SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Good morning. I wanted to write out thoughts on my situation. I've been hiding at work, and honestly it's easier to be there. I work 12 hour nights, 7 nights in a row. 7 on/7 off. I just finished my 7 on, and it's truthfully been a blessing to just be in my routine of work, eat, sleep, repeat without time to really do much else. Now I'm home and I feel like I've got to make very hard moves and the decisions are paralyzing.

My WW is still insistent that she wants only me. I asked her to stop making me meals before work, stop packing my lunch, stop going out of her way to be kind and doing "good wife" things for me. It seems like maybe it just makes things more painful. Maybe it's manipulation, but I don't really think so. But I wouldn't be shocked if I had an omniscient point of view and it revealed that her motivation is manipulative as well. She's utterly insistent in her story about making up the conversations, willing to take a polygraph to prove it. But what's the point? She fails that and then says she was just very nervous and she plays into my distrust of polygraph testing and we're right back here, a thousand bucks poorer (about what I've been able to find for polygraph testing, and that's over 2 hours away). But if. What if? She says she understands it's crazy. But on that night she WAS crazy. She says she made a stupid decision to cold turkey all the mood stabilization medications she's been on since she started seeing a psychiatrist and got off the adderall. I'm going to disagree with a lot of the responses I've seen here and appeal to what I've seen living with her for decades and say my WW is NOT an alcoholic. She's just not. We could pour it all out and it wouldn't bother her. She likes to drink from time to time. She could become an alcoholic. She's addicted to running away from her brain, be that through alcohol, pot, mindless TV, whatever. Maybe that's even a root cause of the infidelity. But regardless, I'm trying to say that she has been an amphetamine addict. I guess the proper way to say it is thar she IS, and always will be, either actively or in recovery. Right now I'm convinced she's clean from it. I just know what she's like when abusing amphetamines, and shes not exhibiting those behaviors and hasn't been since she got out the hospital in October. She's sleeping. She's eating. She's not picking at her face and grinding her teeth with constant dry mouth. So I do believe she's made major strides in staying clean from the drug that took her down so hard for the last half decade. I've looked for pills, even opening all the pill bottles in her car and actually examining to be sure it's really ib profen in the advil bottle, etc.

I'm saying all that to say that I do absolutely believe she's making great strides in sobriety, and has been. Maybe all alcohol needs to be out the house. I rarely drink anyway because I've become a body builder over the past year and watch nutrition pretty closely.

But she is on a lot of mood stabilizers. Her doctors are leaning towards a BPD diagnosis. It makes sense. She's definitely battling mental illness. And mentally ill people do mentally ill things, like make up elaborate schemes that make sense to them in the moment and make no sense to anyone else. And she maintains that she had gotten tired of having so little emotion, she wanted to be off her meds. I've seen this from afar with other mentally ill family (my own grandmother) to know it's a common pitfall for people to just decide to secretly stop taking meds because of how they make them feel. I would. I don't want to be on anything that alters my personality. So what if? What if? How can I ever know? What if it was all an elaborate, crazy ruse that got away from her because my daughters caught it before she could abort her plan the next day? Well, then she didn't actually go back to AP, if that were somehow true. And I do have to wrestle with and consider that in October of last year AP did reach out. He tried to rekindle it. He was professing his love and doing all he could to get his hooks back in her. And she showed me. Carried on the conversation via messenger right in front of me. Allowed me to take pictures of the conversation to give to his wife. She betrayed him to me and in no way protected him. Gave him to me on a silver platter with all of his words so I could be at his house and completely blow it up the next morning. That certainly is a step towards severing the relationship with him, and I'm not even totally sure that she COULD restart a relationship with him after how that went down and all the information I had on him. I'm not sure he would be willing to trust her again. But who the hell knows?

So if it was a crazy ruse, and somehow that could be proven, then that IS different in my eyes. Addiction? Ill stay no matter what it costs me in pain. I made that vow, for better or worse. That's worse, and it's covered in what i vowed. Mental illness? That's worse too. And still covered by my marriage vow. If adultery is over, i want to stay and nurture her through that. It's just the adultery I'm not willing to take. But did it happen? Of course it did for years. Yes it did afterwards too in a false reconciliation. All that is true. But what about this one? I suspect she rekindled with him. It makes the most sense. But this voice keeps crying, "what if".

She says her psychiatrist wants me to come to her sessions, wants to pull me into this process and start working with me as well in how to work with her. I'm willing. She says her therapist wants me to come to some of her sessions too. I'm willing to do that too, even if for no other reason than to make us better Co parents post divorce and try to make this process easier through better communication and understanding of one another. But deep down I truly believe that this "reconciliation" road only leads right back here again at some undisclosed time in the future. But what if not?

So now the sun's about to come up. My children will be getting up for school soon. And I'll have a day of feeling like I have to make moves and decisions all day. I'm not sure what decisions to make. But I feel like not making them means I just get stuck here, and that's unacceptable. Go ahead and kick my ass with those 2×4's that SI so lovingly dishes out at times, lol. I mean that. I wouldn't keep writing if I didn't. I feel love in the 2×4's upside the head as well. I'll check back throughout the next couple of days and try to respond as I'm able. Love and respect to everyone in here doing selfless work of trying to love strangers on the internet going through life altering trauma. You're appreciated.

My advice is to do the poly. They are in fact reliable. If you do research on something that you already carry a bias against, then you will no doubt always find a way to prove your belief.

I’m listening to you snd your entire decision to stay or go revolves around one thing - did WW actually initial contact with AP? The only tool you have left available is a poly. Not doing it because it’s 2 hours away and $1,000 to me is penny wise pound foolish. You no doubt have the money, with all of that overtime.

If your WW passes the poly then, whether you completely believe in their efficacy or not, considering the fact that you don’t want to err on leaving her when nothing actually happened, then you have enough information to stick it out, as I listen to you.

If she fails the poly your decision to stay or go has nothing to do with your WW’s insistence that she was nervous. It’s up to you to decide, just as it’s up for you to decide to stay or go right now, in the absence of a poly’s results.

Do the poly then make a decision is my advice.

You will receive lots of opinions and advice here, but in the end it is your life, and you are the one living with the consequences of any decision you make. No one here knows your WW, or you for that matter. We know only what you share about yourselves. You have a lot on your plate and lots of things to consider. Just be true to yourself. Always value yourself whether you ultimately decide to R or D. You are the prize. You deserve a faithful partner who values you and your M. Good luck.

I think it's wise to ask her to not do things for you. When my H was inconsistent in doing the hard work he needed to do, I asked him to not do things for me because I didn't want him to think that doing nice things for me was doing the work. I didn't want there to be any confusion about that.

To the larger issue:
You're the one suffering with indecision, so it's okay to wait on making a decision. I just wonder if your mind is more settled than you want to accept.

Ill stay no matter what it costs me in pain....It's just the adultery I'm not willing to take.

Your wife already broke the vows. Even if you had been in R, it would be okay to decide you were not able to stay in R anymore--even if there were no more new instances of betrayal...even of this one didn't actually happen.

But deep down I truly believe that this "reconciliation" road only leads right back here again at some undisclosed time in the future.

It's okay not to know what happened for sure this time, but to call it anyway and push yourself away from the table and say "I've had enough pain fed to me."
Have you had enough?

You can still coparent effectively and even support your W as a human being through her struggles without being tethered to her through marriage.

Either situation is pretty messed up. If she really did reach out to him then you know what to do. If it was a ruse then the way she laid it for you was pretty brutal and cruel. She could have just said, "I miss you","I love you", "I want to see you" Etc etc in those text messages and when you read them it would still make you to leave her and that would have achieved her goal but that wouldn't have cut you this deep. But the messages she wrote were real messed up shit. They real cut you deep. Too humiliating. So, what was the real purpose of that ruse? To humiliate you and crush you beyond repair one last time and make you leave her? Either situation doesn't convey that she is in sane mind and safe to you and to your children. She already directly involved your daughter twice in this affair. She is nowhere safe yet to you and to your daughter. So, you don't need to make any decision yet. You give her all help she needs to fight her substance addiction but no need to do that within the institution of marriage.

A couple of pointers:
Manipulation goes both ways…
Like asking her not to cook your dinners and all that stuff… Is that manipulation on your behalf to make her realize the seriousness of the situation? What is the present status: told her you want a divorce yet not done anything, told her you want to reconcile but not done anything?
It’s quite a common form of "communicating" and IMHO very ineffective. It’s when you don’t talk, don’t turn towards her in bed, don’t kiss goodbye, have the kids pass messages… Like I said: it’s VERY common and very ineffective.

I’m not hitting out at you for doing that. I did this myself in my marriage, and it took effort to both recognize it and then STOP this form of manipulation.

In earlier threads a number of us have suggested you address her alcoholism. Have you done anything about that? It’s a popular viewpoint that until that has been addressed any work at saving the marriage is pointless.

In regards to a poly.
This is so misunderstood…
You don’t do a poly to discover truth. The poly let’s you know if she’s being HONEST. Not necessarily the same thing. Like if your wife truly believed the moon was made of cheese she would pass a poly if she said "no" when asked if the moon was made of rock.
This is why a good operator starts by defining all terms that are relevant to the questioning. Like if someone didn’t consider oral or masturbation as "sex" that person could pass a poly if asked if they had sex with OP with a "no". If the operator has already DEFINED what "sex" is (acts such as oral stimulation, manual… etc) then the same question will cause the person to fail using the same answer.

Furthermore – the poly HAS TO serve a purpose. The consequences of failing need to be clear beforehand. Basically you need a conversation like:
"Honey – I WANT to reconcile, but I can only do that if I know the truth and I have a base where I can rebuild trust from. Learning NOW there was sex is something I can possibly work from. Failing a poly on the same issue is something that I can’t work from. THAT would indicate that despite you KNOWING how IMPORTANT the truth is you aren’t sharing it with me, and it indicates you don’t trust me. The truth can be a base to reconcile from, but lies and fear and lack of trust indicates I am better off cutting my loss."

You then give her time to tell you the truth. You make it very clear that any truth now gives hope, whereas any failure in poly completely wipes that away.

OK – So what if she fails?
Well… The operator will "grade" answers. He will tell you how confident he is in the result. So if your wife fails "Other than Marine have you had sex (as we defined sex earlier on) with any other man since the [date of your marriage]?" then the operator will tell you she failed conclusively or if there is doubt. You can evaluate your hopes and next step at that point IMHO.

The test needs to have a purpose. If at that time she fails… you should be focusing A LOT MORE on a future without her.
It’s not as if it’s instantaneous. If she failed with 60% certainty you could allow a second test, but its not something that is repeated again and again. The test needs a purpose.

But what if she passes? Well… then you know she’s being honest. You build on that.

Is that 1000 bucks worth?
Well… that’s about 3 hours with a competent divorce attorney, or 4-5 hours of MC or IC. It’s also about 3-6 months shorter than learning some truth later on that brings you back to where you are now.

Sometimes these initials confuse me. Are you referring to bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder? There’s a huge difference in them. One is a mental illness and the other is just a personality disorder. The mental illness is an illness. There’s medication for it. Borderline personality disorder means a person is all over the map but they’re not mentally ill. They’re just full of angst and anxiety and Suspiciousness and neediness and whoever knows what else but there’s no medication for it unless it’s to treat the anxiety.
Some people, dig ditches, some people are doctors, some people are farmers. That’s their job. You have two jobs. One is the one you go to and get paid for and the other is to try to help your wife wade through the murkiness of her life. I don’t know how she got that way and if she’s mentally ill, then she can get on medication. If no doctor has declared she’s mentally ill then they probably assume she’s got borderline personality disorder. I had a friend with it and she literally drove me crazy.
You love your wife you don’t want to give up this marriage and no one here has the right to tell you to do so. What we do suggest, and really believe you need, is a poly. There’s just too much lying going on in the relationship for you to ever feel like you’re standing on stable ground. That is torture.

She's an addict. Addicts can't use substances. You can't be dependent on amphetamines, but completely ok to use alcohol or cocaine.

Before anything else, the addiction needs to be dealt with. She sounds like she might need inpatient care, either drug/alcohol rehab or psych care. But unless she gets sober (which is vastly different than just not using), nothing will change.