Hello all,

I have been reading some of Dr. Harley's Marriage Builders information and decided to join the board. I just recently found out that my husband has been having an affair with my best friend for 5 months. Her husband and I both stumbled upon the affair and it has now ended. Neither my husband or her have had contact for about 4 weeks. The first two weeks after it happened my husband and I took a vacation to Florida. He claimed to me that he wanted to work on us and that he loved me. Flordia was great!! When we got home he seemed to be depressed and withdrawn. He claims to love me and want to work it out but he is "in love" with her and has very strong feelings for her. I am sure that this a normal stage after an affair but I am so hurt by some of his comments. He does not know if this will work out or if he wants to be in what he terms an unhappy marriage. I read some information from Dr. Harley and he claims that the depression seems to get better after 3 weeks or so. I seem him falling farther away from me. I am trying to follow Plan A and avoid love busters but it is so hard when I am so up and down. I feel betrayed not only by my husband but by my best friend. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" /> Does anyone have any advice on how long it takes for this fog or depression to go away??

We've all been there. My W was unfaithful and it seems that the 3 weeks Dr. Harley talks about, I think that is of withdrawl, held pretty true with my WW(wayward wife). The fog is a little more tricky, I still see it settling in from time to time.
I felt betrayed by my W and best friend as well but they were the same person. Do your best to minimize the LB(love busters). The sooner you are able to do this the sooner you will be on the road to recovery. What I found was that until the withdrawl was over very little if any of my efforts did any good because there was an emotional wall. After that three week period it started getting better but the fog was still there and some days are still foggy but we are getting there.
Hope this helps some. Post it is like therapy.

I sure know w/ it's like!! Same scenario - but my former friend/OW was single & she called him pathetic & he still believed he was "in love" w/ Her. It has been 1 yr & I think the fog has lifted. Saturday night my WH said he would never leave me for someone like her. She was only half the woman I was - but honestly - I have believed every lie he told me about it being over (supposedly Nov '03) He always seemed that he wanted me when I said I had enough.

I think my plan A didn't have that much of an effect till she started to bad mouth me & I never did that to her. I even told my WH that I felt bad for her - wished her all the best, etc. It showed him I was a bigger person that she. So that worked in my favor.

Good luck - I wish you well.

I'm sorry that you are going through what you are but I'm glad you found your way here. I'm still new at this but what i can say is to read and read and post and post. but certainly counseling needs to be addressed. Do it w/someone from MB if at all possible or w/a counselor who is pro-marriage and is familiar w/the MB concepts since that is what you are trying to use. this may not make sense now but remember you are in a race but it is a marathon and not a sprint, you want to finish right? by that i mean being past the recovery (years from now) and you have got to do what is needed in order to preserve your energy and get yourself equipped to stay the course and finish the race. even if it's a small comfort, the fact that your H wants to work on the M sounds wonderful to those of us BS who's WS still isn't considering even that. much prayers to you.

It is so nice to hear from people who are going through or have gone through the same thing. My best friend also told my husband he was pathetic and never intended to leave her husband for him. Yet he still feels that what they had together was real and that she made him happier then he had ever been. It is so hard to hear those things and still have a positive attitude. Have any of you experienced a period of withdrawl that lasted longer than 3 weeks?? My husband says he still thinks about her and misses her. I thought that would go away faster. He is still not willing to let me meet his needs. He states that right now he is just not sure what he wants from me. He wants our marriage to work but just does not know what he wants from me at this time. I am assuming he is still in this fog that everyone talks about but it seems like it will never get better. Thank you all for your posts. It is encouraging to have others who understand what your going through.

Don't listen to your husband's fogtalk. Can't you remember when you first were infatuated with someone? That is where your H is. It is all one big fantasy, but he does not realize that right now.

Please have hope that things will change, and stick with us. We will help you through this.

faith

Lean on these boards for support. It is here for you, and everyone else. Sometimes it gets really busy and replies can be slow, and if something is urgent, reply to your own post and "bump" it up to the top, or start a new "urgent" post.

What you are experiencing is normal. Painful, horrible, sad, but normal. I don't know if you have read Surviving an Affair by Willard Harley. If you haven't, then get a copy and read it. It will help you understand all the dynamics of Affairs and Surviving them. Without this book and this website, many of the the people who HAVE survived these ugly messes, might not have.

Read and understand and ask here what you don't understand. Post here, vent here, but right now, show your WH that home is where he's welcome, and where he needs to be.

The fog is unbelievable. A WS has so many emotions and feeling going on, they cannot fully understand them, nor react properly to them. They become split in personality, one a crazed lunatic who believes their "new" life is the answer to their prayers, and the other side, a guilt ridden, confused, grief stricken, self-centered fool who has no idea how to come to the betrayed spouse and begin to make amends.

So they waffle back and forth until "something" happens and they begin to see clearly. Exercising Plan A, no lovebusters, angry outbursts, disrespectful judgements allow the WS to see you as a loving, caring person who wants the WS back in your life. To do those things makes the OP the "better choice" in the WS mind.

Get the book ASAP and read it. In the meantime, read all over the MB site and catch abbreviated versions online. You have a ton of work cut out for you, with many ups and downs. If you are not in counseling, I'd suggest it, and look into taking some anti-D's, to help you through this difficult time.

Best of luck

SD

Believer and Shattered Dreams thank you for your words of encouragement. I have bought the book and am reading it. Did you do the needs questionere with your WS?? I did get my husband to fill it out but he basically answered everything with neither satisfied or unsatisfied. I want to work with him on this but he is in such a fog. I am trying to avoid all the love busters and see where things go. Although I will admit that I am not doing so well at it. I feel like I am on an emotional rollercoaster and that I am happy one minute and devestated the next minute. My husband can obviously see these emotions and he feels horrible but he can't do anything about it because he feels so much for the OW. I get to the point where I feel like there is no hope for getting through this. It has only been 4 weeks and I am sure there is much more to go through.

It's too early to get him to make any sense out of the questionairres. I asked my WW to do it to, while she was in the FOG, and she might as well have written "I have no brain" on the blackboard 1000 times.

The fog will have to clear before the WS will even realize you have needs to be met.

More importantly, any, ANY lovebusters, will PUSH your WH's thoughts to the OW, and how "wonderful" the time he spent with her was. So if you are doing ANY LB's, get control of yourself, and manage your emotions so that NO LB's work AGAINST you.

Critically important at this stage to remember that!!!

Stay strong

SD

SD

How long did it take for you WW to come out of the fog?? So you did not try to work on the suggestions that Dr. Harley makes until your WW came out of the fog??

I was in Plan A for about 3 months. DDay was Labor Day weekend, 2003. I didn't find MB till late December. My WW said NC, but broke it 6-7 times between Labor Day and early Feb. 04.

My breakthrough came when my WW found out the OM had a new GF. He is single, and she, in her Foggy thinking, thought he was "waiting" for her, somehow, although she'd told me she was committing to the marriage, and was staying with me.

The day she found out OM had a GF, she fell to pieces. She was a wreck all that day, and I had to stay home from work the next day, and continue to console her! It was horrible for both of us. She, grieving the loss of the OM, and me grieving for all she and I have lost since the discovery of the A.

I was "lucky" I guess. Otherwise, who knows how long the fog would have lasted. I guess the total fog experience was 6 months. Once the info on the new GF was out, she popped out rather quickly, figuring he's moved on, and since then, NC has been in place. I'm wary every day, though, and vigilant in being watchful, as she became such an accomplished liar during the A. All this from a woman who was a deacon in a church for 5 years. Go figure???

SD

SD

I know where you are coming from. They get really good at lying. My husband and my best friend were very prominent members of the church that we attend. Both of them are no longer attending the church. Unfortunatly for me my BF is married and my husband still seems to think that if he waits long enough that she will change her mind and leave her husband. He says he is committed to working on us but he is so depressed and it seems to be worse now that it was immediately upon discovery of the A.