SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Who cares what you think here. This is about making her feel safe.

1000x this. You don't get to decide what helps her feel safe.

We had this come up in MC just a few weeks ago. My H had been reluctant to block the AP on SM because he says that he didn't want to give her any indication that he gave a crap one way or the other. (Why he gives a shit what she thinks is a topic for next MC, now that I think about it.) Anyway, MC didn't even hesitate when I brought it up. He told H, "Do whatever she asks you to do to help her feel safe. It doesn't matter if you think it's stupid. Just do it."

Ask your W what she wants. Then do it. Then do some more on your own without being asked, like others have said. And yeah, it might be too late, and you might end up the unfortunate poster child for what trickle-truthing does to recovery.

IMO, it's fine for you to have your feelings and be frustrated. That's normal. But then you need to get over yourself, put yourself in her shoes, and flex your empathy muscles.

Ok, I do get what you are all saying and I accept that there are going to be areas of our timeline which haven't been clear or I have lied about to minimise. Areas which I could still be more truthful over, no new info but certainly stuff that would "bulk" out a bit more of the timeline. Basically, yes, I am still lying to her about some stuff. Not big stuff, but stuff nonetheless.

My issue though is when is enough enough? She already knows so much about the affair, all the awful details, I dont understand why this isnt enough for her?

Ie : saw her twenty times but it was twenty-five say or she was in my car three times not twice.

I desperately want this to work but as it stands I know I am doing so much wrong and this in turn will effect our children who I don't want to come from a broken home....at the same time I know I am causing that by being dishonest and continuing to lie about stuff. I'm starting to feel indifferent and told her that this morning due to the way in which she has spoken to me recently, the arguing, being told we were over then not and then over again. I understand that things would be triggering for her and that she will have these thoughts etc but the back and forth has me all over the place.

at the same time I know I am causing that by being dishonest and continuing to lie about stuff.

Really? And yet you’re expecting trust?

Tim, you sound like you are giving up. As a BS myself, to me that would be a sure sign that I just don't matter enough to you. I bet the aftermath for you sucks, but I can tell you from experience, it's far worse for her. I can't even find the words to describe the destruction infidelity causes. My only suggestion for you is to decide if you want to be a worthy partner to your wife, be 100% honest at all times, work your ass off trying to make amends for your destructive actions, be the type of person she needs, and let the chips fall where they may. Maybe this is a test of hers to see just how hard you are willing to work to win her back. If you are willing to go through the same hell she is in, then maybe you can win her back. I can assure you though, anything less than 110% and she'll see it. Good luck.

My issue though is when is enough enough? She already knows so much about the affair, all the awful details, I dont understand why this isnt enough for her?

Why do you expect her healing to be completed according to your preferred timeline?

IIf you can’t live with the turmoil and uncertainty that you introduced into the marriage, if you don’t think you have the stamina to answer the questions over and over again, as much as your wife needs to, then just stop wasting everyone’s time. File for divorce and demonstrate your remorse by giving your wife a generous settlement.

Don’t use your kids as an excuse for staying if you think reconciliation is hopeless. You say you don’t want them to grow up in a broken home… but the reality is that their home is already broken. You can either do everything you can for as long as you can to repair the home that they’re in or you can split from your wife and try to provide them with two healthy but separate homes.

The days of you getting the benefit of the doubt from your wife are over. Permanently. Before your affair, your wife could say, "but he would never do that to me." She will never be able to tell herself that again. The best you will get going forward is "trust but verify."

Can you live with that? If you can’t, then at least be honest with yourself and with your wife about your limitations.

Not sure if you mentioned if you’re in IC or not.

Post dday 1 I needed my WH to be honest and forthcoming about any little detail. He didn’t get to decide what was relevant and important, I did. I needed to know to the best possible accuracy, what, when and where it happened, how it happened, why it happened. I needed to know what was said and felt.

I am not naive, I knew that beyond the factual details, when and where, the rest was just an interpretation of a situation in time.

Nevertheless my WH admitting and owning up to stuff that I had no way of finding out otherwise, showed me that he had a strong desire to change and become an honest man. That doesn’t mean I decided to trust him there and then. It means that over time, after years of consistent behaviour displayed by WH, after he consistently showed ownership of his fuck up and remained honest, non defensive and accountable, I started to believe he may be serious about change and personal growth.

My WH, like you, decided to torture me for an additional 4 months post dday and lied and gaslighted me. I remember the day he decided to come clean, totally clean. Dday 2. He sat me down and told me what I already knew but had no proof of it. We spent 24 hours barely sleeping with him pouring over information, he wouldn’t stop, he couldn’t stop. He kept saying "and one more thing…"

He describes it now as the moment when he knew he’d most likely lose me but he just couldn’t live with himself anymore. His life was a mess, he was suicidal. He says he remembers how a weight was lifting off his shoulders as he was piling pain on me.

It was horrific but it was also liberating. You have no clue what gaslighting does, what it feels like to know the truth but be told you don’t.

We’re still married because, by all appearances, he did keep at it and embraced growth. He thanks me for holding him accountable as he can now sleep at night.

You’re still lying by your own admission. You’re asking why can’t your BS accept the minimising details you’ve given her.

She can’t because you see, it shows that you’re still a manipulative WS who wants to control the narrative and the outcome rather than a man who wishes to change and become a safe partner. Why would she want to remain married to a cheater who wishes to manipulate her and decide on her behalf what details she needs to know about her own marriage?

You need to let go of the outcome. Stop trying to control the narrative. Start becoming accountable of your actions, be truthful and own up to everything you did. For yourself, to become a better man. You may lose your marriage but then again you may just about still be able to keep it if you become consistently truthful and trusting.

And even then, reconciliation takes a huge amount of time; in all honestly, after what you posted on this thread, it appears to me that you have no intention to truly reconcile and put in the hard work required so you may want to decide to give this poor BS the peace she longs for.

Either way, she deserves to know the truth.

Tinytim1980... Reading your comments above such as "when is enough enough" and "I'm starting to feel indifferent" really show what an utterly selfish person you are. You do not GET IT at all. You won't be able to see where any of us here are coming from because you are still stuck in your Wayward thinking of 'me, me, me' and no doubt you'll be thinking I'm talking rubbish and I'm being rude to you, when in actual fact I'm telling you the cold hard facts about yourself, which is plain to see in most of your comments. You need some serious therapy & a very hard look in the mirror so you can maybe one day become a safe, empathetic partner for anyone, because you are nowhere near it right now.

You're still lying to her by your own admission and you're not giving her any agency in this. That she keeps changing her mind and wants you to r is a window of opportunity for you that is rapidly closing.

Not sure what you're looking for here. You keep blaming your bs for how things are going right now. Bluntly my suggestion to her would be to start the D process and 180 you because you are not safe for her right now.

If you really want to save your marriage you need to stop thinking you know what she wants and start asking her what she wants, then doing it regardless of your opinions on the matter.

…but the back and forth has me all over the place.

I must have missed this earlier.

Imagine being discarded by your spouse as they cheated on you and basically reduced you to nothing, not even an afterthought whilst they were screwing around and then complaining that YOU are the one who can’t take it anymore due to the back and forth.

Friend… you’re still lucky there is a back and forth and you’re not seeing your kids every other weekend.

Basically, yes, I am still lying to her about some stuff. Not big stuff, but stuff nonetheless.

And you began this thread with a moan about not being believed? The previous posters have mostly been gentle with you regarding their advice. I will be less so...

It only takes a quick read through this thread to see that you seem resistant and reactive to the advice given, and believe me, its been good advice. As well, you have posted that you have trickle truthed but now are honest, then can't remember all the details, have been mostly honest, and now am still lying. There are four options there. Pick one. You don't get all four.

Your BS is deeply traumatized and is in survival mode. She does not believe you because you have given her ample reasons not to. It's good that you are in IC, but it seems there is much work for you to do to become a safe partner. Kudos on trying.

I'm not sure if your BS is here reading your threads, but if she is, you may want to look at who your audience is. Are you holding back or trying to say "the right things" in an effort to placate her? If not, then why the inconsistencies?

[This message edited by Justsomeguy at 3:07 PM, Tuesday, July 11th]

I genuinely feel in a better place than I did a few months ago with regards to my dishonesty

I hope your wife is really paying attention to your posts.

You admit,later in this thread, that you are still purposely lying.

Yet..you feel good about it.

I've read all of your posts. I haven't responded until this thread, because it was obvious you were still lying. And a lying ws is an unremorseful WS. And,behind that kind of ws is a bs who is drowning in pain.

Your response to my polygraph suggestion was spot on for an unremorseful ws. It's like you took all the flimsy excuses a still lying ws would give their bs, and put it in that post.

Look..if you want R, you need to get real honest, real fast. You don't get to decide what she knows. If she asks, she wants to know. Even if she doesn't ask,she wants to know. She's clearly asking for details. Give them all to her. Don't continue to be a coward.

It's why you won't give her a written timeline. You know you're lying. And,either you don't want to put on paper that you're lying,or you don't want to tell the truth,because you don't want to deal with the consequences.

You're being selfish. And quite cruel. TT is just a pretty way of saying you're lying. It's trickle torture. You are torturing your BS.

I'm glad she is on this site. She's in false R with an unremorseful WS, who is showing her he is still selfish,and trying to control her by controlling the information she desperately needs to begin to heal.

There's more to no longer being a ws than just not cheating. You are still very wayward.

Also...you are starting to feel indifferent to her,because she knows you are lying, and wants the truth. Because she won't just shut up and let it go,because you're tired of dealing with not being trusted(when you're still lying!!). The audacity in that statement is off the charts.

You say you're reading books,posting here, IC, etc,etc. Clearly you're doing these things to comply. Compliance isn't change. It's wearing a mask.

She doesn't believe you because,as most BS, her bullshit meter is finely tuned. It was clear in this thread,to many of us,that you weren't being honest. Of course she sees that as well.

The safest thing she could do is 180,and probably file for divorce. Maybe that will wake you up. If not,then she's taking steps to get out of infidelity, and end this 14 months of false R.

Or...you can sit her down, right now,and spill it all. All. ALL. Stop treating her like a fool. Show her the respect she deserves.

Infidelity is abuse. The lying,and manipulation is emotional abuse. As quoted..you genuinely feel better about this? Really?

[This message edited by HellFire at 3:33 PM, Tuesday, July 11th]

You need to read this again:

Why do you expect her healing to be completed according to your preferred timeline?

If you can’t live with the turmoil and uncertainty that you introduced into the marriage, if you don’t think you have the stamina to answer the questions over and over again, as much as your wife needs to, then just stop wasting everyone’s time. File for divorce and demonstrate your remorse by giving your wife a generous settlement.

Don’t use your kids as an excuse for staying if you think reconciliation is hopeless. You say you don’t want them to grow up in a broken home… but the reality is that their home is already broken. You can either do everything you can for as long as you can to repair the home that they’re in or you can split from your wife and try to provide them with two healthy but separate homes.

The days of you getting the benefit of the doubt from your wife are over. Permanently. Before your affair, your wife could say, "but he would never do that to me." She will never be able to tell herself that again. The best you will get going forward is "trust but verify."

Can you live with that? If you can’t, then at least be honest with yourself and with your wife about your limitations.

That's some solid advice.

My issue though is when is enough enough? She already knows so much about the affair, all the awful details, I dont understand why this isnt enough for her?

You cannot be serious. She's trying to calibrate her gut after being gaslit by you, and you're STILL not giving her all the data that she needs to get a good read on you.

Our MC told my H to answer every single question I had fully and honestly, and then he told me to make sure I wanted the answer before I asked the question. She cannot recover without the truth. How much of that truth she wants is her decision. You can either give her what she needs to try to start trusting you again, or you can fail her. And the truth right now is that you're still lying by omission. Fix that or it's over.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 3:41 PM, Tuesday, July 11th]

What exactly are you working on in IC?

First of all, I want to preface this with the fact that I am a WS and have been in a similar situation.

I want you to go back and read your posts from a more objective perspective. If you can do that, you will see that every one of them is an attempt to explain why you can’t do the the things that are being recommended to you and why it’s your wife’s issue for the lack of trust.

If you have read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair", then you know how much work is involved in reconciling. I get the feeling however, that you are hoping for a fast track. I get it, it really sucks having to bear some consequences of some pretty crappy actions, but unfortunately the only way out of most of the consequences is to lose the marriage entirely. Unless you do the work involved, you will lose your marriage. I know this because I have been where you are. I have made the decisions about what my BS should or shouldn’t know. I have been the one to decide what was important or not. I have been impatient with the process, and I even came here and tried to tell the community here how much I was doing. My BS was on his way to a divorce lawyer before I realized how much my actions were costing the both of us.

Do you want to know what helped me? A full, honest timeline about what happened. In addition, I did a poly. It didn’t solve our problems, but what it did do was give us a platform to try to move forward after all of the TT.

Then came the real work. The deep dive into my why’s. The dropping of defenses. The learning to be vulnerable. Opening up and sharing my thoughts and feelings about the affair without being prompted. The ability to understand and comfort through triggers. Feeling deep remorse in the process, which is incredibly different than the early stages of regret. The regret was about how the situation affected me, remorse is how it has affected the BS.

At 2 months in, neither of you have a full understanding of how deep an affair can cut. She is going to need to ask the same questions multiple times and you are going to need to be extremely patient with that. There is no getting around infidelity. You have to go through it…and it is painful. You have to be real on a level that you have never experienced before.

There is no fast track. It really does take 5 years. If at two months you are already tired, this may not be the right path for you. It takes strength that I believe everyone has within them, they just have to want to go there.

The question is, do you want it?

My issue though is when is enough enough? She already knows so much about the affair, all the awful details, I dont understand why this isnt enough for her?

Gently TinyTIm, SHE gets to choose what is or isn’t enough for her. Without the complete story, she can’t possibly make an educated judgment on that. You also can’t just say, "take my word for it", anymore. You’ve lost (nay, destroyed) that privilege – your judgement on what is "good for her" is demonstrably faulty. She (very appropriately) doesn’t trust you to look out for her wellbeing when every time you’ve sworn she had the truth, she’s gone on to find out there was more.

At a certain point for me at least, it wasn’t about the details of the A – it was about knowing my spouse was being 100% honest with me, even if he felt that honesty wasn’t in his best interest or even mine. Being betrayed involves a colossal loss of agency and control over your own life and your decision making – getting the entire truth is a way of taking some of that back. It meant that he was no longer making decisions for me.

Knowing as much as I possibly could about the details and the inneundos helped my brain to process it all and helped me try to process what was going on in my husband’s mind during that time. My brain was already filling in the blanks with stories of my own and in some ways, the actual truth was awful than what I was imagining. It made the person I married and had THOUGHT I knew better than anyone in the entire world, less of a stranger to me. Having the whole truth helped me eventually to understand his thought process, create a fulsome narrative of the A, and develop empathy for him. Once I had that, I finally felt like I could move past it and it was no longer blocking my healing. It helped me begin to rebuild trust, because I started to finally believe I could. I was able to stop worrying that another shoe would drop. It didn’t happen immediately, of course, but it did.

It also helped destroy (in his mind and mine) anything special or secret that existed between my husband and his AP.

If you haven’t already, I would encourage you to go read or re-read to the Healing Library. In the section called Discovery/Confrontation there is an article called "Joseph’s letter" it’s a letter written by a BS trying to explain to his WS why he needed to know.

At the end of the day, I really do encourage you to be honest and up front of any other detail you’re holding back. Unforced disclosures are a really good trust building exercise. Moreover, if what you say is true and the big details have all been disclosed, the logical argument should be, WHY BOTHER holding this stuff back? You’re not protecting anyone but yourself – and to be honest, if you really want R, you’re not even doing that.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 7:23 PM, Tuesday, July 11th]

It also helped about destroy (in his mind and mine) anything special or secret that existed between my husband and his AP.

So much of this too.

My WH’s AP decided to post all the affair details on social media (places they met, dates when they met and things that were said) knowing I’ll read them and hoping to destroy what little we had left. By then WH already confessed everything he could remember. Don’t get me wrong, every post was horrendous but nothing she posted was anything I didn’t already know.

However … one detail (giving him a BJ in a car park) she "forgot" to post about because she was obviously not proud of it. For some reason that helped me a huge amount. I laughed with a friend at one point (yes laughed) knowing that the AP believes WH protected her and that she must be so special as I don’t know that embarrassing detail, but with one post on social media mentioning the car park I could have brought her to her knees. Not that I’d do it as her and I have different values and I rarely play in the pig pen, but it felt good to know that.

Besides, when WH told me this fact he knew the AP would most likely not mention it and yet he did own up to it. He could have minimised the number of sexual encounters and exclude this one. Was it painful to know this? It was eviscerating! Did I break down often initially over that particular detail until I processed it and files it? You bet. But over all it helped, alongside many other actions, to see that my WH understands it is my agency to decide what’s relevant and what’s not when it comes to my life.

Great post Emergent.

As a BS whose H did everything to cover up the affair on dday2 I can tell you that the damage is done. It was done out of fear b/c he felt if I knew the truth I would end it immediately. Stupidly his Continued he’d lying forced me to end it with him.

However you can make a commitment to transparency and honesty 100% of the time. That’s it. You can undo your past lies or shady responses.

Have you ever initiated a conversation and shared your own thoughts and regrets on your past behavior?

If not, I can tell you that MOST BS would welcome that. If you are more open and honest and stop hiding from the issue it could go a long way to healing your BS.

If your BS is still asking you questions, you have to ask yourself why that is. And the answer is you (as the cheater) have not answered her questions. And if she has pieced things together (like most BS) and things don’t add up, then you still have some work to do.

I’m 10 years from Dday. My H has not lied to me (unless he told me that dress doesn’t make me look old or heavy lol) since right after dday2. I may not like his answers. I may not see things the same way he does. But I believe he told me the truth.

And that is where you need to be to fully R.

You can't be in R because you are STILL lying to her. She is in the same exact place she was on D Day. Same. Exact. Place. But it's even more sad because you've wasted over a year of her precious time.

Take a polygraph (after telling her everything) or just tell her this is too hard and you can't do what she needs you to do so that she can heal. Let her move on to a life without lies and deceit.

she had drawn out a text and claimed to have messaged the AP, something that I didnt stop her from doing despite the fact she is unhinged.

Who is unhinged? Your wife? Or the OW?

If it's your wife..being gaslit tends to make one feel crazy.

If it's OW..it's interesting. In this particular thread, you have followed the cheaters handbook,in so many of your responses...including that the OW is unhinged. It's always so odd that the OW is almost always "unhinged" after dday. But,the WH likes the OW just fine,during the affair.

Is the OW married?

I've looked,and your profile is blank,and you haven't written your story anywhere here. In order to get what you really need from SI..which would be help in doing the work you should be doing..perhaps it would be a good idea to write a post in the Wayward forum,asking for advice,based on your particular situation. I mean, if your goal here is to really get help..

TinyTim, take a piece of white paper and draw a small, colored dot on it. When you look at the paper, what do you see? The dot. If you showed the paper to somebody else, what would they see? A dot. That paper could be 99.5% white, but people will only see the dot.

It's kind of like lying. After the A, there is no trust. When you're known to lie, all that will be seen is that dot.

Another example. Let's say I back a cake. In one corner, I put in some dog poop. Would you want to eat the cake? Why not? The dog poop is only in a small corner and the rest of the cake is good. Lying is like that, too. I can't take a chance on eating the cake until I know that the foul poop is not part of the recipe.

Have you seen The Truman Show? How do you think Truman felt when he figured out none of it was real? He fell in love with his wife, had relationships with people at work, neighbors, etc. Your wife is in a similar situation and trying to figure out her reality.