Hi all � I�ve been a lurker on this forum for quite some time. I�ve read SAA and have been trying to apply the concepts that I�ve learned and have benefitted from the knowledge of the other posters on here and hoped someone might be able to help my husband and me.

I�m the FWW. I had an affair with an old HS boyfriend. We found each other through facebook. Contact started in January 2009 and turned the corner into EA territory in late March when we met for lunch. Went to PA in May 2009. My BH became suspicious in early August � we had a huge blow-up fight in late July, I mean it was ugly�I dared him to hit me to give me a reason to leave him. What a b*tch I was, since I was the one giving him the �get-out-of-marriage-free� card. Anyway BH became suspicious because of the large amounts of text messages OM and I were sending each other. He initially confronted with the texting, and I (of course) lied and said we were just friends. He began to investigate, and he�s good at it. He found old online chat sessions and emails and confronted me with it at the end of August 2009. I lied and said it had only been an EA, that nothing physical had happened. I emailed OM and said I did not want to have any other contact with him at all. He believed me and for the next 4 months, we proceeded with recovery based on my lies. I did not have any more contact with OM until the next bomb dropped. We were in counseling too and doing so well our therapist �graduated� us, she thought we were doing great and well on our way to recovery.

January 2010. He confronts me and I finally confess to PA. At first I tell him it was only one time. He packs a bag and leaves. He comes home the next day. I finally tell him that it was twice (which is the truth, but of course he doesn�t believe that anymore). He must have been contacting the OM because at this point the OM contacted me at work to ask me to get my BH to �leave him alone.� Had contact (sort of) with OM one more time later that spring, he had stupidly saved my BH�s email and sent a mass email about a kids� camp his business was having. I blasted OM with a nasty email in response and pretty much told him to stay under a rock and never even cross the city limits into our town, if he so much as breathed in our direction I would tell his wife everything � as far as I know, OM�s wife does not know, which I�m torn about after reading about exposure on this site)

We�d already signed up for a Love & Respect course at our church that began the next week or so � we decided to continue to go. We started seeing a Christian counselor (who we�re still going to now).

Seems like we�ve been trying everything under the sun. I could build a sad library of all the books I�ve read. The thing is, I have truly learned a lot about myself and about how marriage should be. I got excited by the Love & Respect series. Our M wasn�t perfect before � we had problems and we didn�t do a good job of loving OR respecting as husbands and wives should. That said, we would not be here today but for my decision to have an A. I don�t know what would have happened but if I had learned L&R before I made the decision to have an A I believe our whole marriage would have been different. I read The Five Love Languages. I believe we speak different love languages (the EN questionnaire seems to support this). I�ve done the Love Dare on him and I try to keep the principles of unconditional love going every day.

I have been real encouraged by this site and asked my BH if he�d consider completing the EN questionnaire, which he did a month or so ago. I told him it was very important to me that I meet his EN�s, not only b/c I knew his LB$ was in the red, but b/c as a wife I WANT to meet his EN�s. I was disappointed � no, make that crushed � by his responses. Basically for each of his needs, he said I didn�t do enough and when I did, it wasn�t the way he liked it. I felt like my heart had been torn out. I had to leave the house and go for a walk I was so upset. And I knew that I truly didn't have a right to be upset - he feels the way he feels because of what I did. I have since tried to encourage him to talk about what each of these needs mean to him, how he prefers to receive affection, etc. His top 5 were Honesty & Openness, Domestic Support, Financial Support, Family Commitment, and Admiration.

Yesterday ordered the HNHN 12-week home study course so I am hoping that will give me some help in trying to meet each of these needs. He�s absolutely devastated by what I�ve done and has a hard time even looking at me anymore. All I want is to rebuild our marriage � I know there�s no real way to make up for what I�ve done, all the lies and the betrayal, but I so want to try to make it up to him. At this point he is very discouraged and doesn�t believe that counseling is helping us at all � we talked some about this yesterday. He�s an amazing man and I love him so much�he doesn�t deserve what I did to him. I know there�s a lot of folks out there who have made it through this � what else do I need to be doing as a FWW to help him to heal?

You gave him a false recovery. Thinking that things were going well based on your lies about what really happened. I have been there and I can tell you that it is going to take MUCH longer for you to regain his trust. He believed you then, he is not going to believe your WORDS now. You will have to back it up with ACTIONS, consistently, for a long time. A very long time. Offer to take a polygraph for him, or better yet arrange to take one anyway, so that you can put to rest any doubt that you may still be withholding information about the A.

Have you come up with a list of Extraordinary Precautions to keep you from falling into another A or this one from rekindling?
Developed an Opposite Sex Protection Plan? There are posts for this, I will see if I can find it for you.

It is hard when you realize that you have not done a great job of meeting your spouse's EN's. At least now you know, so you can work on fixing it. Learning to do that is one of the actions that tells your BH that you are serious about fixing the M and the damamge you have caused.

OM's wife needs to know. She is living a lie in her marriage. She needs to be told so that she can protect herself. You do not do this, your husband should not do it either. No contact means no contact, for both of you, for life. Get a friend to do it.

Block OM's email, whether he sent an email or not should not matter, it should not even be possible for him to contact either of you. Actually forget blocking him, you and your husband both need new email accounts, change any phone numbers that OM has, change everything that would let OM have access to you or your husband.

I agree with Ash.

In addition, does your BH have full and total access to everything in your life? Your cell phone, all passwords, all accounts, etc? Have you been completely honest with all of his questions? Is there ANYTHING you haven't told him? Are you completely transparent with him in ALL aspects of your life?

Recovery for a BS takes about two years, but it varies for everyone. Like Ash mentioned, you've had a false recovery, so that re-starts the recovery clock.

I understand that your feelings were hurt when you found out you're not meeting your H's needs well. Look at it another way though - he's giving you and INCREDIBLE opportunity to do it right. This is a precious gift he's giving you - another chance at his heart. Listen to what he tells you and try not to look at it like criticism, but rather a map to his heart.

What kind of counseling? There are many posts on the boards about the (lack of) success of traditional MC. Are you aware that the Harley's (the family that developed this site) does telephone counseling?

Thanks so much for the advice - one thing I will work on is my EP list. We have talked about it and I've told him I'm willing to do anything that gives him the reassurance he needs. I've deleted my facebook account and he has passwords for everything else - all my voice mail passwords and email passwords are the same now so he can log into anything. He's got all the bank and credit card passwords and we try to do most of the banking together, so he's aware of all money that goes in and out of the accounts. He is able to access the cell phone bill online. I make contact with him frequently throughout the day (or at least I text and email and try to call...sometimes he does not respond) and I work close to home so a lot of days I go home for lunch now instead of going out. I've located at least one local polygraph provider online so that gives me a place to start there.

OM's email address has been blocked on the email account he knew for me. I don't know about DH's email.

I did a search on the site for opposite sex protection plan - Ash, if you find the forum before I do, would you please post a link? I almost unconsciously changed my behavior at work after this, I am not as open with anyone in the office anymore of either gender...I do work in a male-dominated field (criminal justice) and we do some traveling for the job, although I try to avoid it if possible. I don't go out to lunch solo with members of the opposite sex. There have been some situations since this (and before too) where I've had to ride in the company car with another male for work. He's met the people I work with most often (and those males in question), although I realize that doesn't make a difference as far as EP's go. I don't know how to change what I do for work to a great extent, although for starters I can turn in my work cell phone. Work itself was never the problem - the problem is that the OM and I were able to communicate while I was at work.

I used to drink - a lot. When the A was occurring, sometimes I'd drink a bottle of wine by myself in one night, sitting in front of the computer. I never suspected I could have a problem. I thought a drink was my way to unwind at the end of the day. Maybe if I'd kept to one glass and not a whole bottle! That's another issue I committed to changing. And I stopped cold turkey, have slipped twice since Aug 08.

The only thing I haven't told him is the gory details - meaning the actual physical experience with the OM. Most of the advice I get is no, he doesn't need the gory details. He knows when and where and that we didn't use protection (we've both been tested for STDs). He asks a lot of questions about why I did it and I feel like my answers are inadequate. I can't explain why because I can't justify it - I was stupid and I took my eyes off of God and our marriage. Nothing that DH did - no matter what the circumstances of our marriage - nothing justifies having an affair. The reasons I thought I had at the time are bull-hockey. I don't feel anything for the OM anymore other than occasional anger, and it's stupid to feel angry at him because it wasn't just his fault.

As far as telling the OM's wife - long after I stopped contact with the OM, DH became obsessed with finding out everything he could about him. Both our pastor and the counselor we see now have advised telling her. DH's aunt, who is also a counselor, advised not to. Somehow, in DH's digging he learned that the OMW is pregnant. DH said he didn't think it would be fair to her to tell her while she's pregnant, he didn't know what other things she might be dealing with and so on.

We've been going to a Christian counselor most recently as a couple. His advice is Biblically-based, but after DH and I talked yesterday I think I understand his frustration - while the counselor's goal is for us to love each other, we keep spending a lot of time on us as individuals - DH and forgiveness, me and feelings of unworthiness. The counselor we saw during the false recovery seemed to have more exercises for us to do, like telling each other what the other has done they appreciated and why, using active listening, etc, but even still there was that part where we looked at issues from our pasts/childhood. He started going back to her on an invididual basis after the PA came out. She did ask me to come talk to her on my own one day because, as she put it, DH was "stuck," and before she "led him down the garden path" towards reconciliation, she wanted to make sure that 1.) it was what I wanted and 2.) that I had finally been honest with him.

I've mentioned the Harley's telephone counseling to DH. He has been a little reluctant, I think because of cost, but I told him I was willing to pay any amount. And if you consider all we've paid to these other therapists the Harleys would probably be cheaper! Is their counseling only for couples or is it something I can do as an individual?

Hi wulfpack, welcome to Marriage Builders. You are in the right place.

In order to recover your marriage and in order for your H to regain trust, he deserves to have all of his questions answered completely and fully to his satisfaction. This is information about his life and it would be cruel to withhold it. You cannot possibly earn his trust if you have secrets with the OM to which he is not privy.

None of the people who have advised you to withhold facts from him is in a position to ascertain what he needs to recover. NONE of them. Only he is qualifed to make that determination.

Your H will have no peace until you rectify this withholding of the truth. The truth is the solution, not more deceit.


It would be unfair and cruel to NOT tell her. If your neighbors bookkeeper was embezzling his money, can you think of any possible excuse to not warn her?

It is even more imperative in the case of adultery because her health and financial security is at risk. She cannot protect herself from her husband if she does not know the truth.

Not telling her is the cruelest thing that can be done to her. She probably already suspects so telling her will help her deal with her marriage problems.

She desperately needs to know the truth so she will have a chance to save her marriage. She can't do that if no one will tell her she is being harmed behind her back.

wullf - are you spending Undivided Attention time with your husband? You need to be spending 20+ hours a week together meeting your 4 Intimate Emotional needs: Affection, Conversation, Sexual Fulfillment, and Recreational Compaionship.

As for telling gory details. YOU cannot be the judge of what is helpful to tell. Other people can't be the judge of this. Only your husband can. HE sets the limit on the amount of information he needs to recover. If truth has slowly dribbled out, it makes recovery last LONGER and is more painful.

If your husband asks questions you answer them honestly. ANY question.

I find it interesting that you almost seem to be at the beginning of recovery though NC was a year ago.

You need to:
Ensure that ALL your husband's questions are answered to his satisfaction - a poly is a good idea.
Meet ALL your husband's needs. I know it hurts to find out you have been doing it wrong all along. But it really is a gift that he's giving you a chance to do it right.
Read up on Love Busters - get the book Love Busters. If you thought the ENQ was tough - wait til you do the Love Busters Questionnaire. It's a sucker punch to the gut but it is NECESSARY. It is not enough to do things that BUILD love, you must ELIMINATE things that damage love.

As alcohol is a problem for you - stopping drinking is NOT enough. You need to get into a recovery program. You need AA, and a sponsor.

As for telling the OMs wife - she MUST know. Not only to ensure the affair never resumes (as you are committed to recovery, this should be reason enough for you) but also for the health and safety of her unborn child. If OM had an affair with you, he could have an affair with others. The health of that unborn child is at risk if it's father is bringing home STDs. The mother needs a full STD screening.

She WILL feel pain. It WILL be horrible, but that is a consequence of the affair, not of telling the truth.

Bottom line: Finish exposure, get the truth ALL out on the table, put in place EPs to ensure no re-occurrence of an affair, commit to a plan of rebuilding your marriage with MB (try to get your husband here so he can get help too).

I'll try to find a link on EPs for you.

ETA:Thread on EPs

WG,

Most of the advice I get is no, he doesn't need the gory details.

My wife said that too, so my feeling is that she is covering up a great deal more than might have actually happened, threesomes with OM girlfriend, many more orgasms than with me, bondage, bigger organ, perhaps things she would never and has never done with me etc.

Perhaps this is only my imagination and has no basis in fact, but this is how I think and your H might think.

The worst outcome is if your H does not want to know because
he does not care.

I would suggest you tell him everything and not let it come back on you sometime in the future.

OMW needs to know NOW! One of the other things killing your H is that OM went on with his life at no cost while your H resides in HELL.

God Bless
Gamma

OK you have already been given the EP link. I cant find the original post for the Opposite Sex Protection Plan so I just copied mine here. The idea is to make one similar to this that you and your H go over. You should discuss each group and make sure that you are both clear on what type of people go in each group and what the response should be to those people. The EP list covers a lot, to me this just an extra layer of protection. It's good to know the EP list says no friendships with the opposite sex, or no discussing things that are personal. This gives you a chance to go over and discuss with your spouse the smaller details. If an attractive man says hello do you answer or ignore him? Is it ok to talk about the weather with a male coworker or does that count as a friendship?

The way I did it was that if a boundary applies to one group then it also applies to all higher threat groups, that way I didnt have to retype the same thing for each group. If "No exchanging contact info" applies to group C then it also applies to groups A and B.

Opposite Sex Protection Plan

Group A- Serious threats
Includes- OW, OM, any and all past lovers, old girl/boyfriends even if no sex was involved in the relationship, any known strippers prostitues or similar occupations, people we know to be generally flirty or have bad boundaries
Response- NO CONTACT with OM and OW, for the others avoid contact if at all possible and if there must be contact keep it as brief as possible and tell your spouse about it immediately. If you find yourself thinking about dreaming about or fantasizing about someone like this discuss it with your spouse.
Group B-High Threats
Includes- Anyone that is "needy" or desiring help especially if they are having marital problems, anyone that you find physically attractive, anyone who seems to be flirting with you or desiring to be around you more than is necessary, childhood friends of the opposite sex, this also can include anyone in your spouses family that you find attractive, you must be honest both with your spouse and yourself as to who is a threat.
Response- do not help anyone of the opposite sex with marital problems or allow them to help you with yours without your spouse present, do not have friendships with people of the opposite sex. limit contact with these people to nothing more than is needed to be polite, do not discuss life, hobbies, interests or anything else with these people
Group C- Threats
Includes- Anyone that is old enough or still young enough to be sexually active.
Response- do not be alone with them, do not flirt with them or allow them to flirt with you, do not be overly friendly with them and remember that even an unattractive person can become attractive to you if you let them meet EN's. They should not be on your Facebook etc and they should not have your contact info (phone number, email address etc)
Group D- Low Threats
Includes- the elderly and people too young to be considered sexually mature
Response- Can be alone with them if they need assistance but try and have someone else present if possible to avoid accustations of abuse or molestation
Group E- No Threat
Includes- dead people and people that are known to be gay or blood relatives
Response- pretty much anything goes, they are safe

I'm trying. Sometimes he just doesn't seem to want to spend time with me. I can understand why. When we do spend time together, we seem to have a good time. I know I do! The past two weekends, we've gotten rid of the kids and been able to go out to dinner, we've shopped and imagined in the home improvement stores (lol!), we went on a bike ride and even played a board game together. DH was funny and sweet and I had so much fun with him, and I thought he was having fun too. And we had some pretty incredible SF mixed in there too. Then comes Sunday and it's like a switch flips in him. During the week UA time is hard, once in a while we meet for lunch but lately when I ask him he has an excuse not to. By the time I get home from work it's a whirlwind of dinner and getting the kids in bed and we end up sitting on the couch watching TV (if he seems receptive I try to cuddle). If we've been emailing during the day, it is usually about the A and the state of our M, and then I've got that on my mind so if we end up having conversation it always seems negative.

Gamma, I know DH's imagination runs wild. He's told me he doesn't want to know but he's told me some of the things he's imagined. He's got a heckuva lot more active imagination than things really were, I can tell you that. But whatever I tell him, he's not going to believe. I may end up working the polygraph examiner to death.

If he asks, you must share this with him in as much detail as he needs to know. If the two of you are following MarriageBuilders, the "why" questions will be easily answerable in the context of Love Bank balances, exclusive need-meeting, and lack of extraordinary precautions. Those are the kinds of questions that you should deflect with a simple kind of catch-all statement: "That happened because I was trying to hide the affair from you so I could have both you and him. It was selfish, and I'm sorry for my actions. Are there any details about what, when, or how things happened that you need?"

What your husband doesn't have -- but might need -- is the gory details. What your husband is asking -- but DOESN'T NEED -- is the answer to "why" you did it. The answer is simple: you had poor boundaries with members of the opposite sex, poor precautions against an affair, didn't allow your husband to be the exclusive person to meet your most important emotional needs.


That's the key message to keep hammering home when he asks why. After several more months, you may want to ask him to stop asking "why" things happened, letting him know that you're very sorry for what you did and everything you did was a natural consequence of conducting an affair, including the lies and sex. Let him know, however, that if he has any questions of fact -- who, when, what, where, how -- you'll answer in as much detail as you can.

What you want to do is start establishing good memories of your time with your husband, and phasing out the good memories of your lover.


THAT is the message to hammer home. You're both 50% responsible for the condition of the marriage prior to the affair. You, alone, as the wayward, are 100% responsible for the damage the affair did to the marriage once you started it. Own that to him. That kind of reassurance that it wasn't his fault goes a long way.


Don't ever believe that yourself. All it takes for you to be pulled back into the affair is for him to meet some important emotional need, and you're right back where you started. The thing is, you don't know where your Romantic Love Threshold is with this other man. You only know AFTER YOU HAVE CROSSED IT. Right now, with the OM, you're probably in Conflict, or very possibly in Withdrawal. The reality is, if he met a specific emotional need well enough long enough, you'd be willing to be back in bed with him in a heartbeat.

Changing your attitude to realize you absolutely, positively, 100% could have an affair with that man again if you allow him to meet any of your needs is the "survival attitude" you need to take from this point on. Everybody "feels nothing" until they "feel something"... and by then, it's too late. The feelings run away with you, the biology takes control, and your higher brain is left trying to rationalize and justify your impetuous actions after-the-fact.


That's the right thing to do, and a critical step toward recovery.


Never trust this person for marital recovery advice ever again. She does not know how to recover a marriage, period!



It's up to your BH, after all, but I'd caution in favor of exposure so OMW can protect their marriage from a future affair. And don't ever listen to BH's aunt for advice on marital recovery again!

Ok, y'all will need to start sitting down and SCHEDULING the UA time. Schedule in INK. It WILL be awkward at first, but it will get easier, I promise. After a while you will CRAVE your UA time.

UA time is a MUST. It is also lifelong - once your marriage is in a better place you can scale down to about 15+ hours a week, but this is an absolute MINIMUM.

I can tell you from experience that missing out on UA time can REALLY hurt. Even in a marriage with NO infidelity, it hurts. DH and I had family in this weekend, so our UA time was wiped out for only 3 DAYS! and we felt the difference, the distance between us.

Can you get your husband here? Can you guys read through the MB books together? Really you BOTH need to be on board here.

You can have a GREAT marriage if only you make the TIME for it.

I see you have 2 DDs, how old are they? What is their bed time? I know how wiped you can feel by the end of the day. But for us, we get DD in bed around 8:30. We shoot for a 10:30 bed time, so that is 2 hours every night. That's 14 hours. If you stay up late on weekends, or even do chores together, that add's to it. Sometimes we talk while we fold laundry, or flirt while doing dishes.

Sometimes we watch movies, but UA time is BEST if the TV is not involved. Board games, playing the Wii, snuggling and talking about the day, anything. For us we've scheduled game nights and reading nights where we read through a chapter out of a novel together.

UA is the KEY to your recovery.

Also, your husband's behavior made me think of people who are triggering. You say he tends to shut down at the end of the weekend, and your affair was largely conducted during work hours. It is possible that the workweek is triggering him.

Here is a GREAT thread about managing memories and triggers. You can HELP him overcome these triggers.

Like Vibrissa said, UA is the critical ingredient to restoring romantic love in your marriage. This program does not work without it.

wullffpack,

You should confess to the OM's wife. No more excuses on this.
1) Having another pair of eyes on him is strong insurance against resumption of the affair. Thus, it would be a major Extraordinary Protection for your HUSBAND. (And not even all that extraordinary.)

2) By depriving her of information about the lie that her husband has been living, you are denying her a chance to fix her marriage, or at least to decide whether she wants to live with a man who treats her so. Denying her this truth is morally indefensible on your part. To whom or what entity are you praying, that you believe would condone such a stance on your part?

3) Your "pact" with OM not to tell his wife is irrelevant as well as indefensible. Where does your loyalty lie? If it is with your husband & your marriage, then this ill-begotten pact of yours with OM means nothing.

I will read the rest of your thread & may have more thoughts. (Have to go to work now.) My affair started a few months after yours. We even share a D-day anniversary. (Nice, huh? Not.) Maybe you should be further along in recovery & in your relationship with your husband than you are.

Stick around. Read up. Ask questions. Get to work.

P.S. I second everything Doormat & Vibrissa have said to you.

thank you all for your replies - I'm getting ready for work and will read through everything when I get there - but first I needed to post a correction to my dates. I had in my head we were a year from d-day and we are, from d-day #1 - but we're less than a year from d-day#2. Stupid, stupid me. Ao recovery is probably more or less on target for us, time-wise....DH emailed this morning and said he started to read my posts and then thought that it wasn't right for him to do so, but not before he noticed my dates were wrong. So now he thinks I've lied about something else. I feel like I just continue to make mistakes when I am trying to do something to help!!! Ugh - will, post more when I get to work. I feel so stupid.

First I want to apologize if anyone felt like I was trying to be misleading by stating the dates incorrectly. I am not trying to mislead anyone, especially not DH. I'm still kicking myself after he started reading my posts and that was the one thing he noticed. He second-guesses everything I say and do, with good reason.

To be honest I second-guess myself. I feel like I am walking on eggshells, like I HAVE been walking on eggshells. I've handled so much of this badly, I feel. Earlier this year, back before I'd found this site, I remember one day we had taken the kids to the park. We weren't really speaking that day, just kind of coexisting, and I remember he snapped at one of the girls. I told him not to do that (and I am sure I said it disrespectfully) and that she was just being a kid. He told me to shut up. I snapped back that he can think whatever he wants about me, but I don't think it about myself and neither does God. I walked off ahead of him and he ran up behind me and threw his wedding ring into the lake. It was an ugly, ugly day. And the thing is, in the bad moments I DO think those things about myself (sl*t, wh*re, you name it). Is is just me, or is it harder to get over thinking that about yourself when recovery and your BS seems so stuck?

I implemented one EP this morning. I turned in my work cell phone. No, I don't expect him to cheer about it, but now I have only one cell phone that he has complete access to. He's already got passwords and things, and believe me he's good with technological stuff. He's recovered things on the computer and recovered texts off my old cell.

I know another EP is the obvious NC with OM. I understand what you're saying, DoNoMo, and NC ensures that the OM will never have the opportunity to even try to meet my ENs. I do not want anyone else to meet those critical ENs except DH. I always did...he admits he could have been a better husband, just as I know I could have been a better wife. We really did fail to meet each others' most important ENs...and like I learned in the Love & Respect series I bought into the "card and candy mafia" idea of romance. It's not a language that comes naturally to my DH. So when I felt like he was being unloving, I became disrespectful, he was unloving in response, I was disrespectful...on and on (that is why they call it the "crazy cycle"!) until I gave up and allowed myself to let someone else meet my ENs.

Vibrissa, you talked about DH "triggering." Definitely. He recovered so much information about the A (chat sessions, texts, you name it) that it creates so many triggers for him. Even words that I say, he says they are things I said to OM. I asked him last night about the workweek being a trigger. He said he didn't think it was that, since it wasn't only during the workweek - the OM and I would be online together pretty much any day of the week, including when DH was home. He said it may be that our first d-day was on a Sunday. It was after the girls and I got home from church. I still remember what shoes I was wearing that day, is that stupid? That details like that stand out to me, but things about the A don't? Believe me, I have worked on forgetting the memories of the A. When I have thoughts about it, it is that remorse and regret for what I did. Anger is in there too. Not at DH, but at me...and I get angry and frustrated now but it's with myself. We wouldn't be here if it wasn't for my A.

Anyway - triggering - DH said the worst for him is when we are intimate. That he can't stop thinking of images of me with the OM. I want him to know that I'm with him 100%, that I'm not with anyone else in my head, know what I mean? Instead of closing my eyes I look at him, sometimes what I feel for DH overwhelms me and I will start crying during SF. It's not just teh way I feel about him that makes me cry, it's how much he hurts. I do see it in his eyes when we're intimate. That's the only time he really looks at me.

UA - I agree it's important and more importantly I WANT UA with DH. I told him about how I felt like sometimes he didn't want UA with me and he agreed. He said it was too painful sometimes. That for him the thoughts of the A are always there. That's kinda what led us into how SF is a trigger for him.

OK I've been all over the map with this post - people keep coming in my office and I have to stop writing (what, they think I actually work here?) I used to love my job but now I resent that it takes me away from working on my M.

wulfpackgirl, a couple of things stand out in your post. I am not sure what you mean by "I bought into the card and candy mafia idea of romance" but the difference between Marriage Builders and other programs is that MB DOES result in a romantic relationship. It is not about peaceful co-existance or "good communication" but about heart pounding romantic marriage. That is the end result of this program. [yes, it does work]

Here is how Dr Harley describes it:

Secondly, your recovery will not be complete unless you make amends to your other victim, the OM's wife. Amends in this case would come in the form of making sure she is told the truth about the affair. This woman has been exposed to STDs and is being harmed behind her back. One cannot claim to have remorse or be recovered and not make amends to her victim. I would suggest that your husband be the one to call her up and give her all the facts. If he doesn't want to do it, I would find another way. But this is your moral obligation and it is a big part of recovery.

Melody, the "card and candy mafia" thing was something that came out in the Love & Respect series we went through. That I went into marriage expecting it to be like a Hallmark card. I expected DH to be a mind reader - he loves me, he should know what I want. I think learning about the different ways in which spouses show each other love helped me to understand that love doesn't have to be all hearts and flowers. It doesn't take hearts and flowers to be romantic. That to DH, while he might have thought that kind of stuff was nice, I wasn't really showing him love the way he needed - not meeting his emotional needs. There's so much I don't know...our HNHN course came in the mail today and I'm excited about that, I am ready to learn! I hope DH will want to get started this week. Although he has not communicated with me at all today since he sent me the email this morning telling me I had the dates wrong in my post and wondering if I set it up that way on purpose. I still feel pretty stupid about that.

I talked to him last night about telling the OM's wife and he didn't have much to say. I want it to be his choice. I can find someone other than he or I to do it. I just want our recovery to go forward and if this is what we need then so be it.

What about spouses reading each other's posts - good idea or bad idea? I told him I was fine with it, gave him my screen name and encouraged him to join up also. I think he needs to talk to someone who has been through this and come out the other side and I think he can find that here. There's a big part of him that doesn't see us being able to get through this.

It's ok to read each other's posts - kind of hard not to, but if both partners are here, working on recovery, it is standard to advise them to stay off posting on one another's threads. Your thread is to help YOU, his thread would be to help HIM. Different advice applies to either of you. Posting on one another's thread takes the focus from the advice from the individual.

Just standard procedure around here.

Your husband SHOULD post - there is a lot of valuable help available to him here.