SW,

Hi. Welcome to MB.

I am going to tell you something that my H did that demonstrated empathy and remorse.

It was within the context of another program, which out of respect for the owners of this site, I will not name here. But it is a program very compatible with MB.

He made a list of 40 things his affair had cost me. Then he read me that list for the first time in a group of recovering couples, all of whom were reading their lists.

Believe me, 40 is a small number. And there were many more weeks of remorse and empathy work to follow, none of it easy.

DD21,

You mean the world to me and to your dad. For that reason, your dad and I must focus on repairing the damage done to our family by my affair. We cannot be the parents you need until we have created a marriage that will sustain a healthy family. This is not negotiable.

The irony of this is you had an affair because you felt invisible. Now the recovery of the marriage is mostly about how you treat and protect your husband.

So if you wanted to make things about you, you did exactly the opposite of what you really needed to do by having an affair.

Now you have to make sure you are protecting your husband from your abusive behavior. Yes, I said abusive, as others have pointed out, affairs are more damaging that the loss of a loved one, or even being raped. You can find that quote from Dr Harley here, so don't just take my word from it.

So now it's about how you are going to protect your husband from you. How you are going to ensure that he is never again subjected to the same kind of betrayal you've visited upon him. It's about meeting his emotional needs. It's about providing just compensation to him for your affair.

It's not about you. But it is about how you approach your husband. That part is ALL YOU.

saddest, my DD is 14. My A was when she was 9/10. Before and during my A, I sort of compensated for my lack of M by pouring myself into kids. AND they went to school where I teach, so it was Mommy-world. My kids had a hard time when, after D-Day, I spent LOTS and LOTS of time trying to recover with DH. But now, at just 14, DD can articulate how glad she is that we are still married and "fixed it." It's all about the big picture. Your DD may react to not being the center of attention for awhile. But in the long run I guarantee she would rather have a mom and dad in love and together. And, as someone pointed out, she is an adult. It is time to stop expecting Mom and Dad's world to revolve around her.


One thing I did was schedule some Mom/Daughter time on a regular basis in the midst of recovery. That seemed to help - knowing that in spite of all the chaos, Saturday afternoon of this week would be time for her.

Josh McDowell, who has spent a lot of time over the decades on kids and relationships and such, says that the most important gift a mother and father can give their children is to love each other, and I believe that. When I think of my own security as a child, the first things that come to mind are not vacations, or shopping trips or even attendance at my ballgames. I see movies of how madly and deeply in love my parents always were/are. It was like seeing the future I wanted.

That is the mistake many people make; that is why Marriage Builders teaches you how to be giving toward your husband without compromising your Taker.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi3500_policy.html

SD:

You are doing fine, plenty of good people have affairs. Do not beat yourself down!

As for WWs-----most betrayed men in this forum would love to have a WW like you.

This is my advice:

1. Be loving with H all the time and talk to him.
2. Do not stop talking. Give him all the info he wants.
3. Go hermetic NC with OM.
4. Keep up the SF that was the only thing that took may pain away.
5. Explain to H that affairs are not about the H. For example my wife would have been unfaithful to any other man she was married to.
6. Tell H that you want to learn from this mistake to impeove your marriage..

7. Look at the ENs and see what you need from H. Allow H to be angry every once in a while---this will pass with time.

8. Were you in love with OM? If you were it is natural to feel withdrawal and you may get depressed. Do not show this side to your H.

Thanks Stanley -- that really helped. It was a rough day.

Finished the first of my three books -- not Surviving the Affair as I am not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy towards this group and I don't want that attitude to color my reading. But I'm a book a day person so either I order more books or I'll read it Tuesday.

I have a couple of problems:

First, I am brain dead. I sit and stare into space and I NEVER sit and do nothing. I am a worker bee. It is a longstanding joke between me and H because he has no problem sitting and doing nothing. I worry that he thinks I am thinking about the OM which I am not -- when I said that it was over in my first post I meant it was over everywhere, including my head. I just have nothing to say right now. I can't seem to muster up the energy to talk about the weather. Do I address this with H, and, if so, what do I say?

Second, I am thinking about asking him to tell me if I am doing ANYTHING that makes him wonder whether the A is over. Right now I am conspicuously leaving my cell phone sitting out in the open at all times as H knows texting was the main form of communication with the OM. I've seen H check it and haven't commented -- I WANT him to check it. Should I ask H to tell me if something I am doing is making him anxious or just let it be?

We did have sort of a funny conversation today where he was trying to point out something on a mountain. He is a hunter and he sees EVERYTHING, and I never see ANYTHING but historically have said "yes -- I see it" even though I have no idea what he is pointing at. Today I did the same thing "yes, I see it", then I caught myself and said "I am so done lying about ANYTHING. I have no idea what you are pointing at." I think it was a nice moment for him.

Re: SAA, as I think I told you earlier, that book may have saved my marriage. To be more precise, it may have kept me from jumping off a cliff, and/or my wife from pushing me off one, until we could manage & navigate proper, constructive conversations that benefitted our marital recovery in the crucial early days after I confessed my affair. If you are going to back-burner such a resource even for a day because you don't like how some other anonymous internet persona addressed you, well, that would be, as they say in law school, a non sequitur. Make it your Book of the Day for the next week, and I think you'll be glad you did. Don't do it for me or for HerPapaBear or MelodyLane or SmilingWoman or any of the other folks trying to help you. Rather, do it for you & for your husband.

Hard to guess whether H is wondering whether you're thinking about OM. You haven't said very much about OM yourself on this thread. If you're not talking & thinking a lot about him, that'd be actually one of the things you're doing right -- good on ya if so. But it would also be very unusual for you not to have experienced or still be experiencing some form of withdrawal. How long has it been since your last contact with OM? How did your affair end, and what led you to confess? Answers to these questions may help give insight into your mindset.

Without putting words into your mouth, I think it can't be bad for you to reassure your H that your door is open if/when he wants to talk. Sometimes BSs will want a flood of info, and sometimes they won't want to talk to the WS or even be in the same room or building with the WS. That roller-coaster of different emotions is perfectly normal. Just let him know you're there for him. As for reassuring him that the A is over, that will be a process, not something you can check off a list in a week or a month or a season. If you do your EPs & stick with them, his apprehensions are likely to dampen down over time. But for that time, you will need to give him the gift of your patience. There will be days that a recollection, or something you say (without even realizing it), will "trigger" painful memories for him, and it will feel like things are going backwards for the two of you. That is also part of the roller-coaster, all perfectly normal.

Out of such seemingly trivial moments & changes, profound good things can be built in your marriage.

Saddest, I notice that today, you are posting mostly about your H's feelings. This is good.

I am so encouraged by the change in your tone today. And the above incident is EXCELLENT!

Good for you girl! I mean lawyer lady.

Saddest, I am a recovered alcoholic. I am also recovering from the firebombing of my marriage by the one person I least expected it from - the woman I married.

When I first came to A.A., I thought I was smarter than the bunch of people that gathered in small rooms in church basements. I had advanced degrees, professional certifications, had traveled the world, eaten gourmet meals, and met famous and influential people.

But the people in those rooms knew something I did not: They knew how to live life on life's terms, without taking a drink.

They hammered me with "tough love." I can still "feel" the bulls-eye on my forehead when a woman across the room pointed at me and told me, "You know, you might just be too damn smart for this program. You might just THINK your way out of it!"

As much as I got angry, and as much as I sometimes wanted to leave the room and all the "crazy people" in it, I stayed. I listened. I learned. I followed directions. I was told "Fred, your program doesn't work! If it worked, you wouldn't be here. But we have a program that does work. It's yours -- free -- if you want it."

I came to Marriage Builders when the love of my life flipped on me and left to be with the OM - a married man, no less. I found here much of the same tough love, and tender help I found in A.A.

A week from today I will celebrate nineteen years of continuous sobriety. The past 18 months I have gone through a debilitating back problem, the ruination of my marriage and the loss of my job. But I didn't have to drink about it.

The beginning of recovery is hard. Darn hard. I hope you stick with it, because as I was accurately promised, "You have no idea how good it can get."

I don�t know who posted the comment about triage, but thank you and bless you. My brother has been an emergency room doctor for 35 years and I instantly thought, �who�s dying here?� And that person was so not me � that person was my husband, my mate, my best friend of 35 years, the person who I could always count on, bleeding to death in front of my eyes and I am doing nothing to stop it. And I couldn't believe how callow I was.

My brother taught me that when you are in the ER, you do NOT want to be at the top of the list because those are the people who just got shot. I wasn�t the one who was shot, and my mental health concerns are the folks with the sniffles in the waiting room � and being at the bottom of that list is a very, very good thing.

�Triage� was my 2X4. It�s concrete. I get it. Every time I got anxious today I said �you are in triage� and tried to run towards the patient rather than averting my eyes and running away.

I am going to have to develop some other metaphors that I can snap back to over the coming months.

So there you go � you never know what is going to hit people.

�

I suggested you look at that site for a reason. You "were" acting exactly like the self centered, entitled wackos that post there. It didn't "make me feel better" and in fact usually makes me vomit to see in the same way your first posts here did.

I was hoping that when you saw how "foggy" those women acted you would recognize the same in yourself.

I'm glad you have started to clear your head a bit here.

A few suggestions.

1. Fire your Psychiatrist/Counselor.

2. Arrange phone counseling with the Harley's.

Questions

1. Where did you meet OM?

2. Do you try and maintain friendships outside the marriage with single people, either male or female?

3. Have you initiated No Contact with OM?

4. Have you written and sent OM a letter of No Contact?

5. Is OM married?

6. If he is, are you going to tell OM's wife so she can have a chance to fix her marriage?

I'm not sure what we are going to do about the MC situation. My H travels a lot. The phone counseling thing is a real problem for me -- I have a pathological aversion to talking on the phone. Because of the way I was raised, I am hyperalert to visual clues so unless I know the person really well, the phone is out. I might be able to do counseling on the phone AFTER I knew the counselor well, but I could never start out that way.

Why do you say I should fire my psychiatrist?

Re: OM -- I met him randomly. He isn't part of my regular life -- i.e., I don't work with him, he doesn't live near us, there is no way I'll ever run into him. My job is relatively easy compared to a lot of folks in that all I have to do is not contact him. I sent him an email telling him not to contact me, and he won't, at least not any time soon, and I know this because I've told him that before and he hasn't. He probably thinks I don't mean it this time, but I do. There is a slight possibility I will hear from him in a month or so, but I doubt it.

OM is separated, or so he says, and I tend to believe him. He lives in another country. I don't even know his wife's name.

I have friends. My H hates my best friend which is going to be a problem. He views her as complicit in the A which she wasn't, at all. I have no male friends -- well technically I do but they are both gay so I don't think that counts.

My H doesn't like me spending time with or talking to my friends -- he finds it threatening, so I don't. The loneliness is starting to eat at me.

This too will pass.

This was the post you were referencing about the triage. I don't have much imput for you but you are getting some good help i am glad someone put it terms that you get now.

H and I are alone at a house we have in another state. I have his UA. The problem is I have nothing to say. I want desperately to talk to a friend, but that's out. So I post here.

I had an A because I was mad, and I'm still mad. There is another site that describes the walk away wife who tries and tries and tries to make the marriage work then gives up, shuts up and starts planning for the inevitable. The relentless criticism, put downs and controlling/manipulative behavior by my H have taken their toll. I'm not blaming him for the A. But sitting here silently taking it from him feels a whole lot like the status quo ante. I don't say a word of course -- I learned how to shut up years ago.

I'm not depressed. I'm without hope. There is a difference.

Why, be specific.

Things you have said lead me to believe this counselor is a new age, Feel-god, whatever you need to do to be happy, enabler. A disturbing trend that is becoming more and more common. This type of counselor will hinder your marital recovery.

How did you meet him? Be specific, there is a reason I am asking.


You need to send him a letter of NC, hand written by you and approved by your BH. This letter needs to be mailed by both of you.

No, OM is married. Hire a PI to find his address and telephone number. Then call his wife and tell her what you have done to her so she can decide if she wants to save her marriage or get out of it.

If she knew about the affair and did not tell your husband, then she is an enemy of your marriage and should be removed from your life.

That goes for anyone that knew and did not tell him.


Are they single? Married people should not "Hang Out" with single people without there spouse.

If these friends are single, or hid your affair, he has good reason to feel that way.


Follow the steps for creating romantic love, and you'll have all the companionship you ever need.


This is not good. A married person should avoid travel without there spouse. Why does he travel?

If your S is not your #1 priority, then what does that make your M?

Think about when things get straightened out. Do you want to be second to golf or football? Do you like it now? Change it. It sounds like your kids are adults or close to it. Start MAKING them act like adults. Only babies and infants need a lot of attention. Kids need attending, young adults need words of wisdom and observance and correction witout judgement. If they can drive, they are adults and should be treated as such.

I'm sure your dd is wonderful, but if she can drive or is diabled but understands to such a degree, by showing her a good example of how a marriage SHOULD be is a way to start. Not talk, talk, talk, talk. If she sees your wisdom it will be engrained upon her.