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Let’s get to the basics. Your gf has had emotional affairs all of your time together. You don’t know what she was doing in those 13 years because she’s not telling you. Emotional affairs are just as awful as physical affairs because they are about lying and cheating and taking time away from you. She is not able to be monogamous. It’s that simple. Your daughter is just a year or two away from emancipation. I think it’s time for you to start looking at life on the other side of this relationship.

We can put labels on her because there are plenty of them in the diagnostic manual. I don’t think that’s necessary. What you need to do is define her actions because that’s who you have. You are with a person who lies to you, sneaks around behind your back, talks badly of you and was planning on having sex with somebody if you hadn’t stopped it. That does not sound like someone I would want in my life

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 7:42 PM, May 26th (Wednesday)]

Soooooo can I just say holy crap Batman - I just saw the bat signal right before my eyes.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say a few harsh things.

She is an emotional cripple. She is selfish and disrespectful. She’s also a liar and a cheater. For the entire time you have known her. She has emotionally cheated on you. She has physically cheated on you. And after doing NOTHING she expects YOU to get over it.

So if I understand your situation correctly, you just had a death in your family and nowhere in any of your post does it appear (at least to me) that she is doing anything to comfort you, support you or emotionally try to connect with you.

I find this disturbing!!!

I really think it would be helpful for you to take a giant step backwards from this chaos. As I said in my earlier post after learning of your father‘s death I think you need to focus on you and your family and some healing. she needs to stop being your focus and top priority right now.

In my opinion she should be making you her top priority instead of the other way around. I think you deserve better especially after the death of your dad.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 7:53 PM, May 26th (Wednesday)]

Going to be blunt.

From what you have posted, it looks like you are seeking validation from your WS. You seem to want her to say 'Skyla316, yes, you are right.'

Stop it. You do not need validation from a liar, because all you will get are lies. Why do you feel that you NEED to get validation from her?

So far, you have guided her (why are you the one coming up with the timeline when it is ALWAYS the WS that should generate the timeline) to get her to love you back. She has not done anything on her own to try and set thing s right.

As to the timeline, you have missed a golden opportunity to see how much she wants you. By doing the timeline for her, all she needed to do was to agree to pertinent points, and omit everything else, because you did not write it down. It gave her to opportunity NOT to divulge any other details you did not put down.

You KNOW in your rational mind, that you are her 'safe' choice. Not someone to love and care for, but because you will always be there to catch her when she falls. She depends on it.

Until you and your WS go see an IC (independently) and sort yourselves out, you will not be able to break this toxic behaviour. Do NOT waste your money on MC right now, as you do not have a M to talk about.

You seem to need to know that you are right. You also seem to want her to need you as much as you need her, but you know that she will not need you as much as you need her.

It has been 4 times. When will it stop? What would happen if she swears on your child's life, and she does it again? (and from her behaviour to date, she will do it again, it is just a matter of time)

Note: I really do not understand this swearing on your child's life, or on the graves of ancestors.... it means absolutely nothing to people, as there are zero consequences.

So sorry for all of this that is going on at the moment. But I do agree with everything ‘The 1st Wife’ has said above.

Please seek legal advice better to know what it would look like is you cannot give her another chance to redeem this situation. What was it four time before she has gone out of the relationship. Each time she failed to address any underlying issues prior to her stepping out. Your darling daughter is 17 does she know that her mum is a serial offender in seeking validation from outside the relationship?

Between you and me I don’t believe she didn’t have sex after a six hour late night visit. Just me thoughts 💭

Please take this one day at a time.

I'm sorry to hear about your father's passing.

I made a timeline for her and we went over it

I'm sorry. You're the one who has been betrayed over and over and over, and you're the one putting together the timeline and doing the work?

No, no, no. She should be showing you how she's working to change by becoming completely transparent with you. By going to a counselor and doing the hard work of introspection to figure out why she has this terrible character flaw. You can't do that for her.

All you can do is focus on yourself. Read up on setting boundaries. (Vicky Tidwell Palmer has a great book on the topic called the 5 Step Boundary Solution.) Learn about Codependence. Read up on recovering from betrayal in a relationship.

Get off the merry-go-round. Then, and only then, will you know if you have any hope of a healthy relationship with her.

[This message edited by BlackRaven at 1:31 AM, May 27th (Thursday)]

It's common for a cheater to want to stay married. We call them cake eaters. Their desire to stay married is not evidence that they love you.

Her behavior with other men is evidence that she does not love you enough to not risk her marriage and/or gut punch you.

Among other things her behavior is evidence that in a marriage she is: selfish, entitled, deceitful, and lacks empathy for you.

And experience shows that there's very little likelihood for a serial cheater to stop. Especially where they got away with it by conning their spouse into believing they just talked or they're just friends.

It's also extremely common to justify/explain contact and meeting the OM to discuss the OM's problems. We've seen posts where cheaters spend the entire night in a hotel with the OM - but insist they only talked.

Ask yourself is this typical adult behavior, is your wife a trained counselor, does the OM not have any other friends, why not meet in public?

With her past history, unless your wife is a total fool, she knew better than to go to the OM's home behind your back.

Finally, your wife's self hate comments are very typical of cheaters when their inappropriate behavior is exposed.

The comments are intended to manipulate you by: creating the false notion that she's already suffered enough for her inappropriate behavior (so stop talking about it); and she's learned her lesson and won't do it again (so give her another chance).

Consider doing this. Consider meeting with the poloygraph person to talk to him about the odds of the test being wrong. Look up information on it. Decide if it's enough for you to make a decision on. If she passes you will believe everything she has said. If she fails you will end the relationship. If you go this route give her time to write up a timeline with the FULL truth. Did she have sex with that guy she lived with more than once? Did she have sex with anyone (includeing oral) with anyone but you (minus guys she has admitted to) Tell her that this is her last chance to come clean before taking the poly. If she doesn't pass your over. If she does theirs a chance.

You could even write out a bunch of questions and her write out the answers to them. One of the poly questions could be ... were you truthful in your answers to skyler?

You've caught her in so many lies that you can't trust her. This would be a way to start over with all the truth and rebuild your trust.

Yes it's a lot of money but how long can you live like this... her lying and you waiting for the next affair.

Maybe she could pay for half of the test to prove how much she wants to earn your trust.

Before you have her take the test you need to be truthful with yourself. If she fails and still says she is telling the truth will you be manipulated into believeing her? If the answer is yes then the test is a waste.

If she passes the test and you still don't believe her then the test would also be a waste.

I never said I was going to believe her over the poly, I said she was gonna say it was wrong so its a waste of money.

If she failed a polygraph and didn't come clean, why wouldn't ending this relationship be your first choice? It sounds to me like it's only a waste of money because you don't intend to follow through on a separation if she fails.

I just cant shake the feeling more happened. And I am worried that in a few years the same cycle will start again, I've told her that.

You're looking for her to reassure you with her words but REMEMBER - she did that before and she still cheated again. Her words are not good enough. She needs to go to IC. She needs to figure out why she keeps doing this and fix it. The fact that she won't even bother to pretend to be remorseful means that she's going to give you another DDay.

It's ok if you don't want to go through poly but you don't have to tell her yet. As you can find in MrFibble's case, his WW confessed more about her affair one day before the poly. This is called parking lot confession. If you tell her that you are setting up poly, you might get some.

Just a thought.

You seem to still want her to "get it", brother she's a serial cheater who's not even remorseful and is just sorry she got caught yet again, your M has been a farce, dump her ass and get out of infidelity, you don't want to be M police for the rest of your life, she has shown you over and over and over and over again who she really is, believe her, you deserve so much better than an unrepentant/unremorseful proven serial cheater and liar.

I don't see where you have stated what YOU want. What would your life look like if you could choose? Would you date other women? Would you still want your wife in you life? If she had sex with her ex would you still stay with her? You cannot control her and why would you even want to if you could? Start planning your life for you and let the chips fall.

A few thoughts from the replies I read, which I am very grateful for btw. You guys are right, I guess I am looking for some kind of validation from her. For her to say I am right and know everything she did and that she really understands how much she hurt me. But I'm not getting it. Yes she has given me access to her phone and where she is everytime she leaves the house, which isn't that often anymore but how long can that last. I can't play M police forever. Before I caught her she was never coming home before 9pm. Always at her friends houses. So who knows what I missed before this guy and plus now she is saying she is bored at home. She just wants me to move on and go back to how it was.

My daughter graduates high school next week and every year the 3 of us go to the beach. I hate to deprive my kid of her last family vacation before college but at the same time, my friend laughed when I told him. he said, you're really taking her on vacation after she cheated. So I'm torn. Also, I am going to tell her she has to work extra and pay for this poly or it's over. She won't like that 1 bit as she barely works as it is and hates it. I got a VAR, and she always calls her 1 friend who knew about her affair all along. I am going to talk to her about the poly and then leave. I'm sure she will tell her friend and maybe I will find out something. If not then perhaps like someone said, I will get a parking lot confession to this affair to avoid taking the poly.

Everybody is right though and I didn't see it. I shouldn't be guiding her through the timeline, that's her job and when I did go over it with her, she crumbled up the paper and threw it away and said stop looking at it, it just makes you upset. That's avoidance and that means she is rugsweeping correct? I haven't made up my mind about this relationship yet but I'm giving her every chance since this is the last chance. So far I got access to her phone and location but nothing else really. She doesn't seem to understand I need more. I'll update with what happens.

If I were you, at the very least, I’d ask for the ring back. She is not trustworthy. I’d tell her “I cannot be engaged with someone who so easily makes me feel unsafe in my relationship “.

Let her know that she needs to do at least 6 months of weekly therapy with an infidelity specialist to figure out why she keeps going outside your relationship. She needs to work on her boundaries if you are ever going to see her as a potentially safe future spouse.

If you want to, tell her you will give her a chance to do that before going your separate ways, but she needs to show you she really wants this through her actions.

And that includes taking a polygraph on whether it was physical at all or not. To pay for it she should sell something that is solely hers. This is all on her to make happen. Let her know the Poly is for you and you don’t care of her opinion as to whether or not it’s valid.

But it all starts with asking for the ring back. She doesn’t deserve it. A fiancé is not somone who should make you wonder if they are all in with being monogamous and getting married. There is a lot of work, because of her poor choices, before you can know that.

So end the engagement at the very least. She doesn’t deserve to be called your fiancée.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 10:41 AM, May 29th (Saturday)]

Tell her someday if she does the work thru therapy to make you feel safe and help you heal and change her cheating self, you’ll decide if you can give it back to her, but none of this starts until she gives back the ring and gets into therapy and finds her remorse for what she did to you.

If she wants that chance she will do it. If she doesn’t tell her you will be moving on. Stop making excuses and doing the work for her. She has to want it in order to do it.

Also recommend you tell her she has to pay for her own part of the vacation if you want to do it for your daughter. But you won’t go with her if she is wearing that ring.

And any other cheating means you will ghost her except to discuss your daughter.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 10:51 AM, May 29th (Saturday)]

To answer what i want if I could choose, I'd want to have it just be me and her and my kid and not have to worry that every time a new guy comes around she is gonna fall for him and claim "we're just friends". Dating wouldn't be a problem, at least finding a girl as my friends fiance told me, I am very attractive and muscular, she could hook me up with a 28 year old if that's what I wanted. I'm 45. I don't want to start over though and then what, maybe go through this all over with someone new down the road. I do need to take back the ring though. She is just so intent on what she keep saying, "we are supposed to be moving forward. Talking about it is not moving on" She says that all the time so IDk

Take your daughter to the beach by yourself. Have some great father daughter time. You can control yourself. No one else.

Until you wake up to that reality you will keep yourself stuck.

Do you like living like this?

She's got it totally backwards. Talking about it is moving forward. Not talking about it is NOT moving forward.

What are you working with here? Nothing. Serial cheater.

I'm sorry, but I have to say that I agree with her. You should move forward. Without her. 28 year old doesn't sound that bad.

Wait a minute. There is no “moving on”. And you should tell her so.

In fact, if a Girlfriend or Fiancé or Wife said that to me, i would tell her “this is not something we ever MOVE ON from. We don’t just put it in our past and forget it. In fact, I will never forget it. And that is something you are just going to learn how to accept, just like I learn to accept that you are not someone who has protecting my heart as a high priority.

No. If you do the work to become a safe partner down the road, learn what damage you have done and understand what it means to be somebody’s forever person and protector, then maybe I’ll be interested again in exploring a life with you.

But a truly remorseful cheating partner would want to talk about this as much as possible to help me work through it, without objection. So don’t ever say the words MOVE ON to me ever again. If you do, we won’t need to say much as as I will be moving on without you”

[This message edited by Stevesn at 11:31 PM, May 29th (Saturday)]

I haven't made up my mind about this relationship yet but I'm giving her every chance since this is the last chance.

You are still waiting for her to make a decision. Unless you are honest with yourself, you will always stay in this limbo state you are caught in. Have you asked yourself why you keep giving her additional chances?

So far I got access to her phone and location but nothing else really.

Pfeh! This is almost the bare minimum that the WS should be giving you (she should be giving you all access to all forms of communications and social media accounts), and you should not give any credit for it. The problem is that is all she is giving you, and you seem to be accepting it.

She doesn't seem to understand I need more.

No, like I said above, you are not being honest with yourself. You are looking for the unicorn called Closure. You will only be able to see it once you realize that it can only come within yourself.

From the information yo have posted, your WS is sounds extremely entitled, and you have been enabling her behaviour by acceding to her by giving in to her.

If your WS truly appreciates you and the relationship, she would be moving Heaven & Hell to make you feel safe with her. At the moment, she is just saying "just deal with it".

Please stop this behaviour of bending to her will. Set a course for yourself first. YOU make a decision, and do not ask her what she thinks about it, as it is YOUR life that has exploded, not hers. Start off on that course. If your WS follows you, you will have your answer of how much she values the relationship with you.