I got the impression that she told BH that she was disenchanted with their M, not that she confessed. So, what is it, LoveCommitment? Have you told your BH about the A?

I'm pretty sure if she told him, she would have just stated that in her first thread...instead of starting a new thread explaining to us all the reasons why she had the A and then telling us how the M is better.

She didn't tell him. She told him the part about falling out of love with him several months ago. In her original thread, she stated that she just ended the A a week ago. She couldn't have told him about the A before it even happened.

So, LC, are you going to finally get honest and tell your BH the truth?

Yup. That would have been the "big news" instead of more rationalizations, excuses and pretenses.

This is really easy to clear up, LC. Just tell us what you meant.

Until you confess the affair, you are walking on a thin floor over a blazing fire. It could consume you at any moment and the problem is that if you fix up that floor, make it a safe place to be and even build a marriage on top of it, the fire still rages below and at any moment your entire world can be thrown into the conflagration.

Confession is the first step to repentance. The changes in behavior flow from the change in thinking and not the other way around.

Mark

LC-

If you keep this a secret from your BH, it will eventually come out. Even if it is years from now, for your BH it will be as if it happened yesterday and he will have doubts that all the years after the A were honest years. This happened in a family from my church. When their YD was small, he had an A with the nanny.

He also had several other A's in the early years of his M, but kept it a secret from his BW. He went to counseling about it without telling her and thought it would never be an issue for them-although his BW had asked about it over the years. Apparently she "knew" something was wrong in their M.

About the time the YD was getting married, his BW still had a sense that something was wrong so she asked him again. This time, he confessed to the A with the nanny. His BW was very hurt, but she decided that she would work on staying together. That's when he thought he should tell her the whole truth.

It destroyed her. She doubted their M had ever been true-and she wasn't able to live with the pain he caused her. Shortly after their YD was married, they were D.

These kinds of secrets are like infections in a M. If they aren't opened up and cleaned out, they will spread and can cause fatal damage.

If you want your M to be whole, you have to tell your BH the truth because the truth will eventually come out.

Along the same lines. My H had an EA with an old gf. But though I always knew of her existence and never liked her for various reasons (though I'd never met her), I never knew they had dated not once, but twice in 7 years and that the second time it was serious. He always said she was just a HS friend. And even worse, they apparently had a "few random" (according to him) phone calls over the 18 years leading up to the EA that he maintained were just 'catch up' calls and happened maybe once/twice a year. He has no CLUE how in my mind, this negates the first 18 years of our marriage for me. And I have not been able to recover.

All the time we dated and were married, I assumed the big love of his life before me was another girlfriend from college. Never imagined it wasn't.

I usually take the WS stance here, but I have actually been both. This post brings out the BS part of me, and conjures up some very painful memories. My H had an on again, off again EA with an ex-girlfriend for the first 10 years of our M. The EA started 1 week after our wedding. Every time he would "slip up" he would come to me and confess - often a year or so later, but he did eventually confess. I didn't find out about the last incident, which became physical (though not quite sexual) until a long time after the fact. My H had already decided to permanently end the A and establish NC. However, when I found out about it, it was all new to me. I was terribly upset, more so about the lying than anything.

We have now been married almost 16 years, and I still have no idea how to think about the first 10 years of my M. I still don't really believe that my H loved me. It all still feels like a huge lie, because it was. I still struggle with this after all these years. I still wonder if the ex-girlfriend was the love of my H's life and I'm just a close 2nd. I think my A, which began 3 years after the end of my H's affair happened largely because I just didn't really believe that my H loved me or would even care all that much if I found someone else. That isn't meant to sound like an excuse, because I know I am solely responsible for my own actions, but I realize now that my H and I never really recovered after his EA because of all the lies.

My H and I are still struggling with lies. I only found out about 8 months ago, after we were supposedly in R, that he had internet sex with complete strangers - 5 years ago. The lies hurt. They make it very difficult, if not impossible, to establish trust. I try my best to trust my H, but I think my doubts will always be here. I will always feel the need to check up on him. I have been lied to too many times to completely place my faith in anyone again.

Do you want your BH to feel like that? Because, if you keep this from him for years, that's what's going to happen. Your M will never fully recover. Your H will never completely trust you. You will have to go through this all over again. It will be old news for you, but the pain will be fresh and immediate for him. And it will be compounded by the fact that he thought you were being honest with him and that your M really was improving, but the whole thing was a lie.

writer, you hit on a key aspect that many have been trying to get across to LC here, the lying is the hardest part to overcome. And the longer the LIES, the harder to overcome because it means your life was a LIE all the much longer.

Everything takes on an entirely new perspective when you know there is fraud and subterfuge lurking under historical rock. It is like the kaliedescope SHIFTS when you find out you were lied to about your own life. It is a horrible, horrible fraud.

And what makes this case so despicable is that LC has been told by her H that he would not WANT to be married to a cheater. She knows this, which means she is actively defrauding and manipulating him into staying married to her. That is cruel and dangerous.

I would love for the OP to contact me or update me.

Why? What do you have to offer her? Do you know her?

He is a foggy wayward as per his other thread.

Yes, I get that, alis, but I think there is more to his reason for being here and resurrecting this very old thread. I think he thinks he has something to offer us all and can set us straight about the advice we give.

The private message feature has been disabled on this site to prevent married people of the opposite sex from contacting each other.
With your history of being in an adulterous relationship, it would be particularly important you NOT contact the OP who also has weak boundaries.

You wanting to contact her gives me the willies.

He seems to have come here specifically to tout for business.

bredsc01, I know that there is a recession on and times are hard, but surely this still count as unethical behaviour. What would your licensing body say about your going to a forum paid for by a specific marriage coach and asking his individual forum members to contact you?

Thanks SugarCane, looks like your spidey sense is on the ball today!

Unethical indeed.

I wanted to hear a follow-up from the OP because at the suggestion of participants in another thread, I read more of the forum. I appreciate your wisdom and passion, but I am not sure how your suspiciousness is supposed to help me or even help me help my marriage. Some of these suggestions are over-the-top. And I don't have anything to offer anyone, I can barely help myself.

You haven't asked for help with your marriage. You haven't told us a single thing about your marriage, or asked for any help with it. If you want help with your marriage, tell us the problem and the current status of your marriage.

Why don't you actually commit to rebuilding your marriage and stop looking for 'outs'?

I would suggest you stay on one thread.

What kind of help do you want?