I have some serious doubts about my relationship after the infidelity.

For starters i firmly beleive if she loved me the way i love her this could never have happened.
What is the point in continuing when this clearly demonstrates her feelings for me?

If 12 years, 2 kids, her religion, her family and all the things we shared was not enough, how can there ever be enough to stop it from happening again?


All this plan a and plan b stuff is just self negotiation in our new prisons of pain where we were put by the cheater.
Cheating is proof of the lack of true marital love for another person especially when its an emotional attachment and not purely physical.

If she truloy loved me she could never have done the things she did, not lie and cheat and not torture me over finding out by keeping up the lies.

I think its time for plan c .We both do our own things, i firmly beleive in the concept of finding your true other self in love. This notion of marriage being only dependant on fulfilling the other persons needs is more like high school dating. Entering into marriage is saying you have found that other person, infidelity is an admission that this was not so. Marriages that are not built on love fail whether they stay together or not.

I want real love not to be settled for instead of someone else. She never had to settle for being second why should i.

Hi 'cing

I have felt every single emotion you state. Five hundred times.

What helped me was to study affairs in a quite academic manner. i learned the many reasons for affairs. Very few of them ar eto do with failins sof the BS. Most affairs are nothing to do with the BS and many are not even to do with OP. Its about an opportunity for a WS to feel huge self-regard and have some emoitional needs met in a cartoon-powerful way. This sensation can overwhelm logic to the extent that WS risk everything good in their lives for an affair with an ostensibly poor choice OP.

My own dear Squid was in a deeply entangled emotional and physical affair 15 months ago. I was suicidal.

Fact is plan A and other MB principles helped me bust an extremely ANGRY active affair and set a course for the rebuilding of seven lives : Squid and I, our kids AND OMs family.

My sit looked impossible, and felt impossible. yet here I sit, early Sunday afternoon in the UK, Squid is preparing sunday lunch, and has just bought me a glass of wine with a kiss. I'm working on our house ( and checking the 'net between coats of paint!). Squid adores me. I adore her. We have tools and intent to build a wonderful marriage. Our kids have a great parenting team. They are happy and stable. We have stuff still to do, but I have no doubts we will achieve this.
There is no happier home than ours on Earth surely this day.

NOW tell me again that Plan A is 'self negotiation in our new prisons of pain"....

On d-day Squid told me she love dme but was not in love with me. She was in love with OM.

Later she told me she ALWAYS loved me but got distracted. Now she feels phsyically sick at any mention of OM.

'cing, if you do the right thing, stuff can change. But you have to learn about affairs. Learn about the near fatal disease your marriage got. Learn its symptoms and how to cure it.

I still have some resentment , sure, but study helps contextualise it.

If it helps heres my tale with some WONDERFUL advice I got from the vets : Ckick Here

Have faith that your sit can improve, but only if you want it to.

All blessings

Thanks for the response i appreciate it.

But it seems to me that plan a and plan b is great for the cheater though not for me. Of course she wants to not mess everything up by us breaking up, thats called having your cake and eating it too. I thought we had given up cake for each other, now that cake is being served maybe we should just hit the cake store and be done with it.

I want my family back the way it was, but thats not possible, no matter how i intellectualize it. What in ****** does intellect or logic have to do with love anyways?
Love is not about picking the person who best meets all your important emotional needs, its about finding that other person who completes you. Well for me that meant trust and devotion.

How can i beleive she loves me if she was trying to carry on a romance with another man? I could never have done that to her. Why? because i love her more than my life.

Now there is no going back, we have a damne near perfect marriage and relationship, it will never be that good again so what chance is there of it working. If perfection couldn't achieve her love for me how will this new screwed up relationship ever do it?
Oh wait i know if a swallow a huge rock into my guts.

I know how this goes, i had my heart carved out with a rusty saw in my first marriage, 20 years later it still hurts and i didn't love her like i loved this woman.

Without this earth shattering romance i thought we shared i have no real interest in marriage anymore, i feel she should do what she destroyed our lives for, go out with other people if its so damned important. Maybe in 6 months or a year she will truly understand how she feels.

I just don't feel that this whol "therapy" approach is gonna work, it seems mostly like the wounded person suckin in the pain and not reacting normally (rage) and then negotiating to take away the consequences of the cheaters actions. This is not really what i had in mind when i built my family. It seems awfully alot like settling for second best, for being second in thier heart and mind and settling for less than i deserve in my love life.

I think maybe i need to re-evaluate how i felt about her, i think i loved a person who wasn't really there, now that i realize what she is capable of i don't feel the same way at all. I still love the woman i married but she is not the same anymore.

'cing
But it seems to me that plan a and plan b is great for the cheater though not for me.

How was plan A not great for ME ? I got a life I LOVE back. I kicked OMs [censored] with plan A. I won the admiration of the woman I love dearly with plan A. I regained huge self respect when I had NONE with plan A.

I lerned to be a great husband with planA.

I learned unselfishness with plan A. I learned not to trust my instinct with planA.

Then go ask Mortarman who pulled his M back rom the edge of the abyss with plan B if he felt it was a holiday for his FWW.

Squid now is absoltely paralysed with shame a her actions of over a year ago. She might actually be suicidal had I not learned how to love her as she deserves. How? You guessed- plan A.

The relationship dynamics between you and your W will change enormously from this day forward WHATEVER you do 'cing. But if you do MB stuff theres every chance it will change for the better.

My instinct was to be indignant and punish Squid every way I could. That rarely leads to a great reconciliation. The BS HAS to be the investing one to begin with usually because the WS can be so deluded by fog.

Also remember you don't have to do this. The law and God himself ays its OK for you to divorce if you want.

But if you want to be mean and punishing AND recover your m , I have to tell you its not often that happens successfully.

I had to lock up my taker for a LONG time. But it was SO worth it.

All blessings

b0b,

Whenever I need some inspiration, I find one of your posts and start reading. Thanks.

Welcome to the BS club. Everyone one of us has the same feelings, even well into recovery. I don't know the details of your sitch but suspect that you are still very close to D-Day.

You have a legal and religious ground to end your M based on your WW's poor choice. Your life will be forever changed no matter which decision you make. However, if you look over many other BS's early posts you will find that their feelings early after D-day are very similar to yours. The best advice given to all those early after D-day is not to make any long term decisions too early. Regardless of the long-term outcome of your M, this will be the most painful and difficult thing that you will likely ever have to deal with. You have a choice...will you let this event control and destroy you or will you take this opportunity to become a better person, husband, parent because of it.

There are many examples of BS's here who post regularly that believe that even though we wish more than anything else that our WW's wouldn't of made the terrible choices that they did, that because of that choice and more importantly our response to those choices we have better marriages now than Pre-A and have the happiness and contentment and love that we probably didn't experience prior to the A. Does that excuse the A? No way!!! An A is a despictable, selfish act that causes great pain to all parties involved, especially the BS, but also the WS and the OP. They are a reaction to a sick fantasy and sense of entitlement. They also typically are a symptom of a problem in the M relationship. Sometimes the WS tells the spouse of this problem prior to the A and we don't get the message and sometimes the WS is a conflict avoider and holds this inside until it is expressed in a totally inappropriate way with someone outside the M.


Great questions that we all have had to explore. My gut reaction was the same as yours. Why, how, what was she thinking. Well I am like Bob and several others on this site that in order for me to start to get through the pain and suffering that had been caused, I had to try and understand why it happened and why I had any right to think that it would not happen again. I am a pretty bright guy and can learn about just any subject in a short period of time. Most of what I study actually has answers that have cause and effect to the problem. When I started learning about A's and why they happen especially with a W that I felt like was the least likely to ever do something like this, I quickly learned that there is no logic in the illogical, no rationale in the irrational. Tough lesson and still doesn't justify the poor choice that WS makes, but although there are many reasons why A's happen, very few of them make any sense. These are some things I have learned about A's:

1) Most A's do not result in the marriage ending.
2) Couples are more likely to experience an A of one of the partners than they are to get divorced. The divorce rate in the US approaches 50%.
3) Very few A's wind up with the WS and OP leaving their marriage and marrying the OP. When they do, those M rarely work out. This one took a while for me to figure out because often the rationalization of the WS while the A is going on is that they have found their soul mate. I have even seen WS rationalize that God intended the A to happen because they were meant to spend their life with OP rather than their current M. This of course is absolutely untrue but is often the way the WS can cope with their own guilt and shame.
4) MB principles do work and all that apply them successfully will become a better person regardless of thier or their WS decision to recommit to the M and the ultimate outcome.
5) In order for a BS to move forward with their life, they must find a way to accept what has happened. Hopefully at some point they are able to forgive their WS as well as accept what has happened and why.
6) The BS is not responsible for the A in any way. The WS owns that 100%. But the BS is partly responsible for the state of the M, pre-A that created the environment that the A occurred in. Does that justify it? Again, no way..but understanding each persons role in creating the environment that allowed the A goes a long way towards ensuring that that environment is never allowed in the R again.
7) Recovery after an A is measured in years, not months or days. Even well into recovery, it is a rollercoaster that is often laced with gruesome images for the BS, resentment, entitlement and many other emotions that are really hard to deal with. Many of us have found ways to cope with these emotions but if we just ignore or avoid those, nothing good will come of it.
8) For those BS that chose to try and make the M work post A, they will have to carry the lion's share of the load in rebuilding early into recovery. This is especially true if the WS is dealing with fog, etc. Bob Pure is a testament that if a BS is willing to carry the load in recovery while the fog evaporates, that after time, the WS will start doing their part as well.


Perfectly normal, logical assumptions but as stated before there is no logic in an A. What is almost guaranteed is that even though you felt like that you had a perfect M pre-A, obviously your W did not. Based on what you have described I suspect that there were some very serious EN's that she felt like were not being met and when the opportunity arose for her to have those needs met somewhere else she unfortnately chose to seek to fulfill those outside the M relationship. Once the decision was made to allow someone else to fulfill any of those needs instead of you, they started down a slippery slope that is hard to stop the slide regardless of their true love for their M partner, their religous and moral beliefs, and many other issues. Once this started happening (the beginning of the EA) and her fantasy world was created (she compartmentalized her two different lives) it is just a matter of time before the R goes to a PA. Is this justified, absolutely not, but once this process started and the emotions and chemicals started flowing, everything else becomes irrelevant to the WS. They like how the OP makes them feel in their fantasy land. After all in the A relationship there are no kids to take to ballgames, no bills to pay, etc. just pure fantasy with each A partner showing only their best side. No morning breath, PMS, and all the other things that are part of a "NORMAL" relationship. I subscribe to the abducted by aliens theory. Once my FWW made her fateful choice, she had to compartmentalize her entire life to even be able to live with herself, much less with me and the kids. I would like to believe that she was not herself but that would be BS fog rationalizing and denying that she was culpable for her decision. What I understand from our renewed radical honesty policy and open communication is that during that time she misinterpreted signals from me, she was at a low in her own self esteem and felt inferior to me, and she felt entitled to "feel" happy. She was also a conflict avoider just like I suspect your wife may be and so instead of finding ways to get that fulfillment our of her marriage by communicating with me, an opportunity arose that someone who she felt was more on her level (clearly a poorer choice in every respect than me) came along and started to fill her love bank with things that made her feel good, she "felt entitled" to take the opportunity. She understands that her actions were wrong and she will carry the shame of her decisions to her grave. However, after some time to digest this horror, I came to the conclusion that her God had forgiven her, I had accepted what had happened and am working on true forgiveness and what we hope will happen someday is that she can forgive herself.


I am sorry that you have to be here. For that matter I am sorry that I, or Bob, or Mr. Wondering or Mortarman or any other BS has to be here. We did not deserve to have to be here regardless of how lacking we were in fulfilling our WW's EN's. There is no excuse for A's. There are many reasons, but none justified. But life happens to throw us some curves without logical explanation. Unfortnately for the WS their choice to have the A to some extent defines them and their life after the A. They cannot undo what has been done. We didn't have a choice in that matter, they did and they have to live with the consequences of that choice. But as a BS, our lives are not defined by our WS's poor choices but rather are defined by the choices that we make in regards to how that we will respond to the situation and take back the control in our lives. There are many different ways to do this. I have found tremendous value in this site, reading others sitchs, and their response. I had to find my own way back and I chose the path to recommit to the M. No one would have found fault with me if I could not do this and chose to leave the M. This is a personal decision that everyone must make over time. In the meantime, developing a good Plan A will make you a better person regardless of that long term decision. Does the WS benefit from Plan A? Absolutely, but I believe that in cases like mine, Bob's and Mr. Wondering we have each benefited just as much if not more than our FWW. We have a loving, fulfilling M that has made the struggle worth it. We all still have pain, that may never go completely away, but the gain that we have experienced continues to show us that the pain was worth it and someday, God willing, this will all just be part of the past that no one involved is proud of but that we can live with and accept and forgive our FWW in a manner that will make God proud of us and we will not only have the respect of our W's but most importantly we will have self-respect.

thank you nottoday for your revelations, I standd in awe of your ability to understand this craziness and that comes form a man who has lived through this event twice now over a 20 year period.
I pray that I can be the man you are, i am not sure i am strong enough however. I have rather exteme views on relationships and love i guess due to my previous marriage and this is a stake in the heart.

Your points are well taken however, thank you and to everyone giving adivce here. Sorry If i sound bitter.

Well I wil chime in here for just a min. I understand how you feel this is my second time around and both time it was an affair that ended my marriage. I was hoping my husband this time would regain his good judgement And return home. No matter what you are feeling right now you will run from one extreme to another from anger pain to sadness and grief. But realise this If you WS wants to attempt to repair the damage that has been done seize it with both hands and hang on for thr ride. It may end up in divorce anyway but at least you can say that you tried everything to save it you didn't just quit when it got to hard for you. I have been dealing with this for 5 months going on 6. And I can tell you now if given the chance I would go back into my marriage and try for all I was worth. I was not given a choice my Ws made all the decisions for me. I was not given a choice.

Read here every thing get the books educate your self on this subject.There are people here with a boat load of experiance more then I have but believe me I would whole heartly welcome my husband back. Why after all this because I love him and my children. I do not need him to support me I make good money I can take care of my self. But I believe that you make a better parent inside your marriage then outside of it.

I am sorry if I offend anyone or upset you with my view But it just mt 2 cents

verce:

I am sorry but one thing that will most likely never change is how you view relationships. This is something that can be worked through but no matter how well you recover you will not view R or M the same, maybe better, maybe worse but definately different.

I am just an ordinary guy like almost all those who post here as a BS. I wonder everyday where the strength can come from, especially those days or times where I feel like I am carrying most of the load. I pray, really pray that the Good Lord will continue to fill my mind and body with the strength that it takes to handle this each and everyday. I also pray St. Ann's Prayer for the suffering ( I happen to be Catholic but I believe that St. Ann's prayer is powerful and could be used by everyone.)

Don't apologize for being bitter. We all are at some times even deep into recovery. I often feel like part of my life was taken away from me even though I had nothing to do with that choice. This is a tough pill for someone like me who believes that we control our own destiny...i.e. what did I do wrong to get to this point in the road.

I also pray that God can change all the rage, bitterness, and what used to be hate into compassion. It is working for me, but somedays is a struggle.

I really hate to think that the A was one of the best things that happened in my life. It was one of the worst, however the choices that I made, how I responded to those choices and how that I was able to regain control of my life over time after D-Day will be some of my proudest memories to my death. I know I am a better person because of how that I was able to work through this issue. I know that my relationship with God, even though strong prior to D-Day is at a level that I never knew I could experience. I wish with everything I had that a poor choice by my FWW wouldn't have been the thing that resulted in my changes but I have to trust that God will only give us the cross that we can bear.

At the heart of the pain of an A is the betrayal. I realized Jesus' suffering on the cross from the agony of the death, but I never really understand the magnitude of the betrayal by the whole world. As BS's, we have been betrayed by the one we love the most. On the cross, Jesus not only had to deal with the agonizing pain of a crucifition, but also the betrayal by nearly the entire world and several of the people closest to him. The human side of Jesus had to feel tremendous pain from this betrayal. However, in the end, he still gave it up to the Lord, his father that his will be done.

I can't imagine that God intends for us to suffer through the pain of an A. It is the devil's work on the devil's playground...but, the BS does have the opportunity to grow through the experience.

Just my 2 cents. Keep up the spirit. Every day is a little better.