my husband dound out last night about the OM in my life. i tried so many times to tell him, but i was afraid of his reaction. well, i got it last night.

i can't believe how much i have hurt him. i never realized how much i really do love him until it all came out and i could see how ridiculous this relationship with me and the OM is. how could have i told the OM i loved him?

so what do i do next? how can we work through this? he hasn't said he wants to separate, but he doesn't know really what he wants to do. i told him we really need to go see a counselor together.

what do i do?

You've already taken a good first step - coming here looking for help.

Buy the book, Surviving An Affair, by Harley, and available in the bookstore on this site or just about any on-line bookseller.

Read, read, read on this site and in this forum. You will see yourself over and over and over.

Encourage your H to come here for support and guidance.

In the meantime, expect your H to go through a range of emotions multiple times. Express your remorse sincerely, but do not expect him to forgive you immediately. This will come later. You have to re-earn his trust first.

A HUGE step towards re-earning his trust will be writing and sending a No Contact letter to the OM from you. Make is short and blunt > you do not want to see or speak to him ever again. You regret the affair and you want to rebuild your marriage with your H. Sign it, show it to your H, and allow him to mail it.

Keep posting and asking questions.

I not an expert:

I was and am scared. I have needed so much assurance from my wife it's unbelievable.

If I was you....and I've put myself in my wife's shoes, I would read all that is around here. Read the books. Understand what your husband feels.
Be sympathetic.

You know....I'm having to fight every day for my wife. When I really wish she would be fighting for me.

New Girl,

I have a couple of suggestions for you to consider:

1. DO NOT pressure your H [husband] in staying married to you by expressing to him your fear of losing him, for he is more likely to beleive that the only reason why you want to stay married to him is out of fear instead of out of genuine love for him. Instead, remorsefully express to him with genuine sadness that you understand if he doesn't beleive you or that if he doesn't want to stay married to you anymore. Doing this you disarm his Taker who is going to be screaming at him to leave you immediately and for good.

2. DO NOT take his lashing out on you as a sign that he does not love you for if that were the case he would not be doing so and would have probably left the moment you told him about your affair.

3. If you truly want to save and rebuild your marriage you are going to have to adopt and attitude that favors patience and understanding that marital and personal recoveries [his and yours] are a long, drawn, one day at a time process that cannot and should not be rushed. Celebrate the daily little victories for they will strengthen you against the bad days that are bound to come during recovery.

4. Become an open book to him by hiding absolutely nothing and letting him know where you are at all times. Now this may be hard and feel like you are letting him control your life but it is actually the only way you can help him regain the trust he had in you and which you destroyed with your affair.

5. Come here to the boards for as much emotional and marital support as you need.

Infidelity itself does not define who we are as individuals but what we do after we experience it certainly does.

TMCM

New Girl:

In a word - empathy. Take a moment and see how your H will see this.

Confusion. He doesn't know if he's been punched, bored or saluted. He doesn't know which end is up. All he knows is that what he knew is a lie. So, he will go through what is so often called the roller coaster.

Pain. He has been hurt, just as sure as if you struck him with a blunt object. He is wounded and will take time to heal. There will be anguished lashings out. Think of the last time you got injured.

Emasculated. So, he's not man enough for you, eh? That is the underlying emotion to this all for him. He's not man enough for you. You found better. You "traded up", so to speak. This is a big one. It is like you cut off his manhood, and stood there pointing and laughing at it.

Shame. He was not man enough for you because he failed to be/do/provide you with whatever it is you needed to step out for. Don't think that he isn't aware of this, but his humiliation and pain may cloud his objectivity on this. It will be a big issue if he decides to end the M.

Revultion/Reclamation. The mental images of you an OM, his hands on your body, his mouth on your breasts, you doing things to OM you never did to H - nasty, nightmarish images that will leave him recoiling in disgust from your touch. "Does she imagine him when she's with me? Does she miss him?" This may well alternate with reclamation, where he will want to prove that he is "the man", and he may become hypersexual. These alternating states will consume him, and he will be as tortured by the switch as will you. Note - If you reject intimacy or SF with him at this time because you are still fixated on the OM, or the OM was so much better a lover, you might as well say goodbye. Men and women do see sex differently, and this would be a good time to things through his point of view. Generally, for men, sex is the prime way in which be show and feel love. A W who rejects her H sexually is rejecting his love.

Self doubt. He will not trust his own judgement or gut instincts. After all, he did before and look where it got him. So, he may well feel love and desire and attraction for you, but he is so doubtful of his own decision making abilities that he will consciously try to tell himself the contrary.

The Booby Prize. He will feel, in spite of all your protestations otherwise, that he is the booby prize. You chose to stay with him because OM rejected you. Or, for the kids. Or, even because he's your meal ticket. He will feel like such a sap when thoughts of reconciliation enter his head, that he's only setting himself up for further pain when you, once again, find him lacking and look elsewhere.

Humiliation. He will feel as though he has some invisible sign or a smell that tells the whole world that he is not man enough for his wife, and she had to look elsewhere. He will feel that everyone laughs at him behind his back, and does not respect him. He is not likely to want to tell anyone of his pain, for it will only be an admission of failure and inadequacy.

The bottom line - he will feel completely alone, and emasculated. He will not feel like a man. He will be confused and unclear in his own mind, and his actions will be all over the board.

What can you do? Patience is the key. Don't take everything he does or says as the outcome of a carefully thought out, coldly calculated plan. He is reacting rather than acting, and he is reacting from a position of pain and a feeling of powerlessness. Just be patient with his mood swings and vacillation, knowing that he himself doesn't really know what he wants right now.

Consistency. If you are committed to reconciliation, then be consistent in your actions and reactions to him. Patient, gentle, humble.

Validate him. I think the biggest mistake a WW makes is to somehow try to "manage" their BH's emotions. This will only add to his confusion. Besides, he is in pain, and rightfully so, wouldn't you agree?

Don't spare him the answers to his questions. BH especially are hurt by the physical act, and it seems more so than BW. He may ask for details of physical encounters, especially on things you did with OM that hadn't or wouldn't do with H (e.g., oral). He may ask for comparisons and preferences. He may ask about times and places, and want to know if those times you rejected his advances were because you'd just been, or were planning to be with, OM. Unfortunately, this is a huge barrier to reconciliation. If you have rejected him or refused SF while in the A, you have a huge barrier to reconciliation. It will take a lot to make up for that lost time.

Affairs tend to be about unfulfilled needs. You sought something you needed, but could not get within your M. No matter how you feel about that choice right now, the fact remains that you were missing something you needed. Well guess what? Chances are, your BH had a whole slew of unmet needs, too. Many times we get too wrapped up in our own unfulfilled needs to notice what we are giving or witholding from those around us. Perhaps you were not aware of his unmet needs, as your unmet needs were so prominent in your face. Perhaps your H was in the same boat. He had unmet needs, and in focussing on his unmet needs, he took his focus off of yours. You know the old argument, "Why should I meet your needs when you're not meeting mine?"

Or, like my STBXWW would do, she'd often tell me she was meeting my needs - as she saw they ought to be. How I saw my needs was irrelevant; in essence I had the wrong needs. It was up to me to change so that my needs were indeed the ones she was meeting.

In this, I am suggesting that you are going to have to take a long, hard look in the cold light of day, and ask yourself, "Was I truly meeting his needs? Was I listening to what he was saying, or becoming annoyed because he was not saying what I felt he ought to be saying?". Right now, it will be nigh well impossible to meet his needs, but that is only because he is in such an internal turmoil tha he is not clear on his needs. But, as things sort themselves out, he will need to know that you do love him, admire him (in spite of his flaws), and respect him.

That is a big one. You are going to have to prove that you respect him if he decides to reconcile. It takes a big man to reconcile with a W who's stepped out, and that ought to be recognized. A little gratitude wouldn't hurt, either.

Those are my suggestions. I think that if you read here you will see that you are by no means alone in your situation, and that others have shared your burden. Some will inspire by their success; those of us who haven't should be warnings of the way NOT to do things. In fact, I suggest that you have more to learn by looking at the posters whose reconciliation failed than you do at the successes. Don't repeat our mistakes.

Hello,

You will have to deal with a couple of things to begin with. He will ask you why and how long it has been going on. You will need to answer his questions honestly. He will ask you why did you need talk to your husband first and suggest counseling before going outside the marriage? If this was a physical affair then it will be extremely difficult for your husband not to have inmages in his mind of you and the OM. If it was physical then you need to immediately take a test for STD's. You need to immediately send a No Contact letter to the OM. Finally, imagine if the roles were reversed and your husband did to you what you did to him. What actions would you want from your husband to show you why you should not leave him. I wish you luck.

Thank you so much for your help. My H is going through all the things you said. I think he wants to reconcile. But I think he is going to have a hard time forgiving me.

I am also worried what he may do. He mentioned last night about getting a gun. I am scared not for me, but what he may do to the OM. I know that the OM is not my concern anymore. But it still doesn't make it right for my H to have violence solve his anger about this.

My H can have a very bad temper. I don't think he would harm me, but I know he would someone else. I am afraid his actions may end him up in jail and I don't know what that would do to us.

I love him...I really do and I realize that now more than ever.

Any advice on how to difuse some of his anger?

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">New Girl:

"Thanks curly...I know that the first time it happened was because I was missing a lot emotional and domestic support from my H after we had our first child.

This time, I am not sure what happened. Everything at home was going good. I wasn't feeling neglected. OM and I started playfully flirting and I had never really viewed him as someone I would even have an A with. But slowly the talks became more deeper, I found a connection with him. He really appreciated me and made me feel beautiful.

Then I think, it made me notice the lack of attention from my H. He loves me, but it always seems like the physical attention I get from him is sexual. Not intimate or just truly enjoying spending quality time with me talking or just lying together."</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">This is important information that your H must know in order to realize that you weren't seeking sexual thrills with the OM, but that you became addicted to the non-sexual attention you received from the OM.

Here's an excerpt from Dr Barbara DeAngelis's book 'What Women Want Men To Know':

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">The Love Diet: How To Feed Your Partner's Heart.

This is the "Love Diet". I've created it as an easy way to remember and practice feeding your partner's heart and being a wonderful lover outside of the bedroom. It's simple, it's fun, and it will make a big difference in your relationship.

When you study nutrition, you learn about the basic food groups -vegetables, grains, proteins, dairy products- and the importance of having each of these every day. Well, the emotional nutrition is the same -feeding your partner's heart means making sure you give him or her all of the basic "emotional food groups" each day. What are these? I call them The Three A's: Attention, Affection, and Appreciation. They are the secret ingredients contained in the Love Diet that will fill up your partner's heart: You pay attention, you show affection, and you express appreciation.

If I asked you right now how often you need to eat every day, you'd probably answer that you need to eat at least two or three times a day, with a few snacks in between. Well, I'd like you to think about feeding your partner's heart in the same way with the following Love Diet.

*Love Meals: Your partner needs three Love Meals a day. What is a Love Meal? It's a time each day for three minutes when you feed your partner's heart with one or more of the menu items contained in the Three A's: Attention, Affection, or Appreciation. I call this the 3X3 formula, three times a day, when you choose to actively love your partner for at least three minutes. Think about it as three minutes of intimacy. Maybe it is three minutes in the morning together before you get out of bed,or three minutes on the phone in the middle of the day, or three minutes after the kids go to sleep. These are Love Meals. Just like you'd have breakfast, lunch, and dinner, you have Love Meal#1,#2,and #3!!

*Love Snacks: Even when you eat several good meals a day, you need a snack once in a while, don't you? Well, the same applies to feeding your partner's heart. Along with the 3X3 formula of three Love Meals a day, give your mater several love snacks during the day. What is a love snack?:

*A kiss on the cheek or the neck when you are passing your partner.

*A quick call to say: "I Love You".

*A compliment: "You Look Gorgeous".

*A look or smile that contains all of your love.

*A note left in your partner's purse or message left on her cell phone.

Now that you know the basics of the Love Diet, here is a description ot it's three main ingredients: The Three A's.

1. Attention

One of the most common ways we starve the heart of someone we love is by not giving them enough attention. This is why paying attention is one of the most effective ways to make your partner feel loved and is the first ingredient in the Love Diet.

Paying attention means being there 100 percent in the moment with the person you love."Oh, I already do this", you might say "We spend lots of time together". But the truth is, spending time together doesn't necessarily mean you're really giving her your full attention. You're talking with her, but you are also playing with the dog. You're sitting next to her, but you're also watching your favorite show on TV. That's not paying attention. And she will feel it. In other words, it doesn't count as a Love Meal.

Giving your partner your attention means being there fully with her. You are not doing anything else. You are not watching TV. You are not opening the mail while you talk. You are not fooling around on your computer. You are giving her all of your attention, even for a few minutes. How? Look into her eyes. Ask her how she's doing. Listen. Hold her. That attention will nourish her heart more than you can imagine.

Paying attention to someone you love like this tells her she is important to you, that you value her, that for those three minutes three times a day, she is the only thing that matters in the world. When you fully pay attention, precious moments of intimacy and passion can occur. This is one of the best forms of foreplay, as we'll see in the sex section.

2. Affection

You may have heard of a famous survey taken in the past five years when thousands of women were asked whether they would rather have intercourse with their husband, or just cuddle. What was the response? Almost 80 percent of the women said they'd rather cuddle than have sex! Men are baffled, not to say disappointed, by these statistics, but women understand them completely. Simply put, most women are starving for more physical, non-sexual affection from their partner.

Affection is the second ingredient in the Love Diet. It means physically connecting with your partner three times a day for three minutes- holding her hand, embracing her, kissing her, stroking her hair, being physically intimate.

When you are affectionate with your partner, you link your energies on a physical dimension and creat a flow between your hearts. When you show your mate physical affection, you are feeding her heart in a profound way.

Why do some men have a problem being affectionate? They fall prey to what I call the "All-or-Nothing Syndrome" This is a beleif that says "If I don't have time to do it all, I will just do nothing" and it's based on the misunderstanding that all sexual sensation has to end in orgasm. In the minds of some men, they think that if they get aroused, they're supposed to go ahead and have sex. So if they don't have time to go all the way they avoid even getting excited, feeling it will be a "waste".

For instance, a man is lying in bed with his wife in the morning, and she reaches over and starts to cuddle with him. He begins to feel aroused, but realizes he has to get out of bed within five minutes or he will be late for work. So he pushes her away and says, "Not now, honey, I have to get up". She feels hurt and rejected, and can't understand why her husband doesn't want to be affectionate with her. He doesn't even realize anything is wrong. Later that night, when he does have time for sex, she seems cold and disinterested, and he can't understand why.

What is happening here is the All-or-Nothing Syndrome. He felt he didn't have time to do everything, so he wouldn't even hug or kiss his partner, feeling it couldn't lead to anything. But guys, affection isn't always supposed to lead to something. It is an experience of intimacy in itself. Besides, those Love Meals of affection will have a great effect on your sex life. We talked earlier in the book about the Love Bank each of us has, and not making deposits in the wrong account! Well, whenever you show affection toward your partner, you are making a deposit in her Love and Intimacy Bank. How does that affect your sex life? As we'll see later, the higher the balance in a woman's Love and Intimacy Bank, the more turned on she will be by you, and the more she'll want to make love.

3. Appreciation

"I know he loves me, but he doesn't appreciate me" I hear this lament from women all the time about their partners. That's because most women are starving for more appreciation from the men we love. When men hear this, they are confused. "How can she say I don't appreciate her? I work hard to support her and the kids; I'm faithful; I remodeled the basement for her last year. I do lots of things to show my appreciation".

Guys, what you're talking about is showing your appreciation by things you do. But what really feeds a woman's heart is hearing you express your appreciation in words..

Most women are much more verbal than men, and often things don't feel real to us until they are spoken. Knowing you appreciate us isn't always enough -we need to hear you say it. We need your words. Your words of love and praise are like precious jewels to us. We collect them and cherish them, and they make us feel valued and rich with happiness and contentment.

How should you express your appreciation?

*Tell us what you love about us.

*Tell us what you appreciate that we do for you and our family.

*Tell us what you admire in us.

*Tell us what you're grateful for about being with us.

*Tell us what you're proud of us for.

Often men feel they are appreciating their mates, even verbally, but what they don't realize is they may not be appreciating them for the things they really need appreciation for. In particular, women in my surveys begged me to tell men that they really want and need more appreciation for taking care of the children and the home. So many women expressed the need to hear their mate apppreciate them for being a good mother, or making the house beautiful, or always having his shirts cleaned and ironed, or keeping his favorite foods in the refrigerator. Working mothers in particular wanted their men to know that they would like to be appreciated for taking care of the children and the home while also holding a part- or full-time job. As one woman wrotte:

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">"I need to hear that I'm a great mother and wife, that he appreciates my cooking dinner after I work a nine- or ten hour day; that he appreciates the fact that I handle the details about the house - from organizing the lawn being mowed to having the car inspected, to taking the dog to the vet or our daughter to the doctor"</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I've found that it's not that men don't appreciate the efforts wives make in these areas. It's that often women are so good at multitasking that it appears it's all effortless to us, thus the men just take it for granted and don't realize how hard we are working to keep it all together. It may look easy guys, but it's not! You can't imagine how hearing you say "Thanks for dinner, honey", or "You dressed the kids so nicely for church this morning", or "I really appreciate your remembering to make my dentist appointment" feeds our hearts with love.

Gratitude Snack Before Bed

Here's a simple and powerful technique for feeding your partner's heart with Appreciation. I call it Gratitude Snack Before Bed. It's a way you can express your appreciation and gratitude to your partner for something she(or he) did that day. You get in bed, and before you go to sleep, take a minute to thank your mate for something from the day:

"Thank you for watching the kids tonight so I could go to the gym".

"Thank you for making my favorite pasta for dinner"

"Thank you for calling at work today -it really cheered me up"

"Thankyou for the shoulder rub when I came home. I really needed it"

"Thank you for being so patient with me this morning when I was so grumpy"

It's great to take turns giving each other little Gratitutde Snacks. You'll be amazed how much you can find to be grateful for once you put your attention to it. And by the way, don't be surprised if your Gratitude Snack turns into another kind of more physical snack. Love is the best kind of foreplay there is.

I came up with the Three A's because men so often would say to me "I want to be a better husband, but I'm not sure what to do" or "I know my girlfriend needs more attention from me, but I never seem to know exactly what she needs". The Three A's make it simple: Just pick one -
Attention, Affection, or Appreciation- and you can't go wrong. Better yet, combine all three for a triple whammy of love!

Feeding your partner's heart with the Three A's is like a love insurance policy. Do you know that the majority of extramarital affairs happen not because the person is looking for sex, but because they are looking for the Three A's? When women who've been unfaithful are asked about the reasons they cheated on their mates, very few of them say "Because I met a guy with a nice body" or "I wanted to have sex with my yoga instructor, who seemed very limber". Most women confess that the reason they strayed outside their relationship was that they were love-starved. They weren't getting enough Attention, Affection, or Appreciation from their mate, and eventually found it elsewhere.

This isn't an editorial comment on infidelity, but rather a reminder that if you make sure to give her Love Meals and Love Snacks every day, she won't walk around hungry looking for somewhere else to eat!

If you're presently in a relationship, I hope you try the Love Diet right away. Make a commitment to do it just for one week, three times a day for three minutes using the Three A's, and a few Love Snacks in between, and you will be amazed at the results. Your partner will glow with love, and you'll feel more love.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I hope this helps you and your H.