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Well, this is what I am getting from the thread:

1. InkHulk's WW is still telling InkHulk that it "isn't wise to ask" certain questions. After all this time. That's unacceptable, and says that she is still Wayward. Seriously, reading this made me angry for @InkHulk.

2. WW still kept this secret from InkHulk--a secret between her and OM!--until this week. I'd be wondering if there are still any more secrets or inside jokes between WW and OM. (And make no mistake here--that is what a song shared between two people represents by the way.) I'd be betting that there still are!

In any event I would hope that there would be no need for InkHulk to ban from the household, certain artists--instead, InkHulk's WW should be utterly nauseated herself whenever she hears any of these artists.

AND....any other secrets, inside jokes, cherished memories, etc., that WW and OM have had, need to be brought out by WW for InkHulk to see ASAP. Time to let the sunlight go to work in whithering them up!

And...InkHulk's WW should, if this is what InkHulk desires that is, be making a playlist that is just between her and InkHulk.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:03 PM, Thursday, November 9th]

1. InkHulk's WW is still telling InkHulk that it "isn't wise to ask" certain questions. After all this time. That's unacceptable, and says that she is still Wayward. Seriously, reading this made me angry for @InkHulk.

Like most things, this idea of waywardness must be thought of as on a spectrum, right? Like she was a perfect 10 right away ("it was only once"), there has been progress, and I’d put her at a 4 right now. If she is still lying to me, then she’s actually an 11, and if she is sincere about finally letting go of the outcome and giving me full control of the information I want, I’d say it’s like a 2 or 1.

2. WW still kept this secret from InkHulk--a secret between her and OM!--until this week. I'd be wondering if there are still any more secrets or inside jokes between WW and OM. (And make no mistake here--that is what a song shared between two people represents by the way.) I'd be betting that there still are!

Yes, there are still pieces of information about the affair that I don’t know, details and jokes and maybe some pet names. I’m not going to explore this whole pile of vomit with an electron microscope. If it matters to me, I’ll ask. I’m not going to give up on the chance to move on with a clear mind just for the purpose of moral purity of knowing everything. But it’s my choice. That’s the point. And if you think that falls within the definition of rugsweeping, I honestly don’t care.
#sorrynotsorry

Inkhulk, for what it’s worth from an internet stranger who understands, I think it’s wise your wife only reveals unnecessarily gory details if asked. As long as she does answer when asked I don’t see her as wayward at all. I see it as her realizing she did some traumatizing, stupid, bullshit that should only be revealed to you if it aides your healing and is asked. And by this I mean only the "ugly details" not the essentials (length, feelings, plans, etc of the affair).Those should be in the timeline. We know cheaters do reprehensible things. The details should be on a need/want to know basis. That was some of the best advice I received from a therapist. "Make sure you really want to know and how the answer will help you". My husband would always answer. Some things I wished I’d never thought to ask, but once you think of them I know too well it’s hard to let them go without an answer even if it hurts like hell. Personally, I think it’s cruel if a wayward gives gory details without being asked. Would it have been nice if my husband described in detail the positions they used, the sounds she made, what turned her on? Hell no. That would be nasty and cruel unless I specifically asked and wanted to know.

Also, I’ll add sometimes our imaginations are worse than the truth. Sometimes (and it helped) instead of wanting to know the details I’d tell him what I imagined or feared did or could have happened and he’d either explain how it was or wasn’t like that. It kept some of the unnecessary gore at bay.

So there are several songs that trigger me. Anything off of "Tapestry" album by Carol King. My wife had a one night stand with a guy who frequented a bar she worked at. That was the first time she heard it at his apartment. The next day she wanted go out and by it. I asked her why and she said she heard it somewhere and like it.

Also the "Pina Colada Song". It’s about a guy who is thinking of cheating, so answers a personal ad. It turns out that his girlfriend wrote the ad.. it so disgusting that both were planning to cheat.

Also, I’ll add sometimes our imaginations are worse than the truth. Sometimes (and it helped) instead of wanting to know the details I’d tell him what I imagined or feared did or could have happened and he’d either explain how it was or wasn’t like that. It kept some of the unnecessary gore at bay.

Thanks, we seem pretty like minded on this point. One area that continues to bother me is around sexting. The relationship had distance to deal with, and sexting was the grand solution. She has told me she sexted more with him in a year than our entire 18 years of marriage. Add in the whole element of sexually repressed nice church girl, and this is still a thorn in my brain. I have tried to let it go, but it’s not going away, and I don’t think a "no, it wasn’t like that" is going to suffice. I need to know what that was. I’m glad I didn’t find two years of message history, that just sounds so traumatizing, I feel so bad for people when they report that, I know I would have doom scrolled it all in the wake of D-Day. But I need something more than the skeleton of info I currently have. And I’m also nervous to ask, cause how fucking awful.

Also, I can’t believe no one has mentioned Carrie Underwood in the rage against cheater song game. She basically made a sub-genre out of it

Don’t misunderstand, when I’d share my imagination with my husband he did provide more details than to whether it was or wasn’t like that, but it helped him understand where my head was and what I was fearing. Often my fears were way off, yet sometimes they were spot on. 🤷‍♀️

And I’d forgotten about that Underwood song. That’s a good "recover, rage, and take your power back anthem". 😂😂😂 when I used to trigger, I may or may not have blasted Gabby barret’s "I hope" while singing (I am tone deaf) at the top of my lungs. It helped release a lot of built up tension. 😂😂 google the lyrics if you haven’t heard it.

[This message edited by OnTheOtherSideOfHell at 2:35 PM, Friday, November 10th]

This is sort of a T/J, though it's also on point to some extent. I write as a BS with almost 13 years of experience dealing with being betrayed.

IMO, if there's a potential deal killer in the mix, the sooner it's brought out into the open, the better.

That means, I think, the partners need to figure out what they think will lead inevitably to D and ask questions to find out if those conditions exist. As a corollary, that means the BS needs to ask the questions that may have answers that destroy the M.

IOW, if you fear your WS engaged in sex acts you will not accept, you need to ask if they engaged in them, and you need to ask multiple times in multiple ways. If your WS expressed feelings to the ap that make your M irretrievable, you need to ask if they expressed them.

I say the above because I simply did not want to have to deal with finding out my W did something I could not accept 2 years into R. If she did something that killed our M irrevocably, I didn't want to find out about it 2 years into R.

If you fear the answer to a question, IMO you MUST ask that question very soon after it occurs to you.

Again, this is opinion, not fact ... but healing takes some courage. We all can ask questions, even if we fear the answers.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:38 PM, Friday, November 10th]

If you fear the answer to a question, IMO you MUST ask that question very soon after it occurs to you.

I asked those obvious deal breaker questions early on. Honestly, I know she knows what they are for me, I am pretty sure she would lie about it if it did happen. If I were triggery about it, I could pursue poly, but I’m genuinely at peace with what she has told me, so I’m going to run with that. Could there be unforgivable content around sexting? I guess, but I’m not sure what that would be. It’s more that I feel still so unsettled around what was happening around me. When was this happening? How often? And yeah, some element of what it was like. She is the type to say she has no sexual fantasies, but somehow was able to sext extensively? I’m not not not going to take an approach of "you did this for him, you now owe it to me", that’s just gross to me. But what I will do is understand who she is and insist on WAY THE FUCK BETTER sex than they ever had and frankly than we’ve ever had, coming from a place of love. Without confidence that that is true, I’ll be haunted by this forever.

Honestly, I know she knows what they are for me, I am pretty sure she would lie about it if it did happen. If I were triggery about it, I could pursue poly, but I’m genuinely at peace with what she has told me, so I’m going to run with that.

Am I understanding you correctly, that you're pretty sure that your W would still lie about things that she knows would be dealbreakers, but you're okay with it?

Am I understanding you correctly, that you're pretty sure that your W would still lie about things that she knows would be dealbreakers, but you're okay with it?

It’s more subtle than that. I’ve accepted that after she has lied to me so thoroughly, I can never have full confidence she has told me the full truth. I have most confidence that the horrible things revealed are true, because why the hell would you make that up? But could she hide things? Of course she could, and how could I know? So I don’t actively suspect that she is lying to me about my deal breaker items, but I’m also facing the reality that I just can’t know. My mind is at peace with it, that is the best I can ask for at this point.

She is building trust with me in everyday life and doing things like revealing that she had Seniorita as her affair anthem. She could have given me a list of songs that excluded that. And maybe she has excluded other ones, maybe she personally re-recorded Stay with a strip tease music video and she’s holding that back. I don’t know. I can see a path to getting back to an adequate amount of trust to be happily married, but there will always be significant question marks around the affair. I think we as the betrayed are self delusional if we have some kind of certainty that we know everything.

Does that make sense?

I suppose only you can decide what is acceptable effort from your WW or not, but....man. Good luck w that is the best I can come up with right now.

Keep in mind that the reasons why she is "building trust w you", at all, are likely

A. You were done and she woke up from that.

B. She knows that 99% of men in your situation would have walked.

C. She also knows that should you and she D, it will be very hard for her to find someone else.

Even then her efforts seem quite slow--such as telling you 'it's not wise' to ask certain things. Your justifying it by saying she is now a 4 on the Wayward Scale as opposed to a 10 before...I don't know man.

I know you often don't like my posts but it often does sound like here you are talking up your WW's (too often subpar) efforts. I get the instinct for a man to stand up for his wife, but still.

And it is fair to say that you may not don't have any hard lines after all, or at least they are a lot further out than you ever imagined. Didn't she bust through so many of what you thought were hard lines already?

I just hope you get the answers you want and the answers you NEED (union of those two sets not intersection). Yeah, it may be hazy whether she wore this dress or that dress or that other dress, and what are you gonna do burn her whole wardrobe? But any meaningful secrets still between WW and OM, maybe it would serve you to allow that you NEED to know even if you don't want to know right now.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:24 PM, Friday, November 10th]

But any meaningful secrets still between WW and OM, maybe it would serve you to allow that you NEED to know even if you don't want to know right now.

I’ve finally learned how to separate personal healing from relationship healing. And from a personal healing perspective, I don’t need to know each and every thing. There is an extra layer here that I’m debating talking about with her knowing I’m on here, but what the hell, I don’t want to live in half truths. If she has intentionally still held back major things, after 3 confessions, 2 timelines, and a partridge in a pear tree, then further major shit coming out could easily be the end. No more amnesty. I trust that God will watch my back and that if she is still lying to me, she has Him to answer to. And I am at peace with that. I’m living my life with the belief that the house of cards I’ve set up from what she has told me is accurate and good enough. I’m in the process of shoring up a few areas where it wiggles. If she tears it down again, I am unlikely to try to rebuild.

I asked those obvious deal breaker questions early on. I know she knows what they are for me, I am pretty sure she would lie about it if it did happen.

I don’t actively suspect that she is lying to me about my deal breaker items, but I’m also facing the reality that I just can’t know.

Those are two different stances. Of course, we can't know what's inside someone else's head, but you said that you think that she would lie to you if she thought the truth would be a dealbreaker.

After we started R, when my H would ask me if I "knew" something - like "Do you know that I love you?" or "Do you know that I would never do that to you again?" my answer was, is, and will always be, "I don't know, but I do believe." You don't even believe that she would tell you the truth. How does one start to repair and rebuild with that?

She is building trust with me in everyday life and doing things like revealing that she had Seniorita as her affair anthem.

That is not exactly how it went though. She told you it was unwise of you to ask, and then answered when she was called out in MC. At least that is what I read in one of your earlier posts on here. It is a critical detail.

[quote[ I’ve finally learned how to separate personal healing from relationship healing.

That is what I was getting at before though, although not in those words. You may be able to heal personally from not knowing certain things--hell by that logic you may have been fine personally had you were never even aware of WW's affair in the first place--but it may be necessary for your relationship's healing for every last secret of any significance between WW and OM to be exposed.

You don't even believe that she would tell you the truth. How does one start to repair and rebuild with that?

I didn’t say I don’t believe her, I just said I’m pretty sure she would lie about these things. I know, it’s a fucked up distinction, but there is a difference. This is the craziness that lies being about. How do any of us deal with this? We find our ways.

She is building trust with me in everyday life and doing things like revealing that she had Seniorita as her affair anthem.

That is not exactly how it went though. She told you it was unwise of you to ask, and then answered when she was called out in MC. At least that is what I read in one of your earlier posts on here. It is a critical detail.

I’ve finally learned how to separate personal healing from relationship healing.

That is what I was getting at before though, although not in those words. You may be able to heal personally from not knowing certain things--hell by that twisted effed-up logic you may have been fine personally had you were never even aware of WW's affair in the first place--but it may be necessary for your **relationship's** healing for every last secret of any significance between WW and OM to be exposed.

I get where IH is coming from on this I think. D-day timing was similar, been about a year and a half. There are obvious differences as well. As IH said the sort of “amnesty” period came and went. Who knows when that happened? You start out all this questioning and you’re like just tell me everything it will all be okay…and then on and on and on…and eventually like time’s up. But you dont want to tell WS that cause that feels certain to stop the flow of information. But in your hearts you both know (BS and WS) that the moment came and went. Can new info still come out? I guess under the auspices of "you said you didn’t want to know that stuff…." Maybe thats why IH kinda still needs that category. My IC really pushed me to move into the THERE WILL BE NO NEW STUFF stage. I don’t think she believed I could handle new stuff. I’m not sure myself. But really if there is anything of size and substance I don’t know at this point it should just be over.

Trying to rank these folks on a 1-10 scale? That’s bold. 10 is the worst right? It is tough I think because during the disclosure process you start realizing the WS was like the worst person on the planet. Oh my god, they are a 10000. So they are almost improving the NEW them by comparison just by standing still. The worse you were the more your sorry current self looks not that bad. You are like 90% better! Sadly thats cause you were like satan before. But okay.

Anyway, I think I was trying to respond to the thing about how IH thought his WS might lie if she knew something was a dealbreaker. Does that make someone a 4? I feel like I would have to be the stone cold stupidest person on the planet to not at least suspect my husband might lie about a dealbreaker I have been clear is a dealbreaker. Admittedly, I am dealing with a man who kept his secret for 7 years before coming clean, so does that like add 2 points on our little scale? Maybe he is just a 6 by definition no matter how hard he may be trying in the present. I think it is all a muddle and quite hard to deal with. We all have to kind of walk some impossible path between maintaining hope and holding our spouse to account, trying to have some days where this stuff isn’t front and center. It’s a Herculean task at times.

I guess I would be most impressed if IH’s wife were able to have a productive conversation about how she tries to figure out in her own mind what is a piece of info IH must know versus something it is okay to keep silent about. If she can do that without becoming defensive and sticking only to what is best for IH, and honoring that he is the final arbiter of that decision, then maybe she’s on the right path. I certainly hope so. I understand why folks worry for IH. I don’t want him to end up like me and realize there were little bottles of booze tucked away that had been used in the A, and I had been driving around for 7 years in a car my husband made out with someone else in. That’s not cool. No one wants that to happen to Ink.

[This message edited by Stillconfused2022 at 9:30 PM, Friday, November 10th]

You don't even believe that she would tell you the truth. How does one start to repair and rebuild with that?

I didn’t say I don’t believe her, I just said I’m pretty sure she would lie about these things.

Dude. ESCHEW OBFUSCATION. We're saying the same thing.

You believe that she would lie to you. I don't know how one Rs with someone whom they don't believe will be honest.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 9:32 PM, Friday, November 10th]