I was wondering if anybody ever had their spouse admit to an affair, then take back their admission and then admit to another affair.

Here is a brief summary;

About 12 years into our marriage we were making love and at the time of her climax she began shouting out another man’s name. I must explain that she was moaning and shouting in such a different way that if she had said my name I would have asked her about it because I would have wanted to know what I was doing right to cause such a passionate response. I decided to be patient about it instead of being angry and confrontational because I felt that the angry approach could cause harm to our relationship. I gave her around 5 minutes to bring up the subject on her own. When she did not mention it I asked her what was up with screaming this guy’s name. At first she denied it ever happened and after I persisted in questioning her about this she then started yelling and screaming at me. Up to this point in our marriage I had never seen her angry before, but this was way beyond angry, she was furious and in a rage. So I decided to drop the subject for awhile and to try again at another calmer time. This calmer time never came.

I thought about it and figured that she had an affair with someone at her work. The name she screamed was the same as her boss’s name and he had a reputation for making the women sleep with him in return for promotions but it was also a common first name and could have just as easily been somebody else who worked there. I just figured that she got involved with somebody who came on to her at work. I took it as a mistake she had made and that we could get past it by working together. This did not affect my love for her, it was just a problem that we needed to work at together.

Every time I mentioned this incident to my wife, she resorted to getting angry again. Over all these years, she never did deny having an affair with this person, she just refused to talk about it. Slowly throughout the years without any progress on resolving this issue I began to get depressed about our situation, it wore me down. I then changed my approach, instead of putting it in terms of her behavior, I put it in terms of how this long unresolved situation is wearing me down. This change seemed to work because one day in the car she started a conversion where totally out of the blue she said, “you know, sometimes when two people work closely together on a project, they can get involved with each other without ever having any intentions of having an affair”. I was floored by her statement and incredibly encouraged that we were finally make some progress towards resolving our situation.

Several months later after no further progress I had a heart to heart conversation with her about how this was affecting me and how we need to solve this situation and get some form of closure so we can get back on with our lives. I’ll never forget it when she said, “You are right, I did it and it was wrong and I apologize”. At this point it was around 15 years since the initial incident and I was grateful for her admission and apology.

Several hours later that evening I thanked her for admitting to her affair. Then she denied that she ever admitted to anything! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, she was denying she admitted to the affair in the identical manner that she denied ever screaming out that other man’s name 15 years earlier.

I was so upset, I couldn’t sleep that evening. In the middle of the night my wife came to me to tell me that she did have an affair, but not the one I think she had. She now claimed that the job related affair never did happen and for me to drop it because she is now going to tell me about this other affair that did happen!

This first affair was with a mutual friend that she is now admitting to started just several of months into our marriage. She initiated the affair, she sought it out. Then she has to add that she never loved me when she married me, she never loved me during most of our 30 years of marriage and she never once felt guilty during all the times that she cheated on me.

I would like to concentrate on the fact that my wife to this day gets upset and defensive whenever I mention the job related affair (that she previously admitted to) and now defiantly denies that it ever happened. She had around 15 years to deny it but never did until just after she admitted to it.

Her position is that when she admitted to the job related affair, she was confused with the affair that she had when we first got married, but I specifically used the employee’s name when speaking to her about our unresolved problem and knew nothing about this much earlier affair. She also asks why she would not be honest about telling the truth about her now denying her job related affair. My answer is that if she lied about a 30 year old affair, why not lie about a 15 year old affair also? My other reasons are that the affair that she is now owning is with somebody now living several states away while the affair she now denies could possibly complicate her current work situation.

Any feedback would be appreciated. There is more info but I wanted to make this as short as possible.

Thank you for your time.

"Then she has to add that she never loved me when she married me, she never loved me during most of our 30 years of marriage and she never once felt guilty during all the times that she cheated on me"

I would be more worried about this statement than the affairs. How is the marriage going now?

"Then she has to add that she never loved me when she married me, she never loved me during most of our 30 years of marriage and she never once felt guilty during all the times that she cheated on me"

This comment along with your implication that she still works with the guy that she is denying having an affair with would really concern me. It is classic fog babble that someone having an affair would say. I would find out if the affair is still going on.

I think she's gas-lighting you big-time. The "admission" of the other A was likely just to throw you off track. Did you confirm with that mutual acquaintance if he really did have an A with your WW?

And as for her saying that she's never loved you for most of the 30(?) years of your M, that must've been especially difficult to hear. It's also just the kind of utterance I'd expect to hear from a WW.

So here's the question: Knowing that your W has probably lied to you for the most part of the last 15 years, continues to lie to you, and has indicated to you that for most of 30 years of your M she has not loved you and didn't feel guilty cheating on you, do you want to save your M?

She had both affairs.

She got scared of the possible consequences of the the workplace A and is trying to back out of it and transfer the fallout to the other, previous A, which is long over. I'd suspect off the top of my head that the workplace A is stil ongoing.

All the revisionist statements and "I never loved you" stuff is typical, its how WS's justify thier actions. However, she has decieved you for so long, I think its reasonable for you to realize that you never knew the truth of your W or your M, so perhaps you never actually loved her.

I think the biggest concern here is why you were willing to endure this for so long. I hope you are realizing through your recent actions that you do have power in this relationship.

What do you want to happen? Do you want to be married to this woman? Why? I do not ask this facetiously, I ask because the answer and reasons are important.

The marriage is in a state of suspended animation in the sense that there is no progress if you define progress as revealing details of the past so we can get past our issues.

From reading a lot of the messages & info on this board I have gathered that these hateful statements are not unusual. She has since tried to backtrack from these statements saying she was confused and did not mean it.

From all my reading about trusting your gut, I believe she was trying to get rid of me by saying such hurtful things right at the time of my D-Day. She would disagree, but that's my impression.

I was in way too much shock at this time to even think clearly. I recently tried to discuss this again and got the same nonhelpful response so I told her that I had enough of this. She then agreed to individual counceling. I am hopeful something will come from this.

Thank you for your response.

Yes, I recognize that it does sound like the fog babble so often mentioned on this site. I have discussed the possibility of her having an emotional affair with someone at work. When I had first recognized the signs of an EA I told her that she would have to make a decision of who she would rather live with me or the guy at work, but it could not be both of us. She never said a thing in response.

My own perception of dealing with a ton of lying is that when she is silent, I'm closer to the truth. Her silence in the face of me telling she would have to decide who to live with tells me that the EA or PA situation existed. Otherwise her response would be "what the hell are you talking about?" I could be wrong about this, but I don't think so.

She works in a building with security clearances so there's no opportunities to show up unanounced. She doesn't use a computer at home or a cell phone. Can't afford a PI.

Thank you for your feedback.

Thank you for your response. I looked up the gas lighting term a few weeks ago & realize that is what she has been doing to me all this time. I even brought it to her attention, but no response.

Never did confirm that she did have the 30 year old affair because the other person now lives several states away. A few years ago my wife & I ran into an old mutual friend of ours who was a very good friend of this "other person" and he made a comment that he was glad to see that we were still together which I took as odd. After D-Day, I figured this person must have known about my wife's affair & that was what he was referring to.

Regarding to saving our marriage, of course I do. That's why I'm still here. I must confess that I recently reached the point where I have given up on her doing "the right thing". After I told her I have reached my limit of tolerance she scrambled to schedule an appointment with a marriage councelor. I guess I'm hanging my hopes on that. I can guarantee anyone reading this that I have never cheated on her physically or emotionally. As in other cases in these forums, she has been checking up on me but she will never find anything because I will never stoop to that level.

Even at the time I believed that she was admitting to one affair to get me off the trail of another. I was just putting my faith into beieving that with enough patience, love and understanding things would improve.

She works in a building with security clearances so there's no chance of any unnanounced visits. She does not use a computer for home. She is also wise to the advice given on forums like these.

Growing up decades ago we used to talk about couple we knew where someone was cheating & I always used to blab on about how the other spouse deserved to know. Little did I know then that she was cheating & taking note of my comments.

Thank you for your input.

I knew at the time of D-Day that she had both affairs. A major reason for writing about this is to talk about the huge 100 ton boulder that her job affair denial has now become in our lives. In spite of how wimpy I may sound (grow a pair, I know) my line in the sand with her has been that I refuse to live in a world where words have no meaning. Where anyone can admit to something and then retract it at will at their convience without accepting responsibility for the results. I will not & do not listen to her denying an affair that she previously admitted to.

Up until D-Day, I always loved my wife with all of my heart each and everyday. When I married her back in 1975 I read up on the advice that was available at that time. The most common advice stressed the importance of open communication. After we married I used to ask her if she was happy, was there anything she wished was different, was there anything she wanted me to change, etc. Her answers were always that she was happy and everything was fine the way they were. Of course she was cheating then.

When D-Day hit it did not change my love for here. I always felt that the passion I put into our relationship would save our marriage. It was not until the 2 year mark when it was obvious that she not going to talk about what was wrong in our relationship that my feelings for her started to fade.

To directly answer your question, thru thereapy I began to get a clue that feelings regarding my marriage are directly related to the crappy marriage & family life that my parents had. I'm not blaming them for my mess but I now understand that everything I did in life was designed to avoid ending up wasting my life like themand to end up like this despite my best intentions & efforts is shocking beyond belief.

Why do I want to be still with her? I still have great feelings for her & to be honest, reading the success stories on these forums does not rule out hope, but encourages it. I am curious to see what result her individual counceling has. Don't think for a moment that my case is a lack of communication. She has heard every word I have said here many times over.

I believe that she owes me an answer as to what was lacking in our marriage while we were still newlyweds to cheat. She hints there were problems but I try to tackle this headon and ask what the problem(s) were and she will not answer. My gut tells me there really was not a problem, she just did what she wanted when she wanted to.

Thank you for your reply!