Never Mind

Before I respond I am curious what YOU think they are?? in your experience that is. What were the effects in your situation as i see you are the betrayed spouse. What is this research for also??? mlhb

Let's see - on families infidelity is disastrous. My WH and I raised 8 kids together. I took care of them for 12 years - cooked, packed lunches, went to sporting events, school stuff, took them to doctors/dentists.

After his affair and our coming divorce, I'm only in contact with 5 of them. The others avoid me completely.

His sis and I used to be best friends. Haven't heard from her in 2 years. His brother and wife used to see us weekly. Now we never see each other at all.

OW abandoned her husband and 12 year old daughter. Her daughter sees her mom about an hour every couple of weeks. The husband is now working two jobs, plus doing the cooking, shopping and cleaning.

As far as our church - we have been members for 15 years. My WH was asked not to attend church until he came in to talk to the pastor. That was a year and a half ago.

Friends? My friends are still mine. His friends are shocked by his behavior and don't have anything to do with him. They avoid me also.

Never mind

Marsha - You'd better rethink this one -

"More often then not affair partners suffer great unhappiness. They feel a lot of uncertainty and have less control over the outcome than anyone else. They have to face the fact that in all probability that their lover will be lost to them forever. They may not accept rejection easily because they are left with false hopes and broken promises. Most single affair partners have to suffer and heal alone, whereas the betrayed and wayward spouses can heal together."

The BS had less control over their life than the affair partners. The BS had no choice.

And the affair partner being left with broken promises? Give me a break.

Yes, that IS their fault "for seeing a married person anyway." However, I will admit that there are lies by the WS to go around. The OP is not immune to the pain caused by these distortions and lies, but in NO WAY does the pain of the OP (however deceived or mislead) compare to the pain of the BS.

Years of families tied together, mutual friends, MARRIAGE VOWS, shopping for the in-laws for gifts, pregnancy & childbirth, putting him thru school, living poor, traveling around for him, buying a house, learning how to string Christmas tree lights together without killing each other (takes 8-10 years, minimum!), sacrificing to build a life together, a future together, having the same goals and dreams, being a functioning team financially, with parenting, with work, with families - and having that ripped out from under you with NO NOTICE or WARNING by a predatory STOW... believer is so right, give me a break!!

On another note, I see your paragraph for church communities is blank. I don't know exactly what you're going for here, but I have to say that our church community SAVED our marriage. There was a couple that the Flukes set us up with who were 7 years into recovery, and they counseled, prayed, helped, called, lunched & coffee'ed us individually until the happy day we did it all together. Our pastor was invaluably helpful with marital counseling after D-Day #1 teaching us about the REAL meaning of trust, and what God's design for our marriage was. Reinforcing the concepts of surrender that we were learning, unconditional love, forgiveness. So, in its weird way, the affair strengthened our church relationships, and made us more aware of all our church body had to offer us individually, as a couple, and as a family.

Marsha, for what it's worth, I thought you had some interesting stuff started there, hope I didn't offend.