SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

A thread for those of you who found out about affairs years after they were over.

SacredSoulSister, Was your WH open to disclosing details of the A before you started with counseling? Or was there a change that happened when counseling started that caused him to stop the lies? For me, we have talked outside of counseling about the A but there are details I believe still being kept.

We started MC a few months before my H confessed to three affairs spanning 14 years. His last A was the only EA/PA (the other two were strictly PA) and I think he intended it as an exit affair, except I don't think he really wanted to actually exit. He lied to me and he lied to the MC until Dday, when he barfed it all up in the MC's office and stopped lying. We separated for a few weeks until he went NC, and then we started R in earnest. I was lucky, in that he became an open book and would talk about the A whenever I wanted. He tells me now that he made a commitment to do that for a year. There were lots of very uncomfortable conversations, and he was a real trooper.

The real change that came with counseling was transparency and authenticity. One can't be transparent while withholding information. I wanted to know everything that happened with the OW because I didn't want her to know anything that I didn't know. I didn't want any private intimacy with her to remain. I wanted all of their nonsense splayed out in very clinical fashion in front of me - and in front of him so that he could see what it really was. There's nothing sexy or romantic about an autopsy.

But there is no movement at all towards revealing the other infidelities.

Has she admitted to other infidelities, but won't share details? Or is she not admitting to them at all?

IMO, one needs an MC who specializes in affair recovery or in sexual addiction in order to deal properly with infidelity. Although SA wasn't an issue in our marriage, we happened to get an MC who specialized in it so he was very familiar with the sticky wicket of recovering from PAs.

[This message edited by SacredSoulSister at 3:25 PM, Tuesday, March 14th]

I am hoping for such a change of heart with regard to the secrets keeping with the help of the counselor. I guess time will tell.

She is not admitting to any other affairs other than the one I caught her in. But I have some evidence and my gut is telling me there is more to the story.

Thanks for sharing your experience with him eventually coming around.

IOnceBelieved: Consider the gambit from her perspective, assuming there are details about her affair(s) from long ago that, if revealed to you now, she knows would certainly crush you.

If she reveals those details, you may become a broken man, bitter and emotionally alone until your death. You may even divorce her.

If she hold fast and continues to refuse to discuss, then chances are you'll keep doing what you've been doing for the past umpteen years: conceding to her stalemate, remaining in a somewhat queasy but reasonably reliable marital stasis that at least isn't awful for her.

In other words, she has everything to lose by revealing, and nothing to gain.

On the other hand, from your perspective, assuming the truth is as awful as you imagine it to be, what is your end game? So you can say: "Aha, you really are the miserable rotten slut you and I have both known you always have been. Fie on ye!" Or, "Finally, the freedom I need to divorce."

I'm being a bit cheeky with this, but at your age one ought to consider the end game. Maybe your end game is simply to put an end to the mind movies and torment of imagination that has been your burden for all these decades. If that's the case, then tell her.

IOB, at the end of the day, you get to decide what you need to move forward. Not your spouse and not your MC or IC. You.

What exactly is the objective? Is it to R at all costs or is it for you to heal? Complete transparency may indeed be required for the latter but could jeopardize the former.

Nobody gets to decide this but you. If you are told "you're not gonna like it"....so what? You clearly don't like it now or that this was ever done in the first place. If it results in further damaging your image of WS and this results in D then that is ultimately the full cost of WS's actions.

Continuing to keep secrets from you is something most normal people would object to and complete transparency is at least a foundation to begin healing regardless of whether it contributes to R or D.

You need to heal and this seems clearly like an impediment to that for you.

Just a note from someone who has been struggling for over 5 years now.....
I still don't have all the truth. I know he is never going to tell me. It has consumed me.

Butforthegrace just hit me hard with some words. The WS has nothing to lose and what is my end game.

If I could go back to DD, I likely would walk then.
Trust has not been rebuilt. No matter how much he says he loves me, tells me the truth and would do anything for me, he has not done the one thing I need the most, and that is be honest.

Sorry if this is a negative post to all those looking for happy endings but I am not in a positive frame of mind.

I just have no idea how to move forward

Impacted: Although my recent struggles are only six months old I can totally relate to this,

I still don't have all the truth. I know he is never going to tell me. It has consumed me.

I have said all through this that my running wild imagination MMs are, I am convinced, worse than reality. Just the compassion to help me rein those in at the very least let alone the moral obligation based on our vows of commitment to each other should be enough incentive for her to do the right thing, and I know the hard thing, and tell me the damn truth. But not to be, she has a death grip on those secrets. And to your point BFTG, the truth may be unbearable but these seemingly endless what ifs seem equally destructive.

I have been working recently with what I feel so far is a pretty good IC. Went together as MC the first session but now it is IC for me. Our session last week though caused me to do some pretty serious soul searching, from my journal:

"She told me she had a male client who had pushed his wife so hard for the big reveal she had a stroke. After replaying the session I have come to realize that there is a stark moral question that clearly comes into focus, and that is "Is what you want worth the life of your wife?" Without hesitation the answer is emphatically NO!! it is not. Ok so where does that leave me? Is there a plan B? I am not sure I know the answer to that yet."

What you said Never2late is very true in that I am the only one that can know or discover my own path forward. And so I began the difficult task of figuring out what plan B is. We have too much good history and I feel I am too old to chuck it now. In fact up until 6 months ago we were newly retired and the happiest we have probably ever been. Not sure I understand all the triggers that has brought back this 35 year old trauma but, should I try to understand and short circuit those triggers (IC perhaps)? so I can try and stuff this crap down a couple more decades and make believe were are happy, fake it til I make it? Am I simply faced with a real life Kobayashi Maru test? (Star Trek fans will get this one). Is this just a situation were there is no clearly winnable outcome? Again to another point BFTG, indeed what is the end game here when faced with such a test?

And yes Impacted honesty is a key foundational stone for my life philosophy too, it defines my soul. So of all the bullshit that I try and come to terms with, that is one that threatens our very existence today and any path forward. Because without it the structure will not stand. I have seen in her movements to be more honest and that gives me hope. But then she will lie to my face so sincerely and casually about something unimportant and trivial which then puts me into a tail spin of "If she lies about the little stuff, what about the big stuff?" I truly am hoping that after some IC sessions we can return for some MC work and we can work out with the therapists help among other things, why the deception is SO damaging for me.

Sorry for just rambling on. I as you can see don't have a lot of answers but I do know though that typing this out for you kind and compassionate people and hearing your thoughts has truly been a life line and for that I can only simply say Thank You.

As one possible suggestion, perhaps you just say it flat out: "Wife, I've been haunted for 35 years with a voice in my gut telling me that you've not been honest with me about your A. For a long time that voice was quieted, but in recent years it has increased its volume. I'm an old man and we have a lot of history. I don't have any intention of ending our marriage at this point, no matter what. But I do think that you owe me, at the very least, closure on this, so that I can know the truth of my life's timeline."