I've been lurking here for about a year now, reconciling with my WS. We have been married for over 20 yrs and they fell into a virtual EA in 2021. It took over 12 months (and a lot of emotinal labour on my part) for them to finally stop trickle truthing me and acknowledge what they had really done.

Since finally telling me the truth and a few months of Big Talks, they are now back-tracking on their feelings regards AP and trying to rewrite history. Even trying to convince me (or maybe themselves) that they did not in fact have any romantic feelings towards AP whatsoever and it was all just some kind of big misunderstanding!

Lately I've noticed some repeating patterns: eg a new hobby and related sm account, joining a new online community without including me (even though I enjoy the same activities) plus increased defensiveness if I mention that this pattern makes me uncomfortable because this is how their EA originally began. The last time I raised this I was told that I need to stop 'monitoring' their online activity and that "it's like being in f*cking 1984!"

I know I'm not being unreasonable by feeling the way that I do about this trigger, and I could really use some reassurance, understanding and support from some other BS who have negotiated with a similar attitude!

R Is broadly going very well by the way and we are both in a better place. We have (eventually) come a long way together, but this backsliding makes me nervous about the future and I'm not sure how best to handle it going forward.

What has worked for you?