SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My wife cheated on me 13 years ago and there are times when it feels like it was yesterday. We’re still together and our marriage is in a better place than it’s ever been but I still can’t get over her affair. She claims that she had no feelings for the guy but he would always ask her how she was and listen to her where in her eyes, I wasn't. She realizes now that he was playing her and that this is something this guy had been doing and still does to women. But the things that make me feel like I can’t put it behind me is four things. #1 I set up boundaries and rules for reconciliation. One of which was that if I get any kind of bad feelings about any guy hanging around her that it’s an immediate cut him off permanently. She has violated this one twice (but not in the last 7-8 years) and when I told her to cut him off, she got mad about it and would say FINE!!!! #2 I told her that I wanted to know everything and when she told me, it seemed like something a liar would say. "We had sex but he never finished and he couldn’t keep it up, and it hurt and I didn’t like it at all" And "he kissed me but it was gross" Then he wanted to try again but I didn’t want to so I gave him oral a couple of times but it was gross and he was mean about it and shoved my head on it". #3 Years later this all came to a head and we were discussing it and how I didn’t feel like she told me everything. Well she wrote me an email telling it again but this time she gave him oral twice before she had sex with him. But she had originally said that when she had sex with him, that was the first time she had seen his penis. But that could not be if she had already given him oral. She had also told me that his penis was "way bigger than mine" and how they had made fun of mine. But she later recanted and said that actually they’re the same size and his was smaller around. 🙄. And #4 Im a person who needs details to get past things. I have trouble getting past things when I don’t know the answers to my questions. But she always says how sorry she is about it but she doesn’t remember and doesn’t want to try to remember and have that stuff in her head again. But I tell her that it’s killing me not to know and it’s in my mind at least 3-4 times a week. She did tell me that she doesn't remember what was said the first time. She said that he gave her a ride somewhere and when she got back in the car, he had his penis out. And somehow she sucked it. All she'll said is that she felt like she had to. The second time she said that he wanted to have sex and she did't so she sucked him again. Then the sex happened per #2 above. Part of me thinks that she is either lying and knows I will remember her former stories or she is worried that she will misspeak and it won’t match up and I will remember and think she is lying. This is just so hard. I want to know the truth. And I want this pain to end. And it’s crazy because everything else is great. we have tons of sex (15-20 times per month) She lets me know when she’s on lunch when she leaves work, where she’s at and with whom etc. she follows our rules to the T and has been for the entire 13 years, sans the two incidents I mentioned earlier. Am I crazy? Am I to the point where I need to just get over it?

our marriage is in a better place than it’s ever been

ThisGuy, your pain is evident in your words. 13 years is a long time to be carrying so much pain and suspicion. You say your marriage is better than ever, but it doesn't sound like that isn't what you're feeling in you heart. Maybe it's what you think you *should* be feeling based on external factors, like how often you and she have sex, or how well she is following your rules, or how many years have passed since DDay, but if you truly felt that things were better than ever, I don't think you'd have written this post.

I'm afraid I don't have any advice for how you get past your 4 key issues. I tried reconciliation for 2.5 years, and in the end, I realized that there were too many things I couldn't get past, so I decided to walk away. My life will be my own after the divorce is done (except when we have to deal with kid stuff), and that's the only thing that allows me to let the pain go (though it is still a struggle at times).

I'm sorry you're having an especially tough time right now - maybe the feelings are worse because of the holidays, or this time of year is close to DDay or some other high-emotion event for you? Did something happen that caused you to make this post, or do you feel like this all the time? If it's the latter, maybe you have to admit that you aren't going to get over this.

It took me a while to accept that the cheating and subsequent lying were deal breakers for me. I'm certainly not the only one who has struggled with this (and wanting R to succeed) and eventually arrived at a point where we had to walk away for everyone's good. Not all of us are cut from the same cloth, and not everyone can get past infidelity.

Welcome to SI and so sorry you're here. There are some posts pinned to the top of most forums that I would encourage you to read. The Healing Library is at the top of the site and has a lot of great information.

Have you thought about doing IC (individual counseling)? I went to a betrayal trauma specialist and she was so helpful in processing my feelings.

Do you think having a polygraph would help you? You could go over the email your wife sent, then ask if there are more details she'd like to add. Then, the polygraher could ask a question like, " is everything you remember in the email? " You can work with the polygraher on other questions.

I suggest you both read Not Just Friends by Dr Shirley Glass. It's a long red, but very good.

Thisguy11,

I reached this conclusion 10 years after discovering my wife’s affair with a coworker. I went through several revisions to reach this. It about building yourself a new stronger capacity. Hope this helps. Note: my personality is INTJ

Rev 2019

You can sort reconciliation actions into six components: Some actions provide rapid relief but are temporary, while other actions provide in-depth long-lasting relief but require more work through time. Basically you get what you pay for. Naturally, reconciliation is only worthwhile when your WS is remorseful and willing to perform their own work and support you.

1) Learn to Control the WS: Passwords, emails, cell phones, bank accounts, gps, checking, checking again, tracking, confirming. No brainer stuff. Just go do it. Provides rapid relief. Requires energy. Can generate false positives. Your anxiety still flares and lingers. Degrades self confidence. Technologic. Temporary relief. Band aide. Assists you with surviving, but not the way you want to live permanently.

2) Learn to Control Yourself: Establish expectations, express disappointments, exhibit appropriate anger, discipline, consequences, consistency, following through, boundaries, communication. These acts will influence a WS but you must also learn to identify when your actions are falling on deaf ears. You need some degree of trust and strength (below) to apply these actions. The WS needs to listen, reflect, change their beliefs, and learn. These actions cannot be excessive, cannot be COD. This is maintaining your integrity. This is finding ways to appropriately and intrinsically motivate the WS. This is a long term fix.

3) Learn to Trust the WS. Checking, following, spying, more energy, maintenance. No brainer stuff. Testing. Validating, Results can generate false positives. Your anxiety still flares and lingers. Degrades self-confidence. More Technologic. Temporary relief. Band aide. Assists you with surviving, but is not the way you want to live permanently.

4) Learn to Trust Yourself: Learn to see true changes in WS beliefs, understanding what motivates them. Is the WS self-controlling (a dry drunk) or is the WS actually living by a new set of beliefs? Can you see them slipping? Are red flags obvious now? Does the WS have increased self confidence. Increase your understanding of the WS's point of view, learning why the WS had an affair, and why having an affair likely doesn't apply anymore. This action is a long term fix.

5) Build your External Defense: Harder shell. Bitterness. Anger. Resentment. Carpet sweep. Avoid. Minimize. Tiring. Guarded. Draining. These actions do not provide happiness. They do not allow you to express your positive emotion. It's living in a bubble. Less confidence, more anxiety, and less peace. Temporary relief. Band aide. Assists you with surviving, but is not the way you want to live permanently.

6) Build your Internal Strength: Increase your understanding of love, forgiveness, respect, integrity, legacy, what drives you. Reflect. Change your beliefs. Gain confidence. Are you willing to loose your marriage in order to save it? This is about being able to stand on your own two feet and not using others to survive. It's about growing the capacity to forgive, being strong, and screening away pain. It's about being humble and free. It's about agreeing you still be wrong at any moment and you reserve the right to learn. It's peace. This is a long term fix.

You will never forget what your WS did to you. The memory is Initially a heavy burden to bare. Reconciliation is about building your capacity to carry this burden. Finding a good IC can help you. You must gather new information, consider it, confirm it, and then become a believer in new ideas that help you. It's building your mind, heart, and gut in unison, your logic, resistance, and wisdom. It's building a new collective strength derived from inside. The goal is to reduce strain and anxiety.

our marriage is in a better place than it’s ever been

I guess it’s all relative. Like if you spent the last week walking on broken glass then moving on to hot tarmac in the midday sun might be a better place...

To me it’s more a question of where you want to be. What you want out of a marriage.

IMHO your story exemplifies the damage of trickle truth. This is why I often say that learning NOW about all the details can cause less damage than learning LATER about some relatively less-important detail. Like learning in the days after d-day about full sex can cause less damage than learning about a kiss six months later. I guess it’s both because it shows the WS doesn’t trust us with the truth, and it forces us to think that if they lied about that issue, what else have they lied about.

I think that the big cause of your discord isn’t necessarily the things you know, but rather the thought that you don’t know everything, and that there is a variance in the facts as you know them.

Then there is the big size issue...

If we look at it logically there is no need for that issue for most of us men, yet it somehow hurts us to the core. It cuts at our masculinity, virility and leaves us defenseless. Yet it really is such a non-issue. There are a gazillion articles about research on the size of that appendix, and some of them actual research. Having been on this site as long as I have, and having seen this issue raise it’s head (pun intended) again and again I have looked into some of the more acknowledged papers on this issue. I don’t remember the exact numbers but I am probably within 3%... But about 90% of men on average are within the same half-inch. The remaining 10% are evenly divided between the less-haves and the more-haves. Go an inch above the average and you have less than 2% of all manhood.

In other words: Chances are 9/10 you and OM had a comparable size. Assuming you were at the lower end and OM at the upper end then a ½ inch difference. Or the OM was in that 3% range that has an inch on average Joe, or that 2% that goes beyond an inch over average. But... the odds are just as high on that happening as they are on him being in the 5% below average.

Not that any of this matters per se... The big question in how to measure has generally been answered by measuring from stem to tip, but stem might require pushing back body-fat. Want to grow your member by half an inch or more? Lose belly-fat. Doesn’t "grow" per se, but increases functional area and makes you feel bigger. Notice those "huge" pornstars? Note that the majority is below average height (penis-size has no correlation with body height) and they don’t carry belly-fat.

But all that logic really doesn’t make us feel any better...

I get that as a man. That comment is something that cuts us deep.

I think your best way of dealing with that issue is frank talk to your wife. No – you don’t want her to convince you he was smaller because the damage has been done. What you want is for her to understand how damaging that comment was and how the cut it made is having a hard time healing and will probably leave a permanent scar. How that single comment can be something you can never fully recover from, and if she was truly remorseful she would acknowledge that.

I think your resolution might come in an acknowledgement with yourself that a) his size really doesn’t matter b) it was possibly said with the intent to hurt and c) it was done when she was who she was then.

On the marital issue:

We recently had a poster who could not in any way believe his wife’s story about an affair decades ago. I get it that it’s hard, but here is my take on it:

Truth is subjective. Especially truths about emotions and feelings. With time what we recall as having taken place becomes the truth. This is one reason attorneys don’t rely too much on witness-statements from years ago unless they can corroborate them with other evidence.

For example: If I was recalling a crash I had 18 years ago I might recall having been on my way home from Joes’ Diner, doing 35 in my white Ford. I would share that story and believe it totally true. I could pass a polygraph because this is what I recall and believe. Only... maybe a credit-card statement places me at Won Ton Buffet, and I got the white Ford the next year, this was the beige GMC, or the police report stated I was doing 55... Chances are that once one factor is corrected I might remember them all and maybe tell the story correctly and true to facts. Or not. Maybe I only change the buffet...

This might be an issue for your marriage. Maybe your WW truly doesn’t remember the sequence of oral versus seeing his member or whatever. Maybe she remembers it differently with time. Maybe her truth now has little to do with what happened.

Frankly – I’m not sure you will ever get the truth unless you can corroborate it with some external issues. But there is a way you can get HER truth. The truth she believes in.

Once again a frank discussion with your wife where you go over the inconsistencies, the period she didn’t follow the expectations of reconciliation and the long-term effects this is having, preventing you from having the marriage you want.

Ask her for the truth – where you have already lined up some key, factual questions. You can add emotional questions there too if that’s what you want, but make sure you have factual questions.

Factual questions might be like, other than OM, have you been faithful to our marriage, did you have sex with OM during xxx period, have you had sex with OM since "date she claims it ended". Emotional are more like was he really bigger, was the sex earth-shattering and did you love him (frankly, I wouldn’t go there on any of them).

Let her know that you want to establish a base where you need to accept what she says as true. That once she has told you the truth on these key issues you want to have a polygraph, and by passing it you will commit to having the truth.

But also make it clear that failing it will cause immense damage, and force you to really rethink if she’s capable of giving you what you want in a marriage.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:14 PM, Tuesday, November 25th]

Honestly, in your own words, 'you are a bit crazy and you do kind of have to just get over it' if the rest of the marriage is truly as good as you say it is.

That sounds harsh but I think it's true. The infidelity drove you to crazy, as it does everyone so don't feel bad about yourself. Your reactions are normal. But it sounds like she has done everything you asked her to do except the details of her story have changed a bit with time. Details of events change with time for the majority of people. Very few people's stories will not change due to memory, perception, rationalizing etc etc. That is a fact and may be a valid reason for her timeline to have shifted a bit. I think you have to be realistic about that. There is no magic recording that will get every last detail aligned at this point.

The one thing that seems perhaps most troubling to you is the detail on his size, not the detail on the order of events. It occurs to me that she didn't keep having sex with him so it couldn't have been that great for her. I do wonder how you found out about the size and the fact they made fun of you? Did you see that in a text or did she tell you that? If she told you she was either being painfully honest or she was trying to hurt you at the time. Is there a reason she might have said it to try to hurt you? Like you were calling her names and really yelling a lot?

If there was no reason she wanted to hurt you with those words then she is probably recanting now for your feelings. Yes, that's technically lying but I can understand why she would on that point. In fact, I don't really know why WW would tell the truth about that detail if they want to R. I know that's not a popular statement here at SI but I think not saying anything about ap being much bigger is probably the best strategy. But even if it was larger, it doesn't automatically make the sex better for the vast majority of women. Your wife clearly enjoys sex with you, you are getting much more than average for a marriage that has lasted a long time. I'm jealous.

The question is, can you find a technique to put this behind you and enjoy what you have?

Or, one can read the Kama Sutra, which is available from Project Gutenberg at no charge. The author states that both men and women can be small, medium, or large, and the match between the partners is more important than absolute size. (I browse the web the way I used to browse used book store and have ADD.)

I'm really sorry you're haunted by your nightmares. I agree that the best way to deal with them is to get as many facts as conveniently possible and deciding what to do based on the info you can get. But stopping the nightmares is something only you can do. A good IC may be able to help, as can something like CBT and/or EFT tapping (searchable terms)

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:59 PM, Tuesday, November 25th]