SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Pogre....EXCELLENT comment. 💯👆. I am glad you and wife are in a good spot. Glad she saw the light and humbled herself. 🙏

You’ve gotten a lot of good advice here and so I won’t take your time to try and repeat some of the things I’ve seen. But there are two important things I want to make sure you hear and since I’ve read some of but not all of the posts in this thread I would like to state them here if nothing else but for reinforcement.

That said here are my thoughts:

1) if reconciliation is truly your goal, then of course this will take a lot of work and effort from both of you. But as the cheater, SHE MUST LEAD THE EFFORT. You can’t be the main driver. She needs to do the research on what it takes to fix what is broken inside her and to build a new relationship. She should be the one to create the rebuilding plan. She should be the one to track it. She should be the one to lead the conversations.

If she cannot or will not or chooses not to do this, then In my opinion she should not waste your time or her time in thinking this marriage will be feasible going forward.

I hope you will take some time to sit and think about what that truly means and the best way to communicate that to her. Don’t let her think you’re willing to be the leader of the process. If you are the one that is deciding what needs to be done and pushing for it to happen, then I believe you will end up NOT RECONCILING WITH HER, but instead, RECONCILING WITH YOURSELF.

And to me, that’s a recipe for failure.

2) It seems like your wife likes to act tough and "talk shit" about you with her friends.

That absolutely needs to change. In therapy she needs to work on being humble and finding humility with her communication with others. She likes to appear that she’s in control of her cheating and she’s the boss of it. Then she brags about how she has you under her thumb and can handle you.

You need to communicate that this mode of operation on her part NEEDS TO END STARTING TODAY and NEVER RETURN. Even if it risks her losing friends (no big loss because some of the toxic ones probably need to be gone anyway) she needs to honestly communicate to those in her life and stop the charade she is portraying.

She instead should be saying things like "truth is, I’m a cheater and I have a problem. And that problem has caused me to truly hurt the most important person in my life. And I truly regret that. My drinking also contributed to that and I absolutely need to fix that. I regret the awful choices I have made and I am going to work to make this up to the only true person in my life, and remove anything and anyone who is toxic to that goal".

If she can’t start saying those things to the others in your lives, and wants to maintain this mask of bravado, then I would clearly communicate to her that you don’t want to be in a life with someone who is like that.

She should start saying these things to others and show you she has done that. True for any partners is "if you wouldn’t say it in front of your spouse you shouldn’t say it at all." She needs to start living by that in order to rebuild trust.

————-

Those are the two things that I think are important for you to consider and hope you will think about them for a while and communicate them to her as requirements if you are going to spend your time working to rebuild this relationship.

I wish you well.

[This message edited by Stevesn at 8:02 PM, Sunday, January 18th]

I'll be honest, I wouldn't trust her in any way. She's shown over and over again how good of a manipulator she is. This doesn't even feel like desperation, to be honest, it feels like she's putting on her best performance yet.

The fact that you read in her own words that not only did she consistently screw someone else while stringing you along, she was PROUD of it. And every time you called her on it, she put on the waterworks, waited until you were satisfied, and then went right back to what she was doing.

I don't think this relationship will ever recover. I think you're allowing yourself to keep moving the goalposts. Giving her any feelings of hope just means she's learning there's no real consequences for her actions, and you'll just keep finding yourself here, gaslighting yourself into thinking maybe it's going to get better.

Please do the hard thing. Send her on her way. There are much safer partners out there that haven't hurt you. This one has destroyed the foundation, and all you're doing now is clinging to the ashes and hoping you can paste them back together into some kind of foundation. It can't be.

Btw - I wouldn’t trust her either. And in my opinion it would take years if not a decade or more to build something new that can be strong (with no guarantee of success).

But if OP is inclined to try as I think he is, at the very least I and others here are able to provide insight as to what is required at the very least and at multiple levels from a WS to have a chance at success.

Sorry for the wall of text, but there are a few elements of your story that are eerily similar to mine.

…and one *fundamental* difference: OP is not married. He has every right to do whatever he wants with his life, but to stay with a GF who betrays you like this is…. something else.

If you must marry her at some point, I hope you get the mother of all pre-nups.

Oh wow. I take a few days break and return to this! Why can’t you all play nice while I am away?

Friend – and GF if you are reading this – I don’t really see any harm or damage in GF reading this thread.
The way I see it is that IF this ends in your separation then whatever is shared here has the shelf-life of lettuce and won’t be worth anything to anyone relevant in a month or two. You haven’t shared anything that can be traced or connected to anyone, unless they happen to know a couple that have been together for 18 years, one a recovery addict the other an active alcoholic and are separating AND are reading this site. Not really likely to happen.

IF this ends the way you are hoping – well... your GF will then know what we – a broad base of experienced peers looking at your situation from a birds eye view – know: That if she wants this relationship she needs to stop drinking, and stop her interactions with OM. The later is a given IF she does the former. She won’t be hanging out with OM having a diet-coke while he downs his vodka.

THAT is the key to ANY CHANCE you and GF have. Her sobriety.
Monitor that. Dry out the house, her car, the office. Confirm she’s at AA. Get the name of her sponsor and check in with him if she’s attending. Get a breathalyzer test and make random checks a requirement.
You are allowed to put the relationship on hover or hold for 30 days, and if she is in AA, sober, accountable and not around OM... you two have a shot at making it.

Hey guys thanks for the advice. I've definitely been riding that roller coaster, swinging back and forth like you say. One second I want to give her a second chance, the next I'm like hell no.

But something unrelated but very important just happened. She just found out that her mom has stage 4 cancer and is probably not going to make it.

This is so crazy. It's the time I would normally most want to be there for her, but then it's like I'm disgusted by her right now. It's a fucking insane conflict. Also, what's been going through my mind is "do I really want to be the guy that leaves his gf right after she found her mom is dying?". I know it's probably not rational but that's what's been going through my head.

Now I really feel like I don't know what to do.

Thanks for all the love and support guys.

do I really want to be the guy that leaves his gf right after she found her mom is dying?".

I am so sorry this has been added to your timeline at a time when it will be difficult to support her.

You can support her mom directly - if you have that relationship. Doesn’t mean you have to support the cheater.

If other people’s opinions matter then you may want to tell people that your relationship was broken by cheating and while it’s unfortunate that the timing of all of this is bad, you are not in a position to continue being in the relationship.

They do not need to know more. You do not need to explain yourself further.

I hope this helps you.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:48 PM, Sunday, January 18th]

So she can’t start sobriety while tending to her mom?

This is really an awful combination. I'm sorry for both of you.

"I know it's probably not rational but that's what's been going through my head"

It's not rational, but natural to be protective of the person you love. But of course abusing those closest to you can cause bad consequences. You sound all over the place. You can put decisions on hold and wait a bit until emotions calm down. But try to not get too invested in the mean time. As far as we know she could end up drinking at OMs tomorrow night.

Sorry to hear about her mother. It will be hard to support her right now for sure but I think it's possible. Maybe reframe your idea of support. Imagine it was a male friend of yours whose mother was dying. How would you support him? The same set of behaviors can be given to your gf. Providing support doesn't mean you have to R.

She now has a new trauma and I believe that it could influence her in different ways regarding the A. The more common is to further open her eyes toward what she has done to your relationship. However, in some situations these experiences can actually push someone back toward connecting with the AP. Keep your eye out for that possibility.

At the risk of sounding callous her mother's illness has nothing to do with your relationship problems nor should you let that distract you from them. From what you have told us about your girlfriend she is the type that will use this bad news as a means to manipulate your sympathy for her and distract/deflect the issues in your relationship.

As someone else suggested, support her as you would a male friend. You can listen to her cry or talk or reminisce about her mother but keep it at that

Even if you were to permanently end the relationship because of her infidelity no reasonable person would fault you

Decisions and choices sometimes have bad consequences. She now gets to live with the consequences of her bad decisions

[This message edited by WB1340 at 3:31 PM, Monday, January 19th]

I’m sorry about her mom. It is a shock, and it’s always easier to deal with these sort of issues with a strong backland. It reflects well on you that you want to support her.
However... I want to remind you of what I have repeatedly stated: An alcoholic will prioritize alcohol over ANYTHING.

Friend – I know that after all these years it’s hard to let go and if she really cares and if you want it then you two do have a chance. But that chance is 100% based on sobriety.
Your ability to be around to support her with her mother and to work on the relationship is still based on HER sobriety.

If I’m correct – that an alcoholic will prioritize alcohol – then expect her to use her moms condition as a "logical" reason for why she needs to focus on her mom and put sobriety on the back-burner.

^ yep. Expect "You can’t ask to to stop drinking right now while I’m dealing with my mother!"

I'll third that one. Not only was I an alcoholic, but before my wife I was in a LTR with another, even more extreme alcoholic (and that's saying A LOT. She drank too much for ME!). Any tragedy, problem, argument, or hardship will be used as an excuse to not stop. Don't accept it. I would argue that hardships are the best time to straighten up. There are always going to be problems. It's always better to face them clear headed than in a drunken or hungover stupor. This should be a first major test for her.

A few things I’ve noticed here…

Her "apologies" and begging for you to give her another chance are surrounded around her needs and wants and "where will I go?" Which is all about her and not about you.

Another thing I’m noticing is your emotional caretaking of her despite the very clear hurt you’re experiencing because of her actions. I see a lot of you showing up to console her, to calm her down, to be there for her. Even now with her mom, your emotions and your experience is not the priority over the idea that being there for her while her mother is dying should be what you do.

It reminds me of something I said when I caught my exWS, I said to her, "I feel like it’s you for you, and me for you but nobody for me."

There’s real injury in self abandonment. Your feelings of hurt and anger and betrayal and grief are all completely valid. She has injured you deeply and caused you to question your ability to trust your own instincts & self. You’re questioning whether you can genuinely ever see people for who they are or not because she betrayed you so badly.

I get it. I’ve been there. This hurt is no joke.

You have been traumatized by her choices, make no mistake. And you need you.

When you say, "I don’t want to be the boyfriend that leaves his girlfriend when her mother is dying."

The real issue here isn’t that you’re being a heartless boyfriend leaving your girlfriend in her time of need. It’s that your girlfriend makes such poor decisions in her own life that she refuses to get her alcoholism in order and decided to cheat and betray her boyfriend therefore sabotaging her 17 year long relationship. For her to expect you to be there after that is absurd.

Her choices got her here. Full stop.

If you choose to be there, that’s out of the graciousness of your heart. But trust, you’re not obligated to be. Especially not after the hurt you’re in because of her choices.

She’s a big girl. If she has to sit in the consequences of her actions and decisions, so be it.

[This message edited by maise at 8:57 PM, Sunday, January 25th]

Hey everyone, thanks so much for your comments and support. I wish I could reply to them all individually, but just know I've read all of them and am definitely taking everything that everybody has said under consideration. To be clear, I still haven't committed to giving her a second chance and am very much watching to see if her actions meet her words, and I'm still prepared to shut it down if they don't.

That being said I want to post an update. Sorry it's been so long but I've been going through a lot.

First she's agreed to go back to detox and she'll be going later this week. It probably helps that a few other people in her life have also approached her telling her that they know she's relapsed and have told her things like "please, don't destroy your life". There's a long way to go but I'm at least happy she's taken this first step.

Second, I definitely saw her wavering in the first few days after, but that seems to be improving. The biggest problem is that she broke no contact with OM over that weekend. I confronted her about it and she again broke down crying and apologizing again. I told her that if there's any chance at rebuilding any trust between us that I have to have zero doubt that things are 100% over between her and OM and that it's on her to prove that to me. She kept apologizing and promised that she was only reaching out to him to "see if he's ok". I reiterated that no contact means no contact and that this has no chance of working if she breaks it. Since then she has maintained no contact, which I have been able to verify (don't want to disclose methods in case WS is in thread).

She has maintained her remorseful tone. We've spent a lot of time talking since then and she hasn't done any DARVO or blame shifty stuff. She's going out of her way to spend time with me and tells me how much she loves me, that I'm the only one she wants and that she's so sorry and feels so stupid for putting what we have in danger. She's been repeating all those things to me constantly.

We've also began to unpack what happened a bit. She still has the full undeleted text thread between her and OM on her phone and promises that we'll go through it all and establish a timeline of what happened. I'm honestly not quite ready for that yet because I feel like my emotions around it are still too raw. But we have talked about some of it, including when he confessed his feelings for her and the first time they had sex, which hurt to hear a lot, but it is stuff I need to hear and I'm glad she was at least honest about it.

She said they first started "connecting" when OM's cousin died. She had met him at the bar before but that he was just another person she drank with up until that point. But when she met him that day he confided in her a lot about what he was going through and they had a very deep conversation. They then started to talk a lot more and about a lot more personal stuff. This eventually led to OM confessing his feelings like I said in the last paragraph. She said she initially told him "thanks but no thanks" about his feelings but that she then went to his place with him intending only to talk more and drink some tequila. She said that he came on to her, but admitted that she didn't stop him. She says she doesn't know why, other than that she was "very drunk" and in an "emotionally compromised state" from other things happening in her life, the biggest being that a former client of hers had contacted her and a bunch of other people that worked on his case making death threats (which is something I was aware of at the time).

I told her that it seemed like they had pretty deep feelings for each other. She at first tried to deny this, but after some prodding admitted that it was probably true. She then said that she's so sorry and that she still doesn't fully understand how she let this happen. She admitted that she still cares about OM and feels bad for cutting him off so abruptly. She also said that she's worried about him because of some other family stuff he's going through and that's why she broke NC in the first few days, which she apologized for again. She then told me she would maintain NC despite these feelings because she wants to show me that it's "you and only you". As I said previously she has maintained NC since.

I suggested she read "not just friends" and she said she would, so I guess I'll have to order that from Amazon. We've also been spending a lot of time together and she seems like she's been going out of her way to try to reconnect with me, which I've actually appreciated. She's brought up the issue on her own a few times, only to say she's still "trying to figure out how I let this happen" so that it "never happens again" and, of course, apologize some more and talk about how she feels "evil" and "like a monster". She keeps telling me how I'm the one she wants to be with and and that risking "us" is the worst mistake she's ever made in her life. Her apologetic tone has only increased the further we've gotten from D day.

So I don't know. We still have lightyears to travel and I'm very cognizant of the fact that the train could come off the tracks again at any time . Still, other than the NC break, which I addressed with her, I like what she's shown me up to this point. But, of course, I want to hear your guys' opinion on this. Does this seem like a good start? Or do you still think I'm kidding myself and I should just cut it off now?

As for me I'm doing ok. I'll admit that my sobriety did not survive the discovery/confrontation, but I'm back on the wagon again. Currently 5 days sober and counting. I'm continuing to do the same work on myself that I had planned, which I know will be good for me whether I decide to stay or go. I'm definitely still on the roller coaster of emotions, but it seems to be calming down a little. I've also been talking to my counselor, my friends and my parents, who continue to show tremendous support. That's really helped me with what I'm feeling.

Before I go I just wanted to say one more thing. I obviously know that pretty much everyone here has a pretty negative view of my WS, and I don't blame you. She's obviously manipulated, betrayed, humiliated and gaslight me through this whole process. If that was the only thing I knew about someone I'd probably have the same opinion. But all this behavior is very out of left field for her. I don't know if it's some sort of midlife crisis thing or if it's somehow connected to this relapse, but she hasn't been acting like the girl I knew for the last 17 years.

She's always been something of a shit talker, but it was mostly in the range of cute and funny and is actually something I liked about her and enjoyed doing with her up to this point. It's also the first time I've seen this kind of manipulative behavior from her. Aside from when her drinking problem arose a few years ago, I relationship had been awesome up until now. I never had any doubt that she was happy just "being my person" (as woodthrush2 said). She was very in love with and devoted to me and always went out of her way to make me feel that way. We also have had so much fun together over the years and get along in a way I previously didn't think was possible in an LTR. I swear I'm not trying to overstate this, but most people we know have considered us "couple goals" and told us how they dream they can have a relationship like ours one day. We've also been there to support each other through the darkest times of each other's lives, including when her dad's cheating ruined their family and when my mother almost died a few years ago. When I told my friend what happened, he told me he couldn't believe it because he's never known a couple like us and said we were "basically an extension of each other".

Up until this point I saw her as one of the kindest and pure hearted people in the world. The way she genuinely cares about not just me but all the people in her life is one of the things I love about her most. This is all to say, I'm not some kind of perpetual abuse victim with Stockholm Syndrome or something. I've been with manipulative women before her and that has never been her until this happened. I just wanted to write this for anyone who thinks there's anything worth saving in our relationship. I don't know where we go from here, and I definitely still don't know if we'll survive this, but I just wanted to put that out there. Thanks for reading and I look forward to what all of you have to say.

Best wishes.

I swear I'm not trying to overstate this, but most people we know have considered us "couple goals" and told us how they dream they can have a relationship like ours one day.

My ex and I used to hear this all the time too from so many people. My family and friends were also very shocked when they found out about exWS’s affair.

I don’t think that holding on to the "couple goals" is really helpful. It doesn’t really say much in the grand scheme of things.

Based on your recent post/update, my opinion is that stepping back and letting her do the work is extremely important. Not you ordering the book for her, or leading the way towards getting her into recovery, or anything else for that matter. She needs to do all of that. She’s a grown woman. She’s capable. It means absolutely nothing if you do it for her. She needs to take the initiative in her own recovery. You just sit back and watch while (hopefully) getting yourself into individual therapy to process the very real trauma you’re experiencing from all of this.

Infidelity sucks. It’s brutally painful. It can also be a very huge point of learning for you and for her if she wants it. But let’s not really focus on her right now. I say, focus on your healing. You have an opportunity to learn a lot and to heal and grow from this painful experience so that you come out on the other side better and more at peace and with more tools in your pocket. A therapist can help you and provide a safe space for you to do this.

If she chooses to do the same, great! That’s wonderful! If she doesn’t, well, it won’t matter bc you are choosing it for you and you’ll get to where you need to be no matter what. As you focus on yourself and heal, you’ll see whether she truly is along for the ride or not.

I suggested she read "not just friends" and she said she would, so I guess I'll have to order that from Amazon

Why are you ordering it? Why wasn’t she on amazon two minutes after you brought it up? She’s a lawyer. Research shouldn’t be something she needs to be told to do. Be cautious of leading too much. If she can start up an affair and keep it going why can’t she spend some time on google looking up reconciliation resources?