SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m surprised at the number of reported "just kissing" affairs above. My wife claims the same, but I didn’t believe her at all. I don’t think that adults stop at kissing when they are excited and attracted. I think when caught, the cheating spouse may confess to kissing and hide the rest? I could be wrong here, I guess.

My wife's story was that she "Just kissed" her AP while drunk when I first found suggestive text messages 15+ years ago. It never felt right to me, I couldn't believe it either, and while we reconciled from the "kiss" I would ask her almost every year, "do you swear you really only kissed that guy?" Just after our 8th wedding anniversary and about 12 years from the actual incident, she confessed it was a lie and that they had sex numerous times (and that she had a few more wayward/EA type moments in the residual years as well without another full blown PA).

My take is this - I would assume the worst and just work from there. I believe that it is most likely, in most cases, they did not "just kiss". Being in this situation is such a mindfuck and so unfair, there are so many questions we will never be able to answer because of the passage of time, and IMO the WS does not deserve the benefits of any doubts, unless they have really gone above and beyond to try to prove it (i.e. polygraph, allowing you to read old diary entries or emails, etc).

Canbeme123, that is helpful, I agree! I thought about trying to push the polygraph but, unsurprisingly, she fears a false result. Asking every year and having that work is surprising. i wonder what changed to make your wife comfortable in confessing the truth? I’d love to do the same. I found the AP’s email adress, but I assume that he would lie if I emailed him.. I have the contact of her trip room mate for the night that she was "caught" but it was years ago and what could this chick actually say, she wouldn’t have seen sex. Could tell me durations of absence I guess. I’m quite game to ask her again with whatever framing you suggest. Something was different on your year 8

That's the rub, for those of us in this position there is often no real evidence to be found and the truth is only available at the mercy of your WS, who is obviously an extremely unreliable narrator.

It's infuriating and it can really drive you crazy, I was seriously manic in the early days after her confession in trying to find something, ANYTHING, to help me piece together the truth. Searching for old emails (nope account from back then is wiped clean by Hotmail) and reading her diary from that time period (some insight was found, but pages were torn out and she claims no memory of what they said) and speaking to old mutual friends from the time. Nothing really helped.

It's amazing how your own perception of reality can be so drastically altered by someone else's horrible secrets. The word I come back to time and time and time again is "unfair". It's just So. Fucking. Unfair.

I don’t know if others saw a post on Wayward Side about a WH disclosing to his BS 20 years later. It is planned for August. I find this absolutely heartbreaking. I can’t even contemplate the pain that woman would feel. He thinks she knows. My husband thought I knew too, but you don’t know. You don’t know until you know. I was shocked by the massive difference between the pain of "suspicions" (which I did have some) and actually knowing. The first was incredibly hard but really knowing is thousands of times more horrible. Part of me wonders if he should tell her. Does anyone else here ever wonder if it would be better not to tell? I even wonder why on earth my husband told me. He says I had been saying forever that it would be so much better to know and that it would be far better to know. Maybe I was saying dumb stuff life that during the 8 years before he disclosed. I don’t really remember saying that. It is possible I was trying to manipulate him into disclosing something. I think that I believed I could get him to reveal that there had been some 30 second kiss. I truly had no idea how awful the truth would be. I think about how different my life might have been if I had never known the truth. I feel like I have lost so so so so much. The thought it could have been different? I don’t know…it’s heartbreaking to me. Maybe I shouldn’t have known. I miss the person I used to be. I’m not sure what good has come from me knowing. Does anyone else ever wonder this?

Stillconfused,

I suggested in a thread a few months ago that someone should "take it to the grave."

It was not well received.

He thinks she knows. My husband thought I knew too, but you don’t know. You don’t know until you know. I was shocked by the massive difference between the pain of "suspicions" (which I did have some) and actually knowing. The first was incredibly hard but really knowing is thousands of times more horrible. Part of me wonders if he should tell her. Does anyone else here ever wonder if it would be better not to tell?

Finding out years later is it’s own "sub- level of Hell" in the infidelity world. I have steadfastly been in the "BS deserves to know" camp. I still feel that way if an affair is active or very recent. People knew I was being cheated on 40 years ago and didn’t tell me. I had all kinds of suspicions and my wife lied. Had I known THEN for sure, we wouldn’t be here now.

In my case, after I retired I had a lot of time on my hands and "got in my head" about my marriage and life. I was convinced I had been cheated on multiple times. My wife had a "tell" where she would get cold and tell me she didn’t think she loved me anymore. I figured each one of those episodes was an affair. I was correct. I asked my wife how many times she cheated. She was going to take it to the grave. I pressed her. I wanted the truth of my life. I wanted to be totally open with one another and build a relationship where we were truly "one" in our last years together.

Do I regret it? It’s complicated. I was soooo relieved to find out I wasn’t crazy and that every time I thought she was cheating (and therefore sabotaging our marriage), she was. But the scope was MUCH worse than I had anticipated (more APs, longer duration, disgusting details) that I had a "be careful what you ask for, you may hate the truth" reaction.

Our reconciliation was doomed by her shame spirals and unwillingness to do the required work. Although she hasn’t cheated in 20 years, she has many character flaws that allowed her to cheat. A "dry drunk" if you will.

Our shitty attempt at R was interrupted by a brain cancer diagnosis for her and 18 months of treatment. We never truly R’d and I’m just "dribbling out the clock". Would it be "better" if I didn’t know the truth? Maybe, maybe not. But the problem isn’t me asking the question. It’s the answer. It’s the lies and avoidance. It’s stealing my life. It would have been stolen whether I knew the full truth or not. Now I just know COMPLETELY what a shitty life partner I chose….

[This message edited by ImaChump at 9:44 PM, Friday, July 18th]

Former PP: I can imagine. That is definitely the theme here. Maybe it’s right. Yesterday I thought I believed what I wrote. Now, 24 hours later I’m back to thinking it was better I knew. I can’t believe how these feelings can flip flop.

ImaChump: I had not forgotten your story. How could I. What a horror that revelation sounded like. But you are so right. The horror was the fact that these things happened. Not you getting the truth. Also, anyone who has received that crazy out of nowhere cold treatment during an affair knows it is like the most obvious thing in the world. Of course you knew, or your body knew. But you didn’t know know until you did. I had that same feeling of appreciation for knowing I wasn’t crazy the whole time. And I did act crazy and got this AP lady pushed out of her job with severance. She violated her separation agreement and returned to his company and I got her kicked out again (LOL!!!). I thought I must be pretty mean for doing all that based on suspicions. Once I found out out what she really did and how maliciously she enjoyed hurting me I had no more guilt about my actions.

The trauma of the last 10 years of hiding/deceiving for my husband and then sticking around while I forced my WH to talk about it 24/7 over the past 3 years have really worn him to half the man he was. I’m afraid I see some dementia coming on. I can’t fathom what you have been truth. But, I have always valued that you shared your story with everyone because I think it really opens peoples eyes to the lies. Who could really believe that could happen, but obviously it did.

Also, anyone who has received that crazy out of nowhere cold treatment during an affair knows it is like the most obvious thing in the world. Of course you knew, or your body knew. But you didn’t know know until you did. I had that same feeling of appreciation for knowing I wasn’t crazy the whole time.

This sums it up very nicely. My subconscious knew. My body knew. In hindsight, I know I was too smart to have believed her lies. Most of the cheating pre-dated cellphones and the technology that’s around today that both enables cheating but makes it easier to catch if you are somewhat tech savvy. I beat myself up for swallowing her lies and "being stupid". But I wasn’t stupid. I trusted a person who didn’t deserve it. I also wanted to "preserve my mirage" for my young kid’s sake.

The trauma of the last 10 years of hiding/deceiving for my husband and then sticking around while I forced my WH to talk about it 24/7 over the past 3 years have really worn him to half the man he was. I’m afraid I see some dementia coming on.

Although I am only 3 years past D-Day, it took a toll on my wife as well. She was having trouble remembering things about the affairs that I couldn’t fathom. Mainly because she used "I don’t remember" to lie. Well, the brain tumor has made that a self fulfilling prophecy. Not dementia but the same effects in some ways. So at this point there is no point talking about the affairs anyway.

I’m sorry this has worn your husband down. I’m sorry my wife is slowly wasting away. But on the other hand, had they come clean years ago when this was going on we would either have moved on and be past all this together or had moved on past our cheating spouses. Either way, their cheating behavior and chickenshit refusal to come clean led us to this place.

If my WH could have grown up and made the changes to be a better person on his own I could have been happy never knowing, but he had to confess before he could do that. I finally have the relationship with him that I have always searched for. I never suspected cheating but always felt emotionally disconnected. It's a daily struggle for me, but in the big picture I'm "glad"?

Yes the current state of muddied up information was created by them, their choices, their avoidance, their lack of mental acuity (whether volitional or not). I do finally care much less about the details. I am glad for the limited dialogue I was able to get because it revealed more about the nature of their interactions than anything he would have intentionally told me. I am not yet clear on what this stage of recovery is going to look like. He is more engaged, watching videos etc. I’m just kinda sitting back like why would I engage with you on this now. You’ve had nearly a decade. I’m not sure how much I care at this point. Of course I do care but in the past I was desperate for repair work and more truth about the past et cetera. Now I am just in a « show me » kind of mentality. I am also becoming skeptical over whether recovery is truly possible (at least not without a huge number of caveats)

Damn triggers...it's been nearly 10 years since I found out of the very long term affair. I still find myself occasionally surfing her messages and emails. Damn triggers.

Lost Limbo: sorry for the triggers. It is very hard.

I was sort of laughing as we were walking around after checking in to our hotel for our vacation. I get riled up about the fact we have different last names. I don’t want the check in lady thinking we are cheaters. At first it seemed kind of funny…and then quickly shifted to sad…and then kinda depressed and hurt. I give my WS credit for rolling with it. I am also at 10 years (sort of ten because I knew a teensy amount ten years ago and then the full on data dump came 3 years ago and changed everything). Either way it is difficult. We discussed how some of the things are just so shitty that he should never say « it’s been 10 years… » which he is tempted to say sometimes. I understand. For HIM it has been ten years, but not for me. For me its been 3 years. Regardless triggers are triggers. Maybe they’ll last forever.

The way that Coldplay guy hugged his Human Resources exec is exactly what my husband described doing to his AP. He says he did it to get her to turn and make out. But lets face it. It is a « lovey » gesture. Were you girlfriend boyfriend? This is one of my lest favorite memories and it is played over and over on the internet.

A little over 2 years ago now I was going through my husbands old phone as he was away on a work trip and I was looking back at some purchases we had bought in the history and came across websites I didn’t recognize and searches that made my heart sink into my stomach. And what started as a surprise idea for when he returned took me down into the deepest rabbit hole for hours. Found logins to escort sites, years of messages and requests. One of them that hurt me almost the most was 8 months before on my birthday he didn’t have time with work to plan anything so my friend planned something for me instead which is fine I didn’t need anything meanwhile I found messages spanning over 2 months to plan a one day ‘date’ together during the same month.
I FaceTimed him that evening when he was done work for the day (we rarely ever FaceTime) and confronted him about what I had found. He tried to explain it all and since it was something he was embarrassed and ashamed he didn’t want to ask me for certain things he’d rather ask a stranger cause they wouldn’t judge. He ended his trip early and got on the next flight out the next day as he felt really bad and wanted to be with me. We talked a lot and he said I could ask anything and he’d tell me the truth but that didn’t last very long. I only know about the ones that I read about so there could be so many more, maybe I’ll never know.

I’ve been telling him for over a year now that we still need to work on building the trust and I’ve asked him so many more questions and he won’t answer. I tell him I’m hurting and that I feel like I’m the only one trying to help fix us and nothing. He’s got a great heart and I know he struggles with his own demons but I just wish he would put as much energy into us as he does into work. I sometimes get frustrated that he’s the one that broke the trust and I’m the only one trying to fight for us. Somedays I want to walk away but always end up staying as I know what we could have and I don’t want to give up on that.

Dolphingirl - I felt for years that I was the one working on keeping my marriage together. It's a lonely feeling.

Finding out about infidelity years later creates such a disconnect. My WH feels relief at having come clean. And while I feel some relief at finally having confirmation, the pain and grief is so raw and fresh for me. For him, these are things that are 20 and 10 years in the past. From my perspective, they might as well have just happened. It adds a layer of difficulty to the discussions.

Yes isn’t that the truth. It’s very lonely, especially when you don’t want to share with any friends or family to avoid embarrassing him but makes it very difficult sitting in your own thoughts.
And yes it truly feels like yesterday and because I saw so many messages and know the dates they happened I find myself struggling even more on those days even now. We are doing counseling but I’m not sure if it’ll help as he doesn’t seem to want to discuss or gets upset when I bring it up so I don’t.

I've been reading through this thread, which is so long, unfortunately because that means a lot of issues - a lot of things have been covered up through many years and just wanted to post a couple of thoughts I had about cheating from long ago.

In general, I think when someone finds out their spouse is a serial cheater or has been in one long term affair, possibly for years, or has been cheating on and off since the wedding or before (surprisingly common) - I think the best solution is almost always divorce. Even with kids. If you stay together....it's gonna come up again, whether because of further instances in the future, or because as people get older, as I am now, you have the time and inclination to assess your life and perhaps the biggest area is your marriage and other partnerships. If you knew about shit being done years ago....it WILL come up again in your thoughts as you evaluate your life. Not just about cheating but about all kinds of things. We can't change the past now, but reviewing and analyzing it is something many if not most people do when we get old. I'm doing it now about various things. I'm kicking myself now over a lot of choices. My main advice about serial cheating (because a short term one off or ONS might be recoverable, R might be possible) is to get a divorce at the time, as painful as it is. Even with kids. It's better to take the pain at that point when you're younger and have time to repair your life, make other future choices and maybe a better 2nd marriage than to try to rehab a marriage that later on, reviewing it is going to give you a lot of grief. Divorce usually IS the best option. I know that doesn't help people who didn't, but for young and middle aged folks going through it now, you really should just get a divorce. The pain of regret in your old years is one of the worst things in the world, IMO, and there's nothing you can do about it, you can't change that past, you have little future now, you're running out of runway, and often you're stuck with a mate with health issues, etc, that you probably now think you should have divorced. Don't get trapped. Make the most of your youth and health AND DON'T SETTLE if you can avoid it.

SHOULD A WS TELL YEARS AFTER THE FACT?
For me, I guess it would depend on how the marriage was going at present time. If the marriage is going well and has been for a long time and the BS doesn't seem to have any issues or questions, I would take it to the grave. I agree with FormerPeoplePerson. If things are going well, the BS doesn't seem to know or suspect or it isn't causing issues, why wreck both of your old ages with this. Yes, it's lying but...what good will telling the truth do? It's only going to wreck what's left of both your lives. I don't think anything positive comes from that. If however, a BS knows or suspects or it has been opened up before and WS knows this is still an underlying issue - yes, you might as well go back and clean it up if you can. Tell them what they want to know. Don't have any expectations that anything positive will come from this though - revelation doesn't equal happy endings. It just gives the BS confirmation and validation of things they thought or suspected or knew anyway, which might be extremely important to them. But if they don't know anything and all is quiet and going well - I'd take it to the grave. Which leads me to my next thought:

WHAT THE WS IS LEFT WITH AFTER REVELATIONS
I think Cheaters probably reveal things after a long time to unburden their conscience, especially as they get older, you're alone together, kids are gone....and old age, bad health, death and judgement become impending. So people unburden themselves. If the BS already knows or suspects, it might help, but I'm reminded of what the Doctor tells Scarlet O'Hara when Melanie is dying "now don't go telling her anything that's not going to make any difference now - Miss Mellie's gonna die in peace." I understand and respect that, but I think people want to ease up their own conscience.

A lot of older BS will look back at their marriage and family life mournfully because they wonder if they ever had a real marriage, if they ever knew every thing, if their spouse ever loved them, they no longer love their spouse, etc, etc, but I think the chronic WS also faces a lot of issues in old age - if they have any sense of decency or self respect or love or affection for their spouse, I do think many experience regret if not remorse because they can't sugar coat what a shitty person they've been and how badly they've treated their spouse. They may not say this openly to the BS, but I think it's often there, not even that openly expressed but the hidden sense of.... I have been and am a shitty person. I've done bad things and hurt others, especially my spouse, repeatedly. I have cheated with different people, I broke my vows, I deeply hurt my spouse, my kids may not respect me. I don't respect myself because there's not much to respect. When you're lived your life in a shitty, deceitful, promiscuous kind of way, at the end of life, that's what you are and that's what you're left with. It's not a good feeling I'm sure. Any of us who's ever hurt anyone earlier in life and they died, whatever the hurt was, or knowing you don't have that much time left....that kind of regret is incredibly painful because you can't make amends. Even telling the truth does not make amends. You can try to redeem yourself through Jesus or some such but it's not going to change what you did to your spouse and the relationship you end up with. That's the legacy they leave to THEMSELVES. The WS is not necessarily getting away with ANYTHING - they might actually have a larger burden to bear of guilt and regret. They may think their spouse does not love them....and that's often true by that point. Think of Jacob Marley in the Scrooge story - he expresses something like this to Scrooge - it's his motivation to help Scrooge become a better person while there's still time.

So....deal with it permanently when you're younger, if you can. Don't live with the grief because it only gets worse when you're old. Live your life in the way you want to be remembered for, and look back on with pride.
Sorry for the length of my posts, I know I can be tedious.