Folks in the MB 101 suggested I move this thread to Surviving an Affair and I hope that Someone can give me some advice on how to proceed. I apologize in advance for the very long post.

I am 41 and my WAH is 48. This is his second marriage and my first. We have been together for 11 years and married for almost 6 years (anniversary is July 17th). My H walked out on me on Christmas Eve. He packed up after I left for work that morning and has not returned. He says he has been unhappy for some time and that when he thinks about us, he continues to come to the same conclusion - he feels he wants a divorce and that's how he feels. He loves me and cares about me, but does not �feel� he wants to be with me.

Well let me give you a bit more of our story. Early last year, I began to notice unusual changes in my WAH behavior/actions. While he was undressing for bed one night, I notice that all of his chest hair was gone - I mean completely gone. I inquired about what happened he said that he got Alase surgery earlier that day and I asked why, he said because he wanted to. I asked why he didn't discuss it with me, he said, "I didn't want you to talk me out of it". He began shopping at I would call "teen" retail stores. Now granted, he lost weight earlier in the year, but when he has lost weight before, he never did any of this. In addition, he began "hanging out" at Happy Hour more than usual. I couldn't even get him on his cell to find out when he would be home for dinner.

Well, our anniversary rolls around and I wanted to plan a big night for us, but he kept avoiding my questions about dinner. I spent my anniversary alone at home crying the entire night. He arrived home around 9 with no explanation. A big argument ensues and he just shouts down, as usual.

One week after our anniversary I traveled out of town for my sister�s college graduation. I had some suspicions when I couldn�t reach my husband to say good night (the night before the graduation ceremony). I decided to fly home right after the ceremony (one day earlier than planned) and discovered my WAH car in garage, but no husband upon my arrival at 12 midnight. I waited, slept, waited, slept and finally got up around 8 am. Within the hour, my husband was dropped off by OW in grey Mercedes. I was so incredibly angry. I walked out of my house, confronted him (he was COMPLETELY shocked to find me home) and slapped him. I would have never done that but I was so hurt and knew that he was planning on lying to me about his whereabouts if I had returned on the day I had planned. He immediately began telling me that nothing happened between and that they spent the entire evening outside a local bar front and just talked. I told him to leave and that if that was the kind of woman he wanted, he could just leave.

He then told me he would not leave me for her. He was so concerned that I was going to tell his family, friends and work (because I discovered the woman worked under his leadership � and he places such high regards for ethics � HUH!!!). He was nice for a while. He is a reservist, so soon after he had to travel overseas for his annual tour. When he returned, things appeared great. We were intimate, spent evenings preparing great meals and had movie nights. I then asked him to g to MC. Boy, I should have checked references on that therapist. Initially, he did not want to go and indicated to me that I would be disappointed, because the MC therapist would only point out my flaws and problems. Well, we stopped seeing the MC therapist after 5 visits.

Well, that is how he manipulated the conversation. See, my WAH doesn�t believe he has flaws or faults. Can you believe it? I have never thought or acted on breaking my vows to my husband because I believe that marriage is a covenant and before we got married, we had conversations about this and thought that we understood one another and were both committed to the marriage.

He was such an understanding husband before summer of last year � or at least I thought. I really believe my husband is experiencing a crisis in his life because at least during one of our MC sessions, he indicated that he �gave up on his life� and that there were things he wanted to do. He would not comment on why he believed he gave up nor did he give any insight into what he wanted to do with his life. With the Alase surgery, teen clothing and what he calls his �emotional affair� with the OW, I know he is seeking to find what he wants and believes I am hindering his happiness.

I think my husband is really hurting, but he does not want help from anyone who truly loves him. He even said that he did not �give a damn (excuse language) about his family or his best friend thoughts or their input�. He was told last year that he was the �bottom of the barrel� by his boss in terms of his performance which was huge blow to him. He has completely shut everyone out who cares. He doesn�t answer his phone; he prefers to text � limited words however. I know where he is staying, but it hurts that he has shut me out and refuses to listen or even hear what I have to say. He just says divorce. On top of it all, he was deployed to Afghanistan at the end of April 2010 and I still cry from time to time. I worry about is safety.

I cry from time to time because I love my husband deeplyand I am so hurt that he does not even want to talk about options. He only sees the world from his eyes and can never be wrong about any decision because (in his mind) to be wrong is to fail. I am not sure how I help or get him to see other perspectives and that life is not so black and white. You don�t give up your wife and life without a real attempt. I love him very much. He says he does feel happy when he is with me. But he cannot tell me why.

Please I need your help to put my current situation into perspective. Thank you all in advance.

Follow-up to today's original posting:

My H just called from Afghanistan. We were courteous with one another. He asked how my IC visits were going and I let him know that they were going good and that I am learning more and more about me each day. He then asked me if I was going to tell him what that was (what I learned)....so I did. He then said that he was glad to see that "I figured it out.."

I asked him about us... He said he is not sure if he can be happy with me, but that he is not going anywhere and the we will continue to talk about us.

I am so very sad that he just won't immediately say, hun, let's work on this. And he no longer uses terms of endearment when he refers to me. It was always,: honey, sweetie, babe.. Now he calls me by my first name. It is annoying and appears to be an indication that he is moving forward with the Divorce as he wants. So very sad.....

Hi DestinyUnknown, welcome to MB. I am also new to this site & have gotten a ton of great advice from people here!!!

My best advice is to get the book by Dr. Harley Surviving an Affair, if you don't already have it. It's wonderful! I am in Plan A with my WH right now & am seeing improvements each day...then a step back another day...then more improvements. I still need a lot of advice as well!

I'm so sorry you are here! Each story breaks my heart. Yet at the same time I read so many success stories that they bring me great hope for the future. Good luck to you! I know you will get a ton of support & great advice here!

Thank you for the welcome. I am really spiraling.

Hi Destiny, Welcome to MB. I'm sorry that you find yourself here, but you have come to the most wonderful place that will really help you learn about things, put them in perspective and help you formulate a strategy to recover your M. You thread name, Should I Hold out Hope? I believe so. I believe there is always hope.

However you have a lot of learning to do. Have you read the thread by Scotland for newbies. I was skimming over it this morning and there is just some amazing stuff in there.

In addition, please stop listening to your WH. He isn't your H, the one you know, but an alien who is a monster, out to hurt people because he knows that he is doing wrong and wants to deflect where the blame lies, solely on him for his actions.

Learn how to speak reverse babble and you will arm yourself better to carry on conversations that will help your M, not buy into his bulls$hit.

How are you doing today?

Hi Destiny, welcome to MB, sorry you have to be here.

I think you might find the military marriages forum helpful as well. For some reason infidelity and the military seem to be close companions.

I think your H is in an affair and if he truly did just meet that woman that night and all they did was talk, I'll eat my hat.

Thank you Both. How do I apply the MB principles when my H is gone and over 4000K miles away?

DU,


He is likely still in contact with the OW, and likely never stopped talking and having an affair with her.


You need to find out everything you can about her. If you can figure out if they are still in contact, do that too.

I'm not much help on how to do that, except that maybe using Facebook or MySpace and looking through their friends you can figure it out.

But they still talk, or he has another OW, and that's the issue.


You might just ask him. He might confess.


SB

I am spiraling. I am so hopeless and want to just Di$. He recently created a FB page and the OW is a friend of his. He called this morning and I asked him to be honest with me and if he was seeing her or if he was interested in her.

He told me that he is not interested in her nor seeing her. Not sure because I can tell that when he is on Skype (and not speaking to me) he must be speaking with someone else over Skype.

He then tells me is still thinking about divorce and that he will never look at me the same again.

What do I do or say? Anything? I am so hurt and I can't think about anything else.

What have you been doing for your plan A?

Are you even in plan A?

How long have you decided to stay in plan A?

I really am sorry, he is def lying to you, he is still in contact with the OW.

You knew that would happen in plan A. Have you exposed this affair? If not that is where I would start. Telling EVERYONE

Right now just focus on being the best wife there is, dressing nice, cooking, cleaning, giving him compliments, admiration..what ever his top 5 EN's are focus on that, even though it HURTS to do them.

Fake it till you make it is what I always say

Keep snooping, and gathering all the evidence.

GOOD luck!

Destiny,

Is the OW also military? Same unit? I am guessing you are thinking she is not deployed since you believe H has been on skype with her. Is she married? Have you exposed your H's affair to anyone? Is your H planning on coming home for R&R? Sorry, I misread this the first time, thinking he deployed in Dec 09 rather than Apr 10.


I think it is very difficult to deal with an A during a deployment. My H's A was with a subordinate while he was deployed. I busted the A from phone records. H self-reported his misconduct, took his punishment, curtailed the deployment and submitted an early retirement. Even then, it took many months before we started to recover our M.

If I tell everyone, he will most suredly be angry! and probably never speak to me again. He will tell that that he belived our marriage was over a long time ago and that I just refused to accept it. He said is no longer attracted to me. This man I love and have taken care of!!!!!!! I want to scream. And to top it of, our anniversary is tomorrow - July 17th..

The other woman is not in the military and she is not deployed. Before my H deployed, she worked for him. SHe is also not married, but has a teenage son. Suposedly, when I first found out and confronted my H, he said that she had a boyfriend who was also in the military. She gave him some sad story about her son being in a juvenile dention facility and that in order for him to come home, she had to find a permanent home for the her and her son. My H feed to me some BS that he was only helping her find a place to live. But the credit card bill showed otherwise.

He will be angry if I bust the affair and also relieved that he can now flaunt his OW. What do I do? I am so confused. With him being gone, he doesn't want to try to work on anything.....And my faith and hope is waivering.

I have been at this now for 6 months and apparently making several mistakes. I need help!!!!

Affairs thrive on secrecy, and exposure can kill the affair. However, if he flaunts his affair after exposure, and stops talking to you, I would still say that exposure was worth it. Why on earth would you want to talk or be with a person who flaunts his affair. Either way you win, and are not in the current situation that exists now.

In other words: if you lend a person $20 and you never see them again, was it worth it?

My situation is not that much different than anyone else here on the boards, but the advice seems to be let him go, don't waste your time... I am confused because I thought the purpose was to try to help the marriage?

I've seen many WSs flaunt their affairs. In fact, my FWH was one of those, after the cat was out of the bag, he had no problem telling me all about it or bringing her around his friends. We are recovered.

OP - the reason people may be telling you to let go is because you don't have any children. If you want to try and save your marriage, we will certainly help you, although the odds may be against you.

However, you most certainly need to expose this affair or you DO STAND NO CHANCE. MB is the greatest chance for saving your marriage, but you can't pick and choose which parts to use. Dr. Harley has very specific plans to follow for a reason.

Most people only condone leaving when the WH is Abusive, a serial cheater, cheating within the first few years of marriage, and there are no kids. I don't see you fitting any of those reasons. You do not have kids, but you have been married for 12 years?

I think you should try to repair your marriage, but you can't reconcile anything while he is in an active affair.

Same here. Before exposure to everyone, my FWW flaunted the affair in front of me, her mom, and one sister. SoL WW makes me ill how she flaunts her affair. Doesn't mean that you have to quit trying, but I don't think it is something that should be tolerated or lived with.

Did she stop flaunting the affair after it was exposed? My H is very private and very protective of his image. I know he also watched internet porn of which I confronted him with as well, but he denied it and we were the only 2 people living in the house.

So, if I were to expose the affair, he was make people think that I was being irrational and that it was not true. He is pretty convincing. This is one of the reasons, I am not sure if he will ever come around or to his senses. He says he is unhappy and wants to be happy. He feels like he stayed around because for so long because he did not want to hurt me and that if took courage for him to leave. Oh, what do I do....

If you want to keep your marriage, expose the affair. You seem unwilling to do this. Sorry, I can't help here.

Good luck to you.

AM