SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm not sure if this belongs here but given the discovery I've made, it just might be a nice fit.

So, DDay was in July 2023. We decided to start IC and MC to try to reconcile. The first year has been volatile, to say the least, and not a day goes by without me thinking about what happened. I just have those intrusive thoughts and images, I have a very vivid imagination and end up torturing myself (I am working on it in IC).

So last night my inner voice kept nagging me to check his phone and so I did. It turned out there were some forgotten images of my WH and the OW dating back from 2022 and 2023. Of course, I looked at them all, including the videos. I know I shouldn't have done it, but I just couldn't help myself. I saw things that deeply upset me - him taking a photo of her while sleeping, her taking a photo while taking a nap, them cooking together, bowling, listening to music, him goofing around... I've found her naked pics, him ejac****ing all over her back... He sent her videos of our son, himself with his parents and I feel disgusted. What kind of a person shares a kid's video with their mistress?! I am fuming! I feel so invaded and betrayed.

The discovery may not be related to any recent infidelities but it is a discovery and a very traumatizing one. I haven't eaten or slept for 24 hours straight. I am angry at him, her, and myself, I am angry at myself for snooping around, for staying with the cheater. I can't even look at him, I feel so disgusted and ashamed by everything he has done. In the meantime, he bawls his eyes out, begs me to keep trying to reconcile, not to give up on him, and promises he will never do such a thing again. Truth be told, he has been trying hard in the past 19 months.

So now what? How to process discoveries that came later on about the affair? I just feel so tired and lost.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I apologize for any mistakes, English is not my native language.

Welcome to SI and so sorry that infidelity has infiltrated your life. There are some pinned posts at the top of the forum that we encourage new members to read, as well as those with the bull's eye icons. (You may have to scroll to find those.) The Healing Library is at the top of the page and has a lot of great information, too.

I'm glad you're in IC to help with your healing. MC can be tough because the MC may shift some of the blame to you, when the cheating is 100% on your WH (wayward husband).

Why does he still have those on his phone and why didn't he delete them when the decision to R (reconcile) was made?

Pain shopping is not fun, but is sometimes unavoidable. We've probably all done it - I know I did. One thing that you need to watch out for is setting up your neural pathways to automatically go to the A and what they did. One of the articles/threads is how to stop the mind movies. One poster said she would stop herself from thinking about what they did and go through all of the steps to make a salad. Research has shown that certain matching games can help reset your brain's pathways. Candy Crush was one that was mentioned, but I play Seeker's Notes that I love.

The healing journey can take around 2-5 years if you don't stay with your abuser. For me, my XWH (wayward ex-husband) cheated again at 18 months, which was a deal-breaker for me. It wasn't until about 3 years after dday1 that I felt contentment.

Be kind to yourself because this is a marathon and not a sprint.

So we often say that you cannot repair or reconcile or forgive if you don’t know what you are trying to fix. You did not have the whole truth, obviously. So to me, you are back at day 1 of healing (or at least a big step backward).
Your snooping as you call it was actually your gut telling you there was more. And it nags at us until we get the full story. Listen to your gut.

Did he explain WHY he still had all those and WHY he did not tell you about them earlier? How can he promise he won’t cheat again when he is still withholding information and lying? (Lying by omission is still lying… )

What do you want? What if you find more in the future? Where is your line in the sand, the straw that breaks your back?

I am so sorry you are dealing with this.

Sorry that you are here. How awful. What comes to mind is, 'When they show you who they are, believe them.' What is the matter with him. IDN, but this is really messed up. My heart hurts for you, because I know what this feels like and I don't even know the whole truth in my situation. But, you get the actual truth of it. I would send this truth to myself, so I can watch it again if I feel like trying to reconcile with him. He can't deny this proof. He can't gaslight with it or trickle truth with it. It is right there in front of you. As shocking as it is, you know it and you can make your choices with it. This is real trauma. You trusted him and he totally failed you. You were brave to look for this proof, because your gut was telling you that it was there. You are protecting yourself, which you should do. You didn't do anything wrong. You'll make yourself crazy trying to figure him out. If you are healthy enough and young enough - get yourself out of this. There is no way he can make it better for you (he is MESSED up and you can't fix him) - make it better for yourself. You can do this.

Unfortunately this is a setback.

But the question to ask is — are these things you did not know? Or is just seeing the videos more damaging to you?

It is so hurtful to actually see the evidence of the cheating. The videos. The text messages. The emojis. The pictures. All of it is horrific.

You have to decide if you can still reconcile despite what you saw.

I was in your shoes too. The OW (other woman) in revenge mode sent me all their emails. I read one thing my H wrote and it devastated me. It also proved that he was pursuing her (despite him leading me to believe she was the aggressor).

I had to accept he was a lying cheating jerk during his affair.

I hope this helps you understand the situation of reconciling as the betrayed spouse.

Thank you, guys. I found the evidence in the cache folder on Telegram. He hasn't used this phone since September 2024 and is not very tech saavy. I mean, I am not either, but I was quite motivated to look under every rock several times, so I stumbled upon them. I believe he would have deleted them if he had known where to look. And he did, but not before I saw them. The phone belongs to our son now who uses it to play games. Thank God he hasn't seen them.

I don't think he deliberately hid them from me to enjoy the happy times, he was in fact very meticulous and careful so that's why I hadn't found out sooner. But the truth always comes out.

This is certainly a setback. I feel awful. I contacted my therapist and scheduled a session for Tuesday. I am so sad. I didn't find out anything new. I knew it was both PA and EA though he denies having any feelings for her. That's hard to believe now that I've seen how relaxed, carefree, gentle and passionate he was with her. He told her loved her, many times. What I did find is what that actually looked like. It feels like my rib cage is broken. I know she's 11 younger than us, I know what she looks like, her last name, the address of the apartment they spent his days off and fake sick leave (while I naively believed he was busting his a** working). He took her bowling. I was the one whom he bowled with first. I've seen the sexual positions in their intercourse, I know the songs she listened to, the pasta she cooked for them... This opened some old wounds and cut deeper. I am disappointed and disgusted. I can't even look at him.

Truth be told, he has been stepping up: NC was established and not broken ever since (not that I know of), he's been completely transparent with his whereabouts, working timetable (he shares the timetable as soon as his boss posts it), takes photos of himself and sends them to me, seldom spends time with other people and when he meets a friend, he always takes a photo of them and sends them to me. He does not have a password on his phone and I can check it anytime. In MC he says he deeply regrets what he has done and feels devastated now that has faced the possibility to lose everything we have built. He's been patient and supporting, apologizes a lot, promises to do his best to fix all the damage the affair has inflicted on our marriage, cries a lot and says he feels scared I would leave.

I just don't know if I can ever forgive him for what he's done.

People throw the word LOVE around until it has no meaning. He loved the euphoria, the high, he got from a new romantic relationship. It was a relationship. For him to say he never felt anything for her is ridiculous. You don’t invest that much time in another person if feelings weren’t involved. Otherwise he could have paid prostitutes.

I think this is why you are so overwhelmed. Congruency is that words and actions align. His words about the affair do not align with his behavior. In other words he is lying to you and your gut knows it. This is what needs to be confronted because you cannot move on until your body feels safe again.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 5:13 PM, Sunday, December 15th]

Cooley2here, thank you. You nailed it. I know deep down that he had feelings for her and that's what hurts me the most.

Thank you all for your kind responses and support.

I think there is a fundamental dynamic in many affairs:

A man will offer a relationship to get sex: a woman will offer sex to get a relationship.

And a mistress is way better than a prostitute, for a man trying to fill a hole in his psyche.

Did your husband "like" this woman? Probably.

Did he "care" for her, "love" her? Maybe, maybe not.

The tender photos and videos may have been nothing more than proof to her of the relationship he was providing, to keep the sex coming.

The important question isn’t what he may or may not have felt for her.

The important question is what he does feel for you.

Sorry you're dealing with this nasty mess of his making. Im going to cut to the chase. Any truly remorseful WS will make d@mn sure that every remnant of text, audio, images, video reminder of their treason has been expunged from their devices and will inform their BS of exsctly what they are doing and why. Period.

Never again feel guilty snooping. Its called future accountability and it should be part and parcel of any agreement for you to be able to move forward with him toward reconciliation.

Just confront him matter of factly. Dont soft sell it. Tell him its a big setback and why. His response will tell you a lot about where you really are in your relationship.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 12:45 PM, Monday, December 16th]

I don't necessarily agree with this:

Any truly remorseful WS will make d@mn sure that every remnant of text, audio, images, video reminder of their treason has been expunged from their devices and will inform their BS of exsctly what they are doing and why. Period.

The reality is most people don't know all the places things are stored on their devices or how to permanently delete them. Heck I have learned so many tricks I didn't know before the A from this website alone. I think I would be a pretty good deleter now but before "learning" so much post-A I don't think I would have been. My WH tried to delete everything to hide it from me back in the day - and I ended up finding some emails he clearly thought he deleted by didn't. So I don't think that lingering images/messages/etc are necessarily evidence of remorse - while it certainly can be it can also be evidence of the desire to hide, or just not being as knowledgable about permanent deleting.

In the OPs case it sounds like her WS did think he had deleted everything - especially as the phone is being used by their child now. The fact that he didn't manage to delete it all IMO isn't evidence of anything. And it sounds like the OP is struggling not with trusting that he tried to delete it all - but the content of what she saw. That was my problem as well. I paid to have my WHs phone recovered....and honestly most of it was not "new" information as I too knew it was physical, they sexted all the time, that they exchanged I love yous and all the other stuff - but seeing it all was very different. The videos...just ugh. I had 2 years of stuff recovered but after seeing about 4 months of it I just knew I should stop looking as it was more of the same...seeing it all just hurt me more and more and I did realize that I was in fact pain shopping more than anything. Knowing how many different ways my WH could tell the AP he wanted to fuck her really didn't change what I already knew.

It's good that you're talking to your IC about it - it took me a long time to move past it all to the point where it does not bother me in the least now and IC really helped with that.

Sorry to threadjack. Former, I am going to have to disagree with you. She has seen his behavior with the AP. Since we communicate with 89 to 95 percent body language, tone of voice, she is picking up what actually went on. It is what a soldier told me the difference between seeing warfare in person instead of a movie. This was his real life away from his family. This was him lying, over and over. Until he gets what he did to her she is never going to relax. We only allow ourselves to trust when we are relaxed around others. I don’t see that here.

Cooley,

Many BS complain about how convincingly their WS lied to them.

I think WS lie to their AP just as convincingly.

In any event, I’ll stick with this:

"The important question isn’t what he may or may not have felt for her.

The important question is what he does feel for you."

Im a big personal responsibility guy. Ill say it again, they broke it, they own it. All of it. Period. Therefore, if they are truly remorseful, they will turn over every stone, search for even one iota of a remembrance of their treason. Hell, if they're that inept at doing so, invite the BS to help them search. No excuses. The OP didnt seem to have much of an issue finding what she found.

End rant.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 12:56 PM, Thursday, December 19th]

I also think the whole deleting thing depends on how long the A went on for. The longer it went the more stuff is out there most likely. I would bet my life that if WH were to be given a pill that made him tell the truth about what he remembers and how many methods of communication he used that I would remember more of it than him - because for him it was just all part of this massive secretive game - once he was found out and the A ended the trauma and the memories were likely far less memorable for him that me.

But again, as far as the OP goes I don't see the issue raised in this thread as being about remorse - it's about what the OP now has seen with her own eyes and that I totally get as I saw way more than I ever needed to (and in hindsight wish I didn't just because all it did was hurt me more and didn't provide any real additional insight into what actually happened that I needed to know about to make the decisions I ultimately did).

Truth be told, he has been stepping up: NC was established and not broken ever since (not that I know of), he's been completely transparent with his whereabouts, working timetable (he shares the timetable as soon as his boss posts it), takes photos of himself and sends them to me, seldom spends time with other people and when he meets a friend, he always takes a photo of them and sends them to me. He does not have a password on his phone and I can check it anytime. In MC he says he deeply regrets what he has done and feels devastated now that has faced the possibility to lose everything we have built. He's been patient and supporting, apologizes a lot, promises to do his best to fix all the damage the affair has inflicted on our marriage, cries a lot and says he feels scared I would leave.

I just don't know if I can ever forgive him for what he's done.

The new revelations aside, this is a good honest appraisal of where you are. It does sound like your WH is putting forth a lot of effort. Good for him. He absolutely should. He is the one that dropped a bomb on you and the marriage.

That said, its ok that youre still not ok. Infidelity changes both people and can leave the BS in a state of flux for a long while. Thats normal. It took me years as a BH to decide that I could not stay in the marriage (it was was different for me though as my WW was not nearly as remorseful). That said, I stayed far too long in that misery.

Strive for clarity. Understand that itll be ok to make choices based on the preponderance of your feelings and convictions on the matter without having to be 100% one way or the other. Many here believe that forgiveness is not necessary for R, simply acceptance. This issue is up in the air for me.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 10:39 PM, Saturday, December 21st]