Thanks, bk

Josephine,


There are multiple reasons. Besides the fact that he has the right to know, the secrecy and lies build a wall between you and your husband in a number of ways. First, he doesn't have the sort of marriage he thinks he does - so your marriage is almost as much a fantasy as the affair. Second, you've built a secret life he knows nothing about. You have needs and weaknesses he knows nothing about. In other words, in some ways he doesn't even know you anymore. And to have emotional intimacy, you need to know everything about each other. If you want him to understand you, and most people want to be understood I think, you can't have a whole second life that he's completely shut out of. Exposing the affair is a necessary step to undoing some of the damage that's already been done.

Third, I've talked to enough betrayed husbands on this board and other board I used to go to to tell you that almost no spouse is really as in the dark as you think. He either suspects an affair, or he suspects that something in the marriage is wrong even if he doesn't know it's an affair. In spite of my being coached on how not to get caught by another serial cheater, my husband did not seem especially shocked when I revealed that I had cheated on him. A spouse doesn't have to have incontrovertible proof of an affair for the affair to cause damage to the marriage. The mere fact that he knows SOMETHING is wrong is going to change his behavior and not for the better.

Fourth, it's easier to stay faithful in the future if you know your spouse is going to be looking over your shoulder for a bit, and if you can talk to your spouse about setting boundaries for yourself to protect him from your tendencies in the future.


You don't want to maintain your marriage in its current state. It's broken now and needs to be rebuilt. Confession allows a fresh start.


Not much, especially if I'm right about him suspecting something anyway.


Different people here have different answers to that question. Personally I side with those who say you make the decision that your husband is most comfortable with. (See the Policy of Joint Agreement.)


It's a good start, but change your email address and the ID you use for instant messaging. If he doesn't know how to contact you, you'll be less tempted to respond to him.


It depends. Have you sent a No Contact letter? It's a letter (or email) basically saying you wish to work on your marriage and want no further contact from him. That this is the last thing he will ever hear from you, that you are not changing your mind and this is not up for debate. So you might want to do that and THEN change your email address so he can't respond. And save a copy of the letter so you can show your husband after you confess.


Okay, that's progress, although you still have more work to do.


Affairs can dull the pain of marital problems, but that's not such a good thing because it allows those problems to continue. Your unhappiness with your husband's spotty employment record is something that needs to be dealt with head on. The problem is, you also need to first confess and help him recover from the affair. I think someone else here should try to advise you on when to bring up things he needs to work on. I'm not sure I can be much help in that department.


I'm not sure I fully understand the question. Affairs themselves can never be constructive, although finally coming clean and revealing them can be.

Why, because she's foggy? Isn't that exactly what we should expect at this early stage?

IMHO, we should be more skeptical of the posters who sound too good to be true.

Nope. Just a hunch. I could be wrong --it's happened before! I guess that even if I'm right there's still value in what has been written. Maybe other waywards will read and learn.

I read on another board sometimes (for educational purposes mind you) and it seems that some of those people get a kick out of posting here to stir things up.

I agree that we are being played. I thought so from the first post. The syntax is off; the weird transitions from broken English to above average grammar. Plus from reading other threads (and even another board when I need assistance in throwing up) I think this poster has multiple names and stories going.
Of course I could be wrong (it happened to me once too!) but I don't think so. I wasn't going to mention it, but when someone as smart as PrincessMeggy sees it, I feel a little more assertive.

Yesterday he called to our house. I happened to pick up the phone.

My mind went blank at that moment. I hanged up the phone quickly. Then he texted me saying that he wanted to speak via msn.

Because I was a little moved that given my sudden refusal to respond to him for 3 days, he still cared about me and called to the house, I texted him back, saying that I confessed to my husband everything about us and now we were receiving counselling(which was not true). I told him that my husband would divorce me and the counsellor suggested to expose everything to his wife also.

He texted back, begging me not to expose anything to his family. He said he would lose his job, his wife and his two daughters. and then he text again saying divorce is not good for me but if it's unavoidable, he believes that I can survive it.

I know this is a bad rebound. But I feel that he is an extremely selfish man now. He cared only about his own "happiness", which I am not sure whether he truly enjoys and he seems somehow happy to see me divorced.

But against all these things, I feel I really have to sort out the problems in my marriage and I really have to prepare myself before I give my husband his right.

There are several key issues that confuse me constantly:
1. I dont' know whether I want to continue my marriage.

Before meeting OM, as I told you. There are moments in my life that I doubt whether I can still continue my marriage. I felt hopeless and exhausted. Besides all the financial problems I mentioned, there are other aspects of my husband: He is not good at communication. He shuts me from his world constantly. Whenever I want to communicate with him on his feelings, he gave me ambiguous answers. I feel I have never really walked into his heart.

Before marriage, I always think we two got very complimentary personalities. Eventually, I find the two of us cannot share many things in life. I enjoy going out with friends and talk, he doesn't. I want to have a little romance in life here and there, he never responded to that (even if I paid) I don't even think, if I confess to him tearfully and regretfully, he will come to receive conselling with me. In my marriage, I always play the role of lead to push the familiy forward.

I also lose faith in his ability to make the crucial changes in my marriage. I feel we have played the wrong role all the time. I am the "husband", he is the "wife". I have to have the idea of how to organize my marriage and family because he never will take the bother to think about that.

HE IS A GOOD MAN, THOUGH. Honest, (which I dont have now), kind, patient. Most importantly, he loves me deeply.

2. I don't know what he will do after learning the truth, given the fact that he may have already sensed it.

He mentioned my betrayal during the past five months. In the most serious quarrel he slapped me. That has never happened in my life before. He even choose to hurt himself than hurting me.
He posed the issue in this way: "I knew you have betrayed me, at least mentally, I am not sure whether you betrayed me physically" and I admitted at that time, I betrayed him mentally. I told him he had never made me so happy like my OM. I brought up all the complaints I could think of him.

But then, when my OM left, I feel that he wanted to continue our life and he treated me better in a way. I have the concern that if I told him everything, he would 1. pretend to forgive me and continued our life with a growing resentment inside his mind.
2. easily forgave me saying that he knew everything. 3. didnt' forgive me and physically abused me.

Today I dreamd of him trying to strangle me to death. (My conscience and fear have already begun to work on me.)

All of you put much emphasis on my confession and exposure to my husband. But I even cann't tell whether my confession now is out of a sincere nature, I even cannt' tell whether I want to rebuild my marriage with this man or not.

I am confused.

Aph!

This is AMAZING!

Wonderful!

I wouldn't worry too much about that at this point, because this is not a unilateral decision for you to make alone, Josephine. Your H may decide to end the marriage and that is his right. Regardless of your feelings about this, he has a right to know about the affair. NOW.


And none of this is stuff that can't be fixed. But it can't be fixed if you are damaging the marriage with cheating and lying. Honesty is the solution.

It is a CLASSIC TACTIC of a wayward mind to manufacture and exaggerate grievances in order to justify the affair. The logic is very screwy and goes something like this: Joe doesn't give me enough attention, therefore I am justified in having an affair. I have never figured out that logic, but suffice it to say, that is what passes for logic in wayward circles so they are very emotionally invested in DEMONIZING the spouse and exaggerating grievances. All that changes tremendously after they sober up from the intoxication of the affair.


As we suspected, he already knows something is up and is living a life of he11 trying to figure it out. If you think he might beat you, I would plan to have someone nearby before you tell him that can intervene. Maybe a close and trusted friend of his can be close by. But he still deserves the truth.


It doesn't matter if you are "sincere," Josephine, it matters that you are HONEST. Whether you want to rebuild your marriage or not is not relevant to his right to get the truth. And he may make the decision to not rebuild. None of this is relevant and just sounds like delay tactics.

Honesty is the solution to infidelity, Josephine. Go tell the man the truth about his life.

I think I know what you are trying to say to her here, ML, but honesty, imho, is not "the solution" to infidelity.

It is one of the ways to safeguard a marriage FROM infidelity.

It is one of the ways to hopefully rebuild a marriage AFTER infidelity has occurred.

It is one aspect of loving someone ELSE.

It is required when you have done something to hurt someone and is expressed through repentant confession of that "wrong."


Standards and Boundaries ARE the "solution" to infidelity.

The question always lingers, though, WHAT Standards and what Boundaries? What REASON does someone adopt a set of Standards for what THEY will NOT DO TO someone else, i.e. their spouse, no matter what they might be feeling? What Boundaries do they have in place to prevent other people from doing something TO them, and what consequences they will impose on others who violate their boundaries anyway, especially if the violation is willful.

What is behind Josephine's "struggle" with what to do is the FACT that she chose adultery for her very selfish reasons.

What is behind Josephine's "struggle" with telling her husband is that she wants "adultery without any consequences."

As we who have "been through it know," there ARE always consequences for our actions and that "forgiveness" of the wrong does NOT automatically eliminate those consequences. Forgiveness MAY "mitigate" some of them, but they never eliminate them.

Josephine really, imho, needs to "examine herself" and wrestle with "big issues," such as HER Standards and Boundaries, before she confesses to her husband. She needs to know WHY they are important and that her husband has HIS Standards and Boundaries too. She has to be able to answer NOT if she wants to remain married (she already answered THAT question when she chose adultery), but WHY should her husband want to remain married to her NOW.

I hope she does this. WHY would anyone want to be married to her, not just her husband? It's the "age old" question of whether or not someone is "marriage material."

Excellent point !

Some people never go to the deep end of the pool. They wade in ankle deep waters, thinking they are swimmers.

Hopefully, this woman has the capacity for such complex self examination.

Pep

FH, I agree with everything you said and don't think that honesty ALONE is the solution. But it is the first and essential step. Without that, there will be no resolution because the problem is concealed. It cannot be fixed until it is out in the open.

edited to add, that I do NOT AGREE that exposure should be delayed. There is no reason for that other than to line up a close friend to be on stand by in case of violence. She will likely never understand the WHYS and doesn't need to know in order to confess and change her behavior.

I agree with you ML. Sometimes I think we begin picking at nits.

We all have varying opinions, but in THIS case I don't think she should "rush" to confession yet. THE BOMB will be dropped, not doubt about that. But unlike the advice to a BS to EXPOSE an affair to begin the destabilization process, here we have a WS who's affair has essentially ended because the OM left the country, not because she chose to end it.

So if she is going to expose it to her husband, which she must is there if ever to be any chance at remaining married AND having a good marriage, then it is my opinion that she can't answer a single question yet that we KNOW the BS will begin asking as soon as he is aware that the affair is a FACT.

She needs to be ready to answer and she needs to be ready to be able to help him through the toughest emotional and mental time he is going to face, IF she really wants a shot at saving her marriage. It's hard for me to envision her being able to help, much less understand, the anguish that will drown her husband because she was, and still is, so "self-absorbed" in herself.

I don't think she is ready yet, and if she tells him NOW!, without any idea of why she did what she did, how she regrets it, why she wants to stay with him, why he should forgive her and want to stay with her, etc. etc., I don't give their marriage a "snowball's" chance of making it into a recovery effort.

Obviously, "faith based" reasons and help are unavailable here, so what on a strictly "humanistic" level is going to be sufficient for the best shot at recovery, IF that is what they want? I don't even know the "culture" they are from, so it's hazardous to even guess at what her husband's "male" perspectives might be or what his "cultural bias" might be regarding marriage and infidelity.

She needs "her ducks well thought out" before the "bomb" drops.

jmho, though, and I recognize that.

Thank you this time for understanding.

I need to figure out what's wrong with my marriage and what's wrong with me. I need to have the map of my marriage before I can do anything constructive.

I am NOT afraid of the consequences of my behavior. I am not a coward although I have concerns for the consequences. The key point here is that I need to understand why A happens on me. Perhaps I really lack the "standards and boundaries" in my life although I assume myself to be a good person. And I need to figure out what are my "standards and boundaries" so that I can live up to my life in future.

I am not sure whether all God followers are honest. But I know that people cheat. Some people may not cheat in marriages. Some people may not cheat their families. I am basically an honest person. I don't cheat other people in my life. This A is more than cheating, obviously. It is more complicated. It has something to do with two people's emotional needs and emotional responses. At least I need to have a clue of what's wrong, what I can do, what me and my BH can do after confession. That's the reason why I come here.

And besides all these, in fact, I still have illusions about my OM. I experienced a very traumatic period after he left. Because both of us didn't officially end this A, his leaving makes it a natural ending. So there's no means for me to see his true colours. That's part of the reason why I still have good feelings about him.

I still doubt, sometimes, what his true colours are! It is a horrible thing that I am so obsessed with this love with him that I literally cried everyday (for at least 15 days) since he left. This man is so special to me that I told him that I would choose to be his sister or relative in order to be with him. He gave me a strong sense of family and I just wanted to be with him.Of course I understand it is a fantacy bubble now. But there must be something real of this bubble that makes me so traumatic, so sad and lost. There must be something that this OM gives me while my H fails to. There must be something that works between me and my OM that doesn't work between me and my H.

Can you imagine how stubborn this fantasy bubble is given the fact that we are so far apart and practically there will be nothing happening between OM and me? Can you tell me why this OM still cares and concerns about me given the fact that I can't satiate his physical needs any more? Why, if this love is merely a fantasy bubble, did I experience such a traumatic feeling since he left?(I have symptoms of depression, lack of concentration after he left, still not fully recover now. )

How to burst my fantasy bubble completely while treating my traumatic symptoms? Is refusing to talk to my OM a means also to denying fact and creating another fantasy: "This man cheated me completely and all his words are false..." How do I recognize the truth and the false in his words to understand that this is a fantasy bubble and nothing else. How to differentiate the essential differences between a real romantic love and a love between two A committers?

Sorry I go back to the starting point.

IF you are even for real..
You are still trying to find the romance in this. It is not a romance, it is ugly, nasty cheating adultery. It did not "happen to you". You made it happen. You chose to start it, and you can choose to completely end it, whether you feel like it or not. It ain't rocket science.

If you are only playing games with us, please stop. It is painful for those sincerely trying to save marriages.

No, Josephine, that is just a delaying tactic that any halfwit can see right through. Cut the crap. You want to understand what is wrong with you? I will tell you now for free; you are dishonest and unfaithful. There ya go, now you know. Please pay the lady $50 on your way out.

You don't need to manufacture meaningless, mythological obstacles like a "map of your marriage" before you can do something constructive. You can do something constructive TODAY without all this fog-hooey that wouldn't fool a 5 year old. All you have to do is sit the man down and tell him the truth.

The only possible reason to delay is to arrange a close friend of his to stand by in the case of violence.

Quit manufacturing excuses, Josephine, they are not even clever excuses. I have heard more creative excuses from MrsW's 7 year old. Go tell the man the truth.

Have no fear, we will tell you what to do afterwards. But we are telling you now what needs to be done FIRST. There will be no "afterwards" if this is not done FIRST. THE TRUTH. Tell the man the truth and send him here.

Foreverhers - telling this WW NOT to confess now but to put it off is a wayward wife's dream.

And to think you accused Apherisis of having a wayward mindset.

I am certainly not a vet here, but I have never heard a WS advised to put off confession.

My FWH would have liked nothing better than to NEVER have to confess or give me the truth. If he had been advised to figure out WHY he had an affair FIRST, I would STILL not know ANYTHING.

Josephine, Some of these things will become clear to you AFTER you start coming out of the fog. Telling your husband the truth will accelerate THAT process.

I have a few questions for you if you feel you can safely answer them.

1. You said your husband slapped you. This is NEVER acceptable, no matter WHAT you have done or said! Are you fearful that he will physically harm you when you confess the truth?

2. Do you live in a country or culture that does NOT value women and would consider you MORE at fault than the OM? Are there legal issues concerning adultery for women that perhaps do not apply to men?

Your answers to these questions might guide the posters here in giving you information that will help you.

WH2LE

BK, as I said, we all have our opinions.

Does Josephine have a "Wayward Wife" mindset?

Yes, no question about it.


Are we going to try to help save marriages?

I sure hope so.


If that's the case, and we are NOT talking to her husband about how HE can save his marriage, just how ARE we going to possibly be of some help to him other than to "push the bomb out the plane" and let him "fend for himself?"


IF Josephine can't even figure out the simplest answers to the simplest questions and runs her life by her "self-centered feelings," HOW is she supposed to be in ANY position to try to help her husband recover from the bomb blast and, hopefully, be able to forgive her AND try to undertake the (as you know it is) DAUNTING task of recovering from infidelity?


Please don't try to equate this person with another person, they are two very different women who only have infidelity and no belief in God in common. This one with a single OM who she got into a Class II affair with and the other a multiple OM adulteress. This one has a husband who, so it seems, loves her deeply and exclusively. The other one has a husband who doesn't really seem to care if his wife was unfaithful.

But it's pointless to keep making comparisons. This one has her own problems that need to be addressed or her confession to her husband will be very similar to a situation where the Wayward Spouse has no reasons WHY the Betrayed Spouse should even consider recovery instead of immediate divorce. Josephine can't even see yet what a USER of women is her "dream man" of an Other Man. "Please don't tell my wife..." puke. That's what he is, a puke. IF I could, I would expose that serial cheater to his wife in a heartbeat. HE has more in common with Aph and is not at all "confused" about what he is doing to other women and to his wife. That's pretty darn similar to what Aph presented us with when she first arrived here.


ONE more time, BK, since you seem to have missed it. I believe she MUST confess to her husband. I also don't think taking a LITTLE time to address WHY he might want to remain married to her is a "bad thing." Whether he finds out today or next week is irrelevant at this point because Josephine already chose divorce and doesn't even seem to have a clue what "withdrawal" feelings are, let alone how to potentially help her husband from the pain that will be unleashed following confession.

IF she doesn't want to be married to her husband, then by all means, tell him right now so he can "get on with his life" without her. But it doesn't seem as though we are at "that point" yet.

So what is YOUR advice to her? Tell her husband NOW and let him "handle the news" all on his own? How exactly is that helpful to marriage building, let alone recovery from infidelity?

If you have a better idea of how to help, by all means offer it up and I'll be happy to yield the floor to you.

There is little that I can offer because there is no "faith" based function on which to draw. She is operating her life in a "postmodernism" sort of way, hence my questioning about Standards, to get her thinking and reevaluating her life and her choices.

I'd like to take a shot at unpacking this.

So he cares about you, let's see if his actions bear fruit of this. So much for caring. As soon as his bottom is in danger, he's begging you to look out for him. He doesn't text to see if you are OK. I mean, after all, you just told him your husband caught you. Are you in danger? Are you safe? Doesn't seem like someone who really cares so far.


Good, you see what we all know about those who cheat. It is not my intention to beat you up. However, what is true about ONE affair partner, is true about the other. I believe you are on the road to not being this selfish person. But by having an affair yourself, you too were only concerned about your own happiness. Your affair did nothing to enhance the happiness of your husband.

So in that regard, you WERE not much different than your partner.

That doesn't mean you have to remain that way. But I believe it's a truth you have to embrace and accept. It doesn't mean you need to stay there, as that would do no good. But neither does it do you or your husband and marriage any failures by trying to say you were better than your OM.
Actually, this should have been done BEFORE you marry. While I think you need to find a safe way to tell him, such as in a marriage counselors office, I really don't think it's your job to judge his emotional readiness for the bad news.

Bad news doesn't get better with age, it gets worse. So the sooner you tell your husband, the better.

Why?

First off, it gets him going on whatever road he will choose. Either recovery or divorce. The longer you wait, the further apart the two of you will be. If you wait months, you will have time to process this, but on the day he learns, D-Day, the clock resets to zero.

Second, he deserves to know the truth about his marriage. He is living a lie created by you at this time. He thinks he has a faithful wife, and you were not faithful. Time does not change this, and the longer you take in coming clean, the more he will question about his life. The more distrust he will have. He will wonder what other things you've been keeping from him for months or even years.

Finally, it will provide an excellent deterrent for re-igniting the affair. With him knowing and you making your life an open book, giving him your phone daily for him to check, proactively signing up for detailed phone billing so you can demonstrate to your husband that you have nothing to hide, etc, are all steps you can take to earn trust and build hedges around your marriage that were not there before.

Frankly, this may not be a question you have to answer. I can tell you this. Watching how your husband responds will tell you if you married the right man or not. I don't mean his instant response, but what he does after the shock of the news.

If this man is willing to forgive and work with you on recovery, then that man is gold and worth doing whatever it takes to make sure you never hurt him this way again. If he leaves you, then that simply means the decision is made. He may still be a good man who simply knows he cannot live with this in your past.

Men don't talk about feelings. We have them, we don't need to talk about them. It's that simple. Talking about our feelings accomplishes nothing. There is nothing wrong about not wanting to sit down over tea and talk about how something made us feel. It's a matter of preference. It's no more wrong than you not wanting to talk about (pick a subject.)

So why did you marry him? Nobody is perfectly compatible. So to expect that things just click is unrealistic. It's not wrong that you like going out with friends and he doesn't. It just means you are different. So if you are saying this in the tone that there is something wrong with your husband for being this way, you are sabotaging your own marriage.


Right now, you have enough changes of your own to make. Letting go of your disrespectful judgments about your husband. Your thinking that you are better at relationships than he is. Otherwise, you'll just repeat this again, choosing another man, finding fault with him, blaming him for the relationship ills and then choosing yet another man, perhaps while you are still married to the first.

Focus on you, and why you feel the need to be so critical of your husband and his relationship skills, instead of his perceived faults.


Did you ask him what YOU could do better? Seems you were pretty good at holding him to a higher standard, but what about yourself? You were willing to engage in an affair and lie about it to your husband.

Frankly, you are in no place to judge his relationship skills.



Then be honest and tell him the truth. Tell him you had the affair, the affair is over, and you don't know if you want to remain married.

Let me ask you this. Is it that you don't want to remain married, or you don't want to remain in the marriage the way it was before exposure of the affair?

Why not tell him you were dissatisfied and instead of approaching you in a healthy and respectful fashion, you did a selfish hurtful thing.

Why not tell him you were unhappy, and did something wrong instead of what you vowed to do, to work WITH your husband to build the kind of marriage.

Why not tell him that you realize you were as much the problem as he was, if not more, after looking at what depths of hurtful behavior you were willing to sink to in order to selfishly chase happiness.

Then ask him if he wants to work together to build the kind of marriage you both enjoy, or if he has other ideas.

Your marriage going forward doesn't have to be like it was in the past. I would say only PART of the problem is with your husband. A bigger part of the problem is likely the two of you really don't have all the skills to negotiate for what you want and to work together, instead of working for your individual goals.

If you don't learn these skills, it won't matter which man you end up with, you'll not ever be happy.

FH, unfortunately, Josephine is using your suggestion to "take some time" to avoid doing something she doesnt want to do. Her wayward mind is grasping about for each and every straw she can find to protect her wayward life. She wants to "understand" herself first, which is nonsense. There is nothing to understand. She knows exactly what she is doing.

As far as her being in a position to "help" her H, that is an unrealistic expectation of any wayward spouse. Her best thinking got her in this mess, so I have no delusions it can get her out. A WS can hardly help themselves, much less anyone else. Her mind is foggy, her moral compass is broken; it will take all of her efforts to help herself, if she chooses to do so. I have no illusions that she will be in any position at all to help him. She has noting to give.

Rather, the best she can do is tell the man the truth and send him here to us so he can seek help ON HIS OWN. At least if he knows the truth he can protect himself and get help. He can't get any help as long as she continues to lie to him and cheat on him. We can get him the books and point him to reading material. Perhaps we can even convince them to get into phone counseling. But, she needs no help in manufacturing more excuses to delay doing the right thing.