SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Just found out yesterday that my wife of 10 yrs and mother of 2 kids had an affair with a coworker. She came to me and told me about the affair and says she wants to make our marriage work. I love her and want it to work but I’m not sure I can forgive. Part of my issue is that if this was a one time sexual encounter I think I could look forward but she told me she had sex with about TEN times in a 2 week period!!!! She says it was just sex and he doesn’t mean anything to her more than that (he’s 10 yrs younger than her). I just don’t know where to go from here.

What made her tell you about it?

Welcome Bucblitz. I am sorry you had to find us, but glad you did. We are the best place you never hoped to find.

Over on the left is a healing library. Pull up a chair and begin your new life. You see, the old one is now gone. It's up to you how you want the new one to be.

It sucks, she did all of this without your consent. You and she need to get a full panel of STD tests. No sex with her until you know you both are clean.

The good news is she confessed to you. That is not common here on this site. Normally, the WS is discovered or they never tell the truth, or even worse the TT (trickle truth) and lies are discovered over many months to years and often the affair carries on and goes deep under ground.

Is she going to change jobs?

There is a lot to think about and your feelings are going to go all over the place. Please keep posting all of your questions and concerns.

More will be along soon.

I'm sorry this has happened to you, brother. I know it sucks.

I don't have time for much right now, but I wanted to say this:

Less than 1% of wayward spouses (WSes) confess on their own for no reason other than they want to come clean to their betrayed spouse (BS).

You need to find out why she confessed. Someone caught them, possibly his spouse/gf/SO. Or if they work together, it was possibly someone there. Maybe a friend of yours saw them.

If the OM (Other Man) has a spouse, contact her immediately. Inform her if she doesn't know. And get info from her if she does know. If she doesn't know,make plans to talk to her again after she confronts him.

More ppl will be here to give more guidance.

You're in the right place, and you will get thru this.

Buc , you’ve been heard, shipmate. You’ve come to the right place. It’s filled with a whole lot of “been there-done that”.

You just got hit with a thunderbolt, got dumped into an emotional jungle from a crashed airplane...pick your metaphor. You just suffered what is likely the worst trauma of your life. Recognize it, and accept that your old marriage and old life with the previous wife is over. The person standing in front of you is a stranger. The sooner you can wrap your head around these realities, the sooner you can stop the bleeding and think about healing.

You’ll get lots of advice, each of it coming from a mix of individual experience and collective knowledge. The one universal 100% agreed on piece of advice, with zero dissent, is to TAKE CONTROL. At all times you now drive the bus, your wife having drove it into a ditch, so to speak.

First items: eat and drink. Stay hydrated and nourished. Take care of yourself.

Second: understand what you’ve been told is the tip of the iceberg. You’ve only begun to learn the truth from her. You’ve also only begun to learn what it’s impact is on you. This takes time. Be patient.

Following from that is make no permanent decisions on where your marriage goes, other than there is no toleration for infidelity at all, ever.

Again, you’ve been heard. This is all absolutely survivable for you, but to be frank about the statistics of it, your marriage will probably not survive. Those are just the hard numbers, based on thousands to millions of data points. Accept the direness of it and fight for what you want. We’ll back you.

Sending strength!

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 6:03 AM, November 20th (Tuesday)]

She says she told me because she couldn’t live with the guilt anymore. This is a fresh affair also just happened a week ago so the fact she told me so quickly makes me have have some hope we can work through this. No one else knew as far as I know. He is a single guy and they only had sex at his house from what she tells me. She did go into pretty good detail about the affair when I asked questions so I think it’s a good sign she doesn’t seem to be hiding anything? It was her idea to attend MC as well.

It was her idea to attend MC as well.

It is too early for MC.

The purpose of MC is to fix a marriage, where both parties need to work together to make changes, and where implicitly both parties are responsible for its current state. But here’s the deal, she is 1000% responsible for the affair, and so she needs to fix herself first, before you guys can work on the marriage.

If you go into MC early, it often turns into a blame-sharing exercise that just makes it worse for you.

"She says it was just sex and he doesn't mean anything to her more than that".

So she thought so little of you and your kids that she was willing to potentially destroy your family for "sex" with someone that doesn't "mean anything to her"? How thoughtful of her.

Sorry you're here. You'll get great advice on how to move forward.

How do you know he's single?

Only accept information that can be verified. Your wife can not be considered as a valid source of information.

How do you know he is single?

How do you know they never had sex in your house?

How do you know it was 10 times?

How do you know it was only 2 weeks?

How do you know the reason she told you is guilt?

If the answer to these questions is - "because my wife told me" - then you may have a problem.

She may be telling you because someone found out and she was scared they would tell you.

What HouseOfPlane just said. No MC until IC.

The fact that she came to you and confessed is a good sign. She says she couldn't live with the guilt but, perhaps, she was afraid you were going to find out from someone. Confessing because of the guilt is one thing. Confessing to get ahead of an informant is another.

There's a lot of great advice and guidance here on SI. Everyone here has lived what you're going through.

I suggest getting the book "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by Linda J. McDonald for your WW (wayward wife). It's a short book filled with guidance for a wayward. She needs to be "all in" to make R possible.

Reconciliation (R) is very possible. Don't rugsweep. As said above, the A is 1000% on your WW. Do not take any responsibility for it on your shoulders. She needs to own it entirely. Marital issues are shared in some ratio and not necessarily 50:50. I posit that the cheater often contributes more to marital issues than the betrayed.

Your WW needs to not work with the COW. There needs to be no contact (NC) with him in any form. She needs to be entirely transparent with all communication with anyone and by any means.

As I said, R is possible. There are people here on SI that have successfully R'd from what I consider very bad situations. The choice is yours, however. I would suggest not making life altering decisions too soon especially when emotional. It's also entirely possible that adultery is a deal breaker for you.

You will hear here that some are pro R and some are pro D. All are pro get out of adultery and, I hope, pro heal and have a good life. The decision to R or D is yours. We just want what is best for you.

I'm so sorry you are here. This is a violent roller coaster ride and a marathon not a sprint. A common saying is that it takes 2 to 5 years to heal. I don't know if 5 years is actually enough for some including me. That's whether you R or D.

Best wishes to you, BucBlitz.

Be careful. She miggt be minimizing the affair. 10 times could be 20. 2 weeks could be 2 months. So she had her fin and did only God knows what with this man. Things that she might have never done with you and now she feels guilty? Verify, verify, verify. Ask her for her phone, email, and social media accounts immediately. Get all passwords. She will probably ask why and deny you. But there is information in those sites that could verify her story. Ask her to write a timeline of the affair. She must quit her job too and tell he what she and POS did. Her must face real consequences.

[This message edited by WilliamM at 7:08 AM, November 20th (Tuesday)]

Both of you need to get tested for STDs

My other question is what do I do about living with her for now if we do try to work it out? Do I kick her out? Do I leave? If there wasn’t any kids I would say bye bitch but with them in the picture I don’t know. I stayed at a hotel last night and left her with the kids. She works 12 hrs shifts at a hospital and is fixing to work 7 days straight for the holidays so I’ll need to be home with the kids. But if I tell her to leave you know what my mind will race to.....

I'm sorry you're here. You've just lost your marriage and the woman you married. Yes really .... they are both destroyed.

Give yourself 90 days to decide to D or R. Read up on the 180. Distance yourself from your wife. See your doctor for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (yes you've just been hit by a truck), see your lawyer, see IC just for you to heal from the betrayal).

It's now up to you to decide whether to D or R (rebuild a new marriage with a very different woman than the one you married).

Don't believe more than 50% of what she says or promises.

Don't be swayed by tears and drama about how guilty and ashamed she is. Don't fall into believing her level of tears means she will never cheat again.

Her immediate emotions (and confession) are driven by her own personal needs (not yours). She will minimize her responsibility (blame you or others) and will withhold details about the affair.

She needs to read: Not Just Friends by Shirley Glass

This book provides an excellent foundation to discuss boundaries at work.

She also needs to read: How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair: A Compact Manual for the Unfaithful by MacDonald

You can buy them used on Amazon.

She works 12 hrs shifts at a hospital and is fixing to work 7 days straight for the holidays...

The OM was a co-worker, correct?

It's time for a gut-check on her part, and an exerting of full control on yours. This is where you insist on absolutely guaranteed No Contact (NC) with the partner. And there is no way to guarantee NC if she is working at the same place as he is. One of them has to quit right now, period, end of story. Actions have consequences, and you have absolutely no obligation to be the one to suffer in this, by watching her go out the door to work knowing she is going to see him again.

So how important is her marriage to her? How important is her family? Tell her if she goes in to work and he is there, you'll assume she has chosen him over you and the children, and best of luck with her new life.

It has to be this way, you taking control and setting hard, non-movable non-negotiable boundaries that she must respect. She needs the hard, sharp shock to understand the magnitude of what she has done.

Time for her to take a gut-check...

Along the "take control" mantra, knowledge is power and power is control. See a lawyer right now and learn about all of the laws and rules governing a divorce in your state. How property and children are handled, etc. This knowledge will give you a foundation, and allow you to overcome the tsunami of uncertainty you are feeling right now, and put you in control.

Sending strength!

You came to the right place to get yourself out of infidelity.

Generally, the more information you provide to us the more useful our advice will be.

First: SAVE all evidence (emails, text, pics)

How old are you and your wife?

First marriage?

Any history of cheating?

How old are your kids?

What is your wife's job title, does she supervise him, what kinds of work environment (office, warehouse, retail), shift work or regular hours, does she travel?

Do you both earn the same income or is one the primary?

How did she meet him? a work project or lunch or at an offsite group function?

How long has she been there? How long was he there?

Is your wife religious?

Who else knows (perhaps a close friend of your wife?)

Did your wife recently loose a lot of weight or suddenly improve her appearance and fitness level?

Are others at her workplace cheating?

Buc, I'm going through this too right now. My WH admitted it a month ago and it happened 6-7 years ago, but it hurts as if it just happened so I get it.

The first few days to a week was excruciating... it still is but less I guess? I kicked my WH out and that lasted about 2 days. I asked him to come home because I was dangerous to myself being alone with my thoughts. We have 3 kids together and I also missed my teammate. We make a great team helping each other with the kids, etc. So it was like missing my right arm. But I also realized how much I loved him even though I wanted to hate him. It's a sucky feeling to be in the middle of.

I really feel for you. I hate that all of us have to be in this group. The pain is unreal... but you can get through it! I've learned from reading on this group that IC is best before MC. We started MC right after D-day and the therapist even said, okay cool now we're going to start IC right away with each of you. I didn't get it at first. Now I do even if it hasn't really started helping just yet. I guess that takes time to make real changes. The waiting for things to get better is the hardest part.

Good luck to you! After a month in, I feel like R is possible eventually, because I'm able to have more moments where I'm not constantly thinking about images of those two together... but some days I go right back to square one. It's not easy... time heals wounds... we can all get through this.

[This message edited by Lovehurts777 at 8:58 AM, November 20th (Tuesday)]

You have a good chance to rebuild if you handle this correctly right now. Your decision. Read all the things in the healing library here. Your wife should read the two books suggested. She shares everything on phones, emails, nothing held back. 100% honesty and you get to verify. This is the healthy starting place. She needs to did deep to find out why she chose to do this.