My wife confessed an affair today!

[2sunny]

Either way you look at it - she's not the woman you thought she could be.

 

And not only her for stds - but you too. And she needs a pregnancy test too.

[JustJoe]

I'm thinking this might be a troll, maybe even an underage one. I mean, "petting?", "go all the way?" who talks like that anymore?

[2sunny]

I'm thinking this might be a troll, maybe even an underage one. I mean, "petting?", "go all the way?" who talks like that anymore?

 

Someone married for 27 years and is trying to minimize having sex.

[findingnemo]

LoyalHB,

 

I can't imagine how you're feeling right now. You need to take certain steps right now. She confessed. That's a good thing even if she felt cornered into doing it. She could have kept quiet. Confessing tells me that she does want a second chance.

 

You need to find out the truth. The best person right now is OM's W. Call her, meet her and find out what she "discovered", what happened according to her. I bet the story there will be different, more detailed.

 

Then get your W to tell you everything. What you need to figure out if this is a one time thing. If she's remorseful...and you need to understand why she did this. There is always a reason. Sometimes it's for fun and sometimes it has to do with problems in your M. Regardless of the reason though, she shouldn't have had an A. Knowing why helps you figure out your next step.

 

Take deep breaths and think about talking to OM's W as soon as possible. That's your first step....

[Try]

I became somewhat successful and and about three years ago she stopped working. She has been home ever since and has felt somewhat disconnected and left out.

This is called blame shifting. It is somehow your fault that she cheated because you became successful enough to let her not have to work a job. News flash, she cheated because she wanted to and no matter what you did she would find an excuse that shifts some of the blame off of her.

 

She was caught by the wife of the other man. They where seeing each other for a couple of months talking and petting in his car, and she claims it was romantic but never went all the way.

This is called trickle truth, where the cheater only admits what can be proven. Your wife only admitted to the affair because she was afraid that you would hear about it from the other man’s wife. It is doubtful that she did not sleep with him, but unless the other man’s wife has a photo of them in bed together the other man’s wife cannot prove otherwise, thus trickle truth. In the highly unlikely event that they have not slept together, they planned to but got caught before they did. Again, in all likely hood she is lying and they have in fact done a whole lot more than she is telling you.

 

My oldest daughter already knew because my wife confessed to her first.

This shows that she no longer thinks of you and her as a team. This shows her total lack of respect for you. This action also shows that she lacks real remorse. How dare she tell your daughter first? How dare she give you no say in this decision? Maybe for your own dignity and self respect you would have not wanted your daughter to know, if you were going to try to make it work; you no longer have that option. This shows a self center view of the world and shows that your feelings are not important to her. In your wife’s eyes, it is all about her and spin control and very little about you and your needs.

 

How can I ever trust her again?, how will I ever touch her again? Should I leave or should I stay?

Blame shifting, trickle truth, no respect for you, and no real remorse. Not a good indication of future success at true reconciliation. It appears that as of this time, she only wants reconciliation because you are a good meal ticket that has allows her to be a stay at home wife. I do not say stay at home mom because your children are too old to be much work. She knows that because she had a career until recently, and because of the age of your children, any divorce settlement would be based on her going back to work and maybe a few years of child support (if she gets primary custody, which at older ages is usually the choice of the child).

 

Until she stops playing you and shows true remorse, I would proceed with divorce. Even if she does get with the program, I for one would never ever trust her again, and without trust I am not sure I would want to be in the marriage.

[Bellechica]

If I may ask, how many BHs here left their WWs? It seems that what I'm hearing is just throw in the towel and never trust her....and encouragement to leave...I have also read many threads here about the pain and shock of the BS after Dday. I am sorry for your pain. While I was in the A my exAP would often tell me that he thought my H was probably cheating on me. At the time I even thought I didn't care. I know now that the OM and I were using this as just one of the many reasons to justify our behavior. I think I'd be okay if my H had a revenge affair if I confess as long as he doesn't leave me. And no I'm not some rich housewife who needs him to take care of me. I just finally woke up and realized that the A was just some fantasy and that it was destroying all the good in me and my family's life. My kids suffered because the OM was like a drug and I was putting him first in my life. Just stupid. I'm sorry if that is off topic. I'm just trying to process all the information and scenarios on here.

[bentnotbroken]

If I may ask, how many BHs here left their WWs? It seems that what I'm hearing is just throw in the towel and never trust her....and encouragement to leave...I have also read many threads here about the pain and shock of the BS after Dday. I am sorry for your pain. While I was in the A my exAP would often tell me that he thought my H was probably cheating on me. At the time I even thought I didn't care. I know now that the OM and I were using this as just one of the many reasons to justify our behavior. I think I'd be okay if my H had a revenge affair if I confess as long as he doesn't leave me. And no I'm not some rich housewife who needs him to take care of me. I just finally woke up and realized that the A was just some fantasy and that it was destroying all the good in me and my family's life. My kids suffered because the OM was like a drug and I was putting him first in my life. Just stupid. I'm sorry if that is off topic. I'm just trying to process all the information and scenarios on here.

 

How about a fBS who filed and told him to get the hell out? You know why...he lied to me for years. The affair could have been dealt with. I wasn't given a choice. I was lied to for years. I was exposed to STD's for years. I was gas lighted for years. He has since told me that he planned to stop and be a good husband......several times. After the last affair he admitted to at least 3 more over the course of our marriage(I think it was more). His line....I didn't want to hurt you or the children...Bullcrap. It was to cover his own and behind and a manifestation of his inability to love me enough to give me a choice in my OWN life.

 

He tricked me into those 20+ years by not giving me all the information to make the correct decisions for my life. He cheated on me and cheated me out of years I can never have back. I don't get to go back and make choices that would benefit me. I don't get to go back and have a better relationship with my father when I was falling apart and depressed. You know why....he's dead. I don't get to go back and be a better parent and not be curled up in a ball wondering what I did wrong or what I could do to change all the things he said were my fault.

 

I get your fear. Do you think there was no fear involved in taking control of my life and my choices. If you think this you should tell you IC. What else do you need to justify not telling?

[ISurvived]

If I may ask, how many BHs here left their WWs? It seems that what I'm hearing is just throw in the towel and never trust her....and encouragement to leave...I have also read many threads here about the pain and shock of the BS after Dday. I am sorry for your pain. While I was in the A my exAP would often tell me that he thought my H was probably cheating on me. At the time I even thought I didn't care. I know now that the OM and I were using this as just one of the many reasons to justify our behavior. I think I'd be okay if my H had a revenge affair if I confess as long as he doesn't leave me. And no I'm not some rich housewife who needs him to take care of me. I just finally woke up and realized that the A was just some fantasy and that it was destroying all the good in me and my family's life. My kids suffered because the OM was like a drug and I was putting him first in my life. Just stupid. I'm sorry if that is off topic. I'm just trying to process all the information and scenarios on here.

 

I stayed with my FWW through 2 DDays. (Check your thread).

 

While I was in the A my exAP would often tell me that he thought my H was probably cheating on me.

He was using this to get in your pants. Common tactic of POS OM.

[bentnotbroken]

I stayed with my FWW through 2 DDays. (Check your thread).

 

 

He was using this to get in your pants. Common tactic of POS OM.

 

 

Not a great friend who is going to keep your secret.

[stillafool]

If I may ask, how many BHs here left their WWs? It seems that what I'm hearing is just throw in the towel and never trust her....and encouragement to leave...I have also read many threads here about the pain and shock of the BS after Dday. I am sorry for your pain. While I was in the A my exAP would often tell me that he thought my H was probably cheating on me. At the time I even thought I didn't care. I know now that the OM and I were using this as just one of the many reasons to justify our behavior. I think I'd be okay if my H had a revenge affair if I confess as long as he doesn't leave me. And no I'm not some rich housewife who needs him to take care of me. I just finally woke up and realized that the A was just some fantasy and that it was destroying all the good in me and my family's life. My kids suffered because the OM was like a drug and I was putting him first in my life. Just stupid. I'm sorry if that is off topic. I'm just trying to process all the information and scenarios on here.

 

What did IC tell you to do?

[Bellechica]

What did IC tell you to do?

 

She is working with me with CBT to help control my anxiety. She suggested MC but I would be lying if I said I could just get it all out and be honest in MC so I'm going to wait. I have so much fear of losing everything all because of my own stupid choices.

[Bellechica]

And this is LoyalHB thread and I wish him happiness. I won't hijack this thread but I hope he will read the threads of WS so he can understand how other people ended up in an A. I am reading Not Just Friends. Wish I had this book years ago.

[ISurvived]

She is working with me with CBT to help control my anxiety. She suggested MC but I would be lying if I said I could just get it all out and be honest in MC so I'm going to wait. I have so much fear of losing everything all because of my own stupid choices.

 

Waiting for what? You have already said you will never tell him. What's the difference if you lie now or later? It's still lying.

 

Time to get off the pity party train Belle. No one is buying it and there is no sympathy for someone not willing to do the hard lifting required to recover from infidelity. You will never have true recovery until the complete truth is out.

[Kidd]

I suggest you start another thread on this topic on SI on the wayward forum but without the stop sign so that BSs can reply. You'll get a better representation (there's more traffic there) and it is a site that will be less judgmental of you. I like LS for brutal honesty but it is frequently brutal even to the betrayed spouses when they decide to stay (we get called doormats and cuckolds). Having a live wayward is much like blood in the water. But if you can face these demons, you're better prepared to understand the worst that your BH might endure and throw at you.

[standtall]

HB, if you're not a troll...... but I suspect you are a troll..... then I agree with the other posters here in the fact that she is giving you the trickle truth..trust us, she has gone "all the way" and more with her AP.

[LoyalHB]

I hear a lot of suggestions for getting to the real truth but I will never be really sure of anything, I don't think there is a full proof way of knowing short of water boarding. This whole thing is pretty exhausting and I don't feel like going into a full blown fact finding mission when in the end I will still have my doubts. She has been crying her eyes out for two days straight and seems to understand that she really ****ed things up.

 

I understand the cynicism on the part of the majority but I should say that we have known each other since HS, we have pretty much grown up with each other, we raised two beautiful daughters and other that this mess, she has been the best mother you can imagine. She put me through school and has always put herself second to accommodate my needs.

 

I am not justifying her behavior, if anything it makes it more shocking and unexpected, but I feel like I owe a lot to this woman. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on her confession, but I will always wonder.

 

As to the marriage, I don't know yet. I don't know if I can live with her knowing what I know. I will get my financial affairs in order and start planning for a possible divorce where I am likely to loose a lot, especially if we have to undersell the house in this ****ty market.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

As for the charge of "troll", I don't know what to tell you. I have never posted here and I am not a native speaker. I'm doing my best. Sorry if some things come out a little juvenile. Being 49 makes the prospect of a divorce and rebuilding of my life a little daunting to me. I wish I were still a kid.

Edited March 31, 2012 by LoyalHB

[Bryanp]

I would certainly contact the OM's wife since she apparently caught them. It is possible that OM confessed to his wife and told a story they may be quite different from the version of your wife.

 

Why don't you ask your wife how she would feel if the roles were reversed? Ask her what she thought would happen when she engaged in an affair and betrayed her husband and marriage. How could she actually think that this would not end badly? Sorry but a 40 year married woman limiting herself to petting and kissing with her other married affair partner simply seems hard to imagine. Why would the OM put his marriage at great risk for the thrill of petting and kissing???....Sorry but I don't buy it and neither should you.

[whichwayisup]

HB, time will tell if the A is truly over and they are in total no contact.

Time will tell if she truly is remorseful or if she is just reacting and upset to losing the OM and the affair ending.

 

Don't bank on ANYTHING right now until the dust settles and you both are in a calmer place. Everybody is upset and reacting.

 

As I said earlier, no real decisions have to be made right now..Take time for yourself to think and maybe seek some counselling too.

[Betrayed&Stayed]

I hear a lot of suggestions for getting to the real truth but I will never be really sure of anything, I don't think there is a full proof way of knowing short of water boarding. This whole thing is pretty exhausting and I don't feel like going into a full blown fact finding mission when in the end I will still have my doubts. She has been crying her eyes out for two days straight and seems to understand that she really ****ed things up.

 

I understand the cynicism on the part of the majority but I should say that we have known each other since HS, we have pretty much grown up with each other, we raised two beautiful daughters and other that this mess, she has been the best mother you can imagine. She put me through school and has always put herself second to accommodate my needs.

 

I am not justifying her behavior, if anything it makes it more shocking and unexpected, but I feel like I owe a lot to this woman. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on her confession, but I will always wonder.

 

As to the marriage, I don't know yet. I don't know if I can live with her knowing what I know. I will get my financial affairs in order and start planning for a possible divorce where I am likely to loose a lot, especially if we have to undersell the house in this ****ty market.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

As for the charge of "troll", I don't know what to tell you. I have never posted here and I am not a native speaker. I'm doing my best. Sorry if some things come out a little juvenile. Being 49 makes the prospect of a divorce and rebuilding of my life a little daunting to me. I wish I were still a kid.

 

You don't have to make life changing choices right now. Your world was just shattered. Your wife is not who you thought she was. Your marriage is not what you thought it was. (I've been there)

 

For now, make sure that you get the truth. If she is capable of cheating, then she is capable of lying. The two go hand-in-hand. There is no such thing as an honest adulterer.

 

Make an appointment for MC asap. Start with that before you make any big decisions. It's okay to ask her to move out for a few weeks while this sets in.

 

You're in shock. Expect to go through all of the phases of grieving: denial and isolation, anger (you'll know when this one hits!!), bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

[2sunny]

Since the other mans wife already knows... Best route is to ask her what she knows.

 

Your wife's tears are tears - but it's hard to determine what her tears really represent. It could be a multitude of emotions.

 

I don't give tears much merit. I give full honesty and new actions merit.

 

Tears are usually designed to manipulate in some way, I hate to say it - but it's true.

[drifter777]

The marriage isn't REAL if you haven't confessed YOUR PART in it. So it's all based on your lies.

 

There's nothing if you haven't been honest...

 

IF you lose your M it's only because of your lies. MOST spouses can forgive and move past the pain IF the wandering spouse is honest.

 

...and remorseful and willing to work in order to rebuild trust. Honesty is vital but it's not enough on its own.

[drifter777]

I hear a lot of suggestions for getting to the real truth but I will never be really sure of anything, I don't think there is a full proof way of knowing short of water boarding. This whole thing is pretty exhausting and I don't feel like going into a full blown fact finding mission when in the end I will still have my doubts. She has been crying her eyes out for two days straight and seems to understand that she really ****ed things up.

 

I understand the cynicism on the part of the majority but I should say that we have known each other since HS, we have pretty much grown up with each other, we raised two beautiful daughters and other that this mess, she has been the best mother you can imagine. She put me through school and has always put herself second to accommodate my needs.

 

I am not justifying her behavior, if anything it makes it more shocking and unexpected, but I feel like I owe a lot to this woman. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt on her confession, but I will always wonder.

 

As to the marriage, I don't know yet. I don't know if I can live with her knowing what I know. I will get my financial affairs in order and start planning for a possible divorce where I am likely to loose a lot, especially if we have to undersell the house in this ****ty market.

 

Thanks for the comments.

 

As for the charge of "troll", I don't know what to tell you. I have never posted here and I am not a native speaker. I'm doing my best. Sorry if some things come out a little juvenile. Being 49 makes the prospect of a divorce and rebuilding of my life a little daunting to me. I wish I were still a kid.

 

I agree that many of us BS's on this forum can be pretty harsh. One of the reasons is that when we read a post like this from a BS just days after d-day it reminds us of the mistakes we made at that time. Many of us offered "cheap forgiveness" to our cheating spouse as a way to make our pain easier to bear and regain some semblance of normal. Many of us stuffed our true feelings deep down in our minds and believed that time would make them go away. And many of us enumerated the good qualities that our spouse possessed, thinking that we could somehow weigh that "good" against this current "evil" and find a balance. We've lived it, we've seen it and we know this is not the way to heal from such a devastating betrayal.

 

You may not be capable of listening to us right now due to the state of shock you are living in. Try to understand that you and not functioning in your normal fashion. I urge you to seriously consider two pieces of advice:

 

1) put some physical and emotional space between you and your wife. Your emotional responses to your wife are not real right now and she will do everything in her power to bend and twist your view of her cheating. And you desperately want to feel better. Look up "hysterical bonding" to get an understanding of what I am describing.

 

2) you need someone to help you sort out all of the strong emotions you are dealing with right now, so find a counselor and start working on yourself.

 

Regarding the "did she or didn't she" thing, the reason you say it doesn't matter is that you believe that you can hold on to the "maybe she didn't" part. You are in denial, you are in shock, both for good reason. In time, this will all be sorted out but right now I hope you will take my advice and care for yourself. Think of what you would advise a close friend or family member if they came to you with your story and asked for your help. Show yourself the same kindness and concern that you would show them.

[2sunny]

Would it really make any difference to you if she did have sex with him?

 

Would it change your approach and decision if you found out she lied even more than what info she's given?

[LoyalHB]

As for having sex with the OM, she was on a slippery slope towards it. Even though she might have tried to go slow for whatever reasons, the relationship was becoming ever more sexual and it would have gotten there anyway. The fact they didn't have sex is just a timing accident. If they had been caught or if she had been able to break from the A a month or even years later she would have certainly had sex and would have probably developed an ever deeper attachment to the OM. In that sense I have come to see her betrayal as a full blown emotional and sexual one. The A ended abruptly and the stage of development of its sexual component on their last encounter was just a matter of chance, not a result of "innocent intentions". She might as well have been having full blown sex, it is just as painful to me. In my torturing mental movies of her A, I see them having sex and I reproach her exactly as if she had. I am not giving her any credit in that respect.

 

So in my approach to this mess, I am proceeding as if she had sex. She has answered all questions in detail. She takes 100% of the blame, as it should be, and continues to display remorse and shame. She will start seeing a MC and is going along with the NC and a full scrutiny of all of her moves and an accounting of all the calls to and from the OM during the A.

 

I don't know where this ends. Only time will tell. I do know that the more I learn about the pathology of infidelity the easier it is for me to handle it. It is indeed comforting to understand that It had absolutely nothing to do with me. It was her issues and her failure to deal with them in a mature way that lead to the A. If she doesn't deal with the mess in her head she can easily do it again, to me or to her next partner.

 

It's been just two days since my original posting and D-day, and when I re-read it my questions sound so very naive. It was just a cry for help. I am beginning to understand that it is impossible to answer my questions. The answers will be the result of a long process in which I am embarking now. You all have been incredibly helpful. drifter777's mention of hysterical bonding led me to a very useful Q&A in survivinginfidelity.com which she has also read. In times of crisis I always end up realizing that there is no better companion and no better weapon than knowledge. I only hope that I end up in a better place sometime down the road. I think I will.

Edited April 1, 2012 by LoyalHB

[whichwayisup]

You are going to be okay either way and I like how much calmer you are, you're thinking and allowing her to come clean without freaking out on her. What she did was HER choice and it had nothing to do with you - It's good you see that and aren't blaming yourself.

 

Good luck and keep posting.