fordsvt said:

@MissD  I'm sorry you disagreed with my post. However there is more moving parts here with this story and thread.  I wasn't attempting to be disrespectful at all to women.  But really for the most part when men and women are friends the inevitable happens much of the time.  
They end up in bed together.  

I'm going to share an old conversation straight from the horses mouth, this is verbatim from back when STBX and I were just dating and discussing us meeting up with a female friend I had at the time:

Tennee said:

Remember that she floated 'open marriage' (hence the title) before being busted concealing convos  with OM.  That is not a coincidence.

In all fairness, I don't believe those two are related. She's mentioned several times in the past that I needed a GF on the side...usually when we were fighting about sex. It was a loyalty test.

Up until this fall....she wasn't hiding communication, she wasn't changing her passwords (prior to the changes, she had the same ones for years). I can say with about 95% certainty that she wasn't hiding contact with other men before this. Sure, you never really know but if she was having any EAs/PAs, she was a ninja with superior technical skills. 

monkeydog said:

I wouldn't put up with a sexless marriage and I would file immediately if I had proof of a PA or serious EA.

In that context, communication (eg. open/honest) is just as (if not more) important to me as a healthy sex life. STBX would never believe me when I'd tell her that...but you know what...throughout all the issues we had over sex, I never once thought about leaving her over it. 

monkeydog said:

Well, I was right that my opinion wouldn't be a popular one.

It doesn't feel right to me, but I'm not Beans and this isn't my marriage.

So many here have weathered much worse, it seems, including EA's, PA's and years without sex, only to turn it around.

I wouldn't put up with a sexless marriage and I would file immediately if I had proof of a PA or serious EA.

Beans, I am not trying to change your mind, just offering my flawed perspective.

 Whatever happens, you've got this. 

You're right, others have fared far worse and I think about that constantly. On top of that, our sex life was improving (and we never were sexless), we were having more fun..going out on more dates, she was cuddling/affectionate with me. All of that progress out the window (well..almost, we were still doing some of these things post-separation, ill-advised of course).

But at the same time...communication is very important to me and it's been a constant issue with her. Ranging from little things like getting the side of the car scraped accidentally and "forgetting" to tell me about it for days.....to major life decisions like applying/being accepted into school. Also, her nature of acting like a young single person (in terms of responsibility/honesty, not fidelity). This has been an ongoing bubble waiting to pop. Like @Husband3point0 pointed out....her parents, having very little information to go on, decided to be on my side....which totally shocked me. That tells me that the issues may be bigger than I believed and they see it too (and probably have for while). They've probably had several "talks" with her over the years that I never knew about.

With that said, if she were to come to me tomorrow and say "hey I want to reconsider my A/B and I'm willing to make changes"...I'd drop the divorce in a heartbeat. But she hasn't....she maybe pushed back for about 30 minutes after I told her my intent. I want a wife that will fight for her marriage...STBX is not the one (at least not now) and never has been. She makes a great girlfriend but poor wife/partner and I've accepted that. Even with that, I still want it to work out....but I can't go back to the way things were and that ball is in her court now.

SignorePillolaRossa said:

see, then, you only gotta be able to trust her as much as you trust a plate ... sure, she isn't wife-level trustworthy - that's why you were OK with divorce unless she chose A

just dont let her status as a returned plate get in your way of your long term objectives

True and I think that is what STBX is trying to have with me. She knows she doesn't have the motivation and ethic it takes to work hard in a marriage....hence why she isn't fighting the divorce. But she still wants to be with me.

I saw the writing on the wall when we first started dating and she told me she would be just fine dating forever, even if we had a kid together. That didn't last long....before I knew it she was knee deep in wedding planning. But I think she knew then.