SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thanks for writing back Broken. I understand what you are saying. When you say you know she be coming home to you....that is a pretty low bar. Set it higher.

Don't share her. Consider yourself worth her loyalty. Boundaries are so very important.

I really am concerned for you in that you fear confronting her when she is doing wrong to you. That is very, very unhealthy. And it really does her no favor either. She needs to develop as a person. She needs to be led into virtue....not being a lier and deceiver. Not being a cheater. You not confronting her is enabling her to continue those behaviors.

You might want to look up codependence. I understand, we all need connection. That is built into us. But we really are designed for secure and loyal intimate connections. Not ones where you never know of your love is out loving another.

Again, please hold yourself in higher regard. Trust me, you DO NOT NEED HER, as much as you think you do. If you got healthy, and set your foundation on something more reliable, namely God first, then your inherent value a human based on your relationship to God....then you could start allowing yourself to chose and build a secure, exclusive, intimate relationship.

The more and longer you let her abuse you, the worse you will feel about yourself, and the smaller you will be in her estimation....even if she does not speak that. If you start holding yourself in higher value, worthy of respect and loyalty....then she must start seeing you that way....or she will have to move on to someone else she can control and abuse.

Do you really want to be with someone who will not show you respect and loyalty?

Please don't take this as offered with ill will. I care for you. I don't want to see you end up as some safety net and wipping boy for a women who really only cares for her own ego and validation.

Ok so MAJOR update...

So one of her red lines has always been that she doesn't want me to read her journals. Even with this going on I respected that until this morning. I just couldn't help myself so I had a look, and BOY what I found...

First, there was nothing about an actual PA, BUT she basically wrote that she was in love with him and couldn't get him out of her mind. Just a few excerpts...

"I was asleep now I'm awake. OM just brings something out of me that is insanely magnetic"

"I love the way he looks at me like I belong to him. When we talk it's like the whole world disappears"

"I loved the way he confessed his feelings to me... He's the first guy to tell me that I'm the only one and that there's nobody else" - *OM has a GF btw

"He doesn't know how bad I want to be with him"

"I want us to celebrate every birthday and valentines day together. I want to vacation and go to my favorite places with him. I want to be the best version of myself again so that we can be together"

"He ignited a fire inside me so bad I feel crazy"

"I will be brave enough to work towards a futute [with OM] that will be amazing"

"I can't wait to eat food that he makes for us. I want to decorte our place together"

"I can't wait for us to have our first official date"

"He already likes me the way that I am but I want to be the absolute best for him"

"I want to go out on so many dates with him"

"I see so many possibilities for us. Him kissing me while we chill out on a random Saturday just crashing up.... Randomly sneaking up behind me just to hug and kiss me"

"I'm excited to see where life takes us"

"He's so attractive, I want to be with him on NYE, his birthday and Vday"

"I want to be with him all the time and it's driving me crazy"

"I wanted to be with him this NYE so bad. It felt like something was missing. All I could think about at midnight was him" *she was with me at midnight on NYE

"I'm so nervous, it's like I'm being consumed with thoughts of him, driven crazy with desire for all of his attention"

"I can't wait to see him again"

That's the last line. I had a confrontation with her when she woke up. I'll write about that in a minute, but this post wouild be too long and writing all that just made me sick to my stomach anyway.

The one silver lining is that I still don't think there was an actual PA, because if there was one, why would she write about all this other shit and not that? Not much of a silver lining, but it is what it is.

[This message edited by Brokenthoughts at 11:28 PM, Saturday, January 10th]

BT,

Read "Women’s Infidelity: Living In Limbo" by Michele Langley. She has a website you can download from. Two volumes; quick read.

I think you’ll find your gf in there.

Summary: When women leave the relationship, they seldom come back. Oh, she may continue to live with you, for kids, finances, security, reputation, etc., but not because she really wants to.

Maybe she’ll ultimately decide you’re the best she can do. Is that enough for you?

Best wishes.

Friend, there is no silver lining with this, please. This is so deep and pervasive of a betrayal.

Please detach your heart now....and permanently.

Sorry she has crossed so many lines. I’d ask her why all of her crap is still at your place when her dreams are across town. I’d also give OM’s girlfriend a heads up.

I had no plan after that. I was just sitting and stewing, with all kinds of thoughts racing through my head.

So she wakes up from sleeping on the couch to see me sitting on the stairs thinking. She asks me what's wrong and, at first I don't want to say anything, but she insists. So I ask if there's anything she wants to tell me. She says no and looks confused. I say "anything about a certain individual you that you may have had a lot more contact with than you previously let on? ... Like a lot more?". She says no and asks what I'm talking about. I tell her that I saw a text in her phone from one of her friends so I wanted to see what she wanted. I then scrolled up the convo and saw the two of them talking about another guy. She immediately cuts me off and says "so you went through my phone?". I just say yea. She says "so?" in an indifferent tone. I tell her that I read the thread with her and OM. Then I go over all the crazy texts and just keep saying "WHAT THE FUCK?!?". I didn't tell her about the journal yet because I want to see how forthcoming she is with me.

First she assures me that they're just friends. She says she didn't want to tell me any of the details about him the last time we spoke because she was "so taken aback" by the question in the first place that she panicked and didn't tell me because she "didn't want me to think anything". Then she starts saying that she started talking to him and confiding in him a lot more because I was "unavailable" and he was there to listen. I might be a lot of things in this relationship, but one thing I'm definitely not is "unavailable" in any way, especially if she has anything important to talk about. If anything I feel like I've been the one trying to get HER to talk more recently.

She then repeatedly reassures me that "nothing happened" between them. I eventually tell her that I believe her, which I actually do (physically at least) for reasons I've stated in my last few posts. But I still tell her that, in all the 17 years we've been together, I've never had this kind of a weird feeling about her and one of her male friends, of which she's had many. But I insisted that something felt "different" about this.

She says that she kind of knows what I mean. I then ask her what she would think if she found a text convo in my phone between me and another girl like that. She says "yea... I would spazz" (of which I have no doubt). She then admits to me that OM confessed that he had feelings for her, but that she "shut it down". I ask why she kept talking to him after she "shut it down" and she said that it was no big deal because "it's not the first time one of her guy friends has told her that he likes her" I told her that was true, but that this was the first time she didn't tell me about it after, and that she really didn't seem to be shutting anything down in this case.

She started reassuring me that nothing happened again, and that she only loves me and I'm the only one for her. It makes me want to puke because I know she's lying through her teeth at me. She tries to come over and comfort me, and my body almost leaned into it out of habit, but I didn't.

Then she starts yelling at me for going through her phone while I was asleep. She says "I offered to go through it with you right in front of me the last time we talked about this". She did say that, but it was obviously something she didn't really mean or want me to do. So I say "you said you had nothing to hide and I could look" She says "yea but you didn't trust me, so you looked at it while I was asleep" as if that makes a difference. Then she says that we could have gone through it together and she could have given me context (which I'm sure just means she could have made up a bullshit excuse for everything). So I say "it's right here, lets do it right now". Then she snatches the phone and says "no, permission revoked".

The conversation then goes around in circles for a little while until she says that she has to go to the office, but first she's gonna stop by the bar to get "fucked up", clearly implying that it was my fault she was doing so, adding "you've got me so fucked up right now".

She texts me a bunch of time from the bar, with a mixture of I'm sorries and "I can't believe you don't trust me" and "how do you think I can do something like that" type statements. The texts get more belligerent as she gets drunker and she starts reminding me of every shortcoming I have in the relationship. She also keeps pressing me on what prompted me to look in her phone, saying that she talked to her other friend who said she didn't say anything that would prompt me to look in the phone. She accuses me of lying (me? are you fucking serious right now?). I don't tell her anything.

She calls me from the office later, telling me that she's mad that I made her have to get drunk and look like a wreck in front of a client (pretty sure that was her choice). She then presses me again about what made me look in her phone because she says she knows I'm lying (which I am, but it's obv meant to uncover her lies). Then she asks me what else I've been snooping in since I felt like playing "Scooby Doo Detective". Then she asks "did you go through my journals?", then pauses and says "because all you'll find in there are things about how excited I am to grow and get into our next phase" It was all I could do to stop myself from rolling on the floor laughing at this point. We end the conversation there and promise to revisit it later.

That brings us up to date folks, and in case you ever wondered what gaslighting from a WS who is ALSO an alcoholic looks like, well, there you have it . And yes, I am definitely comfortable using the WS term now, even though I might not have been before. Not exactly sure where I go from here, I'm thinking of giving her one last chance to confess fully before I spring the journal on her. I'm still processing wtf just happened so I really have no idea what to do after any of that. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

One last chance for someone who is crazy about the other man and can't wait to xyz abc..with him???

Can I ask if you are addicted to drama? And I mean that seriously?

You will not have peace with this girl. You are her safety net. If you are OK with those dynamics, then to each his own.

But I think you are worth someone's exclusive attention and loyalty.

And honestly....if this guy is the only one she could truly be loyal to ...do you really want to get in the way?

You are hurting yourself by playing this game with her.

BTW, what job does she have that she can go to drunk and still perform? Just curious

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 2:13 AM, Sunday, January 11th]

Lawyer, LMAO

And I get what you're saying but I'm just in a really hurt place with my head spinning. I'm just trying to do the best I can right now.

Oh my...she is a lawyer...yikes.

I know you are hurt...dude this is life changing. My concern is that you learn that you can grow as a person and actually like a peaceful and secure relationship.

You have all the confession you need in her journal. Those thoughts were genuine and freely given (to herself).

BELIEVE HER!!!!

I know it is hard, you are attached and you want to do all you can to pressure her, guilt her, and plead with her to declare the reality that you are her real love. And you know what, under your pressure she will say that. She already has said that.

I am not against telling her you saw her journal. But I suggest only bringing that up once you are finally convinced to leave, just to let her know you know the truth. But you know what, maybe I am wrong. Maybe just leave. Hopefully othere will give you specific advice on that.

But I do know, you need to protect your heart...she is NOT safe for you.

[This message edited by WoodThrush2 at 2:25 AM, Sunday, January 11th]

After reading what you found in her journal I believe it's time to end the relationship. Ask yourself, will you ever feel secure? Will you ever think she is choosing you as number 1? Do you think you will ever believe she can be honest with you about anything?

I would bite the bullet and tell her you read her journal, you now understand that she wants him, and you are ending the relationship so she can be with him.

You deserve someone who wants YOU. Someone who will respect YOU and the RELATIONSHIP.

Grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.

I guess you recognize the above prayer. If non-religeous you also know that it can be read and applied in a non-religeous way. The "higher power" AA talks about can be totally different between people, and does not have to be a god or deity.

Right now – you can’t change her. If she wants to remain intoxicated, that’s where she will stay. If she wants to explore her emotions with OM, that’s where she will go exploring. Can’t change either.

What you can change is that you can decide to prioritize YOUR sobriety. Think her drinking is helping in doing that? Think her having romantic emotions and expectations with some other man is helping in that?

You can’t give her any ultimatum that will work. What you can do is simply tell her that for YOUR sobriety and mental health you need out of a relationship where she is feeding her alcoholism. THAT is the issue – 100%.

Look – Imagine this scenario. Imagine OM has a cardiac arrest and drops down dead. Would your life with GF be any better? Think she wouldn’t stop by at the bar, stay out nights and all that?

IF you were to follow my advice and end this relationship on the basis that YOUR sobriety requires that you are not in a relationship with an active addict... Either she remains an active alcoholic or she starts her own path to sobriety. If she were willing to do that then quite soon (like 30 days into sobriety) she will either have ended any relationship with her old drinking buddies (OM included) and then possibly be a candidate for an ongoing relationship with you. But that is NOT within your power.

Then she asks "did you go through my journals?", then pauses and says "because all you'll find in there are things about how excited I am to grow and get into our next phase"

That was a golden opportunity to say something like "Oh yeah? Well why don't I go grab it and we'll read it right now, together, with you on the phone?"

I always think of stuff like that after the fact... That said, you could bring it up later and tell her you'd like to see those passages. She sorta opened the door for you to ask. Not that you really need to. You know now what you're up against and you don't really need more at this point. Her drinking is a huge issue. I couldn't believe she said:

She calls me from the office later, telling me that she's mad that I made her have to get drunk and look like a wreck in front of a client

That puts me in mind of an abuser saying "Why do you make me hit you like that?" She's in no shape to take ownership of her alcoholism or her actions. I'm sorry bro, but the outlook is pretty grim. It's time for you to start detaching and follow Bigger's advice. Until she stops drinking I don't think you have anything to work with, and even then I think you're still going to have an uphill battle.

From my very first post on your thread:

Finally – Over the years on this site I think I have seen a pattern with many dealing with addicts. That’s where the addict/alcoholic will maintain a semi-affair in order to divert the marital issues from the addiction to the infidelity.

I cant add any advice you haven’t already been given. I will say that you are being absolutely too nice about this. I would take the opportunity to have her go get her journal and read to you all the stuff she says she wrote about you. In your shoes I’d love to see just how far she’ll go to lie. It would help solidify my desire to get her out of my life.

[This message edited by OhItsYou at 11:38 PM, Sunday, January 11th]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Bigger: Thanks again for the thoughtful comment. I absolutely agree with you that there's no hope at all as long as she's drinking, Even then I don't know if I'd be open to it at this point, but there's definitely 0% chance with her drinking. And I know I can't control it - all I can do is tell her that it's me or the alcohol, just like I did last May. Luckily she made the right choice last time, and it resulted in a few of the best months of our relationship in years. It was so good that I wasn't even that mad when she relapsed. Like I said I know it doesn't take for most people on the first try, and I was giving her some space until after the holidays, which were very stressful for us this year, to get back on track. Of course I thought it was JUST a relapse. How wrong I was.

And I very much remember you saying that in your first post. I was curious if you could elaborate. From what I read her fantasy with OM seems like a fantasy of returning to a (heavily romanticized) version of her previous boozy lifestyle. Do you see elements of this playing out here? If so, what are the implication?

Its also worth noting that I haven't let any of this affect my sobriety. 6 days and counting.

Pogre: Yea that would have been good. Unfortunately she had it with her in her bag at the time, so it wouldn't have worked anyway. I took screenshots of all the passages in case she tried to trash it, which I figured she would. But I checked last night and it's still there, just sitting in her bag. She's a very smart person, but can definitely be a little naive at times.

And yea that's classic alcoholic gaslighting there. As I'm sure Bigger can attest to, every alcoholic/ addict does some version of this while in active addiction - it's how they stay in denial. This was a particularly egregious example from her, I'm sure brought on by the stress of me just confronting her. Even she is usually nowhere near that bad with it, and when she has in the past she has usually admitted to being wrong later. When she was sober earlier last year basically all of that behavior disappeared for a time.

And yea, like I told Bigger, I definitely agree with your prognosis of the relationship at this point: 0 chance if she doesn't stop drinking, and slim even if she does. It just sucks so bad because I knew the person she used to be before this happened, and I saw that person come back for a while when she got sober. It's SO hard watching someone you love get swallowed up by that disease - that's probably why there's a whole huge international support group for friends and family members of alcoholics called Al Anon, which I have recently started attending.

OhIt'sYou: Probably, but what can I say. This whole thing has been like a boulder coming through and knocking down my whole world. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it to be honest.

Ok update time.

One little bit of context I left out of my last update: when I told her I believed her that she hadn't been physical with OM, I said "but it sort of feels like an emotional affair".

So she came home super late and pretty drunk. She sits down and the first thing she says is "I think you're right, it was an emotional affair". She then goes into how she felt all alone while she was relapsing and that it felt good to be with someone who listened and understood. But then she insists it was "never like that" and that I'm the only one she really loves and wants to be with. She looks at me with puppy dog eyes like she wants me to comfort her, but I don't.

She says that she really wants to get past this. I tell her that, if there's any chance of that, she has one chance to be completely honest with me about everything. I ask how they met and she says at a bar around where we live. This guy's roommate is apparently one of the female bartenders there and and the 3 of them and some other people first started hanging out as a crew. That's how she first wound up going to their apartment. I ask how many times she's been there. She thinks a little and says five, then forcibly reiterates several times that she promises nothing happened. I ask how many time they hung out at the bar and she says "over 20", but always with a large group of people. Hearing this makes me want to puke again. She tries to comfort me again, and I turn away again.

She then goes into how "abandoned" she felt by me. She says she feels like I want her to be "perfect" and change everything about herself. She says it felt good to be with someone who just accepted her. Then she gets mad and says "none of this would have happened if you had just come out with me like I wanted you to" and storms into the other room. Then she comes back 2 seconds later saying "I'm sorry I shouldn't have said that. I just feel so bad right now it has me acting defensive".

We go around in circles for a little bit over that point until I tell her that I never expected to be perfect and I told her that, as long as I saw her putting in the effort, I would be there with her through any bumps in the road. I reminded her how good those months were when she got sober, to which she enthusiastically agreed. Then she say "but you abandoned me after that". I told her that what I was actually doing was honoring what I had said - giving her some space to work through the relapse, and that I always knew she would be able to get back on the right track again.

She starts crying when I say this, saying how stupid she's been and begging me to forgive her, saying she'll do anything to show me that she only loves me and I'm the only one she wants to be with. She tries to hug me a bunch of times and I keep pushing her away until I sort of give in just to get her to stop. She then falls asleep on my lap almost instantly. I was really thinking about whipping out the journal here, but I didn't want to while she was so drunk.

Fast forward to the next day and I go to an MA meeting in the morning. She's awake when I get back and she immediately starts telling me how sorry she is for everything and love bombing me. She says again that she realizes she was being overly defensive last night and that that was wrong in light of how much she had hurt me. She keeps saying that it wasn't like that with him and I'm the only one she truly wants to be with and that she wants to be with me forever and she'll do whatever it takes. She says she knows she has to get sober and that she's always known and was just putting it off. But she says she'll do anything - make any change I want or go to any program I want her to. She says our bond is the most special thing in the world and she's so sorry for how much she's hurting me. She keeps trying to hug me and I keep pushing her away until, like last time, I half heartedly accept just to get her to stop.

She says she wants to have another conversation about her and OM to clear everything out - including going everything in the text message thread one by one. But she says she wants to be sober first. First she says "give me a couple of days to get sober again" but then she talks about doing it later tonight. I tell her I'm down for whatever. There's part of me that wants to wait and see if she'll actually get sober in the next few days like she says, but who knows.

I still haven't brought out the journal. I'm thinking of seeing what she has to say about the situation sober and then doing something like what Pogre and other people here suggest - saying "let me see all those wonderful journal entries you were talking about and then making her read those in front of me. I'm not sure yet, but that really seems like a good idea.

Other than that I'm still processing. I totally get all the people saying I should just leave. I'm sorry, up to a few days ago I thought this girl was the love of my life who I was going to build my life with. I very well may end up where you suggest, but it's just hard for me to really let go that fast. Part of me still feels like this whole thing is a bad dream I'm waiting to wake up from. Obviously I know it's not, but I just can't help feeling this way. For right now, I just want to make sure I stay on track with the things I need to do in the midst of this storm, which includes my sobriety. I'm on my way to another meeting right now.

Thanks so much to everyone for listening to me in this time of crisis. This message board has truly been a life raft that has helped keep me from drowning in this. I look forward to anything else anyone might add.

I'm thinking of giving her one last chance to confess fully before I spring the journal on her.

Why bother?

You have enough information to make the decision you need to make. You know what is in the journal, so you know what is in her heart. If you confront her with it that will just give her an opportunity to try to manipulate a story.

Skip the games. She is better at them than you are.

I was an alcoholic for most of my life. From my early teen years all the way into my mid 40s. For over half of my marriage. I know I'm going to get the side-eye from Bigger for saying this, but I was a very functional alcoholic. It was very difficult for those around me to tell when I'd been drinking because I didn't drastically change when I was drunk, appeared sober, and held it together very well. I rarely got sloppy, and never got mean or anything. I was drinking a lot. Almost daily. Used to be a lot of beer, but toward the end I was downing a whole bottle of vodka mixed with almost a whole bottle of kahlua almost daily. I'd take 1 or 2 days a week off to recover, but I was never truly sober for a long, long, long time.

I didn't hide it because I didn't see it as a problem because I never got "out of control." Well, as far as I thought I didn't. Plus, of course, all of my buddies drank a lot, too. I did hold a good job in a high pressure management position and kept up with my responsibilities. I was never mean or abusive. My wife's main problem with it was always the next day when I'd be too hungover to do anything with her, or anyone else. Looking back, in reality, I wasn't "in control" at all. The alcohol was, tho I never did cheat on my wife, damnit. I planned everything around making sure I had access to alcohol all day long (outside of work). I skipped many social events with my wife because there wouldn't be any booze there to feed my addiction. At one point I couldn't picture life without alcohol. It was my social lubricant. I'm an introvert, but when I drink I become more extroverted and have an easier time socializing and talking to people.

Eventually the hangovers started to become too much. I tapered down from almost daily drinking to 2 or 3 days a week. After a while of doing that I woke up with a wicked hangover one day and asked myself "What are you doing? You're so sick this morning and probably have alcohol poisoning right now..." I just made up my mind then and there to quit. So I did. That was well over ten years ago, and aside from 3 or 4 times when I had a few social beers with friends, I haven't been drunk for more than a decade. I never went to AA or any type of program for it. I just up and quit and never looked back. Today I feel great and have no desire to drink whatsoever. No cravings. Nothing.

I do think now that maybe a program would have helped me tho. When I stopped drinking, I kind of lost my mind. I got depressed and lost 30 lbs. That's when I started taking sertraline, which led to other serious issues in my marriage, but that's a whole other story... Losing 30 lbs doesn't sound like much, but I'm 6' tall and weighed 160 lbs, so I was already thin. I dropped down to 128 lbs, which did not look good on me at all. I think what happened was I wasn't eating enough, but was getting most of my calories from alcohol. When I stopped drinking I didn't didnt change my eating habits. I dropped 30 lbs and didn't even realize it until I saw myself in a picture with my wife and son. I looked like a cancer patient. Perhaps a structured program would have helped me with adjusting to sobriety better, and people could have encouraged me to eat more. I never had a relapse or cravings tho. Cutting it out of my life was really pretty easy for me as far as that goes.

I'm not sure why I typed all of that up, and sorry for the thread jack, but your story and your GF made me really think about it. I can relate to where your GF is. If she's going to stop drinking, she's going to really have to want to stop. I managed to do it, but it was because I really wanted to. She's going to have to really want to, and if she does it just for you or the relationship I don't think it's going to stick. I'm afraid her white-knuckling her way to sobriety won't be lasting. She'll almost certainly relapse like she already did once. So you have to make sure she's doing it for the right reasons. Because she wants to for herself. Fixing the relationship (if possible) is just a welcome side effect.

Bigger said something recently that really hit home with me. A "functional alcoholic" is just a ticking time bomb, and it will eventually explode, whether it's death by liver cirrhosis or eventually wrapping yourself around a telephone pole. I used to think I was different and that I could handle it, but I know now that I was so wrong. I'm SO GLAD I stopped drinking. I don't miss it at all.

However this turns out I hope your GF gets herself straightened out. It's possible. She can do it if she wants to, but it has to come from within and not just external pressure. Maybe she'll realize she needs to do it if she wants to stay with you, and does it for herself and her own happiness. Not *just* for you.

Again, sorry for the thread jack and side tangent, but like I said, I can really relate to her drinking being a huge problem. Plus I just had the urge to purge a little, I guess. My wife and I had problems that I was blind to when I was drinking. It bothered her more than she let on, tho mostly because I just wasn't very available when hungover, and I was hungover a lot. Then we had different issues later in our marriage after I got "sober" but was emotionally flattened by SSRIs. We're currently working through our issues. I think mostly successfully, too, but I don't think we would have, or currently would be making it at all if I hadn't stopped drinking.

[This message edited by Pogre at 3:49 PM, Monday, January 12th]

I think you almost have enough information at this point. The one thing you need is how does she explain the journal entries versus what she is telling you now? Does she journal about him when sober or when drunk?

She is wrapped up in a dopamine fueled fantasy about this guy where, on top of that, all her interactions with him are when she is drinking heavily. That is not the real world, it it not a mature love. I think that context is important to use for interpreting the journal. It is a double drug induced fantasy .... dopamine and alcohol. Now that does not excuse it nor make it easy to read. Your heart must have broken reading those comments. Still, people in A do generate extreme fantasies and what they write often reflects the crazy nature of their thinking. It is possible for someone to recover from that, to see their failure and how crazy they got. That does not mean you have to give her another chance but it is possible she could turn this around if you decide to try. At least her last conversations have been encouraging that maybe she is seeing how she got caught up in the fantasy and it isn't what she really wants.

It is also quite the thing that she apparently has not slept with him yet. It really does seem like journal entries would have reflected that given everything else she wrote. It leaves me shaking my head at how she could have been at his place so many times, drunk and feeling the dopamine, and not slept with him. How did she manage that? Well, there are different interpretations I guess. Maybe she really can manage that boundary, even when drunk. Maybe he is actually the one managing it, not wanting to take advantage of her in this scenario. Maybe both those things are happening. Or could it be that she wouldn't write anything about sex in her journal? Only emotional things? Seems unlikely with the way she referenced him potentially kissing her etc.

I think you need her to be fully honest and I actually think she is moving in that direction. Perhaps you need to tell her you looked at recent journal entries. She will be pissed, so if you go that route, find a way to tell her that and have the conversation after she calms down. Fight/flight will ruin the conversation otherwise. You could tell her you have a confession of your own and she's not going to like it but if the relationship is going to survive, both need to be honest. You will tell her your truth if she promises not to start drinking and when she is ready, you will talk. Sometimes writing things out helps turn the heat down. You might write her a note about your concern, how the relationship is teetering on the edge of failure and it drove you to read a bit of her journal. It was driven by her actions, you avoided it for a long time and didn't relish doing it but felt you had to. Something like that. It may be risky to reveal that but it would be demonstrating the openness you want from her. SI often says don't reveal sources so that's the counterpoint. Tough call.

Thanks all for the replies

Pogre - Yea addiction is a hell of a disease. I'm definitely glad you found a way out. My GF is still struggling majorly as you can tell from my posts. It's so hard because I feel like the person she used to be is still in there somewhere, and I feel like I saw her come back in those months of sobriety. Of course, that was before I found out that her most recent relapse also came with an EA on the side, so now I don't know what to think.

Trdd - I feel like I see some moves towards honesty too, and I do definitely see a lot of guilt and possibly remorse in her words and actions over the last few days. As for how she could have possibly managed to not sleep or get physical with him, even while drunk, it's actually not the craziest thing in the world if you knew her.
-First, as I'll detail in my update, she was basically going over there to do shots and watch tv, after which she would pass out on the couch. That's very reminiscent to how we used to hang out before I stopped drinking and she would often pass out somewhat early into the night.
-Second, She's not a "flirty" drunk at all. She's actually famous for the funny, over the top ways she gets rid of guys that make advances on her when she's drunk. She's more the type trying to wrangle her other female friends and protect them from other "creeps".
-Third, she's always been someone slow to physical intimacy. Even when we got together, it was a long time before she was willing to go "all the way", even though it was pretty obvious she wanted to from the first time we hooked up. And I know this has always been the norm for her - we were both part of greek life in college, where everyone knew everyone's business, so I would have known if it had been different before me.
-Fourth, as I've mentioned before, she comes from a family that was absolutely destroyed by her father's cheating, and she has always abhorred the thought of cheating, to the point where she even gets physically mad when she sees fictional characters cheating on TV. Now I'm certainly not saying that she would never cheat, especially since she was at least close to doing something like that in this case, but I can definitely see it being something she would have to kind of work herself up to in her mind.

Update

I meet her at work the next day and we sit down to talk. She reiterates how sorry she is and that she's willing to answer any questions I have. I ask her when OM first confessed he had feelings for her. She says she's fuzzy on the timeline because of how much she's been drinking, but she thinks it was in early December. I ask if OM ever tried to do anything physical with her. She thinks and then says "once". I ask what happened and she says that OM tried to lean in and kiss her but she pushed him back. I remind her how important honesty is and tell her that I can even get past knowing that she kissed him back, but only if she's honest (I figured if I told her it was over no matter what she would have no incentive to be honest. So I ask again if she kissed him back. She freezes up for a few seconds, then sheepishly nods yes. Then she says "I was drunk and he caught me off guard, but I only kissed him back for a second before I pushed him away". I asked when this was, and she said it was about the same time he confessed his feelings.

I asked why she continued to hang out with him after this. She said it's not the first time one of her male friends has told her that he has feelings for her, which is certainly true. She said she has never had a problem remaining friends with any of them after that as long as they respect the boundary, which I also know to be true. I say "so the entire time you guys are drinking at his place, sitting next to each other, he never tries anything again?". She says no, and that he never tried to cross the boundary again after that. She even says that, shortly before New Years, he even apologized for trying and said that the relationship between me and her was "special". This is actually sort of corroborated by a passage in her journal where she says "he wanted me to have a good time, even if it wasn't with him" (although she also goes on to say that saying that only made her like him more in the same passage, so...).

She says that it was just nice to have someone to hang out at the bar with and drink without making her feel bad about it. She said she was avoiding me because she was embarrassed of the drinking and she hung out at the bar a lot because of the stress of her work and the tense family situation we had at home during the holidays. She says that they just liked to joke around and make fun of people, and hanging around him made her feel "safe" from some of the more chaotic elements; "kind of like you used to make me feel when we used to go out together".

She says that she cares about him deeply, just like she cares about all of her friends (which is true, one of the things I like about her) but that it was never "like that" with him. Obviously I know this to be a bold faced lie because of the journal, but I don't say anything because I just want to see how much she'll share freely for now. And I guess I can see where it would be pretty difficult for her to just say "yea I fell madly head over heels in love with him".

I tell her that I don't want her to have contact with him anymore, to which she agrees without hesitation. I float the idea of crafting him a "goodbye" text together, which makes her feel a bit weird, but then she says she'd be open to it. I also tell her that I don't want her going to the bar they hang out at alone anymore unless I come with her. She jokes that it'll suck to lose out on all the discounts she gets from the bartenders she knows there, but she agrees and says she'll go somewhere else if she wants to drink.

Later on we get home. I tell her I don't mind if she has a few drinks. I actually have a few with her - it's the first time I've drank with her in years. We loosen up and things feel like old times for a little while. We have a good time sharing some laughs and watching some funny stuff. She says that she's beginning to remember things a bit better now that she's drinking, so she goes into more detail about him trying to kiss her. He says they were walking around a park by where he lives while it was snowing. She slipped and he caught her, and he went for the kiss. She says it was "barely a peck" before she stopped him. She said they had a conversation about it the next day, and that's when OM confessed his feelings. She said she was clear that she was with me and wasn't interested, and that he respected the boundary from that day forward, adding that he's actually a "decent, respectable person" and that me and him would probably get along and make good friends if we ever met and if it wasn't for this. Yea, no thanks...

Then we have some pretty intense sex before we fall asleep. She jumps my bones again in the morning, and starts talking about how in love with me she is. She says she's so sorry for making me feel this way and that she'll never do anything to ever make me feel this way again. She just keeps repeating how sorry she is, that I'm the only one, and she'll do anything to earn my trust back. However, I did notice that she changed the password on her Iphone and disconnected her imessages from her other devices. So I'm locked out of that for now, but I'm sure I'll figure out a way to get access again.

That brings us current. Like I said, I see guilt, possibly remorse (not sure), but I still don't think I have full honesty. Most of the events she mentions actually track with what I read in the journal, but obviously the elephant in the room is that she insists she never felt "like that" with him, and I know for a fact that's not true. Also the fact that she now swears that she wants to spend the rest of her life with me, despite me reading all of her dreams of spending her life with OM in her own words. I also think their little make out session was probably more involved then she's leading on. Other than that, I think most of what she did tell me check out, although of course I can't know for sure.

So I guess that means it's time for something like the hard 180? I feel I've already been doing something like that with my sobriety which has definitely helped me be more present and productive at work and at home. These were all changes I was going to make anyway, even before I found out about any of this, so these will all be good things for me regardless. I guess we'll see how she responds.

I also think I have recovered a bit from my initial shock and I'm mentally detaching and preparing myself in case I need to exit this. I've been running through my mind what I would do and the prospect is not nearly as scary to me as it was just a few days ago.

I still haven't brought up the journal. If she starts being distant again or, especially, if I see any evidence of her breaking no contact I will almost definitely bring it up then. But even if she becomes a perfect angel from this point, I don't know if I'll ever be able to go forward with her without bringing it up at sometime.

Thanks again to everyone who took the time to read this and even more to those who take their time to reply. Your support really means the world to me in this dire hour.