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I should mention that 20 years ago, this had happened before with the same woman.

Sir, you are looking down the barrel of a 20 year LTA without a timeline and polygraph to confirm it wasn't.

Sir, you are looking down the barrel of a 20 year LTA without a timeline and polygraph to confirm it wasn't.

Perhaps OP is ok with that. Honestly can’t tell…..

I guess your W wants to rugsweep, and you're willing, but you're stuffing your feelings. You stuffed them when they happened, and 7 months later, they came back to haunt you.

She says it won't happen again. But she's been on at least a slippery slope a number of times that you know about. What makes that OK with you? Look, I'm happy I don't own my W. She made vows, as did I, but we can disavow them at any time, so she doesn't owe me all that much (though I'd be devastated if she told me she was done with me, and I'm betting she won't do that). But I'm pretty sure I would not be satisfied with a W who only goes as far as the slippery slope, except once in a while.

At this point, you're not ready to risk your connection with your W, but you have to risk your M to deal with your feelings about what your W did - and what you saw.

Right now you're dooming yourself to stuffed feelings that will come up time and again. You're telling yourself she's the only partner you can want, even though she's a less than great partner, and even though there are other women who are likely to turn you on as much as your W does. Believe me, I'm hooked on my W. I haven't had a date with anyone else since 1966, and all during those last dates, I heard a message in my head shouting, 'I want to be with W2b.' Even so, I've met numerous women I would have at least attempted to get close to if I had been single.

What's keeping you from demanding a relationship without betrayal? What's keeping you from demanding that your W change from betrayer to good partner?

You can't change your W, but you can change how you respond to her.

Note: I'm not saying D. I'm saying that you have a problem, that it's hard enough to solve that you came to an anonymous Internet forum for support, and that the best way to deal with the problem is to address it with your W as soon as you can.

You're accepting less than you deserve. If you can't bring yourself to address the problem head on, a good IC can help.

Bro, I know this is difficult and extremely painful, but you can solve your problem with your W, even if you don't realize it yet.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:06 PM, Wednesday, March 25th]

Thank you all for your continued responses. You are giving me a lot to think about.

Pogre: The proximate cause for me being here on this site is an argument that we had last week about a restaurant dinner for two in which she thought I wasn't chatty enough and I thought she wasn't affectionate enough. Afterwards this escalated into something that sent me into a spiral of revisiting everything that had happened and feeling we really needed some time apart and I needed to harden my heart. This floored me, so I guess you're right that I've been in denial about how hard it hits my emotions and nervous system.

The subject of couples therapy has come up, but it still feels to me like if I can join her in getting back to normal, we wouldn't need it. I did feel after that argument that we needed it though. It comes and goes.

She did get a session of therapy for herself after it all happened: she said she was pretty sure it was just perimenopausal hormones crossed with the big decade birthday memento mori, but that she thought she should just see what a professional said. She found someone online but only did a single session because she felt this therapist was too judgmental.

I don't know if I need personal therapy. I've discussed it to death with ChatGPT. I feel like the person that needs to talk about it is WW.

BondJaneBond: I think what's happened is that my hysterical bonding has spilled over into a sort of limerence. It's an infatuation rather than the love of a 31-year marriage like it used to be. When she meets me in the middle, it feels great, like this is easy, what she did is nothing, we're back to the way we were. When she doesn't, I feel like I'm a kicked puppy going back to its owner.

Yes, I am hurt by the ways in which she rejected me, and I've been revisiting that moment she turned me away from our marital bedroom quite a bit this past week. A couple of weeks back we went to the pub with OW and her spouse to watch sports, which is the first time I've seen OW since that night. Because of the way we were arranged, every time our team scored it was natural for WW and OW to celebrate together; nothing remotely sexual about it, but I got a pang of jealousy every time.

I don't want this in our lives. But if WW needs it, I want to make it work if I can, because I want to be with her.

Letmebefrank: This is the thing I've always struggled with. If a friend told me that having other friends was evidence of them being "not enough" for me, I would call that unhealthy jealousy. So I don't see how it necessarily means that WW has something the matter with her. It must be possible to be able to be "not enough" for WW without it ending in tears. But I'm still hoping not to have to cross that bridge.

DRSOOLERS: I can't quite work out whether I need to be bothered about the mini-affair with OM2, or whether it was just a couple of drunken kisses and a bit of fondling. I don't think she would have fallen in love with him and left me; maybe I'm being naive. Outside of that, she told me everything pretty much straight away. And if that's the basis of things, then if it happens again, I'll know about it and we can take it from there. If I ask her what led to them, she's just going to tell me the same thing as she's already told me: a decade birthday and some wayward hormones.

Do you mind if I ask you what you mean about happening in a vacuum? I don't think anything ever does, which is why I don't tend to have red lines but rather treat everything on a case-by-case basis.

Bigger: She's an academic. The university area is absolutely teeming with pubs. These are not organisational drinks.

You might be right about the sub-category thing. She drinks minimally most of the time, but does have occasional blowouts. But we did have a big party last month where she had plenty to drink and then dealt just fine with this other colleague hitting on her.

I absolutely think this has to do with validation, and so does she -- that's what I mean when I talk about mini midlife crises and decade birthday memento mori. BTW, WW went to a girls boarding school and then half a year (and zero sexual partners) later, she was with me. So OW was understandable experimentation, even though it was "late" at 30.

Neither of us wants to remove OW or OM from our lives, and quite honestly, if I would need to do that to prevent something happening, then I'd rather it happen and I know about it, instead of it being hidden at work.

This0is0Fine: Do people really base this stuff on polygraphs? They're hardly infallible.

gr8ful: I can see how it looks, but no, I wouldn't be okay with that. If she told me that she wants to live her life having sex with women as well as men, then I would try to make it work, because that's fair enough, it's no reflection on me. But if she lied to me for 20 years, it would be over.

sisoon: I think you and I see eye to eye on ownership, but I've never really understood why people think the "forsaking all others" bit is immutable, but the "till death do us part" bit can be broken at will. As for finding a better wife: nobody is perfect. My home is my castle, even though it has its idiosyncrasies.

When WW and I argue, we aren't our best selves, and some arguments can just about last longer than those few hours at the party between what she did and when she came to me to tell me how much she regretted it.

Does counselling have to be individual? I feel like I want to be there when she talks about it.

Yes you really would be best served with individual counseling for you (licensed, not AI). That is where you can process everything and work on what you want to do/change. You being in the room for her to talk about this issue is a separate thing that won't actually help you get a handle on the things you can control.

This0is0Fine: Do people really base this stuff on polygraphs? They're hardly infallible.

If you read my story, you'll find I caught my wife in a drunken confession to her friend that obviated the need for a polygraph for me. But I was planning on it.

You know what is much more fallible than a polygraph (at 90% or so)? A proven cheater.

You have no idea how much or how often your wife has cheated. How do you set a baseline? Just believe her?

The written timeline and polygraph to confirm

1) the timeline of the affair is accurate without intentional omission

2) there are not other instances of cheating

Is a proven method on this forum and others. Feel free to search up "polygraph parking lot confession" here or on any other infidelity forum or website.

Ignore the advice at your own peril.

Almost every BS deals with trickle truth. Almost every WS only admits the things they can't deny due to overwhelming evidence. Sometimes even then, they will try to gaslight and deny.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 12:24 AM, Thursday, March 26th]

Limerickence, I really don’t think a wife having other lovers is comparable a friend having other friends. Going back through your posts, I don’t think you think that either. I’m happy to kick this around with you if you think it will help you, but (to me at least) the critical point is that her cheating is about her flaws not yours - it’s not your fault she did this. And, yes, her behavior is indicative that "something’s the matter" with her - I chose those vague words intentionally. That "something", she thinks, is a combination of perimenopause and feeling that her time is running out. I’m dubious that that is the end of the story, because she’s cheated in the past and, let’s face it, almost nobody else confronts those issues in the manner she did.

I’m concerned about it for you because you’re obviously a smart and thoughtful guy, but you’re putting your mental energy in finding ways to minimize all of this. Your disregulated emotions are telling you otherwise, it seems to me.

Sorry to be this way, but I have to chide you on one other thing. I think it’s wrong to not tell the OBS’s. I believe strongly that spouses have the right to know about their partners’ cheating for many reasons. But just think about this. That night in the pub, watching sports, when you were feeling jealous? How do you think OW’s husband will feel if he finds out that he was the only one there who didn’t know what was going on? Won’t he feel like the three of you made a fool out of him, at a minimum?

[This message edited by Letmebefrank at 3:45 AM, Thursday, March 26th]

So she stopped going to IC after one session because the therapist was too judgmental? 🚩So the IC didn’t buy her bullsh*t excuse of peri-menopause and turning 50? I was 49 when I found out about my XWS’ affair and I didn’t even have a revenge affair. Sorry - Perimenopause is giant pain, but all morals, commitments, and vows don’t suddenly become null and void, and you certainly still have full control over your actions. (Just might need a fan when a hot flash hits.). She cheated because she wanted to. Maybe she wanted to feel "desired" by others when turning 50, but that is again 100% in her control. What happens when she turns 55? 60? Gets her first senior discount or gray hair?

A truly remorseful WS would want to have an IC that holds their feet to the fire so they can understand why they hurt the person they love and betrayed that person and themselves. She wants a pat on the head, you to sweep it under the rug, and her to go back to cake eating. She gets to periodically be non-monogamous while you are at home waiting for her?

And please rethink these friends. Will you ever feel comfortable with her around them when she is drinking? What if you are out of town or in the other room? We talk about friends of the marriage. We all need our friends to be supportive of the marriage, and any who are not - who either are APs or lie to hide the affair or knew and didn’t tell— well are they really friends? Really? Think about putting a LOT of distance between you and them.

I am so sorry you are going through this, and I wish you all the best. But I think she is getting off scot-free and is not doing what needs to be done to be a safe partner. I hope I am wrong.

To answer your question, when I say "nothing happens in a vacuum," I mean that these incidents aren't isolated accidents caused by a calendar date or a drink; they are symptoms of a mindset. A "decade birthday" or "wayward hormones" are external circumstances, but the choice to cross a line is internal. If the internal boundary isn't there, she will always be at the mercy of the next "circumstance" that comes along.

Regarding the "drunken kisses," the danger isn't necessarily that she’ll fall in love and leave you; the danger is the erosion of respect in the marriage. If she knows she can tell you "pretty much straight away" and the result is just a conversation where you "take it from there," there is zero deterrent. You’ve essentially signaled that the price of an affair is just a bit of temporary discomfort for her. If you don't want another affair to happen, what are you going to do about?

I understand your preference for a case-by-case basis, but after three cases, a pattern has emerged. You’re banking on her honesty to alert you the next time she slips up, but being "proactive" means fixing the fence so the sheep stops getting out, rather than just waiting for her to tell you she’s left the gate open again. You deserve a partner who values the agreement as much as you do, not one who treats your monogamy as a "case-by-case" suggestion

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 9:29 AM, Thursday, March 26th]

Academic… corporate…
Potato, potato.
The key factors remain the same: An environment where she boozes – irrespective of age – and goes knowingly into situations where she makes out with the same man she made out with last time. An environment where drinking does not scale down with age and experience. Something that generally happens to us all – IF we don’t have an issue with booze.
Yes – University-environments tend to have their share of pubs. That’s because they are generally teeming with YOUNG people, many who are experiencing social independence for the first time. As a rule, the staff at universities (especially those that teach), take care not to intermingle too much with students in situations where they are so inebriated that they end up making out with colleagues.

I get the sense that you are viewing this all as minor issues. That you are OK with your wife fooling around, and that it’s semi-normal and expected. Yet it somehow bothers you.
What is it about the recent events that made you find this site and post? What is it that bothers you about the whole situation?

You’re allowed to feel furious, humiliated, confused, and utterly torn all at once. What happened was a serious betrayal, and calling it "perimenopause" or a birthday excuse doesn’t erase that. It’s normal to put on a brave face in public while privately being devastated, but I don’t think you should be minimizing your pain to keep the peace.

Right now you need clear steps, not platitudes and external justifications. Maybe spend a few days journaling everything you feel without censoring yourself. Ask for a single 60–90 minute, rules-based conversation within a week (no interruptions where each of you speaks 10–15 minutes uninterrupted, then reflect). What would normally be suggested is that you insist on immediate boundaries, like an end to all contact between your partner and the people involved, and increased transparency while you evaluate what’s happened.

You’re allowed to want normalcy and to value independence, but those values don’t erase the betrayal or the harm it causes you. Calling the encounters a one-off or insisting friendships remain unchanged avoids the core problems: violated boundaries, loss of trust, and the emotional wound you’re carrying. Minimizing now makes repeated violations far more likely.

You’ve named a couple of things like hysterical bonding and limerence, which shows awareness, but awareness alone doesn’t heal the nervous system or rebuild trust. If you go straight back to "normal" without accountability and concrete repair, you’ll likely feel worse over time with increasing hypervigilance, shame suppression, intermittent rage, and continuing attachment cycles that drain you.

[This message edited by Pogre at 12:56 PM, Thursday, March 26th]

Thanks again to everyone who has taken the time to respond. You're giving me a very different perspective to ChatGPT, which basically mirrors back to me what I already think and, I am starting to understand, has a much more liberal perspective on this than people who have actually experienced it.

@torso1500:

The things I can control are not independent of the way WW thinks about this, unless I'm prepared to stake the marriage on it, which feels like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

@This0is0Fine:

"How do you set a baseline. Just believe her?" Yes, why not? I saw her with OW but she told me about OM. I don't suppose he would have told me; he's even more of a compartmentaliser than she is.

"Almost every WS only admits the things they can't deny due to overwhelming evidence." But as well as OM, she volunteered everything about OM2, which I would probably never have found about otherwise.

@Letmebefrank:

Point taken that something is the matter with her, but if she's right, then that something is transient.

Sometimes I wonder whether me taking news of OM2 in my stride gave her, in her mind, some sort of licence to do what she did at the party. She told me she didn't think I would be as affected as I was.

My disregulated emotions are manageable if it means I can be with her. There are so many good things about our marriage. She has been a wonderful mother to our children. I just want to return to a state of emotional normality and give her the chance to prove that this was a one-off.

On the matter of OBS's: I've heard about situations before in which the OBS knew but was okay with it as long as it remained private, so being told about it actually created more issues. OW's husband already metabolised this previous known ONS within the friend group; presumably he felt that staying with OW was more important to him than his pride. Maybe part of my response to WW even comes from this example.

@BearlyBreathing:

Yes, she cheated because she wanted to, but that doesn't mean perimenopause can't be a contributing factor that is genuinely transient, coupled with remorse and an understanding that this affected me more than she thought it would.

But you're right: I do think she was looking for someone to rubber-stamp her excuses. The question is whether she could ever make those same excuses to herself again. I don't think she could. Which is why I don't feel the need to put distance between us and OW/OM. I know how crazy this sounds, but OM is ride-or-die in almost every other way. He just has really different morals in this area. OW too. She's a siren. God knows I've found it hard to turn her down. And now she can be the litmus test for my trust in WW.

@DRSOOLERS:

As I mentioned to Letmebefrank, I wonder whether I took too much of this in my stride before. But she can hardly plead ignorance of my feelings about it now.

When I talk about crossing the bridge when we come to it, I'm not giving her permission to do it again. I'm saying that I'm prepared to trust her narrative about it being a one-off until proven otherwise. I suppose I could draw a red line now, but what if I decided, at the time, that I would rather keep her than enforce it? Outside of these shenanigans, this marriage has been everything I ever wanted. She's not perfect. I'm not perfect.

As I read the above back to myself, I can see how it looks: I'm expecting her to stray again and preparing myself for it. And maybe that's true. Maybe I'm putting her on a pedestal so that if it happens again I can say to myself, it's a trade-off. I don't know. Maybe. If that's true, I don't know what to do about it.

@Bigger:

Last week's flare-up is why I'm here now. I was knocked reeling by an argument arising from a simple mismatch in expectations about dinner for two. It got me to thinking that maybe we needed counselling. I just wondered if I might find someone here who said: yes my WW is a compartmentaliser and I'm an over-thinker, yes my hysterical bonding spilled over into limerence, and here's how I dealt with it.

@Pogre:

I don't know if she would really speak in her 15 minute slots if it were just the two of us. I kinda want an arbiter so that she can't just pretend it's me overthinking it. I want her to meet me in the middle. Or I want to find a way to be comfortable taking it all on myself. I just f***ing love her so much.

[This message edited by limerickence at 2:33 PM, Thursday, March 26th]

I agree with Bearlybreathing's post above and think it nails the observations of what's happening very well...if this was a standard case of infidelity. However, you are not the typical person who comes here. You are basically ok with her infidelity. We might call it rugsweeping but we have to admit that some people just are not that bothered by infidelity. You're you, you get to decide. But it is leaving us scratching our heads because people come here because of the pain of infidelity which you just don't seem to be experiencing. Or it's possible you are experiencing it and rationalizing it mightily. But either way, you are not presenting with it to us.

Your pain is that your wife won't consistently give you the emotional intimacy and affection you need right now. Yes, that new level of need may have been triggered by her infidelity. Or not. I think you need to lay this out to her in a very clear way and tell her what you've told us.

1) I need more intimacy and affection right now than I am getting.
2) I am not sure if this is because your 50th bday activities or not. I have forgiven you for that either way. I do need to say I felt jealous during our recent night out with the OW so some of my needs right now are probably being driven by all of this.
3) our relationship has been more independent over the years but I need to ask you for additional affection right now. That means things like more of this and less of that (be specific for her to understand). Can we talk about how to make that work? It would really help me.
4) If we can't navigate the shift, whether my needs are temporary or long term I am not sure, perhaps we can consider marriage counseling to help us both get our needs met?

Have you had this conversation where you are specific and transparent? If you have tried and she rejects the conversation itself, that is a sign you either need to start the conversation more effectively or you need help navigating it. I can write more about starting it more effectively to gain her attention and focus if you would like help there.