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Hi MD: You have received lots of good advice here, but I hope that you will pay close attention to what Cooley has said about how the stress will affect your health. Living in a stressful situation for long periods of time takes its toll, which I'm now coming to terms with.

My wife started secretly eating. She wasn't doing what I'd consider hoarding food, but the Little Debbie's and cupcakes were disappearing from the pantry at an alarming rate and I hardly ever saw her eating them. She would wait until I wasn't home and no one else was around and pig out on stuff. She was hitting the chips and donuts pretty hard at work, too. She's 5' 4" tall and gradually put on about 60 lbs.

About 3 years ago she was promoted from a pretty sedentary position at work to a job that required a lot of running around and some lifting. She started losing some of that weight. When she noticed it she started changing her diet, going from donuts, cupcakes and chips to fruit and yogurt for snacks. She stopped buying the Little Debbie's and junk food at home, too.

She slowly shed most of that weight over time, but kept wearing the same clothes. I only recently (a year ago) noticed she had lost all of that weight. She's looking amazing again, and I'd barely noticed it. I sure notice it now.

Part of the reason was that she was embarrassed so she wouldn't let me see her without clothes on, and the clothes she was wearing were the same baggy clothes she wore when she was heavier and they weren't very flattering. She stopped going swimming at her parent's place, too, which used to be an almost weekly thing in the summertime. Not to mention I was a shitty husband and wasn't paying attention like I should have. She's turned into an exhibitionist with me. She runs around naked more often than clothed when we're home alone now.

The thing that bothered me was the fact that she hid her eating. I thought that was kind of weird. She also had, let's say, a complicated relationship with truth and transparency in general.

She's done a pretty complete overhaul on that since d day. She's been very transparent and truthful with me for the last year now and I believe there aren't anymore secrets. It's kinda like she's now addicted to radical honesty and tells me everything. I think she gets her dopamine hits from demonstrating honesty and transparency now, and I'm pretty tickled about it. I can see it in her face when she opens up and talks to me about stuff now. I've been reacting very positively to it.

I don't know what to make of the strange eating habits, but that's done now. She's on a health kick and wants to lose another 10 or 15 lbs and she's putting the effort into it. Hey, I'm all for it. I've been super supportive and cook healthy meals for both of us.

Hi MD,

A couple of statements from your post on 23 June suggest some cognitive dissonance on your wife’s part:

…my WW’s AP broke it off with her only a few days before she chose to confess to me. Apparently she was emotionally distraught during that time, and was reaching out to a friend for advice because she couldn’t deal with the pain of being dumped by the AP.

she likes to represent that everything ‘meant nothing to her’ but then why did she continue on for months with him…I think the depth of their connection was much more than she is comfortable to admit. I’m going to explore this theme further.

Looked at in isolation, a person being distraught about the end of something that meant nothing to them makes no sense at all. However, in light of your further insight about your wife’s compulsive/self-indulgent behaviour, need for validation, secret bingeing, and kleptomania, is it possible that what she became almost addicted to was the attention/validation she got from the AP, rather than having a strong connection to him as a person? That the attention was like a drug, and its abrupt withdrawal was like an addict having to go cold turkey? Cue the distraught reaction.

What you now know sets the affair in the context of a pattern/history of compulsive, arguably reckless/self-destructive, rule-breaking behaviour. It is part of a bigger picture that really does need work with a therapist to unpick and hopefully improve.

Is it possible that your wife confessed so quickly after being dropped by the AP due to advice from the friend she reached out to for advice? In your shoes, I would be very curious about how much that friend knew about the affair, or if they only found out at the point when your wife reached out and said something like, "You have to tell your husband". Although you would need to ask in a subtle, indirect way, it would be useful for you to know whether the friend is also a friend to the marriage.

[This message edited by M1965 at 2:54 PM, Thursday, June 25th]

Bump by Request

Good day SI team, I hope this note finds all of you doing very well these days! Or, as well as can be expected, depending on where you may be in the process of working with any infidelity issues with which you may be grappling in your own lives. I am very much cognizant of the struggles with which so many of you deal, and my heart goes out to all of you. Each of our situations is different, and yet each of them have a similar ingredient.

I wanted to post a general update and again place myself humbly at your feet in request of your wisdom and input. The knowledge and experiences shared by so many members here have truly been so life-changing for me. I have grown and matured so much by virtue of the knowledge you all have so generously conferred upon me. Thank you all so much.

To be honest, these days, I am still struggling greatly. I’m coming up on the six month mark since D-Day, and so much has happened during this time. My life has always been busy and challenging, but since my WW’s affair, it’s been an absolutely wild rollercoaster. The fallout from her affair has been profound, and I struggle with strong emotions over it frequently. These bouts of emotion tend to be shorter in duration than they were initially, but they still hit me at least a few times a day.

At length, I am starting to feel that my WW may not have the maturity to really do the effective work that’s required for us to have an authentic and successful reconciliation.

It took her forever to locate a counselor, almost 4 months, and the counselor she has found seems to be doing just kind of OK, but as of yet they’ve only had a few sessions, and they really haven’t dug deeply into the main issues yet.

As one of my conditions for participation in reconciliation, I made a twofold request to my WW in re her engagement in counseling:
1) tell the details of the affair, and 2) then tell about other patterns of prior personal behavior to see if there’s any connection between the affair and past events, tendencies, old patterns, etc., that might provide a clue as to my WW’s motivations and triggers in choosing to engage in this escapade (the reason I want to have the counselor analyze these past patterns this is my feeling that if we can identify my WW’s entrenched triggers, perhaps there’s a chance we/I can watch out for them in the current and future time, thereby hopefully preventing a recurrence?).

I assembled a list comprised of bullet points of negative/disturbing behavior patterns in which my wife has engaged during the two decades we’ve been together, and added some other patterns in which she engaged before we met (about which she’s since verbally told me).

One of the behaviors I’m hoping my WW will unpack is a particular pattern of bizarre sexual liaisons in which she engaged on a recurring basis, with quite a few men (at least a dozen or so before we met…that I know of?). Other behaviors I listed include her self-reported kleptomania, binge eating, a reported enjoyment of getting away with deceiving others, and a desire to have power over others in social settings, a kind of power which is conferred to her through attention from others (as she describes it).

I really feel like her counselor should take all of this pre-existing behaviors to determine whether it helps to identify what might have been going on with my WW in choosing to conduct her affair.

I very much do sense that all of the above odd behaviors are a part of a mysterious internal operating mechanism that allowed, entitled, or justified her participation in her affair.

Initially, to my relief, my WW agreed with me that this counseling approach was a great plan, and endorsed the idea of working on these aspects!
But now that she is only a few sessions in, she’s putting up resistance and wanting to take the counseling in a different direction, essentially focusing on other personal neurotic tendencies that have been bothering her in her current everyday life.

Her move to shift focus in counseling makes me feel like she wants to derail the main emphasis of the counseling, away from dealing with the urgent/emergency situation of understanding and repairing the affair situation and working on our reconciliation, and to replace this imperative with remedying her own personal emotional struggles in her current everyday life.

It bothers me that this shift has come about so soon after starting her counseling. It feels like she is deprioritizing our reconciliation too early on.

Don’t get me wrong: I totally understand that sometimes people just need a counselor, to help them deal with their own problems and issues, but having gone through the intense pain of the affair so recently (which was the entire impetus for my WW to engage in counseling to begin with), I’m now feeling abandoned all over again because of this change in her attitude about how to utilize said counseling.

Another thing that concerns me is now that we are getting some months away in time from the initial shock of D-day, I’m starting to see a more frequent resurfacing of wantonly disrespectful behaviors in my WW.
In particular, her old tendency towards anger and rage whenever there are disagreements, is popping up again.

Most often, our marital disagreements are not in regards to high-stakes matters, and are more routine, such as decisions about how to run our business, decisions on the care and discipline of our children, or the myriad logistical considerations of running our household together.

But my WW often has a strong ego and pride, and she often will not admit when she’s proved wrong on things, even on these more routine matters, and she gets super defensive or angry and will often suddenly speak very harshly, shout, bluster….while at still other times, she will simply abruptly break off from conversation and walk off to be by herself.

I really don’t know how to manage any of these behaviors. It’s making me worry that maybe she simply didn’t mature properly into adulthood and isn’t ultimately going to be able to respectfully handle the challenges that inevitably come up in a marriage?
(please, I don’t say any of this to be patently disparaging to her, or to overtly insult her, but these are literally some concerns that I have)

I’d previously had thoughts like this occur to me during the decades we were together BEFORE she had her affair, but the fact that these behaviors have started resurfacing again after only a short cessation (she had been on much "better behavior" during the first few months following D-Day) is giving me concern that she may not ‘have it in her’ to actually make a meaningful change in herself towards more respectful spousal relations in general, parenting relations, etc., despite "talking a good talk" about being committed to do it.

Dealing with the resurgence of inappropriate attitudes, while simultaneously still dealing with the pain from the disrespect, deception, and contempt she showed in having her affair, is really painful for me, and really difficult for me to endure.
I’ve spoken to my WW about this several times. She has acknowledged that she understands where I’m coming from with that, and keeps on apologizing after she loses control. And yet she just can’t seem to ‘get a handle’ on it, and continually resorts to anger or other abrupt emotional outbursts.

Another thing that’s really troubling is that my WW already has slipped into a pattern of not really putting much effort into talking through the affair issue itself. I’ve asked her all along to please come to me to share her thoughts, observations, recollections, or other personal work she might be doing around trying to figure out her "why" for engaging in her affair, but to no avail: she simply does not ever come forward on her own and provide any input.

And when I take the active role reach out to ask her for any information about any personal work she’s been doing, the answer is always the same: she hasn’t been doing any, she doesn’t have time, she’s been too busy at work, etc. and I know I should not be taking the active role, but sometimes I just can’t help it because if I don’t do something, there is simply no activity on the reconciliation front. Which feels intolerable to me. So every week or so I pop off and try to bring up the topic as a way of trying to get us working on it.

To me this feels like another disconnect: the reconciliation should be so important to our lives, right?
But she can’t even spend five or 10 minutes a day doing any work on it?
It makes me feel like she wants to just avoid the topic, and maybe it will just fade away. But it won’t. And I think she knows that it won’t, but she’s engaging in magical thinking hoping it will. It feels like she’s just trying to "Go back to normal".

But I don’t think we are in a place where "normalcy" is authentically possible, at least on my side, I’m still not feeling a sense of security or safety in our marriage. I still feel like the issues in my WW that made her feel emboldened or entitled to her affair, are still just under the surface and have not been properly exhumed and examined… They are still lurking down there, and I feel that the risk of a relapse is still a clear and present danger to me and our family. I imagine I will still feel this way until the issue can be processed, discussed, and analyzed much further.

Essentially, I feel like she just isn’t going to care enough about fixing this issue of her affair: repairing the damage, figuring out the patterns.
It feels like she’s just paying obligatory ‘lip service’ toward the topic, while not meaningfully doing work on her side to make things any better.

Meanwhile, I continue to suffer day by day, trying to understand the affair, the betrayal, trying to find a way to feel a sense of security and safety going forward.

I guess what I’m trying to say is it just feels like she doesn’t care about this issue as much as I do, and she’s not going to.

As I think about the whole ugly situation, I’m also really struggling with a lot of feelings of humiliation and anger these days. The whole thing was so incredibly disgusting. I’m trying to imagine how I can "live it down" long-term. Sometimes I wonder if I may not be able to be successful at that.

I don’t know how long I can go on like this, I certainly can’t imagine living out the rest of my life feeling like this.
I guess six months in is still fairly early on. Hopefully my WW’s behavior will change, and my own emotional tolerance will become stronger?

Meanwhile, I am still employed full-time, still trying to be the best dad that I can to my beautiful daughters, and still trying to show up as a good spouse myself, as much as I can. Trying to practice music as I can, too.
I do sense I’m getting incrementally stronger, but it is a slow process, a tiny improvement each day.

Thank you for your patience if you’ve read this far! Would so greatly appreciate any insight anyone may have. Thanks again!

Hey MD,

Curious: have you taken D off the table? Has she experienced any natural consequences for her horrific choices?

"<But my WW often has a strong ego and pride, and she often will not admit when she’s proved wrong on things, even on these more routine matters, and she gets super defensive or angry and will often suddenly speak very harshly, shout, bluster….while at still other times, she will simply abruptly break off from conversation and walk off to be by herself."

This is the crux of the problem. She wants to rugsweep. It takes real humility to face your brokenness. Her pride and ego are her defense mechanisms. Do not let her slide by. Its hard to face the worst thing you've ever done.

Hmmm ... my W behaved very differently, but even so, 6 months out was my lowest point to the date, but not the lowest point I ...um... achieved. Still, it' a rough time in any case.

WRT to therapy, a person will change only what they want to change. I'll say this, though. IMO, her A (the one you know of) is a symptom of her 'pathology'. What you call 'oddities' are, IMO, real flaws. You know other sides of her and presumably love her, but I think you may be minimizing her flaws.

Have you considered requiring a joint session with her therapist to find out what your W has shared, compared to what she agreed to do in therapy? My reco is to make it a requirement, along with a release she signs that allows her IC to talk with you if you call. (My W's IC told me she would only talk in a joint session if I called with questions, but that was fine with me.)

Also, a good MC should be able to teach your WS - and you, too - new techniques of handling conflict, if all you need are new techniques.

Have you considered IC for yourself, to help you resolve the feelings that come with being betrayed - anger, grief, fear, shame?

The feeling of humiliation is common and maybe even universal, but it's something people do to themselves, not something that is done to them. Our WSes did not humiliate us, IMO. they humiliated themselves. Their As were about themselves, not because of something we did or did not do. Their As say nothing about the BSes abilities in or out of bedrooms. They just say that the WSes failed as human beings. If the realization that the BS has not been humiliated does not come naturally, a good IC can help you see the reality.

Being betrayed attacks the BS's sense of self, and those attacks hurt. The betrayal brings up every shred of self-doubt a person ever felt, and it's hard to stop attacking oneself for the flaws the BS knows they suffer from, even though nobody else does. Change the self-talk, though, and you change your outcome. A good IC can help you see that and put it into practice.

I'll be specific. I've laughed at a lot of jokes about Ws leaving Hes for other women because the H es are so bad in bed. And then my W cheated with a woman, and those jokes dug deep into my sense of worth. Alas, the only one who could rebuild my sense of worth was me, just as only you can build your sense of self-worth.

4 months to find a therapist? Maybe if you live in the middle of nowhere. Sounds like she slow rolled finding one in hopes of you giving up on her finding someone.

While I understand your desire to "fix" your WW, her journey in counseling has to be hers and hers alone. It takes time to establish trust and rapport with a therapist. It takes time to peel back the layers and start to address the core issues. Interference from you will only derail the process.

As she works through her own issues in therapy, many of your relationship dynamics will also change. Some of those changes may be subtle. Some may be more profound.

It's not your job to manage her behaviors; it's hers. You can, however, manage your own behaviors and choose how you react to hers. Humans are hardwired to establish relationship dynamics. Changing those dynamics begins with changing our own contributions to them. It forces the other person to adapt, which also takes time.

Your WW's reluctance to initiate conversations about her affair is extremely common for WS. Most betrayed spouses in R have expressed the same complaint. Most WS are eager to "get past" the infidelity as quickly as possible, to put in the rear view mirror and get on with life.

I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but a great book for both of you to read is:

"How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair;
A Compact Manual for the Unfaithful" By Linda J. MacDonald

I ordered the book. Within moments of its arrival, my ex-wife read it cover to cover. She kept it with 24/7, and reread it several times. She learned.

But I don’t think we are in a place where "normalcy" is authentically possible, at least on my side, I’m still not feeling a sense of security or safety in our marriage. I still feel like the issues in my WW that made her feel emboldened or entitled to her affair, are still just under the surface and have not been properly exhumed and examined… They are still lurking down there, and I feel that the risk of a relapse is still a clear and present danger to me and our family. I imagine I will still feel this way until the issue can be processed, discussed, and analyzed much further.

Perfectly natural, MusicalDad. At six months out, most of us experience something similar. Personally, I was still in shock, still riding the rollercoaster, still suffering from the trauma, and still very uncertain about the future.

Bear in mind that reconciliation doesn't really begin until we've recovered from the shock and started to heal. As hikingout recently wrote: "No one has ever reconciled with the person who cheated on them. They reconcile with someone who has grown."

That takes time.

I’m trying to imagine how I can "live it down" long-term. Sometimes I wonder if I may not be able to be successful at that.

Yes, it certainly does feel that way for most of us. The betrayal of infidelity isn't something we ever truly "get over." We can recover and heal, but the scars remain. Learning to integrate these experiences into our history takes a long time. It's taken me years to fully examine and understand the affects, to heal, to find peace with myself.

You will recover. You will heal. You will find your peace. It just takes time and effort.

I do sense I’m getting incrementally stronger, but it is a slow process, a tiny improvement each day.

Good to read. Keep on keeping on, brother.

"That which does not kill us only makes us stronger."
- Friedrich Nietzsche

Unhinged wrote:

Your WW's reluctance to initiate conversations about her affair is extremely common for WS. Most betrayed spouses in R have expressed the same complaint. Most WS are eager to "get past" the infidelity as quickly as possible, to put in the rear view mirror and get on with life.

This is true. By many measures my wife has been one of the more agreeable wayward spouses I've read about here, and she isn't real big on bringing it up either. She's been better about it lately, but it's been 17 months, and she's only recently moved from "I'm so sorry for everything" to actually acknowledging what exactly "everything" is.

I used a box metaphor. There were a lot of decisions, words and actions done and said in the commission of her infidelity. I felt apologizing for "everything" was a lot like she put all of that stuff into one big box, labeled it "everything," then closed the lid and apologized for it without actually examining the contents of the box.

She's started opening that box and is digging through the contents and apologizing for them one at a time now. She's had a hard time facing all of it, and I think she's finally starting to do some much deeper internal work. She's been remorseful, affectionate, and reassuring during this whole process, but for some it just takes time to really dig in and do the type of introspection and work we want to see.

I also a gree with Unhinged that it's not a great idea to try and manage her behaviors. That's something only she can do.

You are already receiving good advice. And if you go back and read through your thread again you may find some things that are now helpful to you that were not back then.

With that said, I think at some point down the road in the not so far distant future you may come to the realization that:

1) Love alone does not make a marriage

2) It needs to be on your wife to make this happen out of desire to have a long term relationship with you

3) you need to at some point determine what makes you happy and chart a path possibly without her to get there

And lastly:

Sometimes love is just not enough.
Just because you love someone doesn't mean you should be in a relationship with them.

I wish you well on this journey....

[This message edited by Stevesn at 2:52 PM, Sunday, September 13th]

Hey MD,

I just registered here so sorry if this is a bit clunky, but I've been reading your thread and wanted to point something out that really stood out to me.

That apartment pickup detail was something that I couldn't overlook. She drove to his place, right? So they had a totally private apartment right there. But she claims they bypassed that privacy, went to a public cafe, and just made out in a parking lot.

Since you guys live in a small town and she's so terrified of ruining her reputation and the business, why would she take a huge public risk making out in a parking lot when they had an empty apartment right in front of them? I can't square that one...

Did you ever ask her why they didn't just stay at his place?

It sounds like she's creating weirdly specific boundaries (like insisting it was only "outside" the car) to make the whole thing seem less bad than it was.

Hang in there man, keep trusting your gut.

As much as I love SI and appreciate it’s value then I also realize we have our limits.
Mainly – this is a site with hammers. Everything we see is a nail, and the solution is always to hit the nail, get a straight nail, pull the nail, get a longer nail…

We were great for you while dealing with your wife’s affair… Her past issues, kleptomania and all that… maybe not so great. We tend to see a nail, and all we can suggest is hitting it a bit harder.

What I can share is this:

Your wife passed a poly. Go back to what I suggested BEFORE she took the poly. Especially the part about YOU deciding beforehand if you are going to accept the validity of the result – irrespective of pass or fail.
She passed. Some time later you had doubts…
Not surprised – the questions Mmwaa are more-or-less the same as I asked BEFORE the poly. But… SHE PASSED the poly. EITHER believe the poly or ignore it. Maybe get a repeat if that is what is required. But a KEY to any recovery of the marriage is that YOU believe you have the truth.

Remember the analogy to being a bandleader, as well as the guitar player?
Her time in getting a therapist… well… that’s on you IMHO. You asked the drummer to go get the sheet-music, and then waited practice after practice for that task to be done. At some point you should have demanded the drummer completes his task, get to the bottom of why the drummer can’t complete the task, and maybe eventually assume the task yourself and maybe even contemplate firing the drummer if he’s not playing to a beat you accept.

I went back and read your latest twice. I have no idea if I commented on your original post but I’m looking at a woman who has never matured passed about age two or three. I’ve just posted about this on another site because it is a prevailing personality trait in people who act the way your wife does. Something stopped her emotional maturity. Don’t pay attention to what she looks like or even the words she uses look at her behavior and it is the behavior of a two or three year-old. They have not developed a conscience yet, they take what they want to take. It doesn’t matter who it belongs to. They have temper tantrums. If you confront them, they see nothing wrong and behave the way they do because that’s what they want to do.

You need to be very, very clear that you cannot fix her, and you cannot change her. In my opinion, in my opinion only, it would take years, if forever, to get her to change her behavior because that is who she is and that is what she does. You cannot fix her and you cannot change her.

I understand why she wants to find out why she’s behaving the way she is and, she’s kind of wandered off from the cheating, but there’s so much there of her behavior that she cannot get them all in the same sentence because they spread across her lifetime.

This is about you. Do you want to live this way for the next 5 years, or 10 years, or 20 years? This is your one life, you need to look at it very clearly and see what you want. I promise you there is no way your wife is going to be OK in just a few months or just a few years. Our personalities are set, and it’s so permanent. For the therapist to diagnose and actually write it down is very important. You are then followed by the rest of your life with this diagnosis and hers sounds pretty serious. I suggest you look at personality disorders (Cluster B) in the manual that therapists use. Your wife has something so seriously wrong with her that trying to fix her is just Herculean and I don’t see the needle moving one bit. I hope I’m wrong.

SI Team, everyone, wow, thank you again so much for your awesome input and wisdom. Sorry it takes me a while to respond, my life is wild these days and I can hardly ever get any time away to work on this matter privately.

Hey Gr8ful, thank you for your question, no I have not taken D off of the table. It has occurred to me that it may be impossible to solve some of the deep issues that have been going on with my WW, nor can I be the one to solve them. She will have to find the desire within herself to really make some huge changes. I don’t know if she has the ability to do it or not.

To your other question, no she has not experienced any natural consequences whatsoever! And this is part of my frustration! Unfortunately, no one in my family or in my WW's family are at all trustworthy enough to keep a secret. And I have to keep this matter secret. I do not want my adolescent daughters to find out what is going on because I think it would devastate them and make them fearful. They are doing so well in life and are such wonderful young ladies. My highest priority is to do everything I can to keep them from getting hurt. If anyone in the family finds out, it will definitely get around and my daughters will find out. The oldest one particularly is very sharp and incisive in monitoring what's going on in the family.

Furthermore, I can’t talk to any friends about this matter, because none of the men that I know are trustworthy enough not to tell their wives about this situation. We live in a small town, a very conservative rural community, and gossip travels faster than wildfire here, and if word got out that my wife has been unfaithful, our business, the largest investment of our lives, would be shunned, eschewed, and go down in flames.

I’m literally 'between a rock and a hard place' and have no one I can speak with except for my independent counselor. The counselor is doing a good job with me, but it’s not the same as talking to a trusted confidant.

So at any rate, my wife has had to face exactly ZERO consequences for her actions. I guess her only consequence would be how upset I have become over this situation, she has to deal with me being a mess about it, but I guess that’s not really too compelling of a consequence. It’s probably simply more of a discomfort to her than anything.

The whole situation is so damn unfair. I just don’t know what to do about it. I feel like there is nothing I can do about it, but try to process through, get healthy, get strong, and become a better man. I have been working all of these goals in tandem with trying to work through the reconciliation. But not getting much assistance from my WW on that front, especially in the last couple of months.

Fareast - thank you for your comment, I think you are correct, in looking at the personal effort my WW has been expending on working on the issue, she does display rather a rug-sweep orientation toward her affair, however, I think it might be mostly subconscious. She pays a lot of lip service to a desire to reconcile now and again. But then she doesn’t really ever wanna talk about her work on the issue. She now wants to take her counseling in a different direction to just work on her own personal issues. And don’t worry, I won’t be able to let her 'slide by'; I’m not capable of it, I can’t allow this to just pass over. It has to be comprehensively dealt with for me to feel at peace and stay in the marriage.

Sisoon - I have not asked to listen in on my wife’s counseling appointments, but I may try that in the future if she continues to eschew the affair and reconciliation topics. Yes I do have independent counseling for myself. It does help a great deal. It’s actually my only outlet in the entire world on this issue, other than the kind support of the members of this great site.

WB1430 - thank you for your comment, yes, we actually do kind of live in the middle of nowhere. My wife did find a counselor after about three months, but that counselor, in the first and only appointment, immediately went into the mode of blaming me and my flaws as justification for my WW's cheating. I asked my wife to fire that counselor, which she did do. But then it took another couple months for her to find the current counselor, who has been been working with my WW for the past month or so. Seems to be doing Ok, kind of at least giving some feedback and allowing my WW to focus on the affair issue, at least initially.
The time while my WW was searching for a therapist was very frustrating. Months went by with no movement. I kept asking my WW every few days what was going on and most of the time, she would simply say she’s been too busy at work to do any research on counselors.

Unhinged - good point, you're right that it takes a while to get to know a therapist and have them understand us. However, the entire impetus for my WW's counseling is first to understand the patterns that led to her affair so as to work on understanding her kinds of intrigue towards other men, and situational triggers that could cause her to jump back into this behavior. My wife previously agreed to working on the affair issue first before working on other personal matters that are just for her own development. She has now unilaterally decided to change course, it's not what we agreed to.

I of course do support her in her own development, and I want her to have an outlet to work with someone on that. But the affair issue is a priority crisis situation that threatens our very union. It’s my strong instinct that for us to get to a safer more secure place, especially me, she needs to do significant work pinpointing the details of that issue, first.

Your advice is well taken, I do not try to manage my wife’s behaviors, not only would I be unsuccessful, but I don’t have a desire to do that. I do have a desire to let her know what I need from her however, and also what I don’t want her doing to me. I’m trying to simply get her to look at those factors, and I have been marginally successful...but at length I would like a better effort on her part to make personal decisions that honor our marriage and with my recovery in mind...demonstration of effort toward putting 'skin in the game', that just doesn't seem to be forthcoming.

I understand that my WW may be reticent to initiate conversation, and that may be a common pattern, but I can't simply accept that. I feel that I need her to do the work to understand her issues, to understand her triggers, and to establish safety in our relationship. I’ve been counseled by other members on this site that I myself should not be leading those activities myself, but rather my WW should be doing them, not only for her own development, but to demonstrate to me her seriousness in actually working to save our marriage and repair this dire issue.

Thank you for your other comments regarding 'riding the roller coaster', and establishing normalcy, yes, I am sure this will take a significant amount of time to normalize. Thank you for the encouragement that long-term healing may be coming. I certainly hope so!

Pogre - thank you for the the metaphor of 'the Box', that’s a really great one. I’ve been experiencing the same, a few of the contents of my WW's box have been disclosed, but there’s a LOT more in there about which my WW does not wish to examine. I instinctively feel that the examination of all of the contents will be necessary for me to reach a place of peace with us at some point in the distant future, and this kind of work should start now, (should have started months ago) since it’s going to take significant time.

Stevesn - I will do as you recommended and go back and read through the thread from the beginning at some point soon. I do realize that love alone does not make a marriage, and that my WW is now 'in the driver's seat' and needs to decide what to do here. I have thought that it may ultimately be necessary for me to chart my own individual path (leave) for my own mental and spiritual health. But I’m trying to give her the chance to do the right thing here and see if she wants to invest in us. So far, I’ve only seen a few 'fits and starts' on her part, in terms of expending personal effort on this. She will engage me in conversation if I bring up the topic, but will hardly ever bring up the topic on her own, or do any work on it of her own. It’s so frustrating to me. It makes me feel like she’s not truly invested in figuring this out.

Mmwaa - thank you for your observation about my WW picking up her AP at his apartment, and the subsequent makeout session at the café, yes, that’s a very logical conclusion. And to be honest with you, I’ve never been fully comfortable with the veracity of my wife’s account of her physical encounters in the affair. My instincts are screaming at me that MANY other things have happened, probably including full sexual contact in all of its forms, but she will admit to nothing. If you read back in my thread, you will see the bizarre situation of the polygraph exam… I don’t know if I can even trust the results. My wife has always been an extremely sexual person. It’s hard for me to believe that she would be so deep in a stormy limerence with this jackass that she would not pop off and do physical sex with him, in my heart I’ve accepted that probably everything under the sun was done by the two of them.

Bigger - thanks for your observations, yes, I think my trust in the polygraph is rather shaken, I don’t think I can fully trust the result. The band analogy is great, you’re absolutely correct. I probably should’ve 'fired the Drummer' for taking so long to find a counselor, but I kept talking to her every few days and she always had excuses and I kept just hoping for her to get it done, but she never did, this is probably my feeling, but I’ve got so much invested in the marriage and in our family that I didn’t just want to leave, so I kept limping along, trying to encourage her to keep reaching out to counselor candidates. There were periods of a week, sometimes 10+ days, when she would do absolutely zero work, no phone calls, no emails, no trying to find anyone. I don’t think she was motivated to do it. I think she did not want to have to discuss her affair.

Cooley2here - thank you for your incisive commentary. The further along I get in this process, the more I have realizations along the lines of what you wrote. The emotional maturity is just not there for her. She doesn’t really even fully understand the gravity of the situation. Or she doesn’t want to understand it, willfully. I agree with you I’m not going to be able to 'fix' her. I don’t know if anyone can, or even if she can. But so far, I see a very meager attempt to do so. She tends to just focus on work and use that as an excuse to not do work on the affair issues. You’re right, some of her bizarre behaviors have been present with her since adolescence, and it doesn’t seem likely they’ll be going away anytime soon. You mentioned cluster B personality disorders, on her fourth counseling appointment (which just completed), she shared with me. The therapist thinks that she may have borderline personality disorder. That may be the case I don’t know. I’m a little bit surprised that the counselor felt confident to give an opinion on a diagnosis so early on.

As you wrote, it really does feel like a Herculean challenge to try to affect some meaningful change here. I’m doing all I can from my side, but I just don’t know how I can really affect things significantly other than to continue working on myself and trying to stay as strong as I can for my daughters. The ball is squarely in my wife’s court. She needs to figure out what she’s going to do with it.

And I have to decide how long I'm willing to wait for her to serve the ball. I feel like I'm running out of patience. I don't necessarily need a dramatic outcome immediately, but I at least want to see some consistent and sincere effort along the way. Instead, my WW's efforts are very intermittent, and shallow. So disappointing, but I know I need to accept what she's actually showing me. I'm trying to gather courage to make the really tough decision.

Everyone, including anyone I may have missed, thank you again for your input. You are greatly valued.

Hi MD,

Thanks for detailed responses. I have a few random thoughts about a few things.

First, regarding kids knowing. I know many folks do not want that type of information getting out, but I do want you to consider an alternative. I firmly believe that there would be value in a sanitized revelation to your kids. Number one...it is truth. It would demonstrate that it is OK to tell certain people you are close to that people have problems. This is reality.

Number two....they would not only observe their parents being vulnerable and transparent....they would see you working to restore a broken relationship. This would be a very good example for them to see.

Number three....let's say you don't make it and you eventually divorce. Well then it does not shock them out of nowhere. They will have had at least some type of warning that there is a threat.

I recently listened to a podcast by Dr. Jordan Peterson called "Slaying the Dragon within us". It really illustrates the principle of meeting our fears and challenges head on. I highly, highly recommend you search it and listen to it.

This will reinforce my view about possibly telling the kids something...for everyone's benefit.

Next, the issue of her working on "her issues" exclusively. I am so against that theory. She literally abused and broke you. Her responsibility is to help you heal and make amends. It is through that process that all the things she needs to work on will be exposed and identified....and can be worked on as part of the healing on the relationship. If you want some backup evidence from a professional on this. Search YouTube for "Dr. Jake Porter Couples Centered Recovery" and watch the videos. He will explain it much better than I can.

Finally, the details and the potential for more physical aspects of affair. First, I remember when discourse was happening with my marriage, I became a super investigator. I asked, lots and lots and lots and lots of questions, over and over. When something did not make sense, I drilled into it. And what I found is the more we talked, the more I could see inconsistencies. Once you see that, their answers start to give a bit more. Eventually, you can get a whole other piece of puzzle. As far as the polygraph....I would seriously recommend a second one from a different administrator. This will be almost like a second opinion. Change the questions.

If it really does not seem right, there is a good chance it may not be. If she has been truthful, then great...but don't rest until you have questioned her enough and maybe gotten another Poly,...to the extent that your nervous system starts to calm down.

But given she still does not seem truly engaged in YOUR experience, I can understand how you cannot yet rest.

May God give you wisdom. Ask him to reveal any lies, or help you rest in truth. He will answer. 🙏❤️

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 8:17 PM, Tuesday, September 15th]

I get why you want to try and protect your children from the fallout of your WW actions. There were present when some of the interactions occurred so they probably suspect something.

Also a young guy is going to brag to anyone who will listen about what he's been up to and who with. The secret is probably not as well kept as you think. Just be prepared for some fallout coming your way.

In the same vein as the 2 previous posts and your children finding out:

The oldest one particularly is very sharp and incisive in monitoring what's going on in the family.

If this is the case, don't you think she's picking up on something already? If she learns what's going on, while upsetting for sure, it might also give her (and you other daughter) some sense of relief knowing there's a reason for the tension and your dysregulation right now. Plus, while this wouldn't be the main reason, it would introduce some form of consequences for your wife.

I'm not going to tell you that you should go one way or the other, but there might actually be some benefit in you and your wife sitting them down together and explaining in an age appropriate way why something has been off between you 2 for the last few months.

To your other question, no she has not experienced any natural consequences whatsoever! And this is part of my frustration! Unfortunately, no one in my family or in my WW's family are at all trustworthy enough to keep a secret. And I have to keep this matter secret. I do not want my adolescent daughters to find out what is going on because I think it would devastate them and make them fearful. They are doing so well in life and are such wonderful young ladies. My highest priority is to do everything I can to keep them from getting hurt. If anyone in the family finds out, it will definitely get around and my daughters will find out.

I understand you are terrified at what *could* happen if "word got out" about your wife’s activities, but I hope to get you to look objectively at your situation. You are currently being ruled by fear, and as a result, shielding your wife from any consequences. You are the one who knows your situation the best of course, but since your wife (my guess) clearly senses this fear, and believes you will not D, and will shield her from consequences, she knows there’s no sense of urgency with any of her work. I’m sad to say if this is your continued path, your best bet is to level set your expectations much, MUCH lower regarding a true and real R. It’s pretty clear from her actions post D-Day, slow-walking her "work", focusing on herself only, etc. There’s an extremely low probability she’s going to meaningfully change in this environment, so the best you can do is get into IC for yourself to develop techniques to live as best you can with what certainly appears to be an unremorseful spouse.

Since most betrayed miss this, remorse is NOT shedding a few tears and saying "sorry". True remorse humbly accepts natural consequences and has it’s focus absolutely centered on the betrayed instead of the selfish betrayer. Do you see any of that in your wife?