Hello, My name is Nikkie and im new to this site. I just found it all of 20 minutes ago and decided to become a member. Im 23 years old, 9 months pregnant, been married for 7 months and Im an ARMY wife. My husband is currently overseas and has been for quite a few months. About 2 weeks ago he admitted to me that he had sex with a woman over there. I wont go into full detail about all that happened, but basically my husband lost sight of who he is, hes been overly depressed with his enviroment, being attacked and such. He felt like he just existed knowing that he left his pregnant newlywed wife at home, he had no purpose, hes not where hes supposed to be, at home with his wife. Well needless to say my husband went to drop off supplies to a building and a woman there offered, he accepted, it lasted all of 3 minutes, and as soon as it was over he "felt the cold steel of an M4" more or less the guilt he felt overwhelmed him and he contemplated suicide. He claims he was numb, had no heart, emotion, thought, feeling anything with her. he didnt do it out of spite, anger, hatred, lack of love- he really doesnt know why. but its been tearing him apart, he was convinced i was gonna leave him, he even planned out his death there so that he didnt have to come home with the shame he felt from doing what he did. Last week the woman went up to him again and was like " so you coming over again" and without skipping a beat he said "no im married and i love my wife very much" she stormed away VERY pissed off. At the time i felt very very proud of what he did, even though i wish he had said it the first time im glad he didnt do it again. Its been very hard on me, hes coming home next week on leave and were due to have our son the within days of that. i feel like weve lost touch of our marriage, being away from each other for 6 months straight so far then him straying. my heart tells me i have to give him some credit because he told me, he could have EASILY gotten away with it being 8000 miles away from me, but he told me. he wants us to work out and so do i, but i cant help but feel anger towards him, i fear comparison to this other woman. i know my husband loves me, but i cant help but wonder "why". how can someone be so detached that they can do something, not feel it, then snap out of it and realize what they did. he is truuuly sorry, but since ive never been in this situation before (getting cheated on) i dont know if how im reacting is right, if im doing the right thing. its so hard being away because we cant see each other for another week. so were not only rebuilding our marriage just from being apart, but also after infidelity. i dont know if im making any sense with this. i dont know if im doing things right. my heart says i am, but i have so many unanswered questions about what they did that i dont know if i should ask- would it be best if i didnt??? i dont know what im trying to say, but if anyone has advice, it would be greatly appreciated. i just need to clear my head and maybe advice from other people may help.
Thanks

The one thing I will add to the quote below is that you need to find some way to help you stay connected while you are apart - phone, email, instant messaging, etc. I know that it is hard to do, but be creative. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> You can recover. Many people have. It isn't easy, and not everyone succeeds, but as long as you are both working on it, your chances are close to 100%. To recover, do three things:

1.) Learn. The most important and helpful single source of information for my wife and I was "Surviving an Affair" by Willard Harley (hereinafter referred to as "SAA") available at the Bookstore, Amazon.com, and bookstores all over. SAA is THE best book on the market for helping one get to the root of "the message of the affair" (BUT YOU HAVE TO DO THE QUESTIONAIRES!). It (along with the Basic Concepts section of this site) is also helpful for giving you a vision of what a great marriage should look like. The approach of SAA to this problem is that the best defense against affairs is to have a great marriage. My wife said we had a good marriage, but she still had an affair. She was kidding herself, but it was not until we read SAA and saw what a great marriage should look like that we could clearly identify the problem areas and had the tools necessary to fix them. So that you can get started right away, while waiting for SAA to arrive in the mail, read everything in the Basic Concepts section of this site. Next, read all the Q&A's on infidelity on this site. They are found at How to Survive Infidelity

The phrase "the message of the affair" is from the book "Torn Asunder", by Carder (hereinafter referred to as "TA"). I personally think this is the best book on affair recovery we have read. In particular it deals with the two different paths the recovery of the betrayed spouse (BS) and the wayward spouse (WS) need to take, and deals w/ remorse in a way that I prefer to SAA. Read it together, if your spouse is willing. If not, go through it yourself. If you or your spouse has issues with control, you might also want to read "The State of Affairs", (SOA) by Todd Mulliken, which also treats the remorse issue similarly to TA. SOA also deals with "the vision thing" for marriage, which is neglected in SAA.

2.) See a marriage counselor. This is hard. You need help. These boards are populated by amateurs. MC?s are professionals. There is a difference. They can help deal with issues the books don't cover, and customize things to your individual situation. That said, there are lots of bad MC's in the world. Read, and take to heart, How To Find A Good Marriage Counselor. You do not want an MC that is going to teach you how to live with an awful spouse, or how to adjust to divorce. Too many of them do, as is documented here: Hazardous Counseling. Reading that link may scare you off counseling, but it should give you some good ideas to ask a potential MC before you start w/ them, so you can avoid those that give you the wrong answers. You need one that is committed to helping couples have great marriages, and knows how to do that.

You are on an emotional rollercoaster right now, and there will be times that you will think it would be best to just divorce your spouse and go on with your life. Though there are no guarantees, recovery IS possible, but it takes time and effort. You will hate yourself if you don't do everything you can to make that happen. Give yourself the time you need.

3.) I understand that you may not be a person of faith, but for me, getting my spiritual life in order was crucial. As I said, this is hard. I knew I would need all the help I could get. Repenting of the habitual sins in my life let me stop pushing God away so I could hold on for dear life. I had to humble myself and ask Him what I had done wrong, and what I could do to be the husband He wanted me to be for his child, my wife. This was not about blaming myself. It was about doing what I could to do my part in having a great marriage. My wife could participate or not, but I had to know I had done everything I could do. It also helped me to let go of thinking about what SHE needed to do, since I couldn't control her, anyway.

You might also want to read through: WAT's Quick Start Guidelines for Betrayed Spouses, but keep in mind that these are the writings of amateurs. Get the books, read the articles, and see a GOOD counselor - you need the best help you can get.

Of course, that is just my opinions and what worked for me, who experienced it once, first hand. Harley, who has helped HUNDREDS of couples through this process, lays out his program in the following link: How to Survive Infidelity You will find that I mostly followed his plan. It works. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">

<small>[ March 16, 2005, 01:00 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>

Ive been sitting up all night reading different materials that this site has to offer. It has been helpful, but it appears that most of the things that are affiliated with an affair are that the BS has possibly done something wrong, whether it be not paying much attention, neglecting, lack of intamacy, whatever to cause the WS to become a WS. In my situation my husband has been away for 6 months, ive been home pregnant. So the only thing i could possibly do wrong from this distance is ignore him? i guess. im always sending packages, making sure hes taken care of with his materials, being supportive and listening when he needs to vent, NEVER did i ask for anything in return because him being in a hostile environment, i didnt want god forbid something to happen to him because he was worried about me. I started seeing a therapist 2 months after he deployed, that being my means of coping with all i needed to. My husband on the other hand put it all on me, which isnt a problem thats what im here for as his wife, but in all actuality in my mind, there couldnt be anything i did wrong. he even said it himself "nicole you did nothing wrong" he didnt do it for any other reason besides the fact that he genuinely doesnt know what caused him to detach from his own self and accept her offer.
Hes currently on his way home so thank god we can speak face to face, rather then on a computer for the past 6 months. By the way, as far as religion is concerned, my husband and i are both christians. ive asked God many a nights for strength to get thru this. My husband has asked for forgiveness in this matter. I have sat and tried to evalute if deep down i did anything wrong, and i guess IF i did, which my husband says i havent, maybe itll come out when hes home. I believe in secind chances and he understands this is his only chance. I believe in my heart he is genuinely sorry i just need to see it in his face. I truly Love my husband more than anything in this world, and i believe that he loves me. I guess we will see in a week wont we??

Nikkie,

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> it appears that most of the things that are affiliated with an affair are that the BS has possibly done something wrong, whether it be not paying much attention, neglecting, lack of intamacy, whatever to cause the WS to become a WS. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If you are reading these posts, or information from a book, to mean that the BS DID something or didn't do something that CAUSED the WS to have an affair, you are reading it wrong. The BS did NOT CAUSE the affair. There may have been conditions surrounding the marriage that left it vulnerable to an affair but it is not the FAULT of the BS. Perhaps the BS was responsible for some of those conditions for the deterioration of the marriage,,perhaps not. In your case it seems as though it may have been the distance, the involuntary separation,, not something of YOUR choice. In any case, it was your H's poor choice in dealing with the problem. It sounds as though he is attempting to assume responsiblitiy by admitting it wasn't you or anything YOU did.

How much longer til he's home Nikkie? Be sure to not push this under the rug and hope that it'll just go away. Work through it. Talk, get counseling You can rebuild your marriage and have a better relationship than you ever dreamed possible. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> NEVER did i ask for anything in return because him being in a hostile environment, i didnt want god forbid something to happen to him because he was worried about me. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Men WANT to be needed, and men want their spouse to be open with them. Also, separations are a major contributing factor to many affairs - whether for work or whatever. But, as the previous poster pointed out, affairs are not CAUSED by imperfections in a marriage, or else everyone would have one. </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Unmet EN's do not cause affairs, they cause lousy marriages. If you read Harley thoroughly and carefully, he does not say unmet EN's cause affairs, either, though it is so common a misconception among his readers that I would say he should do some re-writing of his material. Reading SAA, it can be easy to conclude that unmet needs are the reason for affairs. Not so. Affairs are entirely the responsibility of those involved, and the reasons vary.

Our MC worked w/ Bill Harley for 8 years, and one of his biggest dis-agreements w/ Bill was on this very issue, because according to him, in about 80% of men's affairs unmet EN's had very little to do with it. Yes, there were usually unmet EN's in their marriages, because no marriage is perfect. But, having the wife find out about and meet his most important EN's did not stop the affairs from re-kindling or stop the husband from having another. Harley is aware of this, which is why his plan for recovery is a lot more complicated than: 1.) Take the EN questionaire. 2.) Meet your husbands EN's. Our MC said that in his opinion, for that 80%, if the wife had been meeting the husband's top 5 EN's PERFECTLY, the husband still would have had the affair. If you want to learn more, read "The State of Affairs", by Todd Mulliken particularly the chapter on "The Double Life Man". </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"Torn Asunder", by Carder is another great resource at getting at the "Why" questions.

<small>[ March 20, 2005, 09:06 PM: Message edited by: johnh39 ]</small>