SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’ve just read on your other thread that your therapist also asks you how you contributed to her affair. Is that the same one?

Please please please sack this therapist.

I made the same mistake, rushed into MC a week after dday for 2 months. The MC was literally like yours. Told me I HAVE to let go and forgive and learn to trust what my husband said (lol, I mean I had a second dday 4 months after the first, they kept being “friends” behind my back and gaslighted the shit out of me with the MC’s help, it literally felt like MC was a session to drill into me how I need to get over it, trust my husband etc). She also told me to stop believing I was happily married as people don’t cheat in good marriages.

At that point WH actually stopped her and told her that she is in fact wrong... we were happily married, only the marriage was a bit child centred. (No shit, I had to go through the stress of their important exams alone because you were having an affair).

So anyway, pls sack the therapist. And your WW should be more than happy to do anything needed to offer you peace of mind and kindness. After traumatising you, giving you what you need should be her main focus.

1. Why are you seeing a marital counselor? This is a useless waste of time and money. What just happened to you is exactly what happens in couples/marital counseling after infidelity. Marital counseling is for an intact marriage to deal with the rather mundane problems that crop up in almost every stable marriage. It is pointless after a marriage has been double-tapped in the head, set on fire and buried in a shallow grave to rot. MC's DO NOT KNOW what they are doing with infidelity. They are committing malpractice. Get out of it.

2. See an individual counselor for yourself who specializes in betrayal trauma. Insist your wife also see an IC who specializes in betrayal trauma, who won't enable her and will call her on her shit. Often IC's in betrayal trauma partner together to "case work" -- that might be good here. But you'll be seeing two different counselors.

3. It takes for as long as you NEED to feel trust again. She doesn't get to set any timelines. Screw that. You should be able to randomly look at her phone whenever you want 10 YEARS FROM NOW.

Has she taken a poly? Has she WRITTEN a detailed narrative of the affair down for you?

[This message edited by Thumos at 5:11 PM, November 27th (Wednesday)]

I will tell you flat out even though we are trying to reconcile, I do not trust my wife.

Nor should you. She hasn't even begun the work needed for you to trust her.

2ND AFFAIR?!

Brother, I'm dealing three years out with the fallout from one three-month affair. I've been on the verge of calling the patient several times. I can't imagine sticking around to be stabbed in the back, having my balls chopped off, and having my heart ripped out a SECOND TIME.

The very fact that you're there should be enough for her. If it's not, then you should file for D and present her with a separation agreement.

I've seen many DDay2s, DDay3s and even DD4s where the WS got sloppy and got caught again, they might have forgotten to delete the messages, or fell asleep and a text message pinged while the BS was passing by or awoke to use the bathroom, etc., so yes they get sloppy overtime, just because they can get a burner phone doesn't mean they can and will use that burner phone every time.

Just tell her in no uncertain terms that it's up to you to decide whether you want to check the phone or not, and that you will do it as you please FOREVER and that she needs to hand it upon demand graciously and immediately because of her huge betrayal, no questions asked, I would add GPS tracking via her phone (good for security reasons as well), if she values her "privacy" (which btw is nothing but pure bullshit) then your M is a sham and you should simply end it. Tell her your "privacy" means D.

DDay2s, DDay3s and even DD4s

Hell to the no! Where does this end? It ends for me at at D-Day 1! I’m ambivalent and have 1 1/2 feet out the door with that. Can’t imagine putting up with any more infidelity than that and I’m shocked I even put up with the one affair.

You may receive more useful advice if you can specify exactly 'why' (examples of attitude or lack of boundaries) you don't trust your wife.

Is it just coincidence that she receives this advice from the therapist when you're not there to confirm and respond??? Consider calling him to confirm (at the very least he should have refrained from expressing an opinion until you were present so you could respond).

My response: People with nothing to hide - hide nothing!

Every spouse has a right to feel safe from infidelity. Your wife failed (more than once).

Now she needs to do whatever you need to restore trust - and rebuild a 'new' marriage.

The therapist is out of line to set a time limit on restoring trust. Especially for what is basically a transparency issue. Again, people with nothing to hide - hide nothing!

Kabal,

Gently now.

In your original posting, you had committed yourself to R, and it seems that you are trying to get feedback/advice to support your decision.

As it is, your MC is not doing you any favours, and is trying to help your WW rugsweep and blameshift. Would not be surprised of your MC was a WS also, as he/she seems to have a wayward sense of thinking.

If the MC was worth anything, they would be asking your WW why she feels that it is time for you to stop looking at her phone? Does she have something to hide?

Your WW seems to still want to control the situation you are in. She is trying to set the schedule for your healing, as she is probably tired of putting on the act for you.

She is still in a job that allows her to travel often, allows her to keep in contact with her enabler..... and is probably chomping at the bit to get back to her life of travel and freedom.

All in all, you will be walking on the path you choose. Not us, but we are here to help try and get you onto a path that will lead you out of infidelity.

You can take the advice and observations or not.

Your call.

We just hope that you end up in a healthy destination.

this post is definitely a trigger for me. I say keep looking until you feel you have had enough. Remember when you look, she may have deleted anything incriminating. I’m almost 5 years out and I still look on a rare occasion. Almost two years ago I was going through his phone and saw in his deleted bin that he was communicating with someone he had promised to let me know about. they had gotten back into communication about 9 months prior to that. She used to work at his company. He had run into her at a food court close to his work area and that opened up that communication again. It wasn’t that he was communicating with her it was that he had promised to let me know if and when he talked to her. I had wanted to know about any of her and another ex coworker’s interactions with him. He had hard crushes for these women but nothing physical or crossing the line. I wasn’t necessarily comfortable with them. he had promised me he would let me know. I believe he didn’t instigate any of the interactions and I think he didn’t wanted to be rude but he did talk on the phone, text and email with her. I had looked at his phone in that time frame and asked if it made him nervous that I would find something. His response was that he thought he had deleted it. Just another one of his stupid ass failures…. soooo, given that scenario, it’s just a crap shoot…. I hope she finds empathy to make you feel safe. good luck

2nd Affair Dday May 28, 2018. This Emotional and Physical affair lasted 9 months

Something came yup during our last session, my wife stated she no longer believes I should be reviewing he phone records.She believes a year and a half of monitoring is long enough.

If committed to earning your trust and if remorseful, she'd have no problem allowing you to decide when you no longer feel the need to check.

One of my wife's issues that she said led to the affair was her belief that she saw mw as a father authority/figure

.

Aside from phone checking, which is a fatherly gesture, but no fault of your own, does she still see you as a father figure and if so, I would think nothing's changed, in that the reason for her cheating remains, no?

I do not trust my wife.Reviewing her phone gives me some level of safety and comfort.

Regardless of love, not sure you can or should stay with a spouse you don't trust and selfishly seeks to discontinue what comforts you. May want to reconsider staying married and evaluating whether she's capable of providing what you need.

Hi Kabal152,

I’m the WW in my situation. It’s been longer than 4 years since DDay and my BH still checks my phone. He doesn’t do it regularly and when he does he doesn’t make a big show of it, but he does. We also have monitoring software on our computer (more for the boys than for me), and he looks at that too. I don’t mind at all. After DDay I actually welcomed it. It was a small way to help him feel better and put his mind at rest. And it was a small way for me to show I was staying NC. I have no secrets from my BH and I don’t want him thinking I do for even a second. Personally, I think your WW should be jumping at the chance to share her phone with you. I agree with the others that the fact that she doesn’t want you to look is troubling in many ways.

it really has no relevance on my wife's end, since she doesn't check

That is some screwed-up logic. Whether she checks is not the point at all. That she could check if she wanted is the point, and that you wouldn't care if she did. She clearly knows you aren't going to cheat. You're making the offering to help her feel comfortable, and now she doesn't want to make that offer and help you feel comfortable, though she's got a proven tendency to cheat and hide.

I am dealing with this same issue, just much earlier in the process (far, far too early). The question is why she cares that you look. She changed the nature of your marriage, so them's the breaks if she wants to be in the marriage.

This has no doubt been one of the actions you can take for yourself that enables the idea of R. Others shouldn't get to dictate what's the right level of comfort for you to have that action taken away from you.

[This message edited by Slanted at 12:25 PM, December 2nd (Monday)]

The road back to hiding starts like this. An entitled cheater crying about their loss of "freedom or privacy".

Once they have secured privacy, the will continue to slip most often.

It will sound like an over-reaction but, it could be that she has already started telling herself the lies that will make her able to cheat again.

I would be on high alert.