SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I found out late last night/early this morning that my wife cheated one me. I don't know what exactly to write but it has torn my heart in half. I still love her though and we both want to try to work through it. She seems genuinely remorseful about hurting me and hurting our relationship. The one good thing I got from my grandfather is also my downfall. It's that I forgive anybody and everybody way too easily. Part of me desperately wants to go ahead and forgive her but another part of me knows that forgiving her this soon will not solve the problem of why she cheated and what to do from here. I am at a loss and would greatly appreciate any advice on how to get through this. I am open to sharing more details if people think that will help in giving advice.

Sorry you qualify for membership, but it's a good thing you found us.

Rule #1 is 'Take what makes sense; ignore the rest.' You'll get many opinions here; you get to choose which ones, if any, you'll adopt.

First, take care of yourself - lots of water, at least some non-junk food, physical movement. Sleep may be tough for a long time.

Understand that your brain will want to get away from the pain as quickly as possible, and your head will be filled with contradictory thoughts and feelings for some time. You're probably in shock.

You do not have to make big decisions now. You can give yourself time to figure out what you want and what is possible.

If you forgive too easily, your W will just have to deal with it, if you go into R (reconciliation) - and if she's committed to R, she'll deal with it fine.

I strongly recommend reading at least the BS FAQs in the Healing Library (link is in the yellow box at the upper left of SI pages).

Also, checkout the Just Found Out threads identified by 'bull's eyes' and 'beyond remorse and regret' in the R forum.

IMO, you've been inundated with too much emotion for your system to handle. Recovery for you is 1) processing the feelings (anger, fear, grief, shame) out of your body, and 2) resolving resistance to processing the feelings. I'm a big fan of IC, if you can find a good one.

I also think it's necessary for you to define some measurable/observable requirements for R, if that's what you choose. That way you and your W can know how you're doing and what areas need more attention.

IMO, one of your requirements needs to be IC for your W, with a goal of changing from cheater to good partner. Other requirements are No Contact (NC), honesty, and transparency (see Healing Library).

MC probably will be helpful at some point. IMO, a good MC can help immediately if the MC is good, but lots of SIers think MC should be delayed until IC has taken hold.

And you can add specifics that are meaningful to you. My W had to arrange dates for us, for example.

Understand that your W cheated because of her issues, not because of anything you did or didn't do. That's why she needs IC, IMO. (BTW that's one of the key indicators of a good MC - an MC who sees As as symptoms of problems in your WS may be a good MC. An MC who sees an A as a symptom of an M problem is just plain wrong, and probably close to useless.)

This site is called 'survivinginfidelity'. It's about that, of course, but it's also about thriving after infidelity. I urge you to take that as your goal. Thriving really is possible.

Before you decide to R, I urge you to consider D, too. R is difficult. I think it's a lot easier to deal with the difficulties if you know you have another good option. You may want to be with your W, but you don't need her.

ETA: I see SerJr has responded. I recommend as strongly as possible that you listen to him - his name is all over threads that helped me tremendously when I joined.

More important, recovery is a marathon, not a sprint. Life will suck for too long, but you'll probably start feeling better in 3-6 months, and you'll feel better and better as you heal - but the rule of thumb is 2-5 years for recovery.

So settle in, fasten your seatbelt, and have faith in yourself to get to the right destination for you. It'll just take longer than anyone wants.

[This message edited by sisoon at 12:55 PM, February 4th (Saturday)]

Welcome here brother...

It's normal to be hurt, scared, confused, and angry in light of a betrayal like this. But you can heal and move forward to a brighter and healthier future one way or another.

You say that your wife is remorseful. What has she actually done? Remorse is consistency of action over time and you need to see:

- She takes ownership over her choices and the consequences without minimising, blameshifting, or rugsweeping

- She recognises the impact it has had on you and the marriage

- She puts plans in place to ensure that it never happens again. This includes IC to understand why she did what she did and ensuring no contact with the OM and giving you access to emails, passwords, phones, etc so that you can rebuild trust.

- She is actively trying to make amends to the marriage and is willing to connect and meet your emotional needs, and support and encourage your healing.

You can definitely forgive, but you can never forget. You can trust, but that is built through verification. I would think really hard about what your needs are and what your dealbreakers are and be very clear with your WW and be willing to back that up with action. You can only control your choices and make these boundaries clear - your WW has to do her part and only she can make her own choices.

Above all make sure you are taking good care of yourself. Pay attention to your emotional, physical, and mental wellbeing and don't be afraid to get help in real life if you need it. Keep reading, keep posting, and make sure to check out the Healing Library. It's going to take both time and work to get through this, but if you are committed to your wellbeing you can find a healthier future one way or another.

You're gonna be okay...

-ser

I feel for you and know how bad it must feel. Keep reading the advice, read the Healing Library. Set you boundaries and stick to them. Do your best to minimize any Trickle Truth as that can be just as damaging as the affair.

Unless she came to you and confessed, what you're seeing isn't remorse. It's regret, sorry she was caught, and saying whatever she can to cover her ass. True remorse takes time.

Do not forgive yet. First, you don't know what you're forgiving. It's highly unlikely that you know the full extent of her affair. And,given to quickly, means the WS feels she basically got away with it.

So she wants to attempt reconciliation? First, you need to make it clear there are no guarantees. Whether you can actually reconcile will depend greatly on her actions.

The minimum requirement for reconciliation should include..

Total no contact with the other man. If that means she has to quit her job..Then she quits her job. She writes him a NC message that looks like..

OM, do not ever attempt to contact me again. Any further attempts at contact will result in legal actions. WE

Then she blocks him from being able to make contact.

If he attempts to contact her, she doesn't respond, and she tells you immediately.

Full disclosure. She tells you everything..now.

Full transparency. You get full access to everything..email...cell...Facebook..passwords included.

Std testing immediately..And you see the results from the doctor.

IC to figure out why she did this.

She dumps any friends who knew about the affair, and didn't tell you.

She answers all of your questions, without blame or anger.

She understands it will take three to five years to heal from this...And that can't begin until she's told you the entire truth.

She is accountable for her time when away from you.

And anything else you need to feel safe.

Do not share this site with her.

If you could tell us more about your situation, it would be helpful.

Who is the other man? You need to call his wife and tell her about the affair. Do not tell your wife..just do it. She will warn him, and by the time you speak to her, she will have been told you are dangerous,abusive, and accusing all of your wife's male acquaintances of having an affair with her. Don't message her. He knows you know, and will intercept the message. Offer his wife a copy of any evidence you have.

Don't try to nice her back. The betrayed husbands who have the most success,are aggressive not passive, and make it very clear they won't tolerate anymore shit.

It would be very rare for her to be sorry she hurt you at this point.

How long have you been married and how long did the affair last and how did you find out? Who was the guy? Why did she say she cheated? Also, how much do you know about the affair independently of what she has said?

Main advice right now is to ignore how she talks, how sincere she seems, etc. That has proven time and again to be a terrible indication.

It seems you want to consider staying married, and that's as far as you should go at this point. Another bit of advice is to let her win her way back that she wants this marriage.

So ignore her words unless she backs it up with actions. Actions might be anything that shows she is ending the affair and doing things to you to prove that, like giving you passwords and communication devices, writing down a timeline of the affair, getting tested for STDs and pregnancy test, and answering your questions.

Check out her phone logs and emails and see if her story matches up to the facts.

Welcome. Could you tell us more about your situation? How did you find out? Who was the OM and how long had it been going on for? What did your WW say on Dday?

I'm sorry you're here, but this is the best club that you never wanted to join.

sorry you are here. can you give more info so we can better help?

dont decide to reconcile or divorce now. thats the worst thing you can do. wait and base a decision off her actions.

Sorry for just getting back. I've spent most of the day either numb or feeling like I am going insane. I don't know if I am going to regret this but here we go. A little background information. We have been married for only 4 months, however, we have been together for 4 years. 2 of those years we were engaged. Before we even got married we both agreed that whether we got married to each other, or to someone else, that we wanted a long engagement. We are in our late 20's.

Now to the betrayal part. A week ago, we had gone with my parents to put the family dog down. Long story short, it was a dog that had helped me get through some rough times as a teenager and she was a dog that my wife had grown to love. I was filled with so many different emotions that I had not felt in almost 9 years (when I had to put down my own dog that I got when I turned 13 and helped me make it through my teenage years even more) that I essentially went into a numb state. I couldn't talk, cry, or anything really. My wife tried to hold me not only for me but also because she needed comforting. I wouldn't let her out of fear that I was going to break down in the vet office. Both of us are big animal lovers so not only did it affect us because of the reasons above, but her parents had to put down the 2 dogs that she grew up with a couple of months ago and we just got done putting our own dog through chemotherapy after finding out he had lymphoma back in September. So we get home and because I am back in school to try to better our lives (something that she has been extremely supportive of), I had to work on studying for an exam that I had to take online that Sunday. She seemed a little upset but she attributed it to what we went through that afternoon. She said she was going to go out with friends and that I was welcome to join if I wanted to. 2 of the 3 friends that were there had been at our wedding. When I got done studying, I met up with them and the entire time she was kind of distancing herself from me. So we all get invited back to one of the friends house to hang out and when we are walking to the car, I asked her to hang back so I could talk to her. I asked her what was wrong and she expressed that she felt like I pushed her away earlier at the vet office. I explained that I hadn't had those kinds of emotions hit me that hard in almost 9 years. She understood and everything seemed okay between us, however she wanted some time to hang out with her 3 friends. 1 of the 2 friends that had been at our wedding was a guy. So I said that was fine and she said she was going to spend the night at the friend's house that we had all been invited to (not the guy). In order to make sure this doesn't go on forever, I am just going to give little bits of information over the last week that I think are important. Since the night she spent at her friend's house, she acted more distant from me. She also kept wanting to hang out with the guy friend a lot and said that it was just to help with her depression because staying at home sleeping all day while I do schoolwork doesn't help it. Now, since the night we met up with the 3 friends, I have had a terrible gut feeling that got even worse when she had said this. Trying to be a caring and supportive husband, I said that I understood and if there was anything I could do, to let me know. I just left it at that. So over the past week she had been texting this guy a lot. Like more than I have ever seen her text anybody. That just intensified the gut feeling. So Thursday, she went to hang out with the guy friend since I had lab and class for most of the day. I had a 2 hour break between lab and class and when I was walking to the car she asked if it would be okay if they hung out at our apartment with me. I said sure. While there, she got my computer and pulled up her email. She got an email from Adam and Eve for a deal on some sex toys so she pulled that up for me to look at. I didn't feel comfortable with it at all with the guy friend there with us. Now I haven't mentioned until now because I don't feel like this is a problem as long as it just stays as two friends giving each other advice. But she had heard that this guy friend was very knowledgeable when it comes to sex toys and she had asked me in the past if she could talk to him about it to get ideas for toys for us. Deep down I didn't like it but I thought it could just be a little jealousy and what's the harm if he truly is just a friend and nothing more. So back to the guy friend being in our apartment. Later Thursday night, I wanted to surprise my wife with ordering a few toys so I opened the tab that still had her email open so that I could get the coupon and when I opened the tab, I noticed an email from the guy friend. The subject line said something along the lines of this is a nice pinup of you. So I opened it and my gut feeling got even worse. I knew something wasn't right but I knew that this simple pinup was not proof that she had cheated. So last night when she got home from work she kept pushing me to go hangout with my friends who wanted to drink a few beers but something didn't feel right to me because she kept getting texts from the guy friend but she tried to hide her phone out of site from me (which she had never ever done before in our entire relationship). So I went out with my friends and got home, I knew something wasn't right so I asked if I could use her phone as a flashlight when I went to let the dog out. When I was walking down the steps to let the dog out, whether this was right or wrong of me I don't know but I noticed that she had no text messages at all from this guy friend that she had been texting all week and last night. So my heart just drops. Without thinking I immediately opened her Facebook messenger app and saw that they had been sexting as recently as last night after I left to hang out with some friends. So I rushed upstairs and into the apartment and went into the room freaking the fuck out and repeating over and over "why'd you cheat on me?"

Since I found out last night, she has revealed that that night a week ago, she didn't stay at her friend's house that we had been invited to but stayed at the guy friend's apartment. They didn't have sexual intercourse but he gave her a hand if you know what I mean and a little bit of oral. She says she stopped him from giving her oral when he started. She has also revealed that they have been sexting over the entire last week. She claims that she did it because she felt alone and felt like she couldn't talk to me about it because she didn't want to stress me out because of all the stress from school. I don't feel like it was up to her to decide if her feeling lonely due to me being busy with school all the time was going to stress me out too much. Also, when I asked her why she didn't tell me, she said she was afraid of what my reaction was going to be. I don't know why she would be so afraid since whenever we get upset, we never yell, we never lay a hand on each other, we never verbally or emotionally abuse each other. I am at a loss as to why she would be so afraid of my reaction unless what she was really saying is she was afraid I would leave her. I know this much, if we try to reconcile, it will be a lot harder to reconcile now that she kept it from me than if she had just fessed up to begin with.

[This message edited by ihatechoosinga at 10:11 PM, February 4th (Saturday)]

Trust me on this. She's had sex with the guy! And it started way more than a week ago. Get tested for stds. A guy well versed in sex toys did more than finger bang your wife!!

We have been married for only 4 months, however, we have been together for 4 years.

Since I found out last night, she has revealed that that night a week ago, she didn't stay at her friend's house that we had been invited to but stayed at the guy friend's apartment. They didn't have sexual intercourse but he gave her a hand if you know what I mean and a little bit of oral. She says she stopped him from giving her oral when he started.

Really sorry you are here my man.

You are married for four months and you are going thru this is terrible.

Do not be too quick to forgive and sweep it under the rug. You need to dig deeper cause there is a good chance that there is more TT to come out. You realize there is a 99% chance they had sex already.

If she was feeling guilty about it she would not have continued sexting the OM until you discovered their A. She did not confess you extracted it from her over time & she has fed you tidbits. She had her night out with th OM planned in advance, she met him and had sex. She lied to you over and over, she is blame shifting the A on you. A is 100% on her.

Seriously dude I know you had 4 years with the woman, but after you decided that's the girl you will marry & she cheats on you four months into it. She cheated cause of your stress, seriously? I would pull the plug my man and find yourself a partner who isn't going to have sex with other men cause she has issues in a marriage.

[This message edited by notanotherchance at 12:24 AM, February 5th (Sunday)]

Yup, I would definitely let this one go, plenty of other women out there that would be faithful.

I wouldn't even think about staying with her.

On another note I know of zero guys that would be ok if their wife talked with another man about which sex toys would work best for her.

But she had heard that this guy friend was very knowledgeable when it comes to sex toys and she had asked me in the past if she could talk to him about it to get ideas for toys for us.

And she heard this from who exactly? What the guy is around the water cooler at work impressing all the women with his dildo knowledge. Seriously dude it looks like you two had zero bounderie's.

Unless you are leaving something out of your story, she must have had her night with the guy planned in advance. She didn't ask you if it was okay to stay with her friend, then take the guy aside and ask if she could stay at his place. She asked if she could stay at her friend's so that she could be with him.

What's more, she almost certainly enlisted her friend in the subterfuge. How could she tell you she was staying with her friend, then stay with someone else, and risk you casually bringing it up in conversation with her friend and getting a "What are you talking about? She never spent the night."

Getting a friend to help cover for you is getting in pretty deep. People talk and gossip and say things when they're drunk, you don't just casually ask someone to lie about where you spent the night on the spur of the moment.

Look, there is a chance that it all happened like your wife said. But if you had a gun to my head right now and asked me, based on what I know, to choose "She had sex with him and it's been been brewing for longer than a week" or "It all happened exactly like she said it did", I would choose the former, and I would feel pretty good about my chances of not getting shot.

I strongly suggest that you require her to take a polygraph test. If she's being honest with you, there's no reason for her to refuse; it's quick, it's painless, and it will help her regain the trust of the person she loves. If she balks-- or, as is very common, she agrees but then tries to back out as the date approaches-- then you know there's more to it. There's simply no legitimate reason to refuse a polygraph in a situation like this.

It is way too early for you to even think about making a decision. It hasn't even hit you yet what just happened...

They had sex, period.

Late 20's, no kids, cheating this early in the marriage, the answer is obvious: You have dodged a bullet. Do not waste a single moment. End the marriage. There is literally a whole world of honest women in their 20's out there. You deserve better.

Seems like she is not reacting well to being married. Took her all of 4 months to have sex with another guy.

And yes, they did have sex. Adults do not fool around like 13 yr olds playing spin the bottle with a stolen vibrator. Please. She must think you are very naive to try that line of crap.

Some will say do not make any decision yet. But the facts do not look good.

Married 4 months.

Pursing another man.

Have sex with him.

Sexting him.

Lying to you.

Only confessing (if you can call her story a confession) after being caught.

Do you really want to spend the rest of your life with this person, this lying cheater? Checking her phone and Facebook? Wondering what she is doing while you are at school or work?

No kids and a world full of non cheaters out there. Not even 30 yeas old yet.

If this was happening to your best friend, would you suggest he stay?

I'm so sorry for the shit sandwich your WW has served up but I'm glad you found us.

I've got to agree with the others that she is still lying to you. There is very little chance that two sexual active adults are going to spend the night just touching. There is no way he gave her oral and she didn't do the same for him. I'd say there is a 95% chance they had intercourse. Especially when this was planned out from the beginning ... which it was. She knows her story is unbelievable but she also knows you will desperately want to believe it and so she has a good chance of you accepting it. If she sticks to that story then you need to ask for a polygraph.

The thing is you are only 4 months into this marriage and she is already cheating and the reasons she gave are simply blame-shifting. My advice is to cut your losses and divorce her because otherwise this is likely to happen again and again throughout your marriage. I know you love her but she isn't the person you thought she was. She has now shown you who she really is and you best believe it. It takes 2 to 5 years to truly R without rug-sweeping and there is no guarantee you will be successful in reconciling. You are still young enough to start new with someone who won't cheat on you.

This is all on her and there was nothing you did or didn't do that caused her to cheat. All those reasons she gave are BS. She has been thinking about having sex with him, she has probably been flirting with him since prior to your wedding, she planned the staying overnight with him and I'm willing to bet they had sex. If you hadn't caught her it would still be going on. Trust me when I say you will never forget this and that if you stay with her you will be constantly wondering what she is doing every time she is absent or late from work or going out somewhere without you. Once again, I say cut your losses.

Cheating is a predictable human behavior, so what you're wife is saying and doing is predictable. Practically all cheaters lie and minimize. You don't have to take anyone's word for it, you can read the thousands of threads here and see it for yourself.

Most common lie: No sex.

Second most common lie: Only once.

So your wife spent the night with the guy. Very probably she had sex. She had an emotional attachment to the guy. I am basing that on all the texts. Based on that, I am going to say that she is going to be in contact with the guy. Maybe even going to meet with him again. There is an addictive behavior.

I would tell her that because of her lies, because the story is so ridiculous, because she destroyed all the evidence, that you can't believe here story. Tell her you are really, really having a tough time believing her and moving forward. Ask her if she would be willing to take a polygraph in order for you to believe her, gain some trust back, and move forward to stay married.

At 4 years together, 2 years married, I think you should consider strongly how she handles this. Now would be an easier way to get out than if you had kids, you are young, and are not set in many ways of your lives. If she is not showing signs that she is truly sorry and willing to do what needs to help you feel better about it, really consider moving on without her. The stresses you've had before are nothing compared to what you will after you have kids and jobs and aging parents and health issues as you age.

Get a voice-activated recorder and put it in her car. Tell her you're having trouble believing her story and ask her if she would be willing to take a polygraph. Ask her to send a no contact letter to the other man saying she never wants to have any contact with him ever again. Ask her to get tested for STDs. Ask her to tell the 3 friends what she has done, and that they were used as alibis.

Did the other friends know? I would suspect they do. Did they encourage it? I consider asking that anyone who knew and didn't strongly discourage it to be persona non grata also.

They guy should be deleted from contacts and blocked on him, on all emails, all social media.

There is no way you can stop her from contacting him, and trying to see if she is sincere or not, looking into her eyes, etc., is not a good indicator, the best indication is her actions. If you stay married, you will be dealing with this and have this terrible memory for the rest of your marriage. If she doesn't come clean about the sex now, if she refuses to take a polygraph without coming clean, you will always have serious doubts. If she doesn't go no contact with him and any other toxic go-girl friends, you always will feel a trigger and sting. So you ASK her to do some of these things that show some actions, which really do nothing to prove she will be faithful, but at least can show her ATTITUDE and WILLINGNESS to do those things, and judge based on that.

Since cheating is so predictable, I suspect very shortly, if you haven't gotten it already, that she "loves you but is not 'in love' with you" and that she is "confused" and has "feelings" (i.e., "in love") with the other man, and she needs "time" and "space" to figure it out (which means she will go to live with one of her girl friends, but really she will spend most of the time at the guy's apartment to give him a test run as her new "man.")

What your wife has done is to try to EQUATE and show FAIR/JUSTICE of her actions - you were "distant" and "pushed her away" but only a "little," so she had a few unfaithful actions but only a "little," so she is trying to make it like you're sorry, she's sorry, we're all equal now. But you can see that her story is a lie, and even if the one in a thousand chance it might turn out true, it does not equate with your normal reactions to the dog.

Now, as far as nuts and bolts - how in particular did it go from "the dog died and I'm upset" to "my husband was distant" to "let's go overnight and have sex." Did the guy initiate? Why and how would that make any sense, just now, to do that? Does he always do it, and she only gave in now? If so, then why has she never told you how the guy always hound-dogs her? Did she initiate it?

Listen, based on her past actions, where she asked him for sex advice, etc., I am suspecting that this sex thing maybe isn't a first-time thing, has been brewing for a while, and either one or the both had stepped over the line in the past and you never were told about it. Even if the guy or your wife had been flirting. And also because it seems these guys and girls are fairly close friends and "hang out," that none of them are blind to that dynamic that previously had existed for a while.

Odds are strong you're not getting the full story.

Use a recovery program on her phone and see what she deleted, don't tell her you're going to do it just "borrow" the phone and do it.