Married 18 yrs, wife had A that lasted 2 yrs. off and on with sisters H. Discovered about 2 months ago.
WW wrote me a 7 page letter yesterday basically making herself the victim and me the bad guy in our marriage. Everything in the letter seemed to be self pity with a defensive stance about the A. She says she loves me and wants the M to work, but only points out the things that I need to change, with no regard for what she has done. I don't understand why WS do this type thing. Can anyone explain this to me? It is as if she is in some way trying to justify what she has done. Understand that I will not let her make me the bad guy, because me and our daughter are the victims in this family. How do you get this ridiculous thinking to stop, how do you get through to them that it was a decision that THEY made?

Ken

Post deleted by krk18

krk, do you mean the affair was 23 years long?

Do you have any of the Harley books, such as Surviving an Affair?

Melody,

No it was a typo, the affair lasted 2 years.....sorry.

Gotcha! Can you get you hands on that book? That would be a great help in showing you how to deal with your fogged out wife. It is hard to help you with this if you don't have a foundational understanding of affairs.

Has contact ended with your W and your BIL?
Does your SIL know? And WHO told her? Have you spoken to her yourself?
Does the family know?

Yes contact has ended between W and BIL
Sister knows because BIL told her about it. He came clean about and at that point the entire family was told. They were outed to everyone that we or they know.

I don't have the book at this time, but will look into it.

krk, you can order the book on this website and get pretty fast, cheap shipping. Or you can find it in most bookstores. It would be very helpful so that the stuff we tell you here makes more sense.

krk18:

The letter is pretty typical. My WW is blaming me too. In fact, I am to blame 100 percent for what happened but unlike your W, she is not willing to restore. She says it is to late and where were these changes (in me) 2, 5, 10 years ago.

Addiction behavior is pretty typical. Blame someone else for my addiction. You know as Flip Wilson used to say on his TV show, "the devil made me do it". The blame game goes way back to Eve when she blamed the serpent for her eating the forbidden fruit. So it is nothing new.

Now, a simple question to ask you WW is: When is it O.K. to have an affair?

Keep the focus on that question and answer. Of course we all know the answer is NEVER. And if the answer is in fact never, then it does not matter what you did or didn't do to drive her into an affair. The simple answer is that it is never O.K. to have an affair.

So the real issue is that. Counseling will bring out the real issues and if you failed to meet certain needs of hers, that will be brought out, but you are not to blame for her actions. She is still responsible. Regardless, Eve was STILL held accountable for HER actions, and punished. And for the record, Adam was punished to because we know he blamed Eve.

p47d