I have been reading through this site as often as I can and have yet to see a situation quite like mine. I'm sure there are some out there, I just can't find them. I am the WS although my husband is also a WS. I had an affair 19 years ago that my husband just recently found out about through the OM's wife who found out about it last year. The situation is extemely complicated because my husband works for these people and has for the past 16 years. Right now he is in the process of trying to save thier company which is quite difficult for him given the situation. I know that I handled everything badly, I am and have been, quite sorry for the whole affair/mess and know that my choices were wrong all the way around and when I made the decision to not tell my husband I thought I was doing the right thing at the time, although as the years passed, I wasn't so sure but didn't know how or have the courage to tell him.
One of my problems is that I can't remember a lot of things, one because I have a bad memory (for all things) and also because I buried it so deep and never took it out and looked at it, and now my husband wants details, and I look at the why it happened and not the details as being the more important thing here. Plus, my husband has a great memory so he doesn't believe that I am telling him the truth when I am and now that he knows, I feel no reason to not tell him the truth.
The hardest part about talking to him is that he asks all kinds of questions that I try to answer, but when I do, he gets angry and verbally very nasty. He tells me all the time how I stabbed him in the heart with this, I put him in a box, in a situation he can't get out of at work, a place where he must stay and see my affair partner all the time. So he tells me all the time how angry he is, how I am a liar, a cheat, a lowlife **** and so on. He also has lots of triggers and can visualize everything. He says he wants to try to deal with this because he has no other options and he loves me and hates me. He has known about this now for 4 months and it just seems to be getting worse. He wants to talk about it every waking minute and I can't do it. He floods, and I stonewall. His biggest needs are communication first and sex second. We have had sex every night since he found out but it is quite different than before. Plus, during the 15 years after my affair my desire went to an all time low, partly physical and now I know partly because of the guilt I was carrying.
My needs are never mentioned, and if they are he wants to know how my affair partner could meet amy of my needs, what were they and why don't I just get them met from my affair partner.
Right now he only wants to know how I could possibly have done this to him. I want to talk to him about this more, but find it very difficult as whatever I say he can turn my words around to suit him. After he first found out, he agreed to my getting a lot of books on affairs and we tried reading them, but he is not one to do any of the work they suggest we do. He thinks it is a lot of bull**. He even told me he want to dwell on the pain and wamts me to suffer just like he is and there is no way I could have any pain from this because if I did, I would nver have done this to him.
He just gets angy at me for not talking about the affair and tells me how everyone else can talk to him (and if i were anyone else, I would agree) but me and what the ** is wrong with me.
I am at a loss as to what to do. I know this is long, rambling and I didn't even get to the whole story but I need some advice. To complicate the situation even more, my husband had an affair right before mine which led me to my choice and since having found out about my affair, he has told me that he had one other affair and several one night stands long ago that he never told me about. I know what I did is worse since it has affected more people and the lie went on for so long, but I think we are both in the wrong. And strangely enough I think we had an okay marriage but I think that with everything out in the open we could have a really good marriage. My husband doesn't see this at all. I am not sure how to handle it and now I dread going home every night and getting up every morning. I know this is so much tougher on him as he can never get away from it so I don't know how to help.

hello 1darkcloud and welcome to MB. My sitch is similar to yours. I was the WS first about 10 years ago. I never told my H and yes over the years I wanted to but never found the courage. OM's W (he was not M'd then)found out and told my H last year. Since my A, my WH has had 3 A's and an OC born early this year. We are in the process of D because he won't give up the OW mom to OC.

Tell us a little about your H's A. How long ago and is it over?

My husband's affair was with a coworker the year before my affair. He was hit hard with it and considered leaving me for her. His affair lasted about 6 months, hot and heavy as they were on the road together and worked in the office together. She moved to another office in another city and I thought things were better until we moved too and I thought he was following her. I never confronted him with it but used it as an excuse for my affair.

So, does your H acknowledge his mistakes as well? I do believe my H when he tells me it was the dishonesty and inability to make decisons about HIS life because I kept the truth from him for so long hurts more than the A itself. I believe at this point no matter how difficult you owe it to him to answer all his questions. Even if you tell him you need to think about it and answer him later. Avoidance and stonewalling will just further enrage and frustrate your H.

darkcloud:

I cannot relate to your situation, and i am sure that some wise people can give you some advice, but there is one thing that is bothering me about what you said. Your A is absolutely no worse than the ones he has, yes it is extremely painful to find out (i am a BS) but he cannot stand on his moral pedistal and point fingers at you when he has done the same thing.

The other thing about remembering the details, in my experience, I was the same way with my WH, I wanted to know absolutely everything, every detail. I can understand his frustration in you not remembering, but as you said, it happened awhile ago and even those with great memeories can alter the details over time.(unintentionally) Do the best you can and be as honest as you can and hopefully that will help him.

My prayers are with you.

LT

Yes, he does ackowledge his mistakes, and I agree with you about stonewalling and I am trying to answer him, but I look back now and I don't know what possessed me, I wouldn't handle things the same way now and I don't know what the ** we talked about. I know what I did, and at the time I blamed my husband for a lot of it, but I know that it was my choice not his to have the affair.
My husband keeps telling me he would never have done this to me and wouldn't treat a dog like I did him. I don't look at it that way. I know I was selfish and self-centered about the affair and didn't even consider how I was hurting him and everyone.

Thank you faithful follower and losttiger for responding to me. I truly appreciate the input. I know this site is geared more towards the BS than the WS or FWS. It helps me so much to hear from someone else.
Thank you.

darkcloud:

I am confused. Am i missing something here? He said that he would never have done this to you....didn't he have an A too, AND several ONS?

LT, the way I see it is this is so fresh for her H he is shoving what he did under the rug. Is that correct darkcloud or did you never deal with his A out in the open?

losttiger,
He did say he would never have done this to me and by that he means he would not have let the affair go on so long and he would have told me what was going on. Plus the fact that the affair also affects his work situation and he thinks I should have told hime before he started working there.
Like I said, it is complicated and I will have to get back to this tomorrow as I need to get home and can't be late.
Thanks

faithful,
A quick reply to you, we never really dealt with his affair. I was totally smashed by it and did not know how to deal with it. So I confided in his best friend and there had been an attraction to him and then the affair happened.

darkcloud, here is a link to my thread on the In Recovery board last year when my H found out about my A. I hope it helps you.

^bump^

Faithful,
Thank you for the link. I have read it and the link that was in it concerning ForeverHers. Much, much, food for thought.

I am not as religious as you all seem to be, but I do believe in a Higher Power and I do believe that we should "Do unto others as we would have others do unto us". I failed miserably with that saying when I had an affair but I do believe it.

I have to admit I am a bit speechless after reading so much and I am trying to gather my thoughts.

I do have one question though and that is did your H ever "get over" the time line of when you had the A to when he found out about it? My H is totally obsessed about how long it took for him to find out and about the length of time of the A. I still feel that the why's are more important issues that need to be addressed.

Am I just kidding myself and trying to avoid the issue? I don't think that I am, but I know that I am a conflict avoider so I struggle with that.

If I had to choose between being a BS or a WS I would choose neither. They are both horrible places to be in, but I believe everything happens for a reason, we just may not understand what that reason is, but I believe something good can come out of everything even if it takes years for it to happen.

I hope things are working out for you and your H. From the thread I read it sounded like you were on a good path. Thanks again for responding.

One more question, what is ^bump^ ?

1darkcloud

darkcloud, a bump is to move the thread up so you could see without searching.

My H and I are in the process of D due to his continued A's. The timeline part has been troublesome but he actually has made great progress getting through that. In the beginning he would wake me up in the middle of the night to ask questions. Even now as we get ready to D an occasional question will arise. I do my best to answer though time frames are cloudy sometimes. I am best at referencing time to events in our lives than at dates. That may possibly help you remember things too.

Yes, you really need for both yourself and your H to figure out the "whys". I honestly did not understand it all until I found MB. Much of my time before that was justifying my A because of my H's neglect. The truth is no matter what your H did to harm your M YOU made the choice to have the A. I think perhaps once you can own it, your H will feel more secure.

However, at some point he needs to own his A too.

DC,

Let me offer you some suggestions. First you need to set some boundaries. Yes, you owe him the details. Yes, you owe him "I'm sorry's" "I apologize" etc. BUT, you also do not have to be yelled at for telling him the truth. I think you need to set him down and tell him IF he wants information and he asks for information, then he must take the information and process it WITHOUT yelling, calling you names, etc. That is YOUR condition for him. You will be honest, you will tell him but HE must do something as well.

Next, I would like to suggest that you have him sit down and write out all of his questions. And tell him you only want to see questions for which he can handle the answers or has a use for the answers. Then tell him you will answer one, perhaps two a night, and discuss the answers with him.

Along with this you should consider writing down your version of all of this with details, and the Why's. But, your problem is going to be that the "why's" are going to sound like excuses so this will more difficult than you might suspect. Nevertheless, list the story with details, and then offer why you felt you did it.

I think you fully understand that it was your choice, although he might not realize this yet.

Then start to write your questions about HIS affairs. Ask for the details, and the why's. Tell him you want honesty, and you expect to be able to ask HIM the same things he asks you.

I think you need to get him to admit that the real problem here is that he feels you AND OM have made a fool of him. I suspect he feels he is being used primarily by OM, but you are getting the brunt of this AND that is why he feels your A is worse than his A's. They are not, but the situation he finds himself in, makes it very hard for him to see.

Perhaps you two need to sit down and talk about how he feels concerning his job and the position he is in. If he can face that and articulate how he feels perhaps you can start to address those issues. In someways they are separate from the A itself. But, he very likely feels he is getting his nose rubbed in it every day, and clearly his W telling him about YOUR A has not helped that feeling one bit.

This is a complicated mess, but I feel in your situation the biggest issue is he having to work for the OM and try and save OM's company. Dear God that has to hurt. So address that hurt, ie deal with the present if you can.

THEN both he and you need help addressing the past. You both have a lot of healing to do, and I strongly recommend counseling to do this.

I don't know how much you have read on this site but one of the biggest things for the Wayward Spouse is no contact. What is not discussed is contact between the Other Person and the betrayed spouse. There is no way this is good for the marriage either. See if there is someway to end this even if it means a short term loss of income.

By the way, since OM's W has told your H, what has OM done to help this situation? He should be apologizing to your H big time, if he isn't it is time he did.

Must go.

God Bless,

JL

JL,

I appreciate all the suggestions, we have tried to set some boundaries and can calmly talk at times, until I actually answer some of his questions.

But I do like your idea of writing down questions, reviewing them and only answering a couple of questions at a time. That would be a good way to tackle that problem, he could digest the answers and I wouldn't feel like all of our time together is spent only on my affair.

And yesterday I did tell him why I have such a difficult time talking to him about some things and it does concern his immediate reaction to what he hears. He is always better after he digests it, but before it's digested it can get pretty tense. He has always been that way about everything although he has mellowed some with age.

He did let that sink in and I think it will help both of us since I have verbalized it again. We have discussed this over the course of our marriage, it was a huge problem when our DD was a teen.

We have recently discussed his A's and he is more than willing to go into every little detail which I prefer not to hear. That is part of our problem, since he can go into detail he finds it hard to comprehend that I can't. I like your idea of my writing the A down also, that may help me to see it and remember more.

You are right about it being very difficult for him at work. I feel so responsible for all the pain there. My heart truly aches for him every time he walks out the door. I have felt much grief and shame about his work situation for years, and I thought never telling him would save him from the pain.

My H did talk to the OM about the A, but I don't believe that the OM truly realizes that what we did was so wrong and hurtful to us all, and I'm not sure if he actually apologized.

The OM is delusional about all aspects of his life and right now his life is spiraling out of control. He doesn't see this issue as important to him. He has issues with his W, his children and his company and he thinks everyone but himself is at fault.

My H is torn between wanting to be there and not wanting to be there; he has worked hard there, we are in our 50's and he has no desire to look for another job and now he wants to not only do his job to the best of his ability (which he always does) but to help the OM's W and grown children (who also work in the company) out.

I would be okay with the loss of income, and have over the years tried to talk my husband into going somewhere else without actually telling about the A, there have been many other reasons to go, but to no avail. And now he says he can't and won't for still, many reasons.

Right now he fights between doing the right thing and vengence. It is complicated. He has known the OM since grade school and the OM's W since high school. I believe if the OM would own up to everything it would help, but the OM and his W have soooo many of thier own issues and baggage that the OM doesn't see this issue as important.

I have offered to talk with the W if she would want to and right now she does not but that could change. I am more than willing to sit down with her alone or with my H or with all four of us and try to talk. I believe I owe her that. I will let that be her choice, she knows I regret the A and that I am truly sorry for the pain it has caused her.

I have no desire for contact with OM. Haven't for years. I would only talk to him if my H insisted. I don't see that as likely.

Thank you for the response.

1darkcloud

My W revealed her A 7 years after the fact. What hurts me the most is not the A, but the 7 years worth of lies. My whole reality is not what I thought it was, and I still struggle to piece this hole in my life back together with the REAL information (as opposed to the lies). During this time I grew older, we adopted children, we made career decisions, etc. I was cheated out of the truth during this time -- I may have made different decisions if I had the information.

I think this is part of the pain for your H. What he understood about these 19 years of his life were not reality, but an illusion. This is a very difficult thing to deal with. Just my $0.02 worth.

Todd

Exactly what my H felt too. Good post Todd

Todd and FF,

You are right, my H has mentioned that also. I never looked at it that way because I always felt we were meant to be together no matter what kind of problems we were having.

He certainly had and has the right to leave, and I denied him of that. Our whole lives could have been different. I can't imagine it. He lost both of his parents, I lost my father to cancer and our DD was diagnosed with leukemia in 2002 and we almost lost her (she is now in recovery), and our DD got married in our backyard the month after she finished her chemo. I can't imagine going through any of that without my H and I believe that he feels the same way but I did deny him of any choice.

I do believe during those tough times we were each others strengths.

1darkcloud