6

I suspect that your wife has gone through many years of shame and guilt over the A, and has tried to downgrade the seriousness of it, and basically tried to forget it. You both stayed in the M for some reason.

What has probably happened over the last few years is that the fog finally lifted, she looked around, realized that OM dumped her, saw that you were still there and it hit her like a ton of bricks - what true love really is. She probably looks at you and thinks how she doesn't deserve you, that you stayed with her even though you knew of the A, that you've stayed, supported them, raised the kids and made a fairly happy home. You were probably her hero, but then you told her that you were only there for 6 more years. It sounds like she has fallen in love with you again - hence the hot and heavy SF.

Think about this. Your chances of being happy with your current spouse are far greater than you being happy with anyone else. With her, you have the history of 5 children, your first house together, your first sick kid together, your first (fill in the blank)together. No one else can offer that, and no one else will appreciate your children the way that she can. She knows you like no one else. She has watched you grow. If you D at 47 and remarry, you will have more challenges than you can imagine - your kids, her kids, x-spouses, possibly alimony, split assets, split families at holidays, grandchildren, and the list goes on and on. Is this anyway to head into retirement?

I'm telling you this because my WH just left for OP after 35 years of M. The losses are HUGE. Emotional and financial. I don't have to tell you of the emotional losses. The financial losses include selling our house of 20 years in a down market (huge loss), cost of two moves, I almost lost my business due to me not being "there" emotionally, thousands ($)on attorney fees, splitting of retirement funds, loss of his life insurance for me and mine for him, and the list goes on. You see, there is also a practical side to marriage. Even if you aren't "in love" there is a good reason for the partnership - to have that support in your life.

So what I'm asking is for you to consider all of this. You can just as easily fall in love with her again as you can with someone else. I realize that your love bank is in the red, but I bet if you give her a chance, she will do whatever necessary to make this marriage work. Honesty. You just have to tell her what you need to make it happen. You can have a happy life together, watch you children get married, have grandchildren etc. And that's not all bad.

Most of us BS's out here would love to have that opportunity.

Thanks for the advice,

I just don't know what I am going to do in the long run. I made it clear that I need the whole truth and she seems willing but terribly afraid and embarrassed or ashamed. I don't know why I am sad, I'm really feeling the weight of it all now.

Is it possible that I was somehow shielding myself from how much this hurts. I am immensely sad. I think now that we are going to talk it is all more real.

I think I might be able to shed some light on the sadness aspect. I found out my wife has been having at least an EA. She has filed to separate and the relationship car wreck begins.

Often we men are not particularly good a processing emotions. We are often unaware of emotions as we have learned to stuff them, suck it up, keep moving forward. You have experienced the loss of your dream. (Get married, buy a house, have children, white picket fence, loving family, appreciation for all your hard work, retiring together, loving each other, faithfulnees, trust, comfort, reassurance, fidelity, reliability) all dissappears in a flash. Sadness and exhaustion ensue, your brain has been processing the loss and the grief.

If you are rational you are trying to process the options. Sadness overtakes as they all seem like bad options. Sadness because we wonder why this had to happen. Life could be simple and happy, but now it seem complicated, cold, lonely.

Of course you are sad. You will feel sad it is part of the process. You are in grief.

Good luck

6-
Totally understandable how you feel, however when you get this all out in the open, and both are honest, a weight will be lifted. Your wife will have just as hard a time as you will have because waywards just want to forget and move forward. They have to be educated on the fact that the BS cannot just forget and move forward. I would recommend sessions with Jennifer or Steve. They will know what each of you needs, and will educate and coach.

Hey, you have 6 years left so why not make it a pleasant 6? then if at the end of the 6 you still want to split then you can go for it. I suspect what will happen is you will both have put this behind you and will be enjoying the best M ever. At least that is what I hope for you.....

There are many recovered marriages here who say it is better than before.....

Good post BCboy. You have come a long way since you first posted here.

Dear 6,
Oh yes, once words are spoken, it does make it all real. Persuasion theory and communication theory that I read 25 years ago in undergrad stated research on all this. Schoolbus can probably talk about this as she remains in that field in some manner.

Just be careful about not making any decisions when the two of you talk to each other, or when you read what she writes. I am glad that you reminded her that you need the truth from her. But keep in mind that she has had ten years to distort the "truth". I think it is likely that her first version may not appear completely truthful. But since she read your journal, she has been reminded of the truth as you knew it during that time. That may help refresh it all in her memory and I am certain that it makes it all very painful for her as she cannot avoid the truth.

Just be gentle on yourself through this. Try to take care of yourself. It would also be useful to set up "dates" or "appointments" when you will have relationship talks. That way, you can continue to take care of your children and also, you won't be left wondering when you are going to hear relationship words coming out of her mouth.

It does sound like she is feeling remorse and realizes the value of her marriage and the value of you.

I will be thinking of you and wish you best luck, good karma, etc, etc.
Lake

6yl,

You have had 10 years to alter the memories yourself - to "protect" yourself from the truth.

There are many processes involved in recovering from a trauma, or in just


living.



Whether or not we choose to believe this, we all practice self-deception. It is a matter of survival, really. If we were wide-awake and fully aware of it, it wouldn't be "deception", we would just be arguing with ourselves all the time!

Actually, once we do become aware of a self-deception, we do things that we are aware of to deal with things. We might attempt to deny what we know is true, we might try to justify something we know is wrong to do, we might try to rationalize our own behavior, we might go to therapy to try to understand ourselves better. We might even focus on the problem and actually


CHANGE.


That's the big scary one.


Change.


It means we have to look at the thing that is not so great within us, face it, accept it isn't so great, and take action to alter our own behavior. It means we acknowlege that others are right and we are wrong. It might mean that something we have done the same way for 20, 30, or 50 years must be done differently, and that other people will comment on our changes.

That's not easy.


It may mean our defenses must come down, and that we open ourselves to criticism, hard words, pain, honesty, and a tough look at our most vulnerable insides by others. We have to trust others - sometimes the very people who have hurt us.

In your case, 6, you may have to open up to the wife who has hurt you, and lower the wall you have spent 10 years building.


And you may have to decide that perhaps, just perhaps,

this marriage is worth saving.

That maybe your idea of leaving in 6 years is NOT something you want to do, after all. And that maybe the concept of forgiving and moving forward within the marriage is something that you should put into the realm of consideration.


You might find that this pain you are feeling is the first indicator that you still love your wife, and that you actually do want this marriage. It might just hit you, because the fact is, that there are many of us (me included) who said these words:

"If he cheats on me again, I will divorce him."

And when it happened, we didn't. Because somehow, I guess, we had that self-deception thing happening, and when those walls came down it turned out we just wanted something different in our marriages.

And that "different" thing turns out that we did not want a different spouse.

What we really wanted?

A different MARRIAGE approach.

Marriage builders gave that to us.


Work these concepts for one year - get your wife on board. If, after at least one year of commitment from both of you, and coaching from the Harleys, you still think your marriage has no chance, then you could legitimately say you tried.


I think your feelings will begin to change.


Try it. What do you have to lose, except your indifference?


SB

Thanks SB,


I'm still sad today, I don't know why but I think it has something to do with the fact that before I had a clear mission and it took alot of attention to just execute. Now, I'm sort of just out there, maybe hurting, maybe just sad that the last 10 years were so very empty for me. I feel profoundly lonely.

Today at lunch she asked if she really had to tell me everything, I just said "Don't you think I've earned that." as evenly as I could. She agreed but went off to cry some more. I'm sure she will be wanting SF as some sort of assurance again soon. I'm 41 and I'm not sure I can keep up this pace. Is it ok to just say I'm trying but physically I'm out of juice?

Sure it's ok to not have SF if you do not want to have SF with her. Is it that you are physically out of juice--then say that. If it is something else--tell her what it is. If you want to attempt to meet her ENs, maybe there is some other way you can help her with this hysterical bonding thing that she is needing from you--some other type of intimacy like holding her.

I think you are reading yourself very accurately about feeling like you are "just out there" now that your previous plan is up in the air. That is why it is very important to obtain whatever certainty that you can obtain--an appointment to obtain her "telling of everything", knowledge that if you do not want SF that you have the ability to carry out with her only what you feel able to carry out, a schedule of appointments to do this relationship talk, schedule of who is driving the kids to soccer, appointments, school, etc., schedule of activities that you will follow for yourself over the next weeks. Just take care of yourself and obtain as much certainty as you can about what is going to happen, and when it is going to happen.

6yl,

The MB concepts advice Openness and Honesty. Radical Honesty, which means that you state what you have to state, but that doesn't mean you say things in a hurtful way.

So when she wants SF and you don't, you tell her you don't. If you are pressed for a reason, you tell her. And I don't believe its because you're out of juice, either. I think you're out of emotional juice, yes.

You can tell her that your emotional attachment right now to SF is numb, and that you need to need her that way, too. That the affair issue is confusing you, and you need it cleared up so you can bond with her, so things can be right for you both.



When she asked if she had to tell you everything, I think I once advised you to print out "Joseph's Letter". If not, look in the "Notable Posts" thread, print it out, and give it to her.

And yes, you do deserve to know all of it.

So does the other man's wife, by the way. So once your WW writes it down, consider sending a copy on to OM's W. And no, don't warn anyone. It may make everyone crazy mad, but that OM's W might have been fighting an uphill battle in her marriage for awhile and never known quite why she could never win.

I want you to think for a moment how difficult this must be for your wife to finally confess. In a human sense, this must have been an anchor around her neck, a darkness she carried for a decade. Now, there is this before her - facing it, facing you, confessing it all.

She cries because she knows that you know. That you have known all along. That what she deluded herself about for ten years has had light upon it all along. That her "secret" world was never secret, and that for this long you have looked at her with growing resentment, building day by day, to this point of utter indifference to her and the marriage.

It has been said here that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.


She knows the price she has paid.


Her crying shows that.

Look for her brokenness.



I ask also that you keep yourself open to the faint possibility that you are NOT indifferent, after all.


And also open to the possibility that you might, just might, see that brokenness and want to forgive her.


Because you might just surprise yourself.

SB

I'm processing, it is hard. I didn't mean out of juice in the crude sense.
I meant, not able to make everything work. Of course, for men a little time in between makes it easier to do the SF thing and gives me some physical urgency when it has been a day or two.

6years,

A man without a plan is a man lost. You are lost right now, and that is really fine. You need data to make a plan, but her changing her behavior 3 months ago, her starting to open up and be honest with you, made your previous plan obsolete. Don't worry about that too much. You will be able to make a new more well founded plan, even if it seems to be just like your old one.

I would imagine that alot of loneliness, pain, and disappointment has been stuffed for the last ten years. It is going to come out now, and that is a really good thing, although not much fun.

Hang in there 6years.

God Bless,

JL

Thanks for the support,

She has started to write / type up her answers. She said she is very afraid she will lose me anyway. I didn't know what to say back so I said I don't know.

I'll know more tomorrow.

I have an early meeting this morning. Here is the update. She worked on writing up what happened, I gave her the letter from here but I sanitized it so she would not come here. She still seems scared but is not crying all the time.

I did manage to do SF because she was so upset when I said I was too tired.

Is it too much to hope for an apology? It might help even before I know the facts. JUst hearing "I am sorry, I was wrong" would help me do another day.

I have an observation about about the SF. Has that always been a big deal to you in your relationship with her? Reason I ask is in from your posts she seems almost desperate for that activity just to try and get your attention. SF is nice but if there is no connection after awhile it can just become a chore and actually become a turn off. Sex for the sake of sex only last so long.

Speaking as a WS, getting an apology you will be happy with? I don't think you will ever get that. Because it sounds like you want to hear something specific that she may never say.

I actually agree with HU regarding the apology. You may get it, you may not. If you get it, it may not be quite what you want to hear or the words or tone may not ring true to you.

She's been crying non-stop for days.
That's a pretty big apology.

You'll find that it's quite rare for a WS to apologize. They usually don't feel remorse right upon discovery (and to her, this is discovery even though you've always known).

Many (most) WS are quite cavalier about their affairs and feel like they were entitled to them.
"If I hadn't been so miserable in the M..."
"If you had only done X I wouldn't have...."
"I was burned out from doing Y all the time, I needed to have some fun/feel loved/whatever"

While the above is especially true for WS still actively involves in the A, denial and justification are also typical behaviors for WS no longer in an A upon discovery.

I'd say you have your apology, and then some.

6YL:

I was struck by this line:


You have been waiting for ten years.

Wait another couple of days.

Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Whatever she typed last night? It's a start. Not the end.

Read it, and let it sink in for a little while, before reacting.

The new info contained there? Something you didn't KNOW before but suspected/had nightmares about/assumed and what you can imagine may be far less than it actually was. Be prepared for that.

Yes, she will minimize her role/activities to a certain extent. However, what did happen may be rather tame. And you will KNOW when she is being honest. And that makes all the difference in the world. If she says it was three times but she can't look you in the eye, or you ask for details and they do not add up, your back to square one. What is the truth?

Why is she writing it down? Because then she doesn't have to face your anger/pain/disapproval in person. Pretty smart for her. It does allow her the opportunity to get it all out there however. And that is pretty important. Waywards do NOT want to reveal MORE of what happened because it "might cause more pain" to the BS. But ONLY the BS can determine exactly WHAT they need to know.

That's why I would recommend that IF she does give you a letter, and it is fairly complete as to outline of WHAT happened and when, with some details, that you two limit conversations/discussions about this topic to no more than two hours a week. This in NOT to sweep it under the rug. It's to allow time for your TWO to be TOGETHER. And these "discussions" can be very grueling for BOTH parties. You have triggers and she has to expose herself for the first time in her M to you.

You deserve all the info that you need in regards to that time in your life. Accept that much of it is going to be painful. But when she is revealing TRUTH? She needs to feel safe to continue to do so. When she reveals to you that they "never used a condom" or "she liked it "this" way" That is all history. And stuff that you NEED/WANT to know. If you explode at her and tell her that she is a "sl()t!" or Stupid! or "whatever" each time she reveals something, you will never get it all. And getting all you need to know is all that matters.

You can do this. You have put up with worse ten years ago, and then for 9 more years. If she really starts to come clean, your 6 year plan will become the "till death do us part" plan.

And, do not be afaid to create your OWN listing. What you NEED to know. You have your notes from that time. THey may give you places you want to start the list from. And you have had ten years to chew on WHAT you need to know. As a matter a fact, the listing from you CAN be very important. IF she sees the list early on, and you two discuss two or three topics from the list (say the list has fifty items on it) each time you meet, then she knows that all will be revealed to your satisfaction and then you can grow past this.

And Yes or NO answers are not acceptable. Please ask leading questions and let her talk. Let HER fill the silence.

LG
And THAT'S what MB is all about.

LG

On the SF front, we were very active, had lots of kids and then it went to zero for the A time and maybe 6 months after. After that I stopped asking so we were at about 2- 3 times a week always at her request. Nothing especially intense, but we have been married a long time, I know what she likes. Now she seems like she can't get enough, more than just SF, affection as well. Things like sleeping with snuggled up to me with her hands always on me.

I'm not a name caller, again strict upbringing. I already asked the whys but the answer was it was not an A and I was just overwhelmed with responsibilities. That is the closest I came to being nasty I said "I was young too. I had a new job and 5 kids, and I spent almost 2 years raising them myself. I knew you were partying and having sex with T and I stayed and kept our family together." She didn't deny anything she just said "I know that" and went away to cry some more.

I'm getting tired of the constant crying. I don't know what to do about it.

On the apology front; I'm sure it can never be good enough. There are lots of things that an apology can't fix and where it is not good enough. But at least you can offer. When I do something wrong, I apologize to her and try to make it right because that is what a decent person does.

I have a suggestion stop the SF, she is using that to try and get close to you and avoid talking/confrontation. The simple idea that all guys just want sex and if you give it enough they will love you.

Maybe once you stop that particular activity she will be more open to talking since that is all there will be. Sex can cover up a LOT of issues in a relationship since it does release a LOT of chemicals in the brain that make you attached to someone.