How can someone lie so easily

[Onedayatatimexx]

I recently discovered that my wife has been having an affair for the past year. I’ve seen some explicit evidence—things I deeply wish I hadn’t come across—and I can’t stop replaying them in my mind. It’s been incredibly hard to process.

What’s making it even more painful is that she continues to deny everything, despite what I’ve seen. The denial hurts more than the affair itself. I feel stuck and unable to move forward mentally or emotionally. I haven’t told her the full extent of what I know, because despite everything, I still care for her. We also share a child, and I believe she’s struggling with her mental health. The last thing I want is to push her over the edge.

Right now, I feel like I don’t even know who she is anymore. What’s most troubling is how easily she can lie to my face, repeatedly. If she had just been honest, even brutally so, the future and the separation might have been easier to handle.

We’re now going through a divorce. I’m not struggling with the fact that we’re separating—it’s the lies, the betrayal, and the images I can’t unsee that are eating away at me.

any advise would be appreciated xx

No idea, but as you're now going through a divorce I'd put it behind you and move on

You haven't told her the full extent of what you know which means she thinks you don't have sufficient evidence to support your accusations and therefore it's easy for her to keep lying.

You are making a choice to protect her mental health at the expense of your own. You can make a different choice, you are not responsible for managing her mental health.

Or you can accept that you know what she did and any admission from her will not change the outcome. You think her honesty would help but it's too late for that; you have already been hurt by the infidelity and the lies she has told, that won't be erased just because she confesses.

Unfortunately IME time is the only thing that helps. At the moment you might not be able to imagine a time when this situation does not cause you pain but there will be a time when you realise you have moved on and it's not quite so raw.