SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

"For the record, I feel very strongly that leaving her now would damage way too many people in our lives. And we don’t have much more time on this earth, therefore I must get over this quickly so that we can enjoy the rest of our lives, just like we’ve been planning, however, it’s going to be very difficult for me in the short term."

MD - In rereading your post I am particularly struck by your last two sentences. While everyone in your situation has a right to change his or her mind, you are quite adamant that ending the marriage is not an option. It's been three months since your wife dropped the bomb. I suspect you won't be changing your outlook soon and it is not my place to talk you out of your decision. All I can say is that where there is a will there is a way. It will involve therapy and rug sweeping. If you can live with it that is all that matters. My previous post concerning a one-sided open marriage was born of frustration and partially with my tongue securely pressed against my cheek. I suspect that it is not for you and I certainly respect that choice.

But please understand that you are asking for a lot to expect that you can "get over this quickly so that we can enjoy the rest of our lives." But if you can do it, I tip my hat to you.

I must get over this quickly…

What is your definition of having gotten over it? What should life be like for you?

therefore I must get over this quickly so that we can enjoy the rest of our lives, just like we’ve been planning

There is no path to "get over this quickly". In fact, there is no path to "get over this". Infidelity this profound changes your marriage forever. One of the first instincts of a newly minted BH is to yearn for a return to the innocence of the "before time", the marriage you thought you had. One of the hard lessons you will need to learn is that the marriage you thought you had never existed. It was a figment of your imagination, based on a false reality created by your wife's years of lies and false narrative.

The way to reconciliation, if there is a chance in your marriage, is not "over it"; it is through it. Honesty, communication, etc. That means you as the BH must be honest, including your darkest ugly thoughts, your anger and rage, the invective that must be echoing inside your head. If you don't express that, now you're the one being dishonest, creating a false narrative.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 9:11 PM, Monday, April 10th]

I am so sorry you are in this situation.

For me, this is the ultimate betrayal:

Can you imagine that, anytime her and I had sex during the affairs, that her & the AP could have had sex that same day as well. Think about that for awhile.

You were unknowingly cucked. How many times were you swimming in POS dna? Was this part of the thrill for her? Did she and the POS have a good laugh about it? I mean, the absolute disrespect for you during that time is just unbelievable. For almost 2.5 years, she was banging other dudes far more than you.

You've indicated divorce isn't really an option. But, you're ready to retire and you know darn well it's highly unlikely you're going to just get over it, especially when it consumes your mind 24/7. At the very least, your son needs to know you know and you need some space away from your wife to consider all options, including divorce. At this point, all cards should be on the table.

You were unknowingly cucked.

No such thing, a cuck is a willing participant. What is the purpose of this comment? He already said his WW had unprotected sex.

I found out 3 years later. I am a FBH.

The main problem in any infidelity situation is trust.When someone lies to you they are showing who they are and how much they respect you (or don't respect you).

I am really sorry. The early post Dday periods are so unsettling because your memories are proven to be false impressions aided by your W inability to tell the truth.

So she lied twice about having two affairs (maybe more?). The problem is that she lied about big things in your M already. Simple precedent would easily lend weight to this is not the only big thing she lied about.

If she was unfaithful for a good portion of the last 40 then what else is she lying about? I'd bet my last dollar there is more. Maybe not affairs, but more that benefitted her while keeping you in the dark. I'd bank on it.

Sadly the past 40 years mean a lot to you. Unfortunstely you were ignorant of some important details of those 40 years. Your wife's version of the last 40 years are what you are living right now. Not your own.

Your wife is begging, but do you think she came clean because she wants to spend the rest of her days as single.

You need an IC. You need to work through all the lies and conjecture to see the facts.

I get it. One day you wake up and feel you are living someone else's life or a much diminished version of what you thought was a happy life.

I've often told my wife rhat she had 3 years(in your case 20) to make her peace with her destructive and hurtful choices. This is new to me and I know, now, that I was foolish to trust her and I won't make that mistake again. I made it her task to incease my trust in her. Until then I wouldn't believe anything she said unless I could validate it in some other way. "You were shopping? Do you have receipts? No eeceipts. . .So I guess you weren't shopping." My point is that I put the bulk of the burden on her to restore trust. Not fair? Neither was being cheated on, repeatedly, and then being gaslighted for 3 (read as 20) years.

She had 20 years making up further lies and justifications to the point that she believes them herself. She has to unlearn these before she has a chance at being authentic in any relationship. Romantic or platonic.

I was wondering if it was possible that she somehow got wind that your son was going to tell you because his conscience was bothering him and she thought she could get ahead of it.

There is no way to get over this quickly. NO WAY. This takes time. YOu will need time to heal, but if you want to heal, than counseling is a must and total truth is a must.

I would have some major demands of my wife if you were to give her a shot at R, which is what you are looking to do b/c of your age.

I'd sit the whole family down, after she writes you all of the details and the timeline and share that with your kids. She deserves to be outed and you deserve support and understanding from them. This is so screwed up, don't take this to the grave with you. YOu need to out her to the family/kids.

src9043 You have a p.m.

Three months post Dday is such a brief amount of time. Don't rush your hosting. Give yourself time and grace to process this. You will make mistakes and get things wrong. No one prepared us for this level of trauma. If you look at the number of posts at the end of each members posting, you will see some with high numbers. Each post represents progress. The higher the number, the more probable the growth. I remember just how raw and angry I was early on. Most everything I posted was reactionary. Now atctge 5.5 year mark, I am much more balanced as I've healed. I'm sure I still have blind spots, but I'll address those as they come up.

You are on a journey you never asked for, but regardless, you must cease this path. I'm hoping for good things for you.

Hello OP:

First, I can tell this discussion is very difficult for you. You posted here, then deleted, then re-posted. You’ve not followed up on your post despite inviting us to ask questions, which many have. This site is an anonymous group of strangers who all share one thing: each of us has suffered from infidelity. We are here out of the goodness of our hearts, anonymous strangers, to help brothers and sisters like you navigate the difficult terrain of post-Dday life. A great deal of our advice is shaped by the mistakes we ourselves made; we try to guide you so that you don’t make the same mistakes we made.

When it comes to infidelity recovery, details matter. I’m trying to get a handle on the dates. You refer to the period of cheating as February, 2004 through October 2009. That’s 5 year, 6 months. 5.5 years.

-You say the first A lasted a year: February 2004 – February 2005. It ended when AP quit.

-You say she quit that job some time later. Let's say July 2005. There was a 6-month gap before she got her new job. Let's say January, 2006.

-You say the second A was 2 years, 3 months. Working backward from October, 2009, that means it would have started around July, 2006. That means that in spring of 2006, there was a ramp-up period as your WW flirted with AP2.

-You say that your son saw AP2 smack her butt at work during a flirting period leading up to the A. For easy reference, I’ll guess June, 2006. He was 18 then. If your son was 18 in 2006, that means he was born in 1988. 2006 was 17 years ago, meaning he must now be 35 years old. Easily old enough to navigate the complicated emotional landscape he will need to pass through to achieve an honest and loving relationship with you.

Meanwhile, you say that your career has been 40 years. If, like most people, you started in your early 20’s, that means you are now in your early 60’s.

40 years ago was 1983. My guess is that you got married around the same time. You married in your early 20’s, in the early 1980’s. We know your son was born in 1988. Your post references adult "children" meaning other births. We don’t know if they are older or younger, but if you are a typical family, you probably got married in your early 20’s (early 1980’s), had a couple of years of being together before kids, then had a period of a decade, plus or minus, when kids came along and your wife’s life was immersed in being pregnant, nursing, changing diapers, providing care to infants and toddler. Say, 1985-1995. Until your mid-30's.

If you were like most couples, there was probably a fairly steep drop-off in sex during those infancy years. That’s pretty typical. But it's hard on a husband.

As kids round the corner to elementary school years, life for a modern parent in the west (I’m assuming you’re in the USA) become fairly easy. The kids no longer require the intensive physical care required by infants, and the public schools take on a giant presence in their lives, both in terms of consuming their time and attention, but also in terms of serving meals, providing health care, etc. Since your WW took work a decade later as a housekeeper, I’m guessing she is not a highly educated woman, nor a woman with a professional background. Given your success in your career (hence current retirement plans), I’m guessing you were pretty "nose to the grindstone" in that time frame. Again, this pattern is quite common. A married man who is the family’s sole breadwinner is often motivated by a fear of not letting the family down. We obtain a fair amount of our personal sense of worth by being reliable, focused, hard-working providers. By being a man.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that your marital sex life never became that great. The deprivation during the infancy years left you feeling a bit rejected, even mildly emasculated. This, in turn, led to you initiating less often. You had a desire for a more active and varied sex life, but your WW wasn’t showing you the same desire, so out of a mixture of politeness, trying to appear to be a sensitive man attuned to her happiness, and avoiding the sense of rejection and emasculation any man feels when he knows his wife isn't that into sex with him, you demurred and accepted your diluted sex life as simply one of the crosses a married father must bear.

This pattern continued for about 10 years as the kids matriculated to Jr. High, and then High School. Less-than-frequent vanilla sex, but lots of good family times: sporting events, music recitals, parent-teacher conferences, summer vacations, all while working hard to build that career toward retirement. A maelstrom of activity. Sex was less than what you’d like in an ideal world, but the whole – the active nuclear family – was your happy place. Your refuge from the world. To you it seemed okay. What you didn't know is that your wife (likely subconsciously) missed being the object of your gaze of desire, and she was not self-reflective enough to realize that she was the one who had forced it to go away.

As you rounded the corner through the fin de siècle and into the oughts, it was feeling like things were going to work out. You had 20 solid years into your job. You’d moved up in your company to a position of some importance. But your SAHM wife was getting restless. She wanted more adult contact, more relevance in life. Our culture tends to "disappear" women after they get married and have kids, especially SAHM’s who don’t have higher education. Also, there is the thought that if she puts in a certain amount of time, she’ll qualify for social security, which is part of the retirement planning process. She has no real marketable skills but she knows a few people, so she takes a job as a housekeeper in a senior care facility.

What you were probably totally unaware of at the time was that your WW was going through a massive mid-life crisis. This is extremely common for women who are SAHM’s when their kids enter the teen years. They feel utterly irrelevant, forgotten, almost completely disappeared from the face of the earth. A husband like you, working hard, only gets glimpses of the home life. It’s like looking into a room through a partially closed venetian blind. And when you’re home, the family tends to put on its happy face for you, trying to do its part to support your career. The family seems to be humming along like a well-oiled machine, working just fine. We men tend to be fixers. We focus on problems. At home, we don’t see problems, so we stop looking. What you likely didn’t know is that she spent most of her waking hours feeling mostly alone, mostly forgotten. Nobody needed her for anything anymore. To her, home and family was a giant, brewing existential crisis.

At that point, she was at a crossroads. A functional adult woman would have talked to her husband about this, tried to spice up the marriage, asked for more attention from her husband. Your WW wasn’t that. Her job as a housekeeper at a senior care facility, that could hardly have made her feel good about herself. That sort of work is at or near the bottom rung of the ladder. The cost of working is almost equal to what she can earn. It’s irrelevant to your family’s financial situation apart from her qualifying for social security. Her superiors probably constantly remind her that she is utterly fungible and expendable. And the work is gross. Old people are incontinent. They puke blood. They die in bed and leak all manner of liquids. Etc. It’s likely the job made her feel worse, not better.

Except along came AP. He liked her ass, and in his eyes she could see the male gaze, the same gaze she used to see everywhere in her early 20’s, before babies. The same gaze she used to see in your eyes (in fairness to you, that gaze would still be there but you have veiled it to avoid seeming too pushy and demanding in the bedroom in deference to her apparent low desire). It reminds her of the before time, when she felt relevant and exciting. It serves as an escape from the bleakness of her present time, cleaning up excrement from a building full of people whiling away their waning years in death’s lobby.

And she found she liked this second life. It became an escape from her reality. So when she had a second chance at the hotel, even more thrilling because of the "crime caper" aspect, she jumped at it. And she jumped on it. For years, until he quit.

We don’t know at this point whether that was the end of sexual cheating for her. Keep in mind that the period 2004 – 2009 was a period of profound turmoil in the financial world. Deep recession. Most men in our 40’s in that era were terrified of losing our jobs, so we redoubled our efforts at work to preserve our place and persevere until times got better. I reckon you were the same.

By 2009, she was probably pushing the heck out of 50 years of age. Your son would have been in his 20’s. I reckon the other kids in similar ages. Your career would have been out of the weeds and maybe you were in a place to spend more time with her. It’s possible that when he quit, she woke the fuck up, realized what she had spent her 40’s wallowing in, and determined privately to move on.

But she didn’t really move on. Your OP says that the cheating was 20 years ago, but really it’s closer to 10 years ago than 20. That’s important for the timeline. What did your WW spend her 50’s doing, with respect to you? Did she really dig in, make herself into the best wife a woman can be? Show you that you are loved and desired? Frequently initiate imaginative, varied, exciting sex? Etc.? Or did she spend the decade coasting along, wallowing in her self-loathing, allowing the marriage to remain in neutral, with infrequent vanilla maintenance sex only when you initiated? Because to me, that would be the deciding factor. If it was the latter, then she was essentially still cheating on you for that whole decade, even if she didn’t come near another man’s dick during that time. This is because cheating is in large part a mindset – selfishness, inward-focus, feeling self-pity and choosing to wallow in it rather than to invest energy into working on making the marriage better.

By the way, what of the friend your WW confided in about the A? The one your son overheard? Who is she? How do you feel now, knowing that in real time she knew you were being betrayed in such a profound way. Bottom line is that she needs to be cut out of your family’s life entirely. She is an enemy to the marriage. Has your WW offered that up as part of your healing. If she has not, that is a bellwether in terms of whether your WW is a candidate for R.

You’ve said very little about your WW’s response to Dday. You have expressed a sense of urgency about needing like you need to "get over it". I think you’re still in denial about the reality that there is never any getting over it with respect to infidelity.

If I’ve guessed the trajectory correctly, your WW is utterly cliché, in a deeply pathetic and unoriginal way. The SAHM mid-life crisis affair, when the kids reach those late teens, that is the most cliché affair of all. Fundamentally, it is about a woman who is selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, the kind of person who chooses herself over her marriage. Reconciliation only works if she realizes that and fixes herself, makes herself into somebody new, somebody better than she was, somebody whom you could respect and choose to be married to if you had just met her. Has your WW done that? My guess is "no", but that is only based on the lack of information in your thread.

OP, where is your head? What did your most recent conversation with your WW feel like?

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 4:08 PM, Tuesday, April 11th]

Wow!!! With what the OP is going thru and the many "well meaning" responses I kind of understand why the OP has not responded. This is my first time to comment since I found the truth out 3 years ago.

My story is very similar to OP's in many ways. I've been married longer (50yrs), currently retired, great family, grown children, grandchildren and many, many great years. In regards to the A part I can also add double betrayal, longer A period, lied/denied longer (25+ yrs), TT's, etc.

I'm not a very good writer and won't bother you with the whole story. My point with even responding is that because of SI, I am still married and plan on staying married. I still think about it everyday but it gets easier. Except for this response I've not shared any of this with anyone in my day to day life and will not. I love my life, my wife, my family and friends and continue to add great memories.

D-Day #94,
One of the hardest things, that I am discovering, is how difficult it is to write this stuff. First of all, it’s been about 20 years ago, and I am truly amazed at what she does remember from that time, but dates of when the affairs began and ended seem to fluctuate a lot. And, I have been learning about a subject that I have never read about before in my life, because, these things wouldn’t happen to us😡The information being learned is happening so fast that what I wrote one day will need to be modified to include the new information the next day.When she first disclosed her affairs, it took me 6 weeks to start looking into therapy because I was, and still am, a basket case. How ironic. I’ve been that guy, for 40 years that would never need to see a therapist. Now look at me😡Not even knowing how to handle a therapy session , I just started rambling off what has been going on.The first assignment I was given was to read "The new codependency". Well, OK, sounds easy enough, except, reading a book is no more than a tranquilizer to me!After about ten minutes of reading, I’m sleeping. I must admit, reading this book has been very difficult for me. I find myself reading the same sentences and paragraphs over and over again, just to wrap my head around what is being said. It seems kinda twisted whilst reading it.Is this about me or her , or both of us being codependents?Then you come to some activities, like, write ten things you are grateful for, good or bad. Wow, I suppose I must be grateful for her affairs! Are you serious!!😡. At this point, I have only read about 50 pages of this book, and then I enter this chapter about being a "Double Winner!!! I absolutely cannot believe this, but this book was written about me, and her. And, it appears that I am, and have been a "Double Winner " When I found this sight, I began reading the " FAQ-BS to the WS, which, BTW are exactly the same questions I had been asking her from the start.And the answers to the questions is, I believe what she’s been trying to say!!! This is to bizarre for me to comprehend right now, however, I am feeling scared, frightened, very anxious and all kinds of emotions, especially the fact that I may have poisoned my entire family and didn’t even realize what was happening. And, I may be the reason my wife had the affairs!!! I made her get the jobs at the hotels. FTLOG, all I wanted was for her to get out of the house, find something to do. Any monies that was making, for the most part was hers to do the things that she liked, hair cuts, pedicures manicures, clothing , whatever she wanted. But affairs???? If this codependency stuff is true, then I can pinpoint exactly when it started. My dad retired military and they will move all your stuff one last time to your final destination. I had decided that I would stay for her

I had decided that I would stay for my girlfriend, my future wife and pursue a produce management position.
Remember the week Mount Saint Helen erupted, May, 1980? That’s when my family left and been on my own since then.

Very sorry you are here.

Nothing you did or didn't do in your M caused your WW to cheat on you. Period. She cheated because she was broken. Take care of you. Have her read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by McDonald. A helpful short read. She should be in IC as well
Never blame yourself. You couldnt control her behavior. There is no valid excuse to cheat.

^^^^^Exactly!!!!

She cheated because she wanted to. No other reason. The opportunity was there and she thought she would never get caught. She was selfish and decided she was entitled to cheat. It is not that complicated.

Now then, someone can come up with dozens of reasons. However, reasons end up being excuses. There is only one reason... she has little to no integrity.

Integrity is doing what is right when no one else is watching.

If you do nothing else, whatever you do, please quit blaming yourself.

Hey MD, you’ve been heard. Tough times, friend.

One thing I recommend, is to allow yourself to not think about the A every now and again. Make a promise to yourself that in an hour you will return to non-stop obsessing, but for the next hour you will fish, paint, do a crossword, watch golf, or whatever else that you can put your brain on. Seems dumb, but it’s a promise to yourself that you can keep. Your obsessing part will say, "OK, I’ll give it a rest…for a bit."

Take a look at my profile, where I list the 12 habits of survivors. It applies here. Write them down in your own words, and keep them in mind. Accept you are in a shitstorm. Take decisive action. Know you can fail. Etc.

Sending strength!

MD

One thing I heavily dislike is when posters think they are trapped and have no options.
See my tagline? It’s from a Stoic philosopher. Stoicism is often misunderstood to imply you accept your destiny and remain calm and collected no matter what. A more accurate definition though might be that you define where you are, your options and then decide what to do. Knowing your options, knowing they might have consequences and knowing that you might be moving from where you were gives you a sense of purpose, and this purpose gives you the ability to absorb the effects.

This is in line with training for officers in the military. You learn to absorb and evaluate info and then decide and implement your plan. That implementation might lead to the expected result, or it might create an unexpected reaction where you again absorb, evaluate and decide and implement a plan. In the military the instructors aren’t necessarily focusing on those that take consistently take the wrong decisions (they can use them at the Pentagon…) but rather those that DON’T decide and act.

Your post implies you feel like you have no or limited options, and therefore you are forced to remain with her. You focus on how YOU can get over it ASAP.

I think that’s wrong… You HAVE options… Some of them might not be options that you want and maybe none of them is ideal. But they are options.
It’s like you have a toothache and a dread for dentists… You could try painkillers, you could grab a pair of pliers or chisel the tooth out, you could try all sorts of natural treatments. Heck… you could even try living with the constant pain. But anything you decide is an OPTION and a DECISSION. If you decide to live with the pain then don’t be surprised it hurts or keeps you awake. Hopefully – in a situation like that – you eventually realize that by facing your fear of dentistry you can get a permanent solution to your problem. Doesn’t necessarily mean you get rid of your fear – but you overpower it for a greater gain/purpose.

I also think that one factor that can save a marriage more than anything else is the realization of how fragile it really is. If you think your marriage is unbreakable no matter what then you have no reason to be careful with it. If however you view it like a precious Fabergé egg… you treat it with the care and respect it deserves.
The only thing that should be keeping you in a marriage is that YOU want to be married and that your partner is in general agreement to what that entails. The only thing that should make your spouse remain married to you should be that she wants to be married to you, and that you are in general agreement to what that entails.

I think those two factors - you have options, and the marriage is delicate – would serve you well in moving forwards.
I think the two of you – and your marriage – can benefit from professional help in dealing with this. Like an MC who has experience in dealing with infidelity.

Now – Imagine these two scenarios:
Honey – I really suffer from the knowledge of the affairs, and it makes me doubt about core-factors in my life over the last decades. But even if there is no healing then don’t worry. I will remain miserable and store the resentment inside and if you are lucky I will pass away a few years ahead of you and you can then live a decent life.

Honey – This knowledge of your affairs has really shaken me up and made me question some core-factors in my life over the last decades. I need to understand what happened and need to deal with it. I would so very much like to do so with you – but I have realized that in order to go on I have to believe there is a basis for our marriage. If there isn’t we would both be better off going our separate ways. It’s not what I want or what I envisioned, but maybe that’s just the reality we are dealing with.

Of the two scenarios – which one would make her more willing to work towards healing?

Remember – If she’s like nearly each and every wayward person in this GALAXY then chances are she wants to minimize and move on. She wants this to be the past and left behind. You need more closure than that.

Hmmmm, I am not liking the tack the therapist is currently taking. You need encouragement, empowerment not beaten up for being codependent. It’s just a label, and in your case not very useful at all as you are still reeling from the shock of new information that has completely taken the wind out of your retirement sails. That is not codependency. Don’t self diagnose from the book the IC gave you, it’s like going to Dr Google and discovering a whole pile of conditions you suddenly feel you have all the symptoms of. Codependency is not the reason why you are ‘obsessed’ as you describe it but simply psychology and neurology. You’re in some shock and your brain is still trying to absorb the information and puzzle out the implications and some of the pieces still stubbornly refuse to fit and new puzzles appear on a daily basis. Of course your brain is going to keep going back to puzzle some more like a dog with a bone. I remember it well. You do however need to give your brain the rest it needs to do the job properly, some of which is behind the scenes of cortical consciousness. Find a flow activity that absorbs you, a hobby or activity that gives you some much needed respite, because there is not quick way through this and pacing yourself as well good self care is imperative.

I really commend you on the way you are taking action and researching. Your WW does not seem to be doing the same. Yes, of course it is not new information to her, which partly explains her inability to understand its effect on you, but what else is she doing to deal with the fallout from the grenade she’s just chucked at the marriage and all your hopes for the future?

[This message edited by Edie at 8:41 PM, Monday, April 17th]