EDIT#2: several have asked why I stayed so long. First time while dating we had been dating for a few months. I was naive and believed her. It's never just a kiss is it? Then it was some good years dating then marriage in 2000. Shit didn't hit the fan from my perspective until 2010. That time and those infidelities to place over the course of 6 months. Then the MC therapist convinced me that the cause was a mental breakdown due to childhood trauma, depression, all triggered by S.A.D. and her almost never seeing daylight. So I thought it was situational. I didn't understand cheating as much as I do now. By the end of 2011 I had apparently rug-swept without knowing what that was. Then it was pretty good from 2012-2023. This past year and a half was me fundamentally accepting and changing who I am in relation to our marriage. Accepting that it's over. That takes time when you've been together half your life and you have kids and everything. I'm doing better now. And, yes, I need to see a lawyer.

EDIT: I know most of you mean well. But it seems most comments are acting as if I'm still carrying a torch, or hoping she will change, or hoping she will see the error of her ways. I'm physically in the same house with her but I have finally come to the point after this past year and a half that divorce is inevitable and preferred. I've come to accept we're done and I'm focusing on myself. One comment rightly suggested I speak to a lawyer to see if reality will match up to my conjecture so I'll probably do that.

Why did I post this? 1. If anyone has been through a long infidelity trip and realize they kept making the wrong choices and wasted a lot of time, they can see that they're not the only ones out there. 2. To the ones that are younger, in shorter relationships, that maybe are dealing with their first (and hopefully last) infidelity, they can see what not to do. Get out now! I would say to them. 3. I am NOT seeking comfort or pity or anything like that. I know the choices I made and what I did to myself.

Buckle up, this is a long one.

I’ve been reading and commenting and talking with some of you over the last several months. I’ve never posted my whole story. I finally am. I don’t think I’m looking for any advice, but I guess this is more to share that we’re not alone in this. It’s a long one.     

We started dating in the beginning of 1997. Later that year, she went to visit her grandmother out of state where there was a thing happening that involved a team of people. After her trip, she talked about her time there but there was one man she mentioned more than most. Then she asked me to mail a letter for her addressed to him. I steamed the letter open. There was nothing specific. But it did mention that she wanted to stay in touch, possibly visit where he was from, and that wonderful time they had. I knew she had cheated on me. I mailed the letter. When confronted, she seemed to show some remorse and said that they were partying at a bar and had made out. The reason given was that she had abuse in her childhood and that she couldn’t believe that our relationship was real. I made the choice to believe her. I told her that I was serious about us. But that experience was always at the back of my head. Our relationship went on until I proposed on New Year’s of 2000. We were married later that year. 

Between 2005 and 2007 there were a lot of changes. We bought a house, I changed my career, she got laid off, she went back to college, she got pregnant, and she had to quit college because of her pregnancy.  Then she went back to her old job that she hated and she was working the overnight shift.

During this time of big change, we drifted apart as a couple. With the stress I withdrew. I didn’t withdraw from everything, just our marriage so I could focus on the kids and my new profession. And I’m sure she felt bad about herself because she had to quit college and I wasn’t connecting with her, emotionally or physically. As stated before, she also has childhood trauma but also depression and S.A.D.

In late 2010 I borrowed her phone as mine was dead. I stumbled across a text message from a man she worked with. It was describing their plan to get a hotel room so they could have sex. I died inside. I had NO idea that this was happening, could happen, or that she could do something like that to us. Then I remembered the guy out of state. So it was possible. It was happening. I immediately confronted her. 

I don’t remember her reaction. I remember yelling. Me and her. I remember getting cigarettes and chain smoking. I remember walking up my street. I remember her telling me it was because I wasn’t giving her what she needed. We weren’t having sex. We weren’t going out. There was a lot of truth there. But I didn’t betray her like that. I was cold, stressed, we were having money problems and stress from all directions. I DID attempt to contact that guy’s wife. She basically told me to mind my own business and to fuck off.

A few weeks later I purposefully snooped on her phone because I still didn’t trust her. I found out she was sexting and sending nudes to a man in a club she was in as she had gone back to college again. That was DD#2.

I also remember another guy that she was talking to but I didn’t see anything specific. What I do know is that, during this time, she had asked me to go with her to an event out of our town. I didn’t want to. She was bent out of shape about me not being any fun. This other guy was at this event. She didn’t come home that night. She claimed that it was because she drank too much and pulled off to the side of the road to sleep it off. I completely believe that she spent the night with him.

I was spiraling into complete mistrust. Early 2011, I found a way to put an app on her phone that forwarded all of her chats, messages, and emails to my phone. She was telling me that she had broken it off with that guy from work and that he was leaving that job for somewhere else. She told me that she will stop participating in the club and after she finished the classes she was in, she didn’t re-up for the next ones. I believe she felt some resentment for ruining her life because she had to stop all the things that gave her satisfaction. What I could see on the spy app verified all this.

She was sleeping in our boys’ room. Neither of us were handling the situation well. It really is kind of a blurr. I soon found out she was at it again. This leads up to D-Day #3. I believe it was right after I installed the spy app that I started seeing messages between her and yet another guy. They were talking about how much fun they had and looking forward to it again. I didn’t get the messages that started it all. I think she was talking to him on FB and my app didn’t catch that. After I did some snooping I found out that he was an older, married guy. I confronted her yet again. This time telling her about what I had done with the app. I actually saw messages between them after this where she said she hated me and he said how unethical of me and that I must have some serious trust issues to have done something like that. Really? I have trust issues? No shit. He went on to tell her how she had done nothing wrong. She needs to fulfill her needs and make herself happy. And if I’m not doing it then she’s ok to get it from somewhere else. Predatory fuck. 

After this last confrontation, she took things to the next level. She attempted suicide by pills. The ambulance got her to the hospital in time to pump her stomach.

After all of this, we finally started marriage counseling. We learned a lot about what we were doing and why we were doing it. I decided to forgive due to all the extenuating circumstances: me being a shitty husband, her having S.A.D. and working nights, and her depression. We moved forward with reconciliation. Her job moved her to the day shift. This was around July of 2011. By mid 2012, we had a new baby.

With the new baby-toddler-little boy she got into the habit of either sleeping with him to get him to sleep or letting sleep with us…all…the…time. Our marriage bed became non-existent. Looking back I can see her separating from me. Taking me for granted. Living her life only concerned about her needs and wants. We would talk about finances and make a plan, then she would spend hundreds of dollars on clothes, cosmetic changes, and Amazon purchases, etc.. We now have two dogs that the family basically had no say in. When we would go to an event somewhere she would get out of the car and start walking away, not waiting for me. At events she would spend most of the time talking to everyone else, even perfect strangers and I would end up just being the background player. If I didn’t show interest in her stories or passions then she would get upset that I don’t care. When I tried to share mine? She would make a face, obviously losing interest.

More stressful changes from 2017 and on. My mom died, I had major surgery, I almost died from a complication and other health problems arose from that that didn’t get resolved until 2019. She was laid off again and decided to go back to school to finish her degree. Also, 2020 happened. 

In early 2023 I saw her phone sitting there, unlocked with her in the other room. And most of you that have “reconciled” never lose that feeling that they might be doing it again. So I looked at messages and found inappropriate ones to a guy she had been friends with for years from her hometown. I had met the guy before. I didn’t find explicit sexual conversations, but I found conversations that were overly friendly and alluded to phone conversations they had had or were planning to have. I’m sure she was deleting some things as she went but, again, was not very good at OPSEC. The chats I saw were them talking about traveling to see each other, wishing they were together, alluding to phone conversations and other chats that were apparently deleted where she sent him nudes, etc. And their long-distance EA started after she had gone to her hometown twice in 2020, once for a family emergency and another a couple months later for something else.

I started digging into her digital life. I started checking all the old phone records. From that I started to think that there were more men that I hadn’t found out about and that the one from when we were dating probably wasn’t just “making out.” I found out she was sniffing around a friend of her friend. I found out she had many random internet guys on her socials that were flirting with her.

I sat on this information all summer long planning my escape, looking at all of my options. She had finished her degree and I was waiting for her to land a job. Obviously I wasn’t acting the same around her, but because I was a bit player in her life at this point, she really didn’t notice. Sometime in August, she finally noticed that I wasn’t acting normal. All summer she hadn’t noticed my attitude change. Fun fact: the day she confronted me about my attitude was 3 days after I’d gotten a haircut and she hadn’t even noticed. So I took her into the other room and told her what I knew. She was quiet. I was crying. Trying not to yell so our kids wouldn’t hear. 

She said, “When was the last time we had sex? When was the last time we went out?.”

The blame was all on me again. 

I responded something to the effect of, “I’m just a bit player in your life. When we go somewhere, you’re always looking for someone else to talk to, to connect with. When we make a decision as a couple that you don’t like, you end up doing what you want anyway. When I have some issue or pain I’m going through, yours is always worse. Everything comes back around and centers on you.”

For a long time, I have felt like I didn’t matter in our relationship. 

We had some deep conversations over the next couple weeks. Reconciliation was the topic. I sat her down one time (I was crying again) and told her now is the time to spell out everything on her own and tell me the truth of everything from the first guy when we started dating to the present. I told her that everything she has told me so far was a result of me finding something and asking her questions. She had never voluntarily confessed anything. During this conversation she still claimed that nothing happened with the first guy but kissing. But she offered up more information about the time between 2010-2011. It turns out hotel-room-guy was not just a plan to meet in a hotel room. They fucked in her work dressing room. She claims once but…? She lied about this during MC. And the predatory fuck in 2011? SHE WENT LOOKING ON CRAIGSLIST FOR A RANDOM HOOKUP. She went to his house out in the middle of nowhere and fucked him. I still ended up asking leading questions during this particular conversation to get more information. I don’t really count this as a confession. I had to ask too many questions. Of course, in a different conversation I asked the typical question about how she would feel if she found out I was sexting with someone else and treating them like a significant other. 

“How about a threesome?” was her answer. 

WTF.

While talking about why she did what she did, she alluded to the lack of sex and said, “I LIKE SEX.” This is important later on.

So we started what I thought of as reconciliation. I tried my best to step up and do the things we thought were lacking from my side: more attentive, partaking in her interests, more affection, more sex. Working on this for a couple of months took us into October. I started feeling like it was work. It shouldn’t have felt like work. Looking back I realized why. She wasn’t changing anything. She told me that she stopped talking to the last guy. She never showed me any proof. There were times when I would initiate sex and she would imply that she wasn’t really in the mood but we could do it anyway so I could feel good. She would say that maybe menopause is causing her sex drive to go down. Interesting. Because she had told me before that one reason she would cheat is because we weren’t having sex and she “liked sex.”  I guess just not with me?

I stopped trying everything I was trying. Stopped initiating sex. Stopped giving her affection. Things went back to how it was before with her doing her thing and me just being in the same house. It took MONTHS for her to notice and say something to me. This takes us to early 2024. I broke down about how it was nearly a year since I found out about the last one and nothing was getting better. She broke down about how sorry she was, how she ruined my life, blah, blah, blah. She is willing to do whatever work she needs to fix us.

The next day I left her a printed out note and an article that I’d found about the steps to reconciliation. I also added my own notes to each step of specific thoughts I had about them. I also gave her information to access Reddit groups for cheaters where she could see what others were dealing with. I also asked for a written timeline. This was all met with disinterest. The note was set aside but not opened for 2 weeks. After she finally read it I thought that would spark conversation. Nothing. In the letter I’d talked about how I was going to stop acting like we’re a couple and that I would only do things with her if they were family events. I told her I was going to stop talking about reconciliation unless she brought it up first. I wanted HER to start the important conversations and take the initiative. I told her that I can’t be in a relationship with someone I don’t trust and I don't trust her. I wanted to see her working towards this.

Weeks go by and nothing changes. She keeps busy doing volunteer work. Her volunteer work is like a full time job. I don’t think it’s an excuse to cheat again as I have full access to the place and the people involved and have not seen anything fishy. I could be wrong. I think she uses it as an escape to avoid her real life problems. I don’t remember if she started this conversation or I did but there was another tearful talk about us. I reiterated my boundaries and I also reminded her about the timeline.

Weeks go by and nothing changes. Out of nowhere she shares a timeline with me. In it she tells me that her therapist thinks this is a bad idea (her therapist also thinks its a bad idea to get MC as she needs to work on herself first). It tells the story in great detail about her child abuse to set the context. The timeline part was like a quick recap of everything I already knew…except she added a couple of extra truth nuggets in there to make it feel like a full confession. She DID NOT include the guy from when we were dating, the guy from the college club, or the guy I think she was with the night she never came home, or any of the other suspected guys from when I went digging. The hotel-room-guy she worked with was just a stupid kid and she doesn’t know why she did anything with him, the Craigslist guy said some mean things to her, and her friend from her hometown they DID make out because she was drinking and felt bad for him that this woman he liked had moved away. After that they would text and talk. He would make her laugh but sometimes be an asshole to her. And she never had “feelings” for any of them. So she never had feelings for them and in many ways they were mean or less than or unimportant. This does not make me feel better.

I replied with my own letter back to her reiterating my boundaries and telling her that this timeline is not what I asked for. I want to see that she’s really thinking about each time and telling me how things went down. I want to see that she’s confessing information of her own volition. I also added in that letter some of the random thoughts I have everyday. I wrote in great detail what I’m feeling and going through.

And that’s where things stand today. I don’t think she even read that letter. She never brought it up. That was 2 months ago. I’m at the point now where I think R is not going to happen. I think that if she turned it around and did everything I asked for, it would be too late. I’ve been focusing on changing my thinking to being about ME not US. I’ve been mentally and emotionally disconnecting myself from her.

That’s it. Now I’m just waiting for her to land a full time job so divorce won’t be as devastating as it would be otherwise. She’s the type of person that can’t NOT work so I don’t think she’ll pass up an opportunity otherwise. If I divorce her now, she would be left with no solid income, no insurance, and no place to live. That would mean that I would end up paying a lot more for support and that would financially ruin all of us. I’ve been toying with the idea of a legal separation but living in the same house. I think she can keep my insurance with that. I don’t want to destroy her as a person. We have kids together and her family is now my family. I just can’t be her person anymore.

Thoughts are welcome.