Even if this is true, some other unfaithful LURKER might use the advice.
Someone who is not running away to get as far from honesty as possible.

Bye

RIZOS !!!!!


This was an EXCELLENT reply.
Well done you!

For right now.... Yup

*edit*

I am going to give this one more try operating under the assumption that with a couple of very obvious exceptions, people are here to help in good faith. I think my original post was both imprecise and incomplete.

� Violence: Yes, he was violent towards me one time when he found out the scope of my betrayal. I'm not really bothered much by that -- he was in a rage -- but I do have one concern. In the work I have done with abused women, I learned that a man who is violent once is far more likely to be violent again. Am I really worried about that? No, but I do need to keep it in mind. I am far more troubled by the fact that he hit my best friend that same night and doesn't think he did anything wrong. He's fortunate she didn't call the police. Having said that, he is a good man and I think in time he will recognize that hitting her was wrong. I believe his position that he was justified in hitting her is based on his shame about his loss of control.

� �Giving the gory details�. There are two schools of thought on whether this is a good idea or not. I�m not sure what I think, but to date he hasn�t asked. It may be incumbent on me to bring this up at some point in order to completely address the A rather than sweeping it under the rug. I also think that under the circumstances, those discussions should be with our counselor present.

� The �could you be more dramatic� comment. Yes, I sure could. I could actually kill myself. I was suicidal in 2007, and my initial posting turns on my concern about that. I plunged into a pit of self loathing because I made a bad decision that impacted my whole family, completely unrelated to my marriage. In retrospect, it is clear that others also made bad decisions that contributed to the catastrophe, but at the time I took on all the blame. I convinced myself that the best thing for my children would be if I was dead, and if you are a mother, that conviction makes the decision for you. I can�t speak for other suicidal people, but my decision to end my life was a crystalline moment, as inevitable as the sun rising. And you can spare me the �suicide is the ultimate selfish act� lectures because I get it, but in that moment it does not feel one bit selfish � it feels sacrificial and right. The execution of my plan was interrupted by my brother, but 5 minutes later and it would have been over. At the risk of provoking further outrage, I�m going to suggest that being truly suicidal is like being a BS � if you haven�t been there you cannot understand the unendurable pain. I�m not being dramatic. I�m being factual.
� Pointing out to me that I put myself in this position is simply not helpful. I get it.

� The �broken� comment. I�ve been broken. I�ve been shattered. I don�t see how going back there is going to help.

� The �stop blaming your husband and making excuses� comment. I�m not blaming him. I�m describing the context in which the A occurred. If I can�t talk about why it happened how in heaven�s name are we to address the issues? And one of the biggest issues is that I didn�t set any boundaries and lost myself. And maybe I am in a fog, but I don�t understand how saying I lost myself in the marriage can logically be construed as me making excuses and blaming my H. He didn't lose me. I lost me.

� When I spoke of trying to protect some sense of self from my H�s completely understandable rage, it wasn�t meant lightly like I want to skate by the consequences of my actions. It has been a long journey to recover from the depth of despair I was of �07, and my objective mind sees some warning signs that I am on a return trip. I am isolating myself � he doesn�t like my friends so in order to create an environment in which he feels safe, I have cut off contact. I am enduring the many manifestations of his rage without saying a word because he reacts � like many on this forum � to everything I say as some sort of justification or excuse, and then leverages that into further negative observations about my lack of character. So I am silent or simply agree. But if I don�t figure out a way to set some boundaries pretty soon, I am fearful that I will end up in that place again, and I can�t do that, not even for him. Anything short of that, yes. But I owe my children a functional, emotionally available mother. Watching me go down the tubes in 2007 had a profound impact on them � the safety of their world was shaken.

� My first priority is my children. My H comes second. He knows it because I have told him unequivocally. I have no doubt that many members of this forum will be outraged at that. It isn�t going to change. I betrayed my children as well, and I haven't the first idea how to deal with that.

� I was a good wife in that I tried to keep my H happy and meet his needs. He wrote in a document for our MC after he discovered the A that one of the things he most respects about me is that �she works harder than anyone I know to be a good wife and mother.�

� I was a bad wife in that I never found a way to effectively communicate my needs. The unspoken assumption on some replies is that I didn�t try. You just could not be more wrong. But I did fail, and, like the A, that failure is my responsibility.

� The business about the �Giver� and the �Taker� is dead on, and really gets back to my original point � if I have forfeited my right to set any boundaries which is what I am hearing, how can any sort of balance ever be restored?

� What I�ve done: I have opened up all email, text messages, etc. He finds me having friends threatening, so I don�t have any contact. I sit while he vents and I listen and say nothing or agree with him -- although I did insist he stop calling me the "c" word and he did for a while. At those moments when I feel the most remorse, I seek him out to say I�m sorry � I only do it then because I know he hears it as real rather than reflexive. I sit and cry with him. I try to stay physically close to him so he can check in and get comfort when he needs it � he works at home and I am a stay at home mom, so there is a lot of that. I never express any feelings of my own because he pulls them out and uses them later to wound me, a pattern that WAY predates the A by decades but now is clearly not the time to try and fix it. I don�t expect empathy or kindness because right now I deserve to feel this wretched. And anything I say about needs or feelings is taken as a defense or justification, although I sincerely don't intend it as such.

I can do this for a while, but it is not a sustainable model. History tells me that the quieter I get the more dangerous the situation is, and I am growing ever quieter.

The context does not matter. Your boundaries are not one of the biggest issues, they are the issues. This is where you are blaming your H. Your marriage was not perfect so you did what you did because of your lack of boundaries? You did what you did because you did not have the boundaries to not do it no matter what your marriage was like.

I am not prepared to answer the rest of this, others far more experienced will do it but I felt compelled to respond to that. I do hope you will stay. Absorb the bad with the good here because it is all meant to direct you in a way that we know works. There is a narrow path for you to take if you want to save this marriage. You can do this, look around at all the people who have.

Good for you!!!!.....

It is NOT going to be easy....
There is NO EASY road recovering from infidelity. NONE. Divorce is not easy, repairing the marriage is not easy....and honestly, sweeping it under the carpet and pretending it isn't there is NOT easy.


There are no exceptions to this. EVERYONE here, even the BS's would like to see every single person who steps onto these forums recover their marriages. It is the BEST solution. It matter not whether the newbie is the betrayed spouse or the wayward spouse. Are we harder on the WS than the BS? Only initially. The wayward is so wrapped up in their pain they tend not to see the destruction around them. I know you think you do, but you truly don't get "it", not yet. Stick around and you will.

As for the exceptions you stated, I bet you are referring to "Mr. Pity Party", am I right? I am assuming you mean Gack1. You said that he doesn't know you...but here's the kicker, you don't know him either. Did you know that he was the BS? Did you know his BW left him to go to the OM? Did you know that when she returned to marriage she came back pregnant? Did you know that he is currently recovering with his WW, and proceeding to raise the OM's child as his OWN?

You will find SW, that usually when someone posts to you and you get upset, it because it has hit a raw nerve. EXPLORE that nerve. Examine WHY it hurt. Because you will find usually it hurt because it is something you need to clean up in yourself.

I will tell you this. I am the BW. So no, I don't know what you are going through, but I have said on here many times that the pain the WS causes the BS is bad enough, but the pain they cause themselves is worse.

HOWEVER....

The biggest difference in those two pains is that the pain the BS is suffering is not one they asked for. The pain the WS suffers from is self-inflicted. YOU made that choice for the pain. Your H did not.

Stick around SW.....and you could end up with an even BETTER marriage than ever.....

but not without hard work, sweat and A LOT OF TEARS.....

Not2fun

There is so much truth to what Pep is saying to you here. So much.....Do you really want to return to your "old" ways? Do you really want to stay your current ways, which is an adulterous wife?

You can come out of this NEW......

As the BW, I NEVER wanted to return to my "old" ways either.....they were YUCK!!!

They made my marriage UNBEARABLE.....

I came here so broken, so bruised and injured.....but I knew that in my "healing" in never wanted to return to my former self...even IF my H did not end his affair.

Not2fun

I can tell you how.....first a history lesson....

When I was 12 yrs old my mom entered into an adulterous relationship. She took us around OM quite often for 2 yrs. One day, I had an orthodonist appointment. We went to Fuddruckers for lunch afterwards. After that I wanted to go to see the science fair displays which were being held at a nearby park so I could get some EC in my physical science class. We went and they told me go on ahead and they would catch up to me. I went to the building and that section was closed. I didn't know ahead of time the scheduling, so this wasn't what I expected. I went back to the car to tell them about the closing and I found them "making out". I ran away.....there is nothing like a child finding one of their parents in the arms and kissing someone other than the other parent. It was devasting and confusing to say the least.......

So I KNOW what your children are feeling like right now....

I also know what you mean by saying you put your children ahead of your H. My mom was the same way....

But that day, she sure as he77 wasn't putting me ahead of anything. Not ahead of OM, not ahead of herself.

When you entered into your affair, you were NOT putting your children first.

You want to know how to repair that???

Well, the first thing I can tell you, is DON'T do what my mom did. Don't LIE to them. BE honest. Come clean with your children and tell them what you have done. They will be angry....the will be sad....they will be disappointed....

But they will want YOU to rise above and work on YOU and your marriage, so that one day they can say,,,,"Yeah, my mom made an awful, horrendous mistake. But she changed all of that, healed us, our dad, and herself....and for that she is our hero....."

My mom never did this SW. Eventually, the truth about mom's affairs came out. She STILL didn't clean up the mess....

And when my H had his affair....she flat out told me "If the man loved his wife the way Christ loved the church, NO WOMAN would ever stray.....". She still believes my dad treatment of her CAUSED her affair. Of course, it wasn't that way in MY situation according to her, but the damage was done....

I am no longer in a relationship with my mom. I do not see her for holidays, birthdays, let alone the mother-daughter shopping, spa time, ect.

So, if you WANT to heal your children, first you need to heal yourself and your H.......the marriage.

For the first time, put your H ahead of your children.....because HONESTLY, you've been putting your children ahead of him for a long time, and that hasn't worked for you yet......

Not2fun

You must have boundaries.
A good mother models good healthy boundaries for her children.

Your H may be more receptive to the start of healthy boundary building if he also joins MB.
Why don't you tell him about this site, and ask him to post, to identify himself as your H.

If he starts to post, it is BEST if you stay OFF each other's threads.

The forum members will bust his chops for you, especially about things such as name calling. He can say you are an adulterous wife, but he cannot call a c***.
A word I personally abhor.

In the meanwhile, if he starts in on the name calling, ask him to write it down and you can read it later. If he does not stop, walk away.

Meanwhile, please take my advice to download the questionnaires I suggested.

It will help both of you begin a healthier dialogue.
It will help you define your boundaries.

About your friends. If they were on your side about your adultery, they have to go.
Toxic friends support unhealthy choices.
I created a boundary after my H's A about a certain friend who knew about the A, and told my H stories about how great his own extramarital A's made him feel.
In other words, he was a pig.


As a Mom, you know what I mean, right? If you see your child hanging out with the wrong sort of kids, you disallow that, as much as you can, right?

Step one:
Download the questionnaires.
Do EN first.
Share with your H.
He shares with you.

Then, a few days later, do the love buster questionnaires (gender specific).

These are FREE TOOLS.
Pick them up and USE them!

Ask your H to join the forum.

I don't agree with you that everyone here is operating in good faith -- see justlooking24's post:

"Google "The Other Woman" That's a site that will support and "lurve" you and help you justify your despicable actions.
Your husband deserves better."

That was clearly not meant to be helpful, and is in fact antagonistic. Whatever -- if it made him/her feel better, fine.

I was taken aback yesterday because I was surprised at the intensity of the reaction to my post but I don't really care what the people on this site think -- I was a trial lawyer for many years and have been vilified by professionals. This is amateur stuff. I do care deeply about trying to address the issues I have in the M with my H, but if you all are this reactive to any sort of explanation of those issues, I can only imagine how he is going to react.

I think maybe I don't want to hear what is really being said here which is that all pre-A issues are barred, like a statute of limitations, because there is no way to address them with without without being perceived as making excuses or justifying my decision. The consistent response from posters has been that what I perceive as a description of an issue is received as a justification. I refuse to try to excuse my behavior. I wanted to look into the why of things with him, but maybe that isn't possible. What I still don't understand though how you can fix what isn't addressed.

I've addressed the A on a very basic level with my two oldest children. I don't think it would be helpful to go into detail. My youngest refuses to talk about it until H and I are both there. I respect his boundary and am not going to force it, although I have said a little bit about where I am emotionally, and I did that because I have been a train wreck and in the absence of another explanation kids will blame themselves. I wanted to let him off the hook, and he perked up considerably after our conversation.

Have you spoken to your physician about your depression?
Do you need a medication adjustment?
Have you been diagnosed with any psychiatric illness?

Have you been tested for STDs?
I'd advise you to do this STD screening voluntarily, before your H asks you to do it.

Was OM married?

The person who suggested "the other woman site" is a noobie. That's what noobs do. They react.
Look at registration date and total number of posts ( 48 posts since 2008 ) if that helps you decide who might have more experience with MB concepts.

Gawd! You ARE a trial lawyer, aren't you

Pre-A issues are off the table AT THIS TIME.

It's like triage.
There is a man hemorrhaging.
Now is not the time to bring up his past crappy husband behavior.

Yes, he owns one half of the pre-A mess.
So do you.

But you are in the ER, trying to stop the bleeding.

Please, believe me, he is in no shape at this time to listen to what he did wrong in the past, he's had all the air sucked out of his lungs and he can't breathe without pain.

Give it a few months.
Can you wait that long?

The questionnaires will START the process.
But, you will need to repeat them in a few months, once your H can breathe without pain. His responses might be different. Yours too.

This is a marathon, not a sprint.
You cannot rush the process.
The time to address past crappy behaviors is not now.

Do you believe me?

What you need to do is work on today. Other than violence or his cheating or something of that nature, talking about the past right now only gets in the way and is easy to use as an excuse even though you say it is not, it certainly sounds like one. What you are trying to do here is heal a wound you made, create boundaries for yourself to stop any chance of it happening again, find out what will make your H feel loved and love in return and find that out about yourself. Once you do all that then you do not need what happened before. It was a bad marriage. Let it go and create a new, good marriage. As I said before, it does not matter what he did or what it was like there are better alternatives and less hurtful ones than having an A. You chose the A and that is all that matters at this point. You start here and move forward.

SW, no one here wants you to give and leave here. Please stay, I know that you have been getting 2x4'd a lot. No one here is mad at you they are just trying to help you. Stay and you will find in the months down the road when things start clearing from your mind that the things that you wrote now show how foggy you really are. If you don't want to take the advice of the BS thenlisten to the former waywards. They can show you what to do.

Buy and read Surviving an Affair and His Needs, Her Needs. Do what it says and get your H to read it too. Get him to come here too, sounds like he could use this site too.

No one here expects you to put up with abuse. But if the only thing he is doing now is ranting and raving and yelling, that is normal. My H returned home 5 months after he left me for the OW. Over the past 6 months I have gone off several times and it wasn't pretty. I yelled and said some pretty ugly words and he took every bit of it. I still go off when he does something stupid but I am a lot calmer about it now. He still doesn't understand even though he says he does because he is still foggy. I know that one day soon he will come out of it and you will too, but that will take a while.

Now is the time for you to not only work on your marriage but to work on you too. Your H should be number one in your life not your children. If you work on your M then your children will see this and this will help them too.

Good luck,SW. Stay on there and things will get better. It is a long hard road but worth it in the end.

There might be "two schools of thought" but there is only one RIGHT school of thought. And that is complete and total honesty. This is information about your husbands life to which he is entitled. HONESTY is the solution to adultery, not more deceit. So, if he needs to be in the presence of a 3rd party to hear the truth, then so be it. Honesty is an essential step for recovery and you won't recover your marriage as long as you and your adultery partner have secrets to which your H is not privy.


How about lets cut the drama queen act? This helps nothing. You are not a victim, Madam, you are the perp. If you feel suicidal then go to the hospital. But you won't get any sympathy here by playing the suicide card. Our sympathy is reserved for your victims.

You need to lose the pity party if this is going to work. Rest assured that stunt won't work here.



Guess who is the LEAST qualified person on this thread to say what is or isn't helpful? It is the lady in the mirror. You let US decide what is helpful. Your best thinking screwed up your marriage; we have saved ours. Let us be the judge of what is "helpful."

saddestwife, people here want to help you but you are going to have put aside the defensiveness and the self pity if you want help. We are always willing to help, but no one is going to help you remain foggy and self pitying so you need to knock that crap off right now. Like they told me when I arrived in AA, all foggy and hostile:

Take the cotton out of your ears and put it in your mouth....

I can't think of more appropriate advice for you.

Now welcome to Marriage Builders. Are you ready to listen?

Part of recovery is addressing the problems in the marriage that led to the affair, you are right about that. For example, your practice of giving [we call that sacrifice] is probably one of the most destructive practices in marriages. It leads to affairs, as you have discovered. The thinking goes something like this: "I have given and given and now it is my turn to get!!" All that noble "giving" leads to a taker monster with a hellacious entitlement mentality. That is exactly what happened to you.

So yes, that behavior will have to be addressed in addition to your poor boundaries that made the affair possible.

However, the bulk of recovery is focused on changing current behaviors in order to create a romantic relationship. The goal with our program is not just peaceful co-existance, but romantic love. Dr. Harley desribes it here:

here

Once you have taken ownership of your poor boundaries which led to the affair and have covered all the points listed in Lurioosi's first post to you. You will be able to work on creating a romantic relationship.

Me - FWW, my H currently taking a perpetrators of abuse course.

I'm pleased that you have stayed. There are lots of people here to help you. You know form your work with abused women that you do not have to tolerate the abuse from your H. Just has he has the right to show you his lack of tolerance for the A by moving on.

Wow, Melodylane, really? Being mindful of safeguarding my mental health in light of my history is a "pity party"? Articulating that concern and asking for help in how to set some boundaries so I don't actually end up in the hospital is a "stunt"? Your answer is -- well, now that I look back on your post, you suggest nothing.

I wasn't asking for nor do I want your pity or sympathy, nor do I pity myself. I put myself in this situation and I am prepared to take the consequences up to, but not including, returning to the suicidal level of 2007. I may be the "perp" but I'm still a human being. What do you want? A public flogging?

I can't stop you from posting here, but I am going to respectfully ask that you not. In fact, I don't think you should post anywhere -- anyone who is as flippant and dismissive of talk of suicide is flat dangerous. You won't send me over the edge -- but you might send someone else over.