SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thanks GMC - I fixed it. My head must have thought I was in the Reconciliation forum.

BeyondRage,

I imagine you have good intentions and/or are a critical thinker but literally none of what you said is applicable for us. Your good intentions, if anything, are presenting a terrible viewpoint for FG50 to consume. My patience has been abused and taken for granted, period. 3 yound children, 2 spouses and a 19 year marriage is on the line. I've intentionally limited how much I've shared in my posts over the last 5'ish months and with all due respect, I believe you're presuming quite a bit in your accountability misdirection-based post.

I had no intentions to add to the discussion but felt compelled to for the casual WS reader who is, themselves, seeking guidance: I recommend not bypassing accountability via BR's reasoning that the BS needs to do more to leverage fulfillment of spoken vows and the due honesty.

I have nothing I can say in defense for anyone here nor do I want to “defend” myself...I can’t. I have ruined something beautiful

Two things: First off, be careful of keeping yourself in a shame spiral. You will never understand your own worth if you are keeping yourself down.

Second, you have so many positive things staring you in the face, but you seem afraid to reach out for them. You have a husband that is just dying to give you the chance to be an authentic partner, and has shown admirable patience, yet you seem to defy his advice....must like a parent/child dynamic. He has told you some very specific things that may help the relationship, but wind up being handled in such a way that the poor end results almost appear to be deliberate. You also have a forum whose sole purpose is to support people to get out of infidelity in the healthiest way possible(WS and BS alike). Don't be afraid to reach out and use the advice that is constantly given.

(3) rules that are sure-fire ways to help rebuild after infidelity:

1. TOTAL HONESTY

2. FULL COMMITMENT TO THE REBUIDING PROCESS

3. UNDERSTAND THE IMPORTANCE OF RULE #1

I applaud you for for whatever reason wanting to proceed directly to the best possible way to determine the TRUTH available for someone in your situation.

What possible use is a polygraph where the questions used are picked by the person taking it? They're hardly going to choose anything they would knowingly fail. It's a pointless exercise and a total waste of money.

In this particular case it's also another betrayal as she went specifically against her BH's wishes.

The poly is useless when you’re the one crafting the questions that you know you can pass. It’s completely meaningless.

Let's start here. Yes, it is useless if you know the questions/phrasing ahead of time and spend time practicing the exact lie that you're going to use. Any reputable administrator of the test should/would know that, I'm actually kind of surprised they let you "poly yourself", but hey, it's all about the buck, right? So, let's give your H the option again; "I'm sorry I jumped ahead and took a poly when you asked me not to. I realize now that because I was the one controlling the timeline and questions that the results aren't valid and the questions I posed to myself might not be the questions you'd like to be sure of my answers. I'd like to do it again, at your direction, when you're ready for me to do it and without knowing the questions ahead of time". Walk back the poly and give him the option to do it in the way he wants to do it with the questions he wants to ask. You've taken away his decision by doing the poly yourself, but it's easy to fix, just say some version of the above.

There was some new info on there but the “meat & potatoes” were the same.

Be VERY careful with this. My WW did a lot of this, but her "basically the same" was VASTLY different in my eyes. "We had sex that day" (her original timeline) was really "We had sex multiple times that day, without a condom, in our bedroom; I had multiple orgasms". And her comeback to the "new information" was "I told you we had sex that day". Yes, she did, but those are NOT the same things at all!! I have no idea if your H wants that level of detail, but be VERY careful (actually, just NEVER say it) using the phrase "I already told you about this" or "You knew we had sex". What's important to him is likely not important to you; remember, you KNOW all the details, he does not, so he's fishing for the stuff that matters to him blindly.

But it isn't really the lies. It is the total lack of regard and respect that is shown to the betrayed. When it is shown, time and time again, that a wayward's self-preservation is more important than being honest and letting their partner make REAL decisions for themselves, they finally start to believe what they are seeing.....not what they are hearing.

This, man, this, a million times over. It's the complete lack of respect that continued lying shows that's really the death of many marriages out of an A.

When you say the "meat and potatoes are the same" it sounds like you are avoiding some objectionable facts. Small sexual details are critical to men if you said you had one orgasm but had two that is enormous.

They were for me. And, trying to do this without generalizing, but I've seen a TON of threads where this is "the issue". Lying about the sex (from a WW) and details left out, no matter how small, that come to destroy or define the R process. Trust me, as I said before, if you're H has ANY familiarity with affairs, he knows the sexual details are going to be bad, they usually are.

I have nothing I can say in defense for anyone here nor do I want to “defend” myself...I can’t. I have ruined something beautiful.

Yes, you have. But nobody is looking for you to "defend" yourself, in fact, that's exactly the WRONG to do. Don't defend yourself, fix it! Don't say "I ruined something beautiful" like it's a foregone conclusion that once ruined, it's irredeemable, take action to FIX IT. You're basically looking out the window at your car, covered in bugs, road tar and grime and thinking to yourself "My car is disgusting". Yes, it might be, but acknowledging that does not resolve the problem. Go outside, get a bucket, soap, hose and a brush and start washing. And, to complete the analogy, don't stop with a quick rinse off, get out the clay bar, the compound and the wax and turn it from disgusting into beautiful. Accepting that your car is dirty is, I suppose, a step in the right direction, but your not really on the path until you're elbow deep in suds and have a sore arm from working at it so hard.

I understand what everyone is saying and I am trying to mend things with him. I have nothing I can say in defense for anyone here nor do I want to “defend” myself...I can’t. I have ruined something beautiful.

You have had a lot of people tell you that the path you are currently on will most likely lead to divorce. You say here that you can not defend yourself. The question then becomes “now what?”. How are you trying to mend things with him?

Where are you starting?

My recommendation is to sit down and really figure out why it is you are compelled to lie and withhold truth from him. We often tell ourselves it is to protect our BS from further pain. That in of itself is just another lie. Typically the truth is we are desperately trying to protect ourselves. Unfortunately that protection is only another falsehood. A falsehood that will only bring you the opposite of what you are trying to accomplish.

I have been where you are. I understand the panic, the desperation, the flailing. I understand the feeling that with each detail I give, this will be the moment he decides it is too much and leave. I also understand what it is like to have your BH tell you that if he catches you in another lie he will leave. I understand telling myself he will never find out. I also understand that he can see the lying in my eyes so when I tell the last one, he packs up a bag and leaves.

I nearly lost my marriage. Not necessarily because of the affair (although that was reason enough), but because of the lying afterwards. When I took my poly, my husband wrote here that he wasn’t trying to catch me in another lie, but hoping instead to catch me in a truth.

If you want your BH to ever trust in you again, trust in the fact that he deserves to know the truth. Show him that you love him by offering him the information he needs to make an educated decision about his own life. Give him the gift of agency as you hope to have the gift of reconciliation.

I hope you can learn to use this site as tool. Work through your thoughts here. Allow us to guide you through this. Give us more to work with and we can help you. Like I said, I’ve been where you are. SI helped me save my marriage, but I had to be an active participant and I had to keep an open mind for it to work.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:30 AM, November 29th (Sunday)]

BeyondRage, I believe this is one of the very,very few times I disagree with you.

FG, no one wants you to defend yourself. In fact, thats one of the worst things a WS can do..defend their shitty actions.

You crafted the questions. Therefore,the poly was useless.

Do you want to stay married? If so, LISTEN to your husband. Ive read his posts. He is one of the most patient,logical,and willing to give you THE chance BS, that I've seen here. Gently..stop fucking it up. You are continuing to abuse him. STOP.

[This message edited by HellFire at 8:13 AM, November 29th (Sunday)]

I understand what everyone is saying and I am trying to mend things with him. I have nothing I can say in defense for anyone here nor do I want to “defend” myself...I can’t. I have ruined something beautiful.

Flowergirl, you can't defend actions that are wrong and that you should've never done in the first place. So stop trying to do that.

You also can't mend things with your husband... that implies that you can fix everything you've done in the past, he will forgive and forget, and you will carry on as before.

That's not realistic and nor is it constructive. Your focus, going forward, is to completely reevaluate yourself, your idea of love, and your values. You need to rebuild your marriage from its foundations.

The question you need to ask yourself is: Are you invested enough in your marriage to do the work, which could take years, with no guarantee of success?

As for your polygraph exam, polygraphs can't tell whether someone is lying or not... they show whether a person is having a stress response to the questions that they're being asked. Law enforcement agencies don't use polygraphs as evidence (they are inadmissable in court); they use them for interrogation purposes.

A person who is very comfortable with lying-- to the point where they can even convince themselves that they're being truthful-- might have no problem passing a polygraph.

Therefore, it's not that surprising that you passed your polygraph. You crafted the questions yourself. They are probably questions you've answered and likely lied about to your husband a thousand times.

Now that you've taken a polygraph and passed, you're more likely to be comfortable and confident going into another polygraph arranged by your husband, which diminishes the value of you taking one again.

So that avenue of building trust, I believe, is officially flushed down the toilet. The only way forward for you to be 100% truthful, 100% of the time. Make your timeline as detailed and complete as possible. If you can't remember a particular detail, do everything you can-- go through texts, emails, GPS history, revisit locations, etc-- to refresh your memory.

Eventually, you will find that telling the truth is easy and liberating because it will always be the same each time you tell it. It's much harder to keep track of all your lies.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 4:03 PM, November 29th (Sunday)]

Great post by WOES.

FG...Why did you go forward with the poly when your BH insisted on taking the lead with this one?

What was your thought process there?

I don't have your whole history, but from what I can ascertain, you have three children and at least one of them was conceived during the time you were cheating. What were you thinking? Why were you having children while fooling around with other men? I ask that because my ex-wife did basically the same thing. She was having an affair while we were trying for a second child (her desire to have another child). When I found out about the affair, her stupid response was that the OM had a vasectomy so she wasn't worried about getting pregnant by him. But if a marriage was rotten, and mine certainly was at that point, why would a WW want to bring a child into the world?

Yes you fucked up a whole bunch of things, but there have been WW on here who have done a hell of a lot worse.

Yes you've been trying to control the outcome, yes you have TT'd your ass off, yes you've lied ,but I'd ask how many WW come on here and claim that came clean from day 1 and were the perfect WW.

I’ll say the same thing I told my WH when he tried to give me this excuse for TT. “I don’t care what other waywards did or do. I only care what you’re doing.” It’s not an excuse for TT. Not even a little bit.

So yes, you should have maybe told him you were going to do it, and ASKED him for the questions

There’s no maybe here. He asked her not to do it because he wanted to set it up. She did it anyway.

So yes, you did a LOT of shit wrong. No quarrel with anyone who pointed that out to you, but I applaud you for for whatever reason wanting to proceed directly to the best possible way to determine the TRUTH available for someone in your situation.

She didn’t proceed directly to the truth though.

And by the way, there is nothing in the constitution that says he cannot formulate his own questions and have you do another one. He says he wanted to do it. There is nothing stopping him from going right ahead.

Except they’re expensive (I was given two quotes, one $450 and one $750), and in my case it has to be done the next state over. So yeah, unless you have the extra money to spend to do it twice, it’s really not that easy.

[This message edited by landclark at 5:44 PM, November 29th (Sunday)]

[This message edited by landclark at 11:44 PM, Sunday, November 29th]

Except they’re expensive (I was given two quotes, one $450 and one $750), and in my case it has to be done the next state over. So yeah, unless you have the extra money to spend to do it twice, it’s really not that easy.

Heckuva lot cheaper than divorce.