Hello all,
First time here. I don't know where to begin.I am at work so I need to keep this short. My wife finally admitted that she is involved in an emotional affair via the internet. Messenger, pogo, e-mail etc. I have been aware of it for 3 years now. It is obvious and right in the open. I want us to be in love again. I love her with all my heart . She told me a while ago that she loves me but is not "in" love with me. Now that she is aware that an emotional affair is happening she wants to remain "friends " with this guy.
They have never met but she is really close to him emotionally.I asked her to end it in an e-mail last night. Not in chat but in an e-mail. She cried and told me , "but I will miss him".
She cried a lot and couldn't look at me. I just want to know what kind of guidelines the letter should or should not have. I am obsessed with this situation . I want to contact this other guy and ask him to end it. Bad idea? She says she will end it but hasn't done as such yet. How long should I give her to decide. I am afraid that if I force her to do it instead of making her own choice that it will continue in secret.I am horribly depressed and don't know what to do next. Would the home course be a good idea? She is opposed to marriage counseling but seems interested in the home course.

Please help

Welcome chicagodad,
You will get GREAT advice here & be guided in the right direction. While I am still new here myself I do not feel comfortable giving all sorts of advice myself. Read, read & read some more; lots of stories here will answer a lot of your questions. NO CONTACT is the only advice I feel comfortable giving you right now, and I know for a FACT that is how it has to be! I'll check in with you later.
Karen

First of all, welcome to MB. Most of us are not here by choice, but once we arrived we quickly learned there's no better place to be once infidelity enters your life.

Here's what you need to do, for starters:

* Purchase and read Surviving an Affair, by Dr. Willard Harley. This book will give you insight as to how marriages become vulnerable to affairs. Knowledge is power.

* Read about Plan A, and Love Banks, and how to begin filling your wife's Love Bank and meeting her needs, in the same way her affair partner is meeting them.

* If the OM (other man) is married, you will need to figure out how to expose this affair to his wife. This is the quickest, most efficient way to bring the affair to an end.

* Stick around these boards, and ask and read and learn.

* One other book you should consider is "Not Just Friends", which your W should read to learn and understand how she's damaging her (your) marriage through her actions.

Best wishes,
SD

Chi Dad,

Welcome and sorry you're here but it's the right place w/ alot of shared experiences. I have a couple of recommendations and comments based on my own experience.

1. Your WW (wayward wife) probably isn't telling the whole truth, only enough to satisfy you for now. The real whole truth is probably too ugly to reveal to the light of day but exposing it is what will hopefully kill the A. Check her celphone records and credit cards for calls, locations and charges that may show a trail of more contact than she's admitting to.

2. Be prepared for more revelations, especially a PA, which wouldn't be surprising considering her emotional reaction. Do you know where this guy lives, i.e. driving distance? Be prepared and be open to listening to her story.

3. Don't trust her to end it, take matters into your own hands and call this OM; call his wife if you can find out who she is. If married, she deserves to know.

4. Read and follow plan A on this website. Don't explode on her and say alot of hurtful things (even if she deserves it) b/c this may push her further way.

5. Get IC and MC for both of you. Of course she doesn't want MC because it's hard work and the WS is, by definition, self-centered and entitled. They prefer their fantasy world.

6. Implement some way to verify if she's being truthful - this will enable her to build back trust if she's on the right track, or let you know she's double dealing if still in contact.

7. It's obvious but don't accept any contact btwn her and this OM!

8. Look out for you, I understand not eating and not sleeping. It's tough, really tough. Exercise, pray or get involved in some hobby/activity to divert some of your focus into something productive and energizing.

V/r,
No way

Welcome to MB,

I have found out the same thing about my WW and I am going through the emotions now of trying to proceed into recover. You will find out a pattern that all affairs have and say. I love you but I am not in love with you is common.

The first thing that you need to do is remain strong. No crying in front of her. Be a man and as I was told get my [email]B@lls[/email] from the dresser. She does not want a begger or a crier. She want you to be a man. Be ahppy, positive and strong. You are going to be doing some things in the next couple of weeks that you do not like doing or think that you should be doing. Trust me you NEED to DO THEM!
First get the book SAA and read it. Then Read His needs her needs.
Figure out what Emotional needs this OM is meeting. You are going to have to concentrate on meeting those needs. Build you love bank with her.

You are going to have to expose the affair. This is the hard part. To her family, friends, coworkers and others. You have to contact him and is wife or girlfriend. Tell him that she is married. Get a key logger installed on her computer I suggest eblaster. It will send the emails to you. Read how to set it up so you get both sides of the chat conversations. It is not default setup.

Now you are going to have to implement a plan A. Read about it on here. Find things to do that shows her that you can live with out her. Do stuff with the guys, go out on the town and if you have kids take them to the movies to the park and other places.

Be strong and good luck

[quote]
Coping with Infidelity: Part 1
How Do Affairs Begin?

Introduction:The most commonly asked question I receive is about infidelity. That's because affairs are so common in marriage. You or your spouse are more likely to have an affair than you are to divorce. And your chances of divorce are already 50-50.

An affair is devastating to almost everyone involved. It's one of the most painful experiences that the jilted spouse will ever be forced to endure, and it is also very painful for the children. Friends and members of the extended family are usually hurt as well. But what most people don't realize is that the unfaithful spouse and the lover are also hurt by the experience. It almost always causes them to suffer acute depression, often with thoughts of suicide. With all this sadness, why do so many people do it?

I have already posted several columns on infidelity, but I continue to receive letters from those wanting even more information and help. So I have decided to write a 4 column series on how to cope with this monster. Each column will focus attention on one aspect of affairs -- from how they begin to how marriage can recover after they end.

Affairs usually begin with an attraction to someone you know fairly well, someone you spend time with each week -- your friends and co-workers. To illustrate how affairs develop, I am posting letters from two women, one who is tempted to have an affair with her husband's best friend, and another whose best friend had an affair with her husband. I have received dozens of letters like them, and dozens more from those who have had affairs with co-workers, the other type of person likely to draw you into an affair.

One of my previous columns, "Escaping the Jaws of Infidelity: How to Avoid an Affair," contains many of the same ideas that I present in this column. But it would still be a good idea for you to read that column as well as this one, so that you can more fully understand how vulnerable you are, and how dangerous they are to you and the family you love.

The other three parts of this series are "How Should Affairs End," "Restoring the Marital Relationship," and "Overcoming Resentment." I encourage you to read all four parts. And, if you have not already done so, be sure to read my "Basic Concepts" so you can understand my approach to resolving marital conflicts.

Finally, if you have not already done so, take a short tour of the Marriage Buildersﾮ web site so you can see how I've organized the information that will help you resolve your marital conflicts.



Dear Dr. Harley,
I am female, 34 years old, and have been married 8 years. Lately, I have felt very ignored and restless in our relationship. I don't think my husband is aware of these feelings because I try to hide them, but they are in my heart. He buys me beautiful gifts and tries to give me his love and support. He has always been a very kind man, but he would rather watch TV and talk to our dog than talk with me. That's just the way he is.

Recently a man has come into my life that has rekindled feelings in me that have been dormant for a long time. I find myself thinking about him often and wish I could be with him. I feel so guilty and ashamed of these feelings, but nevertheless, they are there. I try not to think about him, but I do. I don't know if he feels the same way about me, but sometimes he looks at me in a way that gives me a signal that he might. Nothing has been said or done between us. I don't want to tell my husband about this because this man is my husband's best friend. There are things I can do to get closer to the "other man" if I will allow it to happen, but I'm afraid of the consequences. I feel I'm at a crossroads. I'm sure you've heard this type of story before. I would value your opinion. I cannot talk to anyone about this.

R.J.



Dear Dr. Harley,
My husband had an affair with my "former" best friend of 21 years. At first, he showed very little interest in her, but over a period of months I could tell that there was something going on. It all came to a head when I walked in on them in her bed.

We have been married 7 years, and have two children, ages 6 and 1. The affair began when our baby was born, and by the time he was 9 months old, my husband left us to live with her. It has been so blatant and painful. I have always been very, very much in love with him and I never believed he was the kind of man who would be unfaithful to me. I always trusted him and felt so comfortable with our trust. . . But with a friend I had known since we were children!!! My best friend!!

I want to reconcile, but I know I will have a hard time dealing with the betrayal from both of them. I am now beginning to realize I will have pictures in my mind of them having sex... She will never be a friend of mine again. Is there a realistic chance that I will ever be able to forgive him for his blatant and cruel affair and the hateful way he has treated me? Thank you so much for your help.

B.D.




How do Affairs Begin?

Instead of posting my response to these two letters, I have decided to use their contents to illustrate how affairs begin. R. J. described the essential conditions for an affair quite well. First, there is usually a dissatisfaction with marriage that stems from the failure to meet an important emotional need. For R.J., her need is conversation, which is usually missing in marriage when women have affairs. She has a deep and pervasive need to talk to her husband, a need that all the gifts in the world cannot meet.

R.J.'s husband has demonstrated his care for her in many different ways. But he doesn't care for her in the way that would deposit the most love units. Because he has not met her need for conversation, she is vulnerable to an affair.

The best friend of R.J.'s husband (we'll call him Bob) didn't intend to meet her emotional needs whenever he talked to her. He was just being friendly, and carried on conversations the way he would with almost anyone. But whether he intended to or not, whenever he talked with her, he deposited scores of love units. After a while, he might have noticed how his conversations were effecting her, but I'm not sure he would have made much of it.

I'm also sure that R.J. did not intend to fall in love with Bob. Those feelings that he rekindled in her came as a surprise, and she is at a loss to know what to do about it. She knows that they are a risk to her marriage, and yet she feels compelled to draw ever closer to the object of her new love.

There are some who feel that those feelings of love are a signal from God to abandon past relationships and rush into this new relationship. But it's no signal from God. Instead, it's the way our emotions mindlessly encourage us to spend more time with those who meet our emotional needs. If we submitted to our emotions, and chased after anyone who at the moment deposited the most love units in our Love Banks, our lives would become chaotic in no time. And the lives of family and friends, to say nothing about our own lives, would be trashed.

The more sane way to approach unsuspected feelings of love toward those outside of marriage is to confront the problem honestly and intelligently. But R.J. did not want to appear to be an ungrateful complainer, so she violated the Policy of Radical Honesty. She did not reveal her true feelings to her husband so that they could resolve the crisis together.

It's true that in some marriages a spouse will complain about an unmet need, and find their complaint met with anger and recriminations. When there seems to be no hope for satisfaction, these people find themselves particularly vulnerable to an affair. After all, the spouse had a chance to meet the need, but refused. So why not have an affair?

But in R.J.'s case, and in many like her's, the spouse is given no opportunity to learn to meet the unmet need, because it is not clearly revealed.

So far, R.J. is not actually having an affair. She is simply drawn to Bob. He is attractive to her because he is so easy to talk to. Whenever they are together, he makes a special effort to converse with her, and he shows a genuine interest her favorite topics. The friends of good conversation prevail, and the enemies of good conversation are nowhere to be found (see the Q&A column, "What to Do When Your Conversation Becomes Boring and Unpleasant"). The pleasure of her conversation with him deposited so many love units that she fell in love with him, and so it's natural to assume that she will want to talk to him even more. She is finding it difficult to wait for the next opportunity to see him. If she wants to talk to him more often, she will need to create new ways to spend more time with him.

R.J. is now at a crossroads. She can take the next step in developing her relationship with her husband's friend, or she can explain her problem to her husband and try to resolve the issue with him. The advice I gave her was to tell her husband about the entire situation. He should be the one she enjoys talking to the most, and her feelings for his best friend was a good wake-up call. If her husband were to learn to meet her need for conversation, the temptation to have an affair with Bob would be much easier to handle.

But if she were to do what most people instinctively do, her next step would be to tell the man how she felt about him, and ask him to get together with her more often, privately. She would tell him precisely what she wrote in her letter to me, saying that he has "rekindled feelings in me that have been dormant for a long time. I find myself thinking about you often and wish I could be with you. I feel so guilty and ashamed of these feelings, but nevertheless, they are there. I try not to think about you, but I do."

Once this honest expression of feelings is out of the bag, an affair is off and running. Even if her husband's friend had never given her a single romantic thought, the seed is planted, and starts to grow. Such an admission would lead to his thinking long and hard about his own marriage, and he would start seeing R.J. in an entirely new way. If one of his important emotional needs was not being met in his marriage, he would express his frustration to R.J., and she would willingly agree to meet that need. The rest would be history.

Of course, it's possible that Bob, all along, was feeling the same way toward R.J. as she felt for him, and after her declaration of love for him, he would immediately reciprocate, fall into each other's arms, and run off to a motel together.

But it's more likely that they would simply talk to each other more often, depositing even more love units. Sex is actually not the driving force in most affairs -- it is conversation and affection. In fact, most people who have affairs regard the sex as a minor player. What they appreciate the most about the relationship is the love and acceptance that is communicated in their conversation. But sex is usually the inevitable outcome, and since sex works best with great conversation and affection, the sex is also great. Once sex is added to the mix, so many love units get deposited that the couple cannot imagine losing each other. They are both addicted to the relationship.

The unsuspecting jilted spouse usually senses a problem when an affair begins. For one thing, an affair usually takes up quite a bit of time, and all sorts of excuses are given to be away from home -- having to work late, impulsive trips to the store and unexplained absences from work -- they all become more and more difficult to believe. Telephone records and credit card receipts are carefully hidden, for if they are found, they will often reveal the scope of the affair.

When the spouses are together, an emotional distance usually prevails. Sex is almost always a problem for women who are having an affair, and many men having an affair find they cannot make love to their wives, either. In many cases, intimacy in marriage becomes so bad that a separation is requested to "sort things out." An affair is often suspected by the jilted spouse, but almost always vigorously denied by the offending spouse. It usually takes solid evidence, like B.D.'s finding her husband in bed with her best friend, to get an unfaithful spouse to admit the truth.

I've seen so many spouses lie about affairs, that when one spouse wants a separation, my best guess is that he or she is having an affair. I'm right almost every time.

Why would anyone need to be alone to sort things out? It makes much more sense to think that being separated makes it easier to be with their lover. Granted, there are many good reasons for a separation, such as physical or extreme mental abuse. But of all those I've seen separate, most have had lovers in the wings.

Since an affair usually creates emotional distance between spouses, lovers describe their increasing dissatisfaction with their marriages. They talk about how incompatible they are in marriage and how compatible they are with each other. The addiction they have for each other turns the relationship into a passion that makes an eternal relationship with each other an absolute necessity. Many would rather commit suicide together than to return to their horrible spouses.

That's not to say that they do not show compassion for their spouses. In fact, they usually express their guilt to each other for the pain they cause their families. But if either of them would talk about how much they loved their spouses, and how happy they were in their marriage, the conversation would tend not to deposit very many love units. Instead, they compare each other with their spouses in a most favorable light, saying that they wish they had known each other before they were married, and that they are perfect for each other. Such expressions of admiration deposit carloads of love units.

At the crossroads R.J. faces, she should avoid telling Bob how she feels about him at all costs. And she should certainly not let him know that she is dissatisfied with her husband. As soon as Bob would know about her feelings for him and her marital dissatisfaction, the risk of an affair would be so great that she must end her friendship with him for life. From the moment he knows she loves him, their friendship should end.

R.J. should be able to talk to someone about her marital problems. I'm glad she had the courage to write me. We should all be able to tell someone how we feel deep inside. But R.J. should not complain about her spouse to anyone unless she has made the same complaint to her spouse. Furthermore, the person she confides in should be either a same-sex friend or a professional counselor (like me). To tell an opposite-sex friend about your terrible marriage is to invite disaster.

R.J.'s greatest failure was dishonesty. If she had been honest with her husband about her need for conversation, and they had resolved the problem, Bob's conversations with her would not have been so enchanting.

It's almost impossible to stumble into an affair if you follow the Rule of Honesty. Her husband loves her dearly, and if she were to have told him about her frustration with their conversation, he probably would have taken steps to improve. In the beginning of her relationship with him, he may have spent hours talking to her just as his best friend did. In the beginning of their relationship, she may have fallen in love with him because of their conversation. But, as so many spouses do, he began talking to her less and less, little knowing that he was draining her Love Bank.

The solution to R.J.'s problem at the time she wrote her letter is to follow the Rule of Honesty. She should write her husband the same letter she wrote me. He should know about the disaster that is about to take place so he can protect both himself and herself from it.

Then, I'm afraid, they must both distance themselves from Bob. Even though this man may not have any feelings for R.J., her feelings for him make him too dangerous to have as a friend, at least until they are able to improve their conversations with each other. If R.J. stops seeing and talking to Bob, the feelings she has for him will subside, but at first she may go through a period of withdrawal where she misses him terribly. Withdrawal usually only lasts a few weeks, with those feelings popping up once in a while after that. If her feelings for Bob eventually disappear, her husband can remain friends with him. But if R.J. finds that they reappear whenever they are together, they should plan to end their friendship with Bob.

This may seem very harsh and unrealistic, but the alternative to ending such a friendship is to create a huge risk of having an affair. And if Bob were to know how she feels about him, then they most certainly should end their friendship with him.

Affairs are almost always with friends and co-workers. That's because the people you work with and those you spend leisure time with are usually in the best position to meet your most important emotional needs. But in the world of the internet, total strangers can also meet your emotional needs through chat rooms and e-mail because they meet your need for conversation so effectively. Do you and your spouse talk as much and as deeply as you talk to people on the internet? If not, watch out. As you probably know, an affair through the internet is becoming one of the most dangerous risks of owning a computer.

We are all wired for affairs. The only people who are exempt are those who are utterly incapable of meeting someone else's emotional needs. If you can't meet anyone's needs, no one will ever fall in love with you. But if your spouse has anything to offer others, and you are not meeting an important emotional need, commitment to "forsake all others" can become words without meaning.

B.D. trusted her spouse with her friend of 21 years. That was a big mistake, as she later discovered. There is no emotion more powerful than romantic love, and people have abandoned their careers, their children, their religion, their security and their health because of it. Try talking to a man who is in love with his secretary about the suffering he is causing his wife and children. Try explaining to him how he will lose his job, his money, his self-respect. You find yourself talking to a man with half a brain, a man who seems possessed. What's going on that causes him to lose all of his perspective on life? It's nothing more than a feeling of love. But that feeling is one of the most important feelings we have, and we will do almost anything to get it and keep it.

Last week I got a letter from a man whose wife has a close friendship with his best friend (male). His friend and his wife do almost everything together recreationally. He wrote to say that I was dead wrong about his particular spouse, and that my advice that friends outside of marriage should be same-sex friends was paranoid. He trusted his wife, and she could spend as much time with this friend as she wanted to. My response was for him to write me again in three years and let me know if he felt the same way after he discovered that his wife and best friend were having an affair (be sure to read my Q&A columns on recreational companionship, Part 1 and Part 2).

B.D. learned an important lesson about human nature. Both her friend and her husband are wired to fall in love with whoever they spend the most enjoyable time with, and the fact that her husband fell in love with her friend simply means that she had deposited enough love units to trigger his feeling of romantic love toward her. He was having more fun with her friend than he was having with her. The rest was history.

I would imagine that B.D.'s second child came between she and her husband recreationally, and her friend took her place as his favorite leisure-time companion. To get him back, she must become his best friend again. His relationship with this other woman will probably fall apart eventually, as they almost always do, and he will come back to her. At that point in time, she and her husband should never see her childhood friend again, she should try to welcome him with open arms and then try to re-create the relationship that they once had, when they were both in love with each other.

Granted, at first B.D. will be very resentful about what her husband did and said, but she shouldn't let resentment prevent them from putting their family back together again. Little by little her resentment will fade away, as her relationship with your husband improves (I will write more about this phase of recovery later in this series).

B.D. was very disillusioned to think that her husband and her best friend could have hurt Learn More!

"Surviving an Affair"
her so badly, but now she knows what I have known for years, and, quite frankly, she would have done the same thing herself if conditions were right.

The only way to protect your marriage from an affair is to be sure that those conditions don't exist. If B.D. and her husband were to have spent most of their leisure time together, especially after the arrival of their baby, this affair would never have happened. Be sure to read my two Q&A columns on recreational companionship carefully, so that what happened to B.D. and her husband will never happen to you.



Coping with Infidelity: Part 2
How Should Affairs End?

Introduction: This is the second in a four part series of Q&A columns on infidelity. Last week I explained how affairs usually begin (see Part 1)and this week I will explain how they should end.

There are three parts to the way affairs should end. The first part is revealing the affair to one's spouse, the second part is never seeing or communicating with the lover again, and the third part is getting through symptoms of withdrawal after a permanent separation takes place.

Granted, that's not the way most affairs end. In most affairs after the passion peaks, the spouse and lover simply drift apart, the victimized spouse usually never finds out about it and the lover is often still in the picture, occasionally getting back together again with the unfaithful spouse. Some affairs are discovered by the spouse, but even after discovery, the affair often continues unabated until it dies a natural death. If that's the way your affair ends, even if your marriage survives, it will probably not amount to much.

You may feel that after an affair a marriage doesn't amount to much anyway. But the way I suggest ending an affair in this Q&A column will give your marriage the greatest opportunity for a complete recovery.

I am posting two letters to illustrate this second phase of infidelity -- ending an affair. As I did in last week's Q&A column, instead of posting my answers to them, I will simply explain to you how affairs should be ended.


Dear Dr. Harley,
My wife and I have been married for 11 years and have two wonderful children. When we were dating, she was very warm and affectionate toward me, but after our marriage, she never seemed to have the time. I'd just try to hug her when I'd get home and she'd pull her arms in or put her hands on my chest pushing me away. She didn't like to kiss much or be close. Sex was much the same way. It bothered me and I told her on several occasions that I needed her to show that she needed me and was interested in me physically, that I was attractive to her. There was never much conversation about it. She would respond with "I know," and things wouldn't change. We simply went on with our lives.

I never felt divorce was an option, so I believed I had to find a way to be happy. I was able to rely on my family, friends, my children, they all helped to fill in spaces that she left out. But last year, my resentment started to build up in me. Work wasn't going so well, and the people I relied on for emotional support no longer filled the void. I gave up. That was my mistake, I gave up.

I turned to a woman that had previously worked in my office for help. We had been close friends for a long time about 5 years. It was innocent at first, but didn't stay that way for long. She had been one of those who had been meeting my unmet needs at work when they had not been met at home. She had been a warm and caring friend. But now she came to mean even more to me. One night the wheels came off and we gave in. It felt like we had been in love forever.

I truly feel I've lost everything that I held dear, especially my values. Now I'm an unfaithful husband and I always will be. I hate that. I blame myself for failing, but I also blame my wife. If she would have only listened to me and given us the chance to work our problems out together.

But I have tried to recover from my mistake. My wife discovered the affair very soon after it began. I really didn't try very hard to conceal it. Deep down, I wanted her to know. As soon as it was out of the bag, I agreed not to see the other woman again. It's been three months now, and I have been true to my word.

My wife is a different person. Warm and caring. Perfect in every way. But now that she is willing to meet my needs, I won't let her in. I don't trust her. I don't know if it's a matter of me not being able to forgive her, myself, or just apathy. We've gone to counseling and it has helped us understand what has happened and why. But I just feel used up. What do I do next?

R.J.



Dear Dr. Harley,
My husband and I moved from the east coast to the west coast this year. After we arrived, I discovered that he had been having an affair. His addiction to this woman gave him away. A phone bill showed him calling her every day and I don't know how many letters he's sent. When I discovered it, I threatened to leave him with our two children if he didn't stop trying to contact her. He agreed to stop calling and writing to her, but after a month, I found a letter she had just written him saying that "she was thrilled to hear his voice yesterday when he called." So I know he was carrying on the whole time. I decided not to leave because our children are now in school.

I called his "girlfriend" and told her to stop talking to my husband, and she agreed with me that the relationship was stupid, especially since we have moved so far away from her. So their contacts with each other may have ended, at least for now.

But now there is another problem. Now he can't perform in bed any more. Before we moved, and during our years of marriage he had always been a 4 plus a week person and now it's like he just can't keep it up long, if at all. He struggles terribly with it and I know it and so does he. He tries to make excuses for it but I know that it's his feelings for his girlfriend that's doing it to him. How long does this go on and how do I handle it. It just breaks my heart. I am a very upbeat happy person. I have been very forgiving in spite of the terrible personal pain I've had. But I can't seen to handle my husband's loss of desire for me.

M.S.




Some affairs are "one night stands." They usually take place when a spouse is away on a trip, or when one has gone out partying without the other spouse. These relatively loveless affairs usually happen when people drink and lose impulse control. Alcoholics are the ones most likely to have these flings.

Other affairs start as a caring friendship and develop over years to become a complete relationship that solves most emotional and practical issues for the couple. These relationships become so complete and persistent that spouses are eventually divorced, and the lovers are united in marriage.

But most affairs are somewhere in between one night stands and relationships that lead to marriage.

Affairs usually take place because they meet important emotional needs. But most affairs meet only some emotional needs not met in marriage, leaving others that are being met by a spouse. That fact usually rules out the possibility of divorce, at least for the spouse having the affair. The wayward spouse knows that the lover, for some reason, is not able to meet some of the needs met by his or her spouse. So most affairs are never intended to lead to divorce and remarriage, but are "safety-valve" relationships that satisfy a need not met in marriage.

Affairs are intended to be kept secret

Having drawn the above conclusion about the nature of affairs, it should be obvious why most wayward spouses would like their affairs to go undetected. Not only do they want to avoid all the unhappiness that goes with discovery, but they also want to continue the affair as long as it meets needs not met in marriage. In most cases, a lover only meets one or two emotional needs, while the spouse meets others. Unfaithful spouses usually don't want their marriages to end, and yet they want emotional needs met that the spouse does not meet. Discovery of the affair, in most cases, would ruin the "solution" to their problem.

But there comes a time in almost every affair that an unfaithful spouse realizes that it has run it's course, or it wasn't a good idea to begin with. In some cases, it's the lover who ends the relationship, finding that the spouse isn't living up to expectations. And in other cases, it's the spouse that ends it when the disadvantages of the affair begin to outweigh the advantages.

In most cases, affairs end peacefully and in secret. By their very nature, there is not much of a commitment to hold them together, and a desire to do the "right thing" is usually the excuse an unfaithful spouse uses to end it. But the real reason is usually that the affair has become more trouble than it's worth.

Occasionally, a scorned lover will go berserk, call the spouse all hours of the day and night, file lawsuits and create all kinds of trouble. But that's very rare. Affairs usually end quietly.

In the vast majority of cases, affairs are never revealed to spouses. They are usually kept so secret that even when children are born of an affair, the victimized husband is usually not told that the child he is raising is not really his. I know of over 20 instances where a father is unknowingly raising another man's child.

What are the signs of an affair?

Almost everyone denies an affair at first, even when confronted with overpowering evidence. When a woman I counseled broke in on her husband having sex with a neighbor, he tried to convince her that she was having an hallucination.

While seeing your spouse in bed with a lover is sure-fire evidence of an affair, that kind of evidence is usually close to impossible to find. But there are many other less intrusive ways to detect ongoing affairs.

For an unfaithful spouse to engage in an affair without detection, two separate lives must be created, one for the lover and one for the spouse. A certain amount of dishonesty is required in both of them, but the major deception is with the spouse.

So one of the most common clues of an affair is an unwillingness to let a spouse investigate all aspects of life. If two lives are necessary for an affair, and if a spouse is curious enough, the secret second life is relatively easy to discover. Difficulty in getting a spouse to talk about events of the day can be a sign of trying to hide the second life.

One of the most common smoke-screens used by unfaithful spouses is to express shock that their spouse would be so distrusting as to ask questions about their secret second life. They try to make it seem as if such questions are an affront to their dignity, and a sign of incredible disrespect. They figure that the best defense is a good offense, and so they try to make their spouses feel guilty about asking too many questions.

I am a firm believer in letting each spouse do as much snooping around as they want. Nothing should be kept secret in marriage, and no questions should be left unanswered. If a spouse objects to such scrutiny, what might he or she be hiding?

Another type of clue is records of communication such as telephone records, letters and e-mail. Most affairs depend on repeated contacts and evidence of those contacts can usually be found. That's how M.S. discovered her husband's affair. When his lover was living in the same city, he was able to hide his affair, but after he moved, it became almost impossible for him to keep his communication a secret. He was addicted to daily contact, and M.S. saw evidence of it almost immediately after the move. But how many people move away from a lover? It's very rare, and if M.S.'s family had not moved, she may never have discovered the affair because she trusted her husband.

When a couple spend their leisure-time away from each other, it is not only a breeding ground for an affair, but it can also be another clue to an affair. That's especially true when a spouse doesn't want the other to be present at their favorite activity. I counseled a man who went fishing every summer for a week with his friends, wives not invited. But they did invite a secretary from work who cooked their meals (and had sex with them all) during the trip.

Anything that takes one spouse away from the other overnight is an invitation for an affair. But when an opposite-sex co-worker tends to join a spouse on business trips, red flags should be flying in all directions. Any evidence that this relationship is anything more than pure business is, from my perspective, a gigantic clue that an affair might be in progress. That's also the case if a spouse and opposite-sex co-worker spend a great deal of time working together.

We are all wired to have an affair. We can all fall in love with someone of the opposite sex if that person meets one of our emotional needs. If you don't think it can happen to you because of your conviction or will-power, you are particularly vulnerable to an affair. And if you think your spouse would never have an affair, you are also vulnerable.

Look what happened to poor Kathy Lee Gifford. She stated publicly and wrote in one of her books that she trusted her husband completely, that he would never cheat on her. But she should not have trusted her husband. If she would have taken the steps she is now taking to help him avoid another affair, the first would never have taken place, and she would have avoided all its pain and embarrassment. I don't trust my wife completely and she doesn't trust me, and that's why neither of us have ever had an affair. Lack of trust does not make spouses paranoid and miserable, it makes their marriages safe.

Should an affair be revealed?

I have been letting you in on some clues to infidelity when a spouse is unwilling to be truthful. But there are a few, of course, who are honest enough to tell their spouses about an affair without being confronted. Guilt sometimes sets in right after the first sexual encounter, and it continues to build as one lie is added to another. Depression follows guilt and it's not unusual for a wayward spouse to even consider suicide as a way to escape the nightmare he or she has created. As an act of desperation, honesty is sometimes seized as a last resort, often in an effort to relieve the feelings of guilt.

From my perspective, honesty is part of the solution to infidelity, and so I'll take honesty for whatever reason, even if it's to relieve a feeling of guilt and depression. The revelation of an affair is very hard on an unsuspecting spouse, of course, but at the same time, it's the first step toward marital reconciliation.

Most unfaithful spouses know that their affair is one of the most heartless acts they could ever inflict on their spouse. So one of their reasons to be dishonest is to protect their spouse from emotional pain. "Why add insult to injury," they reason. "What I did was wrong, but why put my spouse through needless pain by revealing this thoughtless act?" As is the case with bank robbers and murderers, unfaithful spouses don't think they will ever be discovered, and so they don't expect their unfaithfulness to hurt their spouse.

But I am one of the very few that advocate the revelation of affairs at all costs, even when the wayward spouse has no feelings of guilt or depression to overcome. I believe that honesty is so essential to the success of marriage, that hiding past infidelity makes a marriage dishonest, preventing emotional closeness and intimacy.

It isn't honesty that causes the pain, it's the affair. Honesty is simply revealing truth to the victim. Those who advocate dishonesty regarding infidelity assume that the truth will cause such irreparable harm, that it's in the best interest of a victimized spouse to go through life with the illusion of fidelity.

It's patronizing to think that a spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Anyone who assumes that their spouse cannot handle truth is being incredibly disrespectful, manipulative and in the final analysis, dangerous. How little you must think of your spouse when you try to protect him or her from the truth.

It's not only patronizing, but it's also false to assume that your spouse cannot bear to hear the truth. Illusions do not make us happy, they cause us to wander through life, bumping into barriers that are invisible to us because of the illusion that is created. Truth, on the other hand, reveals those barriers, and sheds light on them so that we can see well enough to overcome them. The unsuspecting spouse of an unfaithful husband or wife wonders why their marriage is not more fulfilling and more intimate. Knowledge of an affair would make it clear why all efforts have failed.

After revealing an affair, your spouse will no longer trust you. But lack of trust does not ruin a marriage, it's the lack of care and protection that ruins marriages. Your spouse should not trust you, and the sooner your spouse realizes it, the better.

The Policy of Radical Honesty is one of two rules you must follow to protect your spouse from your self-centered behavior, which includes affairs. The other rule is the Policy of Joint Agreement (never do anything without an enthusiastic agreement between you and your spouse). If you were to be completely honest with you spouse, and you were to follow the Policy of Joint Agreement, an affair would be impossible, unless for some reason your spouse wanted you to have one.

If you knew that your affair would be discovered -- that right after having sex with your co-worker, your spouse were to find out about it -- you would probably not go through with it. And if you were honest enough with your spouse so that YOU would be the one to tell him or her what you did, your honesty would be a huge reason to avoid any affair.

How the victimized spouse should respond to the revelation of an affair is a subject of a later column. I do not have the space to treat it here. But a spouse is twice victimized when he or she is lied to about an affair. Truth is far easier to handle than lies.

Some affairs, those like the husbands of R.J. and M.S., are discovered by their spouses. But as R.J. and M.S. have seen, knowing about an affair is only the first step toward recovery.

Never see or communicate with a former lover

Once an affair is first revealed, whether it's discovered or admitted, the victimized spouse is usually in a state of shock. The first reaction is usually panic, but it's quickly followed by anger. Divorce and sometimes even murder are contemplated. But after some time passes (usually about three weeks), most couples decide that they will try to pull together and save their marriage.

The one having an affair is in no position to bargain, but he or she usually tries anyway. The bargaining effort usually boils down to somehow keeping the lover in the loop. You'd think that the unfaithful spouse would be so aware of his or her weaknesses, and so aware of the pain inflicted, that every effort would be made to avoid further contact with the lover as an act of thoughtfulness to the stunned spouse. But instead, the unfaithful spouse argues that the relationship was "only sexual" or was "emotional but not sexual" or some other peculiar description to prove that continued contact with the lover would be okay.

Most victimized spouses intuitively understand that all contact with a lover must end for life. Permanent separation not only helps prevent a renewal of the affair, but it is also a crucial gesture of consideration to someone who has been through ******. What victimized spouse would ever want to know that his or her spouse is seeing or communicating with a former lover at work or in some other activity?

In spite of career sacrifices, friendships, and issues relating to children's schooling, I am adamant in recommending that there be no contact with a former lover for life. For many, that means a move to another state. But to do otherwise fails to recognize the nature of addiction and its cure.

Look at M.S.'s husband. Here he is, thousands of miles from his lover, and yet he still feels compelled to call her. Can you imagine the trouble M.S. would have had separating them if they had not moved? Their move was the best thing that could have happened to their marriage because it not only revealed the affair, but it also set up the conditions that would make ending it possible -- total separation.

We don't know if R.J. still sees his lover, but he says he has broken off all contact. In many cases where a person is still in town, that's hard to prove. But one thing's for sure, if he ever does see his lover, it will put him in a state of perpetual withdrawal from his addiction, and make the resolution of his marriage essentially impossible. In fact, one of the reasons he is not recovering after three months of separation may be that he is not being truthful about the separation.

How should an unfaithful spouse tell his lover that their relationship is over? If left to their own devices, many would take a Caribbean cruise to say their final good-byes. Obviously, that will not do. In fact, I recommend that the final good-bye be in the form of a letter, and not in person or even by telephone.

My advice is to write a final letter in a way that the victimized spouse would agree to send it. It should begin with a statement of how selfish it was to cause those they loved so much pain, and while marital reconciliation cannot completely repay the offense, it's the right thing to do. A statement should be made about how much the unfaithful spouse cares about his spouse and family, and for their protection, has decided to completely end the relationship with the lover. He or she has promised never to see or communicate with the lover again in life, and asks the lover to respect that promise. Nothing should be said about how much the lover will be missed. After the letter is written, the victimized spouse should read and approve it before it is sent.

How to Get Through Withdrawal

In R.J.'s case, his feelings for his wife are as bad as they have ever been. In the case of M.S.'s husband, he is suffering so much that he can no longer make love to his wife, something that had always come very easily to him in the past. What is happening to these men?

They are experiencing symptoms of withdrawal from the addiction they have to their lovers.

As soon as a victimized spouse decides to stay married and struggle through reconciliation, he or she usually sets out to meet whatever needs the lover had been meeting. If it was sex, the spouse offers more and better sex. If it was affection, it's more affection. Both M.S. and R.J.'s wife were willing to do whatever it took to regain their wayward spouses' love.

But it didn't work for either of them. That's because both of their husbands were in withdrawal. They were both addicted to their lovers and separation from them caused them to suffer from depression. That, in turn, made it almost impossible for their spouses to meet their emotional needs. So all of that love and care that was being extended to them was being wasted. Until they would recover from withdrawal, the efforts of their wives to please them will be very disappointing.

Withdrawal is the emotional reaction to the loss of something that gives great pleasure. It's similar to the feelings an alcoholic has when he makes a commitment never to drink again. It's also similar to the grief that comes from the loss of a loved one. A lover is like alcohol and like a loved one. Not only do unfaithful spouses miss what it was their lovers did, meeting important emotional needs, but they also miss the person they had come to love.

Our most common emotions are anger, anxiety and depression. Symptoms of withdrawal usually include all of these in a very intense form. I usually suggest that anti-depressant medication be used to help alleviate these symptoms. While the most intense symptoms of withdrawal usually last only about three weeks, in some cases they can linger for six months or longer before they start to fade.

It is extremely likely that a commitment to remain separated from a lover will be broken unless extreme measures are taken to avoid it. That's because the emotional reaction of withdrawal is so painful. Honesty is an extremely important element in reconciliation, and it should be understood that if the unfaithful spouse ever sees or communicates with the lover, he or she should immediately tell the spouse that it happened. They should then agree on a plan that would prevent a recurrence of contact in the future. But as soon as any contact is made, it throws the unfaithful spouse back to the beginning of withdrawal, and the time it takes to overcome the feelings of grief begins all over again.

There's a sense in which M.S.'s husband was in withdrawal even before M.S. discovered Learn More!

"Surviving an Affair"
the affair. As soon as the move was made, he became depressed, and what M.S. noticed the most was his lack of interest in sex. Depression will do that to you (and so will anti-depressant medication -- one of it's only side effects is a loss of sex drive).

If M.S.'s husband were to avoid talking to his lover for three weeks, it's likely that his sex drive would start to return, since the worst symptoms of withdrawal would probably have ended. He has a long history of sexual interest in his wife, and I guarantee that he will eventually do just fine in bed.

The problem that R.J. may soon face is that his wife's cheerful attitude will wear thin. There's no telling how much longer she can try to please him without an approving response from him. Sometimes I tell spouses to just avoid each other until the withdrawal stage passes because all the effort to be kind and thoughtful is easily wasted until they start feeling better.

It's the stage of recovery after withdrawal that gives spouses the best opportunity to learn to meet each other's most important emotional needs and overcome Love Busters. Spouses should save their most tolerant mood for that stage, where they could both be receptive to each other's care. And that will be the subject of next week's column: Learning to meet each other's needs after an affair.



Coping with Infidelity: Part 3
Restoring the Marital Relationship

Introduction: This column is the third in a series of four columns on infidelity. The first was, "How do Affairs Begin," the second was "How Should Affairs End," and this one is on how to rebuild a marriage after an affair has ended.

Since an affair does not always end the way it should, with complete separation from the lover, you may not find this column entirely relevant to you. In your case, your spouse's lover may still be a factor, and you will want to know how to restore your marital relationship with your spouse's lover standing in the wings. If you are in that position, I have addressed that topic in two of my earlier Q&A columns on infidelity ("What to Do with an Unfaithful Husband" and "What to Do with an Unfaithful Wife"). In short, it's hard enough to restore a marital relationship when a lover is finally out of the picture. But it's almost impossible when the lover is still hanging around.

There is another topic that this column introduces, but does not adequately address: Resentment. I have spoken to that issue in a previous column, "Can't We Just Forgive and Forget?" but there is much more that can be said on that subject. So I will leave it for Part 4 of this series of columns on infidelity.

I illustrate this week's problem, how to rebuild a marriage after an affair has ended, with two letters I have received. My advice follows the letters.





Dear Dr. Harley,
My wife and I are separated after 20 years of marriage. About two years ago I entered into a relationship with a younger woman, became totally captivated by the excitement, and left my wife and two daughters. I cannot defend my actions, but I understand why I was unable to resist. My most basic needs had been unmet for several years. I was emotionally abandoned for the sake of our children. After much effort to get my wife's attention, I quit trying.

Our marriage had always been relatively sterile, and after the children were born, things only got worse. I had given up on getting my needs met by her, and she probably gave up on me, too. Then, a young, beautiful, and free spirited co-worker showed an interest in me.... a textbook case I guess, but I felt it was SO SPECIAL at the time. I was flattered by her interest in me and she readily provided all the things I needed but was unable to get from my wife. She, of course, was not encumbered by the problems of raising a family, household, etc.

I spent about 18 months with my lover until she could no longer handle the guilt she felt from contributing to the breakup of my family. My relationship with my teenage daughters has struggled terribly since the affair .... how could I expect otherwise? She finally left me and I no longer see her or talk to her, but I am not over her emotionally (I may never be); she has just married another.

I have lived alone for the last 5 months and the emotional turmoil over the recent events combined with loneliness have devastated me; I am suffering from classical depression symptoms..... sleeplessness, lack of appetite, unable to focus, etc.

But I will get to the point. My wife and I have been trying to reconcile all summer, but there is so much pain and bitterness (on both sides); we have just about reached the point of giving up. Every time we make a little progress, one of us gets hurt or discouraged and we lose ground. We both filled out the needs questionnaire from your web site. It revealed that neither of us had done a very good job meeting each other's needs, and it also revealed that our needs were sharply contrasted. The things I need most were least important to her and vice versa. We can agree on some things (strategies for improvement), but we are deadlocked on some issues. For example, recreational companionship .... if it's not with the girls, it's not going to happen with her. She wants me to wait till they are gone before WE have time together.

I'm not emotionally strong enough to go back, say the things she wants to hear, and live in the withdrawal phase again. I know everyone would benefit by bringing this nightmare to closure; the entire family has been in limbo for 2 years. There is a part of both of us that feels like we should just end things and try to make a fresh start, but there is also a part of us that wishes we could find a way through the maze - together. I am very sorry for hurting my family, and I have told them so. I would like to feel the closeness and specialness with my wife that I experienced with the OTHER woman.

Any feedback would be appreciated. I'm not a bad person, but I am suffering the consequences of doing some bad things.

C.W.



Dear Dr. Harley,
Recently I have confronted my wife and found my worst fears to be true, she had an affair. Although it is over, I felt devastated. After days of asking.."how could you have done that.....why......what happened....etc." she sprang on me that she doesn't feel so bad about it because of what I did to her in the past.

I am a recovering alcoholic and have been sober for over 3 years. She says she endured all the pain and agony of living with an alcoholic and for what I did to her, she feels as if we are "even". (there was never any abuse or anything during my drinking, just the typical being left alone to handle everything while I drank).

What is hard for me is her attitude toward the affair, it is like she doesn't feel it was that bad of a thing....she actually has said she enjoyed it...got something out of it...and finally did something for herself. I guess I expected remorse and the "I'm so sorry I hurt you....etc...etc." It is very hard because when we try to discuss anything, it keeps going back to what I did. I feel that maybe my past doesn't have much to do with her going out and having the affair, but now that she's been caught, this is her only "defense", and takes the focus away from what she did.

I have taken considerable time to offer her a very formal, from the heart, apology for what I did, yet she says my apology is "too late". I feel that unless her resentment of my past behavior can be resolved, it is fruitless to deal with her affair.

Any help on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

S.C.




Most affairs don't end a marriage. But unless the marital problems that helped create the affair are resolved, an affair can sure make a marriage a lot worse than it was before the affair. The letters C.W. and S.C wrote are proof of that.

Still, after an affair is over, a couple has a window of opportunity to fix what was wrong in a way that can make their marriage better than it ever was. But one of the biggest obstacles to such a recovery is the emotional reactions left over from the affair.

Ideally, as I discussed in Part 2 of this series, an unfaithful spouse should choose to permanently separate from a lover and return to his or her spouse to rebuild the marriage. In that situation, after a period of withdrawal, both spouses usually attack the task of marriage rebuilding with a remarkable zeal. Granted, there are scars, but the fact that the unfaithful spouse was willing to abandon the lover to save the marriage is usually viewed as an appropriate first payment toward just compensation. Especially if there is willingness to make the other payments, to overcome Love Busters, do a better job meeting the victimized spouse's emotional needs, and create a more integrated lifestyle.

But because most affairs do not end with a choice to permanently separate from a lover, the recovery stage does not usually begin with much zeal. Instead, it begins with bitterness. If the affair dies a natural death (the spouse and lover simply drift away, or the lover ends it), the unfaithful spouse wakes up to find himself or herself still married, but married to a spouse who is very upset about everything that happened. How does one go about getting that kind of marriage restored?

It's very common for the spouse having the affair to feel unremorseful. And it's common for the victimized spouse to feel that it wasn't his or her fault, either. So when an affair has ended, and a couple is ready to rebuild their relationship, neither wants to take responsibility. They both look at each other as having been very selfish, and they look at themselves as having gone the extra mile, with nothing to show for it. Why apologize for something that was the other person's fault?

There is a sense in which an apology is not really necessary. The only thing that's necessary is for the couple to take appropriate steps to rebuild their relationship. But an apology can certainly make taking those steps much easier.

S.C.'s wife is not sorry she had an affair. In fact she feels that it did her some good. She "finally did something for herself." That sure sounds like her Taker, doesn't it (if you don't know what a "Taker" is, be sure to read "The Giver and the Taker" in my Basic Concepts). Her Taker is only concerned about her happiness, and not the least bit concerned about S.C.'s happiness. It was her Taker that was doing the talking for her, telling S.C. that he had it coming, after what he had put her through with all of his drinking.

Taker's don't ever apologize. But they demand it of others. It was S.C.'s Taker that wanted an apology from his wife. It remembered that S.C.'s Giver had once told his wife he was sorry for his neglect of her while he was drinking, and now it was time for his wife to apologize for her offense. But at this point in their relationship, neither of their Givers are anywhere to be found, so there is little hope for repentance.

But now that the affair is over, does it do S.C. any good to try to pry an apology out of his wife? At this point, her feelings for S.C. are not the best, and any effort on his part to try to make her feel guilty will do nothing but withdraw more love units from an already bankrupt Love Bank. His best approach is to ignore the past, and focus on what he can do to start depositing love units. The more love units he deposits, the more her Taker will drop back and allow her Giver some room to maneuver. In fact, if her Giver shows up, she may surprise S.C. with an apology for the affair without him even asking for one.

S.C.'s best course of action is to create the best marriage possible by learning how to meet his wife's emotional needs, overcome Love Busters and create a unified lifestyle where neither of them would have second secret lives that can grow into affairs.

But in spite of what I've just said, I encourage each spouse, if possible, to override their Takers' instincts and apologize to the other anyway. The unfaithful spouse should apologize for having betrayed a valuable trust, for having hurt in the worst way possible the very one he or she promised to love and cherish. The victimized spouse should also apologize for having failed to meet important emotional needs that the unfaithful spouse had been promised at the time of marriage.

Why do I encourage an apology when the Takers are adamantly opposed to offering them? Because an apology is really in order (they did, in fact, hurt each other), and it also helps settle down the Takers, as long as they both apologize. S.C.'s wife knows that she did the wrong thing when she had an affair. It's her defensive Taker that will not let her apologize. But if she could let her defenses down for one moment and honesty express her Giver's regret for what she had done, it would give S.C. some encouragement.

But once apologies are made, a couple should move on to the business of rebuilding their relationship, and not dwell on the mistakes of their past. As much as you may want to talk about the affair or about any other mistake made, remember that every conversation on those subjects withdraw love units. And a Love Bank must first be overflowing with love units before you are in a position to waste any.

In C.W.'s case, he is close to having traversed the first two stages of marital recovery after an affair. He has completed the first stage by being completely separated from his lover, and he is near the end of the second stage where he is coming to the end of withdrawal from his dependence on her. Granted, he is still depressed, but part of his depression comes from living alone, and having a feeling of hopelessness trying to get his wife's cooperation to restore their marriage.

I think that both couples are ready for the third stage of marital recovery after an affair: Rebuilding their relationships. They all seem to be willing to negotiate, and are willing to let their spouses meet their emotional needs. That means they are no longer in the state of emotional withdrawal and are firmly fixed in the state of emotional conflict (if you do not understand the terms "withdrawal" and "conflict" see "Negotiating in the Three States of Marriage"). So any attempt to make their spouses happy is likely to have its desired effect -- love units will be deposited.

These two marriages are now in a position to be restored if the spouses take the correct steps. In some ways, both couples now have the same opportunity to solve their marital problems as they did before the affairs took place. And if they had done it then, they would have avoided all of the pain that the affairs inflicted on them. They are now where most bad marriages are, burdened by Love Busters and the failure to meet important emotional needs. So if they can toss off those burdens, they will not only create the marriage they need, but also eliminate the risk of another affair.

The steps these couples should take to restore their marriages are described in my book, Fall in Love, Stay in Love. It explains how couples can identify and overcome the Love Busters, anger, disrespect and demands. It also shows couples how to meet each other's emotional needs. But most importantly, it teaches couples how to create compatibility -- how to create an integrated lifestyle where dishonesty and secret second lives are eliminated.

The solution to most marital problems requires spouses to override their Taker's instincts. Doing what you feel like doing works great when you are in love, because the Giver calls the shots. But when you are not in love, and your Taker is in charge, your instincts will make matters much worse. The Taker wants you to get angry, be disrespectful and make demands. All of those Love Busters withdraw love units and also create defenses that make depositing new ones almost impossible.

Both C.W. and S.C. find their spouse's Love Busters coming between them and the restoration of love. But I'm sure that both of them are dishing them out as well.

So the first step in the restoration of marriage after an affair is to lay down the weapons. Each spouse must make a concerted effort to avoid anger, disrespect or demands at all costs. Every time they are together, they must do whatever it takes to make the relationship safe for each other.

Once they can guarantee each other safety, by protecting each other from Love Busters, they are ready to learn to meet each other's emotional needs. But they will have to learn to negotiate all of these issues with the Policy of Joint Agreement in mind. They must begin by guaranteeing each other that the cost of a great marriage will not require personal sacrifice. It will only require a willingness not to do anything that would hurt each other. They must understand that everything they will be doing in the future must take each other's feelings into account, and safety will be the guiding rule from now on.

With personal safety as the condition for negotiation, and enthusiastic mutual agreement as the goal, a couple is ready to rebuild. But that environment of safety may take a while to create. It may be the very first skill that they will need to learn before they can negotiate satisfactory.

Getting beyond this first step -- setting a safe stage for negotiating -- may take some careful thought and planning, but one thing is for sure, negotiations that are not safe or pleasant will not give you a solution to your problem.

The second step for successful negotiation is to present the conflict to each other with each spouse trying to understand and respect the other's perspective. C.W. has a need for recreational companionship.

chicagodad...

How are things going? Check in and let us know...

SD

Hi again,
Well I think I may or may not have done the right thing. Unfortunately, I started reading surviving an affair after I forced my ww to end all contact with om. Thursday night , I told her to either end it with him or end it with me and ask him to marry her raise our children and pay the mortgage. I wish I had read the book before then. Well Friday night she came home from an office party and told me that she called him from her cell phone in the parking lot after the party to end it. She talked to him for 40 minutes she said.All of the detauls weren't told to me, but she told me that he said, he won't contact her anymore, she needed tro give herself time to get her head straight. He said once her head is straight we should seek marriage counseling ands try to make our marriage work. She also told me that he said things were getting way too complicated now. I really doubt that they have ever met. He lives in another country and I think the only communication has been via internet or phone. She does admit to ocassional cybering. He also has two children and is recently divorced. He told ww that she doesn't want to go through a divorce.I think the guy is pretty level headed and may actually help this nc process work.
The withdrawl stage is really rough , ww cried Friday night after she told me that she ended it with him. She told me that she really misses him. I tried to be supportive for her I grabbed her and held her close. I told her to cry on my chest as long aws she needed to. I let her know that I was to blame for letting our relationship get to this point and would do all I can to prevent her seeking emotional support any where else again. I know thw withdrawl is going to be hard. I know I have to remain patient and supportive and loving although she resists my attempts.
All day Saturday she played sad love songs, such as my lover's gone, good bye my lover , etc. she sang them and cried. It hurt mr so much . I expressed my opinion gently that I think we shoul switch to a happier type of music such as Christmas songs. I don't know if she realizes that this goodbye my lover you were meant for me business hurts my feeling . Yesterday we spent the whole day Christmas shopping, we even laughe a few times. She let me hold her hand for the first time since Friday. She even accepted my feeble attempt at a back rub last night. When we went to bed instead of pulling away from me she moved closer. I hope we are going in the right direction.

Right now you need to do a couple things. First off, she is a recovering addict, so you need to remove or restrict access to contacting this person. That means software to stop access to certain sites, erasing his number from her cell phone, deleting past emails, blocking his address on her email account, changing phone numbers, etc. I would also get spyware to ensure that NC is being maintained. I know you have been hurt, but here is your chance to step up. Make sure that your EN and LB questionnaires are filled out. She is in withdrawal, so you need to help her out as much as possible. Meet what ENs she allows you to, and avoid LBs AT ALL COST! After about 3 weeks, she will allow you to meet more and more ENs, and you need to focus on doing so. Court her like you did when you first met. You have to start all over again. At the same time, make sure you set boundaries so this cannot happen again, either with OM or someone else. This part is even harder than ending the affair, so you have your work cut out for you. Good luck.

I am trying to be loving and understanding right now. How long do I need to worry that she may be contacting
OM via cell phone again? I e-mailed OM yesterday and explained that I lopve my wife very much,we are trying to save our marriage,his relationship with her would prevent any chance of that. I asked him to avoid contact because it hurts so much. I am unsure of plan A , would constantly asking her every day if she called him hurt matters? Make me seem desparate? I don't want to gwet into snooping I would like for her to police herself. One thing I have trouble with is all those "lost lover " songs even the romantic movies we watch I feel that she vies them as a way to remember OM and what she lost, not what we could be losing in each other. It is so hard how do I ask her to focus on positive things without LB's?

cd, you should police her until she can police herself. She can't do that right now. Stop asking her if she has contacted him, because you are unlikely to get the truth. Instead, check and see if she IS doing it. If she is, then you would confront her with it.

She is in withdrawal and the best you can do is be there for her, you can't educate her or make her focus on positive things. Just tell her: "I am sorry you are hurting, I am here for you." And do your best to fill her needs.

Here is a good article on withdrawal that might be helpful: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...rue#Post2686313

This guy is a scumbag who is having an affair with a married woman, there is nothing level headed or decent about that. If he could be trusted in any way, he wouldn't be having an affair with a married woman in the first place. This is like the rapist offering advice to the rape victim. He is probably some married guy who just doesn't want the trouble. Can you find out who he is? Do you have a keylogger on her computer so you can check her activities?

Chicagodad,

You are going to have to suck it up for a while. Your WW is a recovery drug addict. Her "drug" is comminicating with the OM. You cannot take the word of a drug addict. You need to snoop on her to verify NC is maintained. I know you are tired of the snooping, so am I, but it has to be done. If she does slip up and contact OM, you want her to only get one quick conversation in, not weeks of contacting the OM until you figure out something is wrong again. Don't ask her if she has contacted him, you just monitor the situation yourself. I caught my WW with a prepaid calling card and she had just called the OM from a payphone the day before. I only found this out because I was snooping. Imagine if I hadn't and she kept calling the guy on her calling card everyday before she came home from work. All my efforts trying to save the marriage would have been wasted. You need to pray for God's strength to get you through this tough time. You need to meet her ENs and avoid LBs (fill out the forms so you are aware of it). You need to stay in control and you will find that you will slowly start getting your marriage back on track, but it will take longer than you would like (probably 6 months). Keep focused. I know it is hard work. I am into a month and a half into recovery myself, and I am getting little help from my WW.

One thing that I did was completely cut off all access to the OM from our house. I deleted his number from her phone, blocked his email address, threw away all phone bills with his number on it, so if she did get the urge to call him, it wasn't easily accessible. She had to get the number from a friend (some friend that was). It is like clearing out all the liquor from an alcoholics house, so it isn't there if they get the urge.

BINGO! Snooping is your friend. It will help you identify problems QUICKLY so you can resolve them before they get out of hand. It will also help you regain trust if you can independently verify her trustworthiness. And trust has to be EARNED, cd, it is not an entitlement.

Thank you, ML. I went from MB chump to pro in just a few short weeks. I found a $10.75 charge at a gas station that wasn't for gas (There was a $20 charge at the same station at the same time that obviously was for gas) when I looked at our online bank statement today, and I'm going to dig through her purse to find the receipt to make sure what it was for. I don't believe it was for a calling card, but I'm going to make d*mn well sure it wasn't.

I am a bit confused, I hear don't tell her what she is doing wrong don't try to educate her etc. but I also hear meet her EN's Would bringing out the questionaire be trying to educate her? The way I look at it this guy knows everything negative about me, he knows where I am lacking he knows what my wife wants . I know very litle about him or my wife and her needs for that matter. I feel like he had an uhnfair advantage to fill hear heart. If only I knew those things before this terrible mess started .

The questionnaire is about educating YOU, not her. You said it yourself you have no idea what her needs are. It is time you find out. Talk to her about what the OM did that you didn't do. You need to learn from this experience as much so if not more than your WW.

cd,

You are getting information and advice that is right on the mark.

For the near future, you will have to leave your Taker on the shelf, and leave your Giver in high gear, filling all the EN's your WW will allow.

I think it would truly benefit you to consider setting up a session with the Harley's, shortly after the first of the year. By then, if there is no contact, she will be far enough in withdrawal, the counselor may reach her. If you find out she is in contact, save your money, because counseling while a WS is in contact simply won't work.

Keep giving, and be there for her. Endure her sadness, and comfort her when she cries. Don't talk about the relationships. yours or theirs, a lot. Just spend time being a lighthouse for her. She's falling from an addiction and needs someone to care for her. It's called unconditional love!

Best wishes,
SD

Since this affair was done with telephones, wouldn't it be safe to assume that Conversation and Admiration would rank right up there near the top! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

SD