I'm new here so I'll give you background on my situation. I have been married for 5 yrs. The first year was craziness, I was very unhappy, my H paid no attention to anything I said and of course that lead to the inevitable A. The OM was someone I worked with and had actually talked to before when H and I weren't together at one point. The R with the OM started out as a friendship and grew to more, he married his W shortly after I married H and he too was unhappy. My H found out that I had been talking to OM by checking up on my emails and chats but he didn't have anything to prove that we were doing everything even though we were, I convinced him it was just flirting, swore to not talk to the OM again and it was over....WRONG.

A few months later I found myself right where I left off, wrapped up in the attention the OM gave me. A few months later, busted again, still no proof of anything. This time H called OMW and told her what was going on, I stopped contacting OM and it was fine..... for a while. Now I was beginning to feel like I had no control over things and I couldn't undertstand why I couldn't tell OM to just go away! Furious at myself I still didn't stop it. A few months later, OM and his W moved out of state, everything stopped.. THANK GOD FOR BIG MIRACLES.

Not so quick, 3 yrs later, I'm doing fine, my M is good and out of the blue, OM sends an email to my work to see if I still work there. At first very hesitant, thinking H was messing with me, I didn't say much to OM. I'll admit it was nice talking to him, exciting. So like a hormone crazed teen we started talking at home. Little did I know that H put a spy program to keep up with what I was doing because he got a vibe from me the very day that OM contacted me.

Let's just say that ALL of the dirty laundry was aired and H is furious that he's finding out now that it was way more than flirtation w/OM..I understand why H is so upset. The conversations were more one sided, most of it being on OM's part. OM hasn't gotten over anything that happened and would do anything for me. I wouldn't for him though. I made a mistake in talking to OM, we talked about things in the past and when OM said he wanted to come for a visit, I completely changed the subject. I've apologized to H a million and 1 times, I know H doesn't want to believe some stuff that I tell him because of the lies before but it's all out now. I want to move on. H keeps reading the conversations and nitpicking everybit of it and questioning me. I feel like he's not trying to work on it if he keeps doing that to himself.

Please what do I do to keep my sanity while H keeps nitpicking?!!! I'm trying to be patient but I think H is going to make me nuts.

I don't feel a need to contact OM, I was fine for 3 yrs, I'll be fine the rest of my life w/out him. I thought I would have a problem with letting OM know that I wanted to save my M, that I would somehow miss OM.. but I don't, I miss my H.

Any advice on patience is greatly appreciated because I'm running out of it quick.

Your situation sounds much like mine. My WW's A almost drove me insane thinking about it. It tore my heart out and I almost drove her crazy asking questions about it too. The reason he's doing it is because he can't believe or understand it. He's trying to make sense of the "unbelievable." You better give him some room to do that. After all, he didn't ask for this to happen.

My advice is to find some good MC. This will help make sense of everything.

Good luck

We are talking MC. he wants to go on his own for now and goes tomorrow, I will happily go with him anytime.
I know he feels heartbroken and disappointed about it all and so do I. He had always suspected something more and this just confirmed that for him.

Watch out! Big 2x4 coming atcha!

You lied and lied and lied again over the course of 3 years or so. THEN you decide to be truthful.

Your husband would be certifiably crazy if he believed anything that came out of your mouth right now. Not to be too harsh, but you have a long list of lies to address and my guess is it is going to be at least three years or more before your husband will be able to trust you again.

Right now I'd say he feels like a major chump and loser because he chose to believe you were telling the truth before. He generously forgave you and moved on, only to find out now that you were lying all along. He can't trust his own judgment anymore. He thought his instincts were enough to help him get through this, but now he's starting back at ground zero.

I could be wrong but I almost hear you saying, "can't he get over it already and move on? It's over!"

Don't ever let those words leave your lips if you want this marriage to survive. He has no idea if it is "over." All he has is your word for it and he already knows he can't trust your words or actions.

Sounds like your marriage had problems from the get-go. I would advise you to read up on Plan A and get to work. Your marriage can be saved, that is if your husband decides he can afford to take another shot at this with you. But you will need to be able to shoulder a lot of his hurt and pain for a very long time. Are you up to that?

Keep posting as things come up. You'll find strength here. Perhaps your husband can post, too, and hear from others whose spouses have been unfaithful over and over again and yet managed to work it out and find trust again.

And when/if he invites you to join him in counseling, jump at it. In the meantime, some personal counseling for yourself would be strongly advised.

~ Snow

Hello MBC,

I have to say that I am not pleased to hear you talk about your H "nitpicking".

You contact OM after a three year period of supposed NC and you think he isn't justified in his feelings???? You have just blown his world apart AGAIN only it's 3 years later and the sordid A was supposed to be in the past.You just brought it right back to the forefront.UGH.

WHY on earth did you respond for heavens sake? Did you not realize that this would set you both back bigtime or did you just selfishly decide to have a little e-mail fun again for YOURSELF? AND he has to deal with you not telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth all this time.

Your H is "nitpicking" as you call it because now he cannot trust you all over again.Geeze.I am sorry to sound upset with you but I would be da** angry to have to deal with all this crap again too if I were in his shoes.

How do you have patience? Well if you truly want your marriage and your H then you are just going to have to grin and bear it.Oh, and along with that,start working on how you are going to earn your H's trust back again,if he's willing to stay now.

O

First off, I'm not saying "get over it already", what I'm saying is that I don't understand how we can start rebuilding our lives if he has to keep going back to remind himself of what happened, he already knows. We have both read about what we need to do and he knows that this isn't healthy for either of us, but he can't stop. I'm considering personal counseling for myself and I will definitely go with him when he wants, not a problem.
We both realize that if I had told him the truth in the first place that our marriage wouldn't have survived that blow and therefore we wouldn't have our 2 yr old son. So am I going to say I regret lying to him ?? How can I when we have a wonderful symbol of our love? Am I going to say I regret having the A? Of course, but we all know it takes two to make a M and he wasn't doing his part after I told him what I needed in the R. He still admits he didn't and does take that part of the blame.
I know that maybe he does feel like a chump, or whatever, but he doesn't regret have our son either, so for him it's the same double edged sword.

Mustbcrazy,

I think your perspective is all wrong on this one. Permit me to explain. For your marriage to make it and be the marriage you both want, he must come to trust you again. He will never trust you like he did when he married you, so you need to understand this.

But the point here is the following. He needs to build trust and you need to understand what trust is. IT is the ability to predict what someone will do in any given situation. You have shown 3 times that what you will do is have an A or make contact with OM. In order for him to have the ability to predict (ie. trust) he is going to have to go over every SINGLE DETAIL of this and sort it out in his mind. Then he is going to compare past behavior with the behavior that you say you are doing NOW. Then he will go over the details again to cross check.

Then he will keep watching and checking. Why? Because he only has the emails, he doesn't have the full picture there is a wonder letter posted on another site which if I can find I will post or bookmark here for you. It will help you understand the situation. He is working on a puzzle without seeing the picture or even knowing if he has all of the pieces. You have no idea how frustrating that is. Further, he spouse and best friend holds the pieces of the puzzle but she lies. Doesn't sound very uplifting.

My point to you is that your H is doing what MUST be done to regain trust and rebuild the marriage. You should be happy he is doing this. It is painful for you, but it is even more so for him. He will gradually tire of this and then decide if constant vigilence is worth it or not. If you have been "radically honest" with him, and your actions match your words, then he will tire but decide to stay. You must remember this thing jumped up 3 years later.

Now, I would strongly encourage you to read Surviving an Affair by Harley, it will help you see the steps. It will also help you do what you clearly have not done and that is take responsibility for YOUR decisions, within a year of marriage. You were unhappy and he did not listen but having an affair was NOT the answer and you need to face this.


You also lied to him for a long long time, and so the details he is going over are to check. Your arguement that if you hadn't lied, you would NOT have been married and therefore would not have his child is COLD comfort my dear. He may well love this child, but he would love any child he had. He is now caught in a trap and if you don't change your attitude his resentment will lead to a home life that is NOT conducive to raising your child as you want. So it really is in your best and your childs interest to give him time to adjust and come to an accomdation that his marriage to date has been a lie.

You mentioned that he felt like a "chump". Your job is to make this marriage something that HE is proud of, give him time. He obviously loves you or he would have been gone by now, but he is very uncertain if you love him or even want him in your life other than as a paycheck.

Please read the articles about the "4 rules" and the Policies of "radical honesty" and Joint AGreement, POJA. They will help you and they will help your H.

Mustbcrazy, this stuff takes a lot of Time and Patience. He just found out that you had a PA as well as what you told him. While it has been years for you, itis only days/weeks/month ??? for him. But, you two can have a good marriage, if you will have some patience with him, and love him.

He has big doubts right now, but what you may not realize is that he doubts himself at least as much as he doubts you. You see he suspected but he did NOT KNOW. His gut was telling him that something was wrong. He worries that you will completely fool him next time. He worries if he can make you happy enough. He worries if you didn't prefer the OM. He worries that he has been a failure.

You see the checking is about him as it is about you. You need to change your perspective abit, and then you will be able to handle this. Do the reading and keep posting and asking questions, the people here will do their best to help.

I hope something I have said is of help to you.

God Bless,

JL

Thank you JL, I came looking for help on how to be patient about it and a few of replies back weren't helpful. I know he has questions and pieces he needs to put together and understand.
I can take constructive criticism, that's why I am here but if I want people to constantly barrade me, I have that at home. I live with my mistakes, I know that what I've done is wrong and I can't change it now.
We are moving on with our lives together because we both love each other, whether anyone believes I love him or not I don't care because I know I do. We are all human and ALL bound to make some mistakes in our lives, we are not victims all of the time. God made us that way and it's our choice how to use it.
Like I said any costructive criticism I can handle, and if anyone out there that is bitter because of how their S is and wants to take it out me, focus it somewhere else please. I have my plate full enough of that right now.

MustB,
You said...

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> I don't understand how we can start rebuilding our lives if he has to keep going back to remind himself of what happened, he already knows. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">He has to keep going over it because that's what the trauma of your A has done.

Think of it in these terms. Have you ever known anyone who has survived a serious auto accident or a plane crash. The survivors tell their story over & over again. They are working through the damage by doing so. Since men tend to be thinkers they tend to go over it again and again in their minds until each piece of the puzzle fits.

Does he still ask questions about the when, where, how, and whys of the A? If not he probably wants to but knows that you don't.

BSs are alot like survivors in another way they tend to have Post Schock Disorder(although milder cases). They see the videos (flashbacks)over and over again in their minds. This happens whether they have a little info or alot. You might be thinking,"well then I won't answer any questions or I won't answer them truthfully." Believe it or not the videos based upon truth are easier to deal with than those created by the human imagination.

IMHO had you told your H years ago your M would have survived. I think recovery will actually be harder due to the "cover up" lie that went on for years.

If H asks a question, tell him that the answer may hurt and if he still wants to hear tell him. Don't lie any further to "protect his feelings" If your caught, he'll just trust you even less.

my 2 cents,

cwmac

PS I reread JL's post and I think you're being a little sensitive. He is giving you good advice and I didn't interpret it as being nasty.

<small>[ May 03, 2004, 06:42 PM: Message edited by: cwmac ]</small>

Mustbcrazy,

I know the responses sounded like attacks, but what you don't know is how many KEY words you used in your post. When I say KEY words, I mean words that so many of the people here have heard time and again from wayward spouses, WS's. So you triggered them a bit, and they answered to you in a fairly direct manner. The purpose?? To see if you are legit and are serious about rebuilding your marriage.

If you are you will find these very same folks will be your staunchest ally in your struggles. As you read here more and more, you will become sensitive to these same words and phrases and you will see what we are talking about. It wasn't you or even your story it was how you stated things, that made them think you are/were in the "fog" about this. Hence the direct posts. But, as you become less defensive, and more open to expressing your decisions and taking responsibility for them, you will see a big difference. Before long they will be "planning" <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> with you on how to turn your H around and make him stop what he is doing. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

You have fallen into a group of "relentless" marriagebuilders and more will come. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> So hang tight, and start to do your home work. I would really suggest you read the book I mentioned. It will be painful in parts, but it will open your eyes. It will also help your H if he decides to read it.

God Bless,

JL

PS: I realize you feel you understand your H's pain and uncertainty, but as you read here and get feedback from the betrayed spouses, BS's, you will see you have a lot to learn yet about the pain. But, you will learn and your perspective will change and very likely your marriage will improve greatly. This is NOT a weekly improvement plan, it will take months after discovery day, d-day. At 6 months you will see improvement. At one year you will see a lot of improvement. Harley claims it usually takes 2 years for complete healing to occur. That doesn't mean anyone has forgotten the A's but that the memory of them does NOT bring severe pain.

<small>[ May 03, 2004, 06:50 PM: Message edited by: Just Learning ]</small>

I wasn't referring to JL's response, it was the others.. sorry JL if I offended you, it wasn't meant toward you.

Here is the letter.

Joseph's Letter
"To Whomever,
"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.
"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.
"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.
"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.
"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."
(end of Joseph's Letter)

mustbcrazy,

Welcome to Marriage Builders.

The other posters have done a great job of explaining to you why your H is obsessed with nitpicking. He is, in his way, trying to understand the whole situation. He does this because he loves you, not because it's fun. If you can see his nitpicking as a painful effort on his part to rebuild your M, and not as an attack on you, perhaps it will help your patience.

There are some other things you can do to reassure your H that he now has a "complete view" of the M. In time that will help alleviate his paranoia. It won't be immediate, because lies are even harder to recover from than the actual infidelity - and you have a long long history of lies to overcome. These actions will help you earn his trust.

- If the spyware has been removed from the computer, reinstall it and have the reports sent to him.

- Put rules on your email account(s) so that any correspondence from OM goes straight to your H rather than to you. My H did this and it is an unbelievable trust builder - I checked from time to time to ensure the rule was still there, for a long time, and may check again if I'm feeling insecure. That's okay. My security in our M is important to my H. You need to give the same message to your H through your actions, not your words. Unfortunately your words are no source of reassurance to your H right now.

- Be a completely open book to your H. Ensure he has free and easy access to all voice mail, cellphone records, email accounts, finance records. Answer all of his questions and be completely, painfully, nakedly honest when you do.

His nitpicking is actually a good thing. It allows you lots of opportunities to answer him completely and honestly. Every time you do that, you earn a teensy bit of trust. Try to embrace his questions as opportunities to rebuild.

Thanks to everyone for their input. H went to MC yesterday and is feeling better about things for today at least. H told me he would do his best not to go back and look at the chat and if he felt compelled to do so he would call me instead.
H knows that some of the answers aren't very flattering and that he has contributed to some of our problems. He wants me to be honest and understands that sometimes honesty hurts now because nothing is sugarcoated anymore.
I feel terrible when I look in H's eyes and see the love he feels for me, the hurt that I've caused him and us. I know he would do anything in the world for me and a moment of my stupidity could've cost it all, but no more.
I'm not sure what he's done with the spyware, it doesn't matter, he can keep it as long as he wants. I don't know how to do any of that stuff to be honest. He has my email information and while I feel like the OM will not contact me further, if he does then I will send it to H immediately.
We are going out of town this weekend and I believe the change of scenery will do us good, I know there won't be much chance of the heart to hearts we've been having because we will be with family but nonetheless we will be together.
What makes this so difficult for us to deal with is our work schedules, we are totally opposite and we see each other 2 days a week and we have a child of our own and he has a child from a precious marriage so we don't have a lot of time to work on us but what little we do, that's what we work on.
I know that everything is okay and H still hopes it will be okay. He told me today he knew that I was doing everything I could to help him feel better and I feel like I am.
The questions are dying down now and we are working on where to go from here but things will be okay.

MBC

<small>[ May 05, 2004, 03:56 PM: Message edited by: mustbcrazy ]</small>

Mustb,

I think you need to really consider what I believe it was Turtle said to you. Ask him about the Spyware, and strongly encourage him to put it back on the computers. You want him checking on you. You want him looking at things closely. You want him questioning you. When he does just smile and give him what he needs. Do you know why you want this?

Every time he checks and finds that your words and actions match, a little bit more trust is built up. Everytime! So the more he does the better it is for you and your marriage. You have lied to him for a long time, but being really open and even encouraging will help him and it will help you.

You can do this Mustb, you really can. It is that perspective issue. If you view it as sneaking around you will build resentment. If you recongnize it for what it is, then it will actually build love. You know he cares because he checks. You know he WANTS to trust you because he checks. Help him check, encourage him to check, heck reward him when he checks if you think that would help.

I am a lot older than you, but I will offer you something from my football playing days. The statement was </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Don't worry when the coach yells at you, start worrying when he STOPS yelling at you. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think you should be more concerned if he just threw in the towel and stopped worrying. So even if he says he has stopped, encourage him to do so. It will rebuild your marriage faster.

God Bless,

JL

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by mustbcrazy:
<strong> I was very unhappy, my H paid no attention to anything I said and of course that lead to the inevitable A. </strong></font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Wrong. This is an attempt to blame the affair on your husband. The A was your choice. Your marriage was not going well, but you had several choices on how to handle it. You chose one of the worst.