Can You Get a Cheater to Confess?
He wants to know if it’s possible to get a suspected cheater to confess. Can he confront his wife with years of shadiness and learn the truth? The Friday Challenge is to share whether or not you ever forced a confession. Or if this was an exercise in futility.
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Hi Chump Lady,
I am from the “years of shady stuff, but no hard proof” camp. Married 32 years with 4 kids. Found dirty emails from my wife to a neighbor 14 years ago, had a D-day, got denial, “just kidding around”, but no anger and plenty of good will, wanted to make it better. Also went to couples therapy at that time and there was an effort to help us rebuild trust, but that is still the issue:
I do not trust her.
Also of note, I am from the “stayed for the kids” camp but with a slightly different twist. I was never hung up about cuddling with them in their beddies, etc. but I had a visceral, gut feeling about leaving 4 boys with a mom who would have been immediately, actively dating/banging guys. My parents got divorced when I was 13 and my mom turned out to be some kind of celibate saint. I always thought if she had been out dating, I would have ended up dead or in prison. But that’s just me.
Anyway, I guess we’re considered “well off” and I am going to take a huge financial hit, but I have seen enough. It has affected my health, career, parenting, relationships. Everything.
But I want an admission, if not a confession, from her.
I’ve been in contact with a lawyer and she informed that we are a 50/50 state and proof of infidelity does not really affect the settlements so
I don’t want to go down the PI route to dig for hard evidence. As a cathartic exercise I have been writing down all the transgressions and stuff that have been gnawing at me for years and would like to send it to my wife, admittedly in the hope that it will force her hand to admit/confess. I want to follow your advice – if it feels good, don’t do it – but given we are a 50/50 state I’m thinking it shouldn’t matter.
Would love your thoughts.
P.S. I’ve spent the last week or so going through your archives and it has been a game changer, thank you!
CP
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Dear CP,
I think asking a cheater if they cheated is sticking your head in the mindfuck blender. Infidelity is an abusive power trip, so asking for the truth is an opportunity for them to exert more power. Why would they admit it? There’s nothing in it for them.
Consequences? Loss of reputation? Vulnerability? A cheater would no more confess than they’d hand you a harpoon.
You know enough.
Years of shady stuff? An email trail of sex with the neighbor? (If you think the guy lives next door and it stopped at a computer keyboard I have some swampland to sell you.)
Let’s say for the sake of argument you’re wrong. You’re deranged with jealousy and make up false accusations of cheating. I’d still ask you if this relationship makes you feel safe? Do you trust your wife? No one can live in a state of hypervigilance. If you don’t feel secure, it’s a nonstarter.
But, and this is based on a ba-squillion stories I’ve collected on this blog, YEARS of shadiness = years of cheating. People who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.
Asking a cheater to confess is asking to be gaslit.
CP, people on this site have actually hired PIs and confronted their cheaters with evidence and the cheaters still denied it. Their gaslighting game is stronger than your confrontation game. Operative word being “game.” FWs enjoy your distress. Makes them feel central. Special. Fought over.
I’m also suspicious when cheaters confess. The RIC wants you to believe it’s a sign of remorse. I think it’s more often a sign of the discard and an invitation to do the pick me dance. Or an affair partner is pressuring them to come clean before they do. Get to the narrative first.
So, my advice to you is move forward with the divorce, enjoy your new life and all the peace that follows.
But you do pose a good question for a Friday Challenge: Did you get a cheater to confess, CN? How’d that go?
TGIF!
Cheaters never confess and you will never know the whole truth. Trust that they suck and don’t look back!! I tried to get answers and only got mind f**cked more than I already was.
Ooooooh boy!! I feel you! I was also from the “stay for the kids” camp, which I am not advocating for, but I totally see why I stayed. We had five kids and although they are grown, I can tell he would have used them as pawns every step of the way. I’m not saying it was right to stay (for them or for me), but I get it. I also wasn’t aware of his cheating until the end and I still took a few years to really understand how bad he was.
But, I am way happier now that I’ve left him (and the kids are grown and out of his grasp, although I did have to fund the last year of college for one of them because he suddenly took the “mom took all my money and now I can’t pay for your college” route as I knew he would.
I also live in a 50-50 state, but I got 70 percent. What does matter is using community funds to support non-community things (like escorts and hotels and $5,000 shopping sprees on secret credit cards). Please don’t underestimate the power of the discovery process in a divorce, even in a no-fault state. The best thing I did was get a great lawyer and it was expensive, but worth every cent.
I’m sorry you’re going through this, but it is going to be so much better on the other side!
My cheater pulled that line, shes retired now, and I’m paying for college. I’ll never be able to retire but my kid knows her dad has her back.
Yes. It’s better to be the parent who has your back. I’m the parent they all like to hang out with and call every day too.
You’re a good father, Notachump, and your daughter is blessed to have a good male role model.
I left off one possibility. You divorce her and THEN people tell you what they know about her cheating. “Oh, we thought you knew…” blah blah.
This is my story. Things are coming out from others after the divorce that he wouldn’t have admitted to in a million years. Ugh.
That was mine. While I got a confession as part of abusive discard (he demanded polyamory and said he’d been cheating for years) the things people told me when I announced the divorce were far beyond anything he admitted to.
There was one occasion, however, when I caught him in a disclosing mood. I had to stay very calm and not react to anything, just ask him questions. He told me he started cheating not long after we began dating because he realized right away that my libido wasn’t enough for him. I asked why he stayed and went on to propose, and he said “I liked the relationship”.
So there it is. Proof of the Unified Theory of Cake.
He spent a quarter of a century cheating on me.
I’m so so sorry. I got another version of that same story. So much better to be no contact and not deal with the stress.
Oh. Also. I did get mine to confess, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the subpoena of his bank accounts, including secret ones I didn’t know about. He dragged his feet every step of the way, dragging it out and being dramatic. But frankly, that made me feel empowered and it made it better for me to make him finally cough it up. And it was way way worse than I thought.
You don’t need a confession. You just need a really good lawyer.
I agree with that. You need someone that is going to get this done in a reasonable manner. We chumps have already been through so much, so get someone good.
Mine gave me so much more than the law. He gave me back my sanity and my life.
THATS IT! Good for you!
He only confessed when the evidence was overwhelming and I told him telling me he didn’t and treating me like I was stupid would make it worse. Totally not helpful
Years of shady stuff, then I found hard proof. Married 34 years, 4 kids. Found the years of text messages to prostitutes, making arrangements to meet for paid sex. Got professional technical confirmation that my evidence is real. Confronted him with “I found out, it’s over, I’m leaving you today.” He denies it. No admission. His response: total denial, serious mindfucking, gaslighting, ie “I got hacked” and accusing me of creating the texts and planting them on his device.
Divorced his ass and he still has not confessed 2+ years later. He is a poor sad sausage and tells everyone that I’m a quitter who left without even doing marriage counseling. Says I left because there must be something wrong with me, like untreated mental health issues. So yeah, nope.
Wow, that’s a really impressive degree of dodging around just to avoid admitting the (obvious) truth!
Mine told his family and his attorney tales of my mental illness, how he HAD to flee, and how I’d never, ever make it without him. I cut off his family because who wants to spend time countering that garbage after awhile? But his own attorney figured it out and overshared with mine some of the wild stories his client told. Yes, the attorneys knew. And I did perfectly fine after he left.
Last I knew, my ex was in a longer-term relationship. All I care about is that he leaves me alone.
So, so sorry you had to deal with that, Elsie. I do love your last line, though, which I think you nailed: all we care about is that they leave us alone. Best wishes to you.😊
My cheater finally confessed 15 years later TO MY MOTHER that he “treated [me] terribly.”
That was it – after 15 years of denying what he did and harassing me. I still haven’t gotten a confession or an apology.
And please note: He didn’t admit what he actually did to my mother, just a general statement about being a jerk. No details, no real confession.
Honestly? I no longer care. He’s a liar anyway so what is a confession worth coming from a liar? Don’t waste your time trying to get confessions from a piece of shit. It’s a waste of time.
Bro, I stopped reading here. This is the only proof you needed.
CL,
Yeah, a “true confession” isn’t a thing with cheaters. They only share partial truths. And it’s usually in the form of trickle truth – drip, drip, drip. They need time to come up with lies and confabulations! So they throw you a crumb of “truth” and let you sink your teeth into that for awhile, while they come up with other lies that will “work” for your questions.
Mine did that bullshit while I was doing the pick me dance. Don’t let that happen to you! Don’t let her have that power!
I caught my cheater in the act, so to speak, by picking up his phone and seeing the cheating texts right in front of him and he still lied and gaslight, confabulated great stories! Mindfuck blender for sure.
Only you can keep that from happening to you! You have enough evidence and the way it makes you feel is enough as well.
Good luck to you!
“I caught my cheater in the act so to speak by picking up his phone and seeing the cheating texts right in front of him and he still lied…”
Oh yes. Exactly the same for me. I found his texts boasting about fucking the rat faced whore. Walked out and started divorce proceedings. He came round later, and told me “It’s just lad’s banter! I haven’t cheated!”. He even tried to pull the same gaslighting in Court, ‘explaining’ the fact that ratty was living in his flat as, “she’s just my lodger! She helps with the bills!”. He never admitted it, but it made no difference, I knew enough. Like Tracy says, it’s just a power trip, and hoping to avoid consequences – there’s no advantage for them in admitting to it.
CP,
If you ask a Cheater a question you give them an opportunity to lie to you; an opportunity that they seldom pass up. There were two occasions when I tried to press Ex-Mrs LFTT for the truth, and she lied (outrageously so) both times. You already know enough to know that your marriage is no longer acceptable to you, and that’s without inviting yet more BS from your STBX.
I’ll offer something that took me a lot of time and effort to understand with the help of my therapist that might help you. The realisation that Ex-Mrs LFTT just did not have the moral courage to admit to what she had done, to admit that it was wrong, to admit that it had adversely affected the kids and I or to undertake to make good the damage that she had done was, for me, a revelation and incredibly liberating. I was finally able to accept that I should “move on” and start the process of healing (for myself and for our kids) without waiting for her to tell the truth and make amends …. because that was never going to happen because she was simply too weak to do so.
Fundamentally, your STBX has nothing to gain by telling you the truth, so don’t open yourself up to more manipulation and lies by seeking from her.
LFTT
This idea about lack of moral courage is so helpful. Here I am often feeling bad, like it’s some reflection on me, that FW did not do the decent things that FW does not have it within himself to do.
CW,
Do not ever feel bad about any of this. Nothing that your Cheater did while cheating on you or subsequently in failing to do the decent thing reflects on you. All of that sh*t is 100% on them.
Sadly, doing the right thing, owning their own sh*t and putting others’ needs before their own is a complete anathema to them.
LFTT
Well said. It still applies in my case, although after D-Day I discovered that ex, on top of cheating, had committed major financial thefts from me, child, grandchild and my parents, and was a pathological liar, falsely claiming to be a veteran, MD, MBA, winner of national awards, etc.
It’s probably foolish to hope he’ll right these wrongs in his will. He’ll probably give any remaining plunder to someone who doesn’t know or care about what he did and will sing his praises.
So true, LFTT. Moving on is crucial, as is relegating the cheater to the category of “someone I used to think I knew.”
OP, strive to raise your boys to be honorable men, and model for them the importance of integrity. You will never get a straight answer from her, so don’t bother even wishing for one.
Cheaters are notorious liars. So what has being a martyr gotten you? More of the same.
Laying in the victim chair not making a decision just keeps you in limbo.
You want proof but are unwilling to do what it takes to get that proof means you really don’t want to know. So let’s say you got proof I’m assuming you probably think she’ll stop. Nope.
Great comment and I’ll add to this that dirty emails are enough proof.
There is NEVER an excuse for that. Loyal spouses don’t do that shit. They don’t even put themselves into situations that can possibly be misconstrued as inappropriate.
A lot live in denial in order to avoid having to make a decision. Hence, it’s just an emotional affair when in reality it’s a full body sexual affair. They tend to live in fear and are conflict avoidant.
I’ll join the chorus, but with a weird exception. I discovered evidence of cheating. I confronted immediately (wrong, wrong, wrong move- wish I’d kept collecting for a month first). This led to trickle-truthing and partial confession. She even asked for the exact day I’d seen stuff on her phone and for some dumb reason I told her. I now understand that was so she could lie better and leave off everything past that day.
But- the exception. Keep in mind my cheater has the tech know-how of an impatient squirrel. She had no idea the mountain of evidence I continued getting, and she wasn’t careful at all. She came to me with a genuine confession of additional affairs. She did it of her own accord as far as I know. She gave me full access to the evidence she didn’t know I already had.
When this didn’t lead me to immediate total trust and “reconciliation” she got mad and stayed mad until we divorced. But I’ve always wondered if that was a nanosecond glimpse of genuinely sort of trying. I don’t know how to account for it. She was still in touch with the primary AP even then.
They get so mad. Mine had hid money for years with his family, so much sad sausage stuff, followed by rage at me for not communicating because it was “bad for the children” and so on. Just textbook abuse paradigm. They want to control the narrative and they are bullies and liars and as my shrink said to me, “he’ll be lying on his deathbed.” Once the lies get double and triple downed, it’s just a hole they keep digging. The scar is there, but I am free now. So good to be free,
I don’t think it was a “genuinely sort of trying”. That anger is classic cake eating. How dare you take away her cake! She had her life set up the way she wanted it and YOU ruined it! Of course she got mad and stayed mad. Ask yourself if you had trusted again and reconciled, what are the odds that she would not repeat her behavior, with the added knowledge about how to be even more sly and secretive? Here is cake in a nutshell “She was still in touch with the primary AP”. There’s your answer about how genuine her desire for reconciliation was.
I certainly get what you’re saying. I divorced her because I didn’t think she could reconcile and had turned pretty scary in her anger. What I’m saying is a weird exception is that in the middle of all the classic cheater behavior, she did this one thing that she didn’t have to do, that actually made her position worse. I don’t think for a sec that she wanted reconciliation. She wanted and even demanded rug-sweeping. All I can figure is that she thought maybe confessing would help her get to the demand part faster?
My guess is that she got her lies confused and forgot which mask she was supposed to be wearing with you.
It happens to my FW when he’s under pressure, and his speech turns into a jumble of lies he tells for me, lies he tells for schmoopie, and accidental truths.
Sir, you could walk in on a cheater in the middle of the act and they would deny cheating. It’s so common that comedians have had routines about it. They would tell you that your eyes are lying to you.
And even if they “confess” they only admit to what they think you know. They NEVER tell the whole truth. None of us will ever know the extent of the cheating. In the end it doesn’t really matter. They are not loyal to their partners. That’s all that matters. If you can’t trust your spouse it’s time to get out. And also time to get tested for STDs.
Yea that’s called “The Shaggy Defense” from the song “It Wasn’t Me” by Shaggy.
Classic song btw
In an interview with udiscovermusic . com , Shaggy said it’s actually an anti-cheating song.
“… at the end, the guy says, ‘I’m going to tell her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. I’ve been listening to your reasoning, it makes no sense at all. Going to tell her that I’m sorry for the pain that I’ve caused. You might think that you’re a player, but you’re completely lost.’”
“Nobody hears that part!” Shaggy adds. “That’s what the song says. But everybody’s just caught up on that, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me.’ It’s an anti-cheating song. No one ever really buys into that, and I keep explaining it to people. Then, they go listen to it back and be like, ‘Oh dude, I totally missed that.’”
I never caught that either. All I hear is that he was caught cheating.
CP,
Get the divorce. My own story sounds a lot like yours. Save yourself a lot more time and money. Even if you get the confession, that will never fix what is broken in her.
After 7 years of marriage my ex wife and I had a child, and she transitioned her job to work from home, going into the office 1 day a week for a few hours. I found all sorts of emails between her and her boss, suggesting everything sexual that they could. She insisted that she just bantered to keep her job (in a law firm). She said it would stop. Looking back now, I’m sure that 1x per week was a trip to the athletic club with her boss and banging.
Then I stuck around as we raised our daughter for another 13 years, in a sexless, roommate marriage where I paid every bill, still ran the ranch, plowed the snow, fixed the fences; and she stayed home, worked 2-3 hours a day and rode her horses… I was a good husband appliance until I found her logged into Ashley Madison while she was ‘working’ (and ignoring her family) in the evening.
Now I pay alimony, lost half of all the assets built while we were married (she didn’t bring in any significant income and continued to pay for her horses out of our marital funds; I’d have been way better off to divorce at year 7 instead of 20!) but got rid of my cheater and my life is so much better.
Life is too short to spend playing marriage police, and the longer you are married to her the more of your vitality and efforts she will harvest when you do leave.
Sooooo…my chump story is very similar to the standard CN DD and stuff cheater say crap…but in this regard my FW is a unicorn. He cheated with a close friend of mine who spent time with the kids and extended family at our weekly family dinners. (Nice, right?) His behavior was off (her’s not bc she is a psychopath) and I had no smoking gun—just asked and he confessed. He said he was in love with her and that was that. No pick me dance. But I felt like I needed the details and I begged for time with AP and FW. I was obsessed with the idea that the two of them had all this information and humiliated me by being in my presence with me ignorant to the facts. And the minute I knew—AP disappeared (and was furious with FW for telling me). So I demanded a meeting with AP and FW and of course he said no bc AP was not as strong as me and couldn’t handle it. (Uh huh…) After asking 100x, I threatened to ambush the two of them bc I knew where they both lived. So FW pushed AP and we met at my therapist’s office. I had a written 6 page letter. I said it all! AP was clearly drugged up and mumbled a lame apology. But this meeting was not about getting an apology from AP and FW, it was about me taking back some power. After the meeting I had friends waiting for me at a bar and we celebrated together. This event really helped my recovery. And for the record, I have NEVER (6 years and counting) seen the AP since. And in perfect DARVO style—she is the victim now bc all our mutual friends and my kids hate her.
My only regret is my daughter found a copy of that letter years later. I feel regret that I didn’t prevent that from happening, bc there were adult details that I wish she didn’t know. But she loves the fact that I confronted AP bc she feels like AP got away with “it” as in-laws and other flying monkeys accept her.
I love this story. Taking back your power. Writing it all down helped me, although my other details are different. Don’ t worry about your daughter ( easy for me to say but just my opinion), the truth does set us free.
I also wrote a letter. I was supposed to just get over the cheating, but my XW mentioned that letter and how she couldn’t get over it for the next two years. They really are incredible.
Get a cheater to confess? Lol.
FW only ever confessed to things I already knew.
What I did continually pursue, though, was why tf he still wanted to be married to me. That’s what I sought to understand. That’s what I constantly questioned him about. That’s what still rattles around my brain today. I know now, of course, that there is no answer to that question, but I wrestled with it for years.
I totally get all the spouse appliance stuff and I get that it’s not logical. All of this from CL is what made it possible to let go of finding an answer to that question and move forward.
It still finds its way into my mind every now and again. Call it an intrusive thought.
When I was getting my bachelor’s degree in education, I was asked to consider whether I thought that everyone was intrinsically good and made mistakes, or if everyone was intrinsically bad and only motivated by what helps themselves. Now, I think it’s a spectrum and we’re all on it somewhere, but I definitely lean toward everyone having the potential for pure goodness. I just believed he could do it (lol. Famous last words.)
Anyway, glad to be rid of worrying about him anymore.
Of all of the lovely vocabulary I have picked up here over the last 13 months I’ve spent in the Chump Nation, “Spousal Appliance” may be the most accurate. I was apparently an irredeemable monster for having emotions and needs(and mood swings-which magically went away when the gaslighting stopped-go figure) but me and my “paying all of the bills and making sure she got up for work and ate” were apparently fine by her!
You’re trying to apply logic where there is none with Cheaters. I know I did the same. The same fucked up logic where cheaters cheat on millionaire supermodels. And then there are the other Cheaters that like their cake & eat it too. Chumps keep the home fires burning & they have affair partners to spice up their lives because Cheaters are too lazy, too stupid or too unoriginal to shake it up by taking up photography or golfing, let’s say. Honestly, fucking someone else is so low based.
in my 11th year of marriage, I found some shady stuff and suspected he was having an affair. I confronted him and he denied it. I didn’t have any proof and I felt crazy. Then five years later (in our 16th year of marriage), I got a confession from him. He not only confessed to that affair but to having 3 other affairs in our marriage. He was a serial cheater and it was going on from the beginning of our marriage! By him confessing, he basically dumped all this crap on me… and he felt absolved of his wrongdoing. Trust me, you really don’t want to know.
I believe they they do it to hurt you. You thought one was bad – wait – I can break your heart and continue to stomp on it! I know this page is all about Cheaters and dealing with the aftermath but I found that studying Narcissism (which many of them have) helped me understand the things I struggled with – their lying and how their brain works or rather doesn’t. All that said, the pain of betrayal and loss is real and takes time to get through. Married over 35 years, together over 40. I thought I married the “great guy” but he was a covert narcissist. He still has my adult daughter fooled.
Same here. I just wrote yesterday how I felt there was something going on and I tapped our landline, in 1997, on a Saturday. Next day he called her while I did the grocery shopping, and they talked for 45 minutes. I learned they met in Long Island at a motel on the Friday and were planning to meet again on the Monday. Got my ducks lined up, avoided him until Thursday when I just exploded. Chased him around the house playing the tape. He was yelling “You’re taunting me, you’re taunting me”. Hell yeah I was. As if he didn’t do the same to me over the years. I was a bit crazed, I’ll admit. I helped put him through medical school!! And now here I was, a cliche. Anyway, he ONLY admitted to what I knew, denied having sex with her. When I confronted him about what was obviously a lie, meeting in a MOTEL but not having sex, he said “I knew I shouldn’t have met her in a motel” and I replied “You shouldn’t have met her ANYWHERE!”. Idiot.
At some point my attorney had lunch with his attorney, and told me how they both got a good laugh out of his story. Adulterers will only admit to what they think you know, nothing else. Better for you to go No Contact and get on with gaining your fabulous life.
You weren’t a cliche, Valerie. He and his schmoopie were. Please don’t think that you were ever a cliche, unless you want to consider being the caring, loving, unknowing wife a cliche. And that’s a damn sight better than their type of cliche. You’re awesome; they’re scum. No contest.
“I was a bit crazed, I’ll admit.” I broke down furniture, burned so many things- every photo of him (we knew each other for 30 years, 2 kids)- and so on. The rage had to go somewhere. Anyway, good on you. Crazy making, gasllighting, brainwashing, reality stealing- it will make you crazy that crazy has to go somewhere.
“I knew I shouldn’t have met her in a motel.” I am laughing out loud; the neighbors can probably hear. This is a truly iconic bit of fuckwittery. Chef’s kiss!
It’s amazing what we overlook to stay together for our kids. I thought my ex didn’t like travelling anymore for vacations. On our last family trip to Disneyland (hence the name as a reminder) he was pissed that I insisted he go. Chump Nation opened my eyes that it wasn’t that he didn’t like vacationing anymore, it was that we were likely ruining his plans for a week-long fuckfest with AP soccer mom. They do find them in the vicinity (like neighbours). Even if your wife didn’t do the deed, she sure was trying hard to.
If it makes you feel better & removes any doubt you have of divorcing her, I say go for it and hire a PI. I wish I honestly had now for the first AP (soccer mom), but all doubt of cheating was removed when he left for second AP.
I forced a confession only one time, and I did it because as a former teacher and daughter of a lawyer, I knew how to interrogate him. I would never do it again because not only is that not who I am, but it’s not the kind of relationship I want. It was painful for me. Better to go no contact than to do that. I no longer care to know what or whom he’s doing now, it’s peace and serenity I desire. No more lies or deception of half truths. I simply don’t play that game. It’s not worth the stress.
They will always lie when it suits them. And chumps will always find a reason to believe the lies, because it takes years to accept that they are such completely different people than we thought. I confronted mine with months of sketchy behavior and a pile of naked pictures she had taken of herself, and she still managed to convince me at the time that it was just a midlife crisis.
But the terrifying thing is how she looked me straight in the eyes and lied with a perfectly straight face. Normal people can’t lie without some sort of sign, especially such huge lies to someone who ought to be important to them after 20 years of marriage. It was that utterly convincing lie that made me realize I wasn’t just collateral damage to her selfishness. The lies, and savoring the getting one over me and turning me into garbage was part of the appeal for her.
I confronted mine in a public place with a friend (unknown to her) as a witness in the background just in case. It went as CL suggests. She gaslighted me denying the affair. A few months later she would call and confirm my worst suspicions (and then some!). Her biggest concern in that encounter was how I had uncovered her affair… so there’s that!
The only thing in my life that I truly enjoyed after D-Day was watching my ex-FW twist his sex besotted brain into knots, trying to figure out who spilled the beans. He actually accused an innocent person and confronted this person in a rage. I will never tell how I found out, not only to “protect my source” but because I enjoy thinking about him trying to solve the puzzle of “Who Betrayed the Betrayer?”
We were doing couples therapy after she had already said she wanted a divorce, but there was “no one else”. One week into this I discovered her handwritten note listing where she had met up with a coworker and intimate items she brought along. The next appointment I confronted her with the evidence. She denied it all, although she turned beet red. She would never admit it. Later I found more proof of another sexual relationship. This time she turned it around on me and blamed me for not stopping her when I had suspensions. She was a Jesus cheater and admitting to adultery was just too much cognizant dissonance for her to live with.
Dude they never confess. I had a trail of google search history that pretty clearly outlined an affair and she denied everything, then filed a restraining order against me to DARVO things.
Your best bet is to just walk away without confronting.
I definitely had both happen with mine.
(I have iterated a lot of this before-so you may wish to skip to the bottom for my actual thesis on the issue)
Before I officially entered the Pick-Me Dance/Heat Death phase with my fuckwit, I had had suspicions a couple of times over the years which I addressed with her. She seemed genuine when she told me that they were just friends and I took her at her word. Hindsight and it’s laser accuracy-I imagine that there were some blurred boundaries but everything petered out before things got stupid. Some of this was guided by her unsolicited admission before we moved in together that she was briefly leading on another guy when we were in a rough patch but nothing came of it and she was terrified of losing me. That held true for a long time.
It was…different…during the pick-me dance phase. When I expressed concerns, she assured me that I had nothing to worry about with this guy(despite the plea for an open relationship, see previous laments about same) that she was honoring my “no open relationship”, that was her special friend (who happened to have feelings for her). Always seemed to be hiding things, was trying to spend more time with me, etc.
Toward the end she pretty much ran the entire fuckwit playbook with gaslighting, lies, paranoia, turning things back around on me(she tried to use “self fulfilling prophecy” on me about the whole cheating on me thing.) I guess she was starting to get tired of the deception(or otherwise was running herself ragged with the facade). Despite all of that, famously I asked her if she was replacing me and she told me very calmly and certainly that we had been together for too long but did want to discuss moving into some place bigger(which I was all for and was calmed by the reassurance). Of course, she had already replaced me so she wasn’t technically lying I guess?
We were actually on an upswing when all of this hit.
When I artificially triggered D-Day ahead of her scenarios(see below), I really had to press for her to START to come clean. Really I just didn’t take no for an answer, presented evidence, etc. She was already in the process of breaking up with me at that point so I think she felt safe to START to admit what had been happening. And of course, the minor admission of guilt was accompanied by everything I did to “make” her do it and why I was so awful “despite this not being (my) fault”. Total mindfuck.
Of course, when we went to the couples counseling session she had scheduled without telling me about two weeks later, she let more slip about what she all she did(turned out it was more than just one guy, shocker.) The running belief since then is that she scheduled that to break up with me and use the shock to scurry out and get all of her stuff out of the apartment-I simply triggered the apocalypse before she was ready. There is no otehr sane reason why you schedule couples counseling for after the fact. Fuckwits, man. Fuckwits.
No Contact since then. For the better.
Fuckwits seem to revel in their trickle truth and “only what you absolutely need to know.” If you have evidence and reasonable suspicion, you really don’t need a confession. You’re not likely to get one and you are just as likely to get full-on attacked(the two weeks between D-Day and when she finished moving out to the new apartment she magically already had were a grisly carnival of full on emotional abuse and mind games). Things like “facts”, “truth”, and “reason” do not work with these people(and I use that term loosely.) There is a reason we call them “fuckwits” in these parts.
The confession (limited as it was) was a relief but I was NOT prepared for the fusillade that followed(nothing left to lose I suppose). I wanted to trust her and take her at her word-to this day I am still at odds with was ever real and what was part of the game. I am simply happier not knowing the extent to which she betrayed me. It was enough for me to want nothing to do with her ever again and that has to be that. She will never have that power over me again.
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday all!
Never have that power. That is freedom.
I was able to trick my Ex into spilling the truth. If I had not succeeded, I might still be living in a world of confusion, pick-me-dances, and loneliness. Basically a friend suggested that I stop asking, Are you having an Affair or Is there another woman? These are yes/no answers and it makes it easier for them to lie and formulate excuses. Instead she offered that on a good day, in a relatively banal moment, ask in a friendly voice, So, What’s her name. This open question causes them to falter and trip up. Totally worked. Of course, soon thereafter I was in the fetal position crying for 2 months but at least I knew the truth and could begin to plan and rebuild. Also, his mask came off, he became a total ass.
Yep. Same here. ‘I was faithfull to you for 37 yrs!’ Until you weren’t. He has been a monster since, emotional, financial, even physical abuse. Still lying. A bully, an abuser.
Brilliant!
That friend is a genius!
Hope this might help someone! After becoming suspicious and looking at cell phone records, I still needed to make sure it wasn’t just endless phone conversations (this was before finding LACGAL and Chump Lady, but most websites said ‘don’t ask, you’ll never get the truth from a cheater’). So I hired an investigator and got proof. The next step was the best and most fortunate one: I started seeing a therapist, and thanks to her had the best possible outcome.
With my therapist’s help and advice, we planned the confrontation. I had time to do this because I didn’t want to have the confrontation for two months, until my youngest graduated from high school. Because of my choice to protect my kids, which gave me some time, what I needed to say was engrained in my head. It was direct and said with complete confidence – so I didn’t need a confession. What my therapist had me do: (1) don’t confront him at home, (2) say ”I know you’re having an affair and I know it’s been going on a long time”, (3) “I’ve packed you a bag and you’re not coming home tonight, I’ll see you at the therapist’s office tomorrow” – in fairness, to do the right thing, this was with a different therapist, (4) when he gets angry, call your friend to come to the restaurant and help you (this was prearranged and it was the husband of our good friends).
Writing this makes it sound so clinical and easy but it was the most horrendous thing I’ve ever gone through. The time between my discovery and the confrontation, I was a wreck. I couldn’t eat or sleep and I was diagnosed with cancer a week before I confronted him (I have no doubt there is a mind/body connection). I told only a few friends who could be absolutely trusted, but still have never felt so alone in my life.
I give all the credit to my therapist because I couldn’t have come up with this plan on my own. I was too much a mess. Her plan gave me the power & control and I’m lucky that I was able to compartmentalize and just follow the steps. And I’m lucky that I knew without a doubt that if someone cheats they can never be trusted.
Dudette, you are mighty! Not only did you wait two months to confront to allow your youngest to graduate in peace, you also didn’t opt out after you got a cancer diagnosis, and confronted him as planned. I hope you are healthier now, and got both malignancies out of your life.
Very powerful example of how to do things, and YES, I strongly believe in the mind body connection. Amazing how many chumps get sick either just before or around discovering cheating and frequently get much better or even healthy after the marriage is ended. Stress is devastating to body and mind.
I’ve been out for 7 years now–I’m healed, happy, and have gained a fulfilling life. My ONLY regret, and it’s one I’ve had from the start, was that I didn’t leave sooner.
I lived a life much like you described for more years than I dare admit; I no longer trusted, I had proof that I didn’t want to believe, I found ways to justify my choice to stay put, I didn’t confront (initially), and had to use a million, bar-lowering excuses with myself to withstand living in a half denial/half knowing the truth in my gut kind of environment. Not surprisingly, I also ended up developing a LOT of health issues during that time.
EVEN when it felt semi-‘good’ during that extended limbo time, it wasn’t ever good. I had to do a lot of mental gymnastics to shove a lot of what I was thinking and fearing under a rug. Sure, there were moments here and there when I’d almost forget, but looking back on those moments now, I never really forgot. I chose the ‘safety’ of denial because it felt less fear-ridden than any of the alternatives.
When I did finally confront (near the end), all I got was lies, excuses, and tons and tons of gaslighting. Even to this very day, he still insists to anyone who will listen that he wasn’t a cheater. I did end up unearthing many truths through legal channels that validated what I’d known in my gut all along, but I never did get anything honest from his lips to my ears.
And you know what? After a while that didn’t matter anymore. I knew the truth, and over time that was ‘enough’.
You aren’t doing yourself, or your kids any favors by staying put. You may not be aware of this yet, but emotionally and physically, you will suffer by choosing to stay and that is going to have impact on those around you.
My concern about staying for the kids – and I don’t object if this is someone’s choice, we all have to make the best decisions for ourselves – is that it leads to a deceptive marriage on both sides, and I can’t imagine the kids don’t see this. You have one partner who is actively cheating (or trying to) and perhaps engaging in financial cheating and other things, and the other spouse who tries to pretend that things are basically okay and workable or they’ll ignore the issues to keep the facade going. I don’t know how far people will go to maintain a facade, if they’ll really try to act like a loving couple or still have sex or if there will be drawn lines to the marriage – i.e., I know what you’ve done/doing and we can continue our marriage for the kids under the following restrictions – we don’t have sex, we don’t spend personal time together, you don’t expect romantic expressions or gifts from me – something like that. But to keep a relationship going with an actual pretense of real marriage seems very hard to me and it turns the non-cheating spouse into a deceiver too, IMO. On the other hand, some people are okay with having a marital facade or structuring their marriage in a non-romantic way, basically around raising kids, maintaining a social image, larger family ties, and chore/task divisions.
I don’t agree with labeling a chump deceitful if they choose to stay and fight for their marriage.
I agree with you on this.
Mine only ever admitted to hand jobs at Asian Massage Parlors, even though he knows I found condoms and a photo of his penis in another woman’s vagina. Two years after DDay and almost divorced, I still want to know how long the Asian Antics went on for, whether for 5 years or 10. I don’t think I’ll ever know because he loves that I don’t know.
CP, it sounds like your head is basically in the right place and that you’ll be moving forward, at your own pace, with a divorce, which I think is the right thing to do. I don’t object to staying for the kids as long as you know what you’re in for and you have clear objectives, which I think you had and do have. It must be an incredibly hard thing to do with what you know and suspect and that you simply don’t trust your wife (nor should you).
I am curious if you don’t mind my asking – how much does she know or understand of your feelings towards her at this point and how do you feel she regards your marriage? I know you can’t KNOW because these people are exceptional liars but how does she act towards you and what do you feel her reaction is to the marriage? I don’t know how to factor this in as an element but I’m curious and I like to get the whole picture. This kind of situation where people stay for the kids but pretend to have a normal marriage – I’m not sure this is what you’ve been doing at this point – it kind of feels like you’ve been pushed into being deceiving as well unless the lines are clearly, openly drawn – “I don’t trust you, I’m not in love with you, I’m just staying for the kids”. I don’t know that people openly say this so both parties seem to become enmired in a deceptive relationship. I wonder if this becomes a dance of deception. I don’t disagree with your goal of staying for the kids and providing stability but I wonder if there are other costs to living like this especially if one has to pretend that everything is okay or that the marriage (on the surface at least) is a normal one. This, perhaps, may be more for my understanding than your assistance, but maybe a discussion about this topic generally may be helpful to the community here as well. It’s such a common quandary – do I stay for the kids or is it better to end what has become a charade…..so many people routinely go through this and have to answer this for themselves.
As for a confession…..well…..I think they only confess to as much as they think you have on them. If she knows you know, ABC….she’s only going to admit to ABC or she’ll even color that as nothing or as something else, which she’s done. Obviously she’s not going to be sending romantic/sexual emails to the next door neighbor without going over to borrow a cup of his sugar. And if she’s doing it with him, which she undoubtedly has, there might be others as well. I somehow doubt your neighbor is simply irresistible – just convenient.
When you think about it – what motive does she have to confess? If she really loved you and cared about the marriage….she wouldn’t be doing this stuff. Maybe she hasn’t done anything for a long time, but how do you know? YOU CAN’T TRUST HER, and that’s the bottom line as you say. So what motive does she have to tell you anything? If things have been okay from her point of view for years and the marriage seems stable….why would she say anything, it would make her situation worse. She doesn’t have moral objections to cheating or she….wouldn’t have cheated. You don’t seem to have found out through a fit of remorse, you found the emails. And I doubt if she had an affair with the guy next door and then was pristine for the next 14 years. Once they start cheating, they don’t generally stop. They might go for some period in between, but I don’t think they stop. .The reason for the cheating, which is usually that they….ENJOY IT…..hasn’t gone away.
So….I don’t think she has internal motives to confess anything else, and if you don’t have actual evidence of anything else, she doesn’t have external motives either. Unless she runs into an AP, now or in the future, that she is willing to throw everything away for, she’s content with this kind of marriage and lying to you consistently or periodically. It’s how she’s built. You’re NOT going to get any other info out of her unless you ALREADY have evidence to confront her with, and she admits it to hold onto the marriage. Not hold on to YOU..but hold on to the marriage. Cheaters are usually very calculating people who do things FOR THEIR OWN BENEFIT so they have to have a reason to tell you anything or do anything….it’s because they’ve done the math in their head which tells them that the marriage is better at this point than other options. The only way to get her to admit anything is to already have evidence.
So that puts you into marital police or PI country anyway. Why do you NEED the confess? Are you unsure of how you feel and that will give you the final push forward? Is there part of you that wants to stay in the marriage even aside from the kids? Do you feel you would be judging or doing things unfairly without an actual confession? If you really need this level to feel secure and confident in your decision to leave, then you’re going to have to find the evidence yourself through some means, whatever there might be. And you’ll have to go through the years because I doubt that she’s done nothing for 14 years. (or even before the neighbor). You don’t just fuck the neighbor and stop. Is this neighbor still there, btw and how has that gone for you?
On a practical level, at this point, I would say, you know what you know and the bottom line is that she has not been faithful to you, you don’t know the full extent, but you don’t trust her and you don’t have the same feelings for her and the marriage. She probably has not been or will not be honest with you, and you’ll never know without looking for concrete evidence anyway. Is this how you want to live? Sometimes we have to make decisions knowing that we can NEVER HAVE THE FULL EVIDENCE OR PROOF OF ANYTHING….no matter what decision it is. We never have the full scope of what might be available – only God does and he’s not telling. I think sometimes we just have to accept that there are things we don’t know at this point and may never know and sometimes that’s a good thing. You might also start finding out more stuff, even from her, after you file. As it doesn’t make a difference in your state, as long as you’ve reached your objective with the kids, I’d just go ahead, get a good lawyer and file. It’s the best thing you can do FOR YOURSELF.
Sorry to be so lengthy, I’m a very thorough person and sometimes I just go overboard but I like to look at all the angles.
I chose not to pursue that. He insisted he was 100% faithful, even up to the phone call where he told me he wanted a divorce. He had taken off to make separation #2 long distance. Of course, I knew that part of the distance was so he could do whatever he liked without me asking too many questions. When I did ask questions, he didn’t like it. Even prior to that, there were bits and pieces, including his repeated insistence that I was cheating (projection) and his ramp-up in all things sexual after he retired.
When the attorneys got involved, my attorney pointed out during the intake appointment that he had never, ever heard of what he called a runner being 100% faithful, not in his 40+ years of family law and not in the practice of his colleagues both in and outside of his firm. OK, I took that as confirmation. He wanted to hire a PI for leverage if not trial evidence, but I was nearly broke. More came out during the process including his own attorney’s admission that it was an adultery case and that they had nothing on me.
By then, I was just so very ready for the next chapter, so I actually felt completely meh once the judge signed off. For some of us, we know enough to know it’s over, and that’s OK.
One more point, CP, when people cheat, especially in a situation where it’s close….like a neighbor where they could have been found out with a slip up, I think they have already extensively justified cheating IN THEIR OWN MINDS. They know you would…object….and that it would endanger the marriage…but that’s a practical concern…it’s like understanding that if you rob the bank you could be shot but dammit you want that money so you’re gonna rob the bank anyway. It’s a risk they’re willing to take because they have justified the WHOLE AFFAIR/CHEATING IN THEIR OWN MINDS. So that’s the position she comes to you from….one where she thinks, in her situation at least, that it’s okay to cheat, it’s not that bad, it’s not destructive, she got what she wanted and didn’t hurt you, blah blah blah…at least till you found out many years later. But since she’s justified this to herself with REASONS….they always make up reasons…..she doesn’t think she has to tell you anything or justify it to you because….she’s okay with this. She thinks what she did was basically okay or she wouldn’t have done it. It was a risk she was willing to take because the benefits of it were greater to her. So why would she, without pressure or evidence, just confess to anything when she’s justified her actions in her own mind already? She’d only fuck up her own calculations about what she wants to achieve, both in and outside of the marriage. The marriage is part of an equation they make, even the stupid ones.
Perfectly said
Yes I absolutely 💯 forced a confession because our couples counselor REFUSED to address the entitlement, chaos and lies. All she focused on was lowering anxiety and having us talk about feelings. She
She wanted to make you comfortable with the cheating. That’s so often what they regard as an achievement….making people comfortable and staying with the status quo.
(The ads took over so I could not finish my story!! The site would not let ..)
So to end this…I forced a confession and he told me what he did at work with a cafeteria lady was to teach me he had needs and I wasn’t meeting them! To teach me a lesson. That’s likely the tip of the iceberg…so after finding another counselor I got a lawyer and locked him out with a protection order. I did not need anything else to convince me he was disordered. The devaluing for 3 years then had meaning. Not just bipolar but a serious problem.
2xchump – you might try a different browser. I generally use Brave browser on my PC (non Apple/Mac) and it keeps the ads to a minimum. I find it a great browser.
Do cheaters confess? That depends. What’s in it for them to confess? It’s all about them and what they want against the irrelevance of others. If it benefits them to confess then they will do so.
CP – you say you don’t want to hire a PI but don’t say why. IMHO since money doesn’t seem to be a problem I think it would be a wise move. Firstly, how can you sleep at night not knowing the truth of your life? It’s a healthy mind that can handle uncertainty (I guess my therapist has more work to do!), but betrayal of this magnitude…. I can’t imagine willfully not wanting the facts. Even if the information you get is devastating, the truth is incredibly valuable for your eventual peace of mind. In the second place, you say you will take a financial hit, which is undoubtedly true. However, if your wife is hiding an emotional/sexual relationship, she could also be hiding financial things from you. A PI will probably be able to trace gifts, and “dating” expenses, and maybe other financial shenanigans; this is information your lawyer can use to your benefit. (That being said, my personal experience can tell you that it is SO SO SO much better to be poorer and lighthearted than to be richer and miserable.)
You mention you are in the “stayed for the kids camp”, but you’ve been married for 32 years. Can we assume the kids are now grown adults? If so, ask yourself if you are using the needs of the kids to ensure that you do not confront this incredibly painful and difficult future which may be coming. At a certain age, you’ve done what you can for the kids, they are their own persons, and now so are you. Make your decisions based on your needs and wants. Their reactions may surprise you. Upon hearing of my decision to divorce their dad, both of mine said “Finally!”
Great comments, and I strongly advocate for the PI. I think PIs are worth the investment as they usually bring results in an efficient and unemotional manner that can be used in court and they can be good advisors too. They’ve seen it all. If someone has the money and needs to get evidence for financial reasons or their own peace of mind….go with the PI.
CP, believe us all, and save yourself the futile effort of trying to elicit the truth from her. I’m so sorry, but the peace and closure you seek is not something she can or will provide. Put your energy into modeling integrity to your sons, which will have a much greater impact on everybody’s well-being.
Your sons will see who she is without any input from you, as my daughter did with her father. Her first comment on DDay was “Wow, Dad is so weak.” She learned from her emergency therapist to have a distinctly separate relationship with her father, as “He’s the only father I will ever have. I don’t like what he did, but I want to have a relationship with him.”
It’s not fair that, while we Chumps are clutching our guts in shock, we also have to keep our families together. But try to look down the road ten years, which is where I am now, and imagine how healthy and stress-free your family will be without the lying, gaslighting, cheater constantly creating tension.
In closing, I spent the past weekend with exH and his AP/now wife at my daughter’s wedding, and it’s really true that AP ultimately did me a favor. She is now married to a distinguished professor who became an obese, diabetic, befuddled dope who forgets to wear his hearing aids. She drives him to doctor appointments, administers his medications, shouts in his ear, and checks that he has zipped his fly.
With my early incessant investigation, I discovered AP/now wife has in the past defaulted on her mortgage, lost her home, filed for bankruptcy, been fired from jobs, has an arrest record, and was deliberately omitted from her mother’s published obituary. I saved a screenshot of her mugshot, which used to comfort me, but I no longer need to look at it to know my own worth.
Please spare yourself and your sons the agony of a tension-filled life, CP, and rest assured that cheaters never trade up. My best to you.
These are the kind of calculations I was talking about in my own (probably too lengthy) comments here. Sounds like AP conned him into providing her with material security and some status (wife of professor) and he got….well….I guess he got a nursemaid and probably something else that puffed up his ego at the time. That’s their transactional relationship – I think their relationships are mainly calculated and transactional as opposed to loving and altruistic.
Confessions are rare. Most cheater admissions are confirmations, not confessions. If I have to gather all of the evidence, put the timeline in order, compare receipts and timestamps for him to admit anything, he doesn’t get points for “confessing”. He only confirmed what I already knew.
Shady stuff IS hard evidence.
You can’t be shady AND trustworthy. It’s an either or thing.
Trust and safety are the two essential elements of a healthy committed relationship. Without them, you have AN ENTANGLEMENT. (Thank my local DV prevention organization for that nugget of wisdom). You either have trust and safety, or you don’t. It’s also not a kinda-sorta thing.
Consider this quote from CS Lewis, which crossed my path the other night at 3am:
“The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.”
I want to be married to wise. I want to be married to integrity. I want to be married to safe and trustworthy. I do not want to be married or in a relationship with otherwise.
Thanks for the comments everybody. The degree of sociopathy in some of your stories is astonishing and I am bracing for the worst. The pain keeps coming in waves but this forum is like a soothing balm. I will not only survive, I will thrive.
To be clear, I am looking for an admission so I can definitively say to the kids (the youngest will be 18 in a few months) that mom cheated. I’d rather not deal with any potential slapback where I get blamed. That said, I hear all of your points and will consider this carefully. When the hammer comes down and discovery starts maybe stuff will just come out of the woodwork.
Also, I’d love some of your thoughts on how you have handled No contact. My youngest is still in the house and I think it would be pretty brutal.
As far as the no contact advice, what I have is this which actually comes from a pediatrician who was advising me through the terrible twos ( and the zany zeros and the weird ones) with my kids: Be firm, be fair (even if she wasn’t and will not be in the future), and be consistent. With a kid still in the house you can’t go completely no contact, but you can figure out what is acceptable to you which does not negatively impact any of the kids. Figure out the boundaries which work for you and stick to them. With four kids to deal with you will probably find that they react differently from each other and you should be sensitive to their boundaries as well, e.g. one kid may be fine with hearing about what you are going though and another may want to hear not one single word from either you or their mother. My kids were adults at the time of “the unpleasantness” so there was no need for communication with FW there, however I did work for in the family business so there was almost daily communication. I made sure that everything was done by text or email and at a certain point when I wised up I just didn’t respond to personal things, only work related stuff. Use the “kthxbye” response to anything not relevant to what you absolutely must discuss. Remember that whatever you write can be taken to court so be professional (for lack of a better word). I could go on, but you’ll get your feet under you soon.
CP, I was trying to craft a script for you, but look below for the one Chumpolicious provided. You need to correct it to say that your wife (not your neighbor) sent the dirty texts. And you can add that you don’t want to share further behaviors, are not comfortable doing so, and it doesn’t matter. I’d also omit, “I fell out of love with her that day,” because they, or she, can use it to revers victim/offender and blame you, especially if any of her behavior comes out. She’ll say, “He admitted he didn’t love me, I had to find love/friendship elsewhere.”
The husband, best friend, and mother of shmoopie called me, one after the other, to tell me that he was cheating. When he got home, I told him. Then I looked him in the eye and asked if he was having an affair. He looked right back and said, “No, I’m not.” Found out later it had been going on for 7 years.
My situation is a bit different than many (most?) on this site in that I didn’t suspect anything. He just confessed everything one random night in the middle of a restaurant. At the time it was clear to me he was a sociopath — I had obviously never known him. He ate an entire meal, INCLUDING DESSERT, while blowing up my life and had zero emotional response.
Later I realized it was a big power thing laced with duper’s delight that he got to be the one to reveal everything and that I’d been in the dark for at least 7 years (what he confessed to).
But I still don’t know the whole truth. Only enough to be gobsmacked at the level of duplicity and to give my lawyer ammunition for the divorce. Of course, almost two years later he’s still power-tripping by dragging out the divorce and refusing to negotiate, so…
He didn’t need to confess, it was all exposed once he got an ethics complaint filed against him. Of course he tried to convince folks that there was no Fing going on, they were just chaste lovers. I am sure folks got a big laugh out of that.
Yes, you can get a cheater to confess. In my case, after months of emotional and physical distance, ending with her moving out of our house, I straight up asked her if she was seeing someone else, and if the she had been seeing someone else previous to her moving out. I’ll give her a tiny smidgen of credit that she said yes to both questions.
In my case, that should have been enough for me to start the divorce process. But, I was naive and took that as a sign of remorse. After that conversation, we talked more openly about what was bothering her. Another sign that I missed was that this conversation was all about what I needed to to for her, not her apologizing for what she had done and how she could make amends.
We ended up divorcing anyway a few years later, because I learned that no matter how much you feed a cheater, they are never satisfied.
My point here is that even if you get a confession, what good will it do? As espoused on here from CL and us fellow chumps, you have to ultimately accept the situation for what it is and decide if that’s the relationship you want to have.
I had an text on her phone from her lover asking her if she was sure that it was him that got her pregnant, not me. I woke her up to show her this evidence.
Her response: We never actually had sex. He doesn’t know how babies are made.
What?!
He works in the medical field and has three children of his own.
So no, if hard evidence will do you no good, just imagine how far you are going to get with a mere list “shady” behaviour. Nothing. Nowhere. Don’t even bring it up. Assume the worst you can imagine is true and then know that it is probably worse than that.
This one takes the cake. No pun intended
“He doesn’t know how babies are made.” Amazing.
You want a confession to prove to the kids divorce was the right thing to do. If you want hard evidence, you might as well get a PI to dig it up. But you had texts sexts from 14 yrs ago she denied. You stayed for the kids. Kids appreciate honesty. You can tell the truth. 14 years ago I found sexts from the neighbor, I confronted her and she denied it. Her denying it doesnt mean she didnt do it. I fell out of love with her that day, buy I stayed with her because I didnt want to break up your family, I did my moral obligation to you guys. You are now adults, and my time with her has ended. In my remaining years I would like to enjoy my life and live in truth. I love you guys very much, and will always be here for you and do what I can to make it easier on you. You guys have always been my top priority and continue to be.
You are under no obligation to remain with her if you are not happy and do not love her. Do not feel bad putting yourself first. Cheating or not, it does not matter. You dont love her , you dont trust her, she doesnt make you feel loved or safe. How much longer do you have on the earth? You dont need to justify it.
I was trying to craft a reply that would say exactly this, except to clarify that wife wasn’t the recipient of the emails, she was the active perpetrator. CP wrote, “Found dirty emails from my wife to a neighbor”
Sadly, for years I had a gut feeling my ex-husband might cheat on me because he would openly ogle other women and flirt with them in front of me. After 8 years of marriage, we stopped off at his place of work after an evening out because he had a few work things he needed to tend to, and I took advantage of this rare opportunity to snoop (open his desk drawers and look at the contents) and found a letter from his affair partner. I confronted him (using the excuse I was looking in his desk for something, maybe a pen to jot a reminder), and he confessed. We reconciled, but I didn’t trust him and became an active member of the marriage police.
Fast forward 4 years. My gut still is sounding an alarm. I continued to snoop, and one day I found a necklace stashed one of his dresser drawers that was by a Canadian designer I liked, bought while he was attending a conference in another city. But then he didn’t give it to me for my birthday (a couple of weeks before Christmas) or at Christmas, either. Knowing he could say he simply forgot about (and knowing there was a small chance that he did), I decided to try to mousetrap him and tell him I got an anonymous phone call telling me that he was having an affair. I must be a better actress than I thought (or his guilty conscience got him) because he believed me and confessed. I asked him about the necklace and he said he bought it intending to give it to me, but then was planning to give it to his affair partner. We were divorced about a year later.
I know people think it’s terrible to snoop and lie even in a “good” cause like trying to uncover an affair, but I didn’t feel guilty about it. I desperately needed to know where I stood, and if I hadn’t done it, how many more years would I have wasted on that marriage? I don’t snoop on my current partner of many years because even though we have our differences, both his behavior and my gut tells me he’s a faithful guy.
I don’t see an issue with snooping, you suspect a crime you investigate. I wish I had investigated when I got that first tingle.
I need a confession is an excuse to do nothing.
My cheater fessed up once I finally caught him. The tell was when I was overseas visiting my family and the bank put a hold on my credit card for “unusual spending activity”. At first I thought it was because I was overseas, but no, it was because Mr Sparklepants spent $3,500 in one day. Hotel bookings, expensive meals and shopping. So when I got home he spilled the beans. I expected to hear about a one-off wild hooker fest but instead got a confessional going back about 15 years (out of 25). I was so blindsided I fell on the floor. BUT-soon after his confession he hit me with his idea that he was going to have me AND the others and all would just be sooooo much easier now that he doesn’t have to sneak around anymore. Yay! He was super shocked when I told him to GTFO. Then I got the full force of the narcissism and the post-separation abuse. So his confession certainly did not play out like he had built up in his fantasy.
Actually, both my husbands cheated on me, and both confessed. The second confessed (after hours of lying and excuses) because I had pretty good, sordid evidence–I had found a box of condoms. But the first confessed partly because he actually felt guilty lying to my face when I came to him pleading for the truth. Yes, he was somewhat cornered, in that I asked him concretely if he was having an affair with person x because I had heard a rumor to that effect. BUT he also had a conscience, much more than my second husband did. And a part of him truly wanted to come clean. I could feel the stark difference between the two men.
My FW has never told me the truth. I was so off balance at DDay that I tried to track back. He gave me titbits of information, but it was all BS. He told me ‘I’m not going to tell you, it’s none of your business! She’s none of your f*cking business, so don’t ask!’ I said she IS my business, she’s sleeping with my husband. He said, wait for it, ‘we’re not married.’ Errr, yes, we are.. ‘Only technically!’ 🤥. After a couple of exchanges he told me ‘I’m not discussing this with you anymore – you just use it all against me.’ No shit Sherlock!
He hides his life now – everything is secret squirrel. He lives with her now, since I threw him out on Boxing Day – his parting gift was several cracked ribs. I have done all the work to get our divorce and tie up 37 yrs of marriage. Negotiating financials now – he’s forgotten I have access to our business bank account and accounting software, so I’m quietly downloading statements and accounts, while he drains the bank account. I don’t need any more details of his betrayal – I know enough to know I don’t want that skanky liar in my life one more day than necessary!
I’m happy, peaceful and loving my FW free life – he’s the only blip in it, and about to disappear.
It is so weird how they hide their lives. So much effort to hide who they really are. I mean if that is who you are, live your live in the open. These are troubled individuals.
Same. He won’t even tell me and his kids where he lives. I will refer to this as “secret squirrel” from now on!
😂😂 it’s suitably childish and cartoonish. Just like him.
My FWxH was only casually acquainted with the truth. I cannot recall him ever proactively telling me the truth about any of his “indiscretions”. Like so many of you, I got trickle truth and admitting to only what he thought I already knew. I was a full lieutenant of the Marriage Police, as well as a damn fine Crown Attorney, forensics expert and judge of the High Court of Infidelity.
I really did not appreciate what a stunningly fantastic liar he was until the dying days of our marriage. I was able to access his iPad so I was able to read all of the Facebook Messenger texts between him and his fuck buddies. I never disclosed to him this rich source of intel.
I remember witnessing in real time an exchange of messages between him and one of his fuck buddies (someone he was auditioning as a potential replacement for me):
FWxH ”I am in the elevator lobby now – can’t wait to be with you again”.
FB ”Ok sexy, see you in a bit. The door is unlocked. You know where to find me”
When FWxH got home several hours later, I had a front row seat to a performance that would make Sir Lawrence Olivier himself weep at the pathos. FWxH explained his absence as him being suicidal and distraught at my anger, and his upset over our tattered marriage. He went on to explain (with tears, sobs, and chest heaving) that he spent the evening pacing the Bloor St bridge and peering over the edge contemplating how he could jump off of it into the valley below.
Me “Poor you FWxH. That must have been awful. Well at least you are home now safe and sound. I will send your therapist a note tomorrow to let him know you are suicidal. Should I also call an ambulance to have you taken in for an evaluation? I really am worried about your health.”
That was the last time I heard him lie about being suicidal, but not the last time I heard him lie outrageously.
I don’t have kids, CP, but my advice would be to shield them from any discussions with your wife, which may turn pretty nasty, they often do. I would also discuss this with each of them individually rather than in a group as they may each have different reactions to news about Mom and a divorce. I think you have to expect this and some of them might be very upset about this and perhaps angry with you especially if they think this is something that happened long ago. It might be in years, but you recently found out so this is fresh for you. I would say that “knowing” is a burden we place on others who may not accept it willingly or gracefully. Even adult children may react negatively and even angrily. I’m not saying this to dissuade you but to warn you. Mom may also try to persuade them to her side. Frankly, this is why I would tell you to use a PI if you can afford it. It might not only get you more info, maybe even more recent stuff you don’t want to know, for you AND the kids, but it’s from an objective source from outside the family. It’s something you can share with others if you have to. Otherwise, you are presenting something that happened several years ago to everyone and they’re at a minimum, going to tell you you should forgive her and let it go. They don’t understand that for you, this happened yesterday and showed you a whole aspect of your wife you never imagined possible before and you just can’t trust her anymore, even without more evidence, what you have is enough.
If you do go forward with what you have without seeking further info, always know that the bottom line question here is: IS THIS RELATIONSHIP ACCEPTABLE TO YOU? The answer here is no, and whatever your kids say or think is likely to change over time anyway. I would just like you to make the strongest position possible. And beware of marital counseling, it’s usually a trap, but individual counseling can be helpful.
My investigating is next level, but for nothing. He doesn’t know why it says that, it’s not him, never been on that site, it’s someone posing as him, he must have gotten hacked, he doesn’t even know who that is, doesn’t know why they would say that, etc.
Taken me over a year to realize I know more than enough to know what to do next.