this is the first time i've posted. guess i should have come two years ago when i started my first emotional affair with attempt at physical affair or my second or third affair. i am hoping it's not to late to save my marriage. My husband has been strong and has stayed by myside. but as you can image enough is enough. how much can a person endure? why do we hurt the people we love? i have destroyed my husband by my actions and the lies. i am willing to do whatever it takes to make it work. what do i do now? how do i prevent this from ever happening again. the first two affairs were not physical and i lied to myself all along saying it's just calls or just emails. trying to make myself believe it was okay.the last affair was physical. and afterwards i felt sick. i had finally realized what i was doing. but why didn't i stop before? all those times i saw how i hurt my husband. why did i deceive my husband that second and third time? the pain i have brought into our lives is unbearable. how do i make things better? how do i fix all the damage i have caused? i need help.

vercswife, here is a good article about what it will take to recover your marriage. Most immediately, though, you can send the OM a no contact letter [sample below] and open up your life to your husband. That means accounting for every second of your time and giving him all of your passwords, etc. He needs to also know all the details - to his satisfaction - about your affairs. He can't learn to trust you if you have secrets with other men to which he is not privy.

Here is a good start: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi6806_inf.html

Recovery: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5065_qa.html

Sample no contact letter [should be written together and mailed by your H]

Dr. Harley's (From SAA)

(OP), I want you to know that out of respect and love for my wife and children, I have come to realize that I must never see or talk with you again. My relationship with you was a cruel indulgence that (BS) did not deserve. While I cannot completely repay (BS) for the pain I have caused her, I will do my best to become the husband she�s been missing. I care a great deal for my family and I would not want to do anything to risk their happiness. I will not make any further contact with you and I do not want you to make any contact with me. Please respect my desire to end our relationship.
Sincerely,
(WS)

Is your husband still wanting to stay married, after the physical affair?

barely. i really made a mess of things. it's a miracle he is still here. he has a bag packed in the bedroom. the problem is not the physical affair it was the lies, deception, and betrayal. it's the betrayal in the affair that's so painful. i have alot of work to do.

Well, that is good that he is at least somewhat willing to work through this.

Tell him that you are working on a plan to recover and make it so that you won't ever do this again.

Can you afford counseling from the Harley's? It is expensive, but they can get you started fixing this a hundred times faster than other counselors.

vercsw,

Since I believe your H posts here, have you had time to read the concepts on this site? I hope you do.

You say you want to heal the marriage, you have only recently come to that conclusion right? What has caused you to change your mind about the status of your marriage?

I will offer you one piece of advice to consider. If this marriage is to heal and prosper YOU MUST figure out why it was OK for you to cross your own boundaries and vows to do what you did? You need to examine, and figure out why it was OK to do these things and harm YOURSELF and your H.

If you don't figure these things out it is very difficult for YOU to develop a plan to protect your own boundaries, the marriage and your spouse. Please read the articles here.

Make sure that you have ended this latest affair, and be HONEST about everything at this point. A small lie, even about groceries or something will do more damage than you can imagine.

Your H has a bag packed and if he is the man I think posting on this site, he is out of energy, and rapidly running out of love. If you are serious about saving your marriage, HE needs help and that means a transparent W, and a W that will at least acknowledge the real situation.

As you can tell many will try to help and offer advice. Read it, think about it, talk with your H about it, and use what is usefull to build a plan to restore your marriage. You cannot heal him, he has to do that himself. Your job is to make sure he feels it is better to heal with you than without you.

Please think about these things.

God Bless,

JL

i we have lots of family praying for us.



i have already done that or said that things would be different before and didn't follow threw. how do i ensure that i stay on track and follow through this time? my H spoke with our priest today and i will be speaking with him on weds. i plan to go consistently for spiritual guidance. which will hopefully help build some character and a little self respect for myself, my husband and family. i have unlike last time-now on this site and being proactive. i have to be the one to fight for us now. i can't help but feel scared. i don't want to hurt my H again.

vercsW,

I took the time to go reread your H's posts again. I am left wondering why you are trying to save this marriage now. What has changed? You two have been in counseling before. Your H has been through this stuff before with his first W, and now has been going through it with you for two years.

Clearly over all of that time you have not valued him, the marriage or your family as you have had 3 affairs. What were you looking for in these affairs? Why have you stopped looking for whatever it is you need with yet another man?

I keep coming back to this, because given the history you offer no reason to be concerned about losing him now. Frankly, given that you have had three affairs and he has been through this with a previous W, I don't really know why he stayed. He knows he has no control over this. He knows you don't value him or love him, your actions have made this plain. His previous experiences should have shown him that it is useless to try and change you, only you can do that.

So what has changed with YOU? Why do you care now? I think until you address this and put some real details into your explanation, you will have a hard time recovering your marriage. Why? After two years he is out of gas, out of love, and probably doesn't trust a woman as far as he could throw one.

You need answers to these questions before you can really hope to save this marriage and/or rebuild it.

Please think about this.

God Bless,

JL

You actions will speak louder than your words because the trust is lost. So what is your recovery plan for you and then how will you help your H find closure?

Best to call Jennifer C @ MB for some immediate phone counseling. No telling how long your H is willing to hang on. Remember, BS' go through stages also and it seems like he hasn't hit the anger stage yet. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/eek.gif" alt="" />

Btw, JL's questions are thought provoking. I 2 w/b interested in your response.

take care,
L.

yes i post here and have for a long time.
every stament on this thread has been like a bullet straight to my heart. Eevery stament about my state of mind is 100% correct. I am exhausted, truthfully just looking for one more lie to show me she is still in the fog that has caused all this. We have had maybe 20 - 30 false recoveries so far where i trust again and try to get over it.

I am ready to bail not just on my marriage and family but on the whole concept of marriage and love. Its been a rod across my back for too long.

every question these people have asked of my wife is precisely the questions i am acking now? what has suddenly changed now?

how have you had no care for me or the torture i have been in for 2 years and yet now suddenly you care.

I don't have any real hope that this is real, just another attempt to get you want you want at this moment now, but once someone attracts you i will be forgotten again, oncesome freind starts feeding you a line of justifications and excuses to allow you to do the things you have done you will lap it up and destroy my family from the inside again.

i want this to work but i have been here for 2 years trying and she has done nothing but relapse on me, lie constantly and have a deceptive heart when we talk initimatly. The physical affair really means nothing to me its the betrayal and lies and the timing of when it happens, how i was in the grip of all my depression and you still put your foot on my head and pushed me down further into this living ****** i have not been able to escape from.

I'll be frank - I think nothing has "suddenly changed". I think your W is now facing the possibility of being left alone, and she'd prefer not to be, that's all. You're her "fall-back plan", the man at home that she can count on being there when her A's pan out.

3 As in 2 years? Was she M'd previously? If so, why did that M end? Let me guess...

She may sense that you have given up and is trying her best to keep you on the plantation. This is usually what a wayward will do when he/she senses his gig is up. She will say whatever it takes to get you off her back and keep you in place. Then once you are back in your place, she will be off and running again.

vercing, if I were you, I would be very careful right now. You are worn down and she needs to show some real action. She needs to produce a PLAN OF ACTION that will deliver some real protection to you. And follow that plan of action for some time before you make any decisions.

Keep your options open until you know this is the REAL DEAL.

yes this is exactly my feeling now, i am not appreciate, my strengths are all seen as weakness and boring. i feel no need to be here in this house anymore. i am probably just being used for one more try at hurting me or getting myself used again.


we have been together 13 years, 8 year anniversay coming up.She has not been married nor cheated before or acted like this before. At least thats what she says, i suspect a endemic problem with control and self respect issues related to sex. fatalk attraction towards the type of player who hurts you ands uses you is a self respect issue. This also has the reverse effect of making my obvious respect for her annoying or boring or unexciting.






Yes that is very much what i think and is very much what she has done repeatedly to me. Luring me out of my angr into trust because she knows howi feel about her. Its very hurtful to have the very loyatly and devotion you offer used against you. I have gone way past the safe point in all this, i am ready to move on to get back to being sane again. Part of the problem i think has been that i didn't initiate plan B immediatly on the initial affair or the subsequent 6 monthes of lying. I was weak because i love her anddid not wantto make our children unhappy. But this very weakness is the problem i think, its why she abuses me and uses me and its why i do not act upon what i know is right. I am very disappointed in myself.

part of the issue is her constant attraction to men who treat her like ****** and rather cheaply. Thats more attractive to her than my steady devotion and constant wish to do whatever she wants to make her happy. They simply use her and discard her with little emotional connection. This player type has been her focus now for 2 years over me.

Yes i am, i am waiting for the slightest half truth, ommitted fact or hidden situation to show the true nature of this recovery, for the slightest sign of her protecting friends who have struck daggers at the heart of our love and our family.. i already busted her with a rather important one after the big bomb of the sexual event was dropped. She attempted to hide it behind the explosion of the sex revelation. That was really the last straw not the actual sexual event. My final decision on this all will be held back for a while asi evaluate.

Has she changed her lifestyle? Has she opened up her life to you and stopped putting herself in precarious situations, such as bar hopping, going out with friends? Is she accountable for her time? Where did she meet these men? The lifestyle that enabled her to troll for studs should CHANGE in order for you take her seriously. She needs to PROVE this to you with an effective, meangingful plan that makes you feel PROTECTED.

But, if she just continues doing what she has been doing, you would be wise to take a pass.

yes but she had done steps in that direction before affair number 2 and especially before affair number 2 (which was one month after our last marriage therapy class)
She has done more to understand inapporpriate situations but really having to explain it to her makes me nervous. She knew all too well what these were for 12 years. i am very confused and unable to simply accept that i cannot now trust at all the woman who i truested more than any person for 12 years.
She is reading and working on a plan to present to me and is working on full disclosure and true openess in our past so we can move forward. At least she looks like it but she has lookedl ike it before too.

Ok, maybe I misread something. Just to be clear, it's three As we're talking about, right? When did each A start and end?



If that is true, perhaps the thrill she got from the first time was great enough to keep her looking for that thrill in subsequent As.

Unfortunately, there's also the possibility that there might be other As that she has not disclosed yet.

Personally I think you need to distance yourself from her until she shows you a definite plan for dealing with her issues and she follows through with it, because this could end up destroying you. And by distancing, I mean asking HER to leave.

i have been soul searching and desperately trying to figure out what and why this has happened. i never imagined that this could happen. it has been hard to face the realities of what i have done. i have been deceiving myself as well. telling myself that it was okay because they were only phone calls or emails. what has changed? i have. i have turned into a person i don't even recognize anymore. i'm disgusting! i have been down the wrong path for quite some time. there's a saying "show me your friends and i'll tell you who you are". well i had surrounded myself with women i thought were my friends who were cheating on their husbands or already divorced. jealous of what i had with my H. i allowed poison in our lives. i had my friends telling me what's the big deal?? you did nothing wrong! i no longer associate with my socalled friends. and there has not been any contact with OM. I want things back the way they were. our love is definetly worth fighting for- not to mention we have two beautiful children. they deserve for me to do the right thing and fight for our marriage. I have been on this site reading and getting as much information as possible to save our marriage. i apprecaite all the posts. my recovery plan: confession friday and regular spiritual guidance from my priest. total transparent-radical honesty, went to library today order 5 of Dr. harley's books. his/her needs, romantic love, your love & marriage, some workbooks, love busters... implement policy of joint agreement, emotional needs questionaire. we need to find a good therapist- i definetely need one. i want to wake up from this nightmare i have created for us. i hate myself!!

I posted your BH.

Now I will post to you. Stop lying to your H.

Sit down and tell him the entire truth. Eventually it will come out. So it should come from you.

As a BH we are not stupid. Our thinking is blurred and it takes us longer to get from point a to point b then it used to but we are not stupid.

Your lies will get uncovered and each time the do you push your M further into the abyss.

My advice to you is to tell him everything he wants to know.

Radical honesty and transparency. Go to the notable posts at the top and read Josephs letter.

You have no chance at recovery or saving your M as long as you try to hide things from your BH.

Give him the dignity of the truth.

i have stopped lying. i had to stop lying to myself first and comes to terms with what i did. i didn't want to face it. the 1st A was an emotional A with attempt at physical. the second was emails. and the 3rd was physical one night stand. there is no longer any contact with OM.
i will and am answering any questions he has. we have implemented radical honesty and transparency. i will do whatever it takes.

Scrape $140. (or whatever it costs) together and make a call to the Harleys. You are in such a mess, you need expert help.