Cymanca, yes that is what I am looking for, the TRUTH. I feel I could move forward, forgive and truly recover if I have all the truth even if it hurts me all over again. He gave me ALL the details of the recent affair, he told me everything I wanted to know and more. I held onto it for awhile, stewed over it but now have come to peace with what happened and can move forward. But this is one last piece that is hanging out there that I want answers on. Since so much time has passed I have no way to go back and dig up cell phone records, e-mails and such. The only way to TRY and confirm whether he is telling/not telling the truth is to have him take the test.

I get down when I think he might have cheated on me twice, but then I just have to remember his many great qualities and that is the man that I want to stay married to and that is the man he is showing me that he wants to be.

I understand wanting TRUTH

What are the odds of getting TRUTH from the mouth of the OW ?? ... not likely, I think

If you get H to take a lie detector test and he fails, what then? Divorce? If H refuses to take a lie detector test, what then? Divorce?

It seems like what is needed is some mutual marriage skill improvement ... rather than a lie detector, how about a MB seminar ???

Try not to set up a lose-lose situation ... try to set up a win-win

just a thought

Pep

Let me say this, in trying to REBUILD my marriage for the last 2 years I assumed my FWH was finally telling the truth on some issues, he was`nt. The lie detector only brought out more to which I needed answers to. YOU CANNOT build or rebuild a marriage on DISHONESTY, and I told my FWH that is what he had done not only for 31 years but for these last 2 years. How much more hurt I was to find that he was STILL lieing. Even in MC he was. I was driving my self crazy so thats when I decided to put an end to this. I hired someone to give him the test.I knew if he was really lieing he would have made up an excuse not to take it. The man was very professional in explaing the procedure, which made FWH more scared. WE both agreed on what the questions FWH was being asked so he would`nt be confused. When a question was asked another question was asked such as.........are you in Canada..that was compared to the orginal question FWH was asked ..it went on like that till the test was completed. The first question was.In 31 years of marriage have you been faithful to your wife. Then I figured out other questions to follow. No names are involved. Such as, Did you have sex with the woman that wore the feather earrings? ect. The link in the previous post is for the little machine that is a toy DO NOT even bother reading it. The true polygraph test is nothing like it!!! And yes the polygraph test is used in court. But not like you may think. If you feel you may need to do this by all means I will tell you if you have a FWH like I do you will never get the truth without one. Best of luck to you. If you care to talk to me about it more you may email me at apteeva@yahoo.com

Pep, I see what you are saying. Basically the same as Star is saying. Decide what I want to happen before deciding to take the test.

I have not asked him about this possible OW in many years I have only been thinking about it myself recently. I have not tried asking since D-Day about the relationship way back then. Right now I'm just assuming he would lie about it because he does not want to hurt me again. Maybe it's worth asking him about it and see if he would say anything different.

Aptiva, like the one you had your husband take this is a true polygraph test not some little machine purchased over the internet. It's pretty expensive to take the test but money well spent. I know that they are not admissable in court.

But I will try talking to him again. Maybe now that we have both read HSHN and SAA he will be more open to telling the truth, if there is anything to tell...

[color:"red"]EGG ZAK LEE [/color]

How about getting a marriage counselor to act as a buffer
so your H will feel he can tell you any TRUTH that you ask for without at the same time giving you a fatal blow to your love for him?

Pep

Yes, it is the real polygraph not the little machine they sell on the internet. I paid $500 for it and was worth every penny. Do research on the real polygraph. The man I hired has 28 years experience in Detroit. You may stay in another room and hear what is going on when the test is taken. I did tell FWH that I was tired too of all the questions and would like him to take a polygraph to end this mess, I dont really think he thought I would hire someone. I dropped it for a few weeks then told him he was being tested at home by my choice. It can also be done in a lawyers office, ect.

Pep, another good suggesstion. We had a counselor for a bit way before D-day but then stopped going. If my husband feels like he won't be delivering the final blow then he may tell me.

When he was telling me about the recent affair, before he told me, he kept asking me if I tell you tell me you won't leave me. I told him that I wasn't leaving him. I NEVER expected to hear what he told me but I listened. He credits MB with saving this marriage because I reacted calmly and listened to him. I had read enough on MB to know that he needed to feel safe to tell the truth. I had done enough reading but we never followed thru on any of the exercises. If we had then maybe the affair would have never happened. But my reaction to what he had done helped us immensensly during recovery.

RECOVERY is hard ... I still think you will make it

hang in there

Pep

Oh my goodness, of course you can’t use an $39.99 Internet machine to determine TRUTH! I can’t believe someone actually thought that it was a link for one. Quite the contrary. Making life-altering decisions based on something so controversial and unsubstantiated as lie detection tests (no matter what they cost) bothers me, sorry.

Here is yet another example of the issues with the concept (it’s a really long article but this part is thought provoking) from this site:

http://www.home.earthlink.net/~lastone2/forensicarticle6.htm

Dr. LeRoy A. Stone, Ph.D., (Forensic Diplomat) ABPP

As a psychologist professional for the past approximately 50 years, allow me to again get back to my own exposure to the practice of polygraphing for the purpose of detection of lying and deception. As mentioned earlier in this paper, my first, as an undergraduate student psychologist, I and a fellow student (i.e., S. T. Baker) conducted research that involved use of a Berkeley polygraph to measure anxiety changes as a function of exposure to English taboo words. We found reliable emotional changes to what appeared to be identifiable collections of such word stimuli.

For example, we found one subject to seemingly reliably show some emotional changes when presented with and asked to orally repeat words that we identified as having some association with dermal (i.e., skin) matters. He showed increased anxiety when involved with words such as itch, rash, scab, and scratch, etc.. Another subject was observed to show increased anxiety when involved with words that described seldom exposed body parts, such as breast, belly button, butt, and genitals. Other subjects appeared to show increased anxiety when exposed to other word category collections. Nothing in this long-ago conducted experiment was involving lying or deception, as far as well could tell and were aware of. This research did though suggest that persons can and do react emotionally when exposed and involved with individual words and concepts . The act of lying and of attempting to deceive may have absolutely no connection, whatsoever with emotional changes that are detectable using the polygraph technique. Major causation may simply be emotional reaction to certain words and concepts.

William Safire had some interesting things to say in an New York Times article entitled
Lying “Lie detectors". You can access it here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/10/opinio...8e3&ei=5070

There’s a lot more out there on this topic, it is a hotly debated one. Whatever you do, you do want to make an informed decision about what it means to put all your eggs in a basket such as this….it’s not as cut and dry as one might think. Good luck!