First I have to say wow. So many meaningful replies. I am so gracious to you all. To know and feel that I am not alone, and that there are people out there who will take the time to empathize with a complete stranger. I feel so much less of a burden knowing this. Thank you all for your replies. It fills my heart with hope. I needed this. This actually feels like a step forward for me, I've been on the fence about committing for years and... I just appreciate the shit out of you all, as well as your replies. I have read them thoroughly and each comment was undeniably genuine, meaningful and helpful. I'm floored. I will make sure I pay it forward as a new (and proud) member of this community.
As far as my situation, I see that there are many who are facing the same personal internal battle. So as much as I really don't want to get in to it again (three therapists in two years, one IC and two MC) For the sake of healing and guidance for anyone in a similar boat... I suppose it's necessary to share a bit more about it.
I knew something was up for a while, but my wife wasn't necessarily clear about things. When it got too bad, I quit drinking and started working on me and us. Probably too little to late. This process was lonely as my wife was not on board. She was hanging with a friend group that included 2 younger men in their mid 20's. It was a redflag and all along I knew this was going to be a problem. They were into Ketamine and I was at home trying to fix things. Girls trips... God I feel silly typing this and it's going to take too long so...
One night my wife left for a weekend party with this friend group. My dog was dying, and I was committed to sobriety, so I stayed home. I didn't want her to go, I told her I didn't support it, but she was needing space and there was nothing I could do. Obviously, I knew shit was bad. Nothing was going to be ok. Prior to this, I am quite sure things were already going on, but she claims this was the one and only time, one night, the worst night of my life. She is an adult, I do not control her, I was powerless. That night she called me at 12 pm saying our 17 year old stepdaughter was outside. She was a tough kid and she didnt really like me that much at the time because I was firm with boundaries (I am a teacher). She said that our duaghter had called her crying, she had just been abused by her boyfriend and was scared to come inside because im a guy and she was scared. Of course, I was able to be supportive of my daughter, we had a good chat, I supported her and listened and she was receptive. I felt good about this. Until my dog started seizing... my 14 year old best friend dog from before our marriage. She had 11 seizures that night and, in the morning, I knew I had to say goodbye. I called my wife a few times, left messages, told her to come home as we needed to put the dog down. Nothing until 11 am. 15 minutes before I had to be at the vet. She said she couldnt make it because it snowed to much (she was in the mountains about 30 miles away at a friend's house (it snowed 2 inches, this was bullshit). I put my dog down with my supportive parents there, my wife lying to me to avoid it. That night, after all I had been through, after all her daughter had been through, she failed to come home, even though she was supposed to. She abandoned our family in a critical emergency.
After that night things got better, I was able to get WW to come to therapy and for a while we were more together. This also coincides with the alleged OP moving away as that party was his going away party. I knew something was up and I had been betrayed, but it took about 2 months of denying things until the truth started trickling.
My wife was still abandoning us to party at random. She was drunk every night, every day, she was suffering severely and numbing. It was sad to watch, she was a different person, she was broken and ignoring it. One night 2 months after the worst night of my life I decided to have a drink or two with my wife and the friend group. She was very drunk, but being nice and affectionate, but it felt weird. I straight up asked her on the ride home if she had ever cheated on me and she started struggling. pausing. She them admitted to an affair 8 years prior, when we had been dating for 3 months. I went to Quebec to visit friends and she went to south Dakota to visit a friend (these were plans made before we started dating) and she had cheated on me that new years eve. This was a hard thing to hear. I asked her if she had cheated on me recently... she struggled to answer the question but denied this. saying this was the only time.
I struggled with this information. I had a lot to process. I went to my parents house for a night to think. When I returned we talked and I decided that I needed more information. She got covid that week and we both had to stay home because of it (this was early pandemic). She was sick and stayed in the room and I took care of her. We didnt really have time to talk because of it. I did not want to get sick and miss time from work. When she felt better that friday, she came downstairs, we had a good talk and she had some drinks. She got pretty damn drunk, but things felt ok. Because of this I decided to take advantage. I said "look, that was a long time ago, I can forgive you, I think were going to be ok as long as this was the only time you cheated." She froze, drunkenly panicked. then confessed to cheating on me. wouldn't say with who, but drunkenly babbled about it happening at the house of a friend, who had nothing to do with any of this.
That next week in therapy she came in hot, told me it that she had a one-night stand with one of the boys from the friend group, wouldn't tell us when. Said it happened one time. That week she was a drunken mess and didn't make any sense. That Friday I almost left her, but we agreed that it was best if I went to live with my parents for a while, stayed together but took some space. Two months passed and I worked on me hard. Our MC turned into IC and I put in hard work. We stayed in contact and slowly started reconnecting and coming back together. We took a ski trip for a weekend and that is when she told me that the one-night stand happened on a girls trip in October. This caught me off guard, but the OP lived in Vermont and was close friends with her friends.. she went on the girls trip to and happened to be visiting his home during that week (He was kind of fat and ugly, so at the time, I wasnt worried... its weird). Anyhow because of this it seemed believable. I sort of believed it, but this was not what I had expected. Anyways, I moved back home and we got a new MC and started working on Recon...
Recon was tough, she was defensive every time I brought anything up. She kept wanting to go to party with a very toxic friend who knew everything and was involved in the cover up. There was no real work being done on her end. She got mad at me the weekend of this friend birthday for no reason and said she wanted a divorce. That Friday I came home late from a softball game to our Hungry kid asking where mom was. No one knew. Mom called me at 12 saying she was at friend's birthday party. WTF.. In June her toxic friends had bought her tickets to vegas. She almost broke up with me when she told me she was going to vegas. She was choosing this over me. We tried to work it out in therapy, but she was going to go. There was nothing I could do. Before she left, we had a long conversation about what I needed from her. Contact, to know what was going on at all times. Complete transparency. She agreed to this. I made it very clear all along that I was not okay with this trip. Anyways, on this trip, she was very drunk the entire time. She tried to contact me the first day, but in the background her friends were talking shit about me being insecure. She was mean to me, as if it was a chore. The next day she broke contact for 24 straight hours. Called me the next night packing, drunk as all hell and being very mean. They were doing cocaine. It was awful.
She came back like it was no big deal, but it was. She said she left her phone in the room. Our MC tried, but she denied and avoided and became defensive. Awful.
Then things started to change. MC got a little bit better. She stopped hanging with the friend. Completely eliminated the friend from her life. started doing some work, being a bit transparent... this is when the Recon started. This is the only reason why I have the first five letters. Things felt better. She went to visit a friend in Salt Lake... a good friend who I trust... sort of. Was totally transparent. When she returned, she broke down and told me that her "one-night-stand" had actually happened the night my dog died and that she was too ashamed to admit it. Thats great but at this point I'm completely baffled. I had been TT'd to death. This is where my problem originates from. The actual truth according to her, came out 9 months into recon last September after 9 months of TT and very shitty behavior. Since then, things have been steady, but I have been very open about not believing her. She continues to claim everything has come out. Swears by it. Swears on the lives of our new awesome wonderful dogs we adopted. I am not so sure though. She still has some issues with transparency, and it kills me every time. She gets defensive when she fails on the transparency expectation and says im being controlling. It chews me up inside and when I try to talk about it, I get a defensive gaslighter. It's not all bad. But it's not good enough. Henceforth the confusion. We are back in therapy after a big drunken fight where we both were mean to each other. It just builds up and kills me to the point where I explode because things are being rugswept. Admittedly its tough on her. She has not been able to show empathy towards me regarding my trauma and my experience. We have talked about it, and she doesn't quite know why. She says she is trying to figure it out. I am not sensing remorse. It's all really slowly killing me inside.
WHEW... that was abridged but damn. Hopefully this adds more perspective to the conversation. Thank you for taking the time to read it!