SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

We aren't rugsweeping at all lol

I definitely don't feel like a hostage in my marriage. I didn't give a breakdown of every little thing going on in it nor do I feel like I need to. This is the exact type of unhelpful response I was referring to ignoring.

Tell me, Chamomile, did you fix your marriage? Reconcile? Divorce?

Everybody has his own path to healing. I recognize that the path you are following feels to you like healing.

This place is a deep reservoir of crowd-sourced wisdom about dealing with infidelity, all of it gleaned from first-hand experience by the participants. What you will see if you stay around for a while is that certain ideas come up repeatedly.

One of those ideas is that a lot of betrayed spouses come here thinking that they have some special sauce, some deeper emotional resonance with their cheating spouse that enables them to finesse a happy ending where the cheater remains married to the betrayed and they all live happily ever after without the cheater ever facing the hard reality of the pain she inflicted by her cheating. You often see the term "consequences" bandied about in connection with this concept.

Maybe yours is the one marriage where you can reconcile without your WW experience any consequences. We can tell you that, in countless prior threads here, that approach has not worked. Also, viewed from the lens of normal human emotion and behavior, that approach is logically doomed to fail. There is something broken in the moral compass of a wife who decides and chooses to do what your wife did. Most cheaters won't do the work to fix their broken morals without some form of catharsis. But yours might be the pink unicorn.

Another one of those ideas is that allowing the cheater to "wean" herself from her boyfriend and gradually re-acclimate to faithful monogamy is a successful way to preserve a functioning marriage. Again, we've seen this countless times and it has not worked, but maybe it will for you. So you know, the general wisdom is that the bare minimum for R to even have a chance is a hard stop -- 100% full no contact between the WW and her AP.

In other words, the path you're taking is a path that has been shown, by countless individual cases, to be a path that will not successfully result in R. Of course, you may choose to white knuckle it and remain married regardless of the health of the union. Many do. Most of us looking at it from the outside wonder why on earth you would make that choice, but I reckon you have your reasons. As you note, you owe us nothing by way of explanation. I would note, though, that the anonymous nature of this forum means it is a place where you can safely go into a great deal of detail if you wish. Many do. It enable the rest of use to fashion suggestions and advice that is specifically tailored to your plight.

I wish you luck.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 2:53 PM, March 24th (Wednesday)]

I don't understand where you guys are getting this idea that there are no consequences. That we're rug sweeping and that she just does whatever she wants.

I don't have a special sauce. I just know that my marriage was already broken and that ultimatums would be meaningless. We need to fix things, at least partly, first.

There are consequences to her actions, though.

The weaning from AP is a legitimate point and one in which I definitely want more actions taken. The weaning isn't a long term thing I'm okay with. As I said, MC will be starting soon and I'm hoping the professional help will get us the rest of the way.

Just don't try to accommodate her needs at the expense of your sanity and health. I'm not going to lambast your decision. you have to do this at your pace if R is what you desire. But you are outnumbered and you are allowing her to continue fraternizing with the enemy. R cannot happen with OM in the picture.

But that has been repeated ad nauseum. Good luck.

I just know that my marriage was already broken and that ultimatums would be meaningless. We need to fix things, at least partly, first.

You were both in the same broken marriage. Only one of the two of you decided to commit adultery in that context, rather than try to fix the marriage. That decision train -- "my marriage is broken so therefore I will fuck somebody else" -- that is a broken way of dealing. You can't fix the marriage while one of the marriage partners is broken in that manner. The collective wisdom here is that the broken person must first fix her broken moral compass.

As I said, MC will be starting soon and I'm hoping the professional help will get us the rest of the way.

Similar to my other posts. I'm not saying MC can't help or won't work.

I had to fire my first MC because the professional help was only helping my wife further entrench her defensiveness and do-nothing attitude. My first MC said, "There is nothing she can do to make you trust her." Which was basically used as an excuse for months for her to do nothing to help me trust her again.

Reconciled. Six years and counting. Fully healed. I don't even think about infidelity in my day to day. I only think about it when I've come here to pass on what I've learned. I didn't put up with any continued contact with APs, and I didn't tolerate any blameshifting. I have new boundaries regarding how I'm willing to be treated by a man who claims he wants to be my husband. I don't worry when he's not home. I don't even check up on him anymore. I believe he's made the necessary changes to remediate the poor character which allowed him to say "yes" to perfidy, but I'm insulated by a much healthier self-esteem just in case he hasn't. I'm impervious to the kind of anguish he once caused me and free to enjoy the relationship without being dependent on it. I no longer tolerate disrespect in the name of love.

Can you say all that? Not being facetious here, I really do hope that you can. But there's an infatuation period which rears its ugly head after a marital near-miss, and I suspect you might be caught up in it. That stage is temporary, just like any other infatuation which is unimpeded by drama. After that, whatever problems which weren't truly resolved will still be there. If your WW hasn't done the work involved in repairing the kind of poor character which allowed her to lie to your face, cheat behind your back, expose you to potential health hazards, and risk your financial security, how are you supposed to rebuild trust?

I've seen plenty of people rugsweep adultery. It's doable. But it doesn't result in real healing or relationship satisfaction. It just keeps the plates spinning.

I think that you did a great job of confronting them in the gym. You had a line, it was crossed, you addressed it. Perfect!

Chamomile, no, I can't say all that yet. I'm 24 days in. There's still a lot that needs to happen. The idea that it all needs to happen immediately is really the only argument I have.

I don't understand where you guys are getting this idea that there are no consequences.

We have that idea because you have not described any consequences. I realize you don't owe us an explanation, but you should not be puzzled why posters here perceive that your WW has not experienced any consequences.

And what kind of consequences should a WW expect to have when she's cooperating with rebuilding and reconciling?

My dad knows. Her mom knows. She now gives me text reports of what she's doing, when, and with whom. She doesn't get to go hang out with AP or OBS anymore. She has the constant knowledge that I could destroy AP's career at any time as well as destroy her reputation with the entire community. I don't do those things, mainly because it would hurt me just as much as her but she knows I could.

What further consequences do I enact? The NC requirement is out there and she knows it. We're progressing in that direction. She's lost the relationships she had with them.

The problem become "incentive". If your WW is allowed to take her time breaking up with the AP, if she's allowed to make HER feelings a larger priority than yours while you wait on the sidelines with understanding and patience, what's her incentive to do all the hard work she's going to need to do? On first blush, one would think, let's just keep the ball in play and we can deal with all that shit later. But what typically happens is that the BS who is overly accommodating never does get their turn. The WS gets used to being accommodated, and the work doesn't get done. So, three, four, or five years down the pike, you end up still feeling unsafe in the relationship, disrespected, and in pain still.

You're teaching her how to treat you. And right now, when it couldn't possibly BE more important because of the continued piling on of damage, what she's learning is that it's okay to put her own feelings first. I'm not saying that yours is an impossible strategy. What I'm saying is that future problems are being built in, so you're going to need a solution for how you're going to address them.

What's her attitude going to be in five years when you feel like you've waited long enough for her to make the necessary changes to her character and values system which will help you feel like you're with a safe partner? when you feel like maybe it's YOUR turn to be a priority? If the cases studies surrounding you here at SI hold, her reaction will be "why can't you just get over it?"

If you go down to the Wayward forum and read the posts of recovered WS's, I think you'll begin to appreciate just how hard they work to become safe partners again. It's humbling, painfully introspective work. When we coddle our WS, when we don't maintain our boundaries with them, what are we saying about the importance of getting that work done? Have you got a plan for for later on down the pike when this work isn't done and you're still feeling like a secondary priority?

Transparency.

You said you know she is still talking to him. You should be able to read those messages. You should have all of her passwords.

You said you didn't know what she was saying to him in these messages. It would be foolish to believe they're not telling each other they miss one another.

It seems that the reason for coming here again is not to seek advice from SI members but to teach them. Thanks for your service.

We just suggested you show this attitude to your wife as well, instead of asking her to use a condom when having sex with AP.

I will continue to learn by reading here.

Good luck.

What Chamomile Tea described. That's exactly the point. The road to perdition. You can't "nice" them back.

You've basically listed the consequence for her affair as "she doesn't get to have the affair anymore."

What????

I mean seriously, are you actually reading what you're writing? If the only consequence for having an affair in your marriage is that you have to end the affair when your spouse finds out, you basically have a wackadoodle version of an open marriage.

And what kind of consequences should a WW expect to have when she's cooperating with rebuilding and reconciling?

She's cooperating because you're setting rock bottom expectations for her to cooperate with. This is the highest level of delusion I've ever seen on this forum. You're trying so hard to convince yourself that you're in control, to come across as confident, huffing about how you could end the APs career.

Your words and actions are completely incongruent. What advice do you even really want?

And what kind of consequences should a WW expect to have when she's cooperating with rebuilding and reconciling?

She isn't though. She still has a relationship with her AP, so she isn't 'cooperating with rebuilding and reconciling'.

You 100% CANNOT reconcile with the AP still in the picture in any way.

I get how scary laying down ultimatums is - I struggled with that with my xwh too. I felt like any hard line would... make him leave? But the truth was, my situation didn't improve until I laid down those hard lines. And yes, we divorced, but guess what? I got out of infidelity. I'll put that in the win column.

Your ww is still wayward. She is still cheating - even if she isn't sleeping with him, she is still maintaining an emotional connection to her affair partner, and as such is not 100% focused on her marriage or on you. She isn't all in on R if she's still having doings with her ap.

And what kind of consequences should a WW expect to have when she's cooperating with rebuilding and reconciling?

There are softer boundaries and consequences you can put up, but they feel like manipulation to me.

Things like, "As long as you are talking to AP, I'm not going to make dinner, do the dishes, or have sex with you." Or, "Until you stop talking to AP, I'm not talking to you." Honestly I think making a relationship that transactional isn't a good direction. I personally struggled tremendously with "What can I do other than say, 'I'd like a divorce?'" I would have loved to have found a feasible middle ground that didn't feel manipulative or tit-for-tat.

My advice is that you can continuously repeat that you are uncomfortable or unhappy when you are. Don't act OK when you aren't OK. This allows her to see and understand what you are feeling. This isn't "setting back progress". It's giving real and accurate feedback on where things are. Maybe you are already doing this.

No contact is the absolute bare minimum you should expect before even considering reconciling. Marriage counseling, heart-to-heart talks, threats, shared devices, accounting of her daily activities, etc, is a complete and utter waste of your time, effort, and money if she's still speaking to them.

For all intents and purposes, her affair is still active. If she's still speaking to them, then she's still emotionally engaged with them even if she's not seeing them... and she will see them again as soon as the opportunity presents itself. You cannot monitor her 24/7 and all of your safeguards are easily worked around if she has half a brain and if she's as infatuated with and attached to her AP as she seems to be.

Things like, "As long as you are talking to AP, I'm not going to make dinner, do the dishes, or have sex with you." Or, "Until you stop talking to AP, I'm not talking to you." Honestly I think making a relationship that transactional isn't a good direction. I personally struggled tremendously with "What can I do other than say, 'I'd like a divorce?'" I would have loved to have found a feasible middle ground that didn't feel manipulative or tit-for-tat.

Just my 0.02, but having a relevant consequence for shitty behavior isn't 'transactional'. I mean - "I won't have sex with you while you are having sex with someone else"... yeah, that's a natural consequence. There was no manipulation in my saying "I will not be in an open marriage". My xwh thought I was being manipulative when I said no to him dating and sleeping with other women, sure. But he also thought falling peen-first into a teenager was a good idea so I really don't trust his judgment all that much.

And just MHO but with infidelity, there really IS no middle ground - the 'middle' keeps you stuck in infidelity.