SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

sisoon, thanks a lot.

1) We are reading and doing stuff from: "Getting Past the Affair: A Program to Help You Cope, Heal, and Move On -- Together or Apart"

2) This is kinda what I am coming to think as well. This thread has helped me with this thought process. When my wife brings it up, I'm going to tell her about the resentment and how I'm not ready to do all this yet.

3) This is perfect. I think I know this deep down, but it keeps surfacing so thanks for bringing it up again!

4) I'm going to make an appointment for myself for next week. Worst that happens is it does nothing.

5) I definitely have made mistakes. I was soooo indecisive when this all broke. I should have been much more firm with my WW and things would have progressed faster. As Sananman and others have said, my wife has had practically 0 consequences. The only thing I can see is having to do the dirty work of going to HR and exposing her A and then having to see me be miserable. I'm not sure what else needs to happen in this department but I think this could potentially be a mistake on my part and could be slowing everything down.

I only want my wife to figure out what allowed her to cheat so she can become a safe partner. I still have no idea if I can get past the idea that she cheated on me. This could honestly be a deal breaker. We are only 30 and I am not sure I want to look at her for next 50-60 years and think about how she cheated. Whenever I think she is looking nice or attractive, my next thoughts immediately go to her having sex with him and essentially dating him. Don't know if I can handle that long term.

Resentment and bitterness are my biggest hurdles right now. I am so amgry I will be dealing with this for the next several years when I should be growing my family and enjoying the little one I have now. I'm mentally not here muh of the time and that isnt fair to my child. I miss spending time with him.

Funny, yesterday 2 books came. "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" and "Torn Assunder". His book is about 85 pages...mine, a measley 265+ with smaller print. Yeah, I didnt ask for this extra "homework." I'm also attending a 12-step group for co-dependency. Also outside of my comfort zone, but hoping my son gets the most benefit out of seeing a healhty non-co-dependent parent. I guess at the end of the day I really am doing this hard work for him because I want him to come from a stable home, not a broken or dysfunctional one. I was so hopeful before my little world blew up that I was going to break that cycle of dysfunction. I'm still hoping I do.

I get it that some people feel comfortable doing a "regimen" bc it feels like you are being active in this. But, if it makes you feel bad, stop. If you are angry doing it-stop. What benefit is it to you to force yourself to read or do anything if it makes you angry and resentful. Getting past infidelity's damage isn't akin to pushing through a painful high school or college reading assignment. Doing things to feel or get better isn't about checking a box.

You are a smart person and only you know yourself best if reading books isn't working for you now, then stop. Do what makes you happy and feel good. Focus on what you want to do. If that means you'd rather spend your free time binge watching tv or reading cheesy novels or going out for a drink, etc, then do that.

I don't relate to the "checklist" approach. For me, it's not rocket science. I got a good IC and I focus on me. I know what I think and feel and what is right and wrong and shitty or not. When I'm ready to work on the marriage, then I will. If he bails before I am, so be it. It's not my job to tell him what to do. I'm not his mommy. It's not my job to figure out his head, it's his to show me himself. I'm not chasing shit anymore. You wanna stay married to me? Then act like it. You don't, buh-bye. He is a grown ass man, and he's not an idiot. He's knows what to do. If I have to tell him to be sorry or empathetic, what does that get me? If I have to tell you, then I don't want it or you.

I wasn't always here, but having a good IC that helped me through childhood trauma and my CoD helped me.

It seems to me you are trying to hard to fix what may not be broken. There doesn't have to be something wrong with the relationship to have an affair. There just has to be someone in the relationship that has poor boundaries or unresolved issues that looks outside of the relationship for solutions. You may not have been doing enough in the relationship. But that has nothing to do with your partners choice to cheat.

I do agree that it would be beneficial for you to go to IC. But not for the reasons you may think. Not to figure out what is wrong with you. Rather to heal from the trauma that you were exposed to by the A. We can always improve ourselves, there is always something we can do better.

In a relationship we are constantly trying to improve the relationship by modifying our actions, or we should be. You may not have helped enough around the house. So you choose to help more. You don't need IC for that. You hurt, feel betrayed, need coping tools, want to understand why you can't get past this. Those are valid reasons to go to IC and work though those issues. This is where you are currently, so I think IC would help you. I have gone to IC in the past and it helped me to learn a lot about myself. How I deal with things and my perspective on life in general. I found it to be very helpful. You just have to have an open mind.

If the book you are reading is making you mad, then put it away for a while and try something else.

Resentment is normal at this stage. Don't be so hard on yourself for feeling what is normal to feel. Be patient with yourself. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to work on things for a while and just taking a break from it and enjoying some time out. As you have heard before, this is a marathon not a sprint. There are times you will just have to pace yourself and be ok with where you are right now. Be good to yourself, take care of yourself. Hang in there this isn't an easy ride for anyone.

Thanks guys! This is all really good stuff. I am feeling better. It's so nice having you all to bounce this shit off of. :)

Justdandee- make him read both, imo. "How to help" is a great book. I read it RIGHT after d-day and told my wife to as well. It very accurately describes what I was feeling and what she needed to do. I would tell him to read "your book" too. He needs to understand the hurt he did and what you have to do to try to work through it.

Any work you do, is for you...Not her..not the marriage....its to pull you out of this slump...

Its to learn, recognize, and get past what has happened to you...because it did happen...and you are stuck in sadness...anger...resentment..

It is a roller coaster...I read many things, I didn't think pertained...and a year or so later, I saw that it did...you will have epiphanies for some time...down the road...out of nowhere...see things more clearly...the damage...the reasons... Most importantly...keep doing it for you.. Its an education you didn't ask for...but very very helpful to get thru the dark days. This already happened to you....this must be done.

DI-

I think you skipped the part about working on yourself went straight to repairing the M. You both need to work on yourselves before you try to heal the M.

Your W is clearly a broken person and until she can work through that she is not going to be a good partner anyway.

You don't want the M you had. You want a new one. You are trying to put the M back together with the broken pieces. Don't do that.

IC is a really good thing regardless of what you want to do in the future. Work on being a better you without feeling that you are doing to save your M. If you are doing for yourself it won't create resentment. You'd might be surprised at what you discover.

Communicating the resentment to her is critical. She needs to understand that.

Take a break from reading or doing anything to heal the M. Ask your W to show you why you'd want a new M with her. Tell her you need this to show you what you are working for. It might help.

I know that sounds simple. Another good idea is to ask her to write out the consequences that she has had as a result of her A. You write down the ones you've suffered.

Compare them. It might be an eye opening moment.

DI I get the impression that you haven't found your anger or are afraid of expressing it for some reason. Why is that ?

A good thing to explore in IC.

Thanks a bunch Cancuncrushed and Numb&dumb.

You're right, I haven't had much anger. I really don't know why I haven't. The anger I've been experiencing recently I haven't wanted to express. It's not healthy, I know. I don't want to make her upset (which is all part of that NMMNG and Codependency I think) which is stupid because she should be upset by my anger. Not with me, but with herself. She has told me she is feeling really depressed and terrible because of what she did, so I don't want to lay it on even more, I guess.

Writing this is literally making my stomach turn. I know I shouldn't give two shits if she feels bad because I'm mad, but there it is, if you want the truth.

Writing this is literally making my stomach turn. I know I shouldn't give two shits if she feels bad because I'm mad, but there it is, if you want the truth.

I don't think there is anything wrong with showing a WS some compassion - it will take both of you to rebuild the M if that is what you choose.

However, if your WW is truly all in, she will be okay (or learn to be okay) with you showing your anger and your sadness. She knows why you're feeling that way. It isn't to punish her, you just have to process your pain -- through IC, through telling her exactly - exactly how MUCH pain she caused.

I think there is a misconception or misinformation. A lot of times I hear the line that the WS needs to help you heal from their affair. I don't believe that at all. I tried R and if I had waited for my XW to help me heal from her affair, I would still be a pile of goo.

No, I think you do the work after an affair to fix yourself. You heal yourself. Nothing your WS can do will heal you. Only you can do that. Whatever your WS is inconsequential. If they stay a cheater or if they become the best SO they could ever be, it won't heal you. You do that. That's what the books are for.

I wish I hadn't read a damn thing about affairs right after I found out. I wish I had started with only things that worked on me. What did I need to know about affairs? What did I need to know about walls and windows? I didn't have the affair.

Work on you. Work exclusively on being the best you that you can be. Everything else will fall in place, or it won't, but at the end of the day you will be a happier person I bet.

Resentment... sheesh. I have it in spades. I resent that I spend all my time trying to work thru the pain of his affairs. I resent that he has yet to crack a book and IC is nowhere in sight for him. Although, he made it a huge deal to point out that I need to be in IC when I told him that I just didn't know how I could ever work thru this!! What??!!! Oh, wait... he DID buy a book. But he thinks he will wait until the weekend to start reading it. Life is just too hectic during the week, apparently. Too much Netflix to binge. Ugh.

These are more good perspectives. Just really showing me how important IC is. Thanks a lot.

Shea- gently, but if my WW was acting like that, I don't think I would be here in this forum. He is showing you nothing but disrespect with those actions. Taking 0 ownership of his infidelity.

Hi Desert,

I have been following your story in the forums here, and my heart goes out to you. What happened to you came as a bolt from the blue, totally unexpected. It is no wonder you are still reeling from it. I have had a lot of thoughts as your story has unfolded, and I want to offer them here in case they may help, or at the very least provide some extra input for your consideration. I am not a counsellor, a psychiatrist, no kind of expert at all. Just someone doing his best to make sense of life as it happens to me.

“I also am coming to the realization that there really wasn't anything bad happening in our marriage prior to the A. The only things she can tell me were her feelings of me not doing enough around the house, to her liking, and a feeling of loneliness (we figured this came from us not spending enough alone time together/playing together). These just don't add up, in my head, to making someone be okay/wanting to cheat.”

Desert, I think you are right. I think there was basically nothing wrong with your marriage at all. I also think that a more likely, and logical, reason for the cheating came out early on in the story, but it has been all but ignored since it appeared. I apologise if this is scratching a painful wound, but I would not be doing this if I did not believe it might help clarify why the A happened. In one of your posts, you wrote that your wife had told the OM that she felt like she had ‘missed out’ on her twenties. The obvious sub-text: I didn’t have as much sex as I could have had, and I feel like I missed out. As unpalatable as that may be, does it sound like a more likely motivation than your marriage was in trouble? I also think it is possible that two things may have made your wife more susceptible to doing what she did.

(1) Getting married

(2) Turning thirty

Both of these things are milestones in a person’s life, and can make them reflect on where they are, where they have been, and where they are going. What they have done, and what they haven’t done. And what if one of the things it made your wife think was, “I wish I had had more sexual adventures”. I apologise for saying that, I know it is a hurtful thing to think about, but the big thing you have been trying to figure out is the “Why?” You have said that you were perfectly happy to have spent your twenties dating your wife, and that you had no desire to be out sowing your wild oats with a bunch of other women. That’s great, that’s how I was. But what if it wasn’t like that for your wife, and she wished that she did have more experience? I think she may not have understood it herself, we often can’t recognise what motivates us (hence the huge industry that psychiatry has become), but it left her in a vulnerable condition for something to happen. And bingo, she winds up in a clinch with a guy at the bar at the friend’s wedding that you both went to. Why? Because she loved him? She didn’t even know him! He was nothing to her, nor she to him, but it was an ‘extra’ experience, and that fit the bill. And afterwards, she didn’t understand it, and was more upset about it than you were.

And then came the affair, which was like the clinch at the bar on steroids. I think she was still vulnerable to that possibly unconscious desire for more experience. Was the OM really important to her? I don’t think so. You have even commented that after the things she has told you, you got the feeling that if it hadn’t been that particular OM, it would have been someone else. I think you are right. It wasn’t that the OM was so wonderful. It was that the OM was someone else, and another experience. That doesn’t make it any more acceptable. Of course not. But doesn’t that motivation make more sense than any of the non-existent stuff about the state of the marriage or the way you were behaving? As you have said yourself, in the months that your wife has had to come up with supposed ‘problems’ with your marriage, she has come up with virtually nothing. Why is that? Answer: there were no real problems with you or the marriage, and to keep analysing those elements is a frustrating dead end (as you are finding).

Well, so far, so bad…Just another predictable tale of a wayward spouse, right? But then, she did some very unusual things, things which I think merit more focus than they have had, because they show some redeeming qualities:

(1) In the midst of an affair that you knew nothing about, she broke it off. You hadn’t caught her, the OM was keen to continue, no-one else knew, but she stopped it. If she had been happy cheating, it could have gone on for years. But she stopped it. It was like she suddenly realised how badly she had gone off the rails and came to her senses.

(2) With no prompting from anyone else, she started IC to try and get a handle on what her motivations were, and possibly how she could control them. That is not something that a person who is comfortable with cheating does. She knew her behaviour was messed up, without any input from anyone else, and she took action to try and address it.

(3) Despite her counsellor advising her against it, she came and confessed to you. Why? If she was some kind of no good low-life, she could have stopped the affair, got back into the normal routine with you, and you would have known nothing about it. I repeat, her counsellor told her not to confess, but she couldn’t do that. She had to tell you. As rightly aggrieved as you feel about the injustice of what was done to you, her need to confess indicates genuine guilt and a desire to establish more honesty in the relationship, even if confessing might trigger a sh*tstorm. And it’s not like she thought you would laugh it off; she got herself a place to go in case you threw her out. So she knew how well received her confession might be, and yet she had to be honest. If there is one element in the whole thing that I could point at and say, “Desert, this is a reason why reconciliation may be worthwhile, it is that she fessed up when she didn’t have to, because she felt so lousy about what she had done”. That is such a fundamental, essential thing for her to feel, with no prompting from anyone else, for you to have a successful, cheating-free reconciliation.

*******

“I am just sick and tired of thinking about this whole thing every day. It's making me not even really like her anymore it feels like and if she is crabby or whatever (not ever about A) I just don't feel like I even care. Is this all normal, or is my brain telling me something about whether to R or D?”

Sadly, it is perfectly normal in the situation you are in. The horrible thing about the aftermath of cheating is that the BS cannot stop thinking about it. I’ve been there, and it can be very wearying, to the point of mental fatigue. Is there a possibility that you and a buddy could take a few days’ break to go fishing, or something else that you could do together? As for making decisions about R or D, I think you should ease up on the pressure you are putting on yourself to decide. At the moment, you have a jumble of thoughts and emotions whirling through your mind. That’s why you cannot form any firm opinion about which way to go. So step back, just live life day to day, and let the dust settle a bit. You have no deadline to meet, and should only decide once your thoughts and feelings solidify into something you are comfortable with. And as people have commented, if doing all the exercises, etc, is getting on your nerves, stop doing them for a while. Let yourself off the hook and do some things that you enjoy instead.

“I have felt almost no anger, just sadness, but lately, every time I go to that book to do my reading and exercises, I just get SOOO MAD that I have to spend my free time and our free time together working on this. I really don't think we have issues with each other and the only reason I would need to speak to a counselor or therapist or whatever is because of HER!”

As others have said, the real reason for IC is because this is all stressing you out, and it can help you make sense of your feelings, not because you are guilty of anything or as a result of anything you have done. As you yourself say, what do you have to lose? If it helps, great. If it sucks, you can stop it.

“She has asked me what I need/want and I really, honestly don't know what to tell her, so I say she's doing what she's supposed to.”

Maybe you should tell her some of the things you say in your posts, the most important of which is that you need reassurance that she is not going to stray again. If my theory about her simply wanting more experience (whether consciously or unconsciously) is right, that boils down to the question: “Have you had enough now?” That is really the heart of the matter, and something that she has to answer honestly, because it is no good for either of you to attempt reconciliation if she cannot commit to being exclusive with you.

“I still have no idea if I can get past the idea that she cheated on me. This could honestly be a deal breaker. We are only 30 and I am not sure I want to look at her for next 50-60 years and think about how she cheated. Whenever I think she is looking nice or attractive, my next thoughts immediately go to her having sex with him and essentially dating him. Don't know if I can handle that long term.”

That’s the biggie, which every BS has to deal with. It hurts like hell. This is something to really focus on in your IC, and where IC comes into its own, because it is about you. If you cannot get past it, no-one would blame you. It is what makes reconciliation so hard. It is also a good reason for not rushing to any conclusions. It is likely that the mind-movies will fade out as time passes, you are still very close to D-Day.

Both of you have gone through an incredibly intense few months, and it would be good if you could just do some fun, ‘normal’ activities together. It will help you re-connect, and get a better perspective on how you want to proceed. Also, it will help you get a better perspective on your wife. At the moment, all you think of when you think of her is the A. A horrible and unsettling thing, which makes it hard for you to recall all the good things about her that made you fall for her in the first place. I guess the question you are wrestling with is what is bigger: the affair, or the good things about her. Is it possible that she could be a good person who has screwed up disastrously this one time? That her good qualities might be bigger than the messed-up thought process that led to the A? That if you can get past this, she might be a very different person in future? I really don’t think she would ever embark on another A in the same way she did with the first one.

“The anger I've been experiencing recently I haven't wanted to express. It's not healthy, I know. I don't want to make her upset…which is stupid because she should be upset by my anger. Not with me, but with herself. She has told me she is feeling really depressed and terrible because of what she did, so I don't want to lay it on even more, I guess.”

Desert, maybe her feeling depressed and terrible are the consequences that you feel have been lacking so far. While it is vital for you to tell her everything you have been feeling, and essential to get everything out in the open if R is going to happen, I think it would be best to discuss your feelings in IC first, so you can get a better handle on your feelings before you discuss them with her. As everyone has said, there is no rush. It can be done a little at a time, so it is more manageable for both of you to deal with.

“I know that sounds simple. Another good idea is to ask her to write out the consequences that she has had as a result of her A. You write down the ones you've suffered. Compare them. It might be an eye opening moment.”

That could be a good way to communicate, and I have a feeling that you could do it in a calm and gentle way. However, this is all a bit negative. Here’s a thought: if you feel able to, maybe you could both also make a list of the things you appreciate about one another. I know that may be hard for you to contemplate right now, but try to think back before the present troubles. What did you like about her? What did you love about her? You are no fool, and if you loved her, it was because there were good things about her that were worthy of loving. Does the A really wipe all of that out? She made a stupid, catastrophic mistake, and she knows that. She knew it when she stopped the A. She knew it when she went into IC. She knew it when she showed you the respect of confessing, even though she knew you might throw her out. And she knows it every day as she sees the change there has been in you. She knows that she could lose you, and she lives with that every day. She knows she did wrong. But if you could still find something good about her to appreciate, I think it could do both of you a power of good. There has been so much focus recently on the negative stuff that some positive stuff would be good for both of you.

There would be no shame in learning to love her again, if you can accept that she is less than perfect.

I apologise for writing so much, and please feel free to ignore all or any of the stuff I have written. It is meant with the best intent, and I wish you and your wife well as you work through this difficult time.

M1965- wow, just wow. I can't thank you enough for this post and for reading even part of my other post. That thing is massive! You may very well be right about her why. I am tempted to bring it up with her, but not sure if I should seed it?

All the stuff you say about her having value is exactly what my MC said as well.

What I loved most about her was her selflessness, caring, sweet self. I feel like these thoughts have been destroyed or at least severely questioned by her actions. It's something I struggle with constantly.

Ugh, mobile. Ill write more tomorrow, but wanted to thank you now!

Hi Desert,

Thanks for your kind words, but I really felt like I had to post, because there is so much positive stuff that underlies your story and your relationship. If anything I wrote has helped, I am very happy. My impression, from following your story, is that you and your wife are two really good people, struggling to get past a bad decision made by one of them who gave in to a destructive whim before suddenly recognising the reality of the whim, coming to their senses, and trying to make things right.

You are so close to D-Day, and the shock of it, that the pain and all of the horrible stuff that we all go through is like a dazzling bright light, shining into your eyes and blinding you. You cannot see a way forward. All you can see is that light. You look at your wife and you cannot see her. All you can see is that light. You want to have an ordinary, pain-free day. All you can see is that light. And to make it worse, if you are anything like me, it is like your thoughts and emotions are being rolled around in a giant tumble-dryer, 24/7.

I can recall that terrible, non-stop mental tumbling all too well. A typical ten minutes: I love her. I hate her. Why oh why oh why did she do this to me? F*ck her, how dare she do that to me, no way I’m forgiving her! Damn her to Hell! But look how she’s suffering. She knows she did wrong. She’s a decent person at heart. Maybe she didn’t realise what she was doing until it was too late. No. She’s a cold, cruel, conniving bitch, who knew every damn thing she was doing, and she did it anyway. Yeah, that must be it. Disgusting. But she keeps apologising. Maybe she does love me. But if she loves me, why did she do it? I’m tired. I feel nothing, she’s dead to me. F*ck her. F*ck everything, it’s all a mess. My God, how I miss her. I must love her…

And repeat every ten minutes. Day after day.

Bright light in your eyes, mental turmoil. A very hard time for a person to make sense of things, let alone a well-considered decision. So go easy on yourself, take no drastic action, put the car in neutral. You aren’t sure where you want to go, so why step on the accelerator?

There are things that shine through your post that really speak to me. Your reaction to what has happened really reminds me of me. Maybe that’s why I’m posting!

So here are some more thoughts.

What runs through your story is that before the A, you loved your wife very much, because there was very much to love about her. It looks like you still do love her, but the huge mistake that she made makes it hard for you to think that she deserves your love. I’ll go further with that. Does it feel to you like if you let yourself love her, you are effectively saying that what she did is fine? That letting yourself love her would be endorsing her actions? That’s exactly how I would feel, and it puts you in the difficult position of simultaneously loving her, but not wanting to love her. Of wanting to comfort her, but also wanting her to suffer for her actions and the way the A hurt you. Of not wanting to punish her, while wanting her to learn such a powerful lesson that she will never, ever think of cheating again.

I believe it is these contradictory feelings that have you going in circles, like a dog chasing its own tail. Is it any wonder you don’t know what to do?

And this is the crucial thing for you to grasp: it isn’t that you hate her, it is that you don’t feel comfortable loving her at the moment.

Why is that? Well, if you’re wired up like me, it’s because you have a fixed set of rules and values. You have said as much in your posts, where you said that while you accepted that people could wind up in situations where they were tempted to do something questionable, you would get yourself the hell out of a situation like that if it happened to you. Me too. I don’t lie, I don’t steal, I don’t knowingly hurt people. Not because I am a saint or a paragon of moral virtue. It’s just the way I am wired up. For me, my values are like a set of railroad tracks on which I roll forwards in life. I like the stability and the security they give me. The thought of leaving the rails actually makes me feel physically and mentally uncomfortable and anxious. I like my rules, they keep me safe. So that’s me. Does it sound like you?

I apologise in advance if this next section sounds dumb, but it is the best way I can explain my thinking.

It took me a long time to understand that other people may be wired up differently. They don’t have the security that my railroad tracks give me, because not everyone runs on railroad tracks. Some people aren’t even on the train! We may be heading for the same destination, but it’s like they are in a car, driving down a freeway at night, relying on the white stripe that runs down the middle of the road to keep them in the correct lane. Sometimes the line fades in and out, or they get distracted, and when that happens they can stray across into the wrong lane without knowing it. Then the center line suddenly reappears, or they get dazzled by the headlights of a huge truck that is heading right at them, and they realise they are in the wrong lane. At which point they either veer back into the correct lane, or they crash and burn.

If you can go with my train and car thing, I think that in your relationship, you were on the railroad tracks, and your wife was in the car, both of you heading in the same direction. There was no danger of you straying off course, you had the rails to keep you on track. But your wife was in the car. She got distracted. She lost sight of the center line, and she drifted right over it. And then – suddenly - she’s hit in the face by the lights of that huge semi truck of reality heading right for her. She realises that if she carries on, she’s going to crash and burn. She desperately veers back into the lane where she should have been all along, scared, breathless, and wondering how the hell she lost sight of the center line in the first place.

Apologies again for the train and car thing, but does that sound like what happened in your relationship? And is it possible that for those of us who run on railroad tracks, it can be very hard to understand how those who travel in cars may lose sight of the center line and wind up in the wrong lane? It doesn’t mean they’re bad drivers. They can be good drivers who just get distracted, and wind up risking a crash.

Is it possible that your wife is a good driver who got distracted and wound up in the wrong lane? And that when she realised it, she did her best to steer back into the right lane? The lane where she knew she should have been all along. The lane where she wants to stay and continue driving in?

What do you think?

Hey, maybe I’m just an idiot that’s got a thing about transport. Enough with the cars and trains!

Allow me to quote from your previous post:

“What I loved most about her was her selflessness, caring, sweet self. I feel like these thoughts have been destroyed or at least severely questioned by her actions. It's something I struggle with constantly.”

Maybe we can fix that, or at least put some perspective on it.

I had a friend, now deceased, who grew up in a tough part of London, England. He learnt how to fight, and he had no choice but to get streetwise. If someone tried to pick on him, he was more than capable of punching their lights out. Along the way, he became a born-again Christian, and we used to talk about his faith from time to time. I’m not a religious guy at all, but he said one thing that really stuck with me:

“Hate the sin, not the sinner”.

Think about that.

What I like about it is that it shows the difference between a person and a bad action that they have committed. The action is one thing, the person is another. The two are not one. In your case, the A is one thing, and your wife is another. She is bigger than it. She is better than it. It was a huge mistake that is totally out of character for her. And I think you know that. But because it was so unexpected and so out of character for your wife, it has left you disoriented and wondering who the hell she is. And in that confusion, all your old certainties about her feel like they have gone. All that you have to fill that gap is the A, so of course it seems like your wife has no other qualities than the A. Only, you know very well that that is not the case, don’t you?

I’ll quote you again:

“selflessness, caring, sweet”

You said it, I didn’t, but you know what? I trust you on that. I trust you that she was, and still is, those things, and much, much more.

I think that you have been caught in a mental trap where you equate allowing yourself to like or love your wife with liking or loving the A. Desert, they are two separate things. You can still like or love your wife and hate the A. The A stinks, your wife doesn’t. To acknowledge that your wife is essentially a good and sweet person is not saying that the A is good or sweet. She is a person, the A is an action. Two separate things.

Can a good and sweet person do something bad that is totally out of character, and still be a good and sweet person afterwards? Yes, of course they can. The whole reason that this mess came as such a shock to you is that was so totally out of character for your wife.

Think about that.

Sh*tty action – totally out of character.

Desert, she still is a good, sweet, selfless person. It is just going to take time for you to get over the shock of a good, sweet, selfless person committing a sh*tty act. It’s like getting sucker-punched by your Mom. It shakes up your belief system. And your wife was just as surprised, because she immediately started seeing an IC to try and figure out what possessed her to do something like that. She wasn’t comfortable with it. It seems to me that both of you know she is better than that, but both of you are struggling to find a way to re-establish that certainty. At the moment, you look at her and wonder who she is, and she feels lower than a snake’s belly. But it can, and will get better. If you let it. The key to it is for both of you to treat the A as something separate to your wife, and to identify and treat the reason that left her vulnerable to making the mistake that she made. But rest assured, she is much bigger, and much better, than that mistake. You just need to allow yourself the time to see her good qualities again. The A will fade with time, but her good qualities will always be there. If you can help her see that, it will help you see it too.

Instant forgiveness would be a bad thing, but a slow and steady rehabilitation of your wife in both your minds would be a great thing. You cannot rebuild the good things in your relationship overnight. You do it slowly and steadily. Together, as a joint project.

Please don’t think I’m some starry-eyed dreamer. I am not! I am very cynical, and very judgemental, and I would be telling you to run if I thought there was any reason to do so. But I am not doing that, because I believe your wife is a good person who made an out-of-character mistake, not a bad person who did a bad thing because she is bad. Big, big, big difference.

Oh, and before I close this post, I want to say that I am actually very impressed with the way you have handled all this. You have questioned your actions, wondered why you are not angry, should you have laid down the law much sooner, etc. There are no ‘right’ ways to handle stuff like this, and I think it is terrific that you have not succumbed to anger. I did. I actually screamed my righteous indignation in the woman’s face, more than once. It was ugly, it did neither of us any good, and I felt utterly exhausted afterwards. Anger sucks, it is a toxic by-product of stress. Not being angry is a good thing, Desert, not a bad thing. Anger can control a person, it is almost like demonic possession. It builds nothing, it is negative, it clouds judgement, it prevents healing. Leave anger out of your equation, Desert. Anger knocks down bridges, understanding and compassion builds them.

I also think you were right not to expose the A to your families and friends. That may be appropriate in some situations, but it would have been wrong for yours. Your wife doesn’t need public humiliation, she is already feeling a ton of it.

If you can find the strength to rebuild your relationship with your wife, you may find that what the pair of you build will be stronger than before, because it will have eradicated the bad stuff, retained the good, and added some reinforcement in the places where you saw it was needed. What you and your wife need to do is eradicate the vulnerability that led to the A, not eradicate your relationship.

I’ll shut up now, but I’ll be sticking around, because I have faith in both you and your wife. And if you both work at it, you will have it too.

Oh, and the thing about seeding the idea about her reason for the A. Sure, why not? But do it when it feels like the right time to do it. Like I said in my previous post, I am very impressed with the way you have handled things, and you will be able to sense when the appropriate time will be to run the idea past your wife.

Thanks so much again! I'm at work on a computer now, so I can actually type this out (Idk what is up with replying on a phone, but the text box will cover up the submit button... anyways).

You are very insightful and are saying a lot of what my MC has been saying as well. The pieces that stick with me though, are the length of the A. She basically dated him for 3 months. It wasn't a one time thing that she got drunk and messed up with (according to her that was the sex, but the rest of it, she was stone cold sober for). She started going to IC during her 3 month A to see what was going on with her, but didn't call it off with him until after she told me. On d-day, I asked her what she felt towards him and she said she didn't know.

The second piece that I struggle with, is her kissing that guy at the bar. Yes, he meant nothing, but she was very very upset by herself for allowing this to happen. She seemed very apologetic about it and promised she would never let it happen again. Fast forward two years, and she not only did it again, but too it to a WHOLE other level.

While I agree completely that she can act compassionately and be that sweet, caring, selfless person, I really don't know if she actually is, or if it's just something to cover her selfish side up.

If it were me, the wake up call would have been getting trashed at the wedding and making out with a guy at the bar in front of me. That would have scared me straight. It clearly didn't for her. What does that mean?? To me, it shows that she didn't take my pain from that serious enough or care about hurting me again. I definitely rug swept the kiss (we were engaged at the time and I seriously considered calling off the wedding but after looking around online, people were saying "just a mistake kiss" etc, so I didn't) so that was my mistake, but if she didn't see it as a big enough problem to fix, well, I just don't know.

I do like your analogy though! It's great. To me she is more, driving in her car, getting drunk, still stepping behind the wheel, and has multiple crashes and DUI. The future is, will she stop drinking and driving? Who knows? Hopefully! But she also may stop for a bit and then do it again.

I do think we share a lot in common though. Your description of how you felt and dealt with your wife's infidelity, is very much how I think of my wife's.

I think I can agree with the sin vs sinner thing a bit more if it was a one time thing. This was a two time betrayal and the second one was 3 MONTHS LONG (not long by some here, but long enough that it wasn't a drunken mistake). At what point is the sinner not just a good person who made a mistake, but really a sinner? I am basically in a position, by my account, that in order to work past this, I need to TRUST my wife, that she has figured out her shit, and is not going to let it happen again. This has been a hard week for me for whatever reason, but at this exact point in time, I don't see a scenario where I will be able to trust her that she is going to not do this again.

My MC said he thinks she understands and it won't happen again, but, again, I would have thought the kiss would have been that wake up call 2 years ago.

I just don't know. We haven't spoken about the A in a couple weeks. The last thing was her telling me she had a friend request on facebook from OM ex gf, but that when she went to say no, it was gone. OM ex gf was clearly looking at her profile and wanted to talk or accidentally clicked the add friend button. To me this means that OM lied about him dumping his ex for reasons other than him wanting to be with my wife. It sounds like he told his ex that he was with my wife. This just screams, to me, of there being more there than she says (the explanation this whole time is that he thought there was more than she did). Idk how much more stuff like this is going to come up where it just tells me either there was more of a connection than she is saying or what.

I'm rambling again, but all of this just makes it so hard. I appreciate she is sharing these things with me, but her telling me about her getting friended by OM ex gf, is just so triggering for some reason.

Thanks again for your nice insightful posts. They are most helpful!

Hey Desert,

There’s always an awful lot of conflicting information to deal with when things get messy emotionally.

“The pieces that stick with me though, are the length of the A. She basically dated him for 3 months. It wasn't a one-time thing that she got drunk and messed up with (according to her that was the sex, but the rest of it, she was stone cold sober for). She started going to IC during her 3 month A to see what was going on with her, but didn't call it off with him until after she told me. On d-day, I asked her what she felt towards him and she said she didn't know.”

Only she can answer some of the questions that her actions raise, but it is good that you have started to identify what are the key sticking points for you. I am not sure if she is actively avoiding talking about the A, but she is going to have to open up about all of this or risk losing you. And you do need to make her understand that. You must also listen to your own feelings and try to plot the happiest course for your life that you can. Even if you reach a total understanding of what she did, and why she did it, you may still feel like it bothers you too much to continue with the relationship. Only you can answer that one, once your feelings have settled down a bit.

The length of the A is not good, is it? But based on your posts, which are based on what she has told you about it, it seems to me that the A may have begun as her opening up and talking to the OM, the OM listening avidly (for obvious reasons), and then it drifted into the sexual element. I can’t help wondering if maybe she grew up internalising a lot of things through the years. You have said that her family barely pay attention to her, or make a fuss of her if she does something good. If she has grown up with people not listening, it may be habitual for her to bottle things up.

Her apparent selflessness and need to please might be the way she learned to earn the approval of her family. That is not healthy! Selflessness does not mean there is not a self though, and there has obviously been a lot going on in her mind. It looks like she may be lacking a healthy ‘happy medium’ when it comes to expressing her ‘self’. For a lot of the time she suppresses it, smiles, tries to please, and then she goes off the rails and indulges in the ultimate selfishness of an affair. What she needs is to be somewhere in between the two extremes. They are not good for her or you.

And it is clear from your feelings that you need her to be talking to you about it. It is hard to say if she is being deliberately evasive, or if she has reverted to the behaviour she may have grown up with - clamming up, smiling, and trying to carry on as if nothing has happened because she is unable to talk at length about things she has done that have not pleased you. More than that, she may sometimes enter a state of denial. For example, I was really surprised that she took you out for dinner to celebrate your second wedding anniversary when it was just a month and a half after D-Day. I was genuinely stunned when I read that, because it seemed like such a strange and potentially provocative thing to do. When I read it, I was thinking, “My God, what exactly is Desert supposed to be celebrating here?” But maybe her way of dealing with things is to not deal with them. To carry on as if they haven’t happened, because if you do that for long enough, then they haven’t happened. It is certainly a lot easier for a people-pleaser to do that than to explain why they did something as self-indulgent and displeasing as have an affair. But life doesn’t work like that, and her avoidance is pushing you to the point where you have trouble seeing a future with her.

Desert, you need to tell her that, or you will end up in a crazy situation where neither of you is talking about your feelings in the wake of what has been an emotional disaster for both of you. IC can be great for some things, but the main, essential thing is that you have to be talking to each other.

Given the way you feel, you are going to have to get her talking, regardless of whether she wants to dodge the issue, or whether she ends up in tears and saying she feels like crap. The problem with the tears and self-flagellation is that it has become a means of avoiding the difficult things that you need to discuss. Do you find yourself reaching a certain point in the discussion, when you are about to get to the really important stuff, and that’s when the tears begin, and you clam up and don’t ask the questions because you feel like continuing will just be hurting her? If that’s the case, the tears and self-condemnation are blocking the meaningful dialogue that you need to be having.

If you can’t get that dialogue going at home, then you really need to get both of you back into MC, where you can ask the questions that you raise in your posts. Your insecurity is a direct result of her not answering those questions, coupled with her actions. When she says, “I don’t know”, then you end up in a position where you don’t know. And you are understandably not happy with that. You have to get her talking, even if it means issuing a gentle but firm ultimatum to her. You could even write out a list of questions that you need answered and give them to her, for her to go away and think about before she comes back and answers them. You can say something along the lines of, “I am really struggling to make sense of things here. These are things that I need to know. Please, if you care about me, think about them, and then come back and talk to me about them. Don’t worry about pleasing me or upsetting me, we are past all that. I really have to have answers to these questions, and I cannot just carry on as if nothing has happened here”.

“The second piece that I struggle with, is her kissing that guy at the bar. Yes, he meant nothing, but she was very very upset by herself for allowing this to happen. She seemed very apologetic about it and promised she would never let it happen again. Fast forward two years, and she not only did it again, but too it to a WHOLE other level.”

On the face of it, it makes no sense. And obviously, I cannot answer for your wife. What I would say is that the kiss at the bar was a spur-of-the-moment, one-off, unexpected thing. It looks like she got drunk and went to the self-indulgent extreme of her nature, which, as you say, may usually be out of sight behind her normal, sober selfless self. But it came out of the blue, and she probably was genuinely shocked at what she had done. The affair, on the other hand, probably started so slowly that she didn’t even realise what was happening until it had started. However, you make a cast-iron point about how if kissing a guy at a bar is never to be repeated, then a three-month affair should have been off the scale. There’s no way round that. And it is natural for your faith in her promises to be ‘good’ to have been all but erased by her actions. Again, she needs to be dealing with that, not avoiding it, or dodging the issue by saying she feels like crap. Her actions have left you wondering, “At what point is the sinner not just a good person who made a mistake, but really a sinner?” That could be a long and rambling philosophical debate, but for you, in your relationship with your wife, it is really your judgement call to make.

“My MC said he thinks she understands and it won't happen again, but, again, I would have thought the kiss would have been that wake up call 2 years ago.”

Again, that is an issue that needs talking through, or, alternatively, you make your own judgement call on it. Along with the list of questions you need answered, maybe you should make a list of what you need to be able to carry on with the relationship, give it to her, and tell her to go away and think about whether she can meet your requirements. It is not like you are asking anything unreasonable in a close personal relationship, particularly in the wake of her erratic behaviour.

“If it were me, the wake-up call would have been getting trashed at the wedding and making out with a guy at the bar in front of me. That would have scared me straight. It clearly didn't for her. What does that mean?? To me, it shows that she didn't take my pain from that serious enough or care about hurting me again.”

The bar kiss shows her unhealthy vulnerability to going into ultra self-indulgent mode, which is almost crazy given the fact that you were right there. She really has to work on that. As for not caring about hurting you with a second bout of inappropriate behaviour, she was actually not hurting you when she was having the affair, because you were totally unaware of it. Should she have been doing it? Of course not! But your unawareness of it meant that you were not hurt by it, and maybe that was what was how she justified it to herself. The hurt only began after she told you about it.

“She…didn't call it off with him until after she told me.”

The timing of her confession looks like she may have done it as a means of ending the affair when the OM wanted it to continue. “We can’t carry on, I’ve told my husband”. It’s not like she could avoid him, because they worked together. Given that the affair had been conducted in secret, with you unaware of it and unhurt by it, I did wonder why she had suddenly revealed it to you. I thought she might have had a change of heart, or a sudden bursting of the bubble (the mental ‘fog’ that people get into during an affair). But maybe her confession was her last ditch ‘zero option’ for getting the OM to back off when she wanted to end it.

“We haven't spoken about the A in a couple weeks. The last thing was her telling me she had a friend request on facebook from OM ex gf, but that when she went to say no, it was gone. OM ex gf was clearly looking at her profile and wanted to talk or accidentally clicked the add friend button. To me this means that OM lied about him dumping his ex for reasons other than him wanting to be with my wife. It sounds like he told his ex that he was with my wife. This just screams, to me, of there being more there than she says (the explanation this whole time is that he thought there was more than she did).”

Desert, I have to be honest with you. I think your gut instinct may be right about the possibility that there was more to the affair from your wife’s side than she has said there was. At least for a period, before she decided she wanted to end it. The tone of his email to her certainly hinted at that, as you and several posters commented on.

There was one other thing that bothered me, and while I feel hesitant to raise it, we are discussing stuff that is important to you, and I should be honest with you. It was her statement about how she couldn’t be with the OM for any length of time because he was too comfortable with cheating. When that hit the forum, everyone commented on how hypocritical that statement was, and at face value, it is. At face value, it is just ridiculous. Surely, if you are having an affair, an AP who is comfortable with the concept of cheating is a pre-requisite, isn’t it? It would be a positive benefit in an AP, wouldn’t it? It would only be an unattractive quality if you were considering someone as a longer-term partner. I hate to say it, but it is hard to escape the logic of that. Your wife may have said that the thing about his attitude to cheating to convince you that she had no real interest in the OM, but rejecting him because he was comfortable with cheating makes no sense at all if he was just an AP. However, rejecting him for being comfortable with cheating if she was considering him as a longer-term partner does make sense, even if it is still ridiculous for her to feel that way when she was also cheating with him and he could have said the same about her. I had not thought about this in any depth before our discussion started. I apologise for that.

“Idk how much more stuff like this is going to come up where it just tells me either there was more of a connection than she is saying or what.”

Desert, I have already said that the way you have handled this so far has impressed me, and it really has. Your gut instincts have been right time after time. You haven’t raged or ranted, you haven’t plastered your wife all over Facebook as a WS, or told all your friends and family about the affair. And much as it pains me to say it, it seems like your gut instinct about there having been more commitment by your wife to the affair than she has let on so far may also be right. If that is the case, her avoidance of going into it in any depth makes sense, doesn’t it? If she was thinking about the OM as a longer-term partner, how on Earth could she ever tell you that? Better to sweep onwards, have an anniversary dinner, say as little as possible, re-establish the old routine. But you’re not buying that, are you? You are much closer to this than I am – understatement of the century – and you are no fool. If you smell something fishy, maybe someone has opened a can of tuna. It may be that, in the absence of meaningful input from your wife, you have to decide on how to proceed based on your feelings about what is right for you. I won’t say anything about that, because only you can make the big decisions in your life. Based on what I’ve seen, you are no dope, and you are not easily misled. If you think something stinks, maybe it does. If your wife isn’t talking, there will come a point in this where you will have to listen to yourself, because only you know what is right for you. Trust your gut, Desert. I don’t think it will let you down.

Take care of yourself, and trust yourself. Wish we could discuss this over a few beers.

Thanks so much again! A discussion over beers sounds wonderful! I'm in CT if you're ever stateside. Haha. Your take on her looking at him and assessing that he isn't good "be with" material is spot on, I think. It means she was viewing him as potential. Not good.

She actually brought up wanting to go over our book work this afternoon. I told her I didn't and that I was done with the books for the foreseeable future as they were making me resentful and angry. She said we needed to talk more about all this, so I told her what I posted here and how I was feeling. She said she wouldn't call it dating (which I guess is semantics, but if you get drinks and hang out after worm as more than friends what would you call it?)

When I brought up the kiss and then the A, she said she didn't know what she was thinking blah blah but she loves me and never wants to go through all this again. She just doesnt have answers to any of this.

According to her the A happened quick. They both got drunk and had sex out of the blue and then she slowly deescalated it from there until she told me. Not the usual story.

She says there is nothing left to tell. If that's true, then Idk. This whole thing is just stupid weird.

She does feel like shit about herself when she sees me upset about this. Just waiting on her to figure herself out I guess. Thanks so much, again.