Well H found out about affairs I was having last month - day before xmas eve. I know I've made mistakes and I've seeked council for help. I'm learning and I'm not allowing myself to fall for it a 2nd time. At first I told him I wouldn't stop but I would try - well I didn't try in fact I kept going, week later he found some emails - then I realized after he moved out for a week that I did want him and that I made a huge mistake. I told him I would try - that I wouldn't do it anymore.... and I haven't! Now eveytime we have an argument or disagree about ANTYHING - it comes back to the affair! How long is this going to go on? He's made up all these scenario's in his head of what I've been doing and when he can't reach me where I am... it's crazy! All I can do is deny but he doesn't believe - when will he trust me again? Or at least not throw it back in my face? I mean I feel like we are making progress and then we have an argument and he tells me all this which makes me feel like he isn't trying to get past it...
Is it too soon? Seems like when's accusing me - he has all this hate and rage still. He says he loves me and wants to work on us and get past this but I'm not so sure it will ever happen.

ANY ADVICE?

Yes it is too soon. Recovery generally takes about 18 months, plus or minus. Are you two in counseling? Are you doing any of the things suggested below? </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">

Welcome to MB needsomehelpnow2

When will he start trusting you again, when your actions and some time has passed. You promised him once that you would try and didn't. But, now you have to be consistant and patienct. Trust must be earned. Maintain no contact with the OM, that helps. If you feel like contacting talk to your H instead.

You will need to talk with him how his throwing the A in your face while arguing is effect you. You need to share with him your feelings and thoughs. You need to be an open book with him, open and honest. Start calling him and let him know where your at or going. Be accountable for your time. If your going to be late call him and let him know. Keep communicating, talking and sharing.

Your H still does have a lot of anger, fustration, pain, and depression. He doesn't understand why, he feels that he is a failure, 2nd best. He has no self confidence or self esteem. Sometime you will need to ask him if he has any questions, and that you will answer them if you can. If you are confused or don't know why tell him that.

Be a comfort to him, if you see he's down hug him. If your down go to him for comfort. Meet his EN's as best you can, and share yours with him.

It does get better with time and work. He Loves you, through the pain which is emence. He is still there. And, you Love him.

Keep reading here, posting, and venting. It does help to vent.

<small>[ January 27, 2004, 12:13 PM: Message edited by: Silverthorn ]</small>

Hi, needsomehelpnow2,

It is way too soon. John39's post had great advice in it.

Your H can't believe you when you say you've quit, this time you're serious, etc. He already trusted you once, and you had an A. Then he trusted you when you said it was over, and it wasn't. He [bold]knows[/bold] not to trust you now, because you've taught him not to.

You can teach him that you are trustworthy again, though. You have to do it with actions, because words are empty. Here are some suggested actions you can take to demonstrate that you are serious. Also ask your H what you can do to help reassure him.

1. Send a No Contact (NC) letter to the other person(s) (OPs).
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">My advice is to write a final letter in a way that the victimized spouse would agree to send it. It should begin with a statement of how selfish it was to cause those they loved so much pain, and while marital reconciliation cannot completely repay the offense, it's the right thing to do. A statement should be made about how much the unfaithful spouse cares about his spouse and family, and for their protection, has decided to completely end the relationship with the lover. He or she has promised never to see or communicate with the lover again in life, and asks the lover to respect that promise. Nothing should be said about how much the lover will be missed. After the letter is written, the victimized spouse should read and approve it before it is sent. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">2. Give your H acess to your computer and all your accounts. Give him all your passwords, and offer to install spyware on the computer or let him do it himself.

3. Give your H access to your cellphone bills and offer to change your cell phone number.

4. Offer to place a recording device on your home phone.

5. If you have voice mail, give your H passwords to voice mail and teach him how to access your accounts.

6. Always be where you say you'll be. Call to check in while you're out.

7. Put rules on your email so that all messages from the OPs are immediately deleted (not bounced back to them).

8. Whenever your H asks a question (and there will be a LOT of them), always answer truthfully. The news of the A is out of the bag. Further lies, even tiny ones, can NOT help protect you or your H but they WILL destroy your efforts to restore trust.

I'm sure there are other things you could do to begin restoring trust - your H will know!

On restoring trust - a post from me to a fellow BS: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> As far as I can discern there is really only one approach to re-establishing trust, and a couple of well-established ways to get there. In both cases, the bottom line is: believe their actions, not their words, at least until you have seen a consistent pattern of their words and actions being aligned for a period of many months. That necessarily means you have to be more involved in their lives so that you have the ability to verify that their actions and words are cohesive.

The path to get there, according to Willard Harley, is to have no secrets from each other, and to use the Policy of Joint Agreement (POJA) in all your decisions. Once you see your spouse consistently use the POJA, and the two of you have learned to understand each other and communicate with each other well enough to implement it, you will trust them when they are out of sight, too. Perhaps ironically, one thing that will convince you of your spouse's honesty is if they tell you things they know will hurt, instead of lying or keeping silent to "protect" you. So this process will likely not be painless, especially since, if you are like most couples, it will require learning a new way to communicate. Change is hard.

A second path, promoted by Carder in “Torn Asunder” (and the younger Harleys, too, I think), is for the WS to really dig in to the "WHY?" of the affair, and in gaining that self-understanding, communicate to you both why it happened, and how they will change their behavior in ways that you can verify and that will prevent them from having another.

Of course, these two paths are not mutually exclusive. I view them as complementary, and think “Surviving an Affair”, by Harley is extremely helpful in figuring out important parts of the why, at least as far as the answer involves unmet Emotional Needs, and it almost always does, especially for a woman who has an affair.

The fallacy is the belief that unmet EN’s “cause” affairs. If that was the case, I would have had the affair, not my wife, because my EN’s were less well met in our marriage than hers.

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 a 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 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 questionnaire. 2.) Meet your spouse’s 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". Though the percentage of women who have this type of affair is small, it is not zero.
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