51,

Sorry you are going through this. I was uncomfortable with some of the things my H was doing in his interactions with women (even though he would insist that he was practicing EPs). I wrote to Dr Harley about this on the private forum and this was his response:


Hope this helps.

Important caveat to this statement: Dr. Harley is usually quoted as saying that "if after two years your marriage isn't better than it was" or "better than it's ever been", it might be time to hang up the cleats.

"Recovered" is a nebulous word to many. The real benchmark you're shooting for is "is my marriage better today than it was before the affair?" If it is, great! Keep doing the right things and you can improve it even more. If it isn't, you want to evaluate if it can be made better.

If after two years of trying, your marriage isn't any better than it was before the affair, Dr. Harley's usual recommendation is separation. Not immediate divorce, but a separation in an attempt to "wake up" the reluctant spouse from their abuse or neglect. If this attempt is unsuccessful, then the next step is to file for divorce. That may also "wake up" the reluctant spouse... but if it doesn't, a divorce is the next step in the progression.

Even then, sometimes a divorce marks the beginning of a new life together for some couples.

I guess what I'm saying is that "recovery" isn't a destination. It's a journey. If your marriage is better than it ever was two years after the affair -- as mine is today -- many would say you're "recovered". I say that I'm enjoying having the time of my life with my wife.

Thank you all for your help with the EPs. My FWH has agreed that in the future, women will be addressed by:

1.) First name
2.) Miss or Mrs. Last Name
3.) Ma'am (that's what our dear chaplain calls all the women, and it works!)

Otherwise, the EPs are going well. Still working the Online Course, which has been very helpful, since it's so targeted to problem areas.

My H says he no longer wants to be the man he was for so many years. He humbly admits he was very self-centered and immature. Wow. (I wanted to emphatically agree, but I just held my tongue.) He demonstrates his love on a daily basis, which is unparalleled in our 31 years of marriage. It's been 10 months pretty much without letting up. Amazing, really.

Oh, I still have my roller coaster, although it's not as volatile as earlier after D-Day. Last weekend, I felt just so terribly sad...mournful, even...about the loss we suffered. But he just continues doggedly on meeting needs.

Our lifestyle changed drastically with the move to this island. The slowed, often leisurely pace has been so beneficial to our healing, because we spend a lot of time together with few distractions. As much as we both miss family and the grandchildren, and I very much miss my work, this enforced togetherness is just what we needed for healing.

One new habit we started a few months ago. (I can say this on this lovely but anonymous forum, right?) When H would like to enjoy some SF, he calls me from work and asks me to meet him in bed...birthday suits only. Sounds so perfunctory, but it's not. We lie there for a while, talking a bit and being affectionate, so it's a nice time for both of us.

We took Armymama's suggestion and H downloaded a bunch of Italian songs for SF time. No triggers since we can't understand Italian. Works great. Yesterday afternoon, there we were, passionately embracing, when the song "Adeste Fideles" starts, otherwise known as "Oh, Come all Ye Faithful." I burst into laughter and asked him what was next "Hark the Herald Angels?" He looked chagrined and said he had downloaded the songs without really looking at them.

On that long road toward recovery....

51CD30,

That's a great update.

I really like the story about the Christmas song. Try some songs by Vittorio, Mario Frangoulis or the group Il Divo. Just don't get the holiday CDs.

I have never really been a Bocelli fan though.

AM

51CD30,

Your comments this morning on AEK's thread were wonderful.

AM

51CD30:

I couldn't agree more with ARMYMAMA on your comments to AEK.

Nice work!

Thank you for your kind comments, ArmyMama and SweetPea. I appreciate it very much! I hope the young woman can find some kind of peace in her terrible dilemma.

Last week, I read a book by a popular Christian author about a young pastor and his wife. Over time, the pastor became very ambitious and moved forward with many items on his own agenda without enthusiastic support from his spouse, much less the elders. It is very interesting reading books now with MB always in the background of my mind.

So anyway, to the bottom line, three quarters of the way though the book, the threat of adultery begins to loom. After that, although it was a sure trigger, I could not put the book down. I wanted to see how the wife and family and church handled this. I literally wept through the final quarter of the book as I read the emotions of the betrayed wife. I mean tears running down my face; it was like reliving the whole thing all over again, but in someone else's situation. My H realized I was not in bed and came downstairs (completely naked, for heaven's sake) to make sure I was okay. He held me while I told him what I was reading, but I assured him that, really, I was okay and would be fine in spite of the streaming tears.

The wife in this book went through all the same conflicting emotions I did: hatred, love, betrayal, disillusionment. The H was not remorseful at first, but after a few days, the fog began to lift. It was an incredibly realistic "story" of what actually happens in adultery. Wow.

So in the end, the pastor confesses to his church and steps down from his pulpit and the couple moves together to another location to do something else instead....this time in complete agreement. There really was no "happily ever after;" instead, there was the journey to recovery.

The story didn't make me mad all over again at FWH, because he swears he is a changed man, just like the pastor in the story, who also wanted to turn completely away from the man he had been up to that point.

I know...kind of a blog sort of post, but I was so surprised at my emotions just reading that I felt like I HAD to tell someone. Who else understands but the MB forum folks?

Recovery is going pretty well these days. Annoyingly, I still think about the A on a daily basis, but I don't talk about it. I don't even cry about it anymore, unless I read about someone else going through it. I'm past the stage of anger, which was dreadful, but in a way easier than the stage of sadness.

When I first began to feel like I was beginning to love my H again, I would question the whole character thing all over again. I was periodically afraid to become vulnerable again by allowing myself to love him again, you know what I mean? But in order to really love again and receive his love I kind of have to allow that vulnerability.

My H shows his remorse in how well he treats me. He truly acts like a man in love.

It was very hard on me emotionally to move here with my H and go through D-Day just three weeks after arrival.
What is really surprising to me is that after almost three years of living apart, we were just going to continue living separately if he had been stationed in the US. I look back aghast at our crazy thinking! If we had done any thing other than what we did, which was to move away and live together again, I doubt our marriage would have survived after the PA started.

H works regular full-time hours for the most part, instead of the long hours required in other locations; I had to give up working for the most part because of being in a foreign location with rules about priority hiring, so I'm only doing a few hours of remote work and volunteering. But the upside is that we get lots of UA time, which has been great.

The SF is on a scale not seen before in our 31 years of marriage, which surprises both of us. Maybe we're still in hysterical bonding stage, who knows? Who cares! We're having fun with it. H has become very affectionate with me, I think it's the most affectionate he has ever been with me. The affection makes it very easy for me to meet his need for SF. He'll call me up from work and ask me to meet him in bed. Gosh. That's kind of new for us! (Sorry if TMI!)

Like you, I don't cry about it any longer.

I still get resentful (even just last night)toward W from time to time, feel like she 'got away with the crime', so to speak.

Doing a better job NOT thinking of the A at all, but admit probably still too much than I should be at this point....yes, still feel vulnerable to allow myself to fully trust, love.

(And, yes, the SF has been incredible...even after an hysterical bonding phase...)

W has been great about it, even my 'down' days...yesterday, she got a little choked up -- said she is 'madly in love' with me and our marriage -- never thought she could be this happy, and will do anything/everything to protect our marriage.


Just gotta keep moving forward...

Thank you for sharing!

I felt the same way you sometimes do about your W "getting away with the crime." I have to remind myself that my H hates what he did. He does try not to think about it, because it causes him great pain. It sounds like your W is very remorseful and perhaps feels this same pain of regret.

The only way I can get close to how H feels (and maybe to how your W feels) is going back to my pre-marriage days. I lived a pretty yucky life for a few years there, the result of trying to get men to fall in love with me by using my body. Later, I was truly horrified by my behavior. Although I had made no vows at that point, what the heck was I doing to myself??!! When I married my H, I vowed I would never ever again be immoral in that way. And I never was. I knew what it looked like and what it felt like, and it felt terrible. I have no feelings of "if only" with any of those guys.

When H and I talked about it, he kind of gets that. That's the way he feels about OW now. At first, yes, absolute infatuation and addiction. He was ready to dump his whole family, even his beloved grandchildren, so he could be with her. After seeing the devastation this caused, he has no feelings of "if only" at all. He says he wishes he had never let her get close, that he had behaved properly, even that he had never met her at all.

Almost daily, he thanks me for being here with him and for giving him this chance to build our marriage.

Sounds like we're in similar places. I am so thankful for finding Marriage Builders. I felt like I was crazy and stupid for considering staying with an adulterer, even a remorseful one. I mean, how desperate and dumb could I be? So I googled "reconciliation after adultery" and found MB. Best thing that could have happened after D-Day.

Good luck to your and your W. I'm so happy that she is repentant and wants to have a good marriage with you. Recovery is really hard, harder than I would have imagined. This forum is such a great resource.

I couldn't agree more.

My last post probably sounded more callous than I meant...I mean, jeez...she daily thanks me for being her husband, for 'flattering' her in staying married and working through recovery with her, for being her partner, for saving her...

...just last weekend she said to me "he (OM) left me a sick woman, a sick woman..." and has repeatedly expressed her own shame, giult, 'WTF was I thinking'...it sounds stupid of me to even question the 'getting away with it', but I guess that's the trauma speaking at times.

And yes, ironic that after dday I googled 'how to survive an affair' -- and up popped MarriageBuilders...thank God for that.

It saved me, my marriage, my family.

Thank you!

I concur with the above posts.

I get a weekly thank you for forgiving her. I have SF that I never even dreamed of.

The only real obstacle I see is me. My need to sometimes run the bad images thru my head which only results in a low moods. Low moods that I try my best to hide so not to rock the recovery boat.

That she is beyond remorseful and beyond embarassed and beyond regretful for putting her family in jeopardy is what has made the last 5 months possible.

I know she went willing to him, but she's still stuck with the feeling that she was used and its taking a lot of her gumption to right herself mentally and gain confidence.

Things have been pretty good here lately.

Mike,

Wow...was thinking the other day that it is I who is a stumbling block in our recovery at times...I who has more of the bad days...and I do NOT want to jeopardize the marriage we have now.

Being so thickheaded, I think it's taken me awhile to realize how yes, indeed, my W does understand OM would've said/done anyhting for the easy score, and that it wasn't being 'in love' or anything close, just a fantasy...

For some reason, that comment she made at the park the other day about the OM leaving her a sick woman really sunk in, really resonated. Maybe speaking of him in this light was the first time I really heard her vocalize disgust directly at OM?

I don't know, but I just remember what NG and HHH always state that whatever we BS's are feeling about the A/OP, the FWS's must feel twofold becasue they knowingly and willingly caused/participated in the tragedy.

Best wishes.

As we were friendly with her OMs family and they were in our social circle for years, my wife notably changed her tune about being social with them for at least the last 3 or 4 years.

She doesnt defend herself with that idea, she points out that her affection for him ended a long time ago. And, when I look back its clear she did plenty to remove herself from his midst but just not enough. It certainly doesnt say much that she elected to stay in her A while she lost much of the feelings for him.

This is where I attribute the addiction to what he provided her: some money, a credit card, and that cushy life she so much lived for. Life today for her is million times harder. She working a full time job and another full time job healing us.

I do believe her when she says she'd have it no other way. Living with a clean consience today makes thinking about her life pre-dday very painful for her.

That's one problem I have on the forums... a lot of forum-ites insist it's some kind of "character flaw" that a person had an affair. This directly contradicts Dr. Harley's position, which is that -- under similar circumstances -- EVERYONE would have an affair.

What are those conditions? Simply allowing a member of the opposite sex other than your spouse to meet your most important emotional needs. That's it. And learning to NOT allow anyone other than your spouse to meet those needs is not a natural thing for most people. It's work!

So ignore the character flaw question. If you allowed other men to meet your intimate emotional needs, you'd have an affair, too.

Mike,

Yeah, I know what you mean. I stated in an earlier post that my W, in thanking me for 'saving her', mentions that even when the PA was over, she kinda held on to contact to 'remain friends' because 1. the longer she delayed NC, the longer she delayed the pain of having to face herself and what she did and 2. she was so eff'd up, she really just didn't know/have the ability (addiction?) to eradicate herself from the situation.

She has stated that if I hadn't exposed and gotten OM fired from job -- which allowed her to clear her head (the fog?) -- she would've probably destroyed her life.

Like your W, mine also talks about her life now, our marriage, and says she'd have it no other way...Living with a clean consience today makes thinking about her life pre-dday very painful for her...that's my W as well.

Coming home from Yom Kippur services last week, which was a trigger in and of itself, W turned to me to say "There is no more comfortable feeling than being in this car, with you and the kids, at this moment. I'm exactly where I belong, where I need to be..."

Must keep following MB...it's almost becoming unthought of it's so routine now...

thanks.

Yes, DoNoMo, you're correct about that whole character flaw issue. Thanks for pointing that out to me. It's something I often forget.

While my H was deployed, I made a conscious effort to avoid most male company, knowing I was vulnerable with my H gone. I wanted my H to come home and not hear any gossip at all about me. But it was a decision that was hard at times, because I was lonely. I longed for a man's arm around me again. So, I avoided it. I also had accountability all around me; my family and friends always surrounded me. My H was able to live a secret second life with no real accountability. He met someone over there who was enjoyable to be with and let her get close. He swears never again will he have a female friend. (one of his EPs.)

MB is the first link after searching "infidelity and resentment."

Yup.

And so concludes the most miserable year of my life. D-Day was a year ago and a couple of days. No Contact started Dec 1st roughly. What a horrible and difficult year. More tears and anger and sadness than I thought was possible.

We've been helped immensely by the MB Online Seminar and the accompanying accountability program.

We've learned so much about what we did wrong for so many years. I never set any standards for recovery. I never demanded transparency. We went to traditional marriage counseling for nine months and still had tons of love busters. I look back and can't understand why no one knew anything about boundaries. No shared passwords, business travel continued, no accountability. It's no friggin' wonder the trouble continued.

What we did wrong would fill a book, but we know NOW what we need to do to make it right and keep it right.

I think a good analogy would be when I joined a popular weight loss program a few years ago to shed a few pounds that had crept on during my mid-40's. I had to go through my pantry and get rid of all the foods I could no longer eat, replacing them with the kinds of food that were better for me. The will power started at the grocery store. Knowing my will power to be very weak with temptation in the house, I had no choice but to refuse to allow it in the first place. This helped create the conditions that would allow me to lose the unwanted pounds and also keep it off.

In the same way, I have relied on my H's character and will power to keep him faithful under all conditions. It's not that my character was really any better. A couple of years ago, I did consider very seriously the thought of having an affair. My H was overweight and sloppy and I have always hated that. My problem is that with PA as one of my top five ENs, and very possibly at number one or two, most men around my age don't look real great. So that ruled out most of any possible APs. So one of the most important conditions could not be met. Also, I am practical enough to consider STDs as a real risk and didn't want that. Probably the biggest reason is that I had no male friends.

When I was a teenager, in the 70's, I was reading about all the Amer-Asian babies born as a result of American soldiers having sex with the Vietnamese women during the war. Suddenly I was very suspicious and concerned about my dad. He was away for two long years, with a year home in between. He and my mother were always very affectionate, always embarrassing us kids with their kissing and hugging. I asked my father how he managed to live for two years away from my mother. I mean, I pretty much had it written on my face and in my tone that I wondered how it could be that he had remained faithful with so many that had not been.

His answer stayed with me all the rest of my years, although he doesn't even remember the conversation. He looked me in the eye and said he had to live "like a monk." He told me frankly that he knew he could probably fall in love with someone else and not only did he not want to cause hurt to that unknown woman, he certainly did not want to hurt my mother and us children. So he went to the war having a plan of protection in place. While many of his compatriots hired house girls to do their housekeeping and become their bed partners, he avoided this huge pitfall. He said he was often incredibly lonely, but he stayed busy and wrote my mother a lot of letters.

Years later, I see that what he had done is to create boundaries for himself. My mother did the same.

I spent last weekend very sad and weepy, thinking that I had made a big mistake staying with my H all these years, even marrying him in the first place. I finally posted my question to Dr. H. in the private forum. He reminded me that a good marriage is partly about creating and maintaining good boundaries, that trust is possible under certain circumstances but certainly not under ALL circumstances.

So, a little over year since D-Day, I think there's hope for us after all. We know the bar has to be set high, we finally have transparency and an integrated life. My H jokingly says he's "addicted" to me. He has lost weight and looks very handsome.

Here's to Marriage Builders!