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Don't get me wrong.. I'm not making excuses for your WW. This is, however, part of the process if R is your eventual choice. We eventually have to reach acceptance about what happened, not just the physical aspects of the affair, but the emotional ones as well and how stupid and trusting our WS was while they were cheating. This is unexpected insight into the WS's mindset, and even after we've been working so hard to try and understand what happened, it's not a welcome one.

It’s this part, CT, that doesn’t work here, not for me. This falls in the timeframe just before she went on that trip with them. It should be just after or around the time she ends the sexting portion of the relationship. And I guess it’s true that the trip was the major falling out point, but she already had seen terrible things from him. Not least that he coyly pushed every boundary to the point that she fucked him, but also had been propositioning threesomes and lesbian encounters from very early on. So she had seen this side of him (which she hated), she had already made a choice to disengage from him, but she makes the choice to give him private access to our daughter? In a time period where POSOM has lost his side piece and would be hunting for another? I mean, come on. Fuck the fog, this is too much.

How did it happen that your daughter told your wife about the messages or showed her, before they were deleted?

Somehow my wife allowed my daughter to message with POSOM from my wife’s phone and then at some point she shifted to her own phone. She said she couldn’t remember who suggested that (I bet you can guess who I think it was). Daughter said that she casually talked with my wife about the exchanges, so my wife was aware in real time. Seems like another lie, doesn’t it?

And when was the messaging taking place in the timeline of the affair, was it after the trip with AP and OBS when she says the PA stopped?

See response to CT.

The daily talking for three weeks is creepy. The AP is a creep. But you have previously spoken of your wife involving your son in their shared hobby, and your wife hung around OBS’s kids. At that stage of the affair cycle, what was your wife’s thinking about facilitating contact between AP and your daughter, even about kittens?

She has told me that when POSOM suggested they join the hobby that she was hesitant but that hesitancy was easily overcome by POSOM dismissing her concerns and she just did it. I’ve never asked or thought about that timeframe from this lens of POSOM grooming my daughter. She was only 14 at the time, but it still could have happened. So I don’t know how to answer that.

I'm really sorry, InkHulk. What an absolute gutpunch.

Ugh... it's not the cheating that ends marriages, it's the continued lying. How are you ever supposed to believe that "this is the last thing" when she has shown that she is prepared to keep lying when she thinks it suits her.

It sounds like you've finally reached your "fuck it" moment. You've finally hit a point where you are no longer invested in a specific outcome. I think it has happened for a lot of us. Whether you divorce or not, this may be a turning point for you. I had one myself. Received some trickle truth after starting to believe I knew it all and starting to have hope that we would make it. Kicked him out of the house. When he came back the next day, he had written out a detailed timeline (cross referenced with bank records, emails, calendars, you name it). He had a list of other (arguably small in the grand scheme of things, but lies/omissions nonetheless. You've heard it before, but you have to be willing to lose the marriage to save it. That applies to BOTH of you. She needs to let go of the outcome too.

I'm not going to belabour it. It's bad. You clearly know that. I have no idea if he was trying to groom your daughter, it certainly looks that way. It may be that he was just looking for another "in" into your wife's life in order restart things. Not that mitigates anything obviously. There is no scenario where it is okay for a grown man to start messaging a 16 year old without a very specific reason for doing so. What does your wife say her rationale for giving OM her teenage daughter's telephone number was? Am I correct in thinking that the physical aspect of their A was over by this point?

I know you're not on great terms with OBS but this may constitute information that is worth passing on.

My heart hurts for your daughter. What a terrible/weird secret to be asked to hold onto. Being asked to lie for your cheating mother in order to protect your parents' marriage is a real mindfuck.

..

Total threadjack: Hi DevastatedDee - how have you been? Your presence around here has been missed.

It’s this part, CT, that doesn’t work here, not for me. This falls in the timeframe just before she went on that trip with them. It should be just after or around the time she ends the sexting portion of the relationship. And I guess it’s true that the trip was the major falling out point, but she already had seen terrible things from him. Not least that he coyly pushed every boundary to the point that she fucked him, but also had been propositioning threesomes and lesbian encounters from very early on. So she had seen this side of him (which she hated), she had already made a choice to disengage from him, but she makes the choice to give him private access to our daughter? In a time period where POSOM has lost his side piece and would be hunting for another? I mean, come on. Fuck the fog, this is too much.

I'm not suggesting that it's okay. It's FAR from okay. It's what happened though, and just like every other part of the affair, IF we choose R, we're choosing in full knowledge that what happened was demonstratively NOT okay but we're going forward anyway. Do you think that anything my WH did while he was cheating was acceptable to me in terms of approval? None of it was. But I still had to accept that it happened.

Your line in the sand is where it is. You don't have ANY obligation to defend where you stand on that. If this is the final straw that broke the camel's back, then it is what it is. Our WS's bring these immoral people into our lives and give them access to all that's dear to us. They do it because they're stupid and trusting when they should be questioning motives and enforcing boundaries. But that's cheating. That's what it is, and that's what they're asking us to forgive when they want R.

If you really do believe that this guy was sexually "grooming" your daughter and that your WW knew about it, how are you going to keep the next immoral groomer away? You're going to need some kind of proof that your daughter was endangered. You might want to talk with your attorney about it. Maybe s/he can recommend a PI or a way to get ahold of those deleted texts.

WHY give a minor daughter a grown man's number? Any grown man's number? I mean, I'm a woman and I still text my babysitters on a string with their parents. My H doesn't drive my daughter's friends home alone in the car- only if our DD is with him or I am too. My kids don't contact their friends' parents to arrange anything- they chat w/ their buddies to get play dates started and I work logistics with their parents.

Abso-fucking-lutely to this. I coach my kids sports and have taken "SafeSport" training multiple times. This is 101 type common sense stuff. And I think my wife is just arrogant about this kind of stuff, feels like, even after losing all her integrity in an affair, that these rules don’t apply to her. And apparently her secret illicit lover. But pretty sure she would apply them to me. So. Fucked. Up.

This falls in the timeframe just before she went on that trip with them. It should be just after or around the time she ends the sexting portion of the relationship. And I guess it’s true that the trip was the major falling out point, but she already had seen terrible things from him.

Perhaps the fact that he was being inappropriate with your daughter rubbed her the wrong way (jealousy? protectiveness? disgust?) and maybe that was part of the fog lifting. Seems like its a very relevant detail during a very material time. I'd be willing to venture your understanding of this portion of the relationship isn't complete.

If you'd like yet another data point. My SO has lived with us for 5 years, since my DD was 16. We have family group chats to stay in touch, I have a separate group chat of just me and my kids, my SO has one for him and his kids, we have one for everyone. SO has texted a very little bit one-on-one with my DS25, but never, not once has he texted with my daughter without someone else in the group. He's never driven her anywhere alone, I don't think he's ever even had an in-person convo without someone else in the room, unless others had stepped out for a minute. He's extremely sensitive to even the slightest possibility that there might be a vague hint of anything untoward, so he simply avoids it. So if he, with no particular training other than common sense, takes such pains to be careful, your wife being aware/encouraging is just mind-boggling. Especially since most of us that grow up female have had *something* sketchy happen to us at some point that makes us hyper-aware of self-safety.

My sympathies as you navigate this mess, going forward.

Total threadjack: Hi DevastatedDee - how have you been? Your presence around here has been missed.

Hi back to you! All is great, just popped in to see how everyone else was doing!

Hi back to you! All is great, just popped in to see how everyone else was doing!

Really great here too! Thanks for asking!

I genuinely am laughing at this, if you are at all worried about that. Thanks for coming out of retirement to weigh in.

InkHulk, so very sorry to read this latest. UGH. Please take care of yourself and your DD as you navigate these days of discovery and recalibrating. Have you ever come across the expression "repetition compulsion"?

I wish you a clear and calm pathway out of this drama your WW has brought into your family.

Just had a sit down with my wife where we explicitly said we are separating and moving in the direction of divorce. I was resolute. I think this is happening.

She said a few wide ranging things:

- that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

- she said she was going to hold on to a sliver of hope.

That is at least 10x more than what I have at this moment.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 1:41 AM, Wednesday, May 17th]

I was in a meeting and the speaker was an expert on sex offenders. He said for every square mile in the US there is a sex offender. Extrapolate that worldwide. That room was completely silent. It still stuns me when I think about it.
If something feels hinky it probably is.

- that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

I know that it's absolutely zero consolation, but I heard much of the same from my XWH. This is sadly very common. It's like there's a constant real-time rewrite of history.

I'm really sorry that you're going through this. It's truly awful. Better times will be ahead but right now it's just going to suck and there's no way around it.

- that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

That's all you need to know that D is the best path for you now. R is hard. Someone doing it because she feels she is expected to, isn't going to be up for the task.

Sorry InkHulk, I know you felt you should give her a chance for your family's sake. I'm sorry that your ww failed her family yet again.

I am so sorry to hear this, @InkHulk, but you know that D is the right decision when it comes to your un-remorseful deeply unsafe WW. Still, I know that this was the last thing you wanted and you did everything you could for your family to R....

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 4:14 AM, Wednesday, May 17th]

We didn't have kids at the time of my A, and my BH has been exceptional at trying to meet me in the middle of all aspects of reconciliation. But if the affair had been recent, and he found out I had encouraged OM to have private contact with our teenage daughter, I believe that would be the end of us. Exposing her to even the potential for grooming; lying and deleting the evidence while swearing I'd told him everything; and expecting her to keep secrets from her own father about the inappropriate behavior of an adult man? Yeah, that would be the line.

- that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

My guess is that this is big talk to stave off the panic. When all this went down, she was deep in fantasyland and wasn't thinking about the AP as a threat. Now she's realizing that she's going to have to face attorneys and therapists to explain what the fuck she could possibly have been thinking, and she's pivoting to defensiveness. The alternative is pure guilt and terror in the knowledge that this is all her fault.

that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

These comments fall seriously short of the mark. "Because of what YOU expect her to be". That is such a cringy little passive aggressive cop out line, the likes of which I am all too familiar with. She’s just not getting it. It’s so tempting to put the easy right words in her mouth and move her lips for her. She’s not following, what seems so easy to us, common loving empathetic sense constantly defaulting to the self pity bit.

Sorry to hear this further downward turn. Especially because she put your young daughter at risk. Just add it to the pile of crap heaped on you and your child.

For those that don't this is grooming...can we call it grooming adjacent?

She said a few wide ranging things:

- that she was going to have self respect and not let herself be treated poorly.

- that she may have been "pushing so hard" for R because of what I expected her to be, or something like that, I don’t remember the exact wording she used. Sure as fuck wasn’t "because I love you so much"

Self respect? Really? Coulda used this several years ago it seems.

Does that second comment, at all, sound like someone that is actually remorseful? It's a rhetorical question.

When you are dealing with someone that is capable of such long and deep deception, they are perfectly OK with lying if it suits their interests. This is especially true if they perceive their BS is trying to find reasons for R (D avoiding). BSs that are so inclined are easy to manipulate...and they know it. This is why I always lean toward D advice if it is a long or particularly egregious betrayal. If you are not D inclined you are at a MATERIAL disadvantage to getting the truth and being able to determine if they are even really remorseful.

Not trying to be negative but humans gonna human and a good amount cynicism is beneficial under such circumstances.

So after a crappy nights sleep and more exercise in 24 hours than I typically get in a week, here is where I am.

First, I was wrong in thinking the rage I felt yesterday was killing my love for her. Talking with her last night, it’s still there. I look at her when her face is soft and I see the incredible woman I fell in love with 20 years ago.

Second, the thing that is truly gone is trust. Probably because of her confession and a serious hopium addiction, she had some residual trust with me. But it’s gone now, utterly and completely. I can’t trust her to tell the truth when she doesn’t want to. I even had given her a sort of "swear to God" and she didn’t even blink at the time to say she had told me everything. And I can’t trust her judgment. For the sake of compliments from a meaningless shit bag, she gave her body, her integrity, our marriage, all our secrets, put our children in clear and present danger.

I hear some of you saying that you’ve come back from a place like this. How? Why?

[This message edited by InkHulk at 12:18 PM, Wednesday, May 17th]

I look at her when her face is soft and I see the incredible woman I fell in love with 20 years ago.

That should worry you, quite frankly. No human remains the same person for 20 years. The only constant is change. Each of us morphs and shifts and changes as years pass. Marriages that succeed over a long term do so because the spouses are each committed to periodically meeting one another for the first time, re-inventing and reinvigorating the marriage. If you're in love with the woman you met 20 years ago, you're in love with an avatar. No rational human would conclude that is real love.

The fallacy of your statement is underscored by your next proclamation:

the thing that is truly gone is trust.

Trust is the cornerstone of true love. You don't trust the mortal flesh-and-blood human occupying the meatspace of "wife" in your family. You do "love" the glyph of "wife" who exists in your fantasy memory, the young woman to whom you proposed. Forgive me for the 2x4, but that's not real. That's the hopium talking. Every BH who has ever come onto this board resides, for a time at least, in the fantasy world where he longs for a return to the before time, for a marriage with the fantasy woman he thought he was married to rather than the flawed flesh-and-blood human he is in reality married to.

Sometimes, the insult from the disgusting facts of an A are simply too much to overcome, no matter how much empathy and pussy-bombing she throws your way in the aftermath of Dday. Sometimes, the BH simply recoils in horror over the reality that his WW has the capacity to make the choices she made. "Who are you?" My suggestion is that you know your WW way less than you think you do. Your WW is in fact the kind of woman who would expose her own teenage daughter to the disgusting probing of a loathsome creep. In fact, she is such a poor judge of character that she also brought her own son into this asshole's ken initially, by way of the hobby. Who knows what sort of subtly terrible influence this man has imparted upon your son's moral and character development.

Which underscores the trust thing. Your wife's inability to recognize that this man should not be an influence in your kids' lives, ever, for any reason, that's a giant fail. Does she recognize how messed up this part of her is, how hugely broken her ability to judge the character of others has become?