# Fasten your seatbelts, Long story ahead. looking for advice



## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

So March 20th, I was outed by a woman I started an emotional affair with in late november.

This cascaded into 5 weeks of me trickle truthing and trying to hide anything else I could. Granted, I'm tech inept and don't know how to cover tracks. I didn't really hide anything.

Before this emotional affair, I had talked to several other women in the span of my 1 year of marriage.

I had also talked to prostitutes and an old acquaintance that I would later learned to be on the path of becoming a prostitute.

While I never had any physical interaction with anybody, I know that talking to someone that I have to hide from my wife is infidelity.

99% of the women I talked to were not local to me. They were from all over the country. I met them on reddit, we'd chat for a few minutes, move it over to kik, and the conversation would fizzle out withing the first couple hours of us talking.

Now when it comes to the emotional affair, before being outed by the AP, I had already gotten rid of the texts between us. We had talked heavily on a mostly daily basis. I fed the lines that made her get attached. We exchanged I love you's. I told her reasons why I was no longer with my wife which were insulting. We exchanged pics, both sfw and nsfw. Talked nsfw as well. She was extremely eager to meet me, but I always made excuses not to, sometimes would cut contact so she wouldn't come. She lived on the opposite side of the country.

There was no evidence to find of our interactions.

Now, my wife and I got married quick. I was separated in March 2019. I went on a tinder rampage for 5 months. I met my wife and that stopped. I misled her on my previous marriage. Including both that my divorce was finalized and how long it had been. I never disclosed what happened in that marriage.

2 days after we made dating official, I met up with a friend who I had been seeing during my dating days, who I was sexually active with. Nothing physical happened that night, but I never told my wife (then gf) about it.

In December 2019, I had met up with a woman for lunch and then again at my house for dinner where I talked this girls ear off. Nothing physical happened then either.

Now, why do I do this stuff?

I have never given my mental health the help it needed. I have a lot of unresolved childhood trauma that bled heavily over into adulthood and I compacted other trauma, both work and life trauma, on top of this untreated childhood trauma. The childhood trauma involves mental, emotional, and physical abuse. It taught me to not share any kind of emotion or feeling with anybody.

I was never able to open up to anybody about anything. If something was bothering me, I pushed it down and ignored it. My previous marriage, I was on the receiving end of emotional abuse, which continued because I VERY rarely ever told me ex how what she would say, affected me.

I couldn't open up about bad feelings or even good feelings. One example of suppressing good emotion: my wife told me she was pregnant and my response was "that's cool". Inside I was ecstatic. I didn't share that with her, instead I buried it and felt terrible for doing so.

Basically, when things back up too much, I self isolate and self sabotage.

Now, since March 20th, I have been in counseling. I see a therapist online on a weekly basis. I also see an in person therapist on a weekly basis as well. I have gained a lot of tools to help navigate what this trauma has left me with. I now open up to people on a regular basis. I don't suppress any emotion. I journal 2-3 times a day through an online blog.

On May 2nd, I stopped caring about self preservation and gave full disclosure. I had been open, transparent and honest with everything.

My wife has open access to literally anything she wants. Google accounts, fingerprint access to my phone, any social media platform I am involved on, which is just reddit and facebook (I only use reddit for infidelity subs now). I installed an app that tracks anything I do on my phone, at any point, and records it for a week. I can't hide anything, not that I am hiding anything. She can read my journal, even private posts through logging in. She has location access.

We are currently living separately.

Come to this past Monday. I had taken a mental break from work and was due to go back to work. We had a talk the previous night about needing a break from the emotional stuff and that she needed a day to not focus on me. I didn't return to work that day. I messaged her halfway through the day to tell her I hoped she was having a good day. She asked how my first day back was going and I responded with "could've been better". Misleading and dishonest. I messed up my track record with that one sentence. I know why I did it, but it doesn't make the dishonesty ok.

We are currently no contact because of that interaction. I spoke to my therapist on Wednesday about it and figured out how to navigate why I decided to go that direction, better in the future.

I am looking for any and all advice on how to move forward. I know I need to just stay on an honest path, but I am just hoping for some more insight.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

Important note. There was not a time in any of this where I was looking to leave my wife. My emotional infidelity was for ego boosting, not because I was looking for a new partner.


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## FlaviusMaximus (Jan 10, 2012)

What's the name of the app you installed?


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

FlaviusMaximus said:


> What's the name of the app you installed?


Webwatcher


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## TJW (Mar 20, 2012)

Jrawk1120 said:


> I messed up my track record with that one sentence. I know why I did it, but it doesn't make the dishonesty ok.


I'll quote Someone far greater than me on this one.....".....physician....heal thyself....."....



Jrawk1120 said:


> I am just hoping for some more insight.


You need no further advice. You've got this one nailed. Just figure out WHY you give yourself permission to lie. That insight will be quite helpful.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

TJW said:


> I'll quote Someone far greater than me on this one.....".....physician....heal thyself....."....
> 
> 
> 
> You need no further advice. You've got this one nailed. Just figure out WHY you give yourself permission to lie. That insight will be quite helpful.


I got that in therapy this past week. I've always viewed my emotions or need for support as a burden. So in that conversation I responded to a question with dishonesty trying to regulate my wife's reaction to what I was dealing with. Not wanting her to have her focus on me instead of work. I need to proceed with brutal honesty going forward and get what I need to out and let others decide how to react. I can't decide for them.


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## maquiscat (Aug 20, 2019)

Jrawk1120 said:


> I am looking for any and all advice on how to move forward. I know I need to just stay on an honest path, but I am just hoping for some more insight.


I'm going to agree with @TJW , in that you have this nailed. You are getting the therapy you need and you are learning on how to undo all the damage of your past. Key phrase here is learning, present tense. You don't have it down yet, and should not be expected to. Be doing better? Yes. But backsliding is a given in most cases. As long as you are making more steps forward that back, you're doing good.

Now as for your relationships, there is damage there, and they should not be expected to remain to receive more damage while you are getting better. If they can and do, great, but they are still human as well and can only take so much.

You just need to hang in there and work on you. Although I do want to point out that you do not necessarily have to be stark honest/open about everything. For example with your comment of when you didn't actually go to work. The better comment could have been something along, "my day could be better", leaving out the work implication of simply "it could be better". Then a follow up of "I'm not ready to talk about it right now." You are neither lying nor hiding anything in this manner. Whether the other takes it as you actually went to work or not (or what ever the situation is) is now on them. You are allowed to withhold information you are not ready to discuss with others. Just be clear about it. And don't use the technique to cover up other issues.

Sent from my cp3705A using Tapatalk


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

maquiscat said:


> I'm going to agree with @TJW , in that you have this nailed. You are getting the therapy you need and you are learning on how to undo all the damage of your past. Key phrase here is learning, present tense. You don't have it down yet, and should not be expected to. Be doing better? Yes. But backsliding is a given in most cases. As long as you are making more steps forward that back, you're doing good.
> 
> Now as for your relationships, there is damage there, and they should not be expected to remain to receive more damage while you are getting better. If they can and do, great, but they are still human as well and can only take so much.
> 
> ...


Yea, I saw so many opportunities after I sent it to be clear about it. I know how to avoid these situations going forward and I have started putting it to use already. 

I am a work in progress. There definitely more steps forward and I'm glad to say that. 

Thanks for the reply!


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## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

You said your vows to each other one year ago? Maybe you should stop pretending to be married and just go back to officially being single since that is how you have acted the whole time. It just seems at this time you are not really in a place to be a husband. Not everyone should be. Maybe later with a lot of work.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

sokillme said:


> You said your vows to each other one year ago? Maybe you should stop pretending to be married and just go back to officially being single since that is how you have acted the whole time. It just seems at this time you are not really in a place to be a husband. Not everyone should be. Maybe later with a lot of work.


I do know what I'm capable of and being a safe partner is it. I want to do everything in my power to never go back on my vows again. I'm working constantly on being who I want to be and burying the person I was deeper on daily basis.


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## QuietRiot (Sep 10, 2020)

It seems like you just can’t stop yourself from hurting your wife. And so early in your marriage, I mean you even say she entered the relationship based on false information from you.




Jrawk1120 said:


> I do know what I'm capable of and being a safe partner is it. I want to do everything in my power to never go back on my vows again. I'm working constantly on being who I want to be and burying the person I was deeper on daily basis.


Everyone is capable of being a good partner, a safe partner, and the opposite. The choices we make determine which way it actually happens. You’ve made choices, and very recently, to be dishonest. But you already want to keep finding a way to get another chance and another and another.

You are doing the right thing going to IC and figuring things out, but the fact is you aren’t safe. Your actions recently prove that. Work on being better. Instead of burying the parts of you that drive people away, work on healing them. It’s not going to happen anytime soon, your entire marriage has been built upon deceit… whether she takes you back again should not affect whether you keep working on this. Respect her wishes and leave her alone, she deserves some peace.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

You're a chronic liar. Keep going to the therapist and don't neglect to mention that you can't stop lying and deceiving. I'm glad you sought help. I'm also glad your wife moved out because it's a lot of work you have to do on yourself and might limit the amount of lying and deception you abuse her with. Don't be writing stuff in your journal that is untrue and only meant to deceive your wife and/or therapist. No point. 

By the way, anyone can retrieve your texts through a subpoena from the carrier.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

QuietRiot said:


> It seems like you just can’t stop yourself from hurting your wife. And so early in your marriage, I mean you even say she entered the relationship based on false information from you.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I own all of my actions. At the start of everything, I wasn't sure I would be capable and I surely wasn't then. 

I'm no longer burying my trauma or the part of me that felt it was rational to do everything I did, I'm learning how to cope with the emotional issues I have in a healthy and productive way. The infidelity part has been a success and I'm going to keep celebrating that as a short term win until it's been considerably longer than 3 months. 

I have spoken to my therapist about the lying/ dishonesty and have a way to avoid doing what I was doing when it happened. I can't celebrate that as a short term win yet because I haven't had the opportunity to implement it yet. I was doing great with it, but faltered and I'll own that as well.

I don't feel great having done any of it. I never felt great while doing it because it was just myself self sabotaging. I know I can avoid doing it in the future. 

I told her before NC that if I have one more chance and I fail, I'll walk away. I don't want to keep hurting her.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

DownByTheRiver said:


> You're a chronic liar. Keep going to the therapist and don't neglect to mention that you can't stop lying and deceiving. I'm glad you sought help. I'm also glad your wife moved out because it's a lot of work you have to do on yourself and might limit the amount of lying and deception you abuse her with. Don't be writing stuff in your journal that is untrue and only meant to deceive your wife and/or therapist. No point.
> 
> By the way, anyone can retrieve your texts through a subpoena from the carrier.


While she can access my journal, she has told me that she won't read it during NC. I don't hold back in my journal and things she has seen there have hurt her, but not because it was a lie or manipulation, but because it's things I would've said in times of hurt, frustration, etc. I have a separate part of my journal that I record every lie I've told since dday and I have gone back numerous times a day to read it so I can feel the impact of those actions. 

I did seek help. The events that led to this were pretty severe, but that isn't an excuse. It never should have happened. I've made great strides in therapy and am very optimistic that I won't revert back to the person I was. 

I have talked to my therapists about my lying and spent a great deal talking about why it happens, when it happens, and how to navigate it before it happens again. I use that part of my journal so I can guide myself through those scenarios again and give an honest answer. It's my best method of reflection on the past.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

She probably already knows you've lied more than she will tolerate. I think your wife is making good decisions. She doesn't want to be that involved while you're apart and in therapy, and that's fine. It's above her pay grade. I'm glad you're making progress. The outcome may not ever bring your wife back to you, but you will be able to build a life with a more solid foundation going forward. Good luck.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

DownByTheRiver said:


> She probably already knows you've lied more than she will tolerate. I think your wife is making good decisions. She doesn't want to be that involved while you're apart and in therapy, and that's fine. It's above her pay grade. I'm glad you're making progress. The outcome may not ever bring your wife back to you, but you will be able to build a life with a more solid foundation going forward. Good luck.


I completely agree. I'm just hoping for that chance and want as much advice/insight i can get off it happens.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

Jrawk1120 said:


> I completely agree. I'm just hoping for that chance and want as much advice/insight i can get off it happens.


I think the most important thing is you work through all this childhood trauma you've had and understand how you got this way so that you can at least be aware when you're about to repeat the pattern and maybe stop yourself. And dispel the pain from all that and get it off your back. You don't want to cause your own family pain because of it.


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## Jrawk1120 (Mar 26, 2021)

DownByTheRiver said:


> I think the most important thing is you work through all this childhood trauma you've had and understand how you got this way so that you can at least be aware when you're about to repeat the pattern and maybe stop yourself. And dispel the pain from all that and get it off your back. You don't want to cause your own family pain because of it.


Yea, we've gone into the trauma a bit to really nail down what brings me to those places. I could go into pretty good detail, but I'm not sure it's appropriate for the post. The first month of therapy was going into the trauma and at the end just asking, "but how do I stop myself from doing it again?" And by the next session I had done of reflection and reading, and said something, and my therapist responded "this is where the work begins". 

I write about all the times I either have either ****ed up, or almost ****ed up and come out on top. I do that so I can reflect on it and just strengthen the skill.


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## DownByTheRiver (Jul 2, 2020)

Jrawk1120 said:


> Yea, we've gone into the trauma a bit to really nail down what brings me to those places. I could go into pretty good detail, but I'm not sure it's appropriate for the post. The first month of therapy was going into the trauma and at the end just asking, "but how do I stop myself from doing it again?" And by the next session I had done of reflection and reading, and said something, and my therapist responded "this is where the work begins".
> 
> I write about all the times I either have either ****ed up, or almost ****ed up and come out on top. I do that so I can reflect on it and just strengthen the skill.


I guess it will come down to behavior modification. Once you see how changing your behavior makes people treat you differently (though those already burned may not), it becomes more rewarding.


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