SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone

On Friday my WS (f,44) told me (m,48) that she kissed a guy when she was on a work trip nine months ago. She said it was just a kiss. She didn't want to tell me every detail and I obviously feared Trickle truthing and the worst. I pushed quite a lot and didn't find out much more, other than her fondled her breasts.

Since then, she has shown genuine remorse. At first it's was just 'i should if never have told you' but now it's 'i love you and it was wrong and we can get through this.' I told her that the kiss isn't the problem, its the deceit. She said she understood and that she had deleted everything from her phone. I really intend to try to R completely. We've been together for 14 years and nothing like this has ever had offended before. We just got complacent. Suddenly, our relationship seems better than it has for ages. We're talking and fixing things. With time I might trust her again.

I snooped and as she told me, she has deleted all communication on what's app. Except one thing... In her face book messenger there is a single message from him saying 'i understand. Could you give me your address so I can send you two things ☺️?'

This is eating me up as I don't know what the two things are. They could be earrings that he removed to kiss her or they could be gloves she lent him, or they could be her knickers and pantyhose. If I ask my WS directly, she will probably be very upset that I snooped and that I didn't accept it her explanations. This might jeopardise our R. I believe her almost 100%. Did I just accept that I will live without knowing everything?

I am considering the following: sending him a Facebook message from my account saying 'hi, I'm contacting you because my WS wants no more contact with you. Please send us back the objects that you mentioned to this address: xxx . If we don't receive them in a week I will send everything to your wife.'

Would you say this is a good idea? I think he will probably either ignore it or send a message to WS who would get angry with me for snooping, but it seems worth it as I don't think I'll get provable facts from my WS.

My priority is to save my marriage and to also be able to sleep a bit better at night .

[This message edited by diber at 11:30 PM, Monday, November 25th]

Hi, welcome to SI. So sorry you find yourself here, but there's a great deal of support among members who have walked in the infidelity shoes.

Why did she decide to tell the truth? Curious because cheaters rarely, if ever, tell the truth. Not only do they lie, they minimize their actions. Did the other guy's wife find out and threaten to contact you? Is it a work colleague?

Understand affairs don't happen in a a vacuum. There had to be some prior communication, texts, emails, flirting, etc.

Are you able to retrieve the messages from her phone with software? She should have been completely transparent instead of deleting everything. What was in those messages?

Your story is a bit similar to mine except I found out and confronted both my husband and his affair partner. Both of them told me they just kissed in the car which I soon found out was a lie. Husband on a business trip, they had prior communication before he arrived, she met him at his hotel, blah, blah, blah.

You have every right to snoop. Your wife lost her privacy when she decided to cheat. She needs to be an open book giving you access to her phone, emails, social media, etc. No compromise. When I found out about my husband's affair, he gave me access to everything and I knew exactly where he was and who he was with at all times. His work travel pretty much came to a screeching halt. I insisted he find another job because there was no way in hell I'd feel comfortable with him ever going to the OW site again, which was on the opposite coast. He stopped socializing on the job unless it was all men for lunch.

Honestly, I wouldn't contact the other man, he will only lie. I'd contact his wife with what little evidence you have. She deserves to know, and if you decide to go this route, don't tell your wife, the two of them will collaborate and make up some wild story like you are a crazy jealous husband.

I'd go into investigative mode and seek more answers if possible. Ask her if she's willing to take a lie detector test. Her words are meaningless, her actions will speak volumes. IMO there's more to the story, there usually is.

Please, please, don't sweep this under the rug. What is SHE doing to fix this hell she created? Did she inform this guy there is no more contact (in front of you).

Please seek individual counseling for yourself if possible. A nuclear bomb has just been dropped on your life, you need help to process the trauma. Check with your MD if you are having trouble sleeping or concentrating. Sometimes temporary medications help. Focus on you, exercise, eat healthy, lean on trusted family members and friends or a member of the clergy if you are so inclined.

Again, sorry you are now a member of the best club no one wants to join.

Welcome to SI and so sorry that infidelity has been thrown into your life. The Healing Library has a lot of great information. Please read the posts pinned to the top of this forum as well as those with bull's eye icons. There's a lot of wisdom there.

If you can find one, a betrayal trauma specialist can be helpful for IC (individual counseling), and bonus points if they deal with infidelity. If you're having problems with sleeping or depression, please ask your doctor for meds. They can help you deal with the short term.

She needs to be in IC to dig for her whys. She should read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald. It's a good blueprint. Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass may be helpful for both of you.

You'll find that cheaters lie, and it's the deception that often derails R. Let her know that she needs to be transparent with you. Consistent behavior over time helps rebuild trust.

Before any reconciliation can happen, she needs to stop lying to you! You do not have the truth and certainly should not be worried about offending her sensibilities for snooping and not trusting. It should be the other way around. These things don't just happen in a vacuum. You should contact this guy as her and give him an address and see what he sends. She is covering her ass and getting you to do the "pick me" dance.

Thanks everyone. I confronted her directly with all the evidence and she broke down and told me everything. Now we're starting the long hard task of repairing our relationship. I told her to cut all contact, to read 'how to help your spouse...' and to accept that i would take a long time to trust her at all.

I’m sorry you are experiencing the pain and trauma of infidelity.

I hope you are able to happily reconcile.

Your cheating spouse should seek therapy as to her issues that would allow another person to use her sexually. Why she made choices that can destroy a marriage. They weren’t in love. We all know that.

You could benefit from counseling too. Reconciliation is not an easy path. It can take 2 - 5 years to heal from this.

When she told you everything did she reveal things that you would not have been able to figure out otherwise? That always seems like a good sign. My situation was "a kiss" that later got expanded out to more so I hate to sere you go through that.

Complete electronic transparency is part of the bare minimum conditions for R. Along with no more lies and no contact with the AP. If necessary, she should get a new job because he was a coworker. Believe me, "work only" contact is a horrible idea that is merely putting yourself in a torture chamber.

You should have access to all her devices and accounts (yes one way, she doesn't get access to yours because you likely need to start communicating with lawyers, or send messages to your IC that she doesn't get the privilege of accessing).

She broke your trust and has lost her right to privacy because she used it for secrecy and deceit.

Thanks everyone. I confronted her directly with all the evidence and she broke down and told me everything. Now we're starting the long hard task of repairing our relationship. I told her to cut all contact, to read 'how to help your spouse...' and to accept that i would take a long time to trust her at all.

Hopefully she starts taking real steps to repair.

Sorry you've had to find us.

Kind Sir,

Sorry for your conundrum. Sadly, it is far from likely she has told you EVERYTHING. She probably wants you to forgive her outright before more comes out. If you do,please make sure you are knowing exactly what you are forgiving. That means EVERYTHING needs to be out on the table. It is up to her to do the heavy lifting.

Please also remember that you are under no obligation to forgive anything. Forgiveness, like closure, is fleeting at best.

Also understand that what she gave you was regret, not remorse. Remorse takes a concerted effort over a period of time. And it is demonstrated through consistent action and not words. When she starts whining "Why can't you just get over it?!", you'll know remorse isn't in her dictionary.

Good Luck

Sorry you need us, but welcome.

If you spend enough time here, you will learn some truisms. One of those is that it is rarely just a kiss, like almost never. Cheaters seem to have an almost animal response to getting caught they say the least possible hoping to survive for the moment. They don't consider the damage their actions will cause. Hell, it's why they chose to cheat in the first place.

Dont rush R. As a BS, you set the agenda and the pace, reserving the right to pull the plug at any time. Keep reading and posting.

One of the not so funny jokes said by bs is that all ws use the mythical Cheaters Handbook or Manual. It is always just one kiss, or just fondling, or bj, or intercourse just one time. It might be true but you might not ever know. Be realistic, this was a planned tryst. Her conscience might have whacked her upside the head and she stopped things. Now you have to reassess who you are married to. We bs have all had to do that. One thing should be very clear to you…you did not cause the "whatever". If she is telling the truth you can’t call this a physical affair but if the two of them were in communication long enough to set this up then it was emotional cheating. An affair, even if short term.
If I could ask people like your wife I would say, "What were you THINKING!" It boggles the mind. On the other hand she voluntarily told you. I would bet her imagination was very different to the actual "whatever". It probably fell very short of romance and became kind of icky.
Do whatever you need to to get enough sleep, eat well and try to find a way to not stay stressed too long.

So has she told you the truth? That it was way more than just a kiss? And what were the two things he wanted to give her?

To me – based on my life-experiences and years on this site – the key to possible reconciliation is that the betrayed spouse has a reasonable and founded sense of knowing what they are dealing with.
In fact – based on experience on this site – relationships seldom end because of infidelity per se, but rather because of the trickle-truth, lies and deceit that tends to follow in the footsteps of infidelity. Of course, the infidelity is the big trigger, the root-cause, but the ongoing lies are like the repeated stabs or the coup-de-grace to the forehead of the victim.

Here are three things that you and your wife could benefit from embracing...
One is the fact that the only reason you are with her is your decision to be married. Just like the only reason she is married to you is her decision to be so.
We can pull out all sorts of other reasons – the kids, the pension, the house, family, friends... but they might all be factors that impact a decision to remain married or not – but none is a good reason to base the final decision on. Lots of people divorce and move on to a fulfilling life and productive coparenting. Many/most even find happiness with a more compatible partner moving on. Few (if any) find long-term happiness in an unhappy marriage.

Grasping the delicacy of a marriage can be the key to focusing on working on it. Sort-of like if you carry an egg you take better care than if you carry a lump of coal. The egg comparison is apt since it is quite resilient to equal outside pressure, but can crack if force is applied to a single spot.

For your wife, the realization might be that the ONLY reason you are there is because you decided to be there despite what she did. For you there might be a realization that (at least) your wife has enough conscience to fez up to what happened. To me it’s always a positive when a person willingly confesses their wrongdoings, indicating a conscience that they struggle with.

The second key -factor I hope you can both embrace is that the truth is what it is, and it’s the best place to try to rebuild a marriage from.
Like... if your wife insisted it was one kiss and some fondling then you two can start an attempt to reconcile from there. You could think that things are going great, only maybe 3-6 months from now to discover that she gave him oral or realize she’s still in contact... whatever. THAT realization can (and probably will) cause more damage than anything you learn NOW.

The third is the acceptance of this possibly ending in divorce. I realize that’s not what you want, but both you and your wife do have that option. It goes back to what I stated about marriage being a choice – a decision.
Since it is an option then it makes sense to understand how it would go and what to expect if things go that way.
You might not want divorce, but if your wife were to continue contact with OM... what would you want? Sometimes we base decisions on what we need more than what we want...

With those three things in mind I think you should consider making some things clear to your wife:
You want to reconcile, but to do so you truly need to know what you are reconciling from. You need the total truth.
You want to reconcile, but you realize that what happened threatens the marriage. It will take total commitment from both of you to save it.
There is no trust. She needs to regain trust. It’s gong to be verify-then trust, and with time trust but verify. Privacy... well... that’s limited to bathroom breaks.

Finally – The OM wife... Why are you considering threatening to let her know? Didn’t the OM know he was married, and that your wife was married? Did that hold him back?
If they met at a work-related event... isn’t it likely that they will be at the same place sometime in the future? If you want to take OM as much out of the equation as you can... then send his wife a message in this vein:
"I think you should know that my wife and your husband had an inappropriate relationship that my wife has confessed to. I know that when my wife let him know she would not be in contact with him, he wanted to send her some things"

Do this without informing your wife.

Friend....so sorry to hear this. This a bigger deal than you can imagine. DEFINATLY reach out to other spouse....absolute must. She need to know. Your wife needs to start seeing the magnitude of what she has done. Something sacred has been severely damaged. You my friend are beginning a journey....but you can do it. There is a good resource "Affair Recovery" that will also help.