SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all,

I’m posting because I feel like I’m losing my grip on what is real and what isn’t, and I need perspective from people who understand infidelity, trickle truth, and what it feels like when someone admits just enough to keep you hooked but not enough to make the story make sense.

I’m married with two boys, ages 9 and 5. I filed for divorce on March 20, 2026, but I’m still struggling because my wife says she wants to save the marriage and insists there was never anything physical with the other man. I do not believe her.

I’m also a very involved father, which is part of why this is so hard. I do a lot of the daily parenting: breakfast, mornings, school drop-offs, bedtime routine, dishes/cleanup, and usually snuggle one of the boys to sleep. My wife also does a lot, especially making the boys their lunch, homework, dinner, and more recent pickups. So this is not a situation where one parent is barely present. That’s part of why I’m torn up over what divorce will do to the kids.

The other man is a longtime school/academic-decathlon contact of hers. I’ll call him Mark.

What my wife now admits
She admits all of this:

she lied to me repeatedly about Mark

she concealed contact and interactions with him

she deleted texts with him because she did not want me asking questions

she crossed boundaries

she got validation and emotional support from him

she let the connection become secretive

she "disrespected the marriage"

she liked the attention he gave her

she used him as a "low stakes person" to talk to

she says there is still "missing information" that she needs to work through with a therapist. For example, she admitted that thoughts crossed her mind about "what it would be like to have Mark around more" and she also said that if something happened to me, "he could be a person I turn to"

That last one gutted me, because to me it means he had entered partner-space in her mind.

What she still denies:

kissing

sexual touching

anything physical beyond hugs

So the current official story is basically:
"Yes, I lied to you, hid him, needed him emotionally, disrespected the marriage, and imagined him in my life more — but no, nothing physical ever happened."

That is the part I do not buy.

Why I do not believe the current "nothing physical happened" story
Because she has already admitted so much of the surrounding betrayal:

lying

concealment

deleting texts

emotional dependence

validation-seeking

partner-space thinking

and giving me multiple different versions depending on the day and who she was talking to

This is not a case where I just randomly decided an innocent wife must have cheated. This is a case where the emotional betrayal and hidden connection are already admitted, but the physical piece remains denied.

Timeline
Background before 2025
Mark had been in her orbit for years through school / decathlon. There were phone calls, familiarity, and a level of comfort that, in hindsight, looks too personal. They used to coach decathlon together.

At one point years ago, she even told me she thought he would be an ideal match for my sister, and later for one of her friends. I’m not saying that proves anything by itself, but in hindsight it reinforces for me that he occupied more space in her mind than an ordinary colleague or casual friend.

At one point, even a parent questioned why Mark seemed so involved with the school / decathlon despite no longer being a teacher there (my wife hired him as a teacher in 2015 and he left within a year after my wife said he developed a close relationship with a teacher that he couldn't handle anymore because it was too hard on him emotionally). I don’t treat that as proof by itself, but it reinforced for me that his continued presence was noticeable.

August 2025
This is not directly about Mark, but it matters for trust.

She lied to me about a lunch / whereabouts issue. I later found out her story was false. That incident matters because it showed me she could calmly give a false explanation about where she had been.

Fall 2025 / the beginning of the shift
She now says the boundary crossing with Mark began in the fall.

When I refer to her "relationship with Mark," she pushes back hard and says there was no relationship, only friendship, and that boundary crossing began in the fall.

What makes this hard to follow is that her description has changed multiple times.

On March 14, before later retracting it, she gave a much fuller version and said that things became romantic around May 2025, in the sense that she recognized he was romantically interested in her, and that she began to reciprocate in the fall. Those were not months I gave her. That was part of the fuller narrative she gave at that time.

Later, she retreated from that. After the polygraph, she moved back closer to that fuller version again. Now her current position is narrower: she says it was not really "romantic" between them, not mutually romantic, but rather "boundary crossing" that she now recognizes was wrong.

So one of the things that has shifted over time is not just the physical story, but the meaning of the relationship itself:

first more openly romantic,

then retracted,

then partially re-admitted,

and now narrowed again into "boundary crossing."

She also later admitted it had become common for her to talk with him after PTO meetings and on Fridays after school, and she knew his hybrid work schedule. That matters to me because it undercuts the idea that their contact was random or purely incidental.

January 2026 – first major red flag
Before any later admissions, January had already been one of my biggest suspicions.

There was a PTO meeting. Her calendar showed one timeframe, but she stayed later than expected. At that time I still had access to her phone location, and I saw her stationary in the parking lot from about 7:15-7:45 p.m. for around 30 minutes. During that same window I called and texted and she did not answer. Normally she would.

The day before, Mark had called her.

At the time, I thought something was off. Later, January became the basis for the third and most intense event in her physical account.

February 23 and 25, 2026
There were longer phone calls with Mark — around 10 to 12 minutes.

By themselves, those calls do not prove an affair. But in context, they matter because they fit the pattern of a private ongoing channel between them.

February 27, 2026 – school fundraiser
This is one of the clearest concealment events.

That night:

she went to school / a school fundraiser

later I asked who she had seen

she did not mention Mark

Later I found texts showing:

he asked if she was on campus

she said yes

he said he would head to her office

She then deleted the thread after she suspected I was looking at her phone that night.

She later admitted she deleted it because she did not want me seeing that he had come to her office and then having to answer my questions about it.

To me, this alone destroys the innocent-friendship story.

March 13, 2026 – first therapy session
In our first therapy session, she denied basically everything:

denied the seriousness

denied deleting texts (said they spontaneously got deleted because her phone was acting funny) and repeatedly for 30 minutes said she didn't know how it happened.

denied there was a real relationship beyond professional with Mark

wanted to call Mark in the middle of the session because she believed he would deny everything too

One of the things she said in that session that really stayed with me was something like:
"How am I supposed to do my job if I can’t talk to him?"

That did not sound to me like someone talking about an ordinary, easily bounded work relationship. It sounded like someone who already felt dependent on access to him.

On the way home from therapy, she continued denying she deleted texts and again wanted me to call Mark on the drive so I could hear for myself his denial. After we got home, the story started changing. But it took seven hours. These admissions did not come quickly or voluntarily. It took hours of me saying I knew she was lying and not telling the full truth before she started admitting:

yes, she deleted the texts

yes, she crossed boundaries

yes, she got validation from him

yes, she liked the attention

yes, she had hidden things from me

At first she still denied physical contact. But in hour seven, she admitted to three instances in which Mark and her hugged for no more than 10 seconds at a time, but that was no different than how she would hug a female colleague after she had a hard day.

March 14, 2026 – first fuller physical version
This is a huge reason I still believe something physical happened.

On this day she gave me a specific three-occasion account:

October – office / copier area

November – office / copier area

January – car after PTO, more escalation

Again, she is the one who came up with October and November. I came up with January because of the PTO / parking lot event, and she confirmed January was the third and most escalated incident.

The October and November incidents were not described as quick pecks or ambiguous moments. She described them as office encounters involving making out and sexual touching, and she presented them as part of a progression rather than isolated mistakes. In the version she gave me, the sequence for those fall incidents was that after a PTO meeting she would go into the office, see that Mark’s car was still there in the parking lot, go inside, and he would be at the copier making copies. She said those were not planned meetups, but spontaneous encounters once she went into the office. She said there was an "escalation" into more physical from the fall into January.

In the January version she gave me, she said that after the PTO meeting she again saw that he was still there, went into the office, and that the sequence then shifted: he walked her to her car, got into the car with her, and afterward she drove him back to his own car. She described January as the most escalated incident and said it involved more sexually intense touching than the earlier fall encounters, including touching of intimate areas. She said the kissing was initiated by Mark and that she "did not pull back."

She now says the only reason she admitted anything more on March 14 was because I kept telling her she was lying, kept insisting she was not telling me the full truth, and that she felt pressured into giving me something that would stop the confrontation. She also says that my comment telling her that I would take steps to end our marriage on Monday if she didn't tell me the full truth scared her into confessing to things that didn't happen. More specifically, she now says she was trying to buy time so that she could later gather video footage, phone records, and witness statements to show that she was not with Mark on those dates or at those times and that the physical story was false. I think that needs to be said for fairness.

But what I struggle with is that what followed was not a vague "fine, we kissed." It was a structured progression:

May

fall

October

November

January with roles, locations, escalation, and sequence.

Retraction #1 – after hearing Mark deny everything
After she gave that physical account on 3/14, I called Mark. He denied everything.

After hearing his voice and hearing him deny it all, she changed. She became more aggressive, more relieved, and started acting like she was glad I had called him because now I could hear for myself that he denied it. She even used the word "relieved."

That was the first major retreat. It felt like:

alone with me, the truth expanded

after hearing him deny it, she snapped back to his version

March 16, 2026 – polygraph
She took a polygraph.

The two relevant questions were:

whether she was concealing any sexual contact with Mark

whether she had ever kissed Mark on the lips

She answered no to both.

The result was Deception Indicated.

I know polygraphs are not perfect. I’m not saying the polygraph alone proves it. But it matters to me because it was directly on the two issues she keeps denying.

Re-admission #1 – after the failed polygraph
After the polygraph, in the car, I had what I would call a heart-to-heart with her.

This is important because I was not threatening her with divorce in that conversation. I told her I was her support, that I would protect her reputation, and that what she told me would stay with me.

In those conversations after the failed polygraph, she again acknowledged the three-incident framework:

three times

making out

escalation

the last one more intense

touching / private areas

January after PTO as the last time

This is one of the biggest reasons I still believe the physical story. That conversation felt much more like protected disclosure than threat.

Retraction #2 – after speaking to the school secretary/friend
After the polygraph and heart-to-heart, same day, she spoke to a school secretary / friend (not our therapist, not me).

After that, she started retracting again.

At first, she narrowed it to something like:

maybe it was just making out

not all the other more sexual details. It was just making out on three occasions.

So there was actually an intermediate version after the fuller story and after the post-polygraph re-admission:

no longer the full sexual progression,

but still some physicality in the form of making out.

Then she retracted from that too.

So the sequence was not just:

admit

deny

It was more like:

fuller admission

retreat

fuller re-admission

partial retreat to "just making out"

then retreat again to no physical at all

That pattern is one of the biggest reasons I feel like I’m dealing with trickle truth and defensive narrowing rather than one stable truthful account.

March 19 onward – current narrowed position
Since then, her story has stabilized into a more sophisticated defense.

At a second therapy session, she read from a prepared statement that felt more like a defense speech than a candid conversation. It focused heavily on my confrontation style, me calling her a liar, and why her prior admissions should not be trusted.

After that session, on the drive back, she was actually the first one to say that maybe we were at an impasse and needed to separate because I did not believe her version. That matters to me because it was not only me forcing the idea that the marriage was at a breaking point.

Her current position is narrower than any of her fuller versions:

not physical

not romantic

not mutually romantic

just boundary crossing that she now sees as wrong

She now admits:

lying

concealment

deletion

validation

emotional dependence

disrespecting the marriage

there is still "missing information"

thoughts of having Mark around more

the thought that if something happened to me, Mark could be someone she turned to

But she denies:

kissing

sexual touching

anything beyond hugs

and even the prior stronger framing that it had become "romantic"

March 20 – I filed
I did not file only because I believe there was physical contact.

I filed because I was dealing with:

concealment

lies

deletion

emotional betrayal

shifting stories

admissions followed by retractions

feeling like I was living in unreality

lack of insight based on a prepared script for our second therapy session

Even if I could never prove the physical piece to some perfect standard, I no longer felt safe in the marriage.

March 21–22 – full defense mode
By then she had shifted fully into defense mode. She:

hired a PI for about $3,000

wants Mark to cooperate

wants new polygraphs for herself (she claims that the first polygraph was inaccurate and unfair because she hadn't eaten, or drank enough fluids, was too emotionally charged for the polygraph exam based on our conversations that morning, and that the polygraph examiner didn't tell what precautions to take beforehand. However, the examiner told me she was relaxed and not nervous during the baseline questions.)

wants Mark to take a polygraph too, though he has not taken one yet

wants discovery of any evidence I have

says I’m the one breaking up the family over something untrue

says she fought for the marriage and I am ending it

wants the PI to look at cell phone GPS records to show she and Mark weren't together for long periods

claims she only has had one and one time with Mark for no more than 2 hours

One thing that really bothered me: when she contacted the PI, she gave Mark’s information and told the PI that he was "willing to cooperate" and wanted this "cleared up too." She now says she was just assuming that and has not speaking to him, but to me that still shows she was treating him as part of her defense rather than someone she needed distance from.

She is also insisting that I produce whatever evidence or "proof" I supposedly have, because she says she does not believe I really have any, and if I do, she believes it is inaccurate, misleading, manipulated, or even fake. So at this point, the situation feels less like a truth process and more like she is trying to disprove my conclusion.

At the same time, she still sends love notes, wants affection, wants closeness, and says she wants to save the marriage while also telling me she wants to buy me out of the house rather than have us sell everything we own (rental properties plus primary residence).

That combination is making me feel insane.

Why I’m posting
I need honest outside perspective:

Does this sound like classic trickle truth?

Have any of you seen this pattern where a spouse admits, retracts, re-admits, narrows, retracts again, and finally settles on a much smaller story?

How much weight would you give to:

failed polygraph on kiss / sexual-contact questions

fuller admissions

post-polygraph re-admissions

then repeated retractions?

Do you read this as:

emotional affair only,

or emotional affair plus concealed physical affair?

Does the fact that she came up with May, fall, October, and November in the fuller version make those admissions sound more credible to you?

Has anyone dealt with a spouse who, after exposure, becomes more focused on PI / polygraph / proving innocence than on actually disclosing?

Am I crazy for still believing physical contact almost certainly happened?

How do I stop being pulled in by:

love notes

bids for affection

"I want to save the marriage" while the truth still feels unstable?

How do I reconcile all of this with the fact that I love my sons and worry deeply about what divorce will do to them?

Where I am now
I still love my wife. That’s what makes this so brutal.

But what I feel now is:

she had an emotional affair at minimum which she cannot even call an "affair."

she let this man enter partner-space in her mind

she hid it from me

and I am still not getting the full truth

What I think I’m being offered now is the narrowest version yet:
"Yes, I lied. Yes, I crossed boundaries. Yes, I hid him. Yes, I relied on him emotionally. Yes, I imagined him in my life more. But no, nothing physical, and it wasn’t even really romantic."

I don’t buy it.

Any thoughts would help.

Have her take a polygraph. Strictly about anything physical. Schedule it sooner rather than later and give her very little notice. If she tells you 'no', you have her confession. Also, you might be able to have her phone or laptop undergo a forensic review for deleted texts/emails...

I'm sorry you're going through this. WPs often lie, TTs, for various reasons, shame and fear being one of them. First, do you want R or D? She's already confessed to complete EA, even if she doesn't want to call it that, but you know that's what it is. Would not having the physical part be better for you? Honestly, from everything that's been said, it's very likely it was physical. Maybe there wasn't penetration, but would that change anything? She's already crossed the line of infidelity. Now you have to decide between R or D, but wanting the truth is also your right. Maybe this will help in some internal process of yours or even in court. I don't know how it works where you live. Again, I'm sorry you're going through this. Before going to D, you could try an experimental separation, or adopt the 180 method. The only thing I'll tell you is to follow and trust your intuition. At some point, the truth will have to come out.

Read "Women’s Infidelity: Living In Limbo" by Michele Langley. Two volumes, pretty quick read. She has a website you can download from.

It will explain all this to you.

Sorry you’re here.

Best wishes.

She definitely does not seem like a safe partner. I honestly do not think she would have admitted any sexual touch if it were not true given she seemed quite confident that the one event was "more intense/touching private areas". That is not splitting hairs on a vague memory, that is a complex construction of events and remembered experiences.

And based on your post, it almost seems she still has substantial contact with Mark.

I don't perceive true remorse from her or that she has a sense of the horror of what she has done to you. Go to YouTube and check out Jake Porter. Ask God to reveal truth to you. 🙏

I am sorry that you are having this difficult situation in your marriage. I lived through your exact scenario for 4 years (before cell phones and internet).

My H had an in person EA he refused to admit to. I KNEW it was going on from the first moment I met the OW (yes she pretended to be my friend throughout the entire 4 years).

Your wife’s ever changing story has severely impacted and DAMAGED your relationship. You don’t need "proof" to D your wife. You don’t need "evidence" to satisfy HER need to control the situation.

You only need to satisfy your own self. Period.

My biggest regret was allowing my H to lie to me and accepting his lies "because I had no concrete proof". However the second affair he had decades later was the most eye opening— I spoke to that OW (not same OW as first EA) and she told me he admitted to her that he cheated on me with the first OW.

Lesson learned — always trust your own instincts.

Now in your situation I do believe you could reconcile if your wife was fully transparent.

To me, it’s not the affair that kills the marriage but the behavior of the cheater after the affair is uncovered that destroys the marriage. And your wife is following the path of so many cheaters as there is a typical pattern of behavior. And she’s checking all the boxes sorry to say.

I think you have given this situation years to end yet she keeps on lying and cheating. IMO you have run out of options and your only way to get out of this situation is to D.

From the cheater’s perspective they like to think they control everything. They believe the betrayed spouse (BS) is dumb and stupid and just accepts their version of the truth, even when the facts and evidence don’t match or add up.

After I found out my H continued to cheat while pretending to R, I knew I had no other choice but to D him. I had no regrets about that decision because I had reached the end of my rope in accepting the lies and disrespect and cheating.

My H begged me to R and I refused. But somehow in the few weeks between telling him I was D him and actually filing, he managed to turn things around.

I refused to lift a finger or help him in any way to R. But on his own he convinced me to give him 30 days of time. I kept seeing changes and improvements and I then went another 30 days giving him a chance and delaying filing.

If your wife were to do that would you be able to give her another chance?

There is a good book by Linda MacDonald "How to Help You Spouse Heal After Your Affair". You might want to r to read it to see what your wife should be doing.

But if she does not do it on her own, I would not Reconcile. She will continue to play you for a fool and continue to be shady. It may not be Mark but it could be w/ someone new.

Ask me how I know. Lived experience.

If she wants to remain married to you, why hasn't she quit her job? You cannot heal until she stops all contact with her affair partner and the last lie is told.

As 1stWife wrote:

To me, it’s not the affair that kills the marriage but the behavior of the cheater after the affair is uncovered that destroys the marriage.

You only need to read the headlines of many topics on this site to sense the damage of what we call "trickle truth".

I want to address the polygraph first of all:
DO NOT use a polygraph if you are not willing to believe the result.

There is so much written about the reliability here on this site, and there is a lot of confusing data out there. The short, condensed version is this:
They measure honesty and not the truth. It’s fine line, but the chances are high that your wife was dishonest in her answers – therefore lying. Like if your wife sucked at math and truly thought 2+2=5, she would pass if she answered "is 2+2=4" with a no, despite it not being true.
Key factor for the above is that you use the poly to confirm the "truths" you have, not to get truth’s. In an ideal examination you might have one question you know the answer to and use that to confirm honesty.

The operator is about half the result. What credentials did your operator have? If this was a fairground-type, walk in of the street type of operator then I would question the reliability. If this was an office, used by local businesses and agencies… I would trust him.

There are two typical scenarios where someone can fool a polygraph irrespective of the operator: Narcissistic behavior where there is a low bar for what is right or wrong – a key reason spies and double agents can pass FBI examinations. For them spying for Russia isn’t "wrong". Where the outcome has not serious impact. Like a survey to measure reliability where a college student off the street says "no" to having smoked pot because all he’s after is the free pizza for participating.

There are scenarios where the person being interviewed might take actions to beat a polygraph. Things like sedatives, downing some booze, having a tac in their shoe… But operators recognize all these things. We had a poster recently where the operator stopped the interview before the first core question because he recognized reactions that indicated something like that was going on. Unfortunately for that poster, he wasn’t decisive on the outcome and is probably still trying to get to the bottom of his wife’s affair.

A normal person who has no past experience with a poly and whose marriage is on the line… Not likely to fool a polygraph. Like if you read they have a 80% reliability… I guess that if only "normal" people with something really important at stake were queried the reliability would be in the mid 90%.
On one hand you have a person we know had an affair but we don’t exactly know what type and how far and on the other hand a technique that has a lower-end 70% reliability, higher end +90% reliability. With our collective experience that a WS will trickle-truth and lie in about 99% of instances… I know what result I would rather believe.

So why did she take one? In the belief she could fool it, combined with a misunderstanding of the questions (the operator defines terms used – so she might have thought "sex" was PIV in a bed, and not touching or groping), the hope she will pass and this be over, and the believe she can talk her way out of it.

So… Either believe the polygraph (both questions indicative of lies) or ignore it.

I’m an advocate for the poly, but it needs to have a purpose, and that purpose is best used as a tool to close a certain chapter. As in – if she passes you can safely assume that part is true. If she fails – you can assume that part is not true and you base the next steps on that. Generally the part where you decide if there is any hope to reconcile.

As for your questions:
To me it shows a very strong level of immaturity on her behalf:
EA or PA? Well… isn’t kissing and fondling physical? This is a semi-classic issue here on this site. We have had stories where the WS claims nothing sexual took place because it was "only" oral. IMHO once a relationship is used to get sexual excitement -> physical.

You don’t need court-level proof to divorce. It’s a decision – a choice. It’s enough that you are convinced she was having an affair.

What could a PI do? He can possibly confirm they were together at certain times and places, but you already know that. You know there was interaction, you know they met up, know they communicated. Maybe the texts aren’t directly sexual, like "I miss you" isn’t sexual, but in the context of what you are dealing with it would indicate a too-close connection.

Never enough time together to move from an emotional to physical, but yet admit to a two hour period together? Only takes a second to grope an ass, 20 for a passionate kiss. Two hours? That’s enough time for a post-coitus smoke and small-talk. Not saying it happened – but definitely time enough.

Why admit to something and then withdraw it? OK – I could get it if it was ambiguous, but lip-on-lip isn’t accidental or something you misunderstood. Again – she’s behaving as if you needed to confirm kissing with DNA swabs and witness statements.

I also agree that involving the OM in proving what took place is bad taste.

To me it sounds like the highest importance for her is not sounding bad. Not being the one that "destroyed the family".

If you want to reconcile then I’m going to give you basically a version of the boilerplate advice I give husbands in active infidelity.

Tell her she’s free to be with Mark, date Mark, make out with Mark, stay over with Mark, run her decathlon with Mark… whatever. But not as your wife. You think her actions to-date tell you she has chosen her affair over the marriage and are therefore assuming the marriage is dead.
If she wants the marriage she would need to meet some requirements:
The total accountable truth that would eventually be verified by a polygraph where the ONLY outcome would be a clear pass. You decide the questions and this is a single, on off event.
Accountable ongoing no contact with OM. If this requires her to change activity/club/social group then that needs to be done.
A commitment to IC and eventually MC.

And then continue with your divorce.

She says you are destroying the family:
"I’m sorry you feel that way. Divorce isn’t a competition where one "wins". What I realize is that we can’t be a family where there is no trust. You aren’t willing to meet what I need to reestablish trust. I’m fine with being considered the one that destroyed the family, because I know better".

I think this has slipped from the realm of trickle truth and into gaslighting. Which is worse than TT because it causes you to question your reality and sanity. At this point it's impossible to tell what level of (if any) physical contact has occurred, but something is for sure not right, and with her stories shifting like sand it's no wonder you feel like you're losing your mind. The fact is that you've for sure been lied to, secrets were kept, and things hidden. That's enough in itself to make a person feel unsafe in a marriage.

We generally recommend a full written timeline of events. When it started, who made the first move, how long it went on, details of the events, her thoughts and feelings at the time, etc. Let her know you'll be basing her polygraph questions on her timeline and see if she wants to change or amend any of it. How much detail you want as far as whatever acts they got up to varies from person to person. Some need to know all of the dirty details, and some only want the basics. Just keep in mind that once you see or hear it, you won't be able to un-see or un-hear it.

I feel for you man. This is real crazy making stuff and the constantly changing and shifting stories are enough to make a person question their own sanity. I do think you have enough information to determine she's concealed, lied and kept secrets from you. Deleting text messages is a huge red flag. If it wasn't romantic you would think those texts would be exonerating, not implicating.

At this point, while I'm all for another polygraph, you need to ask yourself if it's even necessary. You said you already filed for divorce. Will her passing a 2nd one change your mind? Will you feel safe in the marriage? At this point it's hard to tell what's true and what's not true. We do know one thing here, tho. Cheating spouses do lie. It comes with the territory. It's next to impossible to carry on an affair, whether emotional or physical, without lying to some degree.

Is the OM married? If so, telling his betrayed spouse or gf is not only appropriate, it can also lead to you getting more information from the spouse/gf applying pressure with OM, looking at his phone etc.

Have you tried to recover texts from your wife's phone?

I think this has slipped from the realm of trickle truth and into gaslighting.

Spot on. The changing stories and refusal to be honest is gaslighting.

My H’s first 4 year EA - he tried to gaslight me the whole time except that I knew he was lying. But I allowed it to be swept under the rug. Second affair I was much smarter and wiser and did not fear a D as I knew I could not live like I had the last 9 months.

For once I put myself first.

And Gabe2026 I think you should too. It appears you have done everything possible and tried to be accepting, understanding and reasonable far beyond what maybe you should have.

IMO your only hope as I previously stated was for your wife to become fully transparent about everything that has occurred and you start rebuilding. She also has to be fully committed to making amends and doing everything possible to repair the damage and build trust.

And that, my friend, takes years. Years of consistency, years of addressing issues and years of willingness to answer questions and talk about the affair when you have questions.

If you don’t think she has that in her, then I think you should move forward with the D. You can be friendly and co-parent together, or you can maintain minimal contact and just be polite or maybe somewhere in the middle.

But I don’t think you can continue to live with a liar and cheater who continues to gaslight you.

Gabe

I'm sorry you find yourself here. From an objective standpoint the idea that there was no physical contact is extremely hard to believe given your descriptions and the likelihood that she is in panic/survival mode and doing anything to keep her life from blowing up. Sounds like she's likely talking to this guy to get the story straight.

She failed the Poly. Period. What else do you need?

You did the brave thing and filed already. You have a path ahead of you that could be filled with peace and safety, and one that seems likely fraught with doubt and pain. I left, and my life has NEVER been better. I understand the parenting part is terrifying. It caused me to stay in my unhappy marriage for years before infidelity was even part of our story. I assure you once you set the routine for the kids it's actually far less scary, and even beneficial in some ways (assuming you can avoid an unfavorable custody arrangement etc- big if). I wish you peace, tough road ahead but there are a lot of positives that can come out of it too. Good luck.

Gabe2026,

While it's quite common for spouses in an affair to trickle-truth details, it's less common for them to give details and then go back and retract them as false. I understand what others here are saying about gaslighting. This seems something like that, but also like it's a power struggle in the marriage to your wife. She's decided that the rules will be that if you can't verify that she's lying to her standard like an arbitrary court of marriage law standard with physical proof approved by her, then whatever version of the truth she gives you is fine. You have to go along with that and agree to stay married. That's truly outlandish!

Imagine a future marriage with those rules. She doesn't want to be truthful to you. She doesn't have remorse for hiding the relationship with Mark. She thinks that's fine and will likely do that in the future, although she will hide it better because that's the new rules you are agreeing to for your marriage.

There's no reason for a polygraph. You have one. There's no reason to believe anything that Mark says. If she paid $3000 for a PI, you've likely paid for $1500 of that. The whole situation would be crazy-making for me if it were my marriage. I'm sorry you are in this situation.

Many years ago I worked for a private investigator and he gave me the best advice I have ever gotten. He said kid, trust your gut. If you think something is wrong or off it probably is. That advice led me to discovering what my wife was doing with a co-worker

Based on what you have written you have more than enough proof that your wife definitely had an affair regardless of how she characterizes it and the fact she keeps changing her story screams guilty to me

I highly doubt she told you about the physical part just because she thought that is what you wanted to hear and it would satisfy you and you could move on.

Talking to him was worthless in my opinion because the two of them had ample time to concoct matching stories. Ask yourself, will you ever feel safe with her again? Until that answer is yes the relationship will not work

Try this. Tell her you want her to quit her job immediately and work somewhere else because until she is away from this guy you will not trust her nor will you feel safe in the relationship. Someone who is fully committed to repairing the damage he or she has caused in a relationship will do anything to save the relationship. If you tells you no then you know that the job is more important than the relationship to her

And I would keep the divorce process in motion. They don't happen fast and she needs to understand that you are willing to walk away

Discovering an affair is bad enough but it's the gas lighting and trickle truth and changing stories that seem to hurt worse because you're constantly in limbo, you never know what you can believe