SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

my wife was in such emotional disarray she was deleting it from her phone.

Or, maybe she thought about carrying on a second A.

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

This is an incredibly weird story to follow

Agreed …even if true, it’s way past the level of dysfunction on both sides that can be dealt with effectively by anonymous internet posters.

[This message edited by ButAnyway at 12:27 AM, Wednesday, March 30th]

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

This is an incredibly weird story to follow.

Unsure about the typo, but I’m not enjoying this at all. This is the worst hell I’ve ever gone through—and unsure if I shared this already, but three years ago I had a tennis-ball-sized tumor removed from my nasal cavity. It was a horrific few months with multiple surgeries. Thus far, this has been worse.

[This message edited by Drstrangelove at 12:31 AM, Wednesday, March 30th]

Hi Doc. We crossposted earlier today and this is what I had written in case you missed it (apologies if you saw it and just didn’t want to respond).

About the trip. I asked this in another post but have not seen you discuss it (apologies is I missed it) but a truly remorseful WS would be focused on making her wounded betrayed spouse feel safe while he is gone.

So have you asked her what she will do to make you feel safe in that she won’t break NC and continue to cheat when you are gone?

Don’t start by telling her what you need. Ask her to research, develop and present a plan to make you comfortable that she is faithful and working in your and your marriage’s best interest Siri g that time. Ask her to suggest how to prove this is so.

It doesn’t matter that you think will be faithful. This is one of many opportunities she needs to take to start implementing the building blocks of a new marriage. She should welcome this opportunity if she is truly remorseful.

If not it will tell you more about her and if she’s someone worthy of life w you.

Im concerned for you and I think this is an important part of "the work" for her.

she has always been horrible financially. She has no understanding of saving and will spend every dollar she makes...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.

NO She has to recognize this as another issue she needs to address and you need to learn what it means to be in a financial partnership for life. Whether you do it jointly by taking a marital finance course like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University or some other financial planning, it is not your responsibility to keep her in check when it comes to your family's financial security.

I really think you make far too many excuses for your wife and your current situation. The fact that her parents have their hands full with another unstable daughter isn't a reason for you to tolerate all of this. IMHO, you are far too focused on R and haven't spent enough time understanding that you cannot R with yourself, that your WW has mountains to climb before you can do anything about the marriage.

Agree with NotInMyLife said and also includes the point I was trying to make.
If your W is not accepting she has a boatload of work to do. She can't get stuck in the shame cycle. She has to accept what she has done and is doing on all accounts and similar to working a 12 step program has make amends and through actions not words prove she is safe partner.

We all know you can't make a person do something they don't want to do. But you can make sure that if that person isn't doing what you want, you can make life uncomfortable for them. This is that part you have to figure out. What do you want and what will that look like in actions if she is failing you if you want to continue to R.
Lying is something she is comfortable with and is going to take hell of a lot of accountability to break the habit. Calling it out every single time.

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.

^^^My WH, the AP, and the BS worked for the same company. My WH here on the East Coast, AP and BS worked at the West Coast Office. During the emotional part of the affair, AP became pregnant with her husband's child. She lived in San Diego, and while WH was teaching at a conference in Phoenix, AP flew there under the guise of staying with her friend for a few days. She was pregnant, it was obvious, she invited herself into the conference through a third party just to get a "glimpse" of my WH. He said hello and really did not converse with her, through the third party, she wiggled her way into dinner. Again, no real conversation, but these AP's will do desperate things. My WH saw that she was pregnant, and the EA ensued. This was in the Spring.

OW had her baby in the summer, my WH had business to tend to at the West Coast Office. When he arrived, a group of guys, including the other BS, were going out to dinner. BS drove, WH got into the front seat, and all the guys were congratulating the BS on his newborn child. I don't think my WH felt one iota of guilt, the EA was still ongoing, and before long, as soon as the AP returned to work, the PA was planned.

AP met my WH at his hotel on a Monday afternoon. Tuesday-Friday, my WH sat in all-day meetings with AP's BS, out to dinner every evening. Talk about cruel, those are things that made me ask what kind of a monster was I married to. No shame, no guilt. Nothing.

My point is there are so many cruel things that all WS do. They are living in this fantasy bubble and will run over anyone with a Mack truck to get what they feel entitled to.

Did you ask your WW of any other EA or PA she might have had since your two started dating?

Hi doc,

Two and a half years ago my best friend was cheated on (he found out 6 months later).

Obviously, his wife has given much more to the AP than to my best friend, even after 20 years as a couple.

At that time she argued a lot with my best friend, but she never badmouthed him to her AP. However, she had the same symptoms as yours (need for validation, excessive drinking, excessive spending, etc.).

Today, they are trying for a R.

It may work but there is still a lot of doubt. His wife has still a lot of work to do (including a complicated family history with her father she has to deal with).

What is decisive:

- she is correcting everything that was toxic at home (alcohol, spending, etc.) and spends a lot of time in IC.

- He is now convinced that sexually and emotionally she gives him MUCH more than she gave to AP. Without that, he couldn't get past the triggers. Knowing that AP was given sexually more than he his given today would be beyond his capacity to forgive.

I've been reading about this for 2 years now to figure out something related to my father.

What I noticed is that most R fail for two reasons:

- either WS doesn't/no longer does the necessary work

- or BS overestimates his capacity to forgive

When I read your posts here, I feel like you've been focusing a lot on the first point. But assuming she does the work, what will be critical in the long run is the second point. Ask yourself what you CAN objectively forgive, and what you CANNOT forgive. Some people (I include myself here) have a much lower ability to forgive than what they believe. If there are things you will not be able to forgive, R will fail (it will take two years or five, but it will happen when you realize what you cannot forgive). So ultimately, if you don't want to waste time, your job would be to objectively weigh your real capacity to forgive, and see if it has been exceeded or not. Without lying to yourself.

I understand that you are far from being able to give a complete answer to that question right now. But right now, what do you think about it? Do you feel yourself really able to forgive everything in the long run?

[This message edited by jujuchrist at 8:43 AM, Wednesday, March 30th]

This is certainly one of the more bizarre threads I've read on here but I commend you Dr S on your openness on here.

I’ve always been attracted to the mental aspects of sex. For me, sexual enjoyment is always about the situation and not about the literal physical pleasure. I’ve indulged in sexual kinks from across the spectrum.

As to why the cuckolding fetish took such a big hold, I think it’s two-fold.

For one, I think I was able to look at all porn through that same psychological lens—you sit and watch people having sex; another man having sex with the gorgeous girl while you, the lesser man, jerks off. It made it so no matter what porn I watched, I had that mental angle to get me off quicker—because just watching two people have regular sex was less appealing.

The second reason I think was because I could apply this fetish to my wife without her direct involvement. She wasn’t enjoying intercourse with me, so I needed an angle mentally to enjoy my sexual relationship with her. So I’d often give her oral sex and imagine being the beta male who couldn’t please her (I am aware of the irony now lol).

Maybe read up on the theory of the 'eroticisation of fear' if you're not already aware of it.

For some men it can be a coping strategy/fantasy following infidelity, the idea of which to most would be unthinkable and totally repugnant. However in your case Dr S you appear to have enjoyed the cuck fantasy prior to your wife's infidelity and in effect your fantasy has now become your worst nightmare.

Or has it?

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.

If you spend much time reading here, you'll find that a large percentage of affairs, perhaps the vast majority of affairs involving cheating wives, involve some iteration of this. It's utterly cliche. A wife believes she's not valued/not getting enough attention/not loved enough. You get the point. Sometimes these feelings are real, but more often they are imagined, a feedback loop she gets herself into because of some node in life: midlife crisis (very common), post-partum depression, youngest child moved out of the home or about to.

The crux of infidelity is how she responds to this. If it's imagined, does she work on it with her husband, or a therapist, or both, to fix it? If it's real, does she actually leave the marriage? Either would be okay. Nope, instead she lies to her husband, sneaks around, and cheats.

You perceive your circumstance to be different in some way because of the details, but it's actually not. All of the fetish stuff, the fantasies, the sexual history, that's white noise to the crux of the issue, which in this case has roots in your WW's low self-esteem. This is reflected also in her alcoholism and her excessive spending.

In the face of all of the advice here, it appears you are still working with an MC and your wife. I would leave you with an oft-cited truism here: don't set yourself on fire to keep somebody else warm.

I would add that trolling the internet and chatting with people to the extent of explicit sexual fantasy stuff, especially if you're using it to orgasm, would be considered a species of cheating by many unless your spouse consented to it. At the very least, it's borderline. It's not an excuse for your WW's affair, but it's something you need to work out. If the cuckold fantasy is what you really want to live out, then you should talk to your wife and see if you guys can agree to set it up. STD testing of the cuckold man should be the number 1 priority, because if I understand your fantasy correctly, it involves swapping bodily fluids amongs and between multiple parties.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 4:03 PM, Wednesday, March 30th]

Can you look at personality disorders? There’s something quite honestly very wrong with your wife. I am so appalled that she sat at a bar with the OBS and let her talk about her sex life when she herself had been screwing around with him. That is just so cruel and underhanded and sneaky and rotten. I don’t know how you deal with her.

Can you look at personality disorders? There’s something quite honestly very wrong with your wife. I am so appalled that she sat at a bar with the OBS and let her talk about her sex life when she herself had been screwing around with him. That is just so cruel and underhanded and sneaky and rotten. I don’t know how you deal with her.

That’s the problem. And I know I sound like every other BS, but her behavior during the affair exposed things about her that I had never seen before. I’ve spent most of my life with her and never saw a hint of any of her cruelty before. And I was largely oblivious to it during the affair, so it leaves me wondering if she’s always been this way and hiding it from me or if some switch flipped and she turned into a genuinely repugnant human for a few months.

Neither option really makes much sense to me.

I’ll also add for everyone, we had a hard talk last night and I was really rough on her. The financial stuff is now an ultimatum—all purchases go through me until further notice.

But I also really beat her down about how weak of a person she is. How cowardly her actions were to everyone in those months. I think it really hit her hard and she made lots of notes on what to discuss with her IC next week—with me going to Italy, she is going to try to do two sessions.

She just has so much to fix about herself and I’m too hurt right now to be much help to her. She knows she’s on her own and she knows I may not forgive her for any of this.

Or, maybe she thought about carrying on a second A.

So I don’t think this other guy was a candidate for that. I actually just met him on Friday—I went with my wife to help handle her last PTA event and he dropped by unplanned to assist her. He didn’t know who I was, so he approached her to talk. Then he quickly figured out who I was and he stayed on the opposite side of room rest of event talking to a different mom. He’s a bit of a loser, not attractive, clearly doing PTA to talk with moms.

Still, my wife clearly liked the attention from him, even if it was just to tell other people how annoying he was. She was just wallowing in all the new male attention from her new social life.

As for a second affair, she would have kept going if the first OM fizzled out. Just with a new guy.

About the trip. I asked this in another post but have not seen you discuss it (apologies is I missed it) but a truly remorseful WS would be focused on making her wounded betrayed spouse feel safe while he is gone.

So have you asked her what she will do to make you feel safe in that she won’t break NC and continue to cheat when you are gone?

Don’t start by telling her what you need. Ask her to research, develop and present a plan to make you comfortable that she is faithful and working in your and your marriage’s best interest Siri g that time. Ask her to suggest how to prove this is so.

It doesn’t matter that you think will be faithful. This is one of many opportunities she needs to take to start implementing the building blocks of a new marriage. She should welcome this opportunity if she is truly remorseful.

If not it will tell you more about her and if she’s someone worthy of life w you.

Yes, we discussed and I appreciate the thoughts on this. She actually spent a bit in her IC session yesterday on this topic. The IC seemed to suggest lots of attempts to stay in contact with me so I feel supported—so we can text. We can also setup a few FaceTime’s.

On her end, she’ll also keep me informed on where she’s going and what she’s up to. Largely, she’ll be focused on dealing with both kids and work though.

There’s something quite honestly very wrong with your wife. I am so appalled that she sat at a bar with the OBS and let her talk about her sex life when she herself had been screwing around with him. That is just so cruel and underhanded and sneaky and rotten.

We've seen way worse on Surviving Infidelity. Affairs that involve inlaws as AP's, or best friends. Spouses screwing friends in the home while the BS was also unwittingly in the home (such as sneaking off to the garage for a quickie), then returning as if nothing happened, etc. Some people take the position that "cheating is cheating is cheating", but I do agree with the view that some threads are more or less evil than others. Comingling cheating with socializing with the victims (betrayed spouse or spouses) of the cheating is in my view especially wicked. It speaks of an especially shyte character in the cheating partner.

My wife came across this workbook today and asked if I’d be interested in going through it with her. Anyone have any experience with it?

"Infidelity Recovery Workbook for Couples: Tools and Exercises to Rebuild Your Relationship"

Separately, I’ll say that that the "How to Help Your Partner Heal from an Affair" book has been fine, but it’s mostly been reading about how I already know I feel. It also has instilled doubt from me in my wife’s words because it can sometimes feel like she’s just reciting the words she knows she is supposed to say.

As for "No More Mr. Nice Guy," I don’t feel like I really relate to it this far, but I’ll keep reading.

Did you ask your WW of any other EA or PA she might have had since your two started dating?

I have, a few times. This is the first according to her. FWIW, if her crazy behavior of the last few months is any indication, she's never acted that way before, so it seems likely she's telling the truth.

It's also noteworthy that I've kept a journal over the last four years or so and for the first time in my relationship, I noted that while I ultimately didn't think she was cheating, for the first time ever I thought she could be having an affair (it was something I wrote on Jan. 22 about what happened on Jan 20 when she was sexting with the OM).

Maybe read up on the theory of the 'eroticisation of fear' if you're not already aware of it.

For some men it can be a coping strategy/fantasy following infidelity, the idea of which to most would be unthinkable and totally repugnant. However in your case Dr S you appear to have enjoyed the cuck fantasy prior to your wife's infidelity and in effect your fantasy has now become your worst nightmare.

Or has it?

Interestingly, I think my wife gets off on fear. A big part of the turn on of her affair was the public sex in his car and the taboo of sneaking around in hotel rooms behind my back.

On my end, the psychology of all this is really fucking with my head. I don't know that I ever could have gotten to this place in cooperation with my wife, as a willing cuckold. I really don't. And I'm fairly positive I couldn't have if the OM was living in our town.

But there's a part of me that feels like if I just looked at this through an erotic lens, I could forgive her--I could even work it into our sex life. But that feels naive. The truth is I'm more hurt by the affair than I am turned on. I'm also crushed by her deception of doing this behind my back. The cuckold fantasy works for me if I'm the willing participant--if I'm playing into being an inadequate lover for the fantasy. But that was the reality--I was an inadequate lover in her eyes, clearly. The fantasy loses all the thrill for me.

I also need to be careful not to be fully transparent about my confused feelings on this with her. She's seen how devastated I've been, so to flip a switch and ask her to retell me the stories in a sexy way so I can jerk off would be just too fucked up for both of us. I just don't think that's a viable path forward. I don't know what our sex life will be, should we reconcile, but I know we need to build it on open and honest communication: which is something the affair can never be.

On her end, she’ll also keep me informed on where she’s going and what she’s up to. Largely, she’ll be focused on dealing with both kids and work though.

Ok. I know it’s hard. If it were me I am not sure I could keep myself from doing more. Not sure of your situation but the best would be to have a trusted person come stay with her. I know, that’s probably impractical.

Other options are nanny cams secretly placed by the entrances or where she’d like talk on the phone. Or VARs.

Also having a trusted friend for r family member make unplanned stops to say hello at varying hours each day.

And then of course there is always a PI. Hiring one to monitor her could be expensive but also worth it.

Learning about you and who you are and how you think, I don’t expect you to choose any of them. But I thought it important to at least discuss them.

Remember, your wife is a cheater and a liar. She’s not all of a sudden NOT those things just because she has been on a productive path the last few weeks. I’m really worried about backsliding while you are away.

At the very least ask what she would do and say if he should up at her door, champagne in hand, some point during the two weeks you are gone.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 9:55 PM, Wednesday, March 30th]