Unthought
I have nothing vested in your marriage per se. I am however sharing and contributing on this site because I have a need to (at least try to) help people dealing with a comparable hell I walked through. Frankly – for me the goal isn’t that you reconcile or that you divorce. The goal is that within a reasonable time you are in a better emotional place and headed for an even better emotional place than you are in right now.
We call it "getting out of infidelity", as opposed to getting divorced or reconciling. The way I view it then those two options – R or D – are simply the paths that can lead you to that better place. The BIG difference between the two paths is that one is more-or-less decided by ONE partner, whereas the other requires that BOTH commit to it. Fortunately for most of us those two paths share (or at least run parallel) the first part of that journey, and IMHO you are still on that first part.
The third option is the one I think too many falls into, and that’s the option I desperately want to save your from. That’s where you continue questioning your wife, doubting her story, wondering if there was more, she keeps insisting she doesn’t know, that it’s over, that she will never drink again and all that... and then 5 years from now you find some form of cohabitation that manages to avoid the stinking and rotting pink elephant in the room. I don’t want to see you telling some newly betrayed husband five years from now to leave because you remained and are more miserable than ever. Either be sharing how you divorced and are content, or reconciled and are content.
You don’t have to decide if you want to R or D. At least not for now. But I do warn you that after a reasonable length of time – and IMHO that´s under six months – it is to your advantage to have chosen one or the other path. Use that time to focus on you and your progress. Don’t remain in infidelity.
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OK – with that intro here goes...
You can’t punish her for her actions. I know you want to, and she deserves consequences, but frankly the punishment needs to be internal for her. It needs to be her conscience more than anything else. If you divorce – you do so because YOU want to and not as punishment. If you reconcile... you want a wife and to be a husband rather than a slave and you the warden.
I don’t see the issue with her keeping contact with older friends – even male and even those she might have dated. You caught her with one man in a certain situation, not having rampant sex with a plethora of old boyfriends. I might be wondering if you are trying to punish her there...
This does not imply she gets away scot-free. You can be angry, sore, disappointed, lack trust...
Frankly – if she doesn’t experience remorse, regret, shame... to the level beyond what you can imagine... then she’s not reconciliation material. But just like you somehow would need to curb and deal with your need for revenge, punishment and all that then she would have to deal with all her negative emotions IF you two decide to try reconciliation.
You are totally free to decide to divorce, and I strongly encourage you to get as good and realistic view on what that would look like. I can more-or-less promise you a couple of things: It won’t be as bad as you think, and it won’t be as good as you envision. It won’t be you kicking her out of the house and keeping all the savings, and it won’t be you moving into a singles-condo with the plastic picknick cutlery and a microwave. It will be a relatively fair process where you can both probably start working on your new lives. I’m not telling you to divorce, but rather that you accept it’s a realistic option for you. Nothing but YOU are keeping you in the marriage.
I actually think that being aware of how delicate a marriage really is can be the key to maintaining it. Realizing that it’s only two people’s mutual decision that keeps it alive makes you handle it like you might a delicate object you have to carry around. Sort of like if you had a fresh egg in your pocket versus a hard-boiled one.
I have shared this before with you, but reconciliation can only be done from a foundation of truth. I might add that the decision to divorce is best based on that same foundation, or from the concern that truth isn’t available to you.
I think that once you and your wife BOTH realize the importance of truth AND the delicacy of the marriage the importance of being honest and truthful becomes paramount.
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Now – With what I write now I’m not justifying your WW actions but rather trying to understand them...
It’s a known behavior where you take a series of actions and decisions that lead you to a conclusion you never really intended... but in retrospect was clear and obvious.
Most of us do it at some level, but maybe not as extreme as your wife’s actions. Like... we might go to a casino with no intention of wagering any money, only to look and enjoy the environment. Only once there we might be tempted to place one dollar in a slot-machine, then maybe buy chips for twenty... after all what harm can that do? Then the intention of leaving the Blackjack table the minute we are in plus. Before we know it, we are on our way home trying to find an excuse for why the family can’t afford a vacation this year, wondering how our pure intention of NOT wagering went down the drain.
I have also shared on this forum how I one day found myself in a hardware store way off my normal commute from work to home and walked out with a table-saw I had previously decided I didn’t need to buy. It took quite a lot of soul-searching for me to admit that although I convinced myself at the time I did not enter the store to buy that saw the truth was that I did... That decision was probably already made when I sat down in my vehicle to set off for home.
I think your wife might be "true" when she states there was no intention to cheat again. I think it might be "true" that she drank more than usual. But... subconsciously she knew it could happen if she let it. Maybe even the "too much to drink" was done to have the "excuse" to let it happen.
Just like me in the hardware-store... From the moment I took that turn on my daily commute towards the store / from the moment your wife accepted that OM and W visit again, from the moment I entered the store and got the box of self-drilling woodwork screws that was my excuse for being there / the moment you, ww, om and omw sat down in that cellar with the first drinks, the moment I decided to take the longer route to check-out, taking me past the aisle with the power-tools / the moment OM wife went to bed and then you said your good-nights, it was pretty predetermined I would walk out with that table-saw / that OM and WW would hook up.
Friend – I truly think you can reconcile if that’s what you want. I’m not sharing the above to make it any harder or easier. It’s more an attempt to understand what might have been going through her mind. To me the key-issue is accountability. To acknowledge that what she did was intentional and avoidable, and ONLY happened because both she and OM allowed it to happen. Accepting it was a "mistake" or "accident" ... that makes it something that can and might happen again.
I think a key moment for your decision process on R or D is where your wife can fully admit to her actions and the decision process behind them. That’s when she can also deal with the reasons – the underlying issues that made her think she needed an affair to make her life better. Chances are it will boil down to validation and self-worth, things we all need and crave but most find in healthier ways.
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Finally – the alcohol part...
If your wife has a pattern of drinking excessively and doing stupid things while drunk, then yes – she might have issues with alcohol.
My wife’s best friend surprised us some years ago when she shared that she was going to AA. We didn’t know she had issues. Turns out that when she drank – maybe only 2-3 times a year – she would drink to the stage where she lost control of her actions. Every now and then she woke up in the bed of someone other than her husband... Strangely enough they eventually divorced due to his infidelities...
[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:01 PM, Thursday, October 3rd]