Wife wants to separate for a while.

HildaCorners · September 23

If she truly, honestly needed time away from the kids (and you) to think, she'd be at her parents' house, or couch surfing at your pastor's home, or some place like that.

She would be calling once, twice or more every day to check on the kids (and you).

You, I understand she might need some time away from. But what mother just walks away from her kids for several weeks just "to think"?

Harry123 · September 23

I can really empathise with you as we have a couple of similarities in our situations (see my triage thread). I'm not going to profess to be an expert as I'm still going through the process. In hindsight I should have been much tougher with my ultimatum right at the start when everything came out rather than looking at the relationship with rose tinted glasses and trying to save it.

If I had of done that I think we could have moved on much quicker one way or the other rather than me trying to resolve the situation later on through marriage counselling which in all honesty means there are underlying unresolved issues now that I still need to deal with.

This place has great advice so listen to it, look after yourself and be an awesome Dad.

Templar · September 24

The time is slipping away. You need to move and not a subtle course correction. No offense, but your reasoning, this far, has not turned this around. Neutral outside observers see the facts and possible roads out. Listen to the advice given above.

iam44 · September 28

I will chime in for a second, or half hour.

OP, sorry to hear about your troubles.

I will offer my comments up as a guy who had an affair, right under my wife's nose. My affair went on for probably 6 months with a work associate, a supplier who sold me goods for projects. Note this was while my wife worked in my office steps from my desk.

Had I stuck to my guns (lies) I could have gotten away with it indefinitely. In short, the person having the affair simply needs to rely on the level of denial in their spouse. If spouse does not want to face the ugly fact that the other could be having an affair it's great for the person having the affair because its so easy to explain things away. You use the "benefit of the doubt" at every twist and turn. The smart affair person keeps things low key and stable at home if possible to not arouse suspicion. As a person having an affair you don't offer up bread crumbs for the other person to follow unless you want to get caught. My wife didn't want to face the possibility that I was having an affair for a number of reasons, it was too terrible to consider, "she would never do that", so how could I?, "everything is fine at home", "our marriage means too much, he could never do that".

In short, as long as one person does not want to believe its happening, its easy to pull off with a few simple steps to cover your tracks.

For my part, I didn't sleep with my affair partner until we were both out of town on business. It was simply expedient. I could have done it earlier, she really wanted to do me at her office party but I played for time knowing the risks would be too high. Going out of town on legitimate business fixed those issues. More importantly, in standard "game" parlance, e.g. the seductive arts, out of town is a win as well because it leads to "Isolate and escalate" in any type of intimate endeavor, and it also allows for a much easier negation of ASD (Anti-slut defense) or LMR (Last minute resistance, the twin sister of anti-slut defense). These are normal steps that women go through when about to get together with a man for the first time. They are easy to anticipate and easy to defuse to "keep the party rolling". The simplest way to do that is to get her alone, away from her normal life and things that might cue what we would call a normal sense of propriety. Take her to lala land, keep her in lala land, make it all a bit naughty because that's more stimulating.

When someone (Girl,woman) is out of town, it's much easier to let their hamster roam free and for them to rationalize that "it's not cheating" or "I just got carried away, I don't know what happened" or any one of twenty other rationalizations that allow something "bad" to happen largely guilt free. As other posters have pointed out that once into an affair, it becomes easier to lie because of practice. If you have failing respect and love for your significant other, it keeps getting easier. Most importantly if you want to lie well and convincingly, you learn to lie to yourself about things because it short circuits your logic control centers that could otherwise give you away. This is the very essence of the hamster.
For example, one time I nearly got caught and I needed an alibi, I knew my wife would grill me on the details if she got a sniff of it because her affair sensors had been activated. I simply painted the story of the alibi in my own mind, then worked for a day or two at adding plausible yet mundane details to the story. Then I set about telling myself the story again and again each time looking at it from a slightly different perspective. In two days I had it down stone cold, I started to believe in my mind it was the "real" story. Sadly it was all too easy to do, and I had incentive, I wanted to keep my affair going and I didn't want to blow up my family.

Long story short, its easy to lie to someone who wants to believe the lie, because the truth hurts too much.

Trickle truth is real. every single time, its real.

As I mentioned before, people who get caught in lies, half the time its because they want to get caught in the lie. Probably unconscious but they want to come clean some times and that's why some people tell shitty useless lies where they have been neat and clean about their lies before. A shift in the level of discipline means they are past giving a shit about the quality of the lies or they are actually feeling a shade guilty. Or, it could be the grand daddy of shit tests, "I am all but telling you that I am going out of town and I am going to let whatever happens happen, what are you going to do about it?".

To me the crappy lie your wife has told about going out of town almost borders on daring you to call her out on it. To be clear, she is NEVER going to tell you the whole unadalterated truth about her time away from you. If you want the bare unvarnished truth you need to start conversations on your terms knowing things she does not know you know. (E.g. if you witness first hand her being somewhere she definitely said sh was not, something irrefutable. So I hate to say it but you need some thread of truth that she cannot deny if you want the truth from her. You need to catch her red handed in an untruth and press the issue, then you will see physiological reactions like flush skin, shallow fast breathing etc that tip you off to the lies. If you get into a situation like that and she is freaking out, keep pressing because a defense in that situation can fail rapidly (This is a big frame shift, when you are buying the lies, you are in her frame and she has zero respect for you, but when you successfully reveal a lie and press the situation hard, the frame shifts to you and ultimately she will have a grudging respect for you, which is what you want)its messy as hell but it'll work.

I know none of this is easy to deal with, it's downright shitty. I am telling you this from the other side of the fence, what it was like to have an affair and how I successfully managed it in my marriage (Success meaning getting away with it for a long time). I also said all of this because you seem to believe that she will be honest with you about this stuff, in short, she won't. The affair is her drug, and she'll do what she needs to get more of it, it's not rational, its not fair, its not honest, its not commitment, its just straight up dopamine plain and simple. In that situation people will do what they need to do to get that fix, lying is the easiest part of it compared to sorting out the logistics of it all. Helping her move out on her own, is sorting out the logistics for her.

Sorry if I am raining on anybody's parade, I just thought I should chime in with the reality of lying in an affair. If you accept the petty lies that cover the nasty truth, you know, deep in your heart, that it is caustic to your own self worth and self respect. It's not easy but if you don't believe what you are hearing, if there is any doubt, dig more. don't worry about being the "bigger person" or being more "ethical than her". For the sake of your marriage, just dig, dig quietly, dig persistently, dig knowing that you will never tip your hand to half the shit you will come to know. Keep a log of what was said. If she has an iphone use it to check where she has been spending her time etc. keep digging and don't say anything when you find something, start to triangulate and see where untruths start to pile up. you may learn things you don't want to know. At that point you have to decide why you don't want to know them and face your fears.

Good luck

never_surrender · September 28

You ask for experience and I have it but not the same background. Quick over view, I was married in a wonderful relationship for 19 years and she passed away 11 years ago. I have two wonderful kids M/F that I raised. They turned out great and I have a very successful business and wonderful life. I live in a dream world for most men, very blessed, except for the woman I married 5 years ago. She has 3 boys with no father. We got married and no one wanted to do chores and the wife enabled the kids. So after 3 years she wanted to move out, I gave her one last chance and said " don't leave lets fight for our marriage" She left on the weekend I had tickets for a Dave Ramsey Smart conference in Dallas which was one of the best conferences I ever been too. I took my kids and a guy from my work that is my right hand man. Came home and the house appeared empty, she took everything that was hers and she had said, "I have to leave to work on our marriage" What do I say even today, screw that! I totally disagree with that idea. A therapist even gave us a book once that said, "should I stay or should I go" I say if you go, your gone, that book sucks. My wife didn't have another man she had eyes on, just wanted to enable her kids and hurt me. Yes, I even had 3 conversations with Athol. With what we talked about he thought she was borderline personality disorder, and I agree and even think it's worse then that. I can write a book of the crazy. She now wants to come back and still do crazy. It would be like, your wife still wanted to come and be able to flirt still I assume. Each partner just needs to be 100% into each other. If one person wants to move out, their not into it. Moving out is a no for me, if you're doing that, goodbye for ever. If both couples can say to each other "let's fight for our marriage" then it's a winning attitude.

fordsvt · October 1

Don't be plan B brother. It's the last letter in that alphabet of marriage. Our MC gave us that book and she was buying into it. If we did a controlled separation I'm sure now we'd be done and divorced.
Its a easy way out to play the field and pretend your single. She didn't even have another guy here and I'm sure we'd be done. I doubt I'd have come back. Stand your ground with her. If she leaves serve her papers and show strength.

iam44 · October 3

I found this quote and I couldn't resist. It seems appropriate.

"More often than not women tell the complete truth with their actions, they just communicate it in a fashion that men can’t or wont understand. As a behaviorist, I’m a firm believer in the psychological principal that the only way to determine genuine motivation and/or intent is to observe the behavior of an individual. All one need do is compare behavior and the results of it to correlate intent. A woman will communicate vast wealths of information and truths to a man if he’s only willing to accept her behavior, not exclusively her words, as the benchmark. He must also understand that the truth she betrays in her behavior is often not what he wants to accept."