Here is the answer to your husband's question:

How Do Affairs Begin?

Here is how you avoid an affair in the future:

How to Avoid an Affair (Part 1)

How to Avoid an Affair (Part 2)

NC = no contact

Your family needs to find a new recreational outlet other than softball, preferably one your H can attend and do dropoff/pickup a the practices.

I also think you should tell your H you're willing to relocate to any location you both agree on. Maybe let him pick three options and you choose the one you like best. The chances of you running into OM at school events, the gas station, the grocery store... are just too great and simply not worth it.


You probably cheated for two reasons:
OM made you feel special in a way your H didn't
You have poor boundaries in place and allowed yourself to cross them many, many times

Learning to make each other feel special:

Get the book "Fall in Love, Stay in Love" and read it with your husband. Answer all the questions with one another and fill out the questionnaires. Learn to meet each other's ENs (emotional needs) and avoid LBs (love busters). This will help you feel close to each other, and enjoy one another's company, and fall in love again.

You also need to spend 10-15 hours of uninterrupted time with one another every week. This is separate from family time, when the kids are around.

Establishing and enforcing boundaries:

Figure out what boundaries you crossed, and what boundaries you failed to have in place. A common rule of thumb around here is never be alone with a member of the opposite sex. That's one that you obviously crossed. Also, never talk about your marriage to a member of the opposite sex. Never write or say anything to someone that you wouldn't say in front of your husband. Think about these types of things, and let your husband know which boundaries you failed to have in place, or why you allowed yourself to cross them. Figure out ways to help your husband feel safe that you won't exhibit the same poor judgment and lack of self control again.

Some things you can do to help him feel safe would be:
- Put a tracking GPS on the car and have the reports sent to your husband.
- Offer to swap cellphones with him whenever he asks.
- Put a key logger on the home computer and have the reports sent to your husband.
- Offer to take a polygraph so that he knows you've answered all of his questions truthfully.

Welcome to Marriage Builders

parkjee,

turtlehead just gave you another big chunk of the MB process. Among us, we've given you most of it on this thread.

As you can see, you've got your work cut out for you.

HAVE AT IT!

RHW

The reason is very simple and is the same no matter who the WS is.

You did not have boundaries in place to protect your marriage from intruders. Or you moved your boundaries because the attention you were getting from OM felt good and you didn't want it to stop.

It really is THAT simple.

Boundaries are what keep us where we belong. Once they are removed, we tread in dangerous waters, often drown, and drown those who love us.

There isn't some deep, dark childhood issue or personality disorder that caused you to have an affair.

Affairs happen because one spouse becomes selfish and self-centered enough to want what feels good at the moment MORE THAN they want to protect their spouse from pain.


Dr. H's program will explain the details of this very clearly, and you and your husband will begin to see how it happened and what you must do differently.

Please encourage your husband to come here.

I've never seen a better, more succinct explantation. You put that perfectly, SMB!

That was so well phrased, I just wanted to see it again.

The kicker is that now your BH is going to feel like he can never trust you to protect him from pain. He'll be afraid you'll pick selfish gratification the next time, like you did this past time.

That's why you need to work with him to make sure you actively make the marriage strong and keep it strong. You need rules and guidelines in place to govern your behavior, and methods to ensure you respect those guidelines (boundaries). You need to go above and beyond to ensure your husband feels safe.

OK - SMB notable post

The best advice I can give, P1, is to listen to the vets here. They have been my lifeline.

My H doesn't want anyone's input on what I did nor on our marriage -- no MB, no books, no pastor, no MC, nothing. I explained why I betrayed him as best I could, but frankly, me cheating is so out of my own realm of morality I could barely explain it to myself let alone my husband. I was stumbling for weeks trying to give him a sufficient answer when I remembered this book I had recently read called Getting Past the Affair: A Program to Help You Cope, Heal, and Move On -- Together or Apart by Douglas K. Snyder, Donald H. Baucom, and Kristina Coop Gordon. There is a chapter in it called "How Could My Partner Have Done This?". I went to H and said, "I know you said you want to process all of this on your own and I respect that. This book is about affairs. There is a chapter that can speak to your question about why better then I think I ever could. I've marked the chapter in here, about 15 pages that speak to why people have affairs. It helped me understand better why I did this, and maybe it can shed some light for you too. You're of course welcome to read more and even keep the book if you choose." The next day my H said he did read it and thanked me. He said he still has questions, but it did help. He gave me the book back and read only those few pages, but since then, he has referred to it a couple of times so I know he took it in. And his "why" questions subsided dramatically. They still creep in, but not like they used to.

Good luck to you, P1. I will follow your thread here with hope.

Nicely put SMB! I think you've got it

Talking straight, just like a Texan!

In our case, OM was a next door neighbour and football coach. Our kids idolised him.


WOW - not only one of his good friends but a friend of your marriage to boot! I wish I had friends like that!


No Contact letter.


OK I'm sorry to say this but if you want to recover.... here goes....

1. Your kids need to change schools
2. Your kids need to either change sport (preferable) or change clubs to eliminate this happening.
3. You should never go there to see your child play if there is the remotest possibility of OM being there.

Harsh? Think I don't know what I am talking about?

Well..... we moved away from our house to ensure NC with OM. Our son played out the year of football but my wife never went to the games - not even to his grand final. The next year, my son changed football club because OM, entitled POS that he is, decided to coach my son's team even though his son was supposedly not playing that year. The year after that, our son changed to a different sport.

ANY contact with OM, not only for YOU but also your husband will cause huge issues in your recovery.

We were lucky - we were able to move back to our house a year later because OM sold his house and moved away. It still cost us $10000 in rent but it was worth it to get away from OM.

Are you getting the picture?

What bigk said is soooo true. This is what you MUST do. NO OTHER WAY! This is the pain caused by an A. It messes up everyone's lives including the children even if you do recover.

If you're serious about recovery this is the price you must pay.

Yes, I realize what a good friend he is......and remind my H all the time, especially when he says that he has no one to talk to about all of this, expect for me, the one who caused all of his pain.
Moving is not an option for us....and, as far as the Softball.....sign-ups are a couple of weeks away, and I plan on signing my girls up. I'm 99.9% sure that OM will not be signing up to be a coach, and I highly doubt that his daughter will be playing, either. I'm planning on waiting until the very last minute to sign up my girls...we have an inside connection, we are good friends with the VP of softball, and they will let me know whether or not they signed up.
As far as a NC letter, I don't feel that it's necessary....I told him that day that it was over, and since that day, he has not tried to make contact with me at all....which I am very grateful for. We never really saw OM or his family before the A, so I don't think there's a big chance of that. We did see OM and his wife at the school open house, my H did get angry and made a comment, but it didn't go any further....and this was less than 2 months after d-day. Our kids don't associate with the same people, or each other, really......bcause they went to different elem. schools.parkjee1

This really isn't about you but your BH. It's his choice on the NC letter.

Your judgement on issues with OM can't be trusted.

parkjee --

Sounds normal.

The best thing you could do for your husband is try to answer his questions. If he is still stuggling with "why" you had the affair, then lets figure that out.

There is an emotional needs questionaire on this website.
Fill it out 2 ways -- one for NOW, and one for the beginning of your affair. I will bet that you will see that at the start of your affair (or even before your affair) that there were certain emotional needs that weren't being attended to by you or your husband. That made you vulnerable.

By doing that same exercise NOW you can show your husband that you are both working on affair-proofing your marriage by making it NOT vulnerable to any affairs!

I can't read you whole thread, but as a betrayed husband, I can relate to the rollercoaster, and my WW feels much the way you do.

I know in my case, the bad days seem to be precipitated/triggered by me feeling ignored, affection-wise, attention-wise, sex-wise, whatever.

It is a result of not feeling the love, and also a tactic to try and get the attention. when I am "dark" which is the phrase I use, WW smothers me with the EN attention I need. She also says the same thing "But I thought everything was going so well!?"

To me, it is very hard to have things go back to "routine". My WW had better be kissing my bntt for a long time to come.

If you haven't done so, ID his ENs and make sure you are all over them. Try and offer new things, not just sex but in all his top ENs.

I don't know all of the details of your situation, but it sounds very similar to ours. On the bad days, I ask him what triggered his emotions, and he says, nothing.....but, I seem to think it's when he goes back to work, and has a lot of free time for his mind to wander.
Trust me, I am working hard on his EN...I will let the dishes or laundry sit....for days at a time....just so I can sit and watch tv with him.....because he has at times said that I worry too much about those things.....so I am showing him that he comes first.
I'll say the same thing to my H....I thought we were doing so good...and my H will say that he's just tolerating the situation better on those days.....
I think my H's biggest fear is that I'm going to have another A....and I'm just trying to convince him that I'm not.....trust me, I don't want to go thru this again, and I definitely don't want to hurt my H, the kids (even thought they don't know) and his family any more

I would totally agree that your husband's biggest fear is that you will have another A. As to the second part, I would wager that YOU never thought you would do it the first time let alone your husband thinking you would do this. It takes TIME for the trust to SLOWLY come back. You have to EARN the trust back, and it will take a long time.

"Moving is not an option for us....and, as far as the Softball.....sign-ups are a couple of weeks away, and I plan on signing my girls up. I'm 99.9% sure that OM will not be signing up to be a coach, and I highly doubt that his daughter will be playing, either. I'm planning on waiting until the very last minute to sign up my girls...
As far as a NC letter, I don't feel that it's necessary....I told him that day that it was over, and since that day, he has not tried to make contact with me at all....which I am very grateful for. We never really saw OM or his family before the A, so I don't think there's a big chance of that. We did see OM and his wife at the school open house, my H did get angry and made a comment, but it didn't go any further....and this was less than 2 months after d-day. Our kids don't associate with the same people, or each other, really......bcause they went to different elem. schools."

These seem like things YOU are doing. What about your H? What does he want? Would he want to move? What does HE think about girls in softball? Just having them play, even without the presence of OM, may be a huge trigger for him. How does HE feel about girls going to same school? Are you asking him any of this? You may want to read some of the threads that deal with triggers. They can be everywhere, come out of the blue and they are definitely NO fun for a BS to endure.

AM