SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Last night, there was a wildly popular post on another forum, AITAH, titled (Am I the Asshole for) "Asking my wife to quit her job because she kissed her boss". It had over 10k up votes and 5k comments. OP was participating "live".

I don't know if it was particularly special in any way of the many stories of infidelity out there (almost all of stops are painfull and heartbreaking to go over in derail), and of course there were some reasonable parallels to my story. If you want to read the whole thing you'll need to Google it and find an archive site for the other popular forum.

So that's just the setup. My wife was deep diving this thread as it unfolded. She told me the thread triggered her and she was thinking about it a lot. She seemed to realize, maybe not for the first time, but in a manner more removed from our specific situation "what a piece of shit I was being". That how it got worse and worse as the OPs trust unravelled and what that was like for me. How hard it hit OP as he got further and further down the rabbit hole of her deceit. She reassured me that I had fully explored her rabbit hole, which I don't know if was actually reassuring or not. I guess that's why "trust is a hard thing".

We talked about her A a little and how the thread was similar and how it was different. We talked about the nature of infidelity and how those relationships are built in a fantasy. We talked a little about some of the other affairs from her circle of friends. She thanked me for giving her a second chance and that she really didn't deserve it.

Overall it was a good and interesting conversation with my wife. I can really see how her thinking has changed. Certainly, this was not the kind of conversation we could have had probably for the first two years of R. I think it's not a milestone but a sign of progress for us.

I saw that thread. Poor man.

Good for you guys on the honest conversation. That's great!

I can really see how her thinking has changed.

Those are real eye openers for sure . My H had his A while working overseas...so we had a lot of correspondence through emails and whatsapp. He was SHOCKED to see...in his own words...just how out of touch he was with me. He told me he felt like he was "King of the World" during his A because he had two women who loved him and he was taking care of both of us. But his correspondence showed he was definitely NOT doing that with ME for sure .

We talked about the nature of infidelity and how those relationships are built in a fantasy.

ABSOLUTELY. When REALITY set in...my H sure didn't like what that relationship actually WAS...just two selfish people USING each other to get what they wanted. In the end...they both lost way more than anything they got out of it.

I am happy to see y'all had a productive discussion...thank you for sharing !

Those are very important steps in healing for both of you. Although my W is not on SI we talk about topics that are posted here. We talk about infidelity that is around us in real time, without the emotions we had early after Dday.

We have young neighbors (good friends) that we suspect the W of having an A, they are having M issues. One night we were talking to them about the M and the W said "that's easy for you to say, your M is very good and automatic". My W got very upset and told her "don't ever assume anything like that, we work very hard in our M and I just pray you never do something that you will regret the rest of your life". It was a wow moment, the closest she's ever come to reveling our past.