To bust or not to bust

[Friskyone4u]

Cheating on your spouse is also not looked upon too highly in the real world.

 

Probably a lot less highly

 

So whats the point. Cheating is OK but its not nice to ask for a poly from someone who is obviously stonewalling.

[beatcuff]

Any little chance of a future relationship AFTER divorce i...she does the leg work

 

AND if she posted her story here, the overwhelming response would be 180 and move on. my point in the first place.

 

OP is delusional if he believes 'somehow' she will want to restart after this.

 

AND (see my next post)

[beatcuff]

I am divorcing

 

then why are we here? all the 'code' words (TT, etc) are meaningless. OP has made up his mind. any further actions towards WS are boardering on cruelty: by giving her hope R is possible. a/k/a stop jerking her around.

 

OP time for you to move forward, your statement makes it clear this book is finished.

[singer23]

Cheating on your spouse is also not looked upon too highly in the real world.

 

Probably a lot less highly

 

So whats the point. Cheating is OK but its not nice to ask for a poly from someone who is obviously stonewalling.

 

Are you just trying to find someone to argue with ?

 

I just meant that he needs to keep the news of her taking a poly a bit discreet among his family and friends. Even now, his family sees her to be a victim. Making her take a poly and dumping her will make her the ultimate martyr and the wronged one.

[81West]

Hi Zinger, I am not sure where exactly you are going with this i.e. whether proceeding with divorce or waiting to see if your wife reveals any further details before you take a decision, but I must say that her last reaction to your asking her to take the polygraph test indicates without doubt that she had definitely had a PA with her OM. If it was just and EA or as she put it " An inappropriate emotional attachment" then this would NOT have been her reaction. She is obviously very scared that the polygraph will reveal her darkest secrets(whether it actually will or not) and that fright is what resulted in her reacting in the way she did.

 

I must say I feel sorry for your wife as I would for any human being caught in a situation where, even if they were responsible for bringing it on themselves, they do not have the wherewithall to handle the consequences and find themselves drowning. You see the fact is your wife is not a criminal in the sense that a hardened murderer or thief is. She let her emotions get the better of her and what may have started out as an entirely philanthropic endeavour gradually turned into something else and the emotional high that she got while interacting with the OM led her on a downward path where she lost complete control and ended up having this affair with this guy.

 

This is not to say that she is somehow innocent and that she does not deserve the consequences of her action. After all if someone is driving a car and nods off for a while, the resulting crash can end in killing that person or maiming him/her for life. One may feel bad for the person but he/she has to bear the consequences of their error.

 

As far as your decision is concerned I would say that it will be the natural consequence of your value system and your own emotional structure. No one else can dictate or predict what you will do in such circumstances. Being the person you are I am sure that after taking the advice of all concerned including those who are posting here, you will take a decision in complete consonance with your personality and emotional make up. No doubt it is going to be painful, after all you are dealing with your wife's truancy and as you have said, she has been someone you loved unconditionally and who you trusted blindly. It is as if you had presented her with a sharp kitchen knife to use in the kitchen and then, when you had your back to her, she took the opportunity to stab you in the back.

 

I think 81 West has been labouring a very convoluted point of view based firstly, on her own expectations of what you should be doing and secondly, on something you mentioned about leaving a small window of opportunity for your wife for reconciliation/ re engagement depending on her showing remorse and coming clean completely about her affair. However divorce, in any case would go ahead since it was a natural corollary of an affair. I think such constructs do not really apply here in your case because as you said in one of your earliest posts, you and she had had a talk about a couple that you knew where the wife had an affair and you asked your wife how the divorce was going. Her reply was "Why do you assume that they are divorcing?" To this you had replied that that is what you would do if your wife was ever guilty of infidelity. Her reaction to this was to change the subject immediately. Thus she knew what the consequences of infidelity would be if it were to affect you two. Her changing the subject was probably due to the fact that she was already involved in the affair and she was afraid that any further talk of this would reveal her own affair.

 

In a nutshell I would like to say that you can be more or less certain that your wife had a PA with her OM and her initial reaction to your asking her to take a polygraph is testimony to that fact. What you do with this information is your own concern. Warm Regards.

 

My 'laboured' point is pretty clear and, frankly, pretty unarguable. Divorce is generally exceedingly hard on marriage. My time on this thread has nothing to do with expectations I have of what the OP should be doing or what I think he should do. In fact I haven't expressed my personal opinion at all, which is that they probably should in fact divorce, for both of their sakes. I and others have only advised caution if the poster's own words on being open to reconciliation matter to him, because his own decisions now can equally impact the current and future relationship. I've pointed out that his 'testing' logic is flawed, because he can't divorce her and test the relationship he has, only the relationship that evolves after all the dust has settled, after the machines of marriage war (infidelity, polygraphs, divorce) have done their work.

[Clay]

OP,

I feel horrible for you. I have tried to stay away from your thread. It just cuts to close to home for me. I had those same talks. I sadly in the end was not as strong as you clearly are. It took me years to finally put a stop to it all. It was incredibly painful. My only regret is that I did not do it sooner. My kids deserved better.

 

I think your going in the right direction. I know you still love her and care for her but I caution you on having any kind of a relationship with her. She knew what she was doing and she knew it would kill you to be betrayed like that. I think you deserve better.

 

My xW continued to cheat on the other men she has been with. Some people never change. In fact for some of them it just gets easier and easier to do.

 

I think you will find your alot happier once this divorce is over. I know its hard to believe but once your clear from it you will really start to see all the things you gave up to keep her happy and all the ways you changed about yourself to make the marriage work.

 

Clay

[81West]

Is her response to the polygraph request really that telling? I'd sob too if my marriage had devolved to this, particularly if it was my actions that had precipitated the crisis. And I think it's pretty normal to be nervous about the process and about results no matter what the truth is.

 

Free e-book on Polygraph reliability:

 

https://antipolygraph.org/lie-behind-the-lie-detector.pdf

 

No idea how rigorous the research or arguments are, but it's there for those who are interested.

[Friskyone4u]

Just curious 81 West??

 

What is your alternative suggestion. just take her word for everything????

 

No problem with honest concerns about poly but how about some suggestion other than suck it up and hope

[81West]

Just curious 81 West??

 

What is your alternative suggestion. just take her word for everything????

 

No problem with honest concerns about poly but how about some suggestion other than suck it up and hope

 

This does not remotely reflect any point I made. I only suggested that her reaction to the request is not necessarily indicative of guilt regarding a PA. Her reactions seem like normal reactions to me that neither support guilt nor innocence. I'm not sure why a PA is even the greater assumption at this point. This OM guy is single. Does he live alone? If so, where is the support for a PA near certainty when their stolen moments apparently happen at coffee shops and shopping malls? I don't remotely know whether they had sex, but I do know that what we know concretely doesn't add much to that argument.

[66Charger]

If you are drowning in the ocean and someone throws you a lifeline, you are going to swim happily and with relief to it. If you are drowning in the ocean and someone throws you a shark, you will scream, cry, fight, turn pale and try to swim away.

 

1 + 1 = 2

[81West]

There are 6 billion 'yous' in the world, and that allows for more than one response to, well, everything. None of us know exactly why she reacted the way she did, and all any of us have are assumptions that may or may not apply. As in everything in life, you have to know what you don't know.

[eric1]

My 'laboured' point is pretty clear and, frankly, pretty unarguable. Divorce is generally exceedingly hard on marriage. My time on this thread has nothing to do with expectations I have of what the OP should be doing or what I think he should do. In fact I haven't expressed my personal opinion at all, which is that they probably should in fact divorce, for both of their sakes. I and others have only advised caution if the poster's own words on being open to reconciliation matter to him, because his own decisions now can equally impact the current and future relationship. I've pointed out that his 'testing' logic is flawed, because he can't divorce her and test the relationship he has, only the relationship that evolves after all the dust has settled, after the machines of marriage war (infidelity, polygraphs, divorce) have done their work.

 

Ultimately this discussion is boiling down to semantics, and the irony is that I think everyone agrees on the outcome and path here.

 

The dialogue that folks are having here is probably one that Zinger is having in how own head right now as well and is probably helpful for him to see... his mind is a maelstrom of junk right now and it's tough to see the difference between nuance and indecision.

 

Right now her taking a polygraph is kind of like cleaning your house after you've sold it. It's sold so you don't need to clean it further, but if it makes you feel better...then knock yourself out.

[eric1]

There are 6 billion 'yous' in the world, and that allows for more than one response to, well, everything. None of us know exactly why she reacted the way she did, and all any of us have are assumptions that may or may not apply. As in everything in life, you have to know what you don't know.

 

It's overwhelmingly likely that a negative response to a polygraph is due to an assumed trickle truth/lie. Everyone understands the imperfections of the poly. The reason that the poly is used is to wrangle our parking lot confessions and to judge reactions.

 

Zinger knows his wife better than we do, we can only assume that by her going white and physically shutting down that he is in the best position to understand what that means in the full context of her personality.

[sandylee1]

I have to say the whole running to family would piss me off. Trying to get my loved ones to make me back down would add to my anger

[eric1]

I have to say the whole running to family would piss me off. Trying to get my loved ones to make me back down would add to my anger

 

It's manipulation plain and simple.

 

What would piss me off most is *her* family contacting me. THEY raised a person who went out and had an affair. Granted it's not all on them, but to not look in the mirror and instead of putting the press on good ol Zinger figure out how they contributed to this disaster.

[Clay]

It's manipulation plain and simple.

 

What would piss me off most is *her* family contacting me. THEY raised a person who went out and had an affair. Granted it's not all on them, but to not look in the mirror and instead of putting the press on good ol Zinger figure out how they contributed to this disaster.

 

This is exactly what happened to me when I kicked my xW out. They called me and said its my fault I pushed her to sleep with other men. I just told them if they believed that then they were just as messed up as she was and they never need to call back.

 

In truth her mother was just like her daughter. She cheated on her husband all the time. I just hoped it would have never went the way it did but some of that is my fault for staying.

 

I think OP's smart for keeping this lined out. I know I was a wreck through it all and I did keep the kids so that made life real interesting.

 

Clay

[81West]

I have to say the whole running to family would piss me off. Trying to get my loved ones to make me back down would add to my anger

 

Of course she's going to turn to family and friends for advice and perspective. She's in the middle of a personal crisis and her husband effectively sees her as the enemy. He can't claim any right to any kind of privacy when his unwavering plan has been to involve lawyers, judges, clerks, and polygraph examiners in their lives.

[eric1]

Of course she's going to turn to family and friends for advice and perspective. She's in the middle of a personal crisis and her husband effectively sees her as the enemy. He can't claim any right to any kind of privacy when his unwavering plan has been to involve lawyers, judges, clerks, and polygraph examiners in their lives.

 

It's been great chatting with you, Mrs. Zinger!

[drifter777]

This does not remotely reflect any point I made. I only suggested that her reaction to the request is not necessarily indicative of guilt regarding a PA. Her reactions seem like normal reactions to me that neither support guilt nor innocence. I'm not sure why a PA is even the greater assumption at this point. This OM guy is single. Does he live alone? If so, where is the support for a PA near certainty when their stolen moments apparently happen at coffee shops and shopping malls? I don't remotely know whether they had sex, but I do know that what we know concretely doesn't add much to that argument.

You can't be serious about this (bolded). First of all, if she was innocent why didn't she set up the polygraph on her own? Or do absolutely anything to prove her innocence of having sex with OM? Let's say she didn't think of it - then the suggestion should have been met with "Yes! Great idea! When can we go so I can prove my innocence?"

 

Look, there may be reasons that none of us BS's can think of or understand as to why she reacted to the news of the poly as if it were a death sentence. We can only go on our experiences and common sense knowledge about WS behavior. Whether you or anyone happens to believe in the accuracy of the polygraph it is the best tool available. It's been proven that torture, like water-boarding - is not at all reliable for getting at the truth. This is really the only option that zinger has and he's be a fool for not using it. Getting to the truth of the sex is VITAL for him. If it was "only" emotional dependance and the lying he may be able to attempt reconciliation at some point. Knowing she had sex with him makes his decision easier and will fuel his resolve to divorce and move forward with his life. Yes, I've labored this point and it seems as though zinger agrees with it.

[81West]

It's been great chatting with you, Mrs. Zinger!

 

Nobody is doing the OP any favours by cheering on irrational interpretations of his wife's actions. Anybody with even an average amount of Emotional Intelligence should understand why this situation has led to her reaching out to friends and family for perspective/advice/comfort/help/whatever. She's made a terrible judgement that she appears to regret and her husband has effectively been a brick wall. He's made his assessment of the situation and chosen a course, and that's fine. But you expect her to keep running into the brick wall over and over again? That's absurd.

[Clay]

Nobody is doing the OP any favours by cheering on irrational interpretations of his wife's actions. Anybody with even an average amount of Emotional Intelligence should understand why this situation has led to her reaching out to friends and family for perspective/advice/comfort/help/whatever. She's made a terrible judgement that she appears to regret and her husband has effectively been a brick wall. He's made his assessment of the situation and chosen a course, and that's fine. But you expect her to keep running into the brick wall over and over again? That's absurd.

 

What you need to understand is its not her decision. Its Zingers. She already made her choice and now its up to him if he wants to stay with her. It doesn't matter what kind of remorse she shows its still his call.

 

He has already stated what he plans on doing. Might want to focus your energy on helping them both have some kind of a amicable split instead of fighting for them to stay together.

 

Clay

[81West]

You can't be serious about this (bolded). First of all, if she was innocent why didn't she set up the polygraph on her own? Or do absolutely anything to prove her innocence of having sex with OM? Let's say she didn't think of it - then the suggestion should have been met with "Yes! Great idea! When can we go so I can prove my innocence?"

 

Look, there may be reasons that none of us BS's can think of or understand as to why she reacted to the news of the poly as if it were a death sentence. We can only go on our experiences and common sense knowledge about WS behavior. Whether you or anyone happens to believe in the accuracy of the polygraph it is the best tool available. It's been proven that torture, like water-boarding - is not at all reliable for getting at the truth. This is really the only option that zinger has and he's be a fool for not using it. Getting to the truth of the sex is VITAL for him. If it was "only" emotional dependance and the lying he may be able to attempt reconciliation at some point. Knowing she had sex with him makes his decision easier and will fuel his resolve to divorce and move forward with his life. Yes, I've labored this point and it seems as though zinger agrees with it.

 

There are legion threads all over the internet started by innocent spouses worried about reliability who are hesitant to take a polygraph test, for obvious reasons. There are people who are hesitant because it's emotionally cutting for them to be asked. There are innocent people who hesitate because they're fundamentally anxious and are prone to expect doom around every corner. For those people it would be even harder hard to trust the process, or themselves in it. There are innocent people who fear and resist the shame of being in the situation and having their personal lives and their poor judgement exposed to a stranger this way. And there are of course guilty people who are afraid of getting caught. I have no idea what the likelihood of any of these possibilities are (and neither do most of us, I expect) but I do know that there are probably more reasons to not be eager to do a polygraph if you are innocent, than there are if you're guilty. If you're guilty there's probably only one reason you don't want to do it.

 

What you call 'common sense' seems to me to in fact be a general failure of empathy on this thread. Nobody is putting themselves in the WW's shoes and imagining the situation from her perspective. Empathy is not sympathy. You don't have to 'like' her one bit. You can fully believe all this has been brought on by herself and is all perfectly wise and appropriate and still make an effort to see how things might look and feel from her eyes. And I can personally guarantee you from comparable life experience (not related to cheating or polygraphs mind) that not everybody is going to offer to do a polygraph or be thrilled to embrace one, and that is not always going to be related to guilt.

[81West]

What you need to understand is its not her decision. Its Zingers. She already made her choice and now its up to him if he wants to stay with her. It doesn't matter what kind of remorse she shows its still his call.

 

He has already stated what he plans on doing. Might want to focus your energy on helping them both have some kind of a amicable split instead of fighting for them to stay together.

 

Clay

 

There is a serious and apparently contagious issue with comprehension of my thoughts on this thread. I apologize if I've contributed to that, and if and when I've been unclear. I would ask thought that people make a greater effort to read and understand my actual words rather than their own interpretation of them. We all just want to contribute something useful to the OP as we see it, and that becomes harder to do when you have to spend time defending something you never said and don't feel.

[eric1]

Nobody is doing the OP any favours by cheering on irrational interpretations of his wife's actions. Anybody with even an average amount of Emotional Intelligence should understand why this situation has led to her reaching out to friends and family for perspective/advice/comfort/help/whatever. She's made a terrible judgement that she appears to regret and her husband has effectively been a brick wall. He's made his assessment of the situation and chosen a course, and that's fine. But you expect her to keep running into the brick wall over and over again? That's absurd.

 

And even a person of average emotional intelligence should understand that running to the family on both sides to build a case isn't fixing anything with Zinger, it's trying to beat him over the head with something that he does not agree with.

 

Rather than getting family to call him, perhaps she would have been better served thousands of other things more effective including:

• doing the least amount of research on the web and coming to the conclusion that literally every infidelity site lists a polygraph as a pretty important trust-building step. She could have suggested one without Zinger having to ask for one
  
• Recovering all of the text that was sent to her boyfriend without Zinger having to pick and choose it from half deleted files.
  
• Providing a timeline, along with forensically-recovered texts, to assure Zinger that this was never a physical affair and that it truly was just a "motherly" relationship". Again, 42 seconds of googling will bring you to 10 sites, and each one will suggest the betrayed spouse get a timeline as one of the first five steps.
  
• Knowing that Zinger was hurt, had relocated out of the house and at a very sensitive time, ask him if he thought that involving the family at this step was something where he thought would be a positive step for the family.
  
• Also knowing that Zinger was at a bad time, asking any of her confidants to keep their discussions between themselves, since this was a problem between him and her.
  

[merrmeade]

There is a serious and apparently contagious issue with comprehension of my thoughts on this thread. I apologize if I've contributed to that, and if and when I've been unclear. I would ask thought that people make a greater effort to read and understand my actual words rather than their own interpretation of them. We all just want to contribute something useful to the OP as we see it, and that becomes harder to do when you have to spend time defending something you never said and don't feel.

No, actually I don't think I disagree with you. That's about as committal as I can get though!

 

I like your position better than conjecture. It's total anathema. Truth. Facts. Proof. That is what you make life decisions on and I just can't get a grasp on what WE know. And with zinger's frame of mind waffling so, I can't get a grasp on what he actually knows, understands and can apply effectively. Hence, I withdrew many pages ago from taking a stand.

 

What I will say that I can agree with is that without the truth, facts, proof— zinger, myself, other OPs are forced to make decisions on the basis of our spouses' accountability, their ability and willingness to acknowledge our injury, their unlimited and unconditional commitment to provide what's needed to fix the breach, their buy-in to own the long-term after-effects. And I'm not sure I can advise him or anyone else there either.

 

Just sayin' I don't like the extreme positions either way. Who here can be so sure they're right?