All, thank you for helping my wife through this. We both know the other is using this site.

I am not threatening to leave her. I am saying that if verbal abuse continues, I will leave for a period of time until she calms down and can speak to me in a manner that takes into account that I am her husband and the man who loves her. This is to protect myself. Just because I screwed up doesn't mean I don't have feelings. I confessed out of love for her. I want to help her through this. I can't if she is beating on me with her words.

By the way, she promised to not do this anymore and I am hoping she won't. We absolutely cannot start recovering until I am able to trust that she won't blast me each time I let my guard down.

Furthermore, I voluntarily confessed to this past affair because I love my wife.

that's obvious <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

What she wants from me more than anything is to hold her, stroke her hair, and tell her it is going to all be okay. I want to give her that desperately.

that's good too <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I can't if I have to have my guard up so that she doesn't rub my nose in this enormous guilt and sorrow that I feel and have told her about.

you guilt and sorrow belong to you

her rage belongs to her

it is NORMAL rage

that is what we are saying

this is a step in the process

not a pretty step

a step that you'd rather skip over

but it's unlikely to last very long with you stroking her hair and such <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />



She knows how bad I feel, I love her and want her to be happy, this pain that I have caused, all my fault, has reduced me to dirt to be walked on in my own view of myself.

a phase ... this too shall pass ... her rage is normal at this stage NOT abnormal

Rubbing my nose in it in a nasty way is unacceptable.

it's acceptable if you know it is not going to be a long time in this particular phase

That is a boundary I have set because it is detrimental to me and to our marriage

then in that case, schedule an MC session where she can release the rage with a referee present <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pep

this makes sense ...

and how about this for an option

she can write out her rage and you can read it

she needs to release it

can you do that?

pep

Ahnold .... I forgot

WELCOME to MB !!!

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Your wife said:



Do you have a problem with her confronting the other woman who betrayed her in her own home?

Personally, I believe it was a critical step your wife had to take in order to re-center herself... She was not betrayed by 2 strangers , but by 2 people she loved and trusted. The loss of trust is the most difficult thing to oversome. Your wife displaying her anger and horror at the OW is a critical step for your wife to regain trust IN HERSELF !

I hope you understand.

.... and again YOU are WELCOME here & we are glad you are here <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Pep

AD was responding to someone who is 2 (TWO) freakin DAYS!!!!!!!!! past D-Day. 2 Days. I'd say they have a perfect right to rage and anger at this point.

Now if it was 2 YEARS past d-day I would agree with you.

Long term you cannot beat on your spouse.

2 Days - well - cut some slack.

Well...she has been very good at releasing it already. When I first confessed, she let me have it. I took it. I took it because I deserved it. As I told her, I took several left hooks, a rabbit punch, and a few shots to the gut, then when she got repetitive, began asking her to back off a bit. I can only stomach so much of saying, "Yes, you are right, I am a piece of trash." and I can only apologize and beg for forgiveness so many times. I began asking her to pay attention to what she was saying and how she was saying it, because I am the guy who just the other day was her world. I finally got my message across, I think, and she got it. I am here for her if she wants to tell me how she feels, and will stay up all night on a work night (again) if that is what she needs.

All that being said, if she wants to vent on paper, I will read it. I won't swallow someone abusing me though, so if that were to happen again, I would tell her again, "Please don't attack me. Share your feelings, you have a right to them. But don't attack me."

Thank you everyone for supporting our relationship. I went to an IC today and was able to release alot of that rage. I was able to say anything I wanted/needed and didn't hurt anyone's feelings, and more importantly didn't have to deal with the bad feelings that have resulted when I raged at my husband.

I have learned so much in the past few days, including that I have definately taken my husband for granted. "What?" You say, "This isn't your fault." No, it isn't my fault. But my husband IS the most important person in my life. I HATE that he screwed around on me. I HATE that I have to deal with all of this. But my hate is no more justification to treat him like $hit than me taking him for granted is justification of his affair.

I am ready to be an adult about all of this and I am ready to follow the good Dr's advice. I WANT to save my marriage. I NEED to save my marriage. And I will do whatever it takes to do it, so long as I get treated right in return.

The other thing I learned in therapy today is that my husband has always been my best friend. Usually, when something goes wrong, he is the first person I turn to and vice versa. In this case, my best friend WAS my problem and neither one of us could lean on each other the way that we are used to. Going outside of our marriage to a counselor allowed me to get a grip on things, see it for what is really is, and express all that hate and negative emotion without taking it out on anyone.

You know, I also learned something else today. I learned today that I had an EA myself seven years ago. My husband constantly told me that I was having an affair. Until tonight, I denied it every step of the way, saying that it couldn't be an affair because I hadn't slept with the OM. Now I realize that it was an affair of the heart. I did stop the relationship once my husband caught me and he managed to forgive me eventually. I guess I'm feeling that I owe him the same respect and he gave me.

I even realize that if this makes our relationship even stronger than it was before, then all of this will be worth it.

First off, thanks for the welcome. My first post was on the just found out board, asking folks to give her some support.

I have told my DW (who is also a FWW with an EA, btw) that she doesn't need my permission to talk to the OW. I had a bit of a problem with how she talked to her, not because of some feeling of protecting her, don't get me wrong, but for the same reasons I expressed for myself. I have noticed that people on this site sometimes villify the WS and OP, and a blanket stereotype like that is unfair. We are talking about a very very nice person (OW) who made a huge mistake and hurt my wife badly. That doesn't mean she is evil. I am not pining after her, she was, however, a fairly close family friend, and thrusting a friend away, even one that screwed up as badly as I did, is extremely painful. Not to mention the fact that our children love her and I don't know how we will tell them that they will never see her again.

Today, the OW sent me a scathing email, basically calling me all kinds of names like stupid, crazy, etc. She thanked me sarcastically for ruining my marriage, killing her friendship with my DW and with me, and for keeping her from ever seeing "her babies" (our kids) again. I forwarded the email to my DW, who told her again to stay the he** away and that we were working on our marriage and could not with her in the picture. She told her that she didn't appreciate her abusing me in that way, which I appreciated.

We are going to be okay, I think. I am grieving over loss, but mostly devestated over hurting my wife, my kids, and the OW as I did. I am not one to hurt people. I like doing things for people and helping them out. Hurting them goes against everything I believe in. Hurting the people I love, and hurting a friend, betraying trusts, all of these things just kill me inside.

it does make her an enemy of the marriage however.


Yes, this is true.

My H's A was with the wife of his life-long friend ~~~> friends since small boys! The friendship ended because of infidelity.

Affairs S U C K



Is an announcement necessary? Why not just let her be absent without an explaination? If they ask about her, say something like:

"Nanny is not allowed here anymore because she took things that did not belong to her. Things that belong only to our family. So, we said goodbye, and she will not be back."

that's fairly creepy

they are NOT her babies ....

yuuuuuuuuk <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

this is evidence of faulty boundaries

employee / employer .... when this boundary was crossed .... trouble brewed

It is often people like yourself who fall into affairs. Your emotions get the best of you and logic is lost in the fray. Not a put down, just an observation. Harley himself writes that those most succeptable to affairs are often those who think they'd never do such a thing.



I dunno. That statement kind of leaves me unseasy. That's great that she was close to you guys for so long. But she was involved in perhaps the most hurtful thing that will ever happen to your marriage! I think that is enough to warrant your wife ripping into her and you for a bit, eh?

The fireworks die down after time. If you try to hard to skip this step, or make your wife suppress her anger, it will just fester.

See, here's the thing though, OW certainly didn't demonstrate herself to be "a very very nice person" when she jumped into bed with her friend's MARRIED HUSBAND, doing that, IS an EVIL act...It simply is what it is...

Also, I would speculate that it is very hurtful for your wife to hear you refer to OW as "a very very nice person"...

Mrs. W

P.S. Honestly, since OW was 22, I would tend to think of her as OG...OTHER GIRL!

Amen

She is a former Nanny...this was a language barrier thing, she didn't mean it literally. I know it's semantics, but nothing happened at any time she was employed by us. It happened afterwards. This isn't really relevant, especially to my wife who feels it doesn't matter, but for some reason it matters to me. Still working on that one.

I dunno. That statement kind of leaves me unseasy. That's great that she was close to you guys for so long. But she was involved in perhaps the most hurtful thing that will ever happen to your marriage! I think that is enough to warrant your wife ripping into her and you for a bit, eh?

The fireworks die down after time. If you try to hard to skip this step, or make your wife suppress her anger, it will just fester. [/quote]

Well, my point wasn't that I was mooning after her or anything, I am not. The point is that I have a big problem when people cannot separate the person from the act. We know this OW very well, she lived in our house for over a year off and on. She did indeed do a bad thing, just like I did. That means she did something evil. Not that she is evil. Perhaps this is also semantics, but my point is that a person who is very briefly described on a Website as an "OW" or "WS" doesn't necessarily mean that they are a bad person, it just means they performed a bad act. Bad act COULD equal bad person, but it is not true in every case.

I guess I wasn't clear enough about my issue with my wife's expression of anger. I am not trying to stifle it. I will listen to her tell me her feelings for as long as she wants to. Verbal attacks are off limits. I feel it is my right as a human being to set boundaries for things that hurt me. I am not her whipping boy, I am her husband, friend, and confidant. If she is beating me, I am the enemy and would not have an easy time of helping her. If we are talking about it, I am her partner.

You may have seen in one of her posts that she went to IC and had a great discussion with her long-time therapist. DW is an empathic person and takes on the emotions of those around her, which makes it hard for her to talk to me when we are both upset.

Evil act: Agree. Evil person: Disagree

If DW wants to respond about how she feels about my characterization of the OW, she will. She has read what I said about her and hasn't had a problem with it. She would have said so, and agrees with my point about hating the act and not the person. That isn't to say that she isn't royally angry at her, she is.

As for the P.S., she was an adult at the time this happened. What is your point?

Feelingfoolish:

It's wonderful that you were able to get some of the anger out in IC.

I have to warn you however that if you are like most BS's that intense anger is not gone. It will flare up again and again before you banish it for good.

Just be aware of it and prepared for it.

Tru

I almost responded to FF when she first posted, but wanted to think about it for a couple of days, because this one strikes so close to home for me.

My situation was much the same. A nanny that I hired and allowed to care for my child, didn't find out until SIX years later, very similar raging issues.

Ahnold, the one thing that my h did that kept me from walking out the door was that he didn't get defensive -- at least not until my own anger had dissipated somewhat. It's just a few days since your w has found out, and you already sound defensive. Sorry it hurts. Sorry it's not fair, but if you're really interested in healing your marriage, you need to just take it for now. This advice, by the way, came directly from Dr. Harley to my H. It DOES stop, but there is a period when you have to listen over and over and over again to the mean awful things that came from your wife's pain. Yes, it hurts, but too bad. Just know that it is part of the process. And she wouldn't be so angry if she wasn't in so much pain, and she wouldn't be in so much pain if she didn't love you so much.

It goes faster if you just don't respond much, and DON'T try to explain or justify.

Then healing begins and you can deal with the issues that you both have to work on in the marriage. But, at this early stage, if you start lecturing your W about being "respectful" after the huge disrespect you've done to her, not just the act, but the withholding of the information for a lengthy period, the intimate betrayal during a period in which she was already struggling w/an illness -- depression -- allowing her to think it was just in her head at the time she had suspicions, and the fact that this took place at home -- her sanctuary, you will struggle. All these additional betrayals add to the pain, the anger, and will add to the amount of time it will take to heal.

I know you won't like hearing this, but for the time being, just stop trying to defend yourself (and, for goodness' sake, the OW -- ANY defensiveness of her right now is totally inappropriate and disrespectful to your w and marriage.) Continue to just listen to wife, continue holding her, and suck it up until this part runs its course. If you want your M, it's your responsibility to make this right.

This helped us make it through those dark days. That, and the love of our kids, saved us. Take care and keep posting.

FF -- you hang in there, I feel your pain. Keep posting.

Shellybird

In my opinion, you are not really in a position to play the martyr just now.

Are we all supposed to say "poor ahnold lost a night's sleep"?

I expect that before all is said and done the two of you are going to lose a couple hundred nights sleep. And probably your children too, who have a high risk of spending their weekends going back and forth with a suitcase in hand for the rest of their childhoods, will likely suffer some sleepless nights also. This is not just going to go away. You are going to be dealing with this for years. It need not be this intense for years, but your humility and patience right now will likely make the process quicker and less painful.

-AD