This is typical WS behavior, nothing unusual in it at all.

There is a plan for dealing with this and turning it around if you want to. Or just accept that nothing can be done and move on with your life if you'd rather.

Point being that nothing she says or does right now really amounts to much as far as reality goes. She's saying and doing what WSs do, that's all.

SWW,

Sorry about your D-day.

I mentioned it before... Eat, Sleep, stay healthy. That a full plate.

Make sure the right people in your command know whats going on. Don't try working this alone.

I was amazed at the support I received from my command. I was 3 months from retirement.

You have or will soon have your 20 years? Remaining M or D is your choice. But stablity for the kids is important.

Speaking from experience, my two boys made it to teens with a dad only around 50% of the time. My daughter has me home every day.

The grass is greener after retirement!

If you'd like, give me a location(s) and field(s) of interest. I might be able to help job search in the contract world. email if you prefer.

Again, stay healthy, see the Doc.

-JKT

SWW,

Hang in there my friend. You found this site for a reason and you'll make it through, whatever you decide to do.

How long are you home? When do you go back out of town?

Read up on Plan A and Plan B from the link below. Put some things down in writing on what you want to do going forward.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8113_ab.html

Stay focused. Reach out and know that you are not in this alone.

Listen to us, SWW. Your WW is sounding very normal (for a lying cheating addict still in the middle of her addiction). Do not take anything she says as hard truth. Or personal. This kind of thing is all she can say at this time. All us BH heard the same kind of blame shifting.

That being said, you need to protect yourself and your children. She has been this way for a long, long time. She will not defog easily, if at all.

See your atty, again if necessary. Know what your legal options are and what things to avoid doing at all cost.

Then call the MB counseling center, or a local MC that agrees with MB methods.

Then expose the affair. You want your wife back? Properly expose her affair!

And always take care of your children. You need to be the sane parent now. They need you more than ever.

With prayers,

Same here. If you are retiring from the military I may be able to help too.

With prayers,

to everyone thank u from the bottom of my heart. yes i see this is a process now. i am going to ic tomorrow. amazingly enough good things have come from this. old friends have been in contact and i guess te old saying your fortis are tough is true. i have felt really good being priviledged to be able to listen to two other bh's going thru the same thing.

the affair is exposed. ww knows it is hitting the streets. shes still playing it cool though. my sister was so livid she told everyone. then called crying and apologized. i told her not to worry.

i am home thru sunday. will see ic tomorrow and tell ww to come back over for another talk wherein she must come totally clean. like dr h says i need t know all. i dont know what will happen but i am sure from the wisdom i have goten from yall it wont be the truth.

i can go thru the procss though. let her clear from the fog. with me at home it is much better and so i need to be home three days a week. i think it is still going on though despite his other girlfriend. she actually defended him when i told her he had done this before.

Are you talking about your WW or Charlie's GF? Have you exposed to her as well?

I'm glad to hear that you have a support group forming all around you, that is awesome. Good for your sister, the more that know the harder it will be for your WW to hide it or lie about it.


This is a common desire for all BS. It usually doesn't work out the way that you want it to. She is not rational. Be sure not to set yourself up for failure.

So is your plan to work on Plan A and attempt to R your M?

How soon will you be home 3 days per week?

Have you read up on Plan A and Plan B and how long to do both, etc.?

Here's a link:
http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8113_ab.html

Emphasizing this part from the link below:


Have you purchased Surviving An Affair?

Keep in touch and our prayers are with you!!

Good for you. I'm glad things are starting to settle a little. Be prepared for it to get rough the minute you think it's calming down. They don't call it a roller coaster for nothing.

If Charlie's GF defended him, she's just in denial. Many spouses of the OP don't believe it when the A is exposed. You have proof. Share it with her. But don't expect a warm welcome. She may just not be there yet. She has to come to grips with it on her own. The most you can do is expose it.

My brother reacted the opposite to your sister. He was so angry that he didn't talk to anyone. And he told me that he never wanted any of his wife's family to know. He's ashamed...like I CHOSE to be a part of this. Whatever...that's his problem, I guess.

Keep reading, keep educating yourself, keep posting. You'll make it through.

HTM

To who (whom?)

How?

Exposure needs to be done carefully and to specifically selected people - sometimes in a specific order (not shotgun by an angry sister.) This is important so you minimize unnecessary fallout and do not create unnecessary obstacles to recovery later.

Of course, if you have decided you want out then enthusiastically expose to any and all, with my blessings.

With prayers,

onlyUcan,

WW defended the OM, saying it was not just his fault. She is worried about exposure. I will post last part of the story in a minute.

HTM and Aphelion,

A was only exposed to people who could have an influence on her but let me tell you, as Paul Harvey would say, "The rest of the story."

Over the 9 days I was home saw WW everyday. She is wearing her wedding rings, cleaned house and is staying at home, even when I am gone the kids remarked.

She would come over nearly every morning to talk and I believe she had a noticeable sense of relief that she had finally told me. I told you all that the first meeting she denied angrily, then progressed at each 1.5-2 hr "session" to come clean. Our last she finally really spilled her guts. Y'all tell me what it sounds like. I'll have to paraphrase:

She basically said she felt abandoned by me, that her father was an alcoholic who nearly died of it and that she wanted me to quit drinking forever. When I agreed to compromise she felt I loved a bottle more than her. She said she spent the last year plus running our business and I had been no help and had gotten angry when she would complain about being overwhelmed. She said I never listened to her without criticizing her.

She has valid points, I have been a terrible listener, for thos familiar with Myers Briggs I am an INTJ and am logical, rational and want too fix things. She is an INFP and needs to talk and feel validated.

Anyway she says that in March che decided it was over, but wasn't totally positive. She was having drinks with Charlie and another group and when they left she went back to his place. I asked her what she was thinking. She said that's it, she wasn't and it was stupid. She said they starting making out on the couch and it was very fast. She said she or he never even took her top off. I was incredulous. She made it sound like a lab experiment. She said they used protection.

I said, so he just unbuttoned your pants, pulled em off and put on a condom, how could you have been excited enough for it to work, she said it was a problem at first. I asked her what was going thru her mind while he was on top of her. She said she was thinking how did i ever get to this. When he was done she said she was all freaked out and got up got dressed and left in a hurry.

I said uh...ok, what about the second time. She said it went down pretty much the same. It was faster, she said she felt dirty and was thinking of the kids and all. She said she let him finish and got up to leave and he asked what was wrong. she said she told him she had a 14 and 12 yr old at home and what they had done was wrong.

I said if this is true, he used you.

cont. next post

cont from above.

She said I hate to tell u but what makes you think I didn't use him? I did. Said she basically was very angry with me, hated me for being so rude and unsupportive and wanted to see if she could be attracted and satisfied by another man and he was just the guy she picked. She said she liked him at first and thought he was cute, but after she found him very unattractive in that way. She claims not to have had an org*sm, says it was too fast and no foreplay. Second time only 5-7 mins. I said that is the most passionless stale thing I have ever heard. She nodded her head while looking at the ground.

She apologized over and over and said she knew this was like a bullet wound to my heart. That she had hoped it would never be discovered and that she had compartmentalized it in her mind in a box and thrown away the key. She said she had not seen him in 6-8 weeks. That he had texted her something about the Red Sox but she had not replied. I told her he needs to know I know and she needs to do a NC letter. She agreed to do it.

She told me it was like an experiment, to see if the grass was greener on the other side, and it wasn't. But she did say that if it had been, and she discovered that she could be passionate and attracted to him she prob would have filed for D the next day.

She told me that no matter what I had done, I did not deserve this, but that if we wanted to move forward we would have to address all our issues. She also said that she thought it would take awhile for me to get over it, that it had happened to her on a lesser scale and she knew that she had wounded me deeply, but all she could do was keep saying she was sorry.

Aphelion,

Can I email you privately with what I do and the locations you mentioned in your kind offer about contractor jobs. Its unclassified but sensitive. If you are still willing I could send you a resume.

Thanks

SWW,

It sounds like she probably told you what she could. On my second d-day, when H came clean, I kind of realized that he probably had told me all because what he had said was the worst I could imagine. I know that there was speculation as to whether or not Charlie is the only one. He may be.

The way she described your M prior to the A is probably somewhat true, but remember that most WS will re-write history to make their A look more reasonable. The fact that she blames you for not being there and not listening may be true but she is also justifying her actions...not only to you, but to herself. Remember that SHE made the choice to stray. You BOTH have things that need to change...not just you.

It does sound like she's trying.

One question...when was the text that you found written? She says that she has had no contact for 6-8 weeks, but wasn't the text more recent than that? And also, did you tell her how you knew?

Start making plans to spend as much time together as possible. Have her read SAA and HNHN. Start implementing the basic principles. You will be able to tell a lot by how she handles these requests.

Keep going. You're doing ok.

Post your email address here and I will contact you from my work account. Then you delete it.

The sooner the better. I will be out of the office for almost a month starting next week.

Also, I will not be reading here much any more and plan to pretty much stop participating on MB. I am having serious issues with certain, who I consider to be very unethical and not up to the job, mods. (This statement might itself be enough to get your thread edited and locked.) I only saw your post because another MBer emailed me about it this morning.


This is a true statement. Especially the second clause. You have work to do too. But your work, believe it or not, can be actually enjoyable.

More complicated. She may think she understands what it does to you, and what it will continue to do to you (and you family) for a long time to come, but she doesn’t really, of course. And saying she is sorry isn't the half of it. She has an almost immeasurable amount of hard work she still has to do if she wants to do this right.

Another thing to evaluate – changing careers and/or moving is very stressful all by itself. Do you want to add this to your already full plate right now?

Your wife sounds textbook. Everything unsaid by her about her adultery is probably also textbook. Call the MB counseling center for genuine money well spent help in recovery. If you need short term assistance I am happy to arrange to pay for the session.

With prayers,

hicktownmommy,

I have known this lady for 24 years and I can tell when she is lying, she is not good at it, and when confronted changes her story. As fantastic as it may seem, her whole demeanor seemed to be saying I have lost the will or the ability to lie anymore and here is the horrible truth.

I have been beating myself up for my attitude towards her but you are right, and she freeley admitted NOTHING could justify this. She said she hopes I can forgive her but that she knows g*d will judge her. I told her he would forgive if she just asked, she cried and nodded. She said if she had it to do over again she would never have done it and she feels horrible. She said that if any woman ever told her that she was contemplating doing something like that she would go over and forcibly tie them to a chair until the feeling passes because even though the BS hurts the most by far, she had hurt herself, the OM and possibly one day her children.

It was pretty incredible. In like a day a lot of worry lines began to evaporate from her face. She began smiling and one of her friends called me and said "What happened? I haven't seen her like this in over a year?"

The two of us and kids went for dinner just the four of us friday night and laughed and joked like old times.

I just get a sick feeling she hasn't told me the extent of it yet, and don't know if she is truly done. I just don't know. She claims there were never really any feelings for him specifically and she knew going in if she were to go thru with it it couldn't work out with him. He was like a guinea pig.

She claims he was broken up with his girlfriend for the 2 months during which time it happened. WW is now friends with OM girlfriend, went to see a movie with her and a couple other girls 2 weeks ago. Didn't that make you feel guilty i asked. She said definitely, she felt horrible, but she didn't want them to break up because she was perfect for him and they made a great couple.

Aphelion,

thanks. I will do it in the AM. Due to the sensitivity of where i work i couldnt put it down. I'll post a gmail address in the AM. Anything closer to Florida than Washington DC.

I can afford the Hartleys after next payday, but that is an incredibly generous offer.

Thanks.

Sounds like she is on the right track. It's interesting to me. I wonder if men and women are just different in the emotional part. My F-WH told me that he couldn't apologize at the beginning because it wouldn't mean anything to me. He still hasn't apologized. Your WW started out with apologies. Just interesting.

Brace yourself for little things that she may tell you over the next few weeks. It sounds like she has let a huge burden go. My H described it as relief from a rotting ball in the pit of his stomach. His demeanor changed as well. It's hard when his relief created so much pain for me. But I can understand it.

I tend to agree with Aph on the moving thing. If you can avoid it for awhile and still be with your W enough time each day/week, then I would wait. We are trying to do both at the same time and the stress of moving tends to bleed over into the stress of recovery. It's hard to tell what is creating the stress and the emotions seem to run higher.

So glad to hear that you found time to have fun as a family. Make sure that you are also finding time to have fun as a couple...time together alone where you do NOT talk about the A...you just enjoy each other.

thanks HTM,

I am now the road and air warrior. DC to florida nearly every weekend a month. WW told me that she was so angry at me for not coming home enough, and then, when she told me she wanted a separation I start coming home every weekend. She said that made her angry that it took her having to have a mental breakdown "to get my attention" enough to get me to start payinf attention to her and the kids.

She said again she was sorry but that she thought with the way we seemed to be communicating that there was hope. I told her strangely enough it might be the best thing that ever happened to our marriage. She agreed but was sorry that it went as far as it did.

I do fall back into love busters, like last night I called to her to say we needed a plan for reconciliation right now. That I was really angry at what she had done. She said she knew, that we needed to work together to forgive each other. She said that the whole time she never believed we would ever be divorced, she had been stupid and thought she could hide it forever.

I do thank god for revealing this to me exactly when her did, because if I had not started coming home all the time, even if it made her mad, she would have left I think. She may still, who knows.

As I said I don't think I know the whole truth, maybe like you it'll comeout in drips and drabs.

If you contact me I can possibly help you with work in the Charleston, SC area. It's a little closer than DC. Drop me a line at spamtrap2006@bellsouth.net.