SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm 41 years old, and I've been with my wife for 22 years, married for 12. We'd been distant and arguing for the last 4-5 months. I discovered last week that she has been talking to another guy for the last 5 months. She has so far claimed it was just a friendship, a guy to cry to when I wasn't listening, that may have gone too far, she started having feelings for him, and admits he was clearly looking for more, and she was leaning in his direction when I found messages she had with her sister on her phone about him. So I confronted her, maybe a bit angry, as this is not the first time she's had an emotional affair, but this is the first that was this long, or her admitting any kind of feelings for him. Admittedly I'm terrible at expressing my emotions, but I manage to when given the chance. I just started therapy to try and help with that.
Since I found out my mind is racing with the worst possibilities, I can't sleep. Now I don't know what to do, she deleted the messages so i don't know how bad they really were, she said not that bad, but how do i believe her, we've yet to have a real discussion.
I can't imagine my life without her, we have an 8 yr old son together, I love my family, and I love my wife, probably more than I should. I know I want to make it work, but am I being ridiculous, she's the love of my life, how can I stop this cycle.

Ouch, that's rough. Sorry you found yourself here, and you'll find a lot of support among the members. Most of us have some story to tell and there's a lot of overlap. The common theme is that cheaters all follow the same playbook. So you'd be right not to trust your wife. The fact that she deleted everything should be your line in the sand. I would tell her "you broke my trust by lying to me every single day and hiding your affections to another man. You had so many opportunities to do the right thing, but you failed at that. And when you had a chance to clear the air about any misconceptions, you chose to delete the evidence. I no longer consider you to be a safe partner, and I will be keeping my distance from you to protect myself."

And then you ignore her in regards to anything but issues surrounding the house, finances, or kids.

The messages can be professionally recovered. Let her know tomorrow that recovering them is a condition for staying in the marriage in no uncertain terms.

Her reaction will tell you what you need to know anyways. A reconciliation candidate would run through a wall to help heal the abuse she’s put you through. One who protests, well, we all know the reasons that she would.

Also check her phone for side apps

Welcome to SI and so sorry you're going through this. Infidelity pain is the worst. There are some posts pinned to the top of the forum that we encourage new members to read, as well as some unpinned posts that are identifiable by their bull's eye icons. The Healing Library is at the top of the site and has lots of great resources.

Does your IC have experience with betrayal trauma? The mind racing and inability to sleep are affects of betrayal trauma on your brain. Be sure to discuss this with your therapist. If you think that you may need meds to help during this rough time.

Your WW (wayward wife) needs IC as well to work on her whys. She should read the book How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald and Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass. NJF has a really good chapter called Windows and Walls that goes over boundaries. For example, you should have windows (transparency) between the two of you. You build walls (boundaries or protections) with others outside of your relationship to help maintain the relationship between the two of you.

You may wish to set some boundaries, as she seems to repeat this awful behavior rather than trying to fix the underlying issues.

Sorry you're here.

Why delete if not incriminating?

Definitely an EA, maybe a PA.

It's easy to blame yourself because it gives you a sense of control. It's just totally false. Your actions do not control her behavior.

See my signature and think on it.

Does she use an iphone? If so her messages could be backed up to her icloud but if she is tech savvy she would have deleted them.

I only saw the messages from the day I discovered what my wife was doing with her co-worker because she was deceitful enough to remember to delete them everyday just before she left work. I checked her iPad while she was at work and since it was synced to her phone I saw the messages

When I asked her what else they had said to each other the response has always been I don't know I don't remember. She said what you saw today was the worst of it but I will never know if that is the truth. At one point she said you are giving this way too much weight, it was just fun flirting but the next day when she walked in from work and I said there's a suitcase upstairs I need you to leave the house that's when she realized it wasn't just harmless fun flirting.

Tell her you want her phone and you are going to have someone recover all of the deleted messages. Her response will tell you if she's being honest or not. If she argues if she refuses then you know she's not being honest

I can't imagine my life without her, we have an 8 yr old son together, I love my family, and I love my wife, probably more than I should. I know I want to make it work, but am I being ridiculous, she's the love of my life, how can I stop this cycle.

Your wife knows how desperately you love her, and I hope you’re starting to realize it’s not mutual. She’s disrespecting you in the worst way possible since she knows you’re not going anywhere. If you want any chance of turning this around, you must change the dynamics.

Start by telling her it stops now or you will divorce her. Thing is - you must mean it. You must be ready to visit an attorney and start the process if/when she calls your bluff. You can always stop the process if she snaps out of her utterly disrespectful behavior.

There’s much more you should do, but are you willing/able to even do this first step?

It wasn't until I made phone calls and set up appointments with divorce lawyers that my WW (wayward wife) finally broke down, confessed everything, dropped her AP (affair partner) like a hot rock, blocked him on everything, and really rolled her sleeves up to start working on repairing the damage she'd done to our marriage.

As gr8ful said tho, you have to be prepared to follow through with it if she doesn't come around. Ask yourself this; if she isn't willing to go all in and do everything she can to salvage your relationship and build a new one, do you really want to stay with her? Or are you prepared for a lifetime of deceit, lies, cover ups, deleted text messages, suspicion, questions, looking for clues, and more possible d days? I decided I couldn't live like that so I was prepared to call the whole thing off if she didn't give anything less than 100% honesty and effort.

I have no clue what your wife may or may not do if presented with the reality of separation or divorce, but it's the most direct way to get yourself out of infidelity, one way or the other. Do not sweep this under the rug or do the "pick me" dance. That almost never works. You have to draw a line in the sand and stand firm on it.

First thing to mention, and probably the 2nd most important point to take in, is that an EA is usually no less devastating than a PA. Whether the betrayal is emotional or physical, you'll probably feel as awful as you can, so don't discount your pain.

Second, the best way to get to an optiomal resolution, your best bet, IMO, is to deal with the grief, anger, fear, shame, whatever that you feel. A good IC isn't absolutely essential, but a good IC can help.

Third, love is not enough for rebuilding an M. It takes a lot of work from both partners, and that means both partners have to want to change - you need to resolve the awful feelings, and your WS needs to the work necessary for her to change from cheater to good partner. You don't know what she wants, yet. You don't know what he'll do, yet.

Most important, know that you can heal. You may not be able to R. As I write, that takes a lot of work from both of you, and you can't control your WS. Healing requires you to do your own healing, and you control you. Sleep can be hard to come by now, but that won't last forever. Drink water, eat what you can, move your body, feel your pain and let it go - if you keep it up, you will survive and thrive.

There's no getting around this horrible period, but you can get through it to a good life.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 11:37 PM, Saturday, October 25th]