But that is not how it works and you are mischaracterizing Dr Harley's rule. You well know that the first step is to get the answers and THEN don't bring it up again.

Don't know what you mean by random thoughts.

This is Dr Harley's rule and is what is supposed to happen BEFORE the affair is dropped.

Step 1# get all the facts concerning the affair

Step #2 stop talking about it

What happened in my situation was I got lies and "I don't remember" . So then what? You move on, and deal. Like I said, it's too late now. I'm playing the hand I was dealt. I'm sure I'm not the only one here who is. As evidenced by CV55's post.

My point is that you didn't follow Marriage Builders advice. THAT is why you are still struggling with it. Your situation is entirely different from CV55's. She got all the facts around D-Day but continues to talk about the affair today. She is not saying she is struggling with it. That is what you are saying.

Are you saying you think it is a good idea to keep the OW in the fringes of your life and continue to talk about it years later? Would it be a good idea to do like CV55 did and drive to the park where her husband and the OW had sex and sit there and cry and yell at her husband?

Not really. You chose the cards. If major affair information is withheld you don't do recovery but go into Plan B until it is because that's not MB. The 'don't talk about it' rule only makes sense if the other rules are followed too, first of all.

It's a step that follows other steps. Like putting on shoes after your pants. Of course it is tricky to do step 2 if you missed step 1.

This poster doesn't have stuff withheld from her, it's just she'd rather do it her way. OK.

She knows that her husband was just a human being capable of falling from grace when she ignored his weaknesses and granted him blind trust. Experience has taught her that.

However she would rather be betrayed again than give up the system of blind trust. The fact he proved trustworthy for x months has encouraged her to think she can now risk this. She's forgotten he was trustworthy before the A too - that's how important blind trust is to her.

If she would rather have blind trust, and it is so important that she would risk being betrayed to have it; that is absolutely her call. Her life on the line after all. Me I would rather protect my marriage but it's her coin on the gambling table.

CV you seem really nice and you are free to pursue the perfectly trusting relationship without any verification, even if it scares the bejesus out of us.

The one thing I just want to ask is: why be so hung up on the other woman? That must be very unpleasant indeed.

You didn't come on here to talk about your success before this contact happened. You came here to report victory because you crossed swords with her again and he came home to you. It was both a test and a trigger. You're here because you found the contact upsetting and triggery, but you also feel victorious because you have it lodged in your mind that his shunning her to her face is more significant than his sharing his life with you.

She really doesn't matter enough for you to put him through that test. You can let it go. Affairs happen because of needs meeting, not 'love' and if a goat met his needs he would become addicted to that goat. For life!

I think your recovery is going pretty well and all the actions pre contact sound spot on. But you have this idea that love is perfect and trusting and he isn't perfect.

His addiction is very real and dangerous, but you can drop feeling hung up on her because it isn't love. It's the same as booze to an alcoholic. She could be anyone, she is just the equivalent to a dose of coke or cheap whiskey but she has to be avoided.

Hope is not a plan.

You clearly do not understand what Dr Harley teaches about affairs and how to recover.

If the present were better, this wouldn't necessarily hold water.

If the present were better, and this held water - I'd look into an antidepressant. It took a long time, but I had to give up the goat on it when every other approach failed, and the results are great.

That is quite a minimization of what has happened. Your H was in a setting where he and the OW had ample opportunity to interact. A "sighting" would be if she happened to drive by in a car etc.

In fact, NC has been broken THREE TIMES.

It's nice that he has convinced you that you have nothing to worry about but that's not what MB is about.

MB is about extraordinary care and protection. It's not about counting on willpower when willpower has failed you in the past. It's about ACTIONS and not words.

As a former BS, it really disturbs me when I see another BS rationalize such thoughtless and cruel behavior. Part of the reason for NC is to prevent a re-ignition of the affair - the other part is because it is incredibly cruel to put a BS through that.


You have posted a lot about the trauma and even PTSD that you suffered as a result of your H's affair, even many years afterwards and you also posted about the incredibly slow progress that had been made in a thread made 4.5 years after the A.

And now I see why.
NC was never implemented
EPs not implemented
Talk of the affair continued

This is not MB

For clarification, Dr. Harley encourages the betrayed spouse to ask as many questions as they like (and the wayward spouse should answer them)...and then it should NEVER be spoken of again.
As he explains in his Radio Show, every time the affair is spoken of it causes massive Love Bank withdrawls.
The goal he wants recovering couples focused on is making Love Bank Deposits, not withdrawls.

But the answering part is totally not enforceable. How do you know what you don't know? Like Ever2Late, I am almost certain that there are details I will never know. What I do know, however, is that those details wouldn't matter one bit to me if we were in love.

I view this as a completely separate problem from what has been presented here. What CV55 has done is talk about the affair for years AFTER she got all the relevant information. What ever2late is discussing is an entirely different issue, which is a spouse who withholds facts. Dr Harley NEVER told her or anyone else not to ask questions and get all the facts. He says the exact opposite.


Dr Harley's words actually tell people to discuss every aspect of the affair:
In other words, it is not the program that is flawed, but the wayward spouse. The program can't be faulted for the non-cooperation of a wayward spouse.

My H asked my why I don't just move on from posting on this thread after the very negative responses. My answer was just that there are a few more things that I'd like to share and then I will be officially out of here. I still believe that there might be at least a few BSs or WSs who might hear the message of hope.

Once again, what brought me here after all these years was just that. To give people a little hope. I had been thinking about it periodically for quite a while now. I remember when I was trying to recover from this awful life event, in so much pain, when several times BSs randomly came on here to do exactly what I tried to do. I remember 2 in particular, a BH and a BW. They were like angels offering a beacon of light at the end of a dark tunnel. I remember we all asked them our questions, they answered, and then they were gone. I'm not sure what happened here when I was attempting to do the same. To give back after so much was given to me. That people actually felt the need to look my posts up in the archives and investigate me. Like I was some troll trying to infiltrate MB and cause harm. Frankly, when I saw that, it felt somewhat intrusive. The many posts I wrote was like writing in a journal, except I was sharing it with my MB friends at the time. It was my way of processing the pain. To have people I don't even know dig them up did not feel so great. However, if that is what you folks need to do go for it. I actually would have been happy to have told you the OW was H's office manager. That story I'm sure is not very uncommon.

I have absolutely no desire to defend myself, just want to put a little perspective on things. Since no contact was established in 2004 there have been 3 OW sightings. One time my H went into a drug store while I waited in the car. He came back within 5 minutes and told me he left because he spotted OW. The next time he was walking in a mall and thought he spotted her. He came home and told me. The 3rd time was last week and he called me at work to give me the low down because he knows I'm all about openness and honesty. We talked about it briefly in person, hugged each other, and moved on.

We have taken extraordinary means to avoid contact. OW decided post-A to become a member of a church we often attended and have strong ties to. We no longer go to the church or go to any of the functions there that we are invited to. When I told H about the comments here he asked, "So are we never supposed to go to a baseball game or a concert because we might run into her? These people don't know the individual work I've done to heal from this." And that is the bottom line. You don't know the effort we put into truly healing from this experience.

Melody brought up my PTSD symptoms and going to the park with my H. Dr. Harley himself states that for many BSs the A is extremely traumatic and that many of us do experience PTSD symptoms. I'm not ashamed to say I was one of them. I am very grateful that I was a BS who was very clear about certain things that I needed to do to "maybe" recover with my H. Steve Harley explained it to me this way. Some people can look at a puzzle and have missing pieces, and it won't bother them. He told me that people like me need to have all of the pieces of the puzzle in place. Because of that I needed my H to actually take me physically to places where the A occurred. The park was when the physical part of the A began. MY H gave me a great gift the day he went to the park with me. He allowed me to cry, he allowed me to get angry, he allowed me to ask questions, and he hugged me. Because he did that for me I can drive through that park and not have any sort of triggers. He did that for me many times. Was it friggin hard for hi?" Yes. Did he resist at times? Yes. But in time he did it for me, and it always helped me to move on, and ultimately it helped us. Everyone deals with trauma differently. That is how I needed to heal from it.

The WSs I have witnessed who reignite an A or start a new one fall into a few categories. Some are just serial cheaters. Or I have seen the couple in which the BS stuffs their feelings in order to not rock the boat, and the WS doesn't do the work to really understand why they had an A, so they continue to live in the fantasy that there might be something better out there. Thus they are susceptible to another A.When we did phone coaching with Steve Harley he really had us understand what the slippery slope was into H's A. Individual and marriage therapy helped further with this.

So here is where H and I are now. We talk about anything with one another. Nothing is off limits. The gift I got from the A is never to walk on eggshells again about anything I want to discuss with H. We spend the majority of our time together, and enjoy each others' company. Our family in in tact. We are planning on some major renovations in our home and are looking forward to that. We talk about places we'd like to travel together. For the past 4 years we have gone away together for a winter break and have a great time together. Oh yes, and it's actually Ok when we get irritated at one another. It doesn't mean it's the end of our M. So if that might sound like a horrible recovered M to some folks on here, so be it. Back 5 years ago I would have loved to have gotten that kind of report.

This is how I viewed recovery back when I was trying to recover from the A. It was like walking through mud, or being in a maze and not knowing which way is the right way to turn. It's like grief in that you can't get around it, you need to go through it to get to the other side. I am very grateful that we made it.

One piece of advice I would give to any BS is to not be a wimp. Be really clear about what you are and aren't willing to live with.

I will stick around MB for a brief time if anyone has any legitimate questions or comments they'd like to share. If there is a continuation of analyzing my motives or my marriage, then there really is no reason for me to be here. The purpose of my visit back will be lost.

I had some great friends on MB back in my day. I can't list them all. However, if any of you has contact with Shattered Dreams, Bob Pure, or Comfortably Numb, will you please tell them CV sends them my very best wishes!

CV,

The reasons for the contact with the OW are the exact reasons that Dr. Harley encourages people to move out of state after an affair.

The advice you offer, while sympathetic to betrayed spouses such as myself, is not a plan for recovery.

The plan is found in Surviving an Affair by Willard Harley.

Analyzing the reasons for the affair can be helpful because there are often unmet emotional needs; However, it all goes back to boundaries around the opposite sex and establishing these boundaries (which Dr. Harley refers to as Extraordinary Precautions) to prevent ourselves from having an affair.

Dr. Harley believes that we are all susceptible to having an affair and that is why we need the boundaries.

In your case, the first step towards recovery is for the wayward to have no contact with the affair partner, Since you were unable or unwilling to move, there will probably be continued contact as long as you live in that area.

Hi CV55

I was not around in 2004...

Dday was early 2004...when did you go to the park?

CV55, you have no earthly idea what you are talking about and are just making guesses because you don't understand that an affair is an addiction. Affairs are caused by poor boundaries and has nothing to do with "stuffed feelings." We already know why people have affairs. Because they have poor boundaries. That is what this program addresses. Dr. Harley does not base his program on guesswork.

The ones who experience reignited affairs are the ones who don't follow extraordinary precautions and observe appropriate boundaries. They did exactly what you are doing. You have not even taken Step ONE in recovery. Rather than taking EPs to avoid the OW for life, you are counting on willpower and hope. That did not work for you in the past and it won't work for you in the future. That is how repeat affairs happen and Dr. Harley will tell you the same thing. And no, they are not serial cheaters, but they BECOME serial cheaters because they cut corners just as you are doing. Do you wish that on other people? Is that the reason for your visit?

They do what you are doing: they take foolish risks with their recovery. You didn't just "accidentally" run into the OW. You still live in the same area with her and you purposely attended an event you knew she would attend. And here you are 10 years later still discussing the affair. That is not recovery, my friend. That is an affair waiting to happen. Your husband is thinking about the affair today. You are thinking about the affair today.

My H and I did follow EP's and we have not seen or even spoken ABOUT the OW in 10 years. You still see the OW and still talk about her 10 years later.

What Dr. Harley would say - and I do listen to his show every day of the week - is that these cases that experience a resumed affair did not have a complete recovery BECAUSE they did not observe extraordinary precautions. That is your future but I don't think you can see that.


It seems the purpose of your visit is to proudly tell others that you cut corners and stay in contact with the OW as some weird badge of honor. All that says to me is that you still don't understand the risks after all you have been through. You are the "sober" alcoholic who tempts fate by taking the occasional drink and hanging out in bars. That is not recovery, that is a trainwreck waiting to happen.


I would close with this thought: the purpose of this forum is to help others obtain a real recovery according to Dr. Harley's tried and true concepts. It is not to share one's personal "wisdom" about ways to cut corners. We have hundreds of such bad examples on the Surviving an Affair forum when a devastated betrayed spouse came back to report other/resumed affairs. So you won't get far in sharing your personal "recovery" on a board that is intended to help others follow Dr Harley's methods.

Again, CV, your story is not one of hope.

Does anyone know when the park thing was?