Just to make this clear from the beginning- I will not divorce my wife. I am fully committed to making my marriage work and have no need or desire to leave her. If the only advice people can offer is divorce, than just save your time and don’t respond.
In 2007, when my wife was 23 and we were living in CA, we were 4 weeks away from getting married. She went on a “bachelorette trip” with 5 of her friends, her sister and her mother to Lake Tahoe. While there, she and her best friend met two guys from Washington state. They spent the entire weekend with these 2 guys doing god knows what (I actually know now). When they came back from the trip, my wife confessed to me that she had "kissed a guy." I was, of course, upset, and didn't believe anything she was telling me. Her story was that they had gone back to these guys' room to "hang out and watch tv". She said that she felt uncomfortable and so she left, leaving her best friend alone with these two guys. She claimed that she did not know what, if anything, her friend had done with them. She admitted that on the night previous, she had been dancing with this guy in a club and had kissed him. She claimed that the kiss only lasted a split second and that they felt so guilty, they broke apart and just hung out from that point forward. I, of course, did not believe her so I called all of her girlfriends that were there that weekend to get their versions of the story. As it turns out, the kiss lasted long enough for one of the girls to see them kissing, get up from her table, walk across the dance floor, and break them up. I went back to her with this and she admitted then that she had also gone back to his room. She claimed that nothing had happened and that she left their room when she felt uncomfortable. I had no other way to disprove this, so I had to believe her story. As it turns also turns out, when she had come home from her trip, she and her best friend had set up a fake Facebook account so that they could stay in contact with these guys. When I found out about the Facebook account, she immediately deleted it. She apologized over and over again, I chose to accept her apology, and we got married.
Over the course of the next 5 years, our marriage disintegrated. We would go months without having sex. We fought constantly, sometimes on the verge of getting physical. She made threats, was constantly trying to manipulate and control me, and would verbally abuse me. When I tried to talk about our sex life, she would call me a “pervert” and a “freak” and accuse me of being obsessed with sex. After awhile, I began to get suspicious of this behavior and thought that it might be because of some guilt she was feeling. The only thing I could think of was that maybe she was feeling guilt over cheating on me and the only time I could think of as a possibility of her cheating on me was on this trip to Tahoe. So, I asked her about it. Several times. She always refused to talk about it and would get very defensive.
In 2009, my employer relocated us to Washington state. It never occurred to me that this might cause some problems. Well, after years of fighting and not having a healthy sex life, I decided to do some digging. In 2011, I started going through her emails and her Facebook account, but could not find anything. I contacted the friend that had broken up their “kiss” on the dance floor, and she recounted for me what she could remember. This time, she told me that on the last day they were in Tahoe, these two guys had joined the entire group for breakfast. This was new information for me. As far as I had been told, they never saw each other again after being in their hotel room. So, now, I went into full on detective mode. I reactivated the secret Facebook account from 2007 and, lo and behold, it was still friends with one of the guys from Tahoe. I began clicking through his photo albums and found an album from their trip to Tahoe. And what did I find? Pictures of my wife’s best friend in bed with one of the guys. Not naked, but in the bed. I started compiling as much info about the two guys as I could, so that I could approach my wife and ask her what really happened. I contacted the best friend and asked her some very general questions that might indicate whether she was lying or not. And she was. Because of these lies, the pictures, and my gut feelings, I approached my wife. She got angry. She got defensive. She started banging her fists on the table. “I did not have sex with him!”, and the like. During this conversation, she admitted that she actually stayed in the room, but was so drunk, she spent most of the time in their bathroom, vomiting. She admitted that her guy, came into the bathroom with her to “hold her hair back.” By this point, I believed NOTHING she had to say. The conversation ended in a stalemate, and we went our separate ways. Little did she know, I had set up a recorder in our kitchen the next morning, just in case she felt like calling her best friend to sort out their stories. And, oh boy, did she. She actually called her mother and said (and this is an exact quote), “Having sex with someone before you’re married is not the same as having sex with someone after you’re married. I wasn’t married. I might have made a promise to marry him, but it’s not like I took a vow.” That night, when I came home and listened to the recording, I went into overdrive. Obviously, I could not trust anything she was saying. So I contacted the other guy. As it turns out, we now live a convenient 40 minutes away from him! After I contacted him, he contacted my wife’s best friend, who instructed him to lie. Which he did. She contacted my wife and they concocted a story. My wife emailed him saying, “I was so drunk, I don’t remember what happened! Can you fill me in?” He emails my wife back and tells her that she had performed oral sex on him in the bathroom. She was not getting sick, as she claimed. They had gone into the bathroom deliberately to fool around. He then emails me telling me the same thing, but also with a “get over it” message.
From this point forward, I will be hazy with the details. I can’t take any chance of my wife seeing this. She claims that she does not remember ANY of it. She claims that he might have raped her. She claims that it’s “possible” they might have had full on sex, maybe even anal. But she doesn’t know, because she can’t remember. However, the recorded conversation between she and her mom where she admitted having sex with him, took place 2 days before he told her “what really happened.” After a full year of confronting her with this proof, she finally admitted that she did remember giving him oral sex. The reason I am going to be hazy, is because I can prove that his story, her story, and her friend’s story is all a lie. However, if I confront her with this, she will only admit to what I can prove. And from this point forward, I will always have to wonder if she’s only being honest about things I already know about. I will always have to wonder if I need to be a detective. I want her to willing come to me and tell me the truth. I have told her that I know they are all lying. I have told her that I can prove it. But, I have also told her that I will never show her my proof until she comes forward of her own free will and tells the truth. I have told her that I will never be able to trust her until she does.
I have been going to counseling since the day I found out that she had physically cheated on me. We have been going to marriage counseling for just as long. She has been seeing her own therapist, as well. But I have no idea if that is working and I am not allowed to ask what they talk about. Through my own counseling, I have learned not to make threats or give ultimatums so I stopped doing that over a year ago. I have learned to stand up for myself and for my needs, without being aggressive. I have been explicitly clear with my wife about my needs and continue to stand by them. However, my wife still will not come clean. I believe she is under the impression that if we just aren’t talking about “it”, then she is getting away with it.
Believe it or not, our marriage has actually improved in some areas. She is no longer verbally abusive. She is working incredibly hard on being more supportive of me, my family, and my career. Our sex life has improved dramatically. She is constantly reminding me that she loves me (which she never did before) and we are able to talk about a lot of things we weren’t able to in the past. AS LONG AS, we don’t talk about “it”. She still gets defensive, she still avoids the topic, and she still won’t tell the truth. She stopped going to our marriage counselor, though she still sees her personal one. Again, I have no idea what they do there.
My question to everyone is: Without making threats or ultimatums, what can I do to get her to tell the truth? If it’s not possible, what can I do to wrap my mind around the fact that my wife is lying and that she will most likely lie to me for the rest of our lives? I have forgiven her for cheating on me. But, I will not forgive her for lying until the lying stops. If that means that I live in anger for the next 60 years, then I will do that. I don’t want to live with this anger, but I believe being angry is a better option than burying my head in the sand and trying to pretend everything is okay. Showing her the proof I have is not an option, either. I have drawn a line in my life that I will not accept being lied to anymore. Showing her the proof feels to me like I have to prove myself to her, when it should be the other way around. So I’m not going to do that.
Lately, I have been debating whether or not to push her to get a polygraph test. Any feelings on this idea?
I know this was a long post, and I have left a lot of stuff out, so if there are any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.
