SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Deep breath in, out slow.

My(m50) STBX(f45) is aware of this site, but I'm pretty confident she won't show her face around here.

The wayward side would 2x4 her into oblivion.

A quick summary...

After 28.5 years of marriage, 4 adult children, and 1 grandchild, my wife abruptly left after an argument and went to our daughters home and cut all contact except for cryptic texts about stalkers and being monitored.

A month later she agrees to talk to me, but insists it happens at our home, her phone is being monitored and someone is stalking her. She confesses to rampant cheating with members of both sexes, throughout our marriage, one on Facebook live about 5 year ago (it has since been deleted, I did not see or know of it till this point).

I kicked her out. My children were made aware, they turned their backs.

She cut all contact, again, and reconnected with horrible and dysfunctional group of poeple I had made her cut ties with back in 2014. One of them convicted for trying to hire a hitman to kill someone (it was an undercover detective) and he did 5 years in prision where he contracted genital herpes and 8 years supervised release. This was a big reason for me to demand she cut ties with them.

She then rebounds with the convicted felon, moved hundreds of miles away with these people, smeared me on social media and seems content with the world.

During all of this and cleaning up the mess she left behind to go find herself, I have learned she has a warrant for dui, no papers (she lost them in the dui crash) a suspended license, no capacity to gain employment, no money, no phone just an internet tablet, and no car of her own, living in a house with five other adults including the convict boyfriend with little to no income and no jobs between them.

Why do people put so much on facebook?

Our children and myself, knowing her history, believe this was a manic break or a bpd break.

Its been 71 days since the first time she left for a month, 45 days since she confessed and I knicked her out. 2 weeks of no contact.

There is so much more but I still have trouble organizing thoughts.

How was your summer?

Edited for grammar and spelling.

[This message edited by alsdaboss at 3:49 AM, Wednesday, August 26th]

Bipolar disorder is a terrible disease. My daughter’s neighbor would get off her meds and catch a plane. Her family would not know where she was. Sometimes the mania was somewhat subdued but she would wander the neighbor visiting, only her conversations were often OFF.

You have to protect yourself emotionally. If it means no contact then you need to accept that. She sounds extremely mentally ill and a spouse should not even attempt to fix her, because you can’t. Does she have a dr that monitors her?

I have no suggestions except to get yourself some therapy and find a support group of spouses like you.

Thank you for responding.

She is untreated.

She is cluster b, but so many times I've tried to get her to get help, it always ends in a fight or she goes, decides she dosent like the person and won't go back.

Where we live, a person has to threaten to hurt themselves or someone else for a 5150, she has done neither.

So she is mostly free to destroy herself and our family and all we can do is watch.

We are waiting for the crash, the extinction burst should be any day now. Then we may be able to get her some help.

I cant get my wife back, too much damage, but maybe we can get the kids their mom back.

Looking back i see so much that I missed. Wasn't looking for it. Didn't know what I was looking for.

Now in hindsight,there are so many clues and red flags, I just missed em.

Im trying to organize my thoughts to put together a better timeline of events, but we have so much history, theres just so much.

[This message edited by alsdaboss at 3:56 PM, Wednesday, August 26th]

Hi, welcome to SI. Please don't share this site with your wife, this is your safe space.

I think Cooley is absolutely correct. Your wife has serious mental health issues.

I can relate bc we have a DIL who has serious issues, our family has been on an emotional roller coaster for about a year, it has been a living hell, the trauma is real, she was hospitalized twice, her behavior affected every member of our family, your children might need therapy to deal with a mother who has gone off the deep end.

I suggest you also find a good therapist to navigate her infidelity/lunacy. She has to want to help herself. Please don't enable her behavior, my best advice is to ignore her.

Thank you for responding.

She knows of this site. We took advantage of its offerings a few years back when I caught her in an emotional affair( that has since been revealed to have been very physical) and while I found it therapeutic, she hated it and demanded i stop visiting.

Its been a few years, im hoping she forgot about us here.

I do have a couple of therapists and our children are doing what is best for themselves.

When they found out about the rampant cheating they started distancing from her.

We have all cut her off on the condition she checks herself into a hospital in our area. No money, no shelter, no provisions untill we see her in the hospital.

The biggest problem right now is the enabling friend and husband, and the convict boyfriend. All three are supporting her and enabling her self destructive behavior.

They are prolonging this without knowing. Perhaps they do know.

And she is not being very secretive, that's the part that hurts the most.

She is telling the world how happy she is now as she smears me on social media.

I had to watch this all unfold, first in front of my face, and now from an isolated distance.

It has been brutal.

[This message edited by alsdaboss at 4:16 PM, Wednesday, August 26th]

Sorry for the summer from hell.

Do your best to make STBXW your exW formally and as soon as possible. Being still married to you, she can still cause you significant economic harm. Retain a family attorney and file for divorce.

It is up to her to repair her relationships with her children. Only she can do it.

It is up to her to repair her relationships with her children. Only she can do it.

This is a profound thought.

I cant fix everything, but I'm still trying to.

I forgot about this lesson until I read this.

I needed that, thank you.

And sorry, I still dont know how to use the quote function.

You need to see a lawyer and figure out what you need to do to protect yourself. If your wife is committing crimes (like getting a DUI), hanging out with criminals, and possibly engaging in criminal activities, then you don’t want to be destroyed by her actions.

You also need to put a lock on all your accounts and your social security number so she can’t open credit cards, take out loans in your name, or run up debts in your name by some other means.

Just as importantly, you need to get tested for STDs.

You write cluster B but she sounds A to me. Bipolar fits her behavior or it’s an extreme borderline personality disorder. I had a friend who had borderline and although she drove me crazy and her children left her she was never as out of control as your wife.
Please get her to a psychiatrist. This is way more than your family can handle.

Just as importantly, you need to get tested for STDs.

I am aware, of all of it.

Im also aware i have to dna test 4 adult children.

Divorce is expensive and I dont make much as a mechanic. I working on filling pro se, but its complex and has been a challenge. I am learning to navigate the red tape as I type this.

The only upside is I've got really great health insurance. So theres that.

Cooley2here

She has six of the bpd traits according to the dsm and while she has never been diagnosed, per say, anytime a therapist or doctor( if you can get her to see one ) says something she dosent like, she paints them black and she's out. So its very hard to get her to stick with any one professional for more than a few sessions. But one or two educated me on bi polar, bpd, and npd with one warning me what being painted black meant.

I fear she has painted me black.

[This message edited by alsdaboss at 3:49 AM, Thursday, August 27th]

I’m so sorry you’re going through this, but this really isn't something you can fix on your own.

Be honest with your kids. Let them know the marriage is ending, but reassure them that you tried everything to get her help so she could remain an active part of your lives—she just isn't able to listen to reason right now.

Honestly, this feels like it might go deeper than BPD or bipolar disorder; it sounds like a severe psychotic break. At this point, the best thing you can do is leave her care to the professionals and focus all your energy on your own healing and protecting your children. Adult or not, they will need support.

Are you confident her admission is true? I’ve seen similar situations where people in the middle of psychosis make false admissions—especially given that she’s currently experiencing delusions about being monitored and stalked. Did she give any context for her confession, or did it come out of nowhere? Did her confessions make sense contextually to you? Did she provide any evidence?

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 8:24 AM, Thursday, August 27th]

DRSOOLERS,

You are not the first person to make such a suggestion, but in the state I live in you have to have a direct threat to one's self or others.

Otherwise she is free to destroy herself in any way she sees fit.

As far as the claims she has made, I have been able to substantiate approx 7 events of physical infidelity with many more emotional attachments, about half of what she claimed. I dont have much reason to doubt the rest.

Part of me thinks the confession event was both a guilt dump and a burning of the bridge back.

While the impact in me has been profound, it's been my kids that have banded us together to prop me up. They have shown strength I could only dream of. They are taking care of each other. I have encouraged therapy.

They were initially very angry with her. I have encouraged them to keep communication open, but they are distancing and she is doing not much at all to stay in touch with them.

I explained that for someone like her being in a relationship is like pressure to her. The longer it lasts and the closer we get, the more pressure she feels. The pressure got to the point she had to save herself. The things she is doing are not her choice, its her nervous system betraying her. She has to do what she is doing to protect herself.

This gave them something more than what they had, not much, but it seemed to help.

I am currently building out the entire story of our relationship, but with nearly 30 years to unpack, it is a monumental task. This is both for therapy and im getting kinda sick of having to tell the story over and over again. I will post it soon.

As far as the claims she has made, I have been able to substantiate approx 7 events of physical infidelity with many more emotional attachments, about half of what she claimed. I dont have much reason to doubt the rest.

Ok, agreed.

This means the cheating was occurring irrespective of what ever mental health crisis she is currently in the middle of. I'm not sure if this would have mattered to me but it's good to clarify either way.

Given this, I'm not sure it's of any benefit to you do anything other than to detach yourself from this situation. Begin the process of divorce. Continue with your therapy. I could go on in this vein but I'm acutely aware you will have been drilled with a plethora of self-help tactics at this point already.

I'm sorry to say your wife was a deeply broken person who had you conned into thinking she was a loving partner. Whilst its a point of debate, I stand firm that it's impossible to love and respect your partner and betray them... 7-14 times kind of hammers that point home. We've all been at this point, realizing you've been fooled into thinking someone was a good person when they were actually internally pound scum. It fucking sucks. I'm not generally the sentimental type but I've been fairly obsessed with this quote as of late:

Tom Hardy played the infamous UK inmate Charles Bronson in the 2008 biopic Bronson. Before filming, Hardy held several meetings and phone calls with Bronson to study his personality and pick up his distinct character traits.

During one call, Bronson opened by asking Hardy how he was doing. Hardy decided to be completely honest, admitting he was struggling through a painful breakup. That honesty sparked a surprisingly profound exchange:

Bronson: You remember the floods"

Tom: Oxford?

Bronson: Yeah, remember the floods

Tom - "Yeah"

Bronson - "Remember the poor boy whose foot got stuck in the grates and the river kept rising and kept rising and kept rising and eventually they tried to get him out but he drowned?"

Tom - "Yeah"

Bronson - "That wouldn’t have happened to me! Do you wanna know why?

Tom - Yeah, sure

Bronson - Because I would have said, "Cut it off now". You see Tom, what I'm trying to say is sometimes you have to cut a little piece of yourself off, no matter how much it hurts, in order to grow. in order to move on.

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 11:40 AM, Thursday, August 27th]