SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Two topics: First seems to be a fairly controversial topic and divided a lot by motivation. My story since I'm new: 13 years ago I discovered cards in my house from her AP basically professing his love, etc (one of them was a valentine's day card...this will be important later...I discovered these cards in December...also important). I confronted her and was told it was a one time kiss and, probably because I was in denial, shock and it was Xmas time (we have 4 kids, all at home at the time) I accepted that but always had this gnawing feeling it was more. I kept the cards. Fast forward to about 3 years ago and I oddly looked at the cards with the plan to finally throw them away. I have no idea how I never connected the dots but when I connected the timeline I realized the Valentine's Day card had to have been given 10 months prior to me finding the card (found them in Dec, Valentine's Day in Feb....as I mentioned, important to the story). At this point I found it VERY HARD to believe it was just a kiss. After 13 years, I caught her off guard and just blurted out "Did you have sex with him?". Caught her completely off-guard and the facial expression said it all. It was multiple times over the course of at least 10 months. Now I was traveling a lot for work and the lack of time together was the reason. Not excuse as she's owned this 100% and done ALL of the right things, thus the attempt at recover. However, I desperately want to contact the AP. I'm self-aware enough to know some of this is vengeful. The risk is a concern as well. No one knows anything about this: kids, friends, other family...no one. In the age of social media, there's a concern he would just "burn the village" and go public. After DDay 1 (kiss) he sent a serial killer type note to my work trying to make it seem like it was from friends claiming they all knew (real head case it turns out). Took me a minute to realize it was him. Shortly after Dday, he called me and I just left the line silent. He clearly wanted to bait me into a conversation and I refused. There's been nothing since. By all accounts, he's happily married now two towns over and miraculously we've never run into each other but we all know that will come eventually. What are folks thoughts on contacting AP's

Second thing is triggered feelings. It's been 4 years and I still get paralyzing waves of emotion. My wife to her credit always asks what wrong and I hate resorting to "nothing" as my response but what do I do tell her?: It's your affair. That's just another chunk of hours of tears that really adds no value to our recovery efforts. This stuff has hit me multiple times over the last two weeks. I've become completely unproductive at work, depressed at home. I fake my way through days as best I can. I re-started therapy (did some sessions two years ago). We've never done couples therapy so would appreciate feedback on that but I think we're past the truth telling part (at least what I want to know) so is that going to help with my triggered thoughts or is individual therapy better? I've written down all my triggers for here which I think was eye opening for her: Our "song" is meaningless now (that stung for her but I'm sorry...not my problem), I threw out my wedding ring...it's at the bottom of a lake if someone wants it (again to her credit, she set up appt with this cool jewelry place to make our own new ones, anyone with his name, any TV show with infidelity in the plot, the restaurant where I know they hung out, business where he works (pretty well known), I hear the word "cheat" and I cringe...doesn't matter the context.

I appreciate all of you and I'm not a religious guy but I think about all of us that are going through this. We didn't ask for it but we have to fight through it. I know it's not a terminal illness or anything close to it but god there are days where it feels so overwhelming.

Welcome to SI. I'm sorry you qualify for membership, but since you do, I'n glad you found us.

First, NC means no new hurts. My reco is to stay away from the ap. He's not the problem.

More important, you write a story that seems to say you've done some rugsweeping and some going back over the same ground again and again.

Being betrayed is traumatic. It brings with it immense anger, grief, fear, shame, etc. IMO, you've got to process those feelings out of your body. To stay together, your WS needs to know you're angry, grief-stricken, scared, ashamed, etc.

You've also got to explicitly define what you want from your M. You've got to figure out what will satisfy you, and she has to figure out what will satisfy her. And your W has to change from betrayer to good partner.

Since this has been going on for a long time, my reco is to find a good IC, someone who will help you recover, whether that means R or D.

Also. the thread https://survivinginfidelity.com/topics/660527/for-those-who-found-out-years-later-part-2/ might help you.

You can heal, even though the A was so long ago. It takes courage and effort, but asking your W if she had sex with the guy says pretty clearly that you courage. And holding all this in for so long indicates you've got a lot of energy that you can use for your healing.

You can get through this and thrive.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:53 PM, Thursday, May 1st]

Bos,

Don't contact the OM contact his Betrayed Wife, make a PDF of all the cards he gave your WW a nice neat document and get it to her one way or another. Write out your WWs confession in detail.

Did you have WW take a polygraph, get STD testing and DNA testing for your kids, a post nup?

If OM spills the beans to the whole world what does it matter it's the truth and you have no obligation to suppress it.

If you suspect OM is still cheating on his BW hire a detective to get the goods.

Was OM your WW boss or other kind of superior threaten a lawsuit against the company.

You can also expose the OM widely his adult children, parents, coworkers, everyone who matters in his life.

I also allow an affair to be rugswept, but after 20+ or so years it hit me, I arranged for my WW to accidentally run into OM1 at an event and it was very telling, I was off to the side watching.

I spoke with OM1 about a year after that but was interrupted before I could ask my questions, but even so it was telling, he was making excuses. Even the lies they tell contain some truth. I'm glad I did it.

What does your WW say about lying to you for all those years.

Is your WW still in contact with people who knew about the affair or have OM as a mutual friend?

I made the mistake of allowing continual contact between my WW and the owner of the company where OM1 and WW worked. This has kept me in a low grade triggered condition for years, in fact the owners daughter is still in contact with my WW.

I suspect you being a few towns over from the OM will also keep you in a triggered state, especially after these new confessions.

Bos,

You obviously recall the doubts and the fears that you had after you saw the cards. Even with your wife lying to you, you had a choice---to believe her, or not. It is not for me to say whichever choice you made was correct or incorrect; but you had information, and made a decision with it.

Imagine if the AP's wife doesn't have that information. Imagine that she has gone through her marriage making decisions based on information that you had, but she didn't. Or imagine that your wife also wrote letters to the AP, but his wife has never found them. Don't you think that she is entitled to that information? Shouldn't she have agency over her life, whether she chooses to work through things, leave, or sweep it under her own rug?

Remember, your wife infiltrated whatever relationship the AP had, just as that POS infiltrated yours. The betrayed parties have a right to know what has happened in their relationships. Even if revenge/retribution is on your mind....so what? The AP didn't make any commitments to you personally, but he is obligated as a decent human being to not covet someone else's partner. Your wife was the one who was supposed to keep your marriage safe, but the AP was never supposed to interfere. And if he has now matured, and is no longer a piece of garbage, he will take his consequences responsibly.

You don't know any of the above for certainty, except what you have learned from your wife. Give the other wife the same ability to learn.