SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I waited 5 months before reaching out to the obs and I regret every day I waited. It was people on this forum who urged me to do it but I was afraid that if I did, my wife would get upset, and it would push her towards him. I was scared.

Someone on this forum recommended an online search company and I think it cost me $20 to get a profile. In the profile was an email address so one day I sent an email from a newly created account and I simply said if your husband is a police officer and he works at this high school, there's something you need to know about your husband and my wife.

I think it was a couple of hours later that she replied with yes he does and what do I need to know? Here's my phone number if you want to call me. I didn't call, I replied via email, and I told her everything I knew. I told her I only have text (sext) screenshots from the day I discovered what was going on and she asked me to send them to her, which I did

That evening I told my wife and she had the balls to get upset with me. She said why didn't you talk to me about this before you did it? What if she comes into the school and causes a scene? What if I lose my job?

I said I didn't talk to you about it because I knew there was a chance you could talk me out of it. And where was all of this concern for your job while you were doing it? What if she had discovered your messages on his phone, came into your work, caused a scene, and you got fired? Our family would have lost its health insurance. Did you ever consider us?

That instantly took the wind out of her sails. She said I wish you had forewarned me just in case she did come in.

So you want me to look out for YOUR best interests yet you had NO PROBLEM ignoring what was in the best interest of me and our family. How hypocritical of you :/

I apologize to the obs for waiting 5 months. I had no right withholding that information from her. She told me several times she was very thankful that I had reached out and to not be upset with myself for not reaching out sooner, she said she totally understands why I waited.

Turns out this wasn't the first time he had cheated on her. In fact, while he was carrying on with my wife, his wife, at 35 years old, was waiting to have surgery to find out if she had breast cancer. What a great husband, huh?

So after his affair with my wife ended, he moved on to the social worker at the school. They had sex not only in his car but on her desk in her office at the school

And yet his wife is still with him. She and I communicated via text for a while and then it stopped. I got the impression she is very codependent and honestly afraid to let him go

Please reach out to the obs and let her know what's going on, she deserves it

Had a very frank discussion with WW last night. I made it clear I wouldn’t let her keep rewriting the narrative that me or the affair made her do what she did. She kept insisting it was irresistible, that she had no control over it, but obviously that’s bollocks. I also mentioned that I was reconsidering approaching OBS.

The flip side is, she said she thinks she’s fallen out of love with me. Which is crushing to hear, but not that surprising. On the other hand, I keep wondering myself if I truly love the person that did this to me.

She said maybe we should separate, and I said fine, then leave. But I’m not going anywhere, I did nothing wrong. "But we can’t afford to support two households." OK, then stay and work this out with me. So she has drafted an NC letter and we’re going to go over it and send it together. She’s going to do IC, and the plan is still to do MC when the time comes. We have to try for ourselves and the kids. In the meantime, we both need to get our heads straight.

Finding it pretty tough though. Something of a pyrrhic victory. My heart’s on the floor and I’m struggling to keep it together in the day-to-day stuff.

My position on the OBS situation is: I’m not in any state to make big decisions, I’m too much of a mess, and while I absolutely see the arguments for it, I want to know I’m doing it for the right reasons (I only feel spiteful right now).

I just do not understand the hangup with telling OBS. I really don't. If my wife's AP was married I'd have been all over that, "right reasons" be damned. Would I do it out of spite? Not really. Revenge or satisfaction for turning his life upside down like they did mine? You bet. Yes, I'd feel horrible for his wife, but I firmly believe she deserves to know. I'd be doing her a service.

Regardless of my reasoning tho, it's still the right thing to do. If I'm giving someone else their agency back, it doesn't matter what level of satisfaction I would get from it. It's the right thing to do.

And I wouldn't tell my wife I was doing it either. I'd just do it. Then if it gets back to her I would know she's still in contact with her AP.

She said maybe we should separate, and I said fine, then leave. But I’m not going anywhere, I did nothing wrong. "But we can’t afford to support two households." OK, then stay and work this out with me.

This doesn't sit right with me. You can't really bargain a spouse back. This has to be something she wants to do. If she's going to be white knuckling her way through this like an alcoholic being forced to stop drinking it's not going to work.

I suggest contacting a solicitor or 3 and get the lay of the land. Just to figure out what divorce would look like, and don't be shy about letting her know you're doing it. I'm not saying to rush out and file for a divorce, but it wouldn't hurt to arm yourself with some knowledge and send her a message that you're not messing around. Let her sit with that for a couple of days and see what she does.

Good for you for standing up for yourself, Guzman. I bet it made you feel a little better.

Double down on your efforts to find and inform the OBS. When you do, it will suck in the moment. But don't be surprised if the OBS eventually thanks you. No matter what you will be able to look back at your actions and know that you acted with truth and integrity.

Your WW will not have that luxury, ever.

One of the best gifts in my life was this info as being the BS and knowing NOTHING of a 2+ year affair. I NEVER answer numbers I don't recognize but for some reason at 3pm fri Aug 14th I did. What she shared was horrible but the TRUTH with screen shots to back it up. I can never thank her enough. We kept in contact for a couple days to compare notes. What I realized right away is that she was luring me in for a revenge affair of her own or just to hurt my W more. She had kicked out my wife's AP. She told me "your wife fucked up my life and I'm going to fuck hers up too". She knew she couldn't publicly slander my wife's business but was looking to do any other damage to her possible. But she gave me so much shit for not leaving the house/moving out right away. That didn't sit right with me, and I didn't want to leave my home/kids as I didn't do anything wrong and I wanted the stable home base to me ours. She told me she had a rentable finished basement that I could stay in for free for the time being until I figured things out. She wanted to meet for drinks the day after she sent me the screen shots. It got real weird real quick so I blocked her number. But, I still wish I could have given her a more proper thank you.

One of the best gifts in my life was this info as being the BS and knowing NOTHING of a 2+ year affair. I NEVER answer numbers I don't recognize but for some reason at 3pm fri Aug 14th I did. What she shared was horrible but the TRUTH with screen shots to back it up. I can never thank her enough. We kept in contact for a couple days to compare notes. What I realized right away is that she was luring me in for a revenge affair of her own or just to hurt my W more. She had kicked out my wife's AP. She told me "your wife fucked up my life and I'm going to fuck hers up too". She knew she couldn't publicly slander my wife's business but was looking to do any other damage to her possible. But she gave me so much shit for not leaving the house/moving out right away. That didn't sit right with me, and I didn't want to leave my home/kids as I didn't do anything wrong and I wanted the stable home base to me ours. She told me she had a rentable finished basement that I could stay in for free for the time being until I figured things out. She wanted to meet for drinks the day after she sent me the screen shots. It got real weird real quick so I blocked her number. But, I still wish I could have given her a more proper thank you.

You’re just wasting your time if you don’t tell the OBS. All the pain and anguish you’re going through now will come back to the same levels after you do it. You need to do it now so there is less of a chance of surprises down the road.

You’re hurting. You get better each day. It might not be felt but it’s there. Until the truth is out that clock doesn’t really start.

You’re prescribing yourself a whole bunch of future pain to not throw a bit more on the pile now. We need your mind to be set and focused, we all want to see you get better. The way that happens is through execution, strategy and really understanding your simply doing something no good person should ever fathom doing. You are much, much stronger than you think. A lot of your posts refer to your precarious psyche but if I’m being honest your actions suggest otherwise. You’ve been doing really well given the circumstances

Every BS should read THE BODY KEEPS THE SCORE. Every day you live in this hell is eroding your health. Stress is cumulative.
Pay attention to all these ideas, suggestions and experiences. There is enough info on here to fill a book. A very good book.

Every time it was stalling, it was sending. Big oops.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 4:15 AM, Thursday, October 22nd]

When I found out about my husband's affair, I contacted the AP and told her to inform her BS or I would. She did.

HOWEVER, when I contacted the other BS myself, I found out that he KNEW about the emotional affair MONTHS before I found out about the physical affair. He confronted my husband and his wife, and they both assured him they would not have any more contact. At that time it was a two ish year emotional affair, only because they were colleagues that worked on opposite coasts.

I considered him a coward, afraid of the repercussions perhaps. He wanted to protect me. ME!!!! Had he informed me about the emotional affair, without a doubt the physical encounter would never have happened. He did not give me agency for my own life, and because of it, hell came crashing down on both of our marriages and families.

Please reconsider informing the other BS. She has a right to know her husband is a liar and a cheater. Let her make decisions for her own life based on the facts not the fantasy she is living unbeknownst to her.

[This message edited by annb at 10:04 PM, Thursday, October 22nd]

OOPS! Double post.

[This message edited by annb at 9:19 PM, Thursday, October 22nd]

She kept insisting it was irresistible, that she had no control over it

I think accountability is the foundation and keystone for moving forwards. IMHO your marriage has NO CHANCE at reconciling unless the attitude she displays in that line changes.
Look at it this way: If we acknowledge that there is something that is irresistible then by it’s very definition it can’t be resisted. Therefore, in each and every opportunity it’s offered it will inevitably be taken. She even acknowledges that with having no control over it.
So what happens if you two work at reconciling based on the affair having been irresistible?
You can spend money on MC, make all sorts of changes, spend two hours every Thursday evening looking into each others eyes, be totally unified in chores, finances and so on, date nights every Saturday… all happy-happy… yet once the "irresistible" conditions are met she once again cheats. After all – she can’t control it.

Come on! Surely we can make more demands and have higher expectations. This is why we aren’t shocked if a horse takes a dump on Main Street during a parade, but it makes the news is the bassoon-player in the marching band drops his pants and does the same mid-street. We – humans- can control our needs, desires and wantings.

IMHO the only response you can give – based on what she told you last time – is along these lines:

No. Your DECISION to cheat was not irresistible but a series of decisions you made to go along that path. If you persist in believing you had no choice or that it was irresistible you are telling me that this can and will happen again, and that you are controlled by urges beyond what we as a couple can handle. Therefore this marriage is doomed.
Your decision to cheat has made you question your love for her too. Maybe now is a good time simply for both of you to decide if you want to remain married or not. Maybe you two should spend this week getting to understand how a divorce would pan out – in a realistic way.
You care enough for her to NOT want her to feel forced to be in a marriage with someone she doesn’t love, and you don’t have it in you to feel like a competitor to OM. You are the prize, not the backup or the alternative.

My husband is a musician in the sense that he has always been a singer around the house. He was a music major in college and took a long look at what that meant. Although everyone has the hope they will be in that breakout group that goes on to be another set of Beatles, but he knew he did not want a life on the road. He also looked at what was facing him otherwise. He might be a band leader or a teacher in high school. None of that appealed to him. So he changed majors. He and I married, and he had a few few jobs that went nowhere, meant little to him until he found an ad for one and got the job. He has absolutely loved it. It has taken us all over the United States and I’ve enjoyed the adventure. My kids have become pretty sophisticated by this lifestyle and it served them well. Here’s the thing..lwe have had a good marriage. We’ve got great kids and my husband still cheated. I’m not really sure why people feel the need to go looking outside of a marriage. Who knows.
Please take yourself off the hook. Your wife had no business reconnecting with a man in secret. The first time they reconnected and talked about anything personal was the beginning of their affair. I hope you understand there is absolute no excuse for someone doing this. It’s appalling. Not just that it’s painful for you but she has children.
I hope that you have a piano or a guitar somewhere handy. As we moved around the country, we were able to find friends everywhere because of my husband‘s musical ability. People like to sing, and we would gather groups and do just that. Go find yourself a choir to belong to and through that you will find other people who like to play and sing, and that might be just the way you get the real joy back in your life. I can’t tell you how much it has meant to my kids to have a father whose musical. One of our kids is as well and it has brought her a great satisfaction.

She kept insisting it was irresistible, that she had no control over it

I think accountability is the foundation and keystone for moving forwards. IMHO your marriage has NO CHANCE at reconciling unless the attitude she displays in that line changes.

I ran that line by my wife and asked if that was her experience. She just shook her head and said that's a crock of shit. She made choices. It wasn't some literal irresistible force that couldn't be overcome.

That's coming from a woman who formerly cheated on her husband - me.

I couldn't agree with Bigger more. That's either a terrible excuse or an admission that if the stars align the right way again it will happen again. I would not accept that at all.

[This message edited by Pogre at 3:45 PM, Monday, October 26th]

I agree with the others, her line about it being "irresistible" is her telling you she’ll probably do it again in the future. You can’t translate that any other way.

Hi all, thought I should post an update. Thank you all for sharing, you've given me some great insights.

WW has sent the NC message. We wrote it together and I watched her send it. (AP did actually reply to it, saying he understood, blah blah blah, which WW freely shared with me. She did not reply and deleted the chat.) It's progress, albeit slow. You're all absolutely right that it's not nearly enough. She's less foggy than she was, but her reluctance to fully accept responsibility is a problem. The "irresistible" nonsense is just the latest excuse in a line of permissions she's been giving herself: it was my/the marriages fault, she didn't expect me to be THIS affected by it, she assumed I was indifferent to her, it was irresistible...

One of the things we argued about recently was whether the affair was a "mistake". She admits to "making mistakes" (whatever that means), but says she doesn't regret that it "shone a light on our marriage".

Great, so I'm scarred for life, can't sleep, can't eat, mood swings, panic attacks, flashbacks, everything. Today I went for lunch in a café with two friends who've been helping me through this, plus a friend of theirs who I'd not met. I lasted an hour before I had to make my excuses and get out of there, I was so anxious and uncomfortable. Then I sat in the car and sobbed uncontrollably for a while. I feel like I'll never be well again. I've been reading The Body Keeps the Score to understand what's happening to me - I just need to undergo several years of intensive, expensive therapy, and I might be OK. But I'm so glad that you got to "shine a light on our marriage". This argument is ongoing.

On the funny side, I was starting to get paranoid about her hiding money from me. I'll spare you the boring details, but I'd convinced myself that she was building a war chest. I pressed her on it, and she confessed: she'd been overspending on Vinted and was really embarrassed about it. She showed me everything, let me look through her accounts - loads and loads of Vinted purchases. Turns out I'm not the only one with a problem. There was also a hotel bill from one of their liaisons, and some lunches. But I knew about all that anyway, because I'd read the whole thing on IG, as per my OP. We both felt a lot better after this. Trying to find something to laugh about.

She said maybe we should separate, and I said fine, then leave. But I’m not going anywhere, I did nothing wrong. "But we can’t afford to support two households." OK, then stay and work this out with me.

This doesn't sit right with me. You can't really bargain a spouse back. This has to be something she wants to do. If she's going to be white knuckling her way through this like an alcoholic being forced to stop drinking it's not going to work.

In the moment, it wasn't that I was bargaining with her. It was more like me calling her bluff. If she honestly wants to separate, she can go. Otherwise, stop pissing about and get back on the road to R. But, as people have mentioned, there are more things that need to be in place for that to work.

Re telling OBS: I'm considering asking a trusted friend to do some digging for me. I did some digging, but I don't even know her name. AP has made his FB friends list private (I'm willing to bet he did that very recently), so no luck there. Going through IG yielded nothing specific (seems to keep family life separate, or else he's deleted any posts mentioning Mrs AP). I'm not giving up, but not hopeful.

At the moment, WW is talking a lot about "rebuilding" our marriage. Despite everything, I see this as the way forward, if there is one. The affair was not my fault, I accept that. But I also accept that our marriage was very unhealthy, and we'd grown apart far more than I was willing to accept before she so graciously "shone a light" on it. I don't want to give up on it, but if it is to survive, there's an awful lot of work to do. WW needs to see an IC, but it hasn't happened yet. Jesus, it's expensive.

I've been running, doing light yoga, meditating, seeing a therapist and a crisis counsellor. Seeing friends once in a while. I'm still struggling mentally. Had some very bad episodes. I just can't get that scumbag's face out of my head. I try to have a conversation with someone, try to enjoy my kids playing, try to work, and I just get this voice whispering all the explicit details into my ear, all these images flashing into my head, and the knot in my gut twisting painfully. I'm scared about this. What if it never goes away?

[This message edited by GuzmanLyrebird at 10:00 PM, Tuesday, October 27th]

Man, if she doesn't regret this, there can't be any reconciliation. You can't trust someone who has the heart and moral backbone of a snake, to the point that she boldly confirms that. What are any agreements with her worth, assuming you don't point a gun at her? It really shines a light on her being a shallow, opportunistic person. I don't envy you and your children this attempt to fix your family. Hopefully it is a very long laps of judgement on her part and she will soon get a grip on reality.

[This message edited by Itiswhatitis000 at 7:57 PM, Tuesday, October 27th]

I was in your shoes. My H was planning to run off into the sunset with the much younger OW and he really didn’t care what happened to us.

He acted just like the cheater in this thread.

Thought the cheater was still in control of the entire situation.

Believed the AP was the better choice b/c I got the ILYBNILWY (I love you but not in love with you) speech ad nauseum.

I did the pick me dance just like the OP here.

And I learned after 6 months of false Reconciliation and fake promises that I was wasting my time.

Nothing is going to change unless the betrayed makes changes. I’m not saying you have to kick someone to the curb but I’m certain that no contact letter sent was sent by a cheater who is not 100% on board with that idea.

And time will tell if the cheaters actually stay no contact.

But as far as healing the marriage, that’s not the focus b/c the cheater is not all in as far as the marriage is concerned.

I’d do the hard 180 until you start to see real signs the cheater really wants the marriage. The fact that she’s blaming you and saying the affair shine a light on the marriage is the most significant thing that indicates the cheater doesn’t even believe they have any fault in the affair.

Stop beating the dead horse and trying to R with someone who is not on the same path and heal yourself first. I’m certain when you start to feel a bit better about yourself things will fall into place.

You will get stronger. You will put yourself first. And you will see your cheater for exactly who and what they really are.

GuzmanLyrebird,

I should know by now but it still surprises me at how freaking similar cheaters act after discovery.

#1. If she can't see how she was wrong and won't accept FULL responsibility for cheating, that is a very bad sign.
#2. I waited way too long (for all the same stupid reasons) to inform the AP's spouse. It was literally the ONE thing that changed everything. Once the partner knows, things start to fall apart quickly. Or at least in my situation that was the case.
#3. Set hard boundaries, do the 180. NEVER NEVER NEVER play the pick me game, it'll be hard but read everyone's posts in here - it NEVER WORKS.

praying for you.

One of the things we argued about recently was whether the affair was a "mistake". She admits to "making mistakes" (whatever that means), but says she doesn't regret that it "shone a light on our marriage".

No, she did not make mistakes.

Some friends and I are going to an event together. I volunteered to buy the tickets on Ticketmaster. I meant to buy them in Section 102, where other friends of ours have tickets, but I bought them in Section 101. That was a mistake.

She made a series of choices with specific goals in mind, and accomplished those goals. She didn’t make mistakes, she made choices. Massive, consequential, immoral and appalling choices.

And we’re all with you on this looking at the bright side bullshit. She definitely does not deserve a pat on the back, and the lack of regret is telling as others have already pointed out. Her goal was not to shine any lights, her goal was to avoid the light at all costs.