SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Not to threadjack, but 5BlueDrops I've been wondering how your story has been going. It's been a bit since your last update and I know you've been struggling.

MusicalDad78,

The polygraph was supposed to happen yesterday as I understood it. Did it happen? Can you provide and update? I hope you are doing OK friend.

MusicalDad

As pointed out it’s been a couple of days since the planned poly. I can see that you have checking in.

Friend – I have a feeling that if she took the poly and passed with flying colors you would have shared. You would be telling us that we were wrong, that you have the unicorn of a fully truthful WW and that you two were headed to a better place.
I actually hope that you do post something like that. I truly hope you are getting what you wanted and I would be so happy for you if you were already on a great path towards reconciling.

Only… You haven’t been posting anything…
Friend – there is no shame in having hope or wishing for the best. There is no shame in having ignored some advice, or having chosen a different path. Like… I truly believe the advice I offered as the "best" for you, but what you do with it is totally yours. I won’t gloat about things not working out because you didn’t follow exactly what I suggested or anything like that. In fact – as staff I would probably have to reprimand myself if I did… We will protect you.
It’s OK for her to have failed, and yet you haven’t filed or packed your bags.
It’s OK to make mistakes. There are really few instances here where the BS takes the correct decision at each and every one of the million decision we need to take after d-day. In fact – the only ones I remember have been proven to be trolls.

Don’t be afraid of sharing your journey. We can offer help in possible next steps. You are safe here.

Hi everyone, thanks again for your amazing engagement and advice here.

The polygraph examination was quite an interesting experience. The person we met with was extremely experienced, with over 25 years in his craft.

He flat out told me in the pre-examination interview that in his experience, when a betraying spouse claims that the only physical thing that ever happened in the affair was just "kissing", that in about 95% of cases (his estimate), they are lying about this.

However, in my wife’s case, after going through the examination, where she was asked about any physical contact apart from the identified kissing with her paramour, with anyone going back to our wedding day, there was ‘no deception indicated’. Per the examination, she actually is part of that rare 5% cohort who didn’t go any further than kissing.

Still, the length of her affair, about 3 months, and the depths of deception involved, with hundreds of secret messages sent, and several in-person clandestine meetings, still weigh extremely heavily on my heart and soul.

I essentially feel as though I lost my wife for almost an entire quarter of this year. She basically jumped over to a different man and treated him as her actual husband during that time. The pain is very deep and it will probably always be with me.

With all of this being said, it was an extraordinary relief to me to know that, if I am to trust the results of the examination, my wife has actually been fully honest in her disclosure to me, and no deeper sexual contact was undergone.

Acquiring this information makes me feel much more confident as we go about the process of reconciling. Other than the behavioral hiccup I described from a couple of weeks ago, my wife has once again resumed compassionate, caring, supportive, and encouraging behavior towards me.

I truly hope this will be our ‘new normal’, and not simply a temporary ‘honeymoon period’ Which may fade away in time. Of course, there’s no way to know, other than to simply go forward and see how things develop.

I do feel like things have forever changed between us in some sense…however, I also see a glint of Hope, a light at the end of the tunnel: if my wife has truly learned the error of her ways, as she swears that she has, a new future is possible for us.

I have continued on in my personal counseling and trying to sort out my approach to this matter. On my wife’s side so far she’s had an extraordinarily difficult time trying to locate a counselor that has availability and experience with infidelity matters. She will continue working on this until she finds a suitable provider (I will make sure of this as well).

My wife has acknowledged her possible behavioral and character defects that may have been an underlying factor to her inability (and choice) to observe appropriate boundaries in this affair (and other social instances), and wants to seek a counselor’s input on specifically this area, as well as other aspects of her affair, and other personal issues for which she desires guidance.

I did not write back here for some days after the examination because I needed time to decompress; this has been a very emotional time and a very emotional experience for me. I’m a bit exhausted. But for the moment, I’m trying to rest and catch my breath and see how the initial stage of our reconciliation effort goes.

Thank you again to everyone who provided such excellent and thoughtful input, your expertise and guidance was key for me as I navigated this totally new and incredibly intense situation. You have all been a true godsend to me.

I hope I never have to go through anything like this again. If this ever happened again, I don’t think I could make it through a second time. It was just too painful.

I wouldn’t wish this experience on even my worst enemy’s dog, but having your advice, support, and input has helped me so much, everyone.

Again, I sincerely thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.

A surprising result indeed. I'm glad you are pleased.

A positive update. Take care of you and continue to heal. Consistency in her actions over time is what saved our M. Watch her actions more than her words.
Good luck.

I am very glad to hear that. I would like to recommend a coach for your wife. We cannot put links here, but I will describe how to find it.

In Facebook, search "Identity Life Coach". She specializes in betrayal and I think would do an amazing work with your wife.

I’m truly glad that she passed the poly.
I was thinking like the operator, that the odds of you having the truth were 1/20 at best. Something we always need to keep in mind on this site, that we are dealing with human interaction and although there might be trends and probabilities there are very few constants.

I’m also glad to see you believe in the poly. It would be dreadful if she passed, but you had doubts about its reliability.
Your emotions about this still being bad despite there not having been anything beyond the kissing… You don’t have to justify to yourself how bad this was. She had an affair – that in itself is bad enough. That they didn’t have sex doesn’t make it less of an affair, but it might help you deal with it.

I have this life-philosophy that works for me: EVERY experience you have can be used in a positive way. Even if the experience itself isn’t positive.
Like… decades ago I rear-ended a vehicle when driving an entry-ramp onto a highway because I was looking at the traffic on the highway and assumed the vehicle ahead would use the gap I saw. That was definitely not a positive experience. Since then I have a rule that I keep my eye on the vehicle ahead until I’m at the front. I turned the negative experience into a life-lesson for improved behavior.

I suggest the following:
Sit your wife down and tell her how you always envisioned eternity with her. That the emotion you had just a week or two ago that this marriage might be over was something very real and not expected. That you were truly 100% committed to divorce had she failed the poly, and even possibly if you discovered much more. That you have realized the emotion worse than losing her is sharing her – the situation she was offering you AT BEST while in her affair.
This is so important. That you both realize how close to the ledge your marriage was. This wasn’t an "adventure" like the Briges of Madison County or some "in another life we would be lovers" Hollywood scenario. This was actual get-the-defibrillator-cardiac-stop-level serious marital crisis.
Then tell her that you aren’t content with going back to where you were.
Although you are not accepting an iota of responsibility for her DECISION to have an affair then you acknowledge that there was something that she felt prevented her from telling you something was missing, or something was stirring in her. You don’t want that moving on.

Ask that while you two work on the infidelity-issues and the effects of the infidelity that you also think about how to create the marriage you both want. That you don’t stop therapy or communicating or whatever you are doing once you can tell her that her grocery runs don’t trigger you anymore, but that you make it a lifelong task to constantly be creating the best marriage ever.

Hi everyone, I thought my most recent entry, submitted just after the polygraph was completed, might have been my last time reaching out to you all at least for a while, as I believed at the time that my WW and I were on a good trajectory towards reconciling. But unfortunately, there are already once again problems in our R, and I find myself coming back to beg for your advice yet another time.

First I want to say to everyone again, thank you for your ongoing engagement, sharing your observations, your own personal stories and how they are similar to what I’m going through, and above all your knowledge of human nature and common sense. because somehow, in my weakened capacity post dday as a betrayed spouse, I seem to have lost my formerly-sharp (or at least I thought) ability to appropriately judge character, intent, and to ‘read between the lines’ when it comes to analyzing human behavior.

I’m starting to feel that the ‘honeymoon period’ is already over. It was unfortunately all too short.
I let my wife know early on that in order to really reconcile, based on research, it may take me anywhere from 3 to 5 years to get to a place of recovery, and that I would need her to be patient, sensitive, and understanding throughout, as we continue to process her affair, so that she can demonstrate love, support, honesty, and allow me to talk through my pain, and for her to answer my questions, so I can try to get myself to a better place, where I feel like I can start trusting again.

After passing the polygraph, things went really well for about two weeks. But once again, on a Friday, just like what had happened a few weeks ago, for reasons unbeknownst to me, my wife suddenly started getting angry and withdrawn from me.

That morning, I had forwarded to her over email some articles and short video clips, which dealt with possible reasons as to why wayward spouses might engage in an affair. I did this to ask for her input on these materials, to ask if she felt like any of the themes discussed in these materials might have applied to her particular situation. We’ve been doing this every few days or so, as new materials are found. We’ve had discussions about several helpful articles and video clips, and my WW has even found some of her own that she has shared with me. So this way of working on R has been part of our process so far.

But on this day, WW again got cold and short-tempered with me, and said that she is feeling angry at me over old arguments we used to have from years ago before the affair, and she pulled back, and would not discuss either the affair, or the resources I’d sent to her. She then immediately apologized and said that she knows that it’s not fair, but she’s feeling angry at me and can’t discuss any of this stuff with me at the moment. She then went on to state that it feels like when I send her materials, I’m ‘attacking’ her and trying to ‘take revenge’ on her for having her affair.

I tried to plead my case and stated that this was not my motivation at all, rather, I’m still trying to understand the factors that caused her to engage in this behavior, and sending articles and short video clips for her consideration, and for our discussion, are one of the ways I’m trying to deal with my lack of understanding in trying to make sense out of this absurd and preposterous situation!My explanations did no good, and WW remained short-tempered, angry and dismissive with me throughout the day.
Dealing with this treatment from her, by the afternoon, I was pretty much an unstable emotional wreck. It’s been such a roller coaster with her, she has been so sweet, kind and understanding, but then suddenly she "turns off the tap" and does a complete 180° turn towards hostility…it happened so fast and it’s so unpredictable. It’s so sudden, shocking, and hurtful.

I’m highly susceptible to this, because I’ve felt extremely sensitive and emotionally vulnerable and weak during this entire time since D-Day, which was only about six weeks ago, on March 30. When WW gets angry and dismissive with me about the affair (or anything right now) it makes me feel like I’m going through D-Day all over again. It’s almost as traumatic as the day when she dropped the news on me. Whenever she refuses to empathize, or demonstrates an unwillingness to discuss or try to process the issue, it makes me feel abandoned, as though she is telling me that I’m just going to have to try to deal with all of this on my own and to just push my feelings down inside and not engage in conversation about them. I just feel like I cannot heal that way. I have to be able to work on this with her.

I think what’s happening is that my wife is starting to show me that she is unable to actually change and go forward. She is going to hang onto some vestige of justification for why she engaged in her affair. Her bringing up old arguments is a way of trying to place them front and center as a rationalization that explains (to herself) why she made these choices. Let me be clear everyone, those old arguments, although emotionally-charged at times, to my mind, were very low stakes, and not about anything consequential. They were disagreements about the fact that my wife sometimes perceived me to be dismissive or somewhat sarcastic, when I might have disagreed with her on any points of contention. These weren’t disagreements about important life choices or high stakes decision-making, anything like that, it was basically just she didn’t like the way that I would carry myself during our disagreements. Things of that nature. Ugh, but talk about the ‘pot calling the kettle black’, in this regard: my wife’s bad behavior during our disagreements, at least to my mind, was orders of magnitude worse than my own, with lots of screaming, yelling, shouting, foot-stomping, slamming doors, storming off, stonewalling for days, even throwing household objects in anger…I had to put up with immature and wild emotional outbursts from her more times than I can even count. And yet I soldiered on doggedly trying to find a way to make peace and keep going in our marriage… I realize now that we should’ve been in counseling, but neither of us ‘went there’… We should have.

I’m starting to get very scared that we’re not going to make it. It feels so early on in this R process to receive this level of unsupportive emotional pushback. And this is already the second time, she had an episode of this, same behavior, a few weeks ago, and at that time she even voiced a defensive posture for her AP, begging me not to ruin his life, Etc.

It doesn’t seem that she has the fortitude or desire to actually work through a real R effort. And now I’m starting to get very scared that our marriage will not make it, and that my poor children will have to grow up in a broken home.

It’s terrifying. Something I’ve never wanted. But I am starting to feel what’s been going on for my wife is that she may have wanted out of the marriage for a long time. And maybe this whole situation: the affair, and her unwillingness to actually work on R, is really just her deep-seated feelings bubbling up from inside of her, and instead of just telling me she wants a divorce, this is a passive-aggressive way of getting the same outcome.

So once again, I’m staying at a hotel in the next town over. I’ve been out here for a couple days, trying to get my head straight and to get some sanity and clarity. I feel way too fragile to be around my family right now if WW is going to pop off with more unsympathetic and angry behavior, it’s just too painful. I am missing my daughters and worrying about how things are going for them as they navigate their schooling, our family business, and all the other matters of life.

Just as she did last the time my WW’s anger came up during the reconciliation process before the polygraph examination, she has been sending me pleading text messages, begging me to come home, and she also left me a tearful voice message, crying that she’s so sorry that she hurt me again, and promising it won’t happen again.

But I feel like I can no longer believe her. This is already the 2nd time my WW has been harsh with me during this very new R process and I’m starting to feel like it’s going to just keep repeating, like she just doesn’t have the ability to behave appropriately, and demonstrate patience and support, which is going to mean more damage to me. I feel like I need to stay away right now to protect myself from more emotional abuse, as a measure of self-preservation.

Ironically, that day, after much effort my wife had finally secured a therapist specializing in infidelity matters who is taking on new clients, but their initial appointment is not scheduled to take place until May 19. And there’s no telling how that will really go….I certainly hope the therapist will actually help my WW take a good hard look at her deception, disrespect, secretive behaviors, and the harm that my she caused our family…but I also am concerned that it could easily go the other way, and this therapist might essentially team up with my wife to help reinforce her Justifications and excuse making… There’s nothing I can do but just wait to see what happens on that score.

I’m wondering if any of you out there who have tried to engage in a reconciliation process have experienced similar bouts of difficult behavior with your Betraying Spouse? And if so, did you find any helpful ways to deal with it and still manage to move forward toward R? Or am I just being completely naïve and it’s time to start making plans to separate?

Honestly at this point I’m not sure which path to take. I’m thinking about all the pros and cons, and it just seems like both paths are essentially different flavors of minefields, with both utterly littered with cons.

TIA for any insight or advice you may feel you can share. Once again, if you’ve made it this far, I appreciate your patience. I hope you’re all having a good day, please take good care.

The one thing is important to metabolize above all else after a betrayal.

You come first.
You are not there to beg for support from the person who cheated on you, because they cheated, they proved they can’t be trusted as support.

If you don’t put yourself first you are a doormat (in the unreformed cheater’s eyes), hence you will be walked over.

Not in words, in facts and behaviors.

You must heal and help yourself, she will need a lot of work before becoming again the woman you can really rely upon.

This will be learned, either by acting consequentially to what a betrayal entices, or the hard way by repeating the history.

Telling you because I got the impression you are rebuilding a fantasy about your partner about a person that is not fully there yet.

Depending on your healing she might be or might never get there.
Don’t drop your boundaries, if that happens another time will hit you harder.

I’m starting to get very scared that we’re not going to make it.

I would very highly recommend you getting into therapy to work on your fear, which will not serve you well in making crucial decisions. Separating from her was the right move, so you can clear your head and begin to think things through in a non-triggered matter. Consider thinking through what’s actually worse: staying with an emotionally abusive wife, how that will impact you, and what are are modeling for your kids. Remember the saying: it’s better to be from a broken home than it is to continuously live in one. Your kids need to see you model what it means to refuse to be abused. Be strong, if not for yourself, for them.

Your wife’s anger at you is proof positive she’s not a candidate for R, at least not yet. She’s also not taking 1000% responsibility for her betrayal. You cannot work with that. It’s time to consult with an attorney because you need to understand your rights and at least get to know what a D would look like. Knowledge will help treat your fear. After you have done so, let her know you’ve consulted an attorney. Maybe just maybe she will begin to respect you and for once, she might actually start to comprehend her choices may lead to the end of the M.

Stay strong!

MusicalDad,

I’m sorry the rollercoaster of infidelity is still running at full steam. Perhaps she thought the poly was her "get out of jail free" card when really it is just one small brick in rebuilding a foundation of trust.

Have you talked to a lawyer yet? You leaving the home to go to a hotel may be hurting you if you end up in D. PLEASE talk to a lawyer (or three) just to understand the law and make sure that you are protecting yourself. I know you are trying for R, but it’s a long road and you need to make sure you cover your tail in case it goes sideways.
This is not to file - it is to educate yourself.

Keep watching her actions and taking care of yourself. This stuff is really hard and it can really do some damage along the way.

...I seem to have lost my formerly-sharp (or at least I thought) ability to appropriately judge character, intent, and to ‘read between the lines’ when it comes to analyzing human behavior.

I think most of us experience something similar for the simple reason that trying to understand why anyone would choose infidelity is a mind-fuck of epic proportions. I spent months trying to understand why my ex did what she did before I finally realized that I was never going to comprehend the incomprehensible.

At some point, hopefully, your WS will uncover her whys and be able to explain them to you. Typically, this takes a long time and a lot of very difficult work. Even then, no explanation will ever suffice nor justify infidelity.

I'd suggest that you stop sending her these articles and videos. It probably does feel like you're attacking and/or trying to punish her. She knows she fucked-up. She doesn't need you to remind her. That's not to suggest that you bury your feelings or rug-sweep. Far from it. By all means, continue to express yourself. There's certainly nothing wrong with wanting to understand her whys. It's that this is something she has to work through on her own because she feels a need to do this for herself.

You're still in the very early stages of recovery and, most likely, still in shock. Feeling weak, vulnerable, and extremely sensitive is all par for the course, man. This shit hits hard and it hits deep. Most of us lack any experience with severe emotional and psychological trauma, which leaves us... well, unhinged.

Give yourself a little more time to recover. Focus on you. When you're ready, getting down to the hard work of reconciliation becomes a little easier.

My exww also brought up a lot of our pre-A marital issues, especially early on. Some of that was clearly blame-shifting, the shit she told herself in order to justify infidelity. For a while, I listened. It gave me the opportunity to get a glimpse inside her head. After a while, I started using the Socratic Method to challenge that malarkey. Often enough, it pissed her off. At the same time, however, it forced her to examine the utter nonsense she was spewing.

There was another aspect to it, one that I made perfectly clear. Nothing that happened before d-day had any relevance to me anymore. I simply didn't give a hoot. The only thing that mattered to me was that she fucked another man. Infidelity is a deal-breaker. Our entire relationship, from our first dates to the day right before discovery, was totally and completely irrelevant to me. I absolutely refused to discuss anything else - although I did assure her that if R was going to happen we could address those issues when, and if, I was comfortable doing so.

IOW, affair repair was going to take precedence over marital repair.

I think what’s happening is that my wife is starting to show me that she is unable to actually change and go forward.

Change isn't going to happen overnight. It takes time - a lot of time - and hard work to unlearn some untruths about ourselves. Even then, the changes any of us make are never holistic. We learn to identify our tendencies and then learn how to make different choices. It's almost always a work-in-progress.

Reconciliation is a marathon, not a sprint. It seems to me that most couples need at least two years to get there, often longer. How long you want to spend trying to figure out whether R is possible for you is entirely up to you. Some BS head straight to divorce and I certainly don't blame them. Others are willing to give their WS plenty of chances before calling it quits. And some couples are truly able to R and have a happy marriage. Set a goal for yourself. Give it three months, or six, or a year, and then evaluate how it's progressing.

I encourage every BS in R to get as comfortable as possible with either R or D. Only when we are at peace with ourselves can we be at peace with others. So, climb up onto the proverbial fence and get as comfortable as possible. Focus on you, your recovery and healing. Step-back and detach from your WW. Watch and observe what she does with the opportunity you've given to her.

I’m hoping this message will provide some insight.

There is Nothing - and I mean NOTHING you did or did not do that was a cause for your wife to cheat. As you stated, she’s just using those "arguments" to justify her affair.

Second, stop 🛑 STOP sending articles and Videos etc. to her. That comes across as you leading the reconciliation process INSTEAD of her taking the lead, which she should.

FWIW I didn’t lift a finger to help my H to reconcile. He had to prove to me (on his own) enough was there and we still had a fighting chance to R and to get me to change my mind about D him.

Lastly, you are getting mixed signals from your wife. Tearful texts don’t align with the cold shoulder and unwillingness to talk about the affair.

Here is my strong suggestion. You want to see her commitment level to R? Say nothing. Do nothing. Just sit back and watch what she does or doesn’t do.

It will tell you everything.

If you get three weeks of no discussion of the affair with her initiating things, you have your answer. She’s not all in and she’s not going to give you everything you need to heal and recover.

Actions speak louder than words unfortunately.

I am sorry you’re dealing with WW’s confusing behavior. I am not going to jump to the conclusion that she is not a candidate for R, and that you must D. I do not care what your ultimate decision is: R or D, but you are so early on and your emotions are all over the place. My advice is to stop trying to figure out why your WW engaged in her A. That is her responsibility to identify and hopefully resolve with her IC to your satisfaction if she wants to continue in the M. If she is unwilling to take an honest look at her weaknesses that allowed her to betray you, that would be a major red flag in my opinion. But I would not try and be leading her down this path by sending her articles. If she wants the M it’s on her to dig deep. Perhaps she won’t feel it’s worth it to do the work, and you will have your answer.

For WS to face their "Why’s" takes humility. From what you have described, your WW is proud, doesn’t like to lose an argument, and is defensive when pushed about her horrible behavior. When she is asked about her horrible actions, she looks for any reason to justify it, like old arguments or the fact that you forgot to take the trash out in 2017. She wants to rugsweep and stop feeling guilty and ashamed. So she attacks in response. But she needs to understand the trauma she has inflicted. Has she read How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by McDonald? She should. She needs to demonstrate empathy for the trauma she inflicted on you. She needs to be transparent and answer your questions without defensiveness, even if repeated over and over. It’s your brain trying to resolve a trauma. And it takes a long time. Focus on your own healing. You will figure out in time if her actions are a dealbreaker. Watch her actions. I would move home, pursue your own IC, focus on your own healing and lay out your boundaries moving forward.

Also regarding her counselor — you realize that she’s going to present every excuse to the counselor as to WHY she cheated.

It’s not going to be the truth but her version of the truth.

I mention this b/c there are therapists that will allow her to hold you accountable for her decision to cheat. You need to be prepared to have a response when this situation arises.

My H used the excuse that "we were disconnected". Until I unleashed my response that he was the one that stopped communicating with me and I never complained. But now that he’s brought it up, …………. (I’m certain you can fill in the blanks for the rest of the conversation).

Honestly after dday1 I believed he went to the counselor to get the courage to D me. No joke. His words said one thing but his actions were the opposite.

I am hoping your spouse gets a counselor that holds her accountable 💯%.

Everyone - THANK YOU so much for your excellent advice and observations. I am learning so much from you all. What to do, and what NOT to do.
So helpful. Thank you! 😌🙏🏻