SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is more of a rant or a story without questions but any advice or analysis would be greatly appreciated.

Married 10 years, 8 year old daughter. Last Friday was DD for me, I discovered WW had been having an EA with a co-worker for awhile, and it became a PA within the last month.

I have read all the FAQs and stickies and whatnot, but obviously no one's situation is the same. We have had intimacy issues for a good while, mostly caused by me. I have also followed a typical pattern of conflict avoidance (I would do or say anything to get out of a fight) without listening or understanding her feelings, all while interpreting everything as an "attack" on me. Classic stuff it turns out. At some point within the last year or two she emotionally checked out, we "stopped fighting" because of that. She has brought up D a few times in the past, but in early November we has a blow up that was my fault, and she firmly stated she wanted a D. I believe the A was an actual Exit A. I discovered it and my world dropped out from under me, I was really able to see and understand all the hurt and pain my behavior has caused her really for the first time. I'm looking into IC.

I wrote her a very long letter in which I revealed I knew about the A. She did express some remorse and regret, but I know to her it wasn't even really an A, she was so checked out and I had been so emotionally and physically unavailable for so long. I have been able to find out through other means WW and the AP are "ending it" unrelated to my revelation, so she seems to be exiting any kind of fog she was in, although she did not admit this to me yet.

So here's the problem and why I can't seem to get a handle on well, how to handle all this. I want to R. I totally get why the A happened, and I know the mantra is "the A wasn't your fault, it was WW's choice, how you made her feel, etc was." But basically it actually was my fault, in a cause and effect sense. That's why I'm having a hard time using the advice around the web and on this site. Even though I'm the BH and she's the WW, I really, REALLY was the offending party here.

Because the A was an EXIT A, I can't 180, or separate, or anything like that. If I did, it'd be done. I can work on myself, IC, etc. And I really have changed. I was completely unable to feel empathy for her or understand how I was making her feel. Oh boy how I can now. It's not really a Pick Me Dance because I think the A is pretty much done for. It's more like Pick Me not D. We had a very long talk last night, I think she sees how I'm making positive steps for myself, and she knows it's different. She waffled just a bit, but she's having a hard time with the fact that she totally detached herself from me in order to protect herself, and was fully prepared to initiate the D.

TLDR, I'm the BH but also was the real villain, the WW has had a now ending Exit A and was prepared to D, and at this point I have gotten just the tiniest smidge of a willingness to consider R rather than D.

[This message edited by LostATX at 7:59 PM, Friday, December 23rd]

Also just fyi, WW, child and myself will be on a week long trip to stay with her family for the holidays starting tomorrow (great timing right), so I will likely not be able to respond much for the week, if at all.

Thank to anyone who takes the time to offer advice or just empathy, and I really appreciate all the content I've already independently found in this wonderful community.

You can’t single-handedly save a marriage. If your wife has no love and respect for you anymore, then your marriage only exists on paper and the relationship is effectively over.

You need to emotionally detach and 180 from her. If that hastens her departure, great… you’ve just saved yourself the time and effort of trying to win her back only to be painfully rejected. The other possibility is that she realizes what she’s losing and decides to reinvest in the marriage.

And purely for the sake of argument, if I take you at your word that you have been a crap husband this whole 10 years, I can assure you the Pick Me Dance now will only disgust her. She will think "why did it take THIS for you to take our problems seriously?!" Assuming you’re the real villain in this story, then the most loving thing you could do for her at this point is to let her go. If she wants to come back, it needs to be on her own volition.

But I suspect you’re not the villain and here’s why: she didn’t need to sleep with someone else to end her marriage to you. She could’ve been decent person and filed for divorce; instead, she fooled around behind your back. Also, she’s still stringing you along and giving you false hope by saying she wants to D while playing happy family over the holidays.

The most beneficial thing you can do right now is continue IC, consult with a lawyer, and focus on being the best possible father to your child. Your wife might leave you, but your child will always be your child.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 8:33 PM, Friday, December 23rd]

It's not really a Pick Me Dance because I think the A is pretty much done for.

Brother I'm sorry you are here, listen regardless of the circumstances your WW is still a proven cheater and liar, so IMHO the standard advice still stands.

I discovered WW had been having an EA with a co-worker for awhile, and it became a PA within the last month

I hope you didn't just get the PA part from her, cheaters lie and minimize, workplace As typically go from 0 to 60 very quickly, often within days, they're notorious for "quickies during lunchtime".

It's more like Pick Me not D.

Based on what you wrote you don't even have a firm conformation the A has ended for good, they still work together and it could easily go deep underground, but regardless of that, It's still a version of the "pick me dance" which NEVER WORKS.

Listen lots of posters when they come here think their situation is "unique", typically the only unique thing about it is that it happened to you, just look at your member number, in fact we've seen countless of stories just like yours here on SI and other forums.

At this point your old M is gone, she's gone, no she's not remorseful, what you're seeing is probably regret of getting caught, she had choices, she doesn't need your permission to D, she instead chose to cheat, if she's truly checked out and doesn't want the M then I suggest you file for D, you can always stop it if she comes around (that's a big if), but if you want to have the best shot at R, there's a saying here that "you have to be willing to lose your M in order to save it", so here are some of the basics:

1) Full Exposure: Expose her with all family and close friend and of course OBS (Other Betrayed Spouse)/GF if any, exposure typically kills the "beautiful, exciting and romantic" aspects of an A and replaces it with pure shame and embarrassment, the more she hates the A and her huge betrayal, the more she will have AP, it typically helps with remorse. If the A is still active, 9 out 10 times the OM dumps the WW in an effort to save his own M. OBS will typically provide a second set of eyes to help with NC.

2) She needs to send an NC FOREVER message to AP in front of you, no sweet goodbyes, therefore if OM doesn't quit, she needs to find another job.

3) She needs to offer full on demand access to her phone and all electronic devices and passwords FOREVER, no questions asked. Don't buy into the "oh it's my privacy" BS.

4) Demand she gets tested for STDs/STIs (you should too), besides sex, some diseases can even be transmitted via saliva and other means, also a pregnancy test may be in order.

5) Consult a D attorney to know your legal options, knowledge is power.

6) She needs to go to IC to find out her "whys", you falling on the proverbial sword and taking all the blame is not enough.

Also just fyi, WW, child and myself will be on a week long trip to stay with her family for the holidays starting tomorrow (great timing right)

Brother I'm sorry but I don't think you're grasping the severity of your situation, this is no time to play happy family and save face in front of her parents, you're in the fight of your life, I suggest you cancel the trip or at least cut it short by exposing her huge betrayal with her parents/relatives (read "Full Exposure" above).

This is just for starters, others will chime in with more advice, keep posting frequently, the collective wisdom of SI could help you go through this difficult situation, we've "seen" it play out THOUSANDS of times.

Sorry for what happened to you. You will get good advices here. So stick around as long as possible.

So,you want reconciliation. What does your wife wants? Does she also want reconciliation? How did you come to this conclusion that you are the OFFENDING partner here? From self introspect or from her? There are waywards who manipulate their partners into thinking that their affair was their partner's fault. Nobody is perfect. No marriage is all flowers and rainbows. When marriage doesn't work then there is always a right and safer way to end the relation without damaging other partner. You are flawed but not an evil, abusive husband. You don't deserve this. You may deserve divorce for how to behaved towards her in your marriage but you certainly don't deserve this affair. This is very unsafe, cruel and damaging way to exit a marriage. So don't let her off the hook that easily and take all the blame on yourself. Don't play pick me dance here. She may be coming out of affair fog but you have certainly entered reconciliation fog. In this, BS takes all the blame on themself, rug sweep the affair, forgive WS without making sure WS work on their issues, and bam! Reconciled!

Don't do this. Affair is not a mistake. It's a betrayal. You don't betray people you are not happy with. You just leave. Affair not only destroy relations, it also destroys integrity of a person who committed affair. Without integrity you can't build safer personality. Do you really think constant lying, gaslighting, hiding things, deceiving etc for many months will not affect her personality. If she is a good person then this would kill her self respect, and self dignity. She lost integrity and now she is unsafe. You owned your flaws. That is a good sign of a safer person. She needs to own up her flaws to become safer. You both need IC.

Don't jump on reconciliation ship so soon. Wait for few weeks or months. Think this through. There is a right way of reconciliation and wrong way of reconciliation. So don't rush. Make decision only when you are calm and level headed. If she still wants divorce then there is nothing much you can do.

I’m sorry you are here. There is a lot to unpack here. I have never seen any scenario where an A is the betrayed’s fault. You can absolutely take responsibility for the problems in the M, you can be responsible for a D, but a PA is never your fault, it’s 100% on her.

I was going to respond to several of your quotes but every response would be "This is not how you leave a bad M".

Please don’t take any responsibility for her A, give her what she’s asked for, give her a D. R is not a possibility at this point. See a lawyer and beat her to it, you can always stop the process if she comes to her senses. Take control of this and stop blaming yourself.

[This message edited by Tanner at 9:27 PM, Friday, December 23rd]

Your best approach is to talk with your W, tell her you want to stay together, and explore if that's possible and, if it is, what you both would have to do to make it happen.

The 180 minimizes communication, and R requires maximizing communication. In other words, the 180 is premature. If you truly want to R, you have to have at least one open conversation. If your W is still on the D path after you talk, it's time for the 180.

I have a hard time seeing how you were the villain. Will you say more about that? If you've cheated on your W, please open a new thread in the General forum.

Also, what are your reasons for wanting to R? Are they strong enough to support R?

Thank you all for your responses so far, it really means a lot to me and honestly it's helpful in that at this moment I have literally no one I can talk to about this as I don't want to risk the damage that could do if there was an R.

Thank you for everyone hammering that the A is not my fault even if everything else is, I think I'll probably need years before I can fully absorb that.

In regards to the A. I have done my own "detective" work to know the OM was single, the PA aspect actually only did start 1 month ago and occurred only a handful of times. My detective work is what led me to know they are calling the PA part quits. The EA aspect is another story and of course that could lead to a backslide into PA, but I think the way it went down she doesn't see OM the same way as an EA partner either. Making her go NC or whatever would be nearly impossible, they are co-workers and we absolutely need her income. Honestly I'm not as worried about the A, at least right now. Fixing all the issues surrounding that will come up in the R. The most pressing issue is not going through with the D.

It's hard to talk about the ways in which I'm actually the villain here to those who have asked. No, I have never had an A on her (or anyone) or physical abuse or anything like that. It's hard to explain and definitely requires an IC. I'm an extreme introvert (she's an extrovert). My FOO did not express emotions often. This bled into me. I am kind and loving to my daughter but it's always been beyond a struggle to properly express myself to my W. We had a tough time early in our marriage financially, she now out-earns me but I do alright. We had to terminate a pregnancy due to our struggle, this caused serious trauma for both of us. My conflict avoidance and issues with emotional expression caused so much conflict between us. Eventually it crept into our physical relationship and created a kind of vicious cycle where we drifted further and further apart. We had not been intimate in well over a year, and even then it required alcohol (for both of us) to lower our inhibitions. During all this time she is putting in the effort to try to fix this, or at least asking me to work with her to fix all this, she even went into IC and asked me to consider MC, and I just stonewalled and conflict avoided every time, accused her of "starting a fight," and of ruining any progress we were making (not real progress, just the veneer of living happily day to day and as a family). In retrospect the way I was acting could probably be considered inadvertent emotional abuse, or maybe emotional and physical neglect.
Considering all that, I hope anyone would understand why I was the actual villain of the M (not the A). Honestly, I would not be surprised if someone reading that would say F this I'm out, that guy was the villain why should we help him, he should give that poor W the D.
I think the only redeeming qualities I have in this is the ability (even if potentially too late) to recognize everything I've done wrong and be fully committed to fixing myself and the damage I caused to her in the M. That's why I'm trying so hard for R, I can absolutely fix what I've done here and redeem what I ruined. I still love my wife more than anything in the world.

And to answer sisoon we have had that first open conversation. I honestly believe the way I was able to express myself then and in my post DD letter to her clearly showed her that I am dealing with this in a completely different manner than the past. And she did express a scintilla of a doubt about the D just because of my words and behavior. Maybe that leading to R is hopium but it is there.

It sounds like she is on the fence and that will not work in R. You both have to work hard and be all in. You cannot drag her through R, you also cannot nice her into it. She has to come to you broken and remorseful committed to do whatever it takes to make R work. It doesn’t sound like she is at that point, so your alternative is S or D.

Trust me from experience, if she’s breaking off with one AP she has another or is actively seeking one, it’s called monkey branching.

I'm sorry for all you're going through, but honestly, I don't believe that anyone deserves to be cheated on. Your WW had choices to make all along. That's the obvious part. What's less obvious, and what you'll observe as you read more about the mechanics of infidelity, is that it's NOT a relationship problem. It's a character problem. I've got a lot more to say about that in my profile which you can find by clicking the little person icon in the upper right hand corner of this post.

To recognize it as a character problem does NOT mean it's unrecoverable. I really do believe that people are capable of change. I've seen it myself. But the WS has to recognize the need for it and has to want that change more than anything.

It's commendable that you want to take responsibility for what faults you brought to the relationship, but you can't MAKE someone do something which is alien to her character. Inside her, the propensity for crossing this boundary has always existed, and fixing THAT is what "changing from cheater to good partner" means. You can't fix that for her. All you can do is clean up your side of the street.

I'm not suggesting that you indulge in a big "shock and awe" strategy, I don't think you're ready for that or that it's right for your situation. But I do think Sisoon has given you good advice to TALK to your WW about what you want and how you might get there, and to do that without taking responsibility for the adultery. It really does take two for R to work. Even if you win the "pick me" polka, the current prize is an unrepentant cheater. She's got to change for this to work, and you'll have your own work to do in recovery.

Whatever happens, remember that you're going to be okay. We're all living proof, in all our stages of recovery, that there's hope and healing after infidelity. You'll be alright. Keep reading and posting.

Her affair might be on ice at the moment, but I seriously doubt it’s over if she’s still working with him and contemplating divorce. She might have broken up with him "on paper" but they have plenty of opportunities to speak to each other in their workplace or by other means you haven’t discovered again.

Instead of seeing yourself as villain, think of your relationship as a house that needed a lot of work. Termites in the basement, a leaky roof, a broken water heater, rusty pipes, everything that could go wrong went wrong. Maybe your wife asked you a million times to make repairs and you ignored her.

What reasonable options did she have? She could’ve demanded you hire a handyman. She could’ve decided you try living separately for a while. She could’ve said "I can’t stand this anymore I’m moving out."

But what did she do instead? She hooked up with an arsonist and burned your house to the ground.

Now that you’re standing in a heap of rubble, instead of wasting your time beating yourself over what you could’ve done before, you need to focus on the crisis at hand, which is that your house is destroyed.

Can your house be rebuilt or is it worth moving on? And can you really feel safe living under the same roof as the person who burned your house down and feels justified in doing so?

I believe you that you had little sympathy or empathy for your wife. I believe that you two started your marriage off on the wrong foot and it never got better. Sometimes it takes an earthquake to wake us up. You just got blindsided by one.
What are you going to do about it? The earthquake finally woke you up to the type of husband you have been. So individual therapy to make sure you really GET that your marriage, or any relationship that you have, will either thrive on the joint effort of both or die. That is where your marriage is.
Lots of advice about bailing. She IS the one who cheated when all she had to do was leave. I did a small poll of people I know who cheated. Every single one was an exit affair. If this is not one then you need to be very open(both of you) about how to proceed. She needs IC to have a neutral party hear her gripes about you. You need one on how to engage in the day to day life of those you care about. Somewhere down the line you might get MC but not yet.
Sorry this happened now so you have to grin and bare it.
Good luck. I hope the two of you make it.

C2H

Lots of advice about bailing. She IS the one who cheated when all she had to do was leave. I did a small poll of people I know who cheated. Every single one was an exit affair

Of course cheaters would tell you their affairs were "exit affairs," their spouses let them down, and they were unhappy. Why would they readily admit that they stabbed a decent spouses in the back for a little excitement on the side? It’s much easier to blame their betrayed spouses than take responsibility for their own failings.

My ex certainly characterized his affairs as "exit affairs." The part he left out, of course, was that he would’ve gladly continue to sleep in my bed, eat the meals I prepared, and kept the semblance of family while having a girlfriend if I allowed it.

I’m not saying that ATX was the perfect husband and that his wife should be burned at the stake. But there is no reason he should be shouldering 100% of the responsibility for the choices his wife made. There are women who are married to drunks/addicts/worthless/violent louts who still have the decency and character not to cheat.

And there’s no amount of IC or wooing that ATX can do to win his wife’s affections back if she’s not committed to him, doesn’t respect him, and has already transferred her passion/affection to another man.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 1:51 AM, Saturday, December 24th]

My conflict avoidance and issues with emotional expression caused so much conflict between us. Eventually it crept into our physical relationship and created a kind of vicious cycle where we drifted further and further apart. We had not been intimate in well over a year, and even then it required alcohol (for both of us) to lower our inhibitions. During all this time she is putting in the effort to try to fix this, or at least asking me to work with her to fix all this, she even went into IC and asked me to consider MC, and I just stonewalled and conflict avoided every time, accused her of "starting a fight," and of ruining any progress we were making (not real progress, just the veneer of living happily day to day and as a family)

I appreciate you owning your own issues and working to fix them.

Let me recommend this book to you and don't be put off by the title: This Is How Your Marriage Ends by Matthew Fray. I have it on Kindle and have read it aloud with my fWH, stopping along the way to discuss. Fray had a lot of "ah-ha" moments quite a while after his divorce and eventually grew a lot of empathy and less avoidance. His writing is an attempt to help others have their own "ah-ha" moments and growth.

With that said, while only you can heal you, only your wife can heal and grow in the ways that she would need to...and she really does need to.

You may have contributed to the crappy marriage. Maybe you were even the biggest contributer for a while. However, you are NOT responsible for the destructive path she chose...and it is destructive. She destroyed your trust; she took time and energy away from your relationship; she risked exposing you to STIs (have you been tested yet?); she destroyed her own moral code and the boundaries she was supposed to hold as a person who agreed to be in a committed relationship. She could have separated from you or even started divorce proceedings. But she didn't. She chose to cheat--over and over, day after day, even when it was an EA. Those choices aren't mistakes or accidents and you didn't make her choose that path. Bad marriages aren't a "reason" to cheat...but cheaters often use them as a "justication" to themselves (sometimes/often even rewriting marital history to help their own case).

Own your stuff, but don't own hers. Heal yourself, bUt she has to be willing to want to do the work to heal herself. And she has to want to be willing to work with you if R is even an option.

The most dangerous place in a marriage isn't when someone is mad or sad or disappointed. It's when they reach a point of indifference.

You say that your part is being avoidant. Yet you wrote a letter to confront her. I get it. You get to weigh and craft your words when you write...but the approach is still somewhat avoidant. You need to have some face to face conversations with her that you initiate.

Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far, I'm truly grateful that people would take time to try to help others with such serious issues.
This has given me a lot more to think about, especially in regards to how I am dealing with and responding to her A, both with WW and internally. And thank you BreakngBad for the book recommendation, I do recognize it as one of about a thousand I've come across over this last week (I've done a lot of research sleeping only 4 hours or so a night). I will definitely do a deeper dive and look into picking that up.

The trip to the in-laws is still a go tomorrow so all this will be put on pause. I do love my in-laws so for their sake and our daughter's sake I'm putting on my best face for this trip, and will just be trying to have positive interactions with WW while there.

As such I don't know how much I'll be able to respond if at all, I hope no one interprets that as thread abandonment or anything as I will be back with an update. I really appreciate everything everyone has said.

Our support is with you in the coming days, no matter what decisions you ultimately make.

Grab joy and peace whenever you can in the coming days. You deserve it.

Also remember self care: sleep when you can, eat well, hydrate, and get exercise.

Strength to you.

Her character flaws are much worse than yours. Your character flaws cause one to be discontented with their marriage, HER character flaws cause life long trauma, destroy families, destroy marriages, are self destructive and cause generational harm to child development.

Before you can get started fixing your shit, she’s got a lot of work to do on her own shit.

Just keep that in mind if you both decide to R.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 4:57 PM, Saturday, December 24th]

I love introverts. Taibi Kahler says that if you can get an introvert to talk, you'll hear AMAZING things, and I've found that to be true. My W is an introvert. Introversion is not a character flaw.

Avoiding conflict may be one. Not being upfront about what you want may be one. Beating oneself up may be one. Hating oneself may be one. I think you're being wise in starting IC - it can really help you change dysfunctional behaviors, but note that you can be a top notch partner for an extravert, if you find an extravert with whom you want to partner and who wants to partner with you.

The fact that your W wanted to to do MC with you may mean that she is open to to R. If so, IMO, you'll need to define observable requirements for R that you both agree to meet. Then you'll need to monitor yourselves and get back on track if you stop meeting requirements.

IMO, R is a process of learning to resolve issues that come up. I urge you to let your W know you want to R and that you're going to make good changes whether you R or not.

I'm sorry that you're going through this. I know it's a terrible thing to experience. But I'm going to be honest because I think you need to hear it.

This may be the first time that an actual saint has committed adultery. If there's a single negative word about your WW in your account, I must have missed it.

You should examine why you are so anxious to shoulder all the blame. It's not just a "mantra" that it's not the BS's fault, it's the truth. What you're describing are the normal challenges of a relationship. Your WW had the option of dealing with those issues in the open with you. Even if you say that you made that impossible, she had the option of following through with a divorce.

You say that you're the conflict avoider, but instead of dealing with your issues openly and honestly she chose lie and betray you.

You sound very much like I might have if I had found this place soon after D-day. I was desperate to cling to the view I had of my darling wife and our relationship. I couldn't believe the A was real because she would never do that. To whatever degree it was real, I must have caused it because she would never betray me unless I had been so terrible that she had no choice.

I couldn't face the possibility of being abandoned by the person whose love had always validated me. So I took all the blame she put on me and added some of my own. Not long after she finally agreed to R I swept it all under the rug rather than try to keep digging for the real truth and face what it said about my WW (or for that matter, me).

So here I am, 20 years later, finally figuring out that none of it was my fault and working through the real reasons for her cheating. Don't wait 20 years to figure out that it's not your fault.

I'm really sorry this has happened to you.
I'm new to this forum, as I just went through the second DDay of my life (I even went 2 for 2!). All the advice and viewpoints the older/wiser members gave are very reasonable and I cannot possibly hope to top it off.

What I can offer is how I read this whole thread:
"Your WW had an A, but now you're the one hanging from her lips praying for an R?"
That doesn't sit well with me. Try to see this from the 3rd party perspective, does it make sense? If you think so little of yourself, why would you expect your WW to treat you and your M you any better?