SL i did not see this until a few minutes ago. The reason that i beat myself up so much and think that it is all me is because that is what my H keeps telling me. He says that i need to get over it and leave the past in the past. He has told me this numerous times.

SC,

I will say it again, this sounds like your FWH doing a lot of sweeping, and avoiding. Your not trusting him is part of the conseqences of his A. When you can't trust him, it's harder to let go of the past. I believe we use it as a reminder of how they CAN be, always looking for signs or waiting for that shoe to drop.

Read the four rules of recovery (Mimi posted a link in rprynne's thread rprynnes-what does being engaged in recvoery mean?

I don't see you guys exercising these rules, and that can set you up to go right back to the state of the marriage before the A.

I don't see protection at all. You have made it clear how uncomfortable you are with this 'guy' and he basically casts that aside for whatever his needs are. Independent behavior.

I have always TRIED to follow those rules throughout my M, they to me, are second nature. My H has always been one to cast my feelings aside. He gets upset with me if i do not have the same thoughts as him on something and he will do everything in his power to get me to change my mind to agree with him.

He believes that when it comes to "this guy" we do not know for sure and i am just making things up in my mind to make him suffer basically.

excellent points.

Of course if a couple were to FOLLOW Harley's plans the M would survive. That really is a meaningless statistic since if a FWS were to stray again after coaching with Harley...well, they were NOT following his plan (radical honesty) so that "failure" wouldn't count in the stats.

There are a few people here that have coached with the Harley's that I am sure the Harley's would not want to hold out as marital success.

I have said it many times, the Harley's give the best shot at recovery. Period. But nothing is a sure bet. Recovery from infidelity is still a crap shoot.

Dr. Harley's total stats are:

About 85% success rate overall, and as high as 95% with 3+ children.

These types of success statistics come from a self-selecting cohort. If BS and WS both want to save the M (i.e. garden variety adultery) MB is a useful method with useful tools. In particular, the going-in face saving tool for the WS to blame it on the missing EN gets things off the dime, at least.

But addictions, serial adultery, VLTAs, and all the nominally hard cases rarely make it past the BS initial panic call to the counseling center. So, they are down-selected early and aren’t counted in the failures. A number of posters here have written that the MB counseling center would not even accept their case because of various factors like these (e.g. Alphin a couple of years ago). I believe the Harleys would like to help all marriages, but they know when a BS will be wasting their money and their time. There is a strong element of triage present.

Further, I wonder what the timeline is. Like cancer remission statistics, is it still married after 5 years? 10 years? One month?

After the second affair, does the BS even bother to call back and move their case from the success column to the failure column? Probably not.

Another study done about six years ago found around 80% of ALL marriages encountering adultery end in LS or D within five years, period.