When your wife gets serious, she will be back. She is not taking this seriously yet. She still believes she can toss you some crumbs and you will suck it up. She won't try that here anymore.

Exactly, Senn. You are agreeing with me, that you want to avoid hearing anything that will make you feel the unpleasantness of doubt.

Senn --

You are so very mistaken about the intentions here.
Everyone is here to help you rebuild your marriage -- not write it off.
We hear about the very worst cases, and still have optimism that marriages can be rebuilt and better than before.

But to give you good advice on YOUR goal of saving your marriage, we need all of the information.

And you need to understand that it needs to be torn down to the foundation and rebuilt the right way. So that includes correcting YOUR incorrect perceptions and ideas about your wife.
And correcting her incorrect behavior and boundries.

How can we do that if you won't share the whole story?

That's fine. That's good.


That's true. But it doesn't mean you are done. And you may still have to learn to face unpleasant truths if you are going to fully recover your marriage. Your habit of avoiding anything that is negative or unpleasant, and your habit of getting mad at people who say anything to you that you find negative or unpleasant, is not going to serve you well in recovery. Best to nip this in the bud, now. You are shooting yourself in the foot.

As has been mentioned, a very common wayward trick is to cough up some very bad true facts to avoid the betrayed spouse discovering that there is something even worse. Then the betrayed spouse feels the wayward has been honest and is likely to quit pushing, and the wayward's more expensive secrets are safe at the loss of the cheaper ones.

Also mentioned, a common tactic is to do something like this before a polygraph to get the betrayed spouse to feel at ease and cancel the polygraph.

I'm not saying that either of these things are happening here. I am just saying that it's best to be aware of these.

And I hate repeating them to you, but since you try to avoid hearing anything unpleasant I figure you may have missed them, and it's important to know this.

Melody,
She is not posting because she spent the morning on the phone with OM's W and several hours at the dentist, and worked on acquiring phone records to send to OM's W. She is sleeping because she works 3rd shift. She has taken big strides last 24 hours.
You may be right, she may have given me a small bone and not the whole truth. I know I will continue to strive for her to get to total honesty. She is well aware of my contacting several polygraph examiners (may have to get a councelor as one wont do it without). She knows what the final day will entail, and I can only hope she gave it all, sure seems that way, will know in the end- I can assure you. My point to not posting details is to preserve postitive encouragement, and advice.

Yep. That's my intention.

OK, OK.
Beat it out of me.
She ahhhh there was another OM. you all were right!!!

You all will not believe what she said, I do.

Why would she tell me about him knowing I would ask a million questions, as it sounds unbelievable.

She started calling and talking to a guy we know at the repair shop after taking the car in (been taking cars there for years). He would call her and she would call him, went on for a month or two, ended up meeting him prior to shop opening, they hugged, he felt her breasts, she felt extremely uncomfortable when he did that- said she felt like trash, ended it that day, swears she never called him again.

I asked her losts of qustions, it sounds lagit, she was not ready for the hands up the shirt, he didn't make her feel comfortable, became disgusted & immediately lost interest. She is smart enough to know I won't drop this even if I feel like she is being honest, I will ask a lot of questions.

Never in a million years would I have known anything about this, or suspected. Don't think she is lying, but all the more reason to do the poly, I will not change my mind on that.

Oh, I do believe part of that. But I guarantee you there is more. She whitewashed the affair and I predict there are more guys. I also don't believe he chased HER. She has too many affairs for that to be believable. She is the pursuer. You just didn't want to tell us because you didn't want to tell us we were RIGHT. And we were.

Is the car repair guy married? Isn't it interesting that she always lies about intercourse? I am puzzled by that.... Why would she lie about that? She has no boundaries so it couldn't be because of that.

Why do you think she would lie about that?


Excuse me? We will give you positive encouragement but it may not be positive to encourage you to continue in your very abusive marriage. We are not here to blow smoke up your a**, after all. We are here to HELP YOU get at the truth and make a rational decision.

Your wife is doing what every wayward does when facing a polygraph. She is trickle truthing you in the hopes you will cancel the polygraph.

There is more, I promise you. With her long habit of lying and cheating and your long habit of ostrich man [just tell me "positive things!!" ] I have no doubt of that.

She is someone who has a habit of LOOKING FOR IT. That is her way of life. She gets some kind of thrill out of this. Dr Harley says serial cheaters are usually addicted to cheating, not necessarily to a PERSON.

Have you been tested for STDs?

A woman who had 6+ affairs does not feel uncomfortable and does not feel like "trash" or she would AVOID IT. She SEEKS IT. The proof is in the pudding. She gets something out of this. She is probably addicted to affairs just like Dr Harley has said.

She is saying she felt bad because she knows she is supposed to say that. But that is not honest. Or perhaps it is thrilling to COURT the affair partner and then afterwards she feels bad? hmmmmmmmm

Totally agree with Mel. Also want to add that being "comfortable" is probably only a cover... a half truth. My W was never "comfortable" sleeping with OM 1 or 2, but she never let comfort get in the way of doing it. She had other needs that outweighed her comfort.

I suspect there is much more as well

Melody,

You may be right.
My assessment of my WW, (I do know her) is she has no self control, she strives for attention, she has no respect for HERSELF, or our marriage and has no self confidence. She will persuit the good feeling she gets when anyone finds her attractive or shows her they are paying attention to her. I explained this to her and told her this is what you all are trying to make her understand.
This OM was her doing, she chased him until she realized he was only looking for sex. Is it believable she will not admit to having sex, you bet. On the flip side, can it be possible that she isn't looking for sex, you bet. She is striving for attention and the feeling she gets when men find her attractive, I don't think she is looking for the sex. I don't think she lied about this OM. As I said, I will not give up on her changing, and being totally honest until the day of the poly, because I don't want her to fail.

The reason it's not believable is because this is HOW she lures the man. It is how she hooked your best friend. We know she used sex with him and I am sure she it with the others. Sure, SEX is not her main OBJECTIVE, but it her tactic to get what she wants. She can't get attention from a married man any other way. That is why I don't believe she didn't have intercourse. There is nothing to STOP her from doing that, but there is some reason why she lies about that.

There is some other reason.

Does she have an STD that she is trying to cover up? That might be one reason she is lying about that. She knows she has an STD and denies having intercourse because she doens't want to be blamed for giving you an STD. I am just thinking out loud here because there is some reason why she lies about the intercourse part.

Have you been tested for STDs?

And is the repair man married?

\
A couple of points on this comment. We know her better than you do. You might laugh, but keep in mind that she has been fooling YOU for 15+ years. She has not fooled US for 2 seconds.

And I know why she has no self confidence. She has no self esteem because she does not behave in esteemable ways. There is nothing to esteem.

You're right Senn, sex is not her ultimate goal. Attention/Admiration is probably her goal.

Sex is just what she is willing to trade to get it.

There is some real work to be done by KS to place a lesser value on that admiration (because its empty...).
But there is a real clue for you too. And a tightrope for you to walk.

Clearly, your wife wants YOUR admiration. But now you're in the tricky situation of having that appear very insincere. If you suddenly start complimenting her, she's gonna think you're absolutely nuts! Because the APPROPRIATE emotion you should feel towards her is anger or disgust.

So how can you provide that missing EN of admiration...while simultaneaously not come across as desperate or pathetic.
(I don't know the answer....sorry...) Maybe someone has some ideas.

senn, I am with the others. I do not believe for one second you have gotten the full truth yet.



This doesn't matter when it comes to As. My serial cheating STBX was not looking for sex necessarily but it made him feel good about himself to go after women and get their attention and admiration especially since he has low self esteem (Dr Harley's words).

But using the LB$ concept, once enough deposits (conversation, admiration) are made to reach the romantic threshold, SF is not far behind. It doesn't matter WHY the A started or if your WS is a serial cheater or not.


http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8119_friends.html

Yes, this is what my WH did. He seemed so sincere after dday 2 when he told me many details about both affair #1 and 2 and seemed so remorseful that I bluffed and told him that I would be scheduling it. He told me to please go ahead and do so. Yup, I fell for it and didn't follow through.

Then after dday 3 (You can read his thread) where he repeatedly said he would take the poly and proclaimed to have finally fessed all up... then when I gave him the list of Qs and told him it was being scheduled and the deposit being dropped off tomorrow, the excuses started.

Since then I have found out of more things he was keeping from me throughout the years. I am sure there is more, much more.

A serial cheater is a person who has multiple affairs. Serial cheating and long term affairs are equally hard to recover from. Dr Harley told me that serial cheaters tend to be addicted to AFFAIRS, whereas, your typical one time cheater is addicted to the person. A serial cheater, in order to recover, has to live a completely integrated, transparent lifestyle to recover.

I called Dr Harley back in 2006 and asked him what the difference is between a serial cheater and a one time cheater. Here is the radio clip: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/radio_program/play_segment.cfm?sid=578

Senn,

You are getting closer and closer to recovery, the poly will seal this mess.

What is with all these "professionals" who use their clients as dates, I can somewhat understand co-workers!

Ask for a refund on whatever work you had done to your cars with the management. First expose to the guys wife, or better yet tip her off to snooping techniques.

God Bless
Gamma

No, you don't know this for certain. If your WW was having sex with another man at the same time she was having sex with you, you don't know that at all. There is nothing that would preclude the OM from being the father of BOTH (based on her affair history) of your children.

This seems to be a non-issue with you, since you've already stated that you will continue to raise these children as yours. So this issue doesn't need to be raised again, unless you want it to be raised.