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"SIL had her legs wrapped around your H waist" in the pool.

If I walked out and saw my wife doing this I would divorce her on the spot and if I was doing likewise she'd have every reason to dump my ass as well.

I suggest not allowing your SIL to speak or “explain” anything g to you. It will be misunderstood and become accusations of your “over reacting” to what you saw.

Instead I would sit down H, BIL and SIL all together. Do Not lose control of the conversation or the situation. As calmly as possible, you should tell them what you saw in the pool was inappropriate behavior/contact between your husband and your sister-in-law. Again, they are not to speak or interrupt or start accusing you of anything or lying to you as a way to rationalize their behavior.

You should explain to all four of them that what occurred was cheating, And that it needs to be addressed. Tell them in the future there will be no excessive drinking when the four of you are together, and should it start to occur, you will have no choice but to leave with your family.

Then suggest that counseling is required to address the inappropriate behavior and sexual contact that occurred between your husband and your sister-in-law. And future family get together soon are to be with an awareness that alcohol consumption needs to be monitored by all involved.

Then leave the room. Do not engage in further conversation with them or attempt to discuss anything at this time. Wait for them to calm down and realize this is not a joke.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 8:23 PM, November 3rd (Sunday)]

6. Wh claims to not remember these incidents. I don’t know how to move past something I don’t know the full extent of. Not know what was happening under the water is driving me insane.

This is gas lighting. You are being gas lighted by not being given accurate information.

Regardless, in the end, the details of what happened underwater are irrelevant. Here's what you need to know, and all you need to know:

Your husband and your husband's brother's wife were engaging in inappropriate, sexually oriented physical contact in the swimming pool. They were in physical contact with each other in the pool, and they were doing so for the purposes of sexual arousal. Your husband became sexually aroused by it. Your husband and your sister in law were engaged in a type of sex. It may or may not have been penetrative sex of some type involving hands, but it was a type of physical contact for the purposes of sexual arousal. It was sex, penetrative or not.

This is way inappropriate. You don't need further "proof."

4. Why didn’t I stop him right then and there and pull him inside and make him go to bed?

Because he's a grown assed man, not a child, and because there was no logical, sane reason why you should have anticipated that the situation would devolve into sexual contact with your sister in law in the swimming pool. WTF?

5. If reconciliation was to occur, how do I spend the rest of my life across the Thanksgiving table from her?

You don't, and it's not required of you. It's not up to you to sit quietly and swallow crow because your husband and your sister in law lack the maturity, presence of mind and basic decency to avoid lobbing a grenade into the family.

They are responsible for this mess, not you. You don't sacrifice your dignity to their stupidity and immaturity.

IF you *ever* come to a place where you can comfortably and honestly accept that these two people are fully responsible, remorseful, grateful for your forgiveness, transparent, trustworthy, *and* you feel confident that they have your best interest at heart, THEN if you are comfortable YOU can extend grace enough to accommodate the family portrait holiday pageant. BUT this is NOT required of you, not now, not ever. It's not up to you to swallow your dignity, your pride, and your boundaries to keep everyone else feeling comfortable.

Your husband and your sister in law are solely responsible for their stupid shenanigans. Each of them needs to get right down to the roots of their individual problems, and each and both of them need to make a full accounting of that to you, the person they each injured with their own damage and issues, BEFORE you allow EITHER of them to impact you again in ANY way, positive or negative.

Every other adult who was present and who engaged in rug sweeping at your expense is responsible and beholden to you for that rug sweeping, at your expense.

Ergo for that reason, I would, after a sense, "blow this shit up." I'd sit every adult present that day down, together if it suits you and if you can stand up to possible group think on their behalf, and explain in no uncertain terms that you and your marriage were violated, both by the two direct participants and their actions, and by every other adult present who is understood to love and value you as a part of the extended family unit, but whom devalued you by ignoring this grievous behavior and not calling it out, intervening on your behalf and honestly, on behalf of *everyone,* and whom continue to act like you and your marriage were not horrendously violated.

It doesn't have to be a nuclear blow up but you have a right IMHO to state your truth, to defend your boundaries and to demand that you, your boundaries and your marriage be respected.

Dignity, Sister, you have it, the others in this situation have apparently abandoned what dignity they had. You don't have to surrender your dignity to make everyone else feel better about their emotionally lazy, immature actions or lack there of.

Every adult present that day owes you a big assed apology for disrespecting you and your marriage, and at least two or three of the adults (your husband, your sister in law and perhaps your brother in law) belong in IC for their shit boundaries and disrespectful behavior toward you, toward each other, toward the entire family, toward their own children, and toward themselves.

Honestly, until they can get their heads wrapped around how abjectly disrespectful this whole situation was and is, I wouldn't expect anything near acceptable behavior out of them, and I wouldn't tolerate any of their noise (or lack of it) at all.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. =(

When you do tell your BIL, don't tell him in front of your SIL. Don't give her the opportunity to lie, deny, minimize, and turn this around on you like that. Tell him privately, include your gut feeling that it's gone on longer, and let him handle it. If he confronts her himself, she might confess to more that you don't know about. If you put her on the spot with your WH, it's not going to end well. She will feel cornered and will lash out. If they're young and immature, you can throw any hopes of working this out together like adults out the window and simply allow them to handle it between each other after you tell your BIL.

At the end of the day, what's best for the kids is what's best for each parent individually whether that's staying together and R'ing or D. It's better for kids to be from a broken home than living in one. It's always better for kids to have at least one happy, healthy parent than two unhappy, dysfunctional parents in the same home. The marriage you model for them has a huge impact on their future relationships, the types of spouses they will look for, and whether they marry or become cheaters themselves.

Hi young lady,

What a shit sandwich

You are not at fault, accept none of your WH deflections. I believe he knows what he did. If he was so drunk to cause a blackout, his Mr Happy wouldn’t be that happy, if you know what I mean.

IC is a must for you and him, STD/STI checks is also a must, some infections can be transmitted by saliva or just a finger insertion.

You do need to remain in control, this is fucking hard. But exercise, walk the family pet and talk all issues with the pet. Don’t have one get a goldfish!

Good idea to confront BIL and SIL, how this is done needs to be done in a controlled environment where you are Not gaslighted or they take over the conversation and turn it around onto you.

They all have shitty boundaries WH is getting his ego stroked by a younger woman. BIL sounds like he is just trying to validate his life by his wife having sex with your husband.

Take good care of your self it is early days, stand by for a shit load of TT. This goes deeper.

Keep posting, take onboard all that is suggested. But remember you are NOT to blame regardless of your family history.

Day by day or one day at a time.

Cyber hugs and good luck

[This message edited by Buffer at 11:46 PM, November 8th (Friday)]

If reconciliation was to occur, how do I spend the rest of my life across the Thanksgiving table from her?

Don't worry about the rest of your life, think about this coming Thanksgiving when you and your husband need to opt out of the gathering with his family. Do not get reeled into a pretend show that can only end you being blamed for "ruining" the family time. Start making plans for something else entirely. Find a somewhere to take your teen for a getaway.

I would also suggest that you stop focusing on the drinking excuse and convenient memory lapse because none of that really makes a difference to the fundamental problem. The only way this pool incident could have occurred is that they have been sending signals for a while -- "accidentally" touching, engaging in sexual "jokes, etc. Drinking just tore away the cover and freed them to act on what had been simmering for a while. That's what you need to realize and work with.

Use your counseling session to discuss all of your husband's betrayals including emotional. Focus on understanding kind of relationship you want when your teen leaves the nest. If your husband can't be the man you need, work on putting yourself where you can find that.

Re: spending holidays with family. I’m sorry you don’t have any but good friends can become as close as family as sometimes closer. You can start new traditions.

Would you describe yourself as conflict - avoidant? From some of your descriptions of events, I suspect you are. This is not a judgement, it’s a common trait amongst BS and WS. When your husband upset you with his empathy for SIL, instead of discussing it, you avoided it by leaving. I suspect your MIL and FIL are conflict avoidant too. If I saw one of my adult children getting too chummy with their sibling’s spouse, I’d call my son over and give him what-for. All inappropriate behaviour would stop in that moment because I’d be causing a scene. Instead, your WH’s parents tried to interfere passively until the bbq needed tending to.

I bring this up only because I can tell you are feeling resistant to some of the suggestions. I imagine with your history, you might have some abandonment issues - so standing your ground and drawing your line in the sand is just too frightening because the fear your husband will force your hand and you’ll be left powerless. I suspect you rarely make waves.

So - I believe all the advice is valid - but you’re not in a place emotionally to act on it. That needs to be your goal. With your IC, work on defining your boundaries and seeing your value. With the work you’ll hopefully do with your IC, you’ll feel strong enough to tell your BIL what you witnessed. You’ll feel confident to tell your in-laws “Can’t do family dinner as long as this inappropriate and disrespectful behaviour is not dealt with.”

Until you get to that point, I suggest you read up on the 180. It’s in the healing library - which I hope you are devouring in the next few days. You need to see you are absolutely right to be outraged by the behaviour of your husband and SIL. You HAVE been betrayed.

My biggest fear for you is that you’ll keep receiving advice you’re not ready to take and you’ll stop seeking support here. I’ve been here for years. - one thing I’ve noticed? BS’s eventually do what’s necessary and just because it’s not on another member’s timeline, doesn’t mean it doesn’t get done.

So please, read and post as often as you need. Read all advice and sit with it before deciding whether to ignore it or not. If you don’t feel strong enough - work on getting there.

Btw - the size of the family thing...most of my family is dead. My husband has a bigger family and they invite everybody and their neighbour to every shingding. But they are the unhealthiest bunch you’ve ever met. Manipulation, boundary issues, misogyny, alcoholism, disrespect - I see it and I hate it. My own father is distant and can not let go of things I did as a teen because he needs some reason to blame all that is wrong in the world on me. So I try not to see him much. My 3 kiddos - they have me. I am the rock and my husband has stepped up in the last 7 years. No one needs a large number of family...they only need one or two authentic and loving family members. They have YOU and they have EACH OTHER. Hopefully your husband will step up and stop being a man who risks his children’s stability because his penis gets tingly. If not though...they have YOU. YOU are enough. Your love and integrity and stability are all your kids need - everyday and including holidays.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:57 PM, November 3rd (Sunday)]

I am definitely conflict avoidant. I have been trained well in that regard.

However, I am not going to live that way any longer. On Friday I made it clear to wh that I wanted to know anything and everything that might come up as we attempt to move forward. I laid out many specific questions. He swore none of those things I asked about ever took place.

Tonight I asked him to grab the computer and come sit next to me. I took his phone and told him I was going to run a recovery program. I asked again if I needed to know anything. He swore I did not and attempted to turn the tables.

I stood my ground. After I paid and it started scanning he admitted to hiding a one on one dinner while out of town from me.

I still pushed through with the scan. I think he was shocked.

I laid down some very specific ground rules moving forward. Any of those are violated and he moves out.

I also informed him that he has 24 hours to produce a detailed timeline of any and all other information I needed to know. That the surfacing of anything not on that list would result in immediate removal from the home.

I gathered documents in front of him.

I also informed him that after meeting with my counselor on Tuesday I would be informing our children in an appropriate way what is going on. No, I won’t give them details, but I also want to open the door for them to talk to me.

I fully own that I have a lot to work on in ic. That is my goal—-become stronger. Be a better me for whatever road is ahead.

Keep pushing forward!

Don’t hesitate to tell him that a polygraph might be in his future.

You are stronger than you think!!!

You can do this!!!

[This message edited by Newlifeisgreat at 1:15 AM, November 4th (Monday)]

Wow you are in total control. Good for you!

"However, I am not going to live that way any longer". You go girl! Compliments for taking action!! You do what you need to do for a better life for you and your children, you show him who is boss and does not accept his shit, YOU! You can do it, strength!

Way to go, Flnightmare! You got this!

I think I'd schedule a polygraph and not tell him it might be in his future.

Was the one on one dinner with the SIL?

You are doing well in your approach.

Good for you Flnightmare!!!

I know what it's like to be conflict avoidant.

It took a lot of courage to stand up for yourself and show zero tolerance for his behavior.

Good move to provide a negative consequence.

Stay strong and don't waiver!

If he tries to shift blame to you or challenge you in any way say: I'm sorry you feel that way but you have destroyed my trust in you - and for me to stay in this relationship you must fix it.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 7:12 AM, November 4th (Monday)]

Hear,Hear Flnightmare, Hear,Hear.

[This message edited by Bigheart2018 at 7:43 AM, November 4th (Monday)]

Keep on keeping on Flnightmare!

Stick to your plan.

I stood my ground. After I paid and it started scanning he admitted to hiding a one on one dinner while out of town from me.

Was this dinner with SIL ? if so, this may just be the tip of the iceberg, he thought you would find proof of the meeting on his phone, cheaters at first, typically only admit to what you can prove, if dinner was with SIL now you have more ammo to confront her, make her think he confessed but that you want her version of the whole thing, Also, I think it's time for a polygraph.