SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You are responsible for your healing. She is responsible for hers.

I say if you feel like comforting her, comfort her. I also say hysterical bonding is top tier sex. It clouds judgment and it's probably wise to steer away from it, etc. But I'm not going to lie to you and say it isn't great.

Edit to add: I can't count the number of people not in my family I have said "I love you" to platonically on one hand. Maybe she says this to lots of people. I do not. And I have never said it platonically to someone I've had sex with.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 3:00 PM, Friday, July 1st]

Here’s my opinion. Based in everything you posted so far, there was disrespect and disfunction etc. shown towards your wife from the OM.

I doubt anyone would dispute that.

Her "I love you" to him just exacerbated the continuing pattern. How can you "love" (even platonic love) to someone who threatens to throw you out of a car b/c of a political disagreement? 🤦‍♀️ SMH

You can sit and analyze yourself, your wife, the affair, why she wants to R, do her words hold any validity etc. OR you can decide to put your healing first. You work in whatever issues need to be addressed in your life. You get your mental and emotional being as strong as possible. Then you look around and decide if YOU want to stay with your wife.

Stay if you will be happy. Stay if you feel you love her and she loves you and a marriage will be fulfilling and rewarding etc.

Don’t waste years (like I did) analyzing everything. Looking back that was my biggest regret. I tortured myself over and over trying to make sense of everything. I realized 3 years after Dday that it didn’t matter what my H said or did (to a certain extent). It only mattered that I believed him and loved him and could trust him again.

If she’s making amends (as an example) and is truly remorseful, but your heart is not in it, it really doesn’t matter what your cheating spouse says or does. I think you get my point.

Ink - you’re no different than any new betrayed husband, wanting to believe that your WW is telling the truth now.

Does this make sense to you?: WW gets into a knock down drag out with AP in the car, then retains him as a friend, then says I love you. What would you say if you were counseling a friend?

Do the poly. This simply isn’t adding up.

Now, if your attitude is that it doesn’t really matter how much truth or not you’re getting now because: I know they had sex, I know they had an EA, so how many times they had sex, or whether they did it in my home, or whether the EA really never ended, or whether she actually loves AP or not, doesn’t matter because I was bad to her dnd she was bad to me snd now we’re simply moving forward.

If that’s the case, snd you’re totally fine with not having the entire truth (which is 100 percent by the way) than don’t do the poly. Just know that you’re being lied to straight up to your face, whether you want to believe it or not.

It’s coming hard now. I thought the radical truth telling was what I got to do. Just kidding, I genuinely appreciate it. These last two posts are jolting me. Gonna try to be off my phone for a while, so some fishing. Reply more later.

But what I hear in what you are saying and what hits me hard is the idea that I shouldn’t hope for change in her. That I should make my evaluation of what the future will probably look like based off her history, which would be bleak because I’ve described a challenged marriage and now she’s an adulterer. If I do that, I could just walk out the door this morning.

You would certainly be looking for change, but that change has to do with your WW's character and integrity. When a person really BELIEVES in core values like fidelity and honesty, they just cant' trash those beliefs willy nilly for whatever instant gratification their ego might require in the moment. I think quite a number of people would have us believe that anybody is capable of cheating, but IME, it's just not true. Some people can't do it. They just don't have it in them to say "yes" to that kind of perfidy. But your WW did. My fWH did. So, certain questions arise. Where did those values go? What does the WS truly stand for, if anything? What was so much more important to them than standing on those values? Why was it important enough to risk everything?

Fixing a WS requires deep, painfully humbling introspection, and we can't do it for them. They have to do it for themselves. Then, on the BS side, we have to deal with our own healing. It's kind of like if your WW broke your leg. She's responsible for the injury, and she can do certain things which create an atmosphere for healing, but YOU have to do the actual work of it. She can bring you lunch and a pillow, she can drive you to your physical therapy appointments, but your body has to knit that bone itself. Intimate betrayal wounds us at a very primal level. It's essentially an abandonment wound, and it's capable of creating trauma and even existential crisis. We find ourselves questioning everything; love, commitment, trust, identity, even faith. All of that has to be worked through and it is also painfully humbling introspection. Oftentimes, we find that we were on autopilot in a number of ways, enmeshed and ignoring our personal development, until we find ourselves bereft of the connection we had become reliant upon. It's a big undertaking to reinvest in ourselves to the point where we're emotionally self-sufficient, and no one can do it for us.

So, it many ways, the WS needs to heal/change and we need to heal/change, but we each must do our own work. After that, there's the work of the marriage itself to accomplish. It's easy, particularly in a case where the marriage might have had deficiencies, to get bogged down in changing the marriage, meaning how we relate to one another. But what sense does it make to focus on relational issues with a sick partner? Doesn't it stand to reason that the best chance of success would be with two healthy people?

People do say that you can't get bogged down in "the outcome", and for me, what that means is that we have to start with achieving two healthy people before we can worry about fixing the relationship. It's a matter of prioritizing where we apply our energy first, kind of like putting on your own oxygen mask so you're there to help the guy next to you. You're just a few days out from dday. You still haven't even absorbed the shock yet but you're holding onto the reins so tightly, and that's what most of us do really, so it's normal but not necessarily desirable. This thing is going to play out over the course of TIME and the energy you're expending trying to achieve an R or D decision before it comes naturally has the potential to become exhausting. It's not going anywhere, and it's okay to be noncommittal for awhile while you each figure yourselves out a little more in order to determine whether those internal changes are possible. It can't be coerced. She has to change for herself or it won't be authentic. All you'd get is a bunch of "go along to get along" based on her reticence to divorce. Her changes have to be organic or they won't hold.

WW is also sticking with the story of the sign off "I love you" as being platonic.

Just how are you supposed to know if it's just platonic when she tells you that she loves you?

Waywards, even the most remorseful, lie minimize to limit the damage. When caught they'll claim it was to avoid hurting the BS. That might even be what they are telling themselves but in reality it is to limit the consequences. Her insisting on going on the trip is weird if her story is true. Possibly but unlikely. They might not have had sex again, but she didn't take it off the table the day after. That also lines up with the ILY in the NC message. She was still invested in him, even as just a friend, just last week. That's not how someone reacts with someone with you did acts with threaten your marriage. You would be disgusted with yourself and AP for that. If the sex was one and done, there's no way she would have insisted on going. She was still invested in a relationship with AP and wanted to spend time with him. I think that lines up with OBS discoverying or at least suspected of the A during that trip. If they only had sex once, and even if they had little sex or sex acts after the trip, in her mind limiting to just once isn't that big of lie. As is shifting her date of mental disconnect from the affair further back in time. Occams razor points to her story being untrue.

For polygraphs you cannot discount the placebo effect. If the subject is concerned about lying they are more likely to test as deceptive. This in itself tends to lead to either a parking lot confession or a post test admission of the minimizations if deceptive was a result. Keep it to facts. People are more likely to be properly anxious or non anxious about questions that are yes/no it either happened or it didn't. Getting into feelings, perceptions, opinions, desires is less useful as those are more likely to get reframed or revised in a persons mind.
Define Sex and Sex acts. Ask her if they had sex outside of the day admitted. Ask her if they did any other sex acts before or after that date that were not on the timeline. Ask her if she had sex with anyone besides AP after you married. Ask her if she touched or allowed anyone else to touch another persons genitals after you married. Then ask her if the timeline she provided was accurate. The last is the most troublesome. The others should have fairly decent chances of either being accurately confirmed or denied.

I just brought up polygraph with her again. I had mentioned it early on but haven’t mentioned it since. Her response surprised me. She said she thought that was metaphorical. She asked if I researched their accuracy because she thought they weren’t accurate. I said I had researched them and thought they are not perfect but useful. So I guess that at the very least puts that much more pressure to be honest.

Ever see those "win probability" charts that they make after NBA games? I’ve always wondered how they do that and how they ever think that at any time in the second quarter that they should be making a prediction above 80%, but sometimes they swing wildly until you get to the end of the 4th and it hits 100%. I feel like that, it’s like the second minute of the first quarter and it was set too high and I’m definitely sloping down today from yesterday. But that has almost no bearing on where this thing will end up.

I hate the thought that I’m a typical hopium junkie, but it makes sense. This is awful.

It’s also worth noting she disclosed that "I love you" when it would have been so easy to hide it. She could have given every other part of the letter and left that out and I’d have never so much as suspected. So is that radical honesty or another example of terrible judgement?

And speaking of addictions, this site has a pull in itself. Gotta pull myself away and live in the world for a while.

Well InkHulk, there is a lot to unpack here.

1. Even if "nothing sexual" happened on the trip (I'm still not positive that is true though but let's just assume for now that it is true): Your WW was still MASSIVELY unfaithful to HER FAMILY. She was spending a **whole week** playing nanny to SOMEONE ELSE'S kids. WTF. She should have been putting that energy towards HER OWN. This is one more huge reason why she owes your kids an apology.

And...she was still acting as OM's WIFE, complete with the screaming fight on the way back.

2. That she saw OM's true colors should be no comfort to you or an absolution to her. What if OM continued the charade of being a gentleman? Would the betrayal of you and your family had continued?

3. How can your WW love--even platonically--someone who hurt her husband and family?

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 5:15 PM, Friday, July 1st]

That she saw OM's true colors should be no comfort to you or an absolution to her.

And lets be clear APs true colors aren't just that he was mean to her. AP and OBS behavior on this trip means that this wasn't their first rodeo and your WW wasn't their first, or even likely only, side piece. You don't joke about three ways with another woman in front of your spouse without knowing that she wouldn't blow up about it. Yet she signs off with "I love you". I'm not sure your WW fully admits to herself even now APs true colors.

There's much more to the story then she has been willing to admit. Even those whose guilt causes them to confess try to calibrate the lies. I confessed that we had sex, thats what important. That will relieve the guilt. BS doesn't need to know that we banged like bunnies for weeks. Or that we had a threeway with his wife. Or that I gave him a BJ just last week. That would only hurt him after all.

The pushback on the poly after intial agreement is also common. They are called parking lot confessions for a reason. Most will agree and hope that you don't follow through. It works for some. Look up DrFibbles story. His wife didn't have sex but swore that she disclosed everything right up to the day of the poly. What she had been still lying about was enough to end their marriage.

Well yes that is true, OM and the purported OBS probably have done this sort of thing before. But, that is besides the point of what I was trying to say. **Even if** WW came home and recognized what a sleazebag OM his and how it probably extends to his wife too, it should still be no comfort to you InkHulk or your marriage. That point needs to be emphasized in and of itself, as it is often something too many waywards say and too many BS don't shoot down fast enough: 'I realized then and there what a scumbag OM was so I chose you, BH'.

JUST AS MUCH, I do hope InkHulk--and his WW--recognize the depth of her betrayal towards their family SIMPLY BY WW EVEN GOING on the trip with OM's family.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 7:41 PM, Friday, July 1st]

I wouldn't call what she is doing radical honesty unless the timeline is substantially complete.

They way TT work is she first admits the big bad thing. Then as she is interrogated, knows that certain details will probably bother you, she will tell you the ones that she judges would be the worst to come out later. She doesn't actually know WHAT details matter the most to you, and she can't tell it all to you in a brief period of time because she has been lying to you for over a year.

Which lies matter the most to you? She doesn't know, and neither do you, just yet.

So TT is a sort of game of whack a mole, where they are going to admit the thing that is still bothering them the most, and potentially make you feel like you've heard enough. When it's not, they let the next thing out, then the next.

That's why you have to stop TT in its tracks from the outset and get that timeline.

It’s also worth noting she disclosed that "I love you" when it would have been so easy to hide it. She could have given every other part of the letter and left that out and I’d have never so much as suspected. So is that radical honesty or another example of terrible judgement?

You have to understand that your WW has a lot of experience deceiving you and you have almost none trying to ferret out her deception. You never imagined that it was even possible. She has learned that she can lie about anything that you cannot know, but she has to be very careful with anything that you *might* know or discover. So when she's telling you about that message she has to account for the possibility that you may have checked and found it somehow.

There's almost no chance that the "I love you" was platonic - not expressed that way and in that context. People think about how that's going to be heard. If she didn't want it heard as some kind of expression of enduring romantic love she should not have said "I LOVE YOU." She would be wary of sending the wrong message and avoid it. That was the message she wanted him to get and she sent it.

As others have said, the OBS NC request suggests that she already knows all that she wants to know about the A. Consider the fact that OBS already knows when you credit your WW for confessing. She has likely been worried about the threat of exposure by the OBS for some time and trying to find a way to mitigate that threat. Your confession gave her an opportunity and she took it.

You should ask your WW when OBS found out. Just throw it out like that. Not "if," "when." How did she find out? This is something she knows that you might be able to find out at some point. Lying about it would be dangerous but she might still profess ignorance. Getting that story might cast some of the other information in a new light.

You said that you couldn't see your WW as "hunting" but as you mention later she was certainly fishing, and that's the nature of it. It's possible that the potential of getting exposed by pregnancy spooked her out of intercourse, but there was plenty that she could do with no risk of pregnancy.

Be careful about buying too much into all the stories of what a creep OM was. They're almost always creeps in hindsight and she knows that's what you want to hear. It didn't put her off enough to end the relationship or discourage her from expressing her love in the end.

And speaking of addictions, this site has a pull in itself. Gotta pull myself away and live in the world for a while.

You've discovered a place where people can read minds and predict the future. That's pretty compelling. :D

I'm only half joking.

Her response to your suggestion for a poly is troubling, at least from my purview. She thought you were joking at best and bluffing at worst. Now she sees that may not be the case.

Watch her behavior carefully each time it is brought up... especially if she is the one that is initiating the dialogue surrounding it.

Polygraphs aren't always necessary. That's just the bottom line. What's more important is whether or not you believe you're getting the truth. My fWH can beat a polygraph... but he can't beat me, not when I'm REALLY looking anyway. We've seen active cheaters beat them. We've seen others who have choked on the test but still claim that they're telling the truth. When that happens, you still end up having to decide what you believe, right?

It's your call. I didn't need a polygraph, but I've seen lots of cases where the story was unbelievable and booking a polygraph brought on the "parking lot confession". In those cases though, the BS is typically doubting what s/he has heard and is looking to force a confrontation on it. If you feel in your gut that you've had the truth, that's all you need. If you miss something, it usually will end up being revealed because you're really aware now. Bear in mind that we don't need every detail. What we need is to know that we will receive absolute honesty on any question we ask. Again, I think it's a good sign that you've had a confession and I think it's a good sign that she volunteers information you wouldn't otherwise have. In so many cases, the WS will only cop to what the BS can prove.

I do think that your WW had opportunity to engage in more than what she's said, but I don't believe that there necessarily HAS to be more than what she's saying. It IS possible to get into a situation where the actuality of the physical stuff is a turn-off. I remember going on a date many, many years ago and I really liked the guy I was out with and I did find him attractive. But when he kissed me I was like "yuck". I couldn't get away from that guy fast enough. Perfectly suitable as a friend and nothing really wrong with the way he had kissed me. It wasn't like he had bad breath or anything like that. I can't really put my finger on it but that kiss was just total cringe. So yeah, I do believe that it's entirely possible for a built-up attraction to end up squarely in the friend-zone.

We get this horrible nasty shock on dday which more often than not causes us to doubt our perceptions. After all, we missed it, didn't we? But in the long run, our gut is still there and we can still trust it. If we're wrong, we'll find out soon enough because our eyes are OPEN now.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:16 PM, Friday, July 1st]

She’s very brazen. Went away for a week with the guy she fucked and his wife. She has no shame. Didn’t she feel awkward doing that to the OBS?

She’s very brazen. Went away for a week with the guy she fucked and his wife. She has no shame. Didn’t she feel awkward doing that to the OBS?

Am not convinced OBS was actually an OBS but a participant in the betrayal.

The 3some and girl/girl comments seem off to me.

I've been reading this from the start and right now I am still stuck on her going on ANOTHER trip with OM and OBS and, quite honestly, it reads like if it weren't a 3some, it may be a cuckqueen situation. Especially since OBS didn't want YOU to reach out to her again. I can't see that as a complete disregard for what she did to you, nor any real fear of consequences. Literally no one would allow a cheating spouse to do that again with the same people. TO me that just screams "So what, except it and get over it".
I'm not trying to cast cold water on you, but honestly, from the outside looking in, it sure looks extremely possible there is far more to this than you've allowed yourself to even truly dare look at.

I agree with Farside. My initial reaction to your WWs response to the poly is highly troubling. Instead of wholeheartedly agreeing to it, she immediately questioned its accuracy.

What she’s done is smartly set the stage for when snd if she fails the poly it’s because of inaccuracy.

If I were you I would be very firm on explaining the accuracy of the poly for your purposes. The purpose of the poly is to simply verify the timeline. Insist on a poly to verify the timeline and you’ll get a much more truthful timeline.