SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been meaning to write this for a while, been lurking here for a while. My situation is complicated or at least it feels like it in my mind. Prepare for the long story, and rambling.

My spouse and I are in our early 30s and have been married for just over a year. Around a month or two ago, she told me she didn't love me anymore. I had a feeling that something was wrong, but I thought it was something we could work through, after all it's marriage and vows! She talked a lot of my flaws or things that happened in the past, whether true or not, I realized it was true for her and I said I would do anything to make it work and be a better person. A short time later, I found out through her phone that she was having an affair with another guy, and it has been going on for at least a few months. Naturally, I was extremely upset but there was another reaction that was more concerning to me. Something in me was like 'no! Don't leave me! I'll do anything!'

We were supposed to take a trip together for Thanksgiving and I was really struggling to go through with it or not. I knew from the texts that she was planning to make a weeklong detour after our trip to visit her sister and the guy would meet her there. On the day of the trip, I said I wasn't taking the trip with her. I said she would have more fun with her new guy, and I spent the holidays with my family. She was upset and said everything she could except for admitting to the affair. That day, a few of her friends contacted me to say she was crying and asked what was going on. During this whole time, she was blaming me (texts) for everything, saying all of my flaws (real or not) without admitting her affair. I did my best to go no contact for a week or so, even sleeping at my office for a few nights.

But one day I went back bc I was lonely and just feeling so down (I moved to a new city to be with her and get married with her). She treated me really nicely, but without admitting to anything and pretended she did nothing wrong. Since then, I've been living in a sort of limbo, we are treating each other nice, with the obvious elephant in the room. I'm not going to lie, there are times where it's been really good, and other times it's been really low. I think I've had my first panic attack two weeks ago.

During our week apart, I filed for divorce without her knowledge. The paperwork has been ready to go for about 2 weeks and we still we went on a Christmas trip together and visited mutual friends on new years (mostly her friends). I've definitely been delaying the divorce process.

During this time, I've done a lot of reading on this site and others and I've learned a lot of my own issues and why I reacted the way I did. Childhood trauma, no love from my parents, emotional and physical abuse during childhood, as well as my mom loving my sibling about 100x more than I (not exaggeration), attachment theory, low self esteem, codependency, depression since I was in high school, anxiety since earlier than that. Im seeing a therapist though she's more of the listen and don't give much advice type.

I know in my logical brain that I must divorce her asap, but my other brain is just so sad and scared of being alone. So scared of being not good enough and loneliness. At the same time, the longer I stay the worse I feel with spots of happiness. The times we are together, we act more or less like a couple, doing couple things, sleeping, eating, etc. And the good times together feel like a drug addiction.

Other times it feels like hell. On New Years I was surrounded by people all talking and mingling (with me), I've never felt so alone. One detail I left out was after we got back together, she's still accepting gifts from the other guy including a diamond ring that just appeared. I confronted her about it and of course she lied saying it was an old ring. We had a big blow up about it during the new years party, and her friend tried to help us work through it. I showed her friend the proof because she kept denying it and after much back and forth we both wanted the relationship to work but I would require her to build my trust back. Which meant looking through her phone (with the intention of not looking at it anymore).

CURRENT DAY: We came back from the trip and since then there have been no arguments. today I met her at the gym and I went over to say hi and saw her talking on the phone. She hung up immediately after I approached her which made me feel, and I asked her who she was talking to. She said she wasnt talking to anyone and it made me ask her again, who was she talking to? She then went on fb and called a friend "A" (someone I know had no knowledge of the affair partner) and said she's now talking to friend "A" and showed me. I said I know who you're talking to now, but I'm asking who you were talking to 10 seconds ago. She then continued to lie and said I was talking to friend "A" right before. I said then show me on your call log, shouldn't be a problem bc you already showed me you were talking to friend "A" right now. She then falsely accused me of treating her like a slave and she won't show me it. I then said why are you still talking to him, this is not what we agreed to when we worked on our relationship and I said I'm done with this relationship and walked out. She texted me that I like having power over her and blamed me for more stuff. I then called friend "A" and asked her if it was true, friend "A" is supposed to be her best friend and she doesn't know anything about the guy. We talked about the situation and I felt I was just venting to her. I told friend "A" I disagree I'm torturing or lording power over her. Since our new years conversation, I haven't asked to look at her phone, and since we've been married, whenever I go to work I never ask her what she does, whose she's with (she's unemployed). I told her I felt I'm doing my part and more to try to make this relationship work and she's not even meeting me halfway. Her friend said she didn't know about the affair partner at all because this was the first time hearing about it, and she was uncomfortable showing me proof of today's call logs. I said it's okay, it's not friend "A" responsibility to show me.

I don't know what exactly I'm asking for here, maybe just some prayers and strength in this time. It's the hardest thing I've done so far in my life. If someone was to ask me why is it so hard for me to move on, I think I would respond like this: I feel really bad that she chose someone I feel so unworthy as in what kind of a husband am I to have his own wife cheat on him, is it true love between them? Is he so much better than me? I've confided in my brother in this, and I can tell he's being understanding but also a bit disappointed in me. He wants with good intentions to push me to change my career job, get out of any situation that makes me unhappy, and learn to love myself. I told him I'm trying but it's really difficult for me somedays. Really difficult.

I also feel the biggest thing is fear, fear of being alone, fear of being alone with my thoughts, fear of regrets, fear of what if I'm really not a good person or good enough? Fear of not being loved, fear of not being validated. Fear of the future, fear of losing my best (or only close) friend her, fear of losing a lover. Fear of confronting a new path, as the path I was on and laid out for me is no longer true. Fear of everything and a sadness. And even more, if I want to stay with her after she cheated on me and after she did these horrible things to me, what kind of person does that make me?

I've read a lot of books or audiobooks, , reasons to live, love yourself like your life depended on it.
Edit: are there any recommendations for books on improving self esteem, and being happy with oneself after an affair? Many I see are books advocating staying in the marriage but this is not looking possible.

[This message edited by Yoga at 8:11 PM, Saturday, January 22nd]

Yoga:

Sorry you find yourself here, but you will receive good support. Read in the healing library and try to read and implement the 180. Your WW is currently in an active A and the 180 will help you get some space from her and time to think. Stop doing things for her. Stop engaging with her as long as she is in her A. You are not alone in feeling fearful about the ramifications of laying down boundaries and not tolerating your WW’s infidelity.

Exercise. Eat healthy. Get out with friends and be active. Get stronger for you. Although you have suffered an emotional trauma, you will get through this. You will be okay.

But you don’t have to let your fears paralyze you from acting. And you need to act. Get tested for STD’s. Find a good IC to help you get to the bottom of your fears and insecurities. Make it a priority to value yourself. You deserve a faithful and committed partner.

Stop taking any blame for your WW’s cheating. Nothing you did or didn’t do in your M caused her to cheat. She chose to cheat because she wanted to do it. Period.

If her cheating is a dealbreaker for you, continue the D process and have her served. You may also want to confront her and lay out your boundaries if she wants to try and rebuild your trust. Be calm and firm. Don’t argue or engage. She either gives up her AP or you will be D shortly.

Take action. Always value yourself. Good luck.

[This message edited by fareast at 2:51 PM, January 22nd (Saturday)]

So sorry you are going through this. It would be good for you on your own, for your own self to see a counselor or church leader to explore your mind-set on self-worth.

I feel so unworthy as in what kind of a husband am I to have his own wife cheat on him, is it true love between them? Is he so much better than me?

Answer: NO. He is not so much better than you. How do I know this? He screws married women. He can't even line up a single woman at his age especially. She is a person that did what she did, for whatever reason, and it has nothing to do with you. If she was some wonderful person, she would not have been capable of what she has done. Period. She still wanted you around, while she felt entitled to defraud you. You had something to offer her. It is clearly time to cut that tie.

Hang in there through this. The emotions ebb and flow, be patient. You will come out ahead.

Yoga,

Trust your instincts. Your base instincts, that are telling you, "this..is..not..right." That are telling you, "Do something about this!!"

Stop trying to be the empathetic, understanding, open minded new age yoga man.

Your WIFE is BLOWING IT.

No more soft confronts.

No more intervention with friends.

No more Mr Nice Guy.

Lay down your expectations and hard boundaries now.

Full transparency, full disclosure

OR, EVEN BETTER: Serve up those Divorce papers. She’s proven, early on in your marriage, during your honeymoon phase-No less, that she sucks. She’s not lifelong, got your back, forever-and-a-day, thick and thin, better or worse, sickness and health, beseech all others, going to be buried side by side marriage material. She’s failed miserably right out the gate.

Thank your lucky stars you discovered this early on, before kids, a dog, mortgage, mutual debt, and dependent elderly parents.

BTW: Nice work consulting an attorney and drafting up papers. That was awesome. That shows you do indeed have spine.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 9:14 PM, Saturday, January 22nd]

You've actually done a lot of things right. You did a pretty good job with a hard stance, you filed so you are ready to D if you need to. Good work.

Now, you need to consider taking a new set of clear actions. It could be moving forward with D. You have no kids, it's a short marriage so it will be straightforward. Many people will tell you she's now shown you who she is and that you should believe her.

Or you could give one more attempt at getting out of infidelity without D. Use the 180 process. Tell her you have no option but to get out of infidelity and it comes in 2 flavors: D or you can offer to attempt R if she works to become safe for the marriage. Then define what that means: 100% non negotiable NC with posom, full transparency with all electronic devices, her admitting what she's done with full details and a timeline of events with the posom, she needs to immediately read the book Not Just Friends, she needs to see a counselor.... and whatever other things you need to start to heal. Those things are not about controlling her, they are about saving the marriage and helping you heal.

Then tell her if she can't decide to agree to those things, well ok, that means D... and tell her you'll file in 3 days time.

Do you know if this is an EA or PA or both?

If you stay with her, she's going to continue gaslighting you, pointing out all of your flaws, manipulating you, deceiving you, and emotionally abusing you. What she does now, she will continue doing.

So you understand, here was my post yesterday on a social media platform regarding what would have been my 38th marriage anniversary..

"Dreams of teleporting myself back 38 years ago today to talk to the youngster I was. 'Don't do it kid. I PROMISE that you will be sorry.'"

Brother I'm sorry you had to find us but glad you did. File those D papers and have her served immediately, at this point you have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to work with while she's in an active A, but even if she had ended it, you were supposed to be in the honeymoon phase and she's already betrayed you, do yourself a favor and get rid of this unremorseful proven cheater and liar, she's shown you who she is, believe her, life's too short and you deserve so much better. Don't forget to get tested for STDs.

No kids. Why is your WW not working? I’m asking to get a better sense of her personality and your dynamic.

Let me address some of your fears.

fear of being alone, fear of being alone with my thoughts,

Your thoughts are yours alone. You will never feel as lonely as being in a relationship with someone who does not love you.

fear of what if I'm really not a good person or good enough? Fear of not being loved, fear of not being validated.

You are good enough, you are a good person. You do not need a shitty person's love to be validated. You just don't.

Fear of confronting a new path, as the path I was on and laid out for me is no longer true. Fear of everything and a sadness

The future is unknown. And truth cannot be found in the future. Your past is certainly a lie. Your wife lied to you. There is a segment of your relationship you need to reconcile with the present.

You are entitled to grieve your relationship. And you should. It is over.

The question to ask is whether you would like to start a new relationship with her. Knowing what you know.

clearly i do not know how to use the quote feature.

Let’s look at what you need. You need intense therapy. Not marriage, just you. If you are suffering from anxiety it’s making everything else worse. Everything else. You need to get a handle on what happened to you as a child and then come to terms with it. It’s your history but it does not have to be your future. You’re going to need the help of a very strong therapist who is going to work with you to uncover all the crap that was done to you and help you deal with it. I’m on here all the time telling folks they need EMDR because it is a therapy that helps you deal with memories. It’s pretty intense and it does not last but a few weeks. After that you need talk therapy. My suggestion, and you can take it or leave it, is that you just move ahead with divorce and get yourself straightened out. You moved because you thought the bond was stronger than it is. It might be in the future but right now your past is eating you alive. It can’t go on.

If your wife is not being truthful she is gaslighting you, a nasty trick used on vulnerable betrayed spouses.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 11:17 PM, Saturday, January 22nd]

What kind of man does this make me?

Well that's up for you to decide.

What your wife has done is terrible. You're acting and responding like a caring, loving husband. And this is why it hurts, it would hurt any man whose wife has done what yours has after a year of marriage. I'd feel the same way, no that's all normal.

What isn't normal is your wife's behaviour. She's acting like a wildcat.

I don't think there's any helping her. Someone who would do this to their newlywed spouse, has major personality and mental issues.

You're looking at a lifetime of hurt if you try to 'fix' her.

I'm very sorry mate, but there it is. She's a bad one. Your best move here is to back away slowly, don't make any sudden moves, then run like hell in the other direction!

It happens, one spouse in the marriage has no problem hurting the other one. It's a damn shame but it happens to good people like you. She clearly doesn't want to be married to you, at least not monogamously.

So, what kind of a man are you?

Be strong, just leave her and don't look back. She's fired you from the caring, loving husband job. When someone fires you, it's not healthy to sit and mope over your old job, you pick yourself up and get on with it.

[This message edited by SnowToArmPits at 11:28 PM, Saturday, January 22nd]

Thank you for all your replies and so promptly as well. This forum really is a great resource. Some of you say things very gently while other say it with a little bit more rough - but it's needed and valid.

I'll address some of the questions here.

It's a full affair physical and emotional based on the texts.
She doesn't work because of her personality, she's physically attractive and have been pampered all her life. I tried different ways of helping her find out what she wants to do career wise. But she seems content to be a trophy wife that does charity work to make herself feel better.
I used to do more yoga but stopped. Picked up going to the gym again though :)
I already filed for the divorce, now they have to be served to her in person in my state. I'm contacting process servers to see who can get it done asap before she leaves on an overseas trip.

I found a good quote from bigger on another thread and not sure how to use the quote function but I'm going to paste it her in case it helps other people.

"Wife. I love you and always envisioned being with you forever. However, I realize there is something immensely worse than losing you. In fact, the moment you decided to have an affair I lost you. What is worse is what you are offering me now and have been offering me since the moment you decided to be with OM. I am sharing you.

I do not share my wife. It’s that simple.

You are totally free to be with OM. You don’t have to hide the affair. You can date him, spend time with him, sleep over at his house, whatever. But not as my wife. I hereby absolve you of any obligation or expectation I might have to you as husband and wife.

I do ask that you show me the respect of not having OM around our house, but other than that do what you want.

Until and unless you show me with actions and tell me in a clear vocal way that you want this marriage, I am simply assuming you have decided to be in infidelity. I am therefore also assuming our marriage is over. I will start detaching, and I will soon start the legal process of terminating our marriage.

Don’t worry – there are laws in place that should ensure we both get a fair deal. I don’t want to make this harder than it needs to be so I will place this in the hands of an attorney. I suggest you look into getting your own attorney but maybe we can look into mediation.

If you do want this marriage, then remember you are doing so on your own free will. I am not forcing you to anything. But for me to believe it’s possible I would need some requirements met, such as attainable accountability, a timeline, details about how the affair progressed, a clear NC letter to the OM and accountable NC with OM."

[This message edited by Yoga at 1:29 AM, Sunday, January 23rd]

So sorry for the situation you are in.

My situation is complicated or at least it feels like it in my mind.

I can understand your feelings, but believe me, this is a very typical cheating case and what's going on is not surprising to anyone here. I say this not because I take it lightly, but to emphasize that the suggestions of those here have been obtained as a result of thousands of similar situations.

She talked a lot of my flaws or things that happened in the past, whether true or not, I realized it was true for her

So many flaws couldn't have come out of nowhere, right? Then why did she marry you?
You have to understand that she has to come up with such excuses to justify her A. It is possible that she really convinced herself of these, but ultimately her betrayal has nothing to do with these flaws, and it can't be the solution to any of them. So she wanted and did it, and is still doing of course.
Your mistake was to respond to her complaints by doing pick me dance. It never works. She has already disrespected you by cheating on you, pick me dance reduces this even more, it makes you look weak.
Don't tolerate any disrespect.
Breaking up with her was a good move, but it was a mistake for you to come back and not serve the divorce papers.

You don't need her to accept the A, you already know, that's enough. You have nothing to gain by engaging or arguing with her. Go your own way, let her do whatever she wants. She already ended the marriage before you, her denial and pretending to R is just to make you the villain of the story. She just doesn't want the reason for your D her cheating on you. You will try to reconcile for a while and the reason for your divorce will be your marital problems.
Let remorse aside, if she regretted what she had done, she would have completely gone NC with her AP.

Many of your fears are invalid, and even if they were, none of them is worse or scarier than sharing your life with a cheater you can never trust again.

You are just newly married, think about what someone who does this to you, even in good times or health, can do in bad times and in sickness.

File for D and serve her. Move elsewhere if possible. Seperate your finances. Don't support her financially if you don't have a legal obligation, if you have, just keep it within the legal limits. Since he bought a diamond ring, sure her AP can take care of her. By the way, a diamond ring can mean more than just a gift.

Good luck.

With this woman not working, best to divorce right away. She should not qualify for spousal maintenance this early on.
Cheats, lies, bad mouths you, wants to be a trophy wife- all this screams personality disordered. These folks are impossible to live with and the disorders are intractable.

Many of us were scared shitless, initially. You are not alone there. But, really, your wife is really a miscreant of the highest order.

You will be okay. Just divorce asap.

Doesn't sound worth the hassle. 1 year married, no kids...you deserve much better.

[This message edited by Smillie at 2:48 AM, Sunday, January 23rd]

Yes, they talked about being together and having kids in the future. She told me she wanted to work things out and he's not in contact with the affair partner anymore, but actions speaks louder than words. Let's get her served. Give me strength.

Thank you all, I will update.

[This message edited by Yoga at 3:08 AM, Sunday, January 23rd]

My advice to you is this:

Do you want to be having the SAME conversation with your cheating wife next week, next month, next year?

Your wife blames you for her affair (typical cheater behavior btw)

Your wife has no remorse (typical cheater behavior too)

Your wife refuses to end the affair

You have NOTHING to work with here - right now. She’s not willing to commit to no contact with the other man or commit to monogamy with you and nothing you posted indicates she’s going to change.

How very sad that after 1 year of marriage you are dealing with an affair.

Bigger’s suggested discussion with the cheating spouse is designed to get you out from the infidelity black cloud. It may not end the affair but it puts you in charge of your destiny and starts you in a path for YOU.

You won’t be alone. You won’t be sad forever.

Speaking from someone who survived my H’s second affair and brink of D, I have a new sense of self confidence and peace in my life.

I learned I am much stronger than I ever imagined. And smarter too.

I hadn't seen your post because I was writing mine, glad to see you filed for divorce.

By the way, with all due respect to Bigger, I felt the need to express my views on such texts as I have seen a lot of references to it lately. I often see this in Stevesn's texts too.

These are literary texts that are beautiful and enjoyable to read.

I'd love it if I saw it in a movie, probably like the WS characters in the movie. But I don't think they will work in real life. These are emotionally written things with the BS mentality, far from the WS mentality. Yes, there is talk of divorce and ending the marriage, but it seems to involve a bit of pick me dance.

I don't know how it will make a difference to report the words that have been said to many times before and have not been able to get results, this time in writing.

I don't think that these type of words will have an effect on someone who has lost her feelings for you and has an open or implicit displeasure (can be even anger or hate) towards you.

And why should we still cherish someone who has done us this evil?

Why do we still need to talk about our love for them, our dreams of future together, about "losing" them? All these are in the garbage, thrown by them.

As WSs often say, do we think also that they make a mistake, that they are unaware of anything they do?

Do we really need to tell that we won't be sharing them with any other person? How shocked might it be for them to read this?

Assuming the marriage is over, explaining what to do, reassuring of a fair deal, advice for her too, saying that the door to R is open, etc. All this seems like a pick me dance to me.

Do we really need to write all this? As we often advise here, it is the actions that matter, not the words. I think the same goes for BS's. Why don't we show all this with our action by just filing for divorce?

In this way, everything that is meant to be said there is told without a word and much more effectively.

[This message edited by guvensiz at 3:52 AM, Sunday, January 23rd]

While you may be alone for a while when/if your marriage ends it won't be forever.
You are in your 30s and successful enough in your career to allow your wife to not work, just hang out an have a BF.

You will find another woman to love, at one time your wife was in love with you, that did not last forever but the next one might!

Keep looking forward, not into the past. Your soon to be X wife has failed the marriage test, thankfully after only a year. You should look into an annulment, wipe the slate clean.