SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know I have a few questions that I'm going to ask. I think I know what they are but my list changes day to day. I've taken a lot of them off. I've added a few or changed the way I asked others. My WW isn't ready (I think) to commit to the R and hear these questions. But if I'm wrong about that or if that changes soon, I want to be ready. And for me, ready means research.

My Questions for The SI Community below in bold and my current thoughts on them (where they exist) using quote blocks.

1. Did you ask any questions to which you already knew the answer to catch your WS in a lie?

It seems shitty to do and my wife has explicitly stated during previous talks that the "catch her in a lie" energy was pushing her away (it came up because she said one set of months when I confronted her and another in that talk). But fuck me running if the lying doesn't piss me off and make me feel like I'm justified in testing her commitment to honesty.

2. What sorts of questions did you find especially helpful?

3. What kinds of questions did you find especially unhelpful?

For both 2 & 3 I'd also be interested in the perspective of any WS that wanted to chime in. Either because the WS is a member of the community or if any BS wanted to ask their WS and report back. In the case of the latter, please don't risk your R just for this. It could be triggering for either of you.

4. I was thinking of, at least at the start, instituting a "flag system" for my WS. Basically, she could yellow flag any question for which she thought the answer would be particularly hurtful or other detrimental so that I could reconsider whether I wanted to ask or not. And she could red flag any question that she didn't want to answer. A red flagged question wouldn't go away entirely but it could at least be put aside for a week. Am I being too generous?

Even if this is overly generous that wouldn't necessarily bother me. I'm not in a rush. I can come back to questions later or even decide I don't want to know. I think that if the yellow and red flags pile up I'm going to have to revisit the rules but I'll bake my ability to change the rules into the rules.

Get rid of the flags. She doesn't get to decide what you want, or need to know.

Of course you will ask questions trying to catch her in lies. That's part of the process. If it pushes her away,she's not remorseful, and you're wasting time trying to reconcile.

Maybe explain to her that,sure you will ask questions for that reason. But what she needs to understand is,every time she answers those questions honestly, a small bit of trust is regained.

Look, you will be asking questions for several months. Maybe years. As the shock wears off,more questions will come up. As you process, more questions will come up. There is no limit on the amount of questions you can ask. You will ask the same questions, over and over, in different ways, because you have been traumatized, and that's the brains way of trying to makes sense of everything.

It's not a one time conversation. It will happen hundreds of times.

You get to ask anything you want. Do not accept "I don't know/remember" as answers. She knows, she just doesn't want to deal with the fallout of answering that question. What is acceptable, is she tells you she's not sure, but she will work on finding the answer,and get back to you in a day or 2,with the honest answer. And then, she does just that.

In the beginning, attempting reconciliation is not a negotiation. You tell her what you need,and expect,and she does the heavy lifting. Of course, she can say no. In that case, move towards separation.

If your asking questions is " pushing her away" she is already gone. People like your wife have already put one foot out the door and are ever so quietly slipping out one inch at the time. She is making you stay quiet while allowing herself to be insulted that you would question your right to ask questions. This is YOUR life she is screwing up. You have every right to figure out what has happened and how many lies she has told.

Look after yourself. Concentrate on your health. Eat small meals throughout the day if you feel queasy. Stay hydrated. No alcohol, it is a depressant. Try to get enough sleep. Contact a dr if you need temp meds.

Typical cheater behavior is to only reveal the bare minimum immediately after Dday.

Typical cheater behavior is for the cheater to continue to try to maintain control over the situation after dday

Typical cheater behavior is to tell the truth little by little - sometimes even years later the truth trickles out.

Typical cheater behavior is to deflect any focus on the cheating/affair by blaming the betrayed spouse.

I could go on but I think you get the idea here.

I don’t think you should expect much from the cheater. You need to protect yourself.

1. Did you ask any questions to which you already knew the answer to catch your WS in a lie?

Yes, and I asked questions I pretended, or alluded, to already know the answers to, but didn’t. Bluff questions. I did this early in the discovery phase of D-day. To continue this style of questioning (ie interrogation techniques) past D-day WILL wear your WS down, progressively, and will become a source of agitation and animosity.

2. What questions did you find particularly helpful?

Hypothetical questions, such as: "If I asked you to give up your implicated enabling BFF, would you do that?" If I asked you to quit your job, where you closely work with AP, and relocate, would you do that for me?"

3. Unhelpful Questions?

Questions she could easily lie about, that I knew would not be answered honestly, that even if they were answered honestly, I would not believe them.

4. The Flag System you describe sounds interesting. Just by flagging certain questions, without answering in detail, she’s tipping you off that there’s probably something F’d up she’d rather not talk about, not have to sugarcoat or minimize. Let your wild imagination fill in the blanks. Not knowing will probably dive you nuts.

All cheaters lie and minimize-of course they do! It is so absolutely counterintuitive to tell your BS ALL the F’d up stuff you did during your A, the F’d up stuff that went through your head during the A while, simultaneously, trying to convince your BS that it all actually meant nothing, was just a mistake, that you’re worthy of a second chance. You hear yourself talking and your own preposterous words just stick in your craw as you flashback on the crazy ass shit you did during the A.

This causes great confliction within a WS, almost maddening clashing disagreement between the reasoning factions of the mind. When you KNOW you’re full of shit and your mind is tearing itself apart trying to make sense of it, to rationalize it, to justify it.

This, I think, is why WSs regress, intellectually, back to a childlike state of reasoning.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 1:57 AM, Saturday, April 22nd]

I didnt use the "question fishbowl" but I've seen it described. You write down all the questions, and on some schedule she answers some from the bowl, until it is empty.

Don't love it, but my wife's A was short and I did get a complete timeline early on.

She is not ready to truthfully answer your questions, they push her away????

If you want to get input from WS also, ask a mod to move this thread to General. It’s against guidelines for WS to comment in JFO (Just Found Out)

Also in ICR (I can relate) there is a thread you can ask questions directly to former WS, it was very helpful for me.

4. I was thinking of, at least at the start, instituting a "flag system" for my WS. Basically, she could yellow flag any question for which she thought the answer would be particularly hurtful or other detrimental so that I could reconsider whether I wanted to ask or not. And she could red flag any question that she didn't want to answer. A red flagged question wouldn't go away entirely but it could at least be put aside for a week. Am I being too generous?

I think the ONLY flag system even worth considering is allowing her to respond to a question with this:

"Are you certain you want to know the answer to that?"

This allows you to pause, and consider if you really do need to know certain details or specifics, and, if the emotional toll it may take is worthwhile.... afterall... these types of questions, most often we already know the answer to.

However, if you respond that yes, you really do want to know, that's where the negotiation ends, and she is either willing to answer it honestly, or you're not in any sort of productive R.

Old timer here. Someone that did successfully R.
You are doing the pick me dance and it will only succeed in causing you more pain. I get your concern about saving your M for your daughter. But trust me you are showing your daughter what an M is and despite best intentions what you are modeling is a man that doesn't demand respect.

See an attorney get a lay of the land. Then quit pussy footing around. Demand what you need. She either pulls her head out of her ass, or she doesn't. Having a dad that is healthy and happy is much more important than having one that allows total disrespect.

You have to be willing to lose your M to save it.

You know that famous scene in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" where Arthur, King of the Britons, encounters the Black Knight? A skirmish ensues, with Arthur cutting off one of the Black Knight's arms, then the other, then a leg, then the second. "It's only a flesh wound," the Black Knight obstinately shouts, ignoring the fact that he's clearly (a) lost the fight, and (b) bleeding to death.

I saw in your other thread that you did ask her some questions, expecting her to lie (which she did).

I think I intuitively understood that a cheater would lie and minimize, and so I adopted a "I'm assuming it's the worst case scenario and you are free to provide evidence that I'm wrong . . . otherwise the assumption will stand" approach. After everything I'd been through, I wasn't going to subject myself to anything that would waste my time and further disrespect me as an autonomous person. So for example, I didn't ask if they had sex. I said, "Obviously you had sex."

At the end of the day, the onus is not on you to get to the bottom of your WS's affair. The bottom is murky and dark and cold, you can bet on that. If your WS wants to rebuild with you, then she needs to dig down to the bottom. That's on her. You just assume it's bad, bad, bad, lies, lies, lies.

Of course we want to have all the puzzle pieces to be able to understand the life we've been living, unbeknownst to us in the dark. That's a normal reaction. But it often becomes an obsession for BS and a whole terrible power-struggle with the WS. That's why I encourage BS just to say, look, you had an affair, I'm assuming it was as physical and emotional as imaginable. If you didn't want me to jump to that conclusion, you shouldn't have had an affair. This would save BS so much, well, BS.

With this in mind, I think my questions were just, "Did you use protection?" and "How much money did you spend on her?" Knowing the answers to these were material to my physical and financial health. Still, I took the answers with a grain of salt.

I wouldn't ask any more questions about dates or anything unless you two have agreed to at least explore reconciling. Those don't really change the big picture.

Even if we start really working the R, I don't see me asking more questions about specific dates, except maybe one where it looks like they drove to York, Pennsylvania and then came right back. It's just weird.

I think Ester Perel isn't well liked around here but I was curious about her TED Talk so I listened to that and these were the kinds of questions she suggested:

What did the affair mean to you?
What were you able to express or experience there that you could no longer with me.
What was it like when you came home?
What is it about us that you value?
Are you glad it's over?

I think those questions are kind of garbage but I wrote them down anyway because maybe I'll care about answers like that at some point in the future.

I tried to respond and it didn't work so I'm trying again...

EP's biggest problem is taking the word of proven liars and manipulators at face value. She essentially buys the blamehifting and unmet needs fallacy in full. She thinks monogamy is too hard and too much pressure for one person (more or less).

Her line of questioning clearly reflects this attitude. While it's important to some degree to understand the motive to lie, it's much more important to understand they can identify why they lied and that they won't do it again in a similar scenario.

These two aren't bad:

What was it like when you came home?

What is it about us that you value?

The rest are pointless or worse. They are validating her internal bullshit that is piled very high and must be swept away.

As for "are you glad it's over?" That's also worse than pointless. You get a painful truth (no) or a likely lie (yes). Neither of which are going to help R.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 12:36 PM, Sunday, April 23rd]

I don't hate Esther Perel as much as some, hehe, but I do think it's unhelpful to suggest that a couple sit down and have a conversation like that. "What were you able to express or experience that you weren't with me?" Nope, nope, nope. If I snort some cocaine, the way to get sober isn't to list all the positive things cocaine did for me. I made an unhealthy, risky choice that of course activated some pleasure centers in my brain. No deep analysis is needed.

These two aren't bad:

What was it like when you came home?

What is it about us that you value?

I think the first might have value in certain contexts. For some people who haven't yet heard from their WS how guilty and/or ashamed they feel, this question might help the WS get their head into that place.

I do like the second question, though again, in a certain context or period of crisis I think it could be damaging. I think I could get a good answer today but I think if I asked my WW a week ago she'd lean on her hopelessness and shame and say that there wasn't anything to value, even if she knew intellectually that wasn't true.

Trying to be gentle, but stop the madness. Get IC for yourself, urge your wife to get IC. She is not anywhere close to trying reconciliation. Work on you, see an attorney and see what you can do to protect you and your children. Until she stops her poor behavior (she sent back to the casino!?!) and is remorseful, there is no need for questions.

Swmnbc, I want to make it clear that in this paragraph I am not using cocaine as a metaphor like you did. I have ADHD so I have a deep and abiding love for stimulants. I have had cocaine exactly once and it was given to me by a doctor during sinus surgery. Let me tell you, cocaine is fucking great. Listing the reasons why it was great would not be good for my recovery if I were addicted to cocaine but I don't think I could stop myself from doing it because it's awesome.

Trustedg, while I appreciate the feedback I don't think I'm dancing like you think I am. If you read my other thread here, you'll see that twice in our conversation yesterday I made it clear that I was willing to end the marriage.

I have my first appointment for IC in a week. It was the soonest I could see anyone (from literally the only practice that actually contacted me back out of several that I called). WW is actually seeing new IC sooner than I am despite having sought it more recently because the questionnaire she filled out indicated an urgent need.

What did the affair mean to you?

What were you able to express or experience there that you could no longer with me.

What was it like when you came home?

What is it about us that you value?

Are you glad it's over?

What is the purpose of these questions? What kind of answers from your wife for these questions would you consider understandable and easier to deal/accept in your context? Do you consider these questions might help in 'making sense' of affairs? If yes,then how?

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 10:07 PM, Sunday, April 23rd]

Did you ask any questions to which you already knew the answer to catch your WS in a lie?

- absolutely. And I was not disappointed. Several times I asked him is there anything else that you haven’t told me ?you better tell me everything. He answered no but that was a lie. In fact, he lied the last day we were married before we signed the separation agreement. He still fucking lying. Keep your expectations low.

2. What sorts of questions did you find especially helpful?

-I don’t know if any of the questions were particularly helpful. Half the time he didn’t understand the answers himself. Questions around the timeline, money, thought process, activities. Those types of things were helpful.

3. What kinds of questions did you find especially unhelpful?

-Every time I asked him why, I got the worst and most stupid answers. So to be honest, those answers were never really helpful or satisfying. Any questions and answers that were about his emotions, his reasons for his actions, his expectations at the time were generally contradictory if not immediately, then over time.

4. I was thinking of, at least at the start, instituting a "flag system" for my WS.

- I honestly think this is a really bad idea. She should answer any question you ask. It is up to you to ask questions that you actually want answers to. Some things are hard to unsee and unhear. Why would you give her control? As a wayward’s spouse she should want to answer your questions whether they are hard for her or not. Too bad so sad, answers are required. it just gives them more time to position the response, so they look better. You are better off getting an answer as quickly as possible. It is likely more real. If they want to come back and give you more information. That’s fine but answers are required when you ask. Don’t be so nice.

We had a Vomit session, it was a session where he walked through the timeline, and did a tell all. We did it in a neutral area, and a soothing environment and an a private one. It was more of a conversation than a Q&A. There were questions, we essentially walked through the timeline. I learned a lot in the Vomit session. It was way more than I bargained for, but at least I got information which was what I wanted. I suggest this because maybe it’s something for you to consider.

[This message edited by Tallgirl at 3:57 AM, Monday, April 24th]

I've read your posts 'Bob' and you really should listen to 'tushnurse'. You shouldn't be focused on reconciliation, you should be focused on divorce. You betrayer should be focused on reconciliation.
Realize also that you're demonstrating for your children what is right and wrong. If you don't impose harsh consequences for your betrayer's wrong behavior then statistically your daughter will behave the same way. It's your choice as to whether your family respects you or considers you weak and disdains you. It's the difference between being a man or being a doormat.
I'm hoping for the best for you.