BHM,

Have you been able to R with your wife and if so how long did it take for you to get over what she had done? I know it has only been a couple of months for me but I still can't bring myself to kiss or touch her intimately.

I am in recovery with my wife, since I found marriage builders and implemented a plan A, but I still do not trust that her version of her affair is truthful or complete because of her shifting description of what happened. She has a very difficult time admitting to fault, guilt or even small mistakes.

I have never gotten over what she did, she told me 20+ years ago of her "attraction" to a co-worker, but was an emotionally wreck when she told me. At that time I did not understand how profound emotional affairs are, nor did I understand how spouses minimize. Unfortunately at that time I just "moved on" and she kept working with OM, and we then got married.

For years however it continued to bother me, bad dreams about her and OM, so it never really left me. One ugly side effect was that she never felt as strongly about me sexually as she did before her affair.

Were the OM in your case married at the time and did you expose them? The OM had just broken up with his girlfriend in my case so I don't have a girlfriend or wife to expose to, and I never knew the girlfriend to ask questions and doubt I could track her down now.

God Bless
Gamma

BHM,

I do not have any great words of wisdom for you, but your story touched my heart so deeply. I just had to respond to let you know some of us may not have the answers for you, but you came to a place that seems to be filled with many caring people who can help. I am so very sorry you are going through this and will pray for you.

Gamma
I am only a couple of months from finding out myself so I am still having a difficult time. I called 1 wife but the other she was not sure of his last name. The name she gave me there was to many to try. I have one other option of finding his number and if I do I will call his wife too.

Thanks halfunit I will take all the prayers I can get because I am still struggling with should I stay or go.
I guess she is what you would call a serial cheater but I truly believe she is ready to settle down finally. I thought she was 23 years ago when we got married. Because we talked about cheating since she had done it in her previous marriage.

How do you forgive someone for something that you think is unforgivable??

BHM,

Not sure how you do, I think part of the reason why I am not going to let this drop is because of who OM1 is, and even moreso who I suspect OM2 is from the same workplace. So for me that is now the unforgivable aspect.

But my wife is locked up like a safe, a number of her friends have told her over the years that I would kill anyone who fooled around with her, and I think she took her friends statements to heart and is terrified of what I would do.

God Bless
Gamma

Thanks for the few responses I got.
Just wished I could hear from more people that have fully R with their WW and how they did it. She is saying she only wants me and no one else but I am scared.

BHM

I am no where near recovered but working on recovery with my H's affairs through our entire marriage. You can do this but you both have to really want it. It is not easy but will be worth it (we all hope that anyway).

I don't have the time to fully respond right now and I am not certain there is much I should say at this point but I can certainly listen and understand and support you as you make this decision. I am just now back on the board as of yesterday, I had to break away and clear my head to use to full advantage all I have learned here from all these wonderful people and from Steve Harley, the MB courses and just from myself as time has passed. Take full advantage here, there is nothing better than this wonderful place to help you heal in what ever manner you choose or are able.

I know your pain. Use it. Keep it for a while and wear it around then decide, and YOU must decide, if you can take it off and lay it down. Believe me, you will try it on again and again but at some point it starts to not fit so well. That is when you know you are coming to understand all you need to understand to make a full, well thought out decision.

In the mean time, do not believe her. Find out everything. Polygraph her soon. Make her write it all out in a time line. Do NOT believe her. A liar is a liar, I know this fully. If you do not do it now you will get bits and pieces over time and the destruction to you will be far greater and more painful. Get it all out, or as a wonderful help/friend who is apparently no longer here used to say, make her puke it up now and get on with things. You must know it all or she will always be hiding and you will never have the marriage you deserve.

See, I could not help myself, I had to tell you something :-). The answer is yes, you can recover. You will never be the same but if you work really hard you can use that change in yourself to be stronger and better. I have to hope so, it is what I am working on right now.

I don't think you can ever fully recover. Meaning that you always have to affair proof your marriage and keep your gaurd up. On the other hand there are things you can do together to make your marriage better, and work on recovery.

MB principles:
1) Principle of Joint Agreement
2) 20+hours UA time to fall in love, and 15+ hours of UA to stay in love each week.
3) Filling out the HNHN questionaire (and associated recreation questionaire), and LB questionnaire occaisionaly.
4) Marriage Counseling
5) Fulfill EN's and refrain from LB's

My FWW and I are doing
1) pray together each night
2) remove triggers from the house (especially certain websites, and video games)
3) Setting personal boundaires to keep either of us from an affair.
4) Having personal inventory about once a month to determine how we are doing, and what is bothering us.

SapphireReturns listed many more things that we are doing, but that is a start.

Hi BHM - Yes, Mrs. RIF and I have rebuilt our M and it's stronger than I ever imagined it could ever be.

I knew about one of Mrs. RIF's A's, I suspected another, and the other 5, I didn't have a clue that they even happend. I didn't find out about the other 5 until 10 years after they ended.

When Mrs. RIF's guilt finally got the best of her, she confessed to the A that I suspected, and to 5 other ONS A's that I never knew about.

By this time in our M, we had 3 daughters and Mrs. RIF had changed and I had no reason to even suspect that she was still involved with any of her past OM. When I "found out", I was shocked, humilliatd, hurt, angry, confused, but I was determined to work through all of this and rebuild our M.

I gave Mrs. RIF several tasks that she had to agree to before we started to rebuild our M. First, she had to go get a full STD checkup. Even though all of her A's happened over 10 years ago, I wanted to be 100% sure and I wanted to see if she would submit to the shame of getting the test done. She did without a single complaint and gave the negative test results to me.

Secondly, I told her that we were going to start marriage counseling with one of our pastors, then MC with a professional, Christian MC. She agreed to both.

It took us about 2.5 years of MC and individual counseling for Mrs. RIF, and many ups and downs,and lots of pain, and lots of prayers, before I felt that we'd worked through all of the past issues.

Rebuilding your M isn't easy, but it can be done.

Semper Fi,

RIF

Thanks
I think what makes it so hard for me to fogive is the the act she did with these men since she had not done that befoe we got together so that was our special thing.
The other part that makes it hard is the fact that she did not END it. It only ended when she was fired. If she had not been fired it would have continued Indefinitely. The one she had feelings for even had a hotel booked for them but he had to cancel and she was sad about that. I told her if it had happened and then she stopped it would have been a lot easier on me I think.
I am not a very forgiving person when I have been done wrong. I have been hurt in the past but this is the worst I have ever felt about anything.
I knew she had cheated on previous husband and we talked about it before we got married and I told her what would happen if she cheated on me. If I had found out at the time it was going on I would have left and took kids with me. But now it is a lot harder because we have been together so long.

Thanks to the ones that replied but it looks like it may be over. Even though it was a long time ago I can't get it out of my head and I keep saying things to her and all it does is cause more pain for her. I thought I could handle it but it gets worse daily instead of better. If things change I will try to find this thread and post an update.

BHM,

This may be ancient history to her, but it�s new and traumatic to you. An emotional trauma of an affair has been compared to rape. I believe it. It�s shocking. It disgusts you.

The past can�t be undone. What has your marriage been like since?

I thought it was good. She did have 1 other time she kissed and touched through clothing a much younger man but said that is all that happened. She has also had at least 2 online/phone EA affairs with the latest being Jan., Feb. of this year. This Jan wan the first she had done in over 10 years.
The biggest problem I have is what she did for these men daily while still telling me she Loved me.
It makes me sick just to think about it and that is why I don't think I will ever be able to forgive her.

BHM, more often than not they tell you they love you and are very convincing as they walk out the door to meet their AP.

Are you sure you can't get past this initial phase? She did give you a *get of out the marriage* card and nobody would ever think a thing about it if you did but are you sure that you can't stick this out a little longer? It is all so new to you. We all hurt, for long periods of time, but this initial time is so hard. Maybe it is because I have been away for so long and you have posted before but it seems you are just over a month with this info. Your choice of course but you seem to love her and she seems to want to recover the M so there is a very good chance you can do this.

As with a death, and it is very much a death of a sort, you never really get over it but you get used to living with it. As that process happens you learn to deal with the grief, the pain changes character and you may often times use the remembered grief in more positive ways.

Just having a bad day here, trying to talk myself into a better frame of mind, then reading your post and feeling compelled to encourage you to hang in there and work this program because it will help you save your M. It is helping mine and last year at this time I would not have given you a plug nickel for that bet.

Dances thanks for what you said. You are correct I did love her very much but now I am not sure. Seeing what she did with these men is something she had never done until we got together so it was our special thing.
It is hard for me to forgive her for performing oral sex on 1 or the other of them for 3-5 years while I was at home. Just knowing that is enough to make me want to run. If I had found out at the time I would have left. I also would already be gone now if it was not for a health issue she is having.

Are you going to have to stick around for a long time with this health issue?

All I know is that if you want recovery you can get it if she is willing as well. It is not easy, in fact it is the hardest thing I have ever done and that is something you will hear from most here. The long term aspect is very tough and made worse by the fact that you, like me, went along thinking that the concerns we had were just odd parts of our partners personality. They certainly reassured us to the point we believed them. Makes you feel stupid, used and worthless but you are/were not, you were just married like you thought she was. If you have to be there with her for a while while she heals at least stick around and let us try to help you with the torment. We are all very familiar with it unfortunately.

Yes I will have to stay for awhile for the health issue. If it was not for that I don't think I would even be trying to R with her at this time. I just have to much anger and pain.
The sad part is I suspected at the time and even questioned her. Of course she denied, I almost followed her during her lunch but thought my car would have been seen. I have since learned she has tunnel vision when driving so I could have been directly behind her and she would not have seen me. I would have loved to caught her in the act. That way I could have gotten all involved fired and left and took my kids. Even thought of hiring a PI but never did because could not think of a way to pay for it without her finding out. But come to find out he would have only had to watch her for a week because it was everyday she was doing this.
She and I both are going to IC. We have been going to MC but are thinking about changing just hate to start over. Not sure if it will help.

As you should, it is just the beginning but it does get better. Your commitment to stay with her during this with all your anger and pain is testament to your care and commitment. There are many who would not.


Yup, same here. I was always reassured so gently and soundly that I felt all warm and loved inside (he never made me feel that way any other time but for some reason the bells did not ring the alarm in my head). I hated to snoop, HATED the thought of it so I did not. Of course if I would have I would have found nothing. The week before he got careless and left something I had asked a friend of mine if he would hire a PI for me and I would pay him cash so that GM would never know but I was worried about the expense. As in your case, it would have taken only one day and it would have all been over.


I would ask if they were versed in MB principles. Most are not but have them at least read the site. We had an IC for a short while, she was not but did end up reading the site and liking what she saw. I do not know if she went any further with it.

You are in my thoughts. That kind of pain is not so far away for me and I hate to think of anyone ever having to feel that. I still hope you will try to work it out but no one would ever blame you if you did not, it seems too much to bear sometimes. You can do it but only if you both really want to.

I hate the feeling I get when I have to come home from work. At times I wish I could just be by myself for awhile. She is doing all the right things but I just don't know if I can live with the memory of what she did. Especially the length of time and that it never officially ended it was only ended because of her being fired. If she had not been fired it would have only got worse as she was about to start going to a hotel with one of them so that tells me she had not intention of ending it. And now she wants me to be loving to her. She is constantly saying how sorry she is but she also said she regrets me finding out more than she regrets what she did.

[quote]She is constantly saying how sorry she is but she also said she regrets me finding out more than she regrets what she did.[/quote]

Ouch

And what stopped you for having a LB fest? women love men they respect - this is not respect. She feels sorry for you and for your pain and the fact you know but there is no respect and certainly not love - that's what I read from the statement