SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The emotional roller-coaster continues. I felt full of confidence yesterday, running everything over in my head: I need to stand up for myself, insist on NC now, and if she won't do it, then all bets are off. I'll talk to any friends and family I can about it, speak to a solicitor, inform OBS. Start getting myself together.

Yesterday, she came home late and tried to initiate a lighthearted conversation and I told her I was not in a good place with her right now. But it was very late and I really did just need to go to bed. Told her I'd sleep on it for fear of getting angry and saying something I didn't mean. She offered to sleep on the sofa, and I said OK. Felt bereft though. I just can't stay mad at her.

Today I just feel totally lost and helpless again. Can't stop crying. I don't have it in me to make demands.

Ordered an STI test kit. Feel so fucking humiliated. Can't believe I'm having to do this because of her.

We've agreed to have a conversation tonight. I mainly want to drive home what she's really done: after years of convincing myself that I'm worthless and unloveable, she's basically just demonstrated, once and for all, that I was right. I feel so alone.

It is a roller coaster. It really is. You'll get your resolve back.

Your wife only demonstrated that she's broken. This is not a reflection of you at all. A good wife would stick it out with you, or if it got that bad, sit you down and have a frank discussion. A person with good intentions doesn't cheat.

I know that's easy to say when you're experiencing what you are right now. I went through this, too, friend. Trust me, it's not you. You're not the reason she cheated. That's your negative self talk. Nobody is such a worthless person that they can make someone else cheat. It's just simply not the type of influence a person has on another person. That came from her and her alone.

If you find your resolve and start taking your agency back, you'll start feeling a little bit better. It's almost freeing once you cross over and realize you're back in control of your destiny.

I know depression is hard to get out of. I just started doing things again. Unintuitively, getting off of that SSRI made a pretty big difference for me. But like I said, I think it was the wrong treatment for me. I was being treated for major depression and anxiety. While I was depressed and anxious, there was an underlying issue that was causing me problems I didn't understand at the time. It was missed for years.

I do know when I made those phone calls to the lawyers I felt liberated. She no longer had the power and influence over me that I had basically been handing to her. It changed everything for me. Of course by then I had already started coming back to myself. She just hadn't noticed...

@Pogre, your experiences parallel mine an awful lot. I've long suspected I'm on the spectrum. I just find interacting with people incredibly difficult, and I've tried on so many public personas over the years, I'm just sick of it.

And that was one of the reasons I fell so hard for my wife: I just never felt the need to mask with her. She accepted me for who I was, so I could just be me. She loved me. I've never met anyone else like that. Which is why I feel so alone now, and why I'm so scared to enter a life without her.

When I've been on SSRIs in the past, I never felt, "Wow, I feel so much better." The problems were still there.

You remember that guy in Utah who got stuck in a gully and eventually self-amputated his arm with a pen-knife? Made a movie about it. I met him in person as a motivation speaker at a conference and sat along with several thousand in total silence as he shared his story.

What was amazing was the sense of purpose and acceptance he displayed. It was very clear that he did not want to amputate his arm, yet he was very clear that at a certain point-of-time this was the only option open for him. His reluctance was displayed in his calculation for how long he could wait, when his power would ebb due to dehydration and exhaustion past the point of being capable of starting and finishing that terrible process. He didn’t just get the idea and start hacking.
That guy was placed into a situation he didn’t want to be or expect. Yes – we can argue that going hiking alone in the gulleys of Utah has an inherent risk, but people do this in the thousands, and few have any major issues. Just like your marriage might have entered some gulleys, but the outcome – your wife’s decision to have an affair – is akin to that stone falling on this guys arm. Its totally out of his control – just like her decision to cheat hasn’t really got anything to do with you or the marriage.

OK – So why spend all that space sharing about a one-armed hiker?
Well… You are in that same predicament. You are trapped, and if you remain trapped long enough it will lead to your death. No – not a dramatic physical death, but an emotional, life-sapping death. One where you might be OK in your marriage as in you spend time together, maybe even be intimate every now and then, but you will always be wondering… comparing… doubting… That hiker realized that if he waited long enough he would not have the ability to do what was needed to escape, even if what was needed wasn’t what he wanted. He just wanted it more than death.

Like that hiker… I’m going to encourage you to evaluate how long you can wait for change, but at the same time have a plan b (maybe Plan D is more appropriate) and start preparation for it. That guy spent his time honing his pen-knife, planning how to break bones and sinew, how to staunch bleeding… All the time with the intense hope it would never come to it.
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I want you to seriously reconsider some of your messages:
If your wife is your whole life, and you really cant envision a life without her… why are you risking it all by preventing her from having her affair?
If the former is true, then there is no sense in risking it all by expecting or demanding monogamy. What if she refuses? You going to whittle away and die?
Your statement about her importance and all that is so common with newly betrayed spouses… They fear to take action because it might lead to the WS leaving, or continuing the affair… Like your fear on exposing to OM wife.
If you TRULY think the absolute worst outcome from this whole event is that she decides to divorce you… then do what a surprisingly large number of people do and ignore the affair. Pretend to believe her when she goes for a business lunch at a hotel late afternoons, wearing the skimpy black dress and carrying a small suitcase. After all – affairs tend to fizzle out after a year or so, and if you are lucky she won’t start a new one.

If that doesn’t sound good… Then reevaluate your comments. Understand what it is you are saving. It’s not the environment of "marriage", but a relationship of marriage.

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I claim to have a good marriage. My wife of several decades is not the woman that cheated on me. But I think a really big moment in our marriage was that during a difficult time we both sat down and discussed divorce. Being a problem-solver, I "solved" each and every excuse both she and I had for why we couldn’t divorce… Yes – there would be change and yes it was a scary and frightening life. But it was an option. We could, and we would survive.
Once we had that, we somehow became more focused and more intent on improving our marriage. Maybe it’s like if you are walking along a lighted path in total darkness to both sides. You walk along unaware of what’s off the path. Come daylight you realize the path is a ledge with a high fall to both sides. Once you see the dangers you might walk with more intensity and care.
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The above sections are not focused on getting you to give up on reconciliation. That Utah-guy hoped to the very last minute that help would come, and all the time he was making noise in order to get possible help or trying to figure some way of loosening the rock. I want you to reconcile. But I want you to do so in a way that might offer some permanent resolution.

A big part of that is realizing and accepting the fragility of a marriage.
Accepting that a possible outcome from her decision to have an affair is that you realize she can’t offer you what’s needed to create a real marriage. Just like the hiker you can wait and partake in every and any attempt to work on it for some time. There isn’t any rush per se. But I think that once both you and eventually she realize that neither of you is forced to remain in the marriage, and that you both have options… it places a lot of focus on making it work out.

Losing her is IMHO not the worst outcome from this scenario. Not is it a scenario that is predefined. The worst outcome IMHO would be for you to lose yourself. You want to be in a marriage with a healthy spouse (and having an affair is not an indicator of good emotional health) while being healthy yourself. Second best option is a healthy you, even if that’s without your wife.

I would recommend going to your GP and asking for a full STD panel that includes blood and urine. I'm kind of leery about a home test kit

Maybe I am old school but I have a hard time believing that men and women can just be friends and it is a hell no for exes to be friends. To be courteous to each other? Sure, but no texting or emailing or casual phone conversations. I understand that people who were married and had children and then divorced need to maintain contact regarding the kids but that should be the extent of it.

I strongly recommend canceling the MC. They tend to focus on just putting the affair behind you and building a brand new shiny sparkly relationship :/ Ours tried, I shut that BS down. I think it was our third session where I said are we going to get around to talking about why we are sitting here?

Up to that point the MC was going Page by Page from the Gottman manual. Exercises on communicating better and expressing ourselves better and blah blah blah. Now don't get me wrong, that is important, but I wanted/needed to discuss how my wife was willing and able to set aside her moral convictions and gamble our 27-year relationship over some sexting with a married coworker.

If your wife is unwilling to work with an IC to find / fix whatever is missing/broken inside her, R is not going to work. Until she fixes herself, the relationship cannot be fixed. I suggest canceling the MC. Several months down the road when you are in a good mental place to make decisions, not based on fear, but based on what is in YOUR best interest, and you still want the relationship, then start with an MC.

About 5 years ago I asked my wife what she thought about us sitting down with an MC to learn how to communicate better because both of us grew up in houses where parents didn't sit down with their children to discuss and work out solutions to problems, you were just yelled at. My wife was adamantly against the idea, she said I think it's a bad idea so I asked why and she said it could bring up other problems in our marriage

I said well wouldn't that be a good thing to discuss these problems and she said no I think an MC is a bad idea, so I let it go, and I went out and found an IC for myself. When I told my wife I had an appointment she got upset, said why didn't you discuss this with me, I said I did and you were against the idea so I'm going by myself to learn how to communicate better and that first session was amazing for me

But when I would try to talk to my wife about a problem she would just go into lockdown mode. That should have been my first clue that we were headed for trouble down the road. In hindsight my wife regrets not going. She thinks maybe if we had we would not be in the place we are

My wife was not keen on working with an IC but I pretty much demanded it and I fully expected her to go to a handful of sessions and then say either this isn't working for me or I'm all better now and had she done so I was going to end the relationship, but she's stuck with it for a year and a half. She made some pretty good progress and ended it when her therapist moved out of state but recently we had a pretty big setback so now she's back working with a new IC.

Do you think your wife is open to the idea and will fully commit herself to it? If not, skip the MC and just focus on doing whatever you need to make yourself better and happy

Double tap

[This message edited by WB1340 at 5:25 PM, Tuesday, October 20th]

Absolutely not on the MC at this time. Even in a good situation where she’s begging you to stay and offering to do anything to keep you, she needs IC for awhile before you tackle couples counseling. Read enough here and you’ll see the horror stories of people who dove into MC first thing.

The first step to getting your agency back, and maintaining your self respect and dignity is informing the OBS. Once again, read the stories here and see how that one action was the first, most important catalyst.

To be clear: WW has agreed in principle to do NC. I’m going to push her to get on with it. The problem is whether a) she will actually adhere to it, and b) I can bring myself to believe she is keeping her promise.

The way our local MH services work is that we get put on a waiting list for MC. We’re quite lucky that MC is even offered as a service in our area (a lot of councils don’t offer it). The waiting list is ~2 months maybe, so it’s a good opportunity for both of us to have IC in the meantime. I’m already underway, I’m going to insist she gets her own too. Sage advice.

The problem I’ve found with trying to find out who the OBS is, is that it involves going through AP’s social media, which has had a profoundly negative effect on me - seeing all the great stuff he’s getting up to serves as a reminder of all my failures. He’s basically living the life I wish I had. I can’t help but compare myself to him and I’ve spent a lot of time this evening just trying to get his stupid grinning face out of my head, and trying not to imagine the person in those pictures doing all those things I know he did to my wife. I’m feeling really triggered again.

Have someone you can trust go through his socials and find her for you.

The first step in going NC would be a NC message that includes her saying plainly and clearly that she wants no more contact with him. Preferably because she still loves you and intends to fix her marriage. No apologies or "talk to you laters," or "for now," or doors left open. Something with a true sense of finality. Something maybe you could even co-author and verify that she sent.

Open access to all of her devices. Location sharing turned on. No unexplained coming home late or working late. Regular check-ins. An ability for you to verify what's she's up to. Where was she last night? All that isn't really that hard if she's on board and willing. If she makes any of that difficult or doesn't want to do it then you have a pretty clear picture of where her head's at with whether or not she's serious about salvaging the marriage. As long as she's still seeing or talking to him there is no reconciliation happening.

You can't do it by yourself. If she isn't on board or willing you're going to be in for a very rough time trying to save the marriage by yourself.

Install Claude. Install the Chrome plugin for Claude. Open Chrome and log into Facebook. Tell Claude to gather you the info. Do this for any other site that he appears on.

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

So sorry you find yourself in this debacle of her making.

She immediately defaulted to blaming me and the marriage.

You have to know that this is, of course, complete BS. Im going to cut to the chase. You are going to have to toughen up. Value yourself. Stand up for yourself. I mean it. If you dont, this traitor is just going to bulldoze you.

Please read:

• No More Mr Nice Guy

• The Way of The Superior Man

You need a 1000 cc infusion of self confidence. Time to take the reins of your life and stop letting her set the agenda. No more waiting on her to decide. You decide for yourself. The only thing a bulldozer understands is another bulldozer. No more reacting, but acting...actually pro acting.

One of the ways you can do this is to enact the 180 and gray rock her. Hard.

I doubt you are in the emotional place to recieve this but it makes it no less timely.

Strength, confidence, and self determination to you. 💪💪💪

The problem I’ve found with trying to find out who the OBS is, is that it involves going through AP’s social media, which has had a profoundly negative effect on me - seeing all the great stuff he’s getting up to serves as a reminder of all my failures. He’s basically living the life I wish I had.

Come on, GuzmanLyrebird. If the above was really true, why was the AP seeing your WW? It appears to me to be the opposite, the AP wanted the life YOU had!

Can you really call a male that sleeps with another man's wife a MAN??? He's a slinking, slimy piece of cowardly shit hiding in the shadows. Like a cockroach when the lights are turned on, he will be running for cover... so find the OBS and inform her. Drop his ass in the hot grease with the truth and let him feel the pain of being forever labeled a cheater. Don't let him get off scot-free without feeling any pain. Why do you deserve to be the only one hurting when you did nothing to deserve this pain?

Stop the pick-me dance with your WW, go hard on the 180 with your WW, inform the OBS, hire the solicitor and start the divorce process.. and in doing so gain a little bit of respect in the eyes of your WW. She's been treating you like a doormat because you've been letting her. End that now. Put on your best stone-cold poker face when dealing with your WW. Learn and take it into your heart that the person willing to end the relationship has the power in the relationship.

It works.

Re-read Pogre's post above. He was in your shoe's until he decided enough was enough.

I take it the website is having technical issues???

[This message edited by NukeZombie at 10:56 PM, Tuesday, October 20th]

[This message edited by NukeZombie at 10:55 PM, Tuesday, October 20th]