# Nothing to be thankful for



## Abe_Fielding (Dec 26, 2020)

The discovery of my wife's infidelity occurred on Thanksgiving of 2020, so about 6 months ago. I've been a visitor of this forum ever since then but hadn't taken the time to put my story out there. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long, but I feel like it's best to get everything off my chest.

I'm 40 and my wife is 38. We've been together for over 13 years now, dated for 5 of those years. We have a 4 year old daughter. Over the course of the fall of 2020, I noticed my wife being very secretive with her phone. Anytime I'd get near her, she'd quickly jump back to the home screen of her phone or coincidentally be turning it off when I came around. I found this odd obviously but I never mentioned anything about it to her as I 100% trusted her and I never in a million years thought she'd cheat. I can't tell you the regret I have for never bringing it up to her. The only other thing that she did that I'd consider "off" during this time period was that when she'd go out, it would be for 5, 6, or sometimes 7 hours at a time. I'd be able to tell because our Xfinity security app tells us when doors are opened, so I could see when she left and when she came home. The only reason I'd look at things like that while I'm at work is because we have dogs and I don't like them left alone for too long, so I'd pester her about leaving the dogs alone.

Back on topic, so on Thanksgiving we were taking pictures with our daughter in her Thanksgiving outfit. My wife asked me to take a few of the two of them together and she handed me her phone which of course happened to be unlocked. As I pretended to be snapping away, I was looking at anything I could find in this small window of time I had. I went right to the texts and saw that she had contacts that were named "T-Chris" or "T-Anthony". At first, I didn't realize what the T stood for. As I scrolled through her apps, I of course found Tinder. I immediately stopped scrolling, took a few more pics, and we went about our night. Another great regret of mine is not taking that phone, locking my self in the bedroom and looking at every single thing on there.

We had dinner, did the cleanup, and of course my wife could tell something was wrong. I didn't let her know that I knew just yet. I wanted to wait until my daughter was asleep for the evening and I didn't want to do this in front of her. During the course of the evening, I downloaded Tinder with the sole intention of seeing her profile for myself and what I found was she was pretending to be a separated single mother of 1.

Eventually, the moment of truth came where my daughter fell asleep and my wife finally asked if I wanted to talk. I said "Yes, how long have you been on Tinder?" She denied it at first but eventually admitted to it but said she was just doing harmless flirting and she liked the attention. I of course was devastated and didn't believe her for a second. If I remember correctly, that's all she would admit to that night. Unfortunately, I was using vacation time during the holiday so I was home from Thanksgiving until the following Wednesday, so it was uncomfortable to say the least. 

As the days went on, more truths came out - yes, it was more than flirting. She was sending naked pictures, she was sending videos of her doing things to herself, etc. Then I learned that she met two of them in person. She claims no intercourse happened, just oral but I'm not sure if I believe that. Again, as time went on I kept learning more and more - I found out that my wife's best friend who is also our daughter's godmother knew about the cheating from day one and was the alibi should I ever get suspicious. I never got to the point where I was fact checking my wife's whereabouts, but she was ready to cover should I ever ask questions. I'm at the point now where I've blocked the friend from all social media and I've told my wife that I will no longer be associated with her in any way - wife thinks I'm being ridiculous about that and shouldn't be mad at her friend.

During another one of the conversations with my wife, she mentioned the pictures she had and I of course asked "What pictures?" She had little selfies of her and one of the guys on her phone and for whatever reason that really hurt. In my mind, this wasn't just an affair - it was a relationship. The other thing I learned which infuriated me was that my daughter was brought along on a few of the dinner dates she had with this guy. Obviously, she's done a lot of ****ty things but that's by far the creepiest.

Her reasons for doing this - lack of attention from me, grieving the loss of her mother from December 2019, my alleged unsupportive nature following the loss of her mother, quarantine boredom. Basically, everything for the most part was my fault. She felt like I didn't care about her anymore so instead of just leaving she decided to cheat.

Once everything was out in the open, I asked her to delete the phone numbers of the guys, delete Tinder/Snapchat, and let's try to work on this. She wasn't willing to just cut the guys off - she had to say goodbye to them. I didn't approve of this one bit but she wasn't willing to budge. I hate that I just didn't give her an ultimatum and force her to do it. I have many many regrets as to how I handled things. During the course of this, she admits that she may love one of the guys and she's not sure what she wants to do. She was willing to throw me away for a guy she just met. Long story short, she eventually got to the point where she cut the guys out - she sends me screenshots of her saying goodbye via text and blocking their numbers. End of story right?

Because she had me convinced in the beginning that everything was my fault and I was in "save my marriage" and "marking my territory" mode, there was a brief honeymoon period were it was sex all the time - keep in mind this is all within a two week period or so from my initial discovery of the cheating. She gets pregnant. And yes, the first thing that came to my mind is that this is awfully coincidental. I know she said she never slept with either guy but I don't know if I ever will truly believe that. I'm not the type of person to abandon a pregnant woman, so here I am - stuck.

Moving forward a little bit, towards the end of December 2020 I got a little curious and I looked through her phone while she was in the shower one day. I tried to get into her phone sooner but I discovered she had changed the code while she was hot and heavy in her affairs. During a routine shopping trip, I happened to see her unlock her phone via the code so I made a point to remember the new code. She didn't do anything suspicious, but I just wanted to snoop around. Of course, I find that on the very day she told me she cut off both guys and deleted the numbers, she had emailed herself screenshots of the numbers as well as the selfies she had with the one guy and she was hiding them within her emails. That of course devastated me and sent me down another spiral of madness. It was at that point we entered couples therapy as well as our own individual therapy.

Basically, we're in an okay spot now, but I still think I'm never going to be happy here. I have good days and I have bad days. I am totally disengaged with this pregnancy and I hate that I have this thing inside me that won't let me just abandon my wife like she deserves. She says she loves me but she was in a bad spot emotionally during the time of her affairs - she was lost because her mother was the last living member of her family that she had contact with and she feels like a part of her identity was lost when she passed. She says that plus my not being there for her emotionally during that time as well as my lack of interest in her sexually just kind of compounded and made her do things she wouldn't normally do. I think I'm at the point where I don't believe she'll do it again, but it's the getting over what she's done is what I'm stuck on. One of the things our couples therapist stressed was forgiveness and letting things go, but I don't think I'll ever be able to say to her that I forgive her or that I understand what she did on some level.

Sorry, I know that was a lot - I'm sure I missed some little nuggets here and there but I felt like I was finally ready to get it all off my chest.


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## Torninhalf (Nov 4, 2018)

Abe_Fielding said:


> The discovery of my wife's infidelity occurred on Thanksgiving of 2020, so about 6 months ago. I've been a visitor of this forum ever since then but hadn't taken the time to put my story out there. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long, but I feel like it's best to get everything off my chest.
> 
> I'm 40 and my wife is 38. We've been together for over 13 years now, dated for 5 of those years. We have a 4 year old daughter. Over the course of the fall of 2020, I noticed my wife being very secretive with her phone. Anytime I'd get near her, she'd quickly jump back to the home screen of her phone or coincidentally be turning it off when I came around. I found this odd obviously but I never mentioned anything about it to her as I 100% trusted her and I never in a million years thought she'd cheat. I can't tell you the regret I have for never bringing it up to her. The only other thing that she did that I'd consider "off" during this time period was that when she'd go out, it would be for 5, 6, or sometimes 7 hours at a time. I'd be able to tell because our Xfinity security app tells us when doors are opened, so I could see when she left and when she came home. The only reason I'd look at things like that while I'm at work is because we have dogs and I don't like them left alone for too long, so I'd pester her about leaving the dogs alone.
> 
> ...


She is a liar and a cheat. What else do you need to know?


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Find another therapist.


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## ccpowerslave (Nov 21, 2020)

It sounds like the therapist watched the movie “Frozen” one too many times with all the letting it go.


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## Trident (May 23, 2018)

One thing I've learned about therapists is that if you're interested in saving the relationship and it's not really abusive or toxic they'll work towards trying to fix it. 

Since you're in their office in the first place, as couples, clearly that's your intent. 

In cases such as yours, no matter how much it hurts now, financially, emotionally and otherwise; and how scary it might be to get back out there in the world all alone and start over, you're much better off starting with a clean slate than trying to fix it with this broken person who cares much more about her own needs than yours and always will.


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## Robert22205 (Jun 6, 2018)

Get a DNA test on the baby. And both of you should be tested for STDs.


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## VladDracul (Jun 17, 2016)

Abe_Fielding said:


> Then I learned that she met two of them in person. She claims no intercourse happened, just oral


I know it would give me solace and relief to believe my wife was "just" blowing a guy. I bet that guys pecker in her mouth did wonder to, excuse to pun, pacify the lack of attention from you, grieving the loss of her mother.


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## Jeffsmith35 (Apr 8, 2021)

Every cheater trick in the book...trickle truth, blaming the spouse, lying, hiding, etc. Divorce her and never look back. She not only cheated on you, she cheated on your daughter.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

she's not going to stop screwing guys ....... because she doesn't have to. You're letting her do whatever she wants with very little inconvenience, let alone consequences. She wants to screw other guys so she will. Your job is support her and pay for everything and babysit and change diapers while she's screwing around. 

At least pimps and traffickers make money off their wh0re$.


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## aine (Feb 15, 2014)

Your wife is a liar and a ****. I don't care whether her whole family died that does not excuse what she has done. There are also many wives whose husbands fail to give them lots of attention, etc but they do not go out and cheat and with a young kid also! She is blame shifting big time. I would stop any sort of couples therapy, she does not deserve it to be honest. Use the money to get yourself some IC to become a stronger person and not put up with her ****. Go see a lawyer and see what your options are. There are many good decent women out there who wouldn't pull this kind of ****. Your wife never had any consequences, you rolled over, took the blame, went counselling etc. To hell with that. Stop your acquiescing, grow a pair and take charge of your life. You can still be a good Dad to your daughter, you do not need your POS hopefully STBXW in your life, no-one needs that.


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## QuietRiot (Sep 10, 2020)

Oh boy. So. She is trickle truthing, blame shifting and gaslighting. Playing the poor victim. Oh don’t forget minimizing. You have the perfect concoction for a completely screwed up person that will definitely cheat on you again. Can you please explain why you think she won’t? I found that part really confusing.

And the worst part isn’t even her multiple affairs and hookups, or that she saved the information for later access (again why do you think she has no plans to cheat again?) or that she’s now pregnant (is this baby or even yours? How do you know???), no. The worst part is she took your kid on a date. Can we all just think about WHY any person on this planet would bring their kid on a date? I can think of a reason... she thought he was your replacement. Apparently that dude didn’t work out. Unfortunately for you.

You don’t have to live this nightmare. You are not in fact stuck at all. Nobody is cementing your feet to the floor, forcing you to stay. She’s going to be looking for your replacement as soon as her dating body is ready. You’ve got a really screwed up wife here dude. (Welcome to the ****ty spouses club!)

Don’t ever go back to a therapist that tells you to shove your hurt in a box and “forgive”. That therapist should be banned from practicing. Your money would be much more well spent on a professional in law practice. Just go see what your options are. It’ll be cathartic.


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## Harold Demure (Oct 21, 2020)

I am new to this situation but is there an expression that we can use on TAM to question whether a post is real or not?


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Harold Demure said:


> I am new to this situation but is there an expression that we can use on TAM to question whether a post is real or not?


No.


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## Harold Demure (Oct 21, 2020)

Openminded said:


> No.


Okay, thanks. Didn’t want to get banned or anything. I suppose the best response in those circumstances then is to ignore the post completely.

Admin, would, of course, understand if you wanted to delete my question.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

Cheaters always like to blame and gaslight the spouse. I'm very sorry you're in this position. I would not be at all confident that this is your baby. 

Overall it does sound like she was unhappy and felt you were disengaged from the marriage sexually and emotionally and so she was probably trying to LeapFrog into a new relationship before terminating this one. A lot of women do that. A lot of times it has more to do with financial issues than anything else but some of them do it for emotional as well because they don't want to be by themselves for a moment. 

I don't think you ever get the trust back. I would give a lot of thought to why you were already disengaged emotionally until you found out you were being cheated on and also why you were disengaged sexually. Because those two things are probably going to return. Still not saying it's your fault she cheated because there are right and wrong ways to break things off with your spouse.


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

Abe_Fielding said:


> The discovery of my wife's infidelity occurred on Thanksgiving of 2020, so about 6 months ago. I've been a visitor of this forum ever since then but hadn't taken the time to put my story out there. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long, but I feel like it's best to get everything off my chest.
> 
> I'm 40 and my wife is 38. We've been together for over 13 years now, dated for 5 of those years. We have a 4 year old daughter. Over the course of the fall of 2020, I noticed my wife being very secretive with her phone. Anytime I'd get near her, she'd quickly jump back to the home screen of her phone or coincidentally be turning it off when I came around. I found this odd obviously but I never mentioned anything about it to her as I 100% trusted her and I never in a million years thought she'd cheat. I can't tell you the regret I have for never bringing it up to her. The only other thing that she did that I'd consider "off" during this time period was that when she'd go out, it would be for 5, 6, or sometimes 7 hours at a time. I'd be able to tell because our Xfinity security app tells us when doors are opened, so I could see when she left and when she came home. The only reason I'd look at things like that while I'm at work is because we have dogs and I don't like them left alone for too long, so I'd pester her about leaving the dogs alone.
> 
> ...


Your wife is full of ****. People's parents die every ****ing day. Read these types of boards, lots of people are unhappy in their marriage for lots of reasons. Give me a break. There were hundreds of other ways to address her problems. You wife abused you! How do you know she is not cheating still? DNA both your kid and the one on the way. If it's yours and you don't want to stay married (which is understandable) you don't have to abandon your kids. You can still support them and be their Dad, but you don't have to be married to their lying Mother.

Really you say you believe here but the only thing you know for sure is your wife is a liar. That's it. I hope you have access to her phone now at least. I might put a tracker on her car too. Having read all these stories my gut tells me your wife may be one of these women who has been on tinder your whole relationship. The best thing to understand about this is people who cheat are full of ****. They just are, it takes genuine desire to change and lots of work before they are reasonable. Don't judge yourself or your situation by someone who is FOS.

As far as forgiveness you need a foundation to work with, your wife is a serial cheater. You can't repair a relationship on secrets and lies. Right now you are wasting your time. I would fire you counselor now, they don't know what they are doing. I wouldn't even consider marriage counseling until you know your wife is telling the truth and she show some sort of true contrition. Maybe you weren't a great husband (though most of the time the cheater is not really a reliable narrator on that) but what she did is like throwing a bomb in the marriage. Much worse. Again you can't recover the marriage until you have something to work with. You being in counseling makes sense but with someone who is not the marriage counselor.

What has your wife done to fix this? Make her write a timeline, and then tell her you want her to take a polygraph. This is pretty common. Again I think you have no idea. Besides that given her logic why should you go have an affair now. You are certainly under as much stress as she was when her Mother died right? And she cheated on you. Now I am not advocating for that, but look there is NO WAY you will make it if you keep taking this kind of **** advice and reasoning.

Every time she tried that bull**** and justifies her affair I would say to her - "OK well then I am going to Vegas tomorrow because you have been a much worse wife to me then I ever was a husband." See what she says then. Every time. Those are the rules that your wife and the counselor have set up in your marriage - you have to be a great husband or she can fall all over, lie and secretly text (and what ever else she did that you have no idea about) with some other guys. So if those are the rules then they should be the rules for both of you. You should be able to go on tinder tomorrow, and she didn't even tell you about the rules, at least now she and you seem to be clear on it. Once again I am not advocating that just pointing out how stupid that logic is? I mean it, fire your counselor tomorrow and get someone who specializes in affair trauma. This one is NOT saving your marriage, they are actually making it worse by enabling that stupid logic. No one can live like that, eventually you will just want out.

Finally here is a secret, no one "has it in them", they just do it anyway. People who break up don't love their partners or hurt any less then you do, they just summon the courage to feel the pain and still move forward. This **** hurts like nothing else, for the people who stay together and the ones that leave. But the other secret is the ones who stay together feel the pain a whole lot longer.


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## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Harold Demure said:


> Okay, thanks. Didn’t want to get banned or anything. I suppose the best response in those circumstances then is to ignore the post completely.
> 
> Admin, would, of course, understand if you wanted to delete my question.


You can always report any post that you feel is “off”. It happens.


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## GooGooCluster (Mar 17, 2021)

Abe_Fielding said:


> The discovery of my wife's infidelity occurred on Thanksgiving of 2020, so about 6 months ago. I've been a visitor of this forum ever since then but hadn't taken the time to put my story out there. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long, but I feel like it's best to get everything off my chest.
> 
> I'm 40 and my wife is 38. We've been together for over 13 years now, dated for 5 of those years. We have a 4 year old daughter. Over the course of the fall of 2020, I noticed my wife being very secretive with her phone. Anytime I'd get near her, she'd quickly jump back to the home screen of her phone or coincidentally be turning it off when I came around. I found this odd obviously but I never mentioned anything about it to her as I 100% trusted her and I never in a million years thought she'd cheat. I can't tell you the regret I have for never bringing it up to her. The only other thing that she did that I'd consider "off" during this time period was that when she'd go out, it would be for 5, 6, or sometimes 7 hours at a time. I'd be able to tell because our Xfinity security app tells us when doors are opened, so I could see when she left and when she came home. The only reason I'd look at things like that while I'm at work is because we have dogs and I don't like them left alone for too long, so I'd pester her about leaving the dogs alone.
> 
> ...


Oral sex, to me, is much more intimate than intercourse. That part would NOT make me feel better personally, but you do you.
She took your daughter with her to meet one of these guys for real? Everything she’s done was horrible and a punch in the gut, but taking your daughter would be where I would kick her out. What a completely ****ty thing to do. 
And my dad died, I took it horribly. I never thought blowing some random guy would help me deal with that pain. She’s throwing out excuses for being a crap person, a crap wife, and an absolute crap mother.


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## frusdil (Sep 5, 2013)

Your wife is a cheating *****. There's nothing else to know. She won't stop. The best thing you can do, is get a divorce. Get a dna test on the baby too. Oh and if she's still pregnant she'll try and tell you that you can't until the baby's born, that's bollocks. It's a simple blood test (baby's dna is in the mothers blood). Dont let her feed you that BS.


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## Rob_1 (Sep 8, 2017)

Jesus..what's going on with men these days?
Are these males being so pussify by the new order or what? 

No wonder why women lose all respect for these guys. I think is more than today's men being pussify, I think they're becoming dumber than dumb.


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## Blondilocks (Jul 4, 2013)

Abe_Fielding said:


> The only reason I'd look at things like that while I'm at work is because we have dogs and I don't like them left alone for too long, so I'd pester her about leaving the dogs alone.


FFS! Your wife is one dumb chick if she fell for that excuse for you to keep her a prisoner.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Harold Demure said:


> I am new to this situation but is there an expression that we can use on TAM to question whether a post is real or not?


@Harold Demure you have been here long enough to know that if a post is suspected as being untruthful that we do not call them out in the thread, not even in a passive-aggressive way, we report the post to moderators. 

I saw what you did there. Don't do it again.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

@Abe_Fielding And ditch the enabler as your daughter's Godmother.


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## TJW (Mar 20, 2012)

Abe_Fielding said:


> Basically, everything for the most part was my fault.


Of course, it is. It always is. And, as long as she indulges herself with these lies, there will never be any kind of change. Once a cheater, always a cheater....unless she is able to look at herself in the mirror and only see her standing there. Those people are the 5% distribution, the outliers..... who actually "make a fearless moral inventory" of themselves.



Abe_Fielding said:


> forgiveness and letting things go, but I don't think I'll ever be able to say to her that I forgive her or that I understand what she did on some level.


You will, in time, forgive her, meaning that you have given up the right of retaliation. Forgiveness is more for you, than for her. Believe me, I understand what my fWW did on EVERY level. EVERY level is this, she gave herself permission to cheat, because of her concupiscent and selfish entitlement. All "levels" are hereby explained.



Abe_Fielding said:


> End of story right?


It should be, for you. You can't control (and, it is IN NO WAY your responsibility to) what your fWW does. Make her "former" and move on.



Abe_Fielding said:


> I still think I'm never going to be happy here.


And, you are correct.


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## fluffycoco (May 29, 2021)

She claims no intercourse happened, just oral....

For me, it is hard to believe.


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## ccpowerslave (Nov 21, 2020)

fluffycoco said:


> She claims no intercourse happened, just oral....
> 
> For me, it is hard to believe.


“Just oral”... 🤨


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## Torninhalf (Nov 4, 2018)

ccpowerslave said:


> “Just oral”... 🤨


One time...


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## Marc878 (Aug 26, 2015)

[QUOTE="Abe_Fielding, post: 20310716, member:

Eventually, the moment of truth came where my daughter fell asleep and my wife finally asked if I wanted to talk. I said "Yes, how long have you been on Tinder?" She denied it at first but eventually admitted to it but said she was just doing harmless flirting and she liked the attention. I of course was devastated and didn't believe her for a second. If I remember correctly, that's all she would admit to that night. Unfortunately, I was using vacation time during the holiday so I was home from Thanksgiving until the following Wednesday, so it was uncomfortable to say the least.

*Cheaters lie a lot*

Back on topic, so on Thanksgiving we were taking pictures with our daughter in her Thanksgiving outfit. My wife asked me to take a few of the two of them together and she handed me her phone which of course happened to be unlocked. As I pretended to be snapping away, I was looking at anything I could find in this small window of time I had. I went right to the texts and saw that she had contacts that were named "T-Chris" or "T-Anthony". At first, I didn't realize what the T stood for. As I scrolled through her apps, I of course found Tinder. I immediately stopped scrolling, took a few more pics, and we went about our night. Another great regret of mine is not taking that phone, locking my self in the bedroom and looking at every single thing on there.
lie a lot

As the days went on, more truths came out - yes, it was more than flirting. She was sending naked pictures, she was sending videos of her doing things to herself, etc. Then I learned that she met two of them in person. * She claims no intercourse happened, just oral but I'm not sure if I believe that. * Again, as time went on I kept learning more and more - I found out that my wife's best friend who is also our daughter's godmother knew about the cheating from day one and was the alibi should I ever get suspicious. I never got to the point where I was fact checking my wife's whereabouts, but she was ready to cover should I ever ask questions. I'm at the point now where I've blocked the friend from all social media and I've told my wife that I will no longer be associated with her in any way - wife thinks I'm being ridiculous about that and shouldn't be mad at her friend.
*
Is your wife still associated with her enabling friend? She’s an enemy to you and your marriage.Sounds like you accomplished nothing here*

During another one of the conversations with my wife, she mentioned the pictures she had and I of course asked "What pictures?" She had little selfies of her and one of the guys on her phone and for whatever reason that really hurt. In my mind, this wasn't just an affair - it was a relationship. The other thing I learned which infuriated me was that my daughter was brought along on a few of the dinner dates she had with this guy. Obviously, she's done a lot of ****ty things but that's by far the creepiest.

Her reasons for doing this - lack of attention from me, grieving the loss of her mother from December 2019, my alleged unsupportive nature following the loss of her mother, quarantine boredom. Basically, everything for the most part was my fault. She felt like I didn't care about her anymore so instead of just leaving she decided to cheat.

*Blame shifting BS. Cheaters lie a lot.*


Once everything was out in the open, I asked her to delete the phone numbers of the guys, delete Tinder/Snapchat, and let's try to work on this. She wasn't willing to just cut the guys off - she had to say goodbye to them. I didn't approve of this one bit but she wasn't willing to budge. I hate that I just didn't give her an ultimatum and force her to do it. I have many many regrets as to how I handled things. During the course of this, she admits that she may love one of the guys and she's not sure what she wants to do. She was willing to throw me away for a guy she just met. Long story short, she eventually got to the point where she cut the guys out - she sends me screenshots of her saying goodbye via text and blocking their numbers. End of story right?

*She’s walking all over you because you allow it.*

Because she had me convinced in the beginning that everything was my fault and I was in "save my marriage" and "marking my territory" mode, there was a brief honeymoon period were it was sex all the time - keep in mind this is all within a two week period or so from my initial discovery of the cheating. She gets pregnant. And yes, the first thing that came to my mind is that this is awfully coincidental. I know she said she never slept with either guy but I don't know if I ever will truly believe that. I'm not the type of person to abandon a pregnant woman, so here I am - stuck.

*Your wife didn’t convince you of anything. You did that yourself. Probably in the hope that if it’s your fault you can fix this. It’s not your fault. Only she can fix herself.*

Moving forward a little bit, towards the end of December 2020 I got a little curious and I looked through her phone while she was in the shower one day. I tried to get into her phone sooner but I discovered she had changed the code while she was hot and heavy in her affairs. During a routine shopping trip, I happened to see her unlock her phone via the code so I made a point to remember the new code. She didn't do anything suspicious, but I just wanted to snoop around. Of course, I find that on the very day she told me she cut off both guys and deleted the numbers, she had emailed herself screenshots of the numbers as well as the selfies she had with the one guy and she was hiding them within her emails. That of course devastated me and sent me down another spiral of madness. It was at that point we entered couples therapy as well as our own individual therapy.

*The marriage isn’t broken. Your wife is a serial cheater. They don’t stop. Read up on serial cheaters.*

Basically, we're in an okay spot now, but I still think I'm never going to be happy here. I have good days and I have bad days. I am totally disengaged with this pregnancy and I hate that I have this thing inside me that won't let me just abandon my wife like she deserves. She says she loves me but she was in a bad spot emotionally during the time of her affairs - she was lost because her mother was the last living member of her family that she had contact with and she feels like a part of her identity was lost when she passed. She says that plus my not being there for her emotionally during that time as well as my lack of interest in her sexually just kind of compounded and made her do things she wouldn't normally do. I think I'm at the point where I don't believe she'll do it again, but it's the getting over what she's done is what I'm stuck on. One of the things our couples therapist stressed was forgiveness and letting things go, but I don't think I'll ever be able to say to her that I forgive her or that I understand what she did on some level.
*Marriage Counselors are notorious rug sweepers. Worst path you could have taken *
[/QUOTE]
Sorry man but you’ve made yourself a chump. Doing the “pick me dance”, trying to nice them back just makes you look bad.
Indecision is a cheaters best friend and your worst enemy.
I hope you got checked for STD’s. If they met up it was for sex. Whether you realize it oral is sex.

You are looking for magic and have been smoking hopium. Until you fix yourself and get some self respect you will stay right where you are.

Your serial cheater will cheat again if she ever stopped. DNA tests would be a good thing.


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## Marc878 (Aug 26, 2015)

Torninhalf said:


> One time...


Cheaters lie a lot. A lot!!!!!


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## Harold Demure (Oct 21, 2020)

MattMatt said:


> @Harold Demure you have been here long enough to know that if a post is suspected as being untruthful that we do not call them out in the thread, not even in a passive-aggressive way, we report the post to moderators.
> 
> I saw what you did there. Don't do it again.


Okay, slap on wrist acknowledged.


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## SunCMars (Feb 29, 2016)

Harold Demure said:


> I am new to this situation but is there an expression that we can use on TAM to question whether a post is real or not?


The thing is....

Life is, this crap-real.

Spouses can be this class-less.

Just Sayin'



For keeping one's faith in Humanity, keep prayin'!



_Nemesis-_


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## pastasauce79 (Mar 21, 2018)

You staying with her after finding out all the lies is messed up! 

Come on man! How can you be in the same room with her? How can you believe she "won't do it again!" You are very naive. 

You don't even know if the child is yours! 

You need to find your pride and self love and get out! She gave you crappy excuses why she cheated. The reality is she loved cheating on you. She cared about the other guy. She introduced your child to the other guy. She will look for someone else to cheat again because she loves the attention of other males. 

You can stop this nightmare, it's all up to you.


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## oldshirt (Apr 1, 2017)

ccpowerslave said:


> “Just oral”... 🤨


BS's will go through great mental gymnastics to minimize their WS's betrayal. 


This reminds of the great dialogue in the original "Hangover" movie -

Bradley Cooper to Ed Helms - "So you have to lie about going to Vegas but she can F a bellhop on a Carvnival Cruise ship?"

Ed Helms - "He was a bartender and he didn't come inside her." 

Cooper- "And you believe that??"

Helms- "Of course I believe that. She is grossed out by semen."


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## No Longer Lonely Husband (Nov 3, 2015)

I am typically a proponent of R....not in your case. My advice......RUN


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## manowar (Oct 3, 2020)

Abe

You suffer from nice guy syndrome. There's only one way to handle it. She disrespected you in the worst way and doesn't care. Blamed it on nice-guy who supports her. Dump her. Kick her roadside. And find a girlfriend. It's the only thing that truly works. She'll be stunned. Counseling is what nice guys do.

This is a classic case of the Lover -Provider Dichotomy. 

Read Female Psychology for the practical man - Joesph south. Understand what's really going on. Has nothing to do with love. That's actually comical. Coach red pill has a very good video on Infidelity and what to do. Check it out on youtube.

Get your masculinity back. that's the answer man.


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## skerzoid (Feb 7, 2017)

Uh...


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## Beach123 (Dec 6, 2017)

You’ll become more grateful when you remove the toxic poison in your marriage = your spouse.


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## Beach123 (Dec 6, 2017)

Divorce her.

What you’ve been doing isn’t helping you or the marriage.

She acts single - make sure she gets single as quickly as possible.


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## Trident (May 23, 2018)

Openminded said:


> No.


You cannot call out others as trolls, it's against the rules, however you might be able to get away with prefacing a response along the lines of "Assuming this post is real.. " and then adding whatever it was you were going to say.


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## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

fluffycoco said:


> She claims no intercourse happened, just oral....
> 
> For me, it is hard to believe.


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## Evinrude58 (Jun 16, 2014)

This thread needed that picture of Bill...
OP, I agree with everyone else..... she’s not going to stop cheating, and it’s more than emotional. She will not stop. Hearing in you, and will cheat on the next guy.
She’s just a flat out serial cheater. She can’t stop. And she doesn’t want to. Give her walking paoers


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## Marc878 (Aug 26, 2015)

A lot of betrayed come here saying it’s an EA because they aren’t ready to accept the truth.
Denial is a comfortable zone.


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## jlg07 (Feb 24, 2017)

Harold Demure said:


> Okay, thanks. Didn’t want to get banned or anything. I suppose the best response in those circumstances then is to ignore the post completely.
> 
> Admin, would, of course, understand if you wanted to delete my question.


IF you doubt the veracity of a post, you can do a REPORT POST (hit the three dots to the right-top of the post and state why you think it's not legit. The mods will investigate.


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