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We're working on repair and things are getting better (finally, after 10 months) but there are things that popup and just threaten to ruin everything.

In this specific case, it's music.

I discovered my UW had a shared collaboration playlist on a streaming platform.
It hadn't been recently listened to but there were plenty of 'newer' songs added. I didn't get too angry about the playlist because she immediately blocked him on the app and deleted the playlist, saying she hadn't listened to it in a long time. Maybe, maybe not, but not worth freaking out about since I didn't really know.

The point here is that like a psycho I screenshotted all the songs on the playlist, fed them into chat and got all the lyrics. 90% of the songs were about a lost love, desiring for someone else, leaving your current person for another, with a few innocuous songs sprinkled in.

I brought up to her a few days later that I was feeling a bit off about the songs that she had in the playlist. Before i could even explain WHY I was off on them, she said 'I don't listen to song lyrics like that. A song is just a song to me, I like the music and the melody but the words are just words.'

The problem here is that I know that's not true. Multiple times over the past year she has gotten upset because a song will be on the radio and I didn't pay attention to it and then she says something like 'we just don't connect on things', because I didn't listen to the lyrics or the song.

I know this isn't a MAJOR sticking point, but it's just one of those areas where I don't feel like she's being truthful because she's afraid I would freak out.

The thing is is that I might be a bit upset about it but it's something worth us talking about. Maybe there is something she is still longing for that we could work on together, or maybe she's still struggling with her feelings. Whatever it is, I wish that she would just finally be f***ing honest.

Or, maybe I'm just being hypervigilant and looking for stuff where it isn't. If that's the case, please let me know.

thanks!

The problem here is that I know that's not true. Multiple times over the past year she has gotten upset because a song will be on the radio and I didn't pay attention to it and then she says something like 'we just don't connect on things', because I didn't listen to the lyrics or the song.

And what was her response when you pointed out this clear inconsistency?

I think it's an issue although she may just not want to hurt your feelings more. People who do focus on lyrics often have significant emotions tied to certain songs. And she, apparently, is lying about it to you based upon how you are remembering past events when listening with her. Gaslighting you will not help R, even if she hasn't listened to that playlist for a year.

I also wonder if the event you remember with the song on the radio was during her affair? Could it be she usually does just go for the melody but her AP got her to listen lyrically to the songs on the playlist? That sounds like something she wouldn't want to admit.

Or maybe she should apologize to you and validate your feelings.

Because you know her explanation is not valid b/c of the playlist you found and her connection to it.

I hope it gets better but I really take issue with cheaters who just blow things off when the betrayed tries to have a conversation about issues or triggers etc.

Or maybe she should apologize to you and validate your feelings.

Because you know her explanation is not valid b/c of the playlist you found and her connection to it.

I hope it gets better but I really take issue with cheaters who just blow things off when the betrayed tries to have a conversation about issues or triggers etc.

This.

Or, maybe I'm just being hypervigilant and looking for stuff where it isn't. If that's the case, please let me know.

Maybe there's an element of this also, but your wife's affair is a big deal. If she's working on fixing things and being honest and transparent, then bullshitting you, even in service of protecting your feelings, isn't being honest or transparent. I would probably press the issue with my wife about this and stress the aforementioned honesty and transparency piece. Tell her you're not stupid and you pretty much already know, but you want to hear it from her. Let her know a little bit of honesty now, even if it stings, can go a long way toward earning some trust back.

I've had a couple of conversations where I was pretty sure I was getting versions of the truth with the sharp edges sanded off and offered amnesty for the unedited version. I shouldn't have had to do that, but when I demonstrated that the unadulterated truth wasn't the disaster she thought it'd be it made it easier for her to be candid about other things later as they came up.

[This message edited by Pogre at 11:42 PM, Tuesday, September 22nd]

Lyrics and the music go together like peanut butter and jelly, ham and burger. I find it hard to believe a carefully selected play list wasn't carefully selected.

The play list may not be terribly important in and of itself. People often associate songs with events and emotions, people and places, stories and interests. There's certainly meaning of some sort attached to those songs.

What's important, I think, is having the courage to be honest with you. Her dismissive attitude would certainly bother me, too. It's a very legitimate concern.

Hyper vigilance doesn’t mean you are crazy, it means you are attuned to spot threats because you have been hit hard by a horrible threat.

And while you might sometimes get alarmed for something that isn’t a big deal, most of times you are detecting patterns that you already registered belonging to that threat.

The threat being your woman and her sexual and emotional abuse of you.

So surely you detect the signs and get on high alert. Your nervous system wasn’t functioning like this before. You weren’t this way.

She made you this way.

And your guts is simply telling you that you know you are unfortunately, fucking right.

I think you’d have something to talk about if 50% of the lyrics were about lost love, desiring someone else, leaving for another.

90%? Not a math major, but that’s, like, all of them. Close enough. She just likes the melodies, GTFOH, if that were the case the song-meanings would be random.

You’re right: it’s something worth talking about.

because she immediately blocked him on the app and deleted the playlist, saying she hadn't listened to it in a long time.

I mean the above is all valid, but as the quoted behavior wouldn’t be already enough telling of someone found out with both hands into the cookie jar.

She blocked Him

She deleted all evidence

Really something without meaning right?

I know the no bs approach feel blunt, but brother….

She is not innocent or truthful here.

She is managing you.

You just found out again.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 1:30 PM, Wednesday, September 23rd]

Music was a big thing in my affair. There are now songs that I used to love that are lost to me forever. The reason for me is that it reminds me of one of the worst periods of my life.

The lyrics you found were details of the affair, just like texts, or anything else.

I don’t know your wife and can’t speak for her, but for me when those sorts of things were reviewed I knew they were sick, and the further away from the affair I was the more I realized they weren’t even true. So having them studied very much by my husband I always had the feeling, please don’t latch on to that.

But of course as the bs, you need to know your reality. These are things she was listening to and felt at the time. Women frequently get very emotionally involved in affairs because that’s what they are cheating for—to feel those things. And so I don’t think you are overthinking-your feelings are valid.

The pain is in the details and needs to be processed so you can heal, regardless of your marital outcome. And she needs to be brave enough to be honest with you about what it was and what it means to her now. It concerns me she added more songs recently—do you mean she kept building this list until you found it? And at what point had she blocked him? Because that’s breaking NC.

It takes some time as the ws before you realize you may have put lipstick on a pig to fuel your own escapism. I am in the camp affairs aren’t love. I mean, sure it can happen. But generally I think a relationship built in secrecy and the pain of other people, and lies you tell yourself and everyone around you including the AP. That can’t result in love.

However, those same conditions of an affair create predictable psychological responses that makes the attachment feel like it’s on steroids. The adrenaline of doing something you shouldn’t, combined with the instability (push pull dynamic) creates a chemical cocktail that makes the whole thing seem powerful. Yet, there is this whole other side of you that whispers its bullshit because it doesn’t feel authentic, because it’s not.

Regardless of all of that, what is real is the betrayal. And facing the fact you created this damage for something so artificial takes time for someone to see.

You deserve the truth about every single thing she is asking or hoping you will forgive. And regardless of what her experience was, all aspects of that experience should be disclosed.

I don’t feel you are overthinking, my commentary about what it was like to me was just to provide some insights that may help understand some of her answers. But I think you should go back to her and tell her what she is saying doesn’t make sense. That you feel if she truly wants to move forward you have to understand the truth in order to understand what you are forgiving/accepting.

You know the truth, these are songs she listened to and felt as she was grieving what she likely thought was him, but likelier the feelings an affair produces. It would be good to see if she sees it differently in hindsight than she did at the time, which is why I described my experience. I don’t think all we go through the same things but most of the recovered ones that I am aware of had to dispel the myths of the affair. The discussion should give you some insights of where she is in that process.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:24 PM, Wednesday, September 23rd]

Do you think it's not a major sticking point? I wouldn't marry someone that fantasizes about being with another guy, if that is what it was. And if the playlist was maintained with the fantasy that AP is seeing it, then it was romancing through a playlist. How long ago where the new songs added?

[This message edited by Itiswhatitis000 at 6:08 PM, Wednesday, September 23rd]

You know, a big problem I see with BS’s is they tend to tip toe around things like this. I’m sure a lot of it is fear about driving their WS away, yet after DD, could things really get any worse?

I’d probably just call her out on her bullshit. I’d say, " nah, 90% of those songs analyzed show all these things in common. Why are you lying to me."

You aren’t being hypervigilant or crazy here—your pattern recognition is doing exactly what it was trained to do. You caught her in a blatant, reflexive contradiction because her default response to potential conflict is still self-preservation over transparency.

If you look at the trajectory of your entire recovery process, she has always been a serial trickle-truther. She has never voluntarily offered up uncomfortable facts out of a genuine desire for radical honesty; she only admits to what you whack her over the head with using undeniable evidence. Unless I've missed something in your posts.

She's demonstrating who she is here. The moment the evidence is circumstantial or open to interpretation, her immediate instinct is to rewrite reality—claiming "words are just words"—to insulate herself from your anger and avoid accountability.

That brings you to a hard reality you need to face if you are choosing to reconcile: proactive, unvarnished honesty may simply be something she is not capable of giving you.

When someone’s core defense mechanism is to minimize and deflect the second they feel cornered, that behavior doesn't magically vanish just because ten months have passed. She is still prioritizing her immediate comfort over your need for trust. If you stay on this path of reconciliation, you have to decide if you are willing to compromise on basic truth, because right now, you are only ever going to get as much honesty as your evidence can physically force out of her.

Now you know why jazz music is banned in my house. I mean it is not played and not allowed to be played (unless some random person inadvertently plays it).

It was one of the major things my H snd the OW bonded over.

If you look at the trajectory of your entire recovery process, she has always been a serial trickle-truther. She has never voluntarily offered up uncomfortable facts out of a genuine desire for radical honesty; she only admits to what you whack her over the head with using undeniable evidence. Unless I've missed something in your posts.

Yeah, you're not wrong.

Thanks everyone for your feedback. It's good to know that I'm not going crazy I guess.
I will bring this up to her and remind her that what I need from her is that radical honesty, even if it's uncomfortable for her.

If I'm being honest, I'm a bit terrified to find out what she might say, but burying my head in the sand is not something I'm comfortable doing any longer.

Keep us in your prayers please :)

Of course Jeremy.

Cause you want her to embrace her good sides and become honest healed and self loving.

But you know those dark things are still kept secret to manage you rather than facing the demons she had face on.

Is understandable she is scared because she never learned to truly look in the mirror and she know what she did was awful. And that the emotions she felt still lingers or echo makes her feel even more awaful.

Understandable.

However she must learn honesty, otherwise you are both wasting your time.

And you need her honesty out, not to be dishonest with yourself and embracing the lies and trickle truth to blind yourself and your intuition.

You have been already there, it is devastating and more so, it doesn’t work.
Deep down you know and that’s a voice not even the loudest lies can quiet now.

Why are you terrified?

I would rather know the truth than live a life filled with lies.

I'm so sorry you experienced this. To me it is not overthinking, but maybe rather not radically accepting that she was in a relationship. I sometimes get caught up in the narrative that my FWH was blinded by the excitement of the A, it was a stupid mistake, etc. .......but he was also in the affair because he wanted to be with OW. 10 months out, I certainly wasn't ready for that. I'm getting there now....7 years out. I'm a slow learner.

Of course the songs were about lost love....they were in an affair. There is a reason why there are so many songs written about this. Gosh, I used to LOVE running to Mr. Brightside. I had never really listened to the lyrics. Hate it now.

Maybe she didn't listen to the lyrics, maybe she did. What is she doing now? And, you get to be hypervigilant for as as long as you need to be. There was also a time when, for me, it was more of a hurt than a help.

Hang in there.