i just found out the affair that my husbands is having.
we have been seperated for a month, and he has already moved in with her. it all started when the other woman put perternity papers on him amd she gave him her number. he said that he didnt call her but i feel that he did. whenthey found out that 2 of her children were his, he stated to me that he didnt know if he had feelings for her, i asked him if he was going leave me for her, he said no. but we had a really bad fight and he left the home and moved into his own place, but after i found out that he ahd her comming over to his aptment without the children. i asked him if he was having an affair with her, he said no.
but 2 weeks later she moved out of her mothers house and got an aptment and then a week later he moved in with her. ever since then he has told me that he is no longer in love with me and has done everything to avoid me ,even at church.
i felt that he didnt even give God a chance to heal our marriage, but he has said that he dosnt care if he is out of faith with God, he is wiling to sacrife his happiness to be with his children at all costs. he has said he is sorry for hurting me but i need to move on with my life and he is never comming back to me. he know that what he is doing is wrong but he dosnt care, all he cares about his his new family and that if he comes back its a pakage deal with her and their children,and he wants me to move out of our apt so they can move in to the complex that we live in. i have concentrated on my Faith and what God is trying to teach me , but its hard when he is still putting his affair in public for all to see.
we have talked a great deal but all we do is fight when ever i bring up his affair, and how God dosnt go along with what he is doing. everyone says that i should let go and move on with my life, since he has made up his mind and he has free will and not to go along with what God wants. im just hurting and in pain, and i ahve everyone pushing me to end the marriage, but God hasnt told me leave this marriage or to leave our home. i just dont know what to do anymore and i am in cousling, but even he is on the side of me ending the marriage with my husband, i cant affaord to pay for another couselor and this one is free. please can anyone help!!!!

Welcome to MB.

GET RID OF THE COUNSELOR who doesn't support your walk to recover you M.

Breathe..... breathe. There is SO MUCH you can do.

Begin by calming down and knowing that you don't have to have it fixed today. Things, yes even G-d takes time. In fact, it's all in HIS time. So read on here. Get Surviving An Affair and read up on everything that you can about A.

A few suggestions... please break up your paragraphs with a space, it makes it easier to read. Also, how long have you been married? Who knows about the A?

I'm kinda lost. Was he married to her before or had a relationship where there were two kids? Do you have children?

we have been married 10 yrs, and evryone knows about the affair.

they had an affair 6 yrs ago, and thats when theses children were conceved.
yes i am pregnet now, and he dosnt care about the baby
he says that he is battling everyday with his choice, but he wont leave his children and that he wont take the children away from thier mother.
and that hes making the right choice for them, because he wants to wake up with them and go to sleep with them everyday.

everytime i see him i see her, and i cant seem to block that out of my mind.
he says that i can do what ever i want, but he wont come back and i can t force him to.
the thing is im not forcing him to come back , i just want ounderstand why? he says he dosnt love me but , whenever he near me i can feel that love and i can see it.

Ok... let me see if I got this right. He had an affair 6 years ago and conceived 2 children out of that? How long was the A going on, how did it end?

Stop listening to ANYTHING that he says. He is a liar, a cheat and will do anything to continue this fantasy world he has created for himself.

Stop trying to educate him on anything. Let G-d do that.

Who is everyone that knows about the A?

Have you read about Plan A

the first affair lasted about 2 yrs , but their were other things that played into the affair, they were both into selling and using drugs then.
but we got help and worked on our marriage, he has been clean for 6 yrs since then.
i know that hes living in a fantacy world, everyone tells him that.
the whole family knows and our church family knows and our friends .
they told me that its not up to him to change, its me that will bring him back , im not so sure.
yes i have read the a plan, but im in a position that i have no support from anyone because they are falling over backward because of the children.

im just so lost

{{{{{{{NOOPY}}}}}}}}}}

I truly understand this feeling of loss. When d-day first happened for me and weeks afterwards, I didn't know whether to walk in a door or stay out. I was so lost, in such awfully deep pain and just didn't want to move forward.

So your H is an addict or just got clean? Is he still clean? Did they have twins?

Who told you this?

Do you believe this?

You have support here.

My WH left me the night of D-day and didn't come home for almost 2 1/2 years. I worked both plans against most of my friends in real life, and there were plenty of times I wanted to give up, but I didn't because I walked in FAITH and TRUSTED my G-d to lead me where he wanted me to go.

One thing... if your H is using and/or is an addict these plans won't work.

How quickly can you go into Plan B? Do you rely on him for financial support? What about the baby, how far along are you?

I want to keep repeating. DON'T LISTEN to HIM.

I find this in my files as I was trying to give you things to read that brought comfort to me in the beginning. I don't remember who wrote this, but it's awesome.

To The Newly Betrayed Spouse:

It is sad to see you here because the reason you've come is your spouse is committing adultery. The good news is you can rescue your marriage and even make it better than it was before. It takes hard work, sacrifice, time, and a huge measure of patience, but you�ve taken the most important step already by coming to MarriageBuilders.com (MB). Welcome, betrayed spouse.

You�re confused, shocked to the core and your pain is terrible. We know. Most of the folks here on MB have gone through exactly what you are facing now. Those experienced folks have used MB principles to get through this and know those precepts work.

The curious thing is that most adulteries resemble each other very, very closely. The words your wayward spouse will use, his or her actions, attitudes, and indeed, the things they believe they are experiencing are all almost exactly what other wayward spouses have done before them. That similarity allows for a general plan, like the one below, to work again and again with a minimum of tinkering.

A good thing to do is start a journal to record everything that happens from this moment forward. Make particular note of the times your wayward spouse spends away from your home and your children, the times you can document he or she is with the other person, the times WS went out for unexplained reasons, worked undocumented overtime, etc., etc. Add (dated) entries to your journal at regular intervals, if not daily. It should be a physical one (a wire-bound notebook works just fine) as opposed to a virtual one. Write it out neatly in longhand. Be factual and include times and dates.

Partners in adultery think the little fantasy world they�ve built up is wonderful place, always warm and rosy, special, and incredibly unique. Wayward spouses speak the same language and what one says, another will sooner or later. �If you think our problems have anything to do with her/him, you�re badly mistaken,� is an oldie, but goodie.

There may be something about having found their soul mate, the one they�ve been searching for all their life. Oh�by the way�they�ve never been happy with you. They�ll tell you that. Guess what? The marriage with you has been a sham for the last (insert number) years�or, sometimes, since the beginning. Here�s one that spews from their mouth quite often. �I never loved you�or haven�t loved you for (insert number of years)�. but I want to stay friends with you so the children won�t be hurt.�

Since you love the wayward spouse--you married him or her, after all--you should see their happiness is paramount and undeniable. You need to help them with the adultery, not hinder it. They will actually be upset when you don�t.

Any of that sound familiar? You may have heard it already. If not, you almost certainly will sooner or later.

Think of your spouse in his or her present condition as someone who has been absorbed by an alien from a mother ship hovering over your hometown. Aliens have only rudimentary skills at thinking, you know. There�s no reasoning with them right now. No amount of explanation from you on how wrong he or she is about your past marriage will sink in. Don�t bother trying.

Your spouse will pile lies on top of lies whenever you ask anything about what is going on. Expect it. Get used to it. It�s what adulterers do; it�s the only way such an obscene thing as infidelity can be carried on. Your spouse will, as Grandma used to say, lie when the truth would serve them better.

The first thing you need to do is order the book Surviving An Affair (SAA) by Dr. Willard Harley. When you get it, study it well. Don�t just read it--study it. There are articles here on MB excerpted from the book and they are excellent reads. They can be found in the �Most Popular Links� in the upper right of every MB page.


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Important note: Counseling with the Harleys is available from links on the website. Your best source of a comprehensive, detailed plan customized just for you will be from them. If you can afford it, do it.

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If you cannot, there are things you can do while you wait for the book. Most importantly, you can begin drafting a plan for marital recovery. SAA will help you do exactly that. There are a few essentials you can begin working on while you wait for that book to be delivered. Here is a summary of the things that should be part of your plan.

Step 1: Military-grade operation to develop intelligence on whether your spouse is involved in an adulterous relationship. There is a thread out here on MB dedicated to exactly that.

Your spouse may have already admitted to committing adultery. You might think this step is unnecessary. Don�t be fooled. If you don�t pay close attention, the adultery will continue long after he or she promises on a stack of Bibles it is over.

What you need to do is gather enough evidence to convince yourself your spouse is committing adultery. It doesn�t have to be much, just concrete enough to show you what is happening. You're not going to trial with rules of evidence; don�t let your spouse talk you into a standard that doesn't apply.

If you need more information, consider reviewing cell phone records, Instant Messaging history, place a digital recorder in your spouse�s car, near home phones, or places your spouse likes to go to take private calls, etc. If you feel you need more and you can afford it, a private investigator can gather a lot of irrefutable proof in a short period.

Step 2: Confront your wayward spouse with the fact you know about the adultery and ask your spouse to stop. Generally speaking, you don�t explain how you know though you will have to give out a couple of facts that will strike a chord with them. They don't have to admit it, many do not, but deep down inside, they need to know they've been busted. You�ll see it in their eyes.

If you know of dates and times where they've met, confront your spouse with that information. If you can imply you know that because the two of them were seen, rather than telling them you actually read in one of their emails, that's all that much better. If you show your wayward spouse those emails (for instance), you've just educated him or her on one breach in the secrecy surrounding the adultery. The wayward spouse will learn and be able to hide the adultery from that point forward much better. Don�t give them that advantage.

In a very few instances, this is all that will be necessary to bring your spouse back home and recommit to the marriage. Usually though, it doesn�t work that smoothly. You�ll hear the �we�re just friends,� phrase a lot of times, along with implications you�re insane to even think such a thing of your loving spouse (it�s called gaslighting, FYI), and denials piled high on denials.

What you have to get across to your wayward spouse is that you have some �boundaries� that aren�t open for debate. The most important is the wayward spouse must break off the relationship and must agree to complete �no contact� (NC) ever again�that means never, period�with the other person (OP). A second might be the wayward spouse finds work in a different company (if the adultery is with a co-worker). Another probably will include couples counseling. Still another should be to read SAA with you and apply the marital recovery techniques (Rules of Protection) in the last half of that book.

Step 3: Since your wayward spouse has not admitted to the infidelity, it�s necessary to expose the existence of the adultery to everyone who can put pressure on the adultery and influence the partners in adultery to end their relationship. You need to begin work now to develop that list. The list may include some or all of the following. It may also include people not on this sample list.

A. If the person your spouse is involved with is married, His or her spouse must be told of the adultery even if your spouse actually terminates the affair and enthusiastically begins to labor long and hard on your marriage the instant you find out about the adultery. The other person�s spouse (OPS) has the right to address the problems in their own marriage.
B. Your spouse�s parents and sometimes your spouse's siblings. Parents can place tremendous pressure on their adulterous offspring. On occasion, they take their children�s part and choose to ignore the adultery, but they often become strong allies in breaking it up.
C. Your children. Guess what? Kids as young as four see and hear�and understand�far more than you think they do. D r. Harley has stressed the importance of making sure children know mom or dad is behaving inappropriately but that mom and dad still love the child. The child must know he or she is NOT the cause of all the tension in the household.
D. Your family. You need allies who can put pressure on the adultery and your family members can do that. They may be able to add nothing more than disapproving glances, but that pressure mounts up.
E. Friends of the family. Same reason as above.
F. Your spouse�s co-workers if the adultery is an �office affair.� (I hate the word affair. It makes a slimy, squalid thing seem less offensive.) Co-workers can apply lots of pressure. They may have suspected before you exposed to them. Now they know for certain.
G. Again, if the adultery began in the office, expose to the spouse�s boss or Human Resources Director. The company may have a policy on inappropriate relationships. If one partner or the other is a supervisor, the company can directly influence the adultery and make it impossible for it to continue.
H. Your pastor or priest. These individuals have tremendous influence in your wayward spouse�s life. Make them your allies.
I. Officers and members of professional associations and social organizations your spouse is in. Few of these tolerate moral turpitude in their membership. Use that to your advantage.
J. Anyone else who can reasonably be expected to be able to put pressure on the adulterous relationship.

Exposure is THE strongest weapon you have at your disposal to smash the adultery. Adultery is part disrespect, part deceit, and part fantasy. It exists in the darkness under rocks. Turn the rock over, shine a brilliant spotlight on the seamy underside, and the roaches begin to scurry away. The lies that are a part of every adultery are revealed for what they are and the fantasy world that includes just the two adultery partners begins to shatter. USE exposure.

When you have your list ready, go to each person and sit down with him or her if you can. It�s good for them to see you troubled, but very calm and steady. It�s very important to be under control. Many wayward spouses will immediately try to gaslight their betrayed spouses and will swear to everyone around the betrayed one is demented to even think the wayward spouse would actually sneak around behind your back. Take a deep breath and launch into a description of what has intruded into your marriage. Don�t wait for the perfect time and place, or the magic words to use. They�ll never come. Don�t tell your spouse you�re going to do expose the obscene adultery to your prospective allies. Just do it.

Oh, by the way, your wayward spouse will be absolutely furious. He or she will shriek imprecations at you, swear he/she was going to work on the marriage but now...oh, boy...now they wouldn't have anything to do with you if you were the last person on the face of the planet, etc. It's all bluster, noise, and drama. They are pissed off because you�ve wrecked the perfect little fantasy world they�ve been indulging themselves with. Let them rant and rave. It means nothing because you know where it�s coming from. Spouses sometimes do leave at this point for a while. If they do, you do NOT support their separate lifestyle in any way. If they leave, the almost invariably come back very quickly because their fantasy isn't supportable without your help.

Look, the purpose of exposure is to bust up the adultery. You are not doing this out of spite; you are not vengeful. Your spouse will see it as such, but it is not. Do not decline to expose because of the embarrassment you may feel about the adultery, and certainly don�t refuse to expose because it might embarrass your spouse.

Important Note: Do NOT shield your spouse from the consequences of his or her adultery. If you do, you give your spouse time and space to reignite the adultery and continue it better hidden than before. If you skip exposure, based on a misplaced �respect� or something that sounds equally noble, you will be condoning the disrespect your spouse has shown the marriage, your children, and you. Remember, adulteries thrive in the darkness. They are fed by lies and deceit. By shining the blinding light of exposure on the adultery, you force everything into sharp focus. The relationship begins to whither.

Step 4: You�ve studied Plan A by now. You know about Love Busters (LB), Disrespectful Judgments (DJ), etc. If the confrontation didn�t end the affair and exposure hasn�t either, Plan A gives you the opportunity to work on yourself and the marriage to show the adulterous spouse what a marriage with you could be like.

By the way, betrayed spouse, your marriage may not have been perfect before. That doesn�t in any way justify the affair. You did NOT cause the affair, but you may not have done everything you could have done to prevent it.

So Plan A lets you work on things you don�t like about yourself. Maybe you�ve put on those extra pounds and you know you�re not as attractive to your spouse as you once were. In Plan A, you begin those workouts you�ve been putting off forever. Your temper gets the best of you sometimes? Find some anger management seminars and learn to control it. You have no way to express yourself? Take up painting, plant a garden, work on your tennis/golf game, start writing that great American novel you know is inside you�whatever.

While you�re working on you, you do nothing to make things worse with your spouse. You don�t even talk relationship with your spouse in this time if he or she doesn't want to. This plan is partly designed to show your spouse you can be one heck of a partner in a revitalized marriage. They will see�but don�t expect kudos from them. Actually, they�ll be more inclined to say something like �I don�t trust these sudden changes. They won�t last.� Another one can be paraphrased as �too little, too late.� Don�t worry about their reluctance to recognize the new you. In their fantasy world, they don�t know what�s good for them and no amount of reasoning will bring them to understand it. Don�t try.

Plan A is a process that has a definite time limit. You do not explain that to your wayward spouse, but you have to decide on a time frame to work on you and show your spouse how good it could be. Women typically work Plan A for about 3 months; men do a Plan A for about 6 months.

Step 5: Plan A sometimes works. Dr. Harley says it doesn�t 85% of the time. Therefore, a Plan A is usually, logically, followed by Plan B. The temptation is to skip Plan A and go straight to Plan B. That doesn�t work in the overwhelming number of cases. You have to build a basis for Plan B so the wayward spouse finds out what he or she will be missing.

In Plan B, you cut off all communication with your wayward spouse. Having shown them how wonderful a person you can be as a marriage partner, you remove yourself from their lives to show them how bad it is out there without you. In Plan A, fence-sitting is almost unavoidable. Your wayward spouse gets some of their emotional needs met by you and others met by the other person. In Plan B, you suddenly, and completely, stop providing those needs you had been filling for your spouse. When they aren�t being met, it increases strife in that fantasy world your spouse and his or her partner in adultery have in common with only each other. Strife begets pressure. Pressure begets unhappiness. Unhappiness begets separation�and you win.

Plan B may require a legal separation or the equivalent in your state. Discuss your needs with an attorney. Get a good one. You need a bull dog to represent you, not someone who goes with the flow.

At this point, if you have not already done so, you need to separate your finances from your wayward spouse�s. Safeguarding your financial situation and making sure your assets cannot be looted by a wayward spouse still in the fog is different for everyone but here are some suggestions.

You can have the current joint credit cards cancelled and new ones issued only in your name. You need to make sure the WS can't drain checking & savings accounts. You might need to establish checking accounts the WS cannot access. Make sure you have access to enough cash/assets to pay the bills, etc. Powers of attorney might need to be looked at, if any are currently in effect. Don�t agree to any new obligations, new second mortgages, new cars, commit to paying WS�s expenses, etc., etc.

Plan B may last as long as another eighteen months.

Step 6: There are no guarantees in life. Sometimes all that you can do doesn�t result in your wayward spouse returning home, becoming repentant, and agreeing to work hard on the marriage. That�s sad, but it�s a fact.

Dr. Harley�s plan has an excellent chance of working if it is applied in a narrow window of opportunity you have after discovery to break up the affair and win your spouse back. Sometimes, though, the wayward spouse becomes entrenched in their adultery and never comes out of the fog.

If, by the end of the second year after confrontation and exposure, your WS hasn�t come home and agreed to work on the marriage, you may have to implement Plan D, a divorce. Sometimes, regretfully, you have to cut your losses and protect yourself and your children. All of us out here sincerely hope it won�t come to this, but it does happen. If it does though, you will have the comfort of knowing you did everything humanly possible to salvage your marriage. You will be able to hold your head high.

The pros out here on MB are here for no other reason than to help you through this. Most have already gone through what you are just starting and they have come out the other side whole and better than they were before. It can be done and they�ll show you how. You�ll have their help as a support group and the advantage of their expertise.

Are you strong enough to do it? Good. Then get to work. We�re with you.

I think it was Mr. Wondering.... heres' some more to read.

NEWBIE UPDATE

Well, today I thought I'd add my "Do's and Don'ts of Plan A List". This list I carried around with me from early into my wife's affair and then well into recovery. I referred to it from time to time to keep myself grounded in how I wanted to behave. A big part of Plan A is being the best person, spouse and parent (if applicable) that you can be despite the circumstances around you. My basic premise that enabled me to survive day to day was "Act, Don't React" (i.e. - "ACT" like the person I wanted to be without any love busters and do not allow myself to simply "React" to the harshness of the reality I foung myself in at the moment). Using this basic premise, I was able to weather the roller coaster of infidelity and eventually restore my marriage.

There are many emotional strains on the wayward spouse but their primary problem/issue is the OP (Other Person). If "No Contact" has not yet been established they will behave with a single minded intention to get their "fix" of the OP. If you threaten their ability to obtain such fix depending on the length of time between fixes, the quality of the recent fix and the security of such fix you will be met with resistance in varying degrees. No doubt about it, your efforts WILL be resisted but how they do it is a crap-shoot. They may yell, threaten or otherwise blatantly attempt to manipulate you with fear, anger, intimidation or whatever OR be more caniving and attempt to appease you with lies, more deceipt and covert manipulation. Either way they are not really LISTENING to you...you are their secondary concern. Understanding that is essential.

Conversly, the things you do that do not interfere with their addiction will be strongly encouraged and reinforced or perhaps simply ignored. Again, it's manipulation. They will be nice to you, have sex with you, spend time with you IF you allow them to continue having their affair...unabated. The policy of appeasement does not work. You can't simply be a doormat no matter how comfortable your wayward MAY attempt to make you feel.

So in the end you are left feeling powerless and beat up. Which in all essence you are. It's THEIR addiction you have little influence over. Only the addict can decide for themselves when to releive themselves of their addiction. They will do so IF YOU behave according to the solid, well tested, professionally advised Marrigage Builders principles. You, of course, must practice both the "CARROT AND THE STICK of Plan A (see link in my signature line below) to attempt to bust up the affair. But much of the STICK does not involve your day to day interactions with your "FOGGED OUT" wayward spouse. My do's and don't list is how you manage your spouse while you do the rest of Plan A.

Some days your spouse will be kind to you and other days hostile. As you ATTEMPT to pull closer to them and reestablish intimacy they will no doubt respond by pulling away for fear of you interrupting their affair OR, if the affair is over, for fear of leading you on. If you pull away from them the Waywards may often pull you closer for fear of losing you, for fear of losing their options as they cake eat/ride the fence of indecision. However, if you pull away to hard you may run a huge risk that you will merely reinforce and legitimize their built up rationalizations and justifications. It's simply the roller coaster of infidelity and the more you recognize it for what it is the more POWER you have to control YOURSELF as you both progress through this mess.

The wayward emotional pull back is to be EXPECTED. Waywards almost always do this. They take a step towards you and you respond appreciatively...you acquire Hope and push for more, more, more. You hunger for HOPE and they fear it. WS's don't feel worthy of it and are holding on to so much of the rationalizations and justifications that they can't see straight YET...even if they HAVE recommitted to the relationship and gone to "NO CONTACT". They fear hurting you further, hurting their family further. They fear you are placing much more significance on each step forward than you should cause they legitimately and quite necessarily DON'T FEEL IT...YET. So they slap you down and retreat. They may even defend/insulate themselves from you by calling you NEEDY AND UNATTRACTIVE to get you to back off. Hence, the step backwards.

When you detach from the rollercoaster and allow him/her to proceed at his/her desired speed you can hopefully minimize the steps back. When YOU internalize and beleive yourself to be the obvious choice, acquire patience and the confidence that he/she would be a fool not to recomitt to you, then you become the confident, unpressing, spouse that swept them off their feet so many years ago. He/she can more easily recommit to the person they saw back at the beginnig of your relationship than they can to the devastated spouse they see before them now.

You are behooved to for the most part just let it go for now, OP's soon to be or IS out of the picture...this is just you and your spouse now. Try to date them (alone time without KIDS is KEY...family time is NOT as effective). Movie dates suck cause you can't talk but those are the kind of dates you want now. Consider loud restaurants, clubs and bars. Activity based dates where you are not seated facing each other forced to have that �serious talk�. But if they won't date you go out yourself and either have fun or feign fun. They will eventually get suspicious or feel the need to take a break themselves and hopefully follow along.

In conclusion, you only control you. The more you understand the dynamics of infidelity the more prepared you will be to anticipate it and combat it. Your spouse, as expected is behaving like an idiot right now and "idiocy" will likely be the forecast for some time. YOU must be the leader of your family and the leader of your marriage and despite the crap you are putting up with BE the best person you can be....simply, ACT, DON'T REACT.

Good luck,

Mr. Wondering

OK...the list of Do's and Don'ts.

Do's
1. Act Happy
2. Get a life (new activities, etc.)
3. repeat over and over..."I will make it"
4. Actively LISTEN....keep conversations at "to the point...small talk" ...don't blow it up beyond the waywards current comfort zone
5. Tend to Agree (Thank you for your truthfulness, It seems that way, you have a point)
6. Expand your social relationships (Being especially aware of your own vulnerability and keeping sharing and time with opposite sex relationships to an absolute minimum)
7. Get sexy (gym, new clothes, etc)
8. Focus on your strengths and Positives...don't put yourself down verbally or constantly go over what you did wrong
9. Accept Uncertainty (Do your best today and let God take care of tommorrow)

DON'Ts

1. Repeatedly say "I love you"
2. Ask questions that don't have answers yet
3. Criticize, complain, whine or nag
4. Say, "I've changed"....allow the wayward spouse to simply judge your actions
5. Argue, Reason or Plead
6. Don't get family or friends overly involved in recovery (notice I said "in recovery", EXPOSURE to bust up an active affair IS ESSENTIAL and EXPOSURE to the OP's spouse is an absolute MUST)
7. Act helpless or depressed
8. Discuss morality, invoke God or Dr. Laura type babble
9. Suggest marital counseling (must be the waywards idea)
10. Tell them continually "we need to work on the relationship"
11. GIVE UP