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Thanks for the update. It is a step forward that the messages matched your WW’s version. Take care of you. You are a very busy guy dealing with the added trauma of infidelity. Enjoy your trip away. Your WW is in a fragile state, is she stabilizing and continuing therapy? Good luck.

Glad to hear you're getting some time away. It certainly can't hurt and since you've gone through her records and found no PA your mind won't be crawling the walls wondering about it. Not taking away from how hard the rest of it is to deal with, this at least brings it down a few notches.

If she does her work and there isn't another bomb to go off, and it sure doesnt sound like there is, you two might have a better chance then many.

What happened with you being so busy, literally happens to most everyone, life is like that these days, we're pulled in 30 directions at a time. But there are times many of us can try a little harder for our SO, and unfortunately we don't, but it will never be a cause for cheating, even in the manner she did. That is on her, that was/is a weakness she had sitting there waiting to go off.

If you do "R" and I hope you do, remember the person you love the most should always be the first and foremost thought on your mind, regardless of what you're doing (unless you're playing with power tools and then by all means feel free to not put them first in your mind) and how busy it makes you. If you love that person always let them know, I treasure my wife, we hug most days 8-10 times, we hold hands watching TV and I dont know how many times a day either of us may kiss the head of the other and just toss in an "I love" on our way through the room. You dont have to make it big and flashy, just honest and real.
And I am not in any way saying you didnt treat her like that or that you dont treasure her. I only brought it up to say if my wife ever cheated, she would never be able to use that excuse on me.

[This message edited by LegsWideShut at 5:26 PM, Friday, November 4th]

Hi OP.

The two of you have a major communication problem in your marriage. She chose to begin these affairs, conduct these affairs, and begin to have mental problems about the affairs... all the time without talking about this mess with the man with whom she's had a 24 yr relationship.

At the start of all this, she didn't have the courage to tell you the marriage is on the line because she's lonely.

She's pulled some nefarious shit here, hopefully a good therapist can get her to understand what the hell is going on in her head, and, thereby prevent this from ever happening again.

Speaking of which... what sometimes happens to betrayed husbands just like you, the pull of talking to these assholes is so strong that your wife will move to Level 2 trade craft: buy a burner phone and communicate to them on it. Or, install and delete an app on her phone every time she wants to talk to these guys. Looking at your phone plan won't tell you anything, and you won't be able to read the messages. I'm not saying this will happen, but other betrayed wives have done this. Good times.

Rockhound,

Thank you for the update. To be honest, that's about the best case scenario I could have imagined, given what you already knew. Like, I imagine 9999/1000 times, someone in your situation would have read messages that indicated that some physical contact had taken place, or read that the wife had made demeaning/insulting statements about the husband, or that the EA partners had been poisoning the wife against the husband, or that the wife was fantasizing about getting a divorce, etc.

I don't mean to minimize your pain and hurt, or her betrayal; but I would have bet a kidney that once you got the messages, you would have found something much worse than what you did. I guess maybe this falls in the category of a 'silver lining', or maybe 'count your blessings'.

If you don't like your counselor, GET A NEW ONE. I cannot stress this enough. It would be impossible to stress this enough. My wife is a mental health counselor, and in between her professional networking, her case-consult group, the patients that she takes on that have seen other therapists, and my own reading of many accounts on this forum and on reddit, I can say with 100% confidence that there is a sizable minority of counselors/therapists that are not just bad at their jobs, but genuinely harm many of their patients. You are paying them for a professional service; if you're not getting high enough quality, fire them and try someone else. I would encourage you to discuss the reasons that your not happy with your counselor, and listen to what they say; it's always possible that there's a method to the madness, and some of the things that you don't like or that irritate you are actually designed to elicit those emotions-- this depends on what method(s) your therapist uses. But even if you aren't convinced by their responses, I'd wager the conversation would still be educational and help you clarify what you're looking for in your next counselor.

You obviously need to make your own decisions, but if I was in your shoes, I would hold out some hope of rebuilding my marriage, hopefully even stronger than before. That's absolutely not going to happen if she wants to rug sweep, or get upset with you for not "getting over it" quickly; but if she's willing to fully accept responsibility, and if she genuinely wants to grow old with you, then I think there's plenty of hope for you and for your marriage.

Find some fun times while you're working on the hard stuff. She can stop chatting up men. No need for it. Find something constructive to do. True worth isn't measured by transitory things. Ev3rybody gets older but growing wiser together is a gift. She needs to value the things that matter.

Thanks for updating. Sexual affaie or no, you have a load of dung to deal with.

As SnowToArmpits said:

She's pulled some nefarious shit here,

So true. I guess the question is, how much nefarious shit are you willing to deal with? How do you move forward with trust absolutely crushed to dust and and now blowing in the wind?

Only you know.

I can attest to the fact that dealing with this, while working, while being a Father, was the most exhausting, life draining thing Ive ever done (albeit I did so many things wrong). Throw in a heaping dose of her mental/emotional disorder and you have quite the mountain to climb.

As you process all of this, count the cost.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 8:03 PM, Sunday, November 6th]

Bumping per request.

Got an update for us Rock?

I am sorry that you are going thru this. But as I read each additional post from you, I was beginning to feel more sorry for your wife. I am usually for the BS but this is different. Your wife needed help, she asked you for help.

RH wrote: "She expressed to me that I was spending too much time in my endeavors and not giving her enough attention.", "....is a document where she's been writing for the past 3 years detailing her depression and anxiety due to my lack of satisfying her emotionally. At one point last year she was ready to walk. She did tell me repeatedly over and over again during this time period that she was lonely and felt severely neglected and left out. I would always tell her I would do better but obviously never did." RH, you knew she needed you, was asking you for help. But did you do? No, instead you blew her off and did nothing. She should have left you then.

RH wrote: "As she had been saying all along...no physical sexual contact was happening. As a matter of fact when she first started engaging with these other men she actually gave them rules of engagement which included no kissing, no sex, no sexual contact. When they would push for more she would continue to remind them of the rules and that this was strictly fantasy roles." "The two men and her never talked bad about me. They would sometimes even give her advice on how to fix what was broken between us."
RH, your wife never had a physical or even an emotional affair. She and the 2 men never said anything bad about you. She never said she loved them.

RH wrote: " She never once looked away from my eyes as she cried while I grilled her."
RH, I've read many times where people say that when the cheater would not look at the betrayed eyes, that meant the cheater was lying. Your wife never once looked away from your eyes. Doesn't that mean she was telling you the truth?

Be there for her now. Be there for each other. Hopefully it's not too late.

I am usually for the BS but this is different. Your wife needed help, she asked you for help.

Way to victim blame. Clearly RH was no perfect husband. Who is? Not a thing he did justifies her serial cheating. Period.

Tempocontour with victim blaming for the win!

Smmfh...ridiculous.

In most cases I would agree with the BS. Where the BS was loving, caring, sex life was great, did not see it coming, etc. No reason what-so-ever for the WS to cheat. But RH knew but did nothing, even he said that. The writing was on the wall, RH knew his wife was hurting but he did nothing. What RH's wife did was wrong, but RH could have done something before it got there. And yes, RH's wife's choice of what she did was wrong. But not all the blame for the failed marriage goes to RH's wife. RH also had a hand in it. RH's wife should have left RH before she did what she did. Yes, the victim (RH) is partially to blame. This is similar to a person doing drugs. What would you do for your love one who's life is spirally from drugs, you do a prevention. RH wife's marriage was spiralling. She asked for help. RH could have done a prevention before his wife did what she did. If you knew an accident was going to happen because someone told you, you would do a prevention instead of just sitting back and do nothing and let the accident happen. This isn't 100% wife's fault.

[This message edited by Tempocontour at 4:30 AM, Saturday, January 28th]

Calling an affair an accident is wayward-speak.

This isn't 100% wife's fault.

The cheating is absolutely 100% the wayward's fault. Always is. A BS is NEVER to blame for the cheating - nothing a BS does or doesn't do/say, no behavior they do, NOTHING ever justifies a wayward's decision to cheat. Period.

If RH's wife told him she's thinking about suicide, he could/would have done something about it to prevent that. If you know someone was talking about suicide, you'll do something about it, not sit back and do nothing.

RH wasn't blindsided by this. Yes, it was the wife's ultimate choice, but RH could have changed that but he did nothing.

[This message edited by Tempocontour at 3:33 PM, Saturday, January 28th]

There is usually share responsibility for marital problems. The apportionment of that responsibility is up for debate, but TC wrote:

If RH's wife told him she's thinking about suicide, he could have done something about it to prevent that. If you know someone was talking about suicide, you'll do something about it, not sit back and do nothing.

They have drawn a false equivalency here. RH's WW did express her feelings towards the M, but the only almost concrete thing she said was that she was "thinking about leaving". A concrete statement would have been, if things do t change in the next three months, I'm filing for divorce.

What she didn't say was, if things don't change, I'm going to have an affair. Or, I'm so depressed, I'm thinking about having an affair, please stop me.

Was RH the perfect husband? Probably not. I certainly wasn't, but we're our WWs the perfect partner during that time? Mine was a terrible W, even before the A. But relationships are built with imperfect people.

Using the state of the relationship to justify terrible choices, not mistakes mind you, deliberate decisions serves an injustice on a grown human being. RH's Ww is a grown woman who demonstrated both mens rea and actis rea in her decision to cheat. If this was a court, she would be summarily convicted. Maybe the severity of her cheating seems less to many of the posters her, or maybe we are all projecting our own situations onto this one, wishing we only suffered this level of betrayal rather than our horrific experiences, but it's not for us to say where RH's line is.

Be it teaspoon of sewage or a gallon, the wine is still ruined.

I hope RH posts again just to let us know he is doing okay. I don't know if it's weird, but I get invested in the people here, cheering them on, hoping for some light and hope.

-relevant t/j-
Tempo I don't know your story or what you've gone through so I'm running on the assumption that you're possibly doing some projecting here.

But I'm going to say this loud and clear for the BS'S in the back.
*Puts megaphone to mouth*
*-ahem, is this thing on?*
*feedback noise*
THE CHOICE TO CHEAT IS ALWAYS 100% ON THE WAYWARD. NOTHING THE BS DOES OR SAYS, NOTHING ABOUT THE ISSUES IN THE PRE-A STATE OF THE MARRIAGE, NOTHING ABOUT A WS'S PRE-A FOO OR WHATEVER; NONE OF THAT MAKES THE AFFAIR THE BS'S FAULT IN ANY KIND OF WAY. THE BS BEARS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR WAYWARD CHOOSING TO HAVE AN AFFAIR.
*-thank you for coming to my ted talk-*
*puts megaphone down*

No spouse is ever perfect - we are all human and all flawed and all bring our own baggage into the relationship. Lord knows I wasn't a perfect wife either. But despite my imperfections, my xwh chose to cheat instead of to communicate his feelings with me or to work on our marriage. That's completely on him.

And FWIW, blaming the BS, blaming the 'marriage' or the 'disconnect' or whatever is right out of the cheaters handbook. My xwh tried that too. Thankfully I found SI pretty quick and shut that shit down. I did and do own my issues in the pre-A marriage that I could have handled better or differently, but I do not own the choices he made to do what he did.

Tempo I can see that you have a fairly low post count and I couldn't see that you've ever written and shared your story. Why not do that and let SI help you see that you're a BH through no fault of your own? Your spouse cheated on you and that's completely on her. It doesn't matter if you were the worst husband in the history of husbands (which you weren't), her choice to cheat still is not even remotely justifiable and is not your 'fault' in ANY way.
-end t/j-

RockHound, do you have an update for us?