SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

When two people get married, one of the things they are taking a chance on is that one or the other may have an A.

If one married partner has an A, one of the risks of R is that the same WS will re-offend with another A. R implies giving the WS a second chance to either (a) be faithful, or (b) cheat again. One of the things we advise you to look for in deciding whether to R is whether she can make you feel safe.

Now, you are considering whether to give her a third chance. It's up to you. Many would have a great deal of difficulty ever feeling safe enough to do that.

She's my best friend

Definition of friend: loyal, honest and trustworthy.

You are in denial.

Sorry man, Google serial cheater

FijiMan:

Sorry you find yourself here. Having to deal with your WW’s repeat A is so difficult. As you described the pain is unbearable. Whatever you decide to do in the long run, R or D, you will receive support here. If this is a dealbreaker for you we all understand. If you choose to try and R it is a difficult road, as you have learned before it takes years, but others have recovered and R’d from worse. It is not hopeless by any means.

However, your WW has to figure out and face her why’s for doing this. She needs serious IC and therapy as a start. She has destroyed your trust. As you move forward she will have to demonstrate consistent actions to try and repair the damage as well as empathy for your suffering. She has to be willing to take your anger and questions without being defensive. It’s good that she is feeling pain, regret, and self hatred, but it is important that she realize that it is not about her pain but about empathy and care for your pain. This is no time for “poor me, look at what I have done.”

Her actions to earn your trust now must be consistent for years, one day at a time. It may be that no matter how much work she does, she can not regain your trust. But time is your ally. You will be able to tell as you move Along if she is genuine. She will need a lot of courage to face the destruction of your trust she has caused. At the end of the day, you can never know if there will be a third A. If you decide to R and see her actions as warranting another try, it still will take a leap of faith on your part to be vulnerable to her again. Good luck.

[This message edited by fareast at 6:48 PM, August 30th (Thursday)]

Hi, welcome to SI.

My concern is she saw the devastation her first affair caused, and she has a second affair? Seriously, it probably took years to get your marriage on track after the first A.

She's shown you twice who she really is, you should start to believe her.

No excuses, the guy pursued her? There's a little bitty word called, "no." She had to be sending mixed signals, because in my book no is no. Not interested. Period. The truth is she enjoyed his pursuit and was enjoying the ego kibbles he probably threw at her.

I'm sorry you are living through this nightmare once again. You are experiencing what every betrayed spouse on this site fears...a second affair.

Even if you do stay, I agree with the above poster that she needs to cut the crap about giving into his advances. If she really wasn't interested, she could have handled this so many different ways than having an A. She could have told you, stopped going to the gym, avoided him as much as possible, and even gone to the police. She could have chosen to do these things even if she was attracted to him and saw the potential for another A. It would have been the responsible thing to do.

There is no way that she didn't want this, willingly exchanged contact information with him, and agreed to the A knowing it would be devastating to you. She needs to own that and stop putting the blame on someone else. It's paramount to remorse and reconciliation.

Be very careful about saying she is remorseful. She's good at looking remorseful but because she chose to do this again, she proved that she wasn't remorseful at all the first time. She was faking it to keep you around. Remorse is about focusing on you, your pain, and your recovery. Even now it's all about her. Shame and guilt is self centered and a hindrance to remorse and reconciliation.

You took your guard down. You enabled her. A cheater cant have that much freedom... its a like drug addict who if given all that opportunity will regress. Not sure how you put up with it the first time.. but again??? your just sending all the wrong messages.... If she is truly remorseful she will try to win your back after you divorce her. after all this time she was willing to put you are your kids at risk in so many ways. They came a far second or third to her lustful desires. This my friend is not true love. It is my opinion that she is only remorseful because she knows what she could lose. There is no real remorse and I doubt there was ever any to begin with.

Fijiman, I'm sorry you've join this club nobody wants to join, but you're receiving great advice here.

Regardless of wether you ultimately decide to R or D, this is her second A, so drastic measures should be warranted, if you finally decice to R, contact a D lawyer and DEMAND she signs a Postnup with an infidelity clause in your favor, if she cheats again in the future, you file for D and get full custody of the children, she gets no alimony, pays you child support and leave the M broke without a penny. If she refuses to sign the postnup that means she does not want her option to cheat in the future taken away from her, therefore just file for D and don't look back.

EXPOSE the A to all close family and friends, she needs to apologize to them for what she's done to you and for having risked your life (she needs to get STD tested) and for risking the stability of the children's life. Keep posting.

[This message edited by Buster123 at 12:47 AM, August 31st (Friday)]

You gave her the gracious gift of reconciliation at great personal sacrifice to your emotional health. You finally, after years, start to heal and she takes a knife and plunges it into your back. I know you love the person you thought she was but she's proving to you she's not that person. For your own health and safety, please don't give her a chance to stab you in the back yet again.

I agree with AnnB. As always, spot on

** posting as a member **

You enabled her.

I read that as blaming the victim. Is that what you intended? Please clarify.

If you do mean the statement as it stands, if you told your story, I, and others, could understand....

** posting as a Guide **

WS's cheat because of their own issues, not because of issues with their BSes or their Ms. Scratch a WS, and generally we find a person who needs external validation, a person with a personality disorder, bi-polar, etc..

A cheater cant have that much freedom...

That seems to imply that a BS who Rs has to keep constant watch over his fWS.

If R is on the table, the cheater needs essentially the same freedom that the BS has. R will work only if both partners choose R mindfully and mindfully commit to do the work.

A BS can't R successfully with a WS who gets manipulated or forced into R. Eventually, a WS who isn't fully committed to doing the work will rebel, probably in nasty ways.

How does the WS have the same freedom as the BS, when that WS may have to change jobs, lose a lot of privacy, have to spill her guts in IC and change herself from cheater to good partner?

Because the WS freely chooses to provide those things to her BS and to her M.

Free choice. It's the only way to R.

It's natural, I think, for a BS who wants R to try to control his WS in the days and even weeks after d-day, but that gets old very quickly.

More important, the BS simply has to realize fairly soon that he can control only himself. Control another person without imprisoning that person on a 24 X 7 basis is simply impossible.

To heal, the BS has to give up the outcome - he can't control D or R, he can't keep his partner from cheating.