I have a 'meeting' with the OM tomorrow to 'discuss' his failure to adhere to the NC.

[aliveagain]

Just my opinion but isn't it the one having the affair that has left the marriage? She needs to see the affair in the right prospective. She needs to accept complete blame for her infidelity.

[HurtHalo79]

My thoughts exactly aliveagain. I told her that I had at no stage 'exited' the marriage....hence why her affair was a complete blindside.

[beach]

Very very true.

 

We made up after it (I had to leave the house for a good 3 hours and catch a movie to calm down), and when I got home she had written about 4-5 pages explaining her feelings and how much she knew I was hurting. She said she took some solace from the fact that she feels she/we aren't living tentatively from hour to hour now, but day to day.

 

Things are going to be rough for a while I fear.

 

What did the long letter say?

[Betrayed&Stayed]

Absolutely. She swears on our daughter's life that sex didn't happen, and says 'that wasn't the intent or the goal of the affair.' I think we all know where it was going to go though, but I am cognisant of the fact that I can't blame her for something that didn't happen.

 

He isn't communicating with her on her phone (well from what I can tell). They share a work inbox for 4 more days and hopefully that will truly be the end of it.

 

I just had a huge fight with her after work, I asked her whether she still had feelings for him and she said 'no...and I want this whole thing to just go away.' I pressed her for more info as to why this happened (as seems to be a constant refrain) and she told me 'it had felt like YOU had exited the marriage...which contributed to it.' Excuse me?!? You mean the near 2 year marriage where I doted on her, cooked 90% of the time, pulled my weight with housework, did my share of the loving parenting of our daughter, and shared great nights watching movies and drinking wine, cuddling after work and having laughs?

 

Evidently I'm a heartless arsehole?! I hit the roof as I refuse to let het blame this on me. I was blindsided, there was absolutely no pre-cursor to this. She said 'exiting the marriage doesn't mean what you literally think it means.' Oh yeah? Exit normally implies someone has 'left' or is 'leaving' in some fashion. What. The. F£%k.

 

Sorry...venting!

 

This resonates with me. There is something in the brain/heart of a cheater that requires creating a revisionary version of the marital history.

 

My wife also cheated on me right after the two year mark. Up to that point we were both very happy and satisfied in our marriage. There was zero prior indication that she would ever cheat on me. It was not until the point of the EA portion of her affair that she started to question our marriage, and began LOOKING for cracks. My wife had to find a "reason" to justify her being an adulteress. The easiest way was to magnify and exaggerate my faults and quirks. (Ironically a lot of my "flaws" were strengths prior to her affair). Once the PA phase began, I became even more of a downer. It was my wife who completed "checked out" of the marriage.

 

It took a while before my wife realized that she was blaming her affair on external factors, and not internal. She now knows that every factor of her having her affair had to do with HER, not me. Don't let your wife pin this on you.

 

I have read (and noticed in real life) that the one that cheats is usually the one that invests the least in the marriage.

 

It is also the WS that wants it "all to go away", and for the BS to "get over it".

 

As far as the sex or no sex. You may never know for sure. Can you live with that? At this point you can't believe her word on that subject. I never believed my wife when she told me that they had sex "a couple of times" and it "wasn't that good". Both might be true, but I'm not going to treat as fact. I have to assume the worst-case scenario.

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Ap22]

My wife had to find a "reason" to justify her being an adulteress. The easiest way was to magnify and exaggerate my faults and quirks. (Ironically a lot of my "flaws" were strengths prior to her affair).

 

It took a while before my wife realized that she was blaming her affair on external factors, and not internal. She now knows that every factor of her having her affair had to do with HER, not me. Don't let your wife pin this on you.

 

 

As far as the sex or no sex. You may never know for sure. Can you live with that? At this point you can't believe her word on that subject. I never believed my wife when she told me that they had sex "a couple of times" and it "wasn't that good". Both might be true, but I'm not going to treat as fact. I have to assume the worst-case scenario.

 

Good luck and keep us posted.

 

Exactly what happened to me. My wife was constantly placing her faults on me. Every fight, every thing that went wrong was my fault, never hers. There was no winning with her...it was always my fault.

 

About the only good thing is my wife always took the blame for herself about the affair. Never once said it had anything to do with me or the marriage. I do believe that.

 

As far as sex, do what I do. My wife swears it was only one time. I spoke to the OM and she swore it was just once too. I dont believe either. I just made up my mind it was multiple times and went on from there. Even if they are telling the truth, your mind will not allow you to trust a proven liar. Accept the worst, and see if you can move from that.

[HurtHalo79]

Wow, interesting to see so many similar stories. It's like they follow a plot!

 

I will transcribe and post the long letter tomorrow....it makes sense, but I am still angry.

 

And yes, I don't believe them when they say they didn't have sex. You don't make trips to secluded national parks etc in an affair to just cuddle and kiss. The OM's wife claimed to me that he told her under much interrogation that they never slept together and my WW claims the same. Groping yes, but really when there is genital contact, we're talking semantics anyway right?

[ClemsonTigers]

Wow, interesting to see so many similar stories. It's like they follow a plot!

 

I will transcribe and post the long letter tomorrow....it makes sense, but I am still angry.

 

And yes, I don't believe them when they say they didn't have sex. You don't make trips to secluded national parks etc in an affair to just cuddle and kiss. The OM's wife claimed to me that he told her under much interrogation that they never slept together and my WW claims the same. Groping yes, but really when there is genital contact, we're talking semantics anyway right?

 

Tell her you believe her but have some lingering doubts and really want to believe her 100%. Therefore, would she submit to a polygraph in order to help you trust her. She wants to be trusted and she has nothing to hide, right? Gauge how she responds but follow through with arranging it. Liars have no trouble saying they'll take one but often fess up while looking through the yellow pages for a tester, driving to the actual test~~or as being hooked up to the machines. So very often way wards believe they can lie to their grave about what happened behind closed doors, but the lie is an permanent impediment to recovery and eventually intimacy with their betrayed spouse. Truth is so essential to recovery that it needs to be obtained by any means possible.

[beach]

Of course they had ample time to get their stories aligned.

[sidney2718]

I just had a huge fight with her after work, I asked her whether she still had feelings for him and she said 'no...and I want this whole thing to just go away.' I pressed her for more info as to why this happened (as seems to be a constant refrain) and she told me 'it had felt like YOU had exited the marriage...which contributed to it.' Excuse me?!? You mean the near 2 year marriage where I doted on her, cooked 90% of the time, pulled my weight with housework, did my share of the loving parenting of our daughter, and shared great nights watching movies and drinking wine, cuddling after work and having laughs?

 

Evidently I'm a heartless arsehole?! I hit the roof as I refuse to let het blame this on me. I was blindsided, there was absolutely no pre-cursor to this. She said 'exiting the marriage doesn't mean what you literally think it means.' Oh yeah? Exit normally implies someone has 'left' or is 'leaving' in some fashion. What. The. F£%k.

 

Sorry...venting!

 

I've been preaching this since I got to LS but affairs almost never take place among people who are happy in their marriage. That does NOT excuse the affair. And there is no doubt that you did many things for the marriage. I'm quite serious.

 

But women are a bit difficult for us men to figure out. It seems clear that in spite of all of it, she felt somehow neglected.

 

So what am I saying? I'm saying what others here have said. Stop browbeating her. Treat her as if she is an adult who has made a serious mistake. She has to do her best to remove the pain from you and that might involve hurting you more for a little while. What I'm talking about is that she needs to come clean on the details of the affair. You have to explain that to her without screaming, yelling, or insisting that she doesn't know how much she's hurt you.

 

And if what comes out hurts even more, take it. It is like an infection, it has to come out. And you have to be man enough to let it. And then give it a couple of days before you make any decisions on divorce.

 

But what if it comes out that her story is the correct version. Then you are the one who owes her an apology for doubting her word. It wouldn't kill you to do that.

 

So to repeat, she owes you an explanation of WHAT HAPPENED and WHY IT HAPPENED. But you may never understand her reasoning as to why.

[beach]

I want this to go away usually represents her saying:

 

I don't want to take responsibility for what I did.

 

I'm not sorry I did it - I'm just mad at you because I got caught.

 

 

And further ---> I'll do it again when the dust has settled and you're not paying so close attention next time (and I'll wait as long as it takes you to get complacent about checking on me).

[HurtHalo79]

Sidney, things are getting easier as the weeks go on. We're cracking on with MC/IC after Christmas and we've taken a week off to spend away together. ...a honeymoon we have never had essentially as we've been so busy raising a baby, doing a Masters degree each while maintaining full tine work.

 

My wife is very apologetic and told me last night that the affair and rhe circumstances leading up to it just seem so abstract now with the clarity of hindsight. I got an email from the OMs wife a week ago checking to see how everything was going and she has stated similar; the OM now actually detests my wife due to the fact that 1. she spurned him so quickly after D-Day...therefore exposing how shallow their 'feelings' truly were, and 2. She helped him put his own family at risk by being a co-conspirator in the affair. His penchant for sleeping with hookers seems to escape him as well, but hey.....

 

I am still deeply wounded, but I'm feeling a lot more optimistic about the marriage, and I am confident we'll come out of this stronger. While on our honeymoon I have a book here that I keep writing questions in....my wife answers them as she goes which seems to be working well. The fights are decreasing more and more with each week so I guess I am moving into the acceptance phase of grief. I just hope I can accept her mistake and give her a second chance.

[beach]

Is your W in counseling?

 

Does she state exactly what lead her to cheat on you?

[HurtHalo79]

Sorry, have been on holidays and she starts counselling again after christmas....as does the MC.

 

Basically my wife states it was a perfect storm of us being very busy at home, proximity to someone who was practically working in her back pocket for 40 hours a week, and loneliness.

 

Basically, having someone to talk to insidiously led to them having the affair.

 

Opportunity and proximity by the sounds of it. It still makes me angry.

[beach]

Sorry, have been on holidays and she starts counselling again after christmas....as does the MC.

 

Basically my wife states it was a perfect storm of us being very busy at home, proximity to someone who was practically working in her back pocket for 40 hours a week, and loneliness.

 

Basically, having someone to talk to insidiously led to them having the affair.

 

Opportunity and proximity by the sounds of it. It still makes me angry.

 

So - what will she do differently next time a guy is sitting next to her all day long at work?

[HurtHalo79]

She claims she has seen the slippery slope now and that she is equipped to notice the warning signs now.

 

I would have thought that should have been evident from the start, but that's just me...

[beach]

How confident are you that she hasn't kept in communication with him since he left?

[HurtHalo79]

100% confident. I have been watching like a hawk and she says she has no interest in talking to him.

 

The funny thing is, this was discussed between them both in emails I found when they were having the affair....I.e. they knew that when this came out they wouldn't be friends.

 

Makes you wonder why they bothered.

[Fluttershy]

She claims she has seen the slippery slope now and that she is equipped to notice the warning signs now.

 

I would have thought that should have been evident from the start, but that's just me...

 

Not always. Sometimes because of denial (I would never do that so this friendship isn't innapropriate. I have no feelings for x. They have no feelings fo x) and sometimes inexperience works against a would be cheater. At some point though, the cheater crosses a line and he/ she knows it. But sometimes they pushed the line so far without even realizing it. And things are so much easier to see from the outside at times. That happens all the time in all sorts of situations. You, the person not directly in the situation whose judgement is clouded, can say "hey x,y, and z is happening" but the person in it doesn't see that at all. It is a good skill to develop to be able to remove yourself from a situation and look at it as objectively as you can while fully realizing that it is still from your own perspective and feelings.

 

I hope you have a wonderful Chrismas. Try to dwell on the good in your life and not the bad.

[HurtHalo79]

Thanks Fluttershy. I said to my wife 'at what point did you realise you were in an affair and what did you say to yourself to give yourself permission to hurt me?' She replied that by the time she realised, it was too late and that it became all about discretion and avoiding me finding out that their work arrangement/burgeoning relationship had crossed a professional line. She refers to the affair as 'insidious' and realises that it stemmed from her getting too involved in other's problems. In this case, she became the problem..

 

Things are getting easier, but I am still full of anger regarding the complete betrayal that the affair has caused. My wife claims 'it only lasted 6-8 weeks and we never slept together', but that is small consolation when their emails over that time (well mainly his) were starting to discuss what might happen were the affair to continue with me not knowing about it. I can't blame her for something that didn't happen, but I am just glad his wife sprung the whole caper and told me when she did. While the EA/PA is heart hreaking enough, had it have gone to full sexual intimacy, it would have been an instant D.

 

Merry Christmas to you and yours too!