hello,

it's been just more than a week now since i found out about the A. however my W came to me a month before that to say things weren't working.
she's been on here posting messages (smartcookie).
i thank you all for your advice and support. i know it has helped her.
if you saw one of her most recent messages describing her life with me and how i was not a nice person to be around she was dead on.
it hurt to see that and i can only imagine how lonely and distant from me she has felt.
i have changed dramatically in the past few weeks and she has noticed it.
shows you what can happen when you realize what you really want.
i know the A was not my fault, but i do fully understand my role in it.
what i don't undersand is all the emotions shes feeling right now.
we've been getting closer lately, but she's also been pulling back from me.
for awhile we had some passionate kisses, hugs with real feeling. we even shared some intimate moments.
she said she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by my physical advances.
all i can do now is back off, try to show love, undertstanding and compassion right now, but it is hard because i thought we were really begining to get closer.
the confusion can eat away at me at times, but i'm trying to stay strong.
don't want to ramble on with my first post so i'll say thanks for listening.

mc

MC,

You have come to the right place...if you haven't bought and read "Surviving an Affair"...do it SOON! It is a roadmap on what to do and NOT to do when recovering from adultery.

I would also recommend "Not Just Friend" by Dr. Shirley Glass. It is has similar principles to SAA, but I personally related to NJF a little more than SAA.

They are both great books and they give you a look inside what causes affairs and how to affair-proof (as much as possible) your marriage.

Find a good PRO_MARRIAGE MC and he/she can help guide the two of you through the tough parts of recovery.

You have a LOOOONG hard road ahead of you...be aware the high/low rollercoaster ride isn't a lot of fun, but the high/lows do become less severe after time.

I get a feeling that you guys will make it...JUST DON"T QUIT! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />


Best Regards,

WNB

Welcome to marriagebuilders. Glad you have come here. It is a great place to be under the circumstances.

It sounds like you already have made lots of changes that your wife has noticed. The only good thing about finding out about her affair is that now your marriage can be better than it ever was. No more going back to the old one.

Please read all of the stuff here, especially the emotional needs questionnaire. In fact, you can both fill it out.

Finding out your partner has betrayed your trust is extremely painful, as I'm sure you have realized. Stick with us, and we will help you through this.

Been there. Done that. You might want to do a search on "Hysterical Bonding" or "Sperm Competition" here to get an idea of what you've just gone through.

Hey Mr.Cookie...

As others have said...welcome! We are glad you have come here because there are many who have been in your shoes that can help you with all of this. I have been where you are at.

I want to first off tell you that you are a lucky man. Why? Because your wife, even in the midst of the fog (you need to learn all of this stuff on here), is really responding to all of this. Many WS (wayward spouses) take a while to break thru the fog. Your wife is actively struggling with it...and that is good!

Your wife is addicted to the OM. If you read all of the stuff b ythe Harley's on this website...and in these blogs...you will see that the addiction is just as powerful as an addiction to alcohol or cocaine. And anyone with an addiction has a rough time overcoming it. While in the addiction, their view of reality becomes very skewed. They change their world in their mind to help fit what they are doing. So, they talk about how their BS (betrayed spouse) NEVER did things, or always did bad things. The BS never has any redeeming values. But, the OP (other person or affair partner) walks on water. Sure, the WS sees the negatives in the OP. But they choose to gloss over them. This is all called the fog.

Coming out of the fog is VERY painful! And she will bounce around for awhile.

What can you do? well, first off, dont ride her rollercoaster. She will need stability as she comes down from this. Secondly, seek professional help for the both of you. Call Steve Harley on here and schedule an appointment for both of you. Steve is the expert on how to get a plan of recovery. And you two need a plan. This recovery stuff is NOT for amateurs!

Next, keep coming here to vent and ask questions. As your wife vents on here, dont read into what she is saying. She needs to be able to work things out in her head. So do you, so she should not take any of your posts too seriously...as you work thru things inside you.

You will have problems coming up. Pictures in your mind of her and the OM (other man) will cause you problems. I promise these will go away. For now, you two will have to cut each other a break. What I mean by that is that if one of you is "havign a moment," then the other needs to back away. Just say "I know you need a little space right now...I will be in the other room if you need me." Neither of you should press during that time. Just let them have a moment.

If one of you is having a bad day and wants to bring up bad stuff, the other should not get defensive. Just sit and listen. Sure, there might be a lot of name calling or other crap. But in the tirade will be nuggets of truth that you will need to help them get thru this and build a new life together. The biggest thing by listening is to allow the other to get things out. And these things need to come out so they can be put to rest...and the anger and hurt can subside.

Right now, things cannot be any worse. But in a way, they cannot be any better. You two have a very real chance right now to get a marriage that many dream of. If you follow the Harley's info, if you cut each other a break...and if you both commit to this even when you arent feeling it...then you two will have a great relationship in due time.

This is all very simple...it is not easy. There will be work to do...and both of you may feel like quitting at times. Dont do it. I see great things for the two of you. But you will need to do the right things in order for that to happen.

Keep posting. Keep asking questions. Read the articles on here. Read the threads of others who have gone thru this. Read the Harley's books. Both of you need to get smart in a hurry. CALL STEVE HARLEY! Get a plan together ASAP.

In His arms.

Mr. Cookie:

I am so glad that you have found your way here. Myself and Mortorman among others encouraged your wife to get you here. She hadn't posted in a couple of days and I was a little concerned.

First of all, the people who are on here will try to answer any questions that you have. None of us are professionals and few are experts but we have all been through the same experiences as you have, just a little farther down the road. What you will most likely see on here time and again is that when our WW made the fateful decision to go outside the marriage to fulfill their EN's, it is almost like they all read the same book on what to say, how to act, etc. The important thing for you to remember is that during the A your wife had some chemical properties that become out of whack and you have to sort through what is real and what's just comes out of the WW Handbook for Rationalization and Justification. Your wife has made some incredible steps in moving toward recovery since her first post. You have a big fan club here because even if you didn't know it, you were doing and saying almost everything right.

I told SC in a post that the first three weeks are the toughest for both of you. I relate to both of you because your WW actions and thoughts mirrored mine in many ways and your intitial reactions to the discovery as she relayed them was almost identical to mine. I will try to walk you through what to expect in the next few weeks as well as how to interpret some of the things you have mentioned here. Your progress and both of your actions do date give you a phenomenal chance to fully recover your marriage and have a much better relationship that you have ever imagined.

First, all of us BS's and WS's are different now that before the A. The A is something that is part of us now and how we respond to that crisis in our marriage in large part determines who we become. You have acknowledged your shortcomings as a father and husband prior to the A. You understand that both of you were responsible for the environment that made the A possible. If you have apoligized to your wife for those things that is good and based on what she has written you have made significant changes for the better. As hard as it will be, that is where your responsibility ends. She and only she was responsible for her bad choices. There were other ways to deal with the issues at hand but she made a bad choice. She realized this, even though it was only after the A ended badly but as her fog started to lift a little, she came to this board and immediately stated that she was hopeful that she could save her marriage. HUGE STEP. At that time you didn't know about the A. She has also recognized the substantial changes that you have made and it makes her happy, although I suspect that given the circumstances and her mixed up feelings regarding prior to the A about the M, that she is often feeling a little unworthy to recieve the love that you are willing to give.

I posted several times to her on the other thread and it soon became apparent to me that just like many WS, she was rewriting marital history to some extent and although she was truly grateful that you have become everything that she could want, she continues to question if she ever loved you. I know that you have read this and seeing that hurts and makes you wonder why that you are putting forth the effort that is required from a BS to reconcile the M after an A. If you have read my responses to her, I truly believe that she struggles with knowing what love is and accepting that someone can love her. Even though this is tough to read, it does give you some perspective into her mind and how that she could have taken the path that she did. Believe me, whether she sees it right now or not, she does love you, and your recent actions in becoming more attentive, etc. and meeting her emotional needs will eventually have her fally madly in love with you. The intimacy that you can achieve in your M now by following the MB principles and working towards having the best R possible is incredible and is well worth the effort. The sex will be better, the companionship will be better, the communication will be better...everything will lead toward the goal of a marriage which is two people truly becoming one.

As for her withdrawing from you right now, sorry but that is a very normal reaction especially if the WS starts to feel really guilty and remorseful about what happened. That withdrawal is not about you, it is about her and her inability to let you into her soul completely. The door gets partially shut sometimes because she does not believe that anyone, especially you should love, cherish and honor someone like her after what she has done. The marriage rebuilding process is not just a process for the marriage. It is a rebuilding process for both of the partners. Each one has to be able to work through all the nicks they have in their self esteem, personality traits, etc. and try to understand that those flaws don't make them a bad person, they just allow them to sometimes make bad choices. Once each partner has fully and honestly examined what they can do to improve themselves and their part in the marriage and can communicate those thoughts to the other honestly without engaging in lovebusters like angry outbursts and disrespectful judgements, the marriage is on track to get even better than it ever was before.

Most people will tell you that the recovery process is measured in years, not in weeks or days. There will be bad days and good days. Probably in the first month or so there may be as many bad days as good days. After that the bad days diminish and the good days become even better. At some point, the end result of your marriage is so fulfilling to both of you that the bad memories are faint. Mr. Wonderings and Mortarman are two that are well down the road to recovery and who I believe have impacted me tremendously in my recovery. Listen to them. They have been there, done that and both had WW's that were farther off the ledge than yours.

Over the next few weeks, you can expect a couple of things. You may go through some fits of rage as everything really sinks in. It is pretty normal especially for those of us who made a decision to save our M right away for us to be in denial for a while and then when we realize what has happened, the anger start building up. There are a bunch of different ways to vent that anger that are healthy to your relationship. Angry outbursts or disrespectful judgements are counterproductive to your process. If you need to vent, vent your feelings on here. Often just writing them down helps me to get them out and calm down enough to have a civil conversation about them later. You need to share your feelings (all of them, good bad, indifferent) with your wife as often as you can without LB. Good communication is imperative to rebuilding the marriage.

You also need to find ways to spend as much time with your wife as possible. Steve Harley recommends a minimum of 15-25 hours of undivided attention per week for all couples. For those close to D-day, double that if possible. It is tough with jobs and kids and other committments, but will go a long way to speeding the process and allowing your wifes feelings toward you to get back to where they need to be.

Read everything you can about Plan A and implement a good plan. You have already made a great start on this. The most important function of plan A is to stop the affair and that is already done but the rest of the Plan A is just as important. You have to show your FWW that you are the best alternative for her in every way. Plan A is designed to make the WS fall back in love with their spouse.

Lastly, listen to everything she says but take everything with a grain of salt. I have done a lot of research on affairs and am convinced that their are significant chemical changes that occur while the A is going on. Those chemical imbalances don't get back to normal immediately. She is still somewhat in the fog and is trying to understand why that she "felt so good" when the A was taking place. She will understand that just as a herione addict feels good during the high, the high is not reality and when they come back into reality the reality seems even worse than before they got the high. She is going through a whirlwind of emotions right now just like you probably are. The important thing is that you both communicate these thoughts and feelings.

Come on here often and ask anything you need. Sometimes, you need a lift up and you will find it here. Sometimes you will need a kick in the head, you will find that here as well.

GL in your process.

NT

Hi Mr Cookie,

I was one of the posters that "watched" your story unfold.

I am a FWW. i cheated on my H a great deal, he did not know. he did know i was wanting to divorce him and that is what got him to take a serious look at himself and the type of a husband he has been, and he worked on changing and he would not let me convince him that a divorce was a good idea. i finally stopped cheating on him and then, after posting here a while, confessed a portion of the truth. 7 months later, i confessed everything, that was about a year ago.

When your wife told us about how you found her posts her, hugged her and said, "i'm going to make this easy i you, i saw MB, i know" i was overcome with emotion, both positive and negative. positive because it is so humbling to hear about how kind you were to her, and to recall how kind my H was to me when he knew i had more to confess and he tried so hard to be supportive. more humbling than words can explain.

i also had negative emotions, because how bad i feel about how much pain i have caused him, it can be very overwhelming, how can he possible still want me to be his wife??

and, as much as i hate to say this next part it is part of the equation, negative emotions about why my H could not have been this interested in our marriage sooner. this part is there but it really is a small part of the equation.

anyway, i wanted to give you a glimps of my story (without getting into it too much) to tell you that smartcookie has a lot of healing to do too. and sometimes, as she struggeles thru her issues, you may think she is withdrawing from you because she does not love you or want to be with you. dont make those assumptions, like MM and nottoday said, you guys need to learn to give each other a break. the process of her coming to peace with what she has done can be long and at times very hard.

she will have many days where accepting your love will be really hard.

i am very happy you guys are together. may God give you both peace.

Mr. C,

Welcome to MB. I would like to offer you some thoughts for your consideration. First, when examining your actions or inactions earlier in the marriage, don't just change them understand them. Further, I would like you to consider the changes you have made very carefully. Are they changed YOU can live with? As you do make them examine them to see if you could change things differently.

Why am I mentioning this? First, your W will come to resent your changes for awhile. You may even hear that YOU could have prevented this A if you had listened to her years ago. You may hear that YOU drove her to have the A. This is not true, but the resentment will be there and you will hear about it. So your changes NEED to be changes YOU want to make, because they are going to have to withstand her roller coaster emotions, her accusations, and your nature response to say "to heck with this". Make changes YOU are proud of, ones you can sustain no matter what happens in your marriage or to your marriage. To do that requires reflection, goal setting, and a plan. Once you have a plan, work it no matter what she does to discourage you.

There are a series of milestones that seem to occur around here during recovery. For you one of them will be anger, which usually shows up around the 4-6 month mark. It has been speculated that this occurs because that the BS finally feels safe to vent the pain, the frustration, the fear and it shows up as anger.

Another phase will be considerable self-doubt. "I am the second choice." "She never loved me." "She is only staying for the kids not me." On it goes, and with good reason.

I know your W said you just wanted to move on, but I strongly recommend you find a good pro-marriage counselor. Why? You claim that your W's vent has a lot of merit. I would claim given what she said about being separated from you, some of your seemingly uncaring attitude was a response to her uncaring attitude.

You two need to address many things and having a neutral third party can really help. She will not recognize this for awhile but her attitudes and behaviors before this affair had an impact on you and your attitudes and behavior. Just as she claims her affair was a result of your preceived attitudes and behavior. Marriage is a nonlinear feedback system, and unless these interactions and considered, discussed, evaluated, and remedies arrived at jointly, there is a good chance of a repeat. Dirt swept under the rug is still dirt, and it is still there.

Don't sweep this under the rug, discuss it, seek counseling, and get it out in the open where it can be examined, and remedies decided upon.

There is a quote that I love to use, it first came to this board from member named WHODAT, many years ago. It goes like this.


I sense a lot of resentment in your W's posts, and I think that as time goes on and more of this sinks in you will have a tendency toward resentment as well. THe rememdy is open, honest (radically honest) discussions between you two. It is often best if a third party mediates these discussions.

Please think about these things, feel free to ask as many questions as you want, and do some more reading here.

God Bless,

JL

Hey Mr. C I've been in your shoes fairly recently. I had to jolt my FWW out of her fog but she agreed to MC, NC, and IC readily and made a real effort with our M. We can really see the results now. The recovery started about 5 months ago and now we're done with MC and things are much better now. Hang in there, you'll feel better.

My experience is not typical. I think we recovered because of the strong underlying friendship and "like" we've had for eachother since even before we were married, the presence of our kids, and the strength of our families. The fact that the OM was a moronic truck driving ex-con with nothing to offer didn't hurt my chances either.

As far as SF goes, give her some space for it. When the fog lifts she'll jump your bones. Be prepared for a continuing aroused emotional state- but that won't last forever and things will seem "mundane" again on the surface- just don't let them get that way down deep.