SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi. It’s me again. Just an update and it isn’t good. H asked for a final timeline and it took me forever to get it done as I kept putting it off. He put the pressure on me to do it so I started on it a few weeks ago. We were talking the other night & I told him how, regarding this TL, I can’t remember certain things. One was ‘did OM & I kiss in my vehicle at his work parking lot or was it at a park we met at?’. Originally I told H that we never were in the car together at all. So he had to ask me three times about the truth and I told him...that it was in the car in both locations. He knew we kissed in both locations, just not in the vehicle. I finished the TL and we sat down to discuss it last Sunday. There was some new info on there but the “meat & potatoes” were the same. I had emailed the TL to him and he asked to see the original, handwritten draft. I lied and said that I threw them away when I had actually saved them. Under the threat of going thru the trash outside, I admitted that I had them. There were several differences in the two drafts and now I’m currently not in our bedroom. I wanted to take my own poly and did it yesterday even tho H said not too. He wanted to be the one to handle that. I passed the poly regarding questions that I thought H wanted to know but I mainly did it for myself. So I guess now I’m kinda lost.

[This message edited by Flowergirl50 at 6:07 PM, November 25th (Wednesday)]

[This message edited by Flowergirl50 at 12:07 AM, Thursday, November 26th]

Hi Flowergirl150,

Why did you put off the timeline? Why was it hard for you to remember details? Why did you lie about the original draft? And finally, why did you not listen to him about the poly?

The answers might be something like - you don't want to see his negative reaction to the details or you go in a shame spiral when you start remembering. I think it will help you see what your deeper issues are if you figure out what and why you are avoiding these things.

When I was avoiding telling my husband details of the affair or lying about them it was because I didn't want to deal with his reaction and because when I was out of the affair brain I could see the sordidness. Staying in the affair brain made it not seem sordid.

When I finally wanted to get to the bottom of everything, the timeline wasn't easy to do. I did it mostly in one day but took breaks, did some yardwork, took walks, then went back to it. (There wasn't wine involved but I would say if that's not a problem for you then it couldn't hurt to have a glass or two.) I wanted it to be thorough. It wasn't to appease my husband but because I wanted to have everything out in the open, no secrets, no feeling of dread that he would find something out that I had forgot. I also wanted all the pieces of the puzzle so my IC could help me see patterns and help me figure out where my thinking was warped. Can you get to the point where you think that the timeline will be helpful to you, not just to him?

[This message edited by Pippin at 2:18 PM, November 25th (Wednesday)]

Flowergirl50, we removed the Stop Sign as you requested. Betrayed Spouses are now allowed to respond.

Flowergirl,

It is often said around here that it is not the actual infidelity that kills the relationship, but the lies.....during and after.

But it isn't really the lies. It is the total lack of regard and respect that is shown to the betrayed. When it is shown, time and time again, that a wayward's self-preservation is more important than being honest and letting their partner make REAL decisions for themselves, they finally start to believe what they are seeing.....not what they are hearing.

One of Pippin's questions was why did you override your husband and take a poly? You took what may have been one of his most trust-building methods that he planned to use later, and degraded it. It was MORE IMPORTANT for you to get that passed result that you knew you would get(you are the only one who has all of the information), than it was to let your husband handle on his own timeline.

I passed the poly regarding questions that I thought H wanted to know but I mainly did it for myself.

Continue this path, and you will get exactly what you expect.

As a BH, I agree with jb3199.

My WW’s A’s destroyed me, but the long lasting damage is the TT, gaslighting and minimizing that occurred in my case. I never understood it. It was all out, I knew she had these relationships, slept with two men that weren’t her husband, the basics. What I didn’t have was the details. I wanted them, and for my WW who said she would do anything to save our marriage still decided to drag her feet, not engage, and admit to everything I could prove.

I can tell you from direct experience, my WW’s actions post dday were extremely damaging and did cause more problems than the actual A’s.

I wanted to take my own poly and did it yesterday even tho H said not too. He wanted to be the one to handle that. I passed the poly regarding questions that I thought H wanted to know but I mainly did it for myself. So I guess now I’m kinda lost.

You're lost?? Seriously?

Come on. He specifically asked you not to take it. HE wanted to arrange it with an administrator he felt was reputable. HE wanted to choose the questions. And you completely disregarded his wishes. You completely thumbed your nose at him and did it anyway. YOU decided for him,and chose the questions you thought he would want. Once again, you are choosing for him like you did when you cheated and when you TT'd him. It was so incredibly disrespectful. All you did was make things worse. I don't see how you didn't know that.

If I were your BS, I would see this as you continuing to control what he needs to know. You deciding what he deserves to know. I would believe there were still lies you are telling him.

Money is tight for many people right now. I hope you didn't spend money he was going to spend on the polygraph when he was ready.

Your husband has learned 2 things about you from the events you described.

(1) You’re still lying. Your first response is always to lie unless he backs you into a corner and makes it impossible for you not to. He knows that you will never voluntarily offer him the truth.

(2) What he wants and needs means nothing to you. You will do whatever you think is best even if it hurts him.

I don’t think you’re doing this out of a misguided fear of losing him; obviously, he’s still with you, he comes on here to defend you. You play these games with him because you’re not worried about him leaving; your #1 concern is covering your ass and staying in control.

You will know when you’re close to losing him when instead of threatening to go through the trash in search of your discarded timeline that he shrugs his shoulders and says he doesn’t care anymore because he’s DONE.

So I’m going to repeat my advice from your last thread.

(1) Stop lying.

(2) If he tells you not to do something, don’t do it. If he tells you to do something, do it. Don’t stop and think. Don’t try to figure out how to weasel out of it or how to do it on your own terms.

That is the absolute *bare minimum* you need to do to stay married. Eventually, you will need to be more proactive, but my advice is some place to start.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:19 PM, November 26th (Thursday)]

Flowergirl you have already hurt your husband like a lot of others are saying the TT/lies hurt more than the affair.

You have already given your husband a jab in the gut and he is doubled over with your multiple affairs. Each TT/lies are basically a continuous amount of cross/jab punches and your husband is barely conscious. Just give him the truth so he can have his K.O. and maybe wake up and heal. A continuous amount of D-Days is basically another blow in the gut plus a slap across the face and he is injured again.

I wanted to take my own poly and did it yesterday even tho H said not too.

You need to give overall control to your husband. Don't do things that he is against or not ready for. Do NOT rush b/c that is basically rug sweeping.

[This message edited by BigNoob at 7:22 PM, November 26th (Thursday)]

Your whole post screams regret without an ounce of remorse. There’s a huge, very noticeable difference between the two.

The poly is useless when you’re the one crafting the questions that you know you can pass. It’s completely meaningless.

It seems like you still want to control the outcome. I think many waywards make the mistake of thinking they’re the ones in control after dday. Some of the betrayed don’t realize how very untrue that is. A lot do. You BH will likely realize that sooner than later. What then?

Until you can stop lying and thinking only of yourself, you’ll stay lost. An affair is bad enough. Knowing you’re not respected enough to be told the truth kills a lot and it’s extremely difficult to ever come back from that.

You will know when you’re close to losing him when instead of threatening to go through the trash in search of your discarded timeline that he shrugs his shoulders and says he doesn’t care anymore because he’s DONE.

Ask me how I know......

FG,

Perhaps imagine you're telling someone, not your BH, a close friend or therapist a complete narrative of your affair. Add those details to the timeline as if your BH would never read it.

Accept that your BH has a right to divorce or forgive you based on the facts.

When you say the "meat and potatoes are the same" it sounds like you are avoiding some objectionable facts. Small sexual details are critical to men if you said you had one orgasm but had two that is enormous.

giving the meat and potatoes leaves out a lot of detail.

where was the meal consumed, how was the size of the

portions, was the food served hot, was the food plated

artistically, any garnish, table linens, silverware and crystal

or stainless and regular glasses.

the list can go much farther. as said the devil is in the details.

Particularly in the sexual domain, add exhaustive detail. Far more than you think is necessary. This helps eliminate the shared private intimacy that still exists between only you and OM.

Stop only when your H says it’s enough.

I know it doesn’t feel that way, but in terms of WS you are actually in a good position. In many cases, mine included, the sexual aspects of the affair are just too much to overcome. Nothing, and I mean nothing, that my EX could do would ever have fixed us. I was just too focused on the sexual aspect, and how it took place.

You however are in a different place. Your BS is looking for just about anything that can fix this. He wants the marriage to work. Most of all he wants honesty and respect. Something that you are failing miserably at providing. This post reeks of hostility towards him. HE made you do a timeline, HE pushed you when something that should have taken a couple of days took weeks. What about YOU jumping on something that could help heal the marriage?

I see the meat and potatoes as something different than others here. I see it as you sticking to your lies about the things you feel would hurt him the most, while giving in on a few little things that you think he could accept. This is classic TT. The fact you omitted things from the drafts, then lied about them to begin with, makes this document worthless in his eyes. How is he supposed to believe anything it says.

The lie detector test is another thing that can’t be trusted. Maybe you asked if you had sex with anyone. We know that you don’t consider a guy taking your top off and pleasuring you there as sex. We know you don’t think a guy doing the same thing and getting you off with his hand as sex. Maybe you don’t consider giving a blow job as sex either. In that case you might have passed. Or you could have phrased the questions in a way you would not be lying. For example saying you didn’t have sex with X, which you might not have, but not asking about 3 other guys you did. The poly is worthless and you never should have gone against his wishes. What were you thinking. It had to be done right away, when the timeline took weeks?

I for the life of me after the way you have disrespected him can’t figure out why he still wants it to work. Go look at the threads in general about how a BS feels when the WS does things with their AP they refused their BS. Pages upon pages. Read about the damage lying about the affair does, or bringing your AP into the home. Read about how a BS feels when they find out how you made fun of them or complained about them to your AP. You did all this, yet he is still there trying to help you save the marriage.

You need to wake up quickly. He has given you a window, but my guess it’s starting to close. You say you now love him, which btw I find hard to believe, you need to start showing it.

I understand what everyone is saying and I am trying to mend things with him. I have nothing I can say in defense for anyone here nor do I want to “defend” myself...I can’t. I have ruined something beautiful.

Flowergirl,

I am sure I will get blasted for my opinion here but I'm a big boy and can take the heat. Yes you fucked up a whole bunch of things, but there have been WW on here who have done a hell of a lot worse.

Yes you've been trying to control the outcome, yes you have TT'd your ass off, yes you've lied ,but I'd ask how many WW come on here and claim that came clean from day 1 and were the perfect WW. Actually, I won't get into it ,but my WW came about as close to anyone as doing everything right from the beginning. But that's not important here.

How many BH wallow endlessly in limbo for days, months, and even years, but RESIST the suggestion given over and over again to demand a polygraph. How many WW actually take the initiative to want to do it?? not the majority and we get all the bull shit about reliability and a million other excuses not to do it asap.

So a test used by federal government security agencies and major corporations all over the country at the recommendation of consultants being paid millions is supposedly less reliable than chasing phone recovery systems that rarely work to produce anything meaningful, or relying on the word of someone who has deceived to you a thousand times is nothing but encouraging more TT, which does the real damage.

So yes, you should have maybe told him you were going to do it, and ASKED him for the questions, or told him you needed to prove to him what you were saying on the timeline ( whichever one he finally got) was correct and truthful. In my opinion to men BH vascilate on the polygraph because they are still in denial and really do not want the truth because that may force them to make a decision.

So yes, you did a LOT of shit wrong. No quarrel with anyone who pointed that out to you, but I applaud you for for whatever reason wanting to proceed directly to the best possible way to determine the TRUTH available for someone in your situation.

And by the way, there is nothing in the constitution that says he cannot formulate his own questions and have you do another one. He says he wanted to do it. There is nothing stopping him from going right ahead.

Now learn from your fuck ups and if he wants the truth, let him go get it .

[This message edited by BeyondRage at 9:37 AM, November 28th (Saturday)]

FG - if you think you're going to "save" yourself or him by withholding, you're doing EXACTLY the opposite.

Your BH needs to know what he wants to know to HEAL. You're denying him that and you're digging the lack of trust hole deeper by the mile with each lie you tell.

As much as the information hurts the BH to hear, eventually they will get some foothold of trust, at least in that you came clean. Under duress of the situation, anyone's mind can choke and mess up the details or confuse them. But you have repeatedly MADE THE CHOICE TIME AND AGAIN TO LIE.

Pretty sure that's how you got into this mess. If you think you're going to get out of this the same way you came in, you're not mature enough for a marriage.

Put on your big girl pants and tell him everything. Yes, he could leave, but he will sure as heck leave if he doesn't think he'll ever be able to trust you - right now, you're cementing that idea for him. You seriously need counseling/therapy to deal with your own lack of self respect. Hoping you get it.

What about YOU jumping on something that could help heal the marriage?

TBH, I'd change "marriage" to "YOU".

Giving a timeline is just as important for a WS' recovery as a BS. Writing it down, LOOKING at it all, the gory details, the bad choices, etc. That is something the WS MUST face, fearlessly. The sooner the WS can do that, the sooner they can begin to repair.

As long as you cannot face every single effing awful detail of the decisions you made, you are not a safe partner - for ANYONE, and not even safe for yourself.

This isn't "for" the BS.... it's "for" both.

Even if the BS did not want a timeline, the WS still needs to do one, and needs to do it on paper (not just "in their mind", which is likely still not thinking very honestly or with solid lens to healing), and needs to do it sooner vs later. Even if the BS NEVER even looks at it (which is their choice), the WS will gain insight and progress in their recovery and change.

Just my $0.02

ETA:

Pretty sure that's how you got into this mess. If you think you're going to get out of this the same way you came in, you're not mature enough for a marriage.

I agree

[This message edited by gmc94 at 2:30 PM, November 28th, 2020 (Saturday)]

Gently the person you are hiding from isn't so much your BS - it's YOU. Your BS sees you - beyond what you could even imagine. You're not kidding him.

There are many BS's here, myself included, who wanted so badly for their WS's to just show them that the infidelity was a blip rather than a deep chasm in their psyche. Each lie, each omission (i.e., taking months to do a timeline and then saying you don't remember the activities), each lack of action screams at a BS that their WS is completely different than they knew or hoped to know. It won't bode well for you in the short or long run. The rebuilding can only happen if you are honest with yourself so you can be honest with your BS.

Are you in individual therapy?

[This message edited by ISurvivedSoFar at 3:31 PM, November 28th (Saturday)]

[This message edited by ISurvivedSoFar at 9:31 PM, Saturday, November 28th]

ISSF or OP: did I miss something?

Is flowergirl's BH also a WH (ie are they MH)? Just kind of confused by the references in ISSF's post to WH whom I thought was a BH....