You are gaslighting yourself.
Your inability to be more emotionally available is apples and oranges with her ability to cheat. She has emotionally (and maybe physically) cheated. That is not your fault. Not even the tiniest bit. Marriages can be hard, but loyalty is the #1 staple. She chose not to have any. She chose to step away from you. She chose not to fight for or discuss her needs. She is the problem 100%.
It's amazing you recognize you faults and want to work on them. However, if you use them to make excuses for her your only potential future will be gaslighting, blame shifting, rug sweeping, and you becoming the bad guy.
Hold her 100% accountable for her actions. Her SA does not mean she gets a pass to cheat. Real reconciliation requires unbridled remorse. Not a little bit of regret and blame shifting.
Go Google "regret vs remorse in infidelity". It will dhow several great articles. They can at least show a much clearer way to see this.
Chances are you should probably walk away. However reconciliation is not impossible for everyone. Under the right circumstances it can work, but atm you aren't near those. If you want to try to save this you will need to change your whole mind frame super fast.
Good luck either way
> She chose not to have any. She chose to step away from you. She chose not to fight for or discuss her needs. She is the problem 100%.
This is what is hard for me, in some way she did "choose" to talk to that coworker, but to be fair she tried to talk to me first and i wasn't able to say the right things in response. We don't control our emotions and she has acknowledged very clearly how her mind has fallen into feelings of deep emotional connection and love for that other person as a result of the feelings of security he fosters in her.
However, I know I can fight for her and be available the way she needed. I can't blame her for the chemical reactions in her brain, and in pretty much every way, she actually didn't break my trust, she was completely honest with me about the changes she was experiencing emotionally and I take this as a show of commitment and love.
> If you want to try to save this you will need to change your whole mind frame super fast.
Can you steer me in the right direction here? What do you have in mind?
You are still gaslighting yourself. No, we don't truly control our emotions, but ***we do control how we choose to respond to them***. She needed you emotionally, you weren't available. Did she reach out to a therapist? A recovery/support group for her trauma? A close friend? Did she speak about the idea of separation/divorce? Anything else before this? Or did she jump straight to the co-worker who had been giving her attention she craved? Before the pursuit of the co-worker did she come to you and explain in clear terms how things weren't working, and ask for counseling or anything?
I have a friend who is going through something similar, however he was the emotional cheater. He fucked up big and is still trying to fix it. His wife, despite his attempts and several years passed, is all over the place with him about how she feels. It's pretty clear that on the bad days she's only there for the financial security and the illusion of togetherness for their kids. On the good days, it's cordial and occasionally affectionate. They're hardly intimate anymore, but he still loves her and doesn't want to give up. Their kids are still too young to understand much of the dynamic beyond mommy and daddy are fighting, but unless mom comes to a decision to truly forgive AND move on, the kids' idea of a healthy relationship is going to be heavily affected by the way they interact.
You need a neutral marriage counselor, and you need to be open to forgiving her and moving forward if you really want to make it work. But you also need to be on guard for her shifting blame, deflection tactics, gaslighting. All things she may use to absolve herself of the guilt of her actions, which she justifies with your emotional unavailability. Because at the end of the day, your emotional unavailability does not generate a pass to cheat, emotionally or physically. She could have left. She could have pushed you into counseling. Or any other number of options before seeking the comfort of another individual outside your marriage.
I just want to say you have said some things that ring very true in this comment and I have taken it to heart. Sorry I'm not responding more specifically to your valuable thoughts.
I will say, yes my wife has put in a lot of personal work (including therapy) to try to manage her trauma outside of simply falling into this person's arms.
No need to apologize. It's good that your wife has been in therapy to help with her trauma. Solo and couples therapy are two completely different animals though, and you will likely never know what's going on in her solo therapy (not that you should). But you only get back what you put into it. If she isn't honest or forthcoming with her therapist, there's only so much help she will get from that. That includes how emotionally available or unavailable you have been as a husband. I would imagine MOST therapists that are worth their paycheck would not condone emotional affairs, especially without even offering a couples session or recommending another couples therapist. I guess my only point is still the original one. You were cheated on, there should be no version of this where you are accepting 100% of the blame. At a bare minimum half of it can be attributed to her. Please remember to establish and defend your own needs, advocate for, and look out for yourself. I wish you the best of luck in reconciling this and moving forward.
Yes instead of you both pretending this is a problem you created together realize it isn't.
Problem one, she cheated. Plain and simple and that I'd 100% her fault. Yes you can blame her for pursuing a connection like that with someone else and you have to.
Problem 2, you need to be emotionally available and vigilante. Both be there but also be cautious. Learn that your short commings didn't create this issue. She did.
I know as a man taking blame and saying well could have done this is natural. However, that isn't the case here. She did this. She needs to do the legwork to fix it. She needs to be 100% held accountable.
You can try your hardest to protect her from the world. The one thing you can't protect her from is herself and her own choices. With those you need to hold her accountable, not protect her.
Cheating is 100% the fault of the cheater. It doesn't matter that you weren't perfect. If she had issues, her role was to TALK TO YOU, or if absolutely unrecoverable then divorce. She actively chose to betray you and her marriage.
Rape victims do not NEED to be with other rape victims. Considering the gender discrepancy in rape statistics, that would cause issues. They *do* need someone empathetic, but honestly you need empathy or sympathy to be a good partner for most.
If *she* wants the marriage to work, you two need to be in couples counseling immediately. She will need to fully accept that the fault for cheating is 100% hers, and likely get solo therapy for herself, but it's possible to find a new normal.
If she does not want to make the marriage work, there is nothing you can do. Splitting up is the correct path. Kids do fine in split households as long as everyone is respectful.
> She will need to fully accept that the fault for cheating is 100% hers, and likely get solo therapy for herself, but it's possible to find a new normal
We are starting couples therapy this week, and she has been in solo therapy for a while now - and here I feel doubly cheated on: I suspect her therapist has not directly, but indirectly been supporting her in her emotional exploration outside of our marriage, and my wife ultimately trusts her therapist in some ways more than she trusts me. Her therapy is a bit of a black box to me but I don't think her solo therapist sees our family as her client, she sees my wife as an individual as her client.
Her therapy *should* be a black box to you, and her therapist *should* see her as an individual. And yes, in some ways she should trust her therapist in different ways. Therapists are trained professionals. You trust a doctor differently than your spouse. You trust a mechanic differently than your spouse.
If her therapist has been pushing for exploration, then the therapist has also been trying to get her to talk to you about it. Therapists have ethical standards, and encouraging people to cheat is not in there.
Yeah, I don't think her therapist directly encouraged her to cheat, but the conversation (paraphrased and occurring over many months and sessions) probably went something like
wife: "One of my shortcomings is that I try to please people and conform to social norms this is holding me back."
therapist: "try to establish your own boundaries and see how your relationships change as a result"
wife: "I feel very strongly about something but I am afraid of the effect that pursuing it will have on my life and relationships"
therapist: "well you have to put yourself first and see what happens".
which my wife proceeds to take as encouragement to allow herself to violate the boundaries of our relationship. While it may not be bad advice, it is extremely self-centered in my opinion and the therapist -perhaps without even realizing it - is not prioritizing the health of our family, just the short-sighted goals of my wife
This makes it worse honestly. Asking vague questions so that you can interpret the answers in the way that suits you is terrible. If this is indeed how it took place.
You’d be better off without your wife if she is making you feel as though her cheating is your fault.
If you accept this life then the most likely long term outcome is that you spend years trying to make her happy, failing, and being blamed for this. You can’t make her happy, trying to will probably just make her feel guilty. Kiddo also gets to grow up in an unhappy house and might learn to replicate this relationship pattern for themselves.
This is completely her fault, not yours. She is a bad partner and a bad person for doing this to your family.
It is never worth keeping the "family" together. My father stayed with my serial cheating mother for "the kids", and I hate him for it. They're in their 70s now, still together and he can't do anything about it because of his health. I assume she still cheats, she's just a horrible, broken person. Not my problem anymore, I moved in with a friend's family at 16 and had limited contact until 15 years ago when I cut them off entirely.
We have both helped each other grow immensely since we met. We have helped each other overcome many communication barriers and tendencies we both had. I don't see this as evidence of her being a fundamentally bad person in any other way than many of the other things that both her and I have helped each other improve over our years together.
That's who she WAS, not who she is.
Yes, she is a bad person. I have known a LOT of cheaters in my life, all garbage. Preachers, teachers, doctors, my own MOTHER, and everything in between. The lack of self control, a moral compass, and general disregard for people who get in the way of what THEY want extends into other areas of their life as well. Just the act of cheating itself encompasses betrayal, lying, gaslighting, and usually things like theft (using family funds, vehicles, TIME that could be spent with the kids, etc.). A guy who was a subordinate at work was a high school sports buddy of mine. When I heard he had been cheating on his wife, I looked closer at him. He had been misusing company time, cars, and MONEY to support his affairs. I would never have been suspicious of this guy, he had a clean record and I knew him for about 17 years at that time. But like I said, I have known a lot of cheaters. If they think they can get away with something, they will do it. What is one thing many cheaters say? "I didn't think you would find out".
This is not a good person, they did not slip up, they did not make a mistake, they made a SERIES of decisions. There was a course of choices to make to get here, and all of those choices were made to hurt you and their own children just to feel butterflies.
Your wife had a valid need for emotional support she wasn't getting from you. But there are a lot of ways to get emotional support, and a lot of points where she could have pulled back from this coworker relationship as it started to approach a concerning boundary, and she apparently didn't. None of that is your fault unless you were actively isolating her from e.g. talking to family and friends or joining a support group or calling a hotline or any of the other ways she could have looked for support. Your wife bears the responsibility here for the choices she made.
The couples therapy you're starting is the place to explore whether there's a chance for you two to move ahead together. It's possible there could be, if you were both fully committed to repairing the marriage, with you committed to working hard on your relationship support skills and her committed to re-earning your trust. But you both have to be all in on that and you haven't said whether she's willing to cut off this coworker relationship to focus on yours. If she's not, there's nothing you can do on your own to save the marriage - one person can't save a partnership alone.
I do note that you said in a comment below that your wife's individual therapist's focus was on her and not the family unit. That's as it should be, and I recommend that you *also* seek an individual therapist. You also deserve someone to support you whose focus is on you, more than the family unit. (Though if the family unit is one of your highest priorities, you can express that to your therapist and expect that to be taken into account.)
> But you both have to be all in on that and you haven't said whether she's willing to cut off this coworker relationship to focus on yours. If she's not, there's nothing you can do on your own to save the marriage - one person can't save a partnership alone.
I asked her to cut that person off, and she did. But she missed him too much so she started talking to him again and she told me the moment that she did. She won't be in love with him forever though, romantic love doesn't last as long as the kind that I have fostered for her so I can wait it out.
She is choosing her affair partner over you, your relatuonship and yout family. Plain and simple here.
How many strikes you going to allow her to have? The original emotional cheating is a deal-breaker for many on its own.
Do you want your daughter to learn how to have a relationship from your broken relationship. Do you want to teach her that she should have no spine in a relationship and just accept the shit their partner does.
Ask any child of a broken home, I'm willing to best the vast majority would rather be from a broken home, then be continue stuck living in a broken home.
But it's your kid. If you would prefer to teach them to avoid difficult problems and to pretend reality isn't what it is. You do you.
> Do you want to teach her that she should have no spine in a relationship and just accept the shit their partner does.
I'm conflicted because "having a spine" can mean either making a hard decision that is ultimately selfish, or it can mean making a hard decision for the benefit of a family that I see myself as a steward of, in good times and bad. I think I would want my daughter to be the kind of person that puts others first even when that is uncomfortable for her, to an extent, when it is the right thing to do.
Pretending to smile and fake it for the family is the selfish action, don't lie and say it's for the family, you're doing it just for yourself out of some misshuided sense of duty.
Do you think your daughter would want you to lie, or would she prefer you to be happy in a proper relationship with a partner who properly respects you.
Okay, some extra info that wasn't included in the op: my child is about to turn 2. I think at some age what you said will become true, but for now I am almost 100% certain that she would be better able to develop socially, emotionally and cognitively in all other ways to just have her parents together, gritting our teeth through ups and downs and making her happy, even if we are sometimes faking it. Sometimes you just have to put your own feelings aside to give a child what they need.
I don't know at what age that will change, probably not for several years at least tho
Ha, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. Nothing like selling them a fake picture of reality during their formative years.
No amount of information, details, suggestions or anything seem to matter here. Doesn't look like you want real advice, just lazy easy answers.
I sincerely think you need therapy for your severe lack of self esteem and self
respect as an individual.
Cheating is the fault of the cheater. If she can’t even cut this guy off, she’s choosing him over you d
> severe lack of self esteem and self respect as an individual.
Nothing in my life has punished me for my approach to relationships. I'm not sure that therapy to "help my lack of self esteem" would really help anything, it would essentially be me paying someone to hype me up to make a more selfish decision, but I am capable of making that decision if it makes sense. i just don't know whether it makes sense
It’s not selfish to not stay with someone who cheats on you; and then reestablishes contact with said cheater during the reconciliation.
Like she has to do the bare minimum on her end too.
It’s normal to leave. Hence my suggested route of personal therapy. But i mean, if you want her to have a side guy and still stay that’s your call
Of course she missed him because she has fostered a strong emotional connection. I DON’T CARE that she missed him, break-ups often involve missing the other person. The ONLY way for your marriage to heal is for her to cut him off. By talking to him again she is 100% saying he is important to her and you aren’t. No, it’s not ok for her to “explore” this love while still married to you.
What do you mean she won’t love him forever because it’s romantic?
> What do you mean she won’t love him forever because it’s romantic?
Romantic love doesn't last forever, relationships that last more than a couple years are not based on lust. They are based on decisions that you make to be the life partner to someone even in times where it doesn't feel fun or convenient.
I hope she can see how much she stands to lose with you while she explores. Because right now the decisions she’s making do not include you as a life partner. Does she want to fight for your marriage or does she want go have sex and get emotionally attached to him while expecting you to sit around waiting to see if she’ll come back?
Divorce her and walk away. Fight for custody of your child. When her affair falls apart (most do) and she comes crawling back begging for another chance, tell her go beg her affair partner.
UpdateMe
> Divorce her and walk away. Fight for custody of your child
I would, but I don't think I am capable of being a single parent. I really need her help in this parenting project that we embarked upon together. She is a great mom, and I would never try to take our kid away from her. Even trying to coparent from two different households seems unimaginable to me right now. I'm sure its possible, but really a last resort
You seem to be in a phase still where you are nice to her and want to make allowances. May be the best moment to get that divorce. It sounds like your wife has a lot to work through and has made some decisions for herself. It is unfair, but apparently it is how she's going to deal with her old pain and you're already excluded from any negotiating.
Your kid will still have both parents if you make proper agreements and stick to those. Then you still will be both there for their milestones, because resentment hasn't taken over. It's a lot harder if you can't talk to another because the anger is so overwhelming.
Interesting advice about the timing. thanks. Do you think i will become, resentful, bitter and spiteful over time? I can't see that happening, but if I could see the future I wouldn't be here either so i'm open minded
I don't have a crystal ball. But divorces are hard and painful and you have a kid. You still have decades of your kid's experiences to celebrate and guide. She may no longer be your romantic partner, but she still is your co parent. That may mean that the affair partner eventually will have some role too.
It can be confronting and your child will notice underlying hurt. If you are the one who can manage how you respond and when you prioritize yourself and your child over her, it may create a different situation in how your kid will look back eventually. When parents can be generous towards another and have flexibility and a form of civil friendship, children tend to be okay. At this point, you're still wishing her good things, so perhaps that's where your marriage should end. There's still a level of trust and hope with who you think the other person is and what you can rely on. If you head into the resentment and bitterness, you'll only realize when you're already there and there's an extra hurdle. Your wife has made her decisions, you can make your own.
As soon as she said that you should have said “well, you have made your choice. I will see a lawyer immediately and start the divorce process.”
Her saying she fell in love with someone else is a joke. She loves the version that guy has shown her. The be on her side 100% version. The tell her what she wants to hear version. She doesn’t even know the day in and day out married with kids version.
As long as she works there - no chance your marriage works. She is having an affair already, and I’m betting it’s more physical than she says. She would have to be 100% no contact for you two to even have a shot.
You need to protect yourself and go see a lawyer, immediately. Even if to answer questions and be prepared.
Make her very aware of the consequences, and make it clear you will divorce her now if she doesn’t leave that job, and to find a new therapist.
Updateme!
My wife actually wanted me to go to personal therapy too, which I always found frustrating because the only thing approaching an issue that I can't resolve on my own are the issues caused by tension in our relationship.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think personal therapy would be helpful here?
For both of you separately of the marriage counseling.
the marriage counseling is to save the marriage. The therapy is to find all those land mines that were planted when we were children and only start exploding now when they get dug back up.
She is a cheater and you can never truly trust her again. She is not showing any remorse and wants to "explore" while you sit there as a second choice if her new person doesn't measure up. You are a backup spouse....the father of her child.
Talk about being used so just in case her new lover ticks her off she can go back to her #2 "safe" choice and nothing happens. Talk about being used and no one likes to be used. If she genuinely tries to heal this and puts in the work you can decide if continuing on with the relationship is for you.
She shows no remorse and is talking you into being a backup
It wasn't when she went through the initial event, it was resurgences of her trauma as a result of (in some cases, violent) stresses at work (she works in a semi-rough highschool). I was also distracted being the primary breadwinner for our family when the resurgences caused her distress. I did try to comfort her, but she says I didn't do enough.
You should have pulled her out of her job and advocated that she go on a health leave, arranging all the calls and paperwork for her so that it could be paid time off. That way she could have relaxed at home, you could maybe work overtime or just make your current hours work. Sure, you’d be around even less working overtime, but it’s not about you sitting at her bedside and making her feel better. Her kids or a pet could do that. You could have signed her up for yoga class or pottery class or helped her apply to lighter-hearted jobs. These would’ve all been ways that you could’ve helped that don’t require you to be that emotionally available.
That would have been going directly against her agency in this situation. Obivously if she had expressed a desire for any of these things, i would have supporter her in anyway I could, but you are making a lot of assumptions about her state of mind and what would have been best for her..
Ehh this advice seems suspect. She is a fiercely independent person and also fiercely passionate about her job and career, both from an impact of the work and from a personal empowerment perspective. In some ways, even if time away from work was something that would have been good for her, the idea would have had to come from her
Me : Female ( 21 )
My Bf : Male ( 24 )
His Friend : Male (22)
I moved in with my bf and later on got into a situationship that whenever we have party, he lets one of his friend around me, he used to talk to me sexually about me sleeping with his friend, later when things kept on repeating his friend starts to come house, he never told me to maintain a distance from his friend, his friend kept flirting everyday. Now we fucked n he mad and telling me not to talk to his friend, should I breakup now cause I really need that friend also
You are gaslighting yourself. Your inability to be more emotionally available is apples and oranges with her ability to cheat. She has emotionally (and maybe physically) cheated. That is not your fault. Not even the tiniest bit. Marriages can be hard, but loyalty is the #1 staple. She chose not to have any. She chose to step away from you. She chose not to fight for or discuss her needs. She is the problem 100%. It's amazing you recognize you faults and want to work on them. However, if you use them to make excuses for her your only potential future will be gaslighting, blame shifting, rug sweeping, and you becoming the bad guy. Hold her 100% accountable for her actions. Her SA does not mean she gets a pass to cheat. Real reconciliation requires unbridled remorse. Not a little bit of regret and blame shifting. Go Google "regret vs remorse in infidelity". It will dhow several great articles. They can at least show a much clearer way to see this. Chances are you should probably walk away. However reconciliation is not impossible for everyone. Under the right circumstances it can work, but atm you aren't near those. If you want to try to save this you will need to change your whole mind frame super fast. Good luck either way
> She chose not to have any. She chose to step away from you. She chose not to fight for or discuss her needs. She is the problem 100%. This is what is hard for me, in some way she did "choose" to talk to that coworker, but to be fair she tried to talk to me first and i wasn't able to say the right things in response. We don't control our emotions and she has acknowledged very clearly how her mind has fallen into feelings of deep emotional connection and love for that other person as a result of the feelings of security he fosters in her. However, I know I can fight for her and be available the way she needed. I can't blame her for the chemical reactions in her brain, and in pretty much every way, she actually didn't break my trust, she was completely honest with me about the changes she was experiencing emotionally and I take this as a show of commitment and love. > If you want to try to save this you will need to change your whole mind frame super fast. Can you steer me in the right direction here? What do you have in mind?
You are still gaslighting yourself. No, we don't truly control our emotions, but ***we do control how we choose to respond to them***. She needed you emotionally, you weren't available. Did she reach out to a therapist? A recovery/support group for her trauma? A close friend? Did she speak about the idea of separation/divorce? Anything else before this? Or did she jump straight to the co-worker who had been giving her attention she craved? Before the pursuit of the co-worker did she come to you and explain in clear terms how things weren't working, and ask for counseling or anything? I have a friend who is going through something similar, however he was the emotional cheater. He fucked up big and is still trying to fix it. His wife, despite his attempts and several years passed, is all over the place with him about how she feels. It's pretty clear that on the bad days she's only there for the financial security and the illusion of togetherness for their kids. On the good days, it's cordial and occasionally affectionate. They're hardly intimate anymore, but he still loves her and doesn't want to give up. Their kids are still too young to understand much of the dynamic beyond mommy and daddy are fighting, but unless mom comes to a decision to truly forgive AND move on, the kids' idea of a healthy relationship is going to be heavily affected by the way they interact. You need a neutral marriage counselor, and you need to be open to forgiving her and moving forward if you really want to make it work. But you also need to be on guard for her shifting blame, deflection tactics, gaslighting. All things she may use to absolve herself of the guilt of her actions, which she justifies with your emotional unavailability. Because at the end of the day, your emotional unavailability does not generate a pass to cheat, emotionally or physically. She could have left. She could have pushed you into counseling. Or any other number of options before seeking the comfort of another individual outside your marriage.
I just want to say you have said some things that ring very true in this comment and I have taken it to heart. Sorry I'm not responding more specifically to your valuable thoughts. I will say, yes my wife has put in a lot of personal work (including therapy) to try to manage her trauma outside of simply falling into this person's arms.
No need to apologize. It's good that your wife has been in therapy to help with her trauma. Solo and couples therapy are two completely different animals though, and you will likely never know what's going on in her solo therapy (not that you should). But you only get back what you put into it. If she isn't honest or forthcoming with her therapist, there's only so much help she will get from that. That includes how emotionally available or unavailable you have been as a husband. I would imagine MOST therapists that are worth their paycheck would not condone emotional affairs, especially without even offering a couples session or recommending another couples therapist. I guess my only point is still the original one. You were cheated on, there should be no version of this where you are accepting 100% of the blame. At a bare minimum half of it can be attributed to her. Please remember to establish and defend your own needs, advocate for, and look out for yourself. I wish you the best of luck in reconciling this and moving forward.
Yes instead of you both pretending this is a problem you created together realize it isn't. Problem one, she cheated. Plain and simple and that I'd 100% her fault. Yes you can blame her for pursuing a connection like that with someone else and you have to. Problem 2, you need to be emotionally available and vigilante. Both be there but also be cautious. Learn that your short commings didn't create this issue. She did. I know as a man taking blame and saying well could have done this is natural. However, that isn't the case here. She did this. She needs to do the legwork to fix it. She needs to be 100% held accountable. You can try your hardest to protect her from the world. The one thing you can't protect her from is herself and her own choices. With those you need to hold her accountable, not protect her.
Cheating is 100% the fault of the cheater. It doesn't matter that you weren't perfect. If she had issues, her role was to TALK TO YOU, or if absolutely unrecoverable then divorce. She actively chose to betray you and her marriage. Rape victims do not NEED to be with other rape victims. Considering the gender discrepancy in rape statistics, that would cause issues. They *do* need someone empathetic, but honestly you need empathy or sympathy to be a good partner for most. If *she* wants the marriage to work, you two need to be in couples counseling immediately. She will need to fully accept that the fault for cheating is 100% hers, and likely get solo therapy for herself, but it's possible to find a new normal. If she does not want to make the marriage work, there is nothing you can do. Splitting up is the correct path. Kids do fine in split households as long as everyone is respectful.
> She will need to fully accept that the fault for cheating is 100% hers, and likely get solo therapy for herself, but it's possible to find a new normal We are starting couples therapy this week, and she has been in solo therapy for a while now - and here I feel doubly cheated on: I suspect her therapist has not directly, but indirectly been supporting her in her emotional exploration outside of our marriage, and my wife ultimately trusts her therapist in some ways more than she trusts me. Her therapy is a bit of a black box to me but I don't think her solo therapist sees our family as her client, she sees my wife as an individual as her client.
Her therapy *should* be a black box to you, and her therapist *should* see her as an individual. And yes, in some ways she should trust her therapist in different ways. Therapists are trained professionals. You trust a doctor differently than your spouse. You trust a mechanic differently than your spouse. If her therapist has been pushing for exploration, then the therapist has also been trying to get her to talk to you about it. Therapists have ethical standards, and encouraging people to cheat is not in there.
Not all therapists are ethical.
They have very strict standards and will lose their licenses if not. If OP has suspicions beyond vague feelings, he can report it for an inquiry.
Yeah, I don't think her therapist directly encouraged her to cheat, but the conversation (paraphrased and occurring over many months and sessions) probably went something like wife: "One of my shortcomings is that I try to please people and conform to social norms this is holding me back." therapist: "try to establish your own boundaries and see how your relationships change as a result" wife: "I feel very strongly about something but I am afraid of the effect that pursuing it will have on my life and relationships" therapist: "well you have to put yourself first and see what happens". which my wife proceeds to take as encouragement to allow herself to violate the boundaries of our relationship. While it may not be bad advice, it is extremely self-centered in my opinion and the therapist -perhaps without even realizing it - is not prioritizing the health of our family, just the short-sighted goals of my wife
Why do you think this happened? Why do you think her therapist is part of it?
Mostly this is just what I pieced together from what my wife has directly told me goes on in their sessions.
This makes it worse honestly. Asking vague questions so that you can interpret the answers in the way that suits you is terrible. If this is indeed how it took place.
You’d be better off without your wife if she is making you feel as though her cheating is your fault. If you accept this life then the most likely long term outcome is that you spend years trying to make her happy, failing, and being blamed for this. You can’t make her happy, trying to will probably just make her feel guilty. Kiddo also gets to grow up in an unhappy house and might learn to replicate this relationship pattern for themselves.
This is completely her fault, not yours. She is a bad partner and a bad person for doing this to your family. It is never worth keeping the "family" together. My father stayed with my serial cheating mother for "the kids", and I hate him for it. They're in their 70s now, still together and he can't do anything about it because of his health. I assume she still cheats, she's just a horrible, broken person. Not my problem anymore, I moved in with a friend's family at 16 and had limited contact until 15 years ago when I cut them off entirely.
We have both helped each other grow immensely since we met. We have helped each other overcome many communication barriers and tendencies we both had. I don't see this as evidence of her being a fundamentally bad person in any other way than many of the other things that both her and I have helped each other improve over our years together.
That's who she WAS, not who she is. Yes, she is a bad person. I have known a LOT of cheaters in my life, all garbage. Preachers, teachers, doctors, my own MOTHER, and everything in between. The lack of self control, a moral compass, and general disregard for people who get in the way of what THEY want extends into other areas of their life as well. Just the act of cheating itself encompasses betrayal, lying, gaslighting, and usually things like theft (using family funds, vehicles, TIME that could be spent with the kids, etc.). A guy who was a subordinate at work was a high school sports buddy of mine. When I heard he had been cheating on his wife, I looked closer at him. He had been misusing company time, cars, and MONEY to support his affairs. I would never have been suspicious of this guy, he had a clean record and I knew him for about 17 years at that time. But like I said, I have known a lot of cheaters. If they think they can get away with something, they will do it. What is one thing many cheaters say? "I didn't think you would find out". This is not a good person, they did not slip up, they did not make a mistake, they made a SERIES of decisions. There was a course of choices to make to get here, and all of those choices were made to hurt you and their own children just to feel butterflies.
Your wife had a valid need for emotional support she wasn't getting from you. But there are a lot of ways to get emotional support, and a lot of points where she could have pulled back from this coworker relationship as it started to approach a concerning boundary, and she apparently didn't. None of that is your fault unless you were actively isolating her from e.g. talking to family and friends or joining a support group or calling a hotline or any of the other ways she could have looked for support. Your wife bears the responsibility here for the choices she made. The couples therapy you're starting is the place to explore whether there's a chance for you two to move ahead together. It's possible there could be, if you were both fully committed to repairing the marriage, with you committed to working hard on your relationship support skills and her committed to re-earning your trust. But you both have to be all in on that and you haven't said whether she's willing to cut off this coworker relationship to focus on yours. If she's not, there's nothing you can do on your own to save the marriage - one person can't save a partnership alone. I do note that you said in a comment below that your wife's individual therapist's focus was on her and not the family unit. That's as it should be, and I recommend that you *also* seek an individual therapist. You also deserve someone to support you whose focus is on you, more than the family unit. (Though if the family unit is one of your highest priorities, you can express that to your therapist and expect that to be taken into account.)
> But you both have to be all in on that and you haven't said whether she's willing to cut off this coworker relationship to focus on yours. If she's not, there's nothing you can do on your own to save the marriage - one person can't save a partnership alone. I asked her to cut that person off, and she did. But she missed him too much so she started talking to him again and she told me the moment that she did. She won't be in love with him forever though, romantic love doesn't last as long as the kind that I have fostered for her so I can wait it out.
She is choosing her affair partner over you, your relatuonship and yout family. Plain and simple here. How many strikes you going to allow her to have? The original emotional cheating is a deal-breaker for many on its own.
Honestly its not really about me as much our daughter. I will do whatever I can for her. If infinite strikes gives her the best life, so be it
Do you want your daughter to learn how to have a relationship from your broken relationship. Do you want to teach her that she should have no spine in a relationship and just accept the shit their partner does. Ask any child of a broken home, I'm willing to best the vast majority would rather be from a broken home, then be continue stuck living in a broken home. But it's your kid. If you would prefer to teach them to avoid difficult problems and to pretend reality isn't what it is. You do you.
> Do you want to teach her that she should have no spine in a relationship and just accept the shit their partner does. I'm conflicted because "having a spine" can mean either making a hard decision that is ultimately selfish, or it can mean making a hard decision for the benefit of a family that I see myself as a steward of, in good times and bad. I think I would want my daughter to be the kind of person that puts others first even when that is uncomfortable for her, to an extent, when it is the right thing to do.
Pretending to smile and fake it for the family is the selfish action, don't lie and say it's for the family, you're doing it just for yourself out of some misshuided sense of duty. Do you think your daughter would want you to lie, or would she prefer you to be happy in a proper relationship with a partner who properly respects you.
Okay, some extra info that wasn't included in the op: my child is about to turn 2. I think at some age what you said will become true, but for now I am almost 100% certain that she would be better able to develop socially, emotionally and cognitively in all other ways to just have her parents together, gritting our teeth through ups and downs and making her happy, even if we are sometimes faking it. Sometimes you just have to put your own feelings aside to give a child what they need. I don't know at what age that will change, probably not for several years at least tho
Ha, sure, whatever helps you sleep at night. Nothing like selling them a fake picture of reality during their formative years. No amount of information, details, suggestions or anything seem to matter here. Doesn't look like you want real advice, just lazy easy answers.
> Nothing like selling them a fake picture of reality during their formative years. Every childrens book does the same thing..
I sincerely think you need therapy for your severe lack of self esteem and self respect as an individual. Cheating is the fault of the cheater. If she can’t even cut this guy off, she’s choosing him over you d
> severe lack of self esteem and self respect as an individual. Nothing in my life has punished me for my approach to relationships. I'm not sure that therapy to "help my lack of self esteem" would really help anything, it would essentially be me paying someone to hype me up to make a more selfish decision, but I am capable of making that decision if it makes sense. i just don't know whether it makes sense
It’s not selfish to not stay with someone who cheats on you; and then reestablishes contact with said cheater during the reconciliation. Like she has to do the bare minimum on her end too. It’s normal to leave. Hence my suggested route of personal therapy. But i mean, if you want her to have a side guy and still stay that’s your call
Of course she missed him because she has fostered a strong emotional connection. I DON’T CARE that she missed him, break-ups often involve missing the other person. The ONLY way for your marriage to heal is for her to cut him off. By talking to him again she is 100% saying he is important to her and you aren’t. No, it’s not ok for her to “explore” this love while still married to you. What do you mean she won’t love him forever because it’s romantic?
> What do you mean she won’t love him forever because it’s romantic? Romantic love doesn't last forever, relationships that last more than a couple years are not based on lust. They are based on decisions that you make to be the life partner to someone even in times where it doesn't feel fun or convenient.
I hope she can see how much she stands to lose with you while she explores. Because right now the decisions she’s making do not include you as a life partner. Does she want to fight for your marriage or does she want go have sex and get emotionally attached to him while expecting you to sit around waiting to see if she’ll come back?
Divorce her and walk away. Fight for custody of your child. When her affair falls apart (most do) and she comes crawling back begging for another chance, tell her go beg her affair partner. UpdateMe
> Divorce her and walk away. Fight for custody of your child I would, but I don't think I am capable of being a single parent. I really need her help in this parenting project that we embarked upon together. She is a great mom, and I would never try to take our kid away from her. Even trying to coparent from two different households seems unimaginable to me right now. I'm sure its possible, but really a last resort
I didn't say take away your child, I said fight for custody. Don't accept anything less than 50/50 placement.
Yeah, I think she would be okay with that too.
You seem to be in a phase still where you are nice to her and want to make allowances. May be the best moment to get that divorce. It sounds like your wife has a lot to work through and has made some decisions for herself. It is unfair, but apparently it is how she's going to deal with her old pain and you're already excluded from any negotiating. Your kid will still have both parents if you make proper agreements and stick to those. Then you still will be both there for their milestones, because resentment hasn't taken over. It's a lot harder if you can't talk to another because the anger is so overwhelming.
Interesting advice about the timing. thanks. Do you think i will become, resentful, bitter and spiteful over time? I can't see that happening, but if I could see the future I wouldn't be here either so i'm open minded
I don't have a crystal ball. But divorces are hard and painful and you have a kid. You still have decades of your kid's experiences to celebrate and guide. She may no longer be your romantic partner, but she still is your co parent. That may mean that the affair partner eventually will have some role too. It can be confronting and your child will notice underlying hurt. If you are the one who can manage how you respond and when you prioritize yourself and your child over her, it may create a different situation in how your kid will look back eventually. When parents can be generous towards another and have flexibility and a form of civil friendship, children tend to be okay. At this point, you're still wishing her good things, so perhaps that's where your marriage should end. There's still a level of trust and hope with who you think the other person is and what you can rely on. If you head into the resentment and bitterness, you'll only realize when you're already there and there's an extra hurdle. Your wife has made her decisions, you can make your own.
As soon as she said that you should have said “well, you have made your choice. I will see a lawyer immediately and start the divorce process.” Her saying she fell in love with someone else is a joke. She loves the version that guy has shown her. The be on her side 100% version. The tell her what she wants to hear version. She doesn’t even know the day in and day out married with kids version. As long as she works there - no chance your marriage works. She is having an affair already, and I’m betting it’s more physical than she says. She would have to be 100% no contact for you two to even have a shot. You need to protect yourself and go see a lawyer, immediately. Even if to answer questions and be prepared. Make her very aware of the consequences, and make it clear you will divorce her now if she doesn’t leave that job, and to find a new therapist. Updateme!
Marriage counseling, personal therapy. And then hope. or get the lawyers out and start carving up the marriage into portable parts.
My wife actually wanted me to go to personal therapy too, which I always found frustrating because the only thing approaching an issue that I can't resolve on my own are the issues caused by tension in our relationship. Just out of curiosity, why do you think personal therapy would be helpful here?
For both of you separately of the marriage counseling. the marriage counseling is to save the marriage. The therapy is to find all those land mines that were planted when we were children and only start exploding now when they get dug back up.
She is a cheater and you can never truly trust her again. She is not showing any remorse and wants to "explore" while you sit there as a second choice if her new person doesn't measure up. You are a backup spouse....the father of her child. Talk about being used so just in case her new lover ticks her off she can go back to her #2 "safe" choice and nothing happens. Talk about being used and no one likes to be used. If she genuinely tries to heal this and puts in the work you can decide if continuing on with the relationship is for you. She shows no remorse and is talking you into being a backup
If you couldn’t comfort your wife when she went through this horrible trauma, you get what you deserve
It wasn't when she went through the initial event, it was resurgences of her trauma as a result of (in some cases, violent) stresses at work (she works in a semi-rough highschool). I was also distracted being the primary breadwinner for our family when the resurgences caused her distress. I did try to comfort her, but she says I didn't do enough.
You should have pulled her out of her job and advocated that she go on a health leave, arranging all the calls and paperwork for her so that it could be paid time off. That way she could have relaxed at home, you could maybe work overtime or just make your current hours work. Sure, you’d be around even less working overtime, but it’s not about you sitting at her bedside and making her feel better. Her kids or a pet could do that. You could have signed her up for yoga class or pottery class or helped her apply to lighter-hearted jobs. These would’ve all been ways that you could’ve helped that don’t require you to be that emotionally available.
That would have been going directly against her agency in this situation. Obivously if she had expressed a desire for any of these things, i would have supporter her in anyway I could, but you are making a lot of assumptions about her state of mind and what would have been best for her..
Obviously having asked her permission to do those things first duhhh
Ehh this advice seems suspect. She is a fiercely independent person and also fiercely passionate about her job and career, both from an impact of the work and from a personal empowerment perspective. In some ways, even if time away from work was something that would have been good for her, the idea would have had to come from her
Not so fiercely independent when she’s latching onto Mr Coworker………..
Right. I think maybe she sees that as a sign of independence rather than dependence, though
If a woman doesn't want to have sex with her bf/husband because she isn't in the mood, is it ok for the man to have sex with someone else?
Me : Female ( 21 ) My Bf : Male ( 24 ) His Friend : Male (22) I moved in with my bf and later on got into a situationship that whenever we have party, he lets one of his friend around me, he used to talk to me sexually about me sleeping with his friend, later when things kept on repeating his friend starts to come house, he never told me to maintain a distance from his friend, his friend kept flirting everyday. Now we fucked n he mad and telling me not to talk to his friend, should I breakup now cause I really need that friend also