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Feelingeveylow,

You have done the right thing, don’t forget that. However, the road forward will be long and painful.

I know that for me, as a betrayed husband, I wanted and needed to know everything. And yet, I live with the fact that I do not and never will know "everything". You may find that your wife, no matter what your efforts at full transparency, might come to the same conclusion that I have about my wife's disclosure.

I don’t know if this fits your disclosure, for my wife’s disclosure was not nearly as well thought out as yours, but for me, every "I don’t remember" and "I don’t know", true or not, was and is fertile ground for the weed of disbelieve to take root and mature, bloom and seed.

This is my experience, not necessarily yours or your wife’s, but I share it so you might choose your words in authenticity and then accept that that honesty may very well be smothered by distrust. The hope is that the suffocating will be temporary and not the death of your marriage. But either way, you are no longer in control and will have to accept the future choices of your betrayed spouse, as she is now having to accept the past choices of her betraying spouse.

Hang in there, we are here for you and are crossing our fingers for the outcome of your disclosure, whether that be reconciliation or divorce.

Asterisk

My wife still wants to try and reconcile. I worry the anger phase has not even started and that decision is constantly in flux.

Years. That's what you've signed up for. It's going to take years to recover, heal, reconcile (if that happens).

So, hold on to your hat. The shit storm is only just begun.

Years, yes, but life starts to get better at some point (maybe 6-12 months from d-day). The improvement, if it happens, starts very slowly but eventually accelerates.

My bet is that your W will feel a lot of anger, grief, fear, and shame. If she won't share her feelings with you, R is unlikely.

IMO, it's better to know what she's feeling than not to know, if not knowing leads to believing the worst.

Asterisk - your comments have been so helpful. Thank you.

We are in such early days and the shock is still so fresh and raw that I am trying to avoid drawing any inferences on what issues will be more difficult or how the healing journey will progress.

We have had more real talks in the last seven days than in our 31 years of marriage. I am definitely worried that a large portion of our talks revolve around me and my history / trauma vs what would help her heal. I think the context is important and helps explain my actions as being totally unrelated to her or our marriage. We covered my sexually history from age 11 until we met. Those were things we had never discussed, but when I went through them as part of the disclosure prep and in therapy I can see some of the root causes for why I was able to make the terrible choices I did. Not an excuse as what I have done is inexcusable, but important to show that I was broken long before we were married and long before the infidelity.

We are going to therapy tomorrow and my primary goal is to identify how I can support her healing and avoid always focusing on me. I have always been a voracious reader so I am through the books the therapists recommended in addition to others, but my wife has read only a couple chapters (shock is limiting day to day activities like sleeping and eating so reading is not a priority) so I am hopeful that will help her identify ideas that could be part of her healing.

Sisoon and unhinged - very grateful for your engagement on this.

Totally on board with the years and will appreciate every minute I have to reconcile for as long as she is willing. She mentioned last night that she wonders if she is being weak by even entertaining reconciliation and that she feels like people will judge. She has told only one friend and likely will keep the groupv who know pretty small so the concern seemed to me to be her perception of herself and wondering if she is betraying herself by reconciling.

Totally agree she will need to talk about all her thoughts and feelings if we are going to reconcile. That does not come naturally so very hopeful therapy will help her become more comfortable doing this.

[This message edited by feelingverylow at 7:02 PM, Sunday, September 14th]

My goodness Feelingverylow,

I’m truly impressed with your understanding of what you and your wife are in for. There was nothing like this my D-day, 32 years ago, My wife and I just did the trial and error approach and held onto hope and each other tight. Uggg. It worked out fine, however it extended our recover process for decades instead of years. Keep reading, listening and writing. All this said, the end result has not been written yet. Sigh.

I read in your response that your wife is questioning if she is being "weak" by trying to reconcile. This query, more than likely will rear its ugly head many times over the next few years. She will hear this in own head and even more so from others who may think they are being supportive. It makes sense because your affair has stolen from her, her agency. Now, if she is going through anything like I experienced, there will be a huge tug of war within herself attempting to regain some sense of balance and self-empowerment. And one of the most expedient ways of regaining what was ripped away from her is – divorce.

Hang in there, you are doing an amazing job of attempting to rectify what you destroyed.

Asterisk

FLV. I agree with another poster that I think you are trying to over-control this. I'm going to ask you a very basic question here: I understand you disclosed 20 years of infidelities. Why should she stay married to you? Like.....why do you think she should stay married to you? I'm not doing this to attack you, just to be clear, but I personally would not stay married to you, and I don't see why she should either. What do you have to offer her?

It really sounds like you are trying to control this whole process intensely. Maybe I'm wrong, that's how it comes across to me. I think she needs to be allowed to have whatever feelings or thoughts that come to her with this revelation.

Have you been considering that divorce should be an option at this point? Or at some point?

I disclosed an affair that ended 20 years ago. Not much better, but want to draw a distinction between that and 20 years of infidelity.

I am definitely worried that a large portion of our talks revolve around me and my history / trauma vs what would help her heal.

Most betrayed spouses want / need to understand why their WS would do whatever it was that they did. It doesn't seem to matter what happens after, either. A WS who leaves for an AP, a BS who heads straight to divorce, whatever.

Understanding a WS's "whys" is not enough when it comes to reconciliation. "Why not" is far more important, even if you've been faithful these last 20 years.

Look, none of this process is linear. The stages we go through aren't one and done. They come and go, often so often and frequently it's maddening. A roller-coaster from hell.

Let it all happen naturally, authentically, as a very fluid process. Take it one day at a time, one issue at a time, and try to find peace in the moments you can.

You can help your wife to heal, but it's only help. She's going to have to pick herself up and put herself back together all on her own. I understood this within 24 hours, only because it wasn't the first time I'd been betrayed like that (high school girl friend). Many BS don't get there for a while and when they do... well, it doesn't sit well with most.

Patience is a virtue.

I found out in January about my WH's affair that ended 13 years ago. Much like your wife I was sick, couldn't eat, couldn't sleep...I could literally only just manage my university work.

The anger took a while to come but when it did it was vicious. I was angry for 43 year old me and 30 year old me. I was disgusted, disappointed and ashamed of my husband as it felt like it had just happened...the 13 years of faithfulness meant nothing and just felt like adding insult to injury by lying through admission. I told my husband he stole my past, present and future. I wanted to die.

9 months on... I am feeling much better. The anger still bubbles away but I have realised my husband's infidelity was due to his own problems, not mine. I have nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of my strength, both through the marriage and through the disclosure of his infidelity. We are reconciling but I won't make any guarantees...I know I will be ok on my own if I have to be. And no matter how awful it is to be betrayed, I would not swap places with my husband or his AP for all the money in the world..I know myself and my values more than ever.

I did feel like your wife and thought I was betraying myself by staying with my husband, and whilst I have a very strong sense of justice and moral compass, I also believe in forgiveness and redemption and I would feel worse for not giving my husband a second chance.

The biggest hurdle I face now, is knowing my love was not enough to stop my husband cheating...it's made me reconsider true love, soulmates etc...i was a hopeless romantic and I feel like that part of me has shattered and I mourn the innocence I once had. I feel this would carry on even if I was to divorce my husband and meet someone else and that really does make me sad. I wish I could have had the loving, devoted, faithful husband I feel I deserved but I didn't and theres nothing I can do to change that and I know this will take a long time to grieve but I will not let it stop me living in the meantime.

If your wife does choose to come on SI, she is welcome to DM me as someone who has experienced a very similar scenario.

[This message edited by Evio at 10:24 AM, Monday, September 15th]

FVL

Your wife has a lot of reconstruction to do. You just took the jigsaw puzzle of your lives together and threw them on the floor. Every moment will get scrutinized with this new knowledge at hand. Everything will have a question mark on it. She is going to need time. It's extremely unsettling. Encourage her to talk to you.

There is nothing weak about R.

My initial reaction to my H confessing was of forgiveness and grace. I still feel this way almost 2 yrs later. He like you, worries that I will wake up one day and change my mind. Hopefully his fears will fade as well as mine.

God bless, stay strong

I think Mrs. FVL may potentially post. I am over indexing on using any and all information / tools, but have to remember that I have been processing this for a very long time and we are in very different places so I am trying to avoid pushing any activities even if I think they will be helpful. Last night she was reading one of the books our therapist recommended and it was a good prompt for a pretty deep discussion. I think she would benefit from the lived / shared experiences of so many of the people active on SI and I think she will also once the shock is less raw and she can start to really process rather than be in immediate flight / fight mode.

Unhinged - I am learning how my wife is experiencing the trauma and grief is exactly as you describe (i.e. non-linear). I am a big process guy and would love with this particularly to have a flow chart that shows exactly how her healing will progress, but I know her journey will take whatever course it does. My typical instinct is to want to plan / understand and that is magnified knowing that I am the source of this trauma (i.e. I am desperate to "fix" this even though it is not "fixable" in the traditional sense) so I am also learning as we go.

Evio - I sent my wife a text that included your response as it really resonated with me. Very difficult to read. During our talk last night I told her I know I have destroyed her ability to trust not just me, but her trusting nature in general. I also could see such sadness on her face, which is crushing since she has always been so naturally optimistic / happy. If you have watched Oppenheimer (or read the original Hindu scripture), I feel like I am the "destroyer of worlds" in that I have shattered my wife and altered her dna at a fundamental level. Her view of humanity will be forever different and she will never see me as the person she did before. I pray our relationship will survive and the foundation we are building is now based on honesty, but I am heartbroken that the honesty involves me being much less than the person she used to think of when she looked at me.

Trumansworld - thank you again for all your engagement with me. I have been very surprised by things my wife has asked or things that seem to be particularly difficult for her. Your puzzle analogy is very fitting and in many of our discussions I have watched in real time as she tries to think about and make sense of our lives from 2002 - 2006. She often will shake her head and I can see the disbelief as she tries to reconcile what she is hearing with what she experienced. The deception was not just the infidelity, but also drug addiction and alcoholism. She has asked about details that I would have never considered significant, but she is obviously trying to piece together a puzzle that makes no sense to her.

She /we have an appointment with the therapist today. I am sending an update in advance to explain everything that happened since last Monday. This is the therapist who wanted to do a formal therapeutic disclosure that would have involved taking several sessions to prepare. As I mentioned previously, neither my wife or I wanted / could wait so I put everything out on Saturday followed by 4-5 hours of discussion (and several subsequent discussions). I am going to send the disclosure spreadsheet / timeline to the therapist and give an overview of what we have been discussing as both my wife and I think we should continue a therapeutic disclosure to make sure we have not inadvertently overlooked something.

I am getting better at allowing my wife to drive what she wants to discuss when she wants to discuss it. I am overcompensating for my fear that she will not want to have the hard discussions as I always want to talk / answer questions. I think this is a mechanism to soothe myself and prove that she wants to continue to work on reconciliation so I will work with my IC on how to avoid pushing things I think would help her. Still so early in this process and how I support her healing is a work in progress.

I am trying to make sense of life from 1981-2023 with very little help from my H. (claims he doesn't remember details, very general) Too much time has gone by.

Something that helped me to piece some things together was to go through county auditors files online. We build homes. I was able to do my own timeline by each home we built for business and the ones we lived in ourselves. Then I could begin filling in kids births, special events and so on. One puzzle piece at a time.

I have a lot of pieces missing. I guess I will need to accept that at some point.

On NYE 2024 my H confessed to multiple infidelities throughout our M, 3 instances with sex workers in 2004, 2006 & 2008 and then a 2.5 year affair with a coworker from 2019-2022.
For a couple of weeks it didn’t even register at all, my brain just wouldn’t or couldn’t absorb the information he had given me, then it did.

I don’t really remember much about what I felt back then only that I wanted to die, I prayed for death to come and take me in my sleep, my whole body vibrated all day every day and my brain just refused to function properly, completely misfiring. After a while the venom arrived and that wasn’t pretty, I’m around 9 months post DD and the venom still pops in for a visit every now and then. For the most part now I’m ok, some days are better than others.

I read your original post and some things you wrote definitely resonated with me, a lot of things you said were or are the same or similar to what my H said to me, particularly when you said you felt you had fallen in love with your wife again. My H said this to me, he said it’s like he realised how much he loved and appreciated me, we had reached a point in our lives where we were spending a lot more time together since our house reno was finished, kids older and more money and freedom to go out and enjoy ourselves, he said he fell in love with me in a way like never before, he decided that after almost 3 years after his A ended that he needed to confess because I deserved to know.

I remember reading your post and thinking wow this man has just poured his heart out and he so brave to do what he’s doing, knowing full well he could lose everything, and then I realised that my H was once in your shoes. Thank you for helping me to see that.

My H dropped a bomb on our M, his infidelities spread throughout. I don’t feel like my life has been stolen, had I not lived my life up to this point I would not have what I have today, my boys alone are worth it, sure he could have confessed after his first time cheating and I could have left and started a new life, but that didn’t happen, I could have remarried a wonderful man, but that didn’t happen, I could have remarried another cheater, but that didn’t happen, I could have won the lottery but that didn’t happen. We are where we are today and we can’t go back and say what we could, would or should, it’s shit but it is what it is.

My advice to you about your timeline is get the basics laid out, your W will lead the way with what she wants filling in, whatever she wants to know tell her, as hard as it is tell her everything she wants to know. Please don’t ask if it better you do it in therapy, had my husband said this to me I’d have gone Nicholas Cage and took his face off. There’s no strategy, no method or plan to follow, just go with it, it’s raw, it’s messy, it hurts like hell. You keep going, you keep taking and you keep showing up, you can’t ever say sorry too many times. Say it, a lot.

Your W probably doesn’t know if she’s on foot or horseback right now, it’s your job to make sure she eats, drinks, sleeps (as much as possible) and bathes. Always offer cuddles, sometimes we don’t know what we want, sometimes it was just to be held.

Bruce - thank you. Read this to my wife on the way home from therapy and much of your post hit the bullseye. I hope you and your husband are healing. I originally envisioned disclosure would result in needing to focus exclusively on my wife's healing and that is definitely top priority. I very much underestimated how much healing I would need if I am going to be able to show up for my wife in a way that will support her. I am working hard on that and she is more patient and understanding that I deserve. I am sure your husband is grateful every day that you have given him this gift to try and reconcile.

We are in such an early phase that I do not allow myself to latch on to hope we will successfully reconcile, but I know I will never squander the opportunity I have for as long as I have it.