SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Early on in my romantic and sexual life, in my teens till my 20s, I experienced a longterm relationship with a serial cheater. My first experience with betrayal was the discovery of an online diary written by my then girlfriend describing sexual encounters with others. I was overcome with the pain we are all familiar. My body rejected the discovery, I was disgusted, ran to the bathroom, vomiting. I was on a rechargeable phone with her at the time. She found it hilarious, just dessert for me invading her privacy.

I did not, and still do not, possess the self respect I needed to extract myself. I stayed in that doomed relationship as a person doomed to things I could not accept. For one thing, I was a fresh high school drop out, now almost completely without peers except for her. It was clear that she was test driving and interviewing countless prospective replacements for me while using me for emotional and sexual validation in the meantime. I was treated to fun discussions about the characteristics she wanted in a mate. If only she could have my face, his body, so an so’s confidence, my devotion, asshole’s skill with his tongue, that dude over theres prospects. I conceded every boundary I thought I had. I persisted that way for 8 years in total.

Isolated from peers and without support at home, drowning in self pity and intrusive thoughts about what she was doing with others while I had eyes only for her, I was simultaneously a horny teenage boy. The environment I was in stretched out thresholds and parameters that should never have been touched, and I found my pain and arousal confusingly entangled.

A painful, loathsome, disgusting yearning. An awful secret wish. Something I couldnt find support for.

I got that way because I was abused and didnt free myself. To my young self, I couldnt live without her, I couldnt change her nature. But what if I could have friends? What if I could have love? What if I could have sex with my girl, she could have sex with other people, we could eat food and play video games and have cool conversations and we could all be in agreement that it was just some big lovefest where I wasnt discarded and none of it was cruel? All I had to do is be down with it right? Could all my pain and misery just be put away like that?

The fantasy never met reality. That relationship was not salvageable. No adaptation of myself to her behavior could have changed it. Other ways to betray me were conceived of and implemented.

When my generation became college aged, It became possible for me to de isolate myself socially. I built a group of not very good friends of my own. Bought a car, got fit. Started to feel the love fade. Started to see other females as a possibility. Eventually embraced the idea that monogamy wasnt feasible. The cheating girl I thought I was going to end up with forever was just a friend, for however long that was worthwhile to keep. I had misunderstood relationships, she had not, and I was eager to see new experiences in the light of that understanding.

But the parasite, the scar, the fetish of seeing my woman in a sexual context with other men outside of a betrayal nibbled at the edge of my brain.

Eventually, I met Ww. She was(is) timid and squeaky, tall, lean, and very pretty. She was aggressively interested in me, wanted as much of me, and all of it she could get, out of the gate. I saw a reflection of her intentions in a younger, pre betrayal me. I wanted her, and I wanted to protect her from my experience. I could not do with seeing her harmed in the ways I was. She was jealous and insecure. I cut off other women. I believed in love again. I really didnt see it coming.

Long before the cheating, before the marriage,

When I shared my fetish with Ww, she was disturbed. Wanted nothing to do with it. We were supposed to be each others sexual one and only, she wanted only me, supposedly. I still had the itch, but I was happy about that.

I found out about the extent of her cheating this year a decade after the events supposedly ended. We’ve been in therapy. She passed a polygraph on her timeline. We arent rugsweeping.

One of my hurdles to healing is the realization that she rejected my olive branch to the urges and desires she pretended not to have, preferring to have the appearance of monogamy, but secretly making it one sided. Our relationship was happy, we had great sex, we had goals. She was insecure about other women, angrily accusing me of noticing females in grocery isles and such, which I do not do, while she secretly conducted affairs and sexual arrangements with customers and coworkers for at least a 9 month long period of time.

She knew about my little problem, knew I was willing to accommodate her, knew she didnt have to make it a betrayal. But chose to. I cant grok that.

She only considered leaning into it once when I became suspicious and angry about her and her coworkers. They seemingly made a stupid plan to create a situation where a threesome might occur with her, me and her primary Ap. To get the affair out of the closet; hide the cake eating by possibly blaming me for things getting out of hand. To get out of trouble by getting out in front of it, using my stupid fantasy. They tried to create a situation where the Ap had nowhere to stay that evening, and she offered our home as a solution. I shot them down, sensing deception.

At the time I lacked critical information to see it for what it is. But now, with context, I know it means that
1. They discussed my suspicions
2. They asked each other what they should do
3. She shared my fetish
4. They discussed a workaround involving it
5. Scripted the scenario
6. Put on the play in front of me to see if Id eat the bait.

Thats alot of consecutive things that piss me off.
I asked Ww if thats how the planning side shook out. "Probably not", she said. Do you remember it happening? "Not really, but I believe you", she said. "I remember sitting at the table in the bar that night." Who really knows.

In therapy, our therapist asked me to build a list of my needs. She noted I wasnt giving my Ww anything she could do to help me with my pain, just ranting about events in the timeline. Its a fair criticism.

I mentioned this issue in my homework assignment. Ww comes up empty handed on how to make me feel better. Let me know she would Never, never, never be interested, will not ever do it. Suits me. By my recognizance of what has happened, we arent eligible. Its dead. But Im bitter about it, because I still have the problem and she cant think of anything to say to help. The things she did are germane to the reasons I developed this disfunction.

She produced for and trusted the Ap with a nude she made. Never did that for me. When we were driving home from family, we had a sexual and flirtatious conversation. It was ruined when I suggested she take and send me a dirty picture. She acted like I would use it as evidence against her in a divorce, and refused.

A few days later, i suggested we go and sneak into the place where she and her Ap screwed around and bang it out so I could make it mine. Refusal. Too risky, trespassing, etc. Fine, I guess, thats reasonable, but she risked us and her job to do that with him.

Im learning shitloads of things about the things Im upset about, and am finding my ability to accept them, her willingness to do anything to make me feel better about them unsatisfactory.

Its getting hard for me to live with the things I have learned about who I am to her. I feel I was chosen for my safety, devotion, and utility as a partner. Since she cheated, that feels repugnant.

I never got better from the longterm scars from my previous betrayal. Im losing hope I will recover in any meaningful way from this one, too. Doesnt leave me much room to like sex, people, or myself. Id do anything to unfuck my self respect. Id do anything to unshare what happened to me with my wife.

I cant tell you how hard this was to write.

I can relate to this to a certain degree.

My husband and I started our relationship more as friends with benefits, it allowed certain fantasies okay to speak about. And eventually, we experimented with swinging.

But this led to a lot of HB and eventually our relationship evolved and we were talking marriage. At that time, I told him I no longer wanted to be with other people. We lived a monogamous marriage for two decades following and I didn’t regret that decision. I wasn’t secretly wanting anyone else, not even in the slightest.

When the affair happened it happened deep down because I was escaping pain. I needed someone to make me feel magical, lapping up false validation like it could save me. Spoiler alert, it did not. It made things infinitely worse and for a much longer time had I just decided to go to therapy and figure myself out.

But I knew then I could have gone to my husband and told him that I wanted to go back to bringing people in. But that isn’t really what I wanted, I wanted validation that could not happen in that scenario. It wasn’t about the sex to me it was pretending to be someone I was not. When you are doing an open relationship or swinging, typically that’s more reality based. There are rules and it’s less about emotional stuff and more about sexual variety. I didn’t crave sexual variety.

I think your wife needs to be responsible for what she has done, but she is not responsible for the way you arrived to her. You have work to do on your healing there. And that may inform the work you can do (or can’t do) and help give you clarity about whether this is a relationship you want to repair and how some of that work can be done.

I shared my personal story with you because perhaps it may help know what questions to ask or how to bridge an understanding as to why she didn’t come to you for inclusion. The other thing that is hard is has she grown at all in those ten years? Or is this a dormant issue that is just waiting to reappear when things get hard for her?

5BD....how are you? The pain is real. Allow yourself to grieve.

Its been a very bad time. I am grieving.

On new years eve, Ww and I went back through her text stream with me from 2014, the acknowledged period of infidelity. We learned some hard shit. Our reconstruction of the timeline was totally wrong, we found. The lions share of events in the timeline happened in may, when she and her primary AP got cocky, comfortable, and sloppy. One event that was correctly placed to the day and was particularly egregious stayed, and everything else is up in the air. There is a huge amount of the calendar where the affair was going on that I am totally blind to, including the beginning and end.

17 days after the night club incident, I found out she was treated for fever, itching, and discharge. The other female involved in that incident suffered a miscarriage a day before she was treated. Two men were present for that incident, her primary Ap and a male coworker. Allegedly, all that occurred was she was fingered by the female and male coworker in the backseat of the car on a ride back to the shared housing of the two males. Upon arrival she was supposedly thrown out of the house with nothing further happening, sexually speaking.

Shes sticking to the story that in this nearly year long period, she only got fingered, by four people, one of them for money.

Because of that, and a large amount of additional information I found including an anomalous condom of a brand and type i never used or possessed in her dresser drawer with an expiration date placing its useful life in the middle of the times when infidelity occurred, I began to doubt the veracity of her passed polygraph.

The polygrapher is currently being burned in the community by a wayward because of this review;

"I’ll be honest. As a woman, I initially liked (polygraphers name) because she’s a "woman’s woman." Let me explain. My boyfriend and I went to her for a lie detector test, and I passed every single question—even though I knew I was lying. That’s why I felt comfortable going to her. I hoped she might understand the position I was in and, in a way, help me lie. Now, I can’t say for sure that Jane intentionally helped me lie; maybe she just doesn’t know what she’s doing. Either way, this is what happened.

At first, I thought I had dodged a bullet. The test made me look good and saved my relationship temporarily. But my boyfriend wasn’t having it. He saw right through the test and knew it was bogus. Honestly, I knew it too, but I didn’t want to admit it because it worked in my favor.

A few days later, my boyfriend decided to dig deeper and reached out to some people on his own. Eventually, the truth came out, and I had to admit to the things I was guilty of. Now, I’m trying to repair my relationship, but the damage has already been done.

Looking back, even though I was relieved at first that (polygraphers name)’s test seemed to "help" me, it actually backfired and made things much worse. I should have just been honest from the beginning. I would have saved myself a lot of money, stress, and emotional damage. (Polygrapher’s name)’s test, whether due to her lack of expertise or otherwise, gave me false confidence in my lies, which only made the fallout even harder in the end."

Other people in the community have now had similar stories and gripes as mine. I was already doubting because of new information, this clinches it for me. I wasted my time on it.

We have been seeing a new counselor. Shes good. I have too much to say, and WW has almost nothing to say, so Ive fallen into the trap of eating our sessions up with my thoughts.

Thanks for caring, woodthrush. I appreciate you. Hope you are well.

@5bluedrops

Its getting hard for me to live with the things I have learned about who I am to her. I feel I was chosen for my safety, devotion, and utility as a partner. Since she cheated, that feels repugnant.

I also struggle with this to some degree.

My wife has never sexted me in 22 years of marriage. But exchanged weeks of messages with another man, then lied about it to me.

It now makes trusting her a daily challenge. I find myself questioning our entire relationship, including what she actually thinks of me, what my real value to her is.

I also have thoughts of seeing her with other men. But she’s disgusted by even the mention of it.

@hikingout Your explanation of wanting the validation versus the reality feels like the right one for my situation.

But it feels like it should be so simple, and yet it’s so very complicated. Past trauma, the loss of trust, inconsistency, it all clouds my ability to feel safe.

But it feels like it should be so simple, and yet it’s so very complicated. Past trauma, the loss of trust, inconsistency, it all clouds my ability to feel safe.

You shouldn’t feel safe or secure, that would be burying your head in the sand. It’s going to be a big process to get adjusted to your new normal, and a bigger one for your wife to show you enough consistency, consideration, and commitment for feelings of security return. This is why we talk around here about finding that security within yourself, it’s the only logical place to have it. That doesn’t have anything to do with the outcome of the marriage, it’s finding a way to be in control of your life and future. A relationship is icing on the cake.

Edited to add: it IS complicated. Understanding something doesn’t excuse it. There is a lot of damage here, and it is going to take more time than you can fathom yet to repair it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:42 PM, Friday, January 17th]

The polygrapher is currently being burned in the community by a wayward because of this review;

It’s time for another polygraph, this time from a reputable examiner. If your wife is truly remorseful, she shouldn’t have any problem with this, given what’s now known about this corrupt examiner who administered the previous exam.

...or ... forget about another poly, because you know your WS continues to lie to you.

My reco is not to do a poly unless a lie will cause you to end the relationship AND a pass will result in building a good deal of trust.

Gently, the problem looks like it's more your self-respect than whatever your partner is doing or has done. The solution is to build your self-respect - and make no mistake, you are a lot stronger and a lot better than you think you are, unless you're a narcissist. Really - you're loving, lovable, capable, and enough.

You're loving, lovable, capable, and enough.

5BD....so sorry to hear this information. But it seems your gut is still driving you forward....things are not yet settled. Will your wife do another poly with a different examiner?

What does she think about that testimony regarding the examiner she had?

Seek the Lord through this friend. He can help you grow and work good through this horrible trial.

Keep us posted please.

Sisoon,

My thinking about the polygraph is mostly in line with your point of view. My experience with it fell closer to my imagined worst case scenarios than the ones I hoped for, and frankly I have lost faith in polygraphs. The empirical aspect is sketchy, the variables are too many, and the human aspects; both the data provider and interpretation by the examiner, have too much leeway in discretion.

The self respect problem, the baggage I brought before my wife cheated, is in my way. You are totally on the nose there. Thank you for your kindness.

I know i am worthy of love, strong, capable, all these things. I put it into action everyday. I know it in my mind. But for whatever reason, my soul wont accept the lesson. Doesnt believe it, even if the space in my skull understands it. If that makes sense. Im working on it.

Hikingout,

I spent a great deal of time reading your initial response to me. I never replied to you because each time, I became overwhelmed. Couldnt string words together.

You very well described the reasons why understanding the "whys" are so important.

I understand the ramp my wife and I are on. We are going to be attributing her vulnerability to having the affairs to her past traumas. Her need for validation. Her desire to be the most desired object in the room, insecurities, etc.

the process is going to piss me off. Its not going to land in a way that gets me to good. It might help lend some perspective. But it wont help with the decade of lies and gaslighting, controlling my behaviors with guilt and manipulation. all the crucial life decisions we made together where she knew and I didnt have enough information. 2/3 of our relationship I lived in a false reality she constructed, and she is still attempting to commandeer my cognizance of it.

Still, I understand its a process. And thats a big part. Im willing to keep on.

Thank you so much for your truly thoughtful perspective.

4characters,

Thanks for being brave enough to show me that Im not alone in having such a reaction. It always frustrated and puzzled me. Before this post, only a tiny handful of people ever knew about it. I feel like a freak because of it. Im ashamed of it.

Our counselor listened to me talk about it a bit recently. She latched onto an idea that this was an anti abandonment strategy, and that I dont really want it. I cant decide if I feel thats correct, or inaccurate. Im going to see where she goes with it. Regardless, my conclusion regarding Ww is that we arent compatible with the concept. Id be a happier person without it.

My wife clearly sorted me into the category of husband material. She wanted me to stop smoking, not drink, have kids, provide and support her, love and cherish each other, have clean sex in a clean bed, and wanted me to believe that was all she needed and wanted. I could have been happy with that except;

She clearly sorted the affair partners into a short term fun with bad boys category. She didnt want any of that with them. The primary Ap pushed on romantic notions with her, and she scoffed. She drank and smoked freely with them, partied, had sexual conversations and encounters and got high off of both the intense new relationship excitement and the getting away with it at her job and in her relationship with me.

Feels like shit because I was held to the standard of being good, working hard and loving fully, while they werent held to any standards. And she got to pursue total fulfillment. And the risk of losing everything we had was weighed as acceptable, all she had to do was lie to me for the rest of our lives. Ugly. Gross. I hate it.

Woodthrush,

My relationship with god is being reinforced as I go through this. I have always struggled with the notion that my pittance of faith, which ebbs and flows, is sufficient. I pray for it to be increased.

Im praying for my wife, too. Shes having one of the hardest times of her life in this. Im not blind to that.

Everyone,

thank you for your compassion and thoughts shared. It means so much to me right now.

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 2:37 PM, Saturday, January 18th]

Im praying for my wife, too. Shes having one of the hardest times of her life in this. Im not blind to that.

Is your wife more concerned about herself, or clearly more concerned about you?

Gr8ful,

Its a tough question to answer.

She seems to be worried about me. She claims to want to help, to fix it, to not know what to do. Shes terrified to "say the wrong thing". She says that more than she says anything else. From time to time, she will put into genuine effort an apology where she names what she is apologizing for. But mostly, she seems stuck in fear and shame. Apologies are mostly hollow, "well, im sorry".

She encourages me to talk, and she mostly is fairly quiet after I do for a while. It frustrates me, because the sensation I am left with is her gathering an understanding of my position and state of mind and not wanting to give me hers. Ive written pages and pages of thoughts on the matter, she writes only prayers on notepads for god to bring us out of this.

The impression I get is that she cares I am hurt, wants me not to, but is possibly more concerned about what it will mean for her.

Sometimes, she becomes exasperated, defensive, and the mask slips. DARVO, tantrums, door slamming, leaving the room, shouting "I cant take this anymore" etc.
She cries more than I do, gets snotty and stuffy, gets a headache, then blames me for being stuffy and having a headache.
In these times, she says things like,

"this whole time I thought you understood, and were allowing me to lie"

"I guess I just have to repeat myself for the rest of our lives"

"Already went through this, again and again and again"

"I didnt think we learned anything new"(when we reviewed the text messages and the timeline got blown up)

"You were ok yesterday, why today?!"

Eyerolling, throwing her hands in the air, yada yada.

She collects herself and comes back clean.

But really, I feel like she is patiently trying to wait out me "getting over it".

All the information I got about the affair came because I wouldnt drop it. It was trickle truth the whole way, kicking and screaming. Never felt like her intention to carry it to the grave was ever internally renounced, just that she drew a red line on how much she would admit to, and wants to march through reconciliation without coming totally clean.

Sometimes she opines that her defensiveness comes from a need to retain a shred of dignity.

The counselor has helped her with listening and communication skills. She is excited that progress on that will carry us through. But I am less so due to the mexican standoff on information.

She says that if there is more for me to learn she will be learning it too, as shes told me everything. But she is "open to the possiblity of finding out she is repressing memories" or cant access them due to "freezing in panic".

I think its bull.

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 4:56 PM, Saturday, January 18th]

The only motivation for change that works is concern for one's self. No one can change for another person unles they want to change for themself.

For example, during our dating days, my W2b wanted some changes from me - more self-esteem, less gallows humor at my own expense. The reasons I changed were partly to keep her happy, but more because I realized the changes were ones I wanted to make. I used her validation of me to increase my self-validation. On d-day, my W chose to become honest because she saw that was beneficial to her, not to me, though I benefited, too.

*****

Fear of abandonment is terrible to endure and difficult to recognize and heal from, but it can be done. I've lived many decades both with and with that fear, and I have no doubt that with is awful and without is great. I haven't read it, but The Journey from Abandonment to Healing is often recommended.

I think this is key.

Sometimes she opines that her defensiveness comes from a need to retain a shred of dignity

She is still trying to find a way to not face what she has done and make it somehow not that bad. It is that bad. She has lost all dignity. She has to realize that herself though. There really isn’t anything worse that I can think of than what they have done to the person they vowed to never treat this way. She hasn’t accepted what she was. Defensiveness is clinging to a facade that isn’t even there….

But dignity can be earned even when lost. Next time she says that maybe say something to that effect….

I am a bit concerned about her statement "possible repressing memories". Is that possibly something she will use to reveal more information? Ouch. That said...I have heard those things do happen, but I thought they were normally in situations of trauma.

The other thing I wanted to tell you. Please, please have her read..."How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair", by Linda MacDonald. It will really help her realize....this will NOT be a short process. It will explain how you will be asking the same questions literally hundreds of times. I know I did ...still am sometimes.

Basically the way I understand it....there is literally a part of the brain that has to reprogram....because what we thought was our reality, was not our reality. So your brain has to not only refile the new information, but reanalyze everything else in your life in relation to the new reality.

Have her read the book.

That book is one of the first things she got and read last year when things blew up.

Its funny you mention it. Shortly after christmas, i read it in her kindle. It was all there in plain english, the difference between what shes been doing and what I need. When she got off work that day, I mentioned it to her in our phone call on her way home. I told her she needed to re read it. She got angry and hung up on me. When she called me back, she had collected herself.

We had a hard conversation about how I just plain didnt believe her, and how she was letting me down. That I was going to have to make the decision to believe the worst case scenario and process it, rather than what shes given me. That Im giving her every chance in the world, but that soon I am going to have to do whatever it takes to heal on my own. I told her I was afraid of what my feelings towards her are going to look like at the end of that process, and that I feel like I am cheating on who I thought she was with who she actually is. That the love might survive or die, and that It wouldnt be because I didnt give her every chance to redeem it.

She was pretty frightened. Cried alot.
So she reread it. Wrote some really great apologies. Was momentarily trying quite hard.

A few days later was us going over our texts from the year when it all happened. We quit that first day anout halfway through. A day or so later, I checked her phone with her blessing, and found 2 deleted texts in her recently deleted from our text stream. I asked her what they were, she claimed, in shock, to not have done it, tried to blame it on an accident, wouldnt even know how to do that intentionally. Couldnt figure out which ones they were when I hit recover, becaue the text stream is from 2010 to now, almost daily.

I had to look up how to delete individual texts in a text stream to figure out how not to delete the whole thread. You have to highlight the text, select edit, check the bubbles of the ones you want gone, and click the trash can. Not very accidental.

Nevertheless, shes sticking to the lie.

Just a few days later, I caught her lying to me about how much she is spending at the hairdresser. She has had two appointments to bleach and cut her hair. She told me it was 330 the first time. Second appointment, she said it was 400, same as last time.

I said, back up the horse buddy! Last time you said 330, tommorrow youll tell me 500, and the next day 700. What did you spend?

"Ok, ok. It was 540 both times. Sorry."

I said, Really, Ww? I dont give a shit about the money! Why are you lying to me? After everything weve been going through?!

"Im sorry, I dont know. The worst part is, I didnt even think about it before I did it."

Shes just bought a bunch of books, and reread "how to help your spouse heal from your affair" AGAIN.

Im going to speak to my aunt sometime soon. We arent close, but she has been through this kind of thing with her husband. They reconciled. I could at least get some firsthand life experience.

My mother and brothers have been pushing me to "let it go". Cautioning me that I am going to fuck up a good thing by continuing to pursue this the way I have. Pushing me to rugsweep but keep my eyes open.

I know, with 100% certainty that If I was the wife and she was the husband, they would be pushing me to divorce.

5BD...I think what you are saying is that she has a problem with compulsive lying. And it is not that they are all ..outright devastating lies, but sometimes they are deflections, minimization, half truths...and some are outright lies.

So with your parents possibly saying "just let it go"...you are more dealing with the cover up which WAS NOT in 2014.

BTW, please keep in mind, the depth of the cheating happened to you WHEN YOU FOUND OUT. So don't beat yourself up on how you are handling this. It is current. It is as if it literally just happened. Now you need to reprogram your mind. That is why betrayed people have to ask the same questions over and over and over. Not only to challenge them in the potential for lies, but to literally reprogram our understanding of our history. Then, your brain also has to reprocess the rest of your life in relation to the new reality

There are some resources out there about lying....which try to help people to change.

Don't pressure yourself to "let it go" so fast. You will naturally stop thinking and talking about it when your heart heals....unless of course you are purposely holding on to be vindictive, which I really don't sense from you at all.

They clearly have not had to experience it for themselves. I give these people the grace of being unintentionally ignorant.

Cautioning me that I am going to fuck up a good thing by continuing to pursue this the way I have. Pushing me to rugsweep but keep my eyes open.

lol. It is sad really. What part of a lying cheating spouse is the good thing exactly? It feels into the mindset that the UW is the prize to be won (which they love) and the BH is the one who has to purse them. Complete crap. And exactly what would they advise to do if you kept your eyes open and did observe something? At what point in their great wisdom would be a line in the sand? Because I bet they either can’t articulate it or it would be something lame that already happened. Like she cheats again…. As if somehow everyone gets to cheat once but the second time is when it is serious. It is laughable but they can’t see it. We do…

I was able to speak with my aunt. She touched on concepts that I was already beginning to mull over, but havent been able to accept yet.

Specifically, trying to figure out what happened is torture. Its torturing me and Ww. If she cant get to wherever, whenever she needs to be to admit how much, far and long things went on, and I cant accept the story she can give me, maybe I have to come to grips with knowing enough.

Do I know enough? Whats the risks of accepting less than the full amount?

My aunt cautioned against believing the worst, because I dont know how much Ww is still lying, just that she is, and still does. She urged me to direct my attention towards that, the still existing urge to lie.

The point of all this is to heal and find a place where I can love my life, hopefully with the woman I love, not obsess over details of 10 year old events for the rest of it. How does one define the difference between shutting the door on digging and rug sweeping?

How valid is this approach? My heart isnt in it yet, but I see the pros of not being stuck in disclosure for eternity, beating my wife over the head with her sins for answers she wont give that wont even give me peace for having them.

Perhaps Ive been stuck on a non worthwhile part of all this. What do you guys think?

[This message edited by 5bluedrops at 8:19 PM, Sunday, January 19th]

Do I know enough? Whats the risks of accepting less than the full amount?

The risk is that a deliberate choice to accept less than full disclosure amounts to a form of rug-sweeping, which itself lights a long-fuse bomb. One which may detonate in a year, or in 10, or in 20, when you can no longer suppress the not-knowing and it starts eating at you. Many exact such stories here if you’re willing to look. Something will trigger you. Perhaps some unpleasant truth of her unfaithfulness falls out of the sky. Perhaps something else. I think it’s fair to say it’s (almost) inevitable, and you’ll regret committing to R without full truth.