Hello.

My name is RedBerries, I am 25 years old, married 5 years to my husband. We have no children. I am a college student with a part time job at my school, and he works full time.

On Tuesday, April 14th my husband told me he wasn't sure if he wanted to be with me anymore. We have been having problems for some time, and I guess I did not take them seriously enough. I was very upset finding out that he might leave me over them, and that night, we went to his boss' house, to have some sort of counseling. WH's boss and his wife are both Christian, a little older than us, and so I thought they could help. They listened to our problems, and gave us the book HNHN to read. I read it all the next morning, and realized I had alot of things I needed to work on in order to better meet WH's EMs. We did the questionaires, and I began trying my hardest to save the marriage.

My WH was having a close relationship with his new "best friend" that I was uncomfortable with. They would spend so much time together, and IMed each other constantly. My WH has an iphone, so he is able to IM her at any time. I told him I was feeling hurt and did not like their relationship, and he told me to deal with it, he deserved to have friends. The OW is the sister of one of his co-workers. They would all go out to lunch several times per week. During our meeting with WH's boss, they both told him the relationship was inappropriate for a maaried man- and WH said he didn't care, he needed to do something for himself for once.

After reading HNHN, I began trying my hardest to relearn how to meet my WH's EM. I did not want to believe that WH was actually having a physical affair- I was praying it was an emotional thing. The book kept saying it would lead to physical- all of the signs in the book were there in our marriage plain as day. I told my husband what the books said, and he thought it was "interesting".

In order to prove to myself that he wasn't really having a physical affair, I checked his IM log with OW. It turns out they were- I was so devastated. I called him immediately on his cell phone, he was at the gym with her. He came home and he had a WW3 fight. He said he wanted to be separated to think things over (it is so funny how almost all cheating spouses say the same things...). He said that we had problems for a long time, and the affair had nothing to do with him wanting to leave me...yeah right. I left for a friend's house that night. The next afternoon, I went back to the apartment, and was working on school work. WH came back from rollerskating with OW, and was crying. I guess they decided he needed to work on our marriage. As the book suggested, I made him promise to never talk or see her again. And he fell into severe depression/withdrawals, just like the book said he would.

We had two very good days as I tried to meet his EN's, even though it killed me that he was pining over OW. We were honest with each other, spent time together, cuddled, etc. He said there was an improvement, but he didn't think it would last.

Tuesday while he was at work, he IMed me and told me he made his decision, he did not want to save the marriage. He said one of us had to leave the apartment. Since he has alot of stuff in there, and I didn't want to be around there while I know he was with OW, I decided to move to my mom's house.

I have been here since, this is my third day. This is killing me. I want to IM him, and send him emails and love notes, but I don't think I should be doing that? How do I make him realize he should come back? On Friday, after I found out about the affair, I ordered SAA and FIL,SIL, and thankfully they arrived yesterday. Since EVERYTHING that HNHN said was 100% spot on, I know I can trust SAA too. I have been reading that.

My school/work is in the same city as our apartment, so every day I go to the apartment while WH is at work and bring a load of my things home with me. It kills me with each load, like I am sealing nails in my coffin, and there is no longer any hope for us.

Am I currently in Plan A? Since I am still trying to talk to him? Or Plan B, since we are not living together? I am so confused. I still love him and want our marriage to work. I have revealed the affair to all of my potential allies. He is not happy about that at all. He wants time and space away from me right now, and it is so hard. Right now, the only people he is talking to is the OW, and her sister (his coworker). Pretty much all of our friends, relatives, etc. are on my side right now, and think he has gone insane. This is so out of character for him. This all happened so fast, and I am in a daze. Is there any hope?

Thanks for listening.

(((RedBerries)))) So sorry you have found yourself here, but you are in the right place.

Have you read the "For Newly Betrayed Spouse" thread and WAT Quickstart Guide here in JFO? Great condensed info based on SAA.

Did you read Starfish's post "If you found your way here..."? Wonderful post...might be some source of comfort to you to see the stats of how successful A's are...

Yes, it sounds like you are in Plan B, but I don't have too much more to offer as I am on limited time and don't consider myself well-versed in Plan B territory. Definitely, definitely you want to post over in the GQII forum as there is much more traffic and more "vets" there to help you....

Hang in there!

Thank you so much, ThisBitterPill. I will go over there and read now. I am trying to take things one day at a time...

Yes, I wouldn't hesitate to post over there. You can copy and paste your whole story right over to save time.

You mentioned your FWH was "out of character". I don't know if it makes you feel any better but...I still can't believe how my FWH behaved when he was fogged out. He turned into a manipulating, lying, uncaring (even towards his two children that he had up to that point cherished) SOB.

Dr. Harley talks about how powerful the feelings of romantic love(all fantasy-based, mind you) are and it is likened to a drug addiction. My FWH completely agrees with this now that he is de-fogged.

You will need all your strength and wits about you to get through this. Take care of yourself, OK?

RedBerries, you might want to consider taking this over to GQII, where the traffic is greater. Sorry you are here.

Redberries,
Welcome to the club that no one wants to join. I am far from an expert but we are eleven months into a pretty successful recovery. The love and closeness have been restored and we are working on the trust.
My advise would be go home and plan A your butt off. If he wants to carry on an affair, DO NOT make it easy for him. It is your house too and you did not choose to destroy your marriage. Will it be hard? Hardest thing you have ever done. Just keep telling him that you are not interested in ending your marriage, just his affair.
Read everything on this site about plan A and search out the carrot and the stick of plan A, get the books and read them. I am not computer savy enough to post the links for you but have been Stevie Wondering around this site since last August. Keep coming here for love and advice and to vent. No LB with WH.
(((((RedBerries))))))
Say

RedBerries - sorry you are going through this, it really hurts.

Before saying anything else, let me give you some "blunt talk" first.



This is nice, but meaningless if you and your husband are not Christians. Are both you and your husband "born again" believers?



If you want a chance at saving your marriage, YOUR moving out of YOUR house (apartment) is the wrong way to do that.

Move back NOW. If anyone "moves out," it needs to be him, as a consequence of HIS choice to commit adultery. He will be mad, so DON'T tell him in advance, just do it. His anger is because it will "upset" his little world of infidelity. Tough it out, and when he gets angry, calmly tell him "there's the door, nothing is stopping you from going through it anymore than anything else is stopping you from choosing to commit adultery." Then go about your business and let him stew in his own bile.

Expose this affair to EVERYONE who has a "need to know."

Find out as much as you can about the OW and expose the affair to her husband, family, friends, etc.

The "intent," if you are trying to save your marriage, is to Destablize the affair first. Second, you need to know that Withdrawal (the really intense part of it anyway) lasts 4-6 WEEKS, not a couple of days. During Withdrawal, you basically have to endure, because nothing you do will "reach him" as he is lost in "his own pain." Sounds awful, but it's the truth.

Recovery itself will take an Average of 2 years, and that's if both of you are trying to recover your marriage.

Lastly, Melody Lane's suggestion to move your thread to the GQ II forum is a good one, if only because there is a lot more "traffic" on that forum than on any of the others.

God bless.

i hope you will move back in with your husband. Since HE is having the affair, then HE needs to move out. Too bad if he has a lot of stuff. He should have thought about all his stuff, and where he was going to live when he started the affair.

Also please let his boss know that he is having a physical affair. Maybe the boss can influence him.

Hope you have also exposed the affair to your family and his family, and any friends that might help.

I am trying, thanks ThisBitterPill.

I am thinking I should go back to our apartment too. It really does suck that I have to move everything out of my house, and he gets free run of the place to do whatever he wants. And now I have a long drive to work and school each day.

I am scared of having that conversation with him though. Should I do it in person? Or over text message? We just changed the internet bill, landline, etc. into his name.

I just read your post again, and realize you said not to tell him first. So I won't. I hope this goes well...I am so scared.

Redberries,
I agree that moving back into the house is in your best interests. Basically he had an affair and then got you to agree to just go quietly into the night. Do you have any real time conversations with him still? Or are you relegated to email and texts?

I would move back in while he is at work, so he can't stop you. If he is likely to screen your calls, just text him or email him once you are already there and let him know what you are doing.

I would just tell him that you have been reading and learning and you realize that you can't save the marriage when living apart. You are moving back into the house because you don't want a divorce and you think the marriage can still be saved. Then go into a dynamite plan A.

Thanks so much Andrew. I am going to move back in tomorrow. I hope it goes well!

Good luck Redberries!
I know its scary, but you are doing the right thing by moving back in. Its very easy to want to do whatever the WS wants because you don't want to make him mad. But that doesn't work for restoring the marriage. Giving him space to continue his affair won't help your marriage. It would be kind of like hoping to win a fight by the other guy tiring himself out by punching you.
Regardless of the outcome, you will look back on your actions and be proud that you fought for the marriage. Make sure to read up on Plan A here!

I will go do that Andrew. I am very nervous...I hope everything goes well today.