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I’ve been married for 25 years. Dated for three years before that. I found out this April that he cheated on me. Since I’ve found out, there have been lies after lies after lies. He only tells me the truth if I have proof of something. This has happened 4 different times and so each time he has sworn that’s all and even swore on his parents life. Of course, each time I find out it’ just proves that he lied before that when he swore there was nothing else. So now I can’t believe a word he says.
Thanks to the pics and video I found in the beginning, I now have that to replay in my mind every day of my life. And him saying stuff to her that he says to me. He didn’t even have the decency to take off his wedding ring so that’s in the video while he’s doing all kinds of things. (She’s 15 years younger than him and a skanky drug ho)
I told him I want a lie detector since I can’t believe him further than I can throw him. He told me he will NEVER get one and that he will divorce me first. The audacity! He told me in the beginning, which was another lie, that he’d take one if I’d do marriage counseling with him.
I just can’t start to rebuild a relationship with him when he won’t tell me all the truth and the other secrets he’s not admitting to. Why would I want to start over on a ground of untruths and lies??? So now I feel like I have no choice except divorce. Sigh. I’m not relenting about the truth/lie detector. He’s just scared to death of the questions I’d ask. It’s rumored about him messing with like three other people. Mind u, he came home and told me all the rumors. I guess so if he was guilty then it would make him look innocent if I heard them. There were rumors about the chick he did cheat with, but it was rumors from before 2020. So did he do her back then, too??! 🤦‍♀️
I’m just so hurt that after all he’s done to me (there’s other stuff in the past like porn and stuff) he can’t come clean about everything and us start over, maybe. Why can’t he just tell me everything?? He just keeps saying he has.

Please read LYING by Jonathan Wallace in the Ethical Spectacle.

I told him I want a lie detector since I can’t believe him further than I can throw him. He told me he will NEVER get one and that he will divorce me first.

Well, he's basically just called you out to see if you're serious then, hasn't he? I think if it was me, I'd make an appointment for the lie detector test and one with an attorney for the next day. If he chose not to show or if he failed, I'd keep that attorney appointment.

Ultimatums are never easy, particularly not when they're just tactics to try to maneuver the WS into compliance. They're a 50/50 proposition, right? So we have to be prepared to be okay with either outcome.

I'll be honest with you though, on dday I was DONE. I didn't want to hear my WH's excuses, didn't care about the details. I was out. It was on him to slow me down and try to get another chance, which he fucked up at first, but that's another story. The point is that the one who wants the marriage most has the least amount of power. I really don't think I'd be married today if I hadn't been utterly WILLING to end my marriage if my terms weren't met.

As hard as it is, he’s shown you who he is. And you should believe him.
And yes, if you don’t follow through on your threat, then he’ll never have an reason to be truthful.

How are you taking care of you? Are you in IC? Do you have a posse of people in your corner for support?

I just don’t understand that he’d rather throw our marriage away then to get a lie detector. He says they aren’t reliable and he’ll be nervous so it will show he’s lying about everything. Right…sure. If that’s the case then everyone that took would one would fail miserably bc everyone is nervous. He just has a lot he hasn’t told me and he’s not planning on it. So he wants me to rebuild this marriage on lies and secrets. I can’t do that and I’m not going to. I’ve told him that telling me everything and the truth means EVERYTHING. I can’t ever trust or believe him when he won’t come clean now. So I guess he doesn’t love me or want this marriage as badly has he says 🤷‍♀️

So he wants me to rebuild this marriage on lies and secrets. I can’t do that and I’m not going to.

Sorry you are here.

You have two choices going forward:

1- Believing the least your WH tells you and move on.

2- Stand your ground and not settle for less than what you consider necessary - if you are considering R.

From the quote above you seem to be settled on the second choice. Good for you. It IS the way to go.

You don't even have to get stuck on the poly idea only. Since you have evidence for the cheating you can always go ahead and file for D. The process takes time. If your WH is really remorseful you WILL notice actions on his part to try and "fix" his wrong doings before the D process is completed. And you will notice those actions being taken IN A HURRY. That is how you confirm what he really wants for real.

But if he is still using the trickle truth method he is not sorry. If he does not tell you all the truth he is still with is head up is arse and not willing to let the affair go. Noticing the ACTIONS and not the words. That is all one needs to do.

You will be ok in the end.

All the best.

[This message edited by justanotherperson at 6:04 AM, Sunday, November 20th]

You may be right that your H doesn’t value you or the marriage and that is why he lied. And continues to lie.

Or it may be fear that prevents him from telling the truth. He may have so many skeletons in the closet that he fears if he’s truthful you will definitely D.

Which may be why he refuses a polygraph.

I always say most often it’s not the affair that destroys the marriage but the behavior after Dday that kills it.

I don’t know your H so it’s hard to know if he’s an arrogant jerk who will never face his issues and will continue to lie, or he’s just a scared cheater who fears if the truth comes out you will definitely D him.

I hope he starts to get it soon.

The point is that the one who wants the marriage most has the least amount of power. I really don't think I'd be married today if I hadn't been utterly WILLING to end my marriage if my terms weren't met.

Same experience. I agree with ChamomileTea in this one.

This was affair 2 for us. My H would not admit affair 1 was an affair but it was a 4 year EA. This was long before the term EA was even used.

Completely swept under the rug. I was an idiot for allowing that to happen. And that made it easier to start the second affair.

The difference was that the second time around I planned to D him. And he had to work his butt off for a solid year before I stopped thinking every day I was D him.

I definitely think he’s saying no to the lie detector bc he’s scared I’m going to leave him. The last bit of "I swear this is all", he was shaking and about to cry. Very scared. After he told me what he had to say, I said…"you know what?" and he said, "You want a divorce."
I think it’s fear that stopping him, but dear lord, if he only knew (and I e tried to tell him many times), it’s not his actions, it’s the lying and secrets that will make me leave (kick him out, I’m not going anywhere). I’ve told him all the stuff I think happened and with whom and it was a lot. I told him there’s no way it could be worse than that. Lol. But he still won’t say.
I’m going to give it til after Xmas and talk to my counselor (just starting one this coming week) and see what she thinks about the lie detector, also.
Has anyone done the lie detector and what are your experience’s with it. Truth or not? He says they aren’t truthful and that’s why he’s not getting it. I told him I stand to get more of the truth from that than I’ll get from him!

Is he crying and shaking from remorse? Or because he is sad that his big fantasy is crashing g to the ground.

And the refusal to take a lie detector is gaslighting and crocodile tears. He should be moving mountains to prove he is an open book and worthy of earning your trust over many years.

Please proceed carefully and watch actions only. Ignore the tears and drama.

Sending strength.

Oh…I know. He knows I know when he’s lying so he makes sure to stare into my eyes when talking and not to look around and so on. Lol. But what he doesn’t know is that I can just tell anyway. It’s something u can see, feel and gut feeling. I’m sure u all know what I’m talking about.
He supposedly ended the affair back in the end of 2020. Plus, she moved away. There was a rumor about another chick after that, but who knows.

He told me that he NEVER planned on telling me. NEVER. So therefore, I know he’s not ever planning on telling me if any others.
And he "doesn’t like to cry" so he tries to ignore it all and just want it to go away. And I got mad about that one. I told him he can cry when he doesn’t feel good or if he says bye to our kids that are going across the world, but he "doesn’t like to cry" when he f&$@! me over? Sigh. I do know he’s sorry for what has happened. I know he feels MAJORLY guilty. Him feeling guilty is his own problem. I would think, and I told him this, that if he loved me like he says he does and wants this to work…..he would spill his guts and tell me EVERYTHING that happened and if I want to know details then u damn well better tell me.
I’m sorry ahead of time for my analogies. But it’s like he thinks it’s totally fine to just say he ate a sandwich. I want to know what kind, what was on it, was it veggie or meat, was it toasted, on white or wheat, was the crust cut off, was it spicy, did it stick to the roof of ur mouth when u ate it, how many sandwiches did u eat, was the bread fresh or stale, etc.
If my counselor says she thinks the lie detector would be good then that’s it. We don’t have a marriage counselor yet…very hard to find one and I want a woman. Don’t particularly like men right now. Lol. I already told him I’m not relenting.

So he wants me to rebuild this marriage on lies and secrets. I can’t do that and I’m not going to. I’ve told him that telling me everything and the truth means EVERYTHING.

You're right, you can't rebuild your marriage because he is still lieing to and deceiving you. You will never be able to feel safe with him as long he continues done this path.
And personally based on my own experiences with a serial cheater and liar, I just think this is who they are. At this point I don't think you have much to work with. And I have a feeling there is much more to his story than he is willing to admit to.

Mine was the same way. He passed away and brought his lies and deceptions with him to his grave.

And just like your situation, there also were rumors about my deceased WH cheating and I was able to put the pieces together after his death.

I remember one day he came to me and told me that the people at his work were accusing him of cheating and to not believe it. Well, guess what, it ended up being the truth. In fact, he transferred from one work location to another work location and she followed him. And they ended up working closely together with lots of free time to themselves.

Knowing what I know now, I would have loved to have kicked his ass to the curb a long time ago. But back then I wasn't mentally or emotionally strong enough to deal with it. Staying married to him stole A LOT of precious years from me that I will never be able to get back.

So I guess he doesn’t love me or want this marriage as badly has he says 🤷‍♀️

I agree with you. Love doesn't look like what he has done and is doing to you. I mean, he is crushing your soul!

You will never have peace as long as he continues to stay this version of himself. And at this point, it doesn't seem like he is willing to change.

The downside of the lie detector is that there IS a margin of error. He's right about that. We've seen WS's who took it and failed but then continued to claim that they were telling the truth. As the BS, you still don't know what to believe. I think the value in them isn't the test itself, it's the behavior of the WS leading up to the test. Do they give up "the parking lot confession" or not? Those last minute confessions tell you what you need to know about the state of the WS's honesty up to that point, and truly, there might still be more. Sometimes, they'll give up some additional details in the hope of getting the BS to back off and cancel the interview. That's why the SOP is to continue on with it if you've gotten that far.

Here's the thing though, all those questions in your mind are not necessarily going to go away. That frenetic feeling of needing to uncover more details is NORMAL. It's part of the trauma. Our brains are essentially organic computers and after intimate betrayal, we've got corrupted data which needs to be replaced. Everything we had accepted as fact about our mate has become suspect. We feel like this person is a stranger and we have a compulsive need to recreate "the story". Our brains need to create order from chaos and we do that in story. Your story is like a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces and you don't have the picture from the box top to see what it ought to look like. The problem though is that no matter what level of detail you are provided, it will never be enough. What we want is to be able to crank open our cheater's head and SEE everything, to KNOW everything, and that's just impossible. There's always more because our brains don't recall every second in perfect clarity and detail. Even if they did, we still weren't there to experience the event and know the reality of it. It's an event from someone else's experience which is separate from our own consciousness. And THAT is the part we're having trouble finding acceptance with. Our cheater promised that romance and sex were just for us and we built our lives around that promise... and it was bullshit. Now we're stuck trying to figure out what else is bullshit. Maybe everything.

IME, knowing every detail isn't as important as KNOWING that any question you ask will be answered as honestly as possible. Details create additional triggers, so for me, I had already had a pretty damned good picture of what had happened, more than I bargained for TBH. I had gotten into his email and had all their juvenile messages, photos, and even video Still, I had this compulsive need to find out more, and at that point I had to admit to myself that my curiosity had become morbid and that nine out of ten questions that into sprang to my head weren't serving the goals I had set. After that, I started questioning what purpose my question would serve. If it would help me to make my "stay or go" decision or to foment healing, than yeah.. ask away. If I couldn't think of a way that question would assist me, I chalked it up to pain shopping and let it go. Easier said than done? You betcha. But in the end, I didn't need to hold onto a trigger about a particular fast food chain or whatever crap they have on the menu. It wasn't important.

Anyway, I do believe that establishing honesty is absolutely necessary. You've got the feeling that your WH is still hiding things and that very well might be true. I'm not suggesting that you don't follow up on your gut instincts. Just be aware that there's something really normal about the need to search for details after this kind of betrayal. Part of what's happening to you is a typical response to trauma.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:55 PM, Sunday, November 20th]

Why can’t he just tell me everything??

Because WS’s believe that if you knew EVERYTHING you would not take them back, not forgive them, never respect them again as you once did, never love them again as you once did, if you actually knew everything, every big and little thing that contributed to their affair, every single one of the thousands of betrayals that were involved.

Many WS’s are also pretty embarrassed about their affairs. Their poor choice of affair partners. Their reasons-or lack there of. The effort. The risks. The hypocrisy. The sacrifices. Their base depravity. For many WS’s it’s deeply humiliating.

The irony is however, that our imaginations will fill in all the blanks they leave, and even the ones they don’t leave, with something even worse than what actually happened. Our pain seeking imaginations will exaggerate and romanticize what actually happened.

WS’s need to understand that full disclosure is cleansing and liberating. Making yourself vulnerable to your BS with the absolute truth is the sacrifice they must make on the alter of trust. A leap of faith equal to the leap of faith and sacrifices the BS is making when reconciliation and all its inherent risk is offered. BS’s are entrusting the WS with their heart, hopes and future. The WS should entrust the BS, in return and at the very least, with the absolute truth. An investment of truth that will pay dividends and is much less skin in the game than what the BS is contributing.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 8:28 PM, Sunday, November 20th]

Thank u all.
I understand that he might be telling me the truth from here on out, but I can’t believe that bc he’s not telling me everything about the past. To me, that just means he will tell the truth now until …he doesn’t want to or it’s to damning to.
I understand the lie detector isn’t 100%. I even mention the new one…eye lie detector, but he says he’s not taking either. Too bad there’s not a truth serum 🤦‍♀️.
And the truth is everything. And I’d go into more details about why, but I’m being paranoid bc he knows I’m on an infidelity sight. I wouldn’t put it past him to get on the main ones and it would be easy to find me bc of my story.
I think it’s comical that he just got mad about someone lying about something. I pointed out that yeah….pisses u off, doesn’t it? I added ass hole in my mind, but didn’t speak it. Lol

I understand the lie detector isn’t 100%. I even mention the new one…eye lie detector, but he says he’s not taking either.

That's the part that is just unacceptable with this guy. It's one thing to doubt the veracity of the test, but to flat out refuse is something else. He puts you in an untenable position, one where you have to assume he's still lying. This isn't some kind of "tie goes to the runner" ball game where he is automatically granted the benefit of doubt and it's not a court of law where innocence is presumed. He is a proven LIAR, and you don't need a smoking gun to kick his ass to the curb and be done with him. All you need is to decide you're unhappy being his wife. That's it. It doesn't require one iota more.

That's the thing I can never wrap my mind around with cheaters... the cat and mouse games. We don't need proof. All we need is to decide that this marriage is unacceptable to us.

Personally, I'd have probably hit the "go fuck yourself" stage with this guy by now. That's not particularly helpful to you, I know. But it makes ME feel better.

Yeah….my finger is itching. Lol
He says his therapist told him that the lie detector doesn’t work and therapy is the way to go. And if I want to make my marriage work then I’ll go to therapy. Of course, this is what he’s saying his therapist is saying. Ig I can tell him to get it in writing from his therapist. Lol.
But I really don’t care what his therapist says bc he doesn’t have to live with him and make a new life with him.
I wish I could find some that was given (took) a lie detector and how correct it was with them.

He also says that taking the test will not make me believe him anyway. That nothing he can say or do is going to make me believe him.
I told him his word means absolute sh!t to me. And the test would be a lot more truthful than he has been.
I’d like to talk to someone so I can see how they work, exactly. Does it go on a scale of 1-100 and 1 is lying and 100 is taking the truth?

I wish I could find some that was given (took) a lie detector and how correct it was with them.

There are a number of folks who have done it here at SI. If you want WS input as well as BS, you might start a new thread in General since they're not allowed to answer in JFO. It's kind of quiet on the weekends too, so you'll get more response as the week goes on. General can also be a good option to catch those BS's who are too triggered reading the kind of raw postings we see in JFO.

About marriage counseling... I've got a saved post in my profile regarding the "unmet needs" model of therapy you might want to read. Just click the little person icon in the right hand corner of this post. Long and short though.. MC can be a crap-shoot and it's really important to ask the right questions and to be willing to challenge bad therapy head on. The last thing you want is your WH's rationalizations validated by some kind of authority figure.

CamomileTea….too late for that. He went to one therapist that told him that they are a bunch of crap and not to take one. Well, that was the head therapist. They were taking too long to set an appointment (2 months) and another therapist place called bc an opening came available. So now he says this therapist says taking the test is not the way to go. That anyone can pass them. All they have to do is stay calm and even if they lie they will pass.
But my husband says he’s be too nervous.🙄
Ig so since YOU ARE STILL LYING!!!

I’ll post the question on the General part about the test and see what hits I get.
I’ll also go read urs.