My WH had a 4 month PA with our 23 year old nanny (he is 40). Didn't have to do a Plan A or B because he ended it almost immediately (there was one phone call after D-day). WH is trying very hard with the exception of one thing...details. I want to know when, where, everything because the OW was SO involved in our lives. WH and I work together and the whole A happened right under my nose and I am having a REALLY hard time dealing with it all.

We are in MC, counselor tells him to answer my questions. WH thinks counselor is wrong, but, now he will sit down with me and "try" to answer my questions...the answer is always the same: he doesn't remember. I spend my whole day trying to put the pieces together (ok, at my birthday party, she left for 15 mins...where was he during that time??? sounds crazy, I know...but I am OBSESSED with trying to figure out what happened).

This was a very serious affair (OW tells me that he promised to divorce me and marry her), not just a one-time thing. OW basically turned into SWF, stalking our kids, coming over to our house to confront me, calling/texting me...to the point where I told her that WH and I had split up so that she would leave me alone (which worked, btw).

Enough rambling...my question to those BS out there...did details help you get through this? Or should I just leave well enough alone and try to move past this?

Hurt, you H chose you over the OW. They all say the same thing: I will leave W and marry you. But it is fog talk. The reality is: he is with you and in MC with YOU.
Now, has he sent a no contact letter (NC) to the OW? Meaning...has he told her he never never will see her again or talk to her again in any shape or form?
Are you sure there is NC with OW?
In order for you to have a true recovery you need your H to be fully willing to give you what YOU want. YOu are in charge now. He needs to understand that hiding things and not working on a sound recovery (R) will lead him to have another A in a few years.
I speak from experience. My H and I did not go into MC after his first A. He refused to go. He is now on his second A after 4 years and moved out. Our M is over.
Do a good R!
blessing

Address this letter to him, and give it to him...

"To Whomever,

"I know you are feeling the pain of guilt and confusion. I understand that you wish all this never happened and that you wish it would just go away. I can even believe that you truly love me and that your indiscretion hurts you emotionally much the same way it hurts me. I understand your apprehension to me discovering little by little, everything that led up to your indiscretion, everything that happened that night, and everything that happened afterwards. I understand. No one wants to have a mistake or misjudgment thrown in his or her face repeatedly. No one wants to be forced to "look" at the thing that caused all their pain over and over again. I can actually see, that through your eyes, you are viewing this whole thing as something that just needs to go away, something that is over, that he/she doesn't mean anything to you, so why is it such a big issue? I can understand you wondering why I torture myself with this continuously, and thinking, doesn't he/she know by now that I love him/her? I can see how you can feel this way and how frustrating it must be. But for the remainder of this letter I'm going to ask you to view my reality through my eyes.

"You were there. There is no detail left out from your point of view. Like a puzzle, you have all the pieces and you are able to reconstruct them and be able to understand the whole picture, the whole message, or the whole meaning. You know exactly what that picture is and what it means to you and if it can effect your life and whether or not it continues to stir your feelings. You have the pieces, the tools, and the knowledge. You can move through your life with 100% of the picture you compiled. If you have any doubts, then at least you're carrying all the information in your mind and you can use it to derive conclusions or answers to your doubts or question. You carry all the "STUFF" to figure out OUR reality. There isn't really any information, or pieces to the puzzle that you don't have.

"Now let's enter my reality. Let's both agree that this affects our lives equally. The outcome no matter what it is well affect us both. Our future and our present circumstances are every bit as important to me as it is to you. So, why then is it okay for me to be left in the dark? Do I not deserve to know as much about the night that nearly destroyed our relationship as you do? Just like you, I am also able to discern the meaning of certain particulars and innuendoes of that night and just like you, I deserve to be given the opportunity to understand what nearly brought our relationship down. To assume that I can move forward and accept everything at face value is unrealistic and unless we stop thinking unrealistically I doubt our lives well ever "feel" complete. You have given me a puzzle. It is a 1000 piece puzzle and 400 random pieces are missing. You expect me to assemble the puzzle without the benefit of looking at the picture on the box. You expect me to be able to discern what I am looking at and to appreciate it in the same context as you. You want me to be as comfortable with what I see in the picture as you are. When I ask if there was a tree in such and such area of the picture you tell me don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask whether there were any animals in my puzzle you say don't worry about it, it's not important. When I ask if there was a lake in that big empty spot in my puzzle you say, what's the difference, it's not important. Then later when I'm expected to "understand" the picture in my puzzle you fail to understand my disorientation and confusion. You expect me to feel the same way about the picture as you do but deny me the same view as you. When I express this problem you feel compelled to admonish me for not understanding it, for not seeing it the way you see it. You wonder why I can't just accept whatever you chose to describe to me about the picture and then be able to feel the same way you feel about it.

"So, you want me to be okay with everything. You think you deserve to know and I deserve to wonder. You may honestly feel that the whole picture, everything that happened is insignificant because in your heart you know it was a mistake and wish it never happened. But how can I know that? Faith? Because you told me so? Would you have faith if the tables were turned? Don't you understand that I want to believe you completely? But how can I? I can never know what is truly in your mind and heart. I can only observe you actions, and what information I have acquired and slowly, over time rebuild my faith in your feelings. I truly wish it were easier.

"So, there it is, as best as I can put it. That is why I ask questions. That is where my need to know is derived from. And that is why it is unfair for you to think that we can effectively move forward and unfair for you to accuse me of dwelling on the past. My need to know stems from my desire to hold our world together. It doesn't come from jealousy, it doesn't come from spitefulness, and it doesn't come from a desire to make you suffer. It comes from the fact that I love you. Why else would I put myself through this? Wouldn't it be easier for me to walk away? Wouldn't it be easier to consider our relationship a bad mistake in my life and to move on to better horizons? Of course it would, but I can't and the reason I can't is because I love you and that reason in itself makes all the difference in the world."

(end of Joseph's Letter)

Yes, he wrote a NC letter (email) and sent it to her and BCC her husband (due to her SWF activities, he was worried the email would be "edited"). And yes, I am sure about NC...he volunteered his passwords to emails, changed his cell phone number, etc. I also moved to another city with the kids, he came with us.

This really is about whether or not I can get past it and live with not knowing every little thing that happened...WH is doing everything short of "details"...

Hurt, it is ultimately up to you. I can only tell you that I never really forgave my H for his first A, but he never put any effort in it. He never felt the A was wrong and he never wanted to go to MC. However, he told me every thing and he allowed me to ask all the questions I wanted and he answered.
Give it some time and if the MC is done well you will get over it. HOwever, if you strongly feel this is something you will never forget, you have the option to D your H.
Life can be pretty miserable in R if R is not done well and if the BS is not willing to forgive.
blessing

Hi HBH,

Welcome to Marriage Builders...I'm very sorry for the reason you find yourself here, but under the circumstances you couldn't have found a better place...

I think your feelings are very valid, and you should let your husband know that there should be NOTHING between he and the OW that you are not privy to...That his doing this "trickle truth" bit will kill any chance for recovery that the two of you have...

If there is any way possible for you guys to swing a Marriage Builders Weekend, I highly recommend it...My husband and I went back in May 2007, and it has been fabulous for our marriage...In my opinion it is THE BEST way to recover a marriage - it will teach you both how to fall in love and stay in love...

Take a look at this personal history questionnaire~~~> PHQ...You and your husband should both fill one out...Knowing everything there is to know about each other - warts and all - is what it takes to have real intimacy in your marriage...There can be no secrets in a marriage...

Mrs. W

Hurt, you have every right to know the terms of the events during this tragedy in your life. This is YOUR marital history that has to be rewritten after your H so cruelly destroyed that period of your time. Obsessing is totally normal, and healing will be difficult/impossible for you until you have the entire story - or at least as much as you want to hear. It is imperative that your H give that to you if you are to heal. Your MC is correct.
And none of that "I forget" crap, either.

HBH-Sorry to hear your situation. My FWH also had his A with a woman 20 years younger, who also watched out children once or twice. Not exactly the nanny, but nanny aged.
It is likely your H will need more individual counseling to figure out where his head is at. My FWH really seems to be unable to identify with people his own age anymore, hence the babysitters are his friends, even to this day.
I've told him it's disgusting that he feels some identity toward late teens and early twenties, and he comes back that people "my age" are all stuffy and have no real interests in life and music, etc.
People my age? FWH is two years OLDER than me. But people MY age are too stuffy.
Seriously.
Find out if this is where your WH's mind is at. Had I known then that my FWH was regressing emotionally, I might have made different choices.
Just my $0.02.
Sorry to hear about the SWF aspect. We had the same sitch.

Yep, my H too acts like a teen and is very flirty with young girls. He will have to make HUGE changes for me to take him back one day if he shows any interest in R.
Definately, check out where you H is...he might very well need IC before he can do a successful MC!!!
blessing

h_b_h,
Your screen name and your husband's actions since the A look very promising. The fact that your WH ended it immediately and then moved with you shows his committment to recovery.

My FWH also immediately ended his betrayal when I discovered his three-year affair with a part-time employee/full-time lover half his age. I, like you, was shocked that it had gone on right under my nose. My FWH began supplying some details about a month into our recovery, but most of them came out in trickle truth over the next six months. How much better it would have been if he had spilled all that six months dribble early on. With each new truth, I was set back in my personal recovery; and he dragged out his own feelings of being without honor and character for those six months.

As veteran posters have said, some BS's need details while others need only the basic outline. You sound like someone who has always needed the details--and especially so now in this new horrifying experience. After about six months, one of my advisors on MB suggested that I send H an email explaining why I needed the details (like the letter shared earlier with you) and ask him if we could do our Q & A via email to avoid seeing each other's pain. I promised my H that I would not respond either in person or via email with painful comments. I asked him to answer each question truthfully and try to respond with enough information to convince me of his truthfulness. I got a lot of answers that he had lied about before, and he divulged a great deal that I had not yet thought to ask. I was convinced after several days of emailing back and forth that I had 90% of the details.

Do I have all the details? Probably not; but as I said earlier, I probably have 90%+. He swears that he never promised her a future together just as he swears they never had sex in our home. Those are two questions/answers that will probably follow me the rest of my life. Any questions that you need answered will cast shadows over your recovery until he can answer them or convince you of his truthfulness. When your H says, "I can't remember": trust me, he remembers but just can't bring himself to hurt you again and make himself look even worse. He simply must be made to realize that despite the fact that your intuition was in freeze-mode for so many months, it has now been elevated to its highest degree.

When I ran across MB posts that struck a chord with me--specifically those about transparency and trickle-truth, I often forwarded them to my H. True to his re-found dedication to me and our marriage, he read them, did not complain, and responded with new avowals about how much he wanted to help me.

You ask, "Should I just leave well enough along and try to move past this?" Will knowing the details change your resolve to recover your marriage? I knew that I was committed to recovery, but I still needed the details; and I told my H so. That reassurance is probably what tipped him over to the truthful side.

Oh, by the way, it doesn't matter what he promised her. As someone posted to me, your H scraped her off the bottom of his shoe like a nasty piece of gum. I'm sure that made her feel like the trash she is.

I hope my long response to you will in some way be helpful.

Goldenyears

I'd say his unwillingness to provide details is a slap in your face.
Think about it: The person who has demonstrated such a lack in judgement/character so as to have an A with the Nanny, now feels that he possesses the requisite judgemnet to decide whether disclosure of details will be beneficial.
He must have one helluva an ego.