SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I will have the image of her happily opening those hotel room doors dressed in lingerie for the rest of my life—and quite frankly, it is a high price to pay and something I did not deserve to bear.

That is true.
Even if you do manage to R.in 20 years she may intentionally have put the affair so far back in her mind that it is "forgotten". But you will have triggers...forever.
Heck I am divorced and years later when my GF wanted to surprise me with a sexy outfit, the one she chose was a little too close wha the XW wore first with him...
Hang in there and enjoy the trip. It is up to her what she chooses to do or talk to when you are gone.

1. She needs a full on psychological evaluation by a physician. 3 addictive behaviors all at once out of no where is not a good sign, an certainly not normal.

Let me unpack these a bit for context.

Spending: she has always been horrible financially. She has no understanding of saving and will spend every dollar she makes. It’s been a point of conflict our entire marriage. One issue is she makes more money than I do, so she has always had more disposable income than me. I resolved this issue by having set amount of money go into our joint account and other money of hers go directly to kids. What I did not account for is her running up tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card five years ago and paying off interest on it all this time.

So this was an ongoing issue that was just revealed now as I went through her spending these last few months, enraged by the money she spent on clothing, lingerie and the hotels. She’s a stupid person—truthfully, beyond my comprehension—and I now know if I want to stay in a relationship with her I need to monitor her spending much closer to ensure she doesn’t fall off the tracks.

Alcohol: She has always enjoyed alcohol, but never abused it as far as I could tell. During the affair, she began to drink more. On occasion, going back to the fall, I’d note to her she drank a lot on a specific night—she quickly felt judged by it and began to hide her drinking to avoid the conflict with me. She also claims she felt like excess alcohol would make her more receptive to sex with me.

The alcohol was in fact making her life worse though—she wasn’t sleeping well and felt awful while awake. She thinks the alcohol was a significantly negative aspect of the affair and I think she’s going to move to drink less for a long time going forward on her own accord.

Lastly, the affair: She felt undervalued and down on our relationship. The attention from another man led her to question her future with me. Dec. was the low point where she thought her marriage might be over.

By Feb., she realized the marriage wasn’t over and she wanted a future with me, but was still very much enjoying the sexual nature of the affair and didn’t want to stop it. I think it’s entirely possible she could have justified being married to me and fucking someone else on the side for years.

Post-D-Day, she saw the pain she caused me, my love for her, and my willingness to sit and talk it all through to see if the marriage could be saved. She doesn’t understand how she could have strayed so far off course and is now tackling every day with the goal of regaining my trust.

Again, all great, but I don’t know if it matters at this point.

Boy. If my wife told me that she had to get drunk so she could steel herself to have sex with me the mushroom cloud would still be forming over our city.

Given everything else you have said, including especially the secret drinking, she sounds like someone who may spend years to regain your trust but still is the same person inside. A person with lifelong issues that has just trashed her marriage has to feel that she has hit rock bottom before she wants to change. Do you see her as there? Frankly, if she is still protecting om, she isn’t.

Lastly, the affair: She felt undervalued and down on our relationship. The attention from another man led her to question her future with me. Dec. was the low point where she thought her marriage might be over.

I'm sorry but that's standard cheater thinking. However, none of the above explains why she decided to have an affair. Further, "I learned my lesson" or "this is so embarrassing" or "I regret hurting you" does not make her a safe partner. If that's where her head is, she is not currently a good candidate for R.

Can you explain how you (and her) feel her affair damaged your reputation?

Btw: those PTA friends (and the entire active members of the PTA) were certainly aware of how close she and the OM got. So the affair was only a surprise for you.

[This message edited by Robert22205https at 8:29 PM, Tuesday, March 29th]

Boy. If my wife told me that she had to get drunk so she could steel herself to have sex with me the mushroom cloud would still be forming over our city.

Given everything else you have said, including especially the secret drinking, she sounds like someone who may spend years to regain your trust but still is the same person inside. A person with lifelong issues that has just trashed her marriage has to feel that she has hit rock bottom before she wants to change. Do you see her as there? Frankly, if she is still protecting om, she isn’t.

No doubt, the hurt and embarrassment for me is undeniable. And you point out my fear—that she won’t change who she is an a year from now may still may be repulsed by having sex with me. And not that it should matter, but I’m not a hideous troll to be pitied. I’m a good looking guy, who spends a significant amount of time in the gym. Her repulsion wasn’t physical, it was that she lost a sexual attraction to me. And a part of my does want to tie that back to the cuckold fetish angle I explored with her—because it just makes sense. I became a doormat for her in bed and she lost the urge to want to fuck me.

So can that be reversed—maybe—the last week+ she’s had no issue having lots of fun with me in bed and seems now open and free to enjoy sex. The change though is on my end—I went from passively giving her oral sex to throwing her around and fucking her aggressively. I don’t have to be a psychologist to figure out what she wants in the bedroom now.

As for the OM, she’s not protecting him at all. She wants nothing to do with him. She’s angered at herself for shitting where she eats because her relationship with him cost her an ability to be free in our town—now she has to avoid PTA. Hell, she just found out last night that our son’s first little league game this season is against the OM’s son’s team and now she can’t go. She did that to herself and she’s mad about it.

The level of humiliation she has put you through is off the charts, OTOH why does she even get to go to dinner and spend more money just to talk to her PTA friends so she can minimize/sugar coat the situation ? why isn't a simple phone call on speaker right next to you enough ? that way you KNOW what she's saying. OTOH these things will probably haunt you for the rest of your life with a constant reminder right in front of you, not to mention her spending and alcohol problems, take the time to reflect on this during your trip and determine if it's really worth it, if you decide to insist on trying to R you have a daunting task ahead of you for years and with no guarantees, anyway good luck and keep posting.

Can you explain how you (and her) feel her affair damaged your reputation?

Btw: those PTA friends (and the entire active members of the PTA) were certainly aware of how close she and the OM got. So the affair was only a surprise for you.

My reputation damage of the affair feels largely in the impact of my own home. My wife’s disrespect for me was profound and now I have to learn to live with it. It’s also an issue with her parents, but fuck them—they’ll be dead in a few years, so their thoughts on me won’t keep me up at night.

The reputation damage I’m referring to though is disconnected from the affair in the mind’s of everyone who doesn’t know about it—and again, I’m confident no one knows about it. Not because my wife is good at this, but because the OM was highly paranoid and made it a point to avoid her in public.

But during the affair, my wife was bad mouthing Me to her family and friends, unprompted. Over the last week, she’s been trying to repair that damage; I.e. she left PTA for personal reasons, so people concerned for her, so she’s noting how supportive I’ve been, etc.

A part of this affair was her finding an entirely new life and friends apart from me. In her mind, one part of it was the OM, but there were also several other people she grew relationships with. She wants to be able to grow those now with me, as a couple.

From my perspective, I’m not in the right frame of mind to start doing couples dinners.

It doesn’t happen often, but occasionally a situation arises where they are so dysfunctional, I think it would be best if the couple R’d so they don’t have a chance to remarry and mess up two other peoples lives.

OP. I think you’re doing quite well so far and have used a level head.

The one mistake you’re making, and it’s a HUGE one, is not telling the OBS. You must do this. Forget for a second about the fact that you owe this to the OBS. More important, by not informing the OBS, you are significantly jeopardizing R. You don’t know this because you haven’t been through this before. However, there’s a reason everyone on this board is telling you that you must do so.

You could literally scuttle R because of this "minor" little detail. It might not happen today, or even tomorrow, but at some point down the road not informing the OBS will come back to bite you. You could potentially lose everything you worked for in R.

Why take the risk and potentially waste many years in R, only to find out that you’ve scuttled it because of your well intentioned, but misplaced snd incorrect thought process that you should not disclose the A to the OBS.

You’re a logical person. Why risk it?

L

et me unpack these a bit for context.

Spending: she has always been horrible financially. She has no understanding of saving and will spend every dollar she makes. It’s been a point of conflict our entire marriage. One issue is she makes more money than I do, so she has always had more disposable income than me. I resolved this issue by having set amount of money go into our joint account and other money of hers go directly to kids. What I did not account for is her running up tens of thousands of dollars on a credit card five years ago and paying off interest on it all this time.

So this was an ongoing issue that was just revealed now as I went through her spending these last few months, enraged by the money she spent on clothing, lingerie and the hotels. She’s a stupid person—truthfully, beyond my comprehension—and I now know if I want to stay in a relationship with her I need to monitor her spending much closer to ensure she doesn’t fall off the tracks.

Alcohol: She has always enjoyed alcohol, but never abused it as far as I could tell. During the affair, she began to drink more. On occasion, going back to the fall, I’d note to her she drank a lot on a specific night—she quickly felt judged by it and began to hide her drinking to avoid the conflict with me. She also claims she felt like excess alcohol would make her more receptive to sex with me.

The alcohol was in fact making her life worse though—she wasn’t sleeping well and felt awful while awake. She thinks the alcohol was a significantly negative aspect of the affair and I think she’s going to move to drink less for a long time going forward on her own accord.

Lastly, the affair: She felt undervalued and down on our relationship. The attention from another man led her to question her future with me. Dec. was the low point where she thought her marriage might be over.

By Feb., she realized the marriage wasn’t over and she wanted a future with me, but was still very much enjoying the sexual nature of the affair and didn’t want to stop it. I think it’s entirely possible she could have justified being married to me and fucking someone else on the side for years.

Post-D-Day, she saw the pain she caused me, my love for her, and my willingness to sit and talk it all through to see if the marriage could be saved. She doesn’t understand how she could have strayed so far off course and is now tackling every day with the goal of regaining my trust.

Again, all great, but I don’t know if it matters at this point.

Holy excuses Batman!!!!!
Dude. STOP. Just step back and stop making excuses. All of these behaviors are not healthy normal behaviors. Stop with excuses, she has some serious underlying issues to deal with. Grown ass adults don't burn through every penny they make and more to only spend years paying down interest only. They also don't hide it from their spouse when they realize they messed up.

These are all symptoms of a much larger problem that you seem more than willing to sweep under the rug. The real issues have to be uncovered, scrubbed clean, and given frequent care and attention to heal. Just like an infected wound. If you pretend that these are separate and different and excusable, then you are going to scab this wound over only for it to remain infected, and eat away your relationship silently, until there is nothing left to heal.

Holy excuses Batman!!!!!

Dude. STOP. Just step back and stop making excuses. All of these behaviors are not healthy normal behaviors. Stop with excuses, she has some serious underlying issues to deal with. Grown ass adults don't burn through every penny they make and more to only spend years paying down interest only. They also don't hide it from their spouse when they realize they messed up.

These are all symptoms of a much larger problem that you seem more than willing to sweep under the rug. The real issues have to be uncovered, scrubbed clean, and given frequent care and attention to heal. Just like an infected wound. If you pretend that these are separate and different and excusable, then you are going to scab this wound over only for it to remain infected, and eat away your relationship silently, until there is nothing left to heal.

I agree with you. They’re all major issues that she needs to fix—she’s in therapy right now fixing them. I’m sitting at home pondering if I even care if she does because I may not want a future with her.

I feel like there’s a frequent disconnect between my posts and the responses—I accept that the issue is mine as that’s far more understandable than you all being nuts lol.

Bottom line is I agree with you though—there’s no conflict, I was just providing you with her perspective on those issues.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 10:18 PM, Tuesday, March 29th]

The OBS.

I’m frankly at a loss at all the posts still yelling at me about telling the OBS. I’ve addressed it multiple times over the last several days.

I have made the decision to tell the other wife. My wife is supportive of that decision. Our CT, via email on Friday, requested that we talk it through at our next session first. So that’s what I’m going to do tomorrow when we see her.

Edit: and for clarity, what we need to discuss is preparation for the fallout once ONS is told. I believe the OBS has reason to be vindictive to my wife, so it will have a ripple affect on relationships we have in this town. I want to make sure my wife is prepared to handle the worse case scenario—especially with me planning to be out of the country soon.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 10:35 PM, Tuesday, March 29th]

Bottom line is I agree with you though—there’s no conflict, I was just providing you with her perspective on those issues.

Like I said I'm a straight shooter, and being an ICU for many years get straight to the point. Don't have time to be flowery, to some they find it offensive, but I call em like I seem em.

So to that point, when she gives you her perspective what is YOUR response, do you go Ok, and keep paddling the ship alone, or do you call her out on it, and tell her it's all garbage, and to dig deeper? I get the feeling that you don't force any issue ever with her.
Demand better, she will either step or she won't. But it will give you an idea if R is even possible a lot sooner.

I get the feeling that you don't force any issue ever with her.

You’re wrong. But making her cry for constantly being a stupid bitch every day is not something I’m proud of and not something I’m seeking guidance on.

I’m trying really hard to be a better person—every moment of every day since D-Day. Im posting on these forums often from an optimistic perspective because that’s the view I need to see if I can believe. It’s easy to walk away from this—I don’t need your help for that. It’s going to be the challenge of my life to R. That’s what I need help with—that’s what I want guidance on. Then I’ll see if it’s guidance I can follow and live with.

And I appreciate you being a straight-shooter, so no need to apologize.

what we need to discuss is preparation for the fallout once ONS is told. I believe the OBS has reason to be vindictive to my wife,

I've seen many threads here where the BS was worried that this might happen. I don't believe I've seen a single thread here where the OBS became vindictive to the WS. Most people, when cheated on, realize that their cheating spouse is the one who broke promises to them.

I believe the OBS has reason to be vindictive to my wife, so it will have a ripple affect on relationships we have in this town.

^^^Not necessarily. The OBS is going to feel humiliated that her husband sought out sex with another woman.

I don't think she is going to go around town announcing her husband is a cheater. Although the BS is never to blame, it's embarrassing and there are still those out there who think the BS is at fault including the BS, herself. She will wrack her brain trying to figure out what SHE did wrong. I think most of us feel that way upon discovery. She will constantly compare herself to your wife until she comes to realize your wife could have been anyone.

I'm not saying down the road she won't try to make your wife's life miserable, but initially, I highly doubt it.

I remember quite vividly my WH telling me the BS of his affair partner was abusive. I spoke with him and exchanged a few emails sharing evidence, he was quite level headed. All of them worked for the same company, there was no way in hell he wanted anyone to know his wife had sex with another employee.

Dr., I get the thought process I of involving your CT in the discussion about informing the OBS.

My WW, prior to dday, had sessions with a psychiatrist to address depression and issues with her side of the family. The A was brought up with the psychiatrist. The psychiatrist said to my WW "since you say you won’t do it again and you feel regret and remorse, what good would telling you husband do?".

While I agree in theory, my WW was NOT done with the A, but she took parts of his advice to not inform me, because, what good would come of it?

When we attended counselling together with a psychologist, I raised this as a sticking point. The psychologist basically, without throwing the psychiatrist under the bus, said "I feel this is terrible advice, and I would have had a different approach".

Like all professions, there are good and bad. Not saying your CT is bad, but as others have said, their job is to help your marriage. They aren’t being paid to help the other betrayed partner.

What good would it do? From my perspective, at least I would be given the opportunity to make my own decisions based on facts. I believe this is why a lot of the good folks here are pushing this. It truly isn’t meant to be punitive to the OM or your WW, it is simply giving this poor woman agency to make her own decisions based on the truth, which the majority of betrayed spouses would likely tell you they wished they had on and after dday. In hindsight, and even having gone through hell, I would have wanted to know. Being in the dark with other people knowing your partner is betraying you is a horrible feeling.

The other benefit is that the affair, all of the sudden, is blown up and now everyone that should be aware of it it, and pops the balloon so to speak. There aren’t any dirty little secrets between the AP’s. As BS’s, you can discuss information to verify what these two proven liars telling you and the OBS.

If you read the adultery subreddit, you will find all sorts of people saying how horrible it was that they were "ratted" out by the AP’s spouse, and that people need to mind their own business. Well, when some asshole was screwing my wife, I absolutely feel this is my business! That cesspool known as the adultery subreddit is also useful in terms of the information being unfiltered. Like the news, I like to get a bunch of different takes on a particular issue. That subreddit certainly opened my eyes when it comes to the "cheaters handbook", deny, deny, deny and never give up your AP, no matter what.

There have even been posts about women getting pregnant from their AP’s and asking people if they should try to pass off the child as the husbands. And to add to it, are sooo worried that their AP might freak out and dump them!! Just sick, sick shit.

Wow OP. When is enough enough?

I hope you’re right about her not being vindictive, but the point of the conversation with the CT is to discuss worst-case scenarios.

What my wife did to this woman was cruel. On Feb. 26, two nights after a night in a hotel with her husband, my wife had a lengthy conversation with the OBS at a bar. It was three girls total and they were all discussing their sex lives with their husbands. The OBS talked about how she doesn’t give oral sex and how her sex life flatlined after children. And my wife sat there, laughing and talking about her sexlife with me. She knew she was routinely blowing the other woman’s husband. She knew less than 48 hours earlier, the other woman’s husband was fucking her ass. But she stayed in the convo—she participated without shame.

It’s horrific.

Afterward they even had a brief text exchange—like an exchange one has at the beginning of a friendship. One of the topics was another PTA dad who was hitting on my wife (and hitting on lots of PTA moms), but my wife didn’t like him. My wife deleted the messages on her phone from him so I didn’t see it and they discussed it—the OBS suggested it was a bad idea to delete it because it was a non-issue and she was creating distrust if I found out. He was just some loser calling my wife pretty, but my wife was in such emotional disarray she was deleting it from her phone.

The OBS is seemingly a good person and it’s going to tear my heart out having to tell her she married a monster, just like I did.

But all of that is to say, if the OBS wanted to run my wife over with her car, I’d understand.

I feel that on some level you are enjoying this whole scenario and the posting about it.

This is an incredibly weird story to follow.

[This message edited by alucard at 12:44 AM, Wednesday, March 30th]