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I had been having 3 affairs. Not all at the same time. 2 of them were no contact, either by phone or computer. 1 was with a co-worker. I never had sex with any of them. 2 of them we exchanged x-rated photos and videos. When my wife found out about this, she was crushed, hurt everything negative you can think of. On multiple occasions I said I had told her everything and hadn't. At this point, I have told her everything. The D-Day was a few years ago, we are still working on making the marriage work. She is in counseling, we were doing couples counseling and I had been seeing a counselor. I am trying to rebuild the trust and have her believe that she does know everything that I had done. Too many times of me lying has caused her not to believe me now. Any advice is welcome. Thank you.

[This message edited by Wolfpack1 at 6:00 AM, Friday, September 8th]

Really basic advice is to make sure that you take a detailed inventory of all the events of your affairs and make sure your wife has the whole truth.

She deserves to know the whole truth, nothing but the truth. You also need to find the resolve to stop lying to everyone about everything. If you are anything like me, I found after the fact that I would lie and exaggerate things to put myself in a more favorable light in casual conversations. For example, in 2019, for the first half of the year, I was still deep in my EA and also while going through a weight loss journey. As people at work or at the gym would remark about how much I had lost (I went from about 290 down to 220 over the course of the year), but I would always tell people that seeing the scale start with a 3, as in 300, was the wake up call I needed to change course. Sure, I only lied about 10 or so pounds, but I told that lie over and over, and eventually it became I was well over 300 lbs and I needed to lose. You may be thinking, but why tell that stupid lie? The answer is, I really don't know why I thought it necessary to lie about how heavy I had been compared to the present moment.

At present, I'm on another fitness journey of sorts, as I had gotten too heavy, but this time around it has a health component as one of my primary issues is Celiac Disease and cutting gluten out of my diet has made a tremendous difference in my weight but also my overall health. I swore off social media following my EA and I nuked my accounts. Earlier this year, after having heard so much about TikTok, I downloaded the app, signed up and I use it. I'm careful about who I follow and interact with, but I also use my TikTok account for accountability. I post accurate weigh-in videos, workouts, etc. I mean, there is no incentive to lie and even if I did, I'm holding myself accountable to not lying with some of my closet friends also calling me on my bullshit.

It sounds really easy and simple for me to tell you that the best advice we can give you to rebuilding trust with your wife is to stop lying, but that is really all there is too it. Tell her the truth, be open and honest with her about every detail. Show your wife that you are an open book to her and you have absolutely zero secrets. My wife took my phone and rifled through it the other day for 30 mins or more while I was playing video games and watching TV in the other room. I don't give two shits what she does on my phone because there is nothing there to hide, there are no instant messages or private messages from anyone on any platform or service that she is going to find that I'm hiding. During my A years, I wouldn't even let my phone leave my sight, let alone hand it to my wife and walk away from it like I do now. I must say, looking back on it and comparing it to now, I used to have tremendous anxiety whenever my phone would beep/buzz at the wrong time and getting asked "who is that?" and all those things, now I don't ever worry about any of that and it is tremendously freeing.

[This message edited by Bor9455 at 2:50 PM, Monday, September 11th]

Bor9455, thank you for the advice. I have quit lying to my wife, she does now know the complete truth. We are still working on ourselves and together to make this work.

I saw a website on lying the other day and it helped me understand myself better: nirandfar contains more info.

- when i lied to my spouse about the facts of my affair i was being deceitful
- when i lied to myself about the facts of my affair i was delusional
- when i lied about my values to my spouse i was being duplicitous
- when i lied about my values to myself I was demoralised.

So you are trying to make her "believe that she does know everything that you have done"

Why do you want her to believe you? Sometimes my spouse asks me the same question many times - and when my answers are always consistent then she begins to trust and overtime she asks less questions.

I think the bigger question we need to work through is why INTEGRITY is not one of our core values?

For me I am trying to make sure that I dont lie anymore.

Im trying to make sure that i dont hide, minimise or exagerate what happens in my day. (facts)
Im trying to be more consistent with living in integrity. (values)

So when i make committments about what I will do or where I will be at specific times I make sure that I consistently meet those commitments. when i don't I lack integrity.

If your wife is still asking questions then perhaps the best thing to do is to show empathy. carol sheets has a great workbook called helping her heal that will help you communicate more effectively with your wife. one way might be to thank her for the question, acknowledge that it was wrong for you to trickle-truth to her and you validate her feelings by understanding that the TT makes her doubt your confession and then reassure her that she has your complete timeline. and then offer to do a lie detector test. (and if you cannot do the lie detector then you probably tell her the rest of your infidelity as well)

and FYI do you think that because you "never had sex with them" that makes it less bad. the reality is that everytyhing you and i did with others online, visual or just in writing told our wives that they were not enough and they dont feel safe being vulnerable/intimate with the person who makes them believe that about themselves. so our job now is to help them change their beliefs about themselves and us and unfortunately it takes consistent and loving behaviour over a long time for that to occur.

all the best with that journey - one day at a time.

I have quit lying to my wife, she does now know the complete truth. We are still working on ourselves and together to make this work.

The first person that you have to stop lying to you is yourself. Once you change your own internal monologue and your self-talk, than you can focus on stopping your lying ways to yes, your wife is an important one, but everyone else in your life. I think lying to others is a behavior that often comes from a deep place of shame and a feeling like we aren't good enough or we don't belong. We are social creatures and we want to fit in, it is baked into our DNA as a desire. However, some of us are not really comfortable with being who we really are and so we put on a front and some of that may result in us lying. I think for me, the biggest thing that has kept me from lying is a total love and acceptance for who I am and rather than running from it...running towards it.

I'm a former college athlete who is now way past his prime physically from the days I used to have athletic prowess! I'm an absolute nerd. I earned two different bachelor's degrees during my time in undergrad, one in chemistry the other in biochemistry with two minors, one in Spanish and the other in mathematics. I'm a diehard sports and video game fan. If I'm not watching sports, I'm either playing sports in the real world (less and less these days) or I'm playing Madden or NBA2K on my PS5. My side hobbies are smart home tech and technology in general. I drive a modest vehicle (2019 Chevy Equinox) and while I certainly an fortunate enough to afford a newer and fancier vehicle, I only upgraded to a 2019 after my 2001 Ford Taurus was totaled out in an accident a year ago. Where I work, company leadership drive far fancier cars and I get shit from my colleagues for not driving a fancy, imported car like so many of them.

I write the above paragraph to point out that yeah, I'm a nerd and I own it. It is who I am and it feels great to own it and live it every day. People are going to judge you rightly or wrongly for all sorts of shit, like the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, or any of that other shit. The only people that those things should matter to are you and your loved ones. Own who you are, be who you are and live your life as the most authentic version of yourself you can be and the honesty will come.

Thank you all for your replies and advice. I am now truthful with myself and my wife. I have written a timeline and honestly answer any questions she has for me. We try and talk each night or every other night, sometimes every 3 night. I try and initiate the conversations. I tell her of my work, what I am learning and how it makes me try to change. I am now a stronger person, I don't worry as much as I use to how people might see me. I am truthful with everyone 9n a daily basis. We are still working together and are trying to make our marriage great.

So, I continue to check in on this site and read most of the threads that I think will help me. I have re-read the advice given to me in this thread multiple times. I have been living my life being truthful to her and others. Her and I have talks about my affairs and I tell her how I have grown. I answer her questions. She is still believing that she does not know everything. She doesn't want to hear me say, there is nothing else, because of all the previous lies I told her. I sometimes feel that I'm at a loss and not sure of what else to do. I do continue to do my own work and talk with my wife, in depth about our relationship. I guess I am asking for ideas to help with her healing.

She is still believing that she does not know everything. She doesn't want to hear me say, there is nothing else, because of all the previous lies I told her. I sometimes feel that I'm at a loss and not sure of what else to do.

Ask yourself this, and the answer is for you and her, but does she really truly know everything? Have you constructed a written timeline of your affairs? You mentioned in your original post there were three of them total. Can you give her rough estimates of time, say like August 2020 to June 2021 you were in contact with AP#1? Has she asked for specific details that you are either unable to recall (it is possible) or more likely that you are ashamed to share with her? That is a question that only you can honestly answer. Being the WS brings with it a lot of shame and guilt, but don't try to hide or minimize further shame "to protect her" when what you are really doing is covering your own ass. I'm not saying that you are doing that, but again, only you can do that deep self-reflection and see if you are being honest with a) yourself and b) your BW.

Have you done the work to figure out why you allowed yourself to have these affairs? Have you shared some of your insights from your work on this with her? The reality is that her whole world has been turned upside down and she cannot feel reasonably safe in any relationship with you until she gets an understanding that it won't happen again, but if she is still worried she doesn't know the full story of "it", she is going to struggle to even consider the next steps.

I mean, I started my post thinking that a recommendation for timeline would be a "nice to have" but I think just thinking through what you asked, that a written timeline is almost a "must have" in order for you and your wife to be on the same page about what you are asking her to forgive. The work of constructing the timeline may do you a bit of good in jogging the memory of events that you otherwise would've forgotten or details that seemed irrelevant. In the General forum, there was a post about "not remembering" or "I can't remember" and it brought up a fascinating example of how a detail that seems irrelevant to a WS is everything to a BS. I thought that discussion point was a very illuminating thing when you think about the differences a BS and WS have when looking at the aftermath of an A.

Wolfie,

our betrayed spouses are responsible for their own healing. We can contribute to that healing in positive or negative ways.

some positive things:
- proactively sharing with them our fears and failures
- not getting frustrated when being asked the same old questions
- not being defensive
- not minimising our historical actions
- sharing feelings
- speaking truth always
- working out the why for my adultery

some negative things:
- living a life that contains secrets (sexual or non-sexual)
- trying to control what my wife thinks or feels
- avoiding and letting wife initiate hard discussions
- being passive aggressive
- having no boundaries.

So - maybe get your wifes assessment of your behaviour - positive and negative and importance for her and then do those things.

There was no stop sign on the thread, but there is on the OP comment. BS here so please disregard if unwelcome...

Being believable comes from dependable honesty. The number of years and number of times someone lies significantly affects how long it takes to become believable.

There is also a fear factor. That is the impact that believing a particular potential lie could have. In things relating to marriage and fidelity, one tends to keep their guard up until they are damn sure they are not going to get burned. Think years, not months.

If a BS is still listening to you speak, there has to be some glimmer of hope that you could be telling the truth, or that you could be worth the chance. IMHO, that should be enough. Now is no time for impatience. You've destroyed your believability and your current honesty is not an immediate fix.

I'm not suggesting that you are a bullshitter, but maybe this will help give you perspective... we all know someone who is a bullshitter. They've conditioned us to not believe anything they say. Rhetorically, what would they have to do and how long would it take before you believed everything they say?

Good luck. I wish you peace on this journey and hope your BS can appreciate the effort until your honesty is worthy of believability. If you rush it, it is worthless. If you earn it, it could take years, but could be priceless.

I don't post often but might be able to help here. First, when you're in a hole, stop digging. I understand you stopped the affair. Good first step. Second, counseling for you. Get to the bottom of your need to cheat, your need for external validation. That will help you get control of yourself, stop white knuckling no contact and seeking attention, and finally be a safe partner. I know you are in some MC and your wife is in IC, but I didn't see you in IC? Find one that specializes in infidelity.

You are starting at a terrible place to build trust, but it is possible to build it back to a point. She will never have blind trust again, not with you and maybe not with anyone. That is on you (on me too, btw). When a counselor asked my wife how much she trusted me, she said 5%. I was surprised she didn't say 0 or a negative number, but she gave it honest thought. She said because she knew I would never physically hurt her. That is where I began. You need to build a base of trust. Actions, not words. So, a few things if you aren't or haven't:

- Stop telling her you are telling her the truth. If anything, it makes it worse. Just tell the truth and where it involves you and if you can, have proof. (Save all history, texts, messages, activity, everything)

- Do the basics, make sure she has all your passwords and can get into any PC, phone, app, you have. Write them down with UserID and give them to her. Remove any app that doesn't log activity, that is a huge red flag and make sure she knows/agrees BEFORE you do it. Otherwise, it might look like you are hiding something. I see where you say you broke it off, but did you send a No Contact letter/email? If you haven't, do it. Let your wife read it and approve it BEFORE you send it. Make it definite, with firm wording that the affair is over and there will be no contact, either email, text, phone or in person. No matter what, stay NC! You've already severely damaged her self esteem, no need to keep taking shots at it. The impact is horrible, go read on here if you need to.

- It's been suggested you write a timeline, do it. Write any detail you can remember. Writing the timeline of the affair will help her start to make sense of what happened and when. As things line up or you can help her understand, she can start to feel some understanding of what happened. It will help you organize your thoughts and may result in additional information coming to the surface. If it does, make sure to tell her. I once wrote a poem for my wife when I found remorse. I gave it to her to read. But, I was nervous because I had also written a poem for the OW and when I went to give it to her, that memory triggered. I only remembered what it was about and a few of the words. So, I carefully mentioned I needed to tell her something. When I told her, she started to tear up a bit. She wasn't hurt but happy. She said that it was something I could have never told her and she wouldn't have known. It was a trust building moment. I never expected that reaction, so you never know.

- Anytime you leave the house, keep track of yourself like the police were tracking you for a major crime. I used to take a picture of my odometer in the driveway before I left and another one when I got to where I was with the destination in the background. The picture timestamp would provide that time proof. The odometer would show the correct mileage if she checked and I could positively prove where I was, when. She never asked for it, but I did it anyway.

Get prepared for a long road. If she is letting on that road at this point, cherish the probably final chance. Do the things you need to do like some of the above. Trust is key in any relationship. You owe it to your wife to become a safe partner. By safe, I mean stable, self image positive, and not needing outside validation. That is key to building the base of trust, being able to show remorse and take actions that say you understand the gravity of what you have done. I will tell you that through counseling, I slayed the self esteem/validation demon. I used to have such low self esteem even though I was a top contributor at work and given every tough issue to solve. To them, I was a can do, hard charging, results driven guy. But, I did it all because I was afraid of me as a kid. I was still looking at myself the way I did when I was young. I became a performance addict to get away from the fear of failure and being that kid. Also, that hole in my self esteem made me want to seek validation outside. However, I still made a conscious decision to do it. I never understood that part of me until I went to counseling. I had 3 counselors over a period of a little over a year. I finally was able to walk away from that little kid, look at myself normally. I still do lots of things, but I do them because I enjoy doing them and know I have the skill, not because I'm trying to prove something to myself. It's a world away from where I was 15 yrs ago. I am happy because I am settled. I don't feel that need, that draw to seek something that will only cause pain for a short term high. You owe yourself and whoever that as well. Actions, not words.
Good luck,
NWA

Welcome to SI Wolfpack1.

A few small things. First, I see that you registered back in August. While I'm sure the past few months have been difficult for you both, you should be aware that recovery from infidelity is something that takes... time. Years. We often estimate around 2-5 years of recovery before R can even really begin in earnest (and even then, things such as "trickle truth" can reset the clock back to zero every time it happens). I say this simply to set an expectation in your mind. The first year or two is often volatile and difficult even under the best of circumstances. So set your sights accordingly. You wouldn't expect to be jogging again a week after breaking your kneecap, and you shouldn't expect trust to be regained just months after infidelity. Setting an impossible standard for yourself and your spouse will only lead to more frustrations.

One of the traps we WS's tend to get ourselves into is thinking that there is something we can do, or say, to make everything better again. It doesn't work that way however. Imagine that someone mugged you, stabbed you, and left you for dead. Would you trust that person more if they made a really heartfelt apology to you? Probably not. Which leads me to a question for you... when someone apologizes for something they did, who do you think they doing it for? In other words, are they apologizing in hopes that it repair the damage done to the other person? Or are they hoping it will absolve them, and make themselves feel better?

As you already said, she does not, and cannot, trust you. You were the one person who was supposed to "have her back" no matter what, the one person she could trust to never hurt her, or lie to her. And yet, you did all of those things, and more. Her entire world was pulled out from under her, and now, if the person she was supposed to trust the MOST in this world could betray her and lie to her, and "stab her in the back" instead of guarding it, then how can she trust anyone or anything ever again? This is so much larger than trusting you. Her entire sense of trust is shattered. She doesn't trust you, she doesn't trust anyone else, and she doesn't even trust herself at this point. You are focused on her trusting you again. She's focused on the fact that she can't trust anyone or anything. She's simply not in a position to trust you right now, and to be honest, you've given her only the most minor of reasons to do so.

(Just to be clear, I'm not trying to attack you or make you feel badly here. I'm a WS too, as are most people here in this forum. We get it. We've been where you are, did the same things, thought and felt the same way, and made the same mistakes. My point isn't to berate you. It's to help push you into another, more helpful, point of view).

Imagine for a moment that a drunk driver hit you with their car. The driver gets out, says "Sorry", and then asks if you forgive him and will help him fix the dent your head left in their hood. Have they done enough to earn your trust back? Do you get the feeling they are really concerned about your welfare?

Now imagine that the driver instead rushes out and checks on you. He calls 911 right away, and rips his clothes and uses it to bandage you up. He covers you up and helps keep you safe while you wait for the ambulance, and he assures you that he will take care of all the hospital bills. While you recover in the hospital, he checks on you daily. He offers to pay your rent and bills while you are healing up. He joins AA, gets clean, and makes a pledge to you to never drink again. He sees an IC and gets help to understand his addiction and his impulsivity and to treat them. In short, he does everything he can in order to both take ownership of what he did, do his best to help you in whatever ways he can, and takes steps to change himself at his core so it will never happen again. Now do feel he is really concerned about your welfare?

My point is, it's not about what we say, or even really what we do, it's more about "who we are" and how we hold ourselves accountable. Most of us would be more open to forgiving someone who bends over backwards to change and own their mistakes, then we would be to someone who simply apologized and felt badly. Feeling badly is about THEM. Doing something about it, is what we need to see. Words without actions and meaning, are worthless.

As others have said, write a timeline, take a lie-dectector, whatever she wants, but at the end of the day, what will help her the most is to see actual empathy from you, ownership, and change. She will consider trusting you when you give her a REASON to do so, and not a moment before (if at all). For now, work on understanding your "why's". Why you cheated is a long, complicated question that will amount to more than, "Because I wanted to". Figure out what in your life made it okay to cheat, what you actually hoped to gain (other than sex), and why you allowed yourself to debase yourself in such a manner. That's where to start. Once you understand why and how this came about, you can take steps to change.

Just to add more information to my story. My wife caught me cheating in February of 2020. I lied to her face nothing was going on. We went to counseling together and then started our own counseling, while still having couples counciling. We both sat down and worked on a timeliness together. I continued to lie during that. She realized I was still lying and told me that the timeliness is my responsibility. I did the timeline and was truthful with that. 2 of the women I had online affairs with were distant. The other affair was a person I worked with. We both are in our own counseling at this point. I had stopped going to my counseling for about 8 or 9 months for a medical problem. I am now going again.

I will add the lying I did to my wife went on for close to a year. The affair with the coworker was an online, texting and sexting, messaging in Facebook. My wife strongly believes that affair was physical. It was never physical. It was always in messaging of some type. All of the messages I always deleted soon after reading them or looking at photos or videos.

[This message edited by Wolfpack1 at 1:59 AM, Sunday, October 15th]

I will add the lying I did to my wife went on for close to a year. The affair with the coworker was an online, texting and sexting, messaging in Facebook. My wife strongly believes that affair was physical. It was never physical. It was always in messaging of some type. All of the messages I always deleted soon after reading them or looking at photos or videos

My EA AP lived in another country and traveling to see each other while never impossible, would've been quite a logistical challenge and while no serious efforts were made in that direction, I'm quite confident that had it continued we would've made in-person contact at some point. Heck, in the aftermath, my wife and were talking about our parallel affairs, of which her's became physical and mine did not, again due to distance, I readily admitted that given the chance for an in-person PA, it would've happened. I don't say that proudly, but I'm also practical and know that adults who have access to each other physically don't just stick to EAs. Instinctively, your BW knows that as well.

You said that this EA was with a co-worker, but that could mean a lot of things depending on your job. How close was your working relationship with this woman? Did you go to lunches alone with her? Do you still have to maintain some level of contact with her? What was the nature of your working relationship, like did you travel places for business together like client visits, conferences, etc.? More or less, were there opportunities for the two of you to be isolated and alone together? What stopped you from making your affair physical if you had access to each other? I mean, it isn't below a Wayward to sleep with their co-worker in the bathroom, conference room, back of the car, or any other location you can think of. I can you this, put myself in your shoes and my AP in my office instead of across an international border, I know that my wife would have a really tough time thinking that we never got physical.

As the offending party in this case, it is on you to find a way to demonstrate that you didn't sleep with your AP. I am not sur exactly how you go about proving that something didn't happen, but being honest about whether or not you did have the opportunity and the in-person access to your AP. Was meeting up in-person with your AP something you discussed at some point, since you were working together that seems only natural?

Thank you Bor9455 for your response. We worked in our own separate cubicles at work. We never had to travel. I did go to lunch with a male friend and I think she might have joined us 2, maybe 3 times. 3 of us at lunch. I would avoid company get together after work. One reason is I never felt comfortable going to those things and the second reason to avoid her in person. We never had any meet up at work or away from work. She was someone to talk to. I was going through a rough patch in my life. I felt like I had told my wife too many times about how i was feeling. My wife was always supportive when I would tell her how I was feeling, I just felt like I was wearing her out. I am now working at a completely different work place and have not had any contact with her in almost 3 years. She did text me one time to say hi. I did not respond. I was never looking for sex, just a different person to talk with.

Thank you Bor9455 for your response. We worked in our own separate cubicles at work. We never had to travel. I did go to lunch with a male friend and I think she might have joined us 2, maybe 3 times. 3 of us at lunch. I would avoid company get together after work. One reason is I never felt comfortable going to those things and the second reason to avoid her in person. We never had any meet up at work or away from work. She was someone to talk to. I was going through a rough patch in my life. I felt like I had told my wife too many times about how i was feeling. My wife was always supportive when I would tell her how I was feeling, I just felt like I was wearing her out. I am now working at a completely different work place and have not had any contact with her in almost 3 years. She did text me one time to say hi. I did not respond. I was never looking for sex, just a different person to talk with.

Listen, I've been there brother, and it wasn't until I read the book "Not Just Friends" that I realized that I had an EA with a colleague a few years back. Mine started out when my family and I picked up and moved halfway across the country (from Nebraska) to a new job in Alabama. It started out with a group of folks (guys and gals) in my area going to our breakfast break together. I was new to the company and didn't know anyone, so I made efforts to get to know folks. From there, a genuine friendship started because one of the gals in the group had a bench near mine in the lab and she was also kind of fresh out of school and I was hired to bring up the experience and training of all folks in the lab, so train and mentor I did, including her. Looking back on it now, I was probably biased towards her, but I trained other guys and gals besides her and didn't consciously favor her.

I started at that company in August 2013 and by the spring of 2014, it wouldn't be uncommon for me to get some messages from her in the evening. I recall there was one instance of a message after 10:00 PM and my wife was pretty upset and couldn't figure out why she needed to message me. She got on my case about my friendship with this woman and I was pretty dismissive of my wife's concerns. I never saw this friend outside of work alone and I had no intentions of pursuing a physical affair with this woman and at the time I wasn't even convinced that I was having an emotional affair, nor did I know what an EA was. I never laid a finger on this woman and our friendship changed when she was laid off sometime in late 2015/early 2016, the timing is hard to remember but I know she was still looking for a job when I moved to Florida in September 2016 and I was a professional reference for a job she later got. We lost touch and turns out not working together didn't leave us much to talk about.

She had always been kind of dismissive and critical of my wife, but I didn't put much thought it into, which is where my biggest betrayal was, if this woman was really my friend, she wouldn't have said those things about my wife and/or I wouldn't have allowed that to stand and allow her to remain my friend. In December 2019, my wife dropped a bomb on me, she told me she was divorcing me (for my cheating, and I would only later learn in Feb 2020 about her PA) and she moved herself out of the master bedroom. I reached out to this woman who I thought was my friend for support and that was a terrible idea. I found out who she was and what she was after. I only told her that my wife had asked for a divorce and she started pursuing me quite aggressively. She started saying things like, "I know you've always felt the same way about me as I have you" as an example as well as blowing up my SnapChat and some sexting, and yes I willfully engaged back. It was clear that she wasn't probably ever my friend and she had ulterior motives and she could never be a friend of my marriage going forward, so I've been NC with her since that time.

All these events happening in my life and my therapy did help me to understand that relationship, what it was (clearly an EA) and what kind of damage having that EA had on myself and my marriage. Like I mentioned, I shared meals with this woman at work and due to the nature of our work in a lab, there was 1:1 coaching sessions and bullshit chatting sessions that came along with it. I understand when you say it was nice to have someone to talk to, because those were the same thoughts and feelings I was having as I had her to talk to at work, etc. Like yourself, I never got physical and it wasn't until years after I moved out of state that any sexting began. However, I had a poor set of boundaries with this woman and because I didn't correct those issues, my EA in 2017-2019 happened and I devastated my wife all over again.

I don't know how you can convince your wife that nothing ever happened physically with your co-worker. What I can tell you that you can do is if you haven't already, read "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. Read it and re-read if you have to and start figuring out boundaries for yourself. For example, I am now super up front with women I work with closely like the team I manage, that there are going to be a whole host of topics we aren't going to discuss. There are also major no-nos for me as a leader and I take those very seriously. Put in place new boundaries and enforce them, that is the kind of thing that will help your wife regain trust in you that you are taking this seriously and you do care about your marriage.