</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by jetgirl:
<strong> I see my case might be different, that I have no intentions to tell my H. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Your case is not different, except that you need to reconsider telling your H. He has right to know this information since it is about his life.

He is being destroyed behind his back and doesn't know it. He needs to know what is happening so he can protect himself from YOU.

He may also choose not to be married to someone who cheats on him and that is his right. It is because of that, that you have no right to withhold information from him. You don't have a right to try and make decisions about his life that he should rightfully make.

To do so is cruel and manipulative beyond words. You are dangerous. You will only be keeping him in your marriage WITH A LIE. He has a right to know what is going on in his own life. To withhold this information is only compounding the cruelty.

HONESTY is the solution to adultery, not MORE LYING.

Tell your husband.

6 years ago i had a brief internet EA...lasted 2 months...never told my husband...now i think back...i think i should have because by leaving it as it was...my own emotional needs weren't being satisfied and i started ignoring my husband. I ignored him for 6 years...it was gradual and not significant until finally he became a WH and had an affair himself.

Now i am in my 10th week of plan B. Don't let that happen to you!!!!

IT IS NOT GREAT BEING A BETRAYED SPOUSE...if you think the feelings that you are going through is bad...wait til you try being a BS!!!!

So tell your husband. If he doesn't know about your emotional needs how can you fix your marriage.

jetgirl - What exactly do you think you want from this system and the others who post to you?

Everything seems to be revolving around what jetgirl wants and feels and NOTHING about anyone else.

No concern for the OM's spouse or children.
No concern for your own children.
No concern for your husband's feelings.

No love....just selfish desire.

This is a Marriage Builders site that is dedicated to repairing and rebuilding marriages, primarily those that have suffered from adultery of the Emotional and/or Physical type.

My wife was involved in a 6 year affair that I discovered. She had no intentions of ever telling me about it until she filed for a divorce. Let me simply tell you that IMHO, my finding out about it has made it much worse than it would have been if she had confessed and recommited to the marriage on her own.

We are now over 2 years from the initial d-day and approaching the 2 year mark for when we began recovery. During all that time, there has been continued contact (off and on) with the OM. Let me make myself perfectly clear on this point....there is NO room in a marriage for a 3rd person, not ever, not at any point.

Until you get that through your head and want to recover YOUR marriage, all it appears you are seeking is sympathy. Okay....here's a bucket of sympathy for you. Feel better? None of us wants anyone else to hurt. Marriage, and especially recovery from an affair takes WORK. It takes doing the tough things. It means denying yourself those things that are NOT helpful to a marriage....like contact with a (excuse me while I engage in a little Betrayed Spouse puking) adulterous "lover".

Think about this FACT for just one little minute. The idiot that you are infatuated with ADMITTED to you that he IS a serial adulterer and that there is little likelihood that he will ever change. Haven't you just picked the "perfect" sort of person to "fall in love" (yes, I'm puking again) with?

Not telling your husband? Why not, you have become, as my wife did, an accomplished liar and rationalizer. I'll bet you even "justify" your decision to not tell him because "he couldn't handle it", or "he'll kick me out", or some other equally self-satisfying lie to make you feel better. Then there's the ever popular "what he doesn't know won't hurt him."

The "dirty deed" has been done. While he may be thinking, as a lot of men do, that he is showing his love for you by working himself to the bone to provide MATERIAL things for you, you are a woman who wants emotional things. A lot of us men have a problem understanding that. We "show our love" by what we do, not so much by what we say.

That's one of the reasons that the Emotional Needs questionaire is so important. It let's you both list what is important to you and then you each get to see "inside each other's head" and learn what each other sees as your actually meeting or missing the fulfilment of those needs. It pretty much eliminates the guessing game.

So you want to keep the affair secret and keep the ability to "be weak and give in and contact the OM" whenever you feel like it.

Here's the truth, YOUR marriage is over and your husband doesn't know it. He may well think everything is just fine, I know I did. He MAY decide to divorce you...you accepted that possibility when you CHOSE to let another man into what was promised exclusively to your husband. Adultery is recognized by both society and God as legitmate grounds for a divorce. But make no mistake about it, the affair and it's secrets are in YOUR control. RECOVERY of a marriage is pretty much in the hands of the Betrayed Spouse.

IF you want your marriage to survive, to get better, to have your needs met by the one who should be meeting them, then you must tell your husband and be ready to whatever it takes to heal the wounds and to move forward.

But before you do, let me tell you another sobering thought to consider. Satistically, it takes as long to recover from an affair as it took for the Wayward Spouse to get into and out of an affair. That means that both you and your husband, should you choose to recover your marriage, are likely to need at least 5 years to recover. That's a long time. It takes a lot of patience, tears, "starting over" from time to time, getting though the withdrawal, the questions, the lack of trust (which you have earned and need to prove yourself trustworthy before expecting him to trust you again), the "two steps forward-one step backward", the vital necessity of joint Marital Counseling by a Pro-marriage counselor...etc., etc., etc..

jetgirl, it is past time that you stopped thinking so much about yourself and start thinking about your husband and family. I know it feels good to hear so many other posters tell you that "you're a good girl and we understand your pain." But denying the problem and NOT commiting to the hard work needed is NOT going to make you feel better in the long run. It WILL eat you alive as any "deep dark secret" will eventually do. It WILL come out negatively in how you treat others and how you relate to your husband and family.

Yes, confession will be difficult. So DO NOT CONFESS until YOU are ready to commit to your marriage 100% and to fight through all of the tough times that will be sure to descend following disclosure, even if it ultimately leads to a divorce. If you can't give it 100%, don't bother. Because your husband will NEED to know that you regret the affair, that you are truly sorry for it (which does NOT sound like where you are at right now), that you want HIM and the marriage and that you made the biggest mistake of your life. Unless he sees total commitment from you, he won't believe you are telling the truth and will not be able to learn how to trust and love you again.

But don't take forever in making your decision. One thing about affairs, they usually come to light sooner or later. Later would be much more damanging.

I hope you will find the strength to do away with all the lies and embrace the covenant of marriage that you entered into with your husband and God.

Jetgirl,

I'm glad you weren't scared off. I have great confidence in you and high hopes for the recovery of your M into something beyond what you can currently imagine. It is NOT going to be easy.

You spoke to OM. Did you read what I said about changing your phone numbers and email address(es)? What did you think about that? What do you think about it now? I'm curious to hear where your brain is at after your contact.

I see my case might be different, that I have no intentions to tell my H. The problem is as I got older, my needs changed. But H won't change.

I find it rather presumptuous of you to assume that your H won't change. You sell yourself, your H, and your M short by making such an assumption. Your H can only understand how IMPORTANT it is that he change if you tell him the truth.

Imagine you have a life threatening disease which can be completely alleviated through a strict diet. I won't pull any punches, it's a real pain-in-the-butt diet. You have to cut out some of your absolute all-time favorite comfort foods, totally and forever. You have to carefully monitor and measure everything. You can only eat certain foods with certain other foods. Some foods you can only eat in the mornings. There are a lot of rules, and it looks like you'll never get the hang of it all. If you follow the diet, you will feel better than ever before. You'll have energy galore, and hardly ever get even a case of the sniffles. If you don't follow the diet, you will almost certainly die. If you miraculously survive, your life will be miserable and painful.

Would you want to be told the truth? Would you want to know the true severity of the situation? Would that motivate you to follow the strict diet? I would!

Or would you want your doctor to vaguely acknowledge what you already knew - your health could be better, things aren't quite perfect. What if he then asked you to follow the strict diet? Would you be motiviated? I wouldn't! I find it hard to give up chips and fries for Lent -- I sure wouldn't go to a lot of effort to change my habits and behaviors because "I've felt better".

You see where I'm going with this. Your H's M has a life-threatening disease. You're the doctor. You know he needs to modify his behavior and habits to keep his M from dying. If he does this, the M will be healthier than ever before. These behavioral modifications require a LOT of effort and perserverance. He'll only undertake such a grand project if he understands what's at stake, and the benefits he'll reap by making those changes.

Your H is not the only one who will have to work hard, and who will reap the benefits.

Imagine the doctor above, who does not tell his patient the truth. It's just too heartbreaking to see the patient suffer with the knowledge of reality. Besides, the patient won't follow the diet anyway. What's the point? So the doctor goes on to treat another patient. Do you think he'll magically be a better doctor after avoiding the "tough work" with the current patient? Or do you think his future patients are likely to suffer similarly to the current one? Which doctor do you want to be?

I see my case might be different
I don't see a big difference at all from others here.

that I have no intentions to tell my H.
Yeah, that's what I previously wrote you would say.
Too bad you don't trust your husband, especially when he is the one who should not trust you,

Jet
I hope you are "listening" you have several of the best offering great advice here. Do more than listen you must act on what they are saying. It is so hard to do that, trust me I know. Maybe I was "lucky" in that my W found out about the A on her own. I didn't have to face her and tell her...kinda the coward's way out. I think now that it would have come better from me and not the computer, where she found our e-mails.
H

Turtlehead-

great analogy with the doctor/patient!

CW

Listen- I want you guys to know that I am not looking for sympathy- I came here for advice to help me get past this addiction to OM. I do feel like I can do the right thing-NC. I keep saying to myself NC NC NC. And I do think about other people, I always did. His wife, his child, my family. I always wanted to stop, but when my H would piss me off, or refuse to change-i said forget it. I gave up. But I know it's time to be done. I hate the withdrawal.Up down up down. Thats the help I wanted. I know this site is pro marriage, so am I! I would never want to upset a BS. I don't know your pain.

jetgirl - Let me first say that you don't "upset" me. I, and probably quite a few others, are way past getting personally upset by what someone else says on the system.

I am concerned for you and your husband. All any of us can do is offer you some hard-earned advice. Whether or not you choose to accept any of it or implement any of it is up to you. We can see when the odds are high that someone is going in the wrong direction and that is my opinion of where you are headed. Others may share or disagree with my opinion, but I've seen virtually nothing in your posts to date that indicate a potential for success.

Right now you are focused almost exclusively on getting over the withdrawal symptoms. I understand that. They are real and they are powerful, just like in most addictions. The ONLY answer is twofold. Time (it will take time, approximately 2 months to get over the really strong withdrawal symptoms and many months after that to get it totally behind you) and absolutely NO Contact with the OM. Every time you have contact you set the withdrawal clock back to "day 1" and have to start all over again. That is not a good way to get past the withdrawal.

In addition, it's not enough to simply stop doing what was causing the problem. You need to replace it with something else. That's where it's imperative that you have a focus on your husband and your family. You disconnected. You need to reconnect and begin to deal with the problems that are there. Marriage Counseling would seem to be a "must" for you and your husband. Trying to "do it yourself" is asking for trouble, especially when your husband has not idea that anything is wrong, much less "amiss."

Lastly, you should read a few books that will help you. I'd highly recommend starting with Torn Asunder by Dave Carder.

I also want to caution you that while you may be able to keep the affair secret from your husband for a while, maybe even years, it will continue to be a "deep dark secret" that will eat at you and will affect your relationship with your husband. It will very likely come out at some time. So you will have to think long and hard about the wisdom of NOT telling your husband. But if you do, you must be 100% commited to recovering your marriage because there will be more pain and anguish to overcome.

I hope the best for you. But the journey has just begun.

jetgirl - I suggest you treat your attraction to OM as an addiction - for that is what it truly is.

The best remedy - cold turkey withdrawal. - with a healthy dose of support and understanding from those here.

You will not think rationally until you get over the hump. Suck it up and grit your teeth. This is not easy, but the antidote is crystal clear >>> isolation from the "drug."

Just do it.

WAT

Dear Jetgirl,

One way to carry on a dialogue in the MB Forum is to take some of the questions or ideas people have raised, and give them feedback on what you think.

For me, Radical Honesty means thinking before doing something that I feel I would need to keep secret from my wife or family. Each day, or each hour that it has been since the last Physical contact, is a day or a week longer, that if you have to explain it, it is easier to explain if it is further in the past. Relapsing makes it more difficult to explain, and regain trust, from the standpoint of it being behind you, the shorter the time has been.

No one has mentined Boundaries in Marriage, that I recall. I am on P. 84 of the book, and on lesson 6 of the Video. I will post back th references. That series explains how t help your partner change. If the root cause is H's unwillingness to change, try Boundaries. My wife is doing much better since I started Boundaries, thank you for asking. My wife watched the video with me, she improved her attitude, cnsiderably.

Did you try to print out the Love Diet? There are many differnet approaches on this board, so just respond to what seems helpful.

BOUNDARIES IN MARRIAGE (1999), by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Available in Leather, ISBN 0-310-24612-1, Hard back: ISBN 0-310-22151-X, and Paper Back: ISBN 0-310-24314-9 (Soft Cover) Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49530.

Boundaries in Marriage Workbook, Paperback, ISBN 0-310-22875-1.

Boundaries, Face to Face (2003) by Henry Cloud and John Townsend

cloudtownsend.com
www.drhenrycloud.com
www.newlife.com

Boundaries Course Video, comes wiht Boundaries in Marriage and the Participant's Guide and the Instructors's guide.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.gsp?product_id=1813624&sourceid=1500000000000000040820
Boundaries Groups:

overcomersoutreach.org
Overcomer's Outreach Boundaries Groups

celebraterecovery.com
Celebrate Recovery Boundarie Groups


Lecture Reservations:
newlife.com
1-800-new life


Blessings

<small>[ April 14, 2004, 08:48 PM: Message edited by: Whaler ]</small>

I came here for advice to help me get past this addiction to OM.
Hmmm? Your husband would be a GREAT help in this. Far better than we could ever be.

I do feel like I can do the right thing-NC.
Why do you feel you can do it right? You couldn’t avoid the situation in the first place.

I always wanted to stop, but when my H would piss me off, or refuse to change-i said forget it. I gave up.
SO what happens next time when he pisses you off. You (think) you “got away” with it this time, why not do it again?
Why not use your husband for the role (someone for you to lean on) he stood up in front of God and the world and said he would do?

But Iknow it’s time to be done.
Until??

It made me smile to read Chris's post to you.

It really pissed me off back in 2002 when he hit me with exactly the same type of annoyingly accurate reasoning.

Note that he had over 6000 practice posts before asking you to consider those annoying questions. He is not trying to hurt your feelings but hopefully if it pisses you off you will think about why.

if he's off base it won't cause the uncomfortable wadding of panties.

If he nailed the truth it will probably piss you off. Use it, get mad, prove how wrong he is.

...in a while you'll love the SOB :-)

Good food for thought as usual Chris, loveya brother.

Dear Jetgirl,

If you feel that getting books or tapes to help improve your marriage is too close to admitting that there is something amiss in your marriage, then perhaps you could take some parenting classes with your husband. I don't recall you directly mentioning that you have children, but you mention your family. Parenting courses always brought my wife and I together. Many of the dynamics taught in parenting courses will help your marriage. Call churches, school counselors, social service agencies, to find about parenting classes. Even if you have taken a parenting class before, find one specific for the age of your children now.

I am sugesting taking some step toward improving your marriage, both as a practical matter to compete with reducing your temptation, but also as an atonement for any guilt that may come up for you. Further, if there is a D Day, where you have to explain the A, it will be easier to explain, if you have done more marital improvement, earlier. You have not mentioned your ideas on marriage counseling, ar marriage imporvement seminars.

Blessings

One way to carry on a dialogue in the MB Forum is to take some of the questions or ideas people have raised, and give them feedback on what you think.

Great point, whaler! Jetgirl, I have posted to you at least a couple of times with direct questions. I don't ask them to hear myself talk. I ask because I think it will help you to examine those questions, or because I think it will help the other posters to know the info.

Please considering giving feedback to those who post to you, especially those who have asked direct questions.

Thanks.

jetgirl, you said that the A started when H was working long hours. He was working to support his family. It is hard to understand why WSs do not see that. You went to OM when your H mad you mad, but is that because you felt your temper was short at the time or you looked for any excuse to get mad at your H so you could go to OM?
I am curious, if you knew the OM was never faithful to his wife, except for the 1st year, did you not realize he would not be good for you or anyone either? Men like that are predators who use women as they wish without regard of who they hurt along the way. Once they get what they want, that is it, they dump as he dumped you. Do not feel bad for that guy. Focus on what you have and all the positives.