Wife found out about affair

[pheonixrisen]

Was your wife self righteous or just opinionated and strong willed?

 

Let me caution you.

 

 

Finding out your spouse is having an affair can sink your self esteem to unprecedented lows. You question everything about yourself and your actions and your personality and your appearance. You question everything. I think that is what your wife is doing now. I think, no matter what you might have said about wanting to stay with her, she is afraid of losing you and is currently moderating herself and emotionally jumping through hoops to keep you. I say that because her agreeing to work on the marriage right now?? Yeah, that is a load of BS. There is no way a betrayed spouse who loves/loved her wandering spouse can legitimately be working on her/his problems in the marriage so soon after dday. There is no way in hell she finds a single thing you say the least bit funny right now. Right now she consumed by the massive betrayal you dumped on her. Right now she is questioning if anything in your lives together is really real. Right now she is questioning how the hell you can say you love her and cheat on her. Right now she is wondering if you think she is good enough and even worse, she is wondering herself if she is good enough....because you cheated and not just sexually, you placeed another woman on a pedestal above her. Because you have described your OW as this beautiful goddess who treated you like a king, while your wife is moderately beautiful and self righteous.

 

If your wife recovers her self esteem she is going to be good and pi$$ed off. She is going to notice that her moderately beautiful, "self righteous" self is getting noticed when she goes out. And she is going to wonder if she did right by herself fighting so hard to keep you.

 

Im not saying you shouldn't reconcile. After my H's affair I reconciled with him eventually. BUT. If your wife was posting here I would have told her to throw a whole china cabinet full of dishes at your head while she packed her bags to get as far away from you as possible leaving a cloud of dust in her wake. Because right now, you really don't deserve her.

 

Listen. Deal with your affair with your wife. Deal with whatever it takes to let her know you love her and WANT to be with her, not out of some sense of history or obligation but because you want to be there. (Frankly, based on what you have written about both women it seems like you are choosing your wife only because the OW didn't live up to the pedestal you placed her on. )

 

Deal with loss of trust, deal with the loss of respect, deal with the land mine you planted in the middle of your living room for your wife to unknowingly step on. Deal with that. FIRST.

 

If your wife still loves you she will make changes to fix her part of whatever marital problems she played a part it. But right now, so soon after dday she is probably reacting out of fear. If you want it to be real, you have to deal with the destruction YOUR choices caused FIRST.

 

This is so true ...op read till it sinks in.

[beach]

She also has a very vulnerable and innocent side that I've seen in our intimate moments, so no, I don't consider her toxic. I think sometimes she's self absorbed and determined to get what she wants, damn the consequences, but for the most part, she's a sweet person.

 

Stop thinking of her. Stop writing here of her.

 

Start writing kind and loving things of your wife. Start turning those thoughts into thoughts if your wife only.

[MJJean]

I'm a bit flummoxed why there seems to be a general concencus that OP should now maintain NC with his xOW, move on, and focus on his W, yet there seems to be a determination to contine to demonise the xOW with the nett effect of not helping OP focus on his W at all. On the contrary, it goads him into not only thinking about xOW, but defending her!

 

I know it's like fun'n'all to virtually stone the scarlet woman. But not sure if that preoccupation is helpful for the OP right now :-/

 

Sex bonds us chemically to our partners. Our brains literally perceive sex partners in a more favorable light.Perhaps more favorably than they deserve. Allegedly, it takes about 6 months for the effects to wear off.

 

We aren't demonizing the OW. What we're doing is pointing out the fact that she uses and manipulates people to get what she wants, damn the consequences and pain this type of behavior causes others. In order to move forward, I think the OP needs to see OW more clearly than he has been able to due to the "fog". Especially if she decides she is not done and continues to attempt to manipulate the OP.

 

Not to mention that the OP won't be living in a bubble. There will be other women who may try the same old tricks the OW successfully used. He needs to be aware and therefore able to avoid falling into the same snare in the future.

[pheonixrisen]

Op I would suggest ..that right now you don't bring up your wife's fault in the marriage ..I am sure you had your own faults too and was not happy about some of the things you did in marriage too BUT she did not go and have an affair on you because of challenges in marriage ...

 

Bringing up any fault of hers she might change but also start building resentment because to her you are probably implying that affair happened because of her issues ..

 

The change you see now will not last long as she is going to go through a roller coaster of emotions each day from hurt to anger to immense pain to sadness ..she might be unable to focus because of images of you and ow will be constantly popping up in her mind ..All you can do is offer support or comfort and answers truthfully all the question she has as many time she ask ..I asked a 100 question a 100 times in 100 different ways ....till we exhausted the topic ...only when she feels there is nothing more to ask or hear the healing begins ..

till then what you are seeing is a woman trying hard to keep it together but completely broken inside ...In order to change any of her issues in marriage she needs to FIRST mend the broken.

 

Stand your ground when things get rough and let her know you are here and not going anywhere ...

[MJJean]

I couldn't edit, but I did want to add something.

 

I'm not making judgments on the OW one way or the other. I'm just giving possible analysis of her behavior based on her actions as described by the OP and my own experience watching men and women in similar situations over the years.

 

I have been the WS, the BS, and the OW in my lifetime. I really, truly, am not hating on the OW because she's an OW.

[MJJean]

Stand your ground when things get rough and let her know you are here and not going anywhere ...

 

THIS! Oh, so much this.

 

She will feel so many emotions and sometimes in very rapid succession, but that fear that you will further devastate her by leaving will be a sneaky lil devil. She might act and react based on that fear and not even realize it.

 

She may even try to push you away because she is afraid that you will leave her. Be steady, reassuring, and patient. She has a lot to work through.

[obtuseedge]

Sex bonds us chemically to our partners. Our brains literally perceive sex partners in a more favorable light.Perhaps more favorably than they deserve. Allegedly, it takes about 6 months for the effects to wear off.

 

We aren't demonizing the OW. What we're doing is pointing out the fact that she uses and manipulates people to get what she wants, damn the consequences and pain this type of behavior causes others. In order to move forward, I think the OP needs to see OW more clearly than he has been able to due to the "fog". Especially if she decides she is not done and continues to attempt to manipulate the OP.

 

Not to mention that the OP won't be living in a bubble. There will be other women who may try the same old tricks the OW successfully used. He needs to be aware and therefore able to avoid falling into the same snare in the future.

 

In the affair with me, her feelings were genuine. We became extremely infatuated with one another, and pursued one another, even though both of us tried to put the brakes on things several times. It didn't work because we were too drawn and attracted to one another, and our constant communication made us too attached.

 

So it's hard for me to accept that she was just being manipulative. She truly loved me and wanted me. She just did what she could do to have me. I wanted her too, but my significant other was actually a good person who I had a good home with and I chose to stay and work on this marriage, while her husband was an abusive maniac that she needed to get rid of regardless of me.

[obtuseedge]

Op I would suggest ..that right now you don't bring up your wife's fault in the marriage ..I am sure you had your own faults too and was not happy about some of the things you did in marriage too BUT she did not go and have an affair on you because of challenges in marriage ...

 

Bringing up any fault of hers she might change but also start building resentment because to her you are probably implying that affair happened because of her issues ..

 

The change you see now will not last long as she is going to go through a roller coaster of emotions each day from hurt to anger to immense pain to sadness ..she might be unable to focus because of images of you and ow will be constantly popping up in her mind ..All you can do is offer support or comfort and answers truthfully all the question she has as many time she ask ..I asked a 100 question a 100 times in 100 different ways ....till we exhausted the topic ...only when she feels there is nothing more to ask or hear the healing begins ..

till then what you are seeing is a woman trying hard to keep it together but completely broken inside ...In order to change any of her issues in marriage she needs to FIRST mend the broken.

 

Stand your ground when things get rough and let her know you are here and not going anywhere ...

 

Trust me, I am not bringing any of her faults to the table. It is not the time to talk about them. Also, we are just trying to heal right now.

 

Its very hard at home, because this has all been traumatizing and I honestly zone out a lot. Sometimes we try to act normal again, but we both tend to zone out and not communicate. Perhaps this is a normal stage of the process. It's been very difficult, and it's very tense.

[beach]

In the affair with me, her feelings were genuine. We became extremely infatuated with one another, and pursued one another, even though both of us tried to put the brakes on things several times. It didn't work because we were too drawn and attracted to one another, and our constant communication made us too attached.

 

So it's hard for me to accept that she was just being manipulative. She truly loved me and wanted me. She just did what she could do to have me. I wanted her too, but my significant other was actually a good person who I had a good home with and I chose to stay and work on this marriage, while her husband was an abusive maniac that she needed to get rid of regardless of me.

 

More and more about your OW...

 

Let me ask you a question. How do you expect to repair your marriage if you keep focusing on your OW?

[SleekArchitecture]

More and more about your OW...

 

Let me ask you a question. How do you expect to repair your marriage if you keep focusing on your OW?

 

 

This whole thread has made me wish to drop, in dead weight, my head in a bowl of hot soup face first.

Edited March 14, 2015 by SleekArchitecture
addition

[MJJean]

In the affair with me, her feelings were genuine. We became extremely infatuated with one another, and pursued one another, even though both of us tried to put the brakes on things several times. It didn't work because we were too drawn and attracted to one another, and our constant communication made us too attached.

 

So it's hard for me to accept that she was just being manipulative. She truly loved me and wanted me. She just did what she could do to have me. I wanted her too, but my significant other was actually a good person who I had a good home with and I chose to stay and work on this marriage, while her husband was an abusive maniac that she needed to get rid of regardless of me.

 

Being manipulative and having actual feelings are not mutually exclusive. In fact, feelings are often the reason why people manipulate.

 

"Just being manipulative", no. But certainly no less than being manipulative.

 

Is OW a good person or a bad person? No one is truly either. Like all of us, she is both. The problem isn't that she's human, the problem is that her methods of getting what she wants are poisonous.

 

It's one thing to be attracted to a married man at work. It's another to bring him onto a project with you deliberately so that you could spend time with him frequently and in close quarters.

 

It's one thing to try to win back your lover by telling him how you need him, etc. and begging for a meeting. It's quite another to threaten self harm to force a meeting when you've been told he is trying to work on his marriage.

[aliveagain]

More and more about your OW...

 

Let me ask you a question. How do you expect to repair your marriage if you keep focusing on your OW?

 

If you keep stepping in front of a bus your going to get run over. Healing won't start until one of you is gone, it's now up to your wife to decide who that is. This is your last chance, don't blow it because the sh*t coming out of your mouth won't mean much to your wife right now, she's watching your actions.

[obtuseedge]

More and more about your OW...

 

Let me ask you a question. How do you expect to repair your marriage if you keep focusing on your OW?

 

Well, we were deeply attached for over a half year. Constantly texting all day, every day. Now we are abruptly separated, so I have to deal with the loss.

 

I am still with my wife every day. It's not easy dealing with this, but we make plans every day to do things together.

[SleekArchitecture]

There always comes a time in which the phrase this is a bit too much fits. To agree to disagree, if the now insignificant OW, is the devil in the red dress or not has been reiterated to death. Shouldn't the question be, what are these little everyday things, you have spoken of, that you are doing to repair your marriage?

[minimariah]

I am still with my wife every day. It's not easy dealing with this, but we make plans every day to do things together.

 

do you love your W? and i don't mean as a friend, as someone you've been with for a long time - i mean, as a woman. do you love her as a woman? do you desire her? do you think about her, do you WISH to spend time with her? when something nice or bad happens - who is the 1st person on your mind that you want to contact and share the news with?

 

did you ever experience the connection and all the emotions (that you experienced with the OW) with your W? were you ever in love with your W?

 

because if you didn't, i honestly don't know how can you just... create the chemistry, love and connection. how can you move to that place where your W won't be the second best to your OW? is that even possible?

[obtuseedge]

do you love your W? and i don't mean as a friend, as someone you've been with for a long time - i mean, as a woman. do you love her as a woman? do you desire her? do you think about her, do you WISH to spend time with her? when something nice or bad happens - who is the 1st person on your mind that you want to contact and share the news with?

 

did you ever experience the connection and all the emotions (that you experienced with the OW) with your W? were you ever in love with your W?

 

because if you didn't, i honestly don't know how can you just... create the chemistry, love and connection. how can you move to that place where your W won't be the second best to your OW? is that even possible?

 

In the beginning of our relationship, yes, we had great sexual chemistry. We intensely desired one another. She was also the one I went to to share my experiences, and thoughts on a day to day basis. So it was there.

 

I will admit though, that comparing the initial phases of each relationship between my W and XAP, the initial chemistry (at least mind to mind connection) was stronger with XAP. However, it certainly was there with my wife, and she's been with me all these years and we've gone through many struggles together. The last few years has seen this connection and chemistry significantly die down though.

[beach]

Well, we were deeply attached for over a half year. Constantly texting all day, every day. Now we are abruptly separated, so I have to deal with the loss.

 

I am still with my wife every day. It's not easy dealing with this, but we make plans every day to do things together.

 

Yet you are betraying your W by constantly being in thought of OW... That's not a man who is totally into reconciling with his wife. That's a man that's still betraying.

 

That just looks mean and cruel to your wife... I mean, really - here's an amazing woman who's totally willing to forgive you and reconnect with you - yet you stay so focused on your OW.

 

You are STILL handing all your power to the OW, so essentially, there's no way to make the M work because you are participating on a level that BLOCKS that possibility.

 

Why not take a new approach? Move. Be on your own for a long while. Work hard with a counselor to sift through all your feelings.

 

Sort out all the feelings about OW.

 

Sort out all the feelings about your W.

 

Do it without any promises to any gal. Get to know yourself and what you REALLY need and want from any gal moving forward.

 

Learn about yourself so much that you have a conviction about where your heart really is. Find a moral compass and boundaries to which you can live by.

 

It may it may not include your W... But this false reconciliation is bound to hurt your W even further as long as you stay hyper focused on what your OW has done, is doing etc.

 

 

If nothing else being on your own can certainly help you to sort things out with much needed clarity. But I caution you - it takes self being honest with self.

 

 

Bottom line is - this pretending to want to be married to your W when you're actually pining away 24/7 for your OW isn't honest.

 

 

It's too bad your W didn't impose some more swift and harsh consequences onto you... Nothing like scrambling to save what you really could lose that makes the one cheating stop all the pretending and lies. Getting caught hasn't yet affected you enough to make you change your thought process. You need to explore that on a much deeper level. Are you capable of that or are you a surface/let's sweep it under the rug kind of guy?

[sandylee1]

Let me just explain to you a few things to ponder...

 

 

Its ok to recommit to marriage but imo not ok to treat someone who treated you like a King to ve considered crazy and to be treated coldly when all she did was try and be with you and could not express herself calmly in her own crisis.

 

Treating the OW like she's crazy comes from MM realising what they risked and what they stand to loose as a result of the A. The MM is also going through a crisis, because he sees his wife going through turmoil because of his actions. He's trying to save his marriage. Remember that at this point his W could have told the kids, his parents, her parents and other family members who could be giving him hell.

 

Do you really think he's even thinking about OW at this point? He's thinking what an idiot he has been and the shame he'll go through.

 

I wouldn't treat a man who cheats on his wife like a King. It says a lot about his morals.

 

The thing is you can get dumped badly in a relationship with a single guy, but when you get involved with a MM you are at much higher risk of this. The same way you put up with being a side piece, with stolen moments, sneaking around and so on, is the same way you should prepare yourself to be cast aside without a second thought if his W finds out.

[obtuseedge]

Yet you are betraying your W by constantly being in thought of OW... That's not a man who is totally into reconciling with his wife. That's a man that's still betraying.

 

That just looks mean and cruel to your wife... I mean, really - here's an amazing woman who's totally willing to forgive you and reconnect with you - yet you stay so focused on your OW.

 

You are STILL handing all your power to the OW, so essentially, there's no way to make the M work because you are participating on a level that BLOCKS that possibility.

 

Why not take a new approach? Move. Be on your own for a long while. Work hard with a counselor to sift through all your feelings.

 

Sort out all the feelings about OW.

 

Sort out all the feelings about your W.

 

Do it without any promises to any gal. Get to know yourself and what you REALLY need and want from any gal moving forward.

 

Learn about yourself so much that you have a conviction about where your heart really is. Find a moral compass and boundaries to which you can live by.

 

It may it may not include your W... But this false reconciliation is bound to hurt your W even further as long as you stay hyper focused on what your OW has done, is doing etc.

 

 

If nothing else being on your own can certainly help you to sort things out with much needed clarity. But I caution you - it takes self being honest with self.

 

 

Bottom line is - this pretending to want to be married to your W when you're actually pining away 24/7 for your OW isn't honest.

 

 

It's too bad your W didn't impose some more swift and harsh consequences onto you... Nothing like scrambling to save what you really could lose that makes the one cheating stop all the pretending and lies. Getting caught hasn't yet affected you enough to make you change your thought process. You need to explore that on a much deeper level. Are you capable of that or are you a surface/let's sweep it under the rug kind of guy?

 

Being on my own is an option at this time. Again, all this is very new. My wife discovering the affair. Going NC with XAP. Counseling. Connecting with my feelings.

[autumnnight]

Stop thinking of her. Stop writing here of her.

 

Start writing kind and loving things of your wife. Start turning those thoughts into thoughts if your wife only.

 

I recommend implementing this starting now no matter what is said regarding the OW. You are not here to defend her or yourself. You are here to slavage your marriage.

[Cinnimon]

I dont see him as being in constant thought of the OW, I see him answering questions on here when he's asked about her. You can't force thoughts to go away, sorry. I'm sure he'd love to be able to wash the whole thing from his mind and maybe someday will but give the guy a break. He is here to get help and advise, not a lobotomy. Just because you don't like the answers he gives, doesn't change the facts!

He still has thoughts of the ow, he is TRYING to focus on his wife and marriage but he does still have thoughts of the ow, that's where he's at. Give him advise on that. Just stop ISNT working.

[PhoenixRise]

Being on my own is an option at this time. Again, all this is very new. My wife discovering the affair. Going NC with XAP. Counseling. Connecting with my feelings.

 

 

Does your wife have people who are helping her through this. Is she talking to friends? Family? A counselor?

[pheonixrisen]

:

 

Originally Posted by*privategal*

 

Let me just explain to you a few things to ponder...

 

 

Its ok to recommit to marriage but imo not ok to treat someone who treated you like a King to ve considered crazy and to be treated coldly when all she did was try and be with you and could not express herself calmly in her own crisis.

 

 

I don't think he treated the ow coldly ...He went to meet her when she threatened suicide ...and also had a 30 min coffee closure time ...that's 2 meeting after dday ...1 more than necessary ..

 

What do you expect him to do ..continue seeing her , offer a shoulder to cry on.. spend more time with her ...that does not say the end...

[pheonixrisen]

Being on my own is an option at this time. Again, all this is very new. My wife discovering the affair. Going NC with XAP. Counseling. Connecting with my feelings.

 

You are not in reconciliation if being on your own is an option. You need to make up your mind ...

You said in previous post your wife and marriage is what you want your mind is made up etc..etc..now being on your own is an option??...Make up your mind and stick with it

[beach]

You are not in reconciliation if being on your own is an option. You need to make up your mind ...

You said in previous post your wife and marriage is what you want your mind is made up etc..etc..now being on your own is an option??...Make up your mind and stick with it

 

I'm not certain I'm seeing any reconciliation happening - the OP can correct me if I'm mistaken.

 

I'd like to ask - how can you expect you are reconciling when it seems all your feelings and focus are on OW? Why is this enough for your wife? Or are you pretending to reconcile while pining for the OW?

 

I suppose I'm looking for you to clarify where you're truly spending your energy...