Hi all,

Well, I found out 6 months ago. I was away with my kids and the wife had an affair with someone I had warned her about. He showed interest in her and there was an "emotional affair" of sorts going on. She reassured me several times while I was away etc etc.
I had one of those "gut" feelings that things were about to turn to worse which it did. 2 days after I got back from my trip with the kids she tells me and I guess you can say the poop hit the fan. My hurt turned to anger and I confronted the guy(which I had also warned to stay away from her)Things got physical and, well, lets just say I took my anger out on this guy.
Anyway, wife said she was sorry etc. We live in a small town and word got around rather quick about her infidelity and my altercation. He lives in the same town and unfortunately I have to see him from time to time. My kids, ages 12 to 6 know of what happened and have a hard time dealing with it.
What Im having a heck of a hard time dealing with is how she could do this to me and the kids and having to see the person day in and day out and of course people in town knowing what happened.

kodawolf I'm sorry you find yourself here but welcome to MB.

There is a wealth of information on dealing with infidelity. I hope you will read as much as possible to help you and your WW.

How long have you been M? What exactly did your W tell you? Has no contact been established?

All of us here wonder the same thing. Please read the articles on surviving an affair. There is help available and a plan to recover your M. Dealing with your emotions is one of the most difficult.

Ask questions here, vent here, the MB folks will chime in and help you get yourself together.

(((thoughts & prayers)))

Thanks for the kind words.
Weve been married for 15 years.
As far as contact do you mean does she still talk to him? If so I dont think she does but then again, there were a lot of things I thought I was sure of before only to be deadly wrong.
Before this whole thing happened there were a few people who expressed concern about the "attention" between her and this person. I mentioned this before everything happened and how other people saw this but obviously it fell on deaf ears. I don't know if this was done out of spite, loneliness, a combination etc. She will tell me things now that it seems like she is trying to shift the blame on me at least partially. I have a hard time with that as well.
My two older kids will ask me why it happened etc and I really don't know what to say. Its been an utter nightmare and at the same time trying to keep the kids emotions in one piece. Sometimes Im so overwhelmed by everything I really am paralyzed by it all.

Oh yeah, then panic, then trying to fix it, then wondering why fix it, I HEAR YOU.

Have the 2 of you talked? Openly & Honestly? Does she want to recover your M? Has she answered your questions?

Have you read any of the Harley articles?

Take a deep breath. Time WILL help! A plan will help.

According to her she wants to save the marriage and she has answered some questions. Other questions she just says "I dont know why" etc etc.
There are certain behavior she has and stubborness that she still exhibits that led to this mess and Ive mentioned this time and time again but she will always twist it around telling me Im to blame for her stubborness etc.
I havent had a chance to read some of the articles here but that will be my project today and tomorrow.
I keep looking at the kids and seeing the toll it has taken on them and wondering what long term effect it will have on their lives, their relationships.

One thing at a time.

This is all part your heartache and unfortunately normal.

IMO what your kids will learn if you both are willing to recover your M is...M is WORK, M is committment, people can fail horribly but restore right to their life by confession, committment, attitude, honesty, communication along with a whole host of other attributes.

Once you start reading the articles more things will become clearer. Also look at the questionnaires. When you decide to do them start with the Lovebusters then the Emotional Needs. I did it backwards...still worked out ok but it does make sense to work on things that are lovebusting before you start meeting emotional needs.

Also be prepared at first to be the 1 doing most of the work.

Does your W realize that an EA IS infidility? My H had a very hard time with that. He felt since there was no actual physical act in some way that made it ok.

If I didn't post in previous post...read, ask questions, vent HERE. The MB folks are GREAT. They'll help I'm sure. I am NOT a seasoned vet...we're still working in recovery but I'll hang around and cheer you on and try to steer you in the right direction.

At first it was an emotional affair but led to a physical affair. I think she does realize that an EA is an affair either way.
I will do some reading this afternoon, get a better grasp on things.

Good!

It has been shown that for an affair to end and not rekindle there has to be NC. Being you are in small town it will be hard for your WW to maintain NC. I suggest that you move to a new town. It will help you and your WW heal.

Crazy thing is, we just moved to this town, sold our house and moved everything here, bought a business etc. All our money is in this place at the moment and with the economy the way it is, house prices plummeting etc I think Im stuck here for a little while.

kodawolf how long did the A go on?


That stinks! Hopefully with both of you working on your M that won't be a deteriant....and of course avoiding the possible places you'd run into him. How are YOU dealing w/running into him?

Well, I mentioned before that when I first learned of this I confronted him and things went from bad to worse. He ended up pressing charges against me for assault etc. But when the court date came he never showed up so it was dropped. Directly afterwards whenever I saw him there was a lot of anger, bordering on rage but that doesnt solve anything obviously. My anger seems to have shifted to my wife along with tons of disappointment and hurt.
Now when I see him he avoids me like the plague but what really hurts me is my kids know who this person is and my 11 year old is having a hard time sometimes seeing him in town.
Its a tough situation. Im very angry at my wife doing to to me but more so with the kids being hurt and how someone could do this. Im sure its the same with everyone else here who has children, they are so precious and one protects them from any outside harm but when it comes from within the family whether its physical OR emotion hurt its very hard to deal with.
Needless to say there is a lot of resentment.

Well, the EA started in may of last year, I was away getting things sorted out for our "Big Move" My wife was in the new town with my oldest daughter. In June at some point my daughter tells me that they went out to a party and this guy came along and spent the night. I of course went ballistic and confronted my wife about this. She claimed nothing happened, "they just talked". I was also outraged about the fact that she would do this in front of our daughter. I asked my daughter about this and the incident bothered her very much.
All this time my wife claiming he was just a friend etc etc. Other people close to us warned me of the situation which I relayed to her my concerns along with other people mentioning what they saw or felt. They saw each other off and on from may till Oct when my wife says things got physical.
Funny thing is the day she had the PA I had once again warned her that she was heading down a road that could lead to disaster. She sleeped with him twice after that according to her but claimed she had "feelings" for him. He offered to take her on a cruise saying she "deserved better". He also bragged about how many married women he seduced etc trying to make her jealous which my wife admits was a bit of a thrill.
Reading all this I wrote brings back a flood of memories and I can feel the pain seep into my gut again.
Ive dedicated the last 15 years to my family, my kids. Ive gone through hell and back for this only to get this.
Now I ask myself, am I here because of wanting to save my marriage or am I here because Im afraid of causing hurt for my kids by separating?

IMO that's a normal response along with the resentment and anger towards your WW. Question is what you are going to do about it.
Recover your M or separate?

I'll preface with, I'm not what I consider a MB vet just a BS trying to save my M.

In my sitch I had to ask myself what was the state of our M before my H's EA. That's when I found MB. After reading Dr. Harley's articles I was amazed. What I *thought* was a good M wasn't really. It was stale...just living together, not BAD, just ho-hum, and I thought this was normal. Ha! Doesn't have to be. I was like so many others here, MY H would NEVER stray, it just wasn't in his character. Well shame on me. Given the right situations ANYONE can stray. Doesn't make it the right way to handle situations in a M but can happen.

Some of thing things I had to consider were:
The state of our M before the EA.
Did I love my H. Did he love me.
Could I forgive him if he asked.
Could/would *we* work TOGETHER to get through this using MB principals.
Could I ever get over the situation.

If you decide to recover your M know in advance it's HARD work, it's delibrate work, eventually it takes the both of you working together, and it be a rollercoaster ride.

IMO whether you work on your M or separate your children do bear some scars. Only you and your W can determine how those scars are remembered....people make mistakes/sin but can try to work through them and be forgiven but they have to ask to be forgiven first or the love is lost and cannot be recovered at any cost. If you give the MB principals a chance to work, and work the plan no matter the outcome YOU will know and your children will know YOU gave your M every opportunity to recover.

Have you read the articles here? Especially Surviving an Affair?
If not, please do. Alot of what you are feeling is NORMAL. Also if you haven't read the basic principals of MB. If you both are willing to work together you CAN recover your M and improve it. I think in a longterm M sometimes we start taking so much for granted we forget this basic principals.

I hope you'll read the information here. If you have questions come post them here. Do NOT vent at your wife...vent here.

(((thoughts & prayers)))

One response my wife keeps telling me is that Im partially responsible for her Affair. I will accept that with my work, the drive, traffic I would come home stressed out and exhausted. At one point my health was affected badly and I got very sick. Burnout or whatever led to factors that caused distance between us. When I quit my business and we decided to move etc I made a strong effort to be there for her more, give her more support etc. Even when the EA was going on I was there for her emotionally and physically. Either way, she didnt listening to my words, the concerns that the kids even saw something going one etc.
Very self centered and selfish.
After the whole thing was out in the open and tempers blew things got better for a while but then I guess buried anger resurfaced, frustration, hurt came out as well.
Im not a violent person, never struck her, the kids. Getting physical with the OM was something I hadnt done since high school so its not that blowing up is my nature but when it comes to my kids, my family then yes, I will defend it with everything I got.

Let me ask you this. In your situation, what do you thin, you did to contribute to your Husband affair if anything?

You are in no way responsible for any part of her A, and you must "draw the line" when your W tries to apportion any of the blame for it on you. While you may be 50% responsible for the state of your M prior to the A, it was her choice and hers alone to engage in an A.

Thank you Thank you Thank you, I agree with you 100%

You are NOT responsible for her A. That was HER choice. You are responsible for your part of the M. But nowhere in ANY M material does it agree with A's.


I didn't contribute to the A at all. However I didn't meet his EN's nor he mine. It made us vulnerable to such a situation as an A. It was just normal life...work, kids, cooking,cleaning, bill paying ALL the normal stuff but no US. We lost the US once we became a family. We didn't even notice, we thought we were doing well. We stopped doing the little special things just for each other, the romance, the intimacy. We took each other and their tasks for granted. We forgot to be grateful for how blessed we were. We were ignorant on how a M SHOULD/could be.

His EA started innocently...met a friend who had same hobby as him, on the internet. He told me about her. I told him at that time I didn't feel comfortable but he didn't listen. She lives 6 hours from here and was going to 'hunt' with the guys every weekend?! She CAME to MY home. All under the guise of something that she wasn't and *they* planning more then said. I again voiced my uncomfortableness with sitch. I was exagerating situation according to my H. UNTIl the day I found the private messages. Very specific messages. And I was still being told I was crazy. Not so crazy after confronting her and exposing both of them.

Meeting the EN's, not LBing, spending time together, the WHOLE MB plan has made a difference! Our M is getting better, but it's very diliberate work. We still have ups and downs...if you ever read my thread you'll see that for sure! But I'm comforted by the fact by the MBers that too will ease with time and committment.

In the beginning it's all VERY hard, you have so many emotional times and then to try and do a GOOD Plan A?! It's ALOT. It can be done though.

Have you 2 considered counseling? With the Harley would be VERY beneficial. They'll help develop a plan and help you work the plan.

Can you give me a link to your thread? thanks again for your response

Koda my signature links are now working.