete evidence to support her side of the story.

You are expected to ACCEPT it all as the absolute TRUTH.

Without a POSITIVE spouse doing everything to answer ALL your questions and ACTIVELY engaging with you and filling in the blanks you will always struggle to put your mind at ease and move on.

The only advice I can give is to keep reading here. Learn from those before you.

Good luck and best wishes.

What I am seeing here is a woman who saw a chance to have some fun which you would never find out about and took it. She was hoping it would come to more (because at the time she thought her boss was the better man) but it didn't and she came back to you (all without you suspecting a thing). Sure she may have been a good wife since then (as far as anyone knows) and sure she may have told you the full story and that is the extent of it (again, as far as anyone knows) but I would tread carefully here.

Calling what she did a mistake, or a bad decision is wrong - she planned to do it, it was the best decision for her at the time but it did not work out. Why am I telling you this? Because as you have already been told, this anger will not just go away until you deal with it. And to deal with it, you must know the truth AND see it for what it is (not for what you would like it to be i.e. a mistake) and she has to actively assure you that she does love you and has told you the truth.

I don’t think a marriage can ever be whole if even one partner is carrying this monolith of a secret. It will always inevitably hinder you two in some way or another. However, once out it can be dealt with. I think it’s very important that you acknowledge this.

We have had many instances here on SI where a WS feels a need to tell of a past affair. In your case it sounds as if done reluctantly, but I truly think your marriage would ALWAYS be lacking and limited by the secret. Possibly even more so than from the affair itself.

Keep in mind that the pain is fresh to you. Maybe you rug-swept all those years ago, maybe not. Not really an issue. The pain you are dealing with is the same all of us have experienced, albeit your response might be reflected in the time since.

I have seen people chose divorce from what might be assumed less than what you are dealing with. I have seen people reconcile from what might be assumed more. Both paths are open for you. I see from your posts you want to reconcile. I have repeatedly stated here on SI that marriages can reconcile from anything, but only if both partners want to reconcile and are willing to do the work. That work is based on openness, honesty and TRUTH.

IMHO the main issue is that the truth be out. What’s not clear right now is what the truth really is. Was it only the one boss? Has she had other affairs? Are they in any contact in any way or form? Last time she looked him up on Facebook? Last time he reached out to her? How did it end? Why did it end? When did it end? All of this should be questions you are asking yourself. Maybe not because they are all true – I think the odds are high this was her only affair, that it has been over for all this time and that they are in no contact… But the questions are “normal” and expected and they need to be dealt with in a firm, conclusive way. IMHO it’s imperative for you to make a decision on your future that you are very clear on what happened.

I want to stress one thing: I do not see any benefit nor think we have any grounds in assuming what you are dealing with is worse than it already is. I think we do our posters a big disfavor when we hit them with DNA your kids and this is not her first rodeo assumptions as if they were near facts. MAYBE later in your process mrplspls we might have better grounds to make such deductions, but for now then ignore such drastic assumptions.

The best comparison I can think of is if your doctor finds something that indicates you have a tumor. That tumor was the affair all those years ago. You might have assumed that it was benign, but now realize it’s growing and bothering you more than expected. What you don’t know is if it malignant, treatable, has spread, if it’s an aggressive cancer, a treatable cancer, if it’s chemo or radio, both…

You could google all sorts of cancers and tumors and read all about how some are 100% fatal and/or uncurable and you could possibly fit all the symptoms to your situation. However, it won’t be clear or conclusive until you have done the real tests and gotten the truth. That truth is as is. It’s the TRUTH. Once you have the truth you learn the prognosis and the treatment. This applies to your marriage. What happened happened. It can’t be unhappened and ignoring it won’t make it not have happened.

I think that when we take something or someone for granted we tend to lessen the value of that person or thing. Like if we take our job for granted we might get complacent, drop our performance and standards and eventually get fired. If self-employed we might not get fired, but the basis for our income dries up. I think we all go through periods where we take our marriage for granted and I think that can be a major cause for why we stop demanding AND meeting standards. I think it’s a key-factor in a good healthy marriage to realize that the only thing keeping you in it is your and your spouses decision and will to be married. I mention this because there needs to be a fear in BOTH of you that if this isn’t dealt with correctly it can and will threaten your marriage. With that realization we get the drive to do the hard work the situation demands.

What is that work?

Getting the truth.

That truth will then dictate the next steps.

My strongest recommendation to you right now would be to focus on knowing the truth. Maybe you already have it, but list down what you need to know. Things like I listed above. Keep that list as factual and non-emotional as you can.

Sit your wife down and say something along these lines:

Wife – I love you and really appreciate our marriage. I want nothing more than to grow old with you and I will do A LOT to work on us. I truly believe that the affair – although a secret to me until now – has hindered our marriage and think NOW is a time where we can truly start a new, better phase in our relationship.

However… We can only base that future on the TRUTH.

I need to know some things. These are hard things and are about the affair and our marriage since the affair. They will create the base we reconcile from.

I promise you this: Most of all I want to be your husband. No matter what you tell me I commit to working things out with you. There will be no gut-reaction to file or leave. I can’t promise a result because that’s dependant on what both you and I do, but I promise I will try my best.

We need to discuss the affair. I need some truths. If you want this marriage to survive this I need to feel like you trust me enough to be totally honest. Anything you tell me NOW and in the next few days will cause less damage than anything I might discover on my own or in a few months time. Whatever YOU tell me shows honesty and trust. The two things we need to base our reconciliation on.

At some point – maybe a month from now – if I don’t feel safe or if there are too many gaps I might request you take a polygraph. If I do then I will abide by the result; if you pass I will believe your story but if you fail it will clearly show me you don’t trust me. Add that to the affair and I will have to question if this marriage really can survive.

With this sort of base to work from your wife should be motivated to answer the questions.

Your next steps will be based on her response and reaction.

But friend – realize that her initial reaction will be to withdraw and be quiet. Probably blame-shift (as in well… you haven’t been the perfect husband all these years. Remember when…). Avoid all arguments and side-trips. Focus on the importance of the truth being out.

Focus on this one main project: Get the truth. Once you have that then come back and we can help you on the next steps.