Yes. Look up the term "trickle truth".

 

She said that he was no longer on the scene but wouldn't give me his name, also that he had a girlfriend, but she didn't seem to care about her which I thought was strange.
Can you be sure that she cheated and slept with him?

 

I agree with Numb26. She cheated by withholding and lying about it. Dump the witch.

 

999/1000 stories on here that start with what you described as your wife’s “story”…..
Yeah, she totally cheated.
The only person that she “let down gently” was you when she lied and said she didn’t get physical with him. They were like rabbits until he ditched her and she went back to plan b, AKA You.

 

Yes, it’s very likely this went further than she will admit, at least right now. She told you this because she feels guilty, which means there was likely something physical to feel guilty about, more than him just being a good listener at work.

Do not rug sweep this. Do not accept that she will not tell you who it is. Insist that she tell you, or there needs to be a consequence. Do her parents live nearby? Tell her she comes clean or she needs to move out for a while. Pack her bag and take her to her parents. If she won’t go, then tell her you will call them, explain the situation and ask them to come get her.

Do you have an open device policy? Get her phone tonight while she is sleeping and go through it. Same for any laptop or tablet she uses. When a spouse gives you good reason to think that they are cheating then all expectation of privacy (if there is one in your marriage) goes out the door and you can do all the investigation you need to do.

I would also consider hiding a VAR under the seat in her car, and in another room in the house where she might talk on the phone when you are not around. Seriously OP, it’s time to switch into investigative mode. Good luck.

 

Last thing for now — you can pick this up on Monday, you don’t need to have it out with her tonight or tomorrow and mess up Christmas, if you don’t want to. That will also give you some time to check out her device, laptop, etc. as I described above. Or you can do it now, up to you. Good luck.

 

Recently my wife confessed that she had been tempted to cheat some time before

Ask her for a written and detailed timeline. Dates, times, places. Tell her in advance you are considering having her take a polygraph to confirm what is in the timeline.

Why did she 'confess'? Were you having some sort of disagreement? Why was she 'tempted.?

 

Right now only she knows if it went beyond emotionally cheating. Many times the wayward will admit to something small like kissing someone, to help alleviate their guilt. or cover their tracks when they think someone else might spill the beans. Often the "kiss" ends up being a full fledged affair. You are right to be concerned. Others have pointed out the major red flags. About the time when this happened did your sex life change, did she treat you differently, did her phone habits change, and did she do things to improve her appearance?

 

Sex life wasn't great at the time, we were going through a rough patch. phone habits were the same, but she said contact was entirely at work in person, I noticed she kept nice heels at work I hadn't seen before and had a modest wardrobe update for the new job.

 

What prompted her to tell you / confess about almost cheating 🤔
What's the back story 🤔

 

We were having sex and discussing fantasies etc and I asked her if she was ever tempted to sleep with someone else/cheat. She then said that she had been tempted.

I'm thinking that during sex might be a good way to get more details out rather than more confrontation.

 

What else did she tell you about the person 🤔 only that it was a co worker ?

Is he married ? What type of work does she do ?
Do you know any of her Co workers that you could talk to ?

He was obviously pursuing her... Maybe he still is..

You said a rough patch...So rough she would get sex from someone else ?

Yes...I don't know if she cheated , but I would definitely do some sleuthing. Start with the phone and social media.

 

My 2 cents;

You asked her in a setting that provided her an opportunity to honestly answer your question. You heard a response you didn't expect or at least not to the degree you expected. Now you are trying to figure out what to do. This is not about whether she "cheated" either EA or PA, this is about what you WANT to do now that you know the answer to your question.

What you probably expected was a "Yes, if George Clooney and I shared adjacent airplane seats, I would........."

Do you love her? Has she been a good wife? For how long? So what do you want to do or do you want to fixate on finding an answer to "did she cheat?"

If you love her, if you want the marriage to continue, if you feel you could forgive her of an EA, then talk to her. Tell her what your "red line in the sand" boundaries are for marriage. Make sure she understands. Work with a marriage counselor, assuming she understands how horrible her actions were toward your continued marriage and will commit to marriage counseling. Focus on boundaries and what you each want your marriage to look like. Focus on promising each other that when problems come up in the future in your marriage that you will talk to each other and not do things that destroy marriages.

Of course if you aren't sure could forgive her no matter her future commitment to your marriage looks like, then you need to contemplate and explore divorce. I am very pro marriage. An EA is horrible and yet we are all flawed human beings put in a life of temptations. Leading a good like requires us to resist those temptations. The question you need to answer is what are the boundaries you are willing to forgive, what are the actions you need to see from your wife that will allow you to move forward with her in your marriage? You will probably never know the whole truth now that she understands how horrified you are at her actions. Can you live with that?

Good luck to the both of you.

 

Tell her what your "red line in the sand" boundaries are for marriage. Make sure she understands.

Is this something both spouses in a marriage don't fully know? Wife and I discussed boundaries when we were dating and talking seriously about wanting to marry one another. For us marriage meant exclusive with one another always, no matter what. If we weren't able to adhere to that at some point in the future we agreed divorce would happen.

No OSF, no flirting with the opposite sex, etc. No f**king other people didn't really need saying. No dreaming about f**king other people didn't need saying, because this leads to the first. No talking about f**king other people ever. Because that can lead to the previous, which leads to the first. We agreed that we both had a zero tolerance policy regarding these. It was a "one and done" situation.

 

Why won't she give you his name? What did she say, or was it just NO I'm not telling you?

She doesn't want you uncovering just how deep this rabbit hole goes.

I hope you uncover more about what the hell went on. Suggestion given above to demand to see her phone is a good one.

If you're not unable to uncover any more details, what are the two of you going to put place in your marriage to prevent this from happening again? Marriage counselling is one idea where you can talk about boundaries needed in your marriage.

I'd tell her this: you do this sh*t again, just divorce me rather than sneak around like a cheater. If I find out you do this sh*t again, I'm divorcing you. Your wife was waaaaay out of line with this guy. Are you confident now she really wants to be married to you? Or are you just the not too special, boring, annoying husband and she's settling for you?

Sorry this happened to you man.

 

Based on what you’ve shared we can’t say for sure if she cheated in an actual EA or PA but it’s not a good sign that she didn’t want to disclose his name. That this was said during post sex pillow talk, leads me to believe that it may have just been some slight office flirting with a coworker that she may have fancied.

But like a few have alluded, we have a lot of threads that start off with trickle truth soft confessions. Now, if the time that she was supposedly flirting with OM, coincided with your sex life spiraling down that is not a good sign. She told you he’s no longer in the picture, yet wouldn’t tell you his name? Why would she withhold his name if he’s no longer working with her? Unless, he’s actually still working there. She said she ended things but is that really the truth?

These are issues that come up when a spouse opens up and then is grilled. Now she will never open again for fear of this exact outcome.

 

At most, a hug and a kiss.

No, she did not physically cheat, more than that (if that, at all).

Yes, she did entertain the thought.

Had she cheated more than this, she would have never said so.

In my mind, I am 99% certain.

She told you this, for you to up your game. To let you know other men find her desirable.

No, not nice of her!

 

Thanks SunCMars, I confronted her again and she came clean, what you said is basically exactly the story. She exaggerated what was a couple of flirty conversations to get me to up my game (which I have).
I'm not stupid and know that she could be lying but I know her well enough to believe her. We're now in a really good place in the marriage and have agreed to be completely open in future.

 

She cheated. Whether emotional or physical remains to be seen, but I would be inclined to 98% believe it was physical, and may have gone on for some time.
If you really want to know, spend a couple hundred bucks to hire a PI and have him tail her to work, see what her habits are during a typical work day or week.
Also, during this "rough patch", did you notice if her hours coming home or leaving for the office noticeably changed (e.g. came home an hour later than normal here and there, left earlier, etc.)?
Now that she trickle - truth'd you here, I think it's fair to do some digging.

 

Anytime there is uncertainty, keep your mouth shut and investigate clandestinely. You will never get the truth from a cheater voluntarily.

 

There was no cheating… if what she told him was true. We have an Eyes Wide Shut situation going on, where all her cheating is happening inside his imagination.

 

There's more to the story.

There usually ALWAYS is.

You've only heard the PG version.

This wasn't a 'confession' brought on by remorse and regret. It was said in the heat of passion and now she's back-peddling as hard and quickly as she can and is probably kicking herself for having shared ANY of that with you. There's more to this story - a lot more. But you'll likely never hear it. You opened a door the other night - she's going to do her best to keep it closed.

 

If in this “rough patch” you weren’t having sex abd she was hard to get along with and nitpicking you……..

Guess why it was rough? It was because her feelings were given to another man and she had zero feelings for you…..also the reason for no sex, she was being loyal to her affair partner.

thing is, it’s over, she’s back with you. Yeah, she may stray again.. but what are you gonna do about this? Break up a marrriage that’s going good at the moment?

this is a strange one to deal with.

you’ll never get the whole truth without a polygraph and even with one you won’t get the whole truth. It’s tough to advise what to do aboit this. Your wife should be able to tell you the truth when you ask a question. But you are burned by what she said. It’s a tough one

 

Cheat - To act dishonestly to gain an advantage

She lied (acted dishonestly) to keep you in the dark and not suspect her of wrongdoing (to gain an advantage).
So did she cheat? Yes. Sexually? Who knows. Does it matter? Cheating and lying are both disrespectful and you, as her husband, deserve to be respected.

 

Trust, but verify.

 

So, did she ever come clean on who the POS is? If she is still protecting him she will never be honest with you. Be the fool if you wish, you will end up paying for it.

 

Well, hate to say it but she’s already cheated in you: she withheld information from you precisely because she knew that the advances from the other man, but especially her unwillingness to reject those advances, would upset you.

Find out who the OM is and whether he’s left her department/firm. Good news is that it sounds as though nothing happened. There is a possibility the OM’s wife probably found out about the flirting and put a stop to it before it went any further. And if that’s the case, she would’ve forced him to leave the firm.

 

The OM will always be an EX of your WW since he has already violated the marital boundaries, he is more of a threat than some random person who you WW meets at the store. The OMs invitation to escalate the relationship to a physical sexual one will stand until the OM dies or goes senile.

You have to know his name or it will eat you alive in the future since you WW is continuing to lie to You.

You also need to know in order to inform OMW and put a second set of eyes on their interaction.

 

since you WW is continuing to lie to You./QUOTE]

Which is probably what he knows for sure: her lies.

 

Get a polygraph.

 

Wow there are some really judgemental people on here. with dangerous advice. She did not have sex with him. You were fantasing about her and other men and getting turned on by that thought, But then suddenly realised perhaps that was not what you wanted.. She was not saying she was tempted to get you to raise your game, she said it to turn you on as part of your fantasy. ,Lots of guys have fantasy about wife with another man, And many go through with it. MFM 3 somes Be careful what you wish for

 

Thank you...So many of these people that give advice are so skewed...They twist the info given to fit their own narrative 🙄