Obviously, both of them are tragic. But...in my case, what I really found shocking was how much deception and lying went on.

My wife's OM was her best friend's husband. The best friend had been out of town for a couple of months. My W was very interested in her coming home. Of course, the best friend found out about the A a couple of days after she got back and cut off the friendship. Knowing nothing about this, I kept asking my wife had come I hadn't seen Gail (a fake name) around any more or why the two of them weren;t getting together. The answer "She's too busy" or "I'm too busy." Of course, I know now that's not true.

My wife acted pretty normal throughout all of this - and that's what scares me. She said that there were several times that she was planning to tell me but "something came up." We did have one memorable conversation in September - she told me at that point that I "broker her heart." But other than that...I saw no signs.

My H tells me it was the deception that bothered him most. I questioned him about that because he said he had a difficult time being intimate with me for the first while after DD, so I assumed it was the sex. He replied that "You can't have sex with your spouse without intimacy, so the betrayed trust is the be-all-and-end-all."

For me, the betrayal, the duplicity, and the lying are what hurt the most. The fact that she had sex with other men is secondary to the betrayal of trust.

Both hurt, but the sex hurt more.
Michael

Read Private Lies, by Pittman. He discusses this very topic. The majority in his survey say the lies hurt more than the sex. For me it is:

1. She was deeply in love with OMM,
2. The sheer lengh of the A,
3. The lies,
4. The sex (it wasn't all that hot, I gather).

T

Edited for typos.

<small>[ October 20, 2004, 10:56 PM: Message edited by: Thos ]</small>

Sjoe, I have the same thing. The pain of lies was very bad but I found that the fear of it happening again was unbearable. Because there also was very little signs for me to notice any changes in my wife.

So one of my friends, that understand these things, said that there are no way to cope except to give it time and to block out the pain and fear each time it enters your mind.

We decided to give it another go, (there were no sex, that’s what I was told) so by blocking out the pain and fear, I am coping very well. It has been 2 months now, and it is going very well. And life for yourself also, o yes, Jesus helped plenty.

For me it was the lies, the betrayal of trust. No question about it.

And the fact that I unknowingly enabled her A made me feel like a chump. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" /> Never again.

<small>[ October 21, 2004, 07:08 AM: Message edited by: getting better ]</small>

I'm with Ironman here...the breach of our most sacred promise to each other followed closely by the lies and duplicity.

One can block the "movies" (or at least try to), but having been lied to for years is going to be a major hurdle in recovery.

The sex and deception go hand in hand. I have forgiven both! It would be very hard to have an affair without deception.

My only concern is how to detect deception if it ever occurs again. In retrospect it is always easy to detect deception. However, to do so in real time seems quite difficult, more so at the beginning.

Regarding the deception: IT WOULD HURT BIG TIME IF IT IS DONE TWICE. The 1st time around is par for the course.

The lies he told me hurt the most - acting like everything was fine in our M - including the sex - he was fine w/ once a year..duh, w/me..though, he forgot to mention he getting tons of EF/SF from many partners.

The lies he told OW about me to justify his A's.

The quantity of OW and the years he's probably been doing it..

The denial to our family/friends when they confronted him - making me out to be crazy..

The gifts he gave me thinking that's all I needed from him.

His thinking that calling OW, SF,EF, isn't any of my business hurt too..Thinking that he's not doing anything wrong - scares me - where are his morals??

It hurts alot to think of him walking up to the hotel desk and getting a room in the middle of the afternoon while I was at work, home cleaning, or shopping, etc. When we NEVER had afternoon sex. Opening that door and dropping his pants w/ someone else..

His lack of remorse...like he's entitled to any man's wife..

The way some of his OW look - that he would prefer them over me..

Gez, now that you have me thinking about it - it all hurts the same - very deeply..I close my eyes and see it all so clearly..

Thanks for ruining my day...

The lies hurt worse.

In my situation, my W had only 2 nights with the OM on a cruise 7 years before D-Day. The sex was so long ago that it's not quite as bad (although it is very bad, given that she and I had never been with anyone else in our lives). I still struggle daily with the fact that my W lied to me for 7 years. We adopted children during that time, moved to a new house, made career decisions...in short, we made life-altering decisions while I was in the dark. That just kills me. When she had the A, I was 29, with no kids, working on my MBA. I would have had "better options" had I chosen to walk away. Now I struggle with understanding whether I choose to stay because that is what I really want...or whether it is because the responsibility I feel toward our kids, or because of fear of being single at 37 (and clueless on dating, etc.), or because of something else. It stinks!

Additionally, I now question nearly everything. I may still be naive, but I really don't worry she will go and find another OM. However, I constantly question her motives for even the smallest things. An example: the last few days my W has been sweet and wonderful. A normal person might find that a great place to be. Not me...I keep wondering (and asking sometimes) "what is going on", "what does she want from me", etc. When my rational side tells me to just shut-up because she is doing (being) exactly what I want, the other side of me remembers how she at times acted exactly like this while harboring the lie all those years. It's enough to drive one crazy!

The thing that keeps haunting me is the fact that he planned it. He was out of town for two weeks and before he left he set up two new secret email accounts. The day after he got there he posted himself on hotornot.com to meet someone/anyone. There were so many steps to this, it seems that he would of had ample opportunity to come to his senses or think about his wife and kids back home missing him so much yet clueless.

I have a feeling that, on the whole, men are more impacted by the sex and women by the deception. Both are impacted by both, of course, but I think my analyis reflects reality. Needless to say, there are many who will not follow this pattern, but as a generalization I think it is accurate.

Todd,I know what you mean. That's one of the saddest aspects of all of this, I think: there is a sincerity and genuineness that is gone.

I'm not sure how to get those things back. I don't want to have doubts about my wife's actions. When she's nice to me - when she sways she loves me, and when she SHOWS me she loves me, I want so very, very, very, very much to believe it completely and totally.

But the deception surrounding this affair has made it hard to do that.

Hi I believe the hardest thing for me was the sex. I felt so betrayed because we have been married for 17 yrs. And it just devastated me to find out that he gave something that was supposed to be mine and only mine to someone else.

The sex obviously bothers me a great deal, but it is the deliberate deception that bothers me most. The mere fact that it was an ongoing thing and it involved a great deal of planning and lies simply takes my breath away. I've always been a realist when it comes to life events and I know that people get caught up in situations that quickly spiral out of control - as in a ONS, but this is so hard for me to comprehend. I know the experts say that it is not about the BS, but to know that the person you love most is capable of these types of lies makes your head spin.

Even today I can still recall how lonely I felt during this whole time and how I could FEEL the distance, but when I would question my H about it, and even asked if there was someone else, he could lie and reassure me so easily. It was no big deal to him. He tells me now that he knew it was wrong, but I have trouble in dealing with the length of this deception. How can someone carry that kind of lie around without any sign that there is something wrong? This is something that most BSs have a lot of trouble comprehending. This is the aftermath of the betrayal of trust. This is the hardest thing to forgive for most of us here I believe. The sex is usually secondary.

Spouse,

I feel the same way. What bothers me most is that I have always touted my wife to other people as an honest person who strives to do the right thing.

That's why I was blown away by this. The sex is hard to deal with. But the deception is like a dagger through the heart.

Definitely the deception, lies, betrayal etc more than the physical act itself. It went on for more than a year so I feel duped.

I agree that it's the deception and lies that's harder to deal with than the sex part. And not just the lies but I think the biggest part is the E aspect of the A more than the P aspect. The thought that my WH is "in love" with OW just sickens me and is a dagger twisting and twisting in my heart every time I look at him, especially since we're in the early phase where he's not even sure whether he wants our M to recover or not, really wants to be with OW.

Bit by bit, details of conversations that my wife had with the OM come dribbling out. This is one of the hardest aspects of the whole thing to deal with, IMO - the intimacy that was shared.

I hate the fact of my wife baring her soul to a man who, really, she barely knows.

I wonder what exactly they were talking about at 11:30 at night. What were all of the phone calls about (and there many of them)?

There seemed to be so much emotion - and so much effort to keep it all secret.

<small>[ October 22, 2004, 10:15 AM: Message edited by: AndrewA ]</small>