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My D-day for WH’s 7th and most recent affair was June 2023. He had a texting, online, and phone affair with a former fellow bandmate and longtime fantasy sex person. She was always flashing him, walking around naked in front of him back in the 70’s. He always wanted to sleep with her, but didn’t back then.

Fast forward, he and he reconnected via emails and letters, start sending nudes, and for 3-1/2 to 4 years this goes on, with plans to meet up for the real deal. COVID prevented that, but if D-day had not happened I am sure it would have worked out for them somehow. She’s in another state.

So we go to counseling after D-day. I’m reading, he reads whatever I ask, answers all my questions. Counseling seems good, except I just know in my gut that he’s lying about one past relationship, from back in the 70’s, and it just hangs with me. It always has.

So this June 2024, a year into "recovery" I lose my sh*t. I finally tell him that the bull is enough, I’m done, and I cannot stay if this continues. And he admits he lied, tells me the truth about that PA, and then drops the bomb that he also had a PA with a neighbor friend of ours (who has since moved away).

So restart the recovery clock, because damn.

I was obviously shell shocked. And he has again trickle-truths me to death. I told him that I cannot take it anymore. He became somewhat more open, and then stopped, backed up, and last night went back into hedging on what he has said.

"Maybe" he was going to see her for sex, he was only "hoping" for sex, it wasn’t "really planned" - this after he confessed to it all, and I read the actual f’ing PLANS.

And today I asked him "have you yourself done any kind of reading on your own, looked for any help on your own, looked for websites, anything?" He says no, he kind of just relied on me to do it.

I told that this explains exactly why we are nowhere, 18 months into this mess.

His expectation is that it’s my job to fix what he broke.

I told him that since he sees no need to do any work on the marriage at all, NEITHER DO I.

I am done.

I told him he is free of me. I don’t have any more questions. I don’t care what he does. Since this isn’t important to him, I an mo longer going to put any effort at all into it either - I will treat it EXACTLY THE WAY HE TREATS IT, AND I WILL TREAT HIM THE WAY HE TREATS ME.

He doesn’t want me to do that, he says.

"I don’t give a shit." I said. And I feel better now. I am just done. If anything changes, it will be because he changed it.

I’m not going to row this boat anymore, because when only one oar is in the water, you only go in circles.

You did good! Do not let him gaslight you. He will either sink or swim. If he cant understand the prize he has been given (you) then he needs to go.

[This message edited by heartbrokeninaz at 3:55 AM, Thursday, October 24th]

Well done! It's such a freeing feeling to realize that you don't have to care anymore. You can stop putting in the work. You don't owe him anything at this point. Keep reminding yourself of these truths when old thought patterns or behaviors start to creep in. It can be hard to shake loose of decades of habit. I hope you are able to find some peace in the years to come.

5Decades,

I'm so sorry he did not find himself and become an honest and loving adult man. I've read many of your posts and was following your story. You have been through the wringer, and I am grateful that you came here and shared your journey along the way.

My WH is a PA/SA and lied about it for our 26 year marriage, until D-day 2 months ago, when he hit bottom and confessed all to blind and ignorant me (he got arrested for soliciting sex.) I'm planning to give us a year (separated) to do our own healing, but I will have my eyes open thanks to you sharing your experiences.

Your strength and outcome will help me decide what to do for my own mental health, eventually. You are taking your life back, you GO girl! I'm glad you are putting yourself first. Thank you for being inspiring.

Standing ovation!

Interesting couple of days.

He asked me not to divorce him.

I told him that I have no choice. He has done nothing on his own to move me towards reconciliation, but let me ty to figure it all out and "take the lead". I have no more energy to do that, I can’t. I’m worn out.

I told him that if he cannot answer one simple question in under ten hours, then there is no way the relationship even EXISTS anyway.

And that at the rate we are going, we’re both going to be dead before any progress would be made because he simply will not open up, take down his fucking walls, and just do what it takes to be the man he used to be. I don’t have that kind of time, I too old.

We have talked for hours. He has cried.

Somehow I feel kind of flat most of the time, but in truth, I do not want to leave him. Fundamentally I love him, and I know what has caused this breakdown in him.

He has had a porn addiction. I haven’t discussed it with him much because when I brought it up around Dday(s) it was like a nuclear bomb.

But something just happened. He sent me an email and told me that since DDAY June 2023, he quit porn altogether and has not looked at it in any form at all. Nothing. He has been doing online programming with a doctor (he named her) and follows the recovery program there.

I had no idea, because he just won’t talk to me.

But yesterday during one of our discussions, he talked about the fact that his shame was the reason we were not making progress, that he couldn’t talk about things. And I asked him to watch a video.

Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability and shame.

He agreed, and I pulled it up right there. I told him you have 20 minutes to understand this thing. It’s killing you, and it has killed our marriage. It has killed a year and a half we had to fix things.

He watched it and cried. I didn’t cry, because I already knew where my head was on it all.

So this morning I wake up to the email. He admits the porn addiction. He talks about stopping, and how he felt shame about it. And then talked to me about how porn use leads people into other sexual acting out, normalizes it, and makes them help themselves believe it’s all justified in a dark and twisted way in their heads. And that he knows that porn, alcohol, and his own stupid choices led him to be somehow "okay" with cheating.

And he says he wasn't really "okay" with it. He knew it was wrong. But there’s a bizarre, illogical, twisted thinking that told him that he could keep the worlds separate. That the other world didn’t mean anything, it was fantasy, not real, and it would not be his life. That I was his life.

He knows it’s illogical thinking. He admits it. But at least we have some damn honest words coming out.

I’m sleeping in the other room. We are not in reconciliation in my mind. I can’t be in that phase, not until he tells me what HIS plan for that would look like.

I told him if he wants to build a house, he has to have a set of plans. If he wants to build a marriage, his plan cannot simply be for me to "stop talking about divorce". He nodded.

I said, tell me your plan.

In his email, he said he is doing some research.

We shall see.

Oh wow, he seems exactly like my SAWH. I don't mean to discourage you any further, but I've been hearing these kinds of periodic sob stories and gut-wrenching "confessions" since....2002. And guess what? I wanted, really wanted it to be true, every time, that he could do the work he needed to do on himself to fix the gigantic split in his thinking. Hasn't begun to happen. I am 10 years out from his arrest for soliciting after a 12 year waiting to see his changes, doing IHS hell.

Seems to me these kinds expect if they get pushed hard enough by your being "done," that is when they'll turn on the tears and I really believe the concept they have is if they cry hard enough with you about their marital failures, you (or I) will take pity on them.

So be done, why not break up the pattern he is in? There is always time to reconnect if he truly were to hit bottom. Sorry, just my reading of this, and I'm 73, married 28 years, only the first few happy. Don't go this way, like I did!

Superesse,

I have seen real changes in him over the 18 months. I have. One thing that has changed is that he is a willing listener, which in the past he has nor really been.

My childhood was one of severe physical and psychological abuse. It was bad enough that my younger brother has suffered mental illness all his life, and has had several instances of institutionalized interventions. We both suffer from PTSD, and I recognize some of my reactions in this trauma as being directly related to those from my childhood.

Until this affair, I had never explained the extent of what happened to me and my brother to my husband. WH was shocked and sat with the information for several days, and then told me that continued contact with certain people in my family was to cease immediately. I wasn’t sad about this, in fact, it was a relief and I’m better off for it. I had tried to do it myself, but having someone help me has made the difference.

WH understands exactly why I’m reacting, and today admitted that had he just told me the unvarnished truth from the start, we would be recovering better.

That’s a first, too. We have talked about his need to protect me, and I told him that his white knight syndrome has gotten him into trouble before, I don’t need a knight, and that I need a man who is a partner and an honest broker in my marriage.

I had asked him to go to couples counseling before. He attended unwillingly at first, but did end up liking the counselor and did benefit from it. In fact, he still quotes her and uses some things she said to do.

It’s not that he hasn’t done anything at all. I would be dishonest if I said that. What he hasn’t done is do anything independent of me that’s directed at helping the marriage. Unless you count the help with stopping porn - I do have to give him that - he did that on his own, and to be honest that is not an easy thing to do. Kudos to him for that, respectfully. I’m talking about looking for sites like this, or books, or articles, or TED talks, things to help him stop thinking like a wayward, stop thinking that this is something I need to fix, and start looking for ways to help me get up off the floor after he body slammed me with his affair.

I want to save my marriage. I do. But I cannot do it by myself. And I have reached the point where I just simply will not.

We have been together almost 50 years. Our history is that very early on, he had a series of brief sexual relationships. Then, nothing outside the marriage for almost 30 years. Then two brief sexual encounters again. Then almost 20 years later, an emotional relationship. Our marriage for very long stretches is good. It’s loving. Somehow he goes off the rails - and each time it has to do with overuse of alcohol and porn, every damn time. Alcohol is the other issue in the relationship.

We are talking about that, too. Right now, he isn’t on the abstinence train. He’s on the "no alcohol on weekdays" and one drink only Saturday and Sunday. He has stuck to it since day….until last Sunday. This issue tipped me over the edge. That’s why we’re where we are right now.

He has to be done being that guy. I want the man I married, not this person he has become. And somehow I think he’s still in there, because I see him peek out at me from time to time.

Oddly enough, I saw him A LOT in the emails to his most recent affair partner. That’s the man I want back. He’s there. His shame is keeping him hostage.

I want the man I married, not this person he has become. And somehow I think he’s still in there, because I see him peek out at me from time to time.

Oddly enough, I saw him A LOT in the emails to his most recent affair partner. That’s the man I want back. He’s there. His shame is keeping him hostage.

You mean the man who only comes out when he's wooing someone? Are you willing to continue settling for occasional glimpses of the man you married FIFTY years ago? And the man who's only vulnerable when he has something to lose, like Superesse said?

And today I asked him "have you yourself done any kind of reading on your own, looked for any help on your own, looked for websites, anything?" He says no, he kind of just relied on me to do it.

But something just happened. He sent me an email and told me that since DDAY June 2023, he quit porn altogether and has not looked at it in any form at all. Nothing. He has been doing online programming with a doctor (he named her) and follows the recovery program there.

I had no idea, because he just won’t talk to me.

Yesterday he didn't admit to seeking help for his porn addiction, but today, when he knows he's backed into a corner, he says he's been actively working on it for the last year and a half? 🤨 1) Sorry, I'm not buying it. 2) He's lying again, either yesterday or today. 3) Ten bucks says he's dramatically overstating what he's actually done to seek help for his porn addiction.

50 years is a long time but it doesn't mean you need to be tethered to this man for the rest of it.

Regardless of whether he puts in the work or not I would 100% focus on YOU and live life for YOU and not him. He's already taken many years of your life. I honestly wouldn't give him anymore until you see a changed person.

Well. OK. Doesn't sound like YOU are done, yet, after all. I agree with the above posters, sorry to tell you. You seem now to be more than willing to believe what he is acting like (acting like not just saying) because if you can trust that, you will not have to disrupt your life story. I do know how it goes, believe me; BTDT.

Still, there's no reason you can't keep BEING DONE. I'm saying get ready, see a lawyer this week. Go through the MOTIONS. One day at a time, start thinking about YOU FIRST. Otherwise it could be many more years of this, like me.

Here's some wisdom from years ago that at that time, I didn't want to accept: some targeted advice from my little sister. Right before my D-Day 1, she had just divorced her raging SAWH. She had been my matron of honor and her SAXWH had done some part of the ceremony. I was so sorry she had to divorce him when she was almost 50 and had 3 children, the youngest a 4 year old autistic DS boy. She told me a CSAT (Certified Sex Addiction Counselor) explained it like this: so long as a sex addict has the BENEFIT of stability at home, so long as the sex addict knows there is SOMEONE to fall back upon, they will NEVER EXPERIENCE MEANINGFUL CONSEQUENCES. (By the way, this is right out of the AA handbook, as well.)

But I balked at hearing my sister tell me that! Why? Because - get this - I foolishly thought my withdrawal from the marriage bed was ENOUGH of a heavy-duty consequence, for the kind of man who would go to a prostitute the same day as he had been in my body? How naive could I have been! I just did him a huge favor as he didn't want me that badly, anyway. (Some experts call sex addiction an Intimacy Disorder where they just cannot be intimate with a partner. So it worked for HIM.) All it did for me was gain me a bit of temporary sanity and more time to wait and see...which turned into YEARS and DECADES, like crazyblindsided said she gave her XH, too.

My sister died in 2011 at age 54 (of a squamous cell carcinoma that may have been from the cervical abnormality her XH gave her). 3 years after she died my SAWH "fell off the wagon" and got arrested for soliciting, his mug shot all over the local news and television stations, in the new community we had moved to so we could "start over." UGH. All that while - 12 years from D-Day 1 - there I stayed, always being hopeful for his potential "growth." I never forgot what my sister told me, it was hard-earned knowledge on her part. But I thought it wasn't critical for me to kick him out.

Today, I regret not doing something more drastic to remove myself from this M, although I probably couldn't have mustered the courage back then, due to my own FOO abandonment issues. It could have made a profound difference in his life if I'd kicked him to the curb like my lawyer, my counselor, my sister and my BFF all advised me was the best way to handle his B.S. But you know how it goes....we had just signed a huge mortgage to buy a place using all the equity from MY home - so that would have been the same thing as me having to declare bankruptcy (I wasn't working at that point.) I was heavily invested in "making it work." In hindsight, my SAWH was NOT.

The fact that you only see glimmers of progress after you finally put your foot down is completely predictable but also a truism is that nobody makes serious changes in their personality just to appease someone ELSE.

Keep posting and see if your path becomes clearer.

I’m listening, believe me.

This is so damn hard.

How do you just stop believing in someone after 50 years?

I have looked through his computer and there is no evidence of porn. Also, the modem, which he has no clue about, and which records web traffic including "private mode" internet use, also shows clean. His phone is clean, and his iPad. I have checked, very often at first but only spot checking for awhile. No contact with his recent AP at all since dday. I also verified he is doing the porn program he says he’s doing.

So that’s true.

I don’t want to be the computer police. It’s exhausting and frankly, I can’t live that way.

Do I believe everything he says? Hell no.

I don’t.

Am I prepared to leave? Yes. I am retired, but I kept my professional license because all of this happened about a week after my last day of work. Today I looked at the website, and my job remains unfilled. They would rehire me tomorrow, no questions.

I discussed with him my plans of renting an apartment in the town where that job is located so I won’t have to commute. Also selling my truck and RV to use as some seed money to get me started, buy a used beater car.

He knows this is real. I know it’s real.

I also contacted my therapist and made an appointment to restart counseling with the goal of trying to figure out how a woman my age can restart her life, get through the pain of all of this, and all the rest. It’s………a lot.

I am not relishing going back to work. I have been sick for ten months, and that’s a thing. But the in house separation has to work for right now.

I’m just not personally prepared to look into the eyes of my daughters and try to explain how this all collapsed. I can’t even explain this to myself.

And yes, I do hold out hope that people can change. If you hold any belief in redemption at all, you must believe in that. There’s a book full of teaching on that exact topic. I believe in redemption, and do hold out hope that WH can find his way out of the hole. The sad fact here is that I might not be his wife when he does it.

I’d like to gently add that any changes that you make can be reversed should you want to. Nothing is permanent. A decision made today can be changed tomorrow.

There may be a certain comfort in believing this.

I also think that the belief of restarting life gets one down. Regardless of age. It’s a matter of how you choose to look at the stuff life throws at you. One has one life. In that life there are obstacles, trauma, contentments, loves, choices etc.

One just deals with these things to the best that they can. There is no restart, just a continuation of your life with changes. Major ones, scary ones for sure as one navigates through it all.

There is only so much a person can take before one collapses in a marriage rocked with cheating. I believe that one needs to fully understand what collapsed for you today. Is it you, is it your husband, is it your marriage. I’m glad you have a therapist that can guide you though this.

As much as your daughters may want details, you are not obligated to explain your reasoning. You gave it your best and it was not enough. That’s all. You did not fail.

You changed.

This is about you searching for balance and meaning.

Our life is not what one had imagined but in the end it all works out.

Wishing you the best.

I am so, so very sorry you are here and have been in this so deep for so long.

Thoughts...
What did it take for him to finally wake up and begin to change? Was it seeing you in pain? Or was it the pain HE felt from potentially losing you?
If that's the case will that cause resentment? If so, do you believe you will be able to let go of the resentment?

Some people are good at processing and letting go of resentment and starting a new relationship with the new improved version of their spouse. They really can reconcile and have a wonderful improved marriage, I believe it.

Others struggle and it may be just too hard for them so they have to either leave or accept the resentment that will live in them and do their best to avoid it/hide it/ignore it.

His expectation is that it’s my job to fix what he broke.

I read through all of this. My heart is breaking for you. But that quote above - that downright pisses me off.

He's crying now - I'm sure he is. The fantasy bubble bursting with the bitch slap of reality tends to have that effect on people.

I'm glad you found your strength.

Good question, the one regarding if he snapped out of it because of the pain he caused me or his own pain of losing me.

We actually talked about this many times since DDay 1.

In all of the back and forth with the long distance EA, the discussion between them did include "well, we aren’t actually touching, so really this isn’t sex for real" kind of talk. So they swept it away and justified it between them as "it’s okay because we aren’t physically touching". He has said he knew it was wrong all along, though, and they both did. They talked about me not finding out, because I would be hurt, and they both knew how I would feel.

He said that their plans to meet up in person fell through, and in a way he was kind of relieved because it would have brought the fantasy into reality, and the whole "we aren’t really doing anything!" excuse would evaporate. Yet he felt the compulsion anyway. He also says he knows this was illogical and also wrong.

His honest answer to this question was that he knew I would be hurt, yes. But that the depth of my pain shocked him, because the affair wasn’t physical, and in his mind it was distant and a fantasy that literally evaporated the moment I discovered it. He thought, somehow, that what he was doing was not like his previous cheating, with physical sex happening in real life.

He explains it like this: he was watching porn online, frequently. Our sex life had been shut down because I had a medical issue and could not participate physically (I’m not going into details, but I was in treatment and am better now). So during that time he decided that his solution was porn, and apparently did this while I was at work, and also very late at night while I was sleeping.

She is, and always was, an exhibitionist and very sexually aggressive. They had been in contact because they were writing music together over their years off and on. Just before COVID, the nature of their emails and calls changed, because his mom had died, and her husband had to go into a nursing home. That grew into comfort calls, into white knight calls, into intimate calls because she needed him so desperately and was lonely oh so needy and lost her lover…into her sending him a nude…and then the pictures and calls became more sexual and emotional.

He says the porn watching and her photos and calls kind of morphed. She became a fantasy, like "another stop on the porn channels" in a way, except she was a real person who talked to him.

In my mind, she was like an OnlyFans that he didn’t have to pay? But he fell in love with her, because of their history, friendship, and long term admiration of creative drive.

It makes sense.

He says that fantasy world just exploded when he got my text that Dday.

And he snapped out of it because when he saw my face, swollen from crying, my migraine so bad I was vomiting and couldn’t see? He knew I was devastated.

He cries because I am in agony. If I cry, he cries. He knows he is the cause of this, and he grieves that we have so little time left to fix this before we die.

I don’t think people who are younger really comprehend that there is a finite number of days that we have to resolve things. I want to know that when I meet the maker, whoever that is, that I leave a legacy of peace behind me.

It doesn’t mean I will live with this man the rest of my life.

It DOES mean I will resolve this so this man has peace within his soul, so when HE meets the maker, he also leaves his legacy of peace, too.

But the truth of the matter, for me, is that I do want to resolve this so that I can be happy again, to love again, and to forgive him. In my mind, the best case scenario would be for my heart to mend first, and decide from there.

Because I don’t think any decisions made with an angry or broken heart are made with anyone’s best interest in mind.

5Decades -

In my mind, the best case scenario would be for my heart to mend first, and decide from there. Because I don’t think any decisions made with an angry or broken heart are made with anyone’s best interest in mind.

I agree with you 100%
Sounds like healing is happening, wonderfully stated.

It seems his remorse is real...I feel you two could truly reconcile wonderfully. So sorry for the terrible experience. May God give you both wisdom and peace.

It DOES mean I will resolve this so this man has peace within his soul, so when HE meets the maker, he also leaves his legacy of peace, too.

I don't see how you can heal if you take responsibility for your WS's inner life. You can't give him peace; he has to create that for himself.

For you to have peace, you have to define what that is for yourself, figure out your path to peace, and take the journey.

The problem is that if your image requires something from your H, you can't achieve it by your effort alone.

IOW, give up trying to control your outcome. You heal you. You can support your H, but he is the only one who can heal himself.

I'm not saying you should split. I'm just reminding you that recovering from betrayal requires you to heal yourself and him to heal himself. Neither of you can heal the other, but healing is eminently doable.

Even 14 years ago, one of my fears was starting on the R path and failing to complete because one of us died too soon. At our age, we're closer to the end than the beginning, but untimely passing is unfortunately possible for anyone. Philosophers tell us to live each day as if it's our last - but to live each day.

I think you're doing yourself a good service by not deciding when you're angry.

I'm sorry your H dumped this burden on you.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life with the axe of another Dday always swinging over your head? Or do you want to finally feel safe and at peace?

Only 1 of the above options is available while remaining married to your husband.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 5:45 PM, Sunday, October 27th]