SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have started posting on this site a little over a year ago when I found out about my wife's infidelity. We have now been trying to reconcile and in all this time, I haven't told her about SI. The closest I got to that was when I printed out some things from the Healing Library and asked her to read it.

A few weeks ago, I made a post on the Reconciliation forum about how I struggled with offering her support when she cries because of the consequences of her actions. I do not want to send the message that everything is fine now, or that she shouldn't be facing these consequences. However, I know that we both must heal and I was wondering if her being able to talk to other WSs would help her with the support she needs.

Should I tell her about SI?

I guess a lot of that depends on you. I freely admit that I don’t know where I would be had I not found SI. A lot of the tough love helped me pull my head out of my ass.

But keep in mind, this is your safe space. If she knows about SI, there’s a chance she will come across your posts. You might find yourself censoring what you say and you should feel free to express yourself.

Just food for thought.

No. You shouldn't sacrifice your safe space to give her an opportunity that she might not even appreciate or benefit from. There are multiple posters here who no longer feel free to share their own experiences because their WWs or ex's or even AP's are now on the site and they no longer have any privacy. Even if you don't tell her your username, she'd figure it out by the descriptions of events. This isn't such a huge site. The same handful of stories tend to swirl around for a time, before new stories pop up. She will find your posts, if you invite her on. That might seem okay to you now, but if things deteriorate and she either cheats again or you separate, you'll wish you had your safe space back.

There are a few successful couples where both partners are on the site, but that is only something you should attempt well after reconciliation has really worked out for you. That is, when you're ready to be mentors rather than in need of help yourselves. If that day ever comes. Sharing the site with her now would be jumping the gun. It's like giving her permanent access to your diary.

Individual therapy and/or self-help books are what you can safely recommend to her at this fragile stage of the relationship.

[This message edited by morningglory at 5:03 AM, Sunday, June 26th]

What's her personality? Does she take offense easily? Does she dive into new things and stick with them? You've been here for awhile. You know what we're like. It can be a tough to have every word you say checked for meaning by a bunch of strangers, right? Some WS do get a lot out of it, but they've got to be willing to sit in discomfort sometimes and see if what's being said resonates or not. Others will get flooded and stalled out by the criticism.

IMHO, I wouldn’t tell her about SI, this is YOUR safe place. I haven’t seen a lot of good outcomes with couples both involved in SI.

It's a tough call, Tacit. There have been couples who were each active members while successfully reconciling and they will most likely attest that their simultaneous participation was of tremendous benefit. At the same time, of course, there have been couples whose simultaneous participation resulted in absolute nightmares for themselves, as well as the SI staff. While I cannot speak to any statistical data, based upon my own experience (I shared SI and my username with my XWW), and the reading I've done, I would not recommend sharing SI with your spouse (wayward or betrayed).

I think even the most authentic human being is apt to write things on these pages that they would not normally say to their spouse in real life. There is tremendous value in that. Because it's an anonymous message board, we're also free to write things that we might not say to anyone at all in real life. There's even greater value in that. Add to all of this the fact that a wonderful group of volunteers moderate the boards to ensure it remains a safe place for all, and, as far as I'm concerned, this is a great place to bare one's soul.

So, before you decide to share SI with your WW, be certain that you're also ready to bare your soul to her. At some point, if reconciliation is your goal, going "all in" is a must. At one year out, though, I'd imagine you're a little hesitant to make that call, which is perfectly reasonable.

I was wondering if her being able to talk to other WSs would help her with the support she needs.

That all depends upon her. If she's open to the experience, she will find tremendous wisdom and support in the W forum. Some of our members are formerly wayward, happily reconciled spouses who will genuinely offer the best guidance they possibly can. These kind folks aren't easily fooled, however, and they will, as politely as they can, call her out on any nonsense on her part. She won't be treated with kids' gloves at the adult table.

Nope. This is your safe place.

Should I tell her about SI?

No.

The most common thing I see here are BS driving reconciliation, trying to control the outcome (a fixed WS), leading their WS to this book or that website.

90% of WS sign up and rarely post. I see BS say this over and over and over again. So don't bother. Don't try to drive R. Just accept that if she is not doing the work, creating the work, finding the work on her own, then R won't be effective anyway. Don't try to fix what she broke all by herself.

I think even the most authentic human being is apt to write things on these pages that they would not normally say to their spouse in real life.

Your WW is likely going to read your thread OP. Bear this ^ in mind with what you wrote in your thread talking about your wife's cheating. Harsh things you've said, or, if you were monitoring her conversations with others without her knowing it.

Ask her if she thinks it would help talking to other wayward spouses.

As others have mentioned you'll lose your safe space... don't know if that's as important to you now that you're in Reconciliation. If she cheats again, my guess is you're divorcing her right? So I don't know how much secrecy and coaching about VARs, GPS, and find my phone and exposing to one and all will be worth to you. Might be OK if she reads your current thoughts 2 months from now on your Reconciliation thread.

I understand what the other are saying regarding keeping this your safe place, however when reconciling I have a different take on this (I’m sure that’s not surprising).

My husband found SI about a month after DDay and shared it with me right away as our goal was to R. We had decided early on that if we were going to R we needed to leave no stoned unturned. We were going to dig into the deepest darkest corners and we needed help doing that.

Neither one of us posted anything here that we had not already discussed together. At the time we were here, multiple couples were members trying to accomplish the same goal, so we had a lot of support. It wasn’t easy but I can say that I very literally owe my M to SI. The advice, tough love, honesty, feedback, and support I received here was vital to my success in healing. Not only were we able to post about our own struggles, but SI was a great spring board to start conversations that might otherwise be difficult to start. We would read posts and ask each other if we saw them, then relating those posts to our own situation.

I’m not sure why or how the advice primarily became not to share this site with your wayward. Like I said, when I joined there were many couples on this site. When we joined, we blended in rather than sticking out. These days, because it is so rare, couples tend to stick out. People read both sides and try to form camps rather than help heal. It’s exactly why we have a guideline not allowing information or topics to be pulled from other threads or forums.

All of this to say that if you are all in for R and pretty much an open book with your wife, it could be very beneficial. If she has shown that she is willing to dig deep and face the ugliest parts head on, I would say go for it.

I honestly wish we could get to a point where more people were willing to share such an amazing resource with their waywards again. It wouldn’t just help the wayward but the BS as well when the wayward is willing to do the work. If more and more were willing to do that, then maybe we could get back to a place where the couples blend in rather than stick out.

I am grateful for this site. I have been here nearly 12 years. I volunteer a lot of my time to it. Being a member here has helped me become and stay a better person.

I wouldn't ask them to sign up. I had to drop my first account because my WH looked up my posts after I shared/printed some articles I found for him to read from the site - and confronted me on my posts saying "As long as you know what you're writing isn't true." This came as a huge shock to me at the time as I never gave him permission to look for my posts, didn't give him my username, and he did the work himself to find out which account was mine and what I was saying about his actions.

The problem with sharing comes when the WS is not committed to doing the work of R.

I suggested SI to my W early on, but she refused. Two years after d-day, she wanted some support I didn't want to give, and I suggested she join. She did. (Her response to the 1st counsel she got was that it was 'a little harsh'.)

Even then we agreed to stay away from each other's threads. A lot of issues raised on SI are 'works in progress'. As Unhinged said, that's stuff that shouldn't be read by one's partner, even when you've discussed it IRL. It just has more and different force when in print that when it's a discussion, IMO. Not reading each other's threads was our way of handling the WIP problem - but we both had the boundaries we needed to stay away from the other's threads.

If your W is committed to healing herself, SI is probably a good idea. If she isn't, it's a bad idea. Your call.

Remember: if you make a mistake, you can almost definitely recover, so this is probably not a life or death choice.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:18 PM, Sunday, June 26th]

No.

If she hasn't found SI on her own, then don't show it to her.

She's a big girl. She knows how to Google.

It's always interesting to me how all of these BS find SI, yet their WS,who say they want to reconcile, need to be lead here. I mean, Google anything about how to deal with the aftermath of infidelity, and this site comes up. If more of these supposed remorseful WS would be putting in a little research after dday, they would have already found us.

It's been a year. She hasn't looked. So,no. Keep this as your safe place.

WS often google how to hide their affair. Look for hotels in incognito mode. How to delete everything off their phone so it can't be found,etc. But after dday, they suddenly forget how to google.

Tacit’s WW did a terrible job trying to hide her affair, if she actually tried at all. I mean she was caught in a public mall holding APs hand by her brother in law and/or sister, as I recall.

It's always interesting to me how all of these BS find SI, yet their WS,who say they want to reconcile, need to be lead here.

If a WS were capable of making healthy choices and finding their own path to self discovery, this site would not need to exist.

12 years ago the internet was a different animal. I don’t know what I would find today that I was looking for back then. I know I wasn’t looking for ways to hide my affair online. What I was looking for was something to show me I was still a good person even though I was acting shitty. I found books like "Why Good People Have Affairs". I wasn’t ready to face the fact that I was a shitty person. I didn’t know what I needed to fix. I looked for reasons like codependency.

It wasn’t until people who had walked the same path as me, calling me out on my twisted perspectives that I was able to find my way, all while my husband was having his own strength through support here as well.

I understand how maddening it must be that the WS needs their hand to be held and a map to be drawn to navigate this, but until they (we) have a basic understanding of how twisted our mindset is, none of it will make sense.

I know it’s easy to think that all WS are nefariously twisting their villainous mustaches, but the fact of the matter is many of us are just people with really horribly twisted perspectives on life and people with terrible coping mechanisms. Discovery isn’t always enough to knock a WS on the right path. Sometimes it’s only enough to make us realize that there is more than one and choosing another can be confusing and overwhelming for anyone involved in infidelity. So if a WS is screaming for help to find the path they want to travel and you know what direction to point them in to get the result you both are after, the benefit can outweigh the negative.

Again, I say this only if you have a truly remorseful WS.

I’m not sure why or how the advice primarily became not to share this site with your wayward. Like I said, when I joined there were many couples on this site. When we joined, we blended in rather than sticking out. These days, because it is so rare, couples tend to stick out. People read both sides and try to form camps rather than help heal.

SI can be a bit "trendy," no more or less affected by "prevailing winds" than anything else in life. Sometimes SI seems to be more pro-D than pro-R, until the winds shift again. It seems to be the same with couples sharing SI. "Camps" are trendy these days, which is a damned shame, if you ask me. Hopefully, sooner rather than later, we will all remember the "better angels of our nature."

What's her personality? Does she take offense easily? Does she dive into new things and stick with them?

She has a pretty thick skin. She doesn't like being called out but if the other person has a point, she'll usually concede to it. She usually sticks to things she started until the end.

I suggested SI to my W early on, but she refused. Two years after d-day, she wanted some support I didn't want to give, and I suggested she join

I remember you commenting this on the post that I made on the Reconciliation forum. It was that that made me start wondering if I should tell my WW about SI in the first place. I share the others' concern about me losing a safe space, which is why I am hesitant to do it, but if she could use some support from other waywards and if we stay out of each other's threads, I'm wondering if it would be beneficial.

She's a big girl. She knows how to Google.

To be fair, if she is googling things, she might be doing it in Portuguese rather than English. I don't know if SI would show up if searching for infidelity in Portuguese. I only found this site myself because I used to be on reddit and someone there directed me here.

It's good that she has a reasonably thick skin. Posting with a stop sign at first would also give her some room to acclimate, not that the WS's in Wayward won't call it like they see it, you know.

I understand how maddening it must be that the WS needs their hand to be held and a map to be drawn to navigate this, but until they (we) have a basic understanding of how twisted our mindset is, none of it will make sense.

I like this^^^^ from WOES. It resonates with my experience in R. My fWH was just stuck in his shame spiral. WS's can get stuck too, and when you think about it, they've already demonstrated what poor coping skills they've got when they're left to their own devices. It just doesn't make sense to withdraw emotionally and intellectually when it's not working toward your goal. If you want R, why would you distance yourself from the person you want to be with when you believe them to be remorseful and willing to work toward meaningful change? I mean, it's one thing if your WS is recalcitrant or if you suspect they're blowing sunshine up your skirt. It's something else if you feel like the will is there but the know-how isn't.

I think you can still make good use of the site if you're both using it. We do have a PM feature so if there's something that's bugging you that you don't necessarily want to share, you can message someone you trust. That said, the openness of being authentic with one another and with your postings might start some good conversations for you as a couple. Hard conversations can be the most rewarding ones.

It sounds to me like she could handle it. It's all about taking what you need and leaving the rest, right?

I asked a similar question on the Wayward Side a few years ago, when I was still fairly new here and we had a larger group of FWS on the site. Here's the link, in case you'd like to read it.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/640511/being-directed-to-si-by-bs/?ap=1

My wife inevitably found out I have been posting here. The first time I nuked my old threads (which staff eventually restored). She doesn't come around much (I don't think) and she has no plan to register or post. I think early on, the safe space is very needed, but at some point it is also a potentially important resource that shouldn't be overlooked.

It depends how well you think she could take reading your JFO thread. If she can take that, she could probably do from the help.