Starsky309
“I know all about you and _______, and it needs to stop. It's incredibly disrespectful to me, to our marriage and to our family.”

Starsky309
Whenever my wife would say "I don't know if my feelings for you will ever return," I would say “I understand that and I'm willing to be very patient in that regard -- it could take many, many months. But whether or not you're willing to do this short list of things that I say I need at this point, to me, isn't about feelings. It's a DECISION that you need to make, if you want to remain married to me."

PuppyDogTails
"I realize that I had my own issues that I need to work on" or -- my personal favorite -- "End your affair and come back to the marriage, and I think you will find me more than willing to work on any and all issues, including my own."

PuppyDogTails
...What helped me was to script out my 2nd, longer, "The Deceit's Gotta Stop" confrontation with my wife. Practiced it, over and over, even out loud, in my office. Rehearsed my body language, and my inflection, and my eye contact. Probably two dozen times. It left me VERY prepared, and pretty calm. A 1/2-pill of my anti-anxiety meds took care of the other half nicely. Another technique I use when nervous is to remind myself of all the ways that the OTHER person ought to really be the nervous one! And that's certainly true in your case. YOU are fighting the noble fight, and your wife is lying and fleeing and generally acting of poor character! Who said this had to be a 15-second script? I'd suggest about a 3-minute one, give or take...

Stop. We both know you're lying. If that's all you have then I have more important things to attend to. Please excuse me...
Get up to leave...

Puppies classic: I have decided I will no longer lie to cover up your infidelity and destructive behavior. When you say one thing and do other I have no choice but to protect this family by verifying your claims... Which did indeed turn out as suspected - LIES. Our marriage has problems outside of your infidelity. Your choice of response to those problems is to make them WORSE by introducing an interloper to cause a great deal of stress and damage to your reputation, my commitment, and your daughter's well being. Marital problems need to be met with solutions - not lies and cheating. Your choice - continue cheating and make things worse, or end the cheating and make things better. The ball's in your court there. Continue cheating and hurting your own children OR make a commitment to solve the problem constructively.

I now know that our marriage wasn't satisfactory for you or me. I completely accept my half of the responsibility for that and am sorry for the hurt it caused you. The other half, and your subsequent affair to aggravate those problems is all on you. OR I am willing to take ownership of my HALF of our marital problems UP TO the affair. The other 50% of the marital problem and this hurtful affair is ALL YOURS.

You have a choice to help your family, or destroy it. What you are doing to this family is selfish and irresponsible. But if this is your decision, then you will own the consequences and myself and our daughter will be as far from it as we can get and we won't be looking back. I have things to do that are a lot more important than listening to your excuses.

PuppyDogTails
She squirmed and b*tched and moaned and screamed bloody murder at first, that I refused to sit down and talk to her. Eventually, over the course of a few weeks, as she saw that I was NOT going to be either bullied nor sweet-talked (and she tried both approaches) into sitting down and having an R talk with her, she eventually stopped trying. I confronted my wife within 24 hours of having proof she was having an affair. I exposed her affair within 24 hours to our adult daughters, and within two weeks to her family and her employer. I re-confronted her on Day 60, and laid out a "No More Deceit" boundary, telling her "either you tell our daughters and your parents the truth about your relationship with (OM), or I will." I had evidence, and I told her she had five minutes to decide. Within two hours, she had told all four of them the truth -- that she wasn't "just friends" with OM, and that Puppy hadn't been lying when I told them she was having an affair. About a week later (around Day 70), I filed for divorce, after my wife stubbornly refused to end her affair. On Day 90, she ended her affair, and asked "what will it take?" to reconcile. I laid out my short-list of non-negotiable boundaries, and we reconciled. There were several fits-and-starts after that, with the divorce initially being put on two 3-month "stays" before finally being withdrawn. We also separated for a couple of weeks about a year ago, and agreed to date other people, but that was short-lived, and after one "date" (drinks with a former co-worker) I agreed to move back in with her to work on our marriage. We did some MCing, still struggle with the SSM thing, but have remained great friends and partners ever since, and celebrated both our 25th wedding anniversary and the birth of our first granddaughter this Spring. Interestingly, when my wife tearfully asked for reconciliation (and thereafter), she told me that although she HATED me at the time, and was LIVID with me for exposing her affair, she understood why I did it, RESPECTED me for it, and THANKED ME for fighting for our marriage!

PuppyDogTails
Best to just say "I know all about you and ________, so please don't disrespect me or our family any further by continuing to lie about it." If he does (lie), then put your hand up in the "STOP" position and -- looking him straight in the eye -- say "Stop it. We both know you're lying to me right now, and it's incredibly disrespectful not only to me and to our marriage, but to our family. We always taught our kids the importance of honesty; I've decided that WHATEVER happens with us, I am going to insist on that in our family moving forward."And then if he persists in the lie (ex.: "we're just friends"), turn and leave the room.
I had to do this with my wife. From my personal archives:
Boundaries/”Start with the DECEIT”
I would start with the DECEIT.
Once it became apparent in my sitch that my wife wasn't going to end her affair, despite confrontation, exposure to her parents, siblings, our adult children and her employer, I decided that I couldn't stop her. But I was DAMNED sure going to stop tolerating the DECEIT. She was lying to her own parents (whom I love and respect, very much, and who have been like PARENTS to me throughout our marriage), and to our adult daughters.
So my BIG boundary was this:
"I will no longer tolerate your deceit. I will no longer stand idly by while you have an affair with a boy half your age, and then not only LIE to your parents and our children about it, but you make wild accusations about ME, that I'm 'crazy' and paranoid. Well, that's over. You either tell them the truth, or I will, and I will show them the evidence that I have. You have exactly five minutes to decide." And I was dead serious.
btw, my smaller boundaries were:
-- no calling or texting OM from inside of our marital home;
-- no calling or texting OM in front of our kids, regardless of where you are;
-- I will no longer allow our family's finances to be spend enabling your affair; you will have to get your own cellphone, and pay for your tummy tuck Visa payments, lingerie, hair-coloring and what-not.
-- If you plan on coming home after 1am, don't bother coming home.
In your case, since you're living apart, I would start with the DECEIT boundary. It's incredibly disrespectful, and there's no reason why you have to stand there and be lied to, continually.

PuppyDogTails
On “having a plan,” and “The Schmuck Factor”:
I think you let her know that you are here for her when she is ready to do the work necessary. She clearly isn't ready to do that right now.
It would convey weakness if you were to be supplicating towards her while she was still actively cheating on you, and disrespecting her boundaries. Letting her know that you are willing to suck it up, forgive, love unconditionally and do the hard work of reconciliation -- when she is ready -- does NOT convey weakness, it conveys character and strength.
Many, many people confuse "unconditional love" with "doormat-without-boundaries." It is entirely possible -- and NECESSARY -- to demonstrate unconditional love and forgiveness, within a framework of healthy boundaries.
Do you not love a child unconditionally, while at the same time not allowing them to use obscenity when speaking to you? Do you not love a spouse, while simultaneously not allowing them to berate you in front of another couple?
Those are just two silly examples, but I think this is where you're getting hung up. Us men have a REALLLLL hard time with the whole "schmuck factor" thing, and it really rears its head when there is infidelity involved. We don't like to be made a fool. But if your "standing" for your marriage is PART OF A PLAN -- YOUR plan -- then who's the schmuck here? You take a position of "Yes, I am, at the moment, deciding to stand for my marriage, even though my wife is having an affair and is refusing to admit it and work at the marriage, but I have made this choice to do this FOR A PERIOD OF TIME, and I will hold out as long as I can, all the while trying to lay out and enforce healthy boundaries for me and my children. My wife is an adult, I cannot control her, and I'm praying that she comes to her senses soon, before my love for her fully runs out, but I can hold on for "x" months and I will do so, to the best of my ability. This is MY decision, this is MY stand, and I am doing it with boundaries, legal/financial protections for me and my kids, and for a finite period (uncommunicated to spouse -- just tell her "I won't wait forever") of time."
My wife asked me both during -- and after -- her affair, why I was fighting for her. Why I hadn't kicked her out immediately. I told her:
- because I took a wedding vow, before God, and I took that very seriously. It was not "for better or for better yet," it was "for better or for WORSE";
- because I loved her, and we had a lot of shared history together;
- because I didn't want to demonstrate to our four children that when things get tough, you cut and run. You make a stand and fight for what is important to you, for as long as you can, to the best of your ability;
- because if the situation were reversed, and I had say a gambling or alcohol addiction, I would hope that she would do the same and fight for ME;
- and because I didn't want to go to my death bed with REGRETS, that I should have tried harder. If I was going to err, I was going to err on the side of trying to save my marriage and keep my family intact.
When you lay out (and maybe even write down), what YOUR OWN reasons are, and give yourself an internal deadline (6 months, one year, whatever) . . . then I think, as a man, we can feel like WE are executing a plan, and that we're not being a "schmuck."

PuppyDogTails
“I should be clear with you about something. I have absolutely no intention of remaining 'best friends' with you if you choose to end our marriage this way -- by having an affair, running away, and lying to your parents and our children about it. We'll be civil, and we'll co-parent effectively, I'm sure, but we won't be friends. If you decide to end your affair now, however, and come back and work on this with me, going to marriage counseling, each of us addressing our issues, and it doesn't work out -- say after a year -- and we choose to divorce, then yes, I could see a time where eventually we could become good friends again, even though it won't be the same. But not what you're doing now, I'm sorry. This is NOT how friends treat each other, and I respect myself too much to put up with a so-called 'friend' who would do that to me."

PuppyDogTails
“Wife, you say you want space, and a formal separation agreement. And I know you have some legitimate complaints about my role in the dysfunction in our marriage. I acknowledge that, and as you know i am working on my issues, and I hope that in time you will learn to trust that my changes are for real.”
“I am willing to go to marriage counseling with you to try to save our marriage. I think we may both regret it someday if we don't do everything we can to try. But I'm not a fool, and I need to be clear with you. I cannot respect your decision to cut-and-run like this, and I damned sure can't respect your decision to involve a 3rd person in our marriage. (at this point she will try to stop you, and lie to you). Put your hand up in the "stop" position, and say "Please stop --we both know you're lying to me right now, so let me finish.
“You need to know that I will not share you with another man, and I will not be your friend if you choose to end our marriage this way. Whatever is going on with this guy, it needs to stop, but I realize that I cannot control you and I have no desire to. Just know that I will not be agreeable to a separation until such time that you've REALLY worked on our marriage with me, without the involvement of a third person. If you refuse to end that, then I will have no choice but to protect myself as much as I possibly can. I do love you, but I won't be made a fool."
And then I'd walk away.
If she tries to deny OM, say "Please stop lying to me. It's incredibly disrespectful to me and to our marriage. When you're ready to speak to me honestly, we can continue the conversation. As for the legal stuff, I think that would be best if we left that to our attorneys."
That's what I would do. And then I would spend the next two weeks finding out everything I could about OM. Who he is, what he does, is he married, what it is he does that attracted my wife.
I would combine a hard legal stance and hardline confrontation/exposure, with loving detachment, GAL, 180s and working on my own issues.


Me:41 W:39 S:9 D:6 T:20 M:16
PA:8/22/18, BD:11/6/18
PA discovery & IHS:12/3/18, W moves:4/2/19
R’ville:9/27/19, I give D docs:3/1/20
W home:4/5/20 (due to CV-19), W NC w/OM:4/13/20 6/1/20