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I see some people on this forum say they have reconciled and that their spouse has been "amazing" ever since, but what have they been doing to make you feel safe and secure in your relationship with them again?

I'd say my W meets my high expectations. I never said she's amazing that I can remember.

I learned how she lied during her A, and she's different now. That goes a long way to letting me choose to feel safe.

I expect I'd be devastated if she betrays me again, but I know I can recover, and that above all allows me to feel safe.

How do you not play their transgressions over and over in your head every minute of every day, especially when you are alone with them? How do you not be suspicious of them all of the time?

The A is in the past. The key to self-protection is being in the present, noticing signs of betrayal/commitment, asking questions, raising issues. I don't see any signs of betrayal by my W in the present, so it's easy to stay calm about her.

When things aren't going exactly as I'd like, my brain - like pretty much everybody else's - throws up past experiences in the hope of protecting me. Bad memories don't protect me, and I know it, so I treat memories of the A as, basically, annoyances. They have very little force or energy. They're easy to brush aside.

I doubt I could ever go on a romantic night out or be intimate with her ever again. The thought of her with another man is just too much. And the thought of all of the times we have been together and that her affair was going on behind my back the whole time is something I may not get over.

Yeah, I get it. Remember: you don't have to offer R as a possibility. You can dump her. If you really don't want to have sex with her any more, my reco is to dump her.

But you're less than 6 months out from d-day. You won't always think or feel the way you do now. The trouble is that no one can predict what you will feel and think in the future.

*****

Have you considered finding a good IC to work with? Right now, anger, grief, fear, shame, desire, love are probably all roaming around in your body sending your brain in one direction for a while, then in another, then in another, then in still another ... you probably know what I'm talking about. It's impossible to make good decisions in that state. A good IC can help you sort your thoughts and feelings.

Do you know what you want yet, other than separation? Do you see separation leading to D or R or just to enough peace and quiet to figure out what you want?

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:10 PM, Tuesday, April 28th]

@gr8tful post #60:

Yes, that has happened. What you won’t see described here, unless you really look hard, is that such "amazing" reconciliations are EXCEPTIONALLY RARE. There are some in this community who romanticize reconciliation and advise "It’s right there for you to have - you simply need to choose it".

From your words, your wife is not even a candidate for reconciliation yet, and may never be. You’ve been well-advised to get a written timeline from your wife followed up with a polygraph, yet you are not responding to that critical course of action. Again, without the full truth, you have ZERO CHANCE at anything other than limbo for the rest of your life with her. You don’t owe me anything, but you owe it to yourself to explore what’s going on with you with your therapist.

Yep. ALL of this.

If I only had a dollar for every sad sad tale of a BH years out from D-Day, living with a WW who does not respect him!
This goes double for the OP as his WW has shown basically NO indication that she is a candidate for R. It's heart wrenching.

I was watching something online a few months ago, and it was a courtroom where the judge read out pages of misdemeanors and felonies, and the guy almost never did much time because he was still out making a mess of his life and wrecking a few others. Your wife’s behavior reminds me of this. If you had a written timeline, like the judge, you would be reading 16 years worth of pretty bad behavior with absolutely no consequences. I think you have to look at patterns here and from what I’m thinking, you don’t have one that makes any sense.

So if I understand correctly, the one time you checked her phone since DDay, you found texts that made you uncomfortable, and her response was to fight with you about it?

You asked what "amazing" waywards do afterwards….it’s not that.

Has she read "Not Just Friends"? Or "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from your Affair"? Or any other book?

Here’s as short thread from a month or two ago that has a bunch of suggestions of some more ‘soft’ things she could be doing: https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/666654/proof-of-regret/

Letmebefrank ( member #86994) posted at 8:16 AM on Wednesday, April 29th, 2026

So if I understand correctly, the one time you checked her phone since DDay, you found texts that made you uncomfortable, and her response was to fight with you about it?

You asked what "amazing" waywards do afterwards….it’s not that.

Pretty much this. D day for me was just over a year ago so we're still fairly early into reconciliation. While there's nothing "amazing" about what happened, my wife is pretty much doing everything she can to try and rebuild a better marriage. After about a month of torturing me by dragging her feet and making excuses to try and maintain a "just friends" relationship with her AP, I'd finally had enough.

I called divorce lawyers and set up consultations right in front of her. That changed everything. She knew I meant it. I was resigned and prepared for divorce. In my mind there are worse things than divorce, and living in infidelity and fear are some of them. I refused to tolerate one more minute of it and made that very clear.

She came clean about everything, sent a no contact message to her AP, blocked him on everything, gave me all of her passcodes and unfettered access to her devices, put in for a location transfer at work, self imposed a "no friendly personal relationships with the opposite sex" rule, and tells me anytime another man tries to get a little bit too friendly with her. She came up with an action plan when someone of the opposite sex gets a bit too friendly or complimentary with her that generally involves saying, "that's what my husband says to me all the time," then she tells me about it.

No excuses, no secrecy, and no long form chit-chatty conversations with other men. She's even adopted a hostile attitude toward anyone who tries to get a little too chummy if they don't get the initial hint. She's demonstrating through consistent actions and words that she's all in and willing to do anything it takes to make me feel safe again. She certainly wouldn't argue with me if I found messages that made me feel uncomfortable.

I had to be ready to let my marriage go in order to save it, and she had to want to save it. It takes both people for it to work. Unfortunately, you can't make her want to. She has to decide that for herself. The only thing you can control is how you react to her. I told you what I did, and it "worked" for me. I don't know what your wife may or may not do if you try the same tack, but it's better than living in limbo or possibly still in infidelity.

Your wife should be able to figure out a way to be "friendly" with co workers in ways that don't make you feel uncomfortable. Positively bringing you up often in conversations that get a little too personal could be one method. "My husband also blah blah blah," or just even mentioning how much she loves and thinks about you during those conversations would be pretty reassuring, no? My wife does that often. Her co workers know what she thinks about me because she isn't shy about saying it, and says it often. As far as they're concerned I'm the center of her universe.

[This message edited by Pogre at 6:08 PM, Thursday, April 30th]