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Martyt....definatly listen to Bigger...protect yourself. She is all excited at the moment. She wants her open lifestyle like her friend. If and when that starts to deliver less than she hoped for, who knows what she will do. In other words ...PROTECT yourself and your kids with the proper legal means ...ASAP.

Other than that ....wow ....she is in a very sad place I must say. She really has been duped by this friend. The shiny object will most certainly not deliver. But for you fried ...be strong ..determine who you are and stick with it. Continue to be a man of integrity. Seek the Lord, follow His ways...He will bring you to fruitful pastures.

Protect your kids from the lifestyle she is about to embark on. Bless you Marty.

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 10:32 PM, Thursday, December 5th]

I’ve contacted lawyers and gotten prudent advice. We are currently away on our family trip where I thought maybe she would make some headway and see through the fog but stepping outside of myself, I see a woman who has little interest in her spouse. I was hoping that being away and with the kids, just us, might light her out but so far all I see is dismissivness and at times distain. Ie. tried engaging in conversation with her while the kids were playing in the water and I was told "don’t be a Debby downer, I can see ur eyes watering".

I feel even more of an idiot now thinking that time away might help her see but all she is seeing is a Fkn loser of her husband who is trying to keep her, while she having 0 fks to give to him or the kids. Truly a sad state of affairs. Pun intended

I trulY don’t want to let her go but it’s seeming as though she is simply waiting for the moment.

You need to remember that you're the prize here. You have remained faithful and true. She's been a cheater and has chosen herself over her family.

It is sad, but this is something from which you can heal. I'm not saying it won't hurt and there is a lot of work to do. I hope that you can soon see your worth, which is immeasurable.

Read the Living in Limbo books by Michelle Langley (both of them). They are available online, and are a pretty quick read. They fit my cheating wife like a glove, and I think you’ll find your wife in there, as well.

I wish I had read those books a long time before I did.

The Cliff Notes:

When a husband is cheating, the marriage might be saved, as cheating husbands are often still very much in love with their wives. When wives cheat, the marriage is usually over, as the wife has shed her husband and moved on. While a man can happily have more than one sexual relationship going on at a time, women not so much. It’s a biology, Darwin natural selection thing. Women can only get pregnant a few times in their lives, and each pregnancy is a risky proposition. So women tend to be very selective. They are serial monogamists. When they find a more desirable partner, they shed the less desirable partner. The last thing their dna wants them to do is be impregnated by the wrong man. A cheating wife loses her sexual and emotional attraction to her husband, in favor of her AP.

Women in our society, in our culture, are taught from the time they can understand these things that men are promiscuous, but women are not. Men want to get in their pants, and women must keep them out. Women must guard their reputations; easy girls get dates, but they don’t get husbands. Men are philanderers; women are monogamous. So when a wife finds herself attracted to another man, she is confused. It is traumatic. And therapists and researchers confirm that cheating wives often blame their husbands: "If it wasn’t for my shitty husband, who wasn’t meeting my emotional and/or physical needs, I never would have done this terrible thing." The old joke: When a husband cheats, it’s because he’s an asshole. When a wife cheats, it’s because her husband is an asshole. And for forcing her to do this terrible thing, for giving her no choice, a cheating wife despises her husband and feels contempt for him. Cheating wives remember everything bad about their husbands, some of which may not even be real. Contempt is the death of marriage. And it doesn’t go away. Cheaters don’t just betray their spouses; they betray themselves. And the worse they feel about it, the more they need someone to blame.

Obviously, one size doesn’t fit all. But I read everything, and nothing really explained my wife to me, until these books. My wife is sure she’s going to hell, and it’s my fault. She never lets me forget that.

Don’t make my mistake, and try to fix it. Maybe therapy can fix her; I'm not a believer. But even if she gets fixed and comes back, it probably won’t be for the reason you care about. It will be for children, or finances, or embarrassment, or because the AP dumped her when it got real. It won’t be because she loves you.

Sorry.

Ie. tried engaging in conversation with her while the kids were playing in the water and I was told "don’t be a Debby downer, I can see ur eyes watering".

Ok...I hope you've read up on the 180 during your time here, if not it should be in the healing library... as soon as she spoke the above words to you, you should have implemented the 180. Keep all discussions short, cordial almost formal like. You've done all you can to save the relationship, she is, unfortunately, checked out of the relationship. Time to focus on you and your kids. As others have advised...see an attorney ASAP and begin the divorce process.

Don't worry about the kids and the holidays, tell your WW that y'all can have the discussion informing the kids of the divorce after the holidays (although it appears she doesn't really give a damn and may separate sooner.) Nothing significant will happen between now and early next year other than the filing of the initial petition for divorce and her getting served with it. Have a brief conversation with her about an informal visitation schedule for the kids until a more formal schedule is worked out with the lawyers. You need your time with them and she gets hers. Do it by email so you can have written documentation of it, try to keep it as 50-50 as possible to show that you are the reasonable one. Once y'all start doing drop offs with the kids with each other, reality should soon kick in with your wife... this is how it will be for years. You will need to discuss how to handle Christmas Eve/Day... who gets the kids and when. It will suck, but this is not your fault. Maybe she 'loves' her new-found freedom so much that she stops/lessens her time with the kids...document everything so that you can show you are the primary care giver.

Again, find a good family lawyer and follow their advice.

I feel even more of an idiot now thinking that time away might help her see but all she is seeing is a Fkn loser of her husband who is trying to keep her, while she having 0 fks to give to him or the kids. Truly a sad state of affairs.

Detach, Detach and Detach... Stop the pick-me dance, you will feel so much better...especially after you implement the above advice. It won't happen overnight but it will come. Come here and post when you feel the need to vent... DO NOT re-engage contact with your wife unless it's about kids or bills. More contact means more hurt.

This post will start with a copy/paste of the first line of my last post on your situation:

We that have been here for some time think we can see behavioral patterns. I think we do, and I think I see one in you and your last post.

Look – that was a response to a post from you where you outright state that YOU and WIFE have DECIDED to divorce. Not only that, but she’s offered you favorable terms.

I know this is making the marriage very impersonal, but frankly the decision to divorce is the same as letting a cherished, long-time employee go. Like if a key-worker at your company might have been good and efficient and had great potential, but for the longest time now has underperformed, is always late, misses deadlines, does mediocre work, loses customers... Despite repeated warnings and offers of help... eventually you fire him.

Right now, your wife is doing her severance period. She’s been fired, and all that’s left is the formal termination of the job. If you will – the calculation of due pay, unused holidays and severance pay.

If you were firing someone for a bad job – for missing deadlines and being late to work and all that – why would you expect them to do a good job for the last days of work?

You are divorcing her... Why are you expecting her to become all nice and warm and considerate?

She’s been fired... get her out of your life to the greatest extent you can and as soon as you can. I know there is some timeframe and some need to interact due to the kids, but being the best coparents you can does not require you remain in infidelity with her.

I agree with @Bigger and the others, @Martyt.

And....to be clear, I am NOT calling you weak for what happened, and certainly not for how you are faring on your so-called vacation (which sounds utterly miserable). You had a HUGE bomb dropped on you in the past couple months. Your STBXWW (to extend Bigger's employee analogy) not only failed to do the ONE job she had, but she also trashed the place. And then she has decided to quit. Nevertheless, cruel irony, your feelings for your WW have not stopped, they almost never do.

As hard as it is to accept though, your efforts to win back your STBXWW (from her own mistakes and foolish thinking that is) never work. They don't get your STBXWW to wake up, only to repel her even more from you. We call your efforts a form of the Pick-Me Dance in fact, it's a no-good dance to do. Very bad! She does not deserve and will not respond to your attempts at heart-to-hearts as to why you couldn't make your marriage work, or for your attempts to apologize for that time in 2017 when you accidently got her lowfat milk from the store instead of her desired skim. She aint neva gonna win Wife of the Year or Mother of the Year either! You get what I'm saying, Bub.

Your job from now on is to protect your children from your STBXWW's crazy, and to move on yourself. Meanwhile, you mentioned how you and STBXWW agreed to an awfully painful (at best) assignment, to give your kids one last Christmas sort of like the ones they have been having in prior years. I salute your intentions but I don't know if it is wise and frankly I have no idea how that would even be possible. This so-called beach trip sounds awful to me I must say. They--your kids that is--already have to be sensing the tension between the two of you.

Keep posting friend, we are here for you and are rooting for you.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:49 PM, Tuesday, December 10th]

Know one can cut you as deeply as the one you share your life with. I never knew the depths of my emotions or despair until I discovered my wife's affair. It's only been a few months and we are attempting to reconcile. Getting the affair partner out of the picture was (fortunately) fairly easy as he is a penniless, gold digging con man which was (expending enough resources) easy enough to prove. While I'm as sure as I can be that he's out of the picture - there are plenty of fish in the sea.

I to have been told "you need to get over it". Initially because she said our marriage was over and I needed to accept that fact and now that we are attempting to reconcile, because the affair is over and she's back.

What has been a challenge for me is rebuilding trust, believing that my wife is committed to reconciliation. How can I believe anything she says after all the lies? Is she back just in the near term preparing for her final departure or does she really want to spend the rest of our lives together? I wish I knew but time will tell.

As is everyone here, I'm sorry you're here but we're all here to support you through what is the most devastating chapter of your life.

Any wayward spouse who says "don't be a debbie downer, I can see your eyes watering" has no remorse, no empathy. Those are two required states of mind and heart in order to successfully reconcile. She is no longer the woman your heart thinks she is. All sorts of people try to deceive us but we are often our own worst enemy in that regard.

Stabbedintheheart--- "get over it" is largely the same thing. The one thing to be sure of is that some WS do not understand that it may take several years or more to fully reconcile and that multiple years is normal. If they don't know that fact they may mistakenly interpret your ongoing pain as a sign the marrigae will never heal. If they know the damage they've caused, the effort required to heal and still have that attitude then that it is major impediment to true R.

She's showed you where her hearts is by calling you a Debby Downer!

Start the 180 today! Don't go back to the trough of insults that flow from her Soul. These insults are meant to hurt and belittle you. Free her to go to the AP and let him deal with her insult spittle.

Stay Strong!

Edit wrong post

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 7:43 PM, Wednesday, December 11th]

I very much understand where many of you are coming from when saying cut n run or 180.

The problem I’m having is understanding when to do that. See we went to MC and the counselor said to "be in the present" and show eachother love and for me to be more open with my WW and give her the affection, emotion, compliments that she claimed she was missing which caused her to stray.

So I do that. 50% of the time it’s received somewhat positively. The other times it’s met with her pulling away or appearing disdainful.

The MC said, when I expressed that I didn’t think that my WW really had intentions to work things out and that she was here to appease me, that she wouldn’t be at MC if that were true and she has committed to going to more sessions.

So I’ve tried to keep that in the back of my mind. But I’m finding it difficult navigating between her vacillating between open/closed and when to implement the 180 and how to implement 180 when it is up and down so much even in just an hour or so’s time

One of the problems with MC. When either of you starts doing what the MC recommended, neither of you thinks it’s genuine.

I think "fake it ‘till you make it" is common MC advice. I wonder if there are folks reading this who can comment on the efficacy of this strategy.

The MC said, when I expressed that I didn’t think that my WW really had intentions to work things out and that she was here to appease me, that she wouldn’t be at MC if that were true and she has committed to going to more sessions.

That may be true for the majority of their clients. It may even be true for your WW at some point in the future. But right now I don’t think that commitment or loyalty are to be found in her quiver. Your MC’s view doesn’t comport with the reality of a so far unremorseful cheater.

Many MC’s tend to treat infidelity the same way they treat any other marriage problems. They assume both partners share some responsibility for the cheating and better communication will address it as well as if it were a complaint about the split in chores. This is akin to a doctor treating your long term high blood pressure when you’re still bleeding from a gunshot wound.

[This message edited by asc1226 at 9:37 PM, Monday, December 16th]

Sorry you have to endure this. Your MC has you trying to appease your cheating WW. This is insane. Your WW, all on her own, decided to betray you. Nothing you did or didn’t do caused her to stray. BTW this is not an unusual approach in MC. The MC wants to heal your M. But your M didn’t fail. Your WW failed you. Your WW has to confront and deal with her brokenness that allowed her to cheat on her partner she vowed to be faithful to as long as you are M. If you try to rugsweep her infidelity and blame your M, it is a recipe for misery and a future repeat of her infidelity. She has to re-earn your trust.

You need to heal, and if she is truly remorseful and taking actions to fix her brokenness, and you decide that she has earned the gift of R, together you can work to resolve your M issues. Be aware, that she might not want to fix herself and cling to blaming your M woes for her actions. In that case you have nothing to work with. She needs to own her actions and demonstrate humility. Is she capable of remorse and humility? Look for a MC who will hold her accountable for her actions.

Unmet needs falsehood

and for me to be more open with my WW and give her the affection, emotion, compliments that she claimed she was missing which caused her to stray.

If only all of us BH would have been better husbands our WW would not have had to cheat on us…🙄
It’s victim blaming and adds to the damage already done to you. And it definitely will not make it better.

…which caused her to stray.

Oof

As long as nobody is taking responsibility for their own actions, you should ask the MC what her straying has given you permission to do, nay, caused you to do.

You need IC to heal you. She needs IC to work on her why's and to be a safe partner. After that, then MC to work on the relationship.

Your M didn't cheat, your WW did.

Please look up the unmet needs fallacy. If this was correct, I'd have been the one to cheat.

Your WW had so many other choices she could have made rather than cheating. Like, talking to you about what she wanted.

See we went to MC and the counselor said to "be in the present" and show eachother love and for me to be more open with my WW and give her the affection, emotion, compliments that she claimed she was missing which caused her to stray.

I absolutely hate it when MC’s say that...
Ask the MC if he really thinks something you did or did not do caused her to decide that having sex with someone else was a great idea. If so – then could he provide a list of what you could or could not do to prevent a repeat, and what would be appropriate. Like if you forget to take out the trash – would that make flirting with the delivery-guy "OK"? If you don’t do the dishes three days in a row – would that justify some heavy petting with the man next door?
When we – the BS – are blamed for the affair... Well... It’s a bit like telling a rape-victim that maybe that revealing cleavage led to the assault, that if they wore a turtleneck this might not have happened. It’s blaming the victim rather than the culprit.

I advocate MC. I think that it can create a safe environment to improve communications. But based on your story (and that’s all we can base our responses on) your wife needs IC a lot more than you two need MC.

I strongly suggest you contact the MC and ask him if he really thinks you caused your wife to want an affair, and if he really thinks that desire is a normal and acceptable way to deal with marital issues. If he in any way implies that you are accountable for her decision, you are better off spending that money on a new fishing rod.

Ps. I also absolutely hate the word "stray" in that context. It minimizes. It’s like telling someone you stabbed that you only nicked them. It’s minimizing.

Ps. I also absolutely hate the word "stray" in that context. It minimizes. It’s like telling someone you stabbed that you only nicked them. It’s minimizing.

You mean like the term "wayward"?

"That young woman was innocently walking through the forest, and got herself lost. She was wayward that way."

I know if this was Reddit I’d be downvoted into oblivion but that term to me is the epitome of minimization.