Caught her in a lie, might be done
I just caught my wife in a major lie of omission about the affair. I had wanted to talk to my daughter for a while about whether POSOM had ever been inappropriate toward her during the hobby times. She utterly shocked me in telling me that the bastard had been privately texting her last summer!!! Like, WHAT???? She was 16, had just gotten a phone, hadn’t been around POSOM for more than a year, and yet somehow that fucker was texting my daughter. Her boyfriend apparently saw some of it over her shoulder and thought it was creepy enough to suggest she should cut it off. And my daughter told me that shortly after D-day that my wife took her phone, blocked POSOM’s number and deleted the thread.
I confronted my wife directly. She admitted to lying and hiding this, but that is too late. She is saying that she didn’t know the texting was happening in real time, but how would my daughter would end up in contact with him? And how can I believe her anymore? She said she was afraid I would be mad and was afraid of what I would do. Well, she’s going to find out now.
I told her we are separating. She’s in the walk in closet a few feet from me packing. I don’t know if she is going to go to the room downstairs or if she’s leaving the house. I don’t care.
298 comments posted: Sunday, June 18th, 2023
Reflection (honestly a distraction)
I’m super sad, and I’m taking Sisoon’s advice to let it go where it will while keeping myself safe. My mind likes to think abstractly, so I’m letting it. This thought came to mind and I hope it might help the community and those who come after me.
The advice to BS’s who deeply want to R to be willing to lose the marriage in order to save it is both true and completely counterproductive. Let a very recent hopium addict explain. If you tell someone who really really wants something that they can do something to get what they want, that is pretty much by definition a huge hit on the hopium pipe. Now fill in these paradoxical words, gotta be willing to give it up in order to get it back, and it doesn’t matter. All they hear is "I can get it back", which of course negates the way to actually get it back. There is no short cut around the well worn paths in our brains. For something this immensely huge, our lives, our love, we each need fully experiential learning. I’m not saying don’t give the advice, I’m sure there are faster learners than me, but for God’s sake please be patient as people walk thru this.
35 comments posted: Monday, May 22nd, 2023
There’s a bomb in my living room
So one particular issue has risen up to the surface, the matter of the multitude of intimate images that she gave POSOM during all their sexting sessions. The bastard almost certainly still has them. We have four kids, three of them boys in middle school or high school. If those images became public, the damage to my sons would be immense. They would be on their peers phones for the rest of their childhood, someone would find them. I honestly imagine the only thing we could do is a Witness Protection act, move far away and change our last name.
I’ve considered having her go to a lawyer and having a Cease and Desist sent to the fucker. We talked about it in MC yesterday. First I had to paint the picture to her of how serious this is. And once it sank in to her and realized I was dead serious about this, she started considering what POSOM might do in response. Apparently she picked a real fucking winner, because I could see the fear in her eyes as she says he could get violent and is a big gun guy.
So to summarize, my wife created a bomb with sending sexual images, set that bomb in my living room (or more like our sons’ bedroom) and she permenantly gave the detonator to POSOM. And he’s a fucking unhinged asshole.
So now what do I do? Nothing has happened in the last 10 months, maybe nothing will. I have a google monitor on her name set up, so I’d know if anything got posted that was tagged to her. Doing nothing seems dangerous to me, and provoking the asshole might make him do it out of spite or retaliate in other ways. But I’d take almost any other retaliation than have that happen to my kids.
Anyone have a similar experience? Any advice?
83 comments posted: Sunday, May 21st, 2023
How long have I been married?
Question to those who have reconciled or at least tried: how did you treat the affair with respect to how long you regard yourself as married? Did the counter go back to zero for you? Did you just keep going from your original wedding day? Or did you say that the time from when the affair began, like when when sexual boundaries were crossed, to when you somehow recommitted didn’t count?
I’m approaching 18 years since we exchanged vows. But my mind might be more comfortable thinking my marriage lasted 14 years. I know there is no right or wrong answer to this. I’m just curious how you all have thought about it.
378 comments posted: Saturday, May 6th, 2023
Tough enough?
Poll thread:
To BS’s who have reconciled:
On a scale of 1-10, how tough were you with your WS?
Also, on a scale of 1-10, how happy are you in your R?
27 comments posted: Thursday, April 13th, 2023
The Cheaters Handbook
So I’ve spent more time than I care to admit reading stories on another forum for OM/OW. It’s been super enlightening. But two key observations pop out at me:
1) the vast majority of posters over there are women. This is in contrast to here where it seems pretty evenly split, even possibly more male dominated. I interpret that as men in affairs just don’t care enough about it to be driven to talk about it in these kinds of forums.
2) Men are fairly predictably liars and predatorial. They lie about dead bedrooms and bad marriages and basically just about anything they can say to get a woman’s guard down to get sex out of them. Women do some of this, but it’s absolutely gender imbalanced.
This certainly has me thinking about my own situation. I cannot and will not give my wife a pass for her immense betrayal. But this further pushes my internal understanding that that mother fucker POSOM intentionally did this and walked her down the path. What she has told me aligns so close with story after story after story on that forum. It rekindles my rage for that fucker.
So question for this community: why the general advice to focus my anger on my WW? Again, not saying she is off the hook. But having someone come along and intentionally deceive you is a really dangerous situation. We all assume reasonably good intent with people as we go thru our daily lives. If men in particular are out there intentionally lying and fishing, that’s a big damn deal and seems worthy of consideration in all of this. I’d like to hear all your thoughts on this.
293 comments posted: Tuesday, March 28th, 2023
Huge trigger day
Having a brutal day. My wife made a comment last night while we were watching a show, something that I know she could have only learned in her affair related hobby. I’ve been doing pretty well, but I just triggered HARD. Worst day I’ve had in months. Consider this shameless fishing for attention, just want to be heard and seen somewhere.
65 comments posted: Monday, March 20th, 2023
Inner Critic
My fWW has been diving pretty deep as of late into her own psyche. I find it to be a very encouraging sign, it’s the kind of work that I would expect her to do but have been concerned she would avoid, as she’s been a very non-introspective in her life. Lots of skeletons are being found in multiple closets. One really jumped out at me, she mentioned her "inner critic". She spoke of having voices that send negative messages, telling her she isn’t good enough, doesn’t have anything to add, isn’t pretty enough. Basically she’s been getting bombarded with negative feedback her entire adult life from a mysterious interior source. I asked her if she sometimes hears that inner critic as my voice, and she said yes.
I’m floored by this. I personally have no comparable experience. I am mostly self-confident, with some minor little brother complex stuff. My inner experience is quiet. She can’t believe that is true, she keeps testing it and asking me if my inner critic is really there or not. Again, it blows my mind, it’s not something I even knew was possible, and she probably didn’t know having inner quiet is possible.
I’m tempted to make all kinds of connections with this. Connections to her resentments and defensiveness and how tempting cotton candy admiration would look when she is constantly getting berated in herself.
I’m not trying in this to take away her responsibility for what she did. I’m posting this wanting to get feedback on other’s inner experience: is this a common thing that WS’s tend to share? Is this exactly the kind of thing that I would hope would come out of "the work" or am I getting my hopes up too much with this?
As always, much appreciated.
49 comments posted: Sunday, March 12th, 2023
WS traumatized by the affair?
Has anyone had the experience of the WS being traumatized by the affair or some specific element of the affair? There is nothing specific that my WW has stated, I’m asking this more pre-emptively. She has all kinds of trauma from stuff in her life, and I have a lot of compassion for her in that. And then she put herself in honestly dangerous situations, sexually exposing herself to a man she really didn’t know well in private spaces, who the hell know what happened. She’s eluded to him pushing past her boundaries in the last sexual encounter. If she were to come out and say that she has additional trauma from the affair, that would seem like a really tough pill for me to swallow, I’m not sure if I could manufacture compassion for that. Anyone experience anything like that in their R journey?
13 comments posted: Saturday, March 4th, 2023
4 horsemen and recovery
So my WW and I have taken to reading Gottman. His claimed ability to predict relationship success with more than 90% accuracy based off relatively short observations is fascinating and sobering. The concept of the 4 horsemen (criticism, contempt, defensiveness, stonewalling) and the havoc they bring to a relationship has been eye opening for both of us. I can see I have a knack for criticism while she is a defensiveness and stonewalling pro. As we attempt to rebuild, it seems that we should avoid these things. But it also seems like when I try to talk about big structural issues around the affair, she claims it is criticism, a horseman, and needs to be avoided. I guess it is, I’m certainly bringing up more than just a specific event. But it seems that the situation at hand is not relationship problems 101 and needs deep dive. I also have enough self awareness to know that I already tend to criticize and I prefer to deep dive issues. So I’m interested in this groups take. I’m not looking to be punitive and make her feel bad about herself. But the foundation is broke and I’m trying to figure out why she took a sledgehammer to it. I’m looking for thoughts in the spirit of how I can heal and how to best try to rebuild, not just "FU, sit there and take it wayward". Thanks all, I appreciate you.
144 comments posted: Monday, December 19th, 2022
Letter to ap?
Looking for advice on the wisdom or lack there of of sending a letter to ap. I’m a little more than 2 months out from d-day, things are going mostly well between my wife and me. There are still of course a ton of raging emotions, and one big source of unresolved tension is a desire to confront ap in some way. I’ve written a letter with a few different elements to it. One seems somewhat legitimate, to threaten legal action if he should ever release intimate pictures under revenge porn laws.
But honestly most of it is just an opportunity to tell him how much devestation and pain he caused, to my kids, me, and even WW. I have a strong desire to tell him what a complete low life he is. And I have a desire to tell him that as recompense for what he did involving my kids in part of the affair that I plan to tell his kids about it in the future when it is age appropriate for them (they are relatively young right now, I wouldn’t intentionally traumatize kids)
All that sounds good to me, and it also seems like it could be stirring up a hornets nest in a time that I don’t need more trouble. I’m curious about this communities perspective on the matter, I’m sure I’m not the first one to think about it. Should I actually send this or just use it as personal therapy?
78 comments posted: Tuesday, September 20th, 2022
Another one bites the dust
Hey all, new guy here. My wife dropped the bomb on me last night, told me that she’d had sex with a friend of hers a year ago. She says it was a one time event, but I’m wrecked. We’ve been married for 17 years, and we’ve had struggles, but it always seemed like they were the type of thing that we could work thru. Infidelity has always been close to an immediate deal breaker in my mind, relating to my father being a cheater and generally just the value I place on marriage. I’ve always wanted marriage to be a very close and intimate relationship and cheating would be (and now is) the ultimate betrayal of that. So I guess now I find myself in a situation testing "ideals" that I never thought I would have to. I don’t know what to do. I’ve read this forum for a while. I found it based off some retroactive jealousy concerns, but strangely enough the timing lines up closely to when she slept with him. Maybe I intuited something was off.
What do people do practically? It seems like in the short term I have no real choice but to share a roof with her. I could bum a bed off friends and family for a while, but that would get old pretty quick, it seems.
Like I said, I’ve read a decent number of stories here. I’m dreading being one, but I do admire this community. Glad its here, sad to be here.
229 comments posted: Friday, July 22nd, 2022
