SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I tested my W as much as I could during R. I she wasn't going to do her work, I wanted to know ASAP. I also asked for what I wanted - the scarier an answer could be, the more I forced myself to ask. I recommend that approach to anyone considering R.

So I recommend asking your W to forgo the girls' trip. It's an entirely reasonable request soon after d-day.

*****

I insisted on having some visibility into my W's therapy. One of my requirements for R was that W sign a release allowing her therapist to talk to me. Her therapist said she'd require a joint session if I asked anything that couldn't be answered in a few words, and that was fine with me. Without a release, the therapist may not be able to talk to you; here W's therapist can't talk to anyone but the client without a release.

W's IC was our MC, so I knew what my W was working on. In your case, I'd probably insist on a joint session to make sure that your W's IC knows about the A and to get an idea of the IC's attitude toward infidelity.

*****

Have you considered IC for yourself?

Good advice thank you.

Yes, I started IC last week virtually and have my first in person session tomorrow. I tried to avoid it as I don't usually open up, but I've realized I cannot bottle this I and can't do it alone. I've been having a lot of panic attacks and flooding of thoughts and mental images which has basically completely prevented me from sleeping.

I think your last thought on letting the AP's girlfriend know is that you would tell her eventually and certainly before she would marry the AP.

How long might that be? The AP's potential angry reaction is on him, but the fact that you're sitting on information that massively impacts this other woman's life and are not sharing it is your choice. If the tables were turned, how would you feel when the AP's girlfriend told you about the affair, and when you said "how long have you known" her answer was "months"?

Intentional omission is still dishonesty. I'd encourage you to think again about waiting to tell the AP's girlfriend.

Your potential concerns about her therapist are insightful; many therapists do not have experience counseling post infidelity and will not be helpful for her becoming safe for the marriage. I would take this seriously, the last thing you need is her therapist rationalizing her behavior and feelings during the affair. It's only one data point but her encouraging your wife to go to the festival so soon is a bit of a red flag the therapist does not understand infidelity and the impact it has on the BS.

Does your wife have a source for what she should be doing right now? The books How to Help Your Spouse Heal from your Affair and Not Just Friends would be helpful.

Arnold, believe me I understand. I recognize the hypocrisy of me wanting the truth but potentially omitting truth from the other woman. I just cant gauge how aggressive he is and would regret it much more if my disclosing led to a stalker/crazy scenario. But again im determined to disclose this to her soon.

Trdd, yeah that’s what I was getting at. I don’t want to dictate her therapy but there’s already indications of a lack of infidelity knowledge. I would think common sense, let alone a college degree, would say maybe skip the music festival a few months after getting caught in an affair when the betrayed spouse is committed to reconciliation.

We ordered how to help your spouse heal and she’s going to start reading it tomorrow

I’m not big on bullshit…
Seeing as the wedding was not local and seeing as the affair was online I’m assuming OM isn’t close. Like at least an hours drive away or even farther. Am I wrong? Is he local?

So what is it you fear he does?
How can he stalk her, out her or whatever without outing himself?
You are making the assumption that his GF will cut off the engagement. It will definitely put sand in the Vaseline, but chances are great that he convinces his GF that you are a nutcase, that nothing happened and after a few days things will smooth out. BUT the goal has been attained: The minimizing of the risk of this happening again.

If he’s THAT crazy, then aren’t you afraid of his anger when your wife cuts him off?
Or anger directed at you seeing as it’s you that are keeping him from his crumpet?
For how long have you planned to remain in the shadow of his possible anger?
Why not play it safe and simply ask your wife to sext him? After all – that should keep him happy – and you two safe…

We have suggested an NC letter. Why so quiet on that idea?

OP – I have realized that what I was doing is betraying my marriage and I have committed to my marriage. I will never again in any way or form intitiate contact with you and request that you do not contact me. Any contact will be shared with my husband and can lead to legal action.

See that part about legal action? He starts bugging you and it’s a restraining order.
Your wife is asking her therapist how to react if OM contacts her. What does the NC letter stipulate?
It’s all laid out there.

Friend – if your wife’s moral compass is so skewed that she needs to get directions from her therapist on how to react to ongoing contact with OM…

Bigger, I appreciate the brutal honestly. I don't think i'm bullshitting you, I just don't think I'm thinking clearly. It seems from my long original post, the one sentence about not telling the other woman has been hyper-focused on. In my mind it wasn't even in my top ten of priorities to worry about, which I know now was wrong. I'm still grappling at the fact that my wife was living a double life right under my nose with nudes, lies and deception.

But to answer your first question, AP lives probably about 6 hours away. So yes the likelihood of something happening is probably slim to none but my mind is more than likely irrationally going to worst case scenario. AP's boss is his girlfriends mom who runs the business currently he alluded to wanting to be a part of. So if he loses the relationship, he loses everything. And once that happens, in my mind, a 6 hour drive isn't out of the realm. I realize from your perspective it may seem I'm bullshitting you, but my mind has been in such a fog and not working clearly. It's the same reason I haven't commented on the No Contact letter. There hasn't been contact since February 15th. So sending a No Contact or reaching out to the OW would bring this affair back to light. Again i've already admitted to that thought process being wrong and have committed to telling her.

Regarding your last point about her therapist, she hasn't mentioned contact with the AP with her therapist, to my knowledge anyway, but we both are going to bring it up in IC today.

I realize i've made some mistakes, this is an uncharted territory for me and I really don't know what I'm doing. But again i've read everyone's message pointing out the one sentence from my original post and realize that was a mistake and have already said I'm committed to telling the OW.

Baseball

There are three reasons we are so hard on letting the OM GF know.
1)The moral stance. As betrayed people ourselves we all wish we had been told about the affair(s). If I could count the number of ex friends who told me in the first three months after my d-day that they knew but didn’t want to hurt me… And yes – the "ex" in front of the "friends" is intentional.
2)The preventive stance. Our collective experience is that once the OP spouse knows, the OP will focus on saving their relationship – often shoving the AP under the bus. We hate generalizations on this site, maybe especially gender-based, but MY experience indicates that your wife’s OM will make little of your wife – insisting she initiated, she was pressing him, she threatened to tell his gf, she ignored his pleas, that you are a nutcase, you are abusive… whatever. None of it matters – your goal has been reached.
Women on the other hand might turn to their AP once their partners are informed, but that’s when the truth about the "soulmate" comes to light: They get dismissed or dumped ASAP.
3)The clarity of seriousness. For your wife right now it was all just a "mistake" that impacted you and maybe her. But once she realizes how many her "fun" impacted, and the damage cost… it becomes serious.

Personally – I think 2) is enough to let her know. Just keep in mind that a message like "I think you deserve to know that my wife and your fiancé have been having a relationship that has gone too far" is enough. You don’t have to prove anything to her, your goal is to get her to question Loverboy and wake up the fear of God in him.

I can share from our collective experience that the fear you have is common, but the frequency of revenge from OM is extremely rare.

There hasn't been contact since February 15th

How do you know?
It’s not as if they would share contact with you.

I would suggest the following:
Tell her that the ONLY way forward is through the truth. That until you have a sense that you know EVERYTHING there is no way this marriage can ever be healthy, and you don’t want to be in anything but the best marriage ever.
Tell her that infidelity has made you question if there is any future for you two. If she tells you the absolute truth – even to the point of increasing your pain – there is hope, and it shows her commitment to rebuilding trust.
But at the same time, anything that you have to pull out of her, or discover through other sources and evidence will seriously erode at any hope you have to reconcile and will inevitably convince you that there is no future.

THAT includes you learning from any other source than HER if OM attempts any form of contact. Be that a poke on social media, a missed call, an e-mail, a joint friend asking…

Truth = a chance, falsehoods and lies = no chance.