Are you stating any of this to your wife? Does she understand that SF means so much to you, one of your top EN's? I may sound harsh, but it sounds like a bunch of smoke to keep her from having to deal with what she has done and MOVE ON/FORWARD. I'm only saying this because I went through a false recovery that lasted for about 10 months, and sex was veritably non-existent. Unless you have sexually assaulted her in the past or she was raped, I don't understand her not being able to GIVE to you.

I struggle with a similar sitch with my FWH right now, except we are only 3 months in. She is making excuses, by saying that she feels ashamed--first excuse, and then backing that up by saying that your anger ALSO keeps her from doing it. It's a lose lose sitch.

Are you absolutely positive that there isn't a new EA or the beginnings of one?

I'm so sorry for your frustrations in all of this. Recovery truly is one heck of a rocky road!

Dear Fourth,

Can I jump in even though I am a BW? I am going to share some personal 'stuff so be forewarned!

About 1 year before the last A started, my FWH had "problems" in the performance area. I did everything, including begging, for him to find out what the issue was, after all those commercials are on and it sounds like you just take a magic pill, right? I tried having low expectation, then none, then I was resentful and it grow. Makes for a romantic experience, right? Well for my part I never was totally honest with him about my needs in this area. It wasn't until after d-day #1 that I looked at myself and said how did I contribute to this situation? Since the A was still on, WH just used this info to throw back at me. At that pt. of the A, FWH didn't initate anything, nor did he touch me affectionately. That was really hard as I am not frozen!

After d-day 1 throw myself at him even more, pathetic right? After d-day #2 we had the brief "hysterical bonding" period and then it was extremely difficult for both of us. My FWH had thrown at me previously "didn't I notice that he never initiated SF, didn't I get where he was coming from?" That is a big ouch, one that took a lot of time to heal. I still have a hard time initiating, it sometimes, less over time, is a painful memory. I now try to make new ones. I had to force myself to be affectionate with him after d-day #2, that wasn't natural to me as I have known him so long, I was so used to touching him affectionately. I guess you would say I withheld it due to my hurt feelings.

Anyways, we still have our ups and downs in this department, I think we both have to push ourselves at times. The memories don't go away overnight, and at times I wondered if he had fixed part of his problem by visualizing either OW or anyone other than myself. I choose now, mostly, not to see it that way, I am trying to move forward.

In your sitch the 10 months w/o it has some important meaning, what I can't speculate. I would try to put down some kinda boundary that you are willing to help her work through issues around this but she has to be willing to share with you what those issues are. And I would also say to her that you don't want a roommate, you want a wife.

Really, it is what you deserve to have...all the best,

nab

I've told her many, many times. Even our couples therapist has mentioned the importance of this. She agrees with the therapist, but then tells me at home that she's not ready or some other reason.

I really doubt that she could be having another affair. We both work at home and we keep in constant phone contact when apart.

Fourth_Street - This a REAL issue for someone who is truly repentant. Do you want some things to help your wife with this issue?





Believe me when I say that I understand your very real need for sex as an indication of love. But let me also say that I think you have a poor understanding how men and women SHOW their love to each other. You are thinking and feeling like a MAN, but not as a woman and, therefore, you don't understand that she CAN love you intensely even without the physical act of love.

That difference can be discussed, and you do need to understand it, but right now the more pressing issue is your wife's inability to forgive herself. That is what we should be spending time on right now, because if you solve that problem, the other problem will disappear before you know it.

God bless.

If you have advice, please share it.

I think you wife most likely is dealing with guilt...but I think that is most likely an excuse on her part right now. What is most likely happening is she either is involved in another or the same affair...or she has MANY unresolved feelings for the OM and probably doesn't want to cheat (gag) on him.

From Penalty Kill

4th street, you say:


Cue Dr. Phil: How's that frustration and anger working for you? Is it getting you what you want? How exactly do you express your frustration and anger?

You're getting plenty of reinforcement here for your anger. You probably have a good bit of anger about the affair itself, let alone the fact that you're not getting any at the moment. I know that my H certainly had anger. (As for our SF, all I will say is that it has never been an issue for us; to the contrary, there are times when we think that it is the best thing about our relationship)

I'm looking at your situation thinking, ok, here's a woman who's depressed, guilty, crying twice a day, and she's got her husband and her therapist on her back telling her that she needs to have sex. She's probably desperate to restore some kind of control and order to her life which has become unhinged....and you know the only way that she can do that?

Yep. By *not* having sex. It's kind of like an anorexia, if you know anything about that. Anorexics are besieged by their families with pleas to eat, and it only makes them focus more on food - to an unhealthy degree. They feel out of control and look to exert control - by limiting their food intake.

Why not consider putting the sex aside for the moment? Seriously, table the issue for now. Discuss something else at therapy. You're not the only BS who has this issue. A quick tour of the recovery board and GQ will show you that. Getting reinforcement from posters about what you "deserve" isn't going to help you. Posters telling you what they would put up with in their own lives isn't going to help you in your marriage. You aren't them, they aren't you.

You do have control of one thing - your actions, and your reactions to your wife. Meet her needs. Do you have any needs besides SF that your wife can meet?

I think that Forever Hers has a good point when it comes to your wife needing to forgive herself. As a FWW, I can tell you that the guilt upon discovery of an affair is overwhelming. The guilt is certainly far more than just an "excuse" for anything, and I certainly didn't have any "unresolved feelings" for OM. I had plenty of unresolved feelings about MYSELF that hampered my ability to function.

I will close by reminding you that you can't make your wife have sex with you, but you can do plenty of things that will help bring you closer together. So, what are you doing? How much time do you spend together recreationally?

Yours in marriage-building,

PK

Fourth_Street - Before proceeding a bit of "housekeeping" seems to be needed.

First, I don't know if you and your wife are Christians (I am), so I am very limited on the help that I can offer that is based on God's Word to believers. It would be helpful if you'd let me know this point so I will know to include or exclude biblically based counsel.

Second, unless you have a real belief, or even a "gut feel," that your wife is still in an affair or has started a new one (unlikely in my opinion from what you have shared so far), then I would strongly suggest you ignore MEDC's latest post wherein he sees an "active affair behind every difficulty one meets in recovery." There is nothing in what you have posted so far, other than his pure unfounded speculation, to indicate your wife is still in an affair and that is what is causing her "problem" with SF. IF you DO think she is still in an affair, then that must be dealt with first. But, as you have shared, the problem is a "recovery problem" wherein she is sincerely "guilt ridden" over her actions, then let's proceed to see if we can get her some help that will ultimately help both you and her.

Here is something that I posted a very long time ago, but it seems to be very relevant to your situation. It is part of a thread I posted some years ago on the subject of forgiveness and trust as part of the recovery process. If you'd care to read the whole thread, let me know and I'll post the link to it.

In the meantime, why don't you consider printing out the following (a little lengthy, but well worth the two of you reading) and see if your wife will read it. If she will, then the two of you can discuss it and talk about what she is feeling.

God bless.




Do you dare release the person you are today from the shadow of the wrong you did yesterday?

Do you dare forgive yourself?

To forgive yourself takes high courage. Who are you, after all, to shake yourself free from the undeniable sins of your private history – as if what you once did has no bearing on who you are now?

Where do you get the right – let alone the cheek – to forgive yourself when other people would want you to crawl in shame if they really knew? How dare you?

The answer is that you get the right to forgive yourself only from the entitlements of love. And you dare forgive yourself only with the courage of love. Love is the ultimate source of both your right and your courage to ignore the indictment you level at yourself. When you live as if yesterday’s wrong is irrelevant to how you feel about yourself today, you are gambling on a love that frees you even from self-condemnation.

But there must be truthfulness. Without honesty, self-forgiveness is psychological hocus-pocus. The rule is: we cannot really forgive ourselves unless we look at the failure in our past and call it by its right name.

We need honest judgment to keep us from self-indulging complacency.

Let me recall the four stages we pass through when we forgive someone else who hurt us: we hurt, we hate, we heal ourselves, and we come together again.

We all hurt ourselves . Unfairly, too, and sometimes deeply.

God knows the regrets we have for the foolish ways we cheat ourselves. I smoked cigarettes too long, and while I puffed away on my pack-a-day, I feared the time that I would say: you fool, you fool, dying before your time, and you have no one to blame but yourself. Then there are the opportunities spurned, disciplines rejected, and addictions hooked into – they all can haunt you with a guilty sense that you did yourself wrong.

But the hurt your heart cries hardest to forgive yourself for is the unfair harm you did to others.

The memory of a moment when you lied to someone who trusted you! The recollection of neglecting a child who depended on you. The time you turned away from somebody who called out to you for help! These are the memories, and thousands like them, that pierce us with honest judgment against ourselves.

We do not have to be bad persons to do bad things. If only bad people did bad things to other people we would live in a pretty good world. We hurt people by our bungling as much as we do by our vices.

And the more decent we are the more acutely we feel our pain for the unfair hurts we caused. Our pain becomes our hate. The pain we cause other people becomes the hate we feel for ourselves. For having done them wrong . We judge, we convict, and we sentence ourselves. Mostly in secret.

Some of us feel only a passive hatred for ourselves. We merely lack love’s energy to bless ourselves. We cannot look in the looking glass and say: “What I see makes me glad to be alive.” Our joy in being ourselves is choked by a passive hatred.

Others sink into aggressive hatred of themselves. They cut themselves to pieces with a fury of contempt. One part of them holds its nose and shoves the other part down a black hole of contempt. They are their own enemy. And sometimes, in the ultimate tragedy, their self-hatred is acted out in self-destruction.

Of course, your inner judge may be an unreasonable nag, accusing you falsely, and flailing you unfairly. On the other hand, your better self often sweeps real guilt under a carpet of complacency. You con yourself just to save yourself the pain of confrontation with your shadowy side.

In any case, you shouldn’t trust your inner judge too far.
Still, he is your toughest critic, and you have to come to terms with him.
So let us move on to love’s daring response.
What happens when you finally do forgive yourself?
When you forgive yourself, you rewrite your script. What you are in your present scene is not tied down to what you did in an earlier scene. The bad guy you played in Act One is eliminated and you play Act Two as a good guy.

You release yourself today from yesterday’s scenario. You walk into tomorrow, guilt gone.

Again, the word that fits the case best is “irrelevance.” Look back into your past, admit the ugly facts, and declare that they are irrelevant to your present. Irrelevant and immaterial! Your very own past has no bearing on your case. Or how you feel about it.

Such release does not come easy. The part of yourself who did the wrong walks with you wherever you go. A corner of your memory winks at you and says, “Nice try old chap, but we both know the scoundrel you really are, don’t we?” It takes a miracle of love to get rid of the unforgiving inquisitor lurking in the shadows of your heart.

Perhaps nobody has understood the tortured route to self-forgiveness better than the Russian genius Dostoevski. In his novel Crime and Punishment, he portrayed the inner struggle of self-forgiveness in the soul of a murderer named Ilyon Raskolnikov.

Raskolnikov did something as evil as anyone can do. He brutally murdered a helpless woman, and old pawnbroker – a miserable woman to be sure, and miserly, and mean, but innocent still. His guilt was stupefying.

No soul can bear such guilt alone, not for long. Sooner or later one must tell. Raskolnikov found a girl, an angel, Sonia, and he confessed to her. He told her everything.

She persuaded him to admit everything to the police, and he finally did. He was sent to prison in Siberia.

The loving Sonia followed him there and waited for him to forgive himself so that he could find the freedom to accept her love.

Raskolnikov could not forgive himself. He tried to excuse himself instead.

He came to grief, he said, “through some decree of blind fate”; he was destined to kill the old woman. Besides, when you come right down to it was his act really that bad? Did not Napoleon do the same sort of thing and do they not build him monuments? In clever ways like this he excused himself by finding deep reasons why he was not to blame.

Raskolnikov did not dare to be guilty.

“Oh, how happy he would have been,” wrote Dostoevski, “if he could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace.”

Yet, now and then, Raskolnikov did get a glimpse of “the fundamental falsity in himself.” He knew deep inside that he was lying to himself.

And finally it happened. How it happened he did not know. He flung himself at Sonia’s feet and accepted her love. “He wept and threw his arms around her knees.” He finally had the power to love. And his power to love revealed that the miracle had really happened; he had forgiven himself.

He forgave himself? For such a crime as cold blooded murder? Yes. “Everything, even his crime, his sentence and imprisonment seemed to him now . . . and external strange fact with which he had no concern. ”

Release! Release by a discovery that his terrible past was irrelevant to who he was now and was going to be in the future. He was free from his own judgment and this was why he was free to love.

Raskolnikov stands out in staggering boldness to show us that even the worst of us can find the power to set ourselves free.

Finally, the climax of self-forgiving; it comes when we feel at one with ourselves again. The split is healed. The self inside of you, who condemned you so fiercely, embraces you now. You are whole, single; you have come together.

You are not being smug. You care very much that you once did a wrong. And you do not want to do it again. But you will not let your former wrong curse the person you are now. You take life in stride. You have let yourself come home.

It does not happen once and for all. The hate you felt comes back now and then, and you reject yourself for doing what you did. But then you come back to yourself again. And again. And again.

To forgive your own self – almost the ultimate miracle of healing!

But how can you pull it off?

The first thing you need is honesty. There is no way to forgive yourself without it. Candor – a mind ready to forego fakery and to face facts – this is the first piece of spiritual equipment you need.

Without candor you can only be complacent. And complacency is a counterfeit of forgiveness. Some people are superficial, there is no other word for it. Drawing on the top layer of their shallow wits, they pursue the unexamined life with unquestioning contentment, more like grazing cows than honest human beings.

The difference between a complacent person and a person who forgives himself is like the difference between a person who is high on cocaine and a person who has reason for being really happy.

Then you need a clear head to make way for your forgiving heart.

For instance, you need to see the difference between self-esteem and self-forgiveness.
You can gain esteem for yourself when you discover that you are estimable, that you are in fact worth esteeming. To esteem yourself is to feel in your deepest being that you are a superb gift very much worth wanting, God’s own art form, and a creature of magnificent beauty.

Sometimes you gain self-esteem only after you come to terms with the bad hand you were dealt in life’s game.

I know a man who has what is cruelly called the Elephant man syndrome; a tough hand to play, but the only hand he has. He has learned to see the beautiful person he is beneath his t horny skin, and he esteems himself – because of what he is. Kim, on the other hand, is a beautiful adopted child whose birth-mother dealt her a genetic disease. Kim has chosen to accept herself as an incredibly splendid gift of God because of what she is, and in spite of the tough hand she was dealt.

Blessed are the self-esteemers, for they have seen the beauty of their own souls.

But self-esteem is not the same as self-forgiveness. You esteem yourself when you discover your own excellence. You forgive yourself after you discover your own faults. You esteem yourself for the good person you are. You forgive yourself for the bad things you did.

If you did not see the difference, you may shout a thousand bravos at yourself and never come to the moment of self-forgiving. So you need a clear head about what it is you are doing.

You also need courage. Forgiving yourself is love’s ultimate daring.

The reason it takes high courage to forgive yourself lies partly with other people’s attitudes toward self-forgivers. Self-righteous people do not want you to forgive yourself. They want you to walk forever under the black umbrella of permanent shame.

I understand these people; I am one of them. There is something inside of me that wants a wrongdoer, especially a famous wrongdoer, to keep a low profile, to take the last place in line, to speak with a meek voice; I want him to grovel a little. Maybe a lot.

So, when you walk and talk like a person who has sliced your sinful past from your present sense of selfhood, you will need courage to face the self-righteous crowd.

Then you need to be concrete.

You drown in the bilge of your own condemnation for lack of specificity. You will almost always fail at self-forgiving when you refuse to be concrete about what you are forgiving yourself for.

Many of us try, for instance, to forgive ourselves for being the sorts of persons we are. We are ugly, or mean, or petty, or given to spouting off; or, on the other hand, we are too good, a patsy, everybody’s compliant sucker, humble servant to all who want to get something out of us.

But people who try to forgive themselves for being wholesale failures are not humble at all; they are really so proud that they want to be gods. John Quincy Adams, not the greatest, but a very good President, could not forgive himself. “I have done nothing,” he wrote in his diary. “My life has been spent in vain and idle aspirations, and in ceaseless rejected prayers that something should be the result of my existence beneficial to my own species.” The last words spoken by the great jurist Hugo Grotius, the father of modern international law, on his deathbed, were: “I have accomplished nothing worthwhile in my life.” Such people sound humble with their moans about being failures in life; but they are really crying because they had to settle for being merely human.

You must call your own bluff: precisely, what is it that you need forgiveness for? For being unfaithful to your spouse last year? Good, you can work on that. For being an evil sort of person? No, that is too much; you cannot swallow yourself whole.

Most of us can manage no more than one thing at a time. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,” said Jesus. When we overload ourselves with dilated bags of undifferentiated guilt we are likely to sink into despair. The only way we can succeed as self-forgivers, free from the tyranny of a tender conscience, is to be concrete and to forgive ourselves for one thing at a time.

Finally, you need to confirm your outrageous act of self-forgiveness with a reckless act of love. How can you know for sure that you gambled with guilt and won unless you gamble your winnings on love?

“She loves much because she has been forgiven much” –this was Jesus’ explanation for a woman who dared to barge into a dinner party uninvited, plunk herself at Jesus’ feet, and pour out a small cascade of love.

Love is a signal that you have done it, that you have actually released the guilt that condemned you. You won’t always know exactly when you have forgiven yourself. It is like reaching the top of a long hill on a highway – you may not be sure when you have reached level ground, but you can tell that you have passed the top when you step on the gas the care spurts ahead. An act of love is like quick acceleration. A free act of love, to anyone at all, may signal to you that you do, after all, have the power that comes to anyone who is self-forgiving.

You can buy her a gift! Invite him to dinner! Visit someone who is sick! You can put your arms around a friend you never touched before! Write a letter of thanks. Or tell Dad that you love him. All ways of confirming that we performed the miracle of forgiving ourselves.

Yes, love gives you the right to forgive yourself. And it gives you the power as well. At least to begin. Healing may come slowly, but better a snail’s pace than standing still, feet sunk in the cement of self-accusations.

To forgive yourself is to act out the mystery of one person who is both forgiver and forgiven. You judge yourself: this is the division within you. You forgive yourself: this is the healing of the split.

That you should dare to heal yourself by this simple act is a signal to the world that God’s love is a power within you.



(Forgiving Ourselves, Ch.8, Lewis B. Smedes, Forgive & Forget, Healing The Hurts We Don’t Deserve, p.71-77)

Hi- Just want to put in my .02.

I did divorce but when we were married my wife use to cut off sex to me alot in my marriage. Now when I discovered her affair the worst part for me of course was the sex she had with OM. She did things with him that she would not do with me.

One thing I learned in all of this is that you need to decide what you want. If you want to remain married at all costs then you are just going to have to accept it and be the best husband you can be. Don't get mad the anger will not help you or her.

What you are going through is a deal breaker for me. I certainly don't want to force my wife to have sex with me. If she does not want to have sex with me then I feel I owe it to her to let her be free so she can have sex with other men since she had no problem doing it with the OM. I just feel that there are a lot of women that don't want to have sex with me I just don't want to be married to one.

I don't think you should stay married at all costs but on the other hand I am not you. Don't let me or anyone else that has a different point of view make that decision for you.In marriage your spouse should meet your needs and you should meet her needs. But if you are looking for something someone will post to you that will change her mind...It ain't going to happen.

I wish I could give you great advice but the fact is it is all up to you. If she can be in a marriage and not have sex with you she is OK with that well what are you going to do. I do know that when my ex-wife knew she was losing me she would have done anything for me. If I would have stayed married and bent over backwards to stay married no matter what she would have still treated me like crap. In the end she can only do to you what you will allow her.

If you are too afraid to expect her to act like a wife then she may not come around. I think you have two types of posters on here. There are many that think you should take as much abuse as you can stand then go to plan B and there are those like myself that will say if they don't repent right away and act like a good spouse they are not worth having. I won't appologize for my view just as I don't want to condem others who have a different view.

Please get professional help and no matter what I hope it works out for the best. I wish this kind of pain on no one.

IHadEnough - you are free to post your 2 cents worth of thoughts to anyone you'd like. However, I wonder what your motivation is to post here, and to this Member, when you categorically do not believe in recovering marriage but believe in proceding straight to divorce.


Fourth_Street - IHadEnough is another poster who DOES NOT believe in forgiveness and saving marriages. Here he is advocating for you to "dump your wife" because "all is not rosy and your wife is not crawling on her belly for you." Here is IHadEnough's opinion regarding recovering a marriage when one spouse has committed infidelity (from a previous post he made to someone else offering his own "marital recovery advice."



Fourth_Street - as IHadEnough said, that IS his right. ALL Betrayed Spouses have the RIGHT to a divorce if that is what they want. But "IHadEnough" never really had tried "enough," or even "tried at all," in my humble opinion, because as he clearly stated his "position" regarding ANY marital recover is simply this: "I for one will dump any woman that cheats."

There is NO room for marital recovery, nor does there seem to be any reason for him to be on Marriage Builders, let alone posting to others who ARE seeking help in their marriage recovery efforts.

Neither MEDC nor IHadEnough recovered their marriages, and they both are "advising" you to get a divorce. So let me make myself perfectly clear here, you CAN get a divorce and you have a RIGHT to a divorce if that is what you want. On the other hand, if you want to recover your marriage, then that too is a CHOICE that you have the RIGHT to make and people on MB who HAVE recovered or who are in their own recovery efforts that are moving toward a recovered marriage will try to help you recover yours also.

When IHadEnough hides behind trite phrases like "recover your marriage 'at all costs'" he is not only being disingenuous (since he has already made it clear there is NO cost, let alone "all costs" where HE would attempt to stay married to someone who cheated), he is attempting to mislead you into thinking that those of us who DO think that marriages can be saved, rebuilt, and emerge from recovery better, stronger, and more loving will not also advise someone to get a divorce. That is DEAD WRONG, and he should know it. I have occasionally told people that they should divorce. Why? Because recovery IS NOT "at all costs." It DOES take two people trying to recover in order to recover a marriage. But you also don't get "instant healing" following ANY major trauma; physical, psychological, and/or emotional. It takes time, patience, endurance, and commitment to navigate through the ups and downs of recovery, to deal with the underlying issues, and to make changes in BOTH spouses that may be needed. IHadEnough is NOT one who is going to look inside and make any changes in himself, even if they may be needed. IHadEnough is a product of an a abusive childhood, a mother who divorced her husband and an alcoholic father. He is in total "protect self" mode, and he projects that personal feeling onto others.

Here is the "bottom line point," Fourth_Street. You have to CHOOSE recovery or divorce. There is no "magic bullet" that will "guarantee" you a successful recovery. But you have a right to CHOOSE to ATTEMPT recovery if that is what you want AND if it is, then you also need to be ready to commit to perseverence and patience and commitment to the time needed to work through the issues (like her present reluctance for sex).

Is it "fair?" No, recovery is not about "fairness," it's about being married, it's about love, it's about forgiveness, it's about changes, it's about a Betrayed Spouse's willingness to forgive and rebuild, it's about a Wayward Spouse's willingness to try to recover what seemed to have already been lost in his/her mind, it's about how important someone's marriage Vows are to themself despite what difficulties have arisen in their marriage. It is about choosing what YOU want for YOUR marriage even while you are feeling all the pain that betrayal brings upon you.

God bless.

Hello

I came to this thread trying to find out information and answer the question.

I am so disappointed to see all the sniping and religious fanaticism on this thread.

Anyway, I would like to tell you my story.

My H and I were always compatible in the bedroom and we both had a high sex drive. Most times we would make love at least once a day.

Two years ago H started spending large amounts of time working overseas. At first when he came home after a long trip we would be in bed within five minutes of him walking through the door.

I have just found out that he has been having an A for the last twelve months with an OW whilst he has been overseas.

For the last nine months or so when he has come home he has been in no rush to get me into bed. In fact in the last time he was home (for three weeks) we only had sex twice.

I think it was this that alerted me to the fact that he was having an A. When I asked him what was wrong he put it down to the pressures of work. I think nabohio have much in common here.

The last time he was home I found out about the A and confronted him. He admitted it and said it he would tell the other woman it was over. The day we had that conversation it was like a switch had flicked in my WH head – or maybe it was hysterical bonding.

I felt like we were back to how we used to be. I felt like we were so close. I admit that I found it extremely hard not to visualise him in bed with her, doing thing to her that he was doing to me. I just tries to put it out of my head. In truth it breaks my heart to think of him doing those things with her but what else can I do but put it out of my head.

He is going back overseas and he has told me he is going to do NC and we are in Plan A at the moment.

I feel like he has come back to me.

I don’t know if this is of any help to anybody. I hope so.

Kimleigh2

Yes, we do spend a lot of time together doing fun things.

I agree she does have guilt, but it's been so late in arriving. She, like so many other wayward spouses, acted like jerk during what was supposed to be recovery. She made things much more difficult than they needed to be while claiming that she was fully committed to recovery. Then I come to these boards and read about all these false recoveries with wayward spouses even lying to their therapists and I wonder what the ****** is wrong with them that they continue to dish out so much pain to their betrayed partners that are fighting for their marriages.

Recovery feels very one-sided at times, and that has clearly contributed to my anger and suspicion. I tend to see that lack of sex as a sign (or "proof") that she is hiding something and that her feelings are with someone else, as it was during the affair. When I add to that all the lying and deception, it's hard for me not to doubt her sincerity and feelings of guilt.

As I told her and myself on D-Day, I'm committed to seeing this through, whether it succeeds or not. And despite the difficulties during our recovery, I don't believe she is still having an affair or she is still in touch with the OM. But it would be nice to know that she really desires me for a change, and it hurts to know that another man was her last object of desire. While she may be still with me, I often feel like the consolation prize or second-runner up.

I'm managing my anger much better these days. I'm always calm during our discussions. We save talking about the affair for when we're at the therapist. I'm trying hard to be patient, but I've been waiting a long time for her to come back to me as a full partner in this relationship.

From Penalty Kill

4th Street, I'm glad to hear that you spend time together w/your W doing fun things. I'm also glad that you have been working on your anger - this is huge. I do feel, however, that you shouldn't have to limit your A discussions to when you're at the therapist; this may actually be backfiring on you. One of the things a FWS has to do is to let the BS talk, question, etc. As long as it doesn't become the Grand Inquisition, it can be therapeutic - for both BS and FWS.

Let's begin by addressing this statement:


Did you have a false recovery where your W was still in contact w/OM while claiming to be wanting to work on recovery? If so, that would certainly be extremely discouraging. My only advice, and it really is key, is try to separate what you read on this board from what is going on in your life. Don't let what you read inflame you. There are times when it might be better not to go on to MB at all (like if you're having a great day). As to what is wrong with a WS, it's that we can have a great big case of "selfish".


I certainly can understand where you are coming from. Is your W an open book? Do you check her cell phone, email, etc. with her blessing? Knowing what's going on in all aspects of her life should help with trust, and it will help her to prove that she's acting above board. If you trust her, then you can just work on the physical aspects of your relationship, and separate them from the A. I'm kind of concerned that it's getting all mixed up which isn't helpful.


You would be hard-pressed to find a BS who doesn't feel this way (consolation prize), even those whose WS came right back into the marriage (or never left in the first place). From my perspective as a FWW, I can tell you that the OM was never even in the running, let alone in first place. It was all about me, and making me feel better. It was the equivalent of a couple of lines of cocaine..and left me feeling just as lousy afterward.

Truthfully, I don't blame you a bit for feeling like you do, and I admire you for hanging around and trying to make your marriage work. And if you had to deal with lying or deception after Dday, that makes things much harder for recovery.

Have you considered sex therapy apart from marriage counseling? I'm wondering if the fact that you limit your A discussions to MC *and* you also discuss your SF issues there could be causing some unforseen negative reinforcement.

PK

This was actually the therapist's recommendation and she knew I wouldn't like it. My wife says she's sick of talking about the affair; she says she's told me everything there is to know, although I strongly suspect she's still keeping stuff to herself to protect me (but perhaps she is telling the truth). She often breaks down crying if talk of the affair comes up and she says it makes her feel worthless. So the therapist said that talking about the affair outside of therapy was off-limits.

This frustrates me because I would like my wife to be able to discuss the affair with some measure of detachment and self-reflection. It would certainly help me, but my assertiveness (perhaps, even aggressiveness) in wanting to understanding exactly how and why this happened seems to be too much for my wife at this point.


Post D-Day, my wife continued to act selfishly. She resisted the no-contact letter for nearly 3 months. She continued to call the OM even though she promised both me and the therapist that she wouldn't. Even 6-7 months into recovery, she would whine about the restrictions (e.g., having to stay in touch with me when she was out) and would sometimes break her promises to call me at set times when she was out. During this time, she insisted that she loved me and wanted to repair the relationship, yet she couldn't see that her selfish actions undermined any progress we made.

Like you, I believe she had a big case of selfish and wanted to feel better.


I have access to her phone records. I don't have access to her computer or web mail; neither therapist we saw would sanction that, partly because I exposed the affair by installing a keylogger. My wife refuses to give me her email and computer passwords because she doesn't trust me not to install another keylogger. I can, however, ask to see her email at any time. She exclusively uses email and can easily delete any emails she sends while I'm away from the home. So, it's only partial transparency.

Her unwillingness to be fully transparent with her computer has been an ongoing problem for me. Neither therapist has taken my side. But more than that, I wish my wife would be fully transparent. At this point, I don't really know how to deal with that. Do I insist on full transparency or do I let it ago and settle for partial transparency? I dunno.

Fourth, I would suggest finding a way to get that keylogger back on her computer. The fact that she wants to hide from you should be a huge red flag that SHE HAS SOMETHING TO HIDE. You need to find out WHAT IT IS so you can protect yourself from her. If any "counselor" tells you that "partial transparency" is acceptable and will ever lead to recovery, I would get your money back and find a qualified counselor. They are wasting your time, because your wife WILL NEVER REGAIN your trust as long as she continues to keep secrets from you.

People who have nothing to hide, DON'T HIDE. A truly innocent spouse should WANT to open up her life by demonstrating her trustworthiness. Your wife is hiding something. And no one has the right to the privacy to destroy you behind your back.

So, please do your best to get that keylogger back on there WITHOUT HER KNOWLEDGE and find out what she is really hiding. And find a qualified counselor!


Coping with Infidelity: Part 2
How Should Affairs End?

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.

entire article at: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5060_qa.html

Fourth, please find a qualified counselor who understands the dynamics of infidelity. Yours does not, as is evidenced by her suggestion that your W can hide her emails from you and that she can limit what she tells you just because it is "hard." Everything she is telling you will prevent you from recovering and rebuilding trust. You are OWED the full and unadulterated TRUTH. You are OWED complete access to your wife's computer, not just at her whim and convenience, giving her an opportunity to hide her tracks.

You have been dealt a devastating blow here, as traumatic as RAPE or the death of a child, and she must take EXTRAORDINARY measures and precautions to help you recover. The very BASIC thing she can do to EARN your forgiveness is to open up her life and to give you the FULL TRUTH about the affair. The affair is information about YOUR LIFE to which you are ENTITLED. To withhold this information from you is cruel and manipulative.

Any qualified counselor would know this. But, alas, most are not qualified, most especially in adultery, and have a dismal 16% success rate. Most are not PROMARRIAGE, but are more than willing to facilitate an amicable divorce, becasue they don't know HOW to save marriages. Ask your counselor about her OWN MARRIAGE and how successful it is.

I would implore you to check out Steve Harley of MB. He is a marriage COACH who understands infidelity and will be worth every penny. you won't leave your sessions with him feeling BAD as you do with your current counselor. You will feel UPLIFTED and hopeful. What you are doing now is HOPELESS.

I would start by getting the keylogger on her computer and finding out what she is doing. Secondly, her advice that you should only discuss this in session is dumb advice and I would suggest printing off Josephs letter and handing it to your wife. Tell her you need the full story and need ALL your questions answered at home in order to recover. Letter is coming...

"To Whomever,

"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.

"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."

(end of Joseph's Letter)

From Penalty Kill

Oh dear. 4th Street, I'm afraid this is worse than I thought. You say:


This is a power-play, pure and simple. It's akin to the 3 year old who cries when it's time for bed.

And, since I don't mince words, let me say that your therapist blows. That in itself is not unusual. I could tell you stories that would curl your hair about our first therapist. Our second therapist wasn't much better. Sadly it seems to be the rare one who understands infidelity. You're getting tag-teamed here and it isn't helping your marriage one bit.


Oh, I don't think you're being assertive or aggressive. 4th street, you're being normal. I can tell you that if my H and I had followed your therapist's guidelines, we'd be divorced now. He was one who needed all the details, and he needed it more than once. I spent much, much more time discussing the A with him than I did engaging in it...one of life's ironies.

Anyway, my point is that you're absolutely normal about wanting to know the how and the why. There's a couple on here who, three years after the A, are still getting to the why. Believe me, you don't want to wait that long.


Ugh. This is the part I can't identify with, partly because I ended things with my A and refused to take his calls/emails etc. But I didn't want to be in the A any more and your wife seems like she does. Secretive behavior (and keeping her email from you is secretive) is the same as an A. I don't care if she's not with the guy anymore, she's giving you agita.

A good marriage does not consist of people who keep things from each other. 4th street, the lack of SF in your marriage is symptomatic of other issues. Your wife is holding herself back from you in more ways than one.

You might try counseling with the Harleys. If she then keeps up with her current attitude, you might decide that you can no longer live with her. Remeber, you can't change her, you can change only your reaction to her. My first thought would be to tell her that you need to change therapists, because the one you have now makes you feel like you're wasting your $.

Do you have children?

PK

PK...great post.

FS... I will stick by my thoughts that your wife is either still enagaged in the affair on some level...or she very much wants to be back with him.

I believe her "depression" is most likely an act to allow her to continue with her bad behavior and to stop you from pressing her. Your counselor is an a-hole and you should stop seeing that therapist immediately, IMO.

Good luck.

Hi 4th Street:

Just a quick note to see that you are getting help and I am sorry if I missed that in the earlier posts.

And ForeverHers you wondered why I bother posting? I am pretty sure Dr. Harley has said he would divorce his wife if she had an affair so I guess I was in good company.

In my case I put up with a lot over the years and if my wife would have had an EA without the PA and wanted forgiveness I would have done so. I do not want to thread jack this either but I did want to explain things why people expect things to change in their marriage when they allow this kind of abuse.

Yes, it is abuse when your spouse cheats on you. And then to wait for 10 months of no sex? His wife is not acting like a wife.

I had a lot more but I am not getting in a peeing match with people. I think the MB program is a great program but only if both people are willing to work on it. If you allow a husband or wife to treat you this way I think you should move on. Just my opinion and I am done thread jacking sorry.