SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I didn't even know this place existed. Honestly, I wish I never needed to find this corner of the internet, but here we are... I'm a 43M and have been married to a 46F for 6 years, together for 14 years. She had 3 daughters from previous marriages, now ages 27, 22, and 18, the oldest of which I adopted as an adult. The adoption was more of a ceremonial thing than for legal purposes. I truely love them all, and love that I am officially the oldest's dad now. My wife and I had a son with an egg donor and surrogate (my first biological child) that was born 9 weeks early in December 2020. He just turned 3 and is the absolute highlight of my life. But why am I HERE? I don't even know where to start so here goes...

My mom asked me for pictures of the kids for something for Christmas. I kinda forgot until Christmas day. Got my wife's old phone, hooked it to my computer, searched for jpeg files, and it was all normal mom stuff until I got to the bottom and saw the Whatsapp images folder. Apparently my wife had been sending lots of nudes to someone (some of the less spicy ones she had sent to me too), who in return had been sending her selfies, pics of his tattoos, and a whole lotta dick pics. It took me all of 5 minutes to figure out who the guy was. It's a guy she dated before me. He's the mayor of a tiny town in my state about 3 hours west of where we live.

In the Whatsapp folder there was a picture she had also sent to me of the turned down bed beside her when she was staying at a hotel for a funeral in his town in November of 2020 that she captioned "wish you were here." That was the oh shit, this is real moment. This was literally minutes before my family went to my parents house to celebrate Christmas. Holding it together at my parents house was the most difficult thing I had ever done emotionally. I hadn't even had a chance to talk to my wife about the pictures. My brother asked me if I was okay because he could see my pulse in the vein on my neck. The whole evening is a blur. I can't tell you what we had for dinner, what I or the kids got from my parents for Christmas, or how long we were even there, but it seemed like an eternity.

I thought I did a good job of faking it all night but after we went to bed my wife asked me what was wrong. That's when I started to cry... The conversation went something like this:

Me: There is a very difficult conversation we need to have, and I don't know how to start, but you're not going to like it.

Her: Oh god... (fearfully) Just dive right into it I guess.

Me: do you know what Whatsapp is?

Her: yes

Me: do you have it on your phone?

Her: no

Me: Have you ever had it on your phone?

Her: yes

Me: Mom asked me for pics of the kids so I got on your old phone, and I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that, but apparently Whatsapp makes a file folder that saves all the pictures that have been sent and received on the phone. Do you have any idea what I might have seen?

Her: oh god... I have some idea, yes.

Me: Would you care to explain?

Her: well, what exactly did you see?

I got my laptop and showed her. She was visibly distraught.

Her: and all you could see were these pictures, not the conversations?

Me: yes

Her: baby, I'm so sorry. We got to exchanging flirty messages and it got way out of hand.

Me: is it over?

Her: well, there isn't really anything to be "over" since nothing really ever happened. But I realized we went to far so I put the brakes on the sexual stuff.

I wanted to believe her so bad, but I didn't.

It took me a few days to decide how to proceed. She left on New Years Eve to take one of our kids to a friend's house for the night and I had about an hour to investigate on her computer.

That's when it got bad. Really really bad. I found a secret email account that she had been using to communicate with this guy the whole time we've been together. She had done a good job of deleting his messages from her inbox, but never thought to clean out the sent messages. The whole damn time... 14 years.

It was all harmless chit chat until April of 2020. That's when the messages took a very sexual turn. Without getting too graphic (not sure what's allowed here) my wife said to him "I want you to c** in my mouth before you f*** me."

And that's the exact moment my entire world cracked in half. There were a lot of similar emails from April 2020 to March 2021 when my wife suggested switching to Whatsapp and Instagram. So all the pictures I saw were just from 1 month (she got a new phone first week of April 2021).

Confronted my wife about the emails. She said baby, I told you it's over. We were just reminiscing about old times. We had a very intense relationship before I ever met you. I know we went too far, but it's over. I'm so sorry blah blah blah...

I wanted to believe her so bad, but I didn't.

I re-read everything the next day to be sure it wasn't just reminiscing. It wasn't. Too much "that was hot, we should do that again next time" to believe there were just talking about old times. I forwarded the emails to me realizing I might need to protect myself. Talked to my wife again. She was near tears, and asked if we could wait until our MC appointment on January 10 (yes, we had already agreed to MC before I found out about the affair. I had a big problem with one of my wife's new friends she cheats on and makes fun of her husband and rubs her new boyfriend in his face. It's disgusting. I told my wife I didn't want to see that woman anymore and would appreciate it if she was out of our life completely. Then the first time my wife and I get to go out together in 4 months, we end up at a bar after dinner and she texts her friend to come with her new boyfriend. I get very angry, she escalates, I Uber home, her friend gets there and my wife drives home 3 hours later so drunk she ends up asleep naked on the bathroom floor. She's not much of a drinker, but has gotten beyond drunk all 3 times she has been out with this friend. That and a few other things that seem insignificant now were the reason we were going to start MC).

Anyway, I was very clear with my wife that if the other man were to contact her, she needed to show me immediately and reply telling him to stop all further contact. Guess what? Same day he reaches out to her and casually says Happy New Year, how have you been? Apparently when I was forwarding emails to myself, I was also forwarding them to the AP. I realized that too late... My wife sent him a long message saying for the good of both marriages they needed to end all further contact and sent me a screenshot of the conversation 8 hours later. I can't shake the feeling that it was staged for my benefit.

But ya, sure it can wait until MC. After everything I had seen I had to do some deep digging on her old phone.

To her best friend on March 3, 2021, my wife said "My heart hurts. He is the man I should have married. I will never love anyone as much as I love him." I cried a lot. Ugly cried. So bad I threw up a few times. My wife tried to comfort me but I was inconsolable. The 10 days waiting for MC were the worst days of my life.

At our first MC my wife starts to come clean. She admitted it was both an emotional and physical affair from March 2020 to April 2021. Said they only got together in person twice. I asked about another opportunity they had, she said oh, I guess it was 3 times.... I've pinned down at least 5 times they were together for sure in a hotel, but have stopped pursuing it because the number of times doesn't really matter anymore.

My wife says it was all a mistake. She never really loved him. She got caught up in a fantasy. I'm the love of her life. She wants to make it up to me. I have nothing left to hide. Here are all my passwords. I want to be completely transparent... Just like everything else, she says exactly all the BS a spouse would want to hear. Last week while she was asleep I got a hold of her new phone and started digging. Didn't find evidence of anything, but with everything having gone to Instagram, there would be no evidence, and when she woke up and I was looking through her phone she got very angry.

This blizzard cancelled our MC appointment this week. I'm reading a book our therapist recommended. My wife got a book that the therapist recommended that was delivered to the Amazon drop box on Monday but we've been unable to leave the house.

There are some other things that make it so much worse that I don't feel like talking about right now, and a bunch of relevant info I didn't get to. I have no one other than my wife to talk to.

I just feel so worthless. Like my whole reality is a lie. I'll be back later but typing this has been mentally exhausting. I just needed to get it out.

Welcome to SI, the best club nobody wants to join. First, there are some pinned posts at the top of the page that you might find helpful. The Healing Library has some great information, including the list of acronyms we use.

What you'll find is that cheaters lie - a lot. You've already found this out. It sounds like she was not going to come clean and provide details about the messaging.

I would suggest that you hold off on MC. Your M didn't cheat - your WW did. IC for you to heal (with a betrayal trauma specialist if you can), and she needs IC to find out her whys and work on becoming a safe partner. When there's been enough healing, then MC to heal the M. MCs tend to shift some of the blame to you. If the MC will hold your WW's feet to the fire, then you have a good one. But there are many here (myself included) where the MC did do some blameshifting.

My wife says it was all a mistake.

Nope. A mistake is forgetting to grab a gallon of milk at the store. She made deliberate, conscious decisions to cheat and to lie.

Because she has had a PA, I suggest STD testing for both of you. If you're having trouble sleeping or need other meds, please ask your doctor. Sometimes we may need something short-term to get through this initial phase.

Hydrate, eat well, and take care of yourself and your son.

Ya, the STD testing is a sore subject, and one of the things I didn't feel like getting into. Until Christmas day 2023, April 19, 2021 was the worst day of my life. That's the day my wife told me she had herpes. She started off by saying "I promise I have been completely faithful to you." She decided to get tested at her annual gyno appointment the week before and got the results on the 19th. I was tested 4 times in 2020, every time I gave the doctor my "genetic material" for the artifical insemination and was clean. All 4 times were before the affair started. I knew for a fact I didn't have it recently. I got tested that week. The doctor said it was possible she had it all 12 years without passing it to me since her levels were so low, so I believed my wife.

AP told my wife he got tested that week too and it was negative. For that reason alone, she still insists she didn't get it from him.

I am not a medic but have researched the HSV matter exhaustively consulting experts and your Doctor is of course right. So this is inconclusive. HSV can be asymptomatic for many years. You shd find out what type your W is suffering from as the transmission and frequency is very different and the transmission mechanism can also be different. (HSV1 is a very common infection passed by mouth to mouth and mouth to face kissing amongst other ways. HSV2 is less common and typically transmitted via genital sex but can be also transmitted via oral send or kissing). You might want to have a Shingrix shingles vaccination as there is some thought that this might protect you during unprotected sex if your W suffers from genital HSV.

[This message edited by Olderandhappier at 6:54 PM, Thursday, January 18th]

Oh man. This is a rough one. I am so sorry. The whole marriage, lies!

Bad signs of lack of remorse in your WW too. She admits nothing you don't find yourself, and that will be the tip of the iceberg over 14 years.

"when she woke up and I was looking through her phone she got very angry." The absolute lack of self awareness!

I am so sorry you are going through this. Your body is going through a grief cycle and trauma please treat yourself kindly.

Easier said than done but make sure you eat and drink plenty of water. Getting out and walking in nature helped me cope with intense emotions and may help regulate your nervous system.

Look up the grief cycle and become familiar with the different stages. It's like a pendulum so sadly you will swing between acceptance, grief, anger and a whole host of other emotions. I strongly recommend therapy as this is a very long standing affair and you need to be able to process it all in a safe space away from your WW.

You don't need to do anything right now except look after you and be kind to you

Sorry this is happening to you. SI will provide a lot of help for you if you stick it out here. Your story hits really hard and you must be under a ton of stress, so first thing is to take care of yourself. Rest, exercise, healthy eating,time with friends and activities you enjoy. At least to the extent you can enjoy anything right now. Individual counseling may be more appropriate than MC right now. Or perhaps both should be done.

D and R are both viable choices. R after this type of betrayal will be long and hard but it is possible. D is hard but quicker with less long term pain for many who D. But it may take many months before you are ready for that decision. Right now, look after yourself.

How did she explain away what she wrote to her friend? That must have been particularly terrible to read and my heart goes out to you.

when she woke up and I was looking through her phone she got very angry.

Your WW is proving she not only lacks remorse, but she’s absolutely a zero candidate for R, at least right now. If you SERIOUSLY want R (which I would caution against, especially as she’s been unfaithful your entire marriage), here’s what I recommend to help determine if she could even be a candidate.

For any chance of R succeeding, she MUST experience some serious consequences for her choices. Consequences are NOT punishments, but rather the natural, expected outflows of one’s choices. Here’s a start:

1. She makes a full confession to both your and her family. You need their support, and they need to help hold her accountable.

2. She writes an EXTREMELY DETAILED timeline, listing every convo, every communication, every contact, what she felt at the time, who pursued who, and an explicit accounting of their (supposedly) five sexual encounters - every detail, every sexual act, etc.

3. She then READS that timeline to you. Don’t skip this. Watch her carefully as she reads this to you. You get a written copy. Only give her 1 week max to complete this.

4. You then tell her she will sit for a polygraph and will be asked whether that timeline is 100% accurate and exhaustive. She will also be asked whether she’s had any sexual contact whatsoever with anyone besides you and OM since the day you two were "exclusive" (ha).

5. She must immediately undergo STD tests. You need these as well.

6. Tell her your default view is to divorce (D). It’s 100% on HER to convince you otherwise BY HER SUSTAINED ACTIONS. She truly must be willing to crawl over broken glass at least the next 5 YEARS, and NEVER minimize, blame-shift, get defensive, or ever say things like "are you not over this yet?". Ever.

7. She must immediately start IC and dig into why she was such a crap person. Skip MC for now.

8. She signs a post-nup that favors you if you D for ANY reason. This must be done through an attorney to hold water. Have her video recorded signing the document where she calmly attests to not signing under duress.

9. If the OM has any kind of SO, she gets informed by YOU. Do not tell your W you‘re doing this. If your W comes back to you afterwards, wanting to know why you informed his SO, then you know they’re still in contact, and you immediately dump your W. If this other woman doesn’t believe you, offer her proof.

10. You DNA test your kid. Yes, you know it’s yours. But the impact this testing SHOULD have on your wife will be telling. She should feel how you don’t trust ANYTHING about her, and doing this will hammer that home in a powerful way. Perhaps this one’s N/A due to the donor circumstances.

Understand that complete reconciliation does happen out there in the world, but it’s incredibly rare. The kind of person who can do all of the above, take the lion’s share of rebuilding the marriage they themselves shot dead, and keep doing it for THE REST OF THE MARRIAGE are about as rare as unicorns. Cheaters are by definition incredibly selfish, self-centered people who nearly never have the desire or even ability to truly change. That said, doing the above will help determine if she’s even a candidate for R. If she rejects any of the above, don’t waste another minute of your life with her, and go straight to D.

[This message edited by gr8ful at 8:20 PM, Thursday, January 18th]

100% this/\/\/\

Couple of other points:

Is the AP married? Have you informed the OBS (Other Betrayed Spouse- you're going to be learning a lot of new acronyms, unfortunately) I would strongly advise telling the OBS. In addition, since the AP (Affair Partner) is an elected official, you have some incredible leverage in this situation. Not only do you have the normal exposure to the OBS and family... but you can expose/threaten to expose to the media (does the town have a newspaper, facebook page, other social media?) and to the town's city council... significant chance that the affair took place on city time or using city resources (cell phone, computer (the emails), car, if they used hotel rooms, did he use government funds or government discount?) All of which the city council or city manager would like to know and deserve to know, as well as the citizen taxpayers.

Have you consulted with a lawyer yet? Most lawyers offer a free initial consult, so you need to explore what your options are going forward and what divorce may entail for you. You have one child under 18 with your WW (wayward wife) so child support is on the table. Depending on the state you live in alimony or spousal support may also be on the table. Some states have laws regarding alimony tied to the length of marriage, you need to know what the laws are in your State else you may be paying her a lot of money because you waited too long to get a divorce. You need to know if adultery affects divorces in your State (so keep saving all evidence of the affair and document everything, don't let your WW convince you to delete those emails you forwarded to yourself. Even if adultery doesn't play a role in a divorce in your State, the evidence you save can help you when/if your WW starts rewriting your marital history to friends and family (she starts to claim your marriage failed because you were absent, neglectful or worse, even abusive to her or the children)

Ok, one other point-- consider purchasing a VAR (Voice Activated Recorder)... or maybe 2 or more VARs. One VAR to keep on yourself at all times to record your interactions with your WW (to avoid false domestic violence claims by your WW) Another VAR to plant underneath a front seat in your wife's vehicle ... you can monitor if your wife is still in contact with the AP and hear their conversations... if the calls don't show up on your cell phone bill, then you know your wife has a burner phone she is using.

Sorry you're going through this, IKnewButDidntKnow... no one deserves to go through this... take it to heart- your wife's affair is not your fault.

I know you didn't think you'd have to start your life over at 43, but here you are.

Think of what she's put you through, how much pain you've experienced. She did what she did knowing that it would destroy you if you ever found out, and she was actively in this affair right up to the day you found out. She minimized, trickle truthed, lied and tried to rug sweep.

I think you should go scorched earth on her. Show her exactly what it feels like to lose something she thought she'd have forever.

What gr8ful said.

You’ve been heard, IKBDK. No matter how bad you might ever have thought it would be to find out, it is worse.

Cancel the MC for sure. As noted, your M didn’t chest, your wife did. She has manipulated the **** out of you for 14 years. She will use the MC to further manipulate you, trying to turn a 1-on-1 into a two against one.

TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. What you are going through is devastating, you need to keep yourself as healthy as possible to get through it. Eat well. Exercise. If you need to lose a couple of pounds, I guarantee the infidelity diet will help.

You’ve been heard, shipmate. Thinking about you…

You're getting info in MC, so I wouldn't cancel just yet. The thing is: as people have indicated, your M didn't fail; your W did.

IOW, MC treats the M, and the M doesn't need treatment. IC treats an individual, and your W needs that treatment.

I know it's normal for BSes to feel awful about themselves. If you heal, though, you'll get a gut feeling that you didn't fail. You have nothing to be ashamed of. A good IC can help you heal.

No one here knows whether your W is a good candidate for R or not. Before that becomes important, though, your best approach is to figure out what you want. If you want R, then you'll need to figure out your requirements for R. THEN your W's quality as a candidate for becomes important. No matter what, you heal you.

If the A is a deal-killer and you want D, you can go straight do D and avoid figuring out requirements, etc.

So focus on yourself and your own healing. Your W can help your healing, and she can hinder your healing, but you're the only one who can heal you.

The good thing is that you really can heal. You can survive and thrive, whether you D or R.

Wow your WW sounds like a piece of work. I wouldn’t trust a word she says. If I were you I’d be making secret plans about how you can exit this horrendous situation she has created. Look into how to divide property and how to get 50/50 custody.

You won’t want to hear this but she is remorseless and it’s impossible to reconcile with someone like that. Unless she moves mountains for you I would walk away.

And perhaps most importantly…. KEEP POSTING! Many are here for you and care about what happens.

Her betrayal is significant for sure. The comment she wrote her gf would be very hard to reconcile for me. She lied and trickle truthed but most WS do that. Is she remorseless, as others described? I think we need to know more before we can say that.

She was apparently trying to say the right things and give transparency. I think what people are reacting to is her getting angry when OP looked at her new phone. I agree, that's a sign of a lack of remorse. However, exactly what she said, how she acted and for how long kind of determines if she actually has no remorse or she just reacted badly when just waking up. Clearly she has not made it to full remorse yet but that could be more of a one off reaction that looks worse than it appears to be. OP, what do you think?

I don't post on here much anymore. But this whole situation has made me so mad for you. Nope. Just nope. To all of it. Please look up the member SpaceGhost0007 on here and read his story. I wish I had done what he did.

Just talking about it f-ing (is profanity allowed? It feels appropriate) sucks right now.

Just to clear up a few things

1. I did a paternity test right after my son was born. This was because of horror stories of fertility doctors having dozens of kids with unsuspecting couples. 100% sure he is mine.

2. The emails before April 2020 were infrequent and harmless. Stuff like oh you got a new job, wow your kids are graduating that's great, sounds like a fun vacation. Still shouldn't have been secretive, but I wouldn't call it an "affair" until April 2020.

We've had some good talks the past few days. She's answered some questions that really hurt to hear but needed to be discussed.

I can't find evidence of the affair continuing past May 2021. The problem with that is that I can't find evidence of it ending either. I downloaded her Instagram history and the only conversation she had with him for the last 90 days was him saying "happy new year, what's up?" And her saying "it's best if we don't communicate anymore."

She told me about another time they met that she didn't know I already knew about so that's good, right?

As far as divorce goes... I had her sign a prenup before we got married. She wasn't my first girlfriend but was my first serious relationship at 29 years old because I had other things to do. I started a business very young that was more successful than I ever imagined it would be and already had substantial assets to protect. I would have to buy her a house comparable to the rental house of mine I let her live in when she and the kids moved to town 4 months before our wedding. I sold it for 205k in 2018 IIRC. Would probably appraise closer to 300 now. I would also have to give her 10% of my monthly income for every month we were married. There isn't really a way to say it without sounding like a dick, but 10% would make her upper-middle class. And I'd probably just write her a check for the full amount and be done with it.

But that's not what I want.

Or maybe it is, I don't know. I really don't know. I am going to see a lawyer next week (incidently the same one that drafted the prenup) about something totally unrelated but I'll get his advice on our current situation as well.

To the person that suggested a voice recorder... Yup, did that before new years day. Nothing alarming or even interesting other than she can't sing worth a damn but I already knew that.

One thing that really bothers me is that I'm not angry at her. I don't know why I'm not; I just feel unfathomably sad.

Yes the OM is married. I'm planning how, but his wife will know soon.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone so far. I'm reading everything but just don't feel like talking about it.

You might find that you're sad, then angry, then in a good mood, then distraught... it's going to be a wild ride of emotions for the next few years. As long as you put a stop to the thing that's causing your trauma, it will eventually heal.

Sometimes that means working things out, sometimes that means leaving. Only you'll be able to tell what it is that you need.

Reminiscing about old times. That's a good one.

I was married to that variety of liar - after D Day the lies started to sound like the plot of a Nordic Noir thriller. A cast of thousands with people being murdered and so on, thus giving the ex no choice but to follow a dark path through no fault of his own.

I suspect from what you've described your wife is a pathological liar, possibly a PD, so take everything she says with a grain of salt.

All the best I hope you can get through it.

[This message edited by VezfromTaz at 12:36 AM, Saturday, January 20th]