SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello everyone. So my wife and I just celebrated our 20 year anniversary. I found out that she had a 3 month long affair on the night of our anniversary.
I went through her phone and found all the evidence I needed. She broke it off with the guy right before Thanksgiving so its been over for a couple months from what I can see.
The thing I dont understand is that we were getting along great during the time of her affair. We had sex a couple times a week and I love you texts everyday. We have 2 kids and were having a great time as a family going to the kids sporting events ect. She even texted me "I love you babe" when she was going to meet him for sex and would come home and act like nothing happened.
The details of the affair were shocking. They would meet up in our local Target parking lot and do nasty things in his car. He used a giant sex toy on her I even noticed that her vagina was stretched out and she would come home with a strong smell of rubber. She said I was crazy and paranoid and needed help but I was 100% right the entire time.
My wife is 40 years old and gorgeous. This guy was 60 years old bald,ugly and creepy looking.Im 45 and very attractive. I just dont get it.
I packed my stuff and have been living in a hotel. She is begging me back saying she is sorry and doesnt know why she did it. She says she wants to fight for our family. My kids are begging me to come home. I have been looking at apartments but I am torn on what to do.
I asked her why she would do this and the only answer I get is "I dont know" give me time to figure it out. Shes going to counseling I guess. I would consider reconciling if I could get her to tell me why she would do such disgusting things. Please help!!
Thank you

There are myriad posts here trying to get to the why. They come in all flavors but often come down to simply wanting to and expecting to get away with it.

Given what you describe here, your ww probably has a need to self destruct possibly due to past trauma or low self esteem.

In any event, her saying I don’t know I will get back to you is totally unacceptable. Don’t be in too much of a rush to accept until you know a lot more about her dark past. These are often the tip of an iceberg.

Welcome to SI Toby. Very sorry you find yourself here, but you will receive good support. Please read in the healing library. Get tested for STDs.

Please don’t try and make sense of your WW’s A. It happens more often than you think in good M’s. Happy M’s. Take no blame for her infidelity. We don’t know your WW, but others have cited the excitement of the A, an escape from reality, or the mid-life crisis. Whatever, the reason, cheating on your spouse is never justified. Your WW has to get into IC and work on her brokenness that would allow her to betray you, before she could ever hope to rebuild your trust.

Take care of you. Her infidelity may be a dealbreaker for you. If so, you are certainly justified in pursuing D. Take some time to figure out what you want. You WW needs to demonstrate she is remorseful. Simply saying she doesn’t know why she did it, won’t cut it. Exercise, eat healthy, and stay away from alcohol and drugs. Have your WW read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair " by McDonald. See an attorney to learn your rights and what D may look like.

Have your WW right a no contact letter you approve. Have her prepare a detailed timeline of her A with all the details you require. Full transparency with her devices and phone. Move back into your home. In some states moving out can be considered abandonment. Expose the A to her AP’s OBS. She deserves the truth. Hang in there and keep posting. Others will be along with more help.

Toby73,

So sorry for your situation! Welcome to the club that no one wants to join, but this is the best one of it's kind.

Purely based on what you wrote, your wife appears to be sorry she was caught, which is not the same as remorse for what she has done.

Questions:
* So have you both done full panel testing for STIs?
* Who is the other man? Co-worker?
* Is he married and if so does his wife know? If not, you must inform her.
* Have you contacted a family lawyer? You don't want to find out the hard way that your state laws might find your hotel stay "abandonment of family"

"I don't know why I did it" is an unacceptable and frankly insulting response.

I'm reconciled with my fWW but not until she worked hard with a therapist and got to a good faith explanation of the "why"

Without that, reconciliation is a fool's errand.

[This message edited by Ragn3rK1n at 12:55 AM, Saturday, March 2nd]

Welcome to SI Toby. Very sorry you find yourself here, but you will receive good support. Please read in the healing library. Get tested for STDs.

Please don’t try and make sense of your WW’s A. It happens more often than you think in good M’s. Happy M’s. Take no blame for her infidelity. We don’t know your WW, but others have cited the excitement of the A, an escape from reality, or the mid-life crisis. Whatever, the reason, cheating on your spouse is never justified. Your WW has to get into IC and work on her brokenness that would allow her to betray you, before she could ever hope to rebuild your trust.

Take care of you. Her infidelity may be a dealbreaker for you. If so, you are certainly justified in pursuing D. Take some time to figure out what you want. Your WW needs to demonstrate she is remorseful. Simply saying she doesn’t know why she did it, won’t cut it. Exercise, eat healthy, and stay away from alcohol and drugs. Have your WW read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair " by McDonald. See an attorney to learn your rights and what D may look like.

Have your WW right a no contact letter you approve. Have her prepare a detailed timeline of her A with all the details you require. Full transparency with her devices and phone. Move back into your home. In some states moving out can be considered abandonment. Expose the A to her AP’s OBS. She deserves the truth. Hang in there and keep posting. Others will be along with more help.

My wife is 40 years old and gorgeous. This guy was 60 years old bald,ugly and creepy looking.Im 45 and very attractive. I just dont get it.

That's one of the hallmarks of infidelity. It wouldn't matter what the AP looks like.The fact of the matter is that Cheaters cheat for whole host of reasons. But when it comes down to it,they cheat because they can. If it wasn't the 60 year old Latex Lothario it would have been some other putz.

It's not you, it's her.

Thanks everyone for the responses I really got a good laugh from some of them and I needed that havent smiled since I found out.
She is a part time real estate agent and she met this guy showing a house. Aparently he didnt end up buying the house but continued to text her on a friendly basis and according to her he "sweet talked" her. I checked him out on social media and he is recently divorced. I got his number and called him. It was basically just a bunch of yelling and sceaming "ill kick your ass" really pointless but he knows I know at least.
The worst part when I read the texts was the excitement and enthusisiam that my wife had for this creep. "I miss you so much" or "Im counting down the minutes till we meet" that was the worst. She was doing risky things in a wide open parking lot. If I ever tried that with my wife she would bite my hand off. Ive been with her for 23 years and shes always been sexually conservitive but anything goes with this creep I guess. She jumped into bed with him after knowing him for less than a week. None of it makes sense. Obviously the guy is a sexual deviant that enjoys kinky stuff and public displays. My natural response is to leave and move on but she may bring a guy like this around my kids or he could move in to our house. I have a beautiful 8 year old daughter and I want to protect her because judging by her choice of men I need to be there to protect my kids.

She said I was crazy and paranoid and needed help but I was 100% right the entire time.

Got the exact same treatment. My gut told me something was going on so I continued to ask her to tell me the truth. She got so exasperated with me that she demanded I go to a shrink and get on meds or she would divorce me and take our son away from me. It's called gaslighting.

My wife is 40 years old and gorgeous.

My WW was also 40 during her first A.

She is begging me back saying she is sorry and doesnt know why she did it.

Because she wanted to and thought she could get away with it.

I would consider reconciling if I could get her to tell me why she would do such disgusting things.

In my many years of reading threads and posts on this site, I have rarely read where anyone got a straight answer on the "Why" question.

The why is because she wanted to and could. On some level she valued that experience over her existing relationship with you.

Toby73,

You are spot on when you say that any reconciliation is contingent on knowing the "why"?

The types of risky and kinky sex acts and location choices made by your WW appear to be extremely discordant with her decades long behavior. My fWW's case had a similar "completely out of character" case and had a lot of gross sex acts as well.

There could be any number of mental health and behavioral disorders that might be behind this or none at all. But it would be a huge risk for any spouse to reconcile with someone like this without any understanding of why they sped past all checkpoints and over the cliff.

And I repeat, have you done STI checks for yourself and asked your WW to do so as well? If not please get that done as soon as possible.

Stay strong!

I found out that she had a 3 month long affair on the night of our anniversary.

I feel for you. My FWS partially confessed on the night of our 18th anniversary, with a host of lies mixed in that I had to deal with later, about her affair from 9 years before.

I would suggest a lot of reading, learning, read a lot.

Affairs often involve risky sex, which it is right from the start, lack of protection, no condoms, partners that are either uncannily like the BS or polar opposites, breaking personal and social norms, etc. During her affair, my sexually constrained wife did things in public places she wouldn't do in the bedroom at home, because the kids were down the hallway in the house. Also, during her affair, she also walked the guy into the house, put on the TV for the kids, and took him back to our bedroom and served up the complete menu, not to mention the other places she served it all up.

Keep in mind that it has absolutely nothing to do with you. This has nothing to do with the marriage either. It has everything to do with her, and her psychological issues.

You will get a lot of good advice here. Take what you can use, leave what you have no use for, and take it one day, one hour, one minute, or one second at a time, however you can.

[This message edited by standinghere at 9:09 AM, Saturday, March 2nd]

I am so sorry you have to join this site. We all understand and have been through your pain. We are here to support you.

Regarding the why your wife cheated. It will be impossible to provide a logical explanation to a completely illogical choice.

I was never able to come up with a good reason as to why my H cheated on me with a girl who was covered (and I mean covered) in tattoos. She was my complete opposite. While she was much younger she was not pretty or fit or anything my husband would have been interested in. Makes no sense EXCEPT that the ego boost was addicting. Typical mid life crisis? Absolutely!!!

The thrill of the chase and getting away with something and the ego boost was what made the affair continue. In fact my H was planning to D me to be with the OW. He believed she was the answer to his unhappiness 🤪😂🤣.

I’m trying to tell you that there is most likely "no good answer" as to "why". It will never make sense to a logical person as to why someone made a completely irrational decision to have an affair.

I hope this helps you.

Another thing that I should mention is that my wife has always struggled with her weight. She was always a little chubby but became obese after she had our kids.
She decided to get the gastric bypass surgery a few years ago and lost around 150 lbs. She is currently 120 lbs and looks great. I told her that men would be coming out of the woodwork and hitting on her and sure enough she jumped on the first guy to flirt with her. She assured me that I had nothing to worry about and that she would never do anything to jeaprodize our family what a liar!!
The thing that pisses me off is that I have been her rock for the past 23 years and loved her unconditionally. I was there to support her through her good times and bad. I was there through the whole surgery process and always told her she was beautiful fat or skinny. Then she jumps into bed with the first loser that hits on her I just cant understand or process it.
I was just wondering if this is a common thing for women to do this after a major weight loss and if this could have contributed to the cheating?

I'm a little jaded on this subject and this is only my personal opinion. My EXWW was a hot-girl who lacked the depth of character to navigate aging with grace and dignity. No, I am not going to provide the research, but it is easy to find on the net. There have been many studies on human mate selection strategies.

I believe that people have a sexual market value or SMV both internal and external. It is a combination of factors that differ between sexes and genders. Data sets from sites like Match and Pornhub have shed considerable light on stated values and preferences to actual behaviour. And yes, people lie in order to be well perceived by others.

Your WW perceived her value differently when she was heavier. And most likely yours as well, at least in relationship to hers. My EXWW lookedcat me, at least physically, as having a lower SMV than her. Once your WW lost weight, her self perception most likely changed and her internal SMV went up, which was confirmed by the attraction she got from men. At some level, maybe she thought she could trade up or maybe she just got intoxicated by the attention, who knows? Mine liked the tingles of being the hot girl again, even if it was lies told just to bang her.

Being a good, loyal, hardworking husband does not create relationship equity with all people, only quality ones who see character as important. It certainly didnt in my case. Some people lack the maturity to factor that into the equation.

Now, you are in no way responsible for your WW'S choice to cheat. In fact, by continuing to love her regardless of her appearance demonstrated the type of love and loyalty the o e ought to have in a marriage. It's unfortunate that she could not grasp that. You see, as my W aged and gotvwrinkles and Grey hair, I continued to see her as beautiful,because I was looking at her through the lens of a shared life together. It was her infidelity and the character traits that allowed it that were ugly. Once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.

I don't know enough about your story to comment much more. I would ask this. What was your WW like before her body changed? How did she define herself? Could she self validate? Or did she require external validation and attention to medicate?

Unfortunately, there does seem to be a correlation between any type of extreme body changes in women such as weight loss or new boobs... obviously not all women but it seems some just can't help showing off their new body to someone new... Old reliable hubby just doesn't cut it when it comes to outside validation, husbands are suppose to say the right things so it doesn't really count.

Same can apply to men after going through a transformation but we really don't see that many stories as compared to women. Of course there are many more options available to women than men to undergo a transformation. Probably a sad comment on how much women are judged and considered on their external looks and beauty in our society.

Is your 8 year old daughter your youngest child? If so, you have 10 more years until she's out of the house and off to college. If you divorce then also 10 years (at least) of child support as well as the possibility of another man playing dad to your kids for half the time (if you share 50/50 custody)... welcome to the injustice of infidelity in no-fault divorce states. Even though that is the reality and it really, really sucks... never stay in the marriage just for the kids' sake. The kids will figure out what happened eventually... don't lie to them, explain to them in an age appropriate details. Some say to keep it hidden from the kids but they're going to figure it out... why is mommy crying all the time about how she messed everything up? someone else in the family will let something slip, etc. My brother and I knew why my parents split from get go... Dad cheated with one of his patients.. I was 3 and my brother was even younger. We both grew up to be ok- I'm an attorney, he became an aerospace engineer.
Your kids will be happy if the parents are happy.

Try to avoid limbo Toby. Develop a plan and implement it based upon WHAT YOU WANT. Divorce is hard but Reconciliation is harder with no guarantee of success... read the stories around here from old timers saying if they could do it all over they should have left. There are others that successfully R and are actually happier. You can also divorce and then try again with your wife after a period of separation where you got to have some fun dating new people.... nothing wrong with that.

To answer your question, no, I would not call it a common occurrence for a WW to have an A after a drastic weight loss. But I have seen it happen. It also happens that any WS starts to get into better shape, lose weight, and buy new clothes after the initial attraction to the AP, in order to impress them and gain their attention. This works for both women and men.

Your WW engaged in purely selfish behavior, and now you and your children are having your lives disrupted. Watch her actions and not her words. What is she doing to fix her brokenness and attempt to recover any trust. Full transparency? A detailed timeline? Empathy for your pain, and loss of trust? Has she read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair " by McDonald. She should read it. Get support from friends and family. Good luck.

I also want to mention this toy he used on her. She said it was unusually large and had "nubs" on it. The night she came home after the car incident I wanted to have sex with her. I put my hand "down there" and she was obviously sore pushing me away Thats when I noticed the strong smell of rubber/latex. I looked at her vagina and it was extremely stretched out I know this womans body very well after 23 years and it looked split open by her clitoral area if that makes sense it seemed to go back to normal after a few days. We ended up not haviving sex that night she just did oral on me instead. She said I was crazy and paranoid and she was just irritated in that area. Then the following week I noticed that it was stretched out again and at that point I knew and started going through her phone and sure enough I was right all along.
I almost feel like this guy did this as a message to me. Like he wanted to damage or hurt her so I would notice or maybe hes just a sick freak IDK. Plus the fact that they were doing this in a Target parking lot makes it all the more disturbing. I am struggling to deal with all of this and cant get the images out of my head I am tormented every minute. Deep down I want to keep my house and family together but I am struggling with this bad.

Welcome to SI, I'm sorry you have made this discovery. I would like to address her weight loss. My W started studying fitness and nutrition, cleaned her diet and started working out. She lost 125 lbs, became a fitness / nutrition trainer and bikini competitor. It's not the weight loss that caused her A's it was the terrible boundaries and sudden male attention. My WW's AP was an older overweight out of shape guy, would not fit her tastes. They always affair down to feel powerful, he could have been anyone, he was just willing to play the role in her fantasy, she made into exactly what she needed and he was none of those things.

Sorry you are here and without her digging deep to get to why, you cannot move forward with her. Have you gotten a written timeline of who, what, when, where and how? Also there is likely more to the story, before my WW got the nerve to get physical she had many online A's. Welcome aboard there is lots of experience here.

Toby73,

Perhaps you did not intend it but your posts go into a lot of detail about what the OM did to your wife and the size of the sex toys etc.

The last time I checked, there are two parties in an affair. Your wife chose to interact with this POS and entertain his wishes to have wild, unsafe and highly risky sexual encounters. They did so in locations where they could've been caught by the police and charged with public indecency or worse.

May I suggest you redirect your focus on to your wife, the mother of your children, who consented to this level of depravity repeatedly? She was putting her good name, her marriage, her career and the wellbeing of her children all at unacceptable levels of risk.

Have you asked your wife to get tested for STIs? Have you done so yourself? Have you checked to see whether she is doing drugs? It strikes me as bizarre to focus on the size and the bruising features of the dildos used in your wife's sex encounters with this guy more than your wife's behavior drivers.

Apologies if this comes across as harsh but I thought it's necessary to call this out.

Toby:

There is an excellent article in the Healing Library on dealing with the mind movies. Also, you have suffered a real trauma. Do not underestimate the emotional toll on you. Do get into IC to help with the betrayal trauma. Eat healthy, exercise, get out of the house to exercise. Drink protein shakes if you can’t eat. See a physician for sleep aids if necessary. You will be on an emotional rollercoaster for a while. Get out with your children and be there for them. Hang in there. We all understand how unfair this is to you. We’ve all been there. You will get through this.