So, I didn't "just" find out. DDay was about 18 months ago, but this is my first time posting here and yesterday was my first time posting anywhere. I shared my story on a few Reddit forums yesterday and some people suggested I post here as well. So the rest is a copy and paste, minus a few edits that I made.
Sorry in advance. This will probably be a really long one and I'm not even sure where to start, but I need to vent so I'll probably just ramble as things come to me. If you make it through the whole thing, thanks. Long-time lurker first-time poster. Been super nervous about posting here. I discovered this page 2 or 3 months post dday, I wish I would've known about it beforehand.
TLDR; wife slept with my best friend during 9 month affair. We're reconciling but I still think about it every day and have constant doubts about continuing.
Dday was August 1st, 2019. A little back story first, I guess. I got out of the military about a year prior, moved to a new state for a new job. My best friend from the service, whom I knew for about 10 years at this point, was from the area I was going to and lived there now with his spouse (we'd both known her for about 8 years); who I'd be working with at the new job. We're all early to mid-30s.
Fast forward 9 months, the 4 of us and my 3 kids have been hanging out pretty much every weekend and multiple times during the week. We do dinners, game nights, hikes, days at the pool, holidays. I don't know anybody here so they are like family. My wife and I are looking at buying a house in their neighborhood and he and his wife had offered to let us stay with them between our current rental lease ending and whenever we were able to close. They have a huge house with 4 unused bedrooms and a big yard, so plenty of room for us.
For a couple of weeks prior to discovery, there were little things that raised my suspicions. The two of them kinda separating off when we were all together, them just kinda seeming awkward around each other. I brushed it off as me being paranoid because I am the jealous type, but I trusted both of them completely. Obviously a mistake. The week before I found out my wife had gone on a trip back home and left her Mac. I've always known her Mac and iPhone passwords, it's not something she ever tried to hide and she never seemed defensive of her phone. I went on to see her messages and didn't find anything damning, but did find more that made me suspicious. Her messages had stopped synching not long after we moved here and, although their messages seemed harmless from what was synched, there were weird gaps in their conversations that made some of what was there not make sense.
So, she comes back from her trip and a few days later the 4 of us are hanging out. This is the day before we're supposed to register our kids at school in their town and about a month before our lease is up and we're supposed to stay with them. Everyone is outside while I'm inside getting a drink and I notice her phone in the kitchen. My suspicions/curiosity get the best of me and I open it up. The last few messages between them were definitely indicative of something going on but I don't have time to read through everything so I just start scrolling up. Doesn't take long before I see nude photos of her. At this point my heart is racing, I'm nauseous and sweating, and I don't know what to do. I end up not doing anything but stay inside and wait for them to be done and my wife to go to bed so I can get on her phone and see how far it all goes.
I read through all her messages, lots of gaps in conversations like she was trying to cover her tracks, but multiple nudes, dirty talk, them chatting all day every day, talk of a cloud drive with more pictures on it. This goes back a few months, and there's nothing concrete before that. I leave everything open on her phone so she knows I saw and I go to work. She's sending a million texts that I don't reply to. I confront her that night, she's crying and super apologetic, but lying about the extent of everything. Apparently, she deleted everything with him as soon as she realized I saw it and she didn't know how much was there or how much I knew. Eventually, she admits to a bunch of it but stops short of admitting to sex and says it started a few months ago and slowly progressed.
I agree to wait things out and see what happens with us before I make any decisions. She blocks him on all messaging/social media, I renew the lease in our rental and keep the kids in their school. I ask tons of questions during this time. Some things she's open about, lots of stuff she "doesn't remember", some things she gets defensive about and expects me to get over it. We don't do therapy, which was probably a mistake. I continue to go through her phone and computer constantly. I find some more pictures, the cloud drive is gone so I never saw what was there. I still don't know when it really started or what happened when. There was also a bunch of what I know now was hysterical bonding. 3 months post dday I message him for the first time and just ask for his story. Some of it makes sense, some of it is new info that makes me suspicious of her, some of it I know he's downplaying/lying about so it doesn't seem as bad. This is the last time I ever hear from him. I never told his wife, who I still see at work to this day.
His wife tried contacting my wife a few times after we went NC with him. My wife didn't respond. Even though I see her at work fairly often, she's never asked me a single question about it. She just bullshits with me like nothing is different. I feel like she has to suspect/know and is afraid of the truth. I've decided, based on the advice of my therapist, to not tell her or bring it up. However, I will divulge everything if she ever comes to me about it.
4 months post dday (dday 2 for me) I find more old pictures on her Mac and discover iMessage has archives. I can't see anything after she stopped syncing the messages, but everything she deleted while they were synching is there. Turns out it started within a week of us moving here. Inappropriate talk, pictures, probably physical to some degree. I confront her and say I want a divorce. She loses her shit and goes into a downward spiral, but continues to say there's nothing else, which I can't believe. We sleep in separate rooms. Her best friend starts calling me saying she's worried about my wife. My wife does have a long, known history of anxiety, depression, and self-harm. I convince her to see a doctor. She attempts suicide on the day of her doctor's appointment. She's now on meds, sees her doctor, a therapist, and a psychiatrist regularly. We attempt marriage counseling but I hate it. I start IC.
A few weeks after her therapy she comes clean about actually sleeping with him, and admits that she slept with him about 6 years prior when he and I were in the service together (supposedly only once). She starts reading a bunch of reconciliation books and apologizes constantly for everything is trying to be the ideal WS and mother.
Now 18 months out, I still love her but feel completely indifferent about us being together. I don't trust her, after the 2nd dday it took months for me to be physical with her again. I still get paranoid when I'm at work, when she goes to work, or when I see her on her phone. The triggers aren't as severe this far out, I haven't cried in a long time, but they are just as constant. I had nightmares for months. They're less frequent but I still don't sleep well. Part of me hesitates to leave because we have nothing in this state aside from each other but I can't afford to leave this job. If we separate, she and possibly the kids, go back home to couch hop and change schools. Which is not stable for the kids. If the kids stay here, they lose their mom when she goes home and I'm a full-time single dad, working full time with no support network here. Kinda lose-lose. I offered to get her a house here with the kids and I'd rent an apartment. But again, she doesn't think she can do it on her own with no support here. So we're in a weird place where things are kind of "normal", but I'm still pretty miserable and she lives in constant fear of me deciding to leave.
I want closure from my "best friend". I've tried reaching out to him a few times. I know he saw the messages but he doesn't respond. I feel like I need to hear the actual truth from him to help me recover. And if he tells me more than what my wife has said then I know she is still keeping things from me after she was supposed to have divulged all info. I still have a lot of questions and suspicions that my WS was either unable or unwilling to answer. My therapist says my situation is compounded by the fact that I basically suffered two betrayals and lost the only "family" I had here. I'm still lost.
To clarify: based on all of the responses I received on Reddit yesterday, I decided I should tell AP's wife and I intend to discuss it with my wife soon.
TLDR; wife slept with my best friend during 9 month affair. We're reconciling but I still think about it every day and have constant doubts about continuing.