SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

No immediate access to snapchat is a huge red flag and any future access will likely be fully sanitized. Next is her feelings/limerence. You as a spouse can never live up to this ideality; no long term relationship can. The issue is if she does not fully understand this she is going to blame you for not satisfying her drug addiction (limerence brain chemicals). My ex eventually used her lack of feeling limerence with me as proof I didn't love her and I was likely the Fred Astaire of the pick me dance. I didn't find SI until the damage from that poor choice was already done. She loved the life I provided for her, but I could not give her the limerence she was addicted to.

Sorry, but still lying and having feelings for her AP really gives you nothing to work with! You are still stuck in infidelity no matter if she is contacting him or not, because she is with him in her mind. So what are you going to do to get out of it? From my experience being understanding and supportive is not a viable path.

Just my two cents. It seems like you are both trying to rugsweep this.

WW - If we don't talk about this it will go away. If I do and say the right things now. It will go away. If only tell him what he wants it will go away.

You: If I dont spy it will go away. If I believe what she says it will go away. If she does what she needs to do now it will go away.

The truth is you need the whole story. You need to know what you are trying to forgive. The reason your WW didn't want you to read the Snap Chat wasn't just because she still had feeling for him. It probably could have proven that it had been going on far longer and was much deeper than you realize. Yes it would have had information that would have been much harder to forgive but at least you would have had more of the story. You would have a better idea of how truthful your WW is. You would probably be much further along in the healing process. It seems like you are both trying to pretend her version of the story is true but its not working.... Questions like... why was it so easy for OM to give her up? Why is she still so attached? Why can't she talk about it and help me heal? Is she being truthful now? Are they still in contact? Not getting the whole story means that you aren't getting the full remorse. She's getting off with a mild version of what happened and it gives her the idea that lying is better for both of you.

Someday the whole story might come out and it will be like D-day all over again only worse.

You keep saying that she is "saying" and "doing" all the right things right now. What are some of the actions she has made to help you rebuild your trust? What books has she read on helping you heal?

We got home and I got the laptop and said log me in. She said no. I said why. She said because there are conversations that I dont want you to see. I asked like what and she said she doesnt know she cant remember. I said if I log in to that its going to show me that this is much more than you have had me believe isn't it and she said yes. Thats when she told me she does miss him and have feelings for him.

This makes me think she is still lying. That she only wants you to know what she can control...and that you both would rather focus on moving forward and pretend the affair never happened.

I agree with the others.

If you want R, you need the full truth. Tell your WW you need all the truth to R.

The full truth may or may not result in D, but lying or hiding information will.

Inform your WW that if she still has feelings for the OM, she can go with him. You won’t stay in a relationship with a woman in love with someone else

Beb

To me this is a tough one.
For one feelings and emotions are not an on/off switch. I could argue that a WS that could turn off whatever emotions led them to cheat in an instant has really deep issues – as in being capable of risking everything that turns out to be of so little importance to them…

Then there is your back-story of the long-term involvement of the OM in your relationship. He’s had a long time to create his presence, even if (probably) a long time of that was in a non-infidelity way.

What I do know about emotions is that if they aren’t fed then they diminish and eventually disappear. I also know that emotions can be based on one’s perception of what is going on or took place. The emotions revisited might be evaluated completely differently.

Then there is the very normal but maybe not ideal way you are processing all this…
When you are demanding and examining things to prove you know the truth, know she’s being truthful and so on. I really understand the need but meeting it by being an active warden isn’t going to work IMHO.

To me what you are experiencing is not trickle-truth. Trickle truth is if she tells you they met 5 times and never did sex act XYZ, only for you to discover they met 19 times and did everything conceivable. Trickle truth is learning they were in the back of your truck, at your favorite restaurant… Trickle truth is NOT how she feels NOW because that wasn’t an issue in the discovery-phase.

OK – how would I handle this? Probably poorly, but this is how I would council my friend, brother, or son:

First sit down and think long and hard what it is you are saving.
Remove all and every excuse until you are left with one: You want to be married to your wife.
Divorce bad for kids? Well… amicable coparenting is immensely better than dysfunctional family.
Financially not possible? Well… how come so many manage divorce? It’s possible, just have to do the research, the budget and all that. Finances are never a good reason to marry, nor is it a good reason to stay married.
See how it goes? Remove every excuse for not divorcing. You will realize that most of them are based on fear of the unknown rather than fact or reality.
Then consider what constitutes a marriage for you.

It might vary between people, but for me a key issue in marriage is that I want to be with the person I’m married to. I had this want before we had kids, when we were broke, when we had kids, when we were young, when we grew older, when the kids moved out… I can truly say that I want to either be holding her hand when she passes, or she mine when my time comes.
And I want that to be mutual.

I would hate my last recollection in life being my wife searching for the phone to call her old flame.

OK – a bit dramatic, but I hope you get the gist.

Once you have done that and if you conclude that you are married because you WANT to be married to this woman – as opposed to being married for the kids, for the house, for the pension, for the avoiding the shame of divorce…. Then you can grasp some key-factors:

It's not enough that YOU want to be married to this woman.
She has to want to be married to YOU.
Not for the kids, the house, the pension, the shame of….

With that in mind you can start a conversation with her along these lines:

Honey. I love you and want to be married to you, but I also want a true marriage. That’s not something you can offer me while you pine for OM or allow him any positive head-space.
You are free to decide what you want to do. I’m no longer monitoring you, searching your e-mail or whatever to discover what you are up to. If you want to pine for OM then stop it and go see him and be with him.
Only not as my wife.

If this is your choice then that’s OK with me. It’s not what I want, but even less do I want to be your warden or have to compete for the role I – as your husband – should have.

If you want this marriage then you need to tell me why. It’s not the kids because they will be fine if we are sensible as coparents. It’s not the house or the finances or the lifestyle. You can move in with OM in an hour and still live a comparable life. You need to explain WHY you want ME, and then realize that if you chose ME you are doing so on your own free will.
The same free will that makes you hang so fondly on to OM.

Words aren’t enough. I can accept you might need to grieve your affair, the decision to have an affair and even the relationship with OM. But it has to be processed in the right way. Not as the end of something good, but as a series of decisions – wrong decisions – that has caused immense damage.

If you want this marriage – if you want ME – then it’s really your role to show me so and to convince me. I shouldn’t be asking you for accountability, but you show and proving accountability.

Y'all are naive if you think feelings for the OM stop upon discovery or when they send the NC letter. Come ON. We all know that they don't. Just because she finally told the truth about that doesn't mean that she's not R material. Good lord.

I'm gonna plant my feet in hypothetical WS shoes and say that I'd be terrified to let my BH to see what I said to the OP. That takes guts, and if she did allow OP to view her Snapchat, then cool. On the right track. If she DIDN'T, waaaaay not cool. She needs to suck it up and allow access pronto.

R is not for wussies. R takes courage.

Jusy my .02

She lied about the affair in some way up and to that she is still talking to AP. I don't see remorse there. Blaming her unhappiness around talking about her A? How convienient.

She wanted out but stayed after your daughter freaked out ?

I am really sorry, but her actions to date tell me she is biding her time, still in an A or wants to rug sweep.

Unless you make it clear that 100% transparency is the only thing that will keep you from Ding her.

Sorry but sometimes you have to be willing to lose the M. More specificially you want her honesty about if she really wants the M. My guess is that she really doesn't. Again I am really sorry. None of this is easy.

There's a huge difference between feelings you are trying to extinguish and feelings you are reminiscing about. From the OP

She said she misses him and thinks about what they had together ... She said the feelings are just concerning what they shed together and how he made her feel.

This sounds like reminiscing to me, not someone who is trying to own their shit and extinguish their feelings!

As an addendum to what I wrote earlier in light of some of the recent comments, I absolutely know that a recently discovered WW will find it hard to simply shut down the feelings she was recently expressing hours or days or even a week or two before.

I’m not saying I don’t understand it. I do. I actually expect it.

But until those feelings are gone and replaced by reality, that this was a person, in this case who should have known better as he was a BH himself, who pursued a married woman and helped her destroy her husband and family.

While the WW still sees him as a romantic interest with loving memories, in my strong opinion, the rebuilding process cannot even start. let alone work.

She needs to work through those feelings, understand them, figure out what they mean to her, and decide if they need to be pursued lest they always remain over the proverbial head of this relationship with her husband, no matter how much work they put in.

What I am urging in this post and my last, is that our BH honestly and clearly communicate that to her, and then NOT WAIT AROUND for her to do that.

If she cannot commit to him 100%, and absolutely state that he, and not the AP, is the one and only live of her life, then she needs to go on the emotional journey to figure out who that person is for her.

If she were ALL IN with her BH, she would be emotionally stripping herself down naked, exposing every awful thing she did, in order to save her marriage at the risk of losing it.

She’d "let go of the outcome" and do the right things. She’d welcome showing and exposing every rotten thing she said or did in order to expose them to the light of day. Instead she protects them and herself by keeping them in the dark.

If she were all in she’d be trying to help her husband heal and gibing him what he needs in terms of openness and honesty to know the full picture. She’d be asking to expose what she did to her friends and family and begging for their help and forgiveness.

Right now he is not getting that. Right now he gets admission of pining for him. Of reminiscing. Of missing out.

DDay wasn’t 3 days ago. Or 3 weeks. It’s been 3 months. And she’s no closer to turning that corner.

We say it takes 2-5 years. I’d submit that the OP is still at day 1 waiting for that 2-5 year clock to start. In my opinion it cannot until she is able to remove this man for his heart and want him out of not just their physical lives but emotional lives as well, forever.

OP - from what I've seen on this site, when the BS is the one dragging their WW/WH through the R process it hardly ever works. There is going to be a ton of resentment, and frustration on your end due to all the feedback from the folks on SI.

If you didn't have the feedback and knowledge from the folks here, you'd probably be okay, and working your way through this process along with your WW, but you would be essentially doing it blind. The knowledge from the folks here is what helps BS to wake up to their situation, and to put the WW/WH on notice to get their actions/emotions/shit straight.

This provides for a conflict of sort. 1. you know the folks here are right, and what you are advised here is to get you out of infidelity and to take control back. But at the same time, its all new to you, and you still LOVE your WW, unlike the folks here, whose only skin in the game is to help you get the best solution possible while being cheated on/or getting out of infidelity.

In this instance, the folks here are right. Your WW, is doing some work, but she is not there, and from what I see, and from what you've written, it sure looks like you're dragging your WW through this process of R. The best outcomes for R, is when the WW/WH wakes up and immediately cuts out the AP, and starts doing the hard work of earning your trust and love back. You cannot do it on your own, and even when they do minimal work, it doesnt feel like its enough, because you've been told by the folks here that it isnt, and they're right.

So even though its been 3 months, you now have a lot more tools to help you get out of this situation, but your WW does not. And she has to drive that bus out of infidelity or else you will be doing all the work, become resentful and it might eventually kill your M anyway. You should sit your WW, and remind her of all that you need, and what you can or cannot live with.

I think your WW also needs to evaluate the situation for herself. Does she truly want R? Sometimes they get thrusted into R b/c their world is coming in on them, but you shouldnt be the one deciding it for her. You are the only person that can give her R, but she should also want it enough to take the lead, bc it will be up to her to do the heavy lifting for R. You cannot force her emotionally to get there.

So sorry you are in this place. It really sucks.
Regarding the Snapchat, she will most likely come to you remorsefully in the near future and say that she was wrong to refuse you access to her snapchat account. She is sorry to have caused you that pain and she has relented and realized she was wrong, then hand you the passcode to the account. If anything similar to this happens, it means that she has scrubbed the account of anything she does not want you to see. To offer you access after the fact will be worse than if she were to delete the entire account and not let you see anything, imo. If she offers you to see her account now, it means she is continuing to purposely deceive you. Do not let this fact escape you. You should refuse to look at it now knowing she is manipulating you. Simply respond, "You had only one chance to reveal your snapchat. Your actions have shown me who you really are." Turn and walk away.

Odds are you have only seen the tip of the iceberg. Hard 180. Strength and resolve will serve you best. Good luck.

She says its because I keep bring it up every day all the time thats its in her mind which could be true.

Manipulation at its finest. Hell if you’d stop talking about the betrayal, time rewinds & it never happened at all.

Her location services are switched on within google but I feel controlling logging into that and checking up on her.

Your wife cheated. You aren’t being controlling, you are trying to assuage your anxiety that she caused.

I played a bit of a mind game

Don’t play games, your wife is winning, exponentially.

But she said are you sure you want to do that as she wouldn't want to read my messages from an affair.

More manipulation. Tell her she never has to worry about it since you don’t have the character to cheat.

She said no.

If she were serious about reconciliation, she would be willing to do anything short of illegal if you ask.

She said because there are conversations that I dont want you to see.

It’s not up to her!!

I asked like what and she said she doesnt know she cant remember.

How can she know she doesn’t want you to see something if she doesn’t remember what it is? Never ending Lies.

I said if I log in to that its going to show me that this is much more than you have had me believe isn't it and she said yes. Thats when she told me she does miss him and have feelings for him.

Slyly dodged showing you the chats.

But on the other side she does everything she can to make things better.

Por Qúe?

She's loving

That’s nice.

she seems to care

seems?

she takes responsibility for doing wrong hurting people and says the affair is the biggest mistake of her life

Calling it a mistake is not taking responsibility. Your WW made a million big & little deliberate decisions in pursuit of her affair. Every time she contacted him. Every time she responded to him. The lies she concocted to trick you. Deciding what to wear. Deciding how to style her hair. Actions to ensure your daughters didn’t notice. Every time she snuck out the door, got in the car, turned on the ignition, drove down the street, every corner she turned in the car, to get to him, and infinity. Those weren’t mistakes! They were calculated steps.

and she wants me and our family

After your daughter had a meltdown.

Why keep saying she’s being honest? It took her months to admit she still has feelings for him. She’s an accomplished liar. If you can trust one thing, it’s that you can’t trust her.

Has she written you a timeline?
Has she enrolled in therapy?
Is she reading materials about infidelity?
Is she answering all your questions with patience no matter how redundant?
Has she given you access to all her accounts & pw’s?
Has she shown you her snapchat/text convos?
Has she offered to take a poly to assure you she’s told you everything?

What has she done other than talk? and you know you can’t trust what she says. Stop 🙉 to what she says, go deaf & watch what she does.

I know this comment seems overly negative. And I’m sorry for that. But there’s not anything overly positive to say. Your wife is apologetic & loving towards you. Dassit. She’s neither done or taken any other steps to indicate she’s a safe partner or serious about reconciliation.

We got home and I got the laptop and said log me in. She said no. I said why. She said because there are conversations that I dont want you to see. I asked like what and she said she doesnt know she cant remember. I said if I log in to that its going to show me that this is much more than you have had me believe isn't it and she said yes. Thats when she told me she does miss him and have feelings for him.

Bullshit. She is still protecting the "intimacy cocoon of the affair".

Not tolerable, and not an environment where R is possible, in my opinion.

Thats when she told me she does miss him and have feelings for him.

The fact that she pointed to post-Dday gave me the impression that their A is still ongoing. It would be pointless for her to say such a thing if she didn't want to show them because of the inappropriateness of their messages before Dday. This cannot be the explanation for something that happened in the past and is now over. The corollary to her revealing that she still has feelings for him and misses him is that she is still in contact with him.

So if she let you log in, you'd probably see this, among other inappropriate things of course.

Btw, don't take her actions as honesty. honesty requires wholeness, there is no such thing as partial honesty. She only tells you as much truth as she thinks is enough for you, which we call "trickle truth".

I am sorry to say that you are still not one step ahead of Dday.

Well last night we had some heated discussions. She had a bit of wine and things got heated.

I said to her that she must be in love with him as she told him she loved him, she told me that she told him she loved him and now she has admitted her feelings, she says she doesn't love him.

She had the exact same lying look on her face that she had last time and because I said that she has a little smirk each time she said it she eventually ended up laughing, because she said I was watching for her smirking. Which is understandable.

However

Its like she is starting to see less and less of the survertity of the situation and what she has done. She says she isn't and knows exactly whats she has done wrong and hurt so many people. But she says things like, lots of people have affairs, don't you think if I wanted to go I would just go.

She says things like you have done bad things in the past. I say so your trying to off set what you have done with smaller things I have done in the past and she says no but I have done bad things too.

She says she just wants us and our family back and she knows she has caused this shit but she is tired infant exhausted by the situation and all the questions day after day all day every day from the minute she gets up to the minute she goes to bed. She says she is not happy with how the situation is at the minute and I need to try and move past the questions even though its hard. She says she knows I need to talk about it but not all the time as we will never be able to move on and move past it.

Things got even more heated and I ended up saying I hate her. I was angry she said snap she hates me too. I said I would leave so she can get what she wants and get with her new boyfriend and she said do it then. She said she wouldn't get with him as she would have time alone if I was to leave, but she knows im not going anywhere as i'm playing games. She says I say one thing and never follow through with it so she said she thinks what I say I don't mean.

She says she wont go anywhere and another will I.

It feels like she is in the driving seat, it feels like she is calling the shots. I feel like I have done wrong and its me trying to get her on side and make a mends.

It should be the other way around. I think she thinks she has me where she wants me and she knows it.

After her saying about her feelings at the weekend I agree why would she bother telling me now after 3 months. She says she doesn't want to go anywhere. Thinking about it, it did feel like she was trying to end it because before she said about the feelings she said "I think its over isn't it" I said yes but then she hugged me and said but she doesnt want it to be over or for us to split. Then she told me about the feelings she has been denying.

This morning she has woken up and said she loves me and that she doesnt love him and we both say nasty things and we shouldn't.

I just hate the situation and I see what you guys are saying but I love her and im really scared of leaving

She says she knows I need to talk about it but not all the time as we will never be able to move on and move past it.

You won't be able to move past it as long as she's withholding information from you. You should be firm about it. It's either she's truthful now or you end it. Right now, she's not worth it. She even had the guts to say she will go back to her lover. Nah! That's not even worth saying. It's her and her lover that caused your marriage issues right now. And constantly stating that she will go back to him will only cause further damage. She has no respect for you!

All the best!

Hi

Sorry I may have miss typed...

She didn't say she would go off to her lover

She said she wouldn't go off with him she would have time on her own.

But I know if we split and she had time on her own she would be back with him in no time.

I just hate the situation and I see what you guys are saying but I love her and im really scared of leaving

And unfortunately your lying cheating wife knows this and is using it against you.

I was you. My H knew I was trying to R and putting up with his crap so he took full advantage of it. He would do just enough to get me to believe he still wanted the marriage. Hell he even planned a fabulous 25th wedding anniversary for us. Yet he was still lying and cheating.

I’ll spare you the long and ugly saga but I can tell you that after 6 months of false reconciliation and living in the same exact hell you are living in, I snapped on dday2. I found out the affair started up again.

I did two things right and many things wrong. The one thing I did was have a plan B and exit strategy. We had a house and kids and he made the $. I made far less but I was prepared just in case.

So dday2 rolls around and I snapped. I finally decided to put myself first. That is the second thing I did right.

I tell him I’m D him!!! Yup - I put my foot down and was no longer going to tolerate his lying cheating ways. Second affair I suffered through but no more.

He’s now begging ME to R. I refuse. I tell him he has to leave. I have the D mediator lined up. I have my therapist on speed dial (after 6 months of hell) and I no longer care about him or his feelings.

I now come first.

Best move I ever made.

We did Reconcile— but my Plan was to D him. It wasn’t a threat.

And we have Reconciled and are happy. It’s a very different marriage. I take no shit from him and will leave at the drop of a hat if I have to. And he knows that too.

I now have all the power in my marriage. After 25 years of being a doormat. Best move I ever made. He never thought I would stand up to him. He severely underestimated me.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:18 AM, Wednesday, August 25th]

Right now you're not reconciling. She's on the driver's seat and you know it. She's in control. You're the passenger. She will take you for a ride, she will even let you off if she wants to.

I always repeat this, if you want to fix your marriage, you should be willing to destroy it first. It's already destroyed in the first place. It's already been broken when she decided to proclaim her love to that other guy. Your marriage is gone.

So if you want to go for full reconciliation, you have to be in the driver's seat. You have to be firm that all information should be known to you. If, even a single piece of information is withheld, then you are filing for D. You should be firm on that - even if you're aim is to reconcile. I know you truly love your wife. But still, you should think about yourself first. Protect yourself first. Start with the Snapchat, if she won't give you access, then that's it. Move away, move on. No questions asked. You have to be firm on your stand. If she deletes the information, then file for D.

All the best!

OP you need to stop now. Everything your WW said is from the cheaters step by step instruction manual.

She lied to you about the extent of their relationship.

She refused to let you see snapchat and told you she lied.

She blames you for the affair.

She trickle truths every turn.

She is stringing you along and treating you like a moron saying things like if she wanted to leave you she would have.

So stop. Taking. Her. Bullshit.

You want to reconcile? Fine. But you need to give her space to ACT and SHE CANNOT ACT IF YOU ARE STILL MARRIED TO HER. What part of that is it so hard for you to understand.

Consult a freaking lawyer now. And then move forward. Click ANY of the threads. HECK click the one below yours. THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.

For god sakes she said she wont leave you and you said neither will you? Wtf of a weak move was that?

I wish I was strong.

I wish I had the energy and the guts to follow through with what I have threatened.

I love my wife I love my kids and I loved my life. I know that makes me a door mat. I know she is walking over me I know she is crippling my feelings and I know she cares more about her AP than she does about me. But I dont want to leave my family and I dont want to end up on my own. I asked for none of this and will try and do what ever I can to fix this but I know I cant do it on my own. I also know that unless she starts being honest we probably wont really get anywhere.

I just think why should I make it easy for them both? Why should I be the one to leave so I can watch her walk off into the sunset with her new boyfriend and my family.

I feel like if I leave I will be on my own I will never find some one like her again. My best friend has said that I need to think carefully because once I have left thats it no going back she wont come back and I would have lost her for ever.

She keeps saying to e if she wants to go she could go but she has stayed. I keep thinking maybe she does want to stay but I know this isn't right.

Im stuck because I have two options. Stay or go.

If I stay im stuck feeling like this day after day which is no life for any of us including my kids. She may even leave anyway if I continue to push her away and not try and put this under the rug

If I go I will be alone. Christmas, birthdays, evenings weekends etc.I don't really have any family all my fiends are married so I would be truly on my own and I don't want to cut off my know to spite my face