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Wife still keeping things from me


bhk2000

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Hi everyone,

 

Without going into details my wife had an emotional affair which I found out about in May of this year. Once she was confronted with what I had learned she proceeded to trickle out info about the affair. After hearing her side of the story there were a lot of gaps.

 

For the next few months she did everything she could to make me happy except try and earn my trust back. I kept finding these little bits and pieces that conflicted with her story and when I would bring them up the subject would turn to her feeling like all her efforts to be a better wife were a waste because I was still digging. She has continuously maintained that there is nothing left to tell.

 

Over time I would bring these things up less often. I started to feel like it didn't matter and all that I should care about was that she was dedicated to our marriage now.

 

Over the last month she has been up and down. First a period of feeling like there was no point in saving our marriage. Then a week of her back to being optimistic again. Now she's back to doubting. It's really hard to take and has caused me to go back to doubting and digging.

 

We're at the point where if I bring up any new evidence or my doubts the conversation immediately changes to "lets just get a divorce." She won't even answer my questions. She says she knows she did this to herself but she can't handle being made out to be a criminal and it would be easier to scrap the marriage than fix it.

 

Deep down I know something is going on. I know she's still holding back truth from before and I can't help but feel like something is still going on with her being up and down. I feel like she's bluffing about the divorce to deflect my inquiries. If she's not, I don't really care at this point.

 

The way I see it is if I get on board with the divorce and start taking steps she will either realize this has backfired and come clean in a last-ditch effort to save our marriage or we will just get a divorce. I'm just looking for advice from you all about how to go about sending a message to my wife that I'm done with her deception.

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I think your solution is spot on.

You need the truth. If the roles were

reversed I doubt that she would rug sweep

it as she clearly wants you to do.

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True remorse is doing anything and everything to win back trust. She should be telling you everything and then some. If its embarrasing, graphic, so what! Thats the price of reconcilitation. She is just rug sweeping. Forget and forgive..haha! Nope! I think its telling that she'd rather divorce than divulge. Its pretty typical cheater speak though. Let them have their fun, dont ask too many questions, let them grieve their ap. Its all gross! Figure out what you want in your life. There are very few cases of a succesful marriage with a spouse who keeps secrets after an affair.

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Do you know who the AP is?

 

I know very little about him. He lives on the other side of the country. I was able to get his cell from this ex-wife but he never responded (understandably).

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Yeah, this is not okay, not in the slightest.

 

She SHOULD accept being treated like a criminal, and accept it! She betrayed your trust, essentially “broke the law” of your marriage, and with that – comes probation! Which means you don’t have all the same freedoms you did before, because she took advantage of that. It means you don’t have the same privacy as you did before, because she took advantage of that. And just like a parolee- you have to answer the parole officer’s questions. Even if you haven’t done anything else wrong, its part of the deal with being a convict with a second chance.

 

Further, she is manipulating your emotions and threatening divorce because she doesn’t want to put in the work to fix the insecurities you have, that SHE CAUSED? Totally unfair.

 

Look, I am a wayward wife who is in reconciliation. I know I F’ed up, and I welcome any and all prodding, snooping, questions etc my husband has. The only thing that bothers me about all of this – is that it kills me that I caused it. That I caused him to feel insecure. That I caused him not to trust me. I don’t mind the questions, it just sucks that he has them. I am sure he wishes he didn’t have them either. That’s all on me.

 

So, when he asks questions – I don’t tell him that he is making me feel like a criminal. I answer truthfully and I apologize for making him feel like he has to ask.

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Yeah, this is not okay, not in the slightest.

 

She SHOULD accept being treated like a criminal, and accept it! She betrayed your trust, essentially “broke the law” of your marriage, and with that – comes probation! Which means you don’t have all the same freedoms you did before, because she took advantage of that. It means you don’t have the same privacy as you did before, because she took advantage of that. And just like a parolee- you have to answer the parole officer’s questions. Even if you haven’t done anything else wrong, its part of the deal with being a convict with a second chance.

 

Further, she is manipulating your emotions and threatening divorce because she doesn’t want to put in the work to fix the insecurities you have, that SHE CAUSED? Totally unfair.

 

Look, I am a wayward wife who is in reconciliation. I know I F’ed up, and I welcome any and all prodding, snooping, questions etc my husband has. The only thing that bothers me about all of this – is that it kills me that I caused it. That I caused him to feel insecure. That I caused him not to trust me. I don’t mind the questions, it just sucks that he has them. I am sure he wishes he didn’t have them either. That’s all on me.

 

So, when he asks questions – I don’t tell him that he is making me feel like a criminal. I answer truthfully and I apologize for making him feel like he has to ask.

Good for you. Hope he gets what he needs.
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Yes you should go ahead and file.

 

She is not being straight. Ad the criminal comment, WTF???

 

Just do it and see what happens. You know that something is up and she is not being honest.

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40somethingGuy
Hi everyone,

 

Without going into details my wife had an emotional affair which I found out about in May of this year. Once she was confronted with what I had learned she proceeded to trickle out info about the affair. After hearing her side of the story there were a lot of gaps.

 

For the next few months she did everything she could to make me happy except try and earn my trust back. I kept finding these little bits and pieces that conflicted with her story and when I would bring them up the subject would turn to her feeling like all her efforts to be a better wife were a waste because I was still digging. She has continuously maintained that there is nothing left to tell.

 

Over time I would bring these things up less often. I started to feel like it didn't matter and all that I should care about was that she was dedicated to our marriage now.

 

Over the last month she has been up and down. First a period of feeling like there was no point in saving our marriage. Then a week of her back to being optimistic again. Now she's back to doubting. It's really hard to take and has caused me to go back to doubting and digging.

 

We're at the point where if I bring up any new evidence or my doubts the conversation immediately changes to "lets just get a divorce." She won't even answer my questions. She says she knows she did this to herself but she can't handle being made out to be a criminal and it would be easier to scrap the marriage than fix it.

 

Deep down I know something is going on. I know she's still holding back truth from before and I can't help but feel like something is still going on with her being up and down. I feel like she's bluffing about the divorce to deflect my inquiries. If she's not, I don't really care at this point.

 

The way I see it is if I get on board with the divorce and start taking steps she will either realize this has backfired and come clean in a last-ditch effort to save our marriage or we will just get a divorce. I'm just looking for advice from you all about how to go about sending a message to my wife that I'm done with her deception.

 

 

I am working on making it work with my cheating wife. I got a lot of the same where after all the questions I initially had in the subsequent weeks were answered she basically said no more. I did get what I needed though. Also, the BEST THING YOU CAN DO is #1 not worry about whether you do get a divorce or not. You are or you aren't and you are not 100% in control whether you do or not. #2 pull away. Don't make it sound like she is the prize. Work on things some but show some distance. Make her think your feelings are unclear. All I had to do is stop giving my wife a kiss when I left from work and that really made her concerned that maybe she needs to think about how much she does value me. It is hard but you may have to fake it. Acting like you don't give a rip anymore frees you and makes her emotionally go crazy. If you are making her the prize she will for sure make you the doormat.

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If your wives are not being completely 100% straight with you, they are still screwing around and are not remorseful, period end of story.

 

If that is happening to you file for divorce ASAP.

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I am working on making it work with my cheating wife. I got a lot of the same where after all the questions I initially had in the subsequent weeks were answered she basically said no more. I did get what I needed though. Also, the BEST THING YOU CAN DO is #1 not worry about whether you do get a divorce or not. You are or you aren't and you are not 100% in control whether you do or not. #2 pull away. Don't make it sound like she is the prize. Work on things some but show some distance. Make her think your feelings are unclear. All I had to do is stop giving my wife a kiss when I left from work and that really made her concerned that maybe she needs to think about how much she does value me. It is hard but you may have to fake it. Acting like you don't give a rip anymore frees you and makes her emotionally go crazy. If you are making her the prize she will for sure make you the doormat.

 

This is so true. When she first started bringing up divorce I acted pathetic like "please don't leave me." That doesn't work. You only look weak. Then when I started checking out and talking about the details for the divorce like it was no big deal she had a positive change. This most recent time mid-conversation I realized I was doing it again, trying to convince her to stay. I changed my attitude and said "I don't care anymore. I'll give you your first child support check right now if you will pack your stuff up and get the f**k out ASAP." Then her attitude changes again and she says "I never said I'd made up my mind."

 

I think I'm in the best state of mind right now because I really don't care anymore. Let's see if she will try to win be back but either way it's not going to be my problem anymore.

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If your wives are not being completely 100% straight with you, they are still screwing around and are not remorseful, period end of story.

 

If that is happening to you file for divorce ASAP.

 

 

How do you know if they're not being 100% straight? That's the thing, she always has an answer to my questions (usually with no way of proving it). It's just a gut feeling on my end that her answer is a lie.

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She says she knows she did this to herself but she can't handle being made out to be a criminal and it would be easier to scrap the marriage than fix it.

 

For the next few months she did everything she could to make me happy except try and earn my trust back.

 

Don't see how both of these things could be true. Either your wife wants to fix things - or she doesn't. I wouldn't give her too much longer to decide...

 

Mr. Lucky

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How do you know if they're not being 100% straight? That's the thing, she always has an answer to my questions (usually with no way of proving it). It's just a gut feeling on my end that her answer is a lie.

 

Q. How do you know?

 

A. Her lips are moving.

 

Have you showed her Josephs Letter? I posted it here for Completelylost12

 

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/breaking-up-reconciliation-coping/separation-divorce/598480-my-wife-cheated-what-do-i-do-now#post7086898

 

 

There is a resource here called 'Things every wayward spouse needs to know' have a read of that it may give you some pointers.

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Your wife is a tough merchant. She's a trade with human feelings. When she feels she loses control, she pay some price (being a little positive, the minimum price she can) and gain some control back over you.

 

You, on the other hand, are not so good at trading with feelings. You're an amateur, she's a pro. But lets say you had that talent. Do you really want to stay living with a trader for the rest of your life?

 

Traders are very common, you can spot them easily in big companies working enviroments. They will always be nicer to people when they need a favor. And they will be more apathetic if they don't need you. They will ALWAYS be nicer to people with higher status, and will allow themselves a bad attitude to people that below them in social\proffessional status.

 

The details of her affair isn't so important, because she creates a a hypocrite fake new past every day. Her smile can be phony the same as it can be true. You will never have an honest relationship with her because lying, hiding, trading, that's what she does for living. She fake smiles the same as you breathe.

 

If you agree to that kind of living, you can't really complain. It's not her fault. It's all yours.

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How do you know if they're not being 100% straight? That's the thing, she always has an answer to my questions (usually with no way of proving it). It's just a gut feeling on my end that her answer is a lie.

 

Hey there, I'm sorry to hear about your marital problems :( You might want to also checking out a website called survivinginfidelity.com - they have a bunch of resources for people who just found out about their spouse's affair, and recommendations for how to deal with it.

 

The basic gist is the "180", where you stop trying to win your spouse back and instead move forward as though you are ready to split up. It protects your emotions and it makes your spouse realize that they might lose you and makes them willing to fight for you (unless they don't want to fight for you, in which case, it's always better to find that out too!).

 

You should also demand complete transparency - all passwords, access to phone / email / etc at all times, phone records, GPS tracking enabled on phone, complete cut-off from the affair partner. They also recommend that you tell your close family and friends about the affair, to keep you both honest and accountable.

 

Basically, if your wife doesn't immediately do all this and anything else she can to win YOU back, then you've lost her already. You don't want to guilt-trip someone into staying married to you, or enable her to keep having her affair while married because you weren't willing to demand complete transparency.

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Once you serve her with divorce papers,you'll find relief of not wondering who she's talking to.

 

She's not remorseful at all. The divorce talk is simply telling you to STFU (Shut the **** up) and don't bring up the affair.

 

Either she answers your questions or she becomes the Ex Mrs BHK.

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oh and they also say to have your spouse write a "no contact" letter to the AP that you read and watch them send, basically saying "My spouse knows everything, it's over between us, never contact me again."

 

But all of this is ONLY if you think your spouse is truly remorseful and willing to do the work to make it better, and wants to. I had an affair and ultimately I just couldn't commit to reconciliation, because I still loved him but I did not have any faith that the reasons I was unhappy in the first place (which he knew about for a long time, etc) would change. (NOT blaming him for my affair, that's all on my and my ****ty selfish coping mechanisms. But the unhappiness was a real and valid thing that wouldn't magically go away, either.)

 

Your wife doesn't sound like she's all in for you. I'm sorry :(

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Yeah, this is not okay, not in the slightest.

 

She SHOULD accept being treated like a criminal, and accept it! She betrayed your trust, essentially “broke the law” of your marriage, and with that – comes probation! Which means you don’t have all the same freedoms you did before, because she took advantage of that. It means you don’t have the same privacy as you did before, because she took advantage of that. And just like a parolee- you have to answer the parole officer’s questions. Even if you haven’t done anything else wrong, its part of the deal with being a convict with a second chance.

 

Further, she is manipulating your emotions and threatening divorce because she doesn’t want to put in the work to fix the insecurities you have, that SHE CAUSED? Totally unfair.

 

Look, I am a wayward wife who is in reconciliation. I know I F’ed up, and I welcome any and all prodding, snooping, questions etc my husband has. The only thing that bothers me about all of this – is that it kills me that I caused it. That I caused him to feel insecure. That I caused him not to trust me. I don’t mind the questions, it just sucks that he has them. I am sure he wishes he didn’t have them either. That’s all on me.

 

So, when he asks questions – I don’t tell him that he is making me feel like a criminal. I answer truthfully and I apologize for making him feel like he has to ask.

 

Wow! Can you infuse that into others in R? Lol.

 

Well done.

 

Lion Heart

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You have received some good advice. Your wife admits only to an EA. The main reason to dig is to set the record straight. Even if you divorce she will want to protect her reputation. She will paint you as the bad guy for breaking up your family because she talked dirty to another man. Plus you might second guess your decision to divorce.

 

Put a voice activated recorder (VAR) under her car seat. Never tell anyone about it. You may catch het talking to the OM or to friends about the affair.

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How do you know if they're not being 100% straight? That's the thing, she always has an answer to my questions (usually with no way of proving it). It's just a gut feeling on my end that her answer is a lie.

 

if her lips are moving, she is lying. actions speak louder.

 

she does not respect you.

 

she wants her cake and she does not really care about you. File for D now.

 

you can stop it, if she writes you a timeline of the A, and starts showing remorse. she is still in contact with OM and she is hiding it better.

 

File now, go see your attorney. do not rugsweep, she did the crime, she can do the time.

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I discovered my husband's affair 18 months ago, and it took a long time for him to work past his knee-jerk response of self-pity and deflection.

 

What I have done is visualize what a remorseful husband looks like . . . someone who responds with patience and concern when I am upset, someone who willingly shares all of his life with me without my asking, someone who doesn't expect me to feel sorry for him for how much he's screwed things up but who instead concentrates on my pain and healing, etc. Looking back over the last year and a half, I feel like he's made progress in three month increments . . . the first three months were a total wash as I was in shock and who knows what the h*ll we were doing, then it took the next three for him to stop blaming me and understand that he was solely responsible for the affair, then it took another three for him to shift his perspective so that his first concern was empathy for me and not pity for himself, and so on.

 

I required him to go to individual counseling. He still is and it's been a huge help. He's worked to develop the skills to handle stress and to be a healthier partner.

 

I don't know how patient you are with all of this. It's certainly annoying when your spouse acts like it's some kind of favor to you to stay with you after cheating. I feel like so much of reconciliation has been me hitting the ball back after he does or says something insensitive. Like he will ask for reassurance that I still love him, and I'll say, "Isn't it obvious because I'm still here after all this?" and he'll say, "Yes, see! Don't you see how I love you because I'm still here?" and I'm like, wrong answer! No. It's the least you can do. You don't get a gold sticker for not abandoning me permanently after abandoning me partly through infidelity.

 

Anyway, all this is to say that if you are going to stay, then you need a few concrete goals she must meet . . . individual counseling, reading Not Just Friends and How to Help Your Spouse Heal, transparency with devices, and ownership of her responsibility for the affair. That will be a solid start, but it doesn't mean you've magically moved past it. It just means you're putting the tools in place to move forward together in a healthy manner.

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Hi bhk, you have been given a lot of good advice here. I have only one thing to say and that is that if your wife is prevaricating and not coming up with the truth and you think you have given her ample opportunity to do so then you simply have to pull the rug from under her feet. The longer you delay doing so the more entrenched she will become in her attitude that she is right and that you are a pathetic guy who does'nt deserve the time of day.

 

If you start the divorce proceedings it will convey a blunt message to her that you are not buying into her lies and stalling and that you are moving on with your life minus her. If at that point she thinks that her life is going to crash without you, she will do everything in her power to convince you why you should stay with her and part of that will be that she will give you all the details that you need. If, on the other hand she is done with you then she will do nothing and hive you the message that she couldn't care less about you and she herself is moving on. Either way you will know what you have to do and you can then proceed with the appropriate action. If she is genuinely remorseful then you will be in control of the situation and can lay down how things are going to be in the future. If she is done then you proceed with the divorce and free yourself of someone who is toxic and no good for you.

 

Whatever you do be decisive about it as otherwise you will be sending a wrong message to her and the rest of your world! Warm wishes.

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Thanks for all the advice! Here's an update. On the day I posted this my wife came home from work all loving and happy to see me. She noticed I was being distant and once she noticed her affections weren't doing much she asked me what was going on.

 

I told her that I don't believe all of her story. That parts of her story don't add up and that in my gut there is a feeling I can't shake. I told her that despite loving her and wishing it would work out, I think it would be best if we just divorced since she isn't willing to tell me the truth or even convince me of her truth.

 

Her reaction was what I was hoping for to some extent. Instead of agreeing with me and the usual defensiveness and deflection, she seemed to be more trying to understand why I felt this way. She still denied there was anything else to tell but was more open to continuing the process of removing my doubts.

 

After a long silence she said maybe we should just get divorced (probably testing me). And I responded with "that's what I think." and walked out of the room and went off to do some online gaming with my friend. She came in and gave me a hug and kiss a few times later that night.

 

Over the weekend she continued with the "perfect wife" routine. I'm thinking she is afraid that she pushed to hard and realized I have no reason to be married to someone who is not trying to reconcile and not willing to show love to her man. I think she's trying to be extra loving to me in hopes that I will sweep my doubts under the rug.

 

Today I am planning on giving her a copy of Josephs letter as a reminder that even though I appreciate her efforts over the weekend, the issue of me not trusting her is still there and so is the very real threat of divorce.

 

This week I'm going to see if I can get a free consult with a lawyer.

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