SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've (41M) been dating my WS (43F) since 2013; married since 2017. No children; first marriages for both of us. Early on in our relationship , I accidentally discovered some images and sexting between her and a work colleague of hers. We didn't live together at the time, but I gathered her stuff that she kept at my place and took it to her place while she was at work. I sent her an email asking her not to contact me again and that we were through. She cried and begged and I took her back a week later. This was a big mistake as it turns out.

Fast forward to 2020 (during COVID lockdown). She left her PC unlocked and I noticed a very suspicious conversation between her and a man I didn't know referring to fun dress pictures, new outfits, etc and a desire for keeping things discreet. While I didn't have any definitive proof at this point of any wrong-doing, it was extremely suspicious. I confronted her about it and said I suspected she was having another sexting relationship. She semi-confessed and said it was just idle / fun conversation between friends and didn't mean anything - although there were nudes involved (!) - but she did feel like it crossed a line and would not happen anymore. I struggled to accept this but kind of dealt with it at the time because of some family health crises related to COVID and my own parents divorcing during that time. This seems VERY naive in hindsight.

About a month ago, I was going through old smart phones that we have to prepare them for recycling. As I was going through them, one of them in particular just seemed odd to me because the only application open was calculator. After during some research, it turned out to be a "secret photo" app that lets you hide pictures and videos. After doing some more digging, I found many extremely explicit nudes of herself that I'd never seen. There was also a social media account that was left logged in showing her looking for men to meet up with for all kinds of explicit sexual acts, with specific comments about needing to be discreet and only being available before noon (I worked until 3pm at the time). There were also many messages exchanging snapchat information for sharing nudes. These messages and pictures were all from 6 months before to 6 months after when we got married in 2017 (I think the phone was last used in late 2017). She was not working at this time due to what I thought were her mental health struggles, so I was the only one working and supporting us.

When I found those pictures and especially those discussions about meeting up, I was devastated. I immediately scheduled a doctor's appointment to get tested for STDs (all clear thankfully). I also contacted an attorney to discuss my options.

I confronted her two weeks ago about what I'd found. At first, she basically said that we'd already discussed this when I confronted her in 2020. I told her much of this was new to me, and I certainly didn't know about any physical meet-ups. She claimed that those were just a fantasy and she never acted on those (sure...). She also said that she'd been "good" since then and thought we were clear of this after our last conversation in 2020. She even suggested that maybe the key to happiness would be to have an open marriage. What??? I was so shaken and confused by her answers that I told her I'd have to think about all of this but took no action at the time.

We have had sex maybe 5 times in the past 5 years. She now claims this was due to guilt from her past mistakes, although she previously claimed it was related to mental health and past abuse until this most recent set of revelations.

As I type all this out, I feel so naive and trusting for letting this go this long. I am trying to get my mental health in order (so I don't have a complete breakdown) and then I plan to file for divorce. I make a lot more money than her so I expect to lose my shirt in the divorce, but honestly I don't care and just want this pain to be over.

Thanks for reading. I'm glad this community exists as this is a sort of pain I've never experienced before.

First, I just want to say I’m really sorry you’re here. Reading your post, what stands out to me most is not naivety, but trust. You loved your wife, believed her explanations, and kept trying to preserve your marriage even when things felt wrong. That does not make you stupid. It makes you someone who wanted to believe the person you married was being honest with you, the way you are with her.

A lot of betrayed spouses look back with hindsight and beat themselves up for the things they "should have seen," but hindsight is cruelly clear. At the time, you were dealing with COVID, family crises, your parents divorcing, and a partner feeding you partial truths and minimizing behavior that most people would absolutely consider betrayal. Of course you wanted to believe things could still be okay.

What you found on that phone would devastate almost anyone. The hidden apps, explicit photos you’d never seen, the secrecy, the discussions about meeting up, the years of deception layered on top of prior incidents, that is an enormous psychological shock. And honestly, your reaction sounds grounded considering the magnitude of what you uncovered. You got tested, sought legal advice, and recognized you needed support for your mental health. Those are rational and healthy responses to trauma.

I also think it’s important that you trust yourself here. Her response doesn’t really sound like someone fully confronting the damage they caused. It sounds more like minimizing, reframing, and trying to normalize behavior you never agreed to. Suggesting an open marriage after years of secrecy and betrayal is not the same thing as honest non-monogamy. Consent only exists when both people actually know what reality they’re consenting to, I have discovered in the last six months that there are truly people not suited to monogamous relationships.

And for what it’s worth, the lack of intimacy over the years was probably incredibly painful and confusing on its own. To now discover there may have been this hidden sexual energy directed outward while your marriage became emotionally and physically starved, that’s a very particular kind of hurt.

Please try not to measure your worth by what this divorce may cost financially. Money can be rebuilt. Your mental health, self-respect, and ability to eventually feel safe again matter too. Right now your nervous system is probably in survival mode, so focus on stabilizing yourself before making major emotional decisions where possible. Lean on trusted people. Eat, sleep, hydrate, document things, and give yourself permission to grieve what you thought your marriage was.

Most of all, don’t carry shame for loving fully and trusting deeply. The shame belongs with the deception, not with the person who believed their spouse. I am trying to do this myself.

First of all: There are few if any constants that we can offer you about infidelity. Like… we can give you examples and even odds of something happening, but it’s hard for us to say that because of A then B will definilety 100% happen. It’s more that we can say that because of A then B has 9/10 odds of happening.
But one thing we can tell you is this: Nothing you did or did not do makes her cheat. That is totally 100% on her. Its not that you weren’t attentive, not sexually competent, body-odor… nothing. In normal relationships people discuss fantasies, wants, lacks and issues and try to resolve them. Going outside the marriage for stuff like she goes… that is totally 100% on her, and I can tell you that with 100% certainty.

I also want to share what I see as the two – the only two – realistic outcomes from situations like this: If BOTH of you are 100% committed to it, you can reconcile your marriage. That requires that she totally 100% opens up on what happened and you can verify each and every detail. Do that and do the hard work and in 2 years you will most likely be at a place where you are either content with having staid, or content with divorce.
Or… If ONE of you isn’t ready to commit to R then divorce. Research shows that as a rule then people that divorce are happy at the two year mark too.

Having said that…
I am honestly not too optimistic for the future of this relationship.
Let’s even write off the incident early on as maybe some unclear boundaries and relationship status. But I would guess your reaction to that would make your expectations moving forwards clear.

The Big Red Flag in the 2020 issue is the knowledge that she needs to keep this discreet. Discreet from whom? Coworkers? His wife? YOU? You aren’t too clear on what made it suspicious, but generally coworkers of the opposite sex tend to keep topics on some non-sexual, non-erotic level, and don’t see a direct need to keep it hidden from their spouses.

What isn’t a flag, but more of a smoking gun is the calculator app. Often used by kids to hide porn from parents.
That shows a couple of things: For one, the previous incidents make it very clear to her where your sand-in-the-line is. Yet she decides to cross it. Only, she shows the premeditation of installing an app and by her own admission used it for some time AFTER your stance was clear.

Do you feel safe that after 2017 she didn’t install some secret storage app in her next phone? Or her present phone? One tip: most phones allow you to see storage-usage.
Can you see if her access is still active? Can you see if she can log herself in to the account? Is there some talk-history that goes into more detail about how they organize their never-happening hookups?

Then let’s add a couple of bonus issues:
The request for an open marriage.
The lack of intimacy.

Add all this together and I doubt you have the truth…

Keeping in mind that IF you decide to reconcile then the next two years (at least) will be paying therapists, MC’s and such, a definite hold on any major purchase or life altering decision (home-purchase, having kids, moving, career-change…). That’s just to reach a place where you can decide if this is what you really want.

So IMHO your first decision is simply if this is enough. If it’s time to accept that this marriage isn’t working and it’s better to cut your losses and move on.

If you want a chance of R then the first requirement IMHO is that you know WHAT you are recovering from. You would need to give her "permission" to tell you the truth, and then have some way to verify it.
Like… let’s imagine she’s telling the truth. That since 2018 she hasn’t been online or flirting or whatever, and that this was all online. If that were true then MAYBE I can see your marriage have a shot.
But how to confirm the truth? Standard suggestion here would be to ask her if she would take a poly where a key question will be "other than Boptimus have you had sex with another man since 01/01/18?"