My wife had an affair 10 years ago. Obviously, we choose to stick it out and reconcile.
But sometimes, when I'm feeling depressed, I think about it. The problem is that I never had my questions about the affair fully answered. So anytime it comes up I am always wondering how far it went, how she really felt, how long it went on, etc. Back then my wife refused to talk about it. It was like prying teeth. Pretty much any information she copped to was information I already had found out on my own. I even caught her in a couple lies right off the bat before she knew what I knew. It just feels so much like lying to me. But I need an impartial objective audience to weigh in here. This is how she dodged my questions when I brought it up tonight. And I haven't brought it up in at least over a year:
I seem blue. I am sulking around and wife asks me if I want to talk about it. I tell her I'm feeling depressed and we talk about that for a while and few things about her. Eventually the conversation winds its way into how I've been thinking about her affair again. She was totally blindsided, as I planned. I knew if I were to bring it up again that I'd have to employ an actual strategy to get her to tell the truth. Surprising her with the subject was supposed to prevent her having time to get her lies in order. But she dodged the question, talking vaguely about some lesson she learned about boundaries and how the guy she had an affair with kept crossing them and she just had no idea until I found out and pointed it out to her. But now she's learned and I never have to worry.
I stopped her about there and asked what boundaries were crossed. To which she got a very apprehensive expression, and said him talking to her so much in the first place and asking to talk on the phone with her.
I said that's still pretty vague. What exactly happened? How did it all start? I want the blow by blow. To which she switched gears and got upset and started crying about how she put it all behind her and she never, ever, ever wants to think about it again. It was hard for me not to go on an empathy roller-coaster with her. In the past I might have dropped it at that, feeling sorry for causing her pain bringing it up. But this time I was trying to solve the mystery.
So I said, hey you know if a judge was asking you to provide details about something important and you just broke down and started crying, I don't think they would accept that as the questions being answered. So I asked her again. What exactly happened? This time she switched gears again and started blaming me, talking about how she can't think about the affair without also thinking about the terrible things about me that made her cheat on me. It's all just too intertwined and she just can't go there.
I said that still doesn't answer the question. What happened exactly during your affair. At that point she just started accusing me of being the same way as I was back then and asking me about supposed bad things I've done recently that she just pulled out of her ass. Out of nothing.
All of this to avoid talking about an affair she had over 10 years ago. Fishy? Will I ever find out what happened?
TL;DR: A lot of infidelity advice says the reconciling couple are supposed to be able to talk openly about the affair to move past it, including answering all questions the betrayed spouse has. But that hasn't ever happened for me. And I thought it'd be cool. I thought I could handle that. But it turns out that it just keeps coming up. I guess an affair isn't something one just forgets about, ever. So when a person thinks about it, aren't they supposed to have some closure? Feel like the the spouse they're still with has been honest about everything?
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