SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

She's mad that she told you about the contact. That tells you all you need to know about expecting future honesty.

And, that she has hurt you,and is now attacking you says a lot.

Can we please take the rose colored glasses off at this point? She does not care about losing time with the kids. She knew that was a distinct possibility when she embarked on this affair. She also knows what it will take for that not to happen,and she is unwilling to do it. She can,she just doesn't want to.

Please tell the OBS. We've been shouting it since you got here. It is the single best thing a new BS can do. He's already told your wife he won't leave his for her. He will throw your wife under the bus,and try to save his marriage. Your wife will realize he was using her.

But,really, does it matter? You know you're Plan B.

The kids will be fine,as long as the two of you treat each other with consideration, and respect the other's parenting time.

[This message edited by HellFire at 12:23 AM, Wednesday, April 12th]

Your wife doesn’t and has never had your best interests at heart. I hope for your sake that you are starting to realize this.

She wants you as room mate to split the bills and as a nanny while she pursues romance her ex-boyfriend. That is her ideal arrangement. Is it yours?

If not, then your best bet at putting an end to her relationship with the other man is to tell his wife. You have nothing to lose at this point. Your wife has already chosen her affair over your marriage. Maybe she’ll have a change of heart when he kicks her to the curb like trash.

You should also consult with a lawyer as soon as you return from vacation to find out what’s realistic in terms of a financial settlement and shared custody.

As for the experiences of other BHs in similar situations, If you haven’t already, I recommend reaching out to HurtHalo (his post is still on the front page of JFO) and JustSomeGuy. Both men have moved on from cake-eating, unremorseful spouses and are successfully parenting their kids while moving on with their lives. HurtHalo is particular dealt with a selfish, cake-eating wife who fully expected him to be grateful for the privilege of remaining married to her while she slept around with other men under the guise of polyamory.

Friend, I am so sorry that you are here.

Please reread RealityBlow's post from Page 7 of your thread. In particular, read what is quoted below:

Another thing. Totally different subject:

The 180 that everyone is preaching. Some aspects of this approach are a bit counterintuitive and understated.

There is nothing more attractive, more respectable, more appealing, more inspiring, admirable, more sexy than, seeing, witnessing someone protecting their dignity, their self respect, their rights, their integrity with confidence and unyielding determination.

It’s a show of nobility and inner strength that gives even the least remorseful wayward pause. We have seen many waywards, deeeep in the fog, shocked back to reality by the noble self protective resolve of a betrayed spouse.

"She/He never looked so good as they did when they were walking out the door"

"You have to be willing to lose the marriage to save the marriage"

You want a spouse who comes back fighting for you. You deserve that-right? Rhetorical question.

This is your fleeting opportunity to show her your worth, your strength, dignity, initiative and resolve. She’ll be taken aback at first, she’s not expecting this. She may even strike back, victimize herself, gaslight you, hoping you’ll back down, but…she will, at least on some level, come to respect and admire it.

Yes, you not only need to be proactive about telling OBS but you also need to be proactive when it comes to filing for D.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 2:15 AM, Wednesday, April 12th]

I though she establised no contact?

Then she casually mentions that she spoke to him? Then get pissed that you were upset by that?

I am really sorry, but your wife is trying to paint a picture of everything she does is ok. Including being nc with OM.

I'd tell her that she should go live with her OM. Which is based on a shared fantasy where they aren't dealing with anything real in a relationship. She has not dealt with any consequences yet and until she hits rock bottom she will be unremorseful and only pretend to be M'd to you. She needs consequences from her actions. Not as punishment, but to get her to see reality. Right now she isn't living in reality and it will break her once reality sinks in.

That might be years from now, but you are in an abusive situation. I'd counsel you to plan for yourself and kids to get away from this toxic mess.

Everyone will be impacted in the short term, but that can be worked through. Think of the long game.

Again, I am sorry, but she appears to be checked out of your M. I would begin preparing emotionally and logistically for your M to end.

[This message edited by numb&dumb at 2:11 PM, Wednesday, April 12th]

That is all still unconnected in her mind, and rightly or wrongly I believe her. She really hasn't felt anything for me physically in years. There's been quite a few personality attacks this evening which has prompted me to go to another room and write this.

I don't see a way back. She really doesn't seem to want to find a way back but also doesn't want to lose the kids for half the time (and neither do i).

You keep coming back to this point about her being unattracted to you, but really Ozzy, that's not an excuse for her to take advantage of you the way she has. She's been involved in this affair for years now. The chances that her involvement with someone else has effected her willingness to see potential in the marital relationship are high. How is she supposed to be able to SEE you when she's looking somewhere else?

Ozzy, in the D/S forum is a great thread at the top called "Fear vs Reality" where you can read the experiences of many BSes who had to D their WSes. Yes, it will be a difficult transition with your children but it's only temporary. As long as you support them, get them into IC if necessary, they will move forward okay. They can thrive in a D/S separation without the stress and drama that your WW brings. They can find peace at your house even if she continues to be messy at hers. It can be done.

Back home today. Very up and down week. Had a monumental argument (worst one yet) a couple of days after I last wrote where I said I have read the best thing I should do to end this thing is to tell the OBS. This went down terribly as you can imagine. She's actually right that having given my agreement to the situation that's a pretty awful thing to do to another family but I'm sure there won't be much agreement here.

BUT I have spent since then really, really thinking about things from her point of view. She's right that she didn't tell him about her feelings until she'd spoken to me and I did she could. She immediately broke things when I asked her to. She's a mess with guilt because she slept with someone.

I know this takes me back to the beginning but I think the main issue I had was that I changed my mind about being open but she did end that part of the relationship immediately. When I rack my brain she hasn't lied to me directly at all.

We have a lot to sort out and I'm not sure we will but I apologise that maybe this forum isn't the place to help me. It definitely helped me with confidence to ask her to end things but other than that I think we're pretty unique.

I'll write again on Monday when I've had more of a chance to think.

She's actually right that having given my agreement to the situation that's a pretty awful thing to do to another family but I'm sure there won't be much agreement here.

Ozzie, I would hope that you are both in agreement that **her getting with OM** was what was the pretty awful thing to do to another family.

What saddens me here is that you are finding ways to accept what should be unacceptable....you being stuck in infidelity.

I won’t read back to find comments from you which seem to contradict your most recent ones, but my impression is of inconsistencies and a degree of deliberate self deception.

The reason why you should listen to others here isn’t because they don’t engage in self deception themselves, but because they have learned enough to spot it when it happens.

Isn’t it the case that the affair partner didn’t know you know (at least until it was called off)? So why is it being suggested you are doing a pretty awful thing to his family? Entrapment?

He’s just a cheater. He wants to betray his wife, and keep getting what she is giving where she would probably make a different choice if she knew the truth. You are all disrespecting her.

And as to your wife ending it, your last post was about her continuing contact with him after she said she wouldn’t. It’s not uncommon for WS’s to slip a little bit in the early stages, but is she assuring you he is dead and buried to her now?

[This message edited by straightup at 12:59 AM, Sunday, April 16th]

There are people here who reconciled but they had to get tough to do so. They had lines in the sand and when they were breached they were headed out. Only then did the WS pull their heads out of their orifices.
I have a question that might have been answered. Did she feel passion for you at the beginning of your marriage? My husband and I, due to family circumstances, lived apart for over 6 months. I had some residual resentment and fell out of love. He knew immediately and I had to tell him. We both gave it time and it came back. I felt great passion for him when we married so that memory held us together until the feelings came back. If that is the case here her feelings might resurface. It depends on how she felt about you at the beginning. You need to be very direct in your questions and if she says those deep feelings were never there then they never will be.

I know this takes me back to the beginning but I think the main issue I had was that I changed my mind about being open but she did end that part of the relationship immediately. When I rack my brain she hasn't lied to me directly at all.

I think what might be happening here is that you keep getting refocused on the honesty issue instead of the coercion. You did give permission for your WW to go outside the marriage and now maybe you feel like it's your fault because you told her it would be okay. The bottom line is whether or not you believed you had to do that in order to keep her from abandoning you. Don't forget that the AP didn't just turn up out of the blue. She'd been talking to him online for quite some time. In that respect, an emotional affair was already happening.

You've said consistently that you didn't feel like you had a choice. When you don't feel like you have a choice, that's NOT agreement. The question of coercion, IMOH, takes precedence over any honesty you've had from her. Weaponized honesty is just a cudgel one uses to get their own way. The fact that you guys are fighting about tells us that the point on coercion has not been conceded. Have you had this discussion with her? Does she understand that you felt like you didn't have any real choice?

If you haven't talked about it in those terms, yeah.. that's probably going to be a painful discussion with lots of defensiveness on her part. But in order to move forward and get to a better jumping off point for R, she needs to understand the reality of your feelings on this issue and why, against your better judgment, you agreed to it. Without that understanding, I don't see how future discussions won't end in argument just as you've already seen. It's a tough talk to have and it sucks to be in that position, but until she can see how you got backed into a corner, you're just going to sound like a guy who arbitrarily changed his mind.

I think it's important for you to understand how her rhetoric on how she no longer finds you attractive has likely ramped up your abandonment fears and made you desperate enough to agree to this. When someone feels like their partner is no longer finding value in them, bargaining is just part of that grief. I'm NOT saying that it's all some machavellian plot to manipulate you, but the bottom line still is that you've been manipulated. She had a pretty clear idea of where she wanted to maneuver this thing, and that's the direction it went. WS's aren't typically evil masterminds. They're usually just people who want their own way and whose values systems aren't sufficient enough to stop them from acting on it.

I don't think your situation is hopeless, Ozzy. People can change and both you and your WW seem motivated to make changes. It's going to be a very difficult situation to recover though if she can't come to terms with the fact that she has done wrong. There's no reason for her to reevaluate her behavior, the marriage, or her feelings for you (including the issue of attraction) as long as she's allowed to remain in the ivory tower she's built for herself. It would be easy for you to say "our situation is different", but the commonalities of recovery remain the same because the "open marriage" element is a false front which will continue to leave you feeling insecure if it's not addressed. That's building on sand, man. It's building on sand.

She's told you he doesn't know you know about the affair.

If that's true, have you even considered that the real reason she doesn't want you to tell his wife,is because then he will know she lied to him. You can bet there were conversations about how to hide it,and to deny anything if either spouse became suspicious. If you tell his wife,he would know your wife failed to protect him,and protect the affair.

She doesn't want to betray him. She wants him to continue to have whatever feelings she thinks he has for her. She wants to protect him.

She actually said it would be horrible for you to be honest with the only person in this situation who is innocent..and fails to recognize that the really horrible thing is her sleeping with this woman's husband, and allowing his wife to be played a fool.

We've said it many times in this thread. She is a master manipulator. And you keep allowing her to give you these ridiculous explanations, and you buy it,because otherwise you have to face this for what it really is. You are deeply in denial.

She doesn't want you to tell his wife, because she thinks she loves OM, believes he loves her, and she wants to protect that.

And you are letting her. Helping her.

You know she doesn't care about his wife,and what's horrible for her. Had she cared,she wouldn't have had sex with the woman's husband. No. She cares about how it will affect him. And you are helping protect him,and harm his wife.

You may want to leave SI. At first, I also thought this was the wrong place for you. But, with every post,you prove this is where you should be. And you know it. The reason you are considering leaving is because you know we are right,but admitting that knocks your wife off the pedestal you have her on,and you are scared to do that.

[This message edited by HellFire at 12:51 PM, Sunday, April 16th]

You know what’s a horrible thing to do another family? Fucking another woman’s husband.

If only she cared about your opinion as much as she cares about her boyfriend’s.

I’m sorry that you are hurting and twisting in confusion, it sucks. I can promise you once you get out of whatever this situation is, you will view it much differently. I can tell you a lot of these explanations and being manipulated like this is going to hurt like hell once the dust settles.

I would suggest not letting her reframe the situation. You shining the light on lies & secrets is not you destroying a family. Evil deeds, lies, & secrets are the things that destroy families. The talk around this and her making you feel bad about considering it is very revealing about her current mindset. Your situation is not as unique as you think it is.

@Ozzy1788 (great name by the way, from a fellow Aussie!)

Brother, I just read through this thread after seeing BluerthanBlue's call out to me in a previous comment. I have basically just lived this entire situation 8 months ago, except for the fact that my wife's desire to 'be polyamorous and see other people' was dropped in my lap without notice at a 'marriage health check' MC session just following the series of COVID lockdowns. Turns out my wife of 10 years had been sleeping with a polyamorous married workmate for 1.5 years without my knowledge, and I was being expected to 'get onboard with it'. Hot tip: I did not get onboard HMAS Infidelity as it set sail for fail while on fire. I divorced her (finalises in July as per the 1 year wait by law), and am sharing custody of our 3 girls under 10 on a 50:50 basis. If you want to read the full story, it's under the 'After 9 years of R, I just got the 'oh I think I'm poly afterall!' thread on the front page of this very forum. You'll find your situation isn't unique. I hope you take some solace from that. To summarise my sitation, I separated from her, and have since found a few weeks ago that not only did her AP break up with her, but before we separated she was sleeping with ANOTHER married workmate who she is still with. She's been the constant variable in the destruction of at least 3 marriages in the space of 18 months. This is the woman I thought I knew; the woman whom I have shared everything with for over a decade. I evidently don't know her. At this point she's just a demon wearing my ex-wife's skin for all I know.

I am going to admit, I shed a tear at your story; so much of it is familiar. I can tell that you are a good guy, and that you love your wife and kids dearly. But you need to hear me, and hear me loud and clear:

1. Your wife does not respect you. She might love you, but she doesn't respect you. She likely has huge gaps in her psyche that her or your love for you won't fill.

2. Accordingly, your wife ticks all the boxes of a grandiose narcissist, a closet narc at worst. 'I NEED(ED) THIS', 'THIS LOVE IS DIFFERENT', 'MY SITUATION IS UNIQUE' are all standard responses from narcissists. An affair is a way to get narcissistic supply (or simply, attention). It's a disorder. Who knows why she's like that? Bad parents, abandonment issues, the need for validation from other men? Either way, you will never compete with it.

3. Point 1 & 2 is reinforced by the fact that she has NO empathy for you.

Please watch a video by a Dr Ramani on YouTube titled 'Narcissism and Infidelity: Why do narcissists cheat and how do they get away with it?', it may open your eyes.

First off, the OBS needs to know about this. I'm not going to labour the point, but having three people know what is going on, and not having the other know is cruelty. Ignorance is not bliss in this case, and if you truly want this affair to stop, this is absolutely the best way to do it. You don't have to be the one to tell her directly, you can do this anonymously. Either way, it has to happen.

Secondly, your wife has been having an affair for years. It didn't start when she told you she wanted to 'try it out'; 99.9% chance that the polyamorous/I need this affair line was crafted to retrospectively validate her feelings and seek permission to be a philanderer under a sheer veil of credibility. This isn't a unique situation, in fact back when my ex-WW and I were together, we hosted one of her friends for a drink one night who spent an hour in tears on our lounge because her husband had an affair and came home and told her that 'he thought he was polyamorous' and that 'he thought he had too much love just to share with one person.' In retrospect, the fact that my ex-wife sat there with a barely concealed mask of disgust while I told our sobbing friend that I thought her husband's lame poly excuse was b/s (I didn't know she was having an affair at that point), was telling.

Back home today. Very up and down week. Had a monumental argument (worst one yet) a couple of days after I last wrote where I said I have read the best thing I should do to end this thing is to tell the OBS. This went down terribly as you can imagine. She's actually right that having given my agreement to the situation that's a pretty awful thing to do to another family but I'm sure there won't be much agreement here.

Re-read this again mate. She has NO respect for your feelings about her affair. You told her you didn't want it to continue. SHe's ignored you and has kept sleeping with a married man. When in pure desperation, you've mentioned that this all needs to come out in the spirit of openess, she's attacked you. Polyamory/open marriage is about repsect and communication. This debacle has none of it. There are two married people having a selfish affair, one partner is trying to pick up the pieces of the betrayal, the other is purposefully being kept in the dark about it and unempowered as a result. This needs to end.

During my wife's first affair in 2013 (the one I thought wrongly that we had put in the work to R from), the biggest impact in ending her infidelity was both the OBS and I knowing. OBS actually told me. They threw each other so far under the buses to save their own marriages when, in my exWW's case, she realised I wasn't mucking around. Affairs die in the sunlight.

I get the feeling the biggest thing holding you back is the kids. Trust me brother, I NEVER wanted to be a part-time Dad, and it is one of the biggest things I remain angry about. BUT, life with my kids every other week without ending up in hospital due to the anxiety of living in infidelity (you can read all about that fun in my story - amusingly I had no idea my wife was cheating on me when I got admittted to ER with a panic attack that I thought was a heart attack - but it's funny how the body evidently keeps score) or wondering who my wife is sleeping with beats staying in infidelity with someone who treats you as a person of convenience and a backstop rather than a husband. I have gotten massive in the gym, I do my own hobbies, I cook the food I like...and my kids are happy. We are going to the pool in literally 10 minutes after I get off the computer, we went to the movies yesterday and had a ball!

My 10 year old actually said to me the other day, 'I'm glad you are happy Dad. No one wants to be the crazy cat-person living in an empty house.' TEN YEARS OLD! Hahahaha! In short though, kids are far more adaptable than we give them credit for.

In regards to you and what an alternate future might look like, I want you to know that there are an absolute treasure-trove of women out there who will treat you the way you deserve to be treated. Being expected to be a bystander to your wife's fantasises of f%$#ing a married man is not normal. Now this might sound conceited, but I want you to understand what your future might entail. When I broke up with my wife, I dipped my foot into Tinder/Bumble/online dating. At exactly ZERO point did any woman scoff at me having three kids. In fact I was told on a few dates, 'I think a man who looks after his kids is very attractive.' I was routinely messaged by people 7-10 years junior to me.

My single female friends of the same age? Sadly, that's an entirely different kettle of fish. They get messaged by guys in their 50s looking for easy sex. It's not fair, but there it is. That's what your wife might have to look forward to. I am now dating a stunning woman 8 years my junior who genuinely loves getting to know my girls (and we are taking it VERY slowly in that regard.) I just got back from a week in Fiji with her. While I don't care anymore, I heard through the grapevine that my ex didn't take me moving on very well, went on a month of leave at very short notice, and actually went off the grid for a week accordingly. By all accounts, she's not doing well mentally. And neither should she be.

Those last few paragraphs aren't to sound defeatist in regards to your marriage, they are there to show you that your life without the person you think your wife is, isn't the end of the world. Your wife is acting EXACTLY like mine did; professing to want to fix the M while already checked out and living her best sexual life with fellow philanderers you wouldn't urinate on if they were on fire. You don't deserve this. You have done nothing to deserve this disgraceful treatment.

Feel free to PM mate, or ask me any questions.

[This message edited by Hurthalo at 2:44 PM, Sunday, April 16th]

Hurthalo:

That is a really great post full of real world advice for someone who is traveling the very same road as your Aussie mate.

Also a great update on your own personal situation.

Unfortunately I believe that your Aussie mate is allowing fear to take over and control his life and he is paralyzed by it. That is just my personal opinion. He comes up with all sorts of reasons why he won't do what everyone is telling him he needs to do, and that is just the fear which is controlling everything about this awful situation. That is just my own personal belief.

I believe Ozzy needs to get some individual counseling with a counselor who is skilled at helping trauma victims. Because he is acting as someone who is traumatized. We have all heard stories of veterans in war who became so traumatized or "shell shocked" during battle that they literally could not move.

Infidelity is trauma... one of worst kind because it is heaped on the victim by someone they trusted and loved. A very skilled trauma therapist can help him drill down and see what is causing this inaction.

Ozzy1788:

I wish the best for you. Please get some help... if not for you, then for your children. They need mentally healthy parents. Unfortunately your wife will probably never be. As Hurthalo said, she is ticking off the boxes of a narcissist and it is really difficult for someone of that ilk to ever change. But you are a great guy who wants to do right by your children, and I believe that eventually you will do the right thing.

Again, I wish the best for you.

Had a monumental argument (worst one yet) a couple of days after I last wrote where I said I have read the best thing I should do to end this thing is to tell the OBS. This went down terribly as you can imagine.

To be honest, I don’t get why you are even spending time arguing with her. It’s as if you feel you need to negotiate your terms or try to persuade her of something. You don’t.

How’s the 180 going, btw?

I believe Ozzy needs to get some individual counseling with a counselor who is skilled at helping trauma victims. Because he is acting as someone who is traumatized. We have all heard stories of veterans in war who became so traumatized or "shell shocked" during battle that they literally could not move.

Infidelity is trauma... one of worst kind because it is heaped on the victim by someone they trusted and loved. A very skilled trauma therapist can help him drill down and see what is causing this inaction.

This 100%. Ozzy, you are being emotionally abused by your 'wife'.

We could argue you are also being physically abused noting she's screwing this guy and you don't know if they are using protection either (they generally don't, it adds to the thrill btw, and seems to be a very common trend in affairs). I remember sitting in the sexual health clinic steaming with anger as I waited for my test - that anger alone was enough to fuel me into action.

You really need to get angry mate. As you and I know the Aussie saying, 'she's taking the piss.'

By not telling OBS, you are perpetrating abuse on her. You're robbing her of information that she may use to make an informed decision on her life choices.

I am so grateful for this community. So many wise people reaching out to each other. It is amazing.

I just wanted to add something that came to my mind while reading this thread regarding honesty. I have heard it before but is seems apropos:

Honesty without compassion is hostility.

The fact that your wife has been marginally honest is not the point. She has been honest in a manipulative way. I believe CT used the word "coercion". This was an excellent point and her advice, as always, was spectacular. The point is that your WW has been using honesty as a bludgeon in order to continue the behavior that is hurting you. It is hostile. This is not the kind of honesty that should happen in R. WS should be honest as a means of helping the BS to have some agency in a situation where choice was removed from them. Honesty is done in a spirit of understanding the needs of the BS, NOT in supporting the needs of the WW.