Is R possible after 5.5 years of double life
My wife cheated me for 5.5 years in our 21 years of marriage.
Her affair started at the age of 41 during COVID pandemic in 2020 through facebook messenger with AP 11 years younger and unmarried. Within week they exchanged phone numbers and at the first opportunity (first day of lock down relaxation) she went to meet him leaving our 2 kids alone at home. She felt soul connection with the guy and never showed any resistance to his love bombing.
They continued meeting 4-5 times in a month for next one year. Their meeting happened in his car and involved physical intimacy (except intercourse).
During same time she started avoiding physical initimacy with me and remained bitter and kept picking fight with me and we used to not speak for many days after our fights and sleep in separate bedrooms.
She created strict ritual of long daily walk in the evening when she used to talk to him and meet him and sometime used to return very late and made excuses. She never allowed me or our kids to accompany her in daily walks.
During early 2021, they were once caught by police when they were secretly meeting in car in a very deserted place, however they escaped after paying some bribe. Though this episode upset her few days but her relationship continued after that also.
In 2021, first our son and then later wife became COVID positive but later they recovered. The wife condition was really bad during her COVID sickness. They kept meeting after that also.
Later they had some fight in mid 2021 and thereafter her talks became less as AP also went to other town for 2 years for job. But they were meeting whenever the AP came town to visit his parents.
Sometime later AP apologised to her and their daily talks resumed through phone and FaceTime. During this 2 years they physically met only 2-3 times again in his car only.
Up to this time she says she never met him in any hotel or any other place outside his car though AP used to keep requesting her but she used to deny everytime.
In mid 2023 AP returned to town for good. Around that time they started meeting daily for 3 hours in evening in his car after wife dropped our daughter for drama classes which ran for a month. This was the time when their physical intimacy increased further and finally led to her visiting his house for sex.
During the period of next one year they had sex on 3 occasions at AP’s home when his parents were away while still meeting regularly in his car as before and daily phone and FaceTime calls.
Wife says she has categorically told AP that she will never go to any hotel or other place with him.
In the beginning of 2024, wife missed her period and got very worried. She did home test for pregnancy and also went to see a gynaecologist far off my place. She had blood test to be sure and got negative result next day. Later she got her periods. After this wife says she realised she didn’t want the sexual part anymore but still wanted to retain friendship with AP.
AP was not ready to scale down and wanted her to remain as loving as before with same physical intimacy.
AP used to sometime get emotionally explosive, starts crying and showed capacity for self harm when getting agitated if she tried to desist any of his requests.
With time their arguments resulted in big fight after which wife says she made her mind that no more physical initimacy with AP in future. They fought many times but were talking regularly. During same time AP abused and threatened her for first time that he will defame her if she dared to walk out on him.
Towards end of 2024 , after fed up with regular fights AP asked her to return all his gifts and part ways. She returned all the gifts but did not blocked the AP.
In beginning of 2025, AP again called and wife answered the phone and again AP abused and threatened her that he will expose her affair and defame her by commiting suicide from her building if she tried to move out and stopped showing her love and care as before.
Feeling scared wife continued playing along and they spoke daily on phone and facetime and met 4 times in 2025 in his car all the while wife assuring him that she still loves and cares for him.
She says there was minimal physical intimacy in 2025 as she had already felt detached and went through extreme trauma because of AP’s threat and emotional and verbal abuse. She used to cry and beg AP to let her go as she never wanted me to know about her affairs. She continued to play along hoping one day AP will understand and they will part ways amicably.
Towards end of 2025, after getting fed up with AP’s continuous threats, on one occasion when AP was again threatening her on FaceTime, she got so panicked and told AP to do whatever he wants and handed the live call to me. The AP also got startled and revealed some details of their affair to me while wife was crying uncontrollably and asking for my forgiveness.
After ending the call I asked her to tell me everything about her affair. She minimized her affairs timeline and did not admit physical intimacy that day. Later, that day she blocked the guy number and deleted all photos from phone. Next day she admitted after swearing on our children that she had full sex only once and only minimal physical intimacy in car which was a lie.
The AP kept trying to contact her after D day but she did not speak to him and handed her phone to me. In the initial few days she tried to blame me for never appreciating her and never feeling any connection or any moment of joy in our marriage and instances when I insulted her infront of her friends and family. Also that AP was very maniplutive and she couldn't resist herself. She kept trying to minimize time line and avoided revealing about deep physical intimacy. But later during the period of next 1 month she disclosed more details of her affairs under much pressure from my side, while still not telling the complete truth about physical intimacy and accurate timeline.
After few days AP called me and was crying and appeared desperate as he was not able to speak to my wife. He revealed that he was also very emotionally attached to her. Also revealed physical intimacy and said some other details.
After 3 weeks, I called AP when he sounded much calm and during that long talk he gave complete details of thier affair whatever I asked. Later when I confronted my wife, she confirmed most of the details to be true though few things she still tried to minimise.
Since D day, she behaved nicely, did not use her phone and avoided all communication and meeting with outside world. But she was still getting emotional or irritated when questioned about past. Later I asked her to give written confession. She wrote all in one day while crying heavily in between.
The facts in her confession were still not completely accurate but she did described the sexual part in more details though I felt she was still hiding a lot. She continued to trickle truth until 4 months post D day. She also suffered emotional breakdowns during these months when she tried self harm and abusing herself out of deep shame.
It’s been 7 months now since D day, she has completely cut off herself from all her friends, has surrendered her phone to me and keeps behaving very nicely. Since last month she has further calmed down (no more emotional breakdowns), initiates talks and answers all my queries and continues to take very good care of me and the family.
She was in state of limerence and idealised AP and hated me as being a villain in her life. But now says that she has truly changed and realised that she truly loves me only and this love got buried somewhere and has now resurfaced.
Though she behaves very nicely, shows extraordinary love and care and does all house chores with passion (which she hated earlier); I still do not trust her and feel that she is still hiding many facts as her timeline of minimal sex in 5.5 years doesn’t justify the limerence state she was in.
I still love her but the fact that she never felt any guilt during entire period of her relationship, endangered lives of our kids by leaving them alone at home during peak COVID, remained emotionally absent during their formative years, completely annihilated me during that time keeps disturbing me a lot.
Also the fact that all this realisation came after me putting all these facts in front of her.
I do want to reconcile but the long deception keeps creating doubt whether she has really transformed or just a temporary phase for her survival.