SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

what came out of her whether it was all of it or not made me now wish I had just filed for divorce 2 months ago and left for good.

You are under no obligation to continue with R. You can change your mind and ask for D whenever you feel like it.

The pastor sounds like he is trying to sell you reconciliation. I would recommend you steer clear of him and the idea of MC for a long time. I think it's messed up that he said another woman may cheat. Wtf. Another woman might but this woman DID. And to praise her as ahead of the curve?? Wtf. Again, trying to guilt/push you towards a decision that is what SHE wants. Ignore him and get an actual individual counselor. The last thing you should care about right now is what she wants and your marriage. You need to heal YOU first and that is not what this guy has on the agenda or he would not say these things. He made some pretty huge promises he cannot actually keep. He seems to know what to say to make you doubt your gut.

Also, you do not owe her anything. I don't regret my divorce. I regret how long it took to admit what WS did was a deal breaker for me. So follow your gut. If she is truly remorseful, she will be patient and you can change your mind. But don't waste time eating a shit sandwich you don't want and you don't deserve. I regret the time I wasted trying. My WS did everything right too. Everything. It wasn't enough. It was enough for other people so I felt obligated to try. But I should have listened to my gut and filed immediately.

[This message edited by clouds777 at 10:39 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

Some pretty harsh posts here. Just offering some support.

Some religious people are very good and some are total quacks. Yours sounds somewhere in the middle, leaning towards the good. Of course he’s trying to sell you on reconciliation but he’s just pointing a few things out. And he’s probably right that he has seen much worse than your WWs efforts, as ill conceived as some of them are. Didn’t seem too traumatic for you.

I’m guessing the timeline was worse than you thought it would be. That is traumatic. Awaiting the rest of the story.

Keep doing what you are doing. You are doing good.

AH

Seems like the pastor will be a good MC profesional, nevertheless it seems like he is trying to get you to R.

R is your choise, and yours only.

First ask your WW all you need to know before making a desicion. It must be done on your own pace. Bit by bit,or all at once, is up to you. Additionally for everytime you discuss the A with your WW, some doubt and question will show up later; and then go over her timeline should be an option.

I dissagre with the 0% chance your WW Will never cheat again. Not just becasue she alredy proved she is capable of, but becasue I think this is not an element to consider for staying with her. If you meet someone that has never cheated, at least the perception you have of this person will be lot better!!

Staying with a cheater is always a process of acceptance that, in the rigth cobditons, you were not enougth!! I am not against R, but this is a fact.

Your WW has chage alot since DDay, but there is much more she needs to acept and learn, also much more she need to confess and apology for, not just to you but others; and set the record straigh about you!!

You are doing great progress, so dont be hard on your self, take your time, dont let anybody put pressure on you to make a desicion or to change your mind!! You are in control now, not your WW, not your Pastor, only you

[This message edited by Mrhealed at 8:27 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

He said the probability of my WW cheating again is close to 0% He said he knows my WW very well and knows her flaws and if she follows with the right therapy she will be a woman any man would love to have as a partner, not just a loyal partner but also the most loving and that will be a shame if I miss on that opportunity. But he said all that depends on me if I want to save my marriage and if I chose to forgive and work toward healing and regaining the trust. He said that it won't be easy, and wouldn't suggest it to every case, but neither is divorcing and leaving her.

I will admit your pastor exceeded my expectations and he seems like a good and wise man. He's given you a mostly good rundown here.

The points I would quibble with that you need to remember:

1. Do not confuse forgiveness with reconciliation. The two are separate. You can forgive and reconcile. You can forgive and divorce. Forgiveness is something you need to work for in either case, because the knowledge of what she did will eat you alive otherwise.

2. Like others, I don't think he can guarantee anything about your WW. He may think he can, but she spent half a decade checked out of the marriage and doing God knows what. She carried on a 2-year affair. The average length of most affairs is 3-6 months. Your WW carried on 4 times as long as the average affair. She chose to humiliate you and she wanted to leave you.

3. The "if" he is proposing is a big gamble. He's basically positing a "devil you know" argument that is similar to the one that the "Divorce Busting" author Michelle Weiner Davis makes. The argument goes something like this: If you just stick through this painful part you'll come out on the other side with an amazing spouse and a wonderful marriage. There's nothing wrong with this argument, as far as it goes, but as has been discussed elsewhere here on SI, there's scant evidence this is true for most people. I don't want to be a downer, but more of a realist. I think this would be an easier argument to make in the wake of a one night stand or a very short affair without major toxic elements.

4. He says "it all depends on you" - no it doesn't! And while it's true that divorce is VERY hard, and no one should minimize it and the impact it has, implicit in this argument is somehow that notion that reconciling will be easier when it's all said and done. The only problem with this is we see men showing up here on SI decades later filled with bitter regret because they tried to reconcile and choke down massive shit sandwiches. All things considered, while divorce would have been hard, they would have been better off.

5. His perhaps unintentional gambit to plant fear in you I hope will backfire. You should check out the "fear vs. reality" section on the divorce/separation section of this website here at SI. It's an eye opener. It's never as bad as people think and usually pretty damn good. People enjoy the liberation. And the idea that another woman *might* cheat. Pffff. Who cares? The thing to remember is any woman you might date will have a tremendous leg up on your wife. They will be wonderful, loving and kind and right away they have a bonus in that they've never cheated on you! I can guarantee there are many wonderful women out there in the world, many near you, who would NEVER do this to you. Your odds are much higher finding one of them than finding another cheater.

6. Lastly I'm not a bit surprised your WW's timeline was not as she advertised it would be. She'll need to put in a lot more effort. That said, it appears that she disclosed some pretty painful information. This is, once again, trickle truth at work. Trickle truth is like Chinese water torture, but with razor blades instead. You might find yourself asking why you would want to sign up for perhaps years more of this.

Once again, I want to reiterate: Get the polygraph once you have vetted the timeline and folo up questions with her.

Just my two cents and observations for you as you continue to think about this.

[This message edited by Thumos at 8:34 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

Hi, AH, thanks for the update with the Pastor meeting and the timeline. I'll circle back to the timeline later, but just a merciful few thoughts on what the Pastor said. I have respect for any man of the cloth, no matter what religion, but I also realize I am dealing with just another man or woman, who is doing their best to counsel in a difficult situation. A member of the flock comes to them for counseling out of infidelity. They know their goals and objectives-- to get them back on the path of what their faith defines as the true path, e.g., back into a state of grace and healing. It's the mission statement and priorities that might be at odds here. The Pastor sees saving your marriage to be his mission statement. He doesn't necessarily agree with what YOU might be regarding as YOUR mission statement-- to not be married to an adulteress any more. He will say positive things about your wife's progress since she was caught. Of course he will. He is praying for his version of a positive outcome for both of you. I would be disappointed if he wasn't. Yet.. yet... based on your very detailed description of what his counseling was like, I find some fault with his assumptions. Other people have brought these up.

He states, as FACT, that he knows your wife well, and is convinced there is zero chance she will cheat again. I find fault with that. There's NO WAY he knows her like YOU know her. You have been there with her, day in and day out, in a marriage.. ALL of it. The bad and the good. He is making a presumption that he can predict her future outcomes BASED ON WHAT SHE TELLS HIM. What she tells him is almost certainly filtered by her own shame, her own embarrassment about having her dirty laundry aired, and her own ego. I would be shocked if he has the entire profile of EVERY thing there is to know about her infidelity. He sees the image she projects, just like anyone. Right now, she's projecting the tearful, remorseful spouse. It might be what she thinks is the right role to project in this specific situation. You didn't see this coming.. she hid it from you pretty successfully, didn't she? She can certainly bamboozle a pastor who usually sees her once a week. BTW, I am NOT being critical of his profession or him trying to help you as he see fit. I went through something very similar, at my wife's request. I got a priest (I'm Catholic) almost 20 years younger, who had never married or even been in a long term relationship with an actual woman before seminary school (I asked). No offense meant to him (he's a good guy, trying his best), but he wasn't what I needed when I needed counseling. He had not seen the bad and the good of relationships, like I had. Like YOU have. I think your Pastor might be a good and wise man and likely way more experienced than the Priest I had, to tell the "God's honest truth". I just ended up with secular counsel at the end of the day. "Keep praying for healing" is a nice objective thing to say, but it's not a plan for your problems now.

Likewise, I don't think the Pastor, given the nature of his avocation, is in any position to predict what would be in store for you with any other woman you might meet in the future should you divorce your wife. A Pastor is neither a good judge of "the dating scene" nor a yardstick of every woman you are ever going to meet.

TLDR version: I respect your Pastor for trying to help you now. I also think he is following a template with the specific goal of keeping you married to a wife that cheated on you recently. Respectfully, what you need right now is your call, ultimately, and only your call.

AHG, what the pastor said is pretty much exactly what most of us thought. A push for R. The old "she'll never do it again". He is more levelheaded than most by acknowledging where your WW is right now but then he went right back to promising things he has NO business of promising you. He has no idea if she will cheat again. Where is he quoting his stats on infidelity? Do you know? How about researching them yourself and see just how big of a bridge he has to sell you.

R is your choice and it's a fine choice if your WW comes around and starts showing remorse over the regret and continued selfishness she has been. But that doesn't change the overly lofty fantasy of R your pastor is selling. R is hard work. Most people who start R wind up D in the future. Your WW could go through MC, pass with flying colors, and decide all A talk is over and done with and if you bring it up or struggle, it's your problem to deal with. That's not a successful R at all. You're not the first or last to be told by a variety of people who knew the WS that they wouldn't do it again and yet some of them did it again. R is NEVER a situation where you do the work and then you're done and there is NEVER a 0% guarantee that they won't cheat again in the future. Much like addiction, it's to some extent a lifelong condition that will require her to be vigilant and to resist temptation for the rest of her life.

Did you get any answers about the GNOs before the A?

AH I think your pastor means well. He sounds like a decent guy. Remember that most pastors are seeking equilibrium in their churches. It is important to them that marriages and families are sustained, since that is what churches are built on. Families are like the bricks of a church with God as the foundation.

Here's the deal, your WW has an agenda: that is to get back in your good graces, get you to hold off on D, and allow her to maintain her lifestyle and security. Your pastor has an agenda: to restore your marriage in order to sustain the ranks of his congregation. So what you need to do is make your agenda primary, that is to heal yourself and get yourself to a place where you can make objective and coherent decisions about your future. You are in too much pain right now to be dealing with this marriage counseling crap.

In my opinion, you should tell your WW that this meeting with the pastor should have happened ten years ago when she first felt herself disconnecting, and that the meeting yesterday was too little too late. Maybe you could tell her that if each of you attends individual counseling for six months, then meet with the pastor later down the road, that then you might be willing to set up a plan for reconciliation.

As for the timeline, well, you get what you ask for. It sucks to find out stuff she was leaving out, but this is the ugly affect of trickle truthing: it reverses any small amount of forward progress that had been made up to that point. All waywards do it to some extent.

[This message edited by Westway at 8:47 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

There are some things we need to know in order to make a stay or go decision and we do need to test for honesty. But some of the advice you've had here to get every detail is going to cause you a great deal of unnecessary torment.

I agree mostly with this. I think I've said from day one there's no need to know every whispered word, every stupid emoji they texted, or every sex position. That's the kind of detail you don't need.

Nevertheless there's a balance most men seem to need between broad brush strokes and fine grained detail.

Let me give you an example: My WW, I believe, is still lying to me. I think this because she refused to give me a timeline for three years, failed the polygraph and also refused to let me see the texts and then she got a new phone.

However, when she finally did provide the timeline, it was 17 pages of single space hand written text. And she disclosed some pretty major revelations that had been left on the "cutting room floor" so to speak in the various verbal versions she'd given me over the 3 years prior to that. Among these were revelations that while I was out of town she brought OM over to our house repeatedly for "playing house" dinners involving my kids. And that OM had invited her over to an empty townhouse for sex on a particular night I had ALWAYS harbored suspicions about. She claimed she refused the invite, but this revelation sort of "sealed the deal" for me since she had purposefully left it out of her telling for three years.

See my point? Those are some relatively fine-grained details that I needed to know. They are important to my decision making process, because I believe in the midst of these momentous events one can only make decisions if they are INFORMED decisions. The broad brush strokes are important, but so are many of the details.

And while you would probably rather this NEVER happened, and wish you never knew, this is reality you're in so you have to deal with it and not put your head in the sand. You're someone who is willing to confront truth as painful as it is (and yes, you should take your time in bite-sized pieces).

I'm willing to bet that now that you're dealing with it, as painful as it is, knowing about the heater incident is probably important to you because it's a pretty big critical piece of information. It sucks knowing it, but it's also the truth about your WW. If it were buried and you didn't know about it, and you hypothetically did try to R, then you'd be going forward with her under false pretenses. The R would essentially be a lie. You don't want that.

The only way forward -- either R or D -- is with the truth. They say "the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth" in courts for a reason. It's a triple repeat hearkening back to the Judeo-Christian origins of the idea.

1. The truth: The broad brush strokes.

2. The whole truth: Leaving out no details which are relevant to the truth. No lies of omission.

3. Nothing but the truth: No attempt to confuse the truth with half-truths, minimizations and so on.

The truth will set you free.

[This message edited by Thumos at 10:48 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

Oh (((AHguy)))

I'm so sorry to hear about your night going like this. Finding out the truth is so draining and so hard.

I do just want to say cheating is common in society; however your pastor has a vested interest in getting you back together with your wife.

Please don't let your fear of her being a "perfect spouse" to someone else stop you. I do call BS on that 100%. It is not true at all. Any man she is with will learn that she has a history of cheating and will regard her with more distrust than you ever did. Not the best relationship builder iykwim.

This woman betrayed you in the worst way possible.only you can decide if you can deal with it. But FOMO cannot be your main reason. Hugs and prayers to you.

[This message edited by Elysian16 at 9:29 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

I'm back home, to my surprise my WW is still here, she cleaned the rooms upstairs and she is getting ready to leave. I don't want to type anything about the time line till she leaves it would take me time to compose it because it will be long.

She told me she felt a weight was lifted of her shoulder that she' is open with me she told me that the pastor told her to answer all the questions regardless of how bad they are.

Please don't let your fear of her being a "perfect spouse" to someone else stop you. I do call BS on that 100%. It is not true at all. Any man she is with will learn that she has a history of cheating and will regard her with more distrust than you ever did. Not the best relationship builder iykwim.

it looks like the pastor knew which button to push. I do have that fear and I wish I can just not have it. to his defense he did not made it like I have to reconcile he just said that it is possible. He said that my wife wants to do the right thing but she won't be able to unless she works on her flaws and suggested to be patient with her. he also made it clear that his agenda is to help us R, he didn't hide it at all and wished we did MC long time ago he said if if we did it few years ago we wouldn't be here now

AH,

My opinion and why I divorced when the line of a PA was crossed is this simple. Nothing she does will ever erase what she did.

Some say I have a heart of stone as far as this is concerned, so take it or leave it, it's up to you.

He said the probability of my WW cheating again is close to 0%.

This is just an incredibly irresponsible thing to say. I can't even.

Good Morning AH

Just wanted to chime in and let you know I am thinking of you and praying for you and yours.

So much good advice, from good people.

Your wife IS way ahead of the "curve" and could be R with, if YOU can. Your wife can become a women God will be proud of.

I am SO glad you met with this pastor, he seems like such a good man with a perspective you needed to hear. The little we know about his counseling with your wife seemed top notch. His desire not to control and have both of you in IC is wise. He doesn't seem to want rug sweeping and his financial gain seems minimal.

he also made it clear that his agenda is to help us R, he didn't hide it at all and wished we did MC long time ago he said if if we did it few years ago we wouldn't be here now

This is what all of us on SI have been telling you! Her decision to have an affair(s) was completely on HER! So many better options than having two husbands. Never take ANY responsibility for her taking the worse option she had.

She had the option of complaining about her marriage problems to this pastor for six years and two full years of evil she allowed herself to fall into. She had to have a PI bust her fun, not the confessional.

Why the change? I hope she started answering why she want you and the marriage now.

He said that my wife wants to do the right thing but she won't be able to unless she works on her flaws and suggested to be patient with her.

Just some things to consider here:

1. If your WW wanted to do the right thing, she would be doing whatever YOU want, not what SHE wants. That includes giving you a divorce on favorable terms. But that's not what she's been doing. She fought you on it, creating an issue around the house and essentially put you in a bind that forced a separation instead. She REQUIRED you to see the pastor as a condition she set. Now just think about that. The pastor turns out to be a pretty level-headed guy, but the fact that your wife made it a precondition of her agreeing to a separation means she is trying to control and game the situation for her benefit, not yours.

2. DO NOT be patient with her. That is actually really bad advice. This whole cultural attitude of treating adulterous wives with kid gloves bc they are poor deluded souls and "wayward" waifs lost in the woods and preyed upon by lustful wolves is absolute nonsense. It's sort of selective feminism and it doesn't wash. That doesn't mean you need to go out of your way to be unkind or cruel. You should not be those things. But you also don't need to be patient. The time for patience is past. Being patient will get in a painful limbo with her.

So I recommend you vet that timeline carefully, ask her folo up questions and then get that damn polygraph lickety-split. She has already trickle truthed you the past couple of weeks. You've already indicated the timeline was hurtful to read, but also pretty perfunctory.

There's more coming. Count on it.

[This message edited by Thumos at 11:08 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]

Her written timeline wasn’t as detailed as it should have been, but we sat down and talked about it. It was draining I wanted to just disappear, the good part is that she seems determent to be honest she wasn’t holding back but maybe she was too honest, what came out of her whether it was all of it or not made me now wish I had just filed for divorce 2 months ago and left for good. the amount of deception and neglect during that time is beyond what I can handle at this moment. I need time to absorb it. I had to stop her from continuing. I know the advice here is to get all I can get her to admit but not today.

I actually think that timelines should be done with help and not just rip the band-aid off, they can be too devastating. I believe that Turmos's wife use a councilor to help (she still wasn't honest). Everyone needs to know the truth but you were right to stop when it became too much. You can take it slow, don't let this process hurt your core.

wished we did MC long time ago he said if if we did it few years ago we wouldn't be here now

This is actually a subtle form of blameshifting onto you. If you'd just gotten her into MC all this could have been avoided AH! Don't you see?

What's more we certainly don't even know if it's true!

There are lots of cases here on SI where a couple is in MC bc the WS is looking for a way to justify their adultery or a way to rationalize the wind up for their desire to cheat from inside the MC itself.

Happens all the time. It's insidious in fact.

It's just as easily possible that had you entered into MC, your WW would have used it as a tool to build her own case in her own mind to step out and you'd still be right here.

Your WW built a case in her mind that she deserved "more" materially and sexually. MC's would be hard pressed to help a couple in which one side of the equation was a narcissist and materialist who scorned vacations to Canada because she thought she was better than that and deserved more, more, more.

I'm unaware of too many MC's that are up to the task of trying to get inside the head of a self-entitled midlife materialist in love with wealth. And I'm very dubious of the value of MC, especially in the wake of adultery.

The best IC for both of you would be to individually be seeing counselors who specifically specialize in betrayal trauma.

I believe that Turmos's wife use a councilor to help (she still wasn't honest).

She did and still managed to drag out the process for an additional four months after I gave her an ultimatum after asking for THREE YEARS before that.

So in that sense, AH is way ahead of the game here. He's getting the benefit of SI helping him push her along.

Again, I would caution against too much patience. She had more than 700 days to invest inordinate amounts of time and an energy into another man. The least she can do is dedicate several hours to a thorough timeline. And she's not an infant, and she's fully capable of doing the work and doing it now.

wished we did MC long time ago he said if if we did it few years ago we wouldn't be here now

This is actually a subtle form of blameshifting onto you. If you'd just gotten her into MC all this could have been avoided AH! Don't you see?

What's more we certainly don't even know if it's true!

I have to agree with Thumos here. We are all just extrapolating from things you've told us but it really seems to me that your WW went into this Affair trying to raise up her life financially. It doesn't seem much more complicated than that. She found this guy with more money and she thought that he was eventually going to leave his wife for her and she could trade up to a better life. (I don't say that believing that it really would be a better life and not that money makes it better. I'm just saying this was in her mind.)

She's now backpedaling because he has tossed her aside and maybe she sees the fallacy in her thought processes of looking at the bank account and judging the man from that. I don't know, none of us do, but the key to me is that Marriage Counseling before the Affair started wouldn't have fixed this issue. She had (has?) a deficit in her character that leaves her unsatisfied with what sounds like a pretty solid middle class to upper middle class lifestyle in the United States which puts her into the top 1 to 2% of wealth in the world. This maybe would have been solved with some IC back then but to say that MC would have solved this is to not understand what caused this Affair in the first place.

[This message edited by beenthereinco at 11:41 AM, September 9th (Wednesday)]