I suggest you go to family counseling. The fact that your ss is threatening and being so disrespectful is very worrisome.

I'm okay. He's all talk; typical teenage bravado trying to act the way he thinks a man should act. I'm not intimidated, just hurt.

I've been counseled by SH. We weren't getting anywhere because my wife refuses counseling so I was in Plan A, but my contact with the OM has thrown my wife into a rage.

I have to say this is a really good thread for me and I hope it continues. I'm at the very starting point of my Husbands A. He is unrepentant and unremorseful and just wants to be able to tell the world he offered me reconciliation but I wouldn't let him. He has done and said EVERYTHING to make it impossible for me to say 'Yes'. Yet, I'm still confused and unsure and still trying to decide what to do. I've been wanting to ask the question 'how many people here have gone through years of trying to recover to only end up divorced anyway?' and the impression I'm getting from MB is that most marriages survive. Is that true? The way I'm looking at it is this: I've just turned 30. I have a baby who doesn't even really know that her Dad is 'Dad' because he's been away from her life for so long. I have a H who, when asked how I would know he would never do this to me again, said 'if you can't be the wife you should be and give me no reason to turn away from you again then you confirm all my suspicions'. So, what if I say yes and in 2 years, 5 years, 10 years realise that I had been given a way out of he!! and I should have taken it and run.

As resilient said, candid discussion like this might help someone like me to not make the biggest mistake of my life. But then, not trying might be too.

Lucyloo,

I've found that one of the most obvious tactics used by wandering spouses to justify the affair is to make the betrayed spouse the villain. This can be done in a lot of ways. For example, during the affair, when I was yet unaware of it, my wife tried to pick fights with me about the most ridiculous issues. What should have been a dead giveaway that something deeper was wrong was the extreme anger she showed and no attempt at reconciliation after the argument. Both the extreme anger and not softening up afterward were uncharacteristic of my wife. She was, in fact, trying to be angry with me to alleviate some of her guilt.

After the affair was revealed, she tried to justify not working on the marriage by saying things like "You could never trust me again." With her actions and her words she was trying to manipulate me to make the decision that we should get a divorce, so she could tell people she had no choice in the matter.

With regard to the apparent statistic that most affairs do not end in divorce, I would like to point out that:

1. At least half or more of all marriages end in divorce.
2. Many affairs go undetected by the betrayed spouse.

Couldn't it be that there are many more divorces due to affairs than we know about simply because the affair went undetected and the spouses divorced for what the BS thought was something else entirely?

I have been giving this some in depth thought over this weekend.

I think what really needs to be looked at before you commit to recovery is your spouses behavior before the A.

In many cases we look at the A as an isolated incident. Now what I have realized is that the A is the same problem that we have had in our M it just manifested itself in a different way.

If the A is just another way of manifesting the same behavior you have problems if you want to recover.

The main problem is that you need to ask a person with deep seeded problems to realize they have problems. We all know how that works.

If on the other hand things were really bad in your M before the A and you bear some responsibility for the deterioration of your M then maybe there is a chance for recovery.

I don't want to make this post to long but I have some other things I need to think through before posting them.

That makes sense. A deep-rooted problem in one spouse is a different animal than a marriage where some emotional needs have just been ignored or neglected.

My own marriage fell into a kind complacent stage after a few years. Not that anything was bad, but we lost some romance because of the kids, work, and our own efforts to go to night school to improve our credentials. But I certainly never had a sense that things were bad, nor apparently did my wife when one reads the last Father's Day card to me (just a month before the affair started).

She doesn't really know why it happened. I am her third husband, so I guess there's a good chance she needs a psychiatrist.

I thought it made sense too.

The other question that keeps coming to mind is how big these EN's that were not being met really were? Then how many are really just a revision of history?

The FWS has had a lot more time to think about how horrible things were to justify their behavior at the time.

Here we are going along not knowing anything. One day we get blasted out of the water. I don't know about anyone else but my power of reason disappeared. I am usually able to think coherently but at this point I couldn't so what she presented me with became my truth. If she told me I didn't do something or didn't meet her EN it must be true.

Now I realize what she presented me with regarding my deficiencies(sp) was blown way out of proportion.

Heck in trying to address some of her EN's that were not being met I realized I was not really the root cause.

Just like you some of the "romance" left because of our situation. Mine was a little different. I worked she stayed at home. Two kids. She refused to make my oldest sit down and do his homework when he came home. Usually after a great deal of fighting with him when I got home he finished between 7:30 and 8:30 pm. Then because my wife decided to lay down with the youngest, against my wishes, he would not go to sleep without one of us in there. That pretty much tied up every night until around 9:30. If it was her night to lay down with him she fell asleep in there or she was to pissed off to have a good night. On my nights she was either pissed off or drunk when I came out.

Now when we discussed this issue I brought up those two points and her response was "so it is all my fault?". I said I don't know who the fault lies with but I do remember saying at least a dozen times over this last year how tired I am of this and we never spend time together. You are the one who told me that this is what having kids is about.

Well didn't we make a little revision since then. MY EN's were not being met and that was fine but then you have an A and yours weren't being met because of this situation. I thought you said that's what happens when you have kids.

Then I asked her what I could have done at that time differently. You told me that situation was fine with you. It was not fine with me. But because you created the environment it was OK. I could understand if I was the one that started laying down with the youngest until he would not go to sleep without us in there but that's not what happened.

So now the answer is well it is not going to change anything no matter who caused the situation. It is what it is. Really my EN's were not being met you talked me into believing I should be fine with that then you go have an A and use that as a reason to have it.

It changes a lot. It means you are able to do something then try to blame me for it. Now when it is put back to you nobody should be to blame.

Guess what that is one of her deepseeded problems.

Well that was precisely my point to my wife. She had 9 months in the affair to basically document my every fault, real or imagined, on a list that might have been entitled "Reasons why my marriage is bad." The more emotionally involved she got with the OM, the more she contributed to that list. And nobody was in my corner to defend me.

Can you imagine what the conversation was with the OM while laying in bed? Yeah, my husband did this or doesn't do that, etc.

I posted this under another thread:

If I had it to do over again, I think I would leave immediately upon finding out about the affair. Why? Because on the night that I confronted her with the evidence she at least took the blame by saying "I don't know why I did it."

Now she is telling everyone that our marriage was at fault. In a sense I'm to blame for that, because I said we need to work on the marriage and "I need to do a better job of meeting your emotional needs." By doing that, I essentially accepted at least partial blame for the affair, and she has taken that ball and run with it. It allowed her to assuage her guilt and make me the villain. In short, by accepting blame I have given her an excuse to latch onto in explaining the affair.

Had I move out immediately into a no contact separation, that wouldn't have happened.

My FWW took full responsibility at first then the tide changed really quickly.

Mine happened in the second session of the MC. He asked me "Do you want to try to save your M. I said yes I do. He asked her the same thing she said "I don't know things have been so bad for so long and he has hurt me so much I don't know if I can ever forgive him."

BTW I had just taken responsibility for my actions. LOL.

I wish I would have walked out that night.

I accepted my faults and she ran with it.

Funny thing was that when it came down to it she made them all up to justify her actions.

Of course she had no EA with the OM to begin with. She barely knew the guy so he was not filling any EN's that I wasn't. She actually barely knew him. First night out boom she cheated. End of story. Deep seeded problems.

Took her 13 months to admit that it happened the first night. I would have to think she kept that to herself because if she admitted it was the first night then she really had no time to think of those justifications. Those happened after a week of so of her running around.

Boy do I feel stupid for buying into my part when she now says it was because of the Alcohol.

Yes, my wife couldn't have developed an emotional tie to the OM either. There were always too many people around for her to talk in anything but the most superficial way. Then one night she went to his motel room.

The rest is history, or maybe I should say, I was history. Because now this guy can do no wrong and I can do nothing right. It doesn't matter that he has a reputation as a womanizer. It doesn't matter that he is married too.

It doesn't matter that we have a little boy who will wonder why mommy and daddy don't live together anymore.

Is adultery a selfish act? I don't know if I can think of anything more selfish that hurts so many people so badly.

Well of course he can do nothing wrong it is a fantasy.

One time I made the comment about us fighting and them never fighting. She said we never had a reason to fight.

I reminded her that when my Aunt got tired of her running around on me and wanted to put a stop to it they got into a fist fight and she ran down to OM to help her get out.

He refused saying he would get kicked out if he did. He lived in my Aunts basement apartment. Thats where the A took place.

I asked if they fought about this and she said no. I said so you did all these things for him, threw your marriage away and he couldn't help you get your stuff out of my Aunts house and you didn't get mad at him? Where do I sign up for that treatment. LOL. No as a matter of fact she called and appologized to him for putting him in that situation.

So the OP can do wrong but if that is admitted wouldn't it be admitting there was a flaw in the WS not the marriage.

If the same problems exist everywhere you go maybe it's you.

As someone said, the lack of remorse really gets to you. The closest my wife has come to remorse was to say that she was sorry she hurt me; nothing about being sorry for the adultery itself, the lies, the deception, etc., and even then it was said in such a casual manner that no one could mistake it for sincerity.

If someone were to stab you in the back with a sharp knife and then say I'm sorry that hurt, what would that tell you about them? That they seem to lack empathy? That they seem to lack basic human decency?

Is that what this fantasy infatuation can do to a person, or is this just a side of my wife that has always existed and I haven't seen before?

HL & Hiker,

"Reasons why it won't work even after the A is over"

I think you've really hit on an important reason, contained in these last two posts...

An affair is entitlement, fueled by resentment and lack of respect.

I see this in both of your posts...because going from wayward to formerly wayward is a process...takes two people, not one...

Your WW's felt entitled to their A's, fueled that entitlement with resentment and lack of respect for you.

Can you not see how you are doing the same?

Hiker...your wife said she was sorry for hurting you...and I hear you saying, "not good enough."

You were hurt by lies, the choice to betray, all the self-deception and deceiving she did to you...you were hurt by it. She is sorry...remorse is acting on that sorrow...

What appears a casual manner to you may indeed be a brave statement...your DJ is that lack of respect...same as she had before her A.

No one can undo the stab to your back...what would that tell you about them? That they give themselves permission to retaliate at real or imagined pain...they give themselves allowances to put their pain before the marriage...before you...and that is what I see you doing here.

The fantasy infatuation comes directly from the amount of resentment piled up, coupled with the permissions; resentment is self-created and devastating.

How's yours?

I have yet to see a marriage where only one partner resents...in mine, I know what it is to resent my H's resentment, and he, mine...and we piled it high...

"or is this just a side of my wife that has always existed and I haven't seen before?"

Have you not seen it in yourself, microscopically? Where you knew what your wife wanted to do something, you didn't want to...had something else you wanted to do...and you came up with reasons which sounded justified...and didn't do it? Or did?

No, adultery isn't microscopic...if you want to have a marriage between two humans, you gotta go within, too, to find answers.

Judgment does not rebuild marriages. Cannot establish intimacy, trust or security. It feels like a knife in the back, pre-A, post-A...and the stabbing continues. Only it's a blade without a handle...to plunge it in, you bleed, also.

LA

Here are some points I would like to make:

1. The BS is not at fault for the affair.
2. After the affair is discovered, if the BS accepts the notion that marital problems preceded the affair (e.g., not meeting emotional needs), the BS inadvertently gives the WS justification for the affair.
3. This is a boost to the affair and allows it to continue as the WS latches onto and cites a myriad of events (real or imagined) that are "proof" that the marriage had problems.
4. Plan A tries to counter this by removing the lovebusters from their daily existence.
5. Meanwhile, the A continues.
6. The WS still refuses to stop the A or vacillates or declares that he/she needs time to think.
7. A separation ensues, either by the WS to see the OP more often or by the BS for Plan B.
8. The outcome falls into three categories:

a. The WS and OP live happily ever after.
b. The WS and OP break up but either the BS or WS are no longer motivated to reconcile.
c. The WS and OP get back together and attempt reconciliation.

My problem is that the last outcome doesn't seem to happen very often. Am I wrong?

I served WH D papers last week. Something I did not at all take lightly. I felt it was the right thing to do at the time.

He has yet to admit to me that he is in an A.

They are living together.

Had he admitted, maybe things could have been different. I asked for truthfulness, I got lies.

D won't be final for a few more months. In a sick sort of way I still have hope, maybe he'll wake up and see the damage that he's done.

I would consider category "c" if he'll admit to it, but I think it's more realistic to see it will end up in category "a".

Category A is apparently the least probable of the three choices. I say that because of what I've read, but oddly enough, I have been hearing about numerous instances of the WS and OP staying together for years from my friends.

hiker

i realize that all of the reasons you listed for why it might not work are real possibilities

however, i am willing to accept the risk that they will happen to have the chance for a success reconcilliation

although, like you, all i seem to see right now are situations where the affair partners stay together for the long haul......my situation included

On point 1, first I don't understand the need to assign fault. IMHO, finding fault does not help end the A, help with marital recovery, etc. At the core of the choice to have an A is two things, opportunity and ability to justify the behavior. Opportunity comes from time apart, life style, someone making a pass at your S, etc. Yes, you can hope your S never has the opportunity, but realistically, there is always opportunity. The second is the ability to justify the action. Again, there a million reasons why people could justify the action. State of the marriage, mid life crisis, depression, drugs or alcohol, low moral character, revenge, etc. Some of these reasons, the BS played a part in, others they did not. I don't see this as cause and effect per se, where we need to find fault. I see this more as a stimulus and response. The BS did not cause the A, but may have provided a stimulus. The WS responded with a choice of action, that, at the time, they felt was justified. Getting to why they felt justified can be done without blame and with out agreeing that their logic or choice was the correct thing to do.

On points 2 and 3, I don't think the BS has to accept the notion that marital problems preceded the A. Either they come to that conclusion or they don't. I suppose one could argue that the mere fact an A occurred is evidence or marital problems, but I guess there could be a scenario where the M is bliss and an A occurs. Possible but not probable, so to speak. I don't think this gives a boost of justification to the WS. In fact, I would imagine that if in fact that the BS and WS agree there where M problems, this actually softens the WS ability to justify the A. I would imagine that many WS assume as part of there rationale to justify the A, that the BS would never understand that there were marital problems.

On Point 4, plan is not just about avoiding LB's. Plan A is about meeting EN's. More importantly, plan A is about reversing the trend in your M. Before D-Day, before the A, the WS was unhappy, an opportunity arose, they used their rationale to modify their value you system to justify an A, they start getting their EN's met elsewhere. Its all bliss for a period of time, because the interaction with the OP is so limited and so novel, that the real life troubles are suspended. As the A continues undiscovered, the BS starts LB'ng more, not understanding why his S is gone or becoming more detached. The WS feels stressed when they are around the BS because they have to hide the A and the BS is lashing out because the WS is meeting less and less on the BS needs. The WS feels great around the OP, nothing to hide, the OP is not lashing out because their needs are being met. This trend keeps moving in this direction until D-Day. The WS saying simply I feel great around OP and feel miserable around BS. Plan A is all about reversing this trend. Exposure is the first salvo of the fight and it immediately adds stress to the WS while the are with OP. Snooping, watching, confronting also reduce the happiness involved in the A. All the while, you are working on yourself. Increasing the amount of happiness the WS gets during their time with you. This process, this plan eats away at the WS justification. The WS thought the BS would never change, yet change is happening, the WS thought the BS didn't love them, yet they are loving them every day, the WS thought the OP was perfect, yet they are starting to see flaws.

On points 5 and 6, yes the A may continue, yes they may cake eat, yes they may say they need more time. You continue with plan A, with plan B in your pocket.

On point 7, separation does not always ensue. Sometimes the WS does leave, sometimes you have to do plan B.

On point 8, well these are going to be some of the outcomes. Also WS and BS could get a D and WS has nothing to do with OP or BS. I also assume you meant item C is the WS and BS get back together. Also, I think this board is full of people who achieve outcome C. Finally, not everyone has to go to a plan B.

Just my 2 cents

Saying the BS is not at fault for the affair is not assigning fault; simply saying what it says.

Does fault need to be assigned? I don't know, but responsibility needs to be taken for the choices we make, to say otherwise is to avoid taking responsibility.

No where did I say that an A can follow where the M is "bliss." How many married couples do you know who qualify for being blissful? ALL married couples have at least some kind of problems in their relationship; hopefully they don't all react to those problems by having an affair.

Getting a divorce falls into category b.