Hey Still I didn't realize that things had esculated to the point that she filed for divorce.

I understand now why you are so torn. Its a tough call.

So let me ask you some questions if you don't mind.

Is she the same person for the most part pre affair and post affair?

Did she truly grow from this painful experience?

Has she been remorseful and loving in both words and deeds?

Can you try and take day to day to see if things improve?

I understand the desire to "cut your loses" most betrayed spouses assume the entire marriage was a bust not just the affair period. So wanting to bail while there are no more entanglements like kids is understandable.

Just make sure that you don't do anything you can't take back if you are not sure right now.

<small>[ October 07, 2003, 09:02 AM: Message edited by: stunned-dad-fast recovering ]</small>

Wow! Thanks again for all your responses.

Oscar and Jimmy, you have helped me understand the logic of a WS, thank you. How is your recovery going? Does your spouse have any moments where they question staying with you?

TMCM- I see what you are meaning, however that seems like a very short-sighted approach. What it seems like you are saying is: Forget the past and only think of the here and now. While I would agree that is more healthy, I believe that past is a sign of the future.

Stunned- The Readers Digest version here:

Met in High School 10 years ago; Dated 5 years before getting married; Married June 02; EA started July 02; PA August 02; Seperated October 02; Confronted her with proof of the A, November 02; She filed for Dv December 02; I Plan B'd her then, December 02; March 03 she contacted me about recovery but was still lying to me; May 03 I invited her back home; August 03 she says there are no more lies.

So that is the short, short version of our story to give you a better perspective.

<strong>Is she the same person for the most part pre affair and post affair?</strong>

It depends on the day. Most days I would say that she has changed into a more grown up, honest adult. But there are some days that she seems like the foggy WS I knew last year.

<strong>Did she truly grow from this painful experience?</strong>

That is a question only she can answer, really. I think she has a better understanding of right and wrong, however, if given the same choice with another OM I don't know if she would choose right or wrong. She told me that the whole time she knew the A was wrong but didn't know how to stop it nor did she really know how it got as far as it did. So for that reason I fear she would choose wrong if given the chance for another A. She says she knows better and knows what to do if another guy starts hitting on her. That gives me little comfort since as a grown adult she should have known before and this shouldn't be some new revelation here.

<strong>Has she been remorseful and loving in both words and deeds?</strong>

YES! That is something she has been real good at. BUT, while being remourseful about what has happened, she still has been lying to me for one reason or another.

<strong>Can you try and take day to day to see if things improve?</strong>

That is the toughest part, I am a "whole picture" guy. On a day by day basis, the only down times have been because of me either second guessing staying with W or triggering because we are hitting the 1 year of a lot of A stuff.

Stunned, do you ever second guess staying with bunches? Are there days that you want to just be Dv'd so you can find a woman that truely loves you? What do you do during those days if you have them?

Thanks

Oscar and Jimmy, you have helped me understand the logic of a WS, thank you. How is your recovery going?

It has been 10 years for me. We're about as recovered as we can be. My relationship with my W is better than it ever was before the A. I'm much more honest with her. I'm more communicative. I can express my feelings. Etc., etc., etc.

The hardest thing for me is to realize I have to live with the knowledge of the A. There were some good things that came from the A, and I'm a better person for it, but I regret what I did. I wish it never would have happened. But, it did, and I can't change the past.

Does your spouse have any moments where they question staying with you?

Not now. It has been 10 years. I'm sure she did.

A BS has every reason to get a divorce. WS violated a cultural taboo of almost all societies. The natural consequence of an A is for the M to end. I would expect any BS to think long and hard about a D.

Ultimately, whether you D or not is your decision.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> Stunned, do you ever second guess staying with bunches? Are there days that you want to just be Dv'd so you can find a woman that truely loves you? What do you do during those days if you have them? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Still I would be lying if I said it doesn't pop in my mind even this deep into recovery.

But have a mixed bag of blessing in all of this. To be honest our marriage was headed south for me. No intimacy except for the purpose of having kids and when she was guilt ridden or got fustrated enough to be pushy.

Without outside interference we could have lived unhappily ever after.

My wife had deamons some she conciously knew of but down played others she buried deep in her soul.

So I no longer have a sexual unresponsive wife. An angry wife who was very sweet in loving but so damaged by the abuse she bounced from one mood to another.

We were best of friends even though we failed miserably as lovers...or should I say she never gave either of us a chance to be lovers...oh she did what she called her wifely duty when pressed. But over time it almost became not worth. This level of deprevation was no good for either of us. And truth be known it took a concious effort on my part from time to time to avoid straying. I look back and I see where she says she couldn't believe I never strayed because she knew she wasn't giving what a woman should give her man.

So if there is such a thing as an upside to an affair mine is the best of them. A healed wife. A newlywed star eyed lover who literally was a virgin to true intimacy to having an orgasm of pleasure rather than from some perversed conditioning that sex had to be abusive and dirty in order for her to feel anything and what she felt wasn't pleasurable.

A scared little girl so scarred she could not see past her own pain is now a grown loving women who weeps more at all the years she took away from us before the affair than the affair years themselves.

As for the lies well I want to share something with you that I have faced over and over. I have a very analytical mind. I forget very little and process everything and I mean EVERYTHING much like a forensic detective would. Part of that comes from attending college on a partial debate scholarship. Part from owning a business where I have to be on guard against employee theft. I truly never suspected my wife would have an affair. Not because I was cocky or foolish but because I really REALLY knew she hated sex....trust me our water bill just for the cold water over 17 years would fund most small companies 401k's! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Now however I dissect everything. And I have 2 1/2 years of things to dissect. Now I wish I didn't think this way because it makes forgiving forgetting and moving on much more difficult.

But I have learned that wayward spouses (they don't have to have mental issues like my wife) lie for reason beyond the fog. Part of them still doesn't want to face the full ramifications of what they did. Part of them want to get past the pain and guilt as fast as they can. And to do so they forget as fast as they can.

The best quote I have read here by a therapist I think Dr. Phil was "don't try to make sense out of nonsense".

You and I want to make sense of something that made no sense.

I will say this I really think that besides joint MC you and even more so your wife would benefit from IC.

To have known her for so long premarriage and then to have the wheels fall off so quick makes me wonder if she has some childhood issues that are worth exploring....now keep in mind EVERYBODY has childhoods issues. But some of us cope with them and move on others who have relatively the same experiences are deeply wounded.

I look at the rapid timetable you listed and I am struck with the fact that you wife might have legitimate intimacy problems...and not on a physical level like mine. Could it be she has a problem making a deep committment so she had an affair to avoid letting you get too close to her.

Yes it sounds odd she marries you then has an affair to avoid getting too close to you. But read up on intimacy avoidance affairs. Explore the posibility that she has some child abandonment issues. Was there a divorce in her family that impacted her tremedously? Were one or both of her parents emotionally detatched or worse verbally abusive and hateful?

Look into it. I think if you could find something "fixable" within your marriage, yourself or her then you would feel much more secure about the future.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"TMCM- I see what you are meaning, however that seems like a very short-sighted approach. What it seems like you are saying is: Forget the past and only think of the here and now. While I would agree that is more healthy, I believe that past is a sign of the future."</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Short-sighted? Ok I will excuse you youthful arrogance with regards to that remark. But while I wholeheartedly agree with George Santayana's famous saying "Those who do not learn from the past are condemned to repeat it" I also beleive that you can become a slave to the past (whether you remain married or not) by CHOSING to live in it.

<small>[ October 08, 2003, 10:36 AM: Message edited by: T00MuchCoffeeMan ]</small>

The best analogy of the past I've heard, forgive me if I kill it.

Imagine trying to drive your car anywhere while only looking in the rear view mirror. Do you think you could get anywhere doing it? Sure you could, but it sure as heck wouldn't be easy. Use the past as a guide, but not as your only point of view for where you are headed.

You may want to look at what I said in my post "No where to turn"

I believe that past is a sign of the future.
One thing about MB principles (in general). You HAVE to make them habits and use them all the time in order to sustain a healthy relationship.

Most of the time, the ws will see things the bs is doing as part of Plan A/B and think it is only to "win" them back. Then the bs will revert to previous behaviors because, "you've always been that way."

Hi, not to sure how this all works, my first time here. My H came forward about a month ago and told me he wanted a DV and as things came out he confesed that he had been unfaithful through out our 12 yr M, but it has mainly been one nighters, no long term affairs, he feels that this is a lesser offense because they didn't mean anything to him. He was not able to give me a number of how many times it has happened, to many to count. I'm hurt and disgusted. His job requires him to be gone a lot and of course this is where all these infidelities have taken place. Not sure how to implement a plan A. I have no trust and I'm not sure how to put an end to this. He wants to work on our M and work through this. We both have had an A and addmitted it to eachother when we went through a new beginnings class about 4 yrs ago. I truely made a new beginning and put all the bad in the past and focused on meeting eachothers needs. I'm upset because I thought we learned our lesson on the pain and guilt that an A can cause. Help is there any hope or is my H addicted to sex?

Jimmy- I am glad to hear that you and your W have made it through recovery. It gives me some hope of things down the road if I can ever get past this.

Stunned- It is amazing that we know so little of eachother but you were able to hit the nail on the head regarding my W. She has been in IC since Feb (I think, we were seperated then) and is working through issues from her childhood.

As TMCM said about my youthful arrogance, part of me says W won't really learn from this if we stay together. Sometimes I think that I send the massage that I am a pushover and that I am not man enough to keep my W safe from other men. I know that is a very immature way of looking at things but that is how I feel somedays. I also know that if I Dv W just to "show her" I would only be hurting myself in the long run.

While I don't want to drive forward while looking out the rearview mirror, I feel that there are things I still need to learn from this. W and I talked the other day about what was bothering me and how we can deal with it. She also cleared the air on some more lies that had been told in the past. Althought the lies hurt, we hugged afterward and I felt closer to her than I had in a long time.

Hiker- I will look at your thread, thanks.

Chris- I know what you mean about making them habits. That is one of the things that has me afraid. In the past W has made drastic changes like she is now only to go back to her old self later down the road. She can make the changes but she only makes them temporary not habits. While I really do like the "new wife" I have I fear the same pattern will present itself later down the road.

CAL- Welcome to MB! If you go back to GQII and click on the button that says "New Topic" you can start a thread of your own. Without more information, it seems to me like your H has an addiction which is different then an affair. Plan A/B as I understand it is a plan to seperate the wayward spousr (WS) from the lover. Since your H is addicted to one night stands (ONS) and not a long term affair (A) it may not apply to you. Please continue to read and post here as there are many people who could help you with your H and his addiction.

Thanks again to all of you who have been helping W and I with our recovery, bumpy as it is. <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">Stunned- It is amazing that we know so little of eachother but you were able to hit the nail on the head regarding my W. She has been in IC since Feb (I think, we were seperated then) and is working through issues from her childhood.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Well I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express the other night! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

All kidding aside my situation forced me to study up as much as possible on this very painful event.
This spring I begin grad school to get my masters in marriage and family therapy. I'm selling my business and at 40 plus will set out to make a difference in peoples life instead of justing trying to make a buck.

Still if as I suspect she has childhood issues I must tell you there is a scared little girl longing to feel safe and desperately wanting to love but unsure of what that means and how to do it.

If she is successful in overcoming these issues you will wind up with one of the most loving wives God has put forth for a man.

And you ask about you being safe/secure in the future...well its hard for a woman to leave someone they love...even harder when that person is the hero that stood beside her in her darkest hours.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by stunned-dad-fast recovering:
And you ask about you being safe/secure in the future...well its hard for a woman to leave someone they love...even harder when that person is the hero that stood beside her in her darkest hours.[/QB]</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Stunned -
Your words are all too true. Thank you! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

HEY READY!!!!!!!

I never saw your story and I am very curious to hear it.

Ready

Tell him he is your hero. Tell him before you make love, after you make love, while holding hands, when he is happy, when he is angry, when you still have air in your lungs.

I consider myself pretty well adjusted and level headed but I still had a hard time with sense of no self worth upon discovering my wife's affair.

The first response is the other person is better or at least your spouse thinks the OP is better than you.

Then you feel that despite your WS saying they weren't there was a time in WS's mind that the OP was better or the affair never happens.

Then you feel you weren't good enough to make the affair end quickly.

And when you get past that you feel like you weren't good enough to keep the affair from happening in the first place.

So being your hero is exactly what he needs to rebuild his shattered self esteem.

Ready you of all people should understand what it is like to have low self esteem and how that made you feel. Well he is feeling that ten times fold. You felt poorly because of what you felt he did or didn't feel about you. You had to come to that conclusion based on guessing and assumptions. He has undeniable actions that damaged his self esteem.

<small>[ October 12, 2003, 05:28 PM: Message edited by: stunned-dad-fast recovering ]</small>

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That is a question only she can answer, really. I think she has a better understanding of right and wrong, however, if given the same choice with another OM I don't know if she would choose right or wrong. She told me that the whole time she knew the A was wrong but didn't know how to stop it nor did she really know how it got as far as it did. So for that reason I fear she would choose wrong if given the chance for another A. She says she knows better and knows what to do if another guy starts hitting on her. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Okay I have met you guys so I am going out on a limb based on seeing her only once. I saw what I considered to be a somewhat passive person. Now that could be that like my wife it was awkward to see someone that knew you were the wayward spouse.

But more than likely it goes back to her childhood issues. In which case her relationships skills or lack of them were formed during those troubled childhood years.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">That gives me little comfort since as a grown adult she should have known before and this shouldn't be some new revelation here.</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">You are making some false assumptions. If this is a first time affair as much as I hated to read this early in recovery, then its highly likely it was an unintentional affair. I know my first reaction was what the "F" or even more graphic the line Bruce Willis used when he caught his wife having an affair in The Last Boy Scout.

If you read how most of the WSs described how they wound up in an affair it never starts out with "I felt like getting me some strange".

For vast majority it started off as someone to talk to then slowly esculated.

The other thing is she had NO CONCEPT of what she was getting into. No idea of the false promise of an affair. No sense of the guilt and shame she was going to feel when it all came out. Absolutely no clue of the pain she was going to cause you.

The niave state of thinking that existed before the first affair is no longer there.

Now if she ever has another affair then you can say it was deliberate.

But I doubt she sat down and said I know this is wrong but I just feel like having an affair. Affairs don't unfold that quickly. I mean its not like shoplifting when where you see something put under your coat and walk out the store. Each step is much slower than that. And often its followed by saying oops we don't need to go there.

You are understandably thinking like a betrayed spouse but if you want to understand how this devastating emotional pain came to be then you have to put yourself in her shoes.

I am trying to reply to your original question </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am wondering what is it that tells a WS that it is OK to have an A? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am a WS and there are so many things, at least for me, it is diffilcult to answer your question. I wasn't thinking of BS I was only thinking of me. Somehow the attention I was receiving from OW overshadowed any sense of propriety that was within me. There was such a gulf within me that seemed to be filled instantly that I didn't even consider our vows. I know that I didn't want to hurt my W but I was bleeding and OW seemed to be able to stop the pain