SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, I’m currently trying to reconcile with my ex-wife after a 3-1/2 year affair was disclosed to me in May of ‘25 in which she said she was in love with him, lead to divorce. Her AP was 18 years younger than her and only a year older than my oldest daughter, my daughter and he went to the same high school. She was 41 when it began and he was 23.

It started from the dreaded Snapchat! She has a history of being unfaithful or inappropriate in our relationship, she first cheated on me after only 9 months of dating. The first marriage affair was in ‘08 when she was 26 and he was 19 at a place they worked together. I had to beg her to stay with me for our kids sake then. Things got better for about 12 years until 2020 when Covid hit. She couldn’t go to work and our youngest, special needs child wasn’t sleeping well at night, so she began to play Fortnite online to pass the time. She befriended a 19 year old while gaming l, she was 28 at the time and I knew about it and thought nothing of it. I was unaware that they had been snap chatting and texting for months and when I found out, I thought that was the final straw, she claimed it was purely innocent and she only thought of him a her buddy. I contacted an attorney and threatened a divorce. I was tired of her behaviors.

We worked through all of that but the resentment and anger grew in me, I became very distant and often cold toward her. There was major friction between us. In ‘22, I later found out that she had started snap chatting and even sexting at least a few different young men, one of which became her AP.

The night she disclosed to me, she said it was because she couldn’t handle the consuming guilt anymore, so she told me everything. I left my home that night. We tried to talk through it and immediately began therapy but she became increasingly more distant, cold, and quite frankly just an asshole to me, like I had betrayed her. About a month after D day, she said she wanted divorce because I was being too pushy and wanted everything fixed too quickly, she would never file though. After 2 months of begging her to at least acknowledge she wanted the marriage to work (which she never did say the words), I filed for divorce in July of ‘25. She said she was okay with it and she needed to work on herself.

In October of ‘25 she began to see her AP again for about 5 more months. We had been split for about 5 months already when they reunited. I found out / days after Christmas and confronted her about it . It really angered me because she had promised our daughters that it was over. She said to me that day that she really loved him and needed to see where it could go. They didn’t last too terribly long after I confronted her, I had already been moving on with my life, still missing her though. Our divorce finalized in June of this last year and we began to start talking reconciliation in July. We’ve been working on it since.

I’m having such a hard time really accepting and letting go of what she was so willing to do, and for so long. Of course it kills me to think about the sex, but the emotions cut even deeper. Knowing that my wife of so long, the only person I had ever been with, actually fell in love with someone else. She now says she sees it all clearly and for what it actually was. Not real love at all, but more of an addiction.

How does one really ever get to the point of acceptance to be able to build a new future with a spouse??

I only ever have to accept that it happened — I don’t ever have to be happy or even okay with the infidelity.

I’m ten years reconciled and hating that the A happened is part of my making peace with my wife.

For me, the work we did to move back toward each other became the R and that work became the M.

No one is owed a last chance, but if you offer it, it then is about what your wife (or ex-wife) does with said opportunity.

It took me several YEARS to buy into the changes my wife made to be a better, safer partner (about three years of her consistent actions).

Eventually, I liked who she became, and I let go of focusing on her worst, weakest days (the A).

Josh, you have a serial cheater for an ex wife, and you managed you actually divorce her. Why is it that you would want to pursue another relationship with her?

How does one really ever get to the point of acceptance to be able to build a new future with a spouse??

It's extremely difficult to reconcile with the "perfect" wayward spouse. Those feelings you talk about above may never go away. In fact the pain from betrayal trauma can linger for the rest of your life to varying degrees. Some folks can make it work and manage to get to a point where it doesn't dominate your thoughts all of the time, but the scar will always be there.

I gotta be honest, your story sounds littered with betrayal. I'm not sure if you'd ever truly "get over" it. Maybe with lots of counseling and a real, concerted effort from your ex the likes of which you've never seen before, but she would have to do so much work on herself before I would even consider a slight chance that she'd be a safe partner again. Like a monumental amount of change and effort on her behalf. You've already cut your losses. I'm not so sure if it's a good idea to take that back on again.

Tell me, what work has she done to become a safe partner again. I'll tell you even if she has done some since she finally left the AP, it won't be enough for years.

Is she in IC? With a trauma specialist?

Has she blocked him everywhere?

Has she written a full timeline of all her affairs?

If it were me I'd take the divorce and run. Find someone new.

If you can't, I would never ever marry her again. She's fooled you too many times. If you want to be friends with benefits or something like that then fine.

But do t let it keep you from meeting new people and potential new love interests.

Your WW will never be a safe partner or wife. Dont ever elevate her to that position ever again.

Josh, do I have the timeline right? Some of the numbers don’t add up

Late 90’s: cheats after 9 months of dating AP1

2001: marriage - WW is 19 years old

2008: WW is 26 y/o, cheats with 19 y/o co-worker, AP2

2020: WW is 38, cheats with another 19 y/o on line, AP3

2022: WW (40-41) cheats with multiple men, AP4, AP5, AP6 (23).

2022-May2025: EA/PA with AP6

May 2025: D-Day re: AP6

July 2025: file for D

Oct 2025: "reunites" with AP6 [I have my doubts about whether it ever ended]

Feb 2026: relationship with AP6 fails

June 2026: D

July 2026: R starts

Stevesn has asked the right questions in my view. Especially about the therapist. She has some kind of Mrs. Robinson thing going on pursuing all these much younger men. I would be all over that if I were you. You’re not 19 anymore, as you know.

I would add to the mix your eldest daughter. Your XWW had an affair with a high school classmate of hers. That’s mortifying. And then went "back" to him (again, I doubt it really ever ended), despite telling your daughter it was over. There’s a level of selfishness there, a lack of parental protecting of your daughter, that I would want to get to the bottom of. What is their relationship like now, is your XWW doing anything to try to repair that damage?

I’d also want to know who ended things with AP6. Was she dumped, and is she now coming back to you? Because I bet that’s what happened. It was fun for AP6 to be banging some cheating MILF. But it stops being fun when suddenly it’s a real relationship, complete with a special needs child that is not his, and he’s 26 and it’s occurring to him that he would like to still have fun before settling down.

So now she’s back and wanting to reunite with dependable, fully-employed Josh. I’d be real skeptical about her motives, and would want to see real evidence that she wants to be back with you for love.

The addiction vs. love comment rings true to me. There’s a concept called "limerence" which seems to be experienced in many if not most affairs. My incomplete understanding of it is that it’s basically what people used to call "obsession". People fixate on another person in order to avoid focusing on what’s hurting inside themselves.

How do you get past it? I didn’t reconcile so take this with a grain of salt, but from observations, I would be looking at her and seeing if she’s: (a) providing a ton of emotional reassurance and affection; (b) validating your feelings, and helping you get through triggers; (c) openly and truthfully discussing her affairs; and (d) disgusted and ashamed by her APs and her As. Those things seem to be common in couples who have R’d successfully.

[This message edited by Letmebefrank at 3:37 PM, Saturday, October 3rd]

There’s a concept called "limerence" which seems to be experienced in many if not most affairs. My incomplete understanding of it is that it’s basically what people used to call "obsession". People fixate on another person in order to avoid focusing on what’s hurting inside themselves.

That's my understanding as well, but from what I've been reading, there's another important part of the original concept of limerence, and that's uncertainty about whether the other person's feelings are reciprocated.

From what I understand there's more to it than intense infatuation or obsession. It was originally meant to include a strong preoccupation with whether the other person feels the same way, and that uncertainty creates a lot of anxiety and emotional distress. I think that's a central feature of the original concept of the term.

For example, I wouldn't automatically describe my wife's affair as limerence. She was certainly intensely infatuated with him, but she knew he was interested in her and she knew her feelings were being reciprocated. There wasn't much uncertainty about that particular part of the relationship.

So limerence certainly does describe some of these situations, but I think there's more to it than merely intense affair infatuation.