Welcome to the
Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum

This is a community where people come in search of marriage related support, answers, or encouragement. Also, information about the Marriage Builders principles can be found in the books available for sale in the Marriage Builders® Bookstore.
If you would like to join our guidance forum, please read the Announcement Forum for instructions, rules, & guidelines.
The members of this community are peers and not professionals. Professional coaching is available by clicking on the link titled Coaching Center at the top of this page.
We trust that you will find the Marriage Builders® Discussion Forum to be a helpful resource for you. We look forward to your participation.
Once you have reviewed all the FAQ, tech support and announcement information, if you still have problems that are not addressed, please e-mail the administrators at mbrestored@gmail.com
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Page 2 of 2 1 2
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
We have a little less than 60 days of living apart and I agree that there is no way for me to repair our marriage over the telephone because so much of the emotion is lost and I am exhausted by the time he is done with work and night time is when I find myself picking the fights and going back over the past.
After getting all of teh missing details from my WH, now I know why the OW kept checking in on me all the time. I really was so naiive back in December to think she really cared. I should have trusted my instincts and thrown her out of my life from afffair number 1 but I was listening to my WH who was in total denial that he was over the affair and it was just a friendship that went awry. Good grief I must have just fallen off the turnip truck to believe that line.
We were so close w/ this other family and in December I was sad to lose them as friends but now the entire family just disgusts me even their innocent children. I hope this time OW's husband will not let her run the show. She was even having personal counseling and that was a total waste of money as I do not think a counselor would advise a sick person like her to continue going after another womans husband.

I have kept OW's cell phone number and if I suspect anything i am going to call him immediately. When the news broke the second time, OW's husband made contact with me to say he would also keep my information handy if he ever had reason to believe my husband was breaking the communciation barrier. I cannot do any extreme measures with his computer until I am in town with him. I do periodically check his work emails for now without his knowledge. I am able to log on as him since he keeps using teh same password. I am lucky to know so many of the old passwords he uses.
I still check our cell phone records but that will not really reveal much since he never used his personal cell for communication. He could not ever call her because OW's husband was always following her phone records as well. They were able to communicate because of gmail and hotmail accounts plus she has magic jack at home on her home telephone so I am not sure if that keeps a running log of phone calls on the computer, but now that OWH is aware of the 2nd affair he is back in attack mode.

I am just so insecure with being 500 miles away and having to completely trust what he is telling me about NC and details of the affair.

The affair almost mirrored itself from the first affiar in the length of time it survived before my husband got stressed and tried to end it. Both times at the end the OW tried to get him to leave with her and both times he ended up staying. She thinks he is living a lie and he will never have a fullfilling marriage with me. They were "soul mates". He felt like he was looking in a mirror when he looked at her and he never had someone look at him with so much passion in their eyes. I call it horny lust. I guess after 18 years, he finally got the chance to see if the grass was greener. I have no interest in joining him on that mission. I have actually had my SIL say well you should cheat on him to see how he likes it. Umm no... I love my husband and do not want to do that to him nor could I imagine sleeping with another man. Yuk!
I should stop using EA as a word because they did have sex in her lovely van. They reminded me of love sick teens. I will take your advice and just get off the phone or not get on the phone if I am running on crazy spouse mode. I am seriously robbing my husbands love bank and I do not want him to go back to OW so I need to stop it.
How do you move forward or will this continue to be a battle until we are together?


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
I have set up my first appointment with Steve Harley for this Tuesday and I feel like 10lbs was just lifted off my shoulders. I bought a series of 5 sessions so that my WH can join in the recovery.


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 738
N
Member
Offline
Member
N
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 738
Originally Posted by cyberkat71
Both times at the end the OW tried to get him to leave with her and both times he ended up staying. She thinks he is living a lie and he will never have a fullfilling marriage with me. They were "soul mates". He felt like he was looking in a mirror when he looked at her and he never had someone look at him with so much passion in their eyes. I call it horny lust.

Yup, been there, felt that! OP's are poison.

I don't know if there's a way to stop LB'ing. For me, it was just desperation - that I HAD to do this to stand a chance. Tell yourself that each time you LB you just reinforce to him the fact that he won't have a fulfilling marriage with you.

If you feel yourself about to LB, get off the phone. Or write out all the things you want to say to him that WOULD be LB's before you even get on it - that way it's out of your system.


Me: BW, 27
Him: WH, 29
DD 4
DS 1
Married 07/25/09
A began end of 08/2009 (possibly sooner)
D-Day: 3/31/10
2nd D-Day: 4/9/2010
3rd D-Day: 4/21/10

Plan B (shortlived as it was): 18/05/10
WH decides to work on marriage: 20/05/10
False Recovery, Back to Plan B: 13/08/10

Filed for D Feb 2011, D April 2012

Looking forward to the sunshine and rainbows life should hold for us all!
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
I had my first counseling appt yesterday with Steve Harley and I cannot say enough positive about my experience. He really gets to the point fast and helps put recovery into logical steps. Wow...

He is asking me to step back a bit from being in the drivers seat and make WH drive recovery. WH keeps asking how long we have to keep going over the details but now I know that I am defintely missing teh validation stage of Steve's plan from WH.

WH was a little frustrated by thinking I was going to et the tools to start recovery now and we will be doing more work than he expected on the beginng of that work lies with him to document and have real documented plans on how to avoid future contact. Words and promises are not enough. He wants a real plan.

Wh is going to be working the next 14 days straight but he will need to find some energy to work with our marriage which is frustrating. I could make this easy for him and hold all feelings inside and just do what he says move forward but as Steve said that does not lead to a connected or happy marriage. I will be bitter and will withdraw from Wh more. It's like the Harley's have a formula and it will be interesting for him to have WH's perspective of the affair to get WH's side of the story.

I was very open with the email I sent to MB to make sure WH agreed with the details. He told me everything was true but some of the details were harsh. I only verbally wrote the truth of the affair which was interesting words on his part. The truth is harsh. Really?? I even felt I put the affair in the light of showing my role, rather than saying I was the perfect wife and mother and there is no way this could have happened.

I have done more self reflection within the past month that I am probably more understanding to how this could happen than a normal person should be in life.

Needless to say, I am happy to have purchased a block of sessions and look forward to growing as a couple that is romantically in love.


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
Yet another update...

WH has first appointment with Steve on Monday morning.

WH has been showing no signs of contact with OW but I still cannot get myself to stop checking. I have even gotten smart and got access to his iTunes account which is where he gets the apps for his iphone to make sure nothing is out of line.

What do you do if you find anything suspicious? Do you bring it out or do you wait until you have hard evidence? He was just home over the weekend and I only see our personal email account and his work email account on his iphone. If he were to open a 3rd account wouldn't i see the statement on iTunes? I am not familiar enough with the iphone to know. I just want to make sure I am not missing anything. I have the password to his work email and I log on a few times during the week and we have a joint email address at home.
I guess I need to get a technology lesson so when his laptop is home I can search the history files to see if all is clear.

Logically it does not make sense that he would have restarted contact since we are moving but the whole affair did not make sense since he said he was never willing to divorce me for her, so why even do it?? There was no end in sight and the stress of the affair is what seems to have caused him to end it and the fact that I was on his path again because his behavior was like that of a teenage boy trying to dump his highschool sweetheart. He was treating me like a stranger and actually had a huge trust argument with me during the height of his affair.

He still gets angry over my lack of trust and keeps using the exact words... "I have not done anything to make you not trust me and this time it's different". I always have to correct the statement and add that you have not done anything within the past month but he truly is trying to fool himself into believing his current behavior should give him a free path to recovery without any further efforts or discussion of the affair.

I am not even concerned with details anymore. I am just trying to figure out what EN's are missing. What EN's did she meet? This woman had him convinved that she has not loved her husband for years and should have never married him. This just feeds her justification for not repairing. She is a repeat offender and since she never tells her husband the full truth, recovery for a fully productive marriage is not possible. No wonder she keeps looking for weak men. I hate to type this but I had a huge red flag I ignored or thought she didn't mean it.. About a year ago OW jokingly told me my neighbors husband was ripe for the picking if a woman wanted to take him. I was like no way but I should have cut her off as a friend right there. She probably also noticed my WH was ripe as well since my focus was the boys and my husband and I were no longer playful or flirty in public.
I have so many regrets in this whole ordeal. After reading Pepper's post about an Anatomy of an Affair I realize this affair did not start when I stated, it actually started last summer since that is when the friendship between all of us was blossoming. I know I cannot rewrite history and when your spouse is in the fog there is not much to do to stop it. I just wish I would have found MB's sooner because I would have known to contact OWH with any suspicions and I should have told him about the real extent of the affair meaning it was not just an EA but also a PA. I am not sure the OWH knows the full story but at this point I guess I will leave it alone.


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
WH had first appt with Steve Harley today. Have not had much time to chat with him but he does have homework to complete before we can have our next appt. WH says Steve reminded him of a close family friend so that was comforting to him and his call did not involve the details of the affair which was probably a nice break for him.

We are still apart until probably the 21st of June so all of our communication remains via telephone which is frustrating. I am much better about telephone chats than he is but i cannot give him a break because he kept up a long distance affair with the OW via telephone so he cannot pull the wool over my eyes and tell me he hates the telephone.

We started delving into the Why this weekend and not sure we really got anywhere on the why other than he did not see his attraction to her until it was too late. His needs she filled for sure were comfort, care, and like I said in an earlier post the immense passion he could visibly see that she felt for him. It truly saddens me to hear that because I have always loved him but I guess I did not show it enough or we were so disconnected at the time there was nothing I could have done diffently to change the past.

I also asked a few of my own questions and discovered a huge deal is he is for the most part attracted to me physcially but mentally, he said he never even considered it. So I would say that is a huge problem for us and I wonder if this is something we can overcome as a couple through MB's. I am not sure if he just forgot about our connection we did have pre-children or maybe he never truly had a connection to me and OW was right that he will never be fullfilled in a marriage to me. I know I have not been truly fullfilled with all of my EN's and never spoke up so we have some honesty issues to work through as well. I was a peace keeper and held feelings inside.

So we are staying on path and I am happy to have found MB's.


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
C
Member
OP Offline
Member
C
Joined: May 2010
Posts: 28
I am getting so frustrated with my husbands schedule and our lac of UA that I could scream right now. I know my husband is working on a big project but I feel so alone in all of the stress of selling our house, trying to remain well and not LB much and then feeling insecure because we I do reach out to connect with DH he does not seem enthusastic.

I guess I need to lower my expectations for him right now because logically I know he is working late but with barely any communication going on except for a few rushed calls throughout the day my needs are out the window.

I totally see what the Harley's mean when EN's are not being met how affairs begin. I am not saying I want an affair but as an example one of my neighbors husbands mowed my yard for me today and I was so thankful to have that job done and I hoenstly felt that my neighbor is lucky that he is such a loving and helpful husband. I know enough about MB's concepts to cut conversation short based on that reaction but still that is exactly the beginning of how friendship gets out of control.

Right now I do not feel that I am special to my DH and he just does not seem to be as concerned about his schedule for the next couple of weeks. He just asks me to try and fight through this schedule and we will see each other soon. I am a bit upset by this schedule because he is doing this project alone to make sure it goes well which is chewing up anytime he has for us.


ME: BS 38 H: WH 46 DS: 4y/o DS: 2y/o
Married: 11 years OW: Neighbor/family friend and married
OWH is aware of affair
D-DAY 11/29/09 confronted DH about number of text messages and receive reluctant 2 day confession. No emotion from DH.
2ND D-DAY 5/2/10 DH self confesses to EA and PA
NC since 5/3/10
Both in counseling with SH
(EA began 9/09 PA 11/22 (car encounter)
EA begins again sometime in March 10 and 2nd car PA encounter on 4/23 and WH confesses to affair on 5/2.
Page 2 of 2 1 2

Link Copied to Clipboard
Forum Search
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 1,079 guests, and 45 robots.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
Mike69, petercgeelan, Zorya, Reyna98, Nofoguy
71,829 Registered Users
Building Marriages That Last A Lifetime
Copyright © 1995-2019, Marriage Builders®. All Rights Reserved.
Site Navigation
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.5