married 17 yrs., found out husb. has been having affair past 10 yrs. -other woman in other state, WH describes it as "same time next year" and minimizes it substantially. I'm pretty sure it's over, but who knows, he won't talk about it at all - thinks I'm "ruminating" and "obsessing".

When I talk about anything related to the A or my emotions, he blows up. I believe he is remorseful, guilt-ridden and can't get past any of that. 3 months now and I still know nothing, just bits and pieces. Have no one to talk to, am in deep pain and grief.

How/where does one get the strength to carry on? I mean that in the figurative sense - although my depression does get pretty deep at times. I have three beautiful children that keep me well grounded, if it weren't for them I'd walk away in a heartbeat.

What makes you think the affair is over? It was ten years long, is that correct?

How did you find out about the affair, and how did it end, as far as you believe it to be ended anyway?

If you are not sure the affair has ended I don't see how you can move on emotionally. If your H won't give you what you need to heal, I don't see how you can move on emotionally.

Is there anyway to get him to read the books sold here? Or to get counseling together with you and on of the counselors from this site?

There are posters here whose S's had very long term affairs like your H did and I know that it takes a very, very long time to recover from that emotionally.

Don't beat yourself up because you are in deep pain and grief. It is probably to soon to be anything but right now.

RG, it's not clear what you and WH have been doing over the last three months. If he's just being verbally abusive (also known as "gaslighting") and hasn't taken any steps at all to come back to the marriage, it's very suspicious to me. Frankly, like Weaver, I'm not at all sure the adultery is over.

Can you read up on Plan A on this website and tell us how closely your actions have paralleled that plan? Go ahead and give us details when you wonder if they’re necessary or not. You have complete anonymity out here, so use it. Could be something you don’t think important might spark an idea in someone’s mind.

While you read up on Plan A here on MB, please get a copy of Surviving An Affair by Dr. Willard Harley and study it well. It’s the textbook on which all advice out here is based.

Hang in there, okay? Things seem dark and perhaps hopeless right now, but many others out here have gone through what you're experiencing now and come out sane and whole on the other side. You will too, hear?

Rexgordo,

Sorry you need to be here. But this is a good place (usually) to have close at hand when you need it.

I second the advice to get Surviving An Affair (SAA) and His Need Her Needs (HNHN) by Dr Harley. They are excellent sources of advice and concrete plans during early months after D-Day and during the long period of recovery. I also recommend Private Lies (Pitman), Not Just Friends (Glass) and Torn Asunder (Carder). You need to become an expert on adultery if you are to heal.

I also strongly recommend you call the MB counseling center (there is a link in the banner at the top of every page). Marriages that suffer affairs this long require special handling.

There are things about Long Term Affairs (LTA) that are not found in most resources, though. In fact, I think of a ten-year affair as Very Long Term Affair (VLTA). My FWW had a ten-year VLTA and I assure you, three years after the final D-Day we are still dealing with the aftermath.

LTAs are very, very difficult for the adulterers to end, let alone for both WS and BS to recover from even if they do end.

LTAs are a type of business as usual for the adulterers. They have been living a double life for so long they have become their choices. They rarely feel guilty. Remorse is weak. Denial of their affair’s effects on others is almost total.

They have lived this way for so long they have become who they really are. Change will be very difficult. It will take extraordinary efforts from both of you. And it will take you about as long as his affair lasted.

It is not guilt that drives your H’s actions towards you, it is the uprooting and at-sea feelings he is experiencing now that his life is changing. He is in denial about everything to do with his VLTA.

You can read about some of these effects in the following thread: Recovery from Long term affairs

One thing to remember is the adulterers in an LTA are usually way past the passionate in-love feelings that drive so many short term affairs. They have fought, made up, adjusted lifestyles, come to a basic understanding, and generally carry on indefinitely at a low level of intensity.

It is not surprising they mostly met while on business trips only a few times a year. But you can also be sure they communicated in one form or another almost as much as you and he did. They are like an old married couple in many ways.

Do not berate yourself for not knowing anything. Adulterers in an LTA are consummate liars and fabricators. They are experts at compartmentalizing and covering their tracks. They are merely actors in their own lives. They are so good at this they made it last ten years.

Beware of renewed contact though; I went through multiple false recoveries, one lasting another five years after D-Day 1. FWW lied convincingly to everyone: priest, friends, family, marriage councilors (MC) and individual councilors (IC), all while still in the VLTA. Everyone thought I was the crazy one for suspecting something was still going on. Damn, I told you they were good at this.

One of the best ways to move on emotionally is to take charge of your life now. No more stay at home housekeeper. Decide what you want and make it happen. This is sometimes called the personal recovery part of Plan A. It fits in perfectly with making yourself a more appealing spouse part of Plan A. But with an LTA it didn’t matter how good a spouse you were. Emotional Need meeting is not going to be the reason he did it for so long.

I will end this by repeating: Call the MB counseling center. You will be helped, both in marriage recovery if you want it, and in the personal growth you need to recover from this terrible form of spouse abuse.

With prayers,

ed: I forgot to recommend you EXPOSE! VLTAs are surprisingly sensitive to weapons of mass exposure. If you do not expose to everyone, especially to OW's friends, family and work I am certain they will stay in contact. The affair will not die. A lack of exposure allowed FWW to continue her VLTA after all the previous D-Days. Radical exposure after the last D-Day, with promises of very creative and certain further mass exposure, is what finally drove the adulterers apart in my case. And exposure is what keeps them apart.

Wow, so much good info. Trying to respond is overwhelming to me. I'll try to take things a little at a time.

D-day: WH was hospitalized for a ruptured appendix 12/29 and was in the hospital for 2 wks, then home recuperating for another 3. I used his cell phone/checked his voice mail to contact his boss - and there were several vm messages from OW, loving, concerned - he had called her (2,000 mile away) before contacting me. During the 2 weeks in the hospital, I went through everything, cell phone, e-mails(home & work), closet, desk, car and found out plenty. I confronted him in the hosp. - he said "they were just friends", I told him I knew he was lying and that I would assume he would continue to lie until the truth is totally revealed. After he was home he admitted to the SA.

Also, as a result of going through everything - discovered he has a huge internet porn addiction, shopaholic - moved his computer into our bedroom, took all his credit cards (all while he was in the hospital)- but of course he can always get more.

It's like I have no idea who this person is - the whole hidden life. I found MB website by accident - searching for help on the internet, bought the HNHN book, haven't got the Surviv. one yet.

I am fairly certain that there is no e-mail contact
Over the years, a particular cell phone number would crop up on our bill - several times a months. I was suspicious, asked a few times, but never pursued, maybe I didn't want to know. We changed his cell phone #, I have access to his e-mails that I know of, but of course he could be contacting her from anywhere.

My biggest questions and concern is the EXPOSURE - my eldest son knows - he was visiting at the time, he's 25 ( I told him right before he left to go home 1,000 miles away), our two teenage daughters would be absolutely devastated - they are both struggling with significant issues of their own (one just tore her knee in soccer and is dealing with re-defining who she is, the other is struggling with personal self-doubt) - I just don't know what they need to know, how to tell them, is the exposure to help our marriage worth the trauma for the teens. I have 10 brothers and sisters, very close knit family, I'm the only one who's been divorced in the past, this is like opening up old wounds. To top it all off, WH is a mental health professional, to expose would ruin his career. His family is worthless and would probably think it's a great idea!

Has he ended the affair?

rex,

Mel asks the $64,000 question.

But, I caution you - there is almost no way of ascertaining for sure when a low-intensity VLTA is truly over. Reread my post where I describe how well VLTAs are hidden and how they refuse to die. You simply will not know.

We used an MB trained marriage coach during the year after D-Day 2 and she said in the case of LTAs exposure should be done even if the affair is currently on hold, ended, or otherwise in stasis of any kind. LTAs go through such periods of dormancy many times, sometimes lasting for a year or more. Exposure is almost always warranted in an LTA no matter what.

LTAs are like vampires, they are the undead. They must have a stake driven through their heart. The stake of radical exposure.

As to your children, you have the same misgivings I had. My DS was told the truth. And I had him see a Child Psychologist who helped him a lot. This will be your call, but I do wish you would speak to the Harleys about it. They can advise you specifically and according to your situation.


LTA adulterers need to divorce publicly. That's right, I wrote divorce. They have been at this for so long the only way to make the ending of it stick is to force them to have the equivalent of a public divorce.

Otherwise, I fear you will discover in another five years, as I did, that it never really ended. It just went even further underground. A deeper crypt. But still creeping around in the dark, alive. Still slowly and secretly sucking the life out of your marriage.

With prayers,

Has he ended the affair? He says so, but how would I really know? He only uses his cell phone to call home - I have no idea who he calls at work, or even when/where he's at work.

Who does the exposure - I have the ability to contact the OW's family and circle of friends - do I tell my husb. I am doing this or just go ahead?

Just go ahead. He will find out soon enough.

After the backlash of the exposure, your H needs to send a no contact letter to the OW that you have read and approved of, and the OWH gets CC'd on it. In fact, you need to be the one to send it.

I think NC letters are very important, for you, as well as for having the effect a fence has around a yard. They can be broken but have the psychological affect on intruders of a barrier.

For me this would be a condition of reconciliation with my WS, only one of the conditions, but an important one just the same.

I'm so sorry for what you are faced with, but it's out in the open now so you can take control of your life again and not have to question your own sanity.

The emotions lessen over time. It took me about 4 months to really do this without much emotion. I was even on Effexor.

hugs to you...

thanks to all -
I talked with my sister today, my first exposure - what a relief!! someone who knows me and my H, she was his "best chick" at our wedding. She was as shocked as I was, but was very supportive and asked the same questions I 've been asking. I am seeing a therpist tomorrow, I haven't eaten or slept well in quite some time, I haven't been able to talk to anyone...H thinks we should just be ble t work on this ourselves, but when I try to tell him how I'm feeling, he gets defensive and 'blows up' - one time he punched a hole in the wall - he has never raised his voice to me in our entire rleationship ( 20 yrs. all tolled), his angry outbursts are scaring me [censored]. then he acts as if they never happened and/or I am somehow to blame for them. It makes it very hard to want to sta

Sorry you have to be here, but given the circumstances your in the right place and in the right hands! Oh yea exposure pisses them off!

Jim