SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all,

I'm really struggling at the moment. My wife found a series of messages between me and an ex on Christmas morning. We toughed it out through Christmas and I spent a few days back with my parents in the run up to NYE.

We have talked at length about the whats and whys of the affair and we both want to try and work on us.

The affair was emotional and lasted a few months. I never met up with the other woman. I never had any intention of doing so.

My self-esteem was lacking. My wife and I had a tough pregnancy before welcoming our amazing son into the world. I still felt lonely and isolated. I've lost all my adult friendships in recent years and haven't been emotionally mature enough to try and build healthy ones, I guess that's a fear of rejection and being hurt or used again. I connected with this other person on social media (she added me, accepting the request was the first mistake), and she became someone I could talk to. This spiralled and I engaged in sexting and flirtatious chats.

It's not been easy on either my wife or I since. Especially her. It kills me to see how much pain she's in and knowing that it was me, her supposed rock, who caused that. I feel like I'm constantly on edge around her now. If we have a couple of good days I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop. She wants me to make more of an effort in our relationship, to plan for family days and date nights. Our only family able to help with childcare are my parents who live close by.

Unfortunately my grandmother has been in and out of palliative care for the last months and my father's emotional state is very up and down. I don't want to add any additional burden to a man who's already on the emotional edge. I don't want to let my wife down and not make her feel like she and my son are my top priority.

I've started individual therapy, we have also talked about couples therapy too once we have both completed our own.

I'm not really looking for advice on this post. I know I need to figure things out myself. I guess this is just a vent. An opportunity to write and post. I've tried using a diary but it doesn't feel organic.

I have planned out 49 potential date ideas. I know that my wife wants more from me in affection and words of reassurance.

I just need to be better.
I feel like a wretched person but I know I can be better.

Care to share your 49 date ideas. I feel like some of us waywards could benefit from it

Akeka, I understand what you are going through, I have been down a very similar path and I am still working at making my marriage great. I think that your starting a thread and expressing how things are going is really good and i believe it will help your situation. I also think having people respond and share their stories and thoughts is helpful. At times people will respond and it might not be what we want to hear at that moment, but after rereading the responses and having a day or two pass, you can see people on here are trying to be helpful. I'm curious just like championrugsweeper about the 49 date ideas.

[This message edited by Wolfpack1 at 5:07 AM, Saturday, February 3rd]

Thanks for the feedback guys.
The date ideas cover a few local things as well but I'm not going to type all 49 up or I'll be here all day.

I took three categories of expensive, medium cosy and low to no cost. I've also factored in some things like is babysitting required?

Higher cost ideas are things like a cooking class, indoor skydiving, an overnight stay at a BNB.

Moderate cost ideas include archery, bowling, mini golf etc.

Low cost ideas I've got things like origami nights, doing jigsaws etc.

Basically it's about getting quality time together both in and out of the house and including our son in some instances.

My wife and I had a long chat last night after we came home from the cinema. We're effectively looking at the situation as if we're dating again from the start.
I killed our old relationship and now I've been given the opportunity to build something new. We're effectively dating again. While I'm immeasurably sad that I've done the damage and hurt her so badly with the EA I'm grateful that I've been given a chance with her again and I'm determined to make the most of it.

First of all, I want to welcome you to SI. This place can be a wonderful resource to heal from the pain that infidelity causes.

Second, in addition to dating and spending quality time with your wife, what are you doing to make yourself a safe partner to her?

IC is a good start. Have you been reading any books? How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda J. McDonald is a short and valuable guide.

Have you written a timeline? Are you working towards figuring out why you felt you needed to go outside of your relationship?

It’s a very long process to reconcile and it takes a whole lot of work. We are here to help you through it.

Hang in there and keep posting.

Hello and thanks for the welcome.

We've had many long and meaningful conversations where I've laid out the timeline and answered all of her questions openly and honestly.

I've started IC and have been working on building positive habits around my emotions and actions. We've talked about building something new rather than trying to resurrect our previous relationship.

We'll be discussing exactly what we want our relationship to look like going forward. As always, my actions will speak louder than words

I think your date ideas are great. I also agree with walkoneggshelz, you have to make yourself safe for your wife. I also like what you said, your actions speak louder than words. This is so true. That is what our partners need once we have wrecked our marriages.

Do you have any guidance or advice on making myself safe?
I'm making a conscious effort to not be on my phone as much. Significantly more physical affection and working on kind words and compliments, all things I think but don't necessarily vocalise.

I did mess up last week and omitted a truth about requesting babysitting from my parents which I came clean about when pressed though. Obviously not an ideal choice on my behalf.

WS only

[This message edited by SI Staff at 2:26 PM, Wednesday, February 7th]

I clearly said that it was a choice on my behalf.
I've clearly told my wife that I made a choice to stop communicating with her that led to the EA.
I accept what you're saying about the controlling aspect of withholding details and feelings.

You will need to do work to become a safe partner for your wife. Including the establishment of some very firm boundaries when it comes to your future interactions with women. I suggest you read "Not Just Friends" so that you get a sense of the types of boundaries you need. Life has a way at times of giving us just what we need, early in our reconciliation journey, my management responsibilities at work changed and I went from managing a team of all men to a team of majority women, and I must say, pretty women at that. I have established a whole bunch of firm boundaries around my interactions with the team and I’m careful not to share intimate details of my life. My wife has each one of these women’s numbers, with their consent, and at any point they are free to call her as they have her number. How did I establish this? I came brutally clean honest with each of them, that because I had an affair in the past, not with anyone I managed or anything like that, but that is the reason I must have these boundaries and the parameters of our working relationship must be as such.

I’m not saying you have to follow my path at all, but what your wife will need from you going forward is a clear plan and path for how you are going to set and enforce boundaries. Another thing to consider, something that I do when it happens, if I get a text message from one of my team after hours, just sometimes the unfortunate side of my job, I will show my wife who is texting me and what they are texting me at that hour. She is free to look at my phone at any time for as long as she wants, but I prefer the up front proactive approach. The goal for you should be to do what I now do, my wife will take my phone to pay bills because all the two factor stuff was setup on my phone number and she will have it for hours and I will forget where I put it, because I’m no longer concerned with an AP sending a message I don’t want my wife to see, because there is no AP in my life. It’s actually a tremendously freeing feeling to not care about something 5 years ago I wouldn’t have let out of my sight.

Thanks for your comment.
Great that worked for you! Sounds like you've also been able to beat some tech addiction too.

I've given my wife my pass passcodes for everything. I've bought a little phone jail to leave my phones in when we're spending time together in the evenings or I leave them in the bedroom while we are downstairs.