SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all, I'm brand new here and I'll be honest, I don't really even know what I expect to get from this but really just needed to offload...

My wife of 10 years recently told me that she no longer loves me and when questioned admitted that she had been messaging a colleague of hers at work (turns out he is one of her bosses).

She has never actually met him as he lives in Scotland and we're in the south of England. Immediately many of you here are probably of the mindset that she hasn't actually cheated but a few weeks after she told me about him and swore it was over I caught her still messaging him and she admitted to sending pictures. I was devastated and genuinely suicidal, I sat pondering for nights how I could end it all but with 2 young kids, I don't think I could do that to them.

2 months later (thinking we were trying to fix our marriage) I caught her on her work laptop showing herself off to him while he was jerking off.

I am completely lost right now. I love my wife so much, she is the mother to my children and my best friend but I hate her too right now.

She has adamantly stated it is over and she feels terrible but after so much deceit and repeated lies, I just cannot trust her at all. The fact that she still works with him and talks to him on a daily basis has me reeling right now as I am desperate to rebuild our marriage and recover from this but just don't even know where to begin when I have to hear his voice knowing he is looking at her having seen her in a way that should be reserved for her other half. I am completely paranoid and just so emotionally drained.

I struggle to sleep, I have nightmares, I live in a constant state of anger just bubbling under the surface waiting to explode. I have no idea how to cope with these feelings.

Anyway, apologies for rambling, I just really needed to get this out as I can't talk to friends and family in case we one day do reconcile, I wouldn't want it to impact how they see her.

I am sorry you are having to deal with this. You will get some great advice here. The 1st thing is to take care of yourself. Eat well, get regular exercise and avoid alcohol.
Do not keep her secret. The best way to end an affair is to shine a light on it. You do not need to broadcast it far and wide, but select family and/or friends should be told so that they can support you. If the other man is married, tell his wife. She has a right to know.
Your wife has repeatedly lied to you about this and failed to end the affair. This is normal cheater behavior. She is deep in the fog and has transferred her love to him. It has been said that the one who cares the least has the most power in a relationship. Right now that is her. To have a chance of saving the marriage, you must be willing to end it.
What ever you do, don't beg or plead with her. It is called the pick me dance and it rarely works. It makes you look weak and unattractive. Consult a lawyer so that you know factually know what a divorce might look like and what you should do to best protect yourself. Read up on the 180 and start to implement it. It is simply a way of limiting communication with her so that you can begin to withdraw emotionally from her. This is to allow you to get to a place where you can view this situation rationally with less emotion.
If she wants to save the marriage she must quite that job. As long as they are still communicating, the affair is still active. There is a long painful road ahead, but keep posting here and you will get great support from people that have been in your exact position. Good luck and concentrate on yourself and your children. They will be fine either way.

Oh BetrayedDad, I am so sorry your wife has betrayed and abandoned you. I want to welcome you, you are among friends here. We have all had our realities flipped upside down by betrayal and deeply understand the gambit of emotions you are experiencing. This is a safe place for you to rant or seek advice as you go through your infidelity journey.

Intimacy isn't just sex. Your wife shared an emotional intimacy with someone when it should have been reserved for her husband. There are not many people in this forum who wouldn't consider that cheating. She was absolutely cheating on you. Now for the hard part. You cannot will your wife back into your marriage. Reconciliation is really fucking hard and it takes both partners being all in. If your wife isn't all in, then you need to be taking steps to free yourself of this nightmare.

A lot of us would describe going through infidelity like a death. You will go through the stages of grief as you are mourning the death of your marriage and the concept you had of your wife. It is okay to focus on yourself. You need to give up trying to get your wife to come around and solely focus on your health and healing. First and foremost, make sure you are drinking water and consuming food. If you cannot eat, then drink a protein shake. Its okay to not be okay, but you will make your problems even worse if you do not take care of your physical health. If you cannot sleep, ask your doctor for some sleep aids to get you over the hump.

I know that right now, you feel like you will never be okay. This is not true, you are going to be okay (even great!)... eventually. Once you feel a little more grounded, then you will need to see a solicitor to see what to expect in a divorce. You may not actually end up getting a divorce. Your wife may break out of the fog and come crawling back. But you need to understand what could happen if she doesn't and take steps to protect what you have built.

I am so sorry, BD, it hurts so bad.

[This message edited by BigMammaJamma at 4:52 PM, Thursday, August 4th]

BetrayedDad:

Sorry you found yourself here but you will receive good support. Your reactions and emotions are normal. I want my life back! My wife and family.

Read in the healing library. It may seem counterintuitive but it is important to look inward and take care of you right now. Be there for your children. Always value yourself. You are the prize. You deserve a faithful and devoted W. Your WW has shown the capability to betray you and her wedding vows. And she continues to do so even though she knows how much it hurts you.

Do not beg or plead. You cannot nice her back or change her. The person who is least desperate to maintain the relationship, has the most power. Read and implement the 180 as long as she continues to talk with him. You should be the top priority in her life, not her AP. Many will advise she quit her job. Of course she could still maintain contact away from work. If her AP is married, inform his OBW promptly. She deserves to know and she can be another set of eyes to help you.

Take your time in making any long term decisions. Watch your WW’s actions, not her words. Be firm and set your boundaries.

Good luck.

she had been messaging a colleague of hers at work (turns out he is one of her bosses).

Contact her company’s HR and let them know what’s going on. Regardless of what actions you’re willing to take let them believe legal action may be forthcoming. Most companies have strict rules about relationships between managers and those they supervise, with penalties usually falling on the supervisor. But if she ends up fired or transferred that’s called consequences.

Also immediately find out if her AP is married or has a girlfriend and tell her what’s going on. When the other mans home deal is threatened he will probably throw your wayward wife under the bus to save it. Don’t believe your WW if she claims he’s single, she has no relationship with the truth right now.

Do both these things without informing your WW. Remember, you can’t nice her back and the only prize for “winning” the pick me dance is an unremorseful cheater.

I would be careful about informing her employer. That could be detrimental to your wife and get her fired. However you may demand she find another job. Immediately.

If she pushes back in that then there is a larger issue and that is her addiction or something similar to this affair. She loves the ego boost she gets from
This.

Google affair fog. That will provide insight as to your wife’s behavior and mindset.

So sorry for you. As long as she is in contact with the OM the affair will not end. She needs ti quit that job and start looking for another one immediately.

Hello BetrayedDad. Welcome to SI, the greatest club that no one ever wanted to join. I'm sorry you've had to find us here.

...I am desperate to rebuild our marriage and recover from this but just don't even know where to begin...

Finding and posting on SI is a great first step, brother. This community saved me. I don't know how else to say it. You will find tremendous support, guidance and wisdom here.

"Pinned" to the top of the Just Found Out forum is a thread entitled: "The Tactical Primer." Peruse this carefully and read it again from time to time.

There's a link at the top of the main page to The Healing Library. Inside the "Articles" section you will find a wealth of excellent essays written by veteran SI members.

I struggle to sleep, I have nightmares, I live in a constant state of anger just bubbling under the surface waiting to explode. I have no idea how to cope with these feelings.

For most people, the betrayal of infidelity is a profound shock and a severe emotional and psychological trauma. Right now, you're still in shock. That's perfectly normal and to be expected. We've all gone through it (or are still going through it). I think it took me a good 10 months just to recover from the shock of it all and being to feel a bit like my old self.

While I cannot speak to any reliable statistics, it seems to me that most betrayed spouses suffer some degree of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Take some time and do a little research on your own about it.

Unfortunately, there are no simple solutions, no magic bullets or potions to drink. You're going to have to go through the shitstorm. There's no way around it. One of the things that helped me was reading and posting here on SI. It helps, I think, to know that you're not alone and that what you're going through is as normal as normal gets while surviving infidelity.

I also saw a therapist for a few months. I got lucky in that he's an anger management specialist as well as a betrayed husband in his previous marriage. He understood me (well enough).

Your immediate goal is to focus on your recovery. It's not easy and it's not a linear process. Like you, I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat (lost over 30lbs in about two months), couldn't function like a normal human being. My thoughts and emotions were all over the place. I'd become unhinged. That's normal, too.

Try to force yourself to eat small, healthy meals.

Drink lots of water. Your body is in "over drive" right now and staying hydrated is critical.

Stay away from alcohol and recreational drugs. They will only prolong the pain.

When you can't sleep, try a mild OTC sleep aid. If that doesn't work, consult your doctor. Be honest with him. There's a good chance he's heard it all before.

...I can't talk to friends and family in case we one day do reconcile, I wouldn't want it to impact how they see her.

I understand. I've been there and done that. And it's a mistake, if you ask me. I wish that I had reached out to more of my friends and family. If you have some really close friends or family members whom you trust, let them know what's going on in your life. Being able to talk about it is tremendously helpful, even if your friends and family don't have the greatest advice to give.

I understand the desperation you feel. That, too, is common and expected. Unfortunately, when we let desperation govern our thoughts and emotions, we set ourselves up for further abuse and pain. Some of the best advice I ever received on SI was to step-back and detach from my WW and to let go of the out-come. Whether or not I ended up divorced or reconciled, the choice wasn't entirely mine. I had to become as comfortable as possible with either option. I considered my marriage over. My wife clearly wasn't the woman I thought I'd married.

I’m sure I’ve made people on this site nuts because this is what I write all the time. Every single thing she sends that man is now his to show to anybody he wants to. If he wants to put it on the Internet he can do it and that means tens of thousands if not millions of men can download pictures of your wife’s private areas. Is she nuts?
Contact his wife if he has one.
See an attorney to make sure you are protected financially because somebody that acts this crazy is usually also crazy financially. You have children you have to look after and one of the best ways to do it is to ensure they are OK protected financially.

I struggle to sleep, I have nightmares, I live in a constant state of anger just bubbling under the surface waiting to explode. I have no idea how to cope with these feelings.

This is a trauma response and it's normal for what you're going through. That said, you'd be wise to see your doctor and talk about stress management. I tried to tough it out on my own for a long time, but after about four months, I felt so sick I would have divorced my fWH on the spot if it meant my stomach would feel better. A little medication to help you cope can go a long way.

There's a book called The Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson which does a pretty good job of explaining why this kind of severing of the intimate bond we have with our mate takes such an emotional toll on us. The book is geared toward those who have split, but even though I reconciled, it was probably THE most valuable book I've read. The author does a great job explaining the nuts and bolts of how the brain and body are influenced by the trauma. You know the amygdala of the brain (fight, flight, freeze) can't really distinguish between clear and present danger and emotional data. It responds to either by flooding our body with adrenaline and cortisol so that we can spring into action. In the early days of trauma though, that translates to having some invisible monster scream "Boo!" in you ear a hundred times a day, right? It makes you feel sick and queasy. It magnifies your pain and keeps you from sleeping normally. The author also reminds us that our innate Fear of Abandonment is still with us, tucked away from infancy only to explode onto the scene in adulthood because unbeknownst to us, we've kind of transferred our attachment to this primary person in our lives. It's a good book and you don't have to be splitting up to get the most out it.

In terms of the marriage itself though, there's no easy way around this.. the one with the least amount of skin in the game has the most power. If you care more about this marriage than she does, she's going to be able to maneuver you. It's not until you're willing to let go of that relationship rather than accept less than you deserve that you can get what you need out of it. I firmly believe that my fWH would still be playing around today if I hadn't taken a tough stance with him. On dday, I told him that I was going to divorce him, that he could split the banking and I'd find us a lawyer. I didn't even want to hear his excuses or any details. I was just done. Within a week, it was him asking me for more time, time to prove he could be trusted, right? I gave it to him. We'd been married more than thirty years by then, I figured thirty more days couldn't hurt. It's not like after thirty years I needed to make a case for adultery; I was getting my half regardless. He didn't last the month though. I caught him a few weeks later in texting contact with an OW. He'd been trying the "let her down gently" maneuver because he just couldn't stand the idea of her hating him or being the bad guy. At that point, he had about thirty seconds to decide if he was "all in" or "all out" and he must've seen blood in my eye because he knew I meant it. From that moment on, he ghosted the OW and was willing to do whatever it took to save our marriage.

I know that it sounds really scary to stand up for yourself when you've been kicked down like this. It feels counterintuitive to your goal of preserving your family dynamic. I was able to do it because I really was DONE. I'd had more than enough and I wasn't willing to accept another day of being treated badly. My kids were grown and I had other places I could go to restart my life. Some folks have it a bit tougher, right? That said, I can tell you that if you allow a cheater to do it their way, you're unlikely to be happy with the result. Some just string you along until they can ease their way out as they monkey branch into the next relationship. Others continue on in their self-centered way, which has now become intolerable to you because you can't unsee their selfishness. And finally, there are those who go on to cheat again, because they didn't do the extremely humbling and introspective work necessary to improve their poor character.

The thing to remember is that even though it doesn't feel like it today, you're going to be okay. As an experience, this one is very painful, but the pain is temporary. You'll get through it. Take your time and be true to yourself.

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone that has responded. I expected to log back on and see one maybe 2 shorts responses at best but the outpouring of advice and genuine understanding is phenomenal.

Thank you.

In my honest opinion, I feel she should change jobs or request a move to another team and cut all contact from the guy and I don't really think that it is wrong for me to ask that... Curious what others opinions are.

I do not wish to inform her employers HR at this time as one person suggested as I feel that would only serve to make the situation worse, whilst I would LOVE to ruin this other guys life for doing what he has done with my wife, I do not wish to damage her reputation any more than it has been damaged in my eyes.

I will also take a look at the articles people have mentioned. At this stage, I will read anything that may help me make sense of what the hell is going on.

I am so sorry you are experiencing this. It is a hell that unfortunately too many of us here understand. I am a calm, even-keeled person. Finding out my husband was cheating on me destroyed me emotionally in a way I couldn’t have fathomed. I was lost, sick, reeling, angry, terrified. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I kept throwing up out of nowhere. I would lay on the floor in my closet, hiding my weeping from my kids.

All that to say that the feelings you are having are normal and appropriate for someone in your situation. It is utterly devastating to be betrayed by the person who should love you most.

You’ve already gotten loads of good advice.

If you are open to reconciling, insisting that your wife change jobs is a perfectly fair and reasonable condition. It may even be completely necessary. Read Not Just Friends, by Shirley Glass, and others will also have good recommendations. But first, take care of yourself and give yourself a little space and detachment to try to discern where you want to go from here.

Hang in there. Those early days are complete hell, but it gets better. You will find yourself again.

I do not wish to inform her employers HR at this time as one person suggested as I feel that would only serve to make the situation worse, whilst I would LOVE to ruin this other guys life for doing what he has done with my wife, I do not wish to damage her reputation any more than it has been damaged in my eyes.

She is responsible for her reputation and any damage it suffers. I wouldn’t be shocked if there are already whispers passing among her coworkers. I understand that you want to limit the damage, but shielding her from consequences now may ultimately lead to a larger blast zone. If you can, get ahold of her companys employee handbook or check online for their policies concerning relationships between supervisors and subordinates. It may give you some guidance.

Still, it’s your marriage and your decision. I would still recommend contacting the other betrayed spouse if there is one.

I am especially concerned about your initial reaction regarding suicidal ideations. I urge you to confide in a trusted friend or family member who can provide you emotional support. Do not go through this crisis by yourself. Your children should be paramount in your mind right now. You must take care of yourself physically and emotionally in order deal with what is to come. You may wish to seek professional help with someone who is versed in infidelity. If destructive thoughts reenter your mind, seek help immediately.

You are in a state of shock right now. Your WW is obviously living in some kind of fantasy world. Even if she were a single woman, her behavior is destructive and demeaning. The fact that she has done this while committed to you does not bode well. She needs professional help. You must insist that she undergo independent counseling with someone versed in infidelity. You need to be firm and tough. A new job is a MUST. Simply changing departments is not even close to what she must do. When she resigns, she must confess to personnel why she is leaving and the involvement of the OM. Actions have consequences and if she doesn't suffer sufficient consequences, there is no hope for the two of you to move on. If the OM has a wife or girlfriend, she must be told. The OM is a demented predator who must also suffer consequences.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should this behavior be rug swept. Demand a detailed timeline. You may wish to consider a polygraph if there is the slightest indication that the two of them have met.

Honestly, if your WW does not undergo an epiphany she will cheat again. Next time it will be physical. Unfortunately, it will take years to regain trust, if ever. You will become the marriage police for awhile. Sadly, when you stop being that policeman she will be more inclined to cheat. Something is truly broken in your wife. Consequently, it may be a good idea to protect yourself financially. Go see a lawyer to discuss possible ways this can be done.

Hi BetrayedDad,

I'm so, so sorry for the wreck your wife has created (is creating).

My husband of almost 30 yrs (at the time) also had an emotional and sexual online affair with a coworker for almost 3 years, and then tried to re-create a similar affair with another coworker once that first one fizzled, and then did create another online sexual affair with a woman he didn't know IRL but met through Facebook.

So let me assure you of a few things:

Her affair is not about you...and I'm not sure if that makes you feel better, worse, or a bit of both.

The affair happened because something is broken in her and she lacks boundaries to resolve her own issues in a less destructive way.

People who have affairs are (or have become) extraordinarily self-centered.

Be assured that the affair is fully about her. You didn't cause it. So, you can't resolve it for her.

For anything to change, she has to be willing to end it. She has to want to work on her own issues that brought her to this place. She has to be willing and eager to do the hard work to rebuild your trust and to help heal the relationship that she has blown up with her selfish actions.

I say all of this because your first post indicates that you've turn your shock and sorrow inward toward yourself. And I totally get that. I felt gutted, completely hollowed out, when I found out.

But you aren't at fault here. Please be very kind to yourself right now. Forgive yourself for anything at work or around the house you just don't have the focus and energy to do right now. Reach out for support from trusted friends or family. Reach out to a counselor for yourself.

Take care of you right now and hug your kids.

And, yes, if your wife wants any shot at trying to fix this, she at the bare minimum needs to be willing to do whatever you request for job changes to help you feel safe. She also needs to become completely transparent to you with ALL electronics (you get all passwords and check anything at your discretion) and she needs to be incredibly accountable about where she is and who she is with.

Protect yourself. Do not trust she's being honest with you.

Be really gentle with yourself.

So sorry for you!

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 12:06 AM, Friday, August 5th]

Hey OP, just wanted to let you know that you are among friends. There is great advice on this site, so I would encourage you to really consider things posted here. Just a few points here.

First, I get the suicidal ideations. I was very close to ending it myself. Had a place picked out, did research to make it look like an accident, etc. I've gone from suicidal to self-destructive to indifferent, so I'm getting better! My point is that how you feel now is not perminant, despite how perminant it feels. You are not your emotions. You simply experience them temporarily.

I'm years out from Dday1&2, so I can tell you this. It gets better. My WW thought that she was suffocating in the M, but once I was out, I realized that I had actually been the one set free. She was and is an emotional vampire and I had been subsidizing her character flaws by doing the lion's share of the lifting in the relationship. Once I detoured, I felt very differently.

It sounds like your WW has checked out of the marriage. She has monkey-branched to what she perceives as a better option for her. She will discover he is not and will have her oh-shit moment. What she does with it, well who knows.

I did not have the luxury of having SI as a resource so I did most things wrong. Had I filed right away, I would be financially much better off. Even my EXWW recognized that her cheating was a deal-breaker for me and I was just white knuckling it for the kids.

I am of the camp that in most cases, D should be the immediate default response to infidelity, though others will tell you to wait 6 months to make a decision. But IMHO,inaction is a form of action that favours the cheater. You may want to read "Cheating in a Nutshell" for my reasoning. My reasoning is as follows:

1. Right now, you are in a position of weakness as your WW has thrust you into an unfair competition for her. You were only recently made aware that you have been invved in tne figjt of your life for spome time. She is under the mistaken assumption that she is the prize. By filing for D, you flip the scrip on her, and he who files controls the process.

2. Filing show her that you are decisive and in control. Right now, she sees the OM as the alpha, the strong man she admires. She has already vilified and dehumanizing you as justification for her A. Chances are her complaints are news to you. She has always felt trapped,unloved, ignored, anything that she cancomd up with to avoid being a shitty human being. She cannot be the villain of her own heroic adventure. Sobe strong. Rhis will also help you avoid doing the pick-me dance.

3. You can drag out the D process to see if she gets her head out of her ass. I took years. You can also stop it if you choose to R. You are in control.

4. Most marriages that suffer infidelity do not recover. About 70% divorce by the 5 year mark. Of those that remain, they have survived but few are happy. These are unicorns, but even those often come back for another Dday years later. So you are playing the odds by being decisive.

5. Filing for D protects you financially. She cannot accrue secret debt. Don't assume that she is dishonest in only one area. You can recover money spent on the AP as well. As she now has to foot the bill for everything, she will begin to appreciate the real cost of her choices.

Now a side note: While I was trying to R, and I was really trying, I worked to rediscover that interesting guy I used to be in my 20's. I lost weight, worked out, did things...and bought a shit-load of new clothes. I figured that I had sacrificed so much for my WW and did without, it was my turn. My friends pulled me aside and told me they were concerned for me, thinking my WW was pressuring me. I told them what I was doing and informed them that everything I bought was 50% off since my WW was footing half the bill.if I chose to D, then I would not have to spend a ton of money. Dick move? No. What I spent was a tiny fraction of what she spent over the years.

Anyhow, I ranted and apologize for that. Wishing you good things to come.

I caught her on her work laptop showing herself off to him while he was jerking off.

Ah young love, it's such a beautiful thing to see

OP agree with you 100% she needs a new job.

You mentioned your anger, some men are able to deal with it by exercising like a motherfucker - heavy weights, punching a heavy bag, intense workouts.

You've got young kids so have to be careful, but a little bit of anger to fuel you through this mess I don't think is a bad thing.

If she keeps stringing you along, at some point you're going to get fed up and want to play hardball. You'll really have no other choice other than being a doormat. When you reach that point, tell her if she likes Mr. Wonderful so much, she should go be with him. You refuse to be in a marriage with another man. You'll phone to schedule a moving truck for her right now, off you go to Scotland sweetie, bye. You're going to move on, and YOU'RE going to find another partner.

It's tough with two young kids, sorry this is happening to you.

After reading stories like yours for years, the men who do best in situations just like yours are ones who move swiftly and decisively. You've been in shock up to now. OK, but shake it off, get busy.

In my honest opinion, I feel she should change jobs or request a move to another team and cut all contact from the guy and I don't really think that it is wrong for me to ask that... Curious what others opinions are.

If she wants to save her marriage, she will ensure that she never has any contact with the AP again. I think most betrayed spouses in your shoes would make leaving the job a condition of reconciliation.

I'm sorry your WW has done this to you. You don't deserve it, and it's not your fault. It's entirely the product of flaws in her personality and/or morality.

The number one thing you should understand is that you're experiencing a major trauma in this discovery. You're entire reality has been turned into a lie. Betrayal trauma affects people like nothing else. With your reality ripped out from under you, your WS will try to substitute their own. They will gaslight you and re-write the entire history of your relationship to fit the lies they've told themselves to justify the horrible things that they're doing. Don't buy any of it. Seek IC from a therapist skilled in dealing with trauma.

Trust that you will be happy again someday with or without your WW. It's up to you to set the conditions for that. Step one is ending the infidelity one way or the other.

Never underestimate the level of deceit that goes into an A. Even though OM is an ocean away, if his job enables travel to the US and he has been in the country anytime during your WSs employment, it's not impossible that it was a PA.

If you want to reconcile if she will do what is necessary, I disagree with those who advise you to file for D first and ask questions later. Many WSs use the excuse that their BS already doesn't love them to justify to themselves what they are doing. In that case they may take going immediately to D as proof that was true.

Instead, I would suggest giving her a clear message that it is not what you want, but that D will be the consequence of her actions if she does not agree to end the A completely and permanently very soon. Set a date in your mind for how much time you are willing to give her before you take that step. Don't tell her, leave it ambiguous beyond "soon" or "very soon." But write the date down and stick to it.

Gather and retain any evidence you can of the A so you can submit it to her HR if she will not agree to go NC and end the work connection. I'm skeptical that just changing departments or assignments is going to be sufficient to ensure NC with OM. They're still both going to be in the same corporate systems all day long every day. For example, cheaters have hid their communications with their AP by sharing an encrypted file on a corporate server and just exchanging messages in it all day long.

I understand your desire to protect your WW and also spare yourself the embarrassment. You can be sure that even though she says that she doesn't love you anymore, and she knows how wrong she is, and she knows that they have violated every corporate policy in the book, she still feels absolutely entitled for you, her loving, devoted husband, to protect her and not expose her to the consequences of her actions.

That's what you're dealing with. Someone who is so selfish that she thinks that she can turn your life into a lie, steal half of it in every sense, and that you should still be nice and protect her. So no matter how much you want to save your M and have things go back to the way they were (which they cannot), exposing everything with evidence is your nuclear option. You need to have that available if she will not come to her senses on her own and soon.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 7:45 AM, Friday, August 5th]

A few more thoughts....

1) I recommend reading NOT "Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. She talks very clearly about 'emotional As' ('EAs'), non-physical As. Your W may not have met her ap, but she is surely in an A.

2) If an M is a power struggle, it's an M that is in a lot of pain between people in a lot of pain. Focus on using your power over yourself rather than power in your M. If you focus on your own wants and needs and focus on not letting your W control your decision-making, you'll be OK.

For example, it's one thing to know you very definitely want to rebuild your M. What you want, however, is different from what you do. It's good, for you, to know that you want R but won't actually commit to R unless your W shuts her ap down. R is simply not worth it unless the WS changes from cheater to good partner, and your best bet is to find the power within you to kick her out if she isn't willing to make that change, no matter how much you want to R.

Power over yourself counts. Power over your W? Not so much.

3) When R is on the table, I'm not big on exposing an A. Exposure can shame a person back into the M, and R works best if the WS chooses freely to enter R, IMO.

4) I'm very much against being decisive for the sake f looking strong. It's much more important to BE strong than to LOOK strong.

IOW, my reco is to file for D only if you want to D. My reco is very much not to file as a tactic you hope will get your W's head out into the open air. If your W needs to be manipulated into R, how will you know if she's really committed to anything but covering her own ass?

If you want D - for example, if your W won't meet your requirements for R fast enough for you - by all means file. If that happens to wake your W up enough to start meeting those requirements, by all means feel free to reconsider what you're doing.

Again, if your W needs to be manipulated into R, she's a bad bet. Live your life with honesty and integrity. Think straight; talk straight; act straight. ('Straight' meaning 'not crooked'.) Be yourself. Have faith in yourself. Use your power to act in your own best interests.

*****

Young kids benefit from good parenting. They benefit from living in an intact household. I see my 12 year old GS suffering from his parents' D. But he (and my son and my XDIL) suffered even more when they all lived together. Your case may or may not be different from my son's.

Kids are an added big complication - but they are only one consideration out of several that you have to navigate. Some people stay for the kids, and it works. Some people stay for the kids, and it doesn't work.

You have to make your own decisions.

*****

My reco is to develop your requirements for R. Lay them out for your W. If she agrees to meet them, R can start. If she doesn't agree, D can start.

My reqs were pretty common:

Honesty - no more lies

NC

IC for W, with a goal of changing from cheater to good partner

IC for me for support in processing the anger, grief, fear, shame, and trauma that come with being betrayed.

MC - because we found a great MC who held W's feet to the fire and who dealt with the A first and kept dealing with the A until we were done with it

W had to treat me better than she treated ow.

*****

The responses you report - sleeping, eating, despair, etc. - are all normal. Know that you can heal, survive, and thrive whether you R or D. Have faith in yourself. Your life will almost definitely get better, and it WILL get better when you find and exercise your power to act in your best interests.

Take care of you and your children! She isn't thinking of you or the kids.

Suggestions -
Get IC, individual counseling
Get STD testing, tell her to get it too
See an attorney, protect you, the children and your finances.
Tell her she gets a new job PERIOD
Get "How to Help Yor Spouse Heal from Your Affair". Read it and give it to her. If she doesn't do those things reconciliation is likely impossible.
It AP, affair partner, is married tell his wife, she deserves to know.