I will make this short and to the point.
Married for 6 years, four children and found out this year my wife was having an affair. Not sure if it was a emotional or physical affair, nor do I care at this point.
About two months ago my wife decided to move out because she wanted to see if she can fall in love again with me. Just how we were in the past. It took her two days to move back in because she couldn't do it. A week later thought she made a mistake moving back in and moved out again. One day later moved back in and still is living with me as we speak. She also said she will not leave again. She said she wants to work out our problems, but it is going to take time and to be patient. Fine I can handle this, but my issue I have is if the OM is still in the picture by her choice or his choice by pressuring her about the relationship they had. She lied in the past about this affair, but when she tells me to relax and trust her now so we can work things out, should I believe her? She tells me she loves me and we spend time together as much as we can possible...remember we have four children. When we are together I feel the affair has stopped, it is when we are apart when I second guess the issue. Is she talking to him on the phone when I am away, Is she seeing him while I work, etc...
I just started to see a MC so it is very early to see what he suggests.
Should I relax and trust her now or should I still be suspicous with her actions. She did say if I cannot trust her our relationship wil not work out because I am pushing her away. We already said lets forget about the past and move forward. The past consisted of the affair which she did and what drove her to the affair was my ignorance with erh and how I treated her...which I will not get into at this time

What should I think or do?

No, you don't believe her and you don't trust her.

What you are hearing and seeing is straight out of the "Wayward Spouse" handbook. It's going to take quite a bit of time to regain enough trust in her, based upon her consistant and trustworthy actions, to all you to begin to believe her again.

Welcome to the system, you've found a terrific resource for help in getting through this nightmare.

Begin by reading all that you can on this website to begin to understand the concepts. Get, if you can, two primary books that will help you a lot. The first is called Surviving An Affair, by Dr. Willard Harley, the founder of this site. The second book is called Torn Asunder by Dave Carder.


Uh huh, more typical WS (Wayward Spouse) refusal to take responsibility for her CHOICE. 6Years, here's reality: She already left and there was NO "pushing her." It was her choice. The marriage is OVER and was over when she chose adultery as the "way" to deal with whatever it was she convinced herself "justified" such a heinous and hurtful choice.

But she is right about one thing, a marriage MUST have trust in it to BE a marriage. You CAN be married and not have trust, but you can't have a marriage founded in love. So REBUILDING trust is needed and is essential, but SHE is going to have to EARN that trust now. Originally you gave her what is called "blind trust" and believed her vow to "keep herself only unto you." Now you KNOW that trust was misplaced and that "blind trust" is gone forever. It needs to be replaced with earned trust, and for that SHE is going to have do a lot of things that she will likely "Fight" right now because she doesn't want to take responsibility for her choice of adultery yet.


Nice sentiment, many of us have said the same thing early after D-day (Discovery of the affair day) and in our early attempts at recovery. But it doesn't work. There can be forgiveness, in fact it is necessary, but there cannot be "forgetting." It happened and there is no erasing it. It is now a permanent part of your memories.


Wrong. What you did may have "set an atmosphere" in which an affair was a possibility, but actually HAVING and affair is the WILLFUL CHOICE of the Wayward Spouse and that choice is 100% their responsibility.

6Years, I understand your reluctance to talk about "what you did," but you need to understand that we've heard it all many times before, and in many cases, we've lived it ourselves. You are too new here to know that yet, but take my word for it, you are among friends who have "walked in your shoes." The same holds true for your wife as many of our members are Former Wayward Spouses and know just what your wife chose and what she is thinking.

God bless.

P.S., By the way, you'll probably get much more traffic and responses if you move your thread to the General Questions II and/or Recovery forums. Lot's more participation by members on those forums.

6Years, she must regain your trust. Her life and actions should reflect her realizing she needs to do this by being an open book. Her requesting your blind trust is naive on her part.
Recovery IS a leap of faith on your part. BUT, keep your eyes and ears open. I wish when I was suspicious I had kept my mouth shut instead of begging for his reassurances, and just followed up with some good-old-fashioned checking-up/spying. Would have saved us some heartache, and maybe no OC (pregnancy, other child w/ OW).

Catching her telling you the truth (even when she doesn't know you are) builds your trust. Catching her lying gives you information you need for your further decision-making.

She may indeed have no contact with OM. I hope that's the case. But you should see some evidence of her trying to stay away from him. When my H really went into NC (no contact), he QUIT his job without having a backup plan except for unemployment compensation (they worked together), CHANGED his cell phone number, CANCELLED all the email addresses she knew of, gave me the PASSWORDS to all of his phone and bank accounts online, showed me the phone when someone called, never talked to anyone on the phone w/o me present (no hiding outside in the garage), we went EVERYWHERE together for a while in case she tried to run into him, and when she called our home phone he reported it to his old boss and unplugged our phone for the day when he saw her number on the caller ID. This was all after mailing her a certified No Contact letter stating that if she needed anything from him she should contact his attorney. (Regarding the OC).
The letter also told her that the affair had been a grave mistake and that he never loved her. Brutal, but effective.

Welcome to the forum, sorry you're here, but you are in the right place.