SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I just got done texting her about the time and place for the therapy meeting tomorrow and she responded with: "and if I don't feel comfortable opening up?"

I replied with: "We'll see how it goes"

She replied with: "You know how I feel about therapists. I'll give it my best but you should already know that."

I replied: "I don't think you are in the position to be picky."

She replied: "I think I have a fairly brutal history with therapists and I should hope that as my husband, you would respect that."

I'm sitting here thinking to myself, wait a damn minute. Shouldn't you be willing to do ANYTHING like you said you would in order to reconcile this marriage? And also why the hell are you trying to make me feel bad for your "history with therapists?"

To be clear. Her history with therapist is that she hates almost all therapists because they tell her things that she doesn't want to hear. What a piece of work...

I think that put the final nail in the coffin. I know I said I was going to wait a week and there were a couple of people that were supportive of that but after this new development, I am starting to learn more and more what type of woman she really is.

And of course there are already photos of her on Facebook popping up showing that she is at a super bowl party and seems to be perfectly happy. Almost as if she has already moved on.

A part of me, a very large part of me wants to be the one to go tell her dad that we are going to get a divorce and tell him why. I want to so badly since she has always been afraid of turning into her mom who ended up manipulating and cheating on her dad multiple times. But another part of me thinks not only would it make me look bad, but also I don't want to give her the satisfaction of having something to hate me for.

[This message edited by ihatechoosinga at 9:05 PM, February 5th (Sunday)]

so she plans and lies to you so she can spend the night with some guy and lets him at the minimum stick his finger inside her. I am sure there was heavy petting and kissing and groping etc.

Then she doesn't tell you about it. Gets her and YOUR friends to lie and cover up about it.

Then she spends all week sexting him and yet YOU are meant to consider her "issue" with therapists?? And what respect did she show you and your marriage when she went home with another man!!! ffs!!!

How is any of this ok?

How is she thinking about you? and how she hurt you? The person that only 4 months ago she basically promised to be the person that had your back, your best friend?

She is showing you clearly who is most important. Her! Not you and not your marriage.

I now think it is time you did the same.

[This message edited by Tawnee1969 at 9:13 PM, February 5th (Sunday)]

She replied: "I think I have a fairly brutal history with therapists and I should hope that as my husband, you would respect that."

And you didn't ask her where the hell was her respect when she was cheating on you?

[This message edited by 40YOSL at 9:29 PM, February 5th (Sunday)]

So she is out partying with friends for the superb owl? Blow her world up! Serve her papers, tell her family and tell her GTFO! She doesn't like therapist? See how she likes not having you for her safety net!

"and if I don't feel comfortable opening up?"

"You know how I feel about therapists. I'll give it my best but you should already know that."

"I think I have a fairly brutal history with therapists and I should hope that as my husband, you would respect that."

Yes, this is how it usually goes when the betrayed seemed to be "reasonable" or "rational." The cheater figures, "SUCKER!!! I'll STEAMROLL him!!!" I don't think that is actually a conscious thought from the cheater, but that is the same effect - try to minimize, don't tell the full truth, sweep it under the rug, "get over it," forget about it, move on like it never happened, and change nothing. UNLESS the betrayed is forceful to say NO WAY, ENOUGH!

Whereas if you had been on a full-court press, letting it be known how angry you are and letting her know with no doubts that you are not going to be staying married if she can't fix this, it's all on her, the chances she's been on her knees begging to stay would be much more likely. Practically every successful reconciliation begins with that very same start, whether the betrayed do this on day one or wait until three months later, frequently the cheater does not come to the table UNTIL the betrayed puts the foot down.

Watch and listen, keep your eyes and ears open.

If you want the marriage, the path is through a thoroughly "unreasonable" (to the cheater) set of required conditions - ending the affair and no contact with the affair partner, doing so in such a way the betrayed can know it ended, telling the truth, and doing whatever actions for the betrayed to believe, whether that be an affair story that makes sense, adds up, or through a polygraph, if necessary, STD testing. Not really unreasonable, from a betrayed point of view, but completely "controlling" and "manipulative" of an unremorseful cheater.

To be clear. Her history with therapist is that she hates almost all therapists because they tell her things that she doesn't want to hear. What a piece of work...

So "fairly brutal" because of "truth"? Not good.

"and if I don't feel comfortable opening up?"

I know what she says, but what I hear is, "I don't fee comfortable telling the truth."

[This message edited by wk55hn at 10:44 PM, February 5th (Sunday)]

A part of me, a very large part of me wants to ...

You can divorce. Call the attorney tomorrow and get it rolling. But it will take a while to get divorced. In between there will be ups and downs, back and forth with her, time for her to get on her knees and beg or to tell you basically that she doesn't think you're worth the effort to her. Filing a divorce is one way that reconciliation begins - that's when the cheater realizes they must come clean and be accountable - how messed up is that, it takes to divorce? And sometimes the betrayed just has gone too far, there has been too many lies, too much cruelty, too much selfishness on part of the cheater. I can direct you to any number of threads like that here. And this stuff is all so predictable.

But my point I started here was to say that filing divorce doesn't change much. It's just another day, it doesn't make you divorced, you still have a lot of back-and-forth with her after that. Ups and downs. Lies and what is referred to as "trickle truths" - little lies turned into little truths, a "trickle" at a time (e.g., one day she admits - I had oral one time; then the next day - I had full sex but he only went "in" for 15 seconds because I couldn't do it; then the next day - I had sex five times starting since before the marriage ... you get the idea).

You mention about telling her father and mother ... what if her mother and father calls her to say "hi" - do you think your wife would tell the truth, she's not living at home for the moment because she cheated?

Who else knows about her staying overnight with the man? Who else knows about her leaving the house because of that?

Her current behavior, combined with her dislike of mental health professionals (as well as why) screams personality disorder.

I am normally an advocate for reconciliation provided the remorse is present. In your case, I think k I would walk away. Something about her is way off.

wk55hn, when I threatened to call her dad and step mom the other day after it happened she looked horrified and begged me not to let them know because they will all think that she is turning into her mom who none of them have any contact with because of how manipulative and abusive her mom is.

As far as I know, the only person that knows about her staying overnight with the man and cheating other than my brother and 2 of my closest friends that I have called for support is her friend that she is staying with at the moment. This friend she is staying with happens to have known since the middle of last week. I have actually seen this friend since my wife told her but before I found out and this friend acted like nothing happened. When I asked to see my wife's phone yesterday after I had found out about her cheating, I saw that this friend that knew about the infidelity was encouraging my wife to not let me decide how the relationship will go from here.

I understand my wife is a human being and that technically she doesn't have to let me decide, but if she is wanting to reconcile at all like she claims she is, she doesn't get to call the shots for quite a while.

[This message edited by ihatechoosinga at 11:12 PM, February 5th (Sunday)]

She has already turned into her mom. If you need support from her family you will have to expose. It might knock her out of the fog or you might get to know that this was her exit strategy.

You need to expose her now!!

I saw that this friend that knew about the infidelity was encouraging my wife to not let me decide how the relationship will go from here

.

This friend of hers is not a friend of the marriage and will have to go if you stay together. I doubt that will go over well with your WW. All I see are deception, lies, manipulation and resisting your boundaries coming from your WW. It looks like she learned well from her mom. If you don't disclose to her father at least tell her other family members because WW will lie and say it was you who cheated.

"I think I have a fairly brutal history with therapists and I should hope that as my husband, you would respect that."

And this....

when I threatened to call her dad and step mom the other day after it happened she looked horrified and begged me not to let them know

Translation: "I'm gonna open my legs for any man I want, and you my puppy dog will respect me by helping me sweeping it under the rug. Those vows we took 4 months ago only apply to you!"

There is no remorse here. Not even regret. Only anger that you have the audacity to refuse being cheated on. Look closely at these statements and actions. She is trying to manipulate you. Even after cheating on you, she expects to control you.

Make your own decisions. Set your own agenda for recovery. She doesn't get a say in this.

It appears you are dealing with a lying, manipulating, calculated and unremorseful cheater. Take control of the situation, and take control of your life.

With this attitude she is not a safe partner and she is not a candidate for R. Tread carefully and work with your own personal best interests in mind.

Meet with an attorney as soon as possible and do not tell her you are doing this. At the very least get your legal and financial interests protected and learn about your options. The key is to detach from her, and start formulating your plan to get out of this scourge of infidelity.

All this firestorm has happened over a couple of days. You are in shock and your emotions will continue to be all over the place. Continue to seek wise counsel here and from people you trust. Take care of yourself. Try to get rest and eat well. And lay off the booze, or you might do shit you'll regret.

I'm sorry for your pain. I hope you find peace and speedy recovery. This is a long process to deal with, regardless of the outcome. All the best and good luck.

bigger nailed it.

you have plenty of reasons to D.

but to R you need the truth. her whole story is lies. how, why, and what - she lied on all of them. you cant r if you dont know the truth.

so you can either d OR find out the truth and maybe r. or rugsweep.

It appears you are dealing with a lying, manipulating, calculated and unremorseful cheater. Take control of the situation, and take control of your life.

With this attitude she is not a safe partner and she is not a candidate for R. Tread carefully and work with your own personal best interests in mind.

^^^ This.

I totally understand how heartbroken you must be feeling right now but in the years to come I hope you'll be able to look back on this clearly dysfunctional relationship as being a very steep learning curve and use that knowledge to form healthier attachments in the future.

In time you will need to do some serious introspection to find out how and why you were drawn to such an individual, particularly given her family history, and likely you would benefit from some IC yourself.

In the meantime do yourself a favour and read 'No More Mr Nice Guy' by Robert Glover. You can download it as a free PDF by googling.

Best wishes and so sorry you're having to go through this shitstorm.

You're a lot younger than I and you have your whole life ahead of you. Help yourself to make it the best you possibly can.

In this thread you see another story of a WW that cheated on her husband 4 months after marriage, learn from it I would say...

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=599235

Exposing the affair to family members of the WW could help the WW to regain reality and to learn right from wrong again, should those family members address the issue with her and make her know that infidelity is wrong and immoral.

Of course, should you tell the dad he could start to blame himself, on the other hand he also might want to make an effort to help his daughter to not further let her become like her mum, and could offer you support and insights from what he has learned. I think I would discuss it with him, for these reasons.

Furthermore, people in a romantic relationship should act like team members supporting each other and not harming each other in any way, and certainly not do something like this in the dark days of your life, in this case during the time that your dog was put to eternal sleep. Should you stay married to her, and one day become sick or something and need her support to help you or treat you well, you might find out that she finds it too burdensome and screws another OM while you are in pain and she LEAVES YOU FOR DEAD AND TO DIE ALONE. She is not someone that you can rely and build upon, at least that is what she demonstrated now and past behavior generally is a predictor of future behavior. YOU ALWAYS NEED TO TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF, NO PARTNER THAT YOU CAN REALLY TRUST AND BUILD UPON, AND TO BE ON YOUR GUARD, it is not a life that I would settle for or not walk away from.

You are young, trustworthy, no children, should you now leave then you also have a good chance of building a life with someone else. There are never any guarantees that it will not happen again in a new relationship with another person but at least you are now wiser and more experienced. That can help you in any new fresh relationship while at the same time that other person might be less selfish and more moral and psychologically stable and you will screen for that...You do have one guarantee should you stay with her though, namely pain and very likely more hurt.

Nevertheless, you need strategy, whether it is to exit or to stay, this is how I handled things and it worked for me. I also dealt with someone with mental issues, possibly BPD sypmtoms, and who had unconstructive thoughts about having intercourse outside the relationship (It is only sex, monogamy is overrated, etc.). This approach is different from what is generally advocated on this website but on the other hand no one has yet disproved of this method in the thread (and I encourage all to react with what they think of it):

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=599293

So that girlfriend is encouraging her to cheat. Blaming you. Justifying your wife. Refers to it as privacy rather than secrecy.

Well, it's all just talk. Almost definitely your wife will be in contact with other man. Toxic friend will use her own phone to let your wife do it. That is your wife's support - a cheater apologist.

But theoretically your still in the same spot. You still have an appointment today. I guess your wife is still coming. I guess time will tell. It probably won't take a full week until you see which way your wife is going. Probably today you'll see, either she'll show up and be sincere and open up or she won't. The counselor very likely could side with your wife and say you being upset about the vet is a good reason to cheat. Some counselors cheat, too, but they usually don't tell you that. Did you ask the counselor about the cheating and the general approach?

BTW...if the counselor does anything besides slam her for her cheating, you need a new counselor.

...I saw that this friend that knew about the infidelity was encouraging my wife to not let me decide how the relationship will go from here.

Just like you cannot control her, she cannot control you. Repeat this to yourself everyday.

You, and you alone, get to write the next chapters of your marriage, Repeat this to yourself everyday.

We just got back from our meeting with the marriage counselor and in order to try to make things fair, I will give her side of the story.

She said that it happened because she felt lonely and felt like I wasn't giving her any attention or spending any time with her because I am always studying for school. She honestly said a bunch of other stuff but in the end it kept coming back to the fact that I wasn't paying enough attention to her.

My side of the story. Before I went back to school, I asked her more than once if she was okay with it. I told her multiple times that I would have to study a lot (I am taking prerequisites right now to apply for PT school. So I don't even have as much school work now as I will when I get into PT school). She was fully supportive. She is very needy, so I even asked her if she would be able to make it through me having to study so much. She assured me that she would be fine. I have even asked her a few times since I have started going back to school if she is okay with me having to study so much. She has assured me she was okay most of the times I have asked. On a couple of occasions she said she wanted to spend time with me. I would respond by saying okay let's go do something and each time she would respond by insisting that I study because "school is more important."

I will also add that the amount of free time (me not having to study coupled with her not having to work) we had together each week was no less than the amount of time any couple that works 40 hour work weeks, 5 days a week have together.

I will be the first to admit, I was not the perfect husband. Should I have spent more time with her instead of studying? Probably. Having said that, school was not going to be permanent and if you know anything about PT school, it is extremely competitive so I needed to study if I was going to get in anywhere.

I had told her before I went back to school that I was willing to choose a different career path than become a physical therapist if it was going to be too much on us. I told her that she is more important to me than becoming a physical therapist. But she was fully supportive.

The entire meeting with the counselor felt like everything I would say, she would counteract it with trying to put blame on me as to why she cheated. She would preface it with saying "I wasn't trying to minimize what I did, but..."

When I had said that I have put more attention on her in our relationship than myself, she responded by saying that we should be putting equal attention on both of ourselves in a relationship. That, I do agree with. However, my concern is that if I was already putting most of my attention on her, and she still felt like I wasn't giving her enough attention, then I can only imagine what would have happened if I gave us equal attention.

The worst part is that because of all of that, I am actually starting to feel bad and feel like part of the reason she cheated was my fault. And that if we don't stay together it will be my fault.

I was so ready to divorce and now I wish I never went to that damn meeting because I am afraid I will feel guilty if I insist on divorce.

[This message edited by ihatechoosinga at 2:07 PM, February 6th (Monday)]

No no no no no no no no NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!

If a normal person feels lonely that person talks to you about it, and if you do not listen feels neglected highly likely, but that is still no reason to engage in sex with another person, having sex with another person outside of your relationship is a big deal and not something that someone does as if it is just eating a hamburger, a normal reaction of a normal person is to seek out friends and family members for company.

There were other motivations for the affair; Excitement, forbidden fruit, peer pressure, dysfunctional thoughts about commitment in romantic relationships, etc.

Those motivations should be explored, reading this I think that you and the counselor were fed a common excuse story and ate it.

Did you ask whether she enjoyed her time with OM?