The posts are getting more intense because this wayward refuses to see that her feelings are not the ones she should be considering.

Her posts are full of whaaaaaambulance moments.

Sorry, L2L, my comment was not meant for you, but for LoveCommittment, who is not serious about recovering her marriage. She is wasting our time. Yes, it was intended to be a disrespectful judgment of her dishonesty with other posters and her wasting their time.

You see I am just learning. What is a WAAAAAMbulance moment?

Do I have those too?

A whaaaaambulance is the wayward crying about THEIR hurt feelings and pain.

Like a rapist complaining about the scratches his victim put on his face.

I don't have those... but I think I might be in trouble. I am going to post a new thread and hope some of you can help.

L2L

LC, a shade over a year ago a now good friend of mine - looking4, came onto MB in a similar state of mind as you. it took a while for us to convince her that she had to tell her BH. She did and he was devastated. He did not leave. Their one year antiversary of d-day is today (I think) and he is still somewhat on the fence about their M BUT he hasn�t left, nor has L4.

You have no idea what your H might do.

Many of the BS's on MB at one time or another have told their spouses "if you ever have an A..,." I did. Guess what, after finding out I fought for my M, as did other wonderful BS's I have come to know.

L2L with all due respect, you are new here, you do not have anything like the experience of the posters you are accusing of all sorts of things. This is a marriage building site, run on the principles of Dr Willard Harley. We all like them, have used them, have improved marriages because of them.

ETA, silly me just realised that you may have been here for longer than the 7 posts I can see because of the crash. Still, I standby the rest

Hello Lc,

Welcome to Marriage Builders. You may consider yourself lucky you landed here. In time, and with lots of reading of Dr. Harley's articles, you'll see how much sense all his advice makes. I was never one for "self help" type stuff, but Harley's advice is just plain ole common sense stuff that no one ever seems to realize, until they read it here. I would give just about anything to have had all this knowledge much, much sooner. I could have saved myself a TON of heartache.

I know you've read alot of stuff here, from posters, that has you feeling uncomfortable. And that's ok. Trust me when I say you will be very grateful for all of these poster's advice one day, I hope. I have faith in you because you haven't run away after the first couple of posts. You are actually taking the info given in. Even if you haven't acted on it yet, I see it as a good sign.

There are a couple of things you've said that I'd like to address........

You are concerned with how people will judge you and treat you. Please listen to me with an open mind......

In reality and truth, it's a little late to be saying that. You have already commited the act of adultery and you cannot take it back. That is something that you must own, now and forever. You cannot pretend it never happened, no matter how much you may want to one day. That's like a bank robber saying that he doesn't want to be "judged" and being sent to jail for his crime. No matter how regretful or remorseful he is, he will have to pay for that crime.

HOWEVER, you CAN redeem yourself of that, and the amount of "judging" that will fall upon you.

I would be harsher on someone who commits an act like this, and doesn't do everything in their power to make it right. If you do the right things (honesty, protecting your marriage, other things you'll learn on this site) you will regain HONOR. And people will forgive you much, much quicker if you try to right your wrongs. If you cower out and take the easy way out, you will be viewed as less than an honorable person. We have GREAT ADMIRATION for former waywards around here who step up to the plate and put their heart and soul into making amends to their betrayed spouse.

In order to redeem yourself, you are going to have to start by coming clean to your husband, AND doing whatever it takes to make amends to him. The amends can start with the "Four Rules of Protection" which you can read on this site.

You have said that you husband has mentioned to you that it is "selfish to come clean about adultery". I found that especially interesting. Why? Because my husband use to say that. Turns out, he always had that stance because he was cheating on me behind my back since we started dating. I seriously doubt this is true for your husband because of the relationship you said you have, but I still found that interesting. And I agree with Mel that your husband says conflicting things about "not telling" and "divorcing if you do cheat".

It's also true that most BSs do not leave after hearing about an affair, UNLESS, the wayward spouse doesn't make the necessary amends, which you can learn about here. Most of us hear have said that we'd leave our spouses if they ever cheated on us. But that's not the case. In truth, you don't really know what you'll do until you are in that situation.

Your husband needs to know that there is hope for your marriage, once he finds out. You can give him that hope by learning all the "basic concepts" on this website. Your marriage can be better than it EVER was, in spite of the affair. The big thing is, you'll both have to work at it, but then again, all marriages have to have spouses working at it, or just fades and dies, like alot do. This site will show you how to bring it to life again.

Another thing that I wanted to point out, that has already been mentioned but I want to reiterate, is that you CANNOT have TRUE intimacy in a marriage with secrets like you have. The secrets of your affair will destroy any chance of intimacy, and intimacy is the lifeblood of a loving, joyful marriage. And TRUST is the cornerstone of that intimacy.

One last thing, for now :), the longer you wait until you tell him, or he finds out, the worse you are going to make it for him when he does find out. And he WILL find out, eventually. Each and every day you keep this from him, is another day that he will be living a LIE with you. And he will suffer more and more for everyday that he goes without knowing the truth. Please just take my word on this. What you think you are accomplishing in your relationship now is going to be seen as nothing but lies and manipulation of him. His anger will increase for everyday you keep it from him.

He will be angry, rightfully so, when you LOVINGLY tell him the worst possible news he could here. We can give you advice on the best ways to tell him, but it still won't be easy for you or him.

I really do hope you stick around and learn from all of us who have gone before you. After you tell your husband, he can come here if he wants to so we can help him get through this.

Try to find some threads on "how to tell". I would concentrate your time right now on how to tell, and after you tell, how to give your husband hope from what you'll learn here on how to have a fantastic marriage and AFFAIR proofing your marriage.

{{{{{Lc}}}}}}} (That was a hug)

This does not have one negative thing about you. It places all the positive on you and all the negative on your husband. You may have been the stellar wife at one point and I seriously doubt that you are so squeaky clean as your husband complained about household chores and sexual desire. But his side of the story is not here only yours.

Reconciliation takes honesty and self evaluation and self improvement

The parts I highlighted are you demonizing your husband and probably doing a little marital re-writing. Are you quite sure you did no wrong at all? Your husband trulymay need to work on some areas, but none of the things highlighted above warranted you having an affair. As I said before, you did not outright say your husband was to blame, but you gave some pretty good examples of how you wound up where you did. and you definitely didn't say it was your fault.

For what it is worth, both my XWs serially cheated with several guys going at one time. And, I know of two other women that were doing multiple affair partners simultaneously. So, it is not just the guys.

I think ML meant it in a broad sense, in general. Most, not all men/women in the respect of what she said.

It was a generalization, Zelmo. I have no doubt there are exceptions both ways.

LC, please hear me on this:

Right now, you & your husband need to peel down to the core & honestly assess where your marriage stands, how it got there, whether you both want to save it, and (if so) and what each of you can do to make it better than it was before (which needs to be your goal).

But the longer you hold off on the full truth, then the more "coverup" you're going to have to explain, and the harder it'll be to get down to assessing & relearning & meeting each others' needs. Time is not on your side. (I'm not sure what you were getting at by your comment to me re: your stubbornness, but stubborness on behalf of a course of action is only a good thing if it's the right course.)

The act of trust you will commit, by submitting yourself & your fears to him -- by being honest with him, by placing your heart in his hands, for him to to reject or (perhaps right away, or perhaps with time) accept -- may be the best card you're holding in the lousy hand that you've dealt yourself. Withhold that card at peril of losing the whole ball of wax.

Trust me on this. I've cheated on my spouse like you, AND at the same time, I was also the "other man" for the woman with whom I cheated. She thought I was the greatest thing since sliced bread, when in reality -- as I now see clearly in hindsight -- I was supremely selfish, anything but a gentleman. (She used to rationalize things by saying that people like her & me had "big hearts" that allowed us to love more than one person. What a crock that was! If she'd had a big heart, there'd have been room enough in it for her husband's & my wife's need for respect & honesty; and if I'd had a big heart, there'd have been room in it for my wife's & her husband's need for honesty & respect.) Trust me, your OM ain't such a gem, LC. I was he. I was a nice, dark-haired, handsome, witty, urbane, athletic, talented, professionally-accomplished, sensitive, sensuous, gentlemanly pack of lies.

Now, I've been clawing my way back the best way I can for 10 months, and if I'd settled for half-measures and continued obfuscation, I'd have trashed my own chances of ever gaining my wife's forgiveness and regaining her acceptance & trust & restoring the passion that's been restored in our marriage.

I'm gonna challenge you on this point: I don't think you've got enough humility to beg him to keep you, nor enough patience (call it "stubbornness" if you will) to go through the months of sticking by his side through the roller-coaster of emotions that'll follow for months & months while you work to earn a measure of his forgiveness. By holding out on the whole truth, you've placed your fears (of him leaving, or his being angry)above his need for sincerity & honesty from his life-mate.

It's time for you to get selfless. Do you have what it takes in that regards? Or is LC actually a quitter when it comes down to it?

It doesn't sound to me like you've got what it takes to make this work, because you're still more worried about you than about your husband. Prove me wrong.

Yeah, I figured, Mel. It's just I have been doing so much reading on this issue and it has led me to a number of sites, including a couple written by women, that dispel many of the notions we have about gender differences in the pursuit of sexual gratification.
My own personal expierience, too, has led me to believe that women are every bit as aggressive and predatory sexually as men and this whole line of thinking that affairs for women atr more emotionally based etc. is just not true.
I think women have a far greater interest in sex than we are led to believe. Thye are the number one consumers for vibrators, after all.

Well given the alternative, I sure hope so.

ROFL!! Zelmo, who else is going to buy vibrators???

I have to admit, I stole the vibrator consumption idea from a guy named Marc Rudov. He is pretty smart and makes a lot of sense.
Think about it, from an adaptation standpoint. Which gender is multi-orgasmic? Which gender does not need recovery time between sessions?

Been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately, have you?

Wonder why...

Huh? What's to adapt? I don't know any straight men who are buying vibrators for personal use...and if they are I don't want to know. Even lesbians buy them. Women of all demographics buy them. What is a man going to do with it otherwise?

So...you think a better solution would be to keep your H thinking the world of you and you would reward him for this by sparing him pain, right?

You never answered the person who asked how you'd feel if your HUSBAND were the person hiding the secret.

So...assume you take the 'noble' road and spare your H the hurt of the knowledge, what's going to happen the NEXT time a new guy catches your eye, flirts, makes you feel good like your H never did?

PLEASE DON'T ASK!!