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Its been a bit over a month since DDay. To my knowledge, my WW has kept no contact and appears to be working toward reconciliation the best way she can. But, I still have questions and the entire experience has shaken everything I thought I knew about her and our marriage.

My story: I (M/41) discovered my wife (F/29) was having an affair with her superior at work. DDay was December 20, 2024, which also happened to be our anniversary.

The affair started not long after my wife gave birth to our third child, which was in June 2024. The emotional affair was likely going on while she was still pregnant, and the affair turned physical in August 2024 while I was traveling for work.

My wife kept it secret, but started to pull away and act very strangely beginning in October. I became suspicious, but she convinced me that she had just fallen out of love but was not seeing someone else. We entered counseling while the affair was still going on, and I began to make changes on my part to be a better husband (paying attention to her, getting on my phone less, improving priorities, etc). She responded to the changes by pulling further away.

I caught her by discovering lingerie and a messed up bed in a spare bedroom that had not been used in months. Eventually she confessed and broke it off that day. She told me she realized she could never be with him in the long run and that she wanted to work on our relationship. However, when she tried to break it off with him previously, he threatened to inform me of the affair and even threatened to come to our home. Once I found out about the affair, he could no longer blackmail her and she broke it off.

However, later that night, her AP did come to our home and damage my personal car and work vehicle (nearly $20k) in total damages. He also stole some stuff. He confessed to the police and charges are pending. We also both have orders of protection against him, so contact from him is actually illegal.

Because of this, now both of our jobs are involved and a lot of people know about the affair that wouldn't otherwise need to know.

We are working on reconciliation.

What has happened since DDay: Our kids spent a lot of time with grandparents initially. I was also off work (she has quit her job) so we had a few weeks to mostly be with each other. We worked through the book Surviving Infidelity in about 10 days. We have also been attending biblical counseling and marital counseling. We shared locations and gave passwords/access to emails/social media/phones etc. I suppose the immediate aftermath of all this went about as well as it could have.

Life has since returned to a new normal where she stays home with our kids and I work. It leaves much less time for connection than we had before. Also, while she has never said it, I get the feeling my WW would prefer to just not talk about the affair and move on. She gets annoyed at times when I ask for support and does not like having to continue to apologize or affirm her commitment to our marriage. I had previously asked her to take the lead in our recovery, yet it has been me who sought out the counselors, the book we worked through, and our support friends. Almost immediately after finishing the affair book, she wanted to do another book on division of household chores. I'm totally open to doing that book but it feels a like the time isn't right to pivot away from affair recovery, especially given how much more I help out around the house now than I previously did.

Triggers are everywhere. Half of my house is a trigger. So is my truck as is a big chunk of the area where we live. Trying to control the pervasive mental movies and sense of utter betrayal has really taken a toll on me. She is truly the last person I would have expected this from. I don't sleep well at all anymore.

Some questions I have are: What is reasonable for me to expect of my WW at this point? Keep in mind that she is caring for 3 small kids and being a homemaker so time is limited.

It's only been a month, so what is my expected timeline for emotional improvement? Total emotional recovery feels impossible at this point.

Has anyone dealt with a WW who wanted to reconcile but was resistant to certain aspects of supporting her BH? Did anything help?

When will she start displaying remorse??? My wife is naturally stoic I suppose, but it seems like she only thinks about the A when I bring it up. Does she just wall it off or does it truly not cross her mind?

Some questions:

1. Do you think you still love her, or are you interested in reconciling for other reasons (kids, finances, lifestyle, embarrassment, fear)?

2. Do you think she still loves you, or is she staying for any of those reasons, above?

3. Does the answer to either of those questions matter to you?

Based on my experience, and your description of your wife’s behavior so far, I believe your wife has left you, emotionally, not physically.

And she won’t come back. She is blaming you for the terrible thing she did (note the household chore book); she despises you for forcing her to do it, and feels contempt for you.

But some here have reconciled successfully. Have they reestablished loving relationships? I don’t know.

But at a minimum, your wife will need individual therapy to sort herself out. Marital counseling is a mistake; it reinforces her narrative that you share blame for her cheating (you don’t).

I, and my WW, did everything wrong after D-Day, and staying together was a huge mistake. Would it have been better if we had done everything right? I don’t know. For me, it’s all about love. And her love for me never came back (if it was ever there to begin with).

[This message edited by Formerpeopleperson at 12:18 PM, Tuesday, January 28th]

It is very common for a WS to want to rugsweep the A. Is she blaming you for her A. That is common as well.

She should read: "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by McDonald, a short but excellent read. Will she show remorse! No way to tell. Is she capable of humility and to own the responsibility for her actions? It’s hard to face the worst thing you have ever done to someone else, a person you swore to be faithful to and love and cherish. There is always this push to fix the M. But your M didn’t fail, your WW failed you. You can work at being a better partner for the future. But please know, that your WW would have cheated no matter how perfect a partner you are. Cheating is always about the cheater, their issues. Her brokenness. She had lots of legitimate options to address any marital issues without cheating. She needs to take affirmative actions, get in IC, drop the defensiveness, and get into IC to address her brokenness. Set your boundaries. Always value yourself.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 1:43 PM, Tuesday, January 28th]

I'd add NOT "Just Friends" by Shirley Glass to your reading list and hers.

Also, you might find this useful: https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/324250/things-that-every-ws-needs-to-know/. I printed it off and asking my W to read it.

Think 2-5 years to recover from being betrayed. At this point you're probably still in shock. It's necessary to develop patience. That may seem impossible right now, but ... R requires patience. No patience, no R.

I think characterizing where your W will end up is premature. For one thing, your W's boss may have harassed her. Succumbing to power is more like being raped than being in love. Further, if say, your W was limerent for short time, that's a lot different from love.

Above all, though, the nature of your W's A isn't all that relevant. What really matters is what work you both are willing to do to heal yourselves and your relationship. There's no excuse for an A. If you decide you want D, that is absolutely reasonable.

¬¬¬Let's go back to basics:
I recommend thinking of R as 3 healings:

1) You heal you. Most BSes are inundated with immense amounts of grief, anger, fear, and/or shame on d-day. The largest part of your work is to process those feelings out of your body. A good IC can help you do this.

2) Your WS heals themself. They need to change from cheater to good partner. I think that requires IC for the WS, but others disagree.

3) Together you build a new M.

This means you can recover from being betrayed without your WS; that is, you can survive this crisis and thrive without your WS, but you need your WS to R(econcile). You can heal yourself because you control yourself. You don't control your WS. I recommend making survive and thrive your primary goal and R your stretch goal.
Have you read the Healing Library here? If not, there's a lot of good stuff there. Click the link in the yellow box in the upper left of the SI pages.

I think there are a number of keys ingredients to the decision to R.

First, what do you want? Do you really want R? If not, don't lie to yourself. R is hard work, and wanting it makes it less difficult, but both D and R are moral responses to being betrayed.

If you want R, I recommend figuring out your requirements for R and seeing if your W will sign on. If they won't, perhaps they can come up with something else that will meet your requirements, but if you can't negotiate something truly acceptable to both of you, great - you can go directly to D. Otherwise, you can monitor them for 3-6 months and commit to R for yourself if they are (is?) consistent in meeting your requirements.

The requirements need to be observable and measurable. That way it's easy to monitor progress and make adjustments as you go along.

Common requirements include:

NC - no contact with ap; if ap initiates contact, report to BS and together decide how to respond

Transparency - BS has passwords to e-mail, voice-mail, phones, etc.; WS keeps BS informed of whereabouts, activities, and companions at virtually all times

Honesty - WS answers BS's questions when they're asked, although sometimes a break is necessary, sometimes an answer is best deferred to MC session, etc., no more lies.

IC for WS - to change the thoughts and feelings that supported the A, with signed release that enables C to talk with BS about WS's goals and progress (so the BS can make sure WS's IC isn't being lied to).

IC for BS - for support - and for resolving any internal issue that comes up

MC - to help communications between the partners, if one or both partners want MC

Some (Most?) people have individual requirements - my W had to arrange dates for us on a weekly basis and must initiate sex sometimes. What do you want from your W?

And R is a joint endeavor - if one of you hides objections to the other's requirements, you sabotage R. And you have to see your WS as a human being of worth equal to your own to make R work. You don't have to see your WS as a human being equal to you to recover, but you sure can't R, except with an equal. (This is what Wallop meant when he wrote 'Pleased to meet you', IMO.)

R is very rewarding when both partners want it an do the work. It seems like it would be hell on earth, though, unless both do that work. Being betrayed is bad enough - spare yourself the pain of false R unless you want the reward and have a partner who will join you in the process.

Has anyone dealt with a WW who wanted to reconcile but was resistant to certain aspects of supporting her BH?

Looking back - I can say this was me. I thought he was all in but then the LTA went underground. Only through retrospect can I see this applied to me.

Did anything help?

A lot of IC for me and time. The IC gave me a space to detoxify myself from the poison that this put inside of me. And helped me to realize 2 things:
1 - His LTA had everything to do with him being broken and was not on me
2 - I can't control the behavior of others - only my reaction to it

Time helped me go through my 5 stages of grief as well as traverse the POLF [Plane of Lethal Flatness]. A few times due to multiple DDays/LTAP.

Time also helped WH pull his head out of his ass, the "affair fog" to lift, for his affair goggles to be replaced by highly magnifying ones [so he could truly see the path of destruction he caused] and see me getting stronger once the shock and awe worn off. He saw [and this took years] that I was no longer operating on panic mode and started operating on ME mode. I let go of the outcome and he got terrified I'd let go of him too. So he started working on his self. And faced things he'd been running from for a long time - decades really.

When will she start displaying remorse???

Every one is different. And, while I hope for all involved she does, there is a possibility she won't.

I'd say WH showed regret immediately BUT it looked to my traumatized self like remorse. It wasn't until years later that I got MYSELF back together than I saw the change. In behavior, attitude, body language and the ability to have the hard discussions calmly and rationally without knee jerk, panic, argument, defensiveness.

I don't know if this helps you or not - but everyone is different. And there is a reason they say it takes 3-5 years to heal from this. I'd say closer to the 5 year mark personally.

My experience was it sucked absolute shit for a year (but she wasn't trying that hard).

Then I asked for a divorce. Then she started trying. It was decent after year two, and I was recently (five years out now) able to say that I'm "Happily married". Happy and married was a term I used for about 3 years.

So that's my timeline. I think the 2 year timeline of the "2 - 5 years" is borderline fantasy.

I am the ws in my situation. Almost 8 years out.

So, in order to have an affair, one has to convince themselves of their justifications. In the aftermath of dday it takes some time to realize you lied to yourself. It’s almost more like brainwashing.

For the first 6 months after dday I was still justifying a lot. It’s hard to come to terms with the idea not only you had an affair but the reasons are solely on you for doing it. I had to learn that my resentments in my marriage were mine because I didn’t stand up for myself or represent myself in communication.

I had similar complaints as your wife - I did all the domestic duties and felt largely ignored. What she could find out if she works on herself is that she wants connection more than anything and learning how that is fostered allows you to manage her life completely differently.

While her complaints may have been real, it’s not a reason to have an affair. And you are right now that has happened that will have to be dealt with first. It’s like if you went to a marital emergency room, she has some superficial wounds but you are bleeding out.

She is standing there saying "I am not sure if I want this if I can’t see things are going to change" but you are in no state to accommodate that because your trauma is too great. You need deeper fundamental things to be repaired first like trust, loyalty, security. That trumps feeling like you do too much in the home.

This of the next 6 months to a year as recovery. Reconciliation of the marriage can not take place until some individual healing has been done on each side.

I am not saying you should not separate or divorce if you decide that at any time. I am just saying it takes some time for remorse to show up, and for her to see she is in fact the villain right now in the story, and she is the one that is going to need to earn a lot of things back from you.

One month out, I doubt she can get right to that place. Which I know you are in so much pain that you want anything to take it away. Even if she was saying and doing everything perfectly that would set off alarms in your head because your fight or flight has been activated to protect you from the threat (her).

My advice is to focus one what you want and need and to keep communicating that, honoring that. Your job right now is to take care of you. (Well and your kids of course).

She needs to be spending her free time working on herself. She needs to figure out her how’s and whys of this affair. It won’t come to her all at once because it’s overwhelming. At a minimum she should be in IC, and the book recommends here re good. When she gets through with those, I would also have her read Rising Strong by Brene Brown. I don’t think she is ready for that one yet, but it was a good one for me to understand how to foster true connection and how to bravely face yourself to allow that to happen.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:52 PM, Tuesday, February 4th]

I appreciate everyone’s responses. I wanted to provide an update:

My WW has begun showing some remorse. Not to the degree I hope for, but it has changed. The defensiveness is mostly gone, but it still shows up on occasion. She has stopped complaining about having to apologize.

One disappointing thing is that she hasn’t made time to read additional books or articles and is still leaving me driving the recovery effort. I am sympathetic to the fact that she is caring for 3 small children all day, but it would still be nice to see effort made.

She is all in on reconciliation near as I can tell. There were no (known) attempts to contact the OM, and some unrelated things happened that make it quite impossible for him to be contacted in the future.

However, I am struggling now. With no looming court battles, I don’t have anything to focus on. Now I’m just left sitting in the betrayal. It has always hurt, but with nothing to project onto, I’m feeling all of the hurt and anger.

I was so sure reconciliation was the way. I still mostly am, but damn it is hard to imagine ever trusting or looking at her the same way again. I cannot imagine only having my kids half the time, or going to child exchanges, etc. I also never believed my wife would be capable of all the damage she caused.

I want to be enthusiastic about restoring our marriage. I want to see our covenant restored and for us to have the marriage we should have always had. But acceptance feels so far away. Some days I’m ok, some days I’m angry and most days I’m just sad.

Is it normal to doubt the process? How do I work through the difficult emotions? I’m not normally very emotionally responsive, so this is new territory for me. Is it just time, or is there a process I can follow to get better?

I'm going to simply link my healing library post here:

https://survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/recovery/three-years-(and-a-day)-what-I-did-to-reconcile/

But if you have any further questions on what it was like for me, I'm happy to further expand.

Trust is never coming back to where it was. It's a new, more pragmatic version of trust.

Enthusiasm for reconciliation is unlikely to happen on either side. It's the sort of hard, long-term work that will wear you down to your emotional bone that isn't conducive to enthusiasm. Like other such activities, consistency matters more than intensity.

This….

One disappointing thing is that she hasn’t made time to read additional books or articles and is still leaving me driving the recovery effort.

…directly contradicts with this:

She is all in on reconciliation near as I can tell.

She is NOT all in. All in is a willingness to crawl over broken glass the next 10+ years, not even *mentioning* how you need to step up in chores or even address other mundane contrivances she had in the M until you’re at a place of substantial healing.

If you continue to do ANYTHING as far as dragging her thru R, you will fail, unless your only objective is to stay legally married. Does she understand and 100% agree you have every right Biblically to divorce her, and, that Biblically speaking, you’re in the clear to remarry and she is not? I’m not saying you need to D. I’m saying she needs to be in the place where she would accept D if that’s your decision, and that she ought give you a very fair settlement.

I fear you committed to R so very soon after DD, that she’s not going to be as motivated to plead with God to change her heart, character, and integrity. You can always change that. "Wife, in the shock of the adultery, I immediately committed to R. I have now thought things through and here are the things I need to see from you if I am to continue the *attempt* at R with you".

I'm going to be super blunt here:

One disappointing thing is that she hasn’t made time to read additional books or articles and is still leaving me driving the recovery effort.

If she could find time to have the affair to begin with, she can find time to read the damn book.

What do you hope she gets from reading?

One can read books on infidelity to get good ideas on hiding As. That won't help R. My reco is to ask for what you want directly, and IMO one of your asks should be something like 'change from betrayer to good partner'.

*****

You're still less than 2 months out from d-day, and you're probably still in shock. You're still in the process of taking in the punch, and you have to take it in before you can respond effectively.

Shock seems to last 3-6 months. You may be going deeper into shock. You may be starting to come out of shock. You may have plateaued at a level of intensity of shock. But shock is still a factor. And human beings don't think all that well while in shock.

IMO, the best you can do is observe yourself and your WS and hope you remember your observations. You may be making progress deciding what you want to do with your M, but if that's happening, it's a bonus. IMO, your best bet is to keep asking your gut if you're on the right road for you.

My reco is to let your imagination run free and consider as many options as you can imagine. Many will be easy to discard, but your gut will tell you which options have some attractions, and as you come out of shock, you'll know which one seems best at the moment. Eventually, you'll settle on one option.

IOW, I, too, think you may have committed to R too quickly. If you think so, too, I agree that telling your W where you are is a good idea - not to effect any change in her, but to model the honesty that is crucial to R.

IMO, R works best when the WS wants the BS and vice versa. When one or both partners think they need the other, IMO resentments are too likely to build up. Also, I think R needs both partners to want to grow old together. IOW, choose R because you think it's your best path to joy, not because it will allow you to dodge the pain of D.

I am sorry you are in this mess. I was there 10 years ago. You don't want to hear this now, but healing from this takes time and effort. We all want the pain to end quick. It does not. And even with a full reconciliation, there is no way to take away the pain. It smooths over time, but you will still carry it around for a long time.

Without writing a book, here is what I learned from my fWW's affair(s). She needed help. Mental help. She suffered from chronic depression (different from clinical or post-partum depression) I am relatively certain after many years of coming off and on to this site, that most waywards have some behavioral health issues that need to be addressed before they can help in reconciliation. My fWW also had to come to terms with her upbringing that included emotional neglect. No one would know this if they talked with her. She was awesome at carrying around a great mask.

One of the other important things I learned was...none of it was my fault. I could have been the most awesome husband, and it would have made no difference. She was at fault. Did that mean that I had no areas to improve? Not at all. Everyone should strive to be better, a better husband, dad, partner, you name it. But it would have made no difference in whether she cheated.

The last thing I will say is that R is a team effort. I needed to help her get better. Sometimes that meant that I had to make ultimatums. Go to IC or else. Get yourself figured out or else. But I also offered her grace and sometimes a soft place to land. Her biggest fear was me leaving her. (Funny, because the last A seemed like an exit affair) In the end, when she got her head on straight, she realized the affair was a fantasy, and reality was far from what she had in her head.

So this is a long haul. You don't know the outcome, you can't make her better. Get help. Find the whys and address them. Understand your old marriage is over. It's not coming back. But you can create a new one that is pretty awesome. I have.

Good luck, we're pulling for you.

Im not sure if I could remain calm if my life was upended by an affair and the cheater is talking about division of household chores.

In my book that’s a "oh hell no!" coming from her.

It’s been 11 years (almost 12) and my H STILL insists on doing things for me. Even when it’s not necessary.