SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Being a compassionate man who can see himself accepting her cheating and being able to move on is an absolute necessity for true reconciliation. The issue with infidelity is that this isn't nearly enough. Your wife needs to be truly remorseful (different than regret) and willing to do whatever it takes to help you heal and rebuild your marriage.

As others have said, it could be that your wife is taking your compassion as weakness. Like she thinks she can just chill you out with some tears & I'm sorrys and go back to the affair - keeping it deep underground. You can't change your spots but there is a time & place for everything. I think this is a time for you to be compassionate with YOURSELF and your children. Focus on your healing and providing all the support possible for your kids.

Your wife is lying about the sex. There are dozen's of ways to treat EA and the guy would have been very motivated to get it hard when with your wife. Of course what you know right now is devastating. I'm sure your imagination is running wild regarding all the things they did whether he got hard or not. Most guys need to know most of the truth about the sex before they can begin to consider reconciliation. She'll never tell you the whole truth - they never do - but you should get enough to know most of the nasty details.

I contacted the spouse! THANK YOU --that's the best advice I could ever receive.

I just finished a half-hour conversation with her. She's the only person in this drama who truly knows what I'm going through. She was aware he was unfaithful over the last decade, but every time he'd "I'm sorry" etc. and she'd take him back. If only she'd contacted me back then!

I'm sure she's shook up, but she was very practical about things which I found inspiring. We corroborated on details and I feel, surprisingly, better about what my WS has said.

They did have an EA, on and off, for 10 years. Like drug addicts, they'd always find a way back. It was mainly one hour visits. And the $24,000 question: yes, he is impotent. Not his gropy hands and lizard tongue, however, so it's poor consolation

I feel so much better today, after posting here, reading your replies, and then contacting the spouse.

anoka: yeah "great" :) The days are sometimes not-entirely-terrible, sometimes black and awful. My self-esteem is pretty good because I'm the one who DIDN'T cheat. If we end up divorced I can begin again and hold my head high. My WS has to live with herself, and I don't envy her at all.

Him being impotent is a lucky break for you that intercourse didn't actually occur BUT you have to keep in mind that's the ONLY reason it didn't. Your wife's desire to be physical with him was there and you have to deal with that if your desire is to stay together.

I think the polygraph route here is the only way to go (assuming you don't just simply decide to file right away). Cheating for so long is just so awful and shows what kind of life she leads - I know from personal experience.

I hate to say it but given how long she lived what in effect was a double life I wouldn't be surprised if there's more difficult news to learn about. The best way to find out is to require a polygraph.

CincyKid: excellent point. It's more about my ego than anything else. The fact he's an old man also makes me feel less threatened --not in any practical way, because clearly he was able to ruin my marriage and threaten my family. In a small ego way it matters. Knowing they did everything else (and reading about it in the gross emails) makes me aware that the *degrees* of sex are kind of irrelevant.

The EA hurts as much as the physical stuff, from my point of view. Maybe more because our marriage wasn't suffering from the thesis, so she did it without any external reasons.

CornflakeGirl: thank you for your advice to focus inward. I'm taking this to heart, and it already makes me feel a little stronger. I don't need my WS, or my marriage, to focus on me.

I will also be watching her actions. I want to see her being *more* honest, being consistent, listening to my rants without hesitation, and most importantly following through on NC. If she crosses that line we are truly done, because everything is at stake and I have no forgiveness left.

After talking to the spouse I realize my WS and the OM are truly like addicts. Promising to stop, then continuing. She also believes it's about their self-esteem, feeling worshipped (her) and feeling vital (him).

She also believes it's about their self-esteem, feeling worshipped (her) and feeling vital (him).

This is super-duper common. We usually call them 'ego kibbles.'

We often recommend that the wayward spouse go to therapy to figure out why they did something so awful.

Most wayward spouses like to blame their betrayed partner, which is not correct. The correct response to a bad spouse is to get a divorce, go to marriage counseling... it is NEVER to have an affair.

She needs to figure out what is wrong with her and why she had this affair. In my opinion, it is critically important that both of you pin 100% of the blame of the affair on her. You need to realize that it has nothing to do with you... she needs to realize that it had nothing to do with you either.

I contacted the spouse! THANK YOU --that's the best advice I could ever receive.

I just finished a half-hour conversation with her. She's the only person in this drama who truly knows what I'm going through. She was aware he was unfaithful over the last decade, but every time he'd "I'm sorry" etc. and she'd take him back. If only she'd contacted me back then!

I'm sure she's shook up, but she was very practical about things which I found inspiring. We corroborated on details and I feel, surprisingly, better about what my WS has said.

They did have an EA, on and off, for 10 years. Like drug addicts, they'd always find a way back. It was mainly one hour visits. And the $24,000 question: yes, he is impotent. Not his gropy hands and lizard tongue, however, so it's poor consolation

I feel so much better today, after posting here, reading your replies, and then contacting the spouse.

anoka: yeah "great" :) The days are sometimes not-entirely-terrible, sometimes black and awful. My self-esteem is pretty good because I'm the one who DIDN'T cheat. If we end up divorced I can begin again and hold my head high. My WS has to live with herself, and I don't envy her at all.

Congrats on taking control of your life. I truly hope that you stick around here -- exposure is ALWAYS the biggest hurdle with betrayeds taking control of their life. It would be amazing to have another first-hand advocate.

Oh hell yes, Hugo!

It feels to good to have at least some control over the chaos you've been going through.

The EA hurts as much as the physical stuff, from my point of view.

Yes, it does, and I'd guess most people, especially men don't realize that right away. Sex is just physical, guys can understand that to some extent, but the giving that special bond away to a stranger is the hardest part to learn to deal with.

I wish good luck with that.

I'm just repeating this because you said it mattered to you. Impotence is nearly always treatable. Drugs like Viagra work even on men who have had their prostate gland removed. There are many other treatments as well. They would have jumped through fire to get him hard so finding an effective treatment would have been easy. With this in mind, the chances that they didn't have intercourse are near zero.

As far as his wife is concerned she may not have been his sexual target - at least for intercourse - so she might well be ignorant about any treatment he found effective.

Evan though your spouse has a PHD, she may not know what she should be doing to help save the marriage. Maybe some of the veterans could recommend some things for her to read?

What do you mean by 'barely no contact's?

Has she gone nc with others - either that knew of/enabled the affair or with friends of om?

How do you know she is nc with om?

This is a double kick to the balls. I'm not sure if compassion means you should be staying with ww but you do need it. I just don't think compassion is enough.

You need a remorseful wife. You noted her continued lies, trickle truth, minimization, etc. That's a sign of a lack of remorse.

It's possible she snaps her head out of her rectum later. It often happens after a delay. But that reality check usually comes because bs isn't prepared to accept anymore bs and starts implementing consequences.

What consequences has your ww had?

How are you holding up? Eating? Sleeping? Also, drink lots of water but avoid alcohol.

William: thanks for the advice wrt eating drinking etc. Today's the first day I feel a bit of control, and I'm going to make it a priority to do those things.

One of the messages I took from these posts, one that has made an immediate impact, is to take care of myself. Just the act of thinking of myself means I'm not dwelling on my WS or her betrayal. I have a feeling of control that's a wonderful break from the exploding car wreck I've been living in for 11 days.

The TT remains a sticking point. Yesterday I got more changes to the timeline, which are largely irrelevant to how I feel if it weren't for the deception involved post-D. She's her own worst enemy at this point. I sense sincere remorse but I can tell that inside she's unable to completely process and accept what she's done.

She's going into therapy and hopefully the TT will finally stop. It's almost compulsive to her, the desire to spin the facts. But now that I'm in contact with the other spouse my WS has no wiggle room left.

My WS has always been a liar. I've know this about her for 20 years. She has always lied to minimize punishment, or get away with selfish needs. The shock is that she could lie to me about BIG things. That's what has sent me reeling.

So today we are arranging for therapists and I'm getting STD tested. I've found a divorce lawyer near to my work, and I'm going to visit or call tomorrow.

arobk: I've specifically asked her to post in the WS forums here. I've found the support on SI to be so invaluable. She has no clue how to even do damage control, and she's isolated from her one and only friend (me). I hope she takes the time and shows me some ACTION in the right direction.