I'm learning a lot about myself and life too. I needed to take some big steps as a person and I'm proud of myself for the ways I've improved in the past year.

Whoever said I should be reading this more was right. So many things have helped. The two biggest for me are to stop blaming myself so much and stop being afraid of losing her and "needing" her. I want her but I can't "need" her.

We talked again last night. I offered two options for counseling, one here in town and the phone counseling from this site and she said she'd think about it. I kind of lean towards the phone counseling because I won't get some nightmare counselor that way. I have no idea how to find a good counselor otherwise...

I showed her the EN questionairre too and then we agreed not to dwell on this stuff for the weekend. Today she called me and said she's doing the EN questionaire so I took that as a very positive sign.

I don't know what bombs are going to drop on me if and when she does decide to open up but sweeping it under the rug definitely did not work...

Hang in there MDC.

Normal

I just had a weekend with my FWW. Great weekend BTW. But sometimes I couldn't help but think of all the things that have been swept under the rug.

I have a theory abouy why WW's do not want radical honesty. Growing up we knew when we did something wrong there were consequences. The more wrong the more consequences. Right now the consequence as we know it is a withdrawl from the LB. If you make a withdrawl you have to make a deposit. Now the less you know about the A the fewer withdrawls they have taken. Therefore there are less depostis they need to make to make things right. The difference is that admitting the truth will actually, at least for me, be a deposit into the LB. This seems like a strange concept. How can I admit I did something wrong and that actually be a deposit? Because I know it is hard for you to talk about it. I know it is something you would rather not talk about. I know it is painful. When you do that I know you are commited to making this work. Don't get me wrong it is not a deposit big enough to offset the wrong that you have done but it is a start. On the reverse when you are not honest with me you are taking a withdrawl.

I told my FWW that every time I found out something new about the A that she lied to me about it made me trust her less.

I used this analogy. You have already dug yourself into a really big hole. It is actually a hole in my heart and the feelings I have for you. Every time you lie to me or lie to me through omission you are making the hole bigger. At some point you need to start filling that hole in. If you spend a month slowly filling that hole in then I found out you lied to me you have just taken more out then you have slowly put in. That doesn't make sense to me. I will give you the time to fill in that hole but please stop taking more out.

Of course you know that so far it has not worked for me. My FWW keeps telling me I am dwelling on something that has happened so long ago. I keep telling her just because you were not being honest back then does not mean you never have to be honest. I keep telling her that she has chosen the path of not being honest and that is what I am dwelling on. I am dwelling on finding out the truth.

Sweeping it under the rug has made it worse for me. I hope one day I can lift up that rug and not find a mess. Don't make the same mistakes as I have. This is why I am so interested in your story I want someone to learn from the wrong way of doing it.

We've started counselling and I'm going to try to push for complete honesty. It was so hard to just sweep it under the rug the first time I'm not going to try that again. I feel strangely calm now; I don't even snoop any more, in a way I don't care. I really do care but I think I've decided that if this could happen even with the extreme amount of contact we had; the changes I've made; the effort I've been putting in, then its just not in my control. Its just not my *fault* any more I guess.

Still, I'm going to fight for our marriage and do everything I can to win her back. I think she might have had a change of heart but I honestly don't trust my own judgement on those things now.

Hopefully counselling will help; she was really crying and upset after her turn with the counsellor. I know she cares for me; I think its a matter of whether she is willing to put "us" first again. She told me that she told the counsellor she wants to work it out. I think she doubts some of the changes I've tried to make over the past months. I can live with that; I feel that I've learned a huge lesson in life and I'm not really trying to "trick" her or anything; I want to keep improving in those areas anyway. Time should solve that problem; IF she'll give me the time which she wasn't.

Not knowing just eats at you. I HATE knowing certain details that don't add up. Like there were days that she acted really wierd; ended up leaving me home with the kids and "going to wal-mart" and I actually wrote them down. Then I went back and looked at the phone records for those days and you guessed it... But she insists the entire affair was "just talk"; "nothing bad happened"... Even if its true how the ****** do you believe when you've been lied to so much. I basically don't believe its true and try to just forgive her anyway but that is difficult. It just doesn't seem to work to forgive something that you don't even know what it is...

You are right; it *helps* when they open up to you. You know you can believe them if they tell you something that is hard for them to admit. And when you catch them in a lie it does seem to un-do the good that actually has happened.

I don't know whats going on with me right now; after the night I had the talk and told her I knew about the recent emails I've felt really calm. Leading up to that I was a complete wreck. I think I should be more upset about this or maybe like last time when I was devastated to find out but I'm not. Just calm; I had an hour at home by myself last night while she was at work (pretty rare for me to be home alone). I just relaxed and enjoyed the time by myself.

Maybe I'll be able to do an even better Plan A now :-)
Thank you all for your support. It really helps.

Ok i hate when I take time and post then accidently hit go back to board and erase everything. LOL

Good for you.

I am happy to hear you guys are moving forward.

Remember one thing though it was never your fault. Her decesion not yours. If things were bad she could have left you.

It is good that you realize you need to make change though.

Make sure radical honesty is met though. I have gone through periods I thought I didn't care to know the truth but I did.

Everytime you think you can live without the truth think about me. This stuff still bothers me. I think until I know the truth it always be that way.

Good luck!!!!!

She took about 3 days of thinking and my prodding to agree to counselling. Really said some painful things to me like "now you know how I felt" as if she meant for me to feel this way and lots of just angry silence. But I also heard glimmers of hope like "just because its been good for a couple months doesn't make up for what I went through".

SO, if it has been good for a couple months then I am making progress! I just try to hold onto that and the fact that in the end she did agree to counselling and forget about the mean stuff.

I've never been to a counsellor but now I can see how they can help. Just based on the words the counsellor used when talking to me; I can tell some of the things she told him. Things she might not have been able to say to me. And they give me hope too. Things like she worries that things will go back to the old ways of feeling neglected and unappreciated. I can handle that, I'll do my part!

I have also wavered between wanting to know and thinking I didn't need to. But every time I learn more it seems to help me let go. At least when I learn an answer for something I knew didn't add up. Just confess and let us forgive you... We're not stupid. I can't believe she actually expected me to believe that her secret email account that she was so desparate to hide was just for her girlfriend... But I actually talked myself into believing it for about 3 weeks.

Ok I actually talked myself into believing my W did not have an A for a week. LOL.

After I talked to the OM and he confirmed they did. So don't feel alone on that one.

There is always a comparison of what they went through and what you are going through. They are not equal by any means.

I have reminded my FWW of one thing when she makes these comments. It seems as though you are dwelling on my past behavior and the way I used to act. I have made a commitment to change. I am slowly trying to show you that things will be different. For the last x amount of time I think I have. If you don't agree please tell me so I can make the changes you want. It will take time. I know you don't want me to judge you on your past behavior please do not judge me on mine.

If you cannot move on from the past how do you expect me to.

Guys – sounds like all of us are dealing with pretty stubborn wayward women. At this point I’m not sure what to do other than hold out for a marriage builders counselor which will not happen for another week. I feel like I’ve been SO patient through this. Even though things are getting better I’m still not comfortable with where we are.

Though I’d share this post with you that I put on the “False recovery” thread. I’m in limbo and not 100% sure what to do…

BTW – me, WW and MC all had me convinced for 4 weeks that I was the cause of the A and could have prevented it. And that I was largely (tho not entirely) to blame for the pre-A environment. Only recently did I truly believe that it wasn’t me. Today WW STILL believes that her A was justified (at least that’s what she’s saying).

Also I’m not sure I want to know the details. I just asked if they were together during a certain time period today and she clamed up. “Why would you want to know that? It’s over!”

Another gem today was when she said “You won!”. As if this were a freakin’ contest where she was on the open market and 2 single men were competing for her affection.

--
OK so I tested the waters a couple hours ago and definitely scored a few for false recovery. We're fairly new to this. There has been NC since Friday. Yesterday WW agreed to leave the job that she met OM on.

Saw this thread and decided to see where her head was at. I got several classics -

"This seems to be all about you again."
"I just want you to get over it."
"Yes I think the A was partly your fault."
"What else was I supposed to do? You weren't meeting my needs."
"Why do we have to talk about this now? Why can't it wait for Larry (the MC)?"
"What do you WANT from me?"
"You didn't CARE that I was doing this! You wouldn't have noticed anything! If I had gained wait, cut my hair! You weren't paying attention."
"I already told you I was sorry."
"I'm furious at you right now."
"OK now YOU'RE mad."

Blame, justification, avoidance. A lot of telling me what I was thinking then and what I'm thinking now. I didn't do the best job with reverse babble but I did OK. Yes I was angry and ended up walking away.

So can anyone help with talk back to these statements? And can anyone tell me what to do NOW?? So we're in false recovery. Now what?

I wish I knew MDC... I wish some women would post in this thread too.

I look at it this way; she basically decided to leave but she was trapped. Since she had gone down that emotional "road" so far, its going to take a lot of time to reverse that. Even today she probably still wonders once in a while.

On the same token; *I'm* kind of trapped too. Normally you would not put up with someone treating you this way; you'd just go your seperate ways. I can't completely understand how she felt *this* bad but I'm not her and I'm not a woman.

So, in a way the sad truth is that *both* of us have ended up sticking together partly because we have kids. She wouldn't have put up with her situation in the past and I certainly wouldn't stay with a woman that neglects me now and apparently constantly accepts and gives inappropriate attention to other men.

Ok, so thats the situation, lets make the best of it. We can still come back from this. I'm trying to focus on the long term goal. I know I can be happy with her and she with me. We have great kids, we can be great together, so many things are right about us. So sometimes it means squashing some anger when I remember something she said to another man or some other trigger like that.

I'm really hoping that MC can help pull us through this. We're kind of coasting right now. I feel that I need a lot bigger commitment and some changes from her now but I'm not really pushing her right now; basically still Plan-A'ing. There are so many things I want to say to her but it just probably wouldn't work coming from me.

Normal

I am glad things are strarting to move forward. Good for you!!!!!

MDC
I have posted this before regarding FWS. So to answer all of your questions 1-10. FWS are like magicians. In order for the magic to work they need you to look away from where the slight of hand is occuring. If you focus on where the trick is happening you will uncover the truth. All of those statements are your FWS trying to divert your attention from the real problem.

The your fault is BS. My FWW told me in MC "you can blame our D on my A if you want but our M has been so bad for so long and that is why I did it."

I was really suprised and hurt. I said why were you so unhappy. You never told me that. You have always said you couldn't be happier. Her responses in order: you never ask me how my day was, you never kiss me when you come home, you never have time for me at night, and you called me miserable 5 years ago. I said is that it. She said isn't that enough? I said ok we can work on those issues because I want to stay together and work this out.

Issue one I never ask you how your day is. My response "are you freaking crazy". You call me 3-9 times a day. If one of the kids farts I hear about it. If you were in line at target and they overcharge you I hear about it. I call you everyday on my way home and you talk for any where from a half an hour to an hour. When I start telling you about my day you lose interest and tell me you have to go. Sometimes you start banging pots and pans around when I am talking. Now that I realize that you have not listned to me do I have permission to go screw around? She said no I didn't

Issue Two: You never kiss me when you walk through the door. I said I am truly sorry that after a one and a half hour to two hour drive in rush hour traffic my bladder is going to explode. When I walk through the door I have two young boys hanging on my leg. From my point of view it is a lot easier for you to walk 10 feet to give me a kiss then it is for me to walk 10 feet with an extra 80 pounds on my legs. Wow now I realize that you should have given me a kiss when I came home and you didn't. I guess I can see your point of view. I think I should have gotten a kiss when I walked through the door. Do I have permission to go screw around NOW. No again.

Third issue: Not affectionate enough at night. I said fine I have wanted that too. Unfortunately when I get home my oldes son is still doing homework. Maybe when you pick him up from school you can start him on his homework so we don't have to fight with him until 8:30 at night. Plus our youngest will not go to be unless we go lay down with him everynight. If you remember correctly when you started laying down with him I told you it would end up being everynight. It now is. She said oh its my fault that we don't spend nights together. I said no we have kids so it must be there fault. Why don't you blame them for your A then. By the way do I have permission to screw around now? No again.

So I guess the point here is that no matter what she did wrong I never get permission to screw around. Even after she had the A I asked if it was ok and she still said NO. HMMM. I never have permission and it will never be acceptable even after her A. So why do they give us reasons that it is our fault.

The other point is make sure you are thinking clearly before you accept blame for an excuse.

Thanks to both of you - YoH and NG - for posting.

NG - your post really hit home for me. Yes you're right it took WW a while to go down the road to emotional separation from the M. So it's going to take her a while to come back. And I share and appreciate your optimism.

Yes we can come back from this. Squashing anger and being patient are key. I too want so many things from my WW. And they are coming but so SLOWLY. And sometimes I wonder if they're going to come at all. I have my doubts as to whether she can turn all the corners required for us to heal.

It's as if there are 1000 things for her to do and she's done 2 of them. So overwhelming. It's not this easy to be so far ahead of someone, waiting for them to catch up, is it?

You've summed up my sentiment exactly:


Normal - thanks for the encouragemet. Sometimes it feels like progress but then there are times where I'm just not sure.

I'm not accepting blame anymore. At the beginning - for 4 weeks after Dday - I was accepting it. And now she has to backtrack through my acceptance. I really did at lot of damage by believing I was complicit in the A. So it's no wonder she still thinks that I was because I admitted to it. And the MC put the blame on me too. Made it sound like it was natural for her get a boyfriend to escape her unhappiness with me. How do we undo that??

So I'm thinking clearly NOW. But I'm unable to find the words to defend myself when the topic comes up. Without getting angry. So I feel stuck. We really need a good MC session but $$ is tight so SH isn't an option right now. May do it anyway. She's out of state with her mother so an in-person session isn't possible until she returns in 2-3 weeks. And I'm gun-shy about another counselor in light of the damage that the first one did. He did a great job helping me understand how to address ENs but he did NOT address the affair.

Again, I feel stuck.

Are either of your situations progressing favorably?

Right now yes but we shall see.

After the 20th D Day and finding out things that were unimportant to her or things that she didn't think mattered. Some of which any reasonable person would think were important. I am going to try recovery.

I could not recover because I didn't know what I was recovering from. Now I do and quite frankly I do not know if I will ever move past her actions.

I love her but I wonder if that is enough.

She is in best behavior mode right now which is typical after a discovery session. This usually lasts a few weeks and starts with me being nice to her and filling her ENs.

I am now going to find a good MC. I tried two in the past but it was evident to me she was not going to be radically honest with me or the MC so there was really no sense in continuing spending money we didn't have.

I am lucky my insurance covers MC so you may want to check to see if yours does. They don't advertise it but you may be plesantly suprised.

Well, we've made some progress. We've had 3 counselling sessions now. She says she's happy with me and the changes I've made. She's told me a lot of nice things recently like "I need you", "I won't hurt you any more" (thanks!), "we have a great family", "I want it to work out", etc.

I'm optimistic. I think I've been lucky in catching these things before they got too far. I don't feel like I'm being lied to any more.

For me I think snooping was the best thing I ever did. Thank goodness I snooped. Might have meant my marriage and family if we hadn't actually started to deal with these problems.

YoH - good luck to you. I was thinking today that it's quite a gift we give to our WSs and our marriages and I guess ourselves too, this chance for recovery. Building from the ashes.

Quite a lot of character is required to do this. I did not know I had it in me, to be honest... Admire you, NG and all other BSs working to rebuild.

NG - Again, I share your optimism. I think I was lucky to catch the A as it just as it was hitting it's stride. Before it really had a chance to settle into a regular rhythm. And you know how I was able to bust it up? Snooping. Knowing nearly as much about the A as WW and OM did gave me a HUGE leg up. Knowledge is power.

Oh and the MB forum. Would be NO WHERE without this forum. Really, armed with the MB principals and all the support BSs get here, waywards and OP don't stand a chance. Of course busting up the A is only a fraction of the battle as all 3 of us know.

Heart goes out to both of you. Wishing you peace, wheather it's with or without WW.

Aw crap, she's being kind of up and down with me lately and I'm starting to worry again. She definitely withdrew from me yesterday and I don't know why. Couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong, etc. I'm definitely not as confident as I sound when I post on here...

I keep wanting to believe that this is over and behind us; all it takes is a couple of nice days from the wife and I'm happy as a clam. Then the next day she'll be acting very withdrawn. I definitely noticed this withdrawn attitude in the past after she had contact (didn't figure it out until later). Am I paranoid? How do I know? This sucks.

I would be nowhere without MB either. Found it on D-Day and read for about 8 hours straight...

What are you worried about? Contact??

Well, maybe its *another* contact. Before all of this happened, she was on this exercise kick. Really working out and dropping a lot of pounds. One day I started talking to her about how it would be fun if we went to the gym together and started planning to meet her there that afternoon during her normal workout. She was definitely hiding something there because she made up all kinds of strange reasons why I should come at a different time, etc. One of the few times in my life that I could immediately tell my wife was lying to me. I never resolved what that was all about.

That was over a year ago and I basically talked myself out of it. Now she works at that same gym. Her job has made a huge difference in her outlook on life. She is so much happier now that she has this; it gets her out of the house doing something she enjoys and I've wholeheartedly supported it because I can see how unhappy she was getting being stuck at home.

Her reaction towards me yesterday at lunch reminded me of the day before 'D-Day' when she was very withdrawn and quiet, acting "tired". The next day I found the text message she had sent the other man about meeting her.

I don't how to process what I'm feeling or if I should do something about it. Today I just met her for lunch and had a good time; she seems good today. Maybe I'm just being paranoid.

Hi normalguy. I'm new to this site but not new to the painful world of infidelity. My H had an EA/PA over 1 year ago. In the beginning, I noticed my H withdrawing from me. He wasn't as affectionate. He didn't notice me as much. He started hanging out with his friends more.

And then I got a call from my H at work. He told me a man approached him and told him to stay away from his family. He told me he was "friends" with this man's wife at work. I totally believed and trusted my H. I thought this woman wanted to steal my H! I was upset my H didn't tell me about this woman, but more worried her H was going to kill mine.

Months later after my H turned into a total jerk, I found out he'd let his "friendship" develop into a full blown affair.

It sounds like your wife is up to something. If she doesn't seem herself...or if she's withdrawing from you...she could be getting herself into a lot of trouble like my H. I hope she hasn't gone too far. Both my H and I have been devastated by all of this. It has brought so much pain to our marriage.

I've gotten a lot of help from SurvivingInfidelity.com. There are forums for the betrayed and wayward spouses to post. If you and your wife could read some of the posts, it might snap her out of her funk. So many couples have gone through so much pain. Maybe you can learn from others before your marriage is ruined by an affair.

No matter what, your W's decision to have an EA/PA is not your fault. She can choose to tell you her concerns. She can insist you go to MC. She can divorce you. But the decision to have an affair is hers and hers alone. It's taken me a long time to figure this out. It's taken me a long time to realize I'm a loving, supportive, great wife. My H's decision to betray our marriage had nothing to do with me and everything to do with my H. Him not being able to tell me his feelings. Him always trying to avoid conflict. Him being immature. Him thinking of himself and not me in the marriage. I could go on and on.

Hang in there.

Just read your recent post.

Trust and follow your gut always!!!

I think I'm still in denial. She has had at least two emotional affairs on me, the last one only ended (as far as I know) weeks ago, and is *still* not really coming out full force wanting to repair the damage she's done. There have been some improvements but she is still only admitting what I can prove to her, not providing details, still going back to how she thinks I mistreated her, etc. But then, day-to-day, things are good so I start thinking things really are good.

I think I just went from trust to "trust but verify". Maybe I started trusting too early.

Trust but verify sounds good. I had to find out the extent of my H's friendship all on my own. He started giving me reasons to not trust him. That's when I started snooping. I checked his cell phone records. I checked his email account. I check internet history. I called one of his co-workers. I called the other woman. He didn't admit the entire truth until I brought all of this to the table.

Man, it hurt like ****** to find it.

In my opinion, until she comes clean or takes responsibility for her emotional affairs, counseling is going to get you nowhere. She's shifting the blame to you. No marriage is perfect. Communication isn't going to be perfect 100% of the time. Marriage isn't always fun or happy. An affair is NEVER the answer and can NEVER be justified!