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I can say this ...you will not be stuck in disclosure period...when you are confident you have full disclosure. I guess the question I have is....is your wife knowingly lying?

Why not just get another polygraph with a different practitioner with good reviews?

She should not have a problem doing that if she is telling truth, especially since you came across that poor review.

Just explain to her you really WANT to trust her, but that has been shaken severely due to the revelation, as well as lying you have observed recently.

Could you talk to any of her "party" friends from that time? Just tell them you are confirming the story your wife has told you. You could even use some leading questions that are designed to bring out more. "So is it true my wife only had sex with J one time the night you were at the house?"

Another option is get her to a specialist that can do a true "Therapeutic Disclosure". These are facilitated by specialists who know how to do it. We never had to do one so I can't speak first hand how they work...but supposedly they do.

It sounds like you feel real pressured to "trust and move on". I am not sure why you are not giving yourself some grace. What happened is actually a pretty big deal. If roles were reversed, would her family be telling her to just move on? Would she be OK just moving on.

All that said, I have heard there are people who can effectively compartmentalized situations like this and just move forward.

I don't know friend, these things are such a mess. We are not meant for this kind of thing. Part of our fallen human condition.

I know this...God loves truth....ask Him to guide you.

James 1:5-6 KJV

[5] If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. [6] But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 10:16 PM, Sunday, January 19th]

There was a counterattack waiting for me when I woke up this morning. Ww reminded me of a time some years ago she caught me looking at a girl on instagram. Asked me why, what was going through my head. I apologized.

She went on to say that thinking about these kinds of things is unbearable, that if she couldnt sleep, thinking about me looking at that girl, that my pain must be so much worse, and that I have to stop. That I need to stop looking into it, that I have to set it down.

My inclination is that she is seizing on things we talked about that my aunt said, rolling it into DARVO, trying to control.

I wrote her a message this morning about the things I did in our relationship over the years that missed the mark. Im sharing it now.

"I need to write something while I have time. You and I need to get square on the things I did wrong involving other women.

You are correct that I spoke to and with my exes a few times over the course of our early relationship, and conducted a conversation with (ex) last year when I learned about your affairs. Those conversations should not have happened. I own it, and I am sorry.

I will say that I never intended or wanted to restart things at any point, ever. Period. No physical or romantic desire for them on my end, whatsoever. The conversations were handshake, hows life, hope you are well, nice talking to you types of conversations. I did know you didnt want me to have them! You made your boundaries clear, and I still violated them. You arent wrong, or crazy. I am sorry.

I also looked at pornography, both early on in our relationship, and periodically from time to time throughout. Im sorry about that. It isnt defensible. If you want to define it as cheating, I would understand. I might disagree somewhat, but I understand. I know how much it hurts you, makes you feel you arent enough, and how angry you must feel about it. Im sorry.
It might help you to know that it was never about the girls, was never about desiring someone else. It was most often about situations relevant to sexual hangups and concepts that I developed. I frequently imagined you in those situations and concepts. I always found the idea of you being the center of attention most erotic. I would never want to be in those situations with anyone else.

I also looked at women on social media. Facebook and instagram is all i used. Repeating myself, Im sorry I did that. When I did that, I knew you were jealous and insecure about specifically not recieving all my attention. I did not engage, talk with, reach out to, or ever desire to. I only observed. My motivation to do that wasnt pure of heart. I hate that. im truly, very sorry. And theres no excuse. I knew better, I was in the wrong, I did look at them, and I am sorry. I told myself I wasnt hurting anyone by looking. I never got aroused by doing it. I dont think they were hotter than you. And they couldnt have taken me away from you for even a moment.

I hope you can forgive me for those things, but you obviously dont have to. Im not perfect pure snow. I was less pure than you are now before you ever had sex. You could probably argue that these things justify what happened in your affairs. I would only say that I never wanted more than we had. I may have wanted more with you, even to the point of sharing you. I see that was wrong. But i feel like you wanted the world for yourself and a defined measure of you for me. And Im hurt about that. Love you."

Anyways, my fun life.

You could probably argue that these things justify what happened in your affairs.

Why are you feeding into her desire to blameshift her MANY choices to cheat, which are NEVER justified by what you listed out?

Instead, I could only wish your mind shifted to: "You had every option to divorce me, or confront me, demand change, etc. Instead, you chose adultery. I will not accept a shred of blame for your evil choices. You could have chosen a non-evil course of action, but instead you dropped a nuclear bomb on our M when you could have walked away".

Ok....so there are things that you need to clear up...that is good. Repent to God and apologize as you have. But friend, there are differences.

Is she going to list every single time she watched a romance movie and imagined something romantic? Has she only ever flirted or looked with attraction at someone during her affair?

Are you taking the stand that a kid steeling a 5 cent piece of candy should experience the same consequences as a Bernie Madoff who stole hundreds of millions ruining many? Did those crimes take the same amount of planning, and intent? Did they hold the same amount of disregard and disrespect?

Yes...we are all sinners before God, and ALL need to be washed by Christ. We all are guilty and need a righteousness that is outside ourselves....one that Christ gives us. We need his forgiveness...period.

But we are talking a different thing here. This is about the practical working out of offences between you and your wife. There are different wounds. Different levels and types of healing. Can I ask this ....would your wife looking at a hunk on a magazine cover in the grocery store with longing eyes for a bit too long ....be the same as you having a 5 year affair, where you gathered a child with the AP, and proclaimed your love to the AP? See what I am saying? Do you treat a paper cut the same as a broken leg? Wounds are different and need different levels of care. Same with matters of the heart. Saying they are all equal is a complete smoke screen.

The more you describe her reactions, the more concerned I get that there is more...? But that is the problem with this crap....it drives you nuts until TRUTH is exposed.

Where do you want to go with this?

God surely is using this to bring you both to repentance....good thing. I see you are ready to be open and honest.

Is she?

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 4:35 PM, Monday, January 20th]

She has been doing a really good job of talking and listening, the last several days. Theres been a real commitment to reading and putting thought into our conversations. I dont exactly understand what the breakthrough moment was, but It feels like on the communication and motivation sides, some real work got done.

Its been helping a great deal more than I thought it would. Im nowhere near good, mind you. Im just not feeling the same implied brush off and she doesnt seem to have as much resentment directed my way. Only way to see if its honest is time I suppose.

Weve been digging into some aspects of my Ww’s affairs that somewhat break out of the classic and ordinary affairs females typically have. Her affairs have more characteristics of the affairs males typically have.

More typical of male waywards, the affairs had a physical connection focus. She pushed away overtures towards emotional connection. She seemed to crave power over the primary Ap.

At home, she never missed a beat with our connection. There was some additional meanness and willingness to fight, but no emotional or physical disconnect there. Usually it seems, females drop out of the relationship they betray.

Theres some outside of the affair character traits that support this. She takes and enjoys foreplay, but frankly, I was always the driver of that. She has always been fine with, and enjoys jumping straight into the main course. I never saw that with anyone else. Hell, all of the other females I knew wanted to make the kissing and stroking part last as long as possible, required the pre and after care aspect to achieve fulfillment. Thats just not her. Shes sweet and cuddly, loves connecting emotionally, but seems to not connect that with sex.

Theres a sort of madonna-whore component to it. She disdained the APs as people. Didnt respect them. Wanted to have fun with them in the dirt and come home to me. Seemed to put me on a pedestal as a kind loving provider, wild kinky party with me was not really on her list. Its a source of resentment for me, but it is starting to look like it has less to do with me than it feels like.

If the red line about not having sex with the APs is true( I obviously dont believe it is, behavior was so long lived, Ww clearly prefers sex to fondling, etc) it fits into some literature Ive encountered about male waywards stopping short of sex to deny the reality of what they are doing. Its a common trope that they are trying to avoid the affair becoming "serious" or "real". It doesnt seem as common with females, and frankly I believe it devolved into intercourse eventually anyways, even if this is half true(of which there is no certainty). Work on the issues between us continues, denials ongoing about intercourse.

I could just be on a goose chase here. But its something we keep coming back to as we read more and more.

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 12:58 PM, Friday, January 24th]

I don't know what made me decide to read the "General" forum today, but seeing your name come up wasn't a recognition of happy familiarity. I'm sorry things still haven't resolved. When I read your first post and subsequent thread, I had a feeling that you were going to have an issue like this pop up further down the road.

I'm sorry that you're still here. I mean even when things are good, we still find ourselves here, right? We're a long ways away from the betrayal, yet we haven't let it go enough to not need this community.

You're in a truly unfortunate position because you didn't create your initial trauma, but that trauma helped warp the relationship you're currently in. And now she's warped it so far that you aren't even sure how to mold it back to something that feels safe.

I think you need to give yourself a healing timeline. If you don't feel like you've come even close to reaching a certain benchmark by a certain time, then maybe you'll have the answer of whether or not you'll stay. At some point, you'll know if trying to reconcile is worth it to you or if it's just perpetually extending your suffering.

I hope you find some peace.

We all are parts of many cohorts, and one can make some sort of generalizations about may of those cohorts. But each of us is an individual, not an exemplar of a cohort.

To heal, you almost definitely NEED to accept that you need to focus on you as yourself, not as an exemplar of a 'male' cohort. If you want to R, you need to focus on your W as she IS, not as she fits into someone's idea of femaleness.

By focusing on cohorts, you are basically trying to fit yourself into someone else's Procrustean bed, and it won't work if you deviate from the statistics - and virtually every individual deviates from norms in one way or another.

By focusing on norms, you assume that your self-esteem is average. That leads to trying to act as if your self-esteem is average.

But you describe yourself as someone with unusually low self-esteem. Your best bet, then, is to ignore the cohort and to treat your low self-esteem as a problem you can solve and to solve it.

Focus on yourself. Once you're on the way to sorting yourself out you may be able to get something from attending to your W. Tight now, though, focusing on her is distracting your from the work that will give you the biggest payoff.

I know it's scary to deal with one's real problems, but it's the only way to solve them.

You - not your W - are your biggest problem. That's really great, because you can solve your own problems, if you give yourself the right kind of help. When it comes to self-esteem, the best help usually comes from a good therapist.

When it comes to dealing with your W, what counts is her specific behavior, thoughts, and feelings. What other 'women' do is irrelevant.

My reco - I'd command it if I could - is to stop research and to start focusing on you first and then your W, if you still want to R after sorting yourself out.

Thank you for update. I am glad you are having better communication. Great to hear. I guess I just wonder still why you would not want a second polygraph from a different practitioner? When you felt that that was accurate, you seemed to have a good outlook for the path forward through recovery.

When you got that concerning review about the practitioner you used, it seems less stability happened. But I guess maybe I remember you saying you still caught her in other lies?

Here....check this out.
Search YouTube

"Jake Porter Are Betrayed Partners Entitled to a Full Disclosure"

Watch it with her.

Woodthrush,

I dont really have faith in polygraphs anymore. Initially, I had some based on their utility as a verification device used by government and natsec jobs.

The way it all shook out is like this;

I dragged a timeline out of WW. I requested phone numbers of involved people, access to all electronic devices and accounts. She agreed, said she didnt have phone numbers.

Used detective skills to find number of primary Ap.

Primary Ap denied everything.

Timeline seemed incomplete, Ww added a few supporting details. Couldnt remember the rest.

She took the polygraph, passed.

Uneasy truce for several months. Whenever affairs came up, Ww used passed results to shut down discussion.

Had questions and doubt, was seeing structural problems with disclosure document and timeline that I needed to address. Began to reinvestigate.

Found 8 secret email addresses not disclosed from 2014-2024. Password for most recent one was changed 1 day before I discovered it. All inaccessible, if not used for 30 days they self destruct and delete.

Found phone numbers for all the people she said she didnt have in her contacts. She explained that they were there so she could maintain them as blocked. But when I checked to verify, the primary APs number was not blocked. Only everyone else. She denied any contact. No excuse given or possible for not giving them to me. All APs numbers were hidden in contacts.

Found expired condom in her bedside drawer, brand was alien to me.

Investigated our text stream, upon discovery she had all texts going back to the start of our relationship. This blew up the timeline, and myriad things in the disclosure letter fell apart. For instance, she explained that the old man who was paying her happened first, and then she confided in the coworker, who became the primary AP. Text messages and an overview of when events actually occurred show that both arrangements were happening concurrently, throughout the period of time.

We took a trip together at one point back then. Ww explained that all the infidelity was over by that point, she regarded it as a honeymoon and a "new start". Thats impossible. Texts showed the trip happened smack dab in the middle of the cheating. It resumed as soon as we came home.

Maybe these are more fragmented memory than lies. Maybe confabulation. Dissociation. Whatever. The point is, my perspective isnt true/correct at the end of the day, which is convenient for one of us and not the other.

Only then did I discover the polygraph review. It was confirmation for what I was already experiencing.

Going through all this has been harrowing. Ww is just sticking to what shes said except for what I can prove is wrong at this point. A new timeline and polygraph would be a big stressful waste.

If it didnt work the first time, why would it work the second?

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 1:50 PM, Saturday, January 25th]

I am hoping other will chime in ...my wife never had to take poly, but there are folks on here who know much, much more. That said, my initial thought is that there are mechanics.....and there are good mechanics...like experts. Maybe this person you used was just "a mechanic".

I am very troubled about these secret burner email accounts....what on earth did she say was the reason for those?

Please watch that Jake Porter video with her. If she cares about marriage and is lying, maybe she will become convinced truth is only way to go. Please keep posted.

Woodthrush,

Heres my text exchange with her about the subject.

H: I dont even know about the email accounts, especialy the one you said I changed the password for.
H: was it not my usual hotmail?

M: they were 6 mail dot com accounts and 2 yahoo ones
M: Also, hidemyemail feature was used with icloud to create emails for western digital, indeed, a few other places.

H: hmm.
H: I think western digital maybe the iCloud thing from my dad for home videos
H: I’m sorry you’re going through all of this and I don’t have answers
H: Must be very frustrating and scary

M: Right, but you used his email for one western digital account and your apple email with the hidemyemail feature to create another.

H: ok. I wish I knew.
H: I apologize for my lack of knowledge
H: I assume some are from lurking Facebook and Instagram accounts
H: Old ones possible Snapchat but those are my best guessing and I’m sorry it’s not better

So thats kinda what its like, talking about this.

She seemed to crave power over the primary Ap.

She disdained the APs as people. Didnt respect them. Wanted to have fun with them in the dirt and come home to me.

Not sure about you, but those two quotes seem quite predatory. It looks like your WW was trying to get back at men. Did she suffer any form of SA when she was younger?

If she did, from my perspective, it looks like she is getting 'revenge' on her abuser. Leading them on, flirt, get 'down and dirty' as a way to 'punish' them. I know it seems illogical, but wayward thinking has never been logical.

It could be what rocket is saying.

However, I do believe what Esther Perel says "most people cheat to meet a different version of themselves"

Often times this alter ego thing is one they feel they can’t live out with their spouse due to familiarity. With AP’s often they don’t know you well, you don’t know them well and it allows for a lot of pretend.

I think most affairs, emotional or physical or both are escapism, and without the element of pretend they would not be enticing enough to occur.

I am not saying there couldn’t be something to hating men but more than likely it was self adulation of being in a position of power. I didn’t seek power in my affair, but I wanted to be younger, sexier, more interesting, etc. in any case it’s still "I want to feel/be seen this way" sort of thing.