It's been a long time since I visited the site. We spent a lot of time together over the holidays, with family and friends, etc.... and overall I feel better than before.

But I have to ask, will the images fade? I still picture her in her dorm room with this other guy, while we were engaged. It makes me so sad. When we are together, I still feel resentment. I want nothing more than to forgive her and make a better life together. How do I start when this is on my mind 24/7?? I have been going to counseling every few weeks, and to be honest it doesn't really seem to be helping..... Any advice?

Time helps a lot.

You just found out and you need to PROCESS it.

Counseling is great but Dr. Harley does advise against counseling centered on figuring out the past. It will never be understood or explained to satisfaction and constantly focusing on it merely keeps it obsessively relevant.

It's impossible to just forget it but within a year it will likely be a distant memory. One day at a time. Have patience. Consider this:You had sex before her and experienced another partner and now you found out that she has as well. My wife and I were both promiscuous previous to marriage. I filed OM into that same cabinet with all her former lovers....irrelevant today.

Like JL said it's simple...but not easy.


You mentioned being resentful. THAT I see as the bigger issue TODAY. Statistically YOU are MUCH more likely to have a revenge affair than she is. Perhaps you can motivate her to work along with you to make your marriage a MB marriage of extraordinary care. A marriage that surpasses anything you two have previously experienced.

I also like Dr. Harley's position on "just compensation". It doesn't mean you get to have a revenge affair or make selfish demands. Instead it is something your wife eventually offers to you to compensate for the hurt she has caused you to allieve the pressure on your taker (and thus your resentment). She eventually needs to figure this out.

As engineers (I'm a tax attorney), the MB process is very logical and almost mathematical. The basics make much more sense to engineer types.

Perhaps order His Needs/Her Needs on CD Audio and take a road trip with your wife and listen to it together in the car. My wife and I did that and it helped tremendously.

Good luck,

Mr. Wondering

HC:

I just wanted to add a few things.

Reraed your post from the beginning. And note your growth. And What your have learned. And What you have been advised.

"It's NO BIG deal"

That is what your W is thinking. It IS a BIG DEAL. For TEN years she has been carrying this around, and she has been able to process and deal with that. You have KNOWN for two months.

Purchase "Survivng an Affair" from this website.

I'm glad you emailed the OM. And got some info. But don't become a PI about that. You can check various things with OM, but please understand, he has every reason to lie about what happened as well. You might let him off the hook alot easier than your W, but he has reasons to hide the truth as well. You can cross reference everything with OM that IS important to you, and then leave it at that. How drunk, how long, where it started, did they sleep, did they this, that, whatever. And remember, this WAS a GUY. It may have been just another notch in the old slide rule to him.

You state that your W isn't that interested in providing the details, and that she says she can't remember.

WHAT you need in the complete transparency of what went on on that time. The movies in your brain are worse then the actual things that might have occurred. And once you get WHAT you need, then the memories will start to lose thier edge, over time. And what you NEED is the truth. Complete and unvarnished. Many people NEVER get this. Whether the A happened 10 days, 10 months or 10 YEARS ago. Understand that. It a tough one. And the only way you will ever get that infomation is to make your W feel "safe" in revealing everything that she knows.

You flying into a rage because she tells you something that you didn't know or didn't suspect, will not make her feel safe. Her revealing troubling info, and you dealing with that, and understanding that its more important to learn what really happened, then to be concerned with your reaction to it. Becasue if she can feel safe about telling yout the truth about THIS, imagine where she can be in the future?

And everything ELSE about your marriage have flowed from that night.

There was a HUGE glass elephant in your marriage. But you could never see it. You could bump into it, stumble around it, try to discerne it, but you could NOT. You never could get all the way around it to adequately get the "big picture"

Your W's admission of her ONS with OM, suddenly put all the pieces together. You know the shape of the glass elephant NOW. You have been bumping into it your entire M. It wasn't until NOW that you could walk freely in the room. You can speak about the elephant. Don't screw it up. Let her fill in all the blanks. You can't change what happened ten years ago. You can divorce her now. But the revealing of the elephant has given you the opportunity to recover your marriage and move to a bettter spot in your M than anything else that has happened so far.

Sounds strange doesn't it?

Revealing this ONS from the time before you were married can help your M grow stronger.

That does sound strange.

But it's TRUE. This can be a path back to honesty and openness in your M. To finding out WHY she reacted like she did while working in the Yard. For you to find out about LoveBusters and Disrespectful Judgements. To find out WHAT Emotional Needs are. And how you BOTH have been missing them in your M.

Remember its a glass elephant. The glass has been revealed. It can be broken to pieces with the things you can learn on this website. And then the pieces swept up and thrown away.

That's WHY your here. That's WHY Mr.W asked you to look forward and not back. Yes, you need understanding about your past. But really, look forward. You IC/MC shouldn't really spend months of counseling trying to interpet what has happened in your past. Maybe all you need to know is waht really happened. And why that has blown up your preconcieved notions about your W. She never was, or will be perfect. Neither will you.

Saturn and MiM posting you is a very good thing. Both have been down this road, and have spouses who continued the same behaviors It appears that YOUR W has NOT continued the same behaviors. But addressing those type of behaviors and her establishing appropriate boundaries, and helping you to restore your trust MAY give you the "Just Compensation" that Mr.W mentioned.

Good luck. Revealing the Glass elephant was a VERY GOOD thing.

LG

True, but maybe it will help me learn how to cope with it. I do however think she should be trying harder to understand it for her own benefit as well, though. She says it just happened for "no reason", she was drunk, etc and learned from her mistake. Maybe that's good enough.


I sincerely hope you are right!


That would be easy to do for me as well, the problem is it happened 3 years into our exclusive dating and I thought things were great. If it had happened before we met, I wouldn't have had an issue with it.


I'm not concerned about me having a revenge affair. I don't operate that way. Believe it or not, I think our marriage is good and I will start to use some of the MB principals, although I don't 100% agree with all of it.


Do you have any suggestions? I think she would appreciate it. Honestly I think if I felt like she was doing everything in her power to make me feel better, this probably would have been much better by now. I love the way it's being handled in this thread: I was unfaithful to my husband [/quote]

Thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it!

Actually, I do think she thinks it's a big deal now, but probably didn't at first. I honestly don't think it has been affecting our marriage at all.... but it's hard to say. I think she chalked it up to doing something stupid while drunk, and left it at that. We were engaged and lived together for a year after this happened.


I'm surprised you think it was a good idea to email him, most seem to think it was a horrible idea, even my therapist. Honestly I don't see why he would lie, he's 10 years removed and several states away. Some of the details that he remembers don't add up to what she says is true, but they are only details I guess, and it was 10 years ago. He thinks he stayed over and slept, she swears they didn't. From what he said, she never "didn't want to go that far", she says when she realized they were really going to have sex, she didn't want to, but didn't really have the guts to stop it at that point. Knowing her, I can actually believe that, but it's still tough to swallow.



She says she can't remember, not that she's not interested. It seems like she is telling me everything she knows, which isn't much. It's frustrating, but what do you do? I sure don't remember much from 10 years ago, although a couple of the things she does remember are kind of curious.


Why do you think this? A couple of people have said this. I'm kinda guessing there was a little more to it than what I'm picturing going off of her details....


I have tried so hard to do this, but she still says she doesn't remember.



I agree. And I have flown off the handle a couple of times, but I have been trying very hard to make her feel safe.

Thank you so much, I understand what you are saying. I hate looking back, but I feel like I can't move forward until I am confident that there are no more lies being covered up.....

Hello Help,

I thought I'd come back to your question this weekend but in the meantime thought of you when I read this other thread.

Here's a link to it.


http://www.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/sho...;gonew=1#UNREAD

Hope it helps. It references "Joseph's letter" which I presume you've already read also. If not, there should be a link to it on the "for newly betrayed spouses" thread pinned to the top of this the JFO board.

Mr. Wondering

Yeah, I have read Joseph's letter, and also showed it to my wife. After I (stupidly) contacted the other guy, she said something sarcastic like "So do you have all the pieces of the puzzle now?"

I've gotten very little detail from her, but I guess it's hard for me to know how much to expect since it happened 10 years ago. Honestly I have a very difficult time thinking that it happened solely because she was drinking. I still know what I'm doing when I'm drinking.

I feel that a person that truly was against casual making out/sex with someone they weren't interested in, would still be against it, ESPECIALLY knowing that they were engaged at the time.

The problem is I DO believe she was against that stuff, yet did it anyway.... so the "why" is killing me. Was he better looking than me? Was she not that happy that she was engaged? Did she resent me for "ruining" her last year of college? I was so happy that we were engaged, and I feel like she must not have been to let that happen. It really really hurts.

HC,

I have a very similar story to yours only with mine, WW had her first fling more than 30 years ago before we were married but has compounded it with three multiple affairs over the last 5 years after 25 years of a marriage that end-up in a holding pattern. I have to say the one I didn't know about for 30 years hurts just as much as the more recent ones and they all hurt terribly. My D-Day was the end of October. E was the first week in November.

We are in MC with Steve Harley which I believe is the reason we are still together after the most recent A and I would recommend that you talk to him. What he says is that women, and I suppose men, like my wife are
"situationally" weak, that is that they don't consciously set out to have an affair, but they don't have the capabilities to protect their vulnerabilities. What this means is if they meet the right person in the right situation, A can happen very quickly. What my WW says is that she was always "surprised" that these men were interested in her. So what SH has us concentrating on right now is preventing those situations from ever happening again and planning in advance what WW has to do to A-proof our marriage. We are not spending a lot of time going over the past, but what SH says is that after we build our openess and honesty, WW will tell anything she knows just because it is incompatible with that principle. I have to say that Mrs. Hurt has revealed almost everyting I have asked her since I made it clear that this is one of my personal boundaries. She says she is committed to continuing our M now and she understands that part of what has to happen is the "just compensation" which includes making our M better for both of us. I believe the MB way is the only method of recovering an M with any kind of track record. It may seem counterintuitive until you really understand it which I am only beginning to.

Like you, I am also obsessing about what happened. As far as I know this is normal and expected. I am also looking for ways to deal with the thoughts on my thread. I'll be looking for answers on yours as well.

By the way, did you attend school in a state shaped like a left hand? I think it is possible we are alumni of the same school.

HelpCoping;

I had promised to come back after reading your story. I got through everything -- and then was just stumped on how to respond.

To be honest; I'm feeling quite frustrated with you after reading everything. I think it just has to do with our differences in personality -- you are obviously an engineering analytical type. I am probably your opposite -- a sales type....

I'm sitting here thinking -- are you really going to destroy your marriage over an indescretion that happened BEFORE your marriage? Because at this point it is YOU that is jeapardizing your relationship.

You've clearly noted that there are other problems in the relationship -- and yet THIS is the only item you are addressing. Please tell me you are working on the other issues..??

I think you are in danger of driving your wife away with this.

There is NEVER going to be a satisfactory answer to your "why" question. C'mon really. Is there something she could honestly say to you that would make you go "oh, well I understand now..."

Have you read the material? Affairs are usually caused by a lack of EN's combined with opportunity and lowered boundries. So clearly -- her boundries were lowered by alcohol. The opportunity was there.

Now lets talk about EN's. You were in a long distance relationship. Its extremely difficult for emotional needs to be met when you are not together everyday.

Maybe this guy admired her, flattered her, pursued her -- all the things that were missing in her day-to-day life with you gone.

My XH had an affair that started a couple months before our wedding and continued in the first few months of our marriage. To me, that was the happiest part of our lives. Why on earth would he cheat?

And his big "reason why"? Because he was fearful about the fact that I would be the only one he slept with forever. Make sense? No. So I got my "why"....but its still unsatisfying.

Maybe your fiance had the same type of fear -- about never being with anyone else.

So getting your WHY is still going to leave you unsatisfied. Because there isn't an acceptable "why."
Is there?

I think from your wife's perspective you better start paying attention to the other deficits in your marriage.
Otherwise she is going to start feeling like you are using this as a reason to blame all the problems on her.

Please go back and read the advice from JustLearning. It is profound.

Thank you, I really appreciate you coming back! I realize it was a lot to read and I appreciate your input.


I certainly don't want to destroy my relationship over something that happened before my marriage.... however it's clear to me that the 'indescretion' was more meaningful to me than it would be to you. To me, cheating is/was an unacceptable inexcusable act and I now have to deal with the person I love the most having done that. When I go to kiss her and I imagine her kissing him, that's a bit of a huge problem for me! It doesn't always happen..... And yes, I know I have been jeapordizing our relationship.


Absolutely, and I also noted that they were overstated. My W let some things that bothered her build up for a long time instead of talking to me about them. In addition, her job has taken a turn of major improvement which helps a lot. The issues that were bothering her are all easily solveable, and yes we are working on them. They are mostly stress related things like the house is too messy, we are unorganized, we have too many pets to take care of, she doesn't understand our finances, etc.


Probably true. It's just hard to understand why a person that is so against stuff like that would be willing to do so herself.


Yes, I have. And this is one of the fundamental things about MB that I have a very difficult time with. I will admit that I am very easily attracted to other women, however I have had "drunk opportunities" more than once while out of town on business, but I still knew I was engaged and/or married. I may have been tempted, but I knew it certainly wasn't worth it.

So for a person who wasn't even interested in other guys, or didn't have the desire to have meaningless sex, what could make a person like that go against their values? She didn't even WANT to do something like that?

I on the other hand, very much would want to do that, but I don't because I love my wife so much. Make sense? So yes, from my point of view, there must have been something else going on (A huge attraction to the other guy, she didn't love me, etc), all of which she says wasn't true.


True, but I sure was trying. We talked often, emailed several times a day, I sent flowers and/or cards as often as possible, etc.


Not really the case - she said they didn't even hang out more than once in a great while before this happened. This was a one night thing and she says she never even thought about kissing him before it happened that night. She thought he was cute, but never imagined something like that happening.


She did mention that as being a contributing factor.


Of course not, but it might help me understand. Maybe not.


Definately not. She knows that I know we are working on all of that other stuff and I certainly take responsibility for a lot of it... but the point is taken. I have been improving over all and we are making better strides now in other areas.

I guess it's just something that time will have to heal for me. I hate when it pops into my head at the worst times, and I imagine that will go on for some time still, hopefully less frequently as time goes on. I know in the grand scheme of things it is a fairly small issue.... but again from my point of view, infidelity is the one thing I never intended to tolerate in my relationship with her, and it is one (of many) reasons I chose to be with her.... because I actually thought her morals and values would rub off on me, and help make me a better person.

Lexxxy, I agree with you - I can be a very frustrating person. But I am also a very frustrated person right now.

I don't believe that everyone would cheat under the right circumstances.

I guess I should qualify that. If our relationship was completely worthless, then I might consider cheating. It was not that way. The only circumstances for her was drinking and opportunity. I have had those circumstances and managed to decide that it wasn't worth it.

I feel like I can relate to your wife, because I kept a big secret from my spouse for many many years. He always thought I was a virgin when we met -- which just wasn't true. I had been with a high school boyfriend.

And when we first talked about our histories, it seemed important to him -- so I lied. And I never corrected it, because I didn't want to ruin his image of me.

He had me on this pedestal (just as you seem to with your wife). Which was nice -- but not realistic. What would be nicer was if I had felt safe enough to be loved, flaws and all.

So maybe what your wife told you way back then (about kissing being icky, sex not important) was what you wanted to hear. Maybe it was to reassure you while you were away.

Nobody belongs on a pedestal HP. Not your wife, not me. Not anyone.

Wow, 30 years. How did the one that was before you were married come out? Only after you discovered the more recent ones?



Okay, she can be surprised, as my wife was. She said she was flattered that he was interested in her. In my W's case, of course he was interested... they were alone, she was tipsy, and he was trying to "get some", not to take anything away from my wife, she is a beautiful girl... but I asked her, weren't you flattered that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you? Shouldn't that have trumped some random guy wanting to mess around? Of course it should. I guess I'm sorry that I just don't / can't understand cheating. If you already have something great, what more do you need???


And this is one of the fundamental problems I have with the advice on the site. Again, don't get me wrong, I see value in 99% of the stuff on here. But we're adults! I should have to tell my wife "Don't go out to the bar without me, some guy might flatter you?" It's like watching a kid or something. She has me, if she's not happy with me, then she should tell me so I can improve. One night of sexual fun is not more important than the most important person in my life, end of story. It's not like I've never been tempted. If she doesn't feel the same way about me, then maybe we shouldn't be together.



And that is one thing I thought my W and I had more than any other couple I have ever met. I never questioned ANYTHING that she told me. We were very open and honest about things. Now I am always wondering if I know the truth.


I continue to look for ways to deal (which is why my handle is HelpCoping <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> ). After a few months of this though, I am starting to realize the only thing that will help me is time.


Why yes, yes I did - although I have to ask, what gave me away (not that I mind, it's a big state <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> ) I went back and read my whole thread both from your comment and to reply to Lexxxy's.....

Funny you should say that.... I did the same thing (see, I am not even close to perfect). Immediately after the first time my W and I had sex, she asked me if I had ever done it before. I said yes. She said something like "Yeesh, has EVERYONE done it???".... at which point I could tell she was really bummed, so I said it was only one time with my long term high school girlfriend, it was really akward, and it really sucked. None of that was true, my HS girlfriend and I did it several times over the years we were dating.... but I felt like I had to make myself look better. I did wind up telling my wife at some point in my marriage, several years ago I believe. She wasn't thrilled, but said she always kinda figured that was the case - and since it was long before I knew her, she didn't care.


I don't have her on a pedestal (ok, maybe just a bit), but I know we have flaws, and I do still absolutely love her.


No, actually not true. I just asked her if this was the case and she said no. I even told her back then that she was crazy... it's always "fun" in the right situation and to PLEASE be careful while I was gone. She didn't think she'd ever be in the situation, so she didn't worry about it.

The hard part for me is that sex just wasn't that important to her. She will confirm this if I ever point her to the thread, as I just talked to her about what I was replying to. She also was pretty shy about stuff like that, so I'm really really surprised she was okay with "getting naked" in front of a guy she wasn't even interested in. These are things that haunt me. Was there something wrong with ME or US? Why couldn't she just be thrilled that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her??!! That's the question.



I agree!

Here is an aspect to "WW" thinking that you just aren't getting.

IT WASN'T ABOUT YOU.

There wasn't a comparision between you and OM.
There wasn't thoughts about your deficits.
There weren't thoughts about flaws in your relationship.

This encounter was about HER needs. Her EN's.
It met a need of hers. And likely being at such a young age and rather uneducated on relationship stuff -- it was impossible for her to identify and classify what that need was.

Women can compartmentalize relationships. By that I mean, that any encounter she had with OM had absolutely NOTHING to do with her feelings for you.

When I was involved in my affair, I looked at it as something I was doing for ME...and I deserved this little bit of excitement because I always gave to everyone else.
I really felt it had NOTHING to do with my husband. There is an ability to separate and detach.

You also need to realize that women most often want sex for EMOTIONAL reasons - not physical reasons. She could get over the shyness -- the getting naked part -- because it filled a need for her. I suspect it was the same thing as what I heard from my XH...not wanting you to be her only sexual experience....

I do understand that actually, but it SHOULD have been about me, and then she would have made a different decision. The minute we started dating "exclusively", and especially when we became engaged, you need to consider your significant other in all decisions.


She also had an emotional need to be a good, faithful person. What happened to that one?


So can men of course, especially from the physical aspect.


I hear you - but it wasn't emotional. She was drinking, he kissed her, she liked it, they continued. Sounds more physical to me. As for not wanting me to be her only sexual partner, then I go back to the "comparing" aspect of it. If you are in a good, loving, caring relationship as I felt we were (and she says we were), why would you feel a "need" to have sex with someone else? It could only be to see if the other person is better at it than their significant other. Why else would you wonder?

My biggest hurdle is when it started. If she truly loved and cared for me as she said she did (and yes, I do believe that), then why wasn't she a little more upset and guilty when her "friend" tried to kiss her? I had a couple of engaged female friends while I was in college, and I'm pretty sure if I had tried to kiss any of them, I would have gotten slapped! Sure would have made me feel good if my fiance could have reacted that way instead of being flattered.

She had a purely physical encounter (meaning she had no romantic, caring, or loving feelings for OM) but she did it for EMOTIONAL reasons (her own needs and reasons, like wanting to experience more than one physical relationship...)

I can easily understand how she could decide to go through with it -- and never consider you in the process. It was just something she did to fill her own desire -- and likely did not even think about you in the process. It was not to compare.

She was a very young woman. She had little or no sexual experience. OF COURSE, she would wonder what it might be like with someone else. You already had more experiences than her -- or you might have felt the same. Maybe this experience reinforced her choice of you.

"but it SHOULD have been about me"

yes, unfortunatly true. But now what are you going to do about it? You cannot change the past. It happened. No matter how much you obcess over it, the facts will never change, and there will never be a satisfactory reason that it happened.

So now what are you going to do? Punish her forever? Torture yourself over it?

You make some really good points Lexxxy, thank you <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Too funny... every time I start to feel crummy and/or resentful about this, I come back here and read your last comment Lexxxy. It's nice that it's the opening comment on page 6, because I can read it and not be tempted to go read the rest of the thread over again <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

It's been a while since I've posted and in general things have been going pretty well.... until the last few days. I'm having a horrible recurrence and questioning everything again.

As ManInMotion wrote earlier, my gut is still telling me that she is re-writing history to lessen the impact of her choices.

She insists that she was not flirting with him in the first room before they went to her room and they only went to her room to watch TV. His story suggests that they had a good idea what might happen when they got alone and the innuendo started before they got there..

She says that she remembers not wanting to go through with the sex when it came right down to it. Again, his story (and my intuition) would suggest otherwise.

She insists that she was drunk and she would not have made the same decisions had she not been drinking.. I've been pretty drunk before, and still managed to remember that I was married to a beautiful girl. I would like to think she would have made a different choice, but my mind wonders.

And the last question... how does a smart, beautiful, engaged girl (who was not a "party girl" or anything like that) make a choice to have a one night stand including casual sex with "a friend"? Why did she think it was "worth it" at the time? I know, it's unanswerable and I'm beating myself up.

She says he left immediately after and the whole encounter was very short. He says he knows that he slept for some amount of time before leaving and that he was over there for most of the night.

I know in some of my previous posts I said that I wouldn't want to be with her if some of these things were true or things didn't add up. I don't feel that way any more. I know I want to be with her.

However - I also want and deserve the truth, as painful as it may be. I have been deceived now for almost 11 years. I love my wife, and don't get me wrong, I do believe it was a one time thing and she learned from her mistake, but as far as I'm concerned, any "sugarcoating the truth" has to end.

I would love to believe everything that she is telling me is true, but how do I do that when my instincts disagree? How do I ever truly believe what I am hearing?

Any suggestions and / or comments are welcome. I really do think it is crazy to risk a good 10 year marriage / 14 year relationship over something like this, but I also have to feel safe in moving forward that the truth is out there and there are no secrets between us. Either from the past, or in the future.

I know this is tearing you up. My guess is that I probably would believe the OM and your wife is engaged in damage control. Another poster recently said he paid 200 or 300 dollars for a polygraph test. As soon as he told the wife he had scheduled one she immediately confessed and told him the truth about another encounter. He continued with the test and found her answers now being consistent. Why don't you schedule one?