My wife's affair started as an EA in mid-2011 and developed into a PA in late-2011. She kept that relationship going until March 2022. The relationship developed into one that was toxic. According to her he manipulated her, blackmailed her, threatening to tell her co-workers, me, her family, her step-children, etc. It appears that the relationship was something she willingly participated in until sometime between 2014 and 2016. In 2016 she had a one-time sexual affair with a second AP because she was paranoid that the first AP was tracking her and she could not get him to let her go, so she tried using the 2nd AP to get rid of the first. That backfired (of course) and the first AP used that to continue to extort sex and money from her. He even extorted the 2nd AP for money. Eventually it was the first AP that told me of the second affair (not the first, of course). She told me about the first affair when I questioned her. Since D-Day the information I got was tainted because she was not feeling safe and we didn't know about safety. I was angry, of course. She left out information and flat lied about other information. It was not until after doing Bootcamp in July that she started opening up about more things that happened.

There is so many years of her being in affair it is very difficult for me to believe anything she is telling me. I love her and I believe that God has been preparing me for this moment, but I am devastated and am having great difficulty in getting past what all she has done. She is remorseful and is doing all the work in the EMSO. She is taking the work very seriously. She has had to "take care" of me since I have been a wreck for over 6 months. Everything from my relationships with my children to my work performance and my desire for hobbies has been affected. It was 4 months before I could even bring myself to take care of things around the house. To make recovery even more difficult, her first AP was contacting her at work, making many attempts to contact her (even after we changed her cell phone number) and started driving by the house. I had to e-mail the AP and threaten him many times to get him to stop. I'm not completely sure he will ever completely stop being obsessed with her.

In my opinion you are dead on. It will be a very long time, if ever, before I trust her completely again. 11 years of anniversaries, birthdays, vacations, family gatherings, are all tainted now. I have a timeline that I have created but her memory of the details is very spotty. I do not have the number of times at each location, or many of the true feelings that occurred during the early phase of the affair (before he became manipulative).