Jim,

There were needs that I was not filling. Somewhere it seems that we lost an intilectual connection with eachother. With that the physical connection left soon afterword.

I want to be the one to meet her needs and, I believe she wants me to the one to meet them. We are both very cautious now, she is strugling with why she had the affair, why she let a "friendship" develop into more than that. She needs to understand why for herself and I also need to understand why. She has said that she was unhappy, but she decided not to tell me about the depth of her unhappiness. We had conversations about the state of our marriage and she has told me that those conversations would have been the time to tell me that she was developing feelings for this OM. She chose not to tell me, she doesn't know why. For myself, I need to understand why as much as she does. This is difficult for me, because without understanding why, means that it could happen again.

-Jason

I can tell you why. She was unhappy in the marriage because her ENs were not being met. She started developing feelings for the OM because he was meeting the ENs that you weren't. She chose not to tell you because she became addicted to the emotional high that came from OM meeting her ENs, and didn't want to have to give it up. If she told you about her feelings, you would have made sure that she did not hang out with OM, and her ENs would no longer have been met by him. She thought she could walk the tightrope of getting her ENs met without taking it to the next leve. Considering you are a man, you understand how we work. The OM probably would withdraw and not meet her ENs if she didn't sleep with him, so she did to keep getting her fix. Finally after sleeping with OM a few times, her guilt was so overwhelming, the pain of what she did outweighed the emotional high of getting her ENs met. If you cannot give her enough time to meet her ENs met, an opposite sex acquaintance could step in and start meeting her ENs, and this whole situation could happen again.

Jim,

As I read your post and also the posts of so many others it amazes me how, "cookbook" they are in terms of the events leading up to the affair and why it happened.

Every thing you have said is correct, to a T, as much I want it NOT to be so simple, as much as I need there to be some sinister plot, there isn't.

I do travel with work, but I am on my shore tour and travel only every other month or so and only for a few days at a time. Her school took most of her time, studying and classes, some with the OM and some without. We had discussions about the OM and I was jealous that he saw her more than I did because of her studying and classes. I felt powerless to change that. I didn't like their friendship, but felt helpless to change anything.

I think we are going to take steps together. It is going to be very difficult with the holidays.

We had a good night last night, we are going to try and have another tonight.

I am going to go back to our apartment where it happened today, alone. I feel I need to be there, I feel I need to see it without her there. Just writing that fills my chest with a feeling like panic.

All part of the process I guess.

My humble thanks,
Jason

Hi Jason,


I understand... This is all part of the grieving process and yes, when you dwell on these thoughts, it will make you angry. Releasing your anger is also a part of the process... Hopefully, your counselor will give you some constructive ways to release your anger without hurting your W.

MB calls this "love busting". Each person is unique and I can only relate what I went through and what worked or didn't work for me. I am a very detail oriented person so I had to know every little gory detail about every encounter, especially the ones that happened in our home... at the time, I thought that was the only way for me to move forward. Looking back, I realize that much of my desire for the "details" was only to punish Mrs. RIF and make her spill her guts so she would feel as bad as I was feeling at the time.

If I had it to do over again, I would want to know the facts, but wouldn't dwell on the details... it took me many years to finally get to a point where the details, mental images and movies didn't bring up a ton of anger and pain. Only you can decide how much information you need... and you are the one that will have to live with the answers that she gives you. I don't think that there's any right or wrong choice, but for me, I do wish that I hadn't asked so many "detail" questions.

The articles here on the web site are great and I hope that you've been reading them... Finding out the "Why" is key to protecting your M. If you're interested in another good resouce, pick up a copy of "Torn Asunger" by Dave Carder. Our MC had us both work through this book and it really helped us.

Semper Fi,
RIF

Jason,

You and your WW should read SAA together. This will give you the explanation as to why it happened, but more importantly, how to protect your marriage from infidelity in the future. Fill out the EN and LB questionnaires, and seek MC (but research MCs first, a bad MC can be extremely destructive to your M). Believe it or not, your marriage can be much better than pre-A conditions. I remember reading that the best marriages are the ones that hit rock-bottom at some point and rebounded because the spouses spent a lot of time and effort in the marriage to keep it strong. If you never hit rock bottom there may not be motivation to work on the marriage.

Bumping up for Jason. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Hope you guys are having a good weekend... let us know how you're doing.

Bump^

Thanks Everyone for your support...

We are doing OK, we had a pretty good weekend. We went to church on Sunday and it was a good service, we plan on continuing to do so.

We also went back to the apartment on Sunday. We both took the bed out of the apartment and put it by the dumpster. We also went to Bed Bath and Beyond and purchased new blankets, comfortors and pillows. We are sleeping on an air matress in another room until we can paint our bedroom and purchase another bed. (won't happen until we get back from Colorado) We are going together back to Colorado. I think it will be good for us to get away, we have always had a good time in Colorado and there it is just us, no sign or anything to remind me of the OM. I am sure that there will be time when it is awkward but I am overall looking forward to the trip.

We have both decided to make the marriage work. It is going to be very hard, I know this. There are still times when I get that chill and noxious feeling.

Counseling is going well for us (only 2 sessions since A) and I plan on meeting with a pastor again. We have several scheduled sessions with our counselor in coming month, and will continue to go.

We wrapped out Christmas presents this weekend and finished decorating the tree. It felt a little hollow at first, but I did find myself getting excited for Christmas and exchanging gifts with her.

Today is a good day. Hopefully they will out number the bad.

-Jason

Remember, the tendency of the WS is to try and sweep what they did under the rug and say it won't happen again. They don't want to look inward and think why the affair happened (they can't handle the guilt), and they don't want to take extra step to safeguard the marriage (they think that they could never do something like that again, so they think you are just reminding them of their guilt). The WS usually wants to forget about the whole experience. Don't let that happen. If you want a happy, affair-proof marriage, you need to hold her accountable to following the MB program. Good luck. I wish my WS was so contrite and willing to work on our marriage.

Jim,

I am aware of this, she is not trying to sweep it under. I know how bad she feels and how much she is torn up inside. She wishes it didn't happen. She has spent a lot of time trying to understand why it happened. We have taken a look at our spiritual relationship, we both do want to grow together and have a stonger relationship.

Everyone says, "One day at a time" but it seems like we have 2 competeing priorities that have to be acomplished at the same time, getting though this and making sure our marriage is stronger than before.

We still have a lot to talk about, and I can see spots of thin ice that we will still have to cross.

I just have to say that this sucks, there is just no other way to put it.


-Jason

Well, you are a lot better off than most. My WW ended it w/ OM on 11/8, but to this point does not want to talk about our M, will not go to my parent's house for Christmas with me, will not kiss me or have any SF, will not attend MC or IC, will not be completely O&H and resents the fact that I still snoop, still wants her "space", and generally is very short with me. Even though there is NC w/ OM, she is still "wayward". I am still continuing with plan A, and I do see things slowly improving. I sometimes resent the fact that SHE had the affair, but I am the only one presently working on the marriage. M2L had the same problem, but after 4 months of NC, his WW came out of the fog. It will slowly get better, but you are progressing much faster than most. Give your WW encouragement for really stepping up and taking ownership for her mistake because most don't want to.

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the update... it sounds like you are both doing very well and you have an idea of some of the emotions and feelings that you're both going to be experiencing as you start rebuilding your M.

You are not alone and I hope that you'll contact us here if you have any questions or needs... there are some great folks here that have been where you are and they are more than willing to help.

Hope you guys have a safe, fun trip to Colorado.

Semper Fi,
RIF

Happy Holidays to everyone here,

I am trying to be careful and not get ahead of myself. Thanks again for your support. I have recieved 2 primary things from this board, 1)Different points of view on my situation and more importantly 2)Support from good people who have been here before.

-Jason

Happy New Year,

The holidays were challenging and so was the trip back to Colorado, the bad weather didn't help. My wife and I have started to go to a Bible study and have decided to strengthen our faith together.

We are working to rebuild our home and lives. It is going to be very difficult. We are making progress and our counselor is a very grounded man with good advice and insight.

-Jason

What changes are you making to affair-proof your marriage?

Right now I think we are still in the mode of picking up the pieces. I did get the book "His Needs, Her Needs". The single biggest thing we are doing is becoming stronger in our faith. I think we both lost our way. We have started going to Church together, Bible studies on wednesday nights and also sunday school.

There are changes that we both need to make and we need to understand how to best fill each other's needs. For both of us it is figuring out exactly what our needs are. I think we have both been in the dark a little about them.

We are also on a regular schedule to see our counselor, at least once a week sometimes 2.

We are hopeful, we also have our good days and our bad. Fortunatly they seem to happen at different times, it is really bad when we both have bad days on the same day.

-Jason