LL and friend,

I have read through all 8 (!) pages of posts and I just had to pipe in. My story and this one is so similar in lots of ways and my heart breaks for you. My husband, gloveoil, has been very open about the details of his affair, so I wanted to give you my perspective as a BS, in the hopes of showing you that these people are right on track and don't mean to put you down, but to build you up.

I believe that the pastor has done the right things, even if initially he tried to cover up. It's the nature of humans to try to protect themselves from pain, and I am sure he thought that NOT telling was a good solution at first. I am glad that he saw through the holes in that method and came clean. Escaping deceit is a hard, long process and it takes time.

But my focus has to be on you, the BS. How do you want to proceed from here? It seems that you have taken some good initial steps. Counseling is wonderful if you have a good counselor. Do you trust your counselor to say the hard things, have both of your best interests in mind, and work hard at saving your marriage?

Next, if you haven't done so already, please read the book, Surviving an Affair, with your husband if you can. This book is so practical and useable; it saved our marriage. I learned that even though our marriage presented itself to the world as an ideal marriage, we had lost track of each other's emotional needs and made us vulnerable to outside influences.

I also recommend a close friend who knows everything and wants to help your marriage survive (like LadyLynn)! I needed someone who I could say anything to and who would challenge my thinking when I needed it.

Also, talk to your husband all the time. Sounds simple, but if you are anything like me, you want to avoid hurting yourself with any more information, but if a question arises in your brain, ask it. I guarantee that the answer will be less hurtful than the conjecture developing in your brain. Make sure that your husband is willing to answer anything as well. He may initially try to avoid the subject, but he too will learn that it actually helps to talk about it. It also allows you to get a clear picture of what really happened, and identify areas where he may have lied. There are many of these at first, but as time goes on and you are communicating more and more, the picture becomes very clear and you will get to a point where you don't need to know anything new.

Now, as to the visions: all I can say is that I had some problems with this, but time does help. I used the thinking of,"he's with me, enjoying me, not her" as a way of coping and that allowed me to feel in control and powerful in bringing my DH pleasure. At first I would actually imagine her in the room being forced to see how happy we were, but now it is so obvious during those times that my DH is fully with me, that I don't need to do that anymore.

I will warn you that all of this takes alot of time and energy. It's not easy and your marriage won't survive if you don't give it your all. My life changed drastically a year ago, and was the most painful time in my life, but I can honestly say now that I am more in love with my DH than ever before.

I look forward to hearing of your progress. May God richly bless you and you FWH.


Hope that helps

LL, this simply isn�t true. There have been plenty of constructive, forward-looking, appropriate and even prescient comments made upon this thread for the benefit of your friend & her pastor-husband. To cite a few:











LL, do you disagree with any of the above pieces of advice? Yes or no? If yes, which ones? I'm not posing this question to put you on the spot, but just as a reminder. Please encourage your friend to stick around.

"Friend?"

Hahahahahahah!

This is what I'm curious about. Did she lie, obscure the details, put all the blame on the Rev.

Ps: Waywards lie...

I can't believe no one else's spidey senses are tingling after LL's latest post. You know, the one where all of a sudden the WH has confessed to the ENTIRE congregation and - just like that! - the OW and OWH are leaving the state?

Thank you

Just a quick note to those who can't believe that the congregation knows already...

A nearby church is in the process of dealing with just such a situation. The pastor confessed within the past couple of weeks; so yes, it is possible for a person to own up soon after D-day.

LL, my email is in my sig line and I offer it to your friend's husband or to both of them to email me offline. I will not answer more than one or two emails from a woman without an accountability partner of some kind and ideally this should be her husband.

I don't know what part of the world this is happening in, but if this is the local church I spoke of, even face to face meeting in conjunction with my pastor might be possible.

To this man's wife: Please understand that many of the people who have posted on this thread have been right where you are. The sense of loss, the sleepless nights, the lack of appetite and subsequent weight loss are all typical, even normal for what you have experienced. I also have to stress that this is in no way your fault. Nothing you did caused this to happen and there was very little you could have done to prevent it.

You can recover your marriage and your husband can be restored as a man of God, but the road is very narrow and the things that are done from this point forward are critical.

I recommend that you look into the following books:

Surviving An Affair (Abbreviated here SAA) by Dr Willard Harley Jr.
Lasting Love by Alistair Begg
Torn Asunder by Dave Carder

Of these three, the first is what I would say is most important, the third would be my second choice if you were going to get two. Add the middle one after the first two have been read.

Please reconsider registering and beginning your own thread or perhaps just picking up with this one. People here can come across as rather abrupt, but because of the way most posts on a forum like this appear, almost in an IM sort of way for the most part, people will tend to focus on specific things as each sees something in a post that strikes a nerve within them or something that they themselves have experienced in their own life.

In part because there is very little that has not already been seen here, largely because affairs are all so much alike, the responses tend to cut to the chase rather than spending a bunch of time waiting for the back story to develop. This stuff is just way too common and with very few twists, almost all affairs follow a common script.

Your marriage can not only recover from this but can become an example of forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation for the masses and a powerful testimony within the church. But be aware that a claim to uniqueness or that no one else could possibly know what your situation is like because it is so unique will not remain unchallenged for even a single reply. Affairs are not only common, they are also absolutely typical in all but the smallest of details. Names, places and affair partners may change, but affairs are anything but unique.

If your husband is willing to come here, he needs to realize that no one here is going to have much sympathy, empathy, yes, sympathy, not a chance. False repentance will be seen through in only a few posts and answers to questions, so while many former wayward spouses have been helped here, an unrepentant wayward will be soundly thrashed for resistance to the truth. If it's a sharp pointy thing with a long handle made for digging holes, it is going to be addressed as a spade; maybe a shovel for consideration, but nobody is going to call it a digger or a delver or a geovulvometer.

Mark

Thank you

If they are leaving then what do you want from this board?

Since I have no idea which one of you I'm actually addressing, which is why I suggested a separate screen name, I can only try to speak to what is being said.

I have to say I haven't seen bashing, taunting or slamming. What I have seen is people who are not only passionate about their own marriage, but passionate about marriage in general and many of who have been through the same experience in their own lives. People around here tend to not pull any punches. For a newbie it can be rather daunting as you might get 50 replies, each one picking out a different thing, or in this case, 50 people all pointing out the same thing.

I think much of the problem in this situation really has to do with the skepticism of folks regarding anyone who comes and says they are posting for someone else, a "friend." Having seen this turn out to be not a friend, but the person the story is about and considering this is a totally anonymous forum where anything that gets posted really has no way of being verified, people here very quickly pick up on anything being hidden or withheld.

You see, the way to address an affair is really by application of total truth and reality. An affair is generally anything but a real relationship. It is really more of a fantasy. There are no real life problems to deal with or even much in the way of an investment that has to be made. The affair partners get to live in a world that is totally made up by them. The only reality or truth necessary is whatever they can manufacture.

As a result, the entire thing is a lie. They lie to friends, spouses, family, neighbors, each other and even themselves. The affair can't exist as the truth and when discovered and the truth is made known, it often quickly implodes.

One thing I would suggest to you, and to any other newbies reading this but not yet ready to post who might be fearful of the reaction of folks here is to read a bunch of threads. Some of them can be quite amazing really. Read some of the threads in SAA and you'll quickly see that seldom does the betrayed spouse (BS) want to expose the affair to anyone. They are actually still protecting the one who betrayed them. Almost never does a wayward spouse (WS) want an affair to be known because they are protecting their own reputation.

Real healing though only starts once the truth is known at least by both betrayed spouses. Most often this is actually what begins to bring about the end of the affair.

I can also tell you that you are very fortunate that the affair is ended already. Most often a BS must fight to save the marriage while contact continues and the affair either goes underground or the affair partners simply try to live as if they are doing nothing wrong. They will use gaslighting, deception that would make spies proud, and try to blame shift so that the BS gives up.

The reason everyone is so adamant that the other woman's husband be told the truth is that he really doesn't know the reality of what took place. As a guess the past cheating was probably minimized by his wife, made to be a moment of weakness in the face of someone who was a manipulator and turned into a "mistake" that will never happen again. The result is that the OW's H didn't really do anything to recover and rebuild the marriage with the result that he is now experiencing the same things all over again.

By hearing this from you (the OM's wife in his case he will get glimpses into the truth of what happened that can help him to either attempt recovery or proceed with divorce. This also help you both compare notes since each little piece of truth that either of you might have can can be used to fill in the blanks which often sheds light on something else which when added to the others information now opens up another avenue to discern what really happened.

I can also tell you that the seemingly angry response to the resistance to tell OW's H the truth is in fact anger. Most people here had spouse's that were cheating and others knew the truth but were afraid to tell them because they didn't want to get involved. By keeping it a secret, these well meaning folks have prolonged the affair in many cases, allowed it to continue to a point where the woman in the affair gets pregnant or the marriage is damaged beyond the point of repair. So any reluctance to tell the truth is met with instant reaction.

So before you judge those you feel are judging you, try to read some threads here and see how these things go most of the time. You'll find that most affairs are actually pretty typical and that those who recover their marriages all have one thing in common, that is, total honesty from both the BS and WS.

I also need to warn you that with very few exceptions, church leaders are notoriously aweful at dealing with affairs. Most have no idea what to do to recover a marriage. Many people here would make much better counselors than most church leaders and in fact even better than most marriage counselors who have an 84% failure rate. That means that of all couples who attend traditional marriage couseling, 84% end up divorced. Now you may be in a unique place where someone like Dave Carder is pastor but usually that is not the case.

Please consider separating your own user names so that following your situation and offering specific advise can be more straight forward. Not know who you are addressing makes the whole thing pretty convoluted.

When you open your Bible the next time, spend a minute to read Psalm 102:1-12.

Mark

Thank you

OK

LL,

For your own marriage, get Fall In Love Stay In Love and work it with your husband. Trust me; this stuff works.

My prayers go with you and your friends.

Thank you for caring enough about a friend and her marriage to try to help.

Mark

Thank you for your concern Ladylynn. It is well to have friends like you.

God bless.

How very odd.

Totally creepy....!

Hey...is this "BA" playing with us here????