Why is he trying to get in if you have asked him to leave you alone? His lying has been stressful enough. Why won't he respect your wishes? Tell your MIL you need a break and have explained that in the letter. He moved out and you can't have him coming in the house when the spirit moves him. You need some peace and quiet from his games.

SF, tell your MIL that if he won't respect your wishes and leave you alone you will have to file for divorce. You were hoping he would respect your wishes after the hell he has put you through but apparently not.

He is trying to make you into the bad guy for changing the locks. Turn that right back on him!!

Starfish,

I have been reading your posts since the beginning. You are an amazing woman and an inspiration to many, many people who are on these threads!

My WH gave me trickle truths for over a year about EA's and situations that happened in the past. My gut instinct always told me there was more. I threatened polygraphs, but he talked me out of it until one night I determinedly told him that he didn't have to agree WITH it he just needed to agree to DO it (show up)and that I was going to schedule one. Over that year I had seen a handful of moments where he was really on the brink of coming clean, and that night I saw one of those moments. I think I have seen a few of them in your story with your WH. Fortunately for me, that night he made the right choice and came clean with the things he was hiding. Now, we are slowly on the road to recovery.

I see a lot of similarities in our stories. In my case my WH wanted to come clean but he was scared, to not only be honest to me and suffer those consequences, but to be honest with himself. He had a lot of shame and guilt for what he had done, and he had buried it in his past and didn't have to stare it in the face every day like he does now. Self preservation through self denial at its finest. I just want you to know that there is hope. Nobody can say whether you WH will make the right choice or not, and you do need to take care of yourself and demand that he does before you start the rebuilding process. But there is hope that he MIGHT. I know you have been asking for that reassurance. He will, however, have NO REASON to come clean if you let up on your plan. Every time you want to stray from Plan B, ask yourself what the alternative is, being married to a man who is still lying to you and has no reason to stop.

Stay strong, you have a huge following on these threads that believe in you!

And don't give him a key!! Make him get a court order to get in and when it comes to court your attorney can get in front of the judge and explain the REASONS why you don't want him in. Your husband can then hear his mud dragged through court!

I had thought she might be trouble after the whole I 'choose to believe' thing. Wow I wonder if she ever had the nerve to tell him to wash up for dinner. Mothers are supposed to be able to spot liars!!

Tell her word for word what Mel said about the divorce. That's outrageous that she expects you to just suffer under his lying and abuse.

The 'nice weekend' is no reason for her to volunteer you for further abuse. The nice weekend was a testament to your patience and courageousness in staying calm and strong under all the gaslighting. HE had a nice weekend. YOU had stetched your nerves to breaking point to save your marriage.

I dont see anything wrong in telling your MIL that while your WH had a nice time with you, and while you love him, you are being put under incredible strain by his ongoing lies.

Awesome. Waywards HATE this.

Such wise words! Your first post, unwritten? I would be interested in reading your story or seeing you post your own thread.

I have thought about this and I think the reason he is such a practiced liar is because he was able to lie to his mother and get away with it. Some people just do not have a good bullsh** detector. I have often thought if I was not a BS detector, that my son would have turned out like this too. He is very smooth but when he tried to lie to me, I nailed him every time so he just got in the habit of telling the truth. Today he is a very honest and honorable young man.

Hi Indiegirl,

Yes my first post! I have been stalking the forums for about a month, trying to decide if I should write up my story at some point (read yours btw, you are another VERY inspirational woman!). I wish I had found these forums a decade ago, it would have been life changing for me. I would have had A PLAN instead of wallowing around with no plan for years. And I would have had support, instead of feeling isolated and like nobody understood. A plan and support laid out by some very amazing and inspirational people, in a tough love format:) I am just happy to be here now, and have learned more about marriage and life than I ever could have hoped for.

Thank you so much!!! Thank you for sharing with me about your situation too. It helps to hear others stories... I hope I'm able to help others too someday!!!

I sent my MIL the following text:

I need a break and have explained that in the letter. He moved out and i can't have him coming in the house when the spirit moves him. I need some peace and quiet from his games. I was hoping he would respect my wishes after the hell he has put me through, but apparently not. I need some time for myself right now and Bryan needs to come clean with the truth (all of it), if he wants to work on rebuilding our marriage. My doctors are advising me to focus on taking care of myself right now and I need some peace for myself.
I love you!

How did your H finally come clean?

MIL's response:


I know u need peace & i want that more than anything 4 u. Take care & try 2 have a good day. Baby steps 4 now!

I had talked to him on his way home from work about the poly. He was giving me the usual reasons why he did not want to take a poly and I just said, I don't care if you agree, will you do it? It was one of the few times I showed conviction and didn't let him manipulate the situation because of what I wanted to believe. When he got home I didn't let up, I kept saying I needed the truth. I could not go on in our marriage without the truth. If he could take a poly and prove that I had the truth then why wouldn't he want to do that. We put the kids to bed and sat down on the couch together. I kept on the poly topic because I could see it was starting to affect him. He kept saying I don't have a choice, I don't agree with it but if I don't take it you won't believe me. I said, there is a third option and that is to just tell the truth. Right here and now tell the truth. He had his head down and his hands were shaking and my heart was beating out of my chest because I knew this was it, I was thinking, what did I do??? Because you know, SF, as I did, that the truth is gonna HURT. I stayed calm and supportive and he just spilled it. I would have to say, looking back on that moment and the trickle truths, the times I have gotten info were when he was caught off guard with my calm and supportive casual attitude, vs during a fight or other highly emotionally charged situation. I know you have had many of those calm supportive moments with your WH.

There were many, many moments like this where he made the choice NOT to tell the truth. I couldn't tell you why he chose that moment to come clean. I think it was the real threat of a poly, which he knew he wouldn't pass. And I know your WH is beyond that, he actually took and failed the poly, so he seems even more determined to hold out.

I'm just praying with everything that I have that Plan B will work for the both of us... Me: for my sanity/peace, Him: to hit rock bottom and come clean.

Thank you for sharing. I only wish my WH could have been as courageous as your H was in telling the truth before the polygraph. Maybe someday...

MIL just sent me a new text:

If u need a break, u could fly up here. We could just shop, eat out & only talk if u wanted 2. The springtime is lovely.

I will also say SF that we had almost a decade of him being deceptive and me just letting the lies and instability change who I was, from a strong spunky woman to a very insecure woman. Then, I hit a brick wall where I just couldn't do it anymore, and doodoo hit the fan so to speak. I began to challenge him and demand the truth. That went on for a year plus during which I got trickle truths, until D-Day. My point here is that during those years where I let him lie and just buried my head in the sand and had a pity party for me, he NEVER would have told me the truth. He had no reason to. Unfortunately, our pain is not a reason to, as much as we wish it was. It wasn't until I challenged him and demanded it, and was serious, that he told the truth. It took me a LONG time to get there, which is why you are amazing because you have done all this in such a short period of time. You are on the right road, if you ever do get the truth it will only happen by you being strong and demanding it as a condition to marriage, there is no other way.

I'm not going to give him a key!

Agree with you 100%