Looking for advice

Hello. I hate that I have to even be here. My world was shattered into a million pieces 7 weeks ago. I need some advice but I feel that my story is unique, although I am sure for veterans here its not really.

A few important notes for you to know. I am a betrayed male. I work from home. WW is a stay at home mom. We are both Christians but I have strong family background with it and she really did not until I met her and really helped her into faith before we started dating. I believe that divorce should only be a last resort and that only a betrayed has any grounds for it from an infidelity standpoint based on my understanding of the Bible. I don't want a divorce, I believe that God can heal and restore us, but that takes both of us, it cant just be me that wants it.

On DDay I found DMs that she was having an online only affair. All evidence so far shows that the AP is over 13 hours away at a minimum in a different time zone. From my access to DM’s I was not able to see any evidence that they have ever met in person.

After DDay I was able to access more DM’s without my WW knowing. I was able to see the affair was still continuing and even ramped up to full blown sexting.

I was playing the "pick me" dance this whole time and was monitoring the daily DM’s to see the affair play out daily. Reading the DM’s about how my WW was telling the AP that she was never going to happy with me ever again was destroying me inside.

I could not play the "pick me" dance anymore after finding some Christian and secular resources on "tough love" and the idea of the "180".

I went hardcore to draw boundaries after 4 weeks of doing the "pick me" dance and handed her a paper of what I was expecting. My WW broke down a bit and agreed to go to IC.

The shortened list of what I wrote is:
1. call the AP with me listening and end it for good.
2. delete all accounts that you have ever used to contact him with.
3. give me passwords to all devices and accounts so I can monitor them.
4. attend individual therapy.
5. attend couples therapy.
6. be patient with me as I navigate the emotions of betrayal.

I thought that this was the beginning of remorse. She started seeing a therapist on February 1st. She has been going weekly and has had 4 sessions so far.

Now that the long back story is out of the way this is why I am posting my story on the forum. My WW thinks she has attachment issues from childhood and codependency issues. Her therapist said she may have "love addiction". I only know about the "love addiction" diagnosis from texts with her mom. I had asked for access to her phone and my WW showed me her pin so she knows I can access it but I do still do it in secret so she does not know when or what I am looking at.

When looking at chats and texts a few main things stand out to me:
1. She admits to friends that the affair was a sin and she should not have done it, but jokes that she may not have any true regrets about it.
2. She blames me for almost everything and says she will never "settle" for me again and that I need to work hard to be the husband she needs and deserves.
3. She badmouths almost everything I do or say to try and heal and reconcile to her friends and family.
4. tells one of her friends that all she needs is good sex and that since I was a virgin on our wedding day that I was never able to really please her or learn how to please her and that she has never been satisfied.

From talking with each other there is no remorse, no apologizing from her at all. I am wondering if she is still in the withdrawal stage since its been 3 weeks of NC. The fantasy she has built up about how I am the cause of all her issues and the reason she had to seek out emotional support from someone else seems to still be in tact and fueled by friends who do not know about the infidelity, but are only told her side of the story about how much of a piece of crap husband I am. She has rewritten our entire history together and says things to her friends in texts like "maybe I was never in love and maybe he never loved me". She has built up the lies and has certain friends supporting them and she seems to believe her own lies.

So far in regards to my new boundaries the only ones she has really committed to is going to therapy and gave me just her phone pin. She claims she has gone NC and from my ability to monitor that seems true but she has not done the "final call" with me listening for my closure yet. She has said that I can start to find a MC now that she has had some good sessions in IC.

I am looking for advice. I realize it has only been 7 weeks. From what I read the first 6 months can be full of confusion and it can take time for the "affair fog" to lift and for the withdrawal from the AP to end. I want to reconcile. I have told her that but I still maintain distance and boundaries. She says things like "you need to be patient". I am really struggling since I just want her to take accountability, show remorse, and be willing to reconcile. Then after she does that I am so ready to work on our relationship as hard as I possibly can, but I feel like I am in a hamster wheel running 100 miles an hour and not moving in any direction.

17 comments posted: Friday, February 24th, 2023