SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

From one week to the next, she told me two different stories about her first intimate experience with her lover—weeks before our wedding day.

She told me when it occurred, during lunch hour at work, what town, exactly what they did, etc. The following week, she told me her first time with him was at night, in a different apartment, in a different town, and they engaged in completely different intimate acts.

If you have been with only one man in your life, and you are weeks from marrying him, you'll remember your first time with another man—that lasted for at least two years after your wedding day.

Most concerning is that when I asked her one week after she told me "the truth" and atoned, I asked why she changed her whole story. After a palpable pause, she said, "I don't know." She has also acknowledged that she doesn't know the difference between the truth and lying.

Now, her reality testing is intact. So that leaves a few possibilities—she was trying to preserve her dignity (i.e., one of her excuses), and she was trying not to hurt my feelings. Well, evidence-based studies on infidelity demonstrate consistently that in order to overcome infidelity, you must start with honesty and transparency.

Low tide, this place is titled surviving infidelity, not tolerating, or wallowing in, or suffering through infidelity. It is much more of a survivor mindset rather than a victim mindset.

Zero question that the place biases towards action. Action to get you out of infidelity and victimhood and moving towards survival. At the core of that is taking responsibility for your own survival and healing. At the end of the day the only actions you control are yours.

You have stated that
1. you are not leaving the marriage
2. Your healing depends completely on the actions of someone else (your wife).

You are not taking responsibility for your own healing.

You are trying to manipulate her into taking the actions that you want. That is sort of like taking control, but taking control through deception.

That exercise given to you by the psychologist was clearly meant for you to understand her position, but you twisted it around into an exercise for her to understand your position. That was a manipulation. So was your violently punching the walls.

At their heart manipulations are deceptions. If you were being dead honest when you were punching that wall, you would’ve told her that you were punching that wall to make her fearful, and to have that emotion change her behavior.

My recommendation is that you truly take responsibility for your own healing in an honest manner.

Do you really want the nitty-gritty details?

Every single betrayed spouse wants the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I know I did. Joseph's Letter is right on the mark. When it comes to reconciliation, believing, however cautiously, that a WS is "all-in" is critical. I don't think anyone has posted anything to the contrary.

You don't believe she's all-in. I get that. I think you're right. Her attitude would bug the shit out of me, too (to put it mildly). I don't think anyone here would feel differently.

You know, you're no different in these regards than pretty much everyone else.

The only part of your story that really stands out is that you've allowed this to impede your healing for twenty-five years.

That's a very long time to allow another person to determine your happiness.