SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Never put someone first when you are simply an option for them.

My H did exactly what your wife has done.

🚩 talked about my kids to the OW. I firmly believe she thought she was going to be their stepmother

🚩 convinced himself ALL his friends would accept the OW and include her in our social circle

🚩 Was "paralyzed" in making a decision in what he wanted

🚩 had me "auditioning" to remain his wife as he was "going to let me know in 2 months his decision"

🚩 kept indicating he wanted a divorce but I kept thinking I could rationalize with him and change his mind

It took me a long long time to commit fully to Reconciliation. Why? Because he did more than just cheat on me.

He involved our children by telling the OW details about our kids that should have remained private between us as their parents.

He planned to D me and knew it for months but never told me. The OW knew I was being kicked to the curb before I did.

This was not his first affair.

He was mean and nasty to me and blamed me for everything that was wrong in his life.

He flaunted his affair in front of me and put the OW first. Her feelings came first. Her needs came first. (I think you get the point).

Sooo……..my point here is that there is infidelity and beyond infidelity. You are beyond infidelity 🚩🚩.

Don’t be me and let your cheating spouse leave you in limbo and/or false reconciliation. It took me months to finally take the power away from the cheater completely. But I decided that my children deserved someone who was going to put their best interests first and that someone was me. I also decided I could no longer waste my life on trying to remain married to a cheater and I had to choose me.

Best move I ever made.

Well, our partners can always leave, so we're always options for someone else.

Your W has cheated and is now experiencing the consequences. That IS all about herself, and it should be. A WS who jumps back into the M after d-day without thinking about it is not a good bet for R. To become a good candidate for R, your W has to be ready and willing to do the work of changing from cheater to good partner - and that require a willingness to see herself as she is, to see what she wants to be, and to figure out how to get from here to there.

A BS who wants to jump back into the M isn't thinking, either. To R, you'll need to process a hell of a lot of pain, you'll need to provide emotional support for your W as she takes herself apart and puts herself back together, you'll have to be conscious of your wants and willing to take action to get that.

You'll both have to get honest at all costs, honest with yourselves as individuals and honest with yourselves as 2 individuals trying to make a life together.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life trying to be what she wants? Do you want to spend the rest of your life trying to keep her from cheating?

My take - based on a lot of time on SI - is that the BSes who do best in R have figure out what they want and decided they want to spend the rest of their lives with their WSes - if they come up with a vision of what they want their M to be and agree to make that vision a reality.

You can't nice your WS back into your M. The pick me dance never works, R requires conscious decision-making by both partners that comes from their strengths, not their weaknesses.

My reco is to see D as a reasonable way to get out of infidelity and start healing. You may want R with every fiber of your being, but D can be an honorable outcome.

Consider how to make a good life for yourself and kids after D. Teach yourself that you'll be able to survive and thrive no matter what outcome occurs. You'll be OK even with false R.

It's not D or R that will give you a good life. It's healing no matter what outcome occurs is the key to surviving and thriving.

So focus on you, not on your W. What do you want? What are you willing to do to get it? How much time do you want to give your W to get her head out of her ass? What are you telling yourself about yourself, your W, and your M?

Are you telling the truth to yourself? Start there.

I don't exactly feel ignored here but I'm going to repeat myself:

At this moment I dont think it would actually be her picking him. It would be just her not picking me. Supposedly both her and OM have decided that they need to decide independently what they want to do. But I get that her not picking me is almost the same as picking him. But she's said that in her head there are other decisions she could just like just being alone/single and not being with anyone. As she puts it there's a bunch of different paths in front of her and she does not know what path she wants to walk down yet and she wants to work on things for herself and with us before shse feels like she has the clarity to decide.

Let me cut through the bullshit/decode this for you.

She wants both, maybe even MORE than both. She is trying to figure out how to maximize her pleasure, not plan for a stable future life. What she is unwilling to admit is she will drag out the process of an apparent decision making process to prolong the time she can keep at least two lines of attention available and maybe infinitely many as a single woman. She is a wildly selfish person that hasn't quite grasped how wildly selfish she is.

She doesn't care how her actions impact you, probably at all. Maybe inasmuch as it changes how you treat her.

Can she find a way to be a less selfish person in the future? Maybe. When someone is neck deep in an affair though, they are living in a morality and ethics free bubble where they are the only thing that matters.

I would work on myself as you are. Exercise, healthy eating, stay sober and clear minded. Become the best version of yourself you can. Keep being a rock star father.

Start talking to attorneys and prepare to file for Divorce. So many lines have been crossed the fact that you have left the door open and she is not sprinting back through it tells you everything you need to know about how this ends.

The only shot you have at ever having her come back to you is to let her go completely. I think once you do that and reflect a bit, you won't want her back even if she comes crawling.

Right now she is wanted by two men. That’s a lot of validation. Is their a downside for her right now?

A foot on the boat and a foot on the pier. Can’t decide which way to go. Pull the boat away, and she will decide real fast, guarantee it.

At this moment I dont think it would actually be her picking him. It would be just her not picking me.

Gently, but this is a distinction without a difference. Either way, she isn't choosing you.

To be blunt, you said OM has mental health issues and suicidal tendacies. You need to protect your kids. Sounds like your wife is in some type of midlife crisis. Again you need to protect your kids.