MBers -

I am confused about somethings. Little background can be found under "Just found out" H had affair with new boss.

Maybe I'm looking to blame myself for the A with question.

My H and I have always had a very good sex life. At times he has seemed not as interested as I would like. We had many issues with this in the past. I've tried to perk him up by being creative and that seemed to help.

I am completely willing to do or try anything in the bedroom with H and he knows that. When we do have SF it is great for both of us.

After the A the SF increased....which caused confusion for me. Now I'd like to know if my openness and willingness to try and do and please is just too much.

Should I cut back? I'm not always the aggressive one but H tends to lean towards that.

When I first found out about the A I asked if it was the SF he was not satisfied with at home. He didn't skip a beat when he said "What kind of question is that?"

My concern is that I'm too willing and that is not helping. I want to make him happy and I have always been this way..even during dating years.

I guess I want to know is can there be too much SF? Can you be too creative in the bedroom? Could I be turning him off?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by heroswife:
I guess I want to know is can there be too much SF? Can you be too creative in the bedroom? Could I be turning him off? </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is the value of ENQ. By filling out the questionnaire, both of you will KNOW what the others' most important EN's are, and a ? like your above can come up in a discussion, and be worked through.

I hope you follow through and do the questionnaire together so your recovery can continue successfully.

God Bless,

Lupolady -

We did the ENQ. SF was ranked was # 2 with Domestic Support being #1. This is so confusing. Should I just ask H?

He never responds to any questions..about anything. He gives very simple answers and not much detail.

I'm just confused. I try so hard but nothing seems to work.

What do you think about launching the nuke?

If you mean exposing the A no. Well, I do think about it when I get mad. I know this is a huge LB and that if I do that I better be ready to go to plan B quickly. This would destroy him and my M in the process.

What would that do for my Kids? What would that do for me? Nothing. Now I will say that if I do find out that the A is continuing I'd think really hard about launching that nuke. It'd be very hard not too. I think at that point I wouldn't care and would find satisfaction in ruining both of them. I'm sure that's a poor attitude to have.

I'm working hard towards recovery. Thinking of the NUKE doesn't help me get there any faster.

Hero

You seem to be suggesting that you are too willing and suspect that is the turnoff.

That's possible...don't a whole lot of men would feel that way...but if it is then a number of issues could be in play.

1) He's grown bored...sounds dumb but both men and women do get tired of the same old "routine". Yes you spice it up when you can but still not sure what you do with someone that is easily bored.

2) He needs the thrill of conquest. Ugh what the heck do you do with this one. Some men, sadly and not the norm, value to conquest as much or more than the physical part.

But truthfully I am scratching my head on this one. Most men would kill to have a wife almost always willing and unopposed to spicing things up. For most men the opposite of how you are is there problem.

On launching the nuke:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by heroswife:
<strong>This would destroy him and my M in the process.</strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">And what do you think is happening in the meantime? He's crawling in the gutter and slowing destroying 2 marriages and 4 people.

Maybe we shouldn't call it "the nuke." Rather, an affair surgical scalpel.

The longer this goes on, the less and less you have to lose by exposure. Truth is, if exposure could happen immediately upon an affair starting - a surogate for the "oops" response - many affairs wouldn't happen. Delay too long and exposure doesn't matter - as far as a catalyst to end the affair is concerned.

Expose and end it, possibly saving your marriage. Or don't expose and most likely lose your marriage.

What branch is your H in? Certainly not the Marines, all the "honor" and stuff.

WAT

Stunned Dad -

I've often wondered if I would bore him by being so willing. I've even forced myself to go days without any SF. He knows that is not something I do because I want to. It's not a form of punishment but it's a way for me to build the excitement for us both.

So to make things better should I not be willing to make him feel like he's in the middle of a conquest? I'm just confused. It's like you're D@mned if you don't and D@mned if you do.

Worthatry -

My H has ended the A. Sure he works with this woman on a daily basis and that makes recovery very hard. I can honestly say that I think he is trying very hard to build back the trust. This will take a long long time. I find myself struggling to stay here some days. I think it would be so much easier to pick up and move. I hate him somedays but then I get over the anger and I know that I love him very much. Destroying his career wouldn't do anything for my M. It would kill my kids...they are so proud of their hero dad.

It shocks me that I would be encouraged to expose the A now when things are going good.

So I should just call up his commander (can't call his boss because she's the OW) and say "by the way, the glory hire that just joined your outfit is bone'n his new boss, have a nice day."

Then my H comes home and instead of us going to the gym to workout together and then have a nice dinners, he comes home and we are faced with his job loss and how are we supposed to pay the house note? What does that do for us?

How does that help us get to recovery?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It's like you're D@mned if you don't and D@mned if you do.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Yep it is and I don't have a clue what to tell you to do about it.

Its different for different men. Some men want to "bone" (as you put) as many as they can as if that is the true measure of a man. Others want to be so good to one woman and her joy is what gives them the sense of being a man.

So its a catch 22....being so good he doesn't look elsewhere or being too good he gets bored.

That being said I would hope your value to him in both of you guy's marriage goes WAY beyond just what you have going on in the sex department.

Stunned Dad -

We have lots of companionship and we make each other laugh. We enjoy one another's company. I'm not sure why this A happened. Not to say that we were perfectly happy before. We had issues and I was not very happy at times. As a military family we spend a lot of time apart. The stress of wars have a huge impact on a relationship. We were fighting a great deal before. Just couldn't seem to get back to normal after the last deployment.

We seem to be closer now but there's something gone from our relationship. I do not hold him in such high regard and I do not trust him one bit.

I'm not sure we will ever get that part of our relationship back. At least not like it was.

I worry that I put too much into the relationship and I expect too much in return. I guess I have the fairytale vision of marriage.

I'm so confused.

Oh, someone wanted to know what branch - we are Army - he was in a spec. ops unit prior to our new duty station. Needless to say he didn't work with women in that unit. This was the first woman he had ever worked with. I can see how a woman would be smitten with him because of all of his accomplishments. I saw this coming.

I guess I should also add that I assumed he would have the spine to turn women away.

I'm not sure what made him fall into this A. I try to blame myself. I try to say that I just wasn't a good enough wife to keep him from straying. This hurts terribly.

He has always put his family first and for some reason he decided he needed to throw us (me and our 2 children) away for this relationship...knowing that this could end his career and would for sure end his marriage.

I missed the news that the affair was over - or maybe I misunderstood something all along.

If it's over, then you're correct, no need to expose. It would be counterproductive to recovery.

WAT

hero

For the most part affairs are not about the betrayed spouse. Not always but for the most part they are not about you personally. I know sounds odd but it really is true.

Only real affairs that are exclusively about the betrayed spouse are exit affairs in other words the wayward spouse wanted out because they no longer viewed you as someone they want to spend the rest of their life with.

After that you can pretty much pick a wide range of reasons affairs happen that have nothing to do with the betrayed spouse.

1) Some affairs are based in the personality of the wayward spouse. They feel entitled to all the enjoyment they can get regardless of who is hurt. They are selfish in that regard. It has nothing to do with you its all about them. Whether its having their ego stroked or something else stroked. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

2) Some affair reflect inner issues of the wayward spouse. Low self esteem, history of not setting boundaries, poor choices or judgement.

3) Some are about the marriage..that's not the same as about you. There maybe some sexual issues, or work conflict issues, lifestyle issues such as child rearing or religion and so on. Though they reflect on you they are singular in nature not a total rejection of you. And in most cases they are often exagerated in order to rationalize an affair.

4) Product of life altering event. Loss of a parent or a child. Business failure or termination due to downsizing. Career change. Having children. All marriages are stressed. Sometimes a single powerful event makes one spouse vunerable who would not normally be vunerable...your husband being military the seperation if a result of war can be just such an event.

5) Serious mental issues. Sex addiction, sexually abused or rape victims, narcissist personality, bi-polar personality, clinical depression and many others mental health issues leave those suffering from them vunerable to affairs. Indeed those in this category have an unusually high rate of infidelity including those that have been raped or sexually abused.

Many sites on infidelity have surveys saying that the WS had very positive things to say about the BS. Like they never stopped loving them. That it was not about the BS. And positive things to say about the marriage. Like they were very happy with the state of their marriage. That the sexual part of the marriage was good and so on.

So it is possible that an affair while seeming all about the BS is in truth not about them.

Stunned Dad -

I appreciate you sharing your knowledge. I have found it to be very helpful.

I'd like to think that my husband's A was brought on my stresses in our life at the time.

We were trying to deal with what he witnessed and took part in while in Iraq. He came home and talked about it a great deal but then just stopped. We lost a very close friend and that totally threw him for a loop. He became very depressed and felt guilty for having come home. I read his journal from the time he spent over there. He never mentioned the things he was doing...he just talked about missing me and our children. That was on every page of his journal. He wrote a little about his friend that died. Basically just said...I was with him last night, if I had known I wouldn't see him again I would have said so much more. That's it.

He came home from the war and had to deal with all the media and listen to other Americans say that what he did over there was a hoax and never really happened. He had to watch movies about the things he did that did not reflect him and his team in the best light. All the while knowing that he would soon leave the unit and the rest of the guys would be in the theater while he was moving to a desk job.

Add on top of that the fact that my job was taking me away from home often and I was not able to focus on him like I should have. Add to that a baby that is a total handful, I was constantly complaining about my job, the kids were going crazy, we were sad to leave our church which had become a HUGE part of our lives.

It was just a mess.

I'm not giving him excuses. What he did was wrong. And I have not fully forgiven him yet. I am working on that. I love him dearly. I'm just trying to grasp the fact that sometimes "good people" make "really bad decisions".

It's just so hard to believe that my American Hero, my Rock, has fallen to this level.

I no longer look at him like I should look at a hero. I have lost respect for him on so many different levels.

That does not deminish my love. I just want to know why....why....why?