SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm wondering if anyone can help get to the bottom of exactly when is an affair considered to "begin" and "end"?

Does it begin when WH begins to fixate and plan ways to be around another woman? Does it begin when he begins lieing?

Does it end when he is no longer grieving his ap and he can stop being mad at you for his having to end it? I don't feel an affair is considered "ended" if WH is sulking in deep depression over his AP not having called him back.

Edit: WS had series of LT PA that ended 2010. He is currently invested in his IC and our MC, and just now beginning to realize the depth of devastation he has caused over our entire 37 yrs married.

He struggles with the realization that he minimized the length of these affairs. He believed they were 2-3 months, and my information shows more like 12 to 18 months.

If I could get the general consensus on the actual moment affairs begin and end, it would be helpful in creating a timeline we both can recognize as more accurate.

We are going to give it a shot at reconciling. I agreed to take it a few months at a time and only if he is fully invested with me. So far he is.

[This message edited by 12many24give at 2:39 PM, Sunday, March 9th]

I’m so sorry you are facing THIS horrific - as if the actual affair isn’t bad enough.

I was in your shoes and I watched my H do exactly what your H is doing.

Unfortunately my H chose to start the affair for a second time after it being "over" for about a month. He had this "I deserve to be happy" mentality and literally became a selfish jerk who was planning to D me to be with the OW (other woman).

Since you don’t know where the marriage will end up, I suggest you start to financially protect yourself. Get copies of all financial documents - tax returns, bank statements, retirement accounts etc.

Also read up on the 180. Stop being his wife until he really truly commits to the marriage. You may think this is being mean but it is actually designed to shield yourself from being subjected to his continued cheating — even if not physical, in his mind the OW is "first" right now.

Let him wallow in his shame and unhappiness. Do not support him. Honestly he’s lucky he has a place to call home right now. If I had to do it again I would have kicked my H to the curb during his "missing the OW" phase.

Get yourself some professional advice as well. It will help you navigate this situation and provide some support for YOU.

Please keep posting here. You will get great advice.

From experience I would suggest that you do nothing about your marriage right now. Your cheating H is not interested and it will be a waste of time. I would also suggest that you have a firm deadline w/ the eye towards how long you will allow this behavior from your H to continue.

You do not have to accept this from him. You can (and should) decide what is best for you. When I found out my H had restarted the affair, I was forced to pull the plug on the marriage and plan to D him.

That was his wake up call. And while we are happily reconciled, he’s now afraid I will D him!

There is a book your H should read - How to Help your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald. If he refuses to read it, there is an indication that he’s not all in on the marriage. Many cheaters refuse to read it - and to me it’s a clear sign of where they are and what their priority is. To me it’s a red flag 🚩 🚩🚩 unless they are doing other things to make amends.

Learn the difference between remorse and regret. Regret is they are sorry they were caught cheating but don’t regret it. Remorse is they are sorry cheater feels bad for cheating and is willing to do anything to fix it.

The1stwife, I apologize for not clarifying. But, I DO love your spot on, straight up posts!!

WH and I are in process of preparing for therapeutic FD. In this preparation,we disagree on what constitutes the actual "beginning" of an affair, and the actual TRUE ending.

He feels it begins the first time they "plan" and do something (even meet for coffee). I feel it begins the moment he "feels and thinks" that she is someone HE will making a move on.

I feel it ends when he is DONE grieving his AP and comes BACK into the marriage fully present. If AP is still on his mind, then there is no way WH is HERE with me. HE feels an affair ends when they last spoke.

I seek clarification of what constitutes a true beginning and end date?

I think infidelity begins when a boundary is crossed — as in one person shows interest in another and the spouse doesn’t protect the marriage. The moment someone encourages improper attention and validation is the start of it to me.

My wife’s A was a with coworker/neighbor/family friend. We watched each other’s kids, had meals together, etc.

One day AP showed up in her office and told her he really, really liked her and it’s never happened to him before (to like someone other than his wife, which was also a lie, he was a serial cheater). Instead of telling him to back off, she said nothing. That’s the start of the so called slippery slope. It took six more months to go from EA to PA.

The PA lasted four years, and then AP dumped my wife in a very harsh manner, to make it clear he was done using her.

Then, my wife couldn’t believe it was all fake, that he had no feelings for her, so she continued to reach out to him for two more years. I call that an EA as well.

The A ended when after those two years, AP showed back up to restart. It was because we had moved away and he could control the timing of any ‘new’ A from a distance.

For some reason, his reasons to suddenly "like" her again sounded false to my wife.

It was the first time she told him, "no" over those six plus years.

He called again three weeks later and she told him not to call again.

For me, that was the end of it. My wife initially only counted the 4-years of PA, but it was closer to 7-years to me.

Most cheaters have the mindset that no sex = no affair. In a cheater’s mind an affair starts with some type of physical interaction. They usually feel that "an EA" is just being friends and won’t recognize it as actual cheating.

Betrayed spouses view it very differently.

Cheating starts the second the interactions are kept a secret. If that’s from day 1, then that is the start of an affair. By interactions I mean talking or meeting for coffee or whatever other reason there is an interaction. A flirty text message is cheating IMO.

To answer your question I think the A start and end dates have this kind of grey area, depending on what you personally define as "cheating." Some might consider flirting, having in person or texting inappropriate conversations, porn, etc. cheating, while others don’t. Some people might consider cheating is only physical and not emotional. The end date would be the day that your spouse officially ends the A and goes no contact. If you feel that your WH was "sulking" in the aftermath of his A … it’s because he was in the Affair Fog (I can see why would consider this as him still being invested in the A).

I know personally that having been brought into the hell of infidelity it has changed my views on what I consider cheating. Prior, I used to consider cheating to be a strictly physical - I didn’t even really know that there was such a thing as emotional cheating (some would argue that an EA is worse than a PA).

Either way, the lines get blurry when one spouse shows interest elsewhere or doesn’t turn down advances. It eventually (whether planned or not) gets to a point of no return and cheating, at least in some form, is inevitable.

I am not sure that it is helpful to define the exact moment when a spouse enters or ends an affair because the term " affair" is so very subjective and the relationship itself depends on the emotions of two people, the wayward and the AP. That is, you can’t be in an affair by yourself. I think a better construct would be to identify inappropriate behaviors that harm the marriage, some of which are on the slippery slope leading to an affair, and others follow the affair. The only guidepost should be whether the behavior harms the spousal partnership.

I spent many years as a criminal lawyer, so I tend to analyze things as if I were drafting charges. Maybe this method will help others somewhat. I think about an affair as a conspiracy to commit infidelity. At law, a conspiracy requires an agreement by two or more people; to commit a wrongful act; and an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. You can fantasize all day about someone but it is not a conspiracy/affair until you get the co-conspirator/AP to agree to cheat with you, and actually take an overt action in furtherance of the affair. Overt acts can be arranging a date, setting up an app with auto-delete capabilities, sexting, buying gifts, etc. Secrecy is a hallmark of conspiracies because the conspirators know what they are doing is wrong. Note that a lot of the pre-conspiracy behaviors are not healthy for good marriages and a spouse would have every right to insist on their ending before the affair comes to fruition. A conspiracy ends when the agreement between the conspirators ends. At law, this usually happens when they are arrested. With affairs it is much harder to determine if the conspiracy has been abandoned because the BS has to believe that the WS is telling the truth, a heavy ask when that same WS has been actively lying and deceiving you. I kinda suspect that that is what is propelling the inquiry by OP. Is her WH still mentally in the affair? Can it be over if he is still exhibiting things that look like he is longing for the co-conspirator? It is at least affair adjacent. 12many, you are right that his brain is still in the conspiracy. I think that is the point he needs to understand and internalize rather than debating the affair’s lines of demarcation.

I think you need to be realistic. What are the chances that a man who has been cheating on you since Hootie and Blowfish was popular is ever going to be the honest, faithful, and loving man that you need and want him to be?

At the very least, you shouldn't tolerate him sitting shiva for the end of his affair. He misses his AP so badly? Tell Romeo he can have Juliet. Let him waste the next 30 years of her life in infidelity. You deserve to be free of it.

I think an A begins when the WS starts doing things with the AP that they must conceal from the BS.

The A itself ends, IMO, when NC is established or hard boundaries are set and followed about types of contact, in the case of those who must still interact with the AP. If the WS is still pursuing the AP in any way, the A is still active, even if the AP goes dark. If the AP pursues the WS, but the WS remains NC, the A is over.

The WS may still be hung up on the AP and need time to process their feelings and face the reality of what the A really was and the harm it caused everyone involved. I view this process as part of recovery.

I'm in line with SacredSoul. The minute your spouse interacts with another secretly. It has begun. And obviously, it ends when your spouse stops all, and I do mean ALL, contact with the AP.

Thank you all for your many areas of insight. I am a very analytical person (Sr Systems Analyst) and I tend to break things down in manner such as Notsohreatintentions suggests. I am black and white in many of these areas, which holds me back from my recovery when I hit these "gray areas" that are quite subjective.

We are preparing for the therapeutic full disclosure and the date range he was cheating "is" important to me. He reduces it to ONLY when he was physically cheating, and negates the incredible investment he made INTO his cheating before and after it ended as part of that time-frame. He certainly was NOT present with me in the marriage when he would set his sights on that "greener pasture" and then when he had to grieve his lost "perfect partner" that time he spent doing THAT, he was also NOT present in the marriage. "I feel" all of that time is part of the actual affair. You have helped me find a way to explain this to him, so he can create a more accurate timeline of his betrayals.

When a WS minimizes the time they spent betraying, it is an insult to the BS because we still are left to suffer and wonder what the heck is going on. I know the affair time was longer and feel crazy when he can't collaborate on actual dates of his involvement.

His actually "seeing" how much he spent in his cheating is causing him to realize just HOW DEVASTATING his acting out has been for our entire marriage.

Bluerthanblue, I like your writing style and do appreciate the Hootie and the Blowfish reference, lol! You ask the same questions I ask myself, "What are the chances...?" I have little faith after this many years and I DO appreciate that reminder. It is "The LAST chance" I allow for him to make some MAJOR changes and to continue beyond 1 yr in that process. THEN, I will consider him to be serious in this process. If he fails, well I have done enough and I will be fine moving on.

I too, in creating this timeline, am seeing the whole picture. I see NOTHING to build on in 37 yrs together. There is literally nothing but deceit, manipulation, lies, etc... Yes, we are discovering repressed childhood trauma (serious sexual abuse that he hasn't wanted to face) as the likely cause of his issues. I appreciate the serious nature of what he is going through and how horrible his childhood was. I do know that his recovery is not likely to result in anything positive for US/me for several years while he works through his own trauma. I do not feel I can wait for him to resolve his past in order to try to recover a marriage that truly never WAS a marriage.

Then comes... how does one leave a man who is so damaged and hurt, whom I do still love (and I do still hate for all the harm he has caused me)? I am taking it a day at a time and will know when my time is up... so I am told.

At this later stage in the game, my options to leave are limited IF I wish to stay financially comfortable. (Lack of money is an evil prison). So, my "Romeo" will continue to support my lifestyle while we both try to work through the hurricane of his "unmet needs and messed up ways of dealing with them"!

I think the starting point of an affair is when the WS first engages in a way that they wouldn’t if their spouse/partner was at their side. That is where the first boundaries were crossed that led to the affair. To me, it doesn’t matter if that was something like flirting and expressing an interest in that person, or having a personal conversation that started an emotional connection and bond with that person, especially if the conversation was them speaking negatively about their spouse or marriage.

I would say that the end is when the WS, makes it clear to the AP that it’s over, and goes NC, and sticks to it. I do see how the WS still pining over or having fond feelings for the AP is a problem and can make the BS feel like it’s not really over, since the WS hasn’t really let it go yet, even if they are NC.

In my case I don’t think it ever ended in his mind. The PA started in 1976, restarted in 1979 for 6 weeks. We left the area with me being fed a series of lies and deceptions he shared with his sister. I thought we were starting over with new hopes and dreams and married 2 years later. 44 years all based on a lie he tried to suppress but a trip back to visit his sister without me they decided it would be "fun to call AP to talk about old times" and do it all behind my back because I was "jealous". He returned home and Jan 1, 2023 started texting over 3000 texts over 2 and a half months. I had found out when it started and he told me she "would always have a place in his heart" and that he might still love her "but not in that way". WTF!!!

For this to happen I believe it never ended in either of their minds if it was so easy to resume as an EA and disrespect, betray and hurt me so easily. I was not important and neither was our entire life together.

Fracturefool: I really feel for you in your unenviable situation which in many ways parallels my own marathon of misery. It turns out that my long held suspicions that my wife was engaged in some kind of infidelity over the course of our marriage were well founded when she came partially clean in 2022 and after a long thread of trickled truth, revealed so much more in early 2024 Her first foray into infidelity occurred when she attended a 1971 Christmas Eve staff only party of ER personnel dressed more provocatively than was her usual manner, 26 years old and with her hair in ribbons in a style adopted by 16 year olds...and of course she was noticed by one of the thirty something doctors who paid her a lot of attention which became flirting unabashedly until the affair became physical in April 1972. My WW admits she held on to the illusion that the affair partner still cared for her as much as she secretly loved him until his death in 2007 although the on and off and on again physical part lasted a good nine years until 1979. So the way I look at it she was betraying me consistently in one form or another over a fifty plus year period.
A life wasted in deceit and mine crippled by her deception and lying..The secrecy kills marriages and I count an affair as beginning the moment you hide secrets and sexual energy from your partner until the moment you come clean, revealing everything, disown it and get the longing out of your head. I realize I was an utter fool to have,stayed and not walked when I could, before children were born.I am eighty years old and struggle to reconcile every day, but I w can not forgive nor can I ever forget.

Vocalion- exactly that, "a life wasted in deceit and mine crippled by deception and lying". I feel everything we had, and it was a pretty good life, was all a sham at my expense. He did not confess, I had to dig to find out and he shows no remorse for all the gut wrenching pain he is inflicting on me. Pretty sure he is still carrying the torch for this illusion in his head. You and I do not deserve this when we should be enjoying our retirements.