SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

How long does it usually take before the wh is completely honest?

My wife would never have come clean except that I forced the issue by heading to the lawyer, and walking away. Which is why I still have doubts I guess. She has admitted to me that she had planned to take the memory of her kiss to the grave with her.

Other's have had different experience, with the wayward coming clean on their own accord.

I may be wrong, but I think that those doubts (do I have the whole story) will always be there. This is going to sound crazy, but I feel as if my wife is completely honest with me. She has told me things that I never would have found out, things I didn't know. But I still doubt her. Maybe in time, as my healing continues that will change... but I don't (can't??) see those doubts going away any time soon.

I know I did some double speak there... and no.. I'm not a politician... just a guy going through a bat shit crazy event..

Sadismynewname, I'm so sorry to hear about your story. After 35 years! Is your H willing to end the contact with the Vietnamese girl? Did you ask him what he thinks their relationship is going?

Butforthegrace, my H strongly maintains that the OW is merely a good friend. For sure after 10 years how can she not be?! I do agree with you about the intention of the OW. He regrets that he demanded a private photo and she compiled. He was caught off guard when I asked if he ever saw her naked. After that, he would only answer questions in writing because he would have time to think about the answer. That is probably another reason why he doesn't want to discuss the affair. He doesn't want to give a wrong answer that will come back to haunt him.

Here's the update: I had my surgery done early this month and am depending on H a lot because I am immobile for a while. He is extremely attentive and treating me like a queen! Nothing to complain about. Only that I cannot bring up the affair because to him it was never an affair. He said he made a mistake of keeping a secret friendship. He is extremely sorry to have caused so much pain to me. That's all.

He said when we talked about the affair that brought me right in the rabbit hole. He was also affected as he tried to put the whole thing behind him. It doesn't help if I bring it up often. He is trying to deal with the temptation and his addiction. He is getting better and rarely thinks about the site and the women. He has deleted all the accounts when I caught him in March and have been in NC since. However he said he would not be surprised that this 40+ year old virgin will contact him sometime in the future. It might be Christmas. He promised to forward the message to me and I can then tell him how to respond or not respond at all.

I think I will give him another chance. Honestly, he is a great guy in all aspects other than this flaw and stupidity that lasted so long.

[This message edited by Jenna2 at 11:35 AM, October 31st (Wednesday)]

Ughhh, I struggle with this so much. My husband swears he was never physical, but it just doesn't make sense. All the red flags are there. New moves in the bedroom, fooling around in his car which we never did before. How do you figure out if it was a PA?

Bump!

I am new on here, I just found this thread but I noticed everyone is from 2018 is this still a thread to post on or did it move?

This is the place, this thread is "active." Sometimes the "I Can Relate" threads don’t get a lot of traction because they tend to be somewhat specific. If you want, depending on your circumstances, you could post in "Just Found Out" or "General." Those forums tend to get a lot more traffic.

Anyone have a WH who had an EA, which eventually turned PA? After six months of my WH having an EA with a married coworker, I told him to move out. I feel like by doing that. I just made it easier for it to become sexual. She had pursued and chased him all along, she had come onto him at the workplace indicating she wanted to have sex right then and there. He told her no that time. After he moved out, she was able to get him over to her place when her husband and daughter were not at home under the pretense of dinner and a movie. She basically undressed and exposed herself, and he gave in. I have a lot of self blame for making him move out because I feel like I just played into her scheme , and made it easy for the affair to become sexual. I’ve been told by therapists and others that it probably would’ve turned sexual anyway, but I don’t think he would’ve ever gone to her home. If we had still been living together. I beat myself up continually over this issue as well as many other issues that I wish I had handled differently.

Woody28, I have read and seen so many of your post and I honestly feel like we are so similar in our process of our thoughts. Guilt is what I feel once my husband and the OW were exposed by me they took the affair straight to right in front if me. Meeting in his truck and at a hotel. I constantly blame myself for HIS actions like if I wouldn't have confronted him and her at his workplace they would never have met outside work or a hotel, but we can't blame ourselves I'm trying to learn that he did what he did because he wanted to and would have found a way regardless for me I never kicked him out, I should have but he went to a hotel anyway right in front of me. We had a fight and he called her up and met at a hotel so yes I destroy myself everyday thinking why why did I get involved should have just left him when I had a red flag something was wrong. Than as you know my story she just like your trash skank OW trying to say I harrased her these women are psycho. But our spouses choose to cheat and would have found a way regardless what we did or didn't do. Just like you though I do blame myself but we need to stop doing that it's nothing we did they are just broken and found someone to listen to their lies amd believe them. You and I have a lot in common for sure.

My husband had EA that eventually turned PA. I did not kick him out. I envy you the fact that you stood up for yourself. Yes maybe it made it more possible for your spouse to have sex. I went scorched earth private detective and did not let him out of my sight except when he was in the office. I found out seven years later that they were actually kissing IN THE OFFICE. So maybe by not kicking him out I prevented it from going full sex because they were too scared of getting caught in the office (doctor’s office). So they only had stolen moments for a couple minutes at a time when they thought no one would notice the door shut (it’s a very busy office with lots of other doctors and medical assistants). But my husband absolutely wanted to have sex. Every day for the 2.5 months the physical part was happening. They could only kiss in one of the rotating offices they used so it limited it to 1-2 times per week. Do you really feel like it is so much better for your spouse to have shared romantic kisses and second base over and over again while desperately wanting sex. It almost makes it more tantalizingly exciting. I feel like the actual sex part would make it less romantic and more gross and sordid. I guess I’m saying it’s a no win either way. If you had responded differently it wouldn’t have changed that it became physical—they will find a way. You just made their interaction less romantic and more sexual/scummy…so maybe that is a good thing. I’m trying to find a silver lining for you. Because, I find myself desperately dépendant on these silver linings: like "well at least they didn’t do XYZ….". I understand very much the feeling of wanting to go back and just change little things that would have made the damage so much less. I feel like the WS just view it as all one big mistake where the details don’t matter. But for the BS we know that every little incrementally bad behavior was an additional knife in the back and we are covered with wounds. It feels like just a few less wounds would make such a difference. That is probably not true, but it feels true anyway.

To Woody28,

I beat myself up continually over this issue as well as many other issues that I wish I had handled differently

I've read your larger story in your profile.

Self-blame is part of what many betrayed spouses have to work through. Why didn't I notice sooner? What if I'd confronted differently, would I have gotten more truth sooner? Maybe I could have stopped it from getting so far if only I'd....

I also spent some mental energy just wishing I could go back in time for some sort of a redo.

It's all "magical thinking," and it's a waste of emotional energy.

It took me a while to come to grips with this simple fact: It all happened and nothing can change that it did.

Hot on the heels of that acceptance were these 2 thoughts:
1)He did all of this. At every turn, he chose those decisions and actions. He is someone capable of betraying me at this level and then lying and gaslighting me about it. There were "reasons," sure (his "whys" that he fully owned), but when the going gets tough for him or the right bait is dangled in front of him, he's capable of making decisions without empathy for me that will be super destructive.

2) Can I live with that?

I'm still waiting to see if my H can earn back my trust enough for me to stay.

I want to remind you that you asked your H to come back home, and he refused. He said he thought you needed more time apart. This set-up allowed him to go on those movie dates at her house. He had been treating this "friend" as a girlfriend for a long time already--secret talks and lunches, lots of emotionally-charged interactions. He knew full well he was putting himself in a situation where sex was a likely outcome--her house, alone, him living in his own apartment so you wouldn't know his comings and goings.

When you've wanted to blame her for her Jezebel behavior (and YES it was!), he reminds you that he is also to blame. Believe that.

He made vows to you. (Although she is a broken human being, she made no vows to stay faithful to you.)
He broke those vows over and over.

Forgive yourself. Lay the blame where it should be: on his shoulders. See if he can become a safe partner to you.

(((Hugs to you)))

My wife sleeps by herself with a fan on in the winter. I can`t do that.

But after a year or so of that, I found out why she clung to her cell phone in bed.

BUSTED! I caught her!She developed an online fling with another man. At least that is her story.This just happened. I confronted her, and grilled her. I got some answers. But not enough for now.

My blood pressure is high from this. My stomach hurts, and she just stares at the floor, as if she got cheated on

WTF!?

[This message edited by NiceGuysFinishLast at 4:10 AM, Wednesday, March 6th]

NiceGuys, you'll get more responses if you post in the Just Found Out forum.

I am also a part of the EA club and after almost 2 years it's still been hard on me. Emotional affairs are so difficult to understand esp when your told he did it because he couldn't talk to you and another women gave him all the attention and ego boost to make him doubt his marriage.

I feel like I’m back in limbo land with an emotional affair again but don’t want to read too much into this.

In a nutshell, my husband went out of state to visit his parents ( and in his words) to get away from me. He ended up not returning for 3 months. I got a hold of the phone bill ( I pay it and it is solely in my name. He called a woman he hasn’t spoken to in 5 years, I’ve never met her or spoken to her but in a 5 day period he exchanged 540 texts with her and another 8 hours on the phone with her on a work night. He would be on the phone until 1:00 AM and then text her at 5:00 AM. And then text throughout the day. When I attempted to call or text him he would tell me how overwhelmed he was with work and that he hasn’t gotten enough sleep. He didn’t explain what was keeping him up into the wee hours of the night. He will not allow me to see his phone and says she’s just a friend. So tell it to me straight, how gaslit am I being?

Tigereyes, if a friend related that scenario to you, what would you say?

It sounds like you're being gaslit, and it should take a lot of documentation to prove he's NOT lying.

I spoke to my therapist about it yesterday and she firmly believes I am being gaslight and that this isn’t a true marriage if I constantly have to question his truthfulness. May have marriage counseling tonight so I’m going to blindside him with it so he won’t have time to think up a response. I just want the truth, if it hurts, fine, but so does being lied to!

The emotional affair thing is a tough question. My wife admits to infidelity with a coworker years ago and seems repentant if not completely honest about the relationship. Now, years later, she has male friends from work. It's small workplace and there are work calls at home, her laughing and giggling at times. I know all these guys. Is there an EA or is it workplace friendships.. She never openly behaved this way with her AP. These may be just work friends. Hard to know.

The marriage counselor told him last night that next week he is to give me his phone and allow me to see whatever I need to and he had to promise to delete nothing. I have the time stamps so I will know if he lies about it.

He also finally made an IC appointment for himself. I’m extremely cautiously optimistic but it will take exactly one more lie and then I am done.

tigereyes,

He is definitely lying. The chances this is even limited to an EA is low. He has the time and opportunity to make it a PA.

I got advice on reddit in my original post that was along the lines of:

"The only reason you shouldn't be reading those text messages is because you have tragically lost your eyesight and your lawyer has to read them to you out of discovery."

I was only able to recover a few of my wife's deleted messages from her EA.

My husband and I have been married 33 years. I found out three weeks ago that he has been having a long term EA for 6 years- although he still insists it was "just" a friendship the first couple of years. Right- whenever someone uses an emphasized "just," you know they are full of it. He claims that he never had anything physical with her so it was not an affair. A little back story, in October 2022 I heard a voicemail she left on his phone and it was very inappropriate. I told him that I felt that way and he piffled it off. I wasn’t even intentionally snooping on his phone, he had asked me to check his phone for something and it popped up and I listened to it. After that, I did snoop a couple times and he deleted all texts and voice mails from her instantly (although he forgot to empty the deleted voice mails at first). He travels for work often, sometimes two weeks a month, sometimes less. His AP is a work colleague. In October 2022 I asked him to stop going out to dinner on work trips with that woman and he immediately claimed that he stopped. I found out a year late in October 2023 that he was not only continuing to do so, he had funds from his paycheck diverted that he bought gift cards with and was using them for expensive dinners with her. For whatever reason, my son (adult) recently saw his work calendar and he had many, many dinner dates with her in just a few months.

He first met her in 2018 when she joined his work team, and things were seemingly fine between us. Minor things here and there but fine overall from my perspective. However, over 2018-2020 we started to have arguments, mostly over the constant lies he was telling me. Stupid, petty, and obvious lies and he would get angry when I told him I did not believe him. He has multiple glaringly obvious ‘tells' when he lies. When I asked him why it made him mad when he was literally lying, he said that he does not like it when I call him out on it. Seriously. As our relationship deteriorated, I now know that his phone calls with her lengthened and so did the texts. Last week I logged in to our phone account- they have call/text logs for only the past two years and the loooooong phone calls with her were always when he was on a work trip or I was not home. He says that he called her at those times because he didn’t want to take time away from family time. Right. I asked him if he would feel comfortable having those same conversations with her if I was sitting next to him and he had the decency to blush and say no. I now know that they referred to each other as boyfriend and girlfriend, plus other nauseating pet names. We have two children- son who is 30 years old and daughter who is 18 years old. He was an involved father when our son was young and less so during his teen years/our daughter’s early years. After he met his AP in 2018, he basically became an absentee father. Not physically absent, but absent in all ways that kids need parents to be present for. My kids actively detest him now for how he has ruined our family life. My son, daughter, and I have basically moved on as a family of three in the past few years. It has become normal to the three of us and it doesn’t make me sad anymore like it used to. He now tells me that it makes him mad and he hasn’t done "anything" to us and that we are being cruel by 'excluding' him. He says he doesn’t understand why no one likes him at home. All in the most whiny voice possible. He is the breadwinner and the one good thing I can say, is that he never uses finances in any negative way to manipulate me. At least not yet. He basically doesn’t care about our money situation and I have always taken care of all of our bills, investments, etc. It has been his choice to be uninvolved in managing our finances. That explains why he had to secretly find a way to buy gift cards to fund his dinners with his AP since I pay the credit card bills each month, including his corporate card for work. They both stay at the same hotel for simultaneous work trips so that’s not an expense he has to sneak or lie about. He used to call me every night when he traveled for work and that stopped when he met her. I now understand why he never reached out to me when I often asked for us to find ways for us to re-connect as things between us got worse and worse over the past few years….he was connecting with his AP.

Four weeks ago husband was on a work trip to DC (I now know that his hotel was conveniently only two metro stops away from her house.) He also "lost" his phone and purchased multiple metro passes..even though before leaving he told me he planned to "never" left his hotel until he came home. His story before he went was that his work function was AT the hotel but somehow needed to use the metro, leaving hotel around 6pm and going back to his hotel each night between 11pm-midnight. His job that took him there involved teaching a class during standard business hours. He changed his flight to come back two days later with yet more lies about why. None of it added up. His lost phone story was so ridiculous because he didn’t keep his lies straight and contradicted himself on different days. He disabled find my iphone the very morning that it got "lost." He got really angry with me when I told him the day before he was supposed to come home that I had gone to the AT&T store and got a new phone set up for him. I was like WTF are you mad about…that I took care of that so you’d have a new phone ready and waiting for you? I was trying to be nice even though I did not believe his BS lost story.

My son deeply despises his father for how he has acted over the past few years. He remembers the good years we had when he was young. I know deep down he is so hurt and feels abandoned by his dad. My son is protective of me and he says he will never be interested in any relationship with his father, especially after finding out what we have about this long term affair. My kids are 12 years apart in age so in the past four years, my son has stepped up for his sister and been a father figure for her. They have a great relationship. My daughter just started her freshman year in college (3 hours away from home) and is thriving but she is struggling with the infidelity issue…a lot. She has been going to the campus counseling center because she lost her mind that her father’s AP has the same first name as her. As if the affair is not bad enough but she is so creeped out that he would do it with a woman with the same name as her. Gross.

Husband claims he has ended all contact with his AP. On D-day he told me she was "just" a friend and colleague. The next day he said that he works closely with her and cannot end contact with her. I told him he should consider getting a job with a different company. He disagreed. On the third day, he then said she works in a "completely" separate area of the company and he doesn’t even need to interact with her at all. On the fourth day he told me that she IS (not was) a good friend and he hasn’t done anything wrong. So, you can see that I don’t believe a word of him telling me yet another story this morning that he "ended it" with her. When I asked if that took place via email, text, or phone, he said that he just stopped any communication with her and that it is now over. Okay. It is rather insulting that he thinks I am so unimaginably stupid to believe any of that BS. He looked all confused when I pointed out to him that he has told me multiple stories (that’s his word for his lies- I use it sarcastically) about his AP.

A week after D-day, he had a work trip scheduled. We live in Florida and were in the direct path of Hurricane Milton going over our home as a Category 3 storm. For the week leading up to this work trip, he was staying at a local hotel because I could not abide being in the same house with him after finding out some of the gory details about his affair. His first career was as a meteorologist so he is always majorly in to tracking all of the weather systems. Plus, the weather notifications go crazy in the days leading up to a major storm. The day before he was to leave, I called him and asked him to come help put at least some the hurricane shutters on the house. Claimed he was "sleeping" and hadn’t heard about the storm. Okay. He was pissed but he grudgingly came to do it with many complaints. He put one window cover up in the same time that my son did five. Gee, so sorry that we spent a lot of $ years ago on the storm shutters and actually thought it was a good idea to try to protect our house as much as possible. It’s not like it was a tropical storm or even just a Cat 1 storm. Unbeknownst to me, he was likely upset because he had changed his flight to leave earlier for his work trip. And he had no problem going away for a week while a hurricane went right over our house. The eye went over us directly. He forgets that he told me a year or so ago that he doesn’t really need to go on most of his work trips but he goes because he likes to go. Understandable I guess, but my understanding stops when I felt strongly that his place was to stay home and help deal with the situation from the storm. He was also out of state when Hurricane Helene went over and never once called during or after to make sure things were okay.

I am over the initial shock and now vacillate between profound sadness and anger. We met in my freshman year of college and were together several years before we got married when we graduated. I do not want this to dominate my life or define who I am. We had been planning on selling our house in 3.5 years when my daughter graduates college and move to another state to retire. Right now I don’t even want to eat dinner at the same table as him let alone spend the rest of my life with him. My son is an attorney and is giving me extensive advice on preparing for a divorce. My daughter has strongly suggested to sell the house now, and she wants me to move to her college town until she graduates and then I can move to the state I have been wanting to move to. Single.

I don’t want to make any rash decisions when things still feel so traumatic. Husband basically is a mute to me. He hollowly told me once that he wants a future with me and "only wants to be with me" but I have also heard all of the other "stories" he continues to tell. (My daughter thinks his AP may have dumped him.) A marriage without trust is not a way I am willing to live long term. I firmly believe in the vows that I took on our wedding day but I also feel like he threw those vows in to the trash long ago. I do not feel like I owe him anything based on those "vows" at this point and I could choose divorce with a clear conscience. He does not understand when I tell him that an EA is far, far worse to me than a physical one. He thinks he is standing on a moral high ground by saying that he never had sex with his AP. He does not understand when I tell him that I don’t even care about physical sex nearly as much as the emotional connection he sought with another woman, and for so long, and that is the monumental problem that hurts more than any other thing he could have done.

This is very long and if anyone reads through the saga, so my apologies for the mini novel. It felt good just to type it out but it was also sobering to actually type it which made it feel so much more real. I don’t know what to do or what I want the future to look like. It is fortunate that my children are both adults when this came to light and they support me unequivocally. I would prefer for them to be blissfully unaware but that is not the case but they didn’t get it from me trash-talking their father to them. I am far from perfect but if he was unhappy about anything, he had multiple moral choices he could have made instead of an affair.

[This message edited by LuvBears918 at 1:27 PM, Monday, October 21st]