SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi everyone, I’m brand-new here. It’s very gratifying to me to know that a forum like this even exists. I hope you’ll permit me to vent to all of you what I’ve been going through. I feel a bit clumsy with the way. I’m trying to describe all of this and I appreciate your patience.

I’m struggling to try to understand aspects of my wife’s affair, recently disclosed to me, only two weeks ago as of today, and would love it if folks want to share similar stories with which to commiserate or corroborate certain details of my own, as I try to work through gaining more of an understanding what happened here. And of course any general observation or comment is welcome if constructive or helpful.

It has been just two weeks since disclosure, my wife of 18 years suddenly came forward of her own accord one night, and said to me "I need to talk to you….I’ve been hiding something from you, and I need to tell you" and the whole story, or at least what’s claimed to be the whole story, then came tumbling out, amongst much tears.

My wife confessed to having a two-month affair with a man that she had never known before, who randomly met her at a grocery store, he was the cashier in a checkout transaction, and is 20 years younger than her. She said she had been feeling horrible about keeping everything from me and our children, and couldn’t bear it any longer. If you read on below, you will find out that that is not the whole story, and the reason she actually decided to disclose to me is a bit more complex.

I was completely blindsided by this entire thing, I had literally no idea that anything was going on, I never would’ve dreamed that it could have, and was shocked to my core and became so upset that I left our family home and spent the next four days in a hotel, trying to get my head straight, but mostly just suffering in agonizing pain, feeling nauseated, disgusted, etc. I was a complete wreck, and was not being very good at my job, but had to try to find the strength to soldier on, because in this economy, having a decent job is such a precious thing. Honestly, that first week was probably the hardest week of my life.

About us: we’ve been together 21 years, married for 18 years, 12 year-old and 10-year-old daughter, and we also run a family business in food service that is public-facing. I work remotely as a computer specialist. I’m 48 and my wife is 44.

In order to run our food service business, my wife has to do a couple supply grocery runs each week since we insist on offering fresh healthy organic options that are not available through the usual corporate food delivery vendors, such as Sysco, etc.

The way the story goes is like this. At the local grocery store, my wife and two daughters were picking up a weekly supply run, the cashier, a young man, only 24 years old, started aggressively propositioning her, asking for her number, paying her aggressive compliments, etc. The way my wife explained it is that apparently her little small talk that she started off with was perhaps too friendly, and gave him the wrong idea. He then wrote down his phone number on the receipt and handed it to her and was begging her to give him a call later that day. My wife actually reported to me that my daughters were confused by his behavior asking "mom, why did that man give you his phone number? and also "mom he looks really young is he a teenager or something?" I shudder with disgust to think of the fact that this man aggressively pursued my wife, despite the fact she had a ring on her finger, and my two daughters were standing right there. But this is who we are dealing with.
Based on other things I’ve learned about him, I believe he is basically a sexual predator type who uses his position in a public grocery store as a way of pursuing random women. Of course, this does not excuse my wife’s behavior and choices in the slightest.

Here’s where things get a little bit hairy, apparently this young man went through the grocery store’s customer records in order to find the vendor contact phone number for our business. He then started texting our business phone with flirtatious messages, asking my wife to contact him back, begging for a date, etc. My wife claims that at first she wrote "I’m sorry but I’m happily married"… But after he persisted for a couple weeks, apparently this was enough to get her interested in texting him back. I never saw any of these messages, and my wife mentioned that she had been deleting them.

After a couple of weeks of this fellow persistently messaging our business, my wife then got interested in him, and started texting him from her personal phone.
The two of them texted for some weeks until she decided to meet him and picked him up at his apartment to take him to a café so that they could chat. Apparently this culminated in a kissing session in the parking lot, but not inside our vehicle, she said that they actually were just kissing outside the car. After this point, she claims that she simply dropped him off at his apartment…

My wife tells me that they continued texting every day thereafter. All of these texts were being hidden from me and deleted as they came in.

He then started sending her his weekly work schedules so that she could see whenever he was working so that she could plan her supply runs in order to meet him at the grocery store.

On one occasion, she came to him while he was working at the grocery store, and he suggested going out to our family vehicle, and my wife cooperated with by moving the vehicle around the side of the store where it’s more private. He then met her outside and was "making out" with her on his lunchbreak at work….so she claims, and again, kissing was all they did…?

My wife claims that the only physical contact between them was just kissing, no, touching private parts, no oral sex, and no genital sex. I have confronted her several times on this, and she has firmly insisted every time that no sexual contact occurred other than the kissing. My instinct tells me this is probably not correct and all kinds of sexual contact likely happened between the two of them, especially given this man’s juvenile behavior, and his aggressive pursuit, however, I have no way to actually prove this.

The affair went on for two months, from mid-January through mid-March of this year. The reason the affair ended is that the AP didn’t answer my wife’s calls for a few days and when she finally got ahold of him, he stated that he had ‘found Jesus’ (his words) and therefore he now believes that affairs are wrong and he cannot continue with her. My wife had told me that he previously mentioned to her that there is no need to inform me of the affair, and if they just keep it secret, it will be the same thing as though the affair never happened and that way I don’t need to know about anything.
My instinct is that the real reason the AP did not call my wife back for a few days is that he was probably aggressively flirting with some other customer at the checkout line and found a new plaything for his desires. Especially given his young age, and the extremely aggressive way in which he pursued my wife. I know that his style is indeed aggressive because I did find (only) one undeleted text message in our business phone that my wife failed to delete, and it was extremely aggressive, saying things like "I WILL prove to you I’m not like other young guys, I WILL convince you of this, you are so gorgeous, you stop me in my tracks whenever I see you in the store", things like this. So this creates a level of heartache for me when I realize that it’s quite possible that my wife would be continuing the affair if her partner had not abruptly broken it off with her.

During the first days while I was stricken with grief and left our family home to stay at the hotel, I visited the grocery store and confronted the AP. Right off the bat he lied to me and said "I never knew she was married", I told him I know you are lying to me, then I asked him about the physical contact, and he claimed there was none, again I told him I know you are lying that you guys have kissed. He lied a third time saying there was only one kiss. I let him know My wife had already informed me there were at least two kissing sessions.
I needled him for information on any other physical contact and although he seemed very nervous, he insisted the only thing that happened was kissing.
Of course there’s no way I can trust this individual, but I just needed to confront him. He was probably concerned I would make a scene if he told me the full extent of what happened. Then again, my wife may be telling the truth, I may never know. I then let him know looking him straight in the eye that it’s absolutely disgusting and immoral the way he acted like that, and told him someday, if he has his own family, he should think about what it may mean to him to have some strange man going after his wife like that, I told him this kind of behavior is extremely harmful to families, and he should be ashamed of himself. I turned him left.

After a week in the hotel, I decided to come back to our family home. To my wife’s credit, she has been extremely remorseful, begging for forgiveness, telling me that she wants our marriage to be better than it ever was and that she is so sorry for breaking my trust. She is saying all the right things, and I do feel from her a different attitude than I have felt from her in years. she’s being much more agreeable, loving, and attentive than she’s been with me in a long time. She has given me passwords to her computer, phone, etc., and I have reviewed everything. Unfortunately, all evidence has been permanently deleted, but I do have the ability for ongoing access, and I have checked up on her a few times over the past couple of weeks, and everything has been clean and clear so far. I do plan to continue checking up.

I sense from her that she really does want to ‘turn over a new leaf’ in our relationship. She has taken radical accountability for the entire thing, and has been apologizing for profusely to me every day. She is also told me she is so grateful to me for staying with her. She is also said that she wants our life to be better than it ever was in the past, and has made a list of ways that she wants to improve as a wife to me. While it is great to have this positive behavior from her, it was so incredibly painful to go through the revelation of the affair, I wish she could’ve just worked on some of these items without having to go cheat first. But that is what she ultimately chose to do…

I’m thoroughly disgusted with the fact that this man is 20 years younger than my wife, young enough to be her son, and in his immature way, he love-bombed her extremely hard, and yet she fell for this, she claimed that she liked the attention, and the excitement of having someone new pursuing her. Yes, there had been some fighting and emotional disagreements in our marriage, but to my mind, nothing even remotely severe enough to warrant something like this.

In discussing this matter with a counselor, the counselor made the comment that it sounds as though there may be some histrionic or borderline personality traits present with my wife, especially in terms of not being able to reserve proper boundaries with strangers. This kind of resonates with me, because I have been uncomfortable at times with the way she interacts with customers in our public-facing foodservice business, sometimes being just too familiar, too friendly, something feels off about it, especially with certain men. The irony is, I had actually planned to talk to her about my discomfort on this issue the night she disclosed her affair to me.

Thanks for giving me a chance to just get this off my chest here, I would love it if anyone might have observations of a similar situation or thoughts about why my wife might’ve responded to such a juvenile and aggressive pursuit by such a young man who is obviously very immature.

I feel sheepish saying this, but I also must note that I felt like he is a very ugly and odd-looking person, and my wife actually stated she does not even find him attractive. There are so many questions about this entire affair. Nothing really makes sense to me and I’m just trying to figure it out.

We do hope to try to reconcile, the last two weeks have been hell, but I have been doing a little bit better each day. That being said, I still feel very disgusted about everything, and I have moments that are still very challenging and difficult, even though at times I’m also starting to feel a bit better about how I’m handling and processing everything.

If you’ve made it this far, I truly appreciate your patience, thanks for any insight or advice you may feel comfortable sharing.

Md

Polygraph, first have her write out a complete and detailed timeline of the affair then the polygraph operator can ask if anything is omitted or minimized

Do it lest You live in years of distrust and doubt

Oh and You can catch oral syphilis etc from kissing and cancer from oral HPV look it up

MD,

Sorry you had a reason to find this site. Second the timeline and polygraph. Given your discomfort with her boundaries the timeline should encompass any inappropriate behavior since you’ve been a couple. Once it’s done then tell her it will be verified by polygraph and ask if she needs to make any changes. Even if she drops more details follow through on the poly.

Consider individual counseling with someone who is informed about betrayal trauma. Your wayward wife should likewise be in therapy to get to the bottom of how she gave herself permission to betray you. No couples counseling until you’re both stable. All counselors should be vetted for their views on infidelity.

Check out the Healing Library here and read the pinned posts at the top of this forum.

So you found this site, what has your WW found? It’s been two weeks, are recovery texts such as How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by McDonald and Not Just Friends by Glass on her nightstand yet? If not, why not?

[This message edited by asc1226 at 11:52 PM, Monday, April 13th]

Some further thoughts, you’re almost certainly right about the extent of the affair. It’s rare that the betrayed gets the full truth on D day, minimization and trickle truth are the norm.

It’s possible that your WW only divulged her affair because others knew, maybe even because your daughters were asking questions, and she was trying to get out in front of it and do damage control.

Could be a middle-age thing. People tend to get bored with being their own responsible selves and are looking for something unhinged on the side. Add to that her lack of boundaries and the guy's persistence, and you have the perfect circumstances. But it's her job to figure it out. To me he sounds like not the smartest 14yo, so I really do understand your disappointment. I hope that you will have success in your efforts to reconcile.

apparently this young man went through the grocery store’s customer records in order to find the vendor contact phone number for our business. He then started texting our business phone with flirtatious messages, asking my wife to contact him back, begging for a date, etc.

You should contact his employer and let them know about this, I can only assume this is a violation of company policies at a minimum, and this ought to cost him his job.

Don’t blame his "persistence". She gave off the wrong vibes and he pounced. She’s 100% responsible for her decisions.

I’d be really worried to find out she has a personality disorder, that is something you really need to know for sure and understand, given how intractable they are.

I’m sorry this happened to you.

I’m sorry you find yourself here. Your WW’s infidelity is not an uncommon occurrence on this forum: a middle age woman having an A with a much younger man. I am not sure if I believe in the mid-life crisis as a cause for an A, but it certainly happens with some regularity. BTW it happens with men just as often.

Most importantly, take care of you. You will ride an emotional roller coaster for quite a while. Your WW needs to be transparent and attuned to your needs and questions. The worst thing is being trickle-truth end over time. It is like a recurring Dday. Your WW should read How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair, by McDonald. Watch her actions. Does she wallow in her own guilt and shame or does she empathize with your pain. Is she defensive when you ask questions or open and transparent. In order to try and rebuild trust she needs to resolve how she became so broken as to betray her wedding vows. Keep posting. Good luck.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 1:54 AM, Tuesday, April 14th]

Do you believe you have the truth?
The key to reconciliating IMHO is to work from a foundation you believe solid. If you have any doubts or are still questioning parts of her story… then even if she is telling the truth it can wreck your work at reconciling.
I can more-or-less guarantee that learning NOW that there was full sex will cause less damage than if you were to learn 5 months from now that he fondled her or kissed her naked breast. For those months you will be healing – building a scab on the sores – and the new discovery will tear that scab off.

So… do you believe her? Do you believe you have the truth?

Me? I don’t know… What I do know is I find it strange that two grown ups take the time to arrange time together and limit it to a car parked conveniently beside the grocery store to make out. It’s a bit teen-agey. I would have questions…

I want to make this seemingly draconian or harsh suggestion:
First one is simple: She get’s a full array of STD tests and shares the results with you.

Make it clear to her that you want to reconcile, but you need to believe you know the truth. That you still have doubts but are offering an amnesty NOW where she tells you the truth. You can tell her that you have evidence that indicates they spent more time together than she has admitted to and at more locations. You don’t have to give your sources – just state you know this. If she tells you the truth NOW it will show you that she trusts you, and allow you the peace you need to commit to reconciliation.
Be very outspoken: Her actions have completely wrecked your trust to her. This will be part of the rebuilding.

Also make it clear that sometime in the next 20-30 days – when she is adamant she has been truthful – you want her to take a polygraph. This is for her – if she passes it’s confirmation she’s telling the truth and it will help you move on. If she fails… it shows there isn’t much to build on.

Make it clear that she need not fear the poly if she’s being honest.

Even if it was only kissing, there was still a long evolutionary process, with thousands of opportunities to pause and really think about what she’s doing, what’s at stake, what’s at risk, the consequences, the rationality of what she’s doing and yet, she pushed on and doubled down on her indiscretions. She let it progress and only stopped when HE ended things. How far would she have gone will trouble you until you, and her, come to some sort of definitive resolution-reckoning:

Divorce or some intensive therapist assisted soul searching and earnest reconciliation.

Whatever you decide, whatever you do, make sure you don’t solely base decisions in fear, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear of humiliation, fear of breaking up the family, fear of finances, etc. Avoid irrational fear. Some fears are based on valid concerns and a lack of options, but most fears can be resolved through good planning, education, and support.

Also, don’t rug sweep this. There’s no easy answers and solutions. Even if this was a one-off, she still needs to get down to what predisposed her to go down this slippery slope.

Sometimes these predispositions lie in dormancy and manifest years into a marriage when certain life stressors come into alignment such as: marital doldrums, triggering trauma, midlife, self esteem stressors, temptation, opportunity, etc. An otherwise healthy individual can overcome these common life stressors through healthy coping mechanisms, but someone predisposed…

If you don’t get to the very bottom of her Why, and process it methodically, you’re at risk of a repeat, or even the fear of a repeat will undermine your ability to reconcile.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 2:30 AM, Tuesday, April 14th]

Hi MusicalDad, I'm also very new to this site but can at least offer what I've learned in my two months since discovering my wife's affair.

Trust your intuition. My wife didn't disclose the affair to me, I found out about it and the truth began to only trickle in, but the story was never adding up. And every couple of days another omitted detail would emerge that was like a new knife being stabbed into me. It was only until the last lie was told and I truly believed the entire story was I able to start the R process (and we're very early on with that). If you still have doubts about the validity of the entire story, it will make the path to recovery that much harder. I agree with the polygraph, but be prepared when offering that if she starts disclosing information ahead of the polygraph. My wife didn't disclose more out of fear of me leaving or her hurting me; if you're fishing for details you need to be prepared to hear more. Only then can you make a decision on what you want to do, but hearing the truth will help on whichever path you choose to do.

So you found this site, what has your WW found? It’s been two weeks, are recovery texts such as How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by McDonald and Not Just Friends by Glass on her nightstand yet? If not, why not?

I can't emphasize this message enough. Both books were also recommended on this site for my story and especially the first one by McDonald was a game changer. It opened up my wife's eyes to see what I was going through and how damaging it was. While I wanted my wife to be the one who sought out and bought the book, I ended up buying it and it changed her mood/tone about everything. Since my wife finished these books and a few others, there has been a giant change in her attitude and understanding of the pain, anxiety, panic attacks, etc I've been dealing with.

I feel sheepish saying this, but I also must note that I felt like he is a very ugly and odd-looking person, and my wife actually stated she does not even find him attractive. There are so many questions about this entire affair. Nothing really makes sense to me and I’m just trying to figure it out.

My wife's affair was never physical, they lived a few states apart and sent each other nudes/facetimed/etc for months. My wife is very attractive....he was not...at all (and i'm not just saying this as a clear bias person). But similar to your story he "love bombed" her and it resonated. The feeling of someone new and a little younger giving her all this attention was like a drug for her. She wasn't interested as much in his nudes and thought it was weird, but she enjoyed sending hers because of the rush she got. It bothered me big time at first that he was so repulsive and also a predator type of a person. Just know this has nothing to do with you or your appearance or yourself as a husband. This is a selfish act from someone who enjoyed attention; it never mattered what he looked like.

We do hope to try to reconcile, the last two weeks have been hell, but I have been doing a little bit better each day. That being said, I still feel very disgusted about everything, and I have moments that are still very challenging and difficult, even though at times I’m also starting to feel a bit better about how I’m handling and processing everything.

You'll have good days and you'll have bad ones. I've never been one to journal or write things down, but that has helped. When I wake up at night thinking about all the images and doubts I have, I grab my notebook and write what's going on in my mind. Sometimes it's eloquently written, sometimes it's incoherent thoughts on paper, but it helps to get it off my mind and onto paper. There's been a few times at 2am at my kitchen table when I can't sleep I write a letter to my wife explaining what's going on in my head, then leave it for her in her nightstand to read when she can. I noticed a lot of times I was able to more clearly get my thoughts out to her when I wrote them down in a letter format as opposed to when the pain and anger would start taking over the conversations we were having.

Sorry you're here, good luck. I received great advice and it's been helpful and therapeutic just to get your thoughts out.

I just want to thank all of you who have responded here so far, from the bottom of my heart, for sharing your perspectives with me. It’s very, very helpful to have your thoughtful input, and I value it greatly. Thank you all so much.

Dad,

Validation.

That’s the key.

Affair partners are really shitty people who crave validation to feel better about themselves. They fail on normal dating exactly because of the insecurities they are not capable of developing a meaningful and honest relationship.

So they prey on partnered individuals. They bet on the excitement of the affair, on the novelty vs routine and couple natural high and lows, because they can smell the people with their own character flaws ( low self worth, people pleasing, validation craving etc) jus like a old jackal with rotten teeth would prey on the weakest sickest animal of the pack.

Easy to spot, isolate, take.

And affairs are free from true commitment, you have an excuse to not to, so you can only show up with your best false idealized persona and get a ton of validation and dopamine, but you will not have to keep up the acting 24/7 so you won’t collapse and show them your worthless true self.

And for the affair partner to be able to steal someone’s else’s partner is a flooding high of ego boost. That’s why they do it, something that would make any healthy person vomit in the mirror is what turns these insecure worms on. Your wife or any wayward doesn’t really matter here, they are just there, available.

Your wife like mine and all other people partners here, has the same issues and character flaws this guy has. She kept them in check until a point but never addressed them, so they always been there. He managed to hit the right spots and she caved in.

Sure he is disgusting piece of shit. But he has no power over your wife , she chose to do that.

And yes, you are likely to find out more happened as the trickle truths and minimization collapse one after the other.

Shame is what drives her. Guilt is when the truth finally comes out because she stops to protect her ego image and begins to care for the damage she choose to do to you.

If your gut tells you there’s more, be sure, instinct beats investigation all the time.

You need to put yourself first now. Healing you is the only thing that matters.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 10:18 AM, Tuesday, April 14th]

Did they use straight texting or some app to message each other. If straight texting I suggest you take both her phone and the work phone she used to communicate to a professional technician to try and recover the texts.

I also second the suggestion that you report his actions to store management. This person deserves to be fired for what he is doing.

Is your wife still doing the food pickups? Why? She should not be anywhere he might be.

You said you both work a family business. Is it your family? Who else knows what she did. It's your call but I'd at least want her family to know what she did. To hold her accountable.

And yes I agree you should have her write down exactly what she did, each interaction with details and then bring her to a reputable polygraph technician to verify. Many get admissions in the parking lot just before the test.

How will she become trustworthy and a safe partner. She needs to change her ways and that starts with her working 1:1 with an infidelity specialist. Also reading the books suggested by others above.

You have a long road ahead of you both. I'm sickened that your daughters witnessed the beginning of this. Now they will grow with that in their mind and how perhaps undeserved guilt that they did not tell you about it. Your wife modeled awful behavior for them.

I'm sorry you are here. Hopefully you can get some level of support here that will help you. Hopefully you are also working with a trauma specialist.

Hi MD78,

I am sorry you had reason to find this forum, but I hope it will become a useful resource for you.

You mention that:

I work remotely as a computer specialist.

I am sure you will know that apart from a few apps like Snapchat, nothing 'deleted' on a phone or computer truly disappears. You may be very familiar with cell-phones, but if not, you could get a digital data recovery specialist to check the business phone and your wife's phone for deleted messages (as stevesn suggests). The messages are more than likely still there. However, you should brace yourself for what might be found.

This is very concerning:

Here’s where things get a little bit hairy, apparently this young man went through the grocery store’s customer records in order to find the vendor contact phone number for our business. He then started texting our business phone with flirtatious messages, asking my wife to contact him back, begging for a date, etc.

I don't know what US laws are like about protecting personal data and information, but what the guy did here would be breaking UK data protection law. He has accessed personal information and then pursued your wife like a stalker. You may want to check that with a lawyer, because his company may be liable to be sued for failure to protect your business's data. I know that is off-topic, but the guy sounds like a stalker, and accessing data that way is deeply creepy. That company needs to be made aware of what he is doing to their customers, and the legal position he is putting the company in.

The other points that occur to me have all been raised eloquently by others here already. You have had lots of good advice so far, and I hope you feel a bit better to have found people who have have been impacted by similar issues. Our thoughts are with you.

[This message edited by M1965 at 9:09 PM, Tuesday, April 14th]

Get a data recovery software package and run it on her phones. It’ll probably recover a few things since it hadn’t been too long.

I would also echo the others in that you want a full written timeline of everything. Tell her she’ll be getting a polygraph to verify its truthfulness.

Anytime things don’t make sense, when you really think and sort through the facts, is because you’re being bullshitted.

I’m sorry you’re here. Rant,vent and ask away. We’re all here to help you navigate.

I'd say you probably have more of the truth coming from a confession that you'd have if you had discovered indications of betrayal from your own observation or investigation. Your W may be telling the truth. Her ap ... I'd treat every breath he takes and every moment between breaths as lies. But to R, you do need to feel comfortable that you have the truth.

In my early post-d-day days, I stressed to my W that telling me the horrendous stuff now might make me walk, but if I learned about horrendous stuff in 6 months, I would walk. I thought that was effective, but it turns out my W had committed to telling the truth before she revealed her A no matter what, so my threat had no effect at all. Still if the threat is true for you, let your W know now. If she fools you now, you WILL find out, and that would do great damage to any attempt to R.

Not so BTW, I'd report him to his employer, too. As a supplier, you benefit from your relationship with the company. I'm sure he hits on customers, and an angry customer can do a lot of damage to the employer. So my reco is to lodge a complaint.

I don't see much of a mental illness in most betrayal; I don't see borderline or anything like it. Maybe some narcissism. I place a lot of trust in Shirley Glass, who wrote that As happen in good Ms when the WS has lousy boundaries. Um ... that means: affairs happen in good marriages when the wayward spouse has poor boundaries.

It looks to me like your W couldn't say 'No'. Some women are brought up that way. That implies that R is eminently possible, if you both want it, and if your W builds good boundaries. My W still suffers from the angst that she hoped to alleviate by cheating, but she's not going to cheat again, because she knows now that cheating doesn't solve anything, and she knows how to say 'No.'

BUT, IMO, it's too early to commit to R. Glass writes of a period for 'working on the M' while you decide what you're going to do with the M. You have a lot of feelings - grief, anger, fear, shame - to work though. Your W may be lying. Your W has a lot of work to do to build good boundaries. Will you do the work you need to do? Will your W? Too much is uncertain. It's great to know that you want R, assuming that IS what you want. Just ... don't commit until you know you both are doing your work. On the good side, what you report is positive for R.

Also, if you find yourself thinking that you bear some responsibility for your W's A, stop. You don't. There really is nothing you did or didn't do that made her want to cheat. She just went off the rails because of her own issues. IMO,most (alas, not all) BSes (Betrayed Spouses) are collateral damage, not targets of one's WS's anger. Especially when poor boundaries are the problem, your W blew up her life and your M on her own.

OP, listen to survrus. You almost certainly don’t have the full truth. Take some time to read a bunch of stories here and you’ll confirm the fact the vast majority of betrayers minimize the truth. You cannot ignore this. As Bigger said, without the truth you have zero chance at a true reconciliation, if that’s indeed what you desperately want.

Also, your anger seems to be most directed at your wife’s AP. She wasn’t a damsel in distress. She’s a grown woman making all her own choices. The AP didn’t make vows of faithfulness to you. Your wife did. Your anger is misdirected.

[This message edited by gr8ful at 8:01 PM, Tuesday, April 14th]

It’s not so much if she’s telling the truth as it is the issue of you having questions or doubts.

Moving on from this is hard. It’s like a marathon, and anything you can do to make it less hard is going to increase your odds of making it. Trying to finish this marathon with doubts… it’s like wearing boots and dragging a piano along.

On the first page on JFO you can find a thread where the WS felt compelled to confess to an affair decades ago. I think that most decent people – and yes, they are capable of cheating – have a hard time carrying such a deep secret as a hidden affair and/or affair details onwards into a successful marriage. IF she’s hiding some truth, that will create an ongoing boundary between you.
You can also find a thread somewhere on page 2 – a thread of many pages – where the betrayed husband is trying to "reconcile" despite his wife failing a polygraph miserably. He’s stopped posting, possibly because we try to keep things real, and reality is you can only recover from what you know.

If you can honestly tell yourself that you believe you have the truth… good. Just remember that 2 years from now, when she’s reading a book and you look up over your computer screen at her… you are not allowed to wonder if she was telling the truth…
When she comes to you 10 years from now because her conscience won’t allow her to keep this secret anymore… just remember that you enabled her to keep her secret.

I am not denying that MAYBE she has been truthful. But what I think isn’t relevant. A month from now I will probably be long gone from this thread, but you will still be living it.

I mentioned the polygraph in my first post. A poly doesn’t really measure truth, but it measures honesty. If you have demanded a detailed timeline and the truth on all aspects of their interaction then you and the polygraph operator define 2-3 key issues you want clarity on and then the operator asks her those questions. If she’s honest on those answers you can assume she’s honest on others.
She doesn’t know what the questions will be.

For example: You can ask for a timeline (and it does sound like she already gave you one) but you should ask more questions:
Did you touch his genitals? Over the pants or direct on skin.
Did he touch your genitals?
Did you give him oral?
Did he give you oral?
And so on and so on.
Where did you meet?
Was it only in the car behind the store?

And so on and so on. Keep the questions short and factual (try to keep them as unemotional as possible). Ask EVERYTHING now. It’s better out in the open – and frankly learning that they did something beyond kissing is IMMENSELY better NOW than maybe 20 days from now.

Make it clear to her that at some point you will need a poly, and the goal of the poly is to allow yourself to trust her.
She starts questioning the reliability… you basically already have an answer… there is more to the story.

I like what Sisoon shared: The truth might make you walk, but learning that she kept something back will make you walk. That’s the message you need to get across.
You also – if you want to reconcile – need to prepare yourself for worse news, and find a way to somehow appreciate the honesty over the pain.

Once you have the truth as she states it is, you have material to work with the operator on the key-questions.
Like – IF she’s telling the truth as-is then a question might be:
Other than the kissing sessions (and the operator will have defined what was involved in them) have you had sex with any other man than your husband since xx.xx.xxxx?

If she were to admit to "only oral" same question other than "Other than the oral sex…"

The goal is to find out if she’s being honest.
THAT honesty would be like ditching the piano and being offered good sneakers instead of the boots. Still a long road ahead, but more manageable.

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I find aspects in the story not "normal" and even too convenient.
Like… a married woman was OK with kissing him outside his apartment – but conveniently not in the car (thereby not making the car a trigger for you). They made time to make out, but not for her to enter the apartment.
They had make-out sessions in a secluded parling spot at a public grocery-store… Once again – a bit risqué for a married woman.
Seeing as he had an apartment and she knew where it was – wouldn’t the work-schedule work just as well to determine when he was NOT working? After all – stocking produce and bagging groceries can get in the way of making out…
As in – someone that is so forward to customers at a store and so apparent that your daughters noticed… If he behaved this way to other women – as in your suspected predator way – SOMEONE would have complained.

Was he a predator? Well… in some ways your comments about him not contacting her counter that. A predator is fine with having to juggle "victims", rather than focus on one at a time. But then… to your WW benefit – if all he was getting was some kissing and light fondling during lunch, then MAYBE he moved on to greener pastures or denied her to make her realize the price of the ticket was going up.

Friend – everything I suggest is based on creating the best possible scenario for reconciling. Couples here have reconciled from what might be considered "worse" scenarios than you are dealing with, just as others have divorced over "less". What I have seen again-and-again here is that it’s usually not the facts of the infidelity that extinguish any hope for reconciliation, but rather the trickle-truth required to get those facts out.