Hey there. I'm a 44 year old male, married 22 years, with two kids, 15 & 18. My wife called me Monday afternoon saying she needed me as soon as I could get there. I could tell she was crying, and I thought she had found out she had breast cancer because she had just had a mammogram. Well, when I arrived she was hysterically crying and shaking and she informed me that she had been in an 8 year relationship with a friend of mine.

As weird as this might sound my first reaction was relief because she didn't have cancer. After getting a few facts I called my pastor and we meet with him that afternoon, and got into counseling the very next day. The reason I'm here I guess is to find out if I'm nuts. I love her madly, and I won't to recreate our marriage, not rebuild it, because the first 22 years were good, but not great. I have had a flood of emotions since the first two days, anger, stupidity, mistrust, love, comfort, etc., but I have to have some else to talk to. We haven't told anyone but the Pastor, and the counselor, (and I guess you guys), so what do I need to expect from this point on. We both want to work it out, and she has servered all ties with the other guy, but I think some doubts of making it come and go. We are both Christians, and we are pressing into the Lord, but it's hard...very hard for me right now.

I'm sorry for such a long post, but I feel like I had to give a little background into my situation. Any thoughts to the land mines I'm going to find in the coming weeks, months, and years.

Thanks,
dangit (what I keep saying all the time)

Welcome to Marriage Builders, and I'm sorry you are here under these circumstances.

You will find many here that are in or have been in nearly identical situations to yours.

Make sure you have read all of the basic concepts. You might also want to order some of the books, especially Surviving An Affair and His Needs/Her Needs. The plan for rebuilding a marriage presented by Dr Harley is a good one, but must be used as a complete plan. Be careful that you don't try to pick and choose various pieces.

Also read the threads pinned to the top of this forum addressed to those who have just found out.

Has all contact ended between your wife and OM? It is essential to recovery. If not, there are ideas that can push toward that goal. If contact has ended, but only recently, your wife is likely in withdrawal. The fact that she is willing to go to counselling says a lot.

Beyond that, you may want to move your discussion to the GQII forum and link back here for details. That forum gets most of the traffic.

I'll also share with you what a good friend of mine shared with me when I was at a total loss within the first week after D-day. Read Psalm 102. The first 11 verses describe where I was and how I felt. Then in verse 12 is what I had to hang all of my hope on.

I wish I had more time to help you out right now, but I'm at work. I did want to answer you, as it had been a couple of hours since your original post.

The road to recovery is a long one. But you are in the right place. Your relationship can be better than it was before with enough hard work from both of you.

I will pray for you both and check back here later.

Mark

dangit.....Im sorry to hear about your sitch....but, my EX had a 4yr affair with a guy I know in our former church. I really dont think I would call them christians.

Having an affair with a friend of yours is such a double betrayal but 8 years? How was she able to hide this from you for so long? It really is unbelievable. Why did she tell you now? It is essential that you contact the OM's wife or significant other. They have a right to know and also it makes it difficult to start up the affair again and sends a message there are consequences to their actions. I really do not know how you could not look at the last 8 years of your marriage and question everything. Of course marriage counseling is imperative. I would have great trouble having faith in a person that could continually lie, cheat and betray you with a friend of yours for eight long years. Your wife clearly must be exceptional in the ability to lie and deceive you. I would think long and hard about what kind of person you have really been married to. You seem very accepting. If the roles were reversed do you think she would have been as accepting as you? Have you talked to your so-called friend? I have a very bad feeling there is much more to this story. I wish you luck.

A few answers.

"but 8 years?"
8 years on and off, it started out just a lunch here and there, then an afternoon, then more, then a break up for a few months, then a lunch, then...well you get the idea. He has a job that has most afternoons off and I travel a lot with my job, but it was very easy. I suspected something 2 or 3 times before, but my wife? with him? no way, absolutely no way. WAY. I would have bet my house that she wasn't capable of this. I am very forgiving, maybe to a fault, but God has forgiven me for all I have done, how can I not forgive her.

Why now? She says she has been wanting out for some time, but we have just changed churches and she has been really convicted by a series our pastor has been doing about this subject. When she tried to get out, the jerk, (did I say that), the other guy threatened to tell our whole family about the A and my wife had had enough and told him to go ahead, hence the hysterical phone call to me. She thought it better to hear it from her than from him.

I wish I could contact someone in his life to tell, but there isn't one...yet, but believe me if there is I will tell them.

I have been looking at the last 22 years of our marriage not just the last 8. I could come up with a thousand different things I/we could have done differently. Right now, my career doesn't seem quite as important as it did Monday morning if you know what I mean.

I know it looks like she was lying to me all the time, but I never suspected "him" at all, so I never asked her about it, so is/was she really lying?

Lastly, if the roles were reversed I would be out. I have talked to the jerk, (there I go again), he called me and tried to apologize, (I about threw up), but I held on long enough to tell him to never contact us again, ever. I think the fact that he doesn't know what I would do if he did contact her is enough to keep him from doing it. I could ruin him and his career if I wanted to, but that wouldn't do anything to help our situation, it would just make me feel better.

I hope your feeling about us is wrong, but I know I must keep that part open.

Dangit

Please read the Infidelity FAQ's linked below and also Longhorns post also linked below.

I would also suggest you purchase "Surviving an Affair" as well as "His Needs Her Needs" from this site.

Marriage Counselling from Harley - phone counselling links on this site is also recommended. In my experience, even with the prevalence of adultery in the church, mose pastors have absolutely no clue how to help people caught up in it. I personally got sick of platitudes like "Love your wife". The Harley approach works. You could also look for a counsellor that uses Harleys approach.

My wife and I being in Australia purchased the home study program. You could also consider the Marriage Builders Weekend.

Can I also make 2 further suggestions? First, this board is pretty dead - consider posting on General Questions II - also an infidelity board but much more active. Second post and read everything you can on this site.

oh and Weekends are very slow on MB in general - even more reason to post on GQII

Thanks,
I am very new to this, but should I just copy a post my original post again at GQII?

I have been looking over this site because it's really the only Christian site I could find, but why do you say Hurley's approach is so different? I have read Plan A & B and if I understand them correctly we're past those two. I know, she knows i know, and she has cut off all contact with the other guy. Am I right?

Thanks again

Dear Dangit,
Yes, go ahead and cut and paste. But the site is less active on the weekends. If you don't get much response on the general question site and you find your post has moved to page two, simply type in "bump" and bump your posts up to page one.

This is a very good site for you and your wife. It seems to meet your needs as Christians, but also, it is very behavioral in its advise. It gives you concrete or operational steps to take within your marriage. These steps have been tried by many and are proven to be effective in re-creating marriages or re-building them to be even better than they ever were before the A.

You may feel you are past plan A and B but you really need to plan A--your wife will go through some very intense emotional stages as she goes through withdrawal and the fog lifts regarding her past behaviors. she will need your support. There are so many pieces of support and information that are on this site about this time in the relationship--you may have to "turn off your taker" for a while--she will be taking all of your support and you most likely be able to get almost none of your needs met while she goes through these initial stages of recovery. This is normal.

You are at the right place--just keep reading. If you need me to, I can try to go through and find some pertinent pieces of material for you to read now. I am hopeful for your M. She came to you and confessed. It will be challenging, but the two of you can build something very special out of this horrible situation.

My thoughts are with the two of you.
Lake

If you call thinking your wife is only intimate with you, and only sharing personal information and life issue only with you , but she had shared all the above with OM for 8yrs, and she broke the marriage vows of only the 2 of you being 1, not all 3 of yall.....then YES...............SHE LIED.

That was a no-brainer question.

Yes - Just do a cut and paste into a new post.


Ok. First - this is not a Christian Site - it has many Christians posting on it and the Harleys are Christians as well but the Marriage Builders principles apply to all commers. Harley's plan for building love in a marriage is unique and different to anything I have ever seen before.

Have a look at the main articles and read all the FAQ's. You may be DOING Plan A but you most certainly are NOT doing Plan B! Trust me.

Have a look at Harleys basic concepts - there is a link on the red menu bar at the top of the page.

Plan A involves breaking up an active affair and making changes to yourself to make you a better marriage partner as well as showing your spouse that if they choose to end their affair that you might be capable of meeting their emotional needs. So really, your situation is not really Plan A like either.

Harleys Plan for marital recovery as well as having a great marriage is encapsulated in the Basic Concepts and the links they will lead you to.

Dangit:

Welcome to a site that can, and will, help you recover your M. I do not believe that most of the others sites work as well. You have been pointed in the right direction to look for info. Please follow up with them.

As for me, I was involved in a 4.5 year Long Term Physical Affair (LTPA). I know what your Wayward Spouse (WS) went through. I lived it, all the lies, betrayals, deceicts, etc. Your WS was living a double life. But she picked up the phone and called you when it was time to get out. Remember that. In spite of all the things that happened, she still called you first. You are her lifeline. I was chicken. I would have probably never called and told my wife, but the Other Women (OW) called my W and outed me.

You are in for the roller coaster ride of your life. Please review some of the threads here. Someone has a situation close to yours. LTA and discovery and how it turned out.

Also, and you seem to have already started this, review your M from 22 years ago and try to look for the signs when your M started to go wrong. You WW chose an A, instead of working on the M. Her fault. But the state of the M is both parties fault. Find out what some of these things are and you can start creating a new M, one that will be stronger than the one before the A started.

Learn about Love Busters, and the Policy of Radical Honesty. Those are most important now.

No reason to talk to Other Man (OM) from now on. He is not a friend. He is the enemy. He started being one 8 years ago, when he took your W away.

However, if he persists in contacting your W, then do what you have to do, there are a number of posters here to help you with establishing and enforcing No Contact (NC).

Then, Surviviving and Affair, (SAA) and His Needs, Her Needs, (HNHN) are the must reads.

I am proof that this site can save marriages. If my BS had not found this site, and reveled it to me three days before D-day, our M would have never survived.

Strap in, Hold On, the roller coaster hills are highest at the beginning, and you never know when they are coming....