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My wife had an affair 25 years ago , despite my red lines,remained in contact sporadically in next couple of years (even met him "platonically" with our baby daughter in park 2 years later to "talk things over" although from what Iater read he had different intentions and then after he moved abroad , as we did to a different country ) . She contacted him 10 years later which I discovered , hit me like a brick , that’s when i read about the post A contact and also a weekend away they spent away together she told me was for work at the time . It’s been a hard journey since but we are still together and had another child 20 years ago . I coped terribly at the original time post A worse after the ten year contact . The last 8 years things are much better .

Recently my wife suggested a weekend away at a renowned beautiful part of the country she had read about , some 150 miles away . It turns out this spot is just a couple of miles ( we’d have to drive through it )from the village where they went away for their "romantic" weekend . I believe she has not realised this yet. When I did, the bad memories came flooding back and I am deciding if and how I tell her now , make excuses to go somewhere else , or even go , and see if she realises and act as a test to see if I can put to bed memory of their weekend away . I’ve no one to talk to about these feelings and lord knows I’ve dragged up the details of the A with her many times before as by her actions it never left me for years but i do not think the reaction will be good and positioned as a "there you go again wanting to make me feel bad " she is a completely different person now . I am siding with the option of making excuse to go elsewhere and forget what I know about her suggestion by myself , but any advice / support welcome

Thank you for taking the time etc

J

[This message edited by JackD at 8:32 AM, Wednesday, June 18th]

do not think the reaction will be good and positioned as a "there you go again wanting to make me feel bad " she is a completely different person now

This is not the right reaction. She should be apologetic and understanding of your feelings. Not upset that you have a reaction to something that was a betrayal she chose to do.

Sometimes people just don’t get. 🤦‍♀️ SMH

I don't mean to pile on, but I, too, think your only good approach is to raise this issue. Depending on how she responds, raising this issue will be somewhere on the 'Great!' to 'Awful' spectrum for your M, but as much as the truth may hurt, it hurts less than the truth does.

She cheated. You feel bad and tell her. Then she accuses you of wanting to make her feel bad. Does that sound like she cares about you? She may care about you very much. She may just get defensive about her A. But that's an issue for her as well as for you.

My reco is to stop letting this sick, infectious dog continue to sleep. Wake it up, and cure or slay it.

Agree with the others.

I would simply say you realize she may not have noticed it, but this is a place you don’t want to pass thru. I would say you love the idea of a getaway with her but you would like to look for a different location.

I think she should understand this. If not then I would agree there is a lack of empathy that should also be discussed. She should be making you safe in sharing your feelings. It’s an important aspect of emotional intimacy.

Everyone is also different some bs purposefully choose to go to the city or location so they can reclaim it. That would not or did not work for me they always met at our house we had to sell it.

Wait she visited the OM with her daughter, did You do DNA

Thanks for the responses

I think I need to find the appropriate time to raise this with W without it becoming a big issue

@survrus yes , about 2 years post A she met him with our daughter ( a few calls in between apparently ) , she said she was suffering post natal depression and about the way she ended things with him and needed to talk . I only found this out ten years after when she again contacted him after he had moved abroad . We had moved to a different part of country and before she fell pregnant .

[This message edited by JackD at 8:34 AM, Thursday, June 19th]

she said she was suffering post natal depression and about the way she ended things with him and needed to talk .

This is utter bullshit and enrages me on your behalf. Post Natal Depression is a real thing. It real, scary and debilitating for many women. To use it as an excuse to continue contact with AP devalues it, gives it a bad name and is utter bullshit!

My uneducated but very wise Grandmother had a saying. When it came to an excuse just say "I had to tie my milk up with a rope". I looked at her quizzically and said but that doesn't make any sense! She said "one dumb ass excuse is just as good as another"

"there you go again wanting to make me feel bad "

If this is her reaction to anything A related - she has much work to do because she's still making herself the victim.

I think I need to find the appropriate time to raise this with W without it becoming a big issue

Sorry to be harsh.

It's a big issue. It's got you writing in forums.

Your wife had a boyfriend for years and is taking you near the place she took her boyfriend.

If the disrespect doesn't anger you then fine but why are you disregarding a very obvious infraction in order to try and keep the peace?

For context the original physical A was 6 months , followed by as I say post A non physical communication for 2 years and then again 10 years later , last contact being 15 years ago so no current problems other than the fact of this new trigger about going somewhere so close to where they spent an intimate break away . Yet I still can’t fathom if it’s me that can’t move on .

Update , raised the issue sensitively (just my opinion ) and whilst initially we seemed to have a rational discussion about it (she accepted that she would have found it very awkward if we had gone and then when she realised where it was ) , there then followed nearly two days of silence culminating in me having to pull out of her the issue was with me raising anything to do with the A , admittedly so long ago but this felt like an exception to me .

Today this lead me down a rabbit hole , is still have their last email exchanges from 2007 and read again, and piecing together the comments in there I do believe that there was at least the EA and some extent of PA in the 2 years after D day when I had made my red lines clear and which were clearly broken (he referred to their breakup being at my insistence and that i was "meddling " which is an interesting take on it ! … i still after all these years have urges to set his wife straight on the A as I believe she had no idea .. but just seems like petty revenge after all this time )

So I either drop the subject and wait for her to loose her moodiness with the situation or fight my corner that I believed in the circumstances it needed to be raised , problem is after reading those emails again I myself am probably not in the right place to continue

[This message edited by JackD at 1:27 PM, Monday, June 30th]

Based on what you've shared about your wife's affair and the fact that even "sensitively" bringing it up results in her completely icing you out for days at a time, I don't think it's a coincidence at all that she picked this spot for your romantic weekend. I think it was deliberate and she's angry that you noticed.

She has treasured memories of her affair. She's still carrying a torch for OM. When you bring up the affair, she doesn't shut you down because she doesn't like feeling ashamed of how she hurt you-- it's because she doesn't like being reminded of what she lost.

If you "fight your corner", the best you're going to get out of her is some insincere variation of "I wasn't thinking about the affair when I picked that spot and sorry I was mean to you when you brought it up."

If you're hoping that she will demonstrate guilt over the affair, disgust at the OM, and deep remorse about the pain that she caused you, you will be very disappointed.

But I don't think I'm telling you anything you don't already know. I think what you're really wondering if whether you can handle another 25 years of this.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:53 PM, Monday, June 30th]

JackD:

You posted back in 2020 and this post is a very to-the-point how you have evolved of the passing years:

Butforthegrace ( member #63264)posted at 8:13 PM on Wednesday, November 25th, 2020

My friend, I'm sorry you're here. There is a lot to unpack in what you've said, and you've said very little. Overall, posts like yours are poster children for the evils that flow from rug-sweeping, which is clearly what you've done. Shit stays around like the stench of a rotting corpse under the bed. It never goes away. You spend 20+ years suffering through the charade of a marriage.

The first thing I will say: you don't need any more reason than you already have to divorce this woman. Divorce does not require any threshold proof, and the passage of time from the last verified instance of infidelity does not create amnesty. Divorce is available to anybody who is unhappy in his marriage.

Second, you cannot control your WW's behavior. You should try to do so, not even a little bit. Not by direct request, not by ploys or threats or gambits. You can only control you.

Third, this site is mostly about helping betrayed spouses get out of infidelity. There are only two paths: divorce or reconciliation. Reconciliation is only available if the cheater you are married to commits herself 100% to fixing what is broken inside her (usually with the help of a good IC), going full no-contact with the AP, and bending over backward to do everything she can to make you heal. Obviously, your WW is not one of those types of cheaters. Therefore, to be blunt, your only path out of infidelity is divorce. In other words, your choices are: (a) continue living year after year of "this shit", or (b) divorce your cheating wife.

As to that last point, I'd mention that divorce is not irrevocable. If you file a divorce, it can take about a year to resolve. You can abandon the process at any time. Even after you finalize a divorce, you and your WW will remain in each other's lives as co-parents. You can date. Rediscover a relationship. All that.

However, staying married, that is irrevocable. The time you spend in that unhappy marriage, you'll never get it back.

Divorce is taking action. Moving forward. For 20+ years you've been stuck in inaction. The shark that swims, eats. The shark that stops swimming slowly dies.

Let's get down to brass tacks.

WW had A with a work colleague ... in ’98 ... start[ing] one year into our marriage for about 6 months .

The first year of most marriages is still the honeymoon phase. Cheating at this stage is a huge red flag. It is an express statement by your WW about how she views the sanctity of the sacred wedding vows she made, presumably before God and family.

day 2 was you must never see AP . she did the next day as she "wanted to tell him face to face it was over"

Right out of the box she was not only not remorseful, she was putting the AP and his feelings ahead of you, your feelings, and your marriage. You are and have been Plan B, this entire time.

"Fast forward" 10 years [plus 2 kids and a few moves]. To my shame (as it seemed at the time ) I bugged her PC and [found she had] recontacted her AP wishing him a happy birthday etc etc .

There is no shame in bugging her PC. The shame here is 100% on her. There is and should be no privacy between spouses. The two become one. Meanwhile, you confirmed that, after 10 years of marriage, you're still Plan B.

he accused me of "meddling" in "their" relationship .. btw he was married with 2 kids when they first hooked up

Have you exposed the A to his wife? You should do this right away, and DO NOT tell your WW in advance. The chutzpah of him suggesting you are "meddling" in his efforts to fuck your wife. That kind of talk isn't coming from a vacuum. It speaks volumes about the degree to which your WW has affirmed, to him, the degree to which he is important to her.

When I confronted her over this she claimed she always felt guilty about they way she had treated him \ ended the A.

Assume she was honest in saying this. Felt guilty about how she "treated" the AP? It seems to me she gave up some NSA pussy. He's probably pretty happy about that. Maybe she felt guilty that she didn't give him more NSA pussy than she had already given him? Never mind what she didn't say: she felt guilty that she betrayed you by taking off her clothes and letting another man put his dick in her just months after promising you, to your face, in your wedding, that she would never do this.

Is it possible for her to shout any louder that the AP is Plan A and you are Plan B?

Turns out from the emails I read she had met him 2 years after their A ended , met him in a park with our own 1 YO daughter in tow , again to address misgivings about the way she ended things . He referred to this incident and "touching her breast" and clearly had feelings to go further .

Oops, I spoke too soon. I didn't realize she could turn her "Jack D, you're Plan B" message up to 11. Playing sexy touchy feely with the AP, with your daughter present. SMDH.

10 years on from the above (and another child I’d like to say I’ve reconciled myself but truth is the pain still comes back to me.

My friend you're not reconciled with your cheating wife, not even a little bit. You've merely rug-swept this, choked down the shit sandwich for God knows what reason.

I cant do another 10 years of this shit that’s for sure

If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll keep getting what you're getting.

You cannot change your WW's behavior and should not try. You have not described one ounce of effort made by her to fix herself, to make recompense to you for the damage, nor to help you heal.

As I see it, you have two choices: (a) "do another 10 years of this shit", or (b) man up and divorce her cheating ass. My friend, she is still cheating on you, in essence.

Which JackD do you want to be staring down in the bathroom mirror 5 years from now? 10? If my timeline is right, you're in your early 50's. Plenty of time to find a good, honorable woman who will treat you with respect, kindness, and love. My friend, cut that poison out of your life.

[This message edited by Butforthegrace at 8:17 PM, November 25th (Wednesday)]

I think this sums your life to date.