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I disclosed an affair from 20 years ago a few days ago and although I knew the fallout would be immense experiencing it has resulted in painful emotions (for both my wife and I) at a scale that I could never have imagined before feeling them. I sent my wife the link to SI and my tag so she could read my posts. Last night was probably the most difficult for me and Mrs. FVL. She read some items in my original thread that I had included in my upcoming therapeutic disclosure, but did not remember they were in the post. I should have re-read everything I have posted before she encountered it so I could have flagged and prepared her for it.

She was ruminating on it for most of the day before going out with friends to a dinner that was planned a couple weeks ago. My wife has many friend groups from each area / phase of life that she has maintained over the years. Lunches and girls trips are one of her happy places. I was concerned that being in that setting with the recency and weight of the disclosure and not being able to tell everyone what she is experiencing would be very triggering. She does not have an ounce of dishonest DNA and this burden is putting her in a position where she does not feel like she is being authentic with her friends. Rather than enjoy the dinner she could not eat and eventually had a panic attack and had to leave (I am 99% sure she has never had anything remotely close to a panic attack before). I could feel that something was off immediately when she returned and we were able to discuss one specific item that was very upsetting.

The specific item was not something that I had considered significant to me, but I have 100% knowledge of everything and have spent 20 years rationalizing / contextualizing these things. She had no context and it triggered her thinking the issue was much worse than it actually is. We were up late into the night again discussing this and I am so grateful that she is willing to do that vs. being so angry and hurt that she has to have space.

We are going to do the therapeutic disclosure, but my wife is asking questions that is covering almost everything that we would discuss in the formal disclosure. I am emailing my therapist to ask what we should absolutely avoid discussing outside of that, but my wife is not going to be able to wait to ask questions and I am want to put everything out asap. Her specific request right now is that I provide the detailed timeline that I have been able to create. I am going to ask my therapist for her guidance, but want to give my wife this on Saturday (she asked for that day as she will have time to process before we have other obligations).

Totally missing the item that triggered the raw pain and anger my wife felt yesterday has reinforced that I may omit something that I think is insignificant that would be something she would absolutely want to know. For example, the issue yesterday was me mentioning that AP and I went on "trips". These were rare and would have been a Saturday night 30-50 miles out of town, but the mention of it created thoughts of more exotic trips. Another issue was gifts, which was not a thing with the AP so I would have likely not spent much time thinking about this in disclosure.

I am preparing the timeline for the next two days and would very much appreciate any thoughts from both WS and BS on what details would be important for me to contemplate / research for inclusion. We are staying away from sexual activity as that is clearly in the topics for therapeutic disclosure, but I think most other topics will be cleared by my therapist as okay to discuss before the formal disclosure.

I have read a few books this week including How to help your spouse heal from your affair (MacDonald) and Courageous Love - A couples guide to conquering betrayal. Some of the material is targeted toward sex addicts, but the second book has examples of the formal disclosure and they seem to primarily focus on the actual sexual behavior rather than on things like timeline and logistics so I am hoping our therapist does not take issue with us discussing on our own. I do not think either of us can wait to do the prep sessions for the therapeutic disclosure. My wife is ruminating on questions and it is killing her and I want to put everything out there so she does not have to think the worst.

Any suggestions on what to include and/or experiences with how to handle disclosing are appreciated. I am terrified. I think we have already discussed almost everything, but as yesterday showed I am not a good judge of what might be particularly upsetting.

[This message edited by feelingverylow at 6:36 PM, Thursday, September 11th]

I’m not a fan of a therapist telling someone what they should or shouldn’t put in a timeline. These situations are way to personal for a one size or 100 sizes fits all.

just ask your wife how detailed she wants the timeline to be, or better yet create two timelines. One that gives an overview and dates and a general list of what went on. Then create a detailed timeline with details of the details. Yes that means all the sexual stuff too.
Offer both to her and let HER choose what she wants. Maybe she wants both. OFFER to take a polygraph. Don’t wait for her to ask for one.

Am I correct in thinking that you are waiting to see a MC together before you go into disclosure of everything, or are you waiting to see your IC before disclosing everything?

My situation was a little bit different, as my BH found out I was having an A on his own after looking through my deleted messages folder, and confronted me before he read all of them. That morning, we decided we were going to see a MC, and we had it scheduled by that evening. Unfortunately the first appointment wasn't until a week later (which felt like FOREVER away, at the time).

BH wanted to read the rest of those text messages, but I wanted to wait until that appointment so we had some professional support. He waited for several days, asking me over and over to read them, but finally it got to be too much for him. Not knowing what he didn't know, just knowing that there was more to be devastated by, was agonizing for him. So we sat together and read the messages one night. Naturally, it was difficult for him, to understate it. He called me names. He didn't want to be physically intimate with me. Things that I had said to him were said to exAP, so they were now triggering... All manner of normal reactions to such a thing. But that was better for him than not knowing for another couple days, and we survived until the appointment.

So I guess my questions would be:

-Why is your IC telling you to wait?
-Does your BW have support of her own beyond yourself, and if not, can you help her find it?
-Do you have MC scheduled so that you have mutual support, or only IC?

I am leaning towards the advice of "Just do the full disclosure, support her and/or give her any space she needs, and seek counseling for the both of you (IC for you each in addition to MC.)" But of course, I am not a professional. I'm just another WS who's a couple months out from D-Day. So, grain of salt

You're over-thinking this, and, I think, trying to control too much, being too rational and structured, as if you're checking off boxes on a list proscribed by anyone but your wife.

She'll ask questions when she's ready. She'll ask the same questions a gazillion times. No logic, unstructured, urgent and honest. All you have to do is answer them with scrupulous candor (which, I'm sure, won't be easy).

Recovery is not a linear process; it's a fucking mess.

Why didn't your BW share with her friends? She needs as much support right now as possible. I wish I had shared more with friends and family.

As for the time-line... it's a time-line. Dates and facts. Pretty simple. The details you can fill in as questions come up.

IMO, finding out that some things are trivial to you but critical to your W and vice versa is inevitable. BTDT.

My reco is view the next period as a way of you're finding out if you and your W fit together well enough to build a great M. You're different people. You think differently. You have different wants and needs.

People often ask if they should bring their WSes to SI. I usually counsel something like, 'Not unless you're sure they're committed to R.' But I was going to suggest that you tell your W about SI ... forgetting about the possibility that has occurred for you and your W.

My only reco is to tell your W that posts are about works in progress - one posts about problems and works out solutions here. The problem statement is usually not where a poster ends up. You were honest when you posted, and now you think ____.

The way my W & I worked SI out was that we agreed not to read each other's threads unless invited to do so. It's too late for you and your W to that, but maybe the WS should open up their WIP thinking.

IMO, I think it's beyond futile - and even ridiculous - for you to think your IC has any idea about what your W can and cannot hear. I understand you are very uncertain about how to go forward, but the best you can do, again IMO, is be yourself.

Having said that, my W said several times that she wanted to put off answering a question until our next IC session because she wanted support when she answered. Sometimes I was unwilling to wait, sometimes not. But on average, that just meant a few days' delay for me, so I tolerated it sometimes.

Bro, I know you feel worse than awful, but you have to have some faith in yourself and your W to come up with a good solution. You can't control the outcome of your relationship with your W. Your best bet is - wait for it - to be yourself.

If your W doesn't like the real you, do you want to stay together? Believe me, when you're old and grey, or old and bald, you want to be with someone you like and who likes you.

One other comment - you’ve gotten great advice already — is to remember that the timeline will be a living document. You will remember things to add over time and you will want to update the timeline accordingly. It will be impossible to capture EVERYTHING is just two days, so do your best but also keep it up to date as things come to you.

My initial instinct was to answer any and all questions (as many times as she has them for as long as she has them). The therapist practice does lots of work with sex addicts and the disclosures often involve behavior that is not applicable to us so I think that is why they have a bias towards disclosing in a therapeutic setting to ensure both partners have proper support. The process will take too long for us as it involved my wife working with her IC to develop the questions, me working with my IC to answer, a session where the disclosure happens, an impact statement from the BS on how the disclosure has impacted them, etc. That is not going to work for either of us.

I am not sure how to phrase this delicately, but the sexual aspect of the affair will likely be far less than my wife is ruminating and that is part of the reason I want to disclose everything now. I was young and although had been sexually active since my early teenage years, I was still very inexperienced and very insecure about myself so have never been able to go outside of what I know. This will not make anything better for my wife, but if the situation was reversed I would have terrible mind movies that envisioned everything that could have happened and I want to try and assure her that is not the case sooner rather than later.

I am going to suggest to my wife that we use the disclosure on Saturday so I can put everything I have been able to come up with out in a timeline. She has said she wants to know "everything" so I am revisiting our financial records again and trying to find any an all information that I can to piece together the puzzle. Communication with the AP was over email and my email archives go back only to 2008 so I do not have any communication to share.

I have to say that knowing this would be part of the process was the biggest thing that held me from disclosing for so long. How do you look into the eyes of the person you love and tell them things you know will be devastating? I got a preview of the pain and anger on her face last night and my immediate instinct is to shame spiral so I am really focusing on avoiding that. I know the length of time since the events themselves and viewing everything from my current perspective will create gaps / holes, but one thing I promised myself before the initial disclosure was that I would never trickle truth and would be transparent about any questions for as long as she is willing to engage and ask.

Unhinged - my wife is still deciding who she wants to tell. One of my worries was that she would not want to tell anyone as her instinct is always to protect the family (including and maybe especially me). She has a close friend from college that she is going to tell tomorrow and lean on for support. I have told her she should tell whoever she thinks would be helpful supporting her.

I am a huge fan of John Gottman and his work. I read his infidelity recovery book "How To Make Love Last", and his position is that sexual details should not be shared with the betrayed. I spontaneously threw the book across the room. The idea of the professional class dictating to us what we should get to know is unbelievably patronizing and absurd. I’ve cited stories of mothers of children killed in a shooting being showed the footage of their children being killed. The mothers asked for it, they believed they needed it for closure. Who is anyone to tell them otherwise? (Edit to add: Gottman has fantastic research to back up his horsemen and 7 principles. This stance on affair recovery is judgment based and not similarly backed up by research.)

Don’t ask you IC what your wife gets to know or ask. If you wife wants to know, tell her.

She is reading here, so she should be advised that she should be sure because you can’t unhear it and there are risks that it will haunt you. I think it’s prudent to take a little time to see what you mind ruminates on. If the questions and obsessions will go away on their own without hearing the terrible story, that seems best to me. But if your mind won’t go quiet and you need to know, then ask and demand the truth as a condition of R.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 8:14 PM, Thursday, September 11th]

Just talked with my wife and we are agreed that I will prep everything I can and answer every question she has Saturday morning. I am physically ill, but glad that we are doing this Saturday as neither of us were going to make it much longer.

InkHulk nailed it.

Don’t ask you IC what your wife gets to know or ask. If you wife wants to know, tell her.

It sounds straight forward but it took my wife six months to truly understand it.

You’ll be tempted to hold back — but if the story is incomplete or changes, that will reset your spouse back to day one — or worse.

You’ve gone for authenticity by telling her, now keep after it.

Being vulnerable and honest, as consistent as possible was how we built our M back.

I liked the book "The Courage To Stay"

Also for me I wondered about lot about trinkets that were reminders of the affair. Im assuming there isn much left from that time, but I would list absolutely every physical item directly related to the affair and allow her to decide its fate.

Do you have gifts, cards, letters from her? A favorite piece of clothing purchased while with her? Etc.

All the things.

I do not have any residual artifacts from the affair. I am trying to remember what if anything I may have had, but we were in a much different financial position at that time and did not spend money on each other. I am sure there is a lot of emails (was before texting) and those are not recoverable (I actually contacted Yahoo and asked if they could recover emails prior to mine and they indicated they could not). I am reviewing all of my spending over that time period to identify dates and places. Very hard as I have blocked that time from my mind for so long. I remember things about that time, but the details start to make it feel very recent and real for the first time in years.

Obviously one of the hardest aspects of this for my wife is the duration as it speaks to there being a connection beyond physical. That part was largely done 12 months prior to the end of the affair, but it continued as we had a connection that I was (unsuccessfully) using to fill a big hole in me. As a recovering addict I can easily see the dopamine addiction from the validation of having someone want to be with me. Once I started the affair I really thought it was the end of my marriage so every call or email from AP was a lifeline that someone wanted me. I told my wife that I know how bullshitty this sounds, but the AP could have been anyone. It was a classic case of affairing down on a physical dimension (I have always been very attracted to my wife who is objectively much more attractive than AP). Sharing an office in an industry (wall street) that required 15+ hour days was the perfect confluence of events for me who was struggling with past trauma, feeling totally detached from my family, and being highly insecure about my ability to provide (which was the one thing I really thought I could excel at). Not at all excuses, but I can see in hindsight why I was able to rationalize my terrible choices.

You are brave and honorable to do this. I admire you for it.

Tell her whatever she wants to know when she asks. Anytime, anywhere.

If my H would have said to wait until he cleared it with someone else, I would have lost it.

Gather what you can. For me it was 42yrs ago. No cell phones, emails or texts. Unfortunately my H did not do the homework prior to confession. The more you can fill in for your W the better off you'll be.

You are brave and honorable to do this. I admire you for it.

I second this!

This process is so brutal right now, but I am so grateful for every minute I have a chance to continue to reconcile. I have been spending lots of time going through my financial software to recreate a timeline. The timeline is the important part, but also including things like gifts and trips to help provide a more full picture.

I am noticing and likely underestimated how big a mind fuck this is for my wife so am trying to provide as much detail on the actual timeline as her reality about that time period is now shattered. We had two young children at the time and I was not present emotionally, physically, sexually, mentally, etc when the affair was happening.

Middle of the night and I am staring at the timeline feeling like I am researching what someone else did as I cannot recognize that person. I look at him with disgust and it is so hard to admit that person is me. I feel filthy in my own skin and want to crawl in a hole and hide rather than see the pain in her eyes while discussing the timeline and answering all her questions.

She assures me she is not going to leave me. I think the therapist may have said something about my abandonment issues on Monday and when my wife indicated her initial instinct was to stay the therapist may have said reassure him you will not leave (just guessing on my part). I believe my wife (she has never lied to me once in 32 years), but my worry is her feelings will leave. She will stay, but not be present or feel anything other than disgust and contempt for me.

I am definitely having overwhelming shame and guilt right now so trying to process this in the middle of the night before we talk tomorrow so the focus is on disclosure and providing specifics. She deserves every answer I can give without me focusing on how hard this is for me.

I appreciate the support of the community. I knew this was going to be the hardest thing I have ever done, but revisiting specifics has forced me to remember details and the triggers are intense. I have thought about the affair millions of times over the past 20 years, but it has always been in the context of how ashamed I am of my actions. I have never had to focus on the actual affair activities and have tried to block those (both consciously and subconsciously). I wrote in another post how I had a nightmare recently about being in hell and it was inside APs house (where 95% of the affair occurred). I woke up with a clear picture of it in my head and had a panic attack. Feeling much the same right now.

Good luck today, feelingverylow

we are here for both of you.

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