SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It' a lot easier to not feel guilty when the person you stabbed in the back isn't around.

That's what I thought too...I'm shifting between anger sadness and disbelief at this point. And then trying not to second guess myself on what I did/did not do that led her to filing

That's what I thought too...I'm shifting between anger sadness and disbelief at this point. And then trying not to second guess myself on what I did/did not do that led her to filing

She’s giving you a text book demo on how fucked in the head a WW can be. She doesn’t want to accept responsibility for tearing her marriage and family apart. Only bad people do stuff like that. Since she can’t be the villain, it just has to be your fault. Never mind you only got that blood on your hands because you were trying to take the knife out of your back.

It’s crazy how similar the behavior is between WSs... it’s like they all read the same book on how to have an affair and treat their BSs

Sleepless,

You wrote, It’s crazy how similar the behavior is between WSs...

It may be more crazy how similar the behavior of OMs are.....

Once OM has your WW he will lose interest as he has conquered her and will move on to another woman even if only as a side piece.

Look down at your watch write down the time and take a deep breath and wait.

Ask yourself this. What would you be getting back?

It’s crazy how similar the behavior is between WSs... it’s like they all read the same book on how to have an affair and treat their BSs

Around here we lovingly call it "The Cheater's Handbook".

I'm shifting between anger sadness and disbelief at this point

The 180 should help with your emotions. The separation should allow you to heal. I know it helped me a lot. Not seeing the person and being reminded of the betrayal was a big help.

Your WW is showing you who she really is. It is easier for her to blame you for her A than take responsibility. Her explanation is essentially the same as the abusive partner telling the battered partner "I only hit you because YOU didn't put the dishes away, so it's your fault". We all know it is garbage. Don't try to reason with your WW, because most WS's are not logical and you cannot reason with an illogical person.

Keep focusing on yourself. I hope you find a good attorney so you can protect yourself and your son.

So I’ve been talking with lawyers to get an idea of what to expect. In my state affairs means almost nothing for custody or division of property. So that’s awesome

I’ve been advised not to leave our house because she could use that against me for custody, etc.

I’ve been sleeping in the guest room and we talk about our son and house stuff not much else. She’s very cold when she does talk to me.

It hurts that this seems to be so easy on her - meanwhile I’m anxious, shaking, can’t eat (down 30 lbs)…. And she just seems completely emotionless about everything. She had watery eyes when she told me she filed but that’s it and then went into her blameshifting for why she made her decision

I’ve given up hope that she’ll wake up from this trance and I’ve started reading “Leave a cheater gain a life” and “Now What”

Leave a cheater is good as it almost describes what she says and does verbatim makes me know I’m not crazy

You are not crazy, but IHS is hard. Hang in there.

then went into her blameshifting for why she made her decision

She's trying to justify her adultery and ease her conscience. Don't allow her to do that. The next time she starts blaming you, stop her talking and don't listen to her bullshit. You may also appear to be sarcastically accepting what she says. This is a method I use, I talk sarcastically in a way that if there is someone who makes nonsense as if they are mocking my intelligence, they will understand how stupid what they are saying. For example, in your case I would smile and say something like "You're right, the fact that you only slept with one man for all my badness really deserves respect, you should have slept with more men."

She doesn't deserve respect, so don't respect her. with my words I would make her feel how cheap I saw her and what she did. That doesn't mean being rude. On the contrary, the more politely and confidently you say it, the more effective it will be, as it's like just an ordinary fact of life.

BS's emotions like pain, anger, sadness, these are not things that will affect the cheater. Indifference, sarcasm, starting a better life, these are the things that make the cheater regret.

She's stone walling and being cold in order to protect herself from the reality of how despicable her behavior is.

One possible blanket response (write it down if you can't deliver it verbally) to her is:

I"m sorry you feel that way (about me or our marriage) but I am not responsible for your feelings. Every human being is 100% responsible for controlling their own feelings and related behavior.

Nothing I did or didn't do forced you to commit adultery. Your decision to commit adultery is 100% on your shoulders. It's a heavy burden of shame you and the OM will carry for the rest of your lives.

Finally, any of your friends that validate your adultery are not friends to your children or the institution of marriage - but rather are potential adulterers like yourself.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 9:34 AM, June 14th (Monday)]

You need to blow up her fantasy that her lies and adultery has any sort of high moral ground.

Talk to your attorney about suing the OM in your state for alienation of affection?

Your state may not care about adultery, but your wife will prefer not to have any official permanent record of her behavior in the court records.

Talk to your attorney about filing some sort of counter petition/reply (a permanent public record) that references among other things a detailed reference to her adultery with the OM.

If you have proof, name him too. Perhaps your attorney can raise the issue that the OM is an adulterer (low moral character) and a substandard role model - and should not have unsupervised access to your kids.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 9:46 AM, June 14th (Monday)]

I know it seems like your wife is behaving in weird contradictory ways, but I wanted to highlight the pattern that I observed in your post from May 25th, so that when she turns from cold to hot again, you will be prepared.

Tuesday, 05/04 I came back home from taking our son to school. WW and I started talking and she said she wanted to proceed with divorce and that we could do mediation. We had a call with a mediator later that day. He emailed some paperwork to fill out to proceed to me.

This was her attempt to get you to do the Pick Me Dance ... she wanted you to beg, plead, and bend over backwards to put a stop to the divorce.

Instead, you took her at her word and responded rationally, which is why the next day...

Wednesday 05/05, we had a good discussion before bed, where she told me about a lot of her issues - child hood trauma at school with friends/teachers, why she doesn't trust people, why she feel she has to work so hard/get straight A's/etc so that hopefully people like/love her, and we were intimate.

... she shifted the conversation from the pain and misery her actions and behavior have caused you to seeing her as the sad victim in need of your comfort and pity. Once she obtained this, she roped you into having sex with her, consequently reigniting your hopes and sense of shared intimacy. But she likely knew that after a night like this, you would want to know "Where do we go from here?"

So the next day, she...

Thursday 05/06, she said she had to think about Wednesday night and needed a few days

... made sure to put the future in doubt. This was to completely quell any discussion and queue you up for another rendition of the Pick Me Dance.

Sunday 05/09, after a good mother's day, she asked me about the mediation again and acted like that was the way we were going despite her saying she needed to think more after Wednesday. I was angry and went to sleep in the guest room.

She had promised you a few days to think it over so before you could prompt her for a definitive answer, she brought up mediation as if Wednesday didn't happen. Now you're totally confused and off balance again.

Monday 05/10 we didn't say much.. she went to her office, I went to my mom's...I texted her that I would fill out the mediation paperwork. However when I saw it wanted a credit card and wanted WW's to be the one on it. So at 5pm when we were both home, I grabbed my laptop and told her we needed to talk before I filled out the paperwork.

With laptop in hand, I told her she needed to know how much pain she has put me through and continues to put me through (when she sees and talks to the affair partner) and I asked her how if she loves me, how can she keep hurting me? She said she 'can't help herself'. She started crying and then started talking about her options (stay with me, divorce/go to him,etc). She asked me to sit on the bed with her and kept reaching out to hold my hands

.

Once again, she completely shifted your focus away from your heartache to her confusion and distress. She knows that, as a good husband, your first instinct is always to provide her with comfort and support, except...

I said we should call the AP together and she can end it...but she told me to call the AP and tell him to stay away from her or we would get a restraining order (and I added we would contact his employres HR - he's an executive there). I did that night. Previously WW would talk me out of calling him. She told me she couldn't talk with him, because he always pulls her back in. We talked a while longer and I had her write down what she was saying -- if the AP was doing something that seemed obsessive i would ask "does that seem normal". Not trying to lead her or anything.

... this time, you wanted her to take action. But she didn't want to take action. She doesn't want her affair to end. That's why she had you call and threaten the OM. It served 2 purposes: (1) she could tell OM that this was entirely your idea and she had nothing to do with it, and (2) it fits into her narrative (with both you and OM) that she is helpless damsel accountable for nothing.

Since then she has wondered if me calling him threating restraining order was too harsh - I told her no, because he hasnt respected the boundaries before. When she told him to not contact her, he still would, and wouldn't stop until she started responding.

She spoke with her AP and he was upset about your phone call and the prospect of getting hit with a restraining order. She needed you to walk back your demand so that she could reassure him that it was an empty threat. I doubt that she ever told him not to contact her, but if she did, she always recanted or blamed you for it. He kept coming back because that's what she wants.

When she went to her retreat in Arizona in March, she told him about it and said not to go out there because she needed to be alone - he sent her flowers and other things to her room, and flew to Tuscon anyway. WW said she did not see him out there though.

Bullshit.

I've also learned that the affair restarted in Feb/March/April and she was seeing him and they were physically intimate

The affair never stopped.

The week after was good though... we were loving and had good family time with our son.

A week was just long enough to lull you into a false sense of comfort and positivity until...

Then Monday 05/17, she has a call with a Psychologist and she tells me that the psychologist told her "she was responding to me being angry and placating/deescalating when I " (when I had the laptop ready to fill out the mediation paperwork). She says now everything she said and wrote last week wasn't her authentic self and she needed to think.

...it was time to pull out the rug from underneath you again. She doesn't have the stamina to play the penitent wife charade for too long or follow through on any of her assurances. She had to go reneg on everything to which she agreed, but as always, she refuses to be held accountable for any of her choices. This time, she used her therapist as the scapegoat.

It was time for an encore of the Pick Me Dance, except...

I went out that night and didn't come home until she was asleep... the next two nights took my son to friends/family and came home later and let her put him to bed, avoided talking to her. Then Thurs-Sun I stayed at a friends house.

Sunday I told her I'm still figuring things out and haven't initiated any more discussion with her. I've been sleeping in the guest room at home and only interacting around child / house / finance stuff. She is getting more distant from me though too (referred to me as "your dad" instead of "daddy" to our son).

... you didn't dance the way you were supposed to. You did the 180 instead. Now she is punishing you with the cold shoulder, pretending that your refusal to engage with her further is what she wanted all along.

But with almost 90% certainty, the longer you keep your cool, the longer you go without reaching out to her, and the more comfortable you get at the thought of life without her, the more likely it is that she will switch channels and try to suck you back into repeating the cycle over and over again.

See this pattern for what is next time and protect yourself accordingly.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 12:04 PM, June 14th (Monday)]

...trying not to second guess myself on what I did/did not do that led her to filing

You didn't do anything which led to your WW filing. She was ALWAYS going to leave. Go back and read your own postings with new eyes. It's easy to see that she was never willing to give up the OM and she wasn't willing to take responsibility or deal with any consequences from her affair. That's what had to happen in order for you two to have a chance at R. You can't have three people in your marriage. This was NEVER about you or about anything you did or didn't do. It was always about your WW and her broken character.

Cheaters don't cheat because of us. They cheat because there's NOTHING in their values system which is providing a hard stop to adultery. They're capable of saying "yes" to perfidy. Their core values of Fidelity and Honesty are weak and permeable. They have a "but..." in their values statement. ie. "I believe in Fidelity, but... not if some other guy understands me better". You see how that works? I don't have a "but..." in my values statement which might excuse me from honoring my beliefs. I've got a "so...". ie. "I believe in Fidelity, so... I don't put myself in risky positions with the opposite sex." And voila!, like magic, a BOUNDARY pops up to surround my core value of Fidelity.

None of this was your fault. You can't control whether or not another person truly honors their stated values. Your WW vowed to be faithful when she married you, but underneath it all, she doesn't truly share your values. Maybe it was messed up FOO issues, maybe it's a personality disorder, but whatever it is that caused her to be this way has nothing to do with you. Same thing for her choice to file... it's got nothing to do with you. Go back an look again. I think you'll see now that she was never serious about R. You didn't cause this and there was nothing you could do to stop it.

Sleepless; I've been following your post, and I applaud your decision to move forward, not only for yourself, but your child(ren) as well. If she is truly wishing to reconncile, as others have mentioned, Divorce is not the end, and can be halted at any time. One thing I would recommend, is that you go after the AP for his involvement in the destruction of your marriage. For him to be allowed to walk away with no accountability, is unforgivable. From what I have read, he is a doctor as well, and HR departments are very clear on how these sort of situations affect morale, and a safe work environments for employees and their families. Either way, they need to be made aware of the situation. I realize that you may feel worried about the possible harm this could cause your WW, with regard to her employment, but you need to realize, that your focus should be on you and your children. She let you and your family know how she felt about your health and welfare, the moment she stepped outside the bounds of your marriage. YOU OWE HER NOTHING! Hold your head up and move forward. If she wants to be a part of you and your childrens lives in the future, let her know that it will be based upon your rules, and her return will be only with your blessing. Good luck, and God Bless. Everyone here on SI is wishing you the best.

At this point don’t do anything that would affect her employment. You’re on the path of D right now and from what you describe that’s the likely outcome. Even if she were to dislodge her head from her hindquarters at this point you may find the damage is too much to get past. It’s better that she’s gainfully employed for alimony/child support reasons.

BluerThanBlue - wow when you put it like that... it's pretty obvious isn't it?

ChamomileTea - you're right too... there is something lacking in her character that allowed her to do this... that's not my issue to solve. Hopefully she just keeps having these issues until she finally wakes up

Thanks for all of your support throughout this ordeal... I hope to come out the other side better and happier.

I'm starting to question if the WW ever really provided ME with the support/love/affection that I NEEDED.

I'm starting to question if the WW ever really provided ME with the support/love/affection that I NEEDED.

That's a good sign. What I've found to be key to healing is that we re-learn how to love and care for ourselves. For most of us, we've been in this down-turn where we didn't understand why our spouse had emotionally turned away, then we find out about the adultery and we tend to self-punish, like it was our fault. And that's just our fear talking because if we can convince ourselves that we played a part in our WS's choice to cheat, we can feel like we have control over whether or not it happens again. Long and short though, what needs to happen for proper healing is that we start treating ourselves like we would a good friend or even as a parent to our own inner child. We have to re-learn to appreciate who we are and prioritize our own health and happiness with the understanding that we really do deserve good things.

You're going to get there. This is a good first step. Well done!

Sleepless - I sent you a PM (private message) awhile back. You may want to check that.

Thanks gmc94 sorry I didn’t see that private message I replied back to it