SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

She did send him a no contact text message which he then replied to and tried calling her on the Monday. She sent another on the Wednesday and he just replied saying ok it wasnt a mistake as we both wanted it but I accept your decision.

Thats always seemed strange to me, because if they loved each other and then just hours ago they were in the car together then he had a message saying sorry but its over please dont contact me again wouldn't you try and keep the person you love or at least ask more questions to why ??

The most likely scenario here is that they were planning how to play you.

Im scared shitless

What exactly are you scared of? She's already cheated, she's already lied to you, I suspect she's continuing to do so knowing that you'll just roll over.

Until you make the decision for yourself that YOU are important, you're just going to be cycling these feeling over and over as it seems she's grooming you to be her safe babysitter while she does what she wants.

The backtracking on Snapchat is the big red flag in this. She's comfortable that you know just enough to not do anything about it and whatever in in snapchat could send you to a point where she's no longer in control.

It's okay to not like conflict. It's okay to avoid conflict when it's warranted, but When conflict is thrown at you, you HAVE TO step up and set you lines in the sand.

I wish you good luck in finding what your limit is.

Stop getting hung up on her words. All cheaters lie a lot.
Actions tell you what you need to know.

If you want to save your marriage, you must suck it up and stand your ground. You will NOT save it by capitulating.

She must show you the Snapchat. Today.

Because she told you the truth that she still has feelings for the OM, I think the likelihood is that she's telling you the truth that the A is over. I think she doesn't want you to see the things she sent to the OM because they're going to hurt you and embarrass her. I could be wrong - it could still be going on, but she also needs to suck it up and show you the Snapchat.

Like I said before, R takes guts. Transparency and authenticity takes guts. Defending boundaries takes guts. You can suck up your courage now, or you can face the consequences of weakness later. Your choice.

[This message edited by 13YearsR at 3:21 PM, Friday, August 27th]

I just saw your other post in JFO and see that the OM is the dad to your son's friend? I certainly hope that you've explained to your child that while he and his friend has done nothing wrong, he's no longer allowed to go to that house.

How did you discover the affair, did she willingly bring it up, or did you catch her?

Just sent this recommendation to another PS. Read Lying by Jonathan Wallace in the Ethical Spectacle. Clear as a bell.

1. You need to see the Snapchats, OP. Otherwise your WW and OM still have secrets that they are keeping from you.

2. Your WW needs to come clean to her family about what she did. Consequences.

3. You and your WW need to explain the situation to your son. Your WW is the one who messed up so it is on her to own it. You are there to make sure that she presents her story straight.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:34 PM, Friday, August 27th]

Look, you are struggling and it’s understandable. She’s giving you some things but not EVERYTHING.

We can sit here all day and say "we’ve seen this 100 times before, she’s not truly remorseful, she’s not a candidate for R. Run".

But the truth is it’s hard to hurt someone that hurt you. It’s hard to leave someone you love even though they left you.

You need to work on this with your therapist or a trauma specialist. Because you’re trying to stay with your wife whom you love, but the woman you loved doesn’t exist anymore.

She’s been replace. She looks and sounds like her, but she isn’t her.

She’s telling you things you never expected. She’s lying and giving partial truths. And she won’t see the AP as a POS. She still has fond memories of what they did together.

She’s also been touched by another man. She’s been naked with another man. Parts of him have been in her.

That’s terribly hurtful. It’s nearly impossible to get over. It’s sickening to think about.

So it’s going to come down to if you can live with these things and not get any help from her. Or not enough help.

Here’s my take. If it were me, I’d not want her anymore if she couldn’t convince me I’m her one and only. In fact the only way that I could be with her, is if we separated, went our separate ways and someday she did real work on herself and tried to win me back.

You’re worried she won’t. And the truth is, she may not. But she also might.

You’re scared to lose what you had. But honestly she already burned down the house. You can’t live there anymore unless you enjoy sleeping on ashes. You have to start anew. For me bandaids wouldn’t put it all back together.

So for me, I’d be saying:

I’m sorry. But you destroyed our marriage and really damaged me. I can’t be who you need. Your asking me to be fun happy guy, sexy guy when I still have the dagger you plunged into my heart sticking out my back.

I can’t be what you want and you are no longer who I thought you were. You’re not the woman I fell in love with. That person would never have done to me what you did.

So the only way to do this is to do it the right way. I feel sick about it because I never imagined a scenario where I’d ever risk losing you. But I feel I already have. I did before I even knew I did.

So I think we should separate. It makes me sick to think you’ll just go back to him and fall into his arms.

But I cannot be with someone who in my heart of hearts I can tell has affection for someone else she’s already been very intimate with.

I’m going to work with a trauma specialist and try to heal myself from this. It’s gonna take a long time and I don’t think you have it in you to stick around and be the person I need you to be. To see him for the truly pice of shit he was as someone who has felt this same pain to do this to another man.

Someday maybe you will.

So let’s not waste years just pretending. I promise to be as good as a coparent as I can. I wish you well. But it’s time to move apart. "

I keep saying these same things again and again and I’m sorry. But the truth is when you rebuild a burnt down home, it has to be stripped back to the foundation. You can’t add new boards to burnt ones. It will never be stable.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 10:25 PM, Friday, August 27th]

One more thing. Tell her you can tell she’s still protecting him and their former relationship.
Tell her if she’s ever going to have a chance to be with you she needs to print out EVERY and you mean EVERY Message she ever had with him and show you. On all platforms.

She needs to expose the affair. Not just to you. But selected people that you would approve of. She needs to take the salaciousness out of it. And quite honestly if it were me, I’d want her to take those messages and show her siblings. Or maybe parents (they’ll hate it of course).

This is like a 12 step program. She needs to make amends not just to you but to every person she hurt by this choice and do absolutely everything she can to take the romance out of what she had with him.

It’s a hard task. Is she up for it?

A point I often make to WS’s is that in the grand lists of your lovers, the AP now has a place whether you mention it or not. And every time you think of that list, you better not regret that one getting away. Everyone has those pre-marriage but now you potentially have one DURING your marriage. And that’s something that hurts your spouse every time you think of it unless your can only think of it with disgust.

p12241342,

I hope you know that the strength of emotions being expressed by people in your thread is not criticism of you, but anger/outrage about what has been done to you.

You have alluded several times to your fear that your wife might simply walk away without a care, and as a result of that, you feel like she holds the power in this situation.

I want to offer a different perspective on that. Your wife has already told you that she does not want her AP's wife knowing about her affair with the AP, because she does not want people 'talking'. Think about this for a moment: if your wife is scared of her AP's wife finding out about her affair, how much more afraid would she be of her affair becoming the talk of your small town? That every time she walks into Walmart, people point at her and snigger? Image matters to her, and she has a lot to lose if she becomes known as a 'scarlet woman'.

Further, can she really walk away from a twenty year marriage and family without erasing twenty years of her life, and going back to square one? What would she have if she walked away? A reputation as a cheat, a lost marriage, a lost family, and a lost future. Do not underestimate the value of that to her. Whatever crap she believes about her affair and 'what she had' with her AP, she also knows that if she was to walk away and attempt a new life with the AP, it might last two months and then crash and burn. Walking away is a Hell of a gamble for her, and it is one that she is not willing to take, because whatever garbage she spouts about the affair, she wants the security of the marriage and family, and she is keen for word of the affair to not hit the streets. Particularly not in a small town.

So do not run away with the idea that she can walk away whenever she likes, and potentially start a relationship with her AP. She knows damn well how the town would judge her, she knows how it would impact you and the kids, and she does not want to write of twenty years of her life to take up with with an AP who was dumped and divorced by his wife. She knows that if she leaves you, her life could turn to crap in a matter of weeks.

I believe that what she wants to engineer for herself is a return to the security of the marriage and family, with nobody else knowing about her affair, so she can pretend to other people that it never happened, and have her affair accepted as a temporary episode of no consequence in the history of the marriage. She even told you that lots of people have affairs, as if hers has no consequence.

So here is the thing; as much as you may feel like you have no power because she could 'walk', the truth is actually the opposite. If you throw her out and tell everyone in town what she has done, her world will implode. And the chances are that she knows that she and her AP may have worked in the non-committal environment of an affair, but she also knows that they would not work as a couple. So if you threw her out, what would she do? She herself said she would be single. Yes, that could be bullshit, but it may be the truth, if she knows she and the AP have no future as a legitimate couple.

Your wife's immediate options are you and a family she has put twenty years of her life into, or an apartment on her own, and a catastrophic loss of reputation. Her future is entirely dependent on you, because you could blow her image and life totally off the rails by kicking her out and publicising what she did. Is it any wonder that she keeps trying to give you the impression that she holds the power? If you threw her out on her ass, she would be in trouble, and she knows that.

You have more power than you think, and she has much, much less than you think.

Edited to add:

You have said that you have grilled your wife about the affair every day since you found out about it. If she really wanted a future with her AP, and she thought they really had a potential future as a couple, why would she put up with constant interrogation rather than heading into the sunset with her dream man? Think about it. She has stayed, and and she has put up with the questioning, because she knows that her best option is to stay married and to maintain the family. If the AP was really such a wonderful guy, and she thought she could run off with him, she would have done it. The fact that she has stayed proves that she knows their affair was nothing solid or real.

When she talks of 'what they had', it is like talking about the shape of a puff of smoke. A temporary thing that will not last. Affairs can appear to be fantastic things, because the relationship exists in an unrealistic bubble where bills do not have to be paid, house insurance is never mentioned, pensions and 401Ks are not considered, and responsibility is abandoned. Affairs are the equivalent of two children pretending to be adults. And your wife knows that. She knows that her affair was an insubstantial and temporary trip into a video game. Not real life.

Your power in this dynamic is your control over whether or not you let her back into the marriage and family, or you bar her return and make her start all over again in life at the age of forty, as a known cheat in a small town. She knows that. How much power does that give her? How much value does a forty year-old cheat who destroyed her marriage and family have on the dating market? And how many men worth dating would consider dating a woman with a track record like that? Your wife knows the answers to those questions, which is why she is not going anywhere.

[This message edited by M1965 at 1:42 AM, Saturday, August 28th]

Your point from 1 to 8 is so bull as a show of remorse. You don't seem to understand what is true remorse.

For point 1 to 8. Can you imagine just what she is thinking when they are doing those things? IT is this.

"BIG FUCKING DEAL. ILL JUST CRY ON ANOTHER MAN'S SHOULDER"

And you eat it up. Holy. Crap. I support you trying to R or to D or whatever but god damn if it isn't infuriating to see someone you invest in to keep shoving shit sandwich into their mouth.

p12241342,

This will keep you stuck:

I'm scared shitless

I understand this wholly, but I also know that until you overcome this, you will remain RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE.

You are receiving arguments and opinions as to if the affair is active or not. Both sides make reasonable points. For me, I'm with 13YearsR in her evaluation. And your concern about how he accepts her decision even though they said 'I love yous'? I've seen it many times here. Experienced it in my case. The AP enjoyed his time, but he's not going to 'fight' for his 'love'. Especially a married woman. Often times, there are these self-benefitting morals, and it makes his exit that much easier. It's not nearly as strange as you would think.

But.....that's not what is key right now. If you want to reconcile, you need to want to do it for no other reason than wanting to be with your wife. It should actually be in spite of your desire to leave, because our default should be not to tolerate infidelity. I'm willing to bet that you told your wife at some point during courtship or marriage that cheating is a dealbreaker, correct? Those are our core beliefs, and it takes effort to make exceptions. That is why I will always recommend that a betrayed spouse get to the mindset that they are okay in leaving or staying, and make the decision from there. That way, you know that you are staying for reasons other than fear.

It's okay to be scared shitless. It's even better to admit this to yourself.

Now go about changing that.

Bro you can do whatever you want. Be ready for more heartache and also the affair is indeed going behind your back.Your cowardice will cost you everything I say that. She will continue to do so because you showed her weakness at everypoint. Whatever dude, your life, if you want to keep this fake relationship and enjoy it , then you are welcome to do so. No one else will suffer the consequences of it anyway . Just don't come back here and say that you life is miserable after a few years

I think if I do a 180 I will loose her forever.

OP -You've already lost her. The wife you think you know no longer exists. Fear, of course, is a great inertia to overcome in situation like yours. Who wouldn't want for things to go back to normal like the affair never happened? But this mentality will only get you stuck in limbo. Doing the 180 isn't to win her back. It is for you to detach and look at the situation objectively to decide if you want to R or decide to D.

Best of luck.

I usually lean towards D in the wake of cheating but, as a hopeless romantic, I hold out hope for those crusader WS's who put their shoulders into R and champion R with loving determination. I've witnessed these crusading WS's and they are truly inspiring. They don't just champion their own R, they guide and inspire others with the same ambitions. Reconciliation isn't just incidental to these WS's it becomes a life's work. They dedicate their lives to fixing themselves, the marriage and helping their injured spouses to definitive wellness. Then, some WS's, missionary WS's, take it one step further and reach out to others, perfect strangers, and extend their newly acquired wisdom to help others.

This, THIS is how human will can literally reverse the devastation caused by human folly and sometimes even come out ahead.

It's too soon to tell if your WW is this sort of reconciliatory. If you're interested in saving this marriage, give her a chance, wait and observe. Watch her actions and her perseverance going forward. Remorseful Waywards have stamina and patience, are proactive, readjust tactics, enlighten themselves on more affective approaches. Even the most remorseful WSs falter at times, have set backs, periods of hopelessness. They renew their spirit and determination and gain strength through...you, YOU and peer support systems. Reconciliation starts off as a pretty lonely solitary endeavor for the WS then, down the road, if progress is made, becomes more of a joint cooperative symbiotic venture where you begin to derive strength and inspiration from each other.
Few Waywards will push on if the situation seems irreparable and there is no progress made in 2-5 years. Most ICs will advise the WS to cut their losses at that point and allow both parties to move on.

Until you stop accepting the unacceptable you’ll just get more of what she’s been giving you.

This is totally up to you no one else.

Why keep yourself in limbo?

[This message edited by Marz at 9:30 PM, Friday, September 10th]

I always tell the cheated spouses the following and it is non-negotiable.

1. STD Test
2. Written timeline to be verified by a polygraph test
3. Send a No Contact message/email to the AP on all communication devices including burner phones
4. Open her communication on all her devices to you.
5. Open her location at all times. She lost her rights for privacy the moment she cheated.

The thing that gets me the most about your WW is when she told you that she chose you over her AP. This is not a matter of discussion. The AP should not even be a part of her choices. It's supposed to be only you and nobody else. AP is not a part of the equation at all. What gets to me is your WW's strong words in including the AP as part of her choices. No he doesn't have the right to be included as a choice.

So this is clear that she might have already considered strongly against your marriage before. The only thing that hinders them is that there are a lot of common friends, families and other part of your community that knows both of you. And on top of that, the ex-wife is your WW's friend. So your WW might have considered all the possibilities of either moving on or staying.

What I'm thinking is that, since the communication is not open with you then they might be doing the affair in secret since they know the repercussions of going out in the open.

My advise to you now is, you should stand up for yourself. You're so afraid of losing your wife but you already lost her. She might already be planning her future without you - this I'm pretty sure is a fact. The mere fact that she stated that she chose you over her AP is a strong indication that they were planning their future together. Now, if you don't stand up for yourself today, be prepared to be in this scenario for the long run. You know why? They can continue their affair without any repercussions. Prime example is what's going on right now. Would you think they will stop? No, they'll just be more secretive and continue with their affair.

You'll just be treated a doormat for the foreseeable future.

Again, I wish you good luck but from what I see, your future is meek.

The phrase "I chose you over AP" shows a COMPLETE lack of understanding of how commitment works on her part.

When she took her vows, she ALREADY chose you over all others. She already promised to forsake all the others for you. She doesn't get to go out after the fact to test drive another relationship. She instead took a vow to protect you and your marriage.

What else has been said on this thread already.

Checking in. What happened to your wife's AP?

But she says things like, lots of people have affairs, don't you think if I wanted to go I would just go.

This is repeated throughout the thread in several of your posts.

Gently, the fact is she has ALREADY GONE. She chose to cheat on you with another man, so she has already thrown away the marriage that once existed.

If you want to reconcile, and if she wants to reconcile, she MUST be completely open and transparent with everything including the snapchats she refuses to share. My concern is that she is either hiding their continued conversations, or she told him more than she loved him.

Until you have everything you need to make an educated decision on how to proceed with your marriage, you will stay stuck where you're at.

And never EVER let fear hold you back.

This was a frustrating read. You seem to be far to soft for your wife. If you really want your wife back you need to be prepared to lose her. Your gutless approach will never work. Many here who have dealt softly with their cheating spouses only return here to confess another DD!
You realize that you are your wife's whipping boy (aka back up, sincere and secure puppy who would jump hoops to be her number 1 again) yet still seem powerless to her manipulation and tactics.
I am afraid this approach never works. My advice is to gather your self respect in one hand and serve her divorce notice with the other. Get away from her for a year or two and see where it takes you. Right now she is counting on your lack of decisiveness and inaction to string you along. Unless you mean business you destined to be no2 (even if you do R).

If you continue in this manner you will not gain her respect.. just her pity. Perhaps you are comfortable with that... !