I recommend you get the book SAA and read it ASAP.

Then read the book HNHN ASAP.


BTW, The past will not Enlighten you..... It will hold you back there repeating the same things over and over again and again.

Call the Harley's. Schedule an appointment with one of them today. You will be amazed how much they will help you and your wife.

I just read your full accounting and story. I will tell you, despite how you are both feeling, you are an inspiration to me. Your H came clean very quickly and it seems that the physical stuff was pretty much it. I know I know NEVER acceptable. But my H fell in love with the OW. They exchanged emails, texts and went away together. My images are of them holding hands at a resort somewhere! At the time we had not taken a couples only vacation since our children were born. So please take this as a good thing for the two of you . . . indiscretion has it's severities if that makes sense. My WS was outrageous! He wanted to leave all of us for the OW! Move several states away and try to get her away from her H and children. He was deeply involved with the OW. Currently I am referring to his state in the marriage as . . . "A fence-sitter". You my dear are not just lucky but truly blessed from my perspective.

Hi Oceanspray, thank you so much for the post. We certainly don't feel inspirational at the moment, but we are both working very hard to have a happy marriage, and are willing to do whatever it takes.

I know exactly what you mean about the range of affairs, and I do feel lucky that my FWH had no emotional connection to the OW. That said, however, it does appear that once the fog is lifted and contact has ended, recovery follows a very similar pattern.

Please post your story; I am sure you will find it therapeutic. Is your H's A over? Are you recovering? I am so sorry that your H's affair went so far that he considered leaving you. That must be so very hard. Affairs are easy for the waywards once they are in them because they are not real, and they become a pure escape. When you say your H is a fence sitter, does that mean his A is still continuing? If there is anything I can do, even if it is only offering a shoulder to cry on, please let me know. I'll be here for you.

Thank you tst for posting to my FWH. We have the books, I have read them but my FWH hasnt, although I have passed on the information from them, and we are using the MB concepts. Mind you as write that I realise he hasn't quite grasped the radical honesty bit. I'll have to spend a litle more time with him on that one.

I'm not sure I quite understand your reference to the past holding us back. For me I need to understand how he could have allowed not so much the A to happen, but the peripheral things surrounding the A to happen and to do that he needs to look at his part in the A.

The A I can cope with, but some of the things he allowed her to do astound me, for example coming into my house pretending to me that I was the best thing that ever happened to her and that she needed me. Her asking our daughter to wear clothes that she wore when she went to a hotel to **** my H, and then texting my H to ask if he was excited. Her making a CD of songs referring to heartbreak and cheating and asking me to play it when she, my FWH, her H and me and all the children were having a BBQ. I could go on and on with the list of games she played with us, but I really do not care about her, I just need to know how he could have been complicit in these actions and could have allowed her to treat me and his children so badly.

These things I need explained to me and at the moment my FWH can offer no explanation other than he was in "a dark place" and wasn't "acting normally". He feels such shame for what he has done and believes this shame is preventing him and did prevent him from feeling. Does this make any sense?

Thanks for the words of encouragement. I will post my whole story when the spirit moves me. I feel so weary telling it here because I have been living it for so many months . . .However, I am getting up the courage to prod my WS again. Right now our relationship is pretty one-dimensional and I know I deserve better. Some of your experiences sound horrible because your H and the OW were playing with your emotions. This happened to me also. I knew of the ongoing A for over 4 mos. I used exposure and confrontation but the OW H was in the dark. When he found out she closed up shop and dumped my WS. Anyway, I will have to run because the children need dinner now.

Thanks for making a connection with me. PS - we are the same age.

First, I want to explain that I was addressing your husband. I really recommend that you start your own thread and allow this thread to be used for feedback to your husband. This is the same thing that was recommended to me when I came here.

Since you have explained to me that your husband hasn't read any MB books, I will tell you that he is not engaged in recovery yet. This needs to be an action that he does, not one that you TEACH him about. Teaching your spouse and trying to explain the MB program is a love buster. As explained in the book Love Busters, it's a disrespectful judgement (DJ).

From your old thread and from your husband's thread here, I truly see that you want your husband to "get it". The only way this is going to happen is for HIM to invest the effort and all the hard work that goes along with it. There is no free pass.

Now as far as you needing details about the history of your husband's A, he should disclose any information you feel you need. That's called openness and honesty.

As far as looking for an answer as to why all of his morals and values flew out the window, it's really quite simple. They just flew out the window. He made the choices to drop his bar. Not just a little. He dropped it completely. Digging up all the past childhood hurts and FOO issues will not help recover your marriage. In my experience, for the wayward, to dig all that up typically will sabotage recovery of your marriage.

This is why I recommend calling the Harley's and beginning some coaching sessions. They will help you sort all of that out and make sense of things that make no sense. You can spend the next year trying to do it on your own, or with some MC or IC that hasn't a clue about the dynamics of affairs, or you can spend several weeks talking with the Harleys and have a much better chance.

I'm hoping that you turn this thread over for your husband's use only after this. You will get alot of the help you need by having your own thread, and he will get the help he needs here.

Hi tst, thank you for posting again. I have read your story and you really have been on an incredible journey.

I do so want to "get it" and I so want to prove to myself, DW and family that I am not an evil person based on the evil actions that I was involved with.

Although I have made an almighty mess of the recovery process I am committed to doing this properly and fully. I want to feel recovery deep within me rather than in a shallow way mainly based around other peoples perceptions of me.

I have read a book on infidelity (Not Just Friends - Shirley Glass) and genuinely took comfort, knowledge and some level of understanding about my behaviour.

I feel that there are a number of inherent problems that are stopping me stay on the right recovery path. Firstly, I know that my shame is playing an unhealthy role in the whole process. I feel it so intently. Looking back, as well as trying to get an insight into the A, I was hoping that the book I read would also lift the despair of shame that I felt.

I just wanted to shift it quickly. So whilst I was invested in recovering there was still a selfish desire to reduce the impact of my shame. So, my reading of the book was not done 100% to recover but to feel better. In retrospect, I couldn't even read the book in the right circumstances for DW and my family. Ironically, this only adds to my shame.

Secondly, I am a conflict-avoider. Always have been and this trait has led me by the hand to where I am now. Can see it as clear as day and I am determined to eradicate it, especially before my 3 year old starts to copy me.

Allied with my shame and an unhealthy desire to protect my DW from any more pain and torture has magnified it three-fold. The fact is I know that non-disclosure was also my own selfish way of not having to face up to the FULL facts and consequences of what I had done. This was nothing other than disresectful to my DW.

My actions should have been geared up 100% for my DW. Whilst the majority were, an element of it also protected me and allowed me to continue to conflict avoid thus copying the very characteristics that got me in this mess. I can see how wrong that is.

I take full responsibility for my part in the A and the betrayal to my DW and family. Now I can see the OW for what she is
and the events that my DW described make me sick to the core. She really was a person I would have, at any other part of my life, steered well clear of. I am not trying to demonise her for my own benefit, to lift some of my shame, but she means nothing to me now in any way at all and is not a patch on my DW.

At this stage I feel that I need to have some understanding how I could not recognise the ugliness of the actions with the OW. Not solely the A as such, but in terms of allowing her to humiliate my DW and family in the way she did. How could I let that happen? How could I not see that at the time? Why have i buried/avoided this until recently? Why did I not feel so disgusted before I saw my DW's reaction.

I understand that during the A, my moral compass was "competely out of the window" but since then I have genuinely tried (and obviously failed) to get back in touch with my true emotions to allow my M to recover.

But it is quite evident that my moral compass, ethics and integrity are still way of line with any normal person, specifically when it comes to recounting and reliving the A and everything that went with it.

Is that because of the shame I feel? Is that because I am still conflict avoiding? Is it a mix of the two? Will I only be able to truly recover when I can understand and compare the morality of the "old/new me" and the "A me". Is the recovery process completely dependent upon this?

Thank you for your advise about Harleys. My DW has a book that I will began in ernest. I will also talk with her about the coaching sessions.

Every journey starts with one step so here goes..........

The reality is that when we have done something shameful, we should feel shame. We will feel deep remorse and sorrow once we admit we were wrong for our shameful actions. We then should feel driven to make ammends to those we have harmed. Then we commit to changing our character defects by launching ourselves into action. These actions are esteemable actions that begin to transform us into the man God called us to be.


I would advise you to read SAA and HNHN over the next 2 weeks. Then read FILSIL right after that. Your wife says she's had the books. You have avoided reading them for yourself.

Ask your wife to do coaching with the Harley's and set the appointments up yourself on Monday. If your wife is not interested, follow through with an appointment on your own.

You continue to hide behind this conflict avoider label and if that were truly your issue you would be a serious people pleaser doing everyting in your power to help your wife heal. I don't see a people pleaser, or a conflict avoider, I see a selfish man hiding in his sorrow in order to remain helpless and stuck.

Hi tst, thanks for taking more of your time to post.

I will over the course of the next few weeks be doing a lot of reading, thinking, re-reviewing along the path suggested. This will involve contemplation and introspection.

Can I just slightly dis-agree with your appraisal of me regarding the my "people pleaser / conflict avoider" label.

I can understand your viewpoint, however, it isn't quite that simple. Both of those traits are negative and destructive in isolation. Together they are a dangerous combination.

As conflict avoider I would ignore, dismiss or negate any difficult situations to MY advantage. The thought of having to face, head on, serious conflict would fill me with dread.

However, as a people-pleaser I would tell people what they wanted to hear in the very short-term to allow my conflict avoidance to continue. My doing this I avoided the confrontation and the other person would be happy/appeased for a while.

This pattern was repeated time and time again as the difficult issues re-surfaced. Each time the response would have to be modified to a) continue to avoid and b)continue the appeasement of the other person.

My hope was that, with time, difficult situations would become diluted and forgotten.

These traits are inherent in me and I know that these need to exorcised if my DW & I are to be truly recovered.

I am a selfish man in terms of my A and events since but this is not, in any way, to remain helpless and stuck as you suggest.

The route and reason to our marriage problems and A all stem from my conflict avoidance and the way I personally dealt with lifes issues for so many years. This I know and feel to be true which is great news for me as I have, at last, a starting point for recovery.

I'm confused by your reasoning here. You keep saying that you had an A because of your conflict avoidance. This is not true! You conflict avoided your way into sex with another woman.....Your wife should be very worried by statements such as these.

She has already admitted throughout all of her posts that she is to trusting and is easily lied to as a result. She needs to look at the actions you are doing. Not the amount of tears you shed.

Can you take the time to share all you have done and are doing, in the form of concrete actions, to help your wife recover and to restore this marriage.

These traits as a whole are narcissistic, meaning very self serving and very self centered. This is why I am hammering you to stop focusing on YOU and learn to turn the focus toward your wife.

Reading the book SAA will teach you how to focus on protecting your wife.
Reading the book HNHN will teach you how to meet HER needs!

This recovery needs to teach you how to get out of yourself for the purpose of heling your wife from the damage YOU have caused.

I have many extreme stories in my own life about child lose, illnesses, very difficult pregnancies, alcoholism, drug addiction, abuse from a parent, etc., etc., etc....... None of which caused my affair!

My lack of boundaries, my values going out the window, my moral compass being stomped on by me, are reasons I had an affair! And they are the reasons you had your affair too. After reading SAA I think you will begin to understand instead of wanting to be understood.

BINGO! The solution to bad behavior is to change PRESENT BEHAVIOR, not to divert attention rooting around in the past. The past is dead and gone and cannot be changed. The only thing we have control over is the PRESENT and the FUTURE.

Well said MEL,

BB is still wanting to root around in the past to avoid the pain he sees in his wife's eyes and to protect himself. Not conflict avoidance, pain avoidance. Same thing I did during our false recoveries. It was all about me!

Thank you for all the various posts.

Please let me assure you all that I do have my DW at heart completely in terms of our recovery. I know the A was all about ME and the original recovery process failed because I made it about ME.

The reason I have tried to give an insight into my unhealthy mindset is because my DW needs to know why and understand why and how I managed to put our M and lifes on the line for absolutely NOTHING.

She NEEDS to know this if we are to recover. That is what she has said and is insistent what I have to do, delve deep into my emotions both now, before and during the time of the A to tell her how I allowed myself to act in such an abhortent way and dis-regard and disrespect my M and my family.

I know the recovery process and my current actions have to centre on my DW's needs and not pander to my own conflict/pain avoidance. But, by doing this I have no choice other than to be retrospectively intuitive and fully understand what I was going through and why I was going through it. Only then can I truly give my DW an answer.

Please don't confuse the content of my previous posts as being about me FOR me. They aren't.

I am not looking for any kind of absolution by posting on here. I am looking for answers. Answers to questions that have been cultivating in me for so many years that I care to forget.

I can understand people reading this thread and see contradictions. Why, if I'm a conflict avoider, did I get involved in behaviours that led to the biggest conflict any person can become involved in.

Also, I appreciate that not everyone that has had "a hard life, bad experiences, stressful times" goes on to do anything within a milion miles of my behaviour but, in my case, it was a major contributory factor. This is an area I briefly discussed with a councellor many months ago (looking back I purposely skirted around the issue because I was scared of getting the answers).

The fact is, like it or not, my avoidance issues in relation to the sad and stressful events during our M manifested within me. Rather than process the negative and destructive emotions I buried them and did not process what those feelings meant to me.

This time 12 months ago my I was in a dark place. My DW was convinced that I was becoming an alcoholic. Looking back drinking just dulled the pain I felt at that time. My heavy drinking was my "medication". I needed to drink to be able to cope and did so with regular gusto.

When the OW made advances towards to me I had another new type of "medication" and one which I had ever envisaged or considered before. But, medication it was, it lifted the haze and I took it. The most selfish and narcissacistic act I will ever be able to do in my life.

My DW have talked about my desent as a person, husband and father. When we went through all our bad times I carried on as if nothing had happened. I saw my DW so deeply depressed and in my mind I had to be strong, carry her and the family so we didn't sink into an abyss.

My DW's recollection of that time, she saw me as uncaring and not bothered because I seemed to carry on as if nothing happened. The fact is that we stop communicationg in a real emotional way that a married couple should at that point and never even came close to regaining it until after the A.

We were both doing what came naturally to us and also for the right reasons but it was just that neither of us could see it or had any insight to each others behaviour because they were at very opposite ends of a spectrum.

Before I continue to waffle on and come across in the wrong way please let me re-iterate I am totally and utterly doing this process to give my DW and our M the answers it needs to thrive. Along the way I will, of course, gain insight to myself but it is for my DW that I will leave no stone unturned until I have those answers.

I want her to be sure that I understand who I am, why I became susceptible to an A and how I could act in such a cold and abhorent way without morals and ethics. Importantly, if I don't go through this intense introspection how can she ever have any certainty about me as her husband and that it won't happen again. If I can't understand what happened to me and recognise those problems again if they ever arise how can I be sure that I would react in a totally different manner in similar circumstances.

In summary, my M is broken and my DW is broken. Why? Because of ME. It was MY difficiencies as a person that led us to where we are now. It is ME that has the problem not her.

Whilst the main over-riding thrust of our recovery will be my DW, her needs and her feelings at her pace in the best way I can provide surely part of that process will have to focus on ME as the betrayer.

My DW has done nothing against our M - just ME. I am in the problem in the M so it is "ME" that needs sorting out. I can't and won't apologise for having part of our recovery process focus on me.

ML, thank you for your specific post.

I may have missed the main point that you are trying to make but, if you don't understand your past behaviours, what drove you to do certain things then how can you be modify your current behaviour to safeguard the future?

Surely by only having a true grasp of the frailties, short-comings and defficiences within yourself can you adapt and apply the right type of boundaries for your present and future life.

You don't have to understand your childhood to change CURRENT BEHAVIOR. All you have to do is...............change current behavior! In fact, you will probably NEVER KNOW why. You dont need to know. Who cares? Exploring your childhood is a DIVERSION AND DISTRACTION from changing current behavior. It can keep you coming back to counseling for years.

Nice for the counselors pocketbook, but meaningless to recovery.

All of the successful programs such as AA, NA, and Marriage Builders focus on making the present and future great and leave the past where it belongs, in the past.

Don't waste your time on nonsense and hooey, BB. Get to work and change your behavior.


Dr. Willard Harley, clinical psychologist and founder of Marriage Builders:


Dr. Willard Harley: "One of the reasons I'm not so keen on dredging up the past as a part of therapy is that it brings up memories that carry resentment along with them. If I'm not careful, a single counseling session can open up such a can of worms that the presenting problem gets lost in a flood of new and painful memories.

If the goal of therapy is to "resolve" every past issue, that seems to me to be a good way to keep people coming for therapy for the rest of their lives. That's because it's an insurmountable goal. We simply cannot resolve everything that's ever bothered us.

Instead, I tend to focus my attention on the present and the future, because they are what we can all do something about. The past is over and done with. Why waste our effort on the past when the future is upon us. Granted, it's useful to learn lessons from the past, but if we dwell on the past, we take our eyes off the future which can lead to disaster."

By studying a model of a healthy marriage (MB) not by studying an unhealthy model to see what's wrong. Study the healthy model and begin practicing THOSE principles.

It's alot like my job. If I went back and tried to study every mistake I made to see why I made it, my boss would fire me; and he would have every right to for wasting all that time. On the job, I get paid for doing things right. It's the same way in my marriage. If all I'm going to do is waste time going over my past mistakes, then I will obviously end up divorced. If I focus forward doing the right things over and over again that will lead to being in love with my wife everyday, then I'm likely to remain married.

If you'll read the MB books that I've recommended, and you and your wife go through all the questions at the end of the chapters, you will be amazed before you are halfway through (Mel will like that one ) You'll then know what a successful marriage looks like and how to continue creating one.

BB I just want to underscore that you're getting great advice from tst.

DO read the books he suggests, in the order he suggested them.
Re-read what you wrote and try to see the narcissism and focus on self in them; it's hard to read/hear those kinds of things about ourselves but please do. In a marriage it really does have to be all about the other person. Maybe you are all about your BW now... but try to see why tst is seeing the self-focus. It will help you.

Also, I think tst had a great request in asking you to take a moment to post what concrete actions you are taking to restore your marriage. It's the actions that count more than the words.

To everyone that has replied to my posts - thank you.

This weekend I have spoken so honestly and openly with my DW that I have real hope for the future and our M.

I have lacked much intuitiveness over the past months that has severely hindered our recovery and made the focus more about me than her.

Don't get me wrong, some of the answers I have given to my DW have upset her in some respects but I now feel deep within me that I am starting to "get it" - the whole sorry episode and my role within it.

I no longer feel the pressure of burden but a sense of release and optimism that I have not felt for so so long.

All we have done this weekend is examine, re-examine, re-visit, discuss, process, relate to the point that real progress in terms of our recovery appears to have been made.

Don't get me wrong I understand that there will be many more "bad" days before the entire process is complete but I am fully committed to doing so for my DW, M and family.

In terms of concrete steps and actions, I have finally been totally honest with myself and my DW about my selfishness and narrcisism by having the A. Irrespective of whether there is a background to it, the facts are that I had choices, I didn't respect my DW, my M or my family and I took destructive choices for my own needs. Nobody else counted just me.

All my efforts are now for my DW and her needs are paramount in this recovery. Her needs, her fears, her uncertainty, her anger, are the most important emotions tht run through our relationship and we will tackle them together in order to process them fully.

The books will be read and in the right order to make sure I am spot on in my diagnosis of where we are, what we are doing and give ourselves the best possible change of recovering properly, securely and without any reseravtion.

Hi tst, you asked me in an earlier post what concrete actions I have done and continue to do so for my DW. Here they are.

1. I have completely reviewed and altered my boundaries with the other women. I have no direct contact with other women without my DW's full knowledge and approval.

2. My DW has breakfast (well a cup of tea at least) in bed more or less every morning.

3. I get our 3 year old up and ready for school and let my DW have a bit of a lie-in.

4. My DW has every password and username connected to e-mail or on-line registered sites (facebook etc)

5. My DW has full access to all my phone records at any time.

6. Whenever I go out (personally or work-related) I make sure my DW knows who I am with, where I am and when I will be back.

7. When out I send her text messages and pictures messages to account for my whereabouts and to cement I am doing what I said, with whom and where.

8. I tell my DW that I love her everyday and continually remind her how much she means to me.

9. We talk more - we communicate so much better

10. I have set boundaries at work, working fewer hours so I can spend quality time with my DW and family