At the suggestion of several others, I’m reposting a considerably more compact version of my previous post. I do feel the details matter, in that they are precisely what I can’t seem to come to terms with, but I’ll try to be brief. You can find a more detailed version of things in the old thread here .

My wife and I are having severe problems that, if we can’t resolve them, are going to destroy our marriage. We are just about to have a baby, so we are motivated to find a way through this.

In a nutshell, I have been cheated on by my ex-wife twice, and I feel I have a damned good eye for what a woman having an affair looks like. Now I am married again. I saw things that disturbed me not long after she moved in. Once my radar went up, I watched her very closely. I doubted my gut, because I felt my past experience was clouding my vision, but as things went on, it began to look very damning. I have numerous data points that seem to only make one picture when one connects the dots. Short of having caught her in bed with someone else or a confession, I feel it’s as close as it gets. I suspect I would have found the evidence I needed in her email, but after I confronted her, she deleted the emails for the time in question, and also some others. These others were conversations she had with other men prior to our relationship.

I want to work on our marriage. She does too. But I feel she is trying to sweep something under the rug here, and I simply cannot let it go and maintain my self respect. With my self respect goes the ability to provide for my family, or to be a husband and father worth speaking of.

For her part, she admits to being abusive, dishonest, and keeping contact with at least one man that she should not have. She claims she had no inclinations toward him, that he was an old friend, but after talking with her in depth since this all came up, I am fairly certain that he was, at the very least, pursuing her. I have no idea of the truth of the situation. I don’t know anything, honestly, except that the story I am told doesn’t match the data I have, and her explanations of the gaps do not make sense and seem foggy.

She cops to quite a bit, and is resolved to change. But I feel the evidence I gathered is damning, and as much as I want to move on, I simply don’t feel it is possible without knowing the truth. She swears I already have it.

The conflict between believing my wife or myself is taking its toll on my mental health, to the point that I feel close to a breakdown.

As I said, there are a lot of specifics in the other thread, but I will leave them there, and people can refer to it if they like. Thanks for your time.

She's having an affair and you're not married.

and in all probability she's pregnant with another mans baby

Run fast.

Believe me, bro, I am not clueless. I've been through this before, as I said. You don't think I already thought the same things a million times? Your sig says you've been there, too, so we're both on the same page.

I have to weigh it against the other possibility, that I would be walking out on my child that's about to be born. It's not a simple thing.

We're on a completely different page my friend. I am in a recovered marriage and you are in denial.

Hope is not a plan.

I came here looking for help, not more lumps when I already have enough, man. Have some compassion. I stated very clearly that I know what's up. The only hope I am nursing is that my wife will listen to someone here and see her way to coming clean.

I'm trying to find a way to get past it. You fixed your thing, everybody else can fix their thing, but I can't fix mine? That doesn't seem to fit with the Harley philosophy.

Did I say it can't be fixed?

WE not I but WE fixed our "thing"

WE were not in denial.

You are stuffed if she won't be honest with you.

Don't I know it, bro. Like I said, been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the divorce papers before. I don't know if you read the whole, sordid tale, but trust me, I know where I am, and it's not a good place. I wouldn't be spreading my business all over if I didn't feel out of options.

But to my wife's credit, she is hanging in there, too. SHE wanted to take a lie detector, and I didn't feel comfortable with it. I really would like to hear what folks here think, because I am leery of those things. SHE wants a paternity test to prove the baby is mine. It was her idea, she put it on the table first. Now maybe that's all bluffing, but the proof will be in the pudding, in that we will definitely be having that paternity test as soon as the baby is born. That's a done deal, or I am gone.

Don't take me as pissed at you, either. I appreciate the somments. I'm just clarifying things. I'm in trouble, man, deep, deep trouble, my [censored] is in a serious crack, here. You're not wrong about that.

I'm just trying to find my way through it.

And howcome you always post twice?

How far on is she?

grendel,

I read your first, longer post. I agree with BK that you are NOT getting the whole truth, AND that you can put yourselves back together. But only if you can be sure you are getting the truth.

Easy. Let her TAKE the polygraph she's offered to take! You are so sure they are not accurate...do the research and find out who the most reputable sources are. And if the results say she's telling the truth, get ANOTHER one for good measure.

Personally, I think she'll flunk the thing, but I'd love to be wrong. If you marry her not knowing the truth, your marriage is doomed before the vows are exchanged. If you can't believe her once the best technology we have vets her story, your marriage will be doomed. Think about it.

PS: If you think she's "cold blooded" enough to pass if she's lying, you shouldn't marry her anyway! Who'd want to marry a sociopath? Do you seriously believe she's a sociopath?


Good luck to both of you.

Right Here Waiting

Well sometimes I think of more to add! (BTW - Notice my posts are also short? )

If she's not having an affair, why did she offer a paternity test?

I say go with the polygraph.

She is due in a month. The waiting is hell on me. I'd rather saw off a limb, but there's nothing for it.

I promise you unless she is a sociopath she will flunk the test. She IS lying her [censored] off.

Heh, yeh, I've already gotten big lumps for my long winded stuff. It's just, well, you know how it is when you're in the worst of it, where you're jumping at every shadow and everything seems important? That's where I've been for eight months.

Why did she offer it? Because I have flat out said, straight up, I don't believe her and I wonder if it's my child. She says she'll prove it is, because it can't possibly be anyone else's.

Do you REALLY think polygraph is legit? I swear it seems like a bunch of voodoo to me. And couldn't someone cold enough to betray you and lie to you about it forever beat it?

Polygraphs are used by law enforcement for a reason. They are not admissable in court but are highly reliable.

Most people start singing lke a canary before they are even in the chair. Schedule one and the details will come tumbling out of her.

She has you bluffed right now.

Again guys, let me note, I thought I was clear. I do NOT believe, nor have I ever, that I have the truth, and she is well aware of that. I am not getting snowed. I KNOW something happened, and we argue about it a lot. She just won't budge. It's either she's lying, or I am crazy. I just allow the .01% chance that I am batsh*t paranoid when I speak, because I am a Southern man, and that's how I was raised, leave room to be wrong, even if you ain't. Though sometimes, I start to wonder. That WAS what Gaslighting was all about, to make someone think they're crazy, after all.

I hate to resort to the test. My range of options is very limited if she fails it. I have no choice but to walk, even if the paternity test proves out. I don't want it to have to be that way, but I long ago decided if this ended with a 'BUSTED!' instead of a chosen confession, I had to go, that there would be no hope if she didn't eventually come around out of genuine regard for our marriage.

And by the way, could someone who has actually used a polygraph come give some clues? I have NO CLUE what I am doing, there. I don't have the money, but maybe I will have to find it anyway. On this one point, it seems everyone agrees with my wife, not me: do the test.