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Oh thats gutting, I'm so sorry.

You are right, the betrayal isn't crystal clear here - but it still smells funny. And it has lead to a complete breakdown in trust ahead of what was already going to take an enormous amount of trust to endure.

You were previously betrayed. What has to be crystal clear in the present situation? This is how it starts. It was and likely still is her intention to do so. She will stop temporarily as she has been caught. She will take more precautions in future. When she feels you are complacent she will begin again. For example when she goes to her new posting where you will not be in such close proximity.

She is. And now she's saying, 'the way you have handled this so far is showing me that you aren't as emotionally unavailable as I thought afterall.'

Yeah, I'm having a hard time keeping up too.

Your wife is gaslighting you. She didn't realize you were emotionally available when you dated her, married her? She didn't realize this after you caught her in the first affair? This is your rollercoaster ride and it is one that will not end with this incident. If you have enjoyed the ride so far stay married to her. If not then consult with a lawyer and get away from her. This will not stop. Marriage counselling will not resolve this issue.

Good luck whatever course you chooose.

And now she's saying, 'the way you have handled this so far is showing me that you aren't as emotionally unavailable as I thought afterall.'

Translation: my cheating mindset is all your fault, if only you were more emotionally available…

Well, that’s quite a turn around in attitude in a couple days. Now she believes you are emotionally available. So, does she still believe she wants to try polyamory? Now she doesn’t need other men to have a deep emotional attachment? She is saying you fill the bill. Be skeptical. Watch her actions.

The whole swinger aspect is a bit of a distraction to your story.

Your WW had an affair, you don’t know the whole truth of it so it was "rug swept" basically.

Now you find your WW chatting with other men because "you’re emotionally unavailable", and is causing you a huge amount of anxiety.

Like with most infidelity stories, you can either decide that your WW can fix herself and try to R, or you don’t think she can and go for D.

Those are hard choices, but they are simple choice that will get you out of infidelity, stop your anxiety and claim back your life.

It sucks because she's demonstrated that her words are deceptive and motives selfish. How can words she speaks now about how she feels differently (but only after you played detective and caught her) be trustworthy?

What do you do? Trust. Your. Gut.

Anger keeps BH's moving forward, while fear causes inaction or as we say analysis paralysis.

This assumes one must be angry or scared, and that's a very false dichotomy. Each of us has many more choices than angry or scared.

Further, it ignores the fact that holding onto anger doesn't move one forward; rather it keeps one stuck in a cycle of anger. It's one thing to feel anger as it comes and goes. That's how a healthy body acts. It's quite another to hold onto anger; that's the act of a person who - this is just one possibility out of many - doesn't trust themself to act except by getting angry.

Acting out of anger is, perhaps, similar to jumping to a conclusion. Acting faster than necessary is too likely to act on less data than one can obtain easily, and that is too likely to take one from the frying pan into the fire.

When in pain, it's usually much better to take the pain into account but also to take other factors from one's sitch into account, too. It's best not act simply on the basis of the most apparent pain. The best thing a person in pain can do is to take in the whole sitch and move towards a cure for the pain, not just move away from a specific stimulus.

I ride a bike. Drivers do nasty things that require me to make moves that I don't like making just to keep myself from being hit. Usually my reaction is anger. Sometimes, I yell something nasty at the driver or flip a bird....

Too often, acting out of anger is simply too likely to cause harm to oneself.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:45 PM, Monday, April 25th]

She is. And now she's saying, 'the way you have handled this so far is showing me that you aren't as emotionally unavailable as I thought afterall.'

Bottom is that your wife never found her true why and has not addressed her unhealthy need for male validation outside of her primary relationship. Really sorry man, but her brokeness was never addressed just repressed. She is back to a cheaters mind set.

I think she has a lot more work to do. She keeps pointing to you and your reaction. She needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and figure out why her need for validation is more important that the people closest to her. Think on it. She is behaving like an addict. Just one more fix at any cost.It doesn't seem like she changed that much. She was just waiting or there are other As you don't know about.

FWIW. You already gave her a second chance and look what she did with that gift. It doesn't look like it was appreciated that much was it?

You have issues that would be best addressed in IC. Your wife needs IC to figure out why she places a unhealthy need for validation despite it costing her dearly.

Your call and your life, but I think you need to talk to an attorney about a D too. kerp all options open.

Your Ws choices are not yours and you do not need to take blame for them. She did this without your involvement and/or consent. She violated your intimacy. The righy way would have been to talk to you about it. Not create grey areas where choices to betray that intimacy are less hurrful. She doesn't get it yet.

You both agreed upon new boundaries in your M. She broke them. This is Dday #2. You are still married to a cheater. She is the same wife who cheated on you before with an enhanced justification tools.

If she has not divulged everrything from her A now would be the time for ber to share and potebtially take a poly that she has no more secrets in this space and see how much that hurts you. If that doesn't help her figure it out then file for A D.

She is a serial cheater now and was prior. She needs to fix that part of herself or admit her values do not align with being in a mature long term and committed relationship.

I'd bet money there are more As you don't know about in your past. Poly is the onky thing I can think of at the moment. I would DNA the kids too. She needs to see actions that demonstrate how you don't trust her.

Being in a monogamish lifestyle in the past. . .Those relationhips need to have ironclad trust and very clear boundaries. She has shown she can't provide either of those things in that type of arrangement. Take all poly, swinging off the table. Make it clear that talking to guys on the app without you being involved is a violation of your boundaries and all chats with third parties must stop.

Justify it all anyone wants. She is cheating and this is your second Dday.

My .02 until your W hits rock bottom and wants to change she never will.

She is. And now she's saying, 'the way you have handled this so far is showing me that you aren't as emotionally unavailable as I thought afterall.

This is certainly interesting. How are you feeling after your inlaws are gone and you've had an opportunity to discuss HurtHalo?

Bottom is that your wife never found her true why and has not addressed her unhealthy need for male validation outside of her primary relationship. Really sorry man, but her brokeness was never addressed just repressed. She is back to a cheaters mind set.

I think she has a lot more work to do. She keeps pointing to you and your reaction. She needs to take a long hard look in the mirror and figure out why her need for validation is more important that the people closest to her.

You have issues that would be best addressed in IC. Your wife needs IC to figure out why she places a unhealthy need for validation despite it costing her dearly.

This. We had a big chat the other night and she said she has no idea why outside validation is her 'go to' recourse when the chips are at their most down in her life. She stated that she had zero intention of meeting any of the people she was talking to, and that she felt lonely because we apparently weren't connecting emotionally. She has confessed she needs to get to the bottom of thi via IC. It's absolutely no excuse, but it's a reason from her POV. As for me, I have asked to bring forward my individual chat with our MC therapist. I am going this Friday morning.

When she feels you are complacent she will begin again. For example when she goes to her new posting where you will not be in such close proximity.

This is my biggest fear. Regardless of what happens, a move 700km away with this in the background will likely be the end of the marriage. It literally feels like an hourglass slowly pouring against the process of un-f%#king this incident. For someone whose love language is 'physical touch' and 'emotional connection'; I'm not feeling like she's going to be fulfilled living 700kms away from me.

Like with most infidelity stories, you can either decide that your WW can fix herself and try to R, or you don’t think she can and go for D.

^Absolutely.

This is certainly interesting. How are you feeling after your inlaws are gone and you've had an opportunity to discuss HurtHalo?

I am feeling a lot better after talking to her (as opposed to Saturday when I found all the convos on the app and finally got to ask her about her comments to the MC on Wednesday), but there's a lot of work to be done. She has confessed that despite having no intention to meet with any of the people she was talking to, she knew I wouldn't have approved, even from a 'her being curious' POV. She said to me this morning that 'she was getting so desperate in regards to wanting to emotionally connect with me better, that she feels like this was her (destructive) way of setting off a bomb/catalyst; and that dropping it in the MC session was a (misguided) way of being heard/cry for help'. I can understand it to a certain point, but I also can't.

I refuse to live with the fear of getting cheated on because at any point of time I might be screwing something up in the M and things might not be 100%, and her go to crutch is threatening to nuke the marriage via outside emotional validation.

At this stage I am 50/50 on D or R; pending time with the MC. The other thing that is a double edged sword is that my anti-anxiety medication is leaving me quite calm and collected. I really feel I should be a lot angrier, but it's just not there. And I know it should be, which is quite discombombulating on it's own.

[This message edited by Hurthalo at 3:13 AM, Tuesday, April 26th]

Gentle 2x4 because you want to believe the best in her, she’s your wife of X number of years so that’s fair. But she is lying to you. Take it from me who is with a serial cheater going on 26 years of marriage, I’ve heard it all. Especially this excuse. I wanted your attention , we weren’t connecting blah blah blah blah. Newsflash, the non-cheaters like myself would use our words and say "hey I don’t feel like we are connecting let’s set some time aside" OR better yet take the counselling opportunity in front of us to say "we aren’t connecting and we’re here to find out why and how we can get connected"

The cheaters will say "hey I want to cheat on you but have you be ok with it" in the middle of a counselling session and then tell you "hahahahaah I was just joking!" Well that was a waste of $150 now wasn’t it? "Oh you don’t think that’s a good idea and are mad?? Oh well I only said it for your attention!" Who does that? Cheaters do that.

BrokenAgain, I agree 100%.

This is foremost in my mind. She either fixes this....or she ends up living a tumultuously lonely life whereby she needs to explain to her daughters why she chose chasing emotional unicorns over me and them.

How is your wife talking her way out of "coming out" as polyamorous? If intimate relationships with more than one person are an essential aspect of her identity, as she claimed, then how can she agree to be faithful to you in the ways that you expect?

And if she's not actually polyamorous, will she admit that she was just trying to manipulate you into agreeing to let her sleep with and pursue relationships with other men?

If you accept the first premise, then you have to cope with the idea that your wife is not being her authentic self by remaining monogamous. If you reject the first premise, then you have to accept the second, which is that your wife is a straight-up liar who will do and say anything if she thinks it will get her what she wants.

If intimate relationships with more than one person are an essential aspect of her identity....

I think 'polyamorous' means something more like 'can have multiple romantic relationships, irrespective of the characteristics of potential partners' rather than 'must have multiple relationships'.

I also think - and see in my W - that ending the need for external validation will end cheating. I suppose my W might choose to end our relationship after learning to validate herself, but I just don't see her cheating again.

The obstacle I see is that it took a lot longer for my W to give up needing external validation than you have between now and your W's deployment. If you move with her, you greatly reduce the risk of more cheating. If you don't move, she's a continued danger to herself and your M and you and your kids - unless you figure out how to stay truly connected remotely.

A bottomless pit of need that no one can fill up. It is sad for her but awful for you because this is her default reaction to everything. I am pretty sure you know how to love. You just love an unavailable woman.

This is foremost in my mind. She either fixes this....or she ends up living a tumultuously lonely life

The last real husband/wife talk I had with my xwh before we split up was something like this "You need to fix your shit, if you're always looking for another person to fill you up on happiness, you're condemning yourself to a life of constantly seeking and never finding "it". And you're also condemning anyone who tries to fill that hole in you to pain and suffering."

Bottom line, if your ww is like my xwh - if she is the kind of person who thinks that others "owe" her happiness or that happiness is some gift that she can be give.... if she's like that, then you're fighting a losing battle here my friend. Just my 0.02.

I think you need to find a way to not have her job separate you and her and your family.

Either she finds a posting close to home or you and the kids move with her. I know it’s not what you wanted but you both need to decide if you love each other and you are going to make the marriage a priority or not.

It’s difficult enough under normal circumstances to be separated by work for that long. But these are in no way normal circumstances.

If you are going to stay together and work on the marriage then in my opinion you need to live together full time as well.

If she is going to leave for the job, then it’s best that you consider ending the marriage. It will be way to stressful for you to be wondering who she is with and what she is doing with them 24 hrs a day.

Just my $.02

Do you still want to be worried about this 5 years from now? Still trying to swallow far-fetched explanations 7 years from now? Coping with a full-fledged 2nd D-Day 10 years from now?

If not, have her served and move on with your life.

Sisoon

I think 'polyamorous' means something more like 'can have multiple romantic relationships, irrespective of the characteristics of potential partners' rather than 'must have multiple relationships'.

Practically speaking, there is no difference. When someone comes out as polyamorous (genuinely or not) it’s not because could have multiple partners theoretically… it’s because they want to and fully intend on doing so.

But to your other point, I am extremely skeptical about the idea of a poly "identity" because, in more cases than not, it’s really just a term applied to people who are addicted to the "high" they get from new relationships and are dependent on romantic partners as a source of external validation.

Because those situations are highly emotional, I try to keep my replies short and to the point, some people like it, some don’t.

If you are considering R, you will need to start with the whole truth. That’s the starting point.

To get the truth, ask for a detailed written timeline of all her infidelities, including the one from 9 years ago.

If you are leaning for D, then you don’t need that, you need to talk to a lawyer.

Good luck :)

[This message edited by ShutterHappy at 12:35 PM, Wednesday, April 27th]