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Thank you ramius and Freeme for the insight. I honestly didn't think about the emphasis on the 4 months of marriage that way.

I have made it crystal clear to her that if I am going to even consider reconciliation after 1 month separation, that we remain monogamous and that there shall be no contact whatsoever with OM. She has no idea that I have multiple resources to recover deleted messages so I am not very worried about her trying to cover up anything.

My wife and I dated 5 years before we married. Yes 4 months after our wedding we were in the honeymoon stage. Happy committed having a great time. We were not going out separately with friends, my wife wasnt sending me home from the bar so she could go screw another dude.

Your WW was not, is not ready for marriage.

[This message edited by soulhurt at 9:24 PM, February 9th (Thursday)]

I have made it crystal clear to her that if I am going to even consider reconciliation after 1 month separation, that we remain monogamous and that there shall be no contact whatsoever with OM. She has no idea that I have multiple resources to recover deleted messages so I am not very worried about her trying to cover up anything.

Importantly has SHE accepted your boundary and promised to you that there will be NC between her and OM? If so you are in a great position if necessary to be able to put an end to this with your ability to recover deleted messages without her knowledge. If she has not agreed to or promised NC? Then you already have your answer from her unfortunately.

Best wishes.

so you are going to let her have a one month test ride with the other man and then consider reconciliation ?

Your arguments make no sense OP.

Either divorce or reconcile but considering that you haven't been shown remorse and she's making no effort, reconciliation is dead. You are young and have a cheating, needy wife who for some reason you put on a pedestal.Divorce is the only option out IMO

You need to chill it with the 'letting her fool around to be happy, then you will be happy' garbage. If you want an open relationship, then this place is probably not the best for you to get advice from. I suggest that your continued posts like that will serve to only trigger many here.

The one month separation should only take place if you are 100% certain you are going to divorce. You have few assets, you already split up your stuff, she's already moving on so I would suggest that you do too. You already acknowledged that you have a co-dependency problem. Take some time and fix that so when you meet the next person, you go into that relationship on more even ground.

I am sorry you are here and what you are going through but everytime you start having weak thoughts, think about her at that apartment of this guy and how you were lied to and abused and what your wife did with him and I am sure your positive thoughts about her will go away pretty quickly

[This message edited by Western at 5:52 AM, February 10th (Friday)]

I have made it crystal clear to her that if I am going to even consider reconciliation after 1 month separation, that we remain monogamous and that there shall be no contact whatsoever with OM. She has no idea that I have multiple resources to recover deleted messages so I am not very worried about her trying to cover up anything.

I don't see where you have looked at her past emails between her and OM. If you wouldn't do that now, after her claims of "just a hand job" but spending the night in bed with him. I can't see you doing it after she has been away for a month separated. If you are holding off on Divorce so you can see if it's the "right" choice for you ... you at least need to know the whole story. You need to know what you are trying to forgive. With deleted messages the longer you wait to retrieve them the harder they are to retrieve...

This doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I just missed the post, I saw where you asked for her phone but not where you retrieved the messages. Did you do it? Why or why not? What makes you think that you will look at her messages after a month if you have decided to reconcile? At that point you are going to even more ready to rug sweep. I guess I don't see the logic behind this separation.

It seems to me you are trying to "shock" her into showing true remorse. You make her go to MC (she blame shifts), you tell her divorce (she agrees) you back track and say separation (she agrees and stops talking to you.) I can tell you really, really want this to work, want HER to want this to work...I just don't see much from her. She had the Nerve to have sex with OM because she wasn't getting enough attention but not the Nerve to fight for her marriage? You can't make her want to do that... I also don't think she believes you would ever seriously leave her... so she is going to have fun on her break and make you pay for considering leaving her...that's her MO.

[This message edited by Freeme at 7:59 AM, February 10th (Friday)]

Or her friends, who encouraged the affair, will tell her to do a factory reset on her phone. Then you can't recover anything. Or she can get a burner phone at the dollar store for less than ten bucks.

She will be in contact with the OM during this month.

Frankly I don ‘t see the length of the marriage as being the big issue as in the time spent.

I don’t know why you decided to marry after 4 years. I have a friend that finally married his GF after 18 years simply to clarify health insurance and inheritance. Doubt they had a honeymoon period. I also know of a couple that married simply to increase their odds at getting an apartment (the landlord wouldn’t rent to unmarried couples living in “sin”). Nothing romantic about that…

What is the big issue is the relative ease of your two options.

To get out of infidelity you only have two realistic options: Divorce or reconcile.

Reconcile is an immensely hard thing to do. It requires IMMENSE work and the consensus is that you might reach a point where you can decide if it’s worth it or not after 2 years. Note I didn’t say you were reconciled after 2 years, but rather at a point where you might see the end of the tunnel a bit more brightly.

That’s 2 years where money that might have gone into saving for a down payment for an apartment is funneled to IC and MC.

That’s 2 years where any major financial decision should be deferred.

That’s 2 years where your social life has to adjust to you both being in pain.

That’s 2 years where…. The list goes on.

What might make the hard work worth it is attachment. If you already had kids, owned value in pensions, house, established long-term social group, combined family… Then you have something more than just the spouse to keep you committed to trying.

A truly reconciled marriage is a fantastic marriage. I think a marriage that could do the work reconciliation requires in establishing goals, communications, roles… without having to do infidelity first… could be the BEST marriage ever.

Divorce… It’s six months of pain. Six months of flatness. Six months of buildup. Lifetime of no regrets. With your relatively short relationship history (and yes 4 years is short), short marriage, no long-term unavoidable joint attachments… Divorce is the easier option.

BTW – I ended a +4-year-old relationship only 5 weeks before our planned wedding due to her infidelity. I went through the separation/divorce process and a comparable timeline as I describe above.

Man, you're being sold a bill of goods. You both have terrible boundaries and she's walking all over you. Talking with another guy about the purchase and use of sex toys? Fuck that noise! That would have been the beginning of the end for me and we would have had a conversation that might have ended the marriage right there and then. That's crap for boundaries and you went right along with it.

Find out the truth. It's on her phone if she hasn't factory reset it yet. I would not even entertain the idea of separation. Separation is, like others have pointed out, just a way to get you out of her face so she can live/plan her life without you in it.

No separation and an immediate change in attitude and becoming agreeable to all your terms or you file D with no delay. It can always be stopped if she removes her head from her butt and decides to work on the marriage. She's using your fear of D and being without her against you. Heck man, even your pets are being used against you. Well, friend, you deserve better and you can get it. Lose that fear. Do not be scared of her leaving. Tell her either she gets on board your train or not- but it's leaving right now.

Or her friends, who encouraged the affair, will tell her to do a factory reset on her phone. Then you can't recover anything.

Actually you can if you use the right software.

A factory reset doesn't over-write every bit in the memory, only the system files and deletes everything else, so they are usually recoverable.

What Bigger said^^^ I realize now after 4 months that I don't want to risk more heartache with someone I cant trust. While I was never even given the opportunity of reconciliation, unremorseful WW, I have reached a place in my heart that knows it would likely not work in the end. Too much damage has been done. All of this after 25 years of marriage. Your young, get on with life! You can do this!

After reading everyone's advice and taking into consideration everything that I am starting to remember now that most of the fog has lifted, I don't see any option other than divorce.

I remembered how in MC the other day she kept trying to say that I threw her phone at her when I had rushed into our place of living after finding the messages on her phone that revealed the affair. She also kept trying to play the victim by talking about how the way I acted when I found out about the affair has harmed her mentally.

To make things clear, I threw her phone on the bed next to her. And when I say throw, I mean a slightly hard toss. When it happened, she was still mostly asleep plus she has terrible vision and is legally blind without contacts or glasses on. I threatened divorce upon finding out about the affair. Also, I will be the first to admit that I was pissed and I overreacted and broke and threw away all of the sex toys that I had bought for her. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that. But I never once verbally (unless threatening divorce is verbally harming) or physically harmed her.

To make things worst, she has told her family "all of the details" according to her. Although I don't know exactly what she told them, I can almost guarantee she tried to play the victim and said that I threw her phone at her.

Ugh. I thought the anger phase was over. Boy was I wrong. By her saying I was trying to physically harm her is the exact same shit her manipulative mom did to her dad when she was growing up. I guess like mother like daughter.

[This message edited by ihatechoosinga at 4:18 PM, February 10th (Friday)]

I threatened divorce upon finding out about the affair. Also, I will be the first to admit that I was pissed and I overreacted and broke and threw away all of the sex toys that I had bought for her. In hindsight, I shouldn't have done that.

Just so you know, this was a very normal reaction for finding out your wife has been cheating.

Blood is thicker than water...her family may believe her but even if they don't they will side with her.

I also think the longer you are away from her the better you will be able to see her manipulative behavior.

Good luck

After reading everyone's advice and taking into consideration everything that I am starting to remember now that most of the fog has lifted, I don't see any option other than divorce.

Of course there is another option.

You can forgive her, take her back, spend the next few years sweeping what she did under the rug and devoting all your time and energy to making her happy, eventually have children together, and then finding out that she cheated on you again because you taught her to believe that you have no self-respect or grit.

Now that you know what your other option is, you should be able to make the right decision.

I have come to find that one of the most difficult parts of being separated is that the WS has more people supporting her in the wake of the affair that she was having than I have.

I don't wish her to have no support. I'm not that mean and cold. Believe me, I know life isn't fair. I've learned that many times in my life. But it just doesn't seem fair that the person who was having the affair is getting more support than me.

And to be honest, whenever I see that she has all this support, it feels like someone keeps twisting the dagger in my heart.

She is getting her own apartment away from her friend.

Her and OM are going to have all kinds of fun... all kiiinddss

The amount of support she has could have a lot to do with how good she is a manipulating the truth so others feel sorry for her. If she can present it as she made one little mistake and your are being unreasonable. All of her friends will buy into it and comfort the poor little thing.

It has little to nothing to do with you or who you are, its a game she is playing to get sympathy. At this point you shouldn't be paying much attention to what she has going on. The 180 will help with that, just make yourself the center of your universe for a while. Take time to take care of yourself and heal. You don't need a huge support network, you just need a good one.

Thanks for the insight ItsNotMe. I have been implementing the 180 and have been paying very little attention to her.

To be honest, the 180 has been helping me get through a lot of this because it is forcing me to face the fact that I can get through this and live my life without her.

Going back to her amount of support, it's just one of those things I have noticed that wasn't making sense to me. So instead of giving her the attention and trying to ask her or her friends why, I thought I would ask you all.

I've read through your thread a couple times. You are doing what you need to do. There just isn't anything easy about it. Its not that hard to logically think your way through things, that is until your emotions come into play. Emotions do not have their roots in logic. Its more of a wants, desires, needs type of thing and emotions throw their own temper tantrum when they don't get what they want. You just happen to be caught between logic and emotion right now.

The 180 takes the temptation away from the emotions and lets you think your way through things logically. Not that your emotions won't still fight against logic, logic just has a better chance of winning more of the time.

There is nothing easy about where you're at. But you are dealing with it well. Hang in there. Its a long road, pace yourself. In the end, you will be ok.

... it just doesn't seem fair that the person who was having the affair is getting more support than me.

As you yourself said, life isn't always fair.

Two pieces of advice:

1) Start cultivating your relationships with family and friends. Talk to them, go see them, spend time with them. If you want people to support you when times are tough, you have to be in their lives the rest of the time.

2) Up your 180 game. The reason you feel bad about the support she is getting is because you still have feelings for her (even if just negative feelings). Your goal is to not care what happens to her, good or bad.

Finally, let me note that you have made quite a bit of progress since you first posted only a couple of weeks ago, so take heart from that.

Hope this helps.

Thanks Alchemy for the input. Even though I know I have made a lot of progress, it is always nice to hear that someone else has noticed.

Sometimes it scares me how much progress I have made in the last couple of weeks.

Having said that, when the times are bad, it feels as if I haven't made any progress.

However, it is nice for the ups and downs to be more spread out rather than every couple of minutes like they were even a week and a half ago.