Huh? Im confused..I thought I was answering Luri's question..IDK, im lost and clueless, as usual...

I've thought about this a lot as I've read through this thread. Actually as my wife and I have worked the MB program, I've thought about this off and on and what would I do in this sitution if I were the betrayed spouse. And I've come to the conclusion that I wouldn't want to know anything...maybe 'why' as in what needs did I not meet.

But then I'd walk away. Completely.

I know there tends to be a lot of �what? You�re giving up already? You�re not going to fight?� And I would refuse to �fight� to �regain� my wife from another man. I�ve never in my life competed against another guy for a girl. And I certainly wouldn�t try and woe and win my wife back over after she�d done God knows what with him. Geez the pain of imagining all the horrid details and wanting to break his face everyday. Way too much stress.
I guess I would say I�m thankful in this way for boundaries and open communication about needs in the marriage so that we don�t have to go through this.

I give everyone all the props in the world that has gone through this and has had the patience and success in restoring their marriage. I just couldn�t do it.

This has been an interesting thread in many ways.

Kilt I will say that no matter what you say now if.. God forbid .... you ever found yourself in the position of a BS its not until then that you truly will know what you would do.

So many things would affect your decision.. kids.. length and happiness of the M .. so many factors... of course I hope & pray you and your spouse will never have to find out from either side.

As for the threads question of how honest you must be ? you need to tell your BS WHATEVER they ask for. You may not need to say he F''''' me this way etc etc but you need explain with less emotional wording EXACTLY to the level of detail your BS wants to hear.

will that hurt the BS? of course

My DH said around that time words to the effect .. minus the swear words .... how can I bloody well even consider forgiveness and if I want to stay M if I don't bloody well know what I'm forgiving?

but I was scared [censored] if you want to know.

Any other FWS out there ... lets be honest here .. was it really the fear of hurting our BS or the fear of them kicking us to the curb .. that we would loose them ... that made you reluctant to answer in detail at first?

for me I am ashamed to say it was more the latter more than hurting him.... that came a bit later as the fog rolled away...

use by all means less emotive words... but give whatever detail the BS wants... they'll tell you to stop or change if its too much detail.... but it MUST be their decision not the yours.

Its hard enough to recover in the first place without your BS feeling somewhere down the track you were dishonest AGAIN/STILL!!

I was lucky.. I was bashed around the noggin with a few 4x2's by the kind people here on MB to tell ALL to whatever level my DH wanted.. cripes you were bar-stards (if I write this Oz word it gets censored )

my AUD $0.02c anyways


AW

You listened.
Perhaps a little luck was involved.
But, it was mostly that you listened.

I do understand what you're saying. However, I do know that I would not want to salvage a marriage if she was unfaithful. I know Dr. Harley has said that he would not salvage his marriage either and his marriage hasn't seen the suffering of infidelity.

It was just a general question, I was just wondering???

I didn't fully recover when the marriage was first recovered the first time, but I was on my way for 5 years. Recovering from something like infidelity is very hard. Some people think that as long as they have allways done all the other things they should do in the marriage, that it should be overlooked when it is a brief indescretion. I stayed because of the children, and the hope that if I kept at it,(like a plan A), she would eventually come around.

To be honest I used to believe that if she screwed up one more time I would be fine if I left. I used to be like that kilt, very confidant and straight foward confrontational about everything.
After all the time invested, and the strength my children felt as they got older by KNOWING emotionnally that Mom and Dad would never leave them, and what would happen to them if I blew the whistle on her. The drama and side taking and even the blame I took sometimes would spin them around. If I just left W would have feel into decline so fast and blame me for it. The Kids would too. Kids are confused by this drama crap. A lot of what I stayed for was for them. I just could not put them though it.

Eventually the motives for the marraige got confused and entrenched as I became more and more sympathethtic to my captor, and it wore me down.

Im not saying that it would happen to you, your marraige is probably more healthy than mine and your wife too. When you have something right going on its easy to spot a dangerous counterfeit. The betrayal is devestating and it is wrong to take it, I don't care what the reasons are and how much you think you can understand and take emotionally. Some actions deserve no mercy, but its up to you to make the decision whether the perpetrator does.

I knew she had issues to begin with, and I thoght I could help her and deal with those things. I thought life had made me that tough. I was that confidant. I was that foolish. It wasn't the infidelity that hurt the most, it was the deception and lack of intimacy honesty brings

I know now there came a point where leaving would have been in the best interest of all, and i stayed because I was entrenched with the problems. Some of the reasons were because She had made such a comeback earlier and that was a hopeful and redeeming time for us all. It is possible that after 10-15 years you might feel different than you feel now. You are here though and have forsight into what happens, so you will not crumble anyways.