SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

And before anyone says it. We did go through STI testing and all clear.

You have just described the majority of cheaters. A slippery slope, a friendship, a person saying they loved, all came together to make an affair. Your wife does not sound like a bad person. She sounds like her life at work became more important than her life at home. There are no dishes to cook and clean, no toilets to scrub, no finances to balance, no bills to pay. It is the adult version of fairyland. A mythical, mystical place where everything is so intense and dense no sunlight(common sense) gets in.
If she is truly dedicated she will put in the work. You should not.
I follow 1stwife because she put up with two affairs and a threat of divorce. One day she hit a wall and was done. She not only didn’t beg, or fall apart, she decided divorce was her choice and spent months planning it. Reality hit her husband in the face and he took on the responsibility to fix himself. That is where your wife should be. You have carried the burden of grief long enough.

See my tagline? I truly believe in it. I believe we have a lot to say in our own happiness.
By happiness I’m not referring to roses and unicorns. Not an endless feast of whiskey and ice-cream. I don’t think the Greek Stoics were referring to that sort of happiness. It’s more that when you reflect on your life you are content.

You can’t make your wife stop the affair, or make her want the marriage. You can’t make the OM leave her alone or prevent her from seeking his company. What you can control is yourself.

Inaction is action. Doing nothing is a decision.
You didn’t go search for a site like this one and post your story because you are content with your situation. You are unhappy. It’s now your call if you remain unhappy.

I’m not so naïve as to think you can reach one single decision that will automatically make you happy. But you can reach a decision that you are more content with. That in turn changes your situation, and with time you can chose options from your new viewpoint/stance that move you even closer to happiness/content.

We can only see from what you share what your stance is. To us – it sounds very passive.
We could be completely off base, but the way it reads to us is like she had an affair and you simply told her that she needs to decide if she wants to have the affair or not. In the meantime, it doesn’t sound like you are taking any action – leaving the whole decision in her hands.

What we are suggesting in not that you lock her up, or place a monitoring collar on her. I personally think the first part of your line-of-thought is the correct one. Where you accept that she needs to decide what she wants.

There is immense power in a statement like:
"I think we could work things out and reconcile from this affair. However, I’m not forcing you to anything. What I will state is that I refuse to share you. You are totally free to be with him or any other person, but not as my wife. I encourage you to look realistically at what a divorce would be. We would both come out OK and we can change our relationship into a good coparenting role if that’s how this develops.
What is important to understand is that I won’t wait for long. Until I am convinced that you are placing effort into our marriage, I am assuming you have chosen him, and I will proceed at my pace towards getting out of infidelity".

On another matter: If you are so convinced that the OM made the phone-call to claim his possession over your wife, then you would be naïve to think he’s out of the picture. If he was willing to go to that desperate length then he’s going to be doing his best to contact her. I would be concerned if she claims he isn’t, and more comforted in knowing he was, and what actions she takes to keep him at a distance.

Thank you Bigger,

I've certainty not been passive. I can only control myself has been almost my mantra throughout.

I've told her multiple times that I am willing to try as I'd regret not. She knows I dont have any hate or anger for her. I do however have anger that I am left to suffer the consequences and this she knows too.

I will fight tooth and nail for our happiness. Both mine and hers. And this has been made clear.

It came to a head last week. She offered to leave and thought that was for the best. I agreed. I didnt want to but without commitment to trying or making a decision there was no other choice.

What happened next took us both by surprise. I did something embarrassingly silly in public while taking our youngest to a club. I figured she could do with a smile and a laugh so I sent her messages about it building up a punch line at my expense almost. Its what weve always done with each other.

My daughter was at home with her and witnessed the effect. She said it looked like my wife was going insane. She laughed and cried and just circled. It was her tipping point. She realised what she was about to lose and what she had done.

Since then she has taken full account of her actions. Taking actions to ease my mistrust. Told me about messages from him and sent one final message back telling him to not contact her again and they are through forever. She has not blocked him as she wants to be able to tell him to stay away from events like one we have this weekend that involves people they both know.

At counselling she has accepted full responsibility and asked what she can do to help us heal.

She has opened up to friends of us both and our eldest also knows what has happened (she figured it out) and has had a long conversation with her about everything and explained what we are working towards together now.

At no point did I do anything out of my character. I didnt ignore her or try to make her feel bad. I just gave the same level of love I always have. I held her while she cried over ending a long friendship and treated her in exactly the same way I would any friend whos hurting.
I did not want to use tools or tricks or anything to win her back or make her do anything. All I could do was be myself and trust in that. I was certainly we were through and divorce was the only option and id accepted that happy that I'd not given up or been untrue to myself and my values.

There have been very positive differences following. She keeps saying how lucky she is to have me. She has become, we have become better at speaking about how we feel both good and bad. "I'm fine" is not allowed.

I wont be checking her phone or tracking her. I will trust in us and the knowledge of what will be lost from any slip. She knows I cant make myself trust her. Even tonight. She is out for drinks with people from her work. She called to say and had someone I do trust and who knows what has happened with her saying they will drop her home after. I haven't asked her to do that and I wouldnt tell her she cant go out. But she knows that by involving her colleague who I do trust it puts my mind at ease.

I guess what I'm saying is we're doing OK and heading in the right direction. The counsellor today exclaimed she has not seen a response like ours ever. And has great confidence in everything we are doing.

Still a long way to go. But we are walking that road hand in hand now with honesty and care.

You remind me a lot of me in how you are responding to your wife's A.

I'm not telling you that you are making a mistake, and I get the feeling there would be little to no way to get you to adjust your path.

You still have a bunch of hard lessons to learn that you are going to simply have to learn first hand. The first is that no contact is *no* contact. Your wife is not NC with her AP. As such the A is ongoing. It's maybe in hibernation or on a hiatus now. She almost certainly will break NC without real NC in place.

I did not want to use tools or tricks or anything to win her back or make her do anything.

You are on an uneven playing field of your wife's making. You are still in an informational war with her and you are giving her the upper hand. I know it's nearly impossible to think of your wife as the enemy, but that's basically where you are right now. Tricks and lies are 100% on the table for her. So careful how you decide to tie your hands by not using "tools or tricks". I had an extremely similar outlook on this. That what I need was her to make the authentic choice of ending the A and being with me and recognizing her wrongs.

What you are going to get is going to fall way short of what you want. The reason for that is quite simple. A person that is still wayward will choose both as long as both is even close to a viable option. You are the only one that can change that.

I might suggest you are at least a little in denial. You should be angry as hell at her. You deserve to be angry. She has betrayed you. She has committed an ethical violation that is historically second only to murder regardless of what we have decided as a society legally.

What books are your reading?

Is there an "other betrayed spouse"?

I read your story in your bio, and my take is this:

Despite what you say about not wanting to control her, and wanting her to make decisions, what you are doing is the "pick me dance" writ large. You are not taking the right steps to end the A. You are leaving yourself in a vulnerable position. You are not quite blaming yourself, but you are in some way under the impression that perhaps if you had been a better husband she would have been happy and wouldn't have cheated. That type of thinking gives us comfort because we think "If I do the right things, I will get the right outcome". The reality is that you have even less control over this than you think and that you are purporting to "not control her". What you are doing is refusing to take certain actions that you categorize as controlling. What you are doing is making wishful magical thinking, that if you just put in the good boy effort you will get the good boy reward.

That just not how it's going to work and my heart goes out to you. It really does. Your journey has barely started and you are putting yourself in a tough position from the outset.

This0is0Fine is absolutely right, and sadly, also most likely right about OP having to learn the hard way. So many do. We tend to think our situation is so unique, and "you don’t know her like I do" thinking, that we ignore battle-tested crowd-sourced wisdom and end up hurting ourselves more.

FWIW OP, we will not rub your nose in it after the hard lesson(s) have been learned. Please come back for help then.